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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jaffery, by William J. Locke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jaffery
+
+Author: William J. Locke
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2005 [EBook #14669]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAFFERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: It was his great arms that lifted her feather-weight with
+extraordinary sureness and gentleness. (_See page 165_)]
+
+
+
+
+JAFFERY
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM J. LOCKE
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+F. MATANIA
+
+NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
+
+1915
+
+Press of
+J.J. Little & Ives Company
+New York, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+
+This book on which it has pleased you to bestow your especial affection
+I dedicate to you with my love. It is a memory of many happy hours and
+many dreams that we have shared.
+
+You remember how it was begun, one spring morning two years ago, with
+the opening scene of the first chapter gay before my eyes as I wrote.
+You remember the excitement of ending it before the Christmas of 1913;
+so that we could start with free consciences, early in the New Year, on
+our Egyptian journey.
+
+_C'est bien loin, tout cela_! War overtook it in its serial course; and
+now, in book form, it must go out to the world as an expression of the
+moods and fancies almost of a past incarnation.
+
+These dream figures with whom we delighted, like children, to people our
+home, are now replaced by other guests tragically real, as big-hearted
+as those most loved of our shadow-folk. Yet sometimes they seem still to
+live. . . . While correcting the final proofs we have been tempted to
+modify the end, to bring the story of Jaffery more or less up to date;
+but we have felt that any addition would be out of key, so far are we
+from that happy Christmastide when, in gaiety of heart, I wrote the last
+words.
+
+Yet we know, you and I, that Jaffery Chayne is even now over there,
+across the Channel; no longer writing of war, but doing his soldier's
+work in the thick of it, like a gallant gentleman. And don't you feel
+that one day he will come again and we shall hear his mighty voice
+thundering across the lawn. . . ?
+
+W.J.L.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                         FACING
+                                                          PAGE
+
+It was his great arms that lifted her feather-weight with
+extraordinary sureness and gentleness             _Frontispiece_
+
+Where the lonely figure in black and white sat brooding      64
+
+Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, handled the cleek        78
+
+He drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs            186
+
+"Go! You're nothing but a brute"                            228
+
+Before I realized the danger . . . I was flung aside        300
+
+And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and
+strewn papers, . . . lay a tiny, black, moaning
+heap of a woman                                             316
+
+There is war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery is there
+as war correspondent. Liosha is there, too                  350
+
+
+
+
+THE
+WILLIAM J. LOCKE
+YEAR-BOOK
+
+A _bon-mot_ for each day in
+every year, selected from
+this popular author's works.
+
+_Decorated Cloth. $1.00 net_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+I received a letter the day before yesterday from my old friend, Jaffery
+Chayne, which has inspired me to write the following account of that
+dear, bull-headed, Pantagruelian being. I must say that I have been
+egged on to do so by my wife, of whom hereafter. A man of my somewhat
+urbane and dilettante temperament does not do these things without being
+worried into them. I had the inspiration, however. I told Barbara (my
+wife), and she agreed, at the time, dutifully, that I ought to record
+our friend Jaffery's doings. But now, womanlike, she declares that the
+first suggestion, the root germ of the idea, came from her; that the
+"egging on" is merely the vain man's way of misdefining a woman's serene
+insistence; that she has given me, out of her intimate knowledge, all
+the facts of the story--although Jaffery Chayne and Adrian Boldero and
+poor Tom Castleton, and others involved in the imbroglio, counted
+themselves as my bosom cronies, while she, poor wretch (a man must get
+home somewhere), was in the nursery; and that, finally, if she had been
+taught English grammar and spelling at school, she would have dispensed
+entirely with my pedantic assistance and written the story herself.
+Anyhow, man-like, I am broad minded enough to proclaim that it doesn't
+very much matter. Man and wife are one. She thinks they are one wife. I
+know they are one husband. Between speculation and knowledge why so
+futile a thing as a quarrel? I proceed therefore to my originally
+self-appointed and fantastic task.
+
+But on reflection, before beginning, I must honestly admit that if it
+had not been for Barbara I should write of these things with
+half-knowledge. Sex is a queer and incalculable solvent of human
+confidence. There are certain revelations that men will make only to a
+man, certain revelations likewise that women will make only to a man. On
+the other hand, a woman is told things by her sister women and her
+brother men which, but for her, would never reach a man's ears. So by
+combining the information obtained from our family encyclopaedia under
+the feminine heading of China with that obtained under the masculine
+heading of Philosophy, I can, figuratively speaking, like the famous
+student, issue my treatise on Chinese Philosophy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One miraculous morning in late May, not so very many years ago, when the
+parrot-tulips in my garden were expanding themselves wantonly to the
+sun, and the lilac and laburnum which I caught, as I sat at my table,
+with the tail of one eye, and the pink may which I caught with the tail
+of the other, bloomed in splendid arrogance, my quiet outlook on
+greenery and colour was obscured by a human form. I may mention that my
+study-table is placed in the bay of a window, on the ground floor. It is
+a French window, opening on a terrace. Beyond the parapet of the
+terrace, the garden, with its apple and walnut trees, its beeches, its
+lawn, its beds of tulips, its lilac and laburnum and may and all sorts
+of other pleasant things, slopes lazily upwards to a horizon of iron
+railings separating the garden from a meadow where now and then a cow,
+when she desires to be peculiarly agreeable to the sight, poses herself
+in silhouette against the sky. I like to gaze on that adventitious cow.
+Her ruminatory attitude falls in with mine. . . . But I digress. . . .
+
+I glanced up at the obscuring human form and recognized my wife. She
+looked, I must confess, remarkably pretty, with her fair hair _blond
+comme les bles_, and her mocking cornflower blue eyes, and her mutinous
+mouth, which has never yet (after all these years) assumed a responsible
+parent's austerity. She wore a fresh white dress with coquettish bits of
+blue about the bodice. In her hand she grasped a dilapidated newspaper,
+the _Daily Telegraph_, which looked as if she had been to bed in it.
+
+"Am I disturbing you, Hilary?"
+
+She was. She knew she was. But she looked so charming, a petal of
+spring, a quick incarnation of pink may and forget-me-not and laburnum,
+that I put down my pen and I smiled.
+
+"You are, my dear," said I, "but it doesn't matter."
+
+"What are you doing?" She remained on the threshold.
+
+"I am writing my presidential address," said I, "for the Grand Meeting,
+next month, of the Hafiz Society."
+
+"I wonder," said Barbara, "why Hafiz always makes me think of sherbet."
+
+I remonstrated, waving a dismissing hand.
+
+"If that's all you've got to say--"
+
+"But it isn't."
+
+She crossed the threshold, stepped in, swished round the end of my long
+oak table and took possession of my library. I wheeled round politely in
+my chair.
+
+"Then, what is it?" I asked.
+
+"Have you read the paper this morning?"
+
+"I've glanced through the _Times_," said I.
+
+She patted her handful of bedclothing and let fall a blanket and a
+bed-spread or two--("Look at my beautifully, orderly folded _Times_,"
+said I, with an indicatory gesture) She looked and sniffed--and shed
+Vallombrosa leaves of the _Daily Telegraph_ about the library until she
+had discovered the page for which she was searching. Then she held a
+mangled sheet before my eyes.
+
+"There!" she cried, "what do you think of that?"
+
+"What do I think of what?" I asked, regarding the acre of print.
+
+"Adrian Boldero has written a novel!"
+
+"Adrian?" said I. "Well, my dear, what of it? Poor old Adrian is capable
+of anything. Nothing he did would ever surprise me. He might write a
+sonnet to a Royal Princess's first set of false teeth or steal the tin
+cup from a blind beggar's dog, and he would be still the same beautiful,
+charming, futile Adrian."
+
+Barbara pished and insisted. "But this is apparently a wonderful novel.
+There's a whole column about it. They say it's the most astounding book
+published in our generation. Look! A work of genius."
+
+"Rubbish, darling," said I, knowing my Adrian.
+
+"Take the trouble to read the notice," said Barbara, thrusting the paper
+at me in a superior manner.
+
+I took it from her and read. She was right. Somebody calling himself
+Adrian Boldero had written a novel called "The Diamond Gate," which a
+usually sane and distinguished critic proclaimed to be a work of genius.
+He sketched the outline of the story, indicated its peculiar wonder. The
+review impressed me.
+
+"Barbara, my dear," said I, "this is somebody else--not our Adrian."
+
+"How many people in the world are called Adrian Boldero?"
+
+"Thousands," said I.
+
+She pished again and tossed her pretty head.
+
+"I'll go and telephone straight away to Adrian and find out all about
+it."
+
+She departed through the library door into the recesses of the house
+where the telephone has its being. I resumed consideration of my
+presidential address. But Hafiz eluded me, and Adrian occupied my
+thoughts. I took up the paper and read the review again; and the more I
+read, the more absurd did it seem to me that the author of "The Diamond
+Gate" and my Adrian Boldero could be one and the same person.
+
+You see, we had, all four of us, Adrian, Jaffery Chayne, Tom Castleton
+and myself, been at Cambridge together, and formed after the manner of
+youth a somewhat incongruous brotherhood. We knew one another's
+shortcomings to a nicety and whenever three of the quartette were
+gathered together, the physical prowess, the morals and the intellectual
+capacity of the absent fourth were discussed with admirable lack of
+reticence. So it came to pass that we gauged one another pretty
+accurately and remained devoted friends. There were other men, of
+course, on the fringe of the brotherhood, and each of us had our little
+separate circle; we did not form a mutual admiration society and
+advertise ourselves as a kind of exclusive, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and
+d'Artagnan swashbucklery; but, in a quiet way, we recognised our
+quadruple union of hearts, and talked amazing rubbish and committed
+unspeakable acts of lunacy and dreamed impossible dreams in a very
+delightful, and perhaps unsuspected, intimacy. We were now in our middle
+and late thirties--all save poor Tom Castleton, over whom, in an alien
+grave, the years of the Lord passed unheeded. Poor old chap! He was the
+son of the acting-manager of a well-known theatre and used to talk to us
+of the starry theatre-folk, his family intimates, as though they were
+haphazard occupants of an omnibus. How we envied him! And he was forever
+writing plays which he read to us; which plays, I remember, were always
+on the verge of being produced by Irving. We believed in him firmly. He
+alone of the little crew had a touch of genius.
+
+Blond, bull-necked Jaffery who rowed in the college boat, and would
+certainly have got his blue if he had been amenable to discipline and,
+because he was not, got sent down ingloriously from the University at
+the beginning of his third year, certainly did not show a sign of it.
+Adrian was a bit unaccountable. He wrote poems for the Cambridge Review,
+and became Vice-President of the Union; but he ran disastrously to fancy
+waistcoats, and shuddered at Dickens because his style was not that of
+Walter Pater. For myself, Hilary Freeth--well--I am a happy nonentity. I
+have a very mild scholarly taste which sufficient private means,
+accruing to me through my late father's acumen in buying a few founder's
+shares in a now colossal universal providing emporium, enable me to
+gratify. I am a harmless person of no account. But the other three
+mattered. They were definite--Jaffery, blatantly definite; Adrian
+Boldero, in his queer, silky way, incisively definite; Tom Castleton,
+romantically definite. And poor old Tom was dead. Dear, impossible,
+feckless fellow. He took a first class in the Classical Tripos and we
+thought his brilliant career was assured--but somehow circumstances
+baffled him; he had a terrible time for a dozen years or so, taking
+pupils, acting, free-lancing in journalism, his father having, in the
+meanwhile, died suddenly penniless; and then Fortune smiled on him. He
+secured a professorship at an Australian University. The three of
+us--Jaffery and Adrian and I--saw him off at Southampton. He never
+reached Australia. He died on the voyage. Poor old Tom!
+
+So I sat, with the review of Adrian's book before me, looking out at my
+Pleasant garden, and my mind went irresistibly back to the old days and
+then wandered on to the present. Tom was dead: I flourished, a
+comfortable cumberer of the earth; Jaffery was doing something
+idiotically desperate somewhere or the other--he was a war-correspondent
+by trade (as regular an employment as that of the maker of hot-cross
+buns), and a desperado by predilection--I had not heard from him for a
+year; and now Adrian--if indeed the Adrian Boldero of the review was
+he--had written an epoch-making novel.
+
+But Adrian--the precious, finnikin Adrian--how on earth could he have
+written this same epoch-making novel? Beyond doubt he was a clever
+fellow. He had obtained a First Class in the Law Tripos and had done
+well in his Bar examination. But after fourteen years or so he was
+making twopence halfpenny per annum at his profession. He made another
+three-farthings, say, by selling elegant verses to magazines. He dined
+out a great deal and spent much of his time at country houses, being a
+very popular and agreeable person. His other means of livelihood
+consisted of an allowance of four hundred a year made him by his mother.
+Beyond the social graces he had not distinguished himself. And now--
+
+"It _is_ Adrian," cried my wife, bursting into the library. "I knew it
+was. He has had several other glorious reviews which we haven't seen.
+Isn't it splendid?"
+
+Her eyes danced with loyalty and gladness. Now that I too knew it was
+our Adrian I caught her enthusiasm.
+
+"Splendid," I echoed. "To think of old Adrian making good at last! I'm
+more than glad. Telephone at once, dear, for a copy of the book."
+
+"Adrian is bringing one with him. He's coming down to dine and stay the
+night. He said he had an engagement, but I told him it was rubbish, and
+he's coming."
+
+Barbara had a despotic way with her men friends, especially with Adrian
+and Jaffery, who, each after his kind, paid her very pretty homage.
+
+"And now, I've got a hundred things to do, so you must excuse me," said
+Barbara--for all the world as if I had invited her into my library and
+was detaining her against her will.
+
+My reply was smilingly ironical. She disappeared. I returned to Hafiz.
+Soon a bumble-bee, a great fellow splendid in gold and black and
+crimson, blundered into the room and immediately made furious racket
+against a window pane. Now I can't concentrate my mind on serious
+things, if there's a bumble-bee buzzing about. So I had to get up and
+devote ten minutes to persuading the dunderhead to leave the glass and
+establish himself firmly on the piece of paper that would waft him into
+the open air and sunlight. When I lost sight of him in the glad greenery
+I again came back to my work. But two minutes afterwards my little seven
+year old daughter, rather the worse for amateur gardening, and holding a
+cage of white mice in her hand, appeared on the threshold, smiled at me
+with refreshing absence of apology, darted in, dumped the white mice on
+an open volume of my precious Turner Macan's edition of Firdusi, and
+clambering into my lap and seizing pencil and paper, instantly ordained
+my participation in her favourite game of "head, body and legs."
+
+An hour afterwards a radiant angel of a nurse claimed her for purposes
+of ablution. I once more returned to Hafiz. Then Barbara put her head in
+at the door.
+
+"Haven't you thought how delighted Doria will be?"
+
+"I haven't," said I. "I've more important things to think about."
+
+"But," said Barbara, entering and closing the door with soft
+deliberation behind her and coming to my side--"if Adrian makes a big
+success, they'll be able to marry."
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"Well," said she, with a different intonation. "Don't you see?"
+
+"See what?"
+
+It is wise to irritate your wife on occasion, so as to manifest your
+superiority. She shook me by the collar and stamped her foot.
+
+"Don't you care a bit whether your friends get married or not?"
+
+"Not a bit," said I.
+
+Barbara lifted the Macan's Firdusi, still suffering the desecration of
+the forgotten cage of white mice, onto my manuscript and hoisted herself
+on the cleared corner of the table.
+
+"Doria is my dearest friend. She did my sums for me at school, although
+I was three years older. If it hadn't been for us, she and Adrian would
+never have met."
+
+"That I admit," I interrupted. "But having started on the path of crime
+we're not bound to pursue it to the end."
+
+"You're simply horrid!" she cried. "We've talked for years of the sad
+story of these two poor young things, and now, when there's a chance of
+their marrying, you say you don't care a bit!"
+
+"My dear," said I, rising, "what with you and Adrian and a bumble-bee
+and the child and two white mice, and now Doria, my morning's work is
+ruined. Let us go out into the garden and watch the starlings resting in
+the walnut trees. Incidentally we might discuss Doria and Adrian."
+
+"Now you're talking sense," said Barbara.
+
+So we went into the garden--and discussed the formation next autumn of a
+new rose-bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the afternoon train came Adrian, impeccably vestured and feverish
+with excitement. Two evening papers which he brandished nervously,
+proclaimed "The Diamond Gate" a masterpiece. The book had been only out
+a week--(we country mice knew nothing of it)--and already, so his
+publisher informed him, repeat orders were coming in from the libraries
+and distributing agents.
+
+"Wittekind, my publisher, declares it's going to be the biggest thing in
+first novels ever known. And though I say it as shouldn't, dear old
+Hilary,"--he clapped me on the shoulder--"it's a damned fine book."
+
+I shall always remember him as he said this, in the pride of his
+manhood, a defiant triumph in his eyes, his head thrown back, and a
+smile revealing the teeth below his well-trimmed moustache. He had
+conquered at last. He had put poor old Jaffery and fortune-favoured me
+in the shade. At one leap he had mounted to planes beyond our dreams.
+All this his attitude betokened. He removed the hand from my shoulder
+and flourished it in a happy gesture.
+
+"My fortune's made," he cried.
+
+"But, my dear fellow," I asked, "why have you sprung this surprise on
+us? I had no idea you were writing a novel."
+
+He laughed. "No one had. Not even Doria. It was on her account I kept it
+secret. I didn't want to arouse possible false hopes. It's very simple.
+Besides, I like being a dark horse. It's exciting. Don't you remember
+how paralysed you all were when I got my First at Cambridge? Everybody
+thought I hadn't done a stroke of work--but I had sweated like mad all
+the time."
+
+This was quite true, the sudden brilliance of the end of Adrian's
+University career had dazzled the whole of his acquaintance. Barbara,
+impatient of retrospect, came to the all-important point.
+
+"How does Doria take it?"
+
+He turned on her and beamed. He was one of those dapper, slim-built men
+who can turn with quick grace.
+
+"She's as pleased as Punch. Gave it to old man Jornicroft to read and
+insisted on his reading it. He's impressed. Never thought I had it in
+me. Can't see, however, where the commercial value of it comes in."
+
+"Wait till you show him your first thumping cheque," sympathised my
+wife.
+
+"I'm going to," he exclaimed boyishly. "I might have done it this
+afternoon. Wittekind was off his head with delight and if I had asked
+him to give me a bogus cheque for ten thousand to show to old man
+Jornicroft, he would have written it without a murmur."
+
+"How much did he really write a cheque for this afternoon?" I asked,
+knowing (as I have said before) my Adrian.
+
+Barbara looked shocked. "Hilary!" she remonstrated.
+
+But Adrian laughed in high good humour. "He gave me a hundred pounds on
+account."
+
+"That won't impress Mr. Jornicroft at all," said I.
+
+"It impressed my tailor, who cashed it, deducting a quarter of his
+bill."
+
+"Do you mean to say, my dear Adrian," I questioned, "that you went to
+your tailor with a cheque for a hundred pounds and said, 'I want to pay
+you a quarter of what I owe you, will you give me change?'"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But why didn't you pass the cheque through your banking account and
+post him your own cheque?"
+
+"Did you ever hear such an innocent?" he cried gaily. "I wanted to
+impress him, I did. One must do these things with an air. He stuffed my
+pockets with notes and gold--there has never been any one so all over
+money as I am at this particular minute--and then I gave him an order
+for half-a-dozen suits straight away."
+
+"Good God!" I cried aghast. "I've never had six suits of clothes at a
+time since I was born."
+
+"And more shame for you. Look!" said he, drawing my wife's attention to
+my comfortable but old and deliberately unfashionable raiment. "I love
+you, my dear Barbara, but you are to blame."
+
+"Hilary," said my wife, "the next time you go to town you'll order
+half-a-dozen suits and I'll come with you to see you do it. Who is your
+tailor, Adrian?"
+
+He gave the address. "The best in London. And if you go to him on my
+introduction--Good Lord!"--it seemed to amuse him vastly--"I can order
+half-a-dozen more!"
+
+All this seemed to me, who am not devoid of a sense of humour and an
+appreciation of the pleasant flippancies of life, somewhat futile and
+frothy talk, unworthy of the author of "The Diamond Gate" and the lover
+of Doria Jornicroft. I expressed this opinion and Barbara, for once,
+agreed with me.
+
+"Yes. Let us be serious. In the first place you oughtn't to allude to
+Doria's father as 'old man Jornicroft.' It isn't respectful."
+
+"But I don't respect him. Who could? He is bursting with money, but
+won't give Doria a farthing, won't hear of our marriage, and practically
+forbids me the house. What possible feeling can one have for an old
+insect like that?"
+
+"I've never seen any reason," said Barbara, who is a brave little woman,
+"why Doria shouldn't run away and marry you."
+
+"She would like a shot," cried Adrian; "but I won't let her. How can I
+allow her to rush to the martyrdom of married misery on four hundred a
+year, which I don't even earn?"
+
+I looked at my watch. "It's time, my friends," said I, "to dress for
+dinner. Afterwards we can continue the discussion. In the meanwhile I'll
+order up some of the '89 Pol Roger so that we can drink to the success
+of the book."
+
+"The '89 Pol Roger?" cried Adrian. "A man with '89 Pol Roger in his
+cellar is the noblest work of God!"
+
+"I was thinking," Barbara remarked drily, "of asking Doria to spend a
+few days here next week."
+
+"All I can say is," he retorted, with his quick turn and smile, "that
+you are the Divinity Itself."
+
+So, a short time afterwards, a very happy Adrian sat down to dinner and
+brought a cultivated taste to the appreciation of a now, alas!
+historical wine, under whose influence he expanded and told us of the
+genesis and the making of "The Diamond Gate."
+
+Now it is a very odd coincidence, one however which had little, if
+anything, to do with the curious entanglement of my friend's affairs
+into which I was afterwards drawn, but an odd coincidence all the same,
+that on passing from the dining room with Adrian to join Barbara in the
+drawing room, I found among the last post letters lying on the hall
+table one which, with a thrill of pleasure, I held up before Adrian's
+eyes.
+
+"Do you recognise the handwriting?"
+
+"Good Lord!" cried he. "It's from Jaffery Chayne. And"--he scanned the
+stamp and postmark--"from Cettinje. What the deuce is he doing there?"
+
+"Let us see!" said I.
+
+I opened the letter and scanned it through; then I read it aloud.
+
+     "Dear Hilary,
+
+     "A line to let you know that I'm coming back soon. I haven't quite
+     finished my job--"
+
+     "What was his job?"
+
+     "Heaven knows," I replied. "The last time I heard from him he was
+     cruising about the Sargasso Sea."
+
+     I resumed my reading.
+
+     "--for the usual reason, a woman. If it wasn't for women what a
+     thundering amount of work a man could get through. Anyhow--I'm
+     coming back, with an encumbrance. A wife. Not my wife, thank
+     Olympus, but another man's wife--"
+
+     "Poor old devil!" cried Adrian. "I knew he would come a mucker one
+     of these days!"
+
+     "Wait," said I, and I read--
+
+     "--poor Prescott's wife. I don't think you ever knew Prescott, but
+     he was a good sort. He died of typhoid. Only quaggas and yaks and
+     other iron-gutted creatures like myself can stand Albania. I'm
+     escorting her to England, so look out for us. How's everybody? Do
+     you ever hear of Adrian? If so, collar him. I want to work the
+     widow off on him. She has a goodish deal of money and is a kind of
+     human dynamo. The best thing in the world for Adrian."
+
+     Adrian confounded the fellow. I continued--
+
+     "Prepare then for the Dynamic Widow. Love to Barbara, the fairy
+     grasshopper--"
+
+     "Who's that?"
+
+     "My daughter, Susan Freeth. The last time he saw her, she was
+     hopping about in a green jumper--Barbara would give you the
+     elementary costume's commercial name."
+
+     "--and yourself," I read. "By the way, do you know of a
+     granite-built, iron-gated, portcullised, barbicaned, really
+     comfortable home for widows?
+
+     Yours, Jaffery."
+
+Without waiting for comment from Adrian, I went with the letter into the
+drawing room, he following. I handed it to Barbara, who ran it through.
+
+"That's just like Jaffery. He tells us nothing."
+
+"I think he has told us everything," said I.
+
+"But who and what and whence is this lady?"
+
+"Goodness knows!" said I.
+
+"Therefore, he has told us nothing," retorted Barbara. "My own belief is
+that she's a Brazilian."
+
+"But what," asked Adrian, "would a lone Brazilian female be doing in the
+Balkans?"
+
+"Looking for a husband, of course," said Barbara.
+
+And like all wise men when staggered by serene feminine asseveration we
+bowed our heads and agreed that nothing could be more obvious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Some weeks passed; but we heard no more of Jaffery Chayne. If he had
+planted his widow there, in Cettinje, and gone off to Central Africa we
+should not have been surprised. On the other hand, he might have walked
+in at any minute, just as though he lived round the corner and had
+dropped in casually to see us.
+
+In the meantime events had moved rapidly for Adrian. Everybody was
+talking about his book; everybody was buying it. The rare phenomenon of
+the instantaneous success of a first book by an unknown author was
+occurring also in America. Golden opinions were being backed by golden
+cash. Adrian continued to draw on his publishers, who, fortunately for
+them, had an American house. Anticipating possible alluring proposals
+from other publishers, they offered what to him were dazzling and
+fantastic terms for his next two novels. He accepted. He went about the
+world wearing Fortune like a halo. He achieved sudden fame; fame so
+widespread that Mr. Jornicroft heard of it in the city, where he
+promoted (and still promotes) companies with monotonous success. The
+result was an interview to which Adrian came wisely armed with a note
+from his publisher as to sales up to date, and the amazing contract
+which he had just signed. He left the house with a father's blessing in
+his ears and an affianced bride's kisses on his lips. The wedding was
+fixed for September. Adrian declared himself to be the happiest of God's
+creatures and spent his days in joy-sodden idleness. His mother, with
+tears in her eyes, increased his allowance.
+
+The book that created all this commotion, I frankly admit, held me
+spellbound. It deserved the highest encomiums by the most enthusiastic
+reviewers. It was one of the most irresistible books I had ever read. It
+was a modern high romance of love and pity, of tears iridescent with
+laughter, of strong and beautiful though erring souls; it was at once
+poignant and tender; it vibrated with drama; it was instinct with calm
+and kindly wisdom. In my humility, I found I had not known my Adrian one
+little bit. As the shepherd of old who had a sort of patronizing
+affection for the irresponsible, dancing, flute-playing, goat-footed
+creature of the woodland was stricken with panic when he recognised the
+god, so was I convulsed when I recognised the genius of my friend
+Adrian. And the fellow still went on dancing and flute-playing and I
+stared at him open-mouthed.
+
+Mr. Jornicroft, who was a widower, gave a great dinner party at his
+house in Park Crescent, in honour of the engagement. My wife and I
+attended, fishes somewhat out of water amid this brilliant but solid
+assembly of what it pleased Barbara to call "merchantates." She
+expressed a desire to shrink out of the glare of the diamonds; but she
+wore her grandmother's pearls, and, being by far the youngest and
+prettiest matron present, held her own with the best of them. There were
+stout women, thin women, white-haired women, women who ought to have
+been white-haired, but were not; sprightly and fashionable women; but
+besides Barbara, the only other young woman was Doria herself.
+
+She took us aside, as soon as we were released from the formal welcome
+of Mr. Jornicroft, a thickset man with a very bald head and heavy black
+moustache.
+
+"The sight of you two is like a breath of fresh air. Did you ever meet
+with anything so stuffy?"
+
+Now, considering that all these prosperous folks had come to do her
+homage I thought the remark rather ungracious.
+
+"It's apt to be stuffy in July in London," I said.
+
+She laid her hand on Barbara's wrist and pointed at me with her fan.
+
+"He thinks he's rebuking me. But I don't care. I'm glad to see him all
+the same. These people mean nothing but money and music-halls and bridge
+and restaurants--I'm so sick of it. You two mean something else."
+
+"Don't speak sacrilegiously of restaurants, even though you are going to
+marry a genius," said I. "There is one in Paris to which Adrian will
+take you straight--like a homing bird."
+
+"Wherever Adrian takes me, it will be beautiful," she said defiantly.
+
+My little critical humour vanished, for she looked so valiantly adorable
+in her love for the man. She was very small and slenderly made, with
+dark hair, luminous eyes, and ivory-white complexion, a sensitive nose
+and mouth, a wisp of nerves and passion. She carried her head high and,
+for so diminutive a person, appeared vastly important.
+
+Adrian, released from an ex-Lady Mayoress, came up all smiles, to greet
+us. Doria gave him a glance which in spite of my devotion to Barbara and
+my abhorrence of hair's breadth deviation from strict monogamy dealt me
+a pang of unregenerate jealousy. There is only one man in the universe
+worthy of being so regarded by a woman; and he is oneself. Every
+true-minded man will agree with me. She was inordinately proud of him;
+proud too of herself in that she had believed in him and given him her
+love long before he became famous. Adrian's eyes softened as they met
+the glance. He turned to Barbara.
+
+"It's in a crowd like this that she looks so mysterious--an Elemental;
+but whether of Earth, Air, Fire or Water, I shall spend my life trying
+to discover."
+
+The faintest flush possible mounted to that pure ivory-white cheek of
+hers. She laughed and caught me by the arm.
+
+"I must carry you to Lady Bagshawe--you're taking her in to dinner. Her
+husband is Master of the Organ-Grinders' Company--"
+
+"No, no, Doria," said I.
+
+"--Well, it's some city company--I don't know--and she is a museum of
+diseases and a gazetteer of cure places. Now you know where you are."
+
+She led me to Lady Bagshawe. Soon afterwards we trooped down to dinner,
+during which I learned more of my inside than I knew before, and more of
+that of Lady Bagshawe than any of her most fervent adorers in their
+wildest dreams could have ever hoped to ascertain; during which, also, I
+endeavoured to convince an unknown, but agreeable lady on my left that I
+did not play polo, whereat, it seemed, her eight brothers were experts;
+and that Omar Khayyam was a contemporary not of the Prophet Isaiah, but
+of William the Conqueror. As for the setting--I am not an observant
+man--but I had an impression of much gold and silver and rare flora on
+the table, great gold frames enclosing (I doubt not) costly pictures on
+the walls, many desirable jewels on undesirable bosoms, strong though
+unsympathetic masculine faces, and such food and drink as Lucullus, poor
+fellow, did not live long enough to discover.
+
+When the ladies retired, and we moved up towards our host, I found
+myself between two groups; one discussing the mercantile depravity of a
+gentleman called Wilmot, of whom I had never heard, the other arguing
+on dark dilemmas connected with an Abyssinian loan. A vacant chair
+happening to be by my side, Adrian, glass in hand, came round the table
+and sat down.
+
+"How are you getting on?"
+
+"Well," said I. "Very well." I sipped my port. I recognised Cockburn
+1870.
+
+"You seemed rather at a loose end."
+
+"When one has 1870 port to drink," said I, "why fritter away its flavour
+in vain words?"
+
+"It is damned good port," Adrian admitted.
+
+"Earth holds nothing better," said I.
+
+We lapsed into silence amid the talk on each side of us. I confess that
+I rather surrendered myself to the wine. A little taper for cigarettes
+happened to be in front of me; I held my glass in its light and lost
+myself in the wine's pure depths of mystery and colour; and my mind
+wandered to the lusty sunshine of "Lusitanian summers" that was there
+imprisoned. I inhaled its fragrance, I accepted its exquisite and
+spacious generosity. Wine, like bread and oil--"God's three chief
+words"--is a thing of itself--a thing of earth and air and sun--one of
+the great natural things, such as the stars and the flowers and the eyes
+of a dog. Even the most mouth-twisting new wine of Northern Italy has
+its fascination for me, in that it is essentially something apart from
+the dust and empty racket of the world; how much more then this radiant
+vintage suddenly awakened from its slumber in the darkness of forty
+years. So I mused, as I think an honest man is justified in musing,
+soberly, over a great wine, when suddenly my left eye caught Adrian's
+face. He too was musing; but musing on unhappy things, for a hand seemed
+to have swept his face and wiped the joy from it. He was gazing at his
+half-emptied glass, with the short stem of which his fingers were
+nervously toying. There was a quick snap. The stem broke and the wine
+flowed over the cloth. He started, and with a flash the old Adrian came
+back, manifesting itself in his smiling dismay, his boyish apology to
+Mr. Jornicroft for smashing a rare glass, spoiling the tablecloth and
+wasting precious wine. The incident served to disequilibrate, as one
+might say, the two discussions on Wilmot and Abyssinia. Coffee came and
+liqueurs. I bade farewell to Lusitanian dreams and found myself in heart
+to heart conversation with my neighbour on the right, a florid,
+simple-minded sugar-broker, a certain next-year's Sheriff of the City of
+London, whose consuming ambition was to become a member of the Athenaeum
+Club. When I informed him that I was privileged to enter that Valley of
+Dry Bones--my late father, an eminent Assyriologist and a disastrous
+Master of Fox hounds, had put me up for all sorts of weird institutions,
+I think, before I was born--my sugar broker almost fell at my feet and
+worshipped me. Although I told him that the premises were overrun with
+Bishops and that we had laid down all kinds of episcopicide to no avail,
+he refused to be disillusioned. I told him that on the occasion of my
+last visit to the Megatherium--Thackeray, I explained--a Royal
+Academician, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, reading desolate
+"The Hibbert Journal" in the smoking-room, embraced me as fondly as the
+austerity of the place permitted and related a non-drawing-room story
+which was current at my preparatory school--and that in the library I
+ran into an equally desolate, though even less familiar Archdeacon, who
+seized me, like the Ancient Mariner, and never let me go until he had
+impressed upon my mind the name and address of the only man in London
+who could cut clerical gaiters. But the simple child of sugar would have
+his way. There was but one Valhalla in London, and it was built by
+Decimus Burton.
+
+After that we joined the ladies for an unimportant half hour or so, and
+then Barbara and I took our leave. As we were motoring home--we live
+some thirty miles out of London--we discussed the dinner party,
+according to the way of married folks, home-bound after a feast, and I
+mentioned the trivial incident of Adrian and the broken glass. Why
+should his face have been so haggard when he had everything to make him
+happy?
+
+"He was thinking of Mr. Jornicroft's previous insulting behaviour."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"He told me," said Barbara.
+
+"I never knew Adrian to be seriously vindictive," said I.
+
+"It strikes me, my dear," replied Barbara, taking my hand, "that you are
+an old ignoramus."
+
+And this from a woman who actively glories in not knowing how many "r's"
+there are in "harassed."
+
+She nestled up to me. "We're not going abroad in August, are we?"
+
+"What?" I cried, "leave the English country during the only part of the
+year that is not 'deformed with dripping rains or withered by a frost'?
+Certainly not."
+
+"But we did last year, and the year before."
+
+"Pure accident. The year before, Susan was recovering from the measles
+and you had some pretty frocks which you thought would look lovely at
+Dinard. And last year you also had some frocks and insisted that
+Houlgate was the only place where Susan could avoid being stricken down
+by scarlet-fever."
+
+"Anyhow," said my wife, "we're not going away this year, for I've fixed
+up with Doria and Adrian to spend August at Northlands."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me so at once? Why did you ask me whether we were
+going away?"
+
+"Because I knew we weren't," she answered.
+
+In putting two questions at the same time, I blundered. The first was a
+poser and might have elicited some interesting revelation of feminine
+mental process. In forlorn hope I repeated it.
+
+"Why, I've told you, stupid," said Barbara. "You've no objection to
+their coming, have you?"
+
+"Good Lord, no. I'm delighted."
+
+"From the way you've argued, any one would have thought you didn't want
+them."
+
+Outraged by the illogic, I gasped; but she broke into a laugh.
+
+"You silly old Hilary," she said. "Don't you see that Doria must get her
+trousseau together and Adrian must find a house or a flat, that has to
+be decorated and furnished, and the poor child hasn't a mother or any
+sensible woman in the world to look after her but me?"
+
+"I see," said I, "that you intend having the time of your life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My prevision proved correct. In August came the engaged couple and every
+day Barbara took them up to town and whirled them about from house-agent
+to house-agent until she found a flat to suit them, and then from
+emporium to emporium until she found furniture to suit the flat, and
+from raiment-vendor to raiment-vendor until she equipped Doria to suit
+the furniture. She used to return almost speechless with exhaustion; but
+pantingly and with the glaze of victory in her eyes, she fought all her
+battles o'er again and told of bargains won. In the meantime had it not
+been for Susan, I should have lived in the solitude of an anchorite. We
+spent much time in the garden which we (she less conscious of irony than
+I) called our desert island. I was Robinson Crusoe and she was Man
+Friday, and on the whole we were quite happy; perhaps I should have been
+happier in a temperature of 80 deg. in the shade if I had not been forced to
+wear the Polar bear rug from the drawing-room in representation of
+Crusoe's goatskins. I did suggest that I should be Robinson Crusoe's
+brother, who wore ordinary flannels, and that she should be Woman
+Wednesday. But Susan saw through the subterfuge and that game didn't
+work. One afternoon, however, Barbara, returning earlier than usual,
+caught us at it and expressing horror and indignation at the uses to
+which the bearskin was put, metaphorically whipped me and sent me to bed
+as being the elder of the naughty ones. After that we played at fairies
+in a glade, which was much cooler.
+
+It was in the evenings that I was loneliest; for then Barbara went early
+to bed, and the lovers strolled about together in the moonlight. With
+the intention, half-malicious, half-pitiful, of filling up my time,
+Doria taught me a new and complicated Patience. Then finally, when
+Doria, having spent a couple of polite minutes in the drawing-room, had
+retired, and when I was tired out from the strain of the day and
+half-asleep through weariness, Adrian would mix himself the longest
+possible brandy and soda, light the longest possible cigar and try to
+keep me up all night listening to his conversation.
+
+At last, one Friday evening, while I was engaged in my forlorn and
+unprofitable game, the butler entered the drawing-room with unperturbed
+announcement:
+
+"Mr. Chayne on the telephone, sir."
+
+I sent the card table flying amid the wreckage of my lay-out and rushed
+to the telephone.
+
+"Hullo! That you, Jaff?"
+
+"Yes, old man. Very much me. A devil of a lot of me. How are you?"
+
+His strong bass boomed through the receiver. I have always found a
+queer comfort in Jaffery's voice. It wraps you round about in thundering
+waves. We exchanged the commonplaces of delighted greeting. I asked:
+
+"When did you arrive?"
+
+"A couple of days ago."
+
+"Why on earth didn't you let me know at once?"
+
+I heard him laugh. "I'll tell you when I see you. By the way, can
+Barbara have me for the week-end?"
+
+This was like Jaffery. Most men would have asked me, taking Barbara for
+granted.
+
+"Barbara would have you for the rest of time," said I. "And so would
+Susan. I'll expect you by the 11 o'clock train."
+
+"Right," said he.
+
+"And, I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Talking of fair ladies--what about--?"
+
+"Oh, Hell!" came Jaffery's great voice. "She's here right enough."
+
+"Where?" I asked.
+
+"The Savoy. So is Euphemia--"
+
+Euphemia was Jaffery's unmarried sister, as like to her brother as a
+little wizened raisin is to a fat, bursting muscat grape.
+
+"Euphemia has taken her on. Wants to convert her."
+
+"Good Lord!" I cried. "Is she a Turk?"
+
+"She's a problem." And his great laugh vibrated in my ears.
+
+"Why not bring her down with Euphemia?"
+
+"I want a couple of days off. I want a good quiet time, with no female
+women about save Barbara and my fairy grasshopper whom, as you know, I
+love to distraction."
+
+"But will Euphemia be all right with her?"
+
+I had not the faintest notion what kind of a creature the "problem" was.
+
+"Right as rain. Euphemia has fixed up to take her to-morrow night to a
+lecture on Tolstoi at the Lyceum Club, and to the City Temple on Sunday.
+Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+His Homeric laughter must have shattered the Trunk Telephone system of
+Great Britain, for after that there was silence cold and merciless.
+Well, perhaps it was just as well, for if we had been allowed to
+converse further I might have told him that another female woman, Doria
+Jornicroft, was staying at Northlands, and he might not have come.
+Jaffery was always a queer fish where women were concerned. Not a
+chilly, fishy fish, but a sort of Laodicean fish, now hot, now cold. I
+have seen him shrink like a sensitive plant in the presence of an
+ingenue of nineteen and royster in Pantagruelian fashion with a mature
+member of the chorus of the Paris Opera; I ham e also known him to fly,
+a scared Joseph, from the allurements of the charming wife of a Right
+Honourable Sir Cornifer Potiphar, G.C.M.G., and sigh like a furnace in
+front of an obdurate little milliner's place of business in Bond Street.
+I do not, for the world, wish it to be supposed that I am insinuating
+that my dear old Jaffery had no morals. He had--lots of them. He was
+stuffed with them. But what they were, neither he nor I nor any one else
+was ever able to define. As a general rule, however, he was shy of
+strange women, and to that category did Doria belong.
+
+When the lovers came in I told them my news. Adrian expressed
+extravagant delight. A little tiny cloud flitted over Doria's brow.
+
+"Shall I like him?" she asked.
+
+"You'll adore him," cried Adrian.
+
+"I'll try to, dear, because he seems to mean so much to you. Are you
+going up to town with us to-morrow?"
+
+"There's only a morning's fitting at a dressmaker--no place for me," he
+laughed. "I'll stay and welcome old Jaffery."
+
+Again the most transient of tiny little clouds. But I could not help
+thinking that if Jaffery had been a woman instead of a mere man, there
+would have been a thunderstorm.
+
+When we were alone Adrian threw himself into a chair.
+
+"Women are funny beings," he said. "I do believe Doria is jealous of old
+Jaffery."
+
+"You have every reason to be proud," said I, "of your psychological
+acumen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+A fair-bearded, red-faced, blue-eyed, grinning giant got out of the
+train and catching sight of us ran up and laid a couple of great
+sun-glazed hands on my shoulders.
+
+"Hullo! hullo! hullo!" he shouted, and gripping Adrian in his turn,
+shouted it again. He made such an uproar that people stuck wondering
+heads out of the carriage windows. Then he thrust himself between us,
+linked our arms in his and made us charge with him down the quiet
+country platform. A porter followed with his suit-case.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me that the Man of Fame was with you?"
+
+"I thought I'd give you a pleasant surprise," said I.
+
+"I met Robson of the Embassy in Constantinople--you remember Robson of
+Pembroke--fussy little cock-sparrow--he'd just come from England and was
+full of it. You seem to have got 'em in the neck. Bully! Bully!"
+
+Adrian took advantage of the narrow width of the exit to release himself
+and I, who went on with Jaffery, looking back, saw him rub himself
+ruefully, as though he had been mauled by a bear.
+
+"And how's everybody?" Jaffery's voice reverberated through the subway.
+"Barbara and the fairy grasshopper? I'm longing to see 'em. That's the
+pull of being free. You can adopt other fellows' wives and families. I'm
+coming home now to my adopted wife and daughter. How are they?"
+
+I answered explicitly. He boomed on till we reached the station yard,
+where his eye fell upon a familiar object.
+
+"What?" cried he. "Have you still got the Chinese Puffhard?"
+
+The vehicle thus disrespectfully alluded to was an ancient, ancient car,
+the pride of many a year ago, which sentiment (together with the
+impossibility of finding a purchaser) would not allow me to sell. It had
+been a splendid thing in those far-off days. It kept me in health. It
+made me walk miles and miles along unknown and unfrequented roads. In
+the aggregate I must have spent months of my life doing physical culture
+exercises underneath it. You got into it at the back; it was about ten
+feet high, and you started it at the side by a handle in its midriff.
+But I loved it. It still went, if treated kindly. Barbara loathed it and
+insulted it, so that with her as passenger, it sulked and refused to go.
+But Susan's adoration surpassed even mine. Its demoniac groans and
+rattles and convulsive quakings appealed to her unspoiled sense of
+adventure.
+
+"Barbara has gone away with the Daimler," said I, "and as I don't keep a
+fleet of cars, I had to choose between this and the donkey-cart. Get in
+and don't be so fastidious--unless you're afraid--"
+
+He took no account of my sarcasm. His face fell. He made no attempt to
+enter the car.
+
+"Barbara gone away?"
+
+I burst out laughing. His disappointment at not being welcomed by
+Barbara at Northlands was so genuine and so childishly unconcealed.
+
+"She'll be back in time for lunch. She had to run up to town on
+business. She sent you her love and Susie will do the honours."
+
+His face brightened. "That's all right. But you gave me a shock.
+Northlands without Barbara--" He shook his head.
+
+We drove off. The Chinese Puffhard excelled herself, and though she
+choked asthmatically did not really stop once until we were half way up
+the drive, when I abandoned her to the gardeners, who later on harnessed
+the donkey to her and pulled her into the motor-house. We dismounted,
+however, in the drive. A tiny figure in a blue smock came scuttling over
+the sloping lawn. The next thing I saw was the small blue patch
+somewhere in the upland region of Jaffery's beard. Then boomed forth
+from him idiotic exclamations which are not worth chronicling,
+accompanied by a duet of bass and treble laughter. Then he set her
+astride of his bull neck and pitched his soft felt hat to Adrian to
+hold.
+
+"Hang on to my hair. It won't hurt," he commanded.
+
+She obeyed literally, clawing two handfuls of his thick reddish shock in
+her tiny grasp, and Jaffery lumbered along like an elephant with a robin
+on his head, unconscious of her weight. We mounted to the terrace in
+front of the house and having established my guests in easy chairs, I
+went indoors to order such drink as would be refreshing on a sultry
+August noon. When I returned I found Jaffery, with Susan on his knee,
+questioning Adrian, after the manner of a primitive savage, on the
+subject of "The Diamond Gate," and Adrian, delighted at the opportunity,
+dazzling our simple-minded friend with publisher's statistics.
+
+"And you're writing another? Deep down in another?" asked Jaffery. "Do
+you know, Susie, Uncle Adrian has just got to take a pen and jab it into
+a piece of paper, and--tchick!--up comes a golden sovereign every time
+he does it."
+
+Susan turned her serene gaze on Adrian. "Do it now," she commanded.
+
+"I haven't got a pen," said he.
+
+"I'll fetch you one from Daddy's study," she said, sliding from
+Jaffery's knee.
+
+Both Jaffery and Adrian looked scared. I, who was not the father of a
+feminine thing of seven years old for nothing, interposed, I think,
+rather tactfully.
+
+"Uncle Adrian can only do it with a great gold pen, and poor old daddy
+hasn't got one."
+
+"I call that silly," replied my daughter. "Uncle Jaffery, have you got
+one?"
+
+"No," said he, "You have to be born, like Uncle Adrian, with a golden
+pen in your mouth."
+
+The lucky advent of the Archangel Gabriel, with a grin on his face and a
+doll in his mouth--the Archangel Gabriel, commonly known as Gabs, and so
+termed on account of his archi-angelic disposition, a hideous mongrel
+with a white patch over one eye and a brown patch over the other, with
+the nose of a collie and the legs of a Great Dane and the tail of a
+fox-terrier, whose mongreldom, however, Adrian repudiated by the bold
+assertion that he was a Zanzibar bloodhound--the lucky advent of this
+pampered and over-affectionate quadruped directed Susan's mind from the
+somewhat difficult conversation. She ran off, forthwith, to the rescue
+or her doll; but later (I heard) her nurse was sore put to it to explain
+the mystery of the golden pen.
+
+"So much for Adrian. I'm tired of the auriferous person," said I, waving
+a hand. "What about yourself? What about the dynamic widow?"
+
+"Oh, damn the dynamic widow," he replied, corrugating his serene and
+sunburnt forehead. "I've come down here to forget her. I'll tell you
+about her later." Then he grinned, in his silly, familiar way, showing
+two rows of astonishingly white, strong teeth, between the hair on lip
+and chin.
+
+"Well," said I, "at any rate give some account of yourself. What were
+you doing in Albania, for instance?"
+
+"Prospecting," said he.
+
+"In what--gold, coal, iron?"
+
+"War," said he. "There's going to be a hell of a bust-up one of these
+days--and one of these days very soon--in the Balkans. From Scutari to
+Salonica to Rodosto, the whole blooming triangle--it's going to be a
+battlefield. The war correspondent who goes out there not knowing his
+ground will be a silly ass. The slim statesman like me won't. See? So
+poor old Prescott--you must know Prescott of Reuter's?--anyhow that was
+the chap--poor old Prescott and I went out exploring. When he pegged out
+with enteric I hadn't finished, so I dumped his widow down at Cettinje
+where I have some pals, and started out again on my own. That's all."
+
+He filled another pint tumbler with the iced liquid (one always had to
+provide largely for Jaffery's needs) and poured it down his throat.
+
+"I don't call that a very picturesque account of your adventures," said
+Adrian.
+
+Jaffery grinned. "I'll tell you all sorts of funny things, if you'll
+give me time," said he, wiping his lips with a vast red and white
+handkerchief about the size of a ship's Union Jack.
+
+But we did not give him time; we plied him with questions and for the
+next hour he entertained us pleasantly with stories of his wanderings.
+He had a Rabelaisian way of laughing over must of his experiences, even
+those which had a touch of the gruesome, and the laughter got into his
+speech, so that many amusing episodes were told in the roars of a
+hilarious lion.
+
+Presently the familiar sound of the horn announced the return of
+Barbara. We sprang to our feet and descended to meet the car at the
+front porch. Jaffery, grinning with delight, opened the door, appeared
+to lift a radiant Barbara out of the car like a parcel and almost hugged
+her. And there they stood holding on to each other's hands and smiling
+into each other's faces and saying how well they looked, regardless of
+the fact that they were blocking the way for Doria, who remained in the
+car, I had to move them on with the reminder that they had the whole
+week-end for their effusions. Adrian helped Doria to alight, and to
+Doria then, for the first time, was presented Jaffery Chayne. Jaffery
+blinked at her oddly as he held her little gloved fingers in his
+enormous hand. And, indeed, I could excuse him; for she was a very
+striking object to come suddenly into the immediate range of a man's
+vision, with her chiffon and her slenderness, and her black hat beneath
+which her great eyes shone from the startling, nervous, ivory-white
+face.
+
+She smiled on him graciously. "I'm so glad to meet you." Then after a
+fraction of a second came the explanation. "I've heard so much of you."
+
+He murmured something into his beard. Meeting his childlike gaze of
+admiration, she turned away and put her arm round Barbara's waist. The
+ladies went indoors to take off their things, accompanied by Adrian, who
+wanted a lover's word with Doria on the way. Jaffery followed her with
+his eyes until she had disappeared at the corner of the hall-stairs.
+Then he took me by the arm and led me up towards the terrace.
+
+"Who is that singularly beautiful girl?" he asked.
+
+"Doria Jornicroft," said I.
+
+"She's the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in my life."
+
+"I wouldn't find her too astonishing, if I were you," said I with a
+laugh, "because there might be complications. She's engaged to Adrian."
+
+He dropped my arm. "Do you mean--she's going to marry him?"
+
+"Next month," said I.
+
+"Well, I'm damned," said Jaffery. I asked him why. He did not enlighten
+me. "Isn't he a lucky devil?" he asked, instead. "The most
+pestilentially lucky devil under the sun. But why the deuce didn't you
+tell me before?"
+
+"You expressed such a distaste for female women that we thought we would
+give you as long a respite as possible."
+
+"That's all very well," he grumbled. "But if I had known that Adrian's
+fiancee was knocking around I'd have lumped her in my heart with Barbara
+and Susie."
+
+"You're not prevented from doing that now," said I.
+
+His brow cleared. "True, sonny." He broke into a guffaw. "Fancy old
+Adrian getting married!"
+
+"I see nothing funny in it," said I. "Lots of people get married. I'm
+married."
+
+"Oh, you--you were born to be married," he said crushingly.
+
+"And so are you," I retorted.
+
+"I? I tie myself to the stay-strings of a flip of a thing in petticoats,
+whom I should have to swear to love, honour and obey--?"
+
+"My good fellow," I interrupted, "it is the woman who swears obedience."
+
+"And the man practises it. Ho! Ho! Ho!"
+
+His laughter (at this very poor repartee) so resounded that the
+adventitious cow, in the field some hundred yards away, lifted her tail
+in the air and scampered away, in terror.
+
+"And as to the stay-strings, to continue your delicate metaphor, you can
+always cut them when you like."
+
+"Yes. And then there's the devil to pay. She shows you the ends and
+makes you believe they're dripping blood and tears. Don't I know 'em?
+They're the same from Cape Horn to Alaska, from Dublin to Rio."
+
+He bellowed forth his invective. He had no quarrel with marriage as an
+institution. It was most useful and salutary--apparently because it
+provided him, Jaffery, with comfortable conditions wherein to exist. The
+multitude of harmless, necessary males (like myself) were doomed to it.
+But there was a race of Chosen Ones, to which he belonged, whose
+untamable and omni-concupiscent essence kept them outside the dull
+conjugal pale. For such as him, nineteen hundred women at once,
+scattered within the regions of the seven circumferential seas. He loved
+them all. Woman as woman was the joy of the earth. It was only the silly
+spectrum of civilisation that broke Woman up into primary
+colours--black, yellow, brunette, blonde--he damned civilisation.
+
+"To listen to you," said I, when he paused for breath, "one would think
+you were a devil of a fellow."
+
+"I am," he declared. "I'm a Universalist. At any rate in theory, or
+rather in the conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men
+who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who
+must get out into the wilds if they're to live--God! I'd sooner be
+snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party
+any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair
+and swing her up behind me on the saddle and ride away with her--"
+
+"Lord! That's lovely," said I. "How often have you done it?"
+
+"I've never done that exactly, you silly ass," said he. "But that's my
+attitude, my philosophy. You see how impossible it would be for me to
+tie myself for life to the stay-strings of one flip of a thing in
+petticoats."
+
+"You're a blessed innocent," said I.
+
+Adrian sauntering through the French window of my library joined us on
+the terrace. Jaffery, forgetful of his attitude, his philosophy, caught
+him by the shoulders and shook him in pain-dealing exuberance. Old
+Adrian was going to be married. He wished him joy. Yet it was no use his
+wishing him joy because he already had it--it was assured. That
+exquisite wonder of a girl. Adrian was a lucky devil, a pestilentially
+lucky devil. He, Jaffery, had fallen in love with her on sight. . . .
+
+"And if I hadn't told him that Miss Jornicroft was engaged to you," said
+I, "he would have taken her by the hair of her head and swung her up
+behind him on the saddle and ridden away with her. It's a little way
+Jaffery has."
+
+In spite of sunburn, freckles and pervading hairiness of face, Jaffery
+grew red.
+
+"Shut up, you silly fool!" said he, like the overgrown schoolboy that he
+was.
+
+And I shut up--not because he commanded, but because Barbara, like
+spring in deep summer, and Doria, like night at noontide, appeared on
+the terrace.
+
+Soon afterwards lunch was announced. By common conspiracy Jaffery and
+Susan upset the table arrangements, insisting that they should sit next
+each other. He helped the child to impossible viands, much to my wife's
+dismay, and told her apocalyptic stories of Bulgaria, somewhat to her
+puzzledom, but wholly to her delight. But when he proposed to fill her
+silver mug (which he, as godfather, had given her on her baptism) with
+the liquefied dream of Paradise that Barbara, _sola mortalium_, can
+prepare, consisting of hock and champagne and fruits and cucumber and
+borage and a blend of liqueurs whose subtlety transcends human thought,
+Barbara's Medusa glare petrified him into a living statue, the crystal
+jug of joy poised in his hand.
+
+"Why mayn't I have some, mummy?"
+
+"Because Uncle Jaff's your godfather," said I. "And your mother's
+hock-cup is a sinful lust of the flesh. Spare the child and fill up your
+own glass."
+
+"Don't you know," said Barbara, "that this is Berkshire, not the
+Balkans? We don't intoxicate infants here to make a summer holiday!"
+
+At this rebuke he exchanged winks with my daughter, and refusing a
+handed dish of cutlets asked to be allowed to help himself to some cold
+beef on the sideboard. The butler's assistance he declined. No Christian
+butler could carve for Jaffery Chayne. After a longish absence he
+returned to the table with half the joint on his plate. Susan regarded
+it wide-eyed.
+
+"Uncle Jaff, are you going to eat all that?" she asked in an audible
+whisper.
+
+"Yes, and you too," he roared, "and mummy and daddy and Uncle Adrian, if
+I don't get enough to eat!"
+
+"And Aunt Doria?"
+
+Again he reddened--but he turned to Doria and bowed.
+
+"In my quality of ogre only--a _bonne bouche_," said he.
+
+It was said very charmingly, and we laughed. Of course Susan began the
+inevitable question, but Barbara hurriedly notified some dereliction
+with regard to gravy, and my small daughter was, so to speak, hustled
+out of the conversation. Jaffery by way of apology for his Gargantuan
+appetite discoursed on the privations of travel in uncivilised lands. A
+lump of sour butter for lunch and a sardine and a hazelnut for dinner.
+We were to fancy the infinite accumulation of hunger-pangs. And as he
+devoured cold beef and talked, Doria watched him with the somewhat aloof
+interest of one who stands daintily outside the railed enclosure of a
+new kind of hippopotamus.
+
+The meal over we sought the deep shade of the terrace which faces due
+east. Jaffery, in his barbaric fashion, took Doria by the elbow and
+swept her far away from the wistaria arbour beneath which the remaining
+three of us were gathered, and when he fondly thought he was out of
+earshot, he set her beside him on the low parapet. My wife, with the
+responsibilities of all the Chancelleries of Europe knitted in her brow,
+discussed wedding preparations with Adrian. I, to whom the quality of
+the bath towels wherewith Adrian and his wife were to dry themselves and
+that of the sheets between which their housemaid was to lie, were
+matters of black and awful indifference, gave my more worthily applied
+attention to one of a new brand of cigars, a corona corona, that had its
+merits but lacked an indefinable soul-satisfying aroma; and I was on the
+pleasurable and elusive point of critical formulation, when Jaffery's
+voice, booming down the terrace, knocked the discriminating nicety out
+of my head. I lazily shifted my position and watched the pair.
+
+"You're subtle and psychological and introspective and analytic and all
+that," Jaffery was saying--his light word about an ogre at lunch was not
+a bad one; sitting side by side on the low parapet they looked like a
+vast red-bearded ogre and a feminine black-haired elf--she had taken off
+her hat--engaged in a conversation in which the elf looked very much on
+the defensive--"and you're always tracking down motives to their roots,
+and you're not contented, like me, with the jolly face of things--"
+
+"For an accurate diagnosis," I reflected, "of an individual woman's
+nature, the blatant universalist has his points."
+
+"Whereas, I, you see," he continued, "just buzz about life like a
+dunderheaded old bumble-bee. I'm always busting myself up against glass
+panes, not seeing, as you would, the open window a few inches off. Do
+you see what I'm driving at?"
+
+Apparently she didn't; for while she was speaking, he threw away his
+corona corona--a dream of a cigar for nine hundred and ninety-nine men
+out of a thousand (I glanced at Adrian who had religiously preserved two
+inches of ash on his)--and hauled out pipe and tobacco-pouch. I could
+not hear what she said. When she had finished, he edged a span nearer.
+
+"What I want you to understand," said he, "is that I'm a simple sort of
+savage. I can't follow all these intricate henry Jamesian complications
+of feeling. I've had in my life"--he stuck pouch and pipe on the stone
+beside him--"I've had in my life just a few men I've loved--I don't
+count women--men--men I've cared for, God knows why. Do you know why one
+cares for people?"
+
+She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
+
+"The latest was poor Prescott--he has just pegged out--you'll hear soon
+enough about Prescott. There was Tom Castleton--has Adrian told you
+about Castleton--?"
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+"He will--of course--a wonder of a fellow--up with us at Cambridge. He's
+dead. There only remains Hilary, our host, and Adrian."
+
+As far as I could gather--for she spoke in the ordinary tones of
+civilised womanhood, whereas Jaffery, under the impression that he was
+whispering confidentially, bellowed like an honest bull--as far as I
+could gather, she said:
+
+"You must have met hundreds of men more sympathetic to you than Mr.
+Freeth and Adrian."
+
+"I haven't," he cried. "That's the funny devil of it. I haven't. If I
+was struck a helpless paralytic with not a cent and no prospect of
+earning a cent, I know I could come to those two and say, 'Keep me for
+the rest of my life'--and they would do it"
+
+"And would you do the same for either of them?"
+
+Jaffery rose and stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and towered
+over her.
+
+"I'd do it for them and their wives and their children and their
+children's children."
+
+He sat down again in confusion at having been led into hyperbole. But he
+took her shoulders in his huge but kindly hands, somewhat to her
+alarm--for, in her world, she was not accustomed to gigantic males
+laying unceremonious hold of her--
+
+"All I wanted to convey to you, my dear girl, is this--that if Adrian's
+wife won't look on me as a true friend, I'm ready to go away and cut my
+throat"
+
+Doria smiled at him with pretty civility and assured him of her
+willingness to admit him into her inner circle of friends; whereupon he
+caught up his pouch and pipe and lumbered down the terrace towards us,
+shouting out his news.
+
+"I've fixed it up with Doria"--he turned his head--"I can call you
+Doria, can't I?" She nodded permission--what else could she do? "We're
+going to be friends. And I say, Barbara, they'll want a wedding-present.
+What shall I give 'em? What would you like?"
+
+The latter question was levelled direct at Doria, who had followed
+demurely in his footsteps. But it was not answered; for from the
+drawing-room there emerged Franklin, the butler, who marched up straight
+to Jaffery.
+
+"A lady to see you, sir"
+
+"A lady? Good God! What kind of a lady?"
+
+He stared at Franklin, in dismay.
+
+"She came in a taxi, sir. The driver mistook the way, and put her down
+at the back entrance. She would not give her name."
+
+"Tall, rather handsome, dressed in black?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Lord Almighty!" cried Jaffery, including us all in the sweep of a
+desperate gaze. "It's Liosha! I thought I had given her the slip."
+
+Barbara rose, and confronted him. "And pray who is Liosha?"
+
+Adrian hugged his knee and laughed:
+
+"The dynamic widow," said he.
+
+"I'll go and see what in thunder she wants," said Jaffery.
+
+But Barbara's eyes twinkled. "You'll do nothing of the sort. She has no
+business to come running after you like this. She must be taught
+manners. Franklin, will you show the lady out here?"
+
+She drew herself up to her full height of five feet nothing, thereby
+demonstrating the obvious fact that she was mistress in her own house.
+
+Presently Franklin reappeared.
+
+"Mrs. Prescott," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+That there should have been in the uncommon-tall young woman of buxom
+stateliness and prepossessing features, attired (to the mere masculine
+eye) in quite elegant black raiment--a thing called, I think, a picture
+hat, broad-brimmed with a sweeping ostrich feather, tickled my especial
+fancy, but was afterwards reviled by my wife as being entirely unsuited
+to fresh widowhood--what there should have been in this remarkable
+Junoesque young person who followed on the heels of Franklin to strike
+terror into Jaffery's soul, I could not, for the life of me, imagine. In
+the light of her personality I thought Barbara's _coup de theatre_
+rather cruel. . . . Of course Barbara received her courteously. She,
+too, was surprised at her outward aspect, having expected to behold a
+fantastic personage of comic opera.
+
+"I am very pleased to see you, Mrs. Prescott."
+
+Liosha--I must call her that from the start, for she exists to me as
+Liosha and as nothing else--shook hands with Barbara, making a queer
+deep formal bow, and turned her calm, brown eyes on Jaffery. There was
+just a little quarter-second of silence, during which we all wondered in
+what kind of outlandish tongue she would address him. To our gasping
+astonishment she said with an unmistakable American intonation: "Mr.
+Chayne, will you have the kindness to introduce me to your friends?"
+
+I broke into a nervous laugh and grasped her hand "Pray allow me. I am
+Mr. Freeth, your much honoured host, and this is my wife, and . . .
+Miss Jornicroft . . . and Mr. Boldero. Mr. Chayne has been deceiving us.
+We thought you were an Albanian."
+
+"I guess I am," said the lady, after having made four ceremonious bows,
+"I am the daughter of Albanian patriots. They were murdered. One day I'm
+going back to do a little murdering on my own account."
+
+Barbara drew an audible short breath and Doria instinctively moved
+within the protective area of Adrian's arm. Jaffery, with knitted brow,
+leaned against one of the posts supporting the old wistaria arbour and
+said nothing, leaving me to exploit the lady.
+
+"But you speak perfect English," said I.
+
+"I was raised in Chicago. My parents were employed in the stockyards of
+Armour. My father was the man who slit the throats of the pigs. He was a
+dandy," she said in unemotional tones--and I noticed a little shiver of
+repulsion ripple through Barbara and Doria. "When I was twelve, my
+father kind of inherited lands in Albania, and we went back. Is there
+anything more you'd like to know?"
+
+She looked us all up and down, rather down than up, for she towered
+above us, perfectly unconcerned mistress of the situation. Naturally we
+made mute appeal to Jaffery. He stirred his huge bulk from the post and
+plunged his hands into his pockets.
+
+"I should like to know, Liosha," said he, in a rumble like thunder, "why
+you have left my sister Euphemia and what you are doing here?"
+
+"Euphemia is a damn fool," she said serenely. "She's a freak. She ought
+to go round in a show."
+
+"What have you been quarrelling about?" he asked.
+
+"I never quarrel," she replied, regarding him with her calm brown eyes.
+"It is not dignified."
+
+"Then I repeat, most politely, Liosha--what are you doing here?"
+
+She looked at Barbara. "I guess it isn't right to talk of money before
+strangers."
+
+Barbara smiled--glanced at me rebukingly. I pulled forward a chair and
+invited the lady to sit--for she had been standing and her astonishing
+entrance had flabbergasted ceremonious observance out of me. Whilst she
+was accepting my belated courtesy, Barbara continued to smile and said:
+
+"You mustn't look on us as strangers, Mrs. Prescott. We are all Mr.
+Chayne's oldest and most intimate friends."
+
+"Do tell us what the row was?" said Jaffery.
+
+Liosha took calm stock of us, and seeing that we were a pleasant-faced
+and by no means an antagonistic assembly--even Doria's curiosity lent
+her a semblance of a sense of humour--she relaxed her Olympian serenity
+and laughed a little, shewing teeth young and strong and exquisitely
+white.
+
+"I am here, Jaff Chayne," she said, "because Euphemia is a damn fool.
+She took me this morning to your big street--the one where all the shops
+are--"
+
+"My dear lady," said Adrian, "there are about a hundred miles of such
+streets in London."
+
+"There's only one--" she snapped her fingers, recalling the name--"only
+one Regent Street, I ever heard of," she replied crushingly. "It was
+Regent Street. Euphemia took me there to shew me the shops. She made me
+mad. For when I wanted to go in and buy things she dragged me away. If
+she didn't want me to buy things why did she shew me the shops?" She
+bent forward and laid her hand on Barbara's knee. "She must he a damn
+fool, don't you think so?"
+
+Said Barbara, somewhat embarrassed:
+
+"It's an amusement here to look at shops without any idea of buying."
+
+"But if one wants to buy? If one has the money to buy?--I did not want
+anything foolish. I saw jewels that would buy up the whole of Albania.
+But I didn't want to buy up Albania. Not yet. But I saw a glass cage in
+a shop window full of little chickens, and I said to Euphemia: 'I want
+that. I must have those chickens.' I said, 'Give me money to go in and
+buy them.' Do you know, Jaff Chayne, she refused. I said, 'Give me my
+money, my husband's money, this minute, to buy those chickens in the
+glass cage.' She said she couldn't give me my husband's money to spend
+on chickens."
+
+"That was very foolish of her," said Adrian solemnly, "for if there's
+one thing the management of the Savoy Hotel love, it's chicken
+incubators. They keep a specially heated suite of apartments for them."
+
+"I was aware of it," said Liosha seriously. "Euphemia was not. She knows
+less than nothing. I asked her for the money. She refused. I saw an
+automobile close by. I entered. I said, 'Drive me to Mr. Jaff Chayne, he
+will give me the money.' He asked where Mr. Jaff Chayne was. I said he
+was staying with Mr. Freeth, at Northlands, Harston, Berkshire. I am not
+a fool like Euphemia. I remember. I left Euphemia standing on the
+sidewalk with her mouth open like that"--she made the funniest grimace
+in the world--"and the automobile brought me here to get some money to
+buy the chickens." She held out her hand to Jaffery.
+
+"Confound the chickens," he cried. "It's the taxi I'm thinking
+of--ticking out tuppences, to say nothing of the mileage. Liosha," said
+he, in a milder roar, "it's no use thinking of buying chickens this
+afternoon. It's Saturday and the shops are shut. You go home before that
+automobile has ticked out bankruptcy and ruin. Go back to the Savoy and
+make your peace with Euphemia, like a good girl, and on Monday I'll talk
+to you about the chickens."
+
+She sat up straight in her chair.
+
+"You must take me somewhere else. I've got no use for Euphemia."
+
+"But where else can I take you?" cried Jaffery aghast.
+
+"I don't know. You know best where people go to in England. Doesn't he?"
+She included us all in a smile.
+
+"But you must go back to Euphemia till Monday, at any rate."
+
+"And she has arranged such a nice little programme for you," said
+Adrian. "A lecture on Tolstoi to-night and the City Temple to-morrow.
+Pity to miss 'em."
+
+"If I saw any more of Euphemia, I might hurt her," said Liosha.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" said Jaffery. "But you must go somewhere." He turned to me
+with a groan. "Look here, old chap. It's awfully rough luck, but I must
+take her back to the Savoy and mount guard over her so that she doesn't
+break my poor sister's neck."
+
+"I wouldn't go so far as that," said Liosha.
+
+"How far would you go?" Adrian asked politely, with the air of one
+seeking information.
+
+"Oh, shut up, you idiot," Jaffery turned on him savagely. "Can't you see
+the position I'm in?"
+
+"I'm very sorry you're angry, Jaff Chayne," said Liosha with a certain
+kind dignity. "But these are your friends. Their house is yours. Why
+should I not stay here with you?"
+
+"Here? Good God!" cried Jaffery.
+
+"Yes, why not?" said Barbara, who had set out to teach this lady
+manners.
+
+"The very thing," said I.
+
+Jaffery declared the idea to be nonsense. Barbara and I protested,
+growing warmer in our protestations as the argument continued. Nothing
+would give us such unimaginable pleasure as to entertain Mrs. Prescott.
+Liosha laid her hand on Jaffery's arm.
+
+"But why shouldn't they have me? When a stranger asks for hospitality in
+Albania he is invited to walk right in and own the place. Is it refused
+in England?"
+
+"Strangers don't ask," growled Jaffery.
+
+"It would make life much more pleasant if they did," said Barbara,
+smiling. "Mrs. Prescott, this bear of a guardian or trustee or whatever
+he is of yours, makes a terrible noise--but he's quite harmless."
+
+"I know that," said Liosha.
+
+"He does what I tell him," the little lady continued, drawing herself up
+majestically beside Jaffery's great bulk. "He's going to stay here, and
+so will you, if you will so far honour us."
+
+Liosha rose and bowed. "The honour is mine."
+
+"Then will you come this way--I will shew you your room."
+
+She motioned to Liosha to precede her through the French window of the
+drawing-room. Before disappearing Liosha bowed again. I caught up
+Barbara.
+
+"My dear, what about clothes and things?"
+
+"My dear," she said, "there's a telephone, there's a taxi, there's a
+maid, there's the Savoy hotel, and there's a train to bring back maid
+and clothes."
+
+When Barbara takes command like this, the wise man effaces himself. She
+would run an Empire with far less fuss than most people devote to the
+running of a small sweet-stuff shop. I smiled and returned to the
+others. Jaffery was again filling his huge pipe.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, old man," he said gloomily.
+
+Adrian burst out laughing "But she's immense, your widow! The most
+refreshing thing I've seen for many a day. The way she clears the place
+of the cobwebs of convention! She's great. Isn't she, Doria?"
+
+"I can quite understand Mr. Chayne finding her an uncomfortable charge."
+
+"Thank you," said Jaffery, with rather unnecessary vehemence. "I knew
+you would be sympathetic." He dropped into a chair by her side. "You
+can't tell what an awful thing it is to be responsible for another human
+being."
+
+"Heaps of people manage to get through with it--every husband and
+wife--every mother and father."
+
+"Yes; but not many poor chaps who are neither father nor husband are
+responsible for another fellow's grown-up widow."
+
+Doria smiled. "You must find her another husband."
+
+"That's a great idea. Will you help me? Before I knew of Adrian's great
+good fortune, I wrote to Hilary--ho! ho! ho! But we must find somebody
+else."
+
+"Has she any money?" asked Doria, who smiled but faintly at the jocular
+notion of a Liosha-bound Adrian.
+
+"Prescott left her about a thousand a year. He was pretty well off, for
+a war-correspondent."
+
+"I don't think she'll have much difficulty. Do you know," she added,
+after a moment or two of reflection, "if I were you, I would establish
+her in a really first-class boarding-house."
+
+"Would that be a good way?" Jaffery asked simply.
+
+She nodded. "The best. She seems to have fallen foul of your sister."
+
+"The dearest old soul that ever lived," said Jaffery.
+
+"That's why. I'm sure I know your sister perfectly. The daughter of an
+Albanian patriot who used to kill pigs in Chicago--why, what can your
+poor sister do with her? Your sister is much older than you, isn't she?"
+
+"Ten years. How did you guess?"
+
+Doria smiled with feminine wisdom. "She's the gentlest maiden lady that
+ever was. It's only a man that could have thought of saddling her with
+our friend. Well--that's impossible. She would be the death of your
+sister in a week. You can't look after her yourself--that wouldn't be
+proper."
+
+"And it would be the death of me too!" said Jaffery.
+
+"You can't leave her in lodgings or a flat by herself, for the poor
+woman would die of boredom. The only thing that remains is the
+boarding-house."
+
+Jaffery regarded her with the open-eyed adoration of a heathen Goth
+receiving the Gospel from Saint Ursula.
+
+"By Jove!" he murmured. "You're wonderful."
+
+"Let us stretch our legs, Hilary," said Adrian, who had not displayed
+enthusiastic interest in the housing of Liosha.
+
+So we went off, leaving the two together, and we discoursed on the
+mystic ways of women, omitting all reference, as men do, to the
+exceptional paragon of femininity who reigned in our respective hearts.
+Perhaps we did a foolish thing in thus abandoning saint and hungry
+convert to their sympathetic intercourse. The saint could hold her own;
+she had vowed herself to Adrian, and she belonged to the type for whom
+vows are irrefragable; but poor old Jaffery had made no vows, save of
+loyalty to his friends; which vows, provided they are kept, are
+perfectly consistent with a man's falling hopelessly, despairingly in
+love with his friend's affianced bride. And, as far as Barbara and
+myself have been able to make out, it was during this intimate talk that
+Jaffery fell in love with Doria. Of course, what the French call _le
+coup de foudre_, the thunderbolt of love had smitten him when he had
+first beheld Doria alighting from the motor-car. But he did not realise
+the stupefying effect of this bang on the heart till he had thus sat at
+her little feet and drunk in her godlike wisdom.
+
+The fairy tales are very true. The rumbustious ogre has a hitherto
+undescribed, but quite imaginable, gap-toothed, beetle-browed ogress of
+a wife. Why he married her has never been told. Why the mortal male whom
+we meet for the first time at a dinner party has married the amazing
+mortal female sitting somewhere on the other side of the table is an
+insoluble mystery, and if we can't tell even why men mate, what can we
+expect to know about ogres? At all events, as far as the humdrum of
+matrimony is concerned, the fairy tales are truer than real life. The
+ogre marries his ogress. It is like to like. But when it comes to
+love--and if love were proclaimed and universally recognised as humdrum,
+there would never be a tale, fairy or otherwise, ever told again in the
+world worth the hearing--we have quite a different condition of affairs.
+Did you ever hear of an ogre sighing himself to a shadow for love of a
+gap-toothed ogress? No. He goes out into the fairy world, and, sending
+his ogress-wife to Jericho, becomes desperately enamoured of the elfin
+princess. There he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch: there she is, a
+wraith of a creature made up of thistledown and fountain-bubbles and
+stars. He stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy,
+feathery tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand.
+Its touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his
+arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his
+fingers and eat her like a quail--the one satisfactory method of eating
+a quail is unfortunately practised only by ogres--but he does not want
+to eat her. He goes on his knees, and invites her to chew any portion of
+him that may please her dainty taste. In short he makes the very
+silliest ass of himself, and the elfin princess, who of course has come
+into contact with the Real Beautiful Young Man of the Story Books, won't
+have anything to do with the Ogre; and if he is more rumbustious than he
+ought to be, generally finds a way to send him packing. And so the poor
+Ogre remains, planted there. The Fairy Tales, I remark again, are very
+true in demonstrating that the Ogre loves the elf and not the Ogress.
+But all the same they are deucedly unsympathetic towards the poor Ogre.
+The only sympathetic one I know is Beauty and the Beast; and even that
+is a mere begging of the question, for the Beast was a handsome young
+nincompoop of a Prince all the time!
+
+Barbara says that this figurative, allusive adumbration of Jaffery's
+love affair is pure nonsense. Anything less like an ogre than our
+overgrown baby of a friend it would he impossible to imagine. But I hold
+to my theory; all the more because when Adrian and I returned from our
+stroll round the garden, we found Jaffery standing over her, legs apart,
+like a Colossus of Rhodes, and roaring at her like a sucking dove. I
+noticed a scared, please-don't-eat-me look in her eyes. It was the ogre
+(trying to make himself agreeable) and the princess to the life.
+
+Presently tea was brought out, and with it came Barbara, a quiet laugh
+about her lips, and Liosha, stately and smiling. My wife to put her at
+her ease (though she had displayed singularly little shyness), after
+dealing with maid and taxi, had taken her over the house, exhibited
+Susan at tea in the nursery, and as much of Doria's trousseau as was
+visible in the sewing-room. The approaching marriage aroused her keen
+interest. She said very little during the meal, but smiled
+embarrassingly on the engaged pair. Jaffery stood glumly devouring
+cucumber sandwiches, till Barbara took him aside.
+
+"She's rather a dear, in spite of everything, and I think you're
+treating her abominably."
+
+Jaffery grew scarlet beneath the brick-coloured glaze.
+
+"I wouldn't treat any woman abominably, if I could help it."
+
+"Well, you can help it--" and taking pity on him, she laughed in his
+face. "Can't you take her as a joke?"
+
+He glanced quietly at the lady. "Rather a heavy one," he said.
+
+"Anyhow come and talk to us and be civil to her. Imagine she's the
+Vicar's wife come to call."
+
+Jaffery's elementary sense of humour was tickled and he broke out into a
+loud guffaw that sent the house cat, a delicate mendicant for food,
+scuttling across the lawn. The sight of the terror-stricken animal
+aroused the rest of the party to harmless mirth.
+
+"Tell me, Mrs. Prescott," said Adrian, "was he allowed to do that in
+Albania?"
+
+"I guess there aren't many things Jaff Chayne can't do in Albania,"
+replied Liosha. "He has the _bessas_ that carry him through and he's as
+brave as a lion."
+
+"I suppose you like brave men?" said Doria.
+
+"A woman who married a coward would be a damn fool--especially in
+Albania. I guess there aren't many in my mountains."
+
+"I wish you would tell us about your mountains," said Barbara
+pleasantly.
+
+"And at the same time," said I, "Jaff might let us hear his story. That
+is to say if you have no objection, Mrs. Prescott."
+
+"With us," said Liosha, "the guest is expected to talk about himself;
+for if he's a guest he's one of the family."
+
+"Shall I go ahead then?" asked Jaffery, "and you chip in whenever you
+feel like it?"
+
+"That would be best," replied Liosha.
+
+And having lit a cigarette and settled herself in her deck-chair, she
+motioned to Jaffery to proceed. And there in the shade of the old
+wistaria arbour, surrounded by such dainty products of civilisation as
+Adrian (in speckless white flannels and violet socks) and the tea-table
+(in silver and egg-shell china) this pair of barbarians told their tale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+It is some years now since that golden August afternoon, and my memory
+of the details of the story of Liosha as told by Jaffery and illustrated
+picturesquely by the lady herself is none of the most precise.
+Incidentally I gathered, then and later in the smoking-room from Jaffery
+alone, a prodigious amount of information about Albania which, if I had
+imprisoned it in writing that same evening as the perfect diarist is
+supposed to do, would have been vastly useful to me at the present
+moment. But I am as a diarist hopelessly imperfect. I stare, now, as I
+write, at the bald, uninspiring page. This is my entry for Aug. 4th,
+19--.
+
+"Weighed Susan. 4 st. 3.
+
+"Met Jaffery at station.
+
+"Albanian widow turned up unexpectedly after lunch. Fine woman. Going to
+be a handful. Staying week-end. Story of meeting and Prescott marriage.
+
+"Promised Susan a donkey ride. Where the deuce does one get donkeys
+warranted quiet and guaranteed to carry a lady? _Mem:_ Ask Torn
+Fletcher.
+
+"_Mem:_ Write to Launebeck about cigars."
+
+Why I didn't write straight off to Launebeck about the cigars, instead
+of "mem-ing" it, may seem a mystery. It isn't. It is a comfortable habit
+of mine. Once having "mem-ed" an unpleasant thing in my diary, the
+matter is over. I dismiss it from my mind. But to return to Liosha--I
+find in my entry of sixty-two words thirty-five devoted to Susan, her
+donkey and the cigars, and only twenty-seven to the really astonishing
+events of the day. Of course I am angry. Of course I consult Barbara. Of
+course she pats the little bald patch on the top of my head and laughs
+in a superior way and invents, with a paralysing air of verity, an
+impossible amplification of the "story of meeting and Prescott
+marriage." And of course, the frivolous Jaffery, now that one really
+wants him, is sitting astride of a cannon, and smoking a pipe and,
+notebook and pencil in hand, is writing a picturesque description of the
+bungling decapitation by shrapnel of the general who has just been
+unfolding to him the whole plan of the campaign, and consequently is
+provokingly un-getatable by serious persons like myself[A].
+
+[Footnote A: Hilary is writing at the end of the late Balkan
+war.--W.J.L.]
+
+So for what I learned that day I must trust to the elusive witch,
+Memory. I have never been to Albania. I have never wanted to go to
+Albania. Even now, I haven't the remotest desire to go to Albania. I
+should loathe it. Wherever I go nowadays, I claim as my right bedroom
+and bath and viands succulent to the palate and tender to the teeth. My
+demands are modest. But could I get them in Albania? No. Could one
+travel from Scutari to Monastir in the same comfort as one travels from
+London to Paris or from New York to Chicago? No. Does any sensible man
+of domestic instincts and scholarly tastes like to find himself halfway
+up an inaccessible mountain, surrounded by a band of moustachioed
+desperadoes in fustanella petticoats engirdled with an armoury of
+pistols, daggers and yataghans, who if they are unkind make a surgical
+demonstration with these lethal implements, and if they are smitten with
+a mania of amiability, hand you over, for superintendence of your
+repose, to an army of satellites of whom you are only too glad to call
+the flea brother? I trow not. Personally, I dislike mountains. They were
+made for goats and cascades and lunatics and other irresponsible
+phenomena of nature. They have their uses, I admit, as windscreens and
+water-sheds; and beheld from the valley they can assume very pretty
+colours, owing to varying atmospheric conditions; and the more jagged
+and unenticing they are, the greater is their specious air of
+stupendousness. . . . At any rate they are hindrances to convenient
+travel and so I go among them as little as possible.
+
+To judge from the fervid descriptions given us by Jaffery and Liosha,
+Albania must be a pestilentially uncomfortable place to live in. It is
+divided into three religious sects, then re-divided into heaven knows
+how many tribes. What it will be when it gets autonomy and a government
+and a parliament and picture-palaces no one yet knows. But at the time
+when my two friends met it was in about as chaotic a condition as a
+jungle. Some tribes acknowledged the rule of the Turk. Others did not.
+Every mountainside had a pretty little anarchical system of its own.
+Every family had a pretty little blood feud with some other family.
+Accordingly every man was handy with knife and gun and it was every
+maiden's dream to be sold as a wife to the most bloodthirsty scoundrel
+in the neighbourhood. At least that was the impression given me by
+Liosha.
+
+When the tragedy occurred she herself was about to be sold to a
+prosperous young cutthroat of whom she had seen but little, as he lived,
+I gathered, a couple of mountains off. They had been betrothed years
+before. The price her father demanded was high. Not only did he hold a
+notable position on his mountain, but he had travelled to the fabulous
+land of America and could read and write and could speak English and
+could handle a knife with peculiar dexterity. Again, Liosha was no
+ordinary Albanian maiden. She too had seen the world and could read and
+write and speak English. She had a will of her own and had imbibed
+during her Chicago childhood curiously un-Albanian notions of feminine
+independence. Being beautiful as well, she ranked as a sort of prize
+bride worth (in her father's eyes) her weight in gold.
+
+It was to try to reduce this excessive valuation that the young
+cutthroat visited his father's house. During the night two families, one
+of whom had a feud with the host and another with the guest, each
+attended by an army of merry brigands, fell upon the sleeping homestead,
+murdered everybody except Liosha, who managed to escape, plundered
+everything plunderable, money, valuables, household goods and live
+stock, and then set fire to the house and everything within sight that
+could burn. After which they marched away singing patriotic hymns. When
+they had gone Liosha crept out of the cave wherein she had hidden, and
+surveyed the scene of desolation.
+
+"I tell you, I felt just mad," said Liosha at this stage of the story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember Barbara and Doria staring at her open-mouthed. Instead of
+fainting or going into hysterics or losing her wits at the sight of the
+annihilation of her entire kith and kin--including her bridegroom to
+be--and of her whole worldly possessions, Liosha "felt just mad," which
+as all the world knows is the American vernacular for feeling very
+angry.
+
+"It was enough to turn any woman into a raving lunatic," gasped Barbara.
+
+"Guess it didn't turn me," replied Liosha contemptuously.
+
+"But what did you do?" asked Dora.
+
+"I sat down on a stone and thought how I could get even with that
+crowd." She bit her lip and her soft brown eyes hardened.
+
+[Illustration: Where the lonely figure in black and white sat
+brooding.]
+
+"And that's where we came in, don't you see?" interposed Jaffery
+hastily.
+
+You can imagine the scene. The two Englishmen, one gigantic, red and
+hairy, the other wiry and hawk-like, jogging up the mountain path on
+ragged ponies and suddenly emerging onto that plateau of despair where
+the lonely figure in black and white sat brooding.
+
+Under such unusual conditions, it was not difficult to form
+acquaintance. She told her story to the two horror-stricken men. British
+instinct cried out for justice. They would take her straight to the Vali
+or whatever authority ruled in the wild land, so that punishment should
+be inflicted on the murderers. But she laughed at them. It would take an
+army to dislodge her enemies from their mountain fastnesses. And who
+could send an army but the Sultan, a most unlikely person to trouble his
+head over the massacre of a few Christians? As for a local government,
+the _mallisori_, the mountain tribes, did not acknowledge any. The
+Englishmen swore softly. Liosha nodded her head and agreed with them.
+What was to be done? The Englishmen, alter giving her food and drink
+which she seemed to need, offered their escort to a place where she
+could find relations or friends. Again she laughed scornfully.
+
+"All my relations lie there"--she pointed to the smoking ruins. "And I
+have no friends. And as for your escorting me--why I guess it would be
+much more use my escorting you."
+
+"And where would you escort us?"
+
+"God knows," she said.
+
+Whereupon they realised that she was alone in the wide world, homeless
+and penniless, and that for a time, at least, they were responsible to
+God and man for this picturesque Albanian damsel who spoke the English
+of the stockyards of Chicago. Again what was to be done? They could take
+her back to Scutari, whence they had come, in the hope of finding a
+Roman Catholic sisterhood. The proposal evoked but lukewarm enthusiasm.
+Liosha being convinced that they would turn her into a nun--the last
+avocation in the world she desired to adopt. Her simple idea was to go
+out to America, like her father, return with many bags of gold and
+devote her life to the linked sweetness of a gradual extermination of
+her enemies. When asked how she would manage to amass the gold she
+replied that she would work in the packing-houses like her mother. But
+how, they asked, would she get the money to take her to Chicago? "It
+must come from you!" she said. And the men looked at each other, feeling
+mean dogs in not having offered to settle her there themselves. Then,
+being a young woman of an apparently practical mind, she asked them what
+they were doing in Albania. They explained. They were travellers from
+England, wandering for pleasure through the Balkans. They had come from
+Scutari, as far as they could, in a motor-car. Liosha had never heard of
+a motor-car. They described it as a kind of little railway-engine that
+didn't need rails to run upon. At the foot of the mountains they had
+left it at a village inn and bought the ragged ponies. They were just
+going ahead exploring.
+
+"Do you know the way?" she asked with a touch of contempt.
+
+They didn't.
+
+"Then I guess I'll guide you. You pay me wages every day until you're
+tired and I'll use the money to go out to Chicago." And seeing them
+hesitate, she added: "No one's going to hurt me. A woman is safe in
+Albania. And if I'm with you, no one will hurt you. But if you go on by
+yourselves you'll very likely get murdered."
+
+Fantastic as was her intention, they knew that, as far as they
+themselves were concerned, she spoke common-sense. So it came to pass
+that Liosha, having left them for a few moments to take grim farewell of
+the charred remains of her family lying hidden beneath the smouldering
+wreckage, returned to them with a calm face, mounted one of the ponies
+and pointing before her, led the way into the mountains.
+
+Now, if old Jaff would only sit down and write this absurd Odyssey in
+the vivid manner in which he has related bits of it to me, he would
+produce the queerest book of travel ever written. But he never will. As
+a matter of fact, although he saw Albania as few Westerners have done
+and learned useful bits of language and made invaluable friends, and
+although he appreciated the journey's adventurous and humorous side, it
+did not afford him complete satisfaction. A day or two after their
+start, Prescott began to shew signs of peculiar interest in their guide.
+In spite of her unquestioning readiness to shoulder burdens, Prescott
+would run to relieve her. Liosha has assured me that Jaffery did the
+same--and indeed I cannot conceive Jaffery allowing a female companion
+to stagger along under a load which he could swing onto his huge back
+and carry like a walnut. To go further--she maintains that the two
+quarrelled dreadfully over the alleviation of her labours, so much so,
+that often before they had ended their quarrel, she had performed the
+task in dispute. This of course Jaffery has blusteringly denied. She was
+there, paid to do certain things, and she had to do them. The way
+Prescott spoiled her and indulged her, as though she were a little
+dressed-up cat in a London drawing-room, instead of a great hefty woman
+accustomed to throw steers and balance a sack of potatoes on her head,
+was simply sickening. And it became more sickening still as Prescott's
+infatuation clouded more and more the poor fellow's brain. Jaffery
+talked (not before Liosha, but to Adrian and myself, that night, after
+the ladies had gone to bed) as if the girl had woven a Vivien spell
+around his poor friend. We smiled, knowing it was Jaffery's way. . . .
+
+At all events, whether Jaffery was jealous or not, it is certain that
+Prescott fell wildly, blindly, overwhelmingly in love with Liosha.
+Considering the close intimacy of their lives; considering that they
+were in ceaseless contact with this splendid creature, untrammelled by
+any convention, daughter of the earth, yet chaste as her own mountain
+winds; and considering that both of them were hot-blooded men, the only
+wonder is that they did not fly at each other's throats, or dash in each
+other's heads with stones, after the fashion of prehistoric males. It is
+my well-supported conviction, however, that Jaffery, honest old bear,
+seeing his comrade's very soul set upon the honey, trotted off and left
+him to it, and made pretence (to satisfy his ursine conscience) of
+growling his sarcastic disapproval.
+
+"The devil of it was," he declared that night, with a sweep of his arm
+that sent a full glass of whiskey and soda hurtling across space to my
+bookshelves and ruining some choice bindings--"the devil of it was,"
+said he, after expressing rueful contrition, "that she treated him like
+a dog, whereas I could do anything I liked with her. But she married
+him."
+
+Of course she married him. Most Albanian young women in her position
+would have married a brave and handsome Englishman of incalculable
+wealth--even if they had not Liosha's ulterior motives. And beyond
+question Liosha had ulterior motives. Prescott espoused her cause hotly.
+He convinced her that he was a power in Europe. As a Reuter
+correspondent he did indeed possess power. He would make the civilised
+world ring with this tale of bloodshed and horror. He would beard
+Sultans in their lairs and Emperors in their dens. He would bring down
+awful vengeance on the heads of her enemies. How Sultans and Emperors
+were to do it was as obscure as at the horror-filled hour of their first
+meeting. But a man vehemently in love is notoriously blind to practical
+considerations. Prescott put his life into her hands. She accepted it
+calmly; and I think it was this calmness of acceptance that infuriated
+Jaffery. If she had been likewise caught in the whirlpool of a mad
+passion, Jaffery would have had nothing to say. But she did not (so he
+maintained) care a button for Prescott, and Prescott would not believe
+it. She had promised to marry him. That ideal of magnificent womanhood
+had promised to marry him. They were to be married--think of that, my
+boy!--as soon as they got back to Scutari and found a British Consul and
+a priest or two to marry them. "Then for God's sake," roared Jaffery,
+"let us trek to Scutari. I'm fed up with playing gooseberry. The Giant
+Gooseberry. Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+So they shortened their projected journey and, making a circuit, picked
+up the motor-car--a joy and wonder to Liosha. She wanted to drive
+it--over the rutted wagon-tracks that pass for roads in Albania--and
+such was Prescott's infatuation that he would have allowed her to do so.
+But Jaffery sat an immovable mountain of flesh at the wheel and brought
+them safely to Scutari. There arrangements were made for the marriage
+before the British Vice-Consul. On the morning of the ceremony Prescott
+fell ill. The ceremony was, however, performed. Towards evening he was
+in high fever. The next morning typhoid declared itself. In two or three
+days he was dead. He had made a will leaving everything to his wife,
+with Jaffery as sole executor and trustee.
+
+This sorry ending of poor Prescott's romance--I never knew him, but
+shall always think of him as a swift and vehement spirit--was told very
+huskily by Jaffery beneath the wistaria arbour. Tears rolled down
+Barbara's and Doria's cheeks. My wife's sympathetic little hand slid
+into Liosha's. With her other hand Liosha fondled it. I am sure it was
+rather gratitude for this little feminine act than poignant emotion that
+moistened Liosha's beautiful eyes.
+
+"I haven't had much luck, have I?"
+
+"No, my poor dear, you haven't," cried Barbara in a gush of kindness.
+
+In the course of a few weeks to have one's affianced husband murdered
+and one's legal though nominal husband spirited away by disease, seemed
+in the eyes of my gentle wife to transcend all records of human tragedy.
+Very soon afterwards she made a pretext for taking Liosha away from us,
+and I had the extraordinary experience of seeing my proud little
+Barbara, who loathes the caressive insincerities prevalent among women,
+cross the lawn with her arm around Liosha's waist.
+
+The rest of the bare bones of the story I have already told you.
+Jaffery, after burying his poor comrade, took ship with Liosha and went
+to Cettinje, where he entrusted her to the care of old friends of his,
+the Austrian Consul and his wife, and made her known as the widow of
+Prescott of Reuter's to the British diplomatic authorities. Then having
+his work to do, he started forth again, a heavy-hearted adventurer, and,
+when it was over, he picked up Liosha, for whom Frau von Hagen had
+managed to procure a stock of more or less civilised raiment, and
+brought her to London to make good her claim, under Prescott's will, to
+her dead husband's fortune.
+
+Now this is Jaffery all over. Put him on a battlefield with guns going
+off in all directions, or in a shipwreck, or in the midst of a herd of
+crocodiles, and he will be cool master of the situation, and will
+telegraph to his newspaper the graphic, nervous stuff of the born
+journalist; but set him a simple problem in social life, which a child
+of fifteen would solve in a walk across the room, and he is scared to
+death. Instead of sending for Barbara, for instance, when he arrived in
+London, or any other sensible woman, say, like Frau von Hagen of
+Cettinje, he drags poor Euphemia, a timid maiden lady of forty-five,
+from her tea-parties and Bible-classes and Dorcas-meetings at Tunbridge
+Wells, and plants her down as guide, philosopher and friend to this
+disconcerting product of Chicago and Albania. Of course the poor lady
+was at her wits' ends, not knowing whether to treat her as a new-born
+baby or a buffalo. With equal inevitability, Liosha, unaccustomed to
+this type of Western woman, summed her up in a drastic epithet. And in
+the meanwhile Jaffery went about tearing hair and beard and cursing the
+fate that put him in charge of a volcano in petticoats.
+
+"I have a great regard for Euphemia," said Barbara, later in the
+day--they were walking up and down the terrace in, the dusk before
+dinner--"but I have some sympathy with Liosha. Tolstoi! My dear Jaffery!
+And the City Temple! If she wanted to take the girl to church, why not
+her own church, the Brompton Oratory or Farm Street?"
+
+"Euphemia wouldn't attend a Popish place of worship--she still calls it
+Popish, poor dear--to save her soul alive, or anybody else's soul,"
+replied Jaffery.
+
+"Then pack her off at once to Tunbridge Wells," said Barbara. "She's
+even more helpless than you, which is saying a great deal. I'll see to
+Liosha."
+
+Jaffery protested. It was dear of her, sweet of her, miraculous of her,
+but he couldn't dream of it.
+
+"Then don't," she retorted. "Put it out of your mind. And there's
+Franklin. Come to dinner."
+
+"I'm not a bit hungry," he said gloomily.
+
+We dined; as far as I was concerned, very pleasantly. Liosha, who sat on
+my right, refreshingly free in her table manners (embarrassingly so to
+my most correct butler), was equally free in her speech. She provided me
+with excellent entertainment. I learned many frank truths about Albanian
+women, for whom, on account of their vaccine subjection, she proclaimed
+the most scathing contempt. Her details, in architectural phrase, were
+full size. Once or twice Doria, who sat on my left, lowered her eyes
+disapprovingly. At her age, her mother would have been shocked; her
+grandmother would have blushed from toes to forehead; her
+great-grandmother might have fainted. But Doria, a Twentieth Century
+product, on the Committee of a Maternity Home and a Rescue Laundry,
+merely looked down her nose . . . I gathered that Liosha, for all her
+yearning to shoot, flay alive, crucify and otherwise annoy her enemies,
+did not greatly regret the loss of the distinguished young Albanian
+cutthroat who was her affianced. Had he lived she would have spent the
+rest of her days in saying, like Melisande, "I am not happy." She would
+have been an instrument of pleasure, a producer of children, a slaving
+drudge, while he went triumphantly about, a predatory ravisher, among
+the scattered Bulgarian peasantry. In fact, she expressed a
+whole-hearted detestation for her betrothed. I am pretty sure, too, that
+the death of her father did not leave in her life the aching gap that it
+might have done.
+
+You see, it came to this. Her father, an American-Albanian, wanted to
+run with the hare of barbarism and hunt with the hounds of civilisation.
+His daughter (woman the world over) was all for hunting. He had spent
+twenty years in America. By a law of gravitation, natural only in that
+Melting Pot of Nations, Chicago, he had come across an Albanian
+wife. . . .
+
+Chicago is the Melting Pot of the nations of the world. Let me tell you
+a true tale. It has nothing whatever to do with Jaffery Chayne or
+Liosha--except perhaps to shew that there is no reason why a Tierra del
+Fuegan foundling should not run across his long-lost brother on Michigan
+Avenue, and still less reason why Albanian male should not meet Albanian
+female in Armour's stockyards. And besides, considering that I was egged
+on, as I said on the first page, to write these memoirs, I really don't
+see why I should not put into them anything I choose.
+
+An English novelist of my acquaintance visiting Chicago received a
+representative of a great daily newspaper who desired to interview him.
+The interviewer was a typical American reporter, blue-eyed, high
+cheekboned, keen, nervous, finely strung, courteous, intensely alive,
+desirous to get to the heart of my friend's mystery, and charmingly
+responsive to his frank welcome. They talked. My friend, to give the
+young man his story, discoursed on Chicago's amazingly solved problem of
+the conglomeration of all the races under Heaven. To point his remarks
+and mark his contrasts he used the words "we English" and "you
+Americans." After a time the young man smiled and said: "But am not an
+American--at least I'm an American citizen, but I'm not a born
+American."
+
+"But," cried my friend, "you're the essence of America."
+
+"No," said the young man, "I'm an Icelander."
+
+Thus it was natural for Liosha's father to find an Albanian wife in
+Chicago. She too was superficially Americanised. When they returned to
+Albania with their purely American daughter, they at first found it
+difficult to appear superficial Albanians. Liosha had to learn Albanian
+as a foreign language, her parents and herself always speaking English
+among themselves. But the call of the blood rang strong in the veins of
+the elders. Robbery and assassination on the heroic scale held for the
+man an irresistible attraction, and he acquired great skill at the
+business; and the woman, who seems to have been of a lymphatic
+temperament, sank without murmuring into the domestic subjection into
+which she had been born. It was only Liosha who rebelled. Hence her
+complicated attitude towards life, and hence her entertaining talk at
+the dinner table.
+
+I enjoyed myself. So, I think, did everybody. When the ladies rose,
+Jaffery, who was nearest the door, opened it for them to pass out,
+Barbara, the last, lingered for a second or two and laid her hand on
+Jaffery's arm and looked up at him out of her teasing blue eyes.
+
+"My dear Jaff," she said, "what kind of a dinner do you eat when you
+_are_ hungry?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Barbara having freed Jaffery from immediate anxieties with regard to
+Liosha, easily persuaded him to pay a longer visit than he had proposed.
+A telephonic conversation with a first distracted, then
+conscience-smitten and then much relieved Euphemia had for effect the
+payment of bills at the Savoy and the retreat of the gentle lady to
+Tunbridge Wells. Liosha remained with us, pending certain negotiations
+darkly carried on by my wife and Doria in concert. During this time I
+had some opportunity of observing her from a more philosophic standpoint
+and my judgment was--I will not say formed--but aided by Barbara's
+confidential revelations. When not directly thwarted, she seemed to be
+good-natured. She took to Susan--a good sign; and Susan took to her--a
+better. Finding that her idea of happiness was to sprawl about the
+garden and let the child run over her and inveigle her into childish
+games and call her "Loshie" (a disrespectful mode of address which I had
+all the pains in the world in persuading Barbara to permit) and
+generally treat her as an animate instrument of entertainment, we
+smoothed down every obstacle that might lie in this particular path to
+beatitude. So many difficulties were solved. Not only were we spared the
+problem of what the deuce to do with Liosha during the daytime, but also
+Barbara was able to send the nurse away for a short and much needed
+holiday. Of course Barbara herself undertook all practical duties; but
+when she discovered that Liosha experienced primitive delight in
+bathing Susan--Susan's bath being a heathen rite in which ducks and fish
+and swimming women and horrible spiders played orgiac parts, and in
+getting up at seven in the morning--("Good God! Is there such an hour?"
+asked Adrian, when he heard about it)--in order to breakfast with Susan,
+and in dressing and undressing her and brushing her hair, and in
+tramping for miles by her side while with Basset, her vassal, in
+attendance, Susan rode out on her pony; when Barbara, in short, became
+aware of this useful infatuation, she pandered to it, somewhat
+shamelessly, all the time, however, keeping an acute eye on the zealous
+amateur. If, for instance, Liosha had picked a bushel of nectarines and
+had established herself with Susan, in the corner of the fruit garden,
+for a debauch, which would have had, for consequence, a child's funeral,
+Barbara, by some magic of motherhood, sprang from the earth in front of
+them with her funny little smile and her "Only one--and a very ripe
+one--for Susan, dear Liosha." And in these matters Liosha was as much
+overawed by Barbara as was Susan.
+
+This, I repeat, was a good sign in Liosha. I don't say that she would
+have fallen captive to any ordinary child, but Susan being my child was
+naturally different from the vulgar run of children. She was _rarissinia
+avis_ in the lands of small girls--one of the few points on which
+Barbara and I are in unclouded agreement. No one could have helped
+falling captive to Susan. But, I admit, in the case of Liosha, who was
+an out-of-the-way, incalculable sort of creature--it was a good sign.
+Perhaps, considering the short period during which I had her under close
+observation, it was the best sign. She had grievous faults.
+
+One evening, while I was dressing for dinner, Barbara burst into my
+dressing-room.
+
+"Reynolds has given me notice."
+
+"Oh," said I, not desisting (as is the callous way of husbands the world
+over) from the absorbing and delicate manipulation of my tie. "What
+for?"
+
+"Liosha has just gone for her with a pair of scissors."
+
+"Horrible!" said I, getting the ends even. "I can imagine nothing more
+finnikin in ghastliness than to cut anybody's throat with nail scissors,
+especially when the subject is unwilling."
+
+Barbara pished and pshawed. It was no occasion for levity.
+
+"I agree," said I. The dressing hour is the calmest and most philosophic
+period of the day.
+
+Barbara came up to me blue eyed and innocent, and with a traitorous
+jerk, undid my beautiful white bow.
+
+"There, now listen."
+
+And I, dilapidated wretch, had to listen to the tale of crime. It
+appeared that Reynolds, my wife's maid, in putting Liosha into a
+ready-made gown--a model gown I believe is the correct term--insisted on
+her being properly corseted. Liosha, agonisingly constricted, rebelled.
+The maid was obdurate. Liosha flew at her with a pair of scissors. I
+think I should have done the same. Reynolds bolted from the room. So
+should I have done. I sympathised with both of them. Reynolds fled to
+her mistress, and, declaring it to be no part of her duty to wait on
+tigers, gave notice.
+
+"We can't lose Reynolds," said I.
+
+"Of course we can't."
+
+"And we can't pack Liosha off at a moment's notice, so as to please
+Reynolds."
+
+"Oh, you're too wise altogether," said my wife, and left me to the
+tranquil completion of my dressing.
+
+Liosha came down to dinner very subdued, after a short, sharp interview
+with Barbara, who, for so small a person, can put on a prodigious air of
+authority. As a punishment for bloodthirsty behaviour she had made her
+wear the gown in the manner prescribed by Reynolds; and she had
+apologised to Reynolds, who thereupon withdrew her notice. So serenity
+again prevailed.
+
+In some respects Liosha was very childish. The receipt of letters, no
+matter from whom--even bills, receipts and circulars--gave her
+overwhelming joy and sense of importance. This harmless craze, however,
+led to another outburst of ferocity. Meeting the postman outside the
+gate she demanded a letter. The man looked through his bundle.
+
+"Nothing for you this morning, ma'am."
+
+"I wrote to the dressmaker yesterday," said Liosha, "and you've got the
+reply right there."
+
+"I assure you I haven't," said the postman.
+
+"You're a liar," cried Liosha, "and I guess I'm going to see."
+
+Whereupon Liosha, who was as strong as a young horse, sprang to
+death-grapple with the postman, a puny little man, pitched him onto the
+side of the road and calmly entered into felonious possession of His
+Majesty's mails. Then finding no letter she cast the whole delivery over
+the supine and gasping postman and marched contemptuously into the
+house.
+
+The most astonishing part of the business was that in these outbreaks of
+barbarity she did not seem to be impelled by blind rage. Most people who
+heave a postman about a peaceful county would do so in a fit of passion,
+through loss of nerve-control. Not so Liosha. She did these things with
+the bland and deadly air of an inexorable Fate.
+
+The perspiration still beads on my brow when I think of the cajoling and
+bribing and blustering and lying I had to practise in order to hush up
+the matter. As for Liosha, both Jaffery and I rated her soundly. I
+explained loftily that not so many years ago, transportation, lifelong
+imprisonment, death were the penalties for the felony which she had
+committed.
+
+[Illustration: Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, handled the cleek.]
+
+"You ought to have a jolly good thrashing," roared Jaffery.
+
+At this Liosha, who had endured our abuse with the downcast eyes of
+angelic meekness, took a golfclub from a bag lying on the hall table and
+handed it to the red-bearded giant.
+
+"I guess I do," she said. "Beat me."
+
+And, as I am a living man, I swear that if Jaffery had taken her at her
+word and laid on lustily she would have taken her thrashing without a
+murmur. What was one to do with such a woman?
+
+Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, fingered the cleek. Gradually she
+raised her glorious eyes to him, and in them I was startled to see the
+most extraordinary doglike submission. He frowned portentously and shook
+his head. Her lips worked, and after a convulsive sob or two, she threw
+herself on the ground, clasped his knees, and to our dismay burst into a
+passion of weeping. Barbara, rushing into the hall at this juncture,
+like a fairy tornado, released us from our embarrassing position. She
+annihilated us with a sweeping glance of scorn.
+
+"Oh, go away, both of you, go away!"
+
+So we went away and left her to deal with Liosha.
+
+Save for such little excursions and alarms the days passed very
+pleasantly. Jaffery spent most of the sweltering hours of daylight (it
+was a blazing summer) in playing golf on the local course. Adrian and
+Doria trod the path of the perfect lovers, while I, to justify my
+position as President of the Hafiz Society, worked hard at a Persian
+Grammar. Barbara, the never idle, was in the meantime arranging for
+Liosha's future. Her organising genius had brought Doria's suggestion as
+to the First Class London Boarding House into the sphere of practical
+things. The Boarding House idea alone would not work; but, combine it
+with Mrs. Considine, and the scheme ran on wheels.
+
+"Even you," said Barbara, as though I were a sort of Schopenhauer, a
+professional disparager of her sex--"even you have a high opinion of
+Mrs. Considine."
+
+I had. Every one had a high opinion of Mrs. Considine. She was not very
+beautiful or very clever or very fascinating or very angelic or very
+anything--but she was one of those women of whom everybody has a high
+opinion. The impoverished widow of an Indian soldierman, with a son
+soldiering somewhere in India, she managed to do a great deal on very
+small means. She was a woman of the world, a woman of character. She
+knew how to deal with people of queer races. Heaven indicated her for
+appointment by Barbara as Liosha's duenna in the Boarding House. Mrs.
+Considine, herself compelled to live in these homes for the homeless,
+gladly accepted the proposal, came down, interviewed her charge, who
+happened then to be in a mood of meekness indescribable, and went away,
+so to speak, with her contract in her pocket. It was part of the
+programme that Mrs. Considine should tactfully carry on Liosha's
+education, which had been arrested at the age of twelve, instil into her
+a sense of Western decorum, extend her acquaintance, and gradually root
+out of her heart the yearning to do her enemies to death. It was a
+capital programme; and I gave it the benediction of a smile, in which,
+seeing Barbara's shrewd blue eyes fixed on me, I suppressed the irony.
+
+When this was all settled Jaffery proclaimed himself the most care-free
+fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude towards Liosha
+changed. He established himself as fellow slave with her under the whip
+of Susan's tyranny. It did one good to see these two magnificent
+creatures sporting together for the child's, and incidentally their own,
+amusement. For the first time during their intercourse they met on the
+same plane.
+
+"She's really quite a good sort," said Jaffery.
+
+But if it was pleasant to see him with Liosha, it was still more
+touching to watch his protective attitude towards Doria. He seemed so
+anxious to do her service, so deferential to her views, so
+puzzle-headedly eager to reconcile them with his own. She took upon
+herself to read him little lectures.
+
+"Don't you think you're rather wasting your life?" she asked him one
+day.
+
+"Do you think I am?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh! But I work hard at my job, you know," he said apologetically--"when
+there's one for me to do. And when there isn't I kind of prepare myself
+for the next. For instance I've got to keep myself always fit."
+
+"But that's all physical and outside." She smiled, in her little
+superior way. "It's the inside, the personal, the essential self that
+matters. Life, properly understood, is a process of self-development. If
+a human being is the same at the end of a year as he was at the
+beginning he has made no spiritual progress."
+
+Jaffery pulled his red beard. "In other words, he hasn't lived," said
+he.
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"And you think that I'm just the same sort of old animal from one year's
+end to another and that I don't progress worth a cent, and so, that I
+don't live."
+
+"I don't want to say quite that," she replied graciously. "Every one
+must advance a little bit unless they deteriorate. But the conscious
+striving after spiritual progress is so necessary--and you seem to put
+it aside. It is such waste of life."
+
+"I suppose it is, in a way," Jaffery admitted.
+
+She pursued the theme, a flattered Egeria. "You see--well, what do you
+do? You travel about in out-of-the-way places and make notes about them
+in case the knowledge may be useful to you in the future. When you come
+across anything to kill, you kill it. It also pleases you to come across
+anything that calls for an exercise of strength. When there is a war or
+a revolution or anything that takes you to your real work, as you call
+it, you've only got to go through it and report what you see."
+
+"But that's just the difficulty," cried Jaffery. "It isn't every chap
+that's tough enough to come out rosy at the end of a campaign. And it
+isn't every chap that can _see_ the things he ought to write about.
+That's when the training comes in."
+
+Again she smiled. "I've no idea of belittling your profession, my dear
+Jaffery. I think it's a noble one. But should it be the Alpha and Omega
+of things? Don't you see? The real life is intellectual, spiritual,
+emotional. What are your ideals?"
+
+Jaffery looked at her ruefully. Beneath those dark pools of eyes lay the
+spirituality that made her a mystery so sacred. He, great hulking
+fellow, was a gross lump of clay. Ideals?
+
+"I don't suppose I have any," said he.
+
+"But you must. Everybody has, to a certain extent."
+
+"Well, to ride straight and tell the truth--like the ancient Persians, I
+suppose it was the Persians--anyway it's a sort of rough code I've got."
+
+"Have you read Nietzsche?" she asked suddenly.
+
+He frowned perplexedly. "Nietzsche--that's the mad superman chap, isn't
+it? No. I've not read a word."
+
+"I do wish you would. You'll find him so exhilarating. You might
+possibly agree with a lot of what he says. I don't. But he sets you
+thinking."
+
+She sketched her somewhat prim conception of the Nietzschean philosophy,
+and after listening to it in dumb wonder, he promised to carry out her
+wishes. So, when I came down to my library that evening dressed for
+dinner, I found him, still in morning clothes, with "Thus Spake
+Zarathustra" on his knees, and a bewildered expression on his face.
+
+"Have you read this, Hilary?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"Understand it?"
+
+"More or less."
+
+"Gosh!" said he, shutting the book, "and I suppose Doria understands it
+too, or she wouldn't have recommended it. But," he rose ponderously and
+looked down on me with serious eyes--"what the Hell is it all about?"
+
+I drew out my watch. "The five seconds that you have before rushing
+up-stairs to dress," said I, "don't give me adequate time to expound a
+philosophic system."
+
+Now if Adrian or I had talked to Jaffery about soul-progression and the
+Will to Power and suggested that he was missing the essentials of life,
+we should have been met with bellows of rude and profane derision. I
+don't believe he had even roughly considered what kind of an
+individuality he had, still less enquired into the state of his
+spiritual being. But the flip of a girl he professed so much to despise
+came along and reduced him to a condition of helpless introspection. I
+cannot say that it lasted very long. Psychology and metaphysics and
+aesthetics lay outside Jaffery's sphere. But while seeing no harm in his
+own simple creed of straight-riding and truth-speaking, he added to it
+an unshakable faith in Doria's intellectual and spiritual superiority.
+On his first meeting with her he had disclaimed the subtler mental
+qualities, videlicet his similitude of the bumble-bee; now, however, he
+went further, declaring himself, to a subrident host, to be a
+chuckle-headed ass, only fit to herd with savages. He would listen, with
+childlike envy, to Adrian, glib of tongue, exchanging with Doria the
+shibboleths of the Higher Life. He had been considerably impressed by
+Adrian as the author of a successful novel; but Adrian as a co-treader
+of the stars with Doria, appeared to him in the light of an immortal.
+
+Adrian and I, when alone, laughed over old Jaff, as we had laughed over
+him for goodness knows how many years. I, who had guessed (with
+Barbara's aid) the incidence of the thunderbolt, found in his humility
+something pathetic which was lost to Adrian. The latter only saw the
+blustering, woman-scorning hulk of thews and sinews, at the mercy of
+anything in petticoats, from Susan upward. I disagreed. He was not at
+the mercy of Liosha.
+
+"You burrowing mole," cried Adrian one morning in the library, Jaffery
+having gone off to golf, "can't you see that he goes about in mortal
+terror of her?"
+
+"No such thing!" I retorted hotly. "He has regarded her as an abominable
+nuisance--a millstone round his neck--a responsibility--"
+
+"A huntress of men," he interrupted. "Especially an all too probable
+huntress of Jaffery Chayne. With Susan and Barbara and Doria he knows
+he's safe--spared the worst--so he yields and they pick him up--look at
+him and stand him on his head and do whatever they darn well like to
+him; but with Liosha he knows he isn't safe. You see," Adrian continued,
+after having lit a cigarette, "Jaffery's an honourable old chap, in his
+way. With Liosha, his friend Prescott's widow, it would be a question of
+marriage or nothing."
+
+"You're talking rubbish," said I. "Jaffery would just as soon think of
+marrying the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour."
+
+"That's what I'm telling you," said Adrian. "He's in a mortal funk lest
+his animated Statue of Liberty should descend from her pedestal and with
+resistless hands take him away and marry him."
+
+"For one who has been hailed as the acutest psychologist of the day,"
+said I, "you seem to have very limited powers of observation."
+
+For some unaccountable reason Adrian's pale face flushed scarlet. He
+broke out vexedly:
+
+"I don't see what my imaginative work has got to do with the
+trivialities of ordinary life. As a matter of fact," he added, after a
+pause, "the psychology in a novel is all imagination, and it's the same
+imaginative faculty that has been amusing itself with Jaffery and this
+unqualifiable lady."
+
+"All right, my dear man," said I, pacifically. "Probably you're right
+and I'm wrong. I was only talking lightly. And speaking of
+imagination--what about your next book?"
+
+"Oh, damn the next book," said he, flicking the ash off his cigarette.
+"I've got an idea, of course. A jolly good idea. But I'm not worrying
+about it yet."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+He threw his cigarette into the grate. How, in the name of common sense,
+could he settle down to work? Wasn't his head full of his approaching
+marriage? Could he see at present anything beyond the thing of dream and
+wonder that was to be his wife? I was a cold-blooded fish to talk of
+novel-writing.
+
+"But you'll have to get into it sometime or other," said I.
+
+"Of course. As soon as we come back from Venice, and settle down to a
+normal life in the flat."
+
+"What does Doria think of the new idea?"
+
+Thousands who knew him not were looking forward to Adrian Boldero's new
+book. We, who loved him, were peculiarly interested. Somehow or other we
+had not touched before so intimately on the subject. To my surprise he
+frowned and snapped impatient fingers.
+
+"I haven't told Doria anything about it. It isn't my way. My work's too
+personal a thing, even for Doria. She understands. I know some fellows
+tell their plots to any and everybody--and others, if they don't do
+that, lay bare their artistic souls to those near and dear to them.
+Well, I can't. A word, no matter how loving, of adverse criticism, a
+glance even that was not sympathetic would paralyse me, it would shatter
+my faith in the whole structure I had built up. I can't help it. It's my
+nature. As I told you two or three months ago, it has always been my
+instinct to work in the dark. I instanced my First at Cambridge. How
+much more powerful is the instinct when it's a question of a vital
+created thing like a novel? My dear Hilary, you're the man I'm fondest
+of in the world. You know that. But don't worry me about my work. I
+can't stand it. It upsets me. Doria, heart of my heart and soul of my
+soul, has promised not to worry me. She sees I must be free from outside
+influences--no matter how closely near--but still outside. And you must
+promise too."
+
+"My dear old boy," said I, somewhat confused by this impassioned
+exposition of the artistic temperament, "you've only got to express the
+wish--"
+
+"I know," said he. "Forgive me." He laughed and lit another cigarette.
+"But Wittekind and the editor of _Fowler's_ in America--I've sold him
+the serial rights--are shrieking out for a synopsis. I'm damned if I'm
+going to give 'em a synopsis. They get on my nerves. And--we're intimate
+enough friends, you and I, for me to confess it--so do our dearest
+Barbara and old Jaff, and you yourself, when you want to know how I'm
+getting on. Look, dear old Hilary"--he laughed again and threw himself
+into an armchair--"giving birth to a book isn't very much unlike giving
+birth to a baby. It's analogical in all sorts of ways. Well, some women,
+as soon as the thing is started, can talk quite freely--sweetly and
+delicately--I haven't a word to say against them--to all their women
+friends about it. Others shrink. There's something about it too near
+their innermost souls for them to give their confidence to anyone. Well,
+dear old Hilary--that's how I feel about the novel."
+
+He spoke from his heart. I understood--like Doria.
+
+"Elizabeth Barrett Browning calls it 'the sorrowful, great gift,'" said
+I. "We who haven't got it can only bow to those who have."
+
+Adrian rose and took a few strides about the library.
+
+"I'm afraid I've been talking a lot of inflated nonsense. It must sound
+awfully like swelled head. But you know it isn't, don't you?"
+
+"Don't he an idiot," said I. "Let us talk of something else."
+
+We did not return to the subject.
+
+In the course of time came Mrs. Considine to carry off Liosha to the
+First Class Boarding House which she had found in Queen's Gate. Liosha
+left us full of love for Barbara and Susan and I think of kindly feeling
+for myself. A few days afterwards Jaffery went off to sail a small boat
+with another lunatic in the Hebrides. A little later Doria and Adrian
+went to pay a round of short family visits beginning with Mrs. Boldero.
+So before August was out, Barbara and Susan and I found ourselves alone.
+
+"Now," said I, "I can get through some work."
+
+"Now," said Barbara, "we can run over to Dinard."
+
+"What?" I shouted.
+
+"Dinard," she said, softly. "We always go. We only put it off this year
+on account of visitors."
+
+"We definitely made up our minds," I retorted, "that we weren't going to
+leave this beautiful garden. You know I never change my mind. I'm not
+going away."
+
+Barbara left the room, whistling a musical comedy air.
+
+We went to Dinard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+There is a race of gifted people who make their livelihood by writing
+descriptions of weddings. I envy them. They can crowd so many pebbly
+facts into such a small compass. They know the names of everybody who
+attended from the officiating clergy to the shyest of poor relations.
+With the cold accuracy of an encyclopaedia, and with expert technical
+discrimination, they mention the various fabrics of which the costumes
+of bride and bridesmaids were composed. They catalogue the wedding
+presents with the correct names of the donors. They remember what hymns
+were sung and who signed the register. They know the spot chosen for the
+honeymoon. They know the exact hour of the train by which the happy pair
+departed. Their knowledge is astonishing in its detail. Their accounts
+naturally lack imagination. Otherwise they would not be faithful records
+of fact. But they do lack colour, the magic word that brings a scene
+before the eye. Perhaps that is why they are never collected and
+published in book form.
+
+Now I have been wondering how to describe the wedding of Doria and
+Adrian. I have recourse to Barbara.
+
+"Why, I have the very thing for you," she says, and runs away and
+presently reappears with a long thing like a paper snake. "This is a
+full report of the wedding. I kept it. I felt it might come in useful
+some day," she cried in triumph. "You can stick it in bodily."
+
+I began to read in hope the column of precise information. I end it in
+despair. It leaves me admiring but cold. It fails to conjure up to my
+mind the picture of a single mortal thing. Sadly I hand it back to
+Barbara.
+
+"I shan't describe the wedding at all," I say.
+
+And indeed why should I? Our young friends were married as legally and
+irrevocably as half a dozen parsons in the presence of a distinguished
+congregation assembled in a fashionable London church could marry them.
+Of what actually took place I have the confused memory of the mere man.
+I know that it was magnificent. All the dinner parties of Mr. Jornicroft
+were splendidly united. Adrian's troops of friends supported him. Doria,
+dark eyed, without a tinge of colour in the strange ivory of her cheek,
+looked more elfin than ever beneath the white veil. Jaffery, who was
+best man, vast in a loose frock coat, loomed like a monstrous effigy by
+the altar-rails. Susan, at the head of the bridesmaids, kept the stern
+set face of one at grapple with awful responsibility. She told her
+mother afterwards that a pin was running into her all the time. . . .
+Well, I, for one, signed the register and I kissed the bride and shook
+hands with Adrian, who adopted the poor nonchalant attitude of one
+accustomed to get married every day of his life. Driving from church to
+reception with Barbara, I railed, in the orthodox manner of the superior
+husband, at the modern wedding.
+
+"A survival of barbarism," said I. "What is the veil but a relic of
+marriage by barter, when the man bought a pig in a poke and never knew
+his luck till he unveiled his bride? What is the ring but the symbol of
+the fetters of slavery? The rice, but the expression of a hope for a
+prolific union? The satin slipper tied on to the carriage or thrown
+after it? Good luck? No such thing. It was once part of the marriage
+ceremony for the bridegroom to tap the wife with a shoe to symbolise
+his assertion of and her acquiescence in her entire subjection."
+
+"Where did Lady Bagshawe get that awful hat?" said Barbara sweetly. "Did
+you notice it? It isn't a hat; it's a crime."
+
+I turned on her severely. "What has Lady Bagshawe's hat to do with the
+subject under discussion? Haven't you been listening?"
+
+She squeezed my hand and laughed. "No, you dear silly, of course not."
+
+Another instance of the essential inconvincibility of woman.
+
+It was Jaffery Chayne, who, on the pavement before the house in Park
+Crescent, threw the satin slipper at the departing carriage. He had been
+very hearty and booming all the time, the human presentment of a
+devil-may-care lion out for a jaunt, and his great laugh thundering
+cheerily above the clatter of talk had infected the heterogeneous
+gathering. Unconsciously dull eyes sparkled and pursy lips vibrated into
+smiles. So gay a wedding reception I have never attended, and I am sure
+it was nothing but Jaffery's pervasive influence that infused vitality
+into the deadly and decorous mob. It was a miracle wrought by a rich
+Silenic personality. I had never guessed before the magnetic power of
+Jaffery Chayne. Indeed I had often wondered how the overgrown and
+apparently irresponsible schoolboy who couldn't make head or tail of
+Nietzsche and from whom the music of Shelley was hid, had managed to
+make a journalistic reputation as a great war and foreign correspondent.
+Now the veil of the mystery was drawn an inch or two aside. I saw him
+mingle with an alien crowd, and, by what On the surface appeared to be
+sheer brute full-bloodedness, compel them to his will. The wedding was
+not to be a hollow clang of bells but a glad fanfare of trumpets in all
+hearts. In order that this wedding of Adrian and Doria should be
+memorable he had instinctively put out the forces that had carried him
+unscathed through the wildest and fiercest of the congregations of men.
+He could subdue and he could create. In the most pithless he had started
+the working of the sap of life.
+
+As for his own definite part of best man, he played it with an
+Elizabethan spaciousness. . . . There was no hugger-mugger escape of
+travel-clad bride and bridegroom. He contrived a triumphal progress
+through lines of guests led by a ruddy giant, Master of the Ceremonies,
+exuding Pantagruelian life. Joyously he conducted them to their
+glittering carriage and pair--and, unconscious of anthropological truth,
+threw the slipper of woman's humiliation. The carriage drove off amid
+the cheers of the multitude. Jaffery stood and watched it until it
+disappeared round the curve. In my eagerness to throw the unnecessarily
+symbolic rice I had followed and stayed a foot or two away from him; and
+then I saw his face change--just for a few seconds. All the joyousness
+was stricken from it; his features puckered up into the familiar twists
+of a child about to cry. His huge glazed hands clenched and unclenched
+themselves. It was astonishing and very pitiful. Quickly he gulped
+something down and turned on me with a grin and shook me by the
+shoulders.
+
+"Now I'm the only free man of the bunch. The only one. Don't you wish
+you were a bachelor and could go to Hell or Honolulu--wherever you chose
+without a care? Ho! ho! ho!" He linked his arm in mine, and said in what
+he thought was a whisper: "For Heaven's sake let us go in and try to
+find a real drink."
+
+We went into a deserted smoking-room where decanters and siphons were
+set out. Jaffery helped himself to a mighty whisky and soda and poured
+it down his throat.
+
+"You seemed to want that," said I, drily.
+
+"It's this infernal kit," said he, with a gesture including his frock
+coat and patent leather boots. "For gossamer comfort give me a suit of
+armour. At any rate that's a man's kit."
+
+I made some jesting answer; but it had been given to me to see that
+transient shadow of pain and despair, and I knew that the discomfort of
+the garments of civilisation had nothing to do with the swallowing of
+the huge jorum of alcohol.
+
+Of course I told Barbara all about it--it is best to establish your wife
+in the habit of thinking you tell her everything--and she was more than
+usually gentle to Jaffery. We carried him down with us to Northlands
+that afternoon, calling at his club for a suit-case. In the car he
+tucked a very tired and comfort-desiring Susan in the shelter of his
+great arm. There was something pathetically tender in the gathering of
+the child to him. Barbara with her delicate woman's sense felt the
+harmonics of chords swept within him. And when we reached home and were
+alone together, she said with tears very near her eyes:
+
+"Poor old Jaff. What a waste of a life!"
+
+"My dear," I replied, "so said Doria. But you speak with the tongue of
+an angel, whereas Doria, I'm afraid, is still earth-bound."
+
+The tear fell with a laugh. She touched my cheek with her hand.
+
+"When you're intelligent like that," she said, "I really love you."
+
+For a mere man to be certified by Barbara as intelligent is praise
+indeed.
+
+"I wonder," she said, a little later, "whether those two are going to be
+happy?"
+
+"As happy," said I, "as a mutual admiration society of two people can
+possibly be."
+
+She rebuked me for a tinge of cynicism in my estimate. They were both of
+them dears and the marriage was genuine Heaven-made goods. I avowed
+absolute agreement.
+
+"But what would have happened," she said reflectively, "if Jaffery had
+come along first and there had been no question of Adrian. Would they
+have been happy?"
+
+Then I found my opportunity. "Woman," said I, "aren't you satisfied? You
+have made one match--you, and you'll pardon me for saying so, not
+Heaven--and now you want to unmake it and make a brand-new hypothetical
+one."
+
+"All your talk," she said, "doesn't help poor Jaffery."
+
+I put my hand to my head to still the flickering in my brain, kissed her
+and retired to my dressing-room. Barbara smiled, conscious of triumph
+over me.
+
+During dinner and afterwards in the drawing-room, she played the part of
+Jaffery's fairy mother. She discussed his homelessness--she had an eerie
+way of treading on delicate ground. A bed in a tent or a club or an inn.
+That was his home. He had no possessions.
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "I should think I have. I've got about three
+hundred stuffed head of game stored in the London Repository, to say
+nothing of skins and as fine a collection of modern weapons as you ever
+saw. I could furnish a place in slap-up style to-morrow."
+
+"But have you a chest of drawers or a pillow slip or a book or a dinner
+plate or a fork?"
+
+"Thousands, my dear," said Jaffery. "They're waiting to be called for in
+all the shops of London."
+
+He laughed his great laugh at Barbara's momentary discomfiture. I
+laughed too, for he had scored a point. When a man has, say, a thousand
+pounds wherewith to buy that much money's worth of household clutter, he
+certainly is that household clutter's potential owner. Between us we
+developed this incontrovertible proposition.
+
+"Then why," said Barbara, "don't you go at once to Harrod's Stores and
+purchase a comfortable home?"
+
+"Because, my dear Barbara," said Jaffery, "I'm starting off for the
+interior of China the day after to-morrow."
+
+"China?" echoed Barbara vaguely.
+
+"The interior of China?" I reechoed, with masculine definiteness.
+
+"Why not? It isn't in Neptune or Uranus. You wouldn't go into hysterics
+if I said I was going to Boulogne. Let him come with me, Barbara. It
+would do him a thundering lot of good."
+
+At this very faintly humorous proposal he laughed immoderately. I need
+not say that I declined it. I should be as happy in the interior of
+China as on an Albanian mountain. I asked him how long he would be away.
+
+"A year or two," he replied casually.
+
+"It must be a queer thing," said I, "to be born with no conception of
+time and space."
+
+"A couple of years pass pretty quick," said Jaffery.
+
+"So does a lifetime," said I.
+
+Well, this was just like Jaffery. No sooner home amid the amenities of
+civilisation than the wander-fever seizes him again. In vain he pleaded
+his job, the valuable copy he would send to his paper. I proved to him
+it was but the mere lust of savagery. And he could not understand why we
+should be startled by the announcement that within forty-eight hours he
+would be on his way to lose himself for a couple of years in Crim
+Tartary.
+
+"Suppose I sprang a thing like that on you," said I. "Suppose I told you
+I was starting to-morrow morning for the South Pole. What would you
+say?"
+
+"I should say you were a liar. Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+In his mirth he rubbed his hands and feet together like a colossal fly.
+The joke lasted him for the rest of the evening.
+
+So, the next morning Jaffery left us with a "See you as soon as ever I
+get back," and the day after that he sailed for China. We felt sad; not
+only because Jaffery's vitality counted for something in the quiet
+backwater of our life, but also because we knew that he went away a less
+happy man than he had come. This time it was not sheer _Wanderlust_ that
+had driven him into the wilderness. He had fled in the blind hope of
+escaping from the unescapable. The ogre to whatsoever No Man's Land he
+betook himself would forever be haunted by the phantom of the elf. . . .
+It was just as well he had gone, said Barbara.
+
+A man of intense appetites and primitive passions, like Jaffery, for all
+his loyalty and lovable childishness, was better away from the
+neighbour's wife who had happened to engage his affections. If he lost
+his head. . . .
+
+I had once seen Jaffery lose his head and the spectacle did not make for
+edification. It was before I was married, when Jaffery, during his
+London sojourn, had the spare bedroom in a set of rooms I rented in
+Tavistock Square. At a florist's hard by, a young flower seller--a hussy
+if ever there was one--but bewitchingly pretty--carried on her poetical
+avocation; and of her did my hulking and then susceptible friend become
+ragingly enamoured. I repeat, she was a hussy. She had no intention of
+giving him more than the tip of her pretty little shoe to kiss; but
+Jaffery, reading the promise of secular paradise in her eyes, had no
+notion of her little hard intention. He squandered himself upon her and
+she led him a dog's life. Of course I remonstrated, argued, implored. It
+was like asking a hurricane politely not to blow. Her name I remember
+was Gwenny. One summer evening she had promised to meet him outside the
+house in Tavistock Square--he had arranged to take her to some Earl's
+Court Exhibition, where she could satiate a depraved passion for
+switch-backs, water-chutes and scenic railways. At the appointed hour
+Jaffery stood in waiting on the pavement. I sat on the first floor
+balcony, alternately reading a novel and watching him with a sardonic
+eye. Presently Gwenny turned the corner of the square--our house was a
+few doors up--and she appeared, on the opposite side of the road, by the
+square railings. But Gwenny was not alone. Gwenny, rigged out in the
+height of Bloomsbury florists' fashion, was ostentatiously accompanied
+by a young man, a very scrubby, pallid, ignoble young man; his arm was
+round her waist, and her arm was around his, in the approved enlinkment
+of couples in her class who are keeping company, or, in other words,
+are, or are about to be, engaged to be married. A curious shock vibrated
+through Jaffery's frame. He flamed red. He saw red. Gwenny shot a
+supercilious glance and tossed her chin. Jaffery crossed the road and
+barred their path. He fished in his pocket for some coins and addressed
+the scrubby man, who, poor wretch, had never heard of Jaffery's
+existence.
+
+"Here's twopence to go away. Take the twopence and go away. Damn
+you--take the twopence."
+
+The man retreated in a scare.
+
+"Won't you take the twopence? I should advise you to."
+
+Anybody but a born fool or a hero would have taken the twopence. I think
+the scrubby man had the makings of a hero. He looked up at the blazing
+giant.
+
+"You be damned!" said he, retreating a pace.
+
+Then, suddenly, with the swiftness of a panther, Jaffery sprang on him,
+grasped him in the back by a clump of clothes--it seemed, with one hand,
+so quickly was it done--and hurled him yards away over the railings. I
+can still see the flight of the poor devil's body in mid air until it
+fell into a holly-bush. With another spring he turned on the paralysed
+Gwenny, caught her up like a doll and charged with her now screaming
+violently against the shut solid oak front door. A flash of instinct
+suggested a latchkey. Holding the girl anyhow, he fumbled in his pocket.
+It was an August London evening. The Square was deserted; but at
+Gwenny's shrieks, neighbouring windows were thrown up and eager heads
+appeared. It was very funny. There was Jaffery holding a squalling girl
+in one arm and with the other exploring available pockets for his
+latchkey. I had one of the inspirations of my life. I rushed into my
+bedroom, caught up the ewer from my washstand, went out onto the extreme
+edge of the balcony and cast the gallon or so of water over the heads of
+the struggling pair. The effect was amazing. Jaffery dropped the girl.
+The girl, once on her feet, fled like a cat. Jaffery looked up
+idiotically. I flourished the empty jug. I think I threatened to brain
+him with it if he stirred. Then people began to pour out of the houses
+and a policeman sprang up from nowhere. I went down and joined the
+excited throng. There was a dreadful to-do. It cost Jaffery five hundred
+pounds to mitigate the righteous wrath of the young man in the
+holly-bush, and save himself from a dungeon-cell. The scrubby young man,
+who, it appeared, had been brought up in the fishmongering trade, used
+the five hundred pounds to set up for himself in Ealing, where very
+shortly afterwards Gwenny joined him, and that, save an enduring
+ashamedness on the part of Jaffery, was the end of the matter.
+
+So, if Jaffery did lose his head over Doria, there might be the devil to
+pay. We sighed and reconciled ourselves to his exile in Crim Tartary.
+After all, it was his business in life to visit the dark places of the
+earth and keep the world informed of history in the making. And it was a
+business which could not possibly be carried on in the most cunningly
+devised home that could be purchased at Harrod's Stores.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In the course of time Adrian and Doria returned from Venice, their heads
+full of pictures and lagoons and palaces, and took proud possession of
+their spacious flat in St. John's Wood. They were radiantly happy, very
+much in love with each other. Having brought a common vision to bear
+upon the glories of nature and art which they had beheld, they were
+spared the little squabbles over matters of aesthetic taste which often
+are so disastrous to the serenity of a honeymoon. Touchingly they
+expounded their views in the first person plural. Even Adrian, whom I
+must confess to have regarded as an unblushing egotist, seldom delivered
+himself of an egotistical opinion. "We don't despise the Eclectics,"
+said he. And--"We prefer the Lombardic architecture to the purely
+Venetian," said Doria. And "we" found good in Italian wines and "we"
+found nothing but hideousness in Murano glass. They were, therefore, in
+perfect accord over decoration and furnishing. The only difference I
+could see between them was that Adrian loved to wallow in the comfort of
+a club or another person's house, but insisted on elegant austerity in
+his own home, whereas Doria loved elegant austerity everywhere. So they
+had a pure Jacobean entrance hall, a Louis XV drawing-room, an Empire
+bedroom, and as far as I could judge by the barrenness of the apartment,
+a Spartan study for Adrian.
+
+On our first visit, they triumphantly showed us round the establishment.
+We came last to the study.
+
+"No really fine imaginative work," said Adrian, with a wave of the hand
+indicating the ascetic table and chair, the iron safe, the bookcase and
+the bare walls--"no really fine imaginative work can be done among
+luxurious surroundings. Pictures distract one's attention, arm-chairs
+and sofas invite to sloth. This is my ideal of a novelist's workshop."
+
+"It's more like a workhouse," said Barbara, with a shiver. "Or a
+condemned cell. But even a condemned cell would have a plank bed in it."
+
+"You don't understand a bit," said Doria, with a touch of resentment at
+adverse criticism of her paragon's idiosyncrasies, "although Adrian has
+tried to explain it to you. It's specially arranged for concentration of
+mind. If it weren't for the necessity of having something to sit upon
+and something to write at and a few necessary reference books and a
+lock-up place, we should have had nothing in the room at all. When
+Adrian wants to relax and live his ordinary human life, he only has to
+walk out of the door and there he is in the midst of beautiful things."
+
+"Oh, I quite see, dear," said Barbara, with a familiar little flash in
+her blue eyes. "But do you think a leather seat for that hard wooden
+chair--what the French call a _rond-de-cuir_--would very greatly impair
+the poor fellow's imagination?"
+
+"It might be economical, too," said I, "in the way of saving
+shininess!--"
+
+Adrian laughed. "It does look a bit hard, darling," said he.
+
+"We'll get a leather seat to-day," replied Doria.
+
+But she did not smile. Evidently to her the spot on which Adrian sat was
+sacrosanct. The room was the Holy of Holies where mortal man put on
+immortality. Flippant comment sounded like blasphemy in her ears. She
+even grew somewhat impatient at our lingering in the august precincts,
+although they had not yet been consecrated by inspired labour. Their
+unblessed condition was obvious. On the large library table were a
+couple of brass candlesticks with fresh candles (Adrian could not work
+by electric light), a couple of reams of scribbling paper, an inkpot, an
+immaculate blotting pad, three virgin quill pens (it was one of Adrian's
+whimsies to write always with quills), lying in a brass dish, and an
+office stationery case closed and aggressively new. The sight of this
+last monstrosity, I thought, would play the deuce with my imagination
+and send it on a devastating tour round the Tottenham Court Road, but
+not having the artistic temperament and catching a glance of challenge
+from Doria, I forebore to make ignorant criticism.
+
+In the bedroom while Barbara was putting on her veil and powdering her
+nose (this may be what grammarians call a _hysteron proteron_--but with
+women one never can tell)--Doria broke into confidences not meet for
+masculine ears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Oh, darling," she cried, looking at Barbara with great awe-stricken
+eyes, "you can't tell what it means to be married to a genius like
+Adrian. I feel like one of the Daughters of Men that has been looked
+upon by one of the Sons of God. It's so strange. In ordinary life he's
+so dear and human--responsive, you know, to everything I feel and
+think--and sometimes I quite forget he's different from me. But at
+others, I'm overwhelmed by the thought of the life going on inside his
+soul that I can never, never share--I can only see the spirit that
+conceived 'The Diamond Gate'--don't you understand, darling?--and that
+is even now creating some new thing of wonder and beauty. I feel so
+little beside him. What more can I give him beyond what I have given?"
+
+Barbara took the girl's tense face between her two hands and smiled and
+kissed her.
+
+"Give him," said she, "ammoniated quinine whenever he sneezes."
+
+Then she laughed and embraced the Heavenly One's wife, who, for the
+moment, had not quite decided whether to feel outraged or not, and
+discoursed sweet reasonableness.
+
+"I should treat your genius, dear, just as I treat my stupid old
+Hilary."
+
+She proceeded to describe the treatment. What it was, I do not know,
+because Barbara refused to tell me. But I can make a shrewd guess. It's
+a subtle scheme which she thinks is hidden from me; but really it is so
+transparent that a babe could see through it. I, like any wise husband,
+make, however, a fine assumption of blindness, and consequently lead a
+life of unruffled comfort.
+
+Whether Doria followed the advice I am not certain. I have my doubts.
+Barbara has never knelt by the side of her stupid old Hilary's chair and
+worshipped him as a god. She is an excellent wife and I've no fault to
+find with her; but she has never done that, and she is the last woman in
+the world to counsel any wife to do it. Personally, I should hate to be
+worshipped. In worship hours I should be smoking a cigar, and who with a
+sense of congruity can imagine a god smoking a cigar? Besides, worship
+would bore me to paralysis. But Adrian loved it. He lived on it, just as
+the new hand in a chocolate factory lives on chocolate creams. The more
+he was worshipped the happier he became. And while consuming adoration
+he had a young Dionysian way of inhaling a cigarette--a way which
+Dionysus, poor god, might have exhibited, had tobacco grown with the
+grape on Mount Cithaeron--and a way of exhaling a cloud of smoke, holier
+than the fumes of incense in the nostrils of the adorer, which moved me
+at once to envy and exasperation.
+
+Yes, there he would sprawl, whenever I saw them together, either in
+their own flat or at our house (more luxuriously at Northlands than in
+St. John's Wood, owing to the greater prevalence of upholstered
+furniture), cigarette between delicate fingers, paradox on his tongue
+and a Christopher Sly beatitude on his face, while Doria, chin on palm,
+and her great eyes set on him, drank in all the wonder of this
+miraculous being.
+
+I said to Barbara: "She's making a besotted idiot of the man."
+
+Barbara professed rare agreement. But . . . the woman's point of
+view. . . .
+
+"I don't worry about him," she said. "It's of her I'm thinking. When she
+has turned him into the idiot--"
+
+"She'll adore him all the more," I interrupted.
+
+"But when she finds out the idiot she has made?"
+
+"No woman has ever done that since the world began," said I. "The
+unwavering love of woman for her home-made idiot is her sole
+consistency."
+
+Barbara with much puckering of brow sought for argument, but found none,
+the proposition being incontrovertible. She mused for a while and then,
+quickly, a smile replaced the frown.
+
+"I suppose that is why I go on loving you, Hilary dear," she said
+sweetly.
+
+I turned upon her, with my hand, as it were, on the floodgates of a
+torrent of eloquence; but with her silvery mocking laugh she vanished
+from the apartment. She did. The old-fashioned high-falutin' phrase is
+the best description I can give of the elusive uncapturable nature of
+this wife of mine. It is a pity that she has so little to do with the
+story of Jaffery which I am trying to relate, for I should like to make
+her the heroine. You see, I know her so well, or imagine I do, which
+comes to the same thing, and I should love to present you with a
+solution, of this perplexing, exasperating, adorable, high-souled
+conundrum that is Barbara Freeth. But she, like myself, is but a
+_raisonneur_ in the drama, and so, reluctantly, I must keep her in the
+background. _Paullo majora canamus_. Let us come to the horses.
+
+All this, time we had not lost sight of Liosha. As deputies for the
+absent trustee we received periodical reports from the admirable Mrs.
+Considine, and entertained both ladies for an occasional week-end. On
+the whole, her demeanour in the Queen's Gate boarding-house was
+satisfactory. At first trouble arose over a young curly haired Swiss
+waiter who had won her sympathy in the matter of a broken heart. She had
+entered the dining-room when he was laying the table and discovered him
+watering the knives and forks with tears. Unaccustomed to see men weep,
+she enquired the cause. He dried his eyes with a napkin and told a
+woeful tale of a faithless love in Neuchatel, a widow plump and
+well-to-do. He had looked forward to marry her at the end of the year,
+and to pass an unruffled life in the snugness of the _delicatessen_ shop
+which she conducted with such skill; but now alas, she had announced her
+engagement to another, and his dream of bliss among the chitterlings and
+liver-sausages was shattered. Herr Gott! what was he to do? Liosha
+counselled immediate return to Neuchatel and assassination of his rival.
+To kill another man for her was the surest way to a woman's heart. The
+waiter approved the scheme, but lacked the courage--also the money to go
+to Neuchatel. Liosha, espousing his cause warmly, gave him the latter at
+once. The former she set to work to instil into him. She waylaid him at
+odd corners in odd moments, much to the scandal of the guests, and
+sought to inspire him with the true Balkan spirit. She even supplied him
+with an Albanian knife, dangerously sharp. At last, the poor craven,
+finding himself unwillingly driven into crime, sought from the mistress
+of the boarding-house protection against his champion. Mrs. Considine,
+called into consultation, was informed that Mrs. Prescott must either
+cease from instigating the waiters to commit murder or find other
+quarters. Liosha curled a contemptuous lip.
+
+"If you think I'm going to have anything more to do with the little
+skunk, you're mistaken."
+
+And that evening when Josef, serving coffee in the drawing-room,
+approached her with the tray, she waved him off.
+
+"See here," she said calmly, "just you keep out of my way or I might
+tread on you."
+
+Whereupon the terrified Josef, amid the tittering hush of the genteel
+assembly, bolted from the room, and then solved the whole difficulty by
+bolting from the house, never to return.
+
+When taken to task by Barbara over the ethics of this matter, Liosha
+shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
+
+"I guess," she said, "if a man loves a woman strongly enough to cry for
+her, he ought to know what to do with the guy that butted in, without
+being told."
+
+"But you don't seem to understand what a terrible thing it is to take
+the life of a human being," said Barbara.
+
+"I can understand how you feel," Liosha admitted. "But I don't feel
+about it the same as you. I've been brought up different."
+
+"You see, my dear Barbara," I interposed judicially, "her father made
+his living by slaughter before she was born. When he finished with the
+pigs he took on humans who displeased him."
+
+"And they were worse than the pigs," said Liosha.
+
+Barbara sighed, for Liosha remained unconvinced; but she extracted a
+promise from our fair barbarian never to shoot or jab a knife into
+anyone before consulting her as to the propriety of so doing.
+
+But for this and for one or two other trivial lapses from grace, Liosha
+led a pretty equable existence at the boarding-house. If she now and
+then scandalised the inmates by her unconventional habits and free
+expressions of opinion, she compensated by affording them a chronic
+topic of conversation. A large though somewhat scornful generosity also
+established her in their esteem. She would lend or give anything she
+possessed. When one of the forlorn and woollen-shawled old maids fell
+ill, she sat up of nights with her, and in spite of her ignorance of
+nursing, which was as vast as that of a rhinoceros, magnetised the
+fragile lady into well-being. I think she was fairly happy. If London
+had been situated amid gorges and crags and ravines and granite cliffs
+she would have been completely so. She yearned for mountains. Mrs.
+Considine to satisfy this nostalgia took her for a week's trip to the
+English Lakes. She returned railing at Scawfell and Skiddaw for
+unimportant undulations, and declaring her preference for London. So in
+London she remained.
+
+In these early stages of our acquaintance with Liosha, she counted in
+our lives for little more than a freakish interest. Even in the crises
+of her naughtiness anxiety as to her welfare did not rob us of our
+night's sleep. She existed for us rather as a toy personality whose
+quaint vagaries afforded us constant amusement than as an intense human
+soul. The working out of her destiny did not come within the sphere of
+our emotional sympathies like that of Adrian and Doria. The latter were
+of our own kind and class, bound to us not only by the common traditions
+of centuries, but by ties of many years' affection. It is only natural
+that we should have watched them more closely and involved ourselves
+more intimately in their scheme of things.
+
+The first fine rapture of house-pride having grown calm, the Bolderos
+settled down to the serene beatitude of the Higher Life tempered by the
+amenities of commonplace existence. When Adrian worked, Doria read Dante
+and attended performances of the Intellectual Drama; when Adrian
+relaxed, she cooked dainties in a chafing dish and accompanied him to
+Musical Comedy. They entertained in a gracious modest way, and went out
+into cultivated society. The Art of Life, they declared, was to catch
+atmosphere, whatever that might mean. Adrian explained, with the gentle
+pity of one addressing himself to the childish intelligence.
+
+"It's merely the perfect freedom of mental adaptation. To discuss
+pragmatism while eating oysters would be destructive to the enjoyment
+afforded by the delicate sense of taste, whereas, to let one's mind
+wander from the plane of philosophic thought when preparing for a
+Hauptmann or a Strindberg play would lead to nothing less than the
+disaster of disequilibrium."
+
+Saying this he caught my cold, unsympathetic gaze, but I think I noticed
+the flicker of an eyelid. Doria, however, nodded, in wide-eyed approval.
+So I suppose they really did practise between themselves these modal
+gymnastics. They were all of a piece with the "atmospheres" evoked in
+the various rooms of the flat. To Barbara and myself, comfortable
+Philistines, all this appeared exceeding lunatic. But every married
+couple has a right to lay out its plan of happiness in its own way. If
+we had made taboo of irrelevant gossip between the acts of a serious
+play our evening would have been a failure. Theirs would have been, and,
+in fact, was a success. Connubial felicity they certainly achieved: and
+what else but an impertinence is a criticism of the means?
+
+Easter came. They had been married six months. "The Diamond Gate" had
+been published for nearly a year and was still selling in England and
+America. Adrian flourishing his first half-yearly cheque in January had
+vowed he had no idea there was so much money in the world. He basked in
+Fortune's sunshine. But for all the basking and all the syllabus of the
+perfect existence, and all his unquestionable love for Doria, and all
+her worship for him together with its manifestation in her admirable
+care for his material well-being, Adrian, just at this Eastertide, began
+to strike me as a man lacking some essential of happiness. They spent a
+week or so with us at Northlands. Adrian confessed dog-weariness. His
+looks confirmed his words. A vertical furrow between the brows and a
+little dragging line at each corner of the mouth below the fair
+moustache forbade the familiar mockery in his pleasant face. In moments
+of repose the cross of strain, almost suggestive of a squint, appeared
+in his blue eyes. He was no longer debonair, no longer the lightly
+laughing philosopher, the preacher of paradox seeing flippancy in the
+Money Article and sorrowful wisdom in Little Tich. He was morose and
+irritable. He had acquired a nervous habit of secretly rubbing his
+thumbs swiftly over his finger-tips when Doria, in her pride, spoke of
+his work, which amounted almost to ill-breeding. It was only late at
+night during our last smoke that he assumed a semblance of the old
+Adrian; and by that time he had consumed as much champagne and brandy as
+would have rendered jocose the prophet Jeremiah.
+
+He was suffering, poor fellow, from a nervous breakdown. From Doria we
+learned the cause. For the last three months he had been working at
+insane pressure. At seven he rose; at a quarter to eight he
+breakfasted; at half past he betook himself to his ascetic workroom and
+remained there till half-past one. At four o'clock he began a three-hour
+spell of work. At night a four hours' spell--from nine to one, if they
+had no evening engagement, from midnight to four o'clock in the morning
+if they had been out.
+
+"But, my darling child!" cried Barbara, aghast when she heard of this
+maniacal time-table, "you must put your foot down. You mustn't let him
+do it. He is killing himself."
+
+"No man," said I, in warm support of my wife, "can go on putting out
+creative work for more than four hours a day. Quite famous novelists
+whom I meet at the Athenaeum have told me so themselves. Even prodigious
+people like Sir Walter Scott and Zola--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Doria. "But they were not Adrian. Every artist must be
+a law to himself. Adrian's different. Why--those two that you've
+mentioned--they slung out stuff by the bucketful. It didn't matter to
+them what they wrote. But Adrian has to get the rhythm and the balance
+and the beauty of every sentence he writes--to say nothing of the
+subtlety of his analysis and the perfect drawing of his pictures. My
+dear, good people"--she threw out her hands in an impatient
+gesture--"you don't know what you're talking about. How can you? It's
+impossible for you to conceive--it's almost impossible even for me to
+conceive--the creative workings of the mind of a man of genius. Four
+hours a day! Your mechanical fiction-monger, yes. Four hours a day is
+stamped all over the slack drivel they publish. But you can't imagine
+that work like Adrian's is to be done in this dead mechanical way."
+
+"It is you that don't quite understand," I protested. "My admiration for
+Adrian's genius is second to none but yours. But I repeat that no human
+brain since the beginning of time has been capable of spinning cobwebs
+of fancy for twelve hours a day, day in and day out for months at a
+time. Look at your husband. He has tried it. Does he sleep well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Has he a hearty appetite?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is he a light-hearted, cheery sort of chap to have about the place?"
+
+"He's naturally tired, after his winter's work," said Doria.
+
+"He's played out," said I, "and if you are a wise woman, you'll take him
+away for a couple of months' rest, and when he gets back, see that he
+works at lower pressure."
+
+Doria promised to do her best; but she sighed.
+
+"You don't realise Adrian's iron will."
+
+Once more I recognised with a shock that I did not know my Adrian. I
+used to think one could blow the thistledown fellow about whithersoever
+one pleased. Of the two, Doria seemed to have unquestionably the
+stronger will-power.
+
+"Surely," said I, "you can twist him round your little finger."
+
+Doria sighed again--and a wanly indulgent smile played about her lips.
+
+"You two dear people are so sensible, that it makes me almost angry to
+see how you can't begin to understand Adrian. As a man, of course I have
+a certain influence over him. But as an artist--how can I? He's a thing
+apart from me altogether. I know perfectly well that thousands of
+artists' wives wreck their happiness through sheer, stupid jealousy of
+their husbands' art. I'm not such a narrow-minded, contemptible woman."
+She threw her little head up proudly. "I should loathe myself if I
+grudged one hour that Adrian gave to his work instead of to me."
+
+This time Barbara and I sighed, for we realised how vain had been our
+arguments. Our considerably greater knowledge of life, our stark
+common-sense, our deep affection for Adrian counted as naught beside the
+fact that we had no experience whatever in the rearing of a genius.
+
+That word "genius" came too often from Doria's lips. At first it
+irritated me; then I heard it with morbid detestation. In the course of
+a more or less intimate conversation with Adrian, I let slip a mild
+expression of my feelings. He groaned sympathetically.
+
+"I wish to heaven she wouldn't do it," said he. "It puts a man into such
+a horrible false position towards himself. It's beautiful of her, of
+course--it's her love for me. But it gets on my nerves. Instead of
+sitting down at my desk with nothing in my mind but my day's work to
+slog through, I hear her voice and I have to say to myself, 'Go to. I am
+a genius. I mustn't write like any common fellow. I must produce the
+work of a genius.' It really plays the devil with me."
+
+He walked excitedly about the library, flourishing a cigar and
+scattering the ash about the carpet. I am pernicketty in a few ways and
+hate tobacco ash on my carpet; every room in the house is an arsenal of
+ash trays. In normal mood Adrian punctiliously observed the little laws
+of the establishment. This scattering of cigar ash was a sign of
+spiritual convulsion.
+
+"Have you explained the matter to Doria?" I asked.
+
+He halted before me performing his new uncomfortable trick of slithering
+thumb over finger tips.
+
+"No," he snapped. "How can I?"
+
+I replied, mildly, that it seemed to be the simplest thing in the world.
+He broke away impatiently, saying that I couldn't understand.
+
+"All right," said I, though what there was to understand in so
+elementary a proposition goodness only knows. I was beginning to resent
+this perpetual charge of non-intelligence.
+
+"I think we had better clear out," he said. "I'm only a damned nuisance.
+I've got this book of mine on the brain"--he held up his head with both
+hands--"and I'm not a fit companion for anybody."
+
+I adjured him in familiar terms not to talk rubbish. He was here for the
+repose of country things and freedom from day-infesting cares. Already
+he was looking better for the change. But I could not refrain from
+adding:
+
+"You wrote 'The Diamond Gate' without turning a hair. Why should you
+worry yourself to death about this new book?"
+
+When he answered I had the shivering impression of a wizened old man
+speaking to me. The slight cast I had noticed in his blue eyes became
+oddly accentuated.
+
+"'The Diamond Gate,'" he said, peering at me uncannily, "was just a
+pretty amateur story. The new book is going to stagger the soul of
+humanity."
+
+"I wish you weren't such a secretive devil," said I. "What's the book
+about? Tell an old friend. Get it off your mind. It will do you good."
+
+I put my arm round his shoulders and my hand gave him an affectionate
+grip. My heart ached for the dear fellow, and I longed, in the plain
+man's way, to break down the walls of reserve, which like those of the
+Inquisition Chamber, I felt were closing tragically upon him.
+
+"Come, come," I continued. "Get it out. It's obvious that the thing is
+suffocating you. I'll tell nobody--not even that you've told me--neither
+Doria nor Barbara--it will be the confidence of the confessional. You'll
+be all the better for it. Believe me."
+
+He shrugged himself free from my grasp and turned away; his nervous
+fingers plucked unconsciously at his evening tie until it was loosened
+and the ends hung dissolutely over his shirt front.
+
+"You're very good, Hilary," said he, looking at every spot in the room
+except my eyes. "If I could tell you, I would. But it's an enormous
+canvas. I could give you no idea--" The furrow deepened between his
+brows--"If I told you the scheme you would get about the same dramatic
+impression as if you read, say, the letter R, in a dictionary. I'm
+putting into this novel," he flickered his fingers in front of
+me--"everything that ever happened in human life."
+
+I regarded him in some wonder.
+
+"My dear fellow," said I, "you can't compress a Liebig's Extract of
+Existence between the covers of a six-shilling novel."
+
+"I can," said he, "I can!" He thumped my writing table, so that all the
+loose brass and glass on it rattled. "And by God! I'm going to do it."
+
+"But, my dearest friend," I expostulated, "this is absurd. It's
+megalomania--_la folie des grandeurs_."
+
+"It's the divinest folly in the world," said he.
+
+He threw a cigar stump into the fireplace and poured himself out and
+drank a stiff whisky and soda. Then he laughed in imitation of his
+familiar self.
+
+"You dear prim old prig of a Hilary, don't worry. It's all going to come
+straight. When the novel of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth
+centuries is published I guess you'll be proud of me. And now,
+good-night."
+
+He laughed, waved his arm in a cavalier gesture and went from the room,
+slamming the door masterfully behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+We kept the unreasonable pair at Northlands as long as we could, doing
+all that lay in our power to restore Adrian's idiotically impaired
+health. I motored him about the county; I took him to golf, a pastime at
+which I do not excel; and I initiated him into the invigorating
+mysteries of playing at robbers with Susan. We gave a carefully selected
+dinner-party or two, and accepted on his behalf a few discreet
+invitations. At these entertainments--whether at Northlands or
+elsewhere--we caused it to be understood that the lion, being sick,
+should not be asked to roar.
+
+"It's so trying for him," said Doria, "when people he doesn't know come
+up and gush over 'The Diamond Gate'--especially now when his nerves are
+on edge."
+
+On the occasion of our second dinner-party, the guests having been
+forewarned of the famous man's idiosyncrasies, no reference whatever was
+made to his achievements. We sat him between two pretty and charming
+women who chattered amusingly to him with what I, who kept an eye open
+and an ear cocked, considered to be a very subtly flattering deference.
+Adrian responded with adequate animation. As an ordinary clever,
+well-bred man of the world he might have done this almost mechanically;
+but I fancied that he found real enjoyment in the light and picturesque
+talk of his two neighbours. When the ladies left us, he discussed easy
+politics with the Member for our own division of the County. In the
+drawing-room, afterwards, he played a rubber at bridge, happened to
+hold good cards and smiled an hour away. When the last guest departed,
+he yawned, excused himself on the ground of healthy fatigue and went
+straight off to bed. Barbara and I congratulated ourselves on the
+success of our dinner-party. The next day Adrian went about as glum as a
+dinosaur in a museum, and conveyed, even to Susan's childish mind, his
+desire for solitude. His hang-dog dismalness so affected my wife, that
+she challenged Doria.
+
+"What in the world is the matter with him, to-day?"
+
+Doria drew herself up and flashed a glance at Barbara--they were both
+little bantams of women, one dark as wine, the other fair as corn. If
+ever these two should come to a fight, thought I who looked on, it would
+be to the death.
+
+"Your friends are very charming, my dear, and of course I've nothing to
+say against them; but I was under the impression that every educated
+person in the English-speaking world knew my husband's name, and I
+consider the way he was ignored last night by those people was
+disgraceful."
+
+"But, my dear Doria," cried Barbara, aghast, "we thought that Adrian was
+having quite a good time."
+
+"You may think so, but he wasn't. Adrian's a gentleman and plays the
+game; but you must see it was very galling to him--and to me--to be
+treated like any stockbroker--or architect--or idle man about town."
+
+"You are unfortunate in your examples," said I, intervening judicially.
+"Pray reflect that there are architects alive whose artistic genius is
+not far inferior to Adrian's."
+
+"You know very well what I mean," she snapped.
+
+"No, we don't, dear," said Barbara dangerously. "We think you're a
+little idiot and ought to be ashamed of yourself. We took the trouble to
+tell every one of those people that Adrian hated any reference to his
+work, and like decent folk they didn't refer to it. There--now round
+upon us."
+
+The pallor deepened a shade in Doria's ivory cheek.
+
+"You have put me in the wrong, I admit it. But I think it would have
+been better to let us know."
+
+What could one do with such people? I was inclined to let them work out
+their salvation in their own eccentric fashion; but Barbara decided
+otherwise. When one's friends reached such a degree of lunacy as
+warranted confinement in an asylum, it was one's plain duty to look
+after them. So we continued to look after our genius and his worshipper,
+and we did it so successfully that before he left us he recovered his
+sleep in some measure, and lost the squinting look of strain in his
+eyes.
+
+On the morning of their departure I mildly counselled him to temper his
+fine frenzy with common-sense.
+
+"Knock off the night work," said I.
+
+He frowned, fidgeted with his feet.
+
+"I wish to God I hadn't to work at all," said he. "I hate it! I'd sooner
+be a coal-heaver."
+
+"Bosh!" said I. "I know that you're an essentially idle beggar; but
+you're as proud as Punch of your fame and success and all that it means
+to you."
+
+"What does it mean after all?"
+
+"If you talk in that pessimistic way," I said, "you'll make me cry.
+Don't. It means every blessed thing in the world to you. At any rate it
+has meant Doria."
+
+"I suppose that's true," he grunted. "And I suppose I am essentially
+idle. But I wish the damned thing would get written of its own accord.
+It's having to sit down at that infernal desk that gets on my nerves. I
+have the same horrible apprehension of it--always have--as one has
+before a visit to the dentist, when you know he's going to drill hell
+into you."
+
+"Why do you work in such a depressing room?" I asked. "If I were shut up
+alone in it, I would stick my nose in the air and howl like a dog."
+
+"Oh, the room's all right," said he. Then he looked away absently and
+murmured as if to himself, "It isn't the room."
+
+"Then what is it?" I persisted.
+
+He turned with a dreary sort of smile. "It's the born butterfly being
+condemned to do the work of the busy bee."
+
+A short while afterwards we saw them drive off and watched the car
+disappear round the bend of the drive.
+
+"Well, my dear," said I, "thank goodness I'm not a man of genius."
+
+"Amen!" said Barbara, fervently.
+
+As soon as they had settled down in their flat, Adrian began to work
+again, in the same unremitting fashion. The only concession he made to
+consideration of health was to go to bed immediately on his return from
+dinner-parties and theatres instead of spending three or four hours in
+his study. Otherwise the routine of toil went on as before. One
+afternoon, happening to be in town and in the neighbourhood of St.
+John's Wood, I called at the flat with the idea of asking Doria for a
+cup of tea. I also had in my pocket a letter from Jaffery which I
+thought might interest Adrian. The maid who opened the door informed me
+that her mistress was out. Was Mr. Boldero in? Yes; but he was working.
+
+"That doesn't matter," said I. "Tell him I'm here."
+
+The maid did not dare disturb him. Her orders were absolute. She could
+not refuse to admit me, seeing that I was already in the hall; but she
+stoutly refused to announce me. I argued with the damsel.
+
+"I may have business of the utmost importance with your master."
+
+She couldn't help it. She had her orders.
+
+"But, my good Ellen," said I--the minx had actually been in our service
+a couple of years before!--"suppose the place were on fire, what would
+you do?"
+
+She looked at me demurely. "I think I should call a policeman, sir."
+
+"You can call one now," said I, "for I'm going to announce myself. Don't
+tell me I'll have to walk over your dead body first, for it won't do."
+
+I know it is not looked upon as a friendly act to interrupt a man in his
+work and to disregard the orders given to his servants, but I was
+irritated by all this Grand Llama atmosphere of mysterious seclusion.
+Besides, I had been walking and felt just a little hot and dusty and
+thirsty, and I felt all the hotter, dustier and thirstier for my
+argument with Ellen.
+
+"I'll announce myself," I said, and marched to the door of Adrian's
+study. It was locked. I rapped at the door.
+
+"Who's there?" came Adrian's voice.
+
+"Me. Hilary."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I happen to be a guest under your roof," said I, with a touch of
+temper.
+
+"Wait a minute," said he.
+
+I waited about two. Then the door was unlocked and opened and I strode
+in upon Adrian who looked rather pale and dishevelled.
+
+"Why the deuce," said I, "did you keep me hanging about like that?"
+
+"I'm sorry," he replied. "But I make it a fixed rule to put away my
+work"--he waved a hand towards the safe--"whenever anybody, even Doria,
+wants to come into the room."
+
+I glanced around the cheerless place. There were no traces of work
+visible. Save that the quill pens and blotting pad were inky, his
+library table seemed as immaculate, as unstained by toil, as it did on
+the occasion of my first visit.
+
+"You needn't have made all that fuss," said I. "I only dropped in for a
+second or two. I wanted to ask for a drink and to show you a letter from
+Jaffery."
+
+"Oh, Jaffery!" He smiled. "How's the old barbarian getting on?"
+
+"Tremendously. He's the guest of a Viceroy and living in sumptuousness.
+Read for yourself."
+
+I took from my pocket letter and envelope. Now I am a man who keeps few
+letters and no envelopes. The second post bringing Jaffery's epistle had
+just arrived when I was leaving Northlands that morning, and it was but
+an accident of haste that the envelope had not been destroyed. I took
+the opportunity of tearing it up while Adrian was reading. With the
+pieces in my hand, I peered about the room.
+
+"What are you looking for?" he asked.
+
+"Your waste-paper basket."
+
+"Haven't got such a thing."
+
+I threw my litter into the grate.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm not going to pander to the curiosity of housemaids," he replied
+rather irritably.
+
+"What do you do with your waste paper, then?"
+
+"Never have any," he said, with his eyes on Jaffery's letter.
+
+"Good Lord!" I cried. "Do you pigeon-hole bills and money-lenders'
+circulars and second-hand booksellers' catalogues and all their
+wrappers?"
+
+He folded up the letter, took me by the arm and regarded me with a smile
+of forced patience.
+
+"My dear Hilary, can't you ever understand that this room is just a
+workshop and nothing else? Here I think of nothing but my novel. I would
+as soon think of conducting my social correspondence in the bathroom. If
+you want to see the waste-paper basket where I throw my bills and
+unanswered letters from duchesses, and the desk--I share it with
+Doria--where I dash off my brilliant replies to money-lenders, come into
+the drawing-room. There, also, I shall be able to give you a drink."
+
+My eyes, following an unconscious glance from his, fell upon a new and
+hitherto unnoticed object--a little table, now startlingly obvious, in a
+corner of the all but unfurnished room, bearing a tray with half full
+decanter, syphon and glass.
+
+"You've got all I want here," said I.
+
+"No. That's mere stimulant. _Sapit lucernam_. It has a horrible flavour
+of midnight oil. There's not what you understand by a drink in it. Let's
+get out of the accursed hole."
+
+He dragged me almost by force into the drawing-room, where he
+entertained me courteously. It was curious to observe how his manner
+changed in--I have to use the Boldero jargon--in the different
+atmosphere. He expounded the qualities of his whisky--a present from old
+man Jornicroft, a rare blend which just a few "merchantates" (Barbara's
+word, he declared, was delicious) in Glasgow and Dundee and here and
+there a one in the City of London were able to procure. In its flavour,
+said he, lurked the mystery of strange and barbaric names. He showed me
+a Bonington water colour which he had picked up for a song. On enquiry
+as to the signification of a song as a unit of value, I learned that
+since eminent tenors and divas had sung into gramophones, the standard
+had appreciated.
+
+"My dear man," he laughed, in answer to my protest. "I can afford it."
+
+For the quarter of an hour that I spent with him in his own
+drawing-room, he was quite the old Adrian. I drove to Paddington Station
+under the influence of his urbanity. But in the train, and afterwards at
+home, I was teased by vague apprehensions. Hitherto I had loosely and
+playfully qualified his methods of work as lunatic, without a thought as
+to the exact significance of the term. Now a horrible thought harassed
+me. Had I been precise without knowing it?
+
+Novelists may have their little idiosyncrasies, and the privacy of their
+working hours deserves respect; but none I have ever heard of are such
+fearful wildfowl as to need the precautions with which Adrian surrounded
+himself. Why should he put himself under lock and key? Why should he not
+allow human eye to fall, even from the distance prescribed by good
+manners, upon his precious manuscript? Why need he use care so
+scrupulous as not to expose even torn up bits of rough draft to the
+ancillary publicity of a waste-paper basket? Soundness of mind did not
+lie that way. The terms in which he alluded to his book were not those
+of a sane man filled with the joy of his creation. None of us, not even
+Doria, knew how the story was progressing. He had signed a contract with
+an American editor for serialisation to begin in July. Here we were in
+the middle of May, and not a page of manuscript had been delivered.
+Doria told Barbara that the editor had been cabling frenziedly. How much
+of the story was written? I recalled his wild talk at Easter about
+putting into the novel the whole of human life. I had jested with him,
+calling it a megalomaniac notion. But suppose, unwittingly, I had been
+right? I thought of the ghastly name physicians give to the malady and
+shivered.
+
+Suddenly, a day or two afterwards, came news that, to some extent,
+relieved my mind.
+
+While the Bolderos were at breakfast, a cable arrived from the Editor.
+It ran: "Unless half of manuscript is delivered to-day at London Office
+will cancel contract." Adrian read it, frowned and handed it to Doria.
+It seems that in all business matters she had his confidence.
+
+"Well, dear?" she said, looking up at him.
+
+He broke out angrily. "Did you ever hear such amazing insolence? I give
+this pettifogging tradesman the privilege of publishing my novel in his
+rubbishy periodical and he dares to dictate terms to me! Half a novel,
+indeed! As if it were half a bale of calico. The besotted fool! As well
+ask a clock-maker to deliver half a clock."
+
+"Argument by analogy is rather dangerous," she said gently, seeking to
+turn aside his wrath with a smile. "It's not quite the same thing. Can't
+you give him something to go on with?"
+
+"I can, but I won't. I'll see him damned first." He turned to the maid
+and demanded a telegraph form.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to teach him a lesson. He thinks I'm going to be taken in by
+his bluff and run round with a brown paper parcel to Fleet Street or
+wherever his beastly office is. He's mistaken. There," he wrote the
+cable hurriedly and read it aloud, "'Shall not deliver anything. Only
+too glad to cancel contract.' He'll he the most surprised and disgusted
+man in America!"
+
+"Need you put it quite like that?" said Doria.
+
+"It's the only way to make him understand. He has been buzzing round me
+like a wasp for the past month. Now he's squashed. And now," said he,
+getting up and lighting a cigarette, "I'm not going to do another stroke
+of work for three months."
+
+It was the news of this last announcement that relieved my mind: not the
+story of Adrian's intolerable treatment of the editor, which was of a
+piece with his ordinary attitude towards his own genius. The
+capriciousness of the resolution startled me; but I approved
+whole-heartedly. I would have counselled immediate change of scene, had
+not Adrian anticipated my advice by rushing off then and there to Cook's
+and taken tickets to Switzerland. Having some business in town, I
+motored up with Barbara earlier than I need have done, and we saw them
+off at Victoria Station. Adrian, in holiday spirits, talked rather
+loudly. Now that he was free from the horror of that bestial vampire
+sucking his blood--that was his way of referring to the long suffering
+and hardly used editor--life emerged from gloom into sunshine. Now his
+spirit could soar untrammelled. It had taken its leap into the Empyrean.
+He beheld his book beneath him dazzlingly clear. Three months communing
+with nature, three months solitude on the pure mountain heights, three
+months calm discipline of the soul--that was what he needed. Then to
+work, and in another three months, _currente calamo_, the book would be
+written.
+
+"And what is Doria going to do on top of the Matterhorn?" asked my wife.
+
+Doria cried out, "Oh, don't tease. We're not going near the Matterhorn.
+We're going to read beautiful books, and see beautiful things and think
+beautiful thoughts." She dragged Barbara a step or two aside. "Don't you
+think this is the best thing that could have happened?" she asked, with
+her anxious, earnest gaze.
+
+"The very, very best, dear," replied Barbara gently.
+
+And indeed it was. If ever a man realised himself to be on the verge of
+the abyss, I am sure it was Adrian Boldero. Some haunting fear was set
+at the back of his laughing eyes--the expression of an animal instinct
+for self-preservation which discounted the balderdash about the soaring
+yet disciplined soul.
+
+I whispered to Doria: "Don't go too far into the wilds out of reach of
+medical advice."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You're taking away a sick man."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"I do," said I.
+
+She looked to right and left and then at me full in the face, and she
+gripped my hand.
+
+"You're a good friend, Hilary. God knows I thank you."
+
+From which I clearly understood that her passionately loyal heart was
+grievously sore for Adrian.
+
+During their absence abroad, which lasted much longer than three months,
+we heard fairly regularly from Doria; twice or thrice from Adrian. After
+a time he grew tired of mountaintops and solitude and declared that his
+inspiration required steeping in the past, communion with the hallowed
+monuments of mankind. So they wandered about the old Italian cities,
+until he discovered that the one thing essential to his work was the
+gaiety of cosmopolitan society; whereupon they went the round of French
+watering-places, where Adrian played recklessly at baccarat and spent
+inordinate sums on food. And all the time Doria wrote glowingly of their
+doings. Adrian had put the book out of his head, was always in the best
+of spirits. He had completely recovered from the strain of work and was
+looking forward joyously to the final spurt in London and the
+achievement of the masterpiece.
+
+Meanwhile we played the annual comedy of our August migration; the only
+change being that instead of Dinard we went to the West Coast of
+Scotland to stay with some of Barbara's relatives. One gleam of joy
+irradiated that grey and dismal sojourn--the news that Jaffery, his
+mission in Crim Tartary being accomplished, would be home for Christmas.
+Our host and hostess were sporting folk with red, weatherbeaten faces
+and a mania (which they expected us to share) for salmon-fishing in the
+pouring rain. As neither Barbara nor I were experts--I always trembled
+lest a strong young fish getting hold of the end of Barbara's line
+should whisk her over like a feather into the boiling current--and as
+for myself, I prefer the more contemplative art of bottom fishing from a
+punt in dry weather--our friends caught all the salmon, while we merely
+caught colds in the head. Many an hour of sodden misery was cheered by
+the whispered word of comfort: Jaffery would be home for Christmas. And
+when, at ten o'clock in the evening, just as we were beginning to awake
+from the nightmare of the day, and to desire sprightly conversation, our
+host and hostess fell into a lethargy, and staggered off to slumber, we
+beguiled the hour before bedtime with talk of Jaffery's homecoming.
+
+At last we escaped and took the good train south. The Bolderos had
+already returned to London. They came to spend our first week-end at
+Northlands. Adrian professed to be in the robustest of health and to
+have not a care in the world. The holiday, said he, had done him
+incalculable good. Already he had begun to work in the full glow of
+inspiration. We thought him looking old and hag-ridden, but Doria seemed
+happy. She had her own reason for happiness, which she confided to
+Barbara. It would be early in the New Year. . . . Her eyes, I noticed,
+were filled with a new and wonderful love for Adrian. On the Sunday
+afternoon as we were sauntering about the garden, Adrian touched upon
+the subject in a man's shy way when speaking to his fellow man.
+
+"Why," said I with a laugh, "that's just about the time you expect the
+book to be out."
+
+He gave me a queer, slanting look. "Yes," said he, "they'll both be born
+together."
+
+That night, to my consternation and sorrow, he went to bed quite fuddled
+with whisky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Never shall I forget that Christmastide. Its shadow has fallen on every
+Christmas since then. And, in the innocent insolence of our hearts, we
+had planned such a merry one. It was the first since our marriage that
+we were spending at Northlands, for like dutiful folk we had hitherto
+spent the two or three festival days in the solid London house of
+Barbara's parents. Her father, Sir Edward Kennion, retired Permanent
+Secretary of a Government Office, was a courtly gentleman with a
+faultless taste in old china and wine, and Lady Kennion a charming old
+lady almost worthy of being the mother of Barbara. To speak truly, I had
+always enjoyed my visits. But when the news came that, for the sake of
+the dear lady's health, the Kennions were starting for Bermuda, in the
+middle of December, it did not strike us desolate. On the contrary
+Barbara clapped her hands in undisguised glee.
+
+"It will do mother no end of good, and we can give Susan a real
+Christmas of her own."
+
+So we laid deep schemes to fill the house to overflowing and to have a
+roystering time. First, for Susan's sake, we secured a widowed cousin of
+mine, Eileen Wetherwood, with her four children; and we sent out
+invitations to the _ban_ and _arriere ban_ of the county's juvenility,
+to say nothing of that of London, for a Boxing-day orgy. Having
+accounted satisfactorily for Susan's entertainment, we thought, I hope
+in a Christian spirit, of our adult circle. Dear old Jaffery would be
+with us. Why not ask his sister Euphemia? They had a mouse and lion
+affection for each other. Then there was Liosha. Both she and Jaffery
+met in Susan's heart, and it was Susan's Christmas. With Liosha would
+come Mrs. Considine, admirable and lonely woman. We trusted to luck and
+to Mrs. Considine's urbane influence for amenable relations between
+Liosha and Euphemia Chayne. With Jaffery in the house, Adrian and Doria
+must come. Last Christmas they had spent in the country with old Mrs.
+Boldero; old Mrs. Boldero was, therefore, summoned to Northlands. In the
+lightness of our hearts we invited Mr. Jornicroft. After the letter was
+posted my spirits sank. What in the world would we do with ponderous old
+man Jornicroft? But in the course of a few posts my gloom was lightened
+by a refusal. Mr. Jornicroft had been in the habit for many years of
+spending Christmas at the King's Hotel, Hastings, and had already made
+his arrangements.
+
+"Who else is there?" asked Barbara.
+
+"My dear," said I. "This is a modest country house, not an International
+Palace Hotel. Including Eileen's children and their governess and nurse
+and Doria's maid, we shall have to find accommodation for fifteen
+people."
+
+"Nonsense!" she said. "We can't do it."
+
+"Count up," said I.
+
+I lit a cigar and went out into the winter-stricken garden, and left her
+reckoning on her fingers, with knitted brow. When I returned she greeted
+me with a radiantly superior smile.
+
+"Who said it couldn't be done? I do wish men had some kind of practical
+sense. It's as easy as anything."
+
+She unfolded her scheme. As far as my dazed wits could grasp it, I
+understood that I should give up my dressing-room, that the maids should
+sleep eight in a bed, that Franklin, our excellent butler, should perch
+in a walnut-tree and that planks should be put up in the bath-rooms for
+as many more guests as we cared to invite.
+
+"That is excellent," said I, "but do you realise that in this house
+party there are only three grown men--three ha'porth of grown men" (I
+couldn't forbear allusiveness) "to this intolerable quantity of women
+and children?"
+
+"But who is preventing you from asking men, dear? Who are they?"
+
+I mentioned my old friend Vansittart; also poor John Costello's son, who
+would most likely be at a loose end at Christmas, and one or two others.
+
+"Well have them, dear," said Barbara.
+
+So four unattached men were added to the party. That made nineteen. When
+I thought of their accommodation my brain reeled. In order to retain my
+wits I gave up thinking of it, and left the matter to Barbara.
+
+We were going to have a mighty Christmas. The house was filled with
+preparations. Susan and I went to the village draper's and bought
+beautifully coloured cotton stockings to hang up at her little cousins'
+bedposts. We stirred the plum pudding. We planned out everything that we
+should like to do, while Barbara, without much reference to us, settled
+what was to be done. In that way we divided the labour. Old Jaffery,
+back from China, came to us on the twentieth of December, and threw
+himself heart and soul into our side of the work. He took up our life
+just as though he had left it the day before yesterday--just the same
+sun-glazed hairy red giant, noisy, laughter-loving and voracious. Susan
+went about clapping her hands the day he arrived and shouting that
+Christmas had already begun.
+
+The first thing he did was to clamour for Adrian, the man of fame. But
+the three Bolderos were not coming till the twenty-fourth. Adrian was
+making one last glorious spurt, so Doria said, in order to finish the
+great book before Christmas. We had not seen much of them during the
+autumn. Trivial circumstances had prevented it. Susan had had measles. I
+had been laid up with a wrenched knee. One side happened to be engaged
+when the other suggested a meeting. A trumpery series of accidents.
+Besides, Adrian, with his new lease of health and inspiration, had
+plunged deeper than ever into his work, so that it was almost impossible
+to get hold of him. On the few occasions when he did emerge from his
+work-room into the light of friendly smiles, he gave glowing accounts of
+progress. He was satisfying his poet's dreams. He was writing like an
+inspired prophet. I saw him at the beginning of December. His face was
+white and ghastly, the furrow had deepened between his brows, and the
+strained squint had become permanent in his eyes. He laughed when I
+repeated my warnings of the spring. Small wonder, said he, that he did
+not look robust; virtue was going from him into every drop of ink. He
+could easily get through another month.
+
+"And then"--he clapped me on the shoulder--"my boy--you shall see! It
+will be worth all the _enfantement prodigieux_. You thought I was going
+off my chump, you dear old fuss-box. But you were wrong. So did
+Doria--for a week or two. Bless her! she's an artist's wife in ten
+million."
+
+"Have you thought of a title?" I asked.
+
+"'God'," said he. "Yes--'God'--short like that. Isn't it good?"
+
+I cried out that it was in the worst possible taste. It would offend. He
+would lose his public. The Non-conformists and Evangelicals would be
+frightened by the very name. He lost his temper and scoffed at my Early
+Victorianism. "Little Lily and her Pet Rabbit" was the kind of title I
+admired. He was going to call it "God."
+
+"My dear fellow, call it what you please," said I, anxious to avoid a
+duel of plates and glasses, for we were lunching on opposite sides of a
+table at his club.
+
+"I please to call it," said he, "by the only conceivable title that is
+adequate to such a work." Then he laughed, with a gleam of his old
+charm, and filled up my wine glass. "Anyhow, Wittekind, who has the
+commercial end of things in view, thinks it's ripping." He lifted his
+glass. "Here's to 'God.'"
+
+"Here's to the new book under a different name," said I.
+
+When I told Barbara about this, she rather agreed with Wittekind. It all
+depended on the matter and quality of the book itself.
+
+"Well, anyhow," said I, abhorrent of dissension, "thank Heaven the
+wretched composition's nearly finished."
+
+On the morning of the twenty-third came my cousin Eileen and her
+offspring, and in the afternoon came Liosha and Mrs. Considine. Jaffery
+met his dynamic widow with frank heartiness, and for the hour before
+bedtime, there were wild doings in the nursery, in which neither my
+wife, nor my cousin, nor Mrs. Considine, nor myself were allowed to
+participate. When nurses sounded the retreat, our two Brobdingnagians
+appeared in the drawing-room, radiant, and dishevelled, with children
+sticking to them like flies. It was only when I saw Liosha, by the side
+of Jaffery, unconsciously challenging him, as it were, physical woman
+against physical man, with three children--two in her generous arms and
+one on her back--to his mere pair--that I realised, with the shock that
+always attends one's discovery of the obvious, the superb Olympian
+greatness of the creature. She stood nearly six feet to his six feet
+two. He stooped ever so little, as is the way of burly men. She held
+herself as erect as a redwood pine. The depth of her bosom, in its calm
+munificence, defied the vast, thick heave of his shoulders. Her lips
+were parted in laughter shewing magnificent teeth. In her brown eyes one
+could read all the mysteries and tenderness of infinite motherhood. Her
+hair was anyhow: a debauched wreckage of combs and wisps and hairpins.
+Her barbaric beauty seemed to hold sleekness in contempt. I wanted, just
+for the picture, half her bodice torn away. For there they stood, male
+and female of an heroic age, in a travesty of modern garb. Clap a
+pepperpot helmet on Jaffery, give him a skin-tight suit of chain mail,
+moulding all his swelling muscles, consider his red sweeping moustache,
+his red beard, his intense blue eyes staring out of a red face; dress
+Liosha in flaming maize and purple, leaving a breast free, and twist a
+gold torque through her hair, dark like the bronze-black shadows under
+autumn bracken; strip naked-fair the five nesting bits of humanity--it
+was an unpresented scene from Lohengrin or the Goetterdaemmerung.
+
+I can only speak according to the impression produced by their entrance
+on an idle, dilettante mind. My cousin Eileen, a smiling lady of plump
+unimportance, to whom I afterwards told my fancy, could not understand
+it. Speaking entirely of physical attributes, she saw nothing more in
+Jaffery than an uncouth red bear, and considered Liosha far too big for
+a drawing-room.
+
+When the children departed after an orgy of osculation, Jaffery surveyed
+with a twinkling eye the decorous quartette sitting by the fire. Then in
+his familiar fashion, he took his companion by the arm.
+
+"They're too grown up for us, Liosha. Let's leave 'em. Come and I'll
+teach you how to play billiards."
+
+So off they went, to the satisfaction of Barbara and myself. Nothing
+could be better for our Christmas merriment than such relations of
+comradeship. We had the cheeriest of dinners that evening. If only, said
+Jaffery, old Adrian and Doria were with us. Well, they were coming the
+next day, together with Euphemia and the four unattached men. As I said
+before, I had given up enquiring into the lodging of this host, but
+Barbara, doubtless, as is her magic way, had caused bedrooms and beds to
+smile where all had been blank before. She herself was free from any
+care, being in her brightest mood; and when Barbara gave herself up to
+gaiety she was the most delicious thing in the wide world.
+
+In the morning the shadow fell. About eleven o'clock Franklin brought me
+a telegram into the library where Jaffery and I were sitting. I opened
+it.
+
+"_Terrible calamity. Come at once. Boldero_."
+
+I passed it to Jaffery. "My God!" said he, and we stared at each other.
+Franklin said:
+
+"Any answer, sir?"
+
+"Yes. 'Boldero. Coming at once.' And order the car round
+immediately--for London. Also ask Mrs. Freeth kindly to come here. Say
+the matter's important." Franklin withdrew. "It's Adrian," said I, my
+mind rushing back to my horrible apprehensions of the summer.
+
+"Or Doria. I understood--" He waved a hand.
+
+"Then Barbara must come."
+
+"She would in any case. It may be Adrian, so I'll come too, if you'll
+let me."
+
+Let the great, capable fellow come? I should think I would. "For
+Heaven's sake, do," said I.
+
+Barbara entered swinging housewifely keys.
+
+"I'm dreadfully busy, dear. What is it?"
+
+Then she saw our two set faces and stopped short. Her quick eyes fell on
+the telegram which Jaffery had put down in the arm of a couch, and
+before we could do or say anything, she had snatched it up and read it.
+She turned pale and held her little body very erect.
+
+"Have you ordered the car?"
+
+"Yes. Jaffery's coming with us."
+
+"Good, I'll get on my coat. Send Eileen to me. I must tell her about
+house things."
+
+She went out. Jaffery laid his heavy hand on my shoulder.
+
+"What a wonder of a wife you've got!"
+
+"I don't need you to tell me that," said I.
+
+We went downstairs to put on our coats and then round to the garage to
+hurry up the car.
+
+"There's some dreadful trouble at Mr. Boldero's," I said to the
+chauffeur. "You must drive like the devil."
+
+Barbara, veiled and coated, met us at the front door. She has a trick of
+doing things by lightning. We started; Barbara and Jaffery at the back,
+I sideways to them on one of the little chair seats. We had the car
+open, as it was a muggy day. . . . It is astonishing how such trivial
+matters stick in one's mind. . . . We went, as I had ordained, like the
+devil.
+
+"Who sent that telegram?" asked Barbara.
+
+"Doria," said I.
+
+"I think it's Adrian," said Jaffery.
+
+"I think," said Barbara, "it's that silly old woman, Adrian's mother.
+Either of the others would have said something definite. Ah!" she smote
+her knee with her small hand, "I hate people with spinal marrow and no
+backbone to hold it!"
+
+We tore through Maidenhead at a terrific pace, the Christmas traffic in
+the town clearing magically before us. Sometimes a car on an errand of
+life or death is recognised, given way to, like a fire engine.
+
+"What makes you so dead sure something's happened to Adrian?" Jaffery
+asked me as we thundered through the railway arch.
+
+Then I remembered. I had told him little or nothing of my fears. Ever
+since I learned that Adrian was putting the finishing touches to his
+novel, I had dismissed them from my mind. Such accounts as I had given
+of Adrian had been in a jocularly satirical vein. I had mentioned his
+pontifical attitude, the magnification of his office, his bombastic
+rhetoric over the Higher Life and the Inspiration of the Snows, and, all
+that being part and parcel of our old Adrian, we had laughed. Six months
+before I would have told Jaffery quite a different story. But now that
+Adrian had practically won through, what was the good of reviving the
+memory of ghastly apprehensions?
+
+"Tell me," said Jaffery. "There's something behind all this."
+
+I told him. It took some time. We sped through Slough and Hounslow, and
+past the desolate winter fields. The grey air was as heavy as our
+hearts.
+
+"In plain words," said Jaffery, "it's G.P.--General Paralysis of the
+Insane."
+
+"That's what I fear," said I.
+
+"And you?" He turned to Barbara.
+
+"I too. Hilary has told you the truth."
+
+"But Doria! Good God! Doria! It will kill her!"
+
+Barbara put her little gloved fingers on Jaffery's great raw hand. Only
+at weddings or at the North Pole would Jaffery wear gloves.
+
+"We know nothing about it as yet. The more we tear ourselves to pieces
+now, the less able we'll be to deal with things."
+
+Through the bottle-neck of Brentford, the most disgraceful main entrance
+in the world into any great city, with bare room for a criminal double
+line of tramways blocked by heavy, horse-drawn traffic, an officially
+organised murder-trap for all save the shrinking pedestrian on the mean,
+narrow, greasy side-walk, we crawled as fast as we were able. Then
+through Chiswick, over Hammersmith Bridge, into the heart of London.
+All London to cross. Never had it seemed longer. And the great city was
+smitten by a blight. It was not a fog, for one could see clearly a
+hundred yards ahead. But there was no sky and the air was a queer
+yellow, almost olive green, in which the main buildings stood out in
+startling meanness, and the distant ones were providentially obscured.
+Though it was but little past noon, all the great shops blazed with
+light, but they illuminated singularly little the yellow murk of the
+roadway. The interiors were sharply clear. We could see swarms of black
+things, seething with ant-like activity amid a phantasmagoria of
+colours, draperies, curtains, flashes of white linen, streaks of red and
+yellow meat gallant with rosettes and garlands, instantaneous,
+glistening vistas of gold, silver and crystal, warm reflections of
+mahogany and walnut; on the pavements an agglutinated yet moving mass by
+the shop fronts, the inner stream a garish pink ribbon of faces, the
+outer a herd of subfuse brown. And in the roadway, through the
+translucent olive, the swirling traffic seemed like armies of ghosts
+mightily and dashingly charioted.
+
+The darkness had deepened when we, at last, drew up at the mansions in
+St. John's Wood. No lights were lit in the vestibule, and the
+hall-porter emerged as from a cavern of despair. He opened the car-door
+and touched his peaked cap. I could see from the man's face that he had
+been expecting us. He knew us, of course, as constant visitors of the
+Bolderos.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"Don't you know, sir?"
+
+"No."
+
+He glanced at Barbara, as if afraid to give her the shock of his news,
+and bent forward and whispered to me:
+
+"Mr. Boldero's dead, sir."
+
+I don't remember clearly what happened then. I have a vague memory of
+the man accompanying us in the lift and giving some unintelligible
+account of things. I was stunned. We had interpreted the ambiguous
+telegram in all other ways than this. Adrian was dead. That was all I
+could think of. The only coherent remark I heard the man make was that
+it was a dreadful thing to happen at Christmas. Barbara gripped my hand
+tight and did not say a word. The next phase I remember only too
+vividly. When the flat door opened, in a blaze of electric light, it was
+like a curtain being lifted on a scene of appalling tragedy. As soon as
+we entered we were sucked into it. A horrible hospital smell of
+anaesthetics, disinfectants--I know not what--greeted us.
+
+The maid Ellen who had admitted us, red-eyed and scared, flew down the
+corridor into the kitchen, whence immediately afterwards emerged a
+professional nurse, who, carrying something, flitted into Doria's room.
+From the spare room came for a moment an elderly woman whom we did not
+know. The study door was flung wide open--I noticed that the jamb was
+splintered. From the drawing-room came sounds of awful moaning. We
+entered and found Adrian's mother alone, helpless with grief. Barbara
+sat by her and took her in her arms and spoke to her. But she could tell
+us nothing. I heard a man's step in the hall and Jaffery and I went out.
+He was a young man, very much agitated; he looked relieved at seeing us.
+
+"I am a doctor," said he, "I was called in. The usual medical man is
+apparently away for Christmas. I'm so glad you've come. Is there a Mrs.
+Freeth here?"
+
+"Yes. My wife," said I.
+
+"Thank goodness--" He drew a breath. "There's no one here capable of
+doing anything. I had to get in the nurse and the other woman."
+
+Jaffery had summoned Barbara from her vain task.
+
+"Mrs. Boldero is very ill--as ill as she can be. Of course you were
+aware of her condition--well--the shock has had its not very uncommon
+effect."
+
+"Life in danger?" Jaffery asked bluntly.
+
+"Life, reason, everything. Tell me. I'm a stranger. I know nothing--I
+was summoned and found a man lying dead on the floor in that room"--he
+pointed to the study--"and a woman in a dreadful state. I've only had
+time to make sure that the poor fellow was dead. Could you tell me
+something about them?"
+
+So we told him, the three of us together, as people will, who Adrian
+Boldero was, and how he and his genius were all this world and a bit of
+the next to his wife. How I managed to talk sensibly I don't know, for
+beating against the walls of my head was the thought that Adrian lay
+there in the room where I had seen the strange woman, lifeless and
+stiff, with the laughing eyes forever closed and the last mockery gone
+from his lips. Just then the woman appeared again. The young doctor
+beckoned to her and said a few words. Jaffery and I followed her into
+the death-chamber, leaving the doctor with Barbara. And then we stood
+and looked at all that was left of Adrian.
+
+But how did it happen? It was not till long afterwards that I really
+knew more than the scared maid-servant and the porter of the mansions
+then told us. But that little more I will set down here.
+
+For the past few days he had been working early and late, scarcely
+sleeping at all. The night before he had gone to bed at five, had risen
+sleepless at seven, and having dressed and breakfasted had locked
+himself in his study. The very last page, he told Doria, was to be
+written. He was to come down to us for Christmas, with his novel a
+finished thing. At ten o'clock, in accordance with custom, when he began
+to work early, the maid came to his door with a cup of chicken-broth.
+She knocked. There was no reply. She knocked louder. She called her
+mistress. Doria hammered . . . she shrieked. You know how swiftly terror
+grips a woman. She sent for the porter. Between them they raised a din
+to awaken--well--all but the dead. The man forced the door--hence the
+splinters on the jamb--and there they found Adrian, in the great bare
+room, hanging horribly over his writing chair, with not a scrap of paper
+save his blotting-pad in front of him. He must have died almost as soon
+as he had reached his study, before he had time to take out his
+manuscript from the jealous safe. That this was so the harassed doctor
+afterwards affirmed, when he could leave the living to make examination
+of the dead. Still later than that we heard the cause of death--a clot
+of blood on the brain. . . .
+
+To go back . . . They found him dead. And then arose an unpicturable
+scene of horror. It seems that the cook, a stolid woman, on the point of
+starting for a Christmas visit, took charge of the situation, sent for
+the doctor, despatched the telegram to us, and with the help of the
+porter's wife, saw to Adrian. The elder Mrs. Boldero collapsed, a futile
+mass of sodden hysteria. Much that was fascinating and feminine in
+Adrian came from this amiable and incapable lady.
+
+We went into the dining-room and helped ourselves to whisky and soda--we
+needed it--and talked of the catastrophe. As yet, of course, we knew
+nothing of the clot of blood. Presently Barbara came in and put her
+hands on my shoulders.
+
+"I must stay here, Hilary, dear. You must get a bed at your club.
+Jaffery will take the car and bring us what we want from Northlands, and
+will look after things with Eileen. And put off Euphemia and the others,
+if you can."
+
+And that was the Christmas to which we had looked forward with such
+joyous anticipation. Adrian dead; his child stillborn: Doria hovering on
+the brink of life and death. I did what was possible on a Christmas eve
+in the way of last arrangements. But to-morrow was Christmas Day. The
+day after, Boxing Day. The day after that, Sunday. The whole world was
+dead. And all those awful days the thin yellow fog that was not fog but
+mere blight of darkness hung over the vast city.
+
+God spare me such another Christmastide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The first stages of our grievous task were accomplished. We had buried
+Adrian in Highgate Cemetery with the yellow fog around us. His mother
+had been put into a train that would carry her to the quiet country
+cottage wherein she longed to be alone with her sorrow. Doria still lay
+in the Valley of the Shadow unconscious, perhaps fortunately, of the
+stealthy footsteps and muffled sounds that strike a note of agony
+through a house of death. And it was many days before she awoke to
+knowledge and despair. Barbara stayed with her.
+
+We had found Adrian's will, leaving everything to Doria and appointing
+Jaffery and myself joint executors and trustees for his wife and the
+child that was to come, among his private papers in the Louis XV cabinet
+in the drawing-room. We had consulted his bankers and put matters in a
+solicitor's hands with a view to probate. Everything was in order. We
+found his own personal bills and receipts filed, his old letters tied up
+in bundles and labelled, his contracts, his publisher's returns, his
+lease, his various certificates neatly docketed. It was the private desk
+of a careful business man, rather than that of our old unmethodical
+Adrian. There are few things more painful than to pry into the
+intimacies of those we have loved; and Jaffery and I had to pry alone,
+because Doria, who might have saved our obligatory search from
+impertinence, lay, herself, on the Borderland.
+
+All that we required for the simple settlement of his affairs had been
+found in the cabinet. On the list of assets for probate we had placed
+the manuscript of the new book, its value estimated on the sales of "The
+Diamond Gate." We had not as yet examined the safe in the study, knowing
+that it held nothing but the manuscript, and indeed we had not entered
+the forbidding room in which our poor friend had died. We kept it
+locked, out of half foolish and half affectionate deference to his
+unspoken wishes. Besides, Barbara, most exquisitely balanced of women,
+who went in and out of the death-chamber without any morbid repulsion,
+hated the door of the study to be left ajar, and, when it was closed,
+professed relief from an inexplicable maccabre obsession, and being an
+inmate of the flat its deputy lady in charge of nurses and servants and
+household things, she had a right to spare herself unnecessary nervous
+strain. But, all else having been done for the dead and for the living,
+the time now came for us to take the manuscript from the safe and hand
+it over to the publisher.
+
+So, one dark morning, Jaffery and I unlocked the study-door and entered
+the gloom-filled, barren room. The curtains were drawn apart, and the
+blinds drawn up, and the windows framed squares of unilluminating
+yellow. It was bitterly cold. The fire had not been laid since the
+morning of the tragedy and the grate was littered with dim grey ash. The
+stale smell of the week's fog hung about the place. I turned on the
+electric light. With its white distempered, pictureless walls, and its
+scanty office furniture, the room looked inexpressibly dreary. We went
+to the library table. A quill pen lay on the blotting pad, its point in
+the midst of a couple of square inches of idle arabesques. On three
+different parts of the pad marked by singularly little blotted matter
+the quill had scrawled "God. A Novel. By Adrian Boldero." On a brass
+ash-tray I noticed three cigarettes, of each of which only about an
+eighth of an inch had been smoked. Jaffery, who had the key that used to
+hang at the end of Adrian's watch-chain, unlocked the iron safe. Its
+heavy door swung back and revealed its contents: Three shelves crammed
+from bottom to top with a chaos of loose sheets of paper. Nowhere a sign
+of the trim block of well-ordered manuscript.
+
+"Pretty kind of hay," growled Jaffery, surveying it with a perplexed
+look. "We'll have our work cut out."
+
+"It'll be all right," said I. "Lift out the top shelf as carefully as
+you can. You may be sure Adrian had some sort of method."
+
+Onto the cleared library table Jaffery deposited three loose, ragged
+piles. We looked through them in utter bewilderment. Some of the sheets
+unnumbered, unconnected one with the other, were pages of definite
+manuscript; these we put aside; others contained jottings, notes,
+fragments of dialogue, a confused multitude of names, incomprehensible
+memoranda of incidents. Of the latter one has stuck in my memory.
+"Lancelot Sinlow seduces Guinevere the false 'Immaculata' and Jehovah
+steps in." Other sheets were covered with meaningless phrases, the crude
+drawings that the writing man makes mechanically while he is thinking
+over his work, and arabesques such as we found on the blotting pad.
+
+"What the blazes is all this?" muttered Jaffery, his fingers in his
+beard.
+
+"I can't make it out," said I. And then suddenly I laughed in great
+relief, remembering the absence of the waste-paper basket. We were
+turning over what evidently would have been its contents. I explained
+Adrian's whimsy.
+
+"What a funny devil the poor old chap was," said Jaffery, with a laugh
+at the harmless foible of the artist who would not give even an
+incurious housemaid a clue to his mystery. "Well, clear the rubbish
+away, and we'll look at the second shelf."
+
+The second shelf was more or less a replica of the first. There were
+more pages of consecutive composition--of such we sorted out perhaps a
+couple of hundred, but the rest were filled with the same incoherent
+scribble, with the same drawings, and with bits of scenarios of a dozen
+stories.
+
+"The whole damn thing seems to be waste-paper basket," said Jaffery,
+standing over me. There was but one chair in the room--Adrian's famous
+wooden writing chair with the leathern pad for which Barbara had
+pleaded, the chair in which the poor fellow had died, and I was sitting
+in it, as I sorted the manuscript which rose in masses on the table.
+
+"There's quite a lot of completed pages," said I, putting together those
+found on the two shelves. "Let us see what we can make of them."
+
+We piled the obvious rubbish on the floor, and examined the salvage. We
+could make nothing of it. Jaffery wrinkled a hopeless brow.
+
+"It will take weeks to fix it up."
+
+"What licks me," said I, "is the difference between this and the
+old-maidish tidiness of his other papers. Anyhow let us go on."
+
+In a little while we tried to put the sheets together in their order,
+going by the grammatical sequence of the end of one page with the
+beginning of the next, but rarely could we obtain more than three or
+four of such consecutive pages. We were confused, too, by at least a
+dozen headed "Chapter I."
+
+"There's another shelf, anyhow," said Jaffery, turning away.
+
+I nodded and went on with my puzzling task of collation. But the more I
+examined the more did my brain reel. I could not find the nucleus of a
+coherent story. A great shout from Jaffery made me start in my chair.
+
+"Hooray! At last! I've got it! Here it is!"
+
+He came with three thick clumps of manuscript neatly pinned together in
+brown paper wrappers and dumped them with a bang in front of me.
+
+"There!" he cried, bringing down his great hand on the top of the pile.
+
+"Thank God!" said I.
+
+He removed his hand. Then, as he told me afterwards, I sprang to my feet
+with a screech like a woman's. For there, staring me in the face, on a
+white label gummed onto the brown paper, was the hand-written
+inscription:
+
+"The Diamond Gate. A Novel--by Thomas Castleton."
+
+"Look!" I cried, pointing; and Jaffery looked. And for a second or two
+we both stood stock-still.
+
+The writing was Tom Castleton's; and the writing of the script hastily
+flung open by Jaffery was Tom Castleton's--Tom Castleton, the one genius
+of our boyish brotherhood, who had died on his voyage to Australia.
+There was no mistake. The great square virile hand was only too
+familiar--as different from Adrian's precise, academical writing as Tom
+Castleton from Adrian.
+
+Then our eyes met and we realized the sin that had been committed.
+
+There was the original manuscript of "The Diamond Gate." "The Diamond
+Gate" was the work not of Adrian Boldero, but of Tom Castleton. Adrian
+had stolen "The Diamond Gate" from a dead man. Not only from a dead man,
+but from the dead friend who had loved and trusted in him.
+
+We stared at each other open-mouthed. At last Jaffery threw up his hands
+and, without a word, cleared the lowest shelf of the safe. Quickly we
+ran through the mass. We could not trust ourselves to speak. There are
+times when words are too idle a medium for interchange of thought. We
+found nothing different from the contents of the two upper shelves. The
+apparently coherent manuscript we placed with the rest. Again we
+examined it. A sickening fear gripped our hearts, and steadily grew into
+an awful certainty.
+
+The great epoch-making novel did not exist.
+
+It had never existed. Even if Adrian had lived, it would have had no
+possibility of existing.
+
+"What in God's name has he been playing at?" cried Jaffery, in his
+great, hoarse bass.
+
+"God knows," said I.
+
+But even as I spoke, I knew.
+
+I looked round the room which Barbara had once called the Condemned
+Cell. The ghastly truth of her prescience shook me, and I began to
+shudder with the horror of it, and with the hitherto unnoticed cold. I
+was chilled to the bone. Jaffery put his arm round my shoulders and
+hugged me kindly.
+
+"Go and get warm," said he.
+
+"But this?" I pointed to the litter.
+
+"I'll see to it and join you in a minute."
+
+He pushed me outside the door and I went into the drawing-room, where I
+crouched before a blazing fire with chattering teeth and benumbed feet
+and hands. I was alone. Doria had taken a faint turn for the better that
+morning and Barbara had run down to Northlands for the day. It was just
+as well she had gone, I thought. I should have a few hours to compose
+some story in mitigation of the tragedy.
+
+Soon Jaffery returned with a glass of brandy, which I drank. He sat down
+on a low chair by the fire, his elbows on his knees and his shoulders
+hunched up, and the leaping firelight played queer tricks with the
+shadows on his bearded face, making him look old and seamed with coarse
+and innumerable furrows. But for the blaze the room was filled with the
+yellow darkness that was thickening outside; yet we did not think of
+turning on the lights.
+
+"What have you done?" I asked.
+
+"Locked the stuff up again," he replied. "This afternoon I'll bring a
+portmanteau and take it away."
+
+"What are you going to do with it?"
+
+"Leave that to me," said he.
+
+What was in his mind I did not know, but, for the moment, I was very
+glad to leave it to him. In a vague way I comforted myself with the
+reflection that Jaffery was a specialist in crises. It was his job, as
+he would have said. In the ordinary affairs of life he conducted himself
+like an overgrown child. In time of cataclysm he was a professional
+demigod. He reassured me further.
+
+"That's where I come in. Don't worry about it any more."
+
+"All right," said I.
+
+And for a while he said nothing and stared at the fire. Presently he
+broke the silence.
+
+"What was the poor devil playing at?" he repeated. "What, in God's
+name?"
+
+And then I told him. It took a long time. I was still in the cold grip
+of the horror of that condemned cell, and my account was none too
+consecutive. There was also some argument and darting up side-tracks,
+which broke the continuity. It was also difficult to speak of Adrian in
+terms that did not tear our hearts. As a despoiler of the dead, his
+offence was rank. But we had loved him; and we still loved him, and he
+had expiated his crime by a year's unimaginable torture.
+
+Often have I said that I thought I knew my Adrian, but did not. Least of
+all did I know my Adrian then, as I sat paralysed by the revelation of
+his fraud. Even now, as I write, looking at things more or less in
+perspective, I cannot say that I know my Adrian. With all his faults,
+his poses, his superficialities, his secrecies, his egotisms, I never
+dreamed of him as aught but a loyal and honourable gentleman. When I
+think of him, I tremble before the awful isolation of the human soul.
+What does one man know of his brother? Yes; the coldest of poets was
+right: "We mortal millions live alone." It is only the unconquerable
+faith in Humanity by which we live that saves us from standing aghast
+with conjecture before those who are so near and dear to us that we feel
+them part of our very selves.
+
+Adrian was dead and could not speak. What was it that in the first place
+made him yield to temptation? What kink in the brain warped his moral
+sense? God is his judge, poor boy, not I. Tom Castleton had put the
+manuscript of "The Diamond Gate" into his hands. Undoubtedly he was to
+arrange for its publication. Castleton's appointment to the
+professorship in Australia had been a sudden matter, as I well remember,
+necessitating a feverish scramble to get his affairs in order before he
+sailed. Why did not Adrian in the affectionate glow of parting send the
+manuscript straight off to a publisher? At first it was merely a
+question of despatching a parcel and writing a covering letter. Why were
+not parcel and letter sent? Merely through the sheer indolence that was
+characteristic of Adrian. Then came the news of Castleton's death. From
+that moment the poison of temptation must have begun to work. For years,
+in his easy way, he struggled against it, until, perhaps, desperate for
+Doria, he succumbed. What script, type-written or hand-written, he sent
+to Wittekind, the publisher of "The Diamond Gate," I did not learn till
+later. But why did he not destroy Tom Castleton's original manuscript?
+That was what Jaffery could not understand. Yet any one familiar with
+morbid psychology will tell you of a hundred analogical instances. Some
+queer superstition, some reflex action of conscience, some dim,
+relentless force compelling the hair shirt of penitence--that is the
+only way in which I, who do not pretend to be a psychologist, can
+explain the sustained act of folly.
+
+And when the book blazed into instantaneous success, and he accepted it
+gay and debonair, what could have been the state of that man's soul? I
+remembered, with a shiver, the look on Adrian's face, at Mr.
+Jornicroft's dinner party, as if a hand had swept the joy from it, and
+the snapping of the stem of the wineglass. In the light of knowledge I
+looked back and recognised the feverishness of a demeanour that had been
+merely gay before. Well . . . he had been swept off his feet. If any man
+ever loved a woman passionately and devoutly, Adrian loved Doria. For
+what it may be worth, put that to his credit: he sinned for love of a
+woman. And the rest? The tragic rest? His undertaking to write another
+novel? Indomitable self-confidence was the keynote of the man. Careless,
+casual lover of ease that he was, everything he had definitely set
+himself to do heretofore, he had done.
+
+As I have said, he had got his First Class at Cambridge, to the
+stupefaction of his friends. With the exception of a brilliant bar
+examination, he had done nothing remarkable afterwards, merely for lack
+of incentive. When the incentive came, the writing of a novel to eclipse
+"The Diamond Gate," I am absolutely certain that he had no doubt of his
+capacity.
+
+When he married, I think his sunny nature dispelled the cloud of guilt.
+He looked forward with a gambler's eagerness to the autumn's work, the
+beginning of the apotheosis of his real imaginary self, the genius that
+was Adrian Boldero. And yet, behind all this light-hearted enthusiasm,
+must have run a vein of cunning, invariable symptom of an unbalanced
+mind, which prompted secrecy, the secrecy which he had always loved to
+practise, and inspired him with the idea of the mysterious, secret
+room. The latter originated in his brain as a fantastic plaything, an
+intellectual Bluebeard's chamber whose sanctity he knew his awe-stricken
+wife would respect. It developed into a bleak prison; and finally into
+the condemned cell.
+
+As I said to Jaffery, on that morning of fog and firelight, in the midst
+of Adrian's artificial French Lares and Penates, dimly seen, like
+spindle-shanked ghosts of chairs and tables, just consider the
+mind-shattering facts. Here was a man whose whole literary output was a
+few precious essays and a few scraggy poems, who had never schemed out a
+novel before, not even, as far as I am aware, a short story; who had
+never, in any way, tested his imaginative capacity, setting out, in
+insane self-conceit, to write, not merely a commercial work of fiction,
+but a novel which would outrival a universally proclaimed work of
+genius. And he had no imaginative capacity. His mind was essentially
+critical; and the critical mind is not creative. He was a clever man.
+All critics are clever men; if they were just a little more, or just a
+little less than clever, they wouldn't be critics. Perhaps Adrian was,
+by a barleycorn, a little more; but he had a blind spot in his brain
+which prevented him from seeing that the power to do imaginative work in
+a literary medium is as much a special gift as the power to interpret
+human life on canvas. It was exactly the same thing as if you or I, who
+have not the remotest notion how to draw a man on horseback correctly,
+were to try to paint a Velasquez portrait. It did not seem to enter the
+poor fellow's head that the novelist, in no matter how humble a way, no
+matter how infinitesimal the invisible grain of muse may be, must have
+the especial, incommunicable gift, the queer twist of brain, if you
+like, but the essential quality of the artist.
+
+And there the man had sat in that stark cell of a room, for all those
+months, whipping, in intolerable agony, a static imagination. He had
+never begun to get his central incident, his plot, his character scheme,
+such as all novelists must do. He had grasped at one elusive vision of
+life, after another. His mind had become a medley of tags of the comedy
+and tragedy of human things. The more confused, the more universal
+became the poor limited vision. The whole of illimitable life, he had
+told me in his flogged, crazed exaltation, was to be captured in this
+wondrous book. The pity of it!
+
+How he had retained his sanity I cannot to this day understand--that is
+to say, if he had retained it. The hypothesis of madness comforted. I
+would give much to feel that he had really believed in his progress with
+the work, that his assurance of having come to the end was genuine. If
+he had deceived himself, God had been merciful. But if not, if he had
+sat down day after day, with the appalling consciousness of his
+impotence, there have been few of the sons of men to whom God had meted
+out, in this world, greater punishment for sin. It is incredible that he
+should have lasted so long alive. No wonder he could not sleep. No
+wonder he drank in secret. Barbara, who had gone through the household
+accounts, had already been staggered by the wine-merchant's bills for
+whisky. Had he stupefied himself day after day, night after night for
+the last few months? I cannot but hope that he did. At any rate God was
+merciful at last. He killed him.
+
+Jaffery threw a couple of logs on the fire--the ship-logs that Adrian
+loved, and the sea-salts, barium, strontium and what-not, gave green and
+crimson and lavender flames.
+
+"I've seen as much suffering in my time as any man living," he said. "A
+war-correspondent does. He sees samples of every conceivable sort of
+hell. But this sample I haven't struck before and it's the worst of the
+lot. My God! and only the day before yesterday I took him to be
+married."
+
+"It was fifteen months ago, Jaff, and since then you've plucked hairs
+out of Prester John's beard, or been entertained by a Viceroy of China,
+which comes to the same thing. I was right in saying you had no idea of
+time or space."
+
+He paid no attention to my poor, watery jest.
+
+"It was the day before yesterday. And now he's dead and the child
+stillborn--"
+
+I uttered a short cry which interrupted him. A memory had smitten me;
+that of his words in September, and of the queer slanting look in his
+eyes: "They'll both be born together."
+
+I told Jaffery. "Was there ever such a ghastly prophecy?" I said. "Both
+stillborn together. The more one goes into the matter, the more
+shudderingly awful it is."
+
+Jaffery nodded and stared into the fire.
+
+"And she at the point of death--to complete the tragedy," he said below
+his breath.
+
+Then suddenly he shook himself like a great dog.
+
+"I would give the soul out of my body to save her," he cried with a
+startling quaver in his deep voice.
+
+"I know you love her dearly, old man," said I, "but is life the best
+thing you can wish for her?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Isn't it obvious? She recovers--she will, most probably, recover;
+Jephson said so this morning--she comes back to life to find what? The
+shattering of her idol. That will kill her. My dear old Jaff, it's
+better that she should die now."
+
+Rugged lines that I had never seen before came into his brow, and his
+eyes blazed.
+
+"What do you mean--shattering of idols?"
+
+"She is bound to learn the truth."
+
+He darted forward in his chair and gripped my knee in his mighty grasp,
+so that I winced with pain.
+
+"She's not going to learn the truth. She's not going to have any dim
+suspicion of the truth. By God! I'd kill anybody, even you, who told
+her. She's not to know. She must never know." In his sudden fit of
+passion he sprang to his feet and towered over me with clenched
+fists,--the sputtering flames casting a weird Brocken shadow on wall and
+ceiling of the fog-darkened room--I shrank into my chair, for he seemed
+not a man but one of the primal forces of nature. He shouted in the same
+deep, shaken voice.
+
+"Adrian is dead. The child is dead. But the book lives. You understand."
+His great fist touched my face. "The book lives. You have seen it."
+
+"Very well," said I, "I've seen it."
+
+"You swear you've seen it?"
+
+"Yes," said I, in some bewilderment.
+
+He turned away, passed his hand over his forehead and through his hair,
+and walked for a little about the room.
+
+"I'm sorry, Hilary, old chap, to have lost control of myself. It's a
+matter of life and death. I'm all right now. But you understand clearly
+what I mean?"
+
+"Certainly. I'm to swear that I saw the manuscript. I'm to lend myself
+to a pious fraud. That's all right for the present. But it can't last
+forever."
+
+Jaffery thrust both hands in his pockets and bent and fixed the steel of
+his eyes on me. I should not like to be Jaffery's enemy.
+
+"It can. And it's going to. I'll see to that."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked. "There's no book. We can't conjure
+something out of nothing."
+
+"There is a book, damn you," he roared fiercely, "and you've seen it,
+and I've got it. And I'm responsible for it. And what the hell does it
+matter to you what becomes of it?"
+
+"Very well," said I. "If you insist, I can wash my hands of the whole
+matter. I saw a completed manuscript. You are my co-executor and
+trustee. You took it away. That's all I know. Will that do for you?"
+
+"Yes. And I'll give you a receipt. Whatever happens, you're not
+responsible. I can burn the damned thing if I like. Do anything I
+choose. But you've seen the outside of it."
+
+He went to the writing table by the gloomy window and scribbled a
+memorandum and duplicate, which we both signed. Each pocketed a copy.
+Then he turned on me.
+
+"I needn't mention that you're not going to give a hint to a human soul
+of what you have seen this day?"
+
+I faced him and looked into his eyes. "What do you take me for? But
+you're forgetting. . . . There is one human soul who must know."
+
+He was silent for a minute or two. Then, with his great-hearted smile:
+
+"You and Barbara are one," said he.
+
+Presently, after a little desultory talk, he took a folded paper from
+his pocket and shook it out before me. I recognized the top sheet of the
+blotting-pad on which Adrian had written thrice: "God: A Novel: By
+Adrian Boldero."
+
+"We had better burn this," said he; and he threw it into the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The slow weeks passed. Fog gave way to long rain and rain to a touch of
+frost and timid spring sunshine; and it was only then that Doria emerged
+from the Valley of the Shadow. The first time they allowed me to visit
+her, I stood for a fraction of a second, almost in search of a human
+occupant of the room. Lying in the bed she looked such a pitiful scrap,
+all hair and eyes. She smiled and held droopingly out to me the most
+fragile thing in hands I have ever seen.
+
+"I'm going to live, after all, they tell me."
+
+"Of course you are," I answered cheerily. "It's the season for things to
+find they're going to live. The crocuses and aconite have already made
+the discovery."
+
+She sighed. "The garden at Northlands will soon be beautiful. I love it
+in the spring. The dancing daffodils--"
+
+"We'll have you down to dance with them," said I.
+
+"It's strange that I want to live," she remarked after a pause. "At
+first I longed to die--that was why my recovery was so slow. But
+now--odd, isn't it?"
+
+"Life means infinitely more than one's own sorrow, no matter how great
+it is," I replied gently.
+
+"Yes," she assented. "I can live now for Adrian's memory."
+
+I suppose most women in Doria's position would have said much the same.
+In ordinary circumstances one approves the pious aspiration. If it gives
+them temporary comfort, why, in Heaven's name, shouldn't they have it?
+But in Doria's case, its utterance gave me a kind of stab in the heart.
+By way of reply I patted her poor little wrist sympathetically.
+
+"When will the book be out?" she asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite know," said I.
+
+"I suppose they're busy printing it."
+
+"Jaffery's in charge," I replied, according to instructions.
+
+"He must get it out at once. The early spring's the best time. It won't
+do to wait too long. Will you tell him?"
+
+"I will," said I.
+
+I don't think I have ever loathed a thing so wholly as that confounded
+ghost of a book. Naturally it was the dominant thought in the poor
+child's mind. She had already worried Barbara about it. It formed the
+subject of nearly her first question to me. I foresaw trouble. I could
+not plead bland ignorance forever; though for the present I did not know
+the nature of Jaffery's scheme. Anyhow I redeemed my promise and gave
+him Doria's message. He received it with a grumpy nod and said nothing.
+He had become somewhat grumpy of late, even when I did not broach the
+disastrous topic, and made excuses for not coming down to Northlands.
+
+I attributed the unusual moroseness to London in vile weather. At the
+best of times Jaffery grew impatient of the narrow conditions of town;
+yet there he was week after week, staying in a poky set of furnished
+chambers in Victoria Street, and doing nothing in particular, as far as
+I could make out, save riding on the tops of motor-omnibuses without an
+overcoat.
+
+After his silent acknowledgment of the message, he stuffed his pipe
+thoughtfully--we were in the smoking-room of a club (not the Athenaeum)
+to which we both belonged--and then he roared out:
+
+"Do you think she could bear the sight of me?"
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"Well"--he grinned a little--"I'm not exactly a kind of sick-room
+flower."
+
+"I think you ought to see her--you're as much trustee and executor as I
+am. You might also save Barbara and myself from nerve-racking
+questions."
+
+"All right, I'll go," he said.
+
+The interview was only fairly successful. He told her that the book
+would be published as soon as possible.
+
+"When will that be?" she asked.
+
+Jaffery seemed to be as vague as myself.
+
+"Is it in the printer's hands?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Why?"
+
+He explained that Adrian had practically finished the novel; but here
+and there it needed the little trimming and tacking together, which
+Adrian would have done had he lived to revise the manuscript. He himself
+was engaged on this necessary though purely mechanical task of revision.
+
+"I quite agree," said Doria to this, "that Adrian's work could not be
+given out in an imperfect state. But there can't be very much to do, so
+why are you taking all this time over it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've been rather busy," said he.
+
+Which tactless, though I admit unavoidable, reply did not greatly please
+Doria. When she saw Barbara, to whom she related this conversation, she
+complained of Jaffery's unfeeling conduct. He had no right to hang up
+Adrian's great novel on account of his own wretched business. Letting
+the latter slide would have been a tribute to his dead friend. Barbara
+did her best to soothe her; but we agreed that Jaffery had made a bad
+start.
+
+A short while afterwards I was in the club again and there I came
+across Arbuthnot, the manager of Jaffery's newspaper, whom I had known
+for some years--originally I think through Jaffery. I accepted the offer
+of a seat at his luncheon table, and, as men will, we began to discuss
+our common friend.
+
+"I wonder what has come over him lately," said he after a while.
+
+"Have you noticed any difference?" I was startled.
+
+"Yes. Can't make him out."
+
+"Poor Adrian Boldero's death was a great shock."
+
+"Quite so," Arbuthnot assented. "But Jaff Chayne, when he gets a shock,
+is the sort of fellow that goes into the middle of a wilderness and
+roars. Yet here he is in London and won't be persuaded to leave it."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"We wanted to send him out to Persia, and he refused to go. We had to
+send young Brodie instead, who won't do the work half as well."
+
+"All this is news to me," said I.
+
+"And it was a first-class business with armed escorts, caravans, wild
+tribes--a matter of great danger and subtle politics--railways,
+finance--the whole hang of the international situation and internal
+conditions--a big scoop--everything that usually is butter and honey to
+Jaff Chayne--an ideal job for him in every way. But no. He was fed up
+with scalliwagging all over the place. He wanted a season in town!"
+
+At the idea of Jaffery yearning to play the Society butterfly I could
+not help laughing. Jaffery lounging down Bond Street in immaculate
+vesture! Jaffery sipping tea at afternoon At Homes! Jaffery dancing till
+three o'clock in the morning! It was all very comic, and Arbuthnot
+seeing the matter in that aspect laughed too. But, on the other hand, it
+was all very incomprehensible. To Jaffery a job was a sacred affair, the
+meaning of his existence. He was a Mercury who took himself seriously.
+The more remote and rough and uncomfortable and dangerous his mission,
+the more he liked it. He had never spared himself. He had been a model
+special correspondent ever ready at a moment's notice to set off to the
+ends of the earth. And now, all of a sudden, behold him declining a task
+after his own heart, and, as I gathered from Arbuthnot, of the greatest
+political significance, and thereby endangering his peculiar and
+honourable position on the paper.
+
+"If it had been any other man alive who had turned us down like that,"
+said Arbuthnot, "we would have chucked him altogether. In fact we didn't
+tell him that we wouldn't."
+
+It was very mysterious; all the more so because Jaffery had never been a
+man of mystery, like Adrian. I went away wondering. If it had occurred
+to me at the time that I was destined to play Boswell to Jaffery's
+Johnson, perhaps I might have gone straight to him and demanded a
+solution of my difficulties. As it was, in my unawakened condition, I
+did nothing of the kind. I spent an hour or two looking up something in
+the British Museum, stopped at the bootmaker's to give an order
+concerning Susan's riding-boots (_vide_ diary) and drove home to dinner,
+to a comfortable chat with Barbara, during which I gave her an account
+of the day's doings, and eventually to the peaceful slumber of the
+contented and inoffensive man.
+
+A fortnight or so passed before I saw Jaffery again. Happening to be in
+Westminster in the forenoon--I had come up to town on business--I
+mounted to his cheerless eyrie in Victoria Street, and rang the bell. A
+dingy servitor in a dress suit, on transient duty, admitted me, and I
+found Jaffery collarless and minus jacket and waistcoat, smoking a pipe
+in front of the fire. It wasn't even a good coal fire. Some austere
+former tenant had installed an electric radiator in the once
+comfort-giving grate. But Jaffery did not seem to mind. The remains of
+breakfast were on the table which the dingy servitor began to clear.
+Jaffery rose from the depths of his easy chair like an agile mammoth.
+
+"Hullo, hullo, hullo!"
+
+His usual greeting. We shook hands and commended the weather. When the
+alien attendant had departed, he began to curse London. It was a hole
+for sick dogs, not for sound men. He loathed its abominable suffocation.
+
+"Then why the deuce do you stay in it?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "I can't do anything else."
+
+This gave me an opening to satisfy my curiosity.
+
+"I understood you could have gone to Persia."
+
+He frowned and tugged his red beard. "How did you know that?"
+
+"Arbuthnot--" I began.
+
+"Arbuthnot?" he boomed angrily. "What the blazes does he mean by telling
+you about my affairs? I'll punch his damned head!"
+
+"Don't," said I. "Your hands are so big and he's so small. You might
+hurt him."
+
+"I'd like to hurt him. Why can't he keep his infernal tongue quiet?"
+
+He proceeded to wither up the soul of Arbuthnot with awful anathema.
+Then in his infantile way he shouted: "I didn't want any of you to know
+anything about it."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because I didn't."
+
+"But I suppose you wanted to go to Persia?"
+
+He paused in his lumbering walk about the little room and collecting a
+litter of books and papers and a hat or two and a legging from a sofa,
+pitched it into a corner.
+
+"Here. Sit down."
+
+I had been warming my back at the fire hitherto and surveying the
+half-formal, half-unkempt sitting-room. It was by no means the
+comfortable home from Harrod's Stores that Barbara had prescribed; and
+he had not attempted to furnish it in slap-up style with the heads of
+game and skins and modern weapons which lay in the London Repository. It
+was the impersonal abode of the male bird of passage.
+
+"Sit down," said he, "and have a drink."
+
+I declined, alleging the fact that a philosophically minded country
+gentleman of domestic habits does not require alcohol at half past
+eleven in the morning, except under the stress of peculiar
+circumstances.
+
+"I'm going to have one anyway!"
+
+He disappeared and presently reentered with a battered two-handled
+silver quart pot bearing defaced arms and inscription, a rowing trophy
+of Cambridge days, which he always carried about with him on no matter
+what lightly equipped expedition--it is always a matter of regret to me
+that Jaffery, as I have mentioned before, missed his seat in the
+Cambridge boat; but when one despoils a Proctor of his square cap and it
+is found the central feature of one's rooms beneath a glass shade such
+as used to protect wax flowers from the dust, what can one expect from
+the priggish judgment of university authority?--he reentered, with this
+vessel full of beer. He nodded, drank a huge draught and wiped his
+moustache with his hand.
+
+"Better have some. I've got a cask in the bedroom."
+
+"Good God!" said I, aghast. "What else do you keep there? A side of
+bacon and a Limburger cheese and Bombay duck?"
+
+Now just imagine a civilised gentleman keeping a cask of beer in his
+bedroom.
+
+Jaffery laughed and took another swig and called me a long, lean,
+puny-gutted insect; which was not polite, but I was glad to hear the
+deep "Ho! ho! ho!" that followed his vituperation.
+
+"All the same," said I, reclining on the cleared sofa and lighting a
+cigarette, "I should like to know why you missed one of the chances of
+your life in not going out to Persia."
+
+He stood, for a moment or two, scrabbling in whisker and beard; and,
+turning over in his mind, I suppose, that Barbara was my wife, and Susan
+my child, and I myself an inconsiderable human not evilly disposed
+towards him, he apparently decided not to annihilate me.
+
+"It was hell, Hilary, old chap, to chuck the Persian proposition," said
+he, his hands in his trouser pockets, looking out of the window at the
+infinitely reaching landscape of the chimney pots of south London, their
+grey smoke making London's unique pearly haze below the crisp blue of
+the March sky. "Just hell!" he muttered in his bass whisper, and craning
+round my neck I could, with the tail of my eye, catch his gaze, which
+was very wistful and seemed directed not at the opalescent mystery of
+the London air, but at the clear vividness of the Persian desert. Away
+and away, beyond the shimmering sand, gleamed the frosted town with
+white walls, white domes, white minarets against the horizon band of
+topaz and amethystine vapours. And in his nostrils was the immemorable
+smell of the East, and in his ears the startling jingle of the harness
+and the pad of the camels, and the guttural cries of the drivers, and in
+his heart the certainty of plucking out the secret from the soul of this
+strange land. . . .
+
+At last he swung round and throwing himself into the armchair enquired
+politely after the health of Barbara and Susan. As far as the Persian
+journey was concerned the palaver was ended. He did not intend to give
+me his reasons for staying in England and I could not demand them more
+insistently. At any rate I had discovered the cause of his grumpiness.
+What creature of Jaffery's temperament could be contented with a soft
+bed in the centre of civilisation, when he had the chance of sleeping in
+verminous caravanserais with a saddle for pillow? In spite of his
+amazing predilections, Jaffery was very human. He would make a great
+sacrifice without hesitation; but the consequences of the sacrifice
+would cause him to go about like a bear with a sore head.
+
+And the cause of the sacrifice? Obviously Doria. Once having been
+admitted to her bedside, he went there every day. Flowers and fruit he
+had sent from the very beginning in absurd profusion; a grape for Doria
+failed in adequacy unless it was the size of a pumpkin. Now he brought
+the offerings personally in embarrassing bulk. One offering was a
+gramophone which nearly drove her mad. Even in its present stage of
+development it offends the sensitive ear; but in its early days it was
+an instrument of torturing cacophony. And Jaffery, thinking the brazen
+strains music of the spheres, would turn on the hideous engine, when he
+came to see her, and would grin and roar and expect her to shew evidence
+of ravished senses. She did her best, poor child, out of politeness and
+recognition of his desire to alleviate her lot; but I don't think the
+gramophone conveyed to her heart the poor dear fellow's unspoken
+message. But gently criticising the banality of the tunes the thing
+played and sending him forth in quest of records of recondite and
+"unrecorded" music, she succeeded in mitigating the terror. To the
+present moment, however, I don't think Jaffery has realised that she had
+a higher aesthetic equipment than the hypnotised fox-terrier in the
+advertisement. . . . Jaffery also bought her puzzles and funny penny
+pavement toys and gallons of eau-de-cologne (which came in useful), and
+expensive scent (which she abominated), and stacks of new novels, and a
+fearsome machine of wood and brass and universal joints, by means of
+which an invalid could read and breakfast and write and shave all at the
+same time. The only thing he did not give her--the thing she craved more
+than all--was a fresh-bound copy of Adrian's book.
+
+Obviously, as I have remarked, it was Doria that kept him out of Persia.
+But I could not help thinking that this same Persian journey might have
+afforded a solution of the whole difficulty. Despatched suddenly to that
+vaguely known country, he could have taken the mythical manuscript to
+revise on the journey: the convoy could have been attacked by a horde of
+Kurds or such-like desperadoes, all could have been slain save a
+fortunate handful, and the manuscript could have been looted as an
+important political document and carried off into Eternity. Doria would
+have hated Jaffery forever after; but his chivalrous aim would have been
+accomplished. Adrian's honour would have been safe. But this simple way
+out never occurred to him. Apparently he thought it wiser to sacrifice
+his career and remain in London so as to buoy Doria up with false hope,
+all the time praying God to burn down St. Quentin's Mansions (where he
+lived) and Adrian's portmanteau of rubbish and himself all together.
+
+Suddenly, as soon as Doria could be moved, Mr. Jornicroft stepped in and
+carried her to the south of France. Barbara and Jaffery and myself saw
+her off by the afternoon train at Charing Cross. She was to rest in
+Paris for the night and the next day, and proceed the following night to
+Nice. She looked the frailest thing under the sun. Her face was
+startling ivory beneath her widow's headgear. She had scarcely strength
+to lift her head. Mr. Jornicroft had made luxurious arrangements for her
+comfort--an ambulance carriage from St. John's Wood, a special invalid
+compartment in the train; but at the station, as at Doria's wedding,
+Jaffery took command. It was his great arms that lifted her
+feather-weight with extraordinary sureness and gentleness from the
+carriage, carried her across the platform and deposited her tenderly on
+her couch in the compartment. Touched by his solicitude she thanked him
+with much graciousness. He bent over her--we were standing at the door
+and could not choose but hear:
+
+"Don't you remember what I said the first day I met you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It stands, my dear; and more than that." He paused for a second and
+took her thin hand. "And don't you worry about that book. You get well
+and strong."
+
+He kissed her hand and spoiled the gallantry by squeezing her
+shoulder--half her little body it seemed to be--and emerging from the
+compartment joined us on the platform. He put a great finger on the arm
+of the rubicund, thickset, black-moustached Jornicroft.
+
+"I think I'll come with you as far as Paris," said he. "I'll get into a
+smoker somewhere or the other."
+
+"But, my dear sir"--exclaimed Mr. Jornicroft in some amazement--"it's
+awfully kind, but why should you?"
+
+"Mrs. Boldero has got to be carried. I didn't realise it. She can't put
+her feet to the ground. Some one has got to lift her at every stage of
+the journey. And I'm not going to let any damned clumsy fellow handle
+her. I'll see her into the Nice train to-morrow night--perhaps I'll go
+on to Nice with you and fix her up in the hotel. As a matter of fact, I
+will. I shan't worry you. You won't see me, except at the right time.
+Don't be afraid."
+
+Mr. Jornicroft, most methodical of Britons, gasped. So, I must confess,
+did Barbara and I. When Jaffery met us at the station he had no more
+intention of escorting Doria to Nice than we had ourselves.
+
+"I can't permit it--it's too kind--there's no necessity--we'll get on
+all right!" spluttered Mr. Jornicroft.
+
+"You won't. She has got to be carried. You're not going to take any
+risks."
+
+"But, my dear fellow--it's absurd--you haven't any luggage."
+
+"Luggage?" He looked at Mr. Jornicroft as if he had suggested the
+impossibility of going abroad without a motor veil or the Encyclopaedia
+Britannica. "What the blazes has luggage got to do with it?" His roar
+could be heard above the din of the hurrying station. "I don't want
+_luggage_." The humour of the proposition appealed to him so mightily
+that he went off into one of his reverberating explosions of mirth.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" Then recovering--"Don't you worry about that."
+
+"But have you enough on you--it's an expensive journey--of course I
+should be most happy--"
+
+Jaffery stepped back and scanned the length of the platform and beckoned
+to an official, who came hurrying towards him. It was the station
+master.
+
+"Have you ever seen me before, Mr. Winter?"
+
+The official laughed. "Pretty often, Mr. Chayne."
+
+"Do you think I could get from here to Nice without buying a ticket
+now?"
+
+"Why, of course, our agent at Boulogne will arrange it if I send him a
+wire."
+
+"Right," said Jaffery. "Please do so, Mr. Winter. I'm crossing now and
+going to Nice by the Cote d'Azur Express to-morrow night. And see after
+a seat for me, will you?"
+
+"I'll reserve a compartment if possible, Mr. Chayne."
+
+The station master raised his hat and departed. Jaffery, his hands
+stuffed deep in his pockets, beamed upon us like a mountainous child. We
+were all impressed by his lordly command of the railway systems of
+Europe. It was a question of credit, of course, but neither Mr.
+Jornicroft, solid man that he was, nor myself could have undertaken that
+journey with a few loose shillings in his possession. For the first time
+since Adrian's death I saw Jaffery really enjoying himself.
+
+And that is how Jaffery without money or luggage or even an overcoat
+travelled from London to Nice, for no other purpose than to save Doria's
+sacred little body from being profaned by the touch of ruder hands.
+
+Having carried her at every stage beginning with the transfer from train
+to steamer at Folkestone and ending with a triumphant march up the
+stairs to the third floor of the Cimiez hotel, he took the first train
+back straight through to London.
+
+He returned the same old grinning giant, without a shadow of grumpiness
+on his jolly face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+About this time a bolt came from the blue or a bomb fell at our
+feet--the metaphor doesn't matter so long as it conveys a sense of an
+unlooked-for phenomenon. True, in relation to cosmic forces, it was but
+a trumpery bolt or a squib-like bomb; but it startled us all the same.
+The admirable Mrs. Considine got married. A retired warrior, a recent
+widower, but a celibate of twenty years standing owing to the fact that
+his late wife and himself had occupied separate continents (_on avait
+fait continent a part_, as the French might say) during that period, a
+Major-General fresh from India, an old flame and constant correspondent,
+had suddenly swooped down upon the boarding-house in Queen's Gate and,
+in swashbuckling fashion, had abducted the admirable and unresisting
+lady. It was a matter of special license, and off went the tardily happy
+pair to Margate, before we had finished rubbing our eyes.
+
+It was grossly selfish on the part of Mrs. Considine, said Barbara. She
+thought her--no; perhaps she didn't think her--God alone knows the
+convolutions of feminine mental processes--but she proclaimed her
+anyhow--an unscrupulous woman.
+
+"There's Liosha," she said, "left alone in that boarding-house."
+
+"My dear," said I, "Mrs. Jupp--I admit it's deplorable taste to change a
+name of such gentility as Considine for that of Jupp, but it isn't
+unscrupulous--Mrs. Jupp did not happen to be charged with a mission
+from on High to dry nurse Liosha for the rest of her life."
+
+"That's where you're wrong," Barbara retorted. "She was. She was the one
+person in the world who could look after Liosha. See what she's done for
+her. It was her duty to stick to Liosha. As for those two old faggots
+marrying, they ought to be ashamed of themselves."
+
+Whether they were ashamed of themselves or not didn't matter. Liosha
+remained alone in the boarding-house. Not all Barbara's indignation
+could turn Mrs. Jupp into the admirable Mrs. Considine and bring her
+back to Queen's Gate. What was to be done? We consulted Jaffery, who as
+Liosha's trustee ought to have consulted us. Jaffery pulled a long face
+and smiled ruefully. For the first time he realised--in spite of tragic
+happenings--the comedy aspect of his position as the legal guardian of
+two young, well-to-do and attractive widows. He was the last man in the
+world to whom one would have expected such a fate to befall. He too
+swore lustily at the defaulting duenna.
+
+"I thought it was all fixed up nicely forever," he growled.
+
+"Everything is transitory in this life, my dear fellow," said I.
+"Everything except a trusteeship. That goes on forever."
+
+"That's the devil of it," he growled.
+
+"You must get used to it," said I. "You'll have lots more to look after
+before you've done with this existence!"
+
+His look hardened and seemed to say: "If you go and die and saddle me
+with Barbara, I'll punch your head."
+
+He turned his back on me and, jerking a thumb, addressed Barbara.
+
+"Why do you take him out without a muzzle? Now you've got sense. What
+shall I do?"
+
+Then Liosha superb and smiling sailed into the room.
+
+I ought to have mentioned that Barbara had convened this meeting at the
+boarding-house. The room into which Liosha sailed was the elegant
+"_bonbonniere_" of a chamber known as the "boudoir." There was a great
+deal of ribbon and frill and photograph frame and artful feminine touch
+about it, which Liosha and, doubtless, many other inmates thought
+mightily refined.
+
+Liosha kissed Barbara and shook hands with Jaffery and me, bade us be
+seated and put us at our ease with a social grace which could not have
+been excelled by the admirable Mrs. Considine (now Jupp) herself. That
+maligned lady had performed her duties during the past two years with
+characteristic ability. Parenthetically I may remark that Liosha's
+table-manners and formal demeanour were now irreproachable. Mrs.
+Considine had also taken up the Western education of the child of twelve
+at the point at which it had been arrested, and had brought Liosha's
+information as to history, geography, politics and the world in general
+to the standard of that of the average schoolgirl of fifteen. Again, she
+had developed in our fair barbarian a natural taste in dress, curbing,
+on her emergence from mourning, a fierce desire for apparel in primary
+colours, and leading her onwards to an appreciation of suaver harmonies.
+Again she had run her tactful hand over Liosha's stockyard vocabulary,
+erasing words and expressions that might offend Queen's Gate and
+substituting others that might charm; and she had done it with a touch
+of humour not lost on Liosha, who had retained the sense of values in
+which no child born and bred in Chicago can be deficient.
+
+"I suppose you're all fussed to death about this marriage," she said
+pleasantly. "Well, I couldn't help it."
+
+"Of course not, dear," said Barbara.
+
+"You might have given us a hint as to what was going on," said Jaffery.
+
+"What good could you have done? In Albania if the General had interfered
+with your plans, you might have shot him from behind a stone and
+everyone except Mrs. Considine would have been happy; but I've been
+taught you don't do things like that in South Kensington."
+
+"Whoever wanted to shoot the chap?"
+
+"I, for one," said Barbara. "What are we to do now?"
+
+"Find another dragon," said Jaffery.
+
+"But supposing I don't want another dragon?"
+
+"That doesn't matter in the least. You've got to have one."
+
+"Say, Jaff Chayne," cried Liosha, "do you think I can't look after
+myself by this time? What do you take me for?"
+
+I interposed. "Rather a lonely young woman, that's all. Jaffery, in his
+tactless way, by using the absurd term 'dragon,' has missed the point
+altogether. You want a companion, if only to go about with, say to
+restaurants and theatres."
+
+"I guess I can get heaps of those," said Liosha, a smile in her eyes.
+"Don't you worry!"
+
+"All the more reason for a dragon."
+
+"If you mean somebody who's going to sit on my back every time I talk to
+a man, I decidedly object. Mrs. Considine was different and you're not
+going to find another like her in a hurry. Besides--I had sense enough
+to see that she was going to teach me things. But I don't want to be
+taught any more. I've learned enough."
+
+"But it's just a woman companion that we want to give you, dear," said
+Barbara. "Her mere presence about you is a protection against--well, any
+pretty young woman living alone is liable to chance impertinence and
+annoyance."
+
+Liosha's dark eyes flashed. "I'd like to see any man try to annoy me. He
+wouldn't try twice. You ask Mrs. Jardine"--Mrs. Jardine was the keeper
+of the boarding-house--"she'll tell you a thing or two about my being
+able to keep men from annoying me."
+
+Barbara did, afterwards, ask Mrs. Jardine, and obtained a few sidelights
+on Liosha's defensive methods. What they lacked in subtlety they made up
+in physical effectiveness. There were not many spruce young gentlemen
+who, after a week's residence in that establishment, did not adopt a
+peculiarly deferential attitude towards Liosha.
+
+"Still," said Jaffery, "I think you ought to have somebody, you know."
+
+"If you're so keen on a dragon," replied Liosha defiantly, "why not take
+on the job yourself?"
+
+"I? Good Lord! Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+Jaffery rose to his feet and roared with laughter. It was a fine joke.
+
+"There's a lot in Liosha's suggestion," said Barbara, with an air of
+seriousness.
+
+"You don't expect me to come and live here?" he cried, waving a hand to
+the frills and ribbons.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said I. "You would get all the advantages
+and refining influences of a first-class English home."
+
+He pivoted round. "Oh, you be--"
+
+"Hush," said Barbara. "Either you ought to stay here and look after
+Liosha more than you do--"
+
+He protested. Wasn't he always looking after her? Didn't he write?
+Didn't he drop in now and then to see how she was getting on?
+
+"Have you ever taken the poor child out to dinner?" Barbara asked
+sternly.
+
+He stood before her in the confusion of a schoolboy detected in a lapse
+from grace, stammering explanations. Then Liosha rose, and I noticed
+just the faintest little twitching of her lip.
+
+"I don't want Jaff Chayne to be made to take me out to dinner against
+his will."
+
+"But--God bless my soul! I should love to take you out. I never thought
+of it because I never take anybody out. I'm a barbarian, my dear girl,
+just like yourself. If you wanted to be taken out, why on earth didn't
+you say so?"
+
+Liosha regarded him steadily. "I would rather cut my tongue out."
+
+Jaffery returned her gaze for a few seconds, then turned away puzzled.
+There seemed to be an unnecessary vehemence in Liosha's tone. He turned
+again and approached her with a smiling face.
+
+"I only meant that I didn't know you cared for that sort of thing,
+Liosha. You must forgive me. Come and dine with me at the Carlton this
+evening and do a theatre afterwards."
+
+"No, I wont!" cried Liosha. "You insult me."
+
+Her cheeks paled and she shook in sudden wrath. She looked magnificent.
+Jaffery frowned.
+
+"I think I'll have to be a bit of a dragon after all."
+
+I recalled a scene of nearly two years before when he had frowned and
+spoken thus roughly and she had invited him to chastise her with a
+cleek. She did not repeat the invitation, but a sob rose in her throat
+and she marched to the door, and at the door, turned splendidly,
+quivering.
+
+"I'm not going to have you or any one else for a dragon. And"--alas for
+the superficiality of Mrs. Considine's training--"I'm going to do as I
+damn well like."
+
+Her voice broke on the last word, as she dashed from the room. I
+exchanged a glance with Barbara, who followed her. Barbara could convey
+a complicated set of instructions by her glance. Jaffery pulled out
+pouch and pipe and shook his head.
+
+"Woman is a remarkable phenomenon," said he.
+
+"A more remarkable phenomenon still," said I, "is the dunderheaded
+male."
+
+"I did nothing to cause these heroics."
+
+"You asked her to ask you to ask her out to dinner."
+
+"I didn't," he protested.
+
+I proved to him by all the rules of feminine logic that he had done so.
+Holding the match over the bowl of his pipe, he puffed savagely.
+
+"I wish I were a cannibal in Central Africa, where women are in proper
+subjection. There's no worry about 'em there."
+
+"Isn't there?" said I. "You just ask the next cannibal you meet. He is
+confronted with the Great Conundrum, even as we are."
+
+"He can solve it by clubbing his wife on the head."
+
+"Quite so," said I. "But do you think the poor fellow does it for
+pleasure? No. It worries him dreadfully to have to do it."
+
+"That's specious rot, and platitudinous rubbish such as any soft idiot
+who's been glued all his life to an armchair can reel off by the mile. I
+know better. A couple of years ago Liosha would have eaten out of my
+hand, to say nothing of dining with me at the Canton. It's all this
+infernal civilisation. It has spoiled her."
+
+"You began this argument," said I, "with the proposition that woman was
+a remarkable phenomenon--a generalisation which includes woman in
+fig-leaves and woman in diamonds."
+
+"Oh, dry up," said Jaffery, "and tell me what I ought to do. I didn't
+want to hurt the girl's feelings. Why should I? In fact I'm rather fond
+of her. She appeals to me as something big and primitive. Long ago, if
+it hadn't been that poor old Prescott--you know what I mean--I gave up
+thinking of her in that way at once--and now I just want to be
+friends--we have been friends. She's a jolly good sort, and, if I had
+thought of it, I would have taken her about a bit. . . . But what I
+can't stand is these modern neurotics--"
+
+"You called them heroics--"
+
+"All the same thing. It's purely artificial. It's cultivated by every
+modern woman. Instead of thinking in a straight line they're taught it's
+correct to think in a corkscrew. You never know where to have 'em."
+
+"That's their artfulness," said I. "Who can blame them?"
+
+Meanwhile Liosha, pursued by Barbara, had rushed to her bedroom, where
+she burst into a passion of tears. Jaff Chayne, she wailed, had always
+treated her like dirt. It was true that her father had stuck pigs in the
+stockyards; but he was of an old Albanian family, quite as good a family
+as Jaff Chayne's. It had numbered princes and great chieftains, the
+majority of whom had been most gloriously slain in warfare. She would
+like to know which of Jaff Chayne's ancestors had died out of their
+feather beds.
+
+"His grandfather," said Barbara, "was killed in the Indian Mutiny, and
+his father in the Zulu War."
+
+Liosha didn't care. That only proved an equality. Jaff Chayne had no
+right to treat her like dirt. He had no right to put a female policeman
+over her. She was a free woman--she wouldn't go out to dinner with Jaff
+Chayne for a thousand pounds. Oh, she hated him; at which renewed
+declaration she burst into fresh weeping and wished she were dead. As a
+guardian of young and beautiful widows Jaffery did not seem to be a
+success.
+
+Barbara, in her wise way, said very little, and searched the
+paraphernalia on the dressing table for eau-de-cologne and such other
+lotions as would remove the stain of tears. Holding these in front of
+Liosha, like a stern nurse administering medicine, she waited till the
+fit had subsided. Then she spoke.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Liosha, going on like a silly
+schoolgirl instead of a grown-up woman of the world. I wonder you didn't
+announce your intention of assassinating Jaffery."
+
+"I've a good mind to," replied Liosha, nursing her grievance.
+
+"Well, why don't you do it?" Barbara whipped up a murderous-looking
+knife that lay on a little table--it was the same weapon that she had
+lent the Swiss waiter. "Here's a dagger." She threw it on the girl's
+lap. "I'll ring the bell and send a message for Mr. Chayne to come up.
+As soon as he enters you can stick it into him. Then you can stick it
+into me. Then if you like you can go downstairs and stick it into
+Hilary. And having destroyed everybody who cares for you and is good to
+you, you'll feel a silly ass--such a silly ass that you'll forget to
+stick it into yourself."
+
+Liosha threw the knife into a corner. On its way it snicked a neat
+little chip out of a chair-back.
+
+"What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Clean your face," said Barbara, and presented the materials.
+
+Sitting on the bed and regarding herself in a hand-mirror Liosha obeyed
+meekly. Barbara brought the powder puff.
+
+"Now your nose. There!" For the first time Barbara smiled. "Now you look
+better. Oh, my dear girl!" she cried, seating herself beside Liosha and
+putting an arm round her waist. "That's not the way to deal with men.
+You must learn. They're only overgrown babies. Listen."
+
+And she poured into unsophisticated but sympathetic ears all the
+duplicity, all the treachery, all the insidious cunning and all the
+serpent-like wisdom of her unscrupulous sex. What she said neither I nor
+any of the sons of men are ever likely to know! but so proud of
+belonging to that nefarious sisterhood, so overweening in her
+sex-conceit did she render Liosha, that when they entered the little
+private sitting-room next door whither, according to the instructions
+conveyed by Barbara's parting glance downstairs, I had dragged a softly
+swearing Jaffery, she marched up to him and said serenely:
+
+"If you really do want me to dine with you, I'll come with pleasure. But
+the next time you ask me, please do it in a decent way."
+
+I saw mischief lurking in my wife's eye and shook my head at her
+rebukingly. But Jaffery stared at Liosha and gasped. It was all very
+well for Doria and Barbara to be ever putting him in the wrong: they
+were daughters of a subtle civilisation; but here was Liosha, who had
+once asked him to beat her, doing the same--woman was a more curious
+phenomenon than ever.
+
+"I'm sorry if my manners are not as they should be," said he with a
+touch of irony. "I'll try to mend 'em. Anyhow, it's awfully good of you
+to come."
+
+She smiled and bowed; not the deep bow of Albania, but the delicate
+little inclination of South Kensington. The quarrel was healed, the
+incident closed. He arranged to call for her in a taxi at a quarter to
+seven. Barbara looked at the clock and said that we must be going. We
+rose to take our leave. Maliciously I said:
+
+"But we've settled nothing about a remplacante for Mrs. Considine."
+
+"I guess we've settled everything," Liosha replied sweetly. "No one can
+replace Mrs. Considine."
+
+I quite enjoyed our little silent walk downstairs. Evidently Jaffery's
+theory of primitive woman had been knocked endways; and, to judge by the
+faint knitting of her brow, Barbara was uneasily conscious of a mission
+unfulfilled. Liosha had gained her independence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our friends carried out the evening's programme. Liosha behaved with
+extreme propriety, modelling her outward demeanour upon that of Mrs.
+Considine, and her attitude towards Jaffery on a literal interpretation
+of Barbara's reprehensible precepts. She was so dignified that Jaffery,
+lest he should offend, was afraid to open his mouth except for the
+purpose of shovelling in food, which he did, in astounding quantity.
+From what both of us gathered afterwards--and gleefully we compared
+notes--they were vastly polite to each other. He might have been
+entertaining the decorous wife of a Dutch Colonial Governor from whom he
+desired facilities of travel. The simple Eve travestied in guile took
+him in completely. Aware that it was her duty to treat him like an
+overgrown baby and mould him to her fancy and twist him round her finger
+and lead him whithersoever she willed, making him feel all the time that
+he was pointing out the road, she did not know how to begin. She sat
+tongue-tied, racking her brains to loss of appetite; which was a pity,
+for the maitre d'hotel, given a free hand by her barbarously ignorant
+host, had composed a royal menu. As dinner proceeded she grew shyer than
+a chit of sixteen. Over the quails a great silence reigned. Hers she
+could not touch, but she watched him fork, as it seemed to her, one
+after the other, whole, down his throat: and she adored him for it. It
+was her ideal of manly gusto. She nearly wept into her _Fraises
+Diane_--vast craggy strawberries (in March) rising from a drift of snow
+impregnated by all the distillations of all the flowers of all the
+summers of all the hills--because she would have given her soul to sit
+beside him on the table with the bowl on her lap and feed him with a
+tablespoon and, for her share of it, lick the spoon after his every
+mouthful. But it had been drummed into her that she was a woman of the
+world, the fashionable and all but incomprehensible world, the English
+world. She looked around and saw a hundred of her sex practising the
+well-bred deportment that Mrs. Considine had preached. She reflected
+that to all of those women gently nurtured in this queer English
+civilisation, equally remote from Armour's stockyards and from her
+Albanian fastness, the wisdom that Barbara had imparted to her a few
+hours before was but their A.B.C. of life in their dealings with their
+male companions. She also reflected--and for the reflection not Mrs.
+Considine or Barbara, only her woman's heart was responsible--that to
+the man whom she yearned to feed with great tablespoonfuls of delight,
+she counted no more than a pig or a cow--her instinctive similes, you
+must remember, were pastoral--or that peculiar damfool of a sister of
+his, Euphemia.
+
+When I think of these two children of nature, sitting opposite to one
+another in the fashionable restaurant trying to behave like
+super-civilised dolls, I cannot help smiling. They were both so
+thoroughly in earnest; and they bored themselves and each other so
+dreadfully. Conversation patched sporadically great expanses of silence
+and then they talked of the things that did not interest them in the
+least. Of course they smiled at each other, the smirk being essential to
+the polite atmosphere; and of course Jaffery played host in the orthodox
+manner, and Liosha acknowledged attentions with a courtesy equally
+orthodox. But how much happier they both would have been on a bleak
+mountain-side eating stew out of a pot! Even champagne and old brandy
+failed to exercise mellowing influences. The twain were petrified in
+their own awful correctitude. Perhaps if they had proceeded to a musical
+comedy or a farce or a variety entertainment where Jaffery could have
+expanded his lungs in laughter, their evening as a whole might have been
+less dismal. But a misapprehension as to the nature of the play had
+caused Jaffery to book seats for a gloomy drama with an ironical title,
+which stupefied them with depression.
+
+When they waited for the front door of the house in Queen's Gate to open
+to their ring, Liosha in her best manner thanked him for a most
+enjoyable evening.
+
+"Most enjoyable indeed," said Jaffery. "We must have another, if you
+will do me the honour. What do you say to this day week?"
+
+"I shall be delighted," said Liosha.
+
+So that day week they repeated this extraordinary performance, and the
+week after that, and so on until it became a grim and terrifying
+fixture. And while Jaffery, in a fog of theory as to the Eternal
+Feminine, was trying to do his duty, Liosha struggled hard to smother
+her own tumultuous feelings and to carry out Barbara's prescription for
+the treatment of overgrown babies; but the deuce of it was that though
+in her eyes Jaffery was pleasantly overgrown, she could not for the life
+of her regard him as a baby. So it came to pass that an unnatural pair
+continued to meet and mystify and misunderstand each other to the great
+content of the high gods and of one unimportant human philosopher who
+looked on.
+
+"I told you all this artificiality was spoiling her," Jaffery growled,
+one day. "She's as prim as an old maid. I can't get anything out of
+her."
+
+"That's a pity," said I.
+
+"It is." He reflected for a moment. "And the more so because she looks
+so stunning in her evening gowns. She wipes the floor with all the other
+women."
+
+I smiled. You can get a lot of quiet amusement out of your friends if
+you know how to set to work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+It was a gorgeous April day--one of those days when young Spring in
+madcap masquerade flaunts it in the borrowed mantle of summer. She could
+assume the deep blue of the sky and the gold of the sunshine, but
+through all the travesty peeped her laughing youth, the little tender
+leaves on the trees, the first shy bloom of the lilac, the swelling of
+the hawthorn buds, the pathetic immature barrenness of the walnuts.
+
+And even the leafless walnuts were full of alien life, for in their
+hollow boles chippering starlings made furtive nests, and in their
+topmost forks jackdaws worked with clamorous zeal. A pale butterfly here
+and there accomplished its early day, and queen wasps awakened from
+their winter slumber in cosy crevices, the tiniest winter-palaces in the
+world, sped like golden arrow tips to and from the homes they had to
+build alone for the swarms that were to come. The flower beds shone gay
+with tulips and hyacinths; in the long grass beyond the lawn and under
+the trees danced a thousand daffodils; and by their side warmly wrapped
+up in furs lay Doria on a long cane chair.
+
+She could not literally dance with the daffodils as I had prophesied,
+for her full strength had not yet returned, but there she was among
+them, and she smiled at them sympathetically as though they were dancing
+in her honour. She was, however, restored to health; the great circles
+beneath her eyes had disappeared and a tinge of colour shewed beneath
+her ivory cheek. Beside her, in the first sunbonnet of the year, sat
+Susan, a prim monkey of nine. . . . Lord! It scarcely seemed two years
+since Jaffery came from Albania and tossed the seven year old up in his
+arms and was struck all of a heap by Doria at their first meeting. So
+thought I, looking from my study-table at the pretty picture some thirty
+yards, away. And once again--pleasant self repetition of
+history--Jaffery was expected. Doria, fresh from Nice, had spent a night
+at her father's house and had come down to us the evening before to
+complete her convalescence. She had wanted to go straight to the flat in
+St. John's Wood and begin her life anew with Adrian's beloved ghost, and
+she had issued orders to servants to have everything in readiness for
+her arrival, but Barbara had intervened and so had Mr. Jornicroft, a man
+of limited sympathies and brutal common sense. All of us, including
+Jaffery, who seemed to regard advice to Doria as a presumption only
+equalled by that of a pilgrim on his road to Mecca giving hints to Allah
+as to the way to run the universe, had urged her to give up the abode of
+tragic memories and find a haven of quietude elsewhere. But she had
+indignantly refused. The home of her wondrous married life was the home
+of her widowhood. If she gave it up, how could she live in peace with
+the consciousness ever in her brain that the Holy of Holies in which
+Adrian had worked and died was being profaned by vulgar tread? Our
+suggestions were callous, monstrous, everything that could arise from
+earth-bound non-percipience of sacred things. We could only prevail upon
+her to postpone her return to the flat until such time as she was
+physically strong enough to grapple with changed conditions.
+
+The pink sunbonnet was very near the dark head; both were bending over a
+book on Doria's knee--_Les Malheurs de Sophie_, which Susan, proud of
+her French scholarship, had proposed to read to Doria, who having just
+returned from France was supposed to be the latest authority on the
+language. I noticed that the severity of this intellectual communion was
+mitigated by Susan's favourite black kitten, who, sitting on its little
+haunches, seemed to be turning over pages rather rapidly. Then all of a
+sudden, from nowhere in particular, there stepped into the landscape
+(framed, you must remember, by the jambs of my door) a huge and familiar
+figure, carrying a great suit-case. He put this on the ground, rushed up
+to Doria, shook her by both hands, swung Susan in the air and kissed
+her, and was still laughing and making the welkin ring--that is to say,
+making a thundering noise--when I, having sped across the lawn, joined
+the group.
+
+"Hello!" said I, "how did you get here?"
+
+"Walked from the station," said Jaffery. "Came down by an earlier train.
+No good staying in town on such a morning. Besides--" He glanced at
+Doria in significant aposiopesis.
+
+"And you lugged that infernal thing a mile and a half?" I asked,
+pointing to the suit-case, which must have weighed half a ton. "Why
+didn't you leave it to be called for?"
+
+"This? This little _sachet_?" He lifted it up by one finger and grinned.
+
+Susan regarded the feat, awe-stricken. "Oh, Uncle Jaff, you are strong!"
+
+Doria smiled at him admiringly and declared she couldn't lift the thing
+an inch from the ground with both her hands.
+
+"Do you know," she laughed, "when he used to carry me about, I felt as
+if I had been picked up by an iron crane."
+
+Jaffery beamed with delight. He was just a little vain of his physical
+strength. A colleague of his once told me that he had seen Jaffery in a
+nasty row in Caracas during a revolution, bend from his saddle and
+wrench up two murderous villains by the armpits, one in each hand, and
+dash their heads together over his horse's neck. But that is the sort of
+story that Jaffery himself never told.
+
+Barbara, who, flitting about the house on domestic duty, had caught
+sight of him through a window, came out to greet him.
+
+"Isn't it glorious to have her back?" he cried, waving his great hand
+towards Doria. "And looking so bonny. Nothing like the South. The
+sunshine gets into your blood. By Jove! what a difference, eh? Remember
+when we started for Nice?"
+
+He stood, legs apart and hands on hips, looking down on her with as much
+pride as if he had wrought the miracle himself.
+
+"Get some more chairs, dear," said Barbara.
+
+By good fortune seeing one of the gardeners in the near distance, I
+hailed him and shouted the necessary orders. That is the one
+disadvantage of summer: during the whole of that otherwise happy season,
+Barbara expects me to be something between a scene-shifter and a
+Furniture Removing Van.
+
+The chairs were fetched from a far-off summer house and we settled down.
+Jaffery lit his pipe, smiled at Doria, and met a very wistful look. He
+held her eyes for a space, and laid his great hand very gently on hers.
+
+"I know what you're thinking of," he said, with an arresting tenderness
+in his deep voice. "You won't have to wait much longer."
+
+"Is it at the printer's?"
+
+"It's printed."
+
+Barbara and I gave each a little start--we looked at Jaffery, who was
+taking no notice of us, and then questioningly at each other. What on
+earth did the man mean?
+
+"From to-morrow onwards, till publication, the press will be flooded
+with paragraphs about Adrian Boldero's new book. I fixed it up with
+Wittekind, as a sort of welcome home to you."
+
+"That was very kind, Jaffery," said Doria; "but was it necessary? I
+mean, couldn't Wittekind have done it before?"
+
+"It was necessary in a way," said Jaffery. "We wanted you to pass the
+proofs."
+
+Doria smiled proudly. "Pass Adrian's proofs? I? I wouldn't presume to do
+such a thing."
+
+"Well, here they are, anyway," said Jaffery.
+
+And to the bewilderment of Barbara and myself, he snapped open the hasps
+of his suit-case and drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs
+fastened by a clip at the left hand top corner, which he deposited on
+Doria's lap. She closed her eyes and her eyelids fluttered as she
+fingered the precious thing. For a moment we thought she was going to
+faint. There was breathless silence. Even Susan, who had been left out
+in the cold, let the black kitten leap from her knee, and aware that
+something out of the ordinary was happening, fixed her wondering eyes on
+Doria. Her mother and I wondered even more than Susan, for we had more
+reason. Of what manuscript, in heaven's name, were these the printed
+proofs? Was it possible that I had been mistaken and that Jaffery, in
+the assiduity of love, had made coherence out of Adrian's farrago of
+despair?
+
+Jaffery touched Doria's hand with his finger tips. She opened her eyes
+and smiled wanly, and looked at the front slip of the long proofs. At
+once she sat bolt upright.
+
+"'_The Greater Glory_.' But that wasn't Adrian's title. His title was
+'_God_.' Who has dared to change it?"
+
+[Illustration: He drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs.]
+
+Her eyes flashed; her little body quivered. She flamed an incarnate
+indignation. For some reason or other she turned accusingly on me.
+
+"I knew nothing of the change," said I, "but I'm very glad to hear of it
+now."
+
+Many times before had I been forced to disclaim knowledge of what
+Jaffery had been doing with the book.
+
+"Wittekind wouldn't have the old title," cried Jaffery eagerly. "The
+public are very narrow minded, and he felt that in certain quarters it
+might be misunderstood."
+
+"Wittekind told dear Adrian that he thought it a perfect title."
+
+"Our dear Adrian," said I, pacifically, "was a man of enormous
+will-power and perhaps Wittekind hadn't the strength to stand up against
+him."
+
+"Of course he hadn't," exclaimed Doria. "Of course he hadn't when Adrian
+was alive: now Adrian's dead, he thinks he is going to do just as he
+chooses. He isn't! Not while I live, he isn't!"
+
+Jaffery looked at me from beneath bent brows and his eyes were turned to
+cold blue steel.
+
+"Hilary!" said he, "will you kindly tell Doria what we found on Adrian's
+blotting pad--the last words he ever wrote?"
+
+What he desired me to say was obvious.
+
+"Written three or four times," said I, "we found the words: 'The Greater
+Glory: A Novel by Adrian Boldero.'"
+
+"What has become of the blotting pad?"
+
+"The sheet seemed to be of no value, so we destroyed it with a lot of
+other unimportant papers."
+
+"And I came across further evidence," said Jaffery, "of his intention to
+rename the novel."
+
+Doria's anger died away. She looked past us into the void. "I should
+like to have had Adrian's last words," she whispered. Then bringing
+herself back to earth, she begged Jaffery's pardon very touchingly.
+Adrian's implied intention was a command. She too approved the change.
+"But I'm so jealous," she said, with a catch in her voice, "of my dear
+husband's work. You must forgive me. I'm sure you've done everything
+that was right and good, Jaffery." She held out the great bundle and
+smiled. "I pass the proofs."
+
+Jaffery took the bundle and laid it again on her lap. "It's awfully good
+of you to say that. I appreciate it tremendously. But you can keep this
+set. I've got another, with the corrections in duplicate."
+
+She looked at the proofs wistfully, turned over the long strips in a
+timid, reverent way, and abruptly handed them back.
+
+"I can't read it. I daren't read it. If Adrian had lived I shouldn't
+have seen it before it was published. He would have given me the finally
+bound book--an advance copy. These things--you know--it's the same to me
+as if he were living."
+
+The tears started. She rose; and we all did the same.
+
+"I must go indoors for a little. No, no, Barbara dear. I'd rather be
+alone." She put her arm round my small daughter. "Perhaps Susan will see
+I don't break my neck across the lawn."
+
+Her voice ended in a queer little sob, and holding on to Susan, who was
+mighty proud of being selected as an escort, walked slowly towards the
+house. Susan afterwards reported that, dismissed at the bedroom door,
+she had lingered for a moment outside and had heard Auntie Doria crying
+like anything.
+
+Barbara, who had said absolutely nothing since the miraculous draught of
+proofs, advanced, a female David, up to Goliath Jaffery.
+
+"Look here, my friend, I'm not accustomed to sit still like a graven
+image and be mystified in my own house. Will you have the goodness to
+explain?"
+
+Jaffery looked down on her, his head on one side.
+
+"Explain what?"
+
+"That!"
+
+She pointed to the proofs of which I had possessed myself and was
+eagerly scanning. Unblenching he met her gaze.
+
+"That is the posthumous novel of Adrian Boldero, which I, as his
+literary executor, have revised for the press. Hilary saw the rough
+manuscript, but he had no time to read it."
+
+They looked at one another for quite a long time.
+
+"Is that all you're going to tell me?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"And all you're going to tell Hilary?"
+
+"Telling Hilary is the same as telling you."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"And telling you is the same as telling Hilary."
+
+"By no manner of means," said Barbara tartly. She took him by the
+sleeve. "Come and explain."
+
+"I've explained already," said Jaffery.
+
+Barbara eyed him like a syren of the cornfields. "I'm going to dress a
+crab for lunch. A very big crab."
+
+Jaffery's face was transfigured into a vast, hairy smile. Barbara could
+dress crab like no one else in the world. She herself disliked the taste
+of crab. I, a carefully trained gastronomist, adored it, but a Puckish
+digestion forbade my consuming one single shred of the ambrosial
+preparation. Doria would pass it by through sheer unhappiness. And it
+was not fit food for Susan's tender years. Old Jaff knew this. One
+gigantic crab-shell filled with Barbara's juicy witchery and flanked by
+cool pink, meaty claws would be there for his own individual
+delectation. Several times before had he taken the dish, with a "One
+man, one crab. Ho! ho! ho!" and had left nothing but clean shells.
+
+"I'm going to dress this crab," said Barbara, "for the sake of the
+servants. But if you find I've put poison in it, don't blame me."
+
+She left us, her little head indignantly in the air. Jaffery laughed,
+sank into a chair and tugged at his pipe.
+
+"I wish Doria could be persuaded to read the thing," said he.
+
+"Why?" I asked looking up from the proofs.
+
+"It's not quite up to the standard of 'The Diamond Gate.'"
+
+"I shouldn't suppose it was," said I drily.
+
+"Wittekind's delighted anyhow. It's a different _genre_; but he says
+that's all the better."
+
+Susan emerged from my study door on to the terrace.
+
+"My good fellow," said I, "yonder is the daughter of the house,
+evidently at a loose end. Go and entertain her. I'm going to read this
+wonderful novel and don't want to be disturbed till lunch."
+
+The good-humoured giant lumbered away, and Susan finding herself in
+undisputed possession took him off to remote recesses of the kitchen
+garden, far from casual intruders. Meanwhile I went on reading, very
+much puzzled. Naturally the style was not that of "The Diamond Gate,"
+which was the style of Tom Castleton and not of Adrian Boldero. But was
+what I read the style of Adrian Boldero? This vivid, virile opening?
+This scene of the two derelicts who hated one another, fortuitously
+meeting on the old tramp steamer? This cunning, evocation of smells,
+jute, bilge water, the warm oils of the engine room? This expert
+knowledge so carelessly displayed of the various parts of a ship? How
+had Adrian, man of luxury, who had never been on a tramp steamer in his
+life, gained the knowledge? The people too were lustily drawn. They had
+a flavour of the sea and the breeziness of wide spaces; a deep-lunged
+folk. So that I should not be interrupted I wandered off to a secluded
+nook of the garden down the drive away from the house and gave myself up
+to the story. From the first it went with a rare swing, incident
+following incident, every trait of character presented objectively in
+fine scorn of analysis. There were little pen pictures of grim scenes
+faultless in their definition and restraint. There was a girl in it, a
+wild, clean-limbed, woodland thing who especially moved my admiration.
+The more I read the more fascinated did I become, and the more did I
+doubt whether a single line in it had been written by Adrian Boldero.
+
+After a long spell, I took out my watch. It was twenty past one. We
+lunched at half-past. I rose, went towards the house and came upon
+Jaffery and Susan. The latter I despatched peremptorily to her
+ablutions. Alone with Jaffery, I challenged him.
+
+"You hulking baby," said I, "what's the good of pretending with me? Why
+didn't you tell me at once that you had written it yourself?"
+
+He looked at me anxiously. "What makes you think so?"
+
+"The simple intelligence possessed by the average adult. First," I
+continued, as he made no reply but stood staring at me in ingenuous
+discomfort, "you couldn't have got this out of poor Adrian's mush;
+secondly, Adrian hadn't the experience of life to have written it;
+thirdly, I have read many brilliant descriptive articles in _The Daily
+Gazette_ and have little difficulty in recognising the hand of Jaffery
+Chayne."
+
+"Good Lord!" said he. "It isn't as obvious as all that?"
+
+I laughed. "Then you did write it?"
+
+"Of course," he growled. "But I didn't want you to know. I tried to get
+as near Tom Castleton as I could. Look here"--he gripped my
+shoulder--"if it's such a transparent fraud, what the blazes is going
+to happen?"
+
+To some extent I reassured him. I was in a peculiar position, having
+peculiar knowledge. Save Barbara, no other soul in the world had the
+faintest suspicion of Adrian's tragedy. The forthcoming book would be
+received without shadow of question as the work of the author of "_The
+Diamond Gate_." The difference of style and treatment would be
+attributed to the marvellous versatility of the dead genius. . . .
+Jaffery's brow began to clear.
+
+"What do you think of it--as far as you've gone?"
+
+My enthusiastic answer expressed the sincerity of my appreciation. He
+positively blushed and looked at me rather guiltily, like a schoolboy
+detected in the act of helping an old woman across the road.
+
+"It's awful cheek," said he, "but I was up against it. The only
+alternative was to say the damn thing had been lost or burnt and take
+the consequences. Somehow I thought of this. I had written about half of
+it all in bits and pieces about three or four years ago and put it
+aside. It wasn't my job. Then I pulled it out one day and read it and it
+seemed rather good, so, having the story in my head, I set to work."
+
+"And that's why you didn't go to Persia?"
+
+"How the devil could I go to Persia? I couldn't write a novel on the
+back of a beastly camel!"
+
+He walked a few steps in silence. Then he said with a rumble of a laugh.
+
+"I had an awful fright about that time. I suddenly dried up; couldn't
+get along. I must have spent a week, night after night, staring at a
+blank sheet of paper. I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew
+and was going the way of Adrian. By George, it taught me something of
+the Hades the poor fellow must have passed through. I've been in pretty
+tight corners in my day and I know what it is to have the cold fear
+creeping down my spine; but that week gave me the fright of my life."
+
+"I wish you had told me," said I, "I might have helped. Why didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't like to. You see, if this idea hadn't come off, I should have
+looked such a stupendous ass."
+
+"That's a reason," I admitted.
+
+"And I didn't tell you at first because you would have thought I was
+going off my chump. I don't look the sort of chap that could write a
+novel, do I? You would have said I was attempting the impossible, like
+Adrian. You and Barbara would have been scared to death and you would
+have put me off."
+
+Franklin came from the house. Luncheon was on the table. We hurried to
+the dining-room. Jaffery sat down before a gigantic crab.
+
+"Is it all right?" he asked.
+
+"Doria has interceded for you," said Barbara. "You owe her your life."
+
+Doria smiled. "It's the least I could do for you."
+
+Jaffery grinned by way of delicate rejoinder and immersed himself in
+crab. From its depths, as it seemed, he said:
+
+"Hilary has read half the book."
+
+"What do you think of it?" Barbara asked.
+
+I repeated my dithyrambic eulogy. Doria's eyes shone.
+
+"I do wish you could see your way to read it," said Jaffery.
+
+"I would give my heart to," said Doria. "But I've told you why I can't."
+
+"Circumstances alter cases," said I, platitudinously. "In happier
+circumstances you would have been presented with the novelist's fine,
+finished product. As it happens, Jaffery has had to fill up little gaps,
+make bridges here and there. I'm sure if you had been well enough," I
+added, with a touch of malice, for I had not quite forgiven his leaving
+me in the dark, "Jaffery would have consulted you on many points."
+
+I was very anxious to see what impression the book would make upon her.
+Although I had reassured Jaffery, I could, scarcely conceive the
+possibility of the book being taken as the work of Adrian.
+
+"Of course I would," said Jaffery eagerly. "But that's just it. You
+weren't equal to the worry. Now you're all right and I agree with
+Hilary. You ought to read it. You see, some of the bridges are so jolly
+clumsy."
+
+Doria turned to my wife. "Do you think I would be justified?"
+
+"Decidedly," said Barbara. "You ought to read it at once."
+
+So it came to pass that, after lunch, Doria came into my study and
+demanded the set of proofs. She took them up to her bedroom, where she
+remained all the afternoon. I was greatly relieved. It was right that
+she should know what was going to be published under Adrian's name.
+
+In Jaffery's presence, I disclosed to Barbara the identity of the
+author. He said to her much the same as he had said to me before lunch,
+with, perhaps, a little more shamefacedness. Were it not for reiteration
+upon reiteration of the same things in talk, life would be a stark
+silence broken only by staccato announcement of facts. At last Barbara's
+eyes grew uncomfortably moist. Impulsively she flew to Jaffery and put
+her arms round his vast shoulders--he was sitting, otherwise she could
+not have done it--and hugged him.
+
+"You're a blessed, blessed dear," she said; and ashamed of this
+exhibition of sentiment she bolted from the room.
+
+Jaffery, looking very shy and uncomfortable, suggested a game of
+billiards.
+
+To Barbara and myself awaiting our guests in the drawing-room before
+dinner, the first to come was Doria, whom we hadn't seen since lunch; an
+arresting figure in her low evening dress; you can imagine a Tanagra
+figure in black and white ivory. Her face, however, was a passion of
+excitement.
+
+"It's wonderful," she cried. "More than wonderful. Even I didn't know
+till to-day what a great genius Adrian was. All these things he
+describes--he never saw them. He imagined, created. Oh, my God! If only
+he had lived to finish it." She put her two hands before her eyes and
+dashed them swiftly away--"Jaffery has done his best, poor fellow. But
+oh! the bridges he speaks of--they're so crude, so crude! I can see
+every one. The murder--you remember?"
+
+It occurred in the first part of the novel. I had read it. Three or four
+splashes of blood on the page instead of ink and the thing was done.
+Admirable. The instinctive high light of the artist.
+
+"I thought it one of the best things in the book," said I.
+
+"Oh!" she waved a gesture of disgust. "How can you say so? It's
+horrible. It isn't Adrian. I can see the point where he left it to the
+imagination. Jaffery, with no imagination, has come in and spoiled it.
+And then the scene on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco, where Fenton
+finds Ellina Ray, the broken-down star of London musical comedy. Adrian
+never wrote it. It's the sort of claptrap he hated. He has often told me
+so. Jaffery thought it was necessary to explain Ellina in the next
+chapter, and so in his dull way, he stuck it in."
+
+That scene also had I read. It was a little flaming cameo of a low dive
+on the Barbary Coast, and a presentation of the thing seen, somewhat
+journalistic, I admit--but such as very few journalists could give.
+
+"That's pure Adrian," said I brazenly.
+
+"It isn't. There are disgusting little details that only a man that had
+been there could have mentioned. Oh! do you suppose I don't know the
+difference between Adrian's work and that of a penny-a-liner like
+Jaffery?"
+
+The door opened and Jaffery appeared. Doria went up to him and took him
+by the lapels of his dress coat.
+
+"I've read it. It's a work of genius. But, oh! Jaffery, I do want it to
+be without a flaw. Don't hate me, dear--I know you've done all that
+mortal man could do for Adrian and for me. But it isn't your fault if
+you're not a professional novelist or an imaginative writer. And you,
+yourself, said the bridges were clumsy. Couldn't you--oh!--I loathe
+hurting you, dear Jaffery--but it's all the world, all eternity to
+me--couldn't you get one of Adrian's colleagues--one of the famous
+people"--she rattled off a few names--"to look through the proofs and
+revise them--just in honour of Adrian's memory? Couldn't you, dear
+Jaffery?" She tugged convulsively at the poor old giant's coat. "You're
+one of the best and noblest men who ever lived or I couldn't say this to
+you. But you understand, don't you?"
+
+Jaffery's ruddy face turned as white as chalk. She might have slapped it
+physically and it would have worn the same dazed, paralysed lack of
+expression.
+
+"My life," said he, in a queer toned voice, that wasn't Jaffery's at
+all, "my life is only an expression of your wishes. I'll do as you say."
+
+"It's for Adrian's sake, dear Jaffery," said Doria.
+
+Jaffery passed his great glazed hand over his stricken face, from the
+roots of his hair to the point of his beard, and seemed to wipe
+therefrom all traces of day-infesting cares, revealing the sunny
+Reubens-like features that we all loved.
+
+"But apart from my amateur joining of the flats, you think the book's
+worthy of Adrian?"
+
+"Oh, I do," she cried passionately. "I do. It's a work of genius. It's
+Adrian in all his maturity, in all his greatness!"
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Dinner is served, madam," said Franklin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When, by way of comforting Jaffery, I criticised Doria's outburst, he
+fell upon me as though about to devour me alive. After what he had done
+for her, said I, given up one of the great chances of his career,
+carried her bodily from London to Nice, and made her a present of a
+brilliant novel so as to save Adrian's memory from shame, she ought to
+go on her knees and pray God to shower blessings on his head. As it was,
+she deserved whipping.
+
+Jaffery called me, among other things, an amazing ass--he has an Eastern
+habit of, facile vituperation--and roared about the drawing-room. The
+ladies, be it understood, had retired.
+
+"You don't seem to grip the elements of the situation. You haven't the
+intelligence of a rabbit. How in Hades could she know I've written the
+rotten book? She thinks it's Adrian's. And she thinks I've spoiled it.
+She's perfectly justified. For the little footling services I rendered
+her on the journey, she's idiotically grateful--out of all proportion.
+As for Persia, she knows nothing about it--"
+
+"She ought to," said I.
+
+"If you tell her, I'll break your neck," roared Jaffery.
+
+"All right," said I, desiring to remain whole. "So long as you're
+satisfied, it doesn't much matter to me."
+
+It didn't. After all, one has one's own life to live, and however
+understanding of one's friends and sympathetically inclined towards
+them one may be, one cannot follow them emotionally through all their
+bleak despairs and furious passions. A man doing so would be dead in a
+week.
+
+"It doesn't seem to strike you," he went on, "that the poor girl's
+mental and moral balance depends on the successful carrying out of this
+ghastly farce."
+
+"I do, my dear chap."
+
+"You don't. I wrote the thing as best I could--a labour of love. But
+it's nothing like Tom Castleton's work--which she thinks is Adrian's. To
+keep up the deception I had to crab it and say that the faults were
+mine. Naturally she believes me."
+
+"All right," said I, again. "And when the book is published and Adrian's
+memory flattered and Doria is assured of her mental and moral
+balance--what then?"
+
+"I hope she'll be happy," he answered. "Why the blazes do you suppose
+I've worried if it wasn't to give her happiness?"
+
+I could not press my point. I could not commit the gross indelicacy of
+saying: "My poor friend, where do you come in?" or words to that effect.
+Nor could I possibly lay down the proposition that a living second
+husband--stretching the imagination to the hypothesis of her taking
+one--is but an indifferent hero to the widow who spends her life in
+burning incense before the shrine of the demigod husband who is dead. We
+can't say these things to our friends. We expect them to have common
+sense as we have ourselves. But we don't, and--for the curious reason,
+based on the intense individualism of sexual attraction, that no man can
+appreciate, save intellectually, another man's desire for a particular
+woman--we can't realize the poor, fool hunger of his heart. The man who
+pours into our ears a torrential tale of passion moves us not to
+sympathy, but rather to psychological speculation, if we are kindly
+disposed, or to murderous inclinations if we are not. On the other
+hand, he who is silent moves us not at all. In any and every case,
+however, we entirely fail to comprehend why, if Neaera is obdurate, our
+swain does not go afield and find, as assuredly he can, some complaisant
+Amaryllis.
+
+I confess, honestly, that during this conversation I felt somewhat
+impatient with my dear, infatuated friend. There he was, casting the
+largesse of his soul at the feet of a blind woman, a woman blinded by
+the bedazzlement of a false fire, whose flare it was his religion to
+intensify. There he was doing this, and he did not see the imbecility of
+it! In after time we can correlate incidents and circumstances, viewing
+them in a perspective more or less correct. We see that we might have
+said and done a hundred helpful things. Well, we know that we did not,
+and there's an end on't. I felt, as I say, impatient with Jaffery,
+although--or was it because?--I recognised the bald fact that he was in
+love with Doria to the maximum degree of besottedness.
+
+You see, when you say to a man: "Why do you let the woman kick you?" and
+he replies, with a glare of indignation: "She has deigned to touch my
+unworthy carcass with her sacred boot!" what in the world are you to do,
+save resume the interrupted enjoyment of your cigar? This I did. I also
+found amusement in comparing his meek wooing, like that of an early
+Italian amorist, with his rumbustious theories as to marriage by capture
+and other primitive methods of bringing woman to heel.
+
+Doria, seeing him unresentful of kicking, continued to kick (when
+Barbara wasn't looking--for Barbara had read her a lecture on the polite
+treatment of trustees and executors) and made him more her slave than
+ever. He fetched and carried. He read poetry. He was Custodian of the
+Sacred Rubbers, when the grass was damp. He shielded her from over-rough
+incursions on the part of Susan. He chanted the responses in her Litany
+of Saint Adrian. He sacrificed his golf so that he could sit near her
+and hold figurative wool for her to unwind. It was very pretty to watch
+them. The contrast between them made its unceasing appeal. Besides,
+Doria did not kick all the time; there were long spells during which,
+touched by the giant's devotion, she repaid it in tokens of tender
+regard. At such times she was as fascinating an elf as one could wish to
+meet on a spring morning. He could bring, like no one else, the smile
+into her dark, mournful eyes. There is no doubt that, in her way and as
+far as her Adrian-bound emotional temperament permitted, she felt
+grateful to Jaffery. She also felt safe in his company. He was like a
+great St. Bernard dog, she declared to Barbara.
+
+These idyllic relations continued unruffled for some days, until a
+letter arrived from the eminent novelist to whom, with Doria's approval,
+Jaffery had sent the proofs.
+
+"A marvellous story," was the great man's verdict; "singularly different
+from 'The Diamond Gate,' only resembling it in its largeness of
+conception and the perfection of its kind. The alteration of a single
+word would spoil it. If an alien hand is there, it is imperceptible."
+
+At this splendid tribute Jaffery beamed with happiness. He tossed the
+letter to Barbara across the breakfast table.
+
+"No alien hand perceptible. Ho! ho! ho! But it's stunning, isn't it? I
+do believe the old fraud of a book is going to win through. This ought
+to satisfy Doria, don't you think so?"
+
+"It ought to," said Barbara. "I'll send it up to her room."
+
+But Doria with Adrian's impeccability on the brain--and how could a work
+of Adrian's be impeccable when an alien hand, however imperceptible,
+had touched it?--was not satisfied. Towards noon, when she came
+downstairs, she met Jaffery on the terrace, with a familiar little
+knitting of the brow before which his welcoming smile faded.
+
+"It's all right up to a point," she said, handing him back the letter.
+"Nobody with the rudiments of a brain could fail to recognise the merits
+of Adrian's work. But no novelist is possessed of the critical faculty."
+
+"Then why," asked Jaffery, after the way of men, "did you ask me to send
+him the novel?"
+
+"I took it for granted he had common sense," replied Doria, after the
+way of women.
+
+"And he hasn't any?"
+
+"Read the thing again."
+
+Jaffery scanned the page mechanically and looked up: "Well, what's to be
+done now?"
+
+"I should like to compare the proofs with Adrian's original manuscript.
+Where is it?"
+
+Here was the question we had all dreaded. Jaffery lied convincingly.
+
+"It went to the printers, my dear, and of course they've destroyed it."
+
+"I thought everything was typed nowadays."
+
+"Typing takes time," replied Jaffery serenely. "And I'm not an advocate
+of feather-beds and rose-water baths for printers. As I wanted to rush
+the book out as quickly as possible, I didn't see why I should pamper
+them with type. Have you the original manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate'?"
+
+"No," said Doria.
+
+"Well--don't you see?" said Jaffery, with a smile.
+
+For the first time I praised Old Man Jornicroft. He had brought up his
+daughter far from the madding mechanics of the literary life. To my
+great relief, Doria swallowed the incredible story.
+
+"It was careless of you not to have given special instructions for the
+manuscript to be saved, I must say. But if it's gone, it's gone. I'm not
+unreasonable."
+
+"I think you are," said Barbara, who had been arranging flowers in the
+drawing-room, and had emerged onto the terrace. "You made Jaffery submit
+his careful editing to an expert, and you're honourably bound to accept
+the expert's verdict."
+
+"I do accept it," she retorted with a toss of her head and a flash of
+her eyes. "Have I ever said I didn't? But I'm at liberty to keep to my
+own opinion."
+
+Jaffery scratched his whiskers and beard and screwed up his face as he
+did in moments of perplexity.
+
+"What exactly do you want changed?" he asked.
+
+"Just those few coarse touches you admit are yours."
+
+"Adrian wanted to get an atmosphere of rye-whisky and bad tobacco--not
+tea and strawberries." The eminent novelist's encomium had aroused the
+artist's pride in his first-born. An altered word would spoil the book.
+"My dear girl," said he, stretching out his great hand, from beneath
+which she wriggled an impatient shoulder, "my dear Doria," said he, very
+gently, "the possessor of the Order of Merit is both a critic and a man
+of common sense. Anyway, he knows more about novels than either of us
+do. If it weren't for him I would give you the proofs to blue pencil as
+much as you liked. But I'm sure you would make a thundering mess of it."
+
+Doria made a little gesture--a bit of a shrug--a bit of a resigned
+flicker of her hands.
+
+"Of course, do as you please, dear Jaffery. I'm quite alone, a woman
+with nobody to turn to"--she smiled with her lips, but there was no
+coordination of her eyes--"as I said before, I pass the proofs."
+
+She went quickly through the drawing-room door into the house, leaving
+Jaffery still scratching a red whisker.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" said he, ruefully, "I've gone and done it now!"
+
+He turned to follow her, but Barbara interposed her small body on the
+threshold.
+
+"Don't be a silly fool, Jaff. You've pandered quite enough to her morbid
+vanity. It's your book, isn't it? You have given it birth. You know
+better than anybody what is vital to it. Just you send those proofs
+straight back to the publisher. If you let her persuade you to change
+one word, as true as I'm standing here, I'll tell her the whole thing,
+and damn the consequences!"
+
+My exquisite Barbara's rare "damns" were oaths in the strictest sense.
+They connoted the most irrefragable of obligations. She would no more
+think of breaking a "damn" than her marriage vows or a baby's neck.
+
+"Of course, I'm not going to let her touch the thing," said Jaffery.
+"But I don't want her to look on me as a bullying brute."
+
+"It would be better, both for you and her, if she did," snapped Barbara.
+"The ordinary woman's like the dog and the walnut tree. It's only the
+exceptional woman that can take command."
+
+I, who had been sitting calm, on the low parapet beneath the tenderly
+sprouting wistaria arbour, broke my philosophic silence.
+
+"Observe the exceptional woman," said I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a day or so Doria stood upon her dignity, treating Jaffery with cold
+politeness. In the mornings she allowed him to wrap her up in her garden
+chair and attend to her comforts, and then, settled down, she would open
+a volume of Tolstoi and courteously signify his dismissal. Jaffery with
+a hang-dog expression went with me to the golf-course, where he drove
+with prodigious muscular skill, and putted execrably. Had it not been a
+question of good taste, to say nothing of human sentiment, I would have
+reminded him that the thing he was hitting so violently was only a
+little white ball and not poor Adrian's skull. If ever a man was loyal
+to a dead friend Jaffery Chayne was loyal to Adrian Boldero. But poor
+old Jaffery was being checked in every vital avenue, not by the memory
+of the man whom he had known and loved, but by his cynical and
+masquerading ghost. It is not given to me, thank God! to know from
+direct speech what Jaffery thought of Adrian--for Jaffery is too
+splendid a fellow to have ever said a word in depreciation of his once
+living friend and afterward dead rival; but both I, who do not aspire to
+these Quixotic heights and only, with masculine power of generalisation,
+deduce results from a quiet eye's harvest of mundane phenomena, and
+Barbara, whose rapier intuition penetrates the core of spiritual things,
+could, with little difficulty, divine the passionate struggle between
+love and hatred, between loyalty and tenderness, between desire and duty
+that took place in the soul of this chivalrous yet primitive and vastly
+appetited gentleman.
+
+You may think I am trying to present Jaffery as a hero of romance. I am
+not. I am merely trying to put before you, in my imperfect way, a
+barbarian at war with civilised instincts; a lusty son of Pantagruel
+forced into the incongruous role of Sir Galahad. . . . During the term
+of his punishment he behaved in a bearish and most unheroic manner. At
+last, however, Doria forgave him, and, smiling on him once more,
+permitted him to read Tolstoi aloud to her. Whereupon he mended his
+manners.
+
+The day following this reconciliation was a Sunday. We had invited
+Liosha (as we constantly did) to lunch and dine. She usually arrived by
+an early train in the forenoon and returned by the late train at night.
+But on Saturday evening, she asked Barbara, over the telephone, for
+permission to bring a friend, a gentleman staying in the boarding house,
+the happy possessor of a car, who would motor her down. His name was
+Fendihook. Barbara replied that she would be delighted to see Liosha's
+friend, and of course came back to us and speculated as to who and what
+this Mr. Fendihook might be.
+
+"Why didn't you ask her?" said I.
+
+"It would scarcely have been polite."
+
+We consulted Jaffery. "Never heard of him," he growled. "And I don't
+like to hear of him now. That young woman's running loose a vast deal
+too much."
+
+"What an old dog in the manger you are!" cried Barbara; and thus started
+an old argument.
+
+On Sunday morning we saw Mr. Fendihook for ourselves. I met the car, a
+two-seater, which he drove himself, at the front door, and perceived
+between a motoring cap worn peak behind and a tightly buttoned Burberry
+coat a pink, fleshy, clean shaven face, from the middle of which
+projected an enormous cigar. I helped Liosha out.
+
+"This is Mr. Fendihook."
+
+"Commonly called Ras Fendihook, at your service," said he.
+
+I smiled and shook hands and gave the car into the charge of my
+chauffeur, who appeared from the stable-yard. In the hall, aided by
+Franklin, Mr. Ras Fendihook divested himself of his outer wrappings and
+revealed a thickset man of medium height, rather flashily attired. I
+know it is narrow-minded, but I have a prejudice against a black and
+white check suit, and a red necktie threaded through a gold ring.
+
+"Against the rules?" he asked, holding up his cigar, a very good one, on
+which he had retained the band.
+
+"By no means," said I, "we smoke all over the house."
+
+"Tiptop!" He looked around the hall. "You seem to have a bit of all
+right here."
+
+"I told you you would like it. Everybody does," said Liosha. "Ah,
+Barbara, dear!" She ran up the stairs to meet her. We followed. Mr.
+Fendihook was presented. I noticed, with a little shock, that he had
+kept on his gloves.
+
+"Very kind of you to let me come down, madam. I thought a bit of a blow
+would do our fair friend good."
+
+Barbara took off Liosha, looking very handsome and fresh beneath the
+motor-veil, to her room, leaving me with Mr. Fendihook. As he preceded
+me into the drawing-room I saw a bald patch like a tonsure in the middle
+of a crop of coarse brown hair. Again he looked round appreciatively and
+again he said "Tiptop!" He advanced to the open French window.
+
+"Garden's all right. Must take a lot of doing. Who are our friends? The
+long and the short of it, aren't they?"
+
+He alluded to Jaffery and Doria, who were strolling on the lawn. I told
+him their names.
+
+"Jaffery Chayne. Why, that's the chap Mrs. Prescott's always talking
+about, her guardian or something."
+
+"Her trustee," said I, "and an intimate friend of her late husband."
+
+"Ah!" said he, with a twinkle in his eyes which, I will swear, signified
+"Then there was a Prescott after all!" He waved his cigar. "Introduce
+me." And as I accompanied him across the lawn--"There's nothing like
+knowing everybody--getting it over at once. Then one feels at home."
+
+"I hope you felt at home as soon as you entered the house," said I.
+
+"Of course I did, old pal," he replied heartily. "Of course I did." And
+the amazing creature patted me on the back.
+
+I performed the introductions. Mr. Fendihook declared himself delighted
+to make the acquaintance of my friends. Then as conversation did not
+start spontaneously, he once more looked around, nodded at the landscape
+approvingly, and once more said "Tiptop!"
+
+"That's what I want to have," he continued, "when I can afford to retire
+and settle down. None of your gimcrack modern villas in a desirable
+residential neighbourhood, but an English gentleman's country house."
+
+"It's your ambition to be an English gentleman, Mr. Fendihook?" queried
+Doria.
+
+He laughed good-humouredly. "Now you're pulling my leg."
+
+I saw that he was not lacking in shrewdness.
+
+Susan, never far from Jaffery during her off-time, came running up.
+
+"Hallo, is that your young 'un?" Mr. Fendihook asked. "Come and say how
+d'ye do, Gwendoline."
+
+Susan advanced shyly. He shook hands with her, chucked her under the
+chin and paid her the ill compliment of saying that she was the image of
+her father. Jaffery stood with folded arms holding the bowl of his pipe
+in one hand and looked down on Mr. Fendihook as on some puzzling insect.
+
+"Do you mind if I take off my gloves?" our strange visitor asked.
+
+"Pray do," said I. The sight of the fellow wandering about a garden
+bareheaded and gloved in yellow chamois leather had begun to affect my
+nerves. He peeled them off.
+
+"Look here, Gwendoline Arabella, my dear," he cried. "Catch!"
+
+He made a feint of throwing them.
+
+"Haven't you caught 'em?"
+
+"No."
+
+She stared at the man open-mouthed, for behold, his hands were empty.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said he. "Perhaps you can catch a handkerchief." He flicked
+a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball and
+threw; but like the gloves it vanished. "Now where has it gone to?"
+
+Susan, who had shrunk beneath Jaffery's protecting shadow, crept forward
+fascinated. Mr. Fendihook took a sudden step or two towards a flower
+bed.
+
+"Why, there it is!"
+
+He stretched out a hand and there before our eyes the handkerchief hung
+limp over the pruned top of a standard rose.
+
+"Jolly good!" exclaimed Jaffery.
+
+"I hope you don't mind. I like amusing kiddies. Have you ever talked to
+angels, Araminta? No? Well, I have. Look."
+
+He threw half-crowns up into the air until they disappeared into the
+central blue, and then held a ventriloquial conversation, not in the
+best of taste, with the celestial spirits, who having caught the coins
+announced their intention of sticking to them. But threats of reporting
+to headquarters prevailed, and one by one the coins dropped and jingled
+in his hand. We applauded. Susan regarded him as she would a god.
+
+"Can you do it again?" she asked breathlessly.
+
+"Lord bless you, Eustacia, I can keep on doing it all day long."
+
+He balanced his cigar on the tip of his nose and with a snap caught it
+in his mouth. He turned to me with a grin, which showed white strong
+teeth. "More than you could do, old pal!"
+
+"You must have practised that a great deal," said Doria.
+
+"Two hours a day solid year in and year out--not that trick alone, of
+course. Here!" he burst into a laugh. "I'm blowed if you know who I
+am--I'm the One and Only Ras Fendihook--Illusionist, Ventriloquist, and
+General Variety Artist. Haven't you ever seen my turn?"
+
+We confessed, with regret, that we had missed the privilege.
+
+"Well, well, it's a queer world," he said philosophically. "You've never
+heard of me--and perhaps you two gentlemen are big bugs in your own
+line--and I've never heard of you. But anyhow, I never asked you, Mr.
+Chayne, to catch my gloves."
+
+"I haven't your gloves," said Jaffery, with his eye on Susan.
+
+"You have. You've got 'em in your pocket."
+
+And diving into Jaffery's jacket pocket, he produced the wash-leather
+gloves.
+
+"There, Petronella," said he, "that's the end of the matinee
+performance."
+
+Susan looked at him wide-eyed. "I'm not at all tired."
+
+"Aren't you? Then don't let that big black dog there chase the little
+one."
+
+He pointed with his finger and from behind the old yew arbour came the
+shrill clamour of a little dog in agony. It brought Barbara flying out
+of the house. Liosha followed leisurely. The yelping ceased. Mr. Ras
+Fendihook went to meet his hostess. Doria, Jaffery and I looked at one
+another in mutual and dismayed comprehension.
+
+"Old pal," quoted Doria.
+
+I glanced apprehensively across the strip of lawn. "I hope, for his
+sake, he's not calling Barbara 'old girl.'"
+
+"He calls everybody funny names," Susan chimed in. "See what a lot he
+called me."
+
+"Does your Royal Fairy Highness approve of him?" asked Jaffery.
+
+"I should think so, Uncle Jaff," she replied fervently. "He's--he's
+_marvelious_!"
+
+"He is," said Jaffery, "and even that jewel of language doesn't express
+him."
+
+"My dear," said I, "you stick close to him all day, as long as mummy
+will let you."
+
+I have never got the credit I deserved for the serene wisdom of that
+suggestion. All through lunch, all through the long afternoon until it
+was Susan's bedtime, her obedience to my command saved over and over
+again a tense situation. To the guest in her house Barbara was the
+perfection of courtesy. But beneath the mask of convention raged fury
+with Liosha. A woman can seldom take a queer social animal for what he
+is and suck the honey from his flowers of unconventionality. She had
+never heard a man say "Right oh!" to a butler when offered a second
+helping of pudding. She had never dreamed of the possibility of a
+strange table-neighbour laying his hand on hers and requesting her to
+"take it from me, my dear." It sent awful shivers down her spine to hear
+my august self alluded to as her "old man." She looked down her nose
+when, to the apoplectic joy of Susan (supposed to be on her primmest
+behaviour at meals), he, with a significant wink, threw a new potato
+into the air, caught it on his fork and conveyed it to his mouth. Her
+smile was that of the polite hostess and not of the enthusiastic
+listener when he told her of triumphs in Manchester and Cincinnati. To
+her confusion, he presupposed her intimate acquaintance with the
+personalities of the World of Variety.
+
+"That's where I came across little Evie Bostock," he said
+confidentially. "A clipper, wasn't she? Just before she ran off with
+that contortionist--you know who I mean--handsome chap--what's his
+name?--oh, of course you know him."
+
+My poor Barbara! Daughter of a distinguished Civil servant, a K.C.B.,
+assumed to be on friendly terms with a Boneless Wonder!
+
+"But indeed I don't, Mr. Fendihook," she replied pathetically.
+
+"Yes, yes, you must." He snapped his fingers. "Got it. Romeo! You must
+have heard of Romeo."
+
+I sniggered--I couldn't help it--at Barbara's face. He went on with his
+reminiscences. Barbara nearly wept, whilst I, though displeased with
+Liosha for introducing such an incongruous element into my family
+circle, took the rational course of deriving from the fellow
+considerable entertainment. Jaffery would have done the same as myself,
+had not his responsibility as Liosha's guardian weighed heavily upon
+him. He frowned, and ate in silence, vastly. Doria, like my wife, I
+could see was shocked. The only two who, beside myself, enjoyed our
+guest were Susan and Liosha. Well, Susan was nine years old and a meal
+at which a guest broke her whole decalogue of table manners at once--to
+say nothing of the performance of such miracles as squeezing an orange
+into nothingness, without the juice running out, and subsequently
+extracting it from the neck of an agonised mother--was a feast of
+memorable gaudiness. Susan could be excused. But Liosha? Liosha, pupil
+of the admirable Mrs. Considine? Liosha, descendant of proud Albanian
+chieftains who had lain in gory beds for centuries? How could she admire
+this peculiarly vulgar, although, in his own line, peculiarly
+accomplished person? Yet her admiration was obvious. She sat by my side,
+grand and radiant, proud of the wondrous gift she had bestowed on us.
+She acclaimed his tricks, she laughed at his anecdotes, she urged him on
+to further exhibition of prowess, and in a magnificent way appeared
+unconscious of the presence at the table of her trustee and would-be
+dragon, Jaffery Chayne.
+
+After lunch Susan obeyed my instructions and stuck very close to Mr.
+Fendihook. Doria retired for her afternoon rest. Jaffery, having invited
+Liosha to go for a long walk with him and she having declined, with a
+polite smile, on the ground that her best Sunday-go-to-meeting long gown
+was not suitable for country roads, went off by himself in dudgeon.
+Barbara took Liosha aside and cross-examined her on the subject of Mr.
+Fendihook and as far as hospitality allowed signified her
+non-appreciation of the guest. After a time I took him into the billiard
+room, Susan following. As he was a brilliant player, giving me one
+hundred and fifty in two hundred and running out easily before I had
+made thirty, he found less excitement in the game than in narrating his
+exploits and performing tricks for the child. He did astonishing things
+with the billiard balls, making them run all over his body like mice and
+balancing them on cues and juggling with them five at a time. I think
+that day he must have gone through his whole repertoire.
+
+The party assembled for tea in the drawing-room. Fendihook's first words
+to Liosha were:
+
+"Hallo, my Balkan Queen, how have you been getting on?"
+
+"Very well, thank you," smiled Liosha.
+
+He turned to Jaffery. "She's not up to her usual form to-day. But
+sometimes she's a fair treat! I give you my word."
+
+He laughed loudly and winked. Jaffery, whose agility in repartee was
+rather physical than mental, glowered at him, rumbled something
+unintelligible beneath his breath, and took tea out to Doria, who was
+established on the terrace.
+
+"Seems to have got the pip," Mr. Fendihook remarked cheerfully.
+
+Barbara, with icy politeness, offered him tea. He refused, explaining
+that unless he sat down to a square meal, which, in view of the
+excellence of his lunch, he was unable to do, he never drank tea in the
+afternoon.
+
+"Could I have a whisky and soda, old pal?"
+
+The drink was brought. He pledged Barbara--"And may I drink to the
+success of that promising little affair"--he jerked a backward
+thumb--"between our pippy friend and the charming widow?"
+
+Barbara had passed the gasping stage.
+
+"Mr. Chayne," she said in the metallic voice that, before now, had made
+strong men grow pale, "Mr. Chayne stands in the same relation of trustee
+to Mrs. Boldero as he does to Mrs. Prescott."
+
+But Fendihook was undismayed. "Some fellows have all the luck! Here's to
+him, and here's to you, Sheba's Queen."
+
+He nodded to Liosha and pulled at his drink. But Liosha did not respond.
+A hard look appeared in her eyes and the knuckles of her hand showed
+white. Presently she rose and went onto the terrace, where she found
+Jaffery fixing a rebellious rug round Doria's feet. And this is what
+happened.
+
+"Jaff Chayne," she said, "I want to have a word with you. You'll excuse
+me, Doria, but Jaff Chayne's as much my trustee as he is yours. I have
+business to talk."
+
+Doria eyed her coldly. "Talk as much business as you like, my dear girl.
+I'm not preventing you." Jaffery strode off with Liosha. As soon as they
+were out of earshot, she said:
+
+"Are you going to marry her?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Doria."
+
+Jaffery bent his brows on her. He was not in his most angelic mood.
+
+"What the blazes has that got to do with you? Just you mind your own
+business."
+
+"All right," she retorted, "I will."
+
+"Glad to hear it," said he. "And now I want a word with you. What do you
+mean by bringing that howling cad down here?"
+
+"It's you who howl, not he. He's a very kind gentleman and very clever
+and he makes me laugh. He's not like you."
+
+"He's a performing gorilla," cried Jaffery.
+
+They were both exceedingly angry, and having walked very fast, they
+found themselves in front of the gate of the walled garden.
+Instinctively they entered and had the place to themselves.
+
+"And a confounded bounder of a gorilla at that!" Jaffery continued.
+
+"How dare you speak so of my friend?"
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for having such a friend. And
+you're just going to drop him. Do you understand?"
+
+"Shan't!" said Liosha.
+
+"You shall. You're not going to be seen outside the house with him."
+
+There was battle clamorous and a trifle undignified. They said the same
+things over and over again. Both had worked themselves into a fury.
+
+"I forbid you to have anything to do with the fellow."
+
+"You, Jaff Chayne, told me to mind my own business. Just you mind
+yours."
+
+"It is my business," he shouted, "to see that you don't disgrace
+yourself with a beast of a fellow like that."
+
+"What did you say? Disgrace myself?" She drew herself up magnificently.
+"Do you think I would disgrace myself with any man living? You insult
+me."
+
+"Rot!" cried Jaffery. "Every woman's liable to make a blessed fool of
+herself--and you more than most."
+
+"I know one that's not going to make a fool of herself," she taunted,
+and flung an arm in the direction of the house.
+
+Jaffery blazed. "You leave me alone."
+
+"And you leave me alone."
+
+They glared inimically into each other's eyes. Liosha turned, marched
+superbly away, opened the garden door and, passing through, slammed it
+in his face. It had been a very pretty, primitive quarrel, free from all
+subtlety. Elemental instinct flamed in Jaffery's veins. If he could have
+given her a good sound thrashing he would have been a happy man. This
+accursed civilisation paralysed him. He stood for a few moments tearing
+at whiskers and beard. Then he started in pursuit, and overtook her in
+the middle of the lawn.
+
+"Anyhow, you'll take the infernal fellow away now and never bring him
+here again."
+
+"It's Hilary's house, not yours," she remarked, looking straight before
+her.
+
+"Well, ask him."
+
+"I will. Hilary!"
+
+At her hail and beckon I left the terrace where Mr. Fendihook had been
+discoursing irrepressibly on the Bohemian advantages of widowhood to a
+quivering Doria, and advanced to meet her, a flushed and bright-eyed
+Juno.
+
+"Would you like me to bring Ras Fendihook here again?"
+
+"Tell her straight," said Jaffery.
+
+Even Susan, looking from one to the other, would have been conscious of
+storms. I took her hand.
+
+"My dear Liosha," said I, "our social system is so complicated that it
+is no wonder you don't appreciate the more delicate ramifications--"
+
+"Oh! Talk sense to her," growled Jaffery.
+
+"Mr. Fendihook is not quite"--I hesitated--"not quite the kind of
+person, my dear, that we're accustomed to meet."
+
+"I know," said Liosha, "you want them all stamped out in a pattern, like
+little tin soldiers."
+
+"I see the point of your criticism, and it's true, as far as it goes."
+
+"Oh, go on--" Jaffery interrupted.
+
+"But--" I continued.
+
+"You'd rather not see him again?"
+
+"No," roared Jaffery.
+
+"I'm talking to Hilary, not you," said Liosha. She turned to me. "You
+and Barbara would like me to take him away right now?"
+
+I still held her hand, which was growing moist--and I suppose mine was
+too--and I didn't like to drop it, for fear of hurting her feelings. I
+gave it a great squeeze. It was very difficult for me. Personally, I
+enjoyed the frank, untrammelled and prodigiously accomplished scion of a
+vulgar race. As a mere bachelor, isolated human, meeting him, I should
+have taken him joyously, if not to my heart, at any rate to my
+microscope and studied him and savoured him and got out of him all that
+there was of grotesqueness. But to every one of my household, save Susan
+who did not count, he was--I admit, deservedly--an object of loathing.
+So I squeezed Liosha's hand.
+
+"The beginning and end of the matter, my dear," said I, "is that he's
+not quite a gentleman."
+
+"All right," said Liosha, liberating herself. "Now I know."
+
+She left me and sailed to the terrace. I use the metaphor advisedly. She
+had a way of walking like a full-rigged ship before a breeze.
+
+"Ras Fendihook, it's time we were going."
+
+Mr. Fendihook looked at his watch and jumped up.
+
+"We must hook it!"
+
+Barbara asked conventionally: "Won't you stay to supper?"
+
+"Great Scott, no!" he exclaimed. "No offence meant. You're very kind.
+But it's Ladies' Night at the Rabbits and I'm Buck Rabbit for the
+evening and the Queen of Sheba's coming as my guest."
+
+"Who are the Rabbits?" asked Doria.
+
+Even I had heard of this Bohemian confraternity; and I explained with a
+learned inaccuracy that evoked a semi-circular grin on the pink, fleshy
+face of Mr. Ras Fendihook.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Ouf! Thank goodness!" said Barbara as the two-seater scuttered away
+down the drive.
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Doria.
+
+Jaffery shook his fist at the disappearing car.
+
+"One of these days, I'll break his infernal neck!"
+
+"Why?" asked Doria, on a sharp note of enquiry.
+
+"I don't like him," said Jaffery. "And he's taking her out to dine among
+all that circus crowd. It's damnable!"
+
+"For the lady whose father stuck pigs in Chicago," said Doria. "I should
+think it was rather a rise in the social scale."
+
+And she went indoors with her nose in the air. To every one save the
+puzzled Jaffery it was obvious that she disapproved of his interest in
+Liosha.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+"The Greater Glory" came out in due season, puzzled the reviewers and
+made a sensation; a greater sensation even than a legitimate successor
+to "The Diamond Gate" dictated by the spirit of Tom Castleton. The
+contrast was so extraordinary, so inexplicable. It was generally
+concluded that no writer but Adrian Boldero, in the world's history, had
+ever revealed two such distinct literary personalities as those that
+informed the two novels. The protean nature of his genius aroused
+universal wonder. His death was deplored as the greatest loss sustained
+by English letters since Keats. The press could do nothing but hail the
+new book as a masterpiece. Barbara and myself, who, alone of mortals,
+knew the strange history of the two books, did not agree with the press.
+In sober truth "The Greater Glory" was not a work of genius; for, after
+all, the only hallmark of a work of genius that you can put your finger
+on is its haunting quality. That quality Tom Castleton's work possessed;
+Jaffery Chayne's did not. "The Greater Glory" vibrated with life, it was
+wide and generous, it was a capital story; but, unlike "The Diamond
+Gate," it could not rank with "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "David
+Copperfield." I say this in no way to disparage my dear old friend, but
+merely to present his work in true proportion. Published under his own
+name it would doubtless have received recognition; probably it would
+have made money; but it could not have met with the enthusiastic
+reception it enjoyed when published under the tragic and romantic name
+of Adrian Boldero.
+
+Of course Jaffery beamed with delight. His forlorn hope had succeeded
+beyond his dreams. He had fulfilled the immediate needs of the woman he
+loved. He had also astonished himself enormously.
+
+"It's darned good to let you and Barbara know," said he, "that I'm not a
+mere six foot of beef and thirst, but that I'm a chap with brains,
+and"--he turned over a bundle of press-cuttings--"and 'poetic fancy' and
+'master of the human heart' and 'penetrating insight into the soul of
+things' and 'uncanny knowledge of the complexities of woman's nature.'
+Ho! ho! ho! That's me, Jaff Chayne, whom you've disregarded all these
+years. Look at it in black and white: 'uncanny knowledge of the
+complexities of a woman's nature'! Ho! ho! ho! And it's selling like
+blazes."
+
+It did not enter his honest head to envy the dead man his fresh
+ill-gotten fame. He accepted the success in the large simplicity of
+spirit that had enabled him to conceive and write the book. His poorer
+human thoughts and emotions centred in the hope that now Adrian's
+restless ghost would be laid forever and that for Doria there would open
+a new life in which, with the past behind her, she could find a glory in
+the sun and an influence in the stars, and a spark in her own bosom
+responsive to his devotion. For the tumultuous moment, however, when
+Adrian's name was on all men's tongues, and before all men's eyes, the
+ghost walked in triumphant verisimilitude of life. At all the meetings
+of Jaffery and Doria, he was there smiling beneath his laurels, whenever
+he was evoked; and he was evoked continuously. Either by law of irony or
+perhaps for intrinsic merit, the bridges to whose clumsy construction
+Jaffery, like an idiot, had confessed, had been picked out by many
+reviewers as typical instances of Adrian Boldero's new style. Such
+blunders were flies in Doria's healing ointment. She alluded to the
+reviewers in disdainful terms. How dared editors employ men to write on
+Adrian's work who were unable to distinguish between it and that of
+Jaffery Chayne?
+
+One day, when she talked like this, Barbara lost her temper.
+
+"I think you're an ungrateful little wretch. Here has Jaffery sacrificed
+his work for three months and devoted himself to pulling together
+Adrian's unfinished manuscript and making a great success of it, and you
+treat him as if he were a dog."
+
+Doria protested. "I don't. I _am_ grateful. I don't know what I should
+do without Jaffery. But all my gratitude and fondness for Jaffery can't
+alter the fact that he has spoiled Adrian's work; and when I hear those
+very faults in the book praised, I am fit to be tied."
+
+"Well, go crazy and bite the furniture when you're all by yourself,"
+said Barbara; "but when you're with Jaffery try to be sane and civil."
+
+"I think you're horrid!" Doria exclaimed, "and if you weren't the wife
+of Adrian's trusted friend, I would never speak to you again."
+
+"Rubbish!" said Barbara. "I'm talking to you for your good, and you know
+it."
+
+Meanwhile Jaffery lingered on in London, in the cheerless little eyrie
+in Victoria Street, with no apparent intention of ever leaving it.
+Arbuthnot of _The Daily Gazette_ satirically enquiring whether he wanted
+a job or still yearned for a season in Mayfair he consigned, in his
+grinning way, to perdition. Change was the essence of holiday-making,
+and this was his holiday. It was many years since he had one. When he
+wanted a job he would go round to the office.
+
+"All right," said Arbuthnot, "and, in the meantime, if you want to keep
+your hand in by doing a fire or a fashionable wedding, ring us up."
+
+Whereat Jaffery roared, this being the sort of joke he liked.
+
+The need of a holiday amid the bricks and mortar of Victoria Street may
+have impressed Arbuthnot, but it did not impress me. I dismissed the
+excuse as fantastic. I tackled him one day, at lunch, at the club,
+assuming my most sceptical manner.
+
+"Well," said he, "there's Doria. Somebody must look after her."
+
+"Doria," said I, "is a young woman, now that she is in sound health,
+perfectly capable of looking after herself. And if she does want a man's
+advice, she can always turn to me."
+
+"And there's Liosha."
+
+"Liosha," I remarked judiciously, "is also a young woman capable of
+looking after herself. If she isn't, she has given you very definitely
+to understand that she's going to try. Have you had any more interesting
+evenings out lately?"
+
+"No," he growled. "She's offended with me because I warned her off that
+low-down bounder."
+
+"I think you did your best," said I, "to make her take up with him."
+
+He protested. We argued the point, and I think I got the best of the
+argument.
+
+"Well, anyhow," he said with an air of infantile satisfaction, "she
+can't marry him."
+
+"Who's going to prevent her, if she wants to?"
+
+"The law of England." He laughed, mightily pleased. "The beggar is
+married already. I've found that out. He's got three or four wives in
+fact--oh, a dreadful hound--but only one real one with a wedding ring,
+and she lives up in the north with a pack of children."
+
+"All the more dangerous for Liosha to associate with such a villain."
+
+He waved the suggestion aside. No fear of that, said he. It was not
+Liosha's game. Hers was an Amazonian kind of chastity. Here I agreed
+with him.
+
+"All the less reason," said I, "for you to stay in London, so as to look
+after her."
+
+"But I don't like her to be seen about in the fellow's company. She'll
+get a bad name."
+
+"Look here," said I, "the idea of a vast, hairy chap like you devoting
+his life to keeping a couple of young widows out of mischief is too
+preposterous. Try me with something else."
+
+Then, being in good humour, he told me the real reason. He was writing
+another book.
+
+He was writing another novel and he did not want any one to know. He was
+getting along famously. He had had the story in his head for a long
+time. Glad to talk about it; sketched the outline very picturesquely.
+Perhaps I was more vitally interested in the development of the man
+Jaffery than in the story. A queer thing had happened. The born novelist
+had just discovered himself and clamoured for artistic self-expression.
+He was writing this book just because he could not help it, finding
+gladness in the mere work, delighting in the mechanics of the thing, and
+letting himself go in the joy of the narrative. What was going to become
+of it when written, I did not enquire. It was rather too delicate a
+matter. Jaffery Chayne could be nothing else than Jaffery Chayne. A new
+novel published by him would resemble "The Greater Glory" as closely as
+"Pendennis" resembles "Philip." And then there would be the deuce to
+pay. If he published it under his own name, he would render himself
+liable to the charge of having stolen a novel from the dead author of
+"The Greater Glory," and so complicate this already complicated web of
+literary theft; and if he threw sufficient dust into the eyes of Doria
+to enable him to publish under Adrian's name, he would be performing the
+task of the altruistic bees immortalised by Virgil.
+
+Anyhow, there he was, perfectly happy, pegging away at his novel,
+looking after Doria, pretending to look after Liosha, and enjoying the
+society of the few cronies, chiefly adventurous birds of passage like
+himself, who happened to be passing through London. Being a man of
+modest needs, save need of mere bulk of simple food, he found his small
+patrimony and the savings from his professional earnings quite adequate
+for amenable existence. When he wanted healthy, fresh air he came down
+to us to see Susan; when he wanted anything else he went to see Doria,
+which was almost daily.
+
+Doria was living now in the flat surrounded by the Lares and Penates
+consecrated by Adrian. Now and then for purposes of airing and dusting,
+she entered the awful room--neither servants nor friends were allowed to
+cross the threshold; but otherwise it was always locked and the key lay
+in her jewel case. Adrian was the focus of her being. She put heavy
+tasks on Jaffery. There was to be a fitting monument on Adrian's grave,
+over which she kept him busy. In her blind perversity she counted on his
+cooeperation. It was he who carried through negotiations with an eminent
+sculptor for a bust of Adrian, which in her will, made about that time,
+she bequeathed to the nation. She ordered him to see to the inclusion of
+Adrian in the supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography. . . .
+And all the time Jaffery obeyed her sovereign behests without a murmur
+and without a hint that he desired reward for his servitude. But, to
+those gifted with normal vision, signs were not wanting that he chafed,
+to put it mildly, under this forced worship of Adrian; and to those who
+knew Jaffery it was obvious that his one-sided arrangement could not
+last forever. Doria remained blind, taking it for granted that every one
+should kiss the feet of her idol and in that act of adoration find
+august recompense. That the man loved her she was fully aware; she was
+not devoid of elementary sense; but she accepted it, as she accepted
+everything else, as her due, and perhaps rather despised Jaffery for his
+meekness. Why, again, she disregarded what her instinct must have
+revealed to her of the primitive passions lurking beneath the exterior
+of her kind and tender ogre, I cannot understand. For one thing, she
+considered herself his intellectual superior; vanity perhaps blinded her
+judgment. At all events she did not realise that a change was bound to
+come in their relations. It came, inevitably.
+
+One day in June they sat together on the balcony of the St. John's Wood
+flat, in the soft afternoon shadow, both conscious of queer isolation
+from the world below, and from the strange world masked behind the vast
+superficies of brick against which they were perched. Jaffery said
+something about a nest midway on a cliff side overlooking the sea. He
+also, in bass incoherence, formulated the opinion that in such a nest
+might he found true happiness. The pretty languor of early summer
+laughed in the air. Their situation, 'twixt earth and heaven, had a
+little sensuous charm. Doria replied sentimentally:
+
+"Yes, a little house, covered with clematis, on a ledge of cliff, with
+the sea-gulls wheeling about it--bringing messages from the sunset lands
+across the blue, blue sea--" Poor dear! She forgot that sea lit by a
+westering sun is of no colour at all and that the blue water lies to the
+east; but no matter; Jaffery, drinking in her words, forgot it likewise.
+"Away from everything," she continued, "and two people who loved--with a
+great, great love--"
+
+Her eyes were fixed on the motor omnibuses passing up and down Maida
+Vale at the end of her road. Her lips were parted--the ripeness of youth
+and health rendered her adorable. A flush stained her ivory cheek--you
+will find the exact simile in Virgil. She was too desirable for
+Jaffery's self-control. He bent forward in his chair--they were sitting
+face to face, so that he had his back to the motor omnibuses--and put
+his great hand on her knee.
+
+"Why not we two?"
+
+It was silly, sentimental, schoolboyish--what you please; but every
+man's first declaration of love is bathos--the zenith of his passion
+connoting perhaps the nadir of his intelligence. Anyhow the declaration
+was made, without shadow of mistake.
+
+Doria switched her knee away sharply, as her vision of sunset and gulls
+and blue sea and a clematis-covered house vanished from before her eyes,
+and she found herself on her balcony with Jaff Chayne.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"You know very well what I mean."
+
+He rose like a leviathan and made a step towards her. The three-foot
+balustrade of the balcony seemed to come to his ankles. She put out a
+hand.
+
+"Oh, don't do that, Jaff. You might fall over. It makes me so nervous."
+
+He checked himself and stood up quite straight. Again he felt as if she
+had dealt him a slap in the face.
+
+"You know very well what I mean," he repeated. "I love you and I want
+you and I'll never be happy till I get you."
+
+She looked away from him and lifted her slender shoulders.
+
+"Why spoil things by talking of the impossible?"
+
+"The word has no meaning. Doesn't exist," said Jaffery.
+
+"It exists very much indeed," she returned, with a quick upward glance.
+
+"Not with an obstinate devil like me."
+
+He leaned against the low balustrade. She rose.
+
+"You'll drive me into hysterics," she cried and fled to the
+drawing-room.
+
+He followed, impatiently. "I'm not such an ass as to fall off a footling
+balcony. What do you take me for?"
+
+"I take you for Adrian's friend," she said, very erect, brave elf facing
+horrible ogre--and, either by chance or design, her hand touched and
+held the tip of a great silver-framed photograph of her late husband.
+
+"I think I've proved it," said Jaffery.
+
+"Are you proving it now? What value can you attach to Adrian's memory
+when you say such things to me?"
+
+"I'm saying to you what every honest man has the right to say to the
+free woman he loves."
+
+"But I'm not a free woman. I'm bound to Adrian."
+
+"You can't be bound to him forever and ever."
+
+"I am. That's why it's shameful and dishonourable of you,"--his blue
+eyes flashed dangerously and he clenched his hands, but heedless she
+went on--"yes, mean and base and despicable of you to wish to betray
+him. Adrian--"
+
+"Oh, don't talk drivel. It makes me sick. Leave Adrian alone and listen
+to a living man," he shouted, all the pent-up intellectual disgusts and
+sex-jealousies bursting out in a mad gush. "A real live man who would
+walk through Hell for you!" He caught her frail body in his great grasp,
+and she vibrated like a bit of wire caught up by a dynamo. "My love for
+you has nothing whatever to do with Adrian. I've been as loyal to him as
+one man can be to another, living and dead. By God, I have! Ask Hilary
+and Barbara. But I want you. I've wanted you since the first moment I
+set eyes on you. You've got into my blood. You're going to love me.
+You're going to marry me, Adrian or no Adrian."
+
+He bent over her and she met the passion in his eyes bravely. She did
+not lack courage. And her eyes were hard and her lips were white and her
+face was pinched into a marble statuette of hate. And unconscious that
+his grip was giving her physical pain he continued:
+
+"I've waited for you. I've waited for you from the moment I heard you
+were engaged to the other man. And I'll go on waiting. But, by
+God!"--and, not knowing what he did, he shook her backwards and
+forwards--"I'll not go on waiting for ever. You--you little bit of
+mystery--you little bit of eternity--you--you--ah!"
+
+With a great gesture he released her. But the poor ogre had not counted
+on his strength. His unwitting violence sent her spinning, and she fell,
+knocking her head against a sofa. He uttered a gasp of horror and in an
+instant lifted her and laid her on the sofa, and on his knees beside
+her, with remorse oversurging his passion, behaved like a penitent fool,
+accusing himself of all the unforgivable savageries ever practised by
+barbaric male. Doria, who was not hurt in the least, sat up and pointed
+to the door.
+
+"Go!" she said. "Go. You're nothing but a brute."
+
+Jaffery rose from his knees and regarded her in the hebetude of
+reaction.
+
+"I suppose I am, Doria, but it's my way of loving you."
+
+She still pointed. "Go," she said tonelessly. "I can't turn you out, but
+if Adrian was alive--Ha! ha! ha!--" she laughed with a touch of
+hysteria. "How do you dare, you barren rascal--how do you dare to think
+you can take the place of a man like Adrian?"
+
+[Illustration: "Go! You are nothing but a brute."]
+
+The whip of her tongue lashed him to sudden fury. He picked her up
+bodily and held her in spite of struggles, just as you or I would hold a
+cat or a rabbit.
+
+"You little fool," said he, "don't you know the difference between a man
+and a--"
+
+Realisation of the tragedy struck him as a spent bullet might have
+struck him on the side of the head. He turned white.
+
+"All right," said he in a changed voice. "Easy on. I'm not going to hurt
+you."
+
+He deposited her gently on the sofa and strode out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+If the old song be true which says that it is not so much the lover who
+woos as the lover's way of wooing, Jaffery seemed to have thrown away
+his chances by adopting a very unfortunate way indeed. Doria proved to
+Barbara, urgently summoned to a bed of prostration and nervous collapse,
+that she would never set eyes again upon the unqualifiable savage by
+whom her holiest sentiments had been outraged and her person
+disgracefully mishandled. She poured out a blood-curdling story into
+semi-sympathetic ears. Barbara made short work of her contention that
+Jaffery ought to have respected her as he would have respected the wife
+of a living friend, characterising it as morbid and indecent nonsense;
+and with regard to the physical violence she declared that it would have
+served her right had he smacked her.
+
+"If you want to be faithful to the memory of your first husband, be
+faithful," she said. "No one can prevent you. And if a good man comes
+along with an honourable proposal of marriage, tell him in an honourable
+way why you can't marry him. But don't accept for months all a man has
+to give, and then, when he tells you what you've known perfectly well
+all along, treat him as if he were making shameful proposals to
+you--especially a man like Jaffery; I have no patience with you."
+
+Doria wept. No one understood her. No one understood Adrian. No one
+understood the bond there was between them. Of that she was aware. But
+when it came to being brutally assaulted by Jaffery Chayne, she really
+thought Barbara would sympathise. Wherefore Barbara, rather angry at
+being brought up to London on a needless errand, involving loss of
+dinner and upset of household arrangements, administered a
+sleeping-draught and bade her wake in the morning in a less idiotic
+frame of mind.
+
+"Perhaps I behaved like a cat," Barbara said to me later--to "behave
+like a cat" is her way of signifying a display of the vilest phases of
+feminine nature--"but I couldn't help it. She didn't talk a great deal
+of sense. It isn't as if I had never warned her about the way she has
+been treating Jaffery. I have, heaps of times. And as for Adrian--I'm
+sick of his name--and if I am, what must poor old Jaff be?"
+
+This she said during a private discussion that night on the whole
+situation. I say the whole situation, because, when she returned to
+Northlands, she found there a haggard ogre who for the first time in his
+life had eaten a canary's share of an excellent dinner, imploring me to
+tell him whether he should enlist for a soldier, or commit suicide, or
+lie prone on Doria's doormat until it should please her to come out and
+trample on him. He seemed rather surprised--indeed a trifle hurt--that
+neither of us called him a Satyr. How could we take his part and not
+Doria's--especially now that Barbara had come from the bedside of the
+scandalously entreated lady? He boomed and bellowed about the
+drawing-room, recapitulating the whole story.
+
+"But, my good friend," I remonstrated, "by the showing of both of you,
+she taunted you and insulted you all ends up. You--'a barren
+rascal'--you? Good God!"
+
+He flung out a deprecatory hand. What did it matter? We must take this
+from her point of view. He oughtn't to have laid hands on her. He
+oughtn't to have spoken to her at all. She was right. He was a savage
+unfit for the society of any woman outside a wigwam.
+
+"Oh, you make me tired," cried Barbara, at last. "I'm going to bed.
+Hilary, give him a strait-waistcoat. He's a lunatic."
+
+The household resources not including a strait-waistcoat, I could not
+exactly obey her, but as he had come down luggageless, and with a large
+disregard of the hours of homeward trains, I lent him a suit of my
+meagre pyjamas, which must have served the same purpose.
+
+He left the next morning. Heedless of advice he called on Doria and was
+denied admittance. He wrote. His letter was returned unopened. He passed
+a miserable week, unable to work, at a loose end in London during the
+height of the season. In despair he went to _The Daily Gazette_ office
+and proclaimed himself ready for a job. But for the moment the earth was
+fairly calm and the management could find no field for Jaffery's special
+activities. Arbuthnot again offered him reports of fires and fashionable
+weddings, but this time Jaffery did not enjoy the fine humour of the
+proposal. He blistered Arbuthnot with abuse, swung from the newspaper
+office, and barged mightily down Fleet Street, a disturber of traffic.
+Then he came down to Northlands for a while, where, for want of
+something to do, he hired himself out to my gardener and dug up most of
+the kitchen garden. His usual occupation of romping with Susan was gone,
+for she lay abed with some childish ailment which Barbara feared might
+turn into German measles. So when he was not perspiring over a spade or
+eating or sleeping he wandered about the place in his most restless
+mood. At nights he ransacked my library for gazetteers and atlases
+wherein he searched for abominable places likely to afford the explorer
+the most horrible life and the bleakest possible death. He was toying
+with the idea of making a jaunt on his own account to Thibet, when a
+merciful Providence gave him something definite to think about.
+
+It was Saturday morning. I was shaving peacefully in my dressing-room
+when Jaffery, after thunderously demanding admittance, rushed in, clad
+in bath gown and slippers, flourishing a letter.
+
+"Read that."
+
+I recognised Liosha's handwriting. I read:
+
+     "Dear Jaff Chayne,
+
+     "As you are my Trustee, I guess I ought to tell you what I'm going
+     to do. I'm going to marry Ras Fendihook--"
+
+I looked up. "But you told me the man was married already."
+
+"He is. Read on."
+
+     "We are going to be married at once. We are going to be married at
+     Havre in France. Ras says that because I am a widow and an Albanian
+     it would be an awful trouble for me to get married in England, and
+     I would have to give up half my money to Government. But in France,
+     owing to different laws, I can get married without any fuss at all.
+     I don't understand it, but Ras has consulted a lawyer, so it's all
+     right. I suppose when I am married you won't be my trustee any
+     more. So, dear Jaff Chayne, I must say good-bye and thank you for
+     all your great kindness to me. I am sorry you and Barbara and
+     Hilary don't like Ras, which his real name really is Erasmus, but
+     you will when you know him better.
+
+     "Yours affectionately,
+
+     "LIOSHA PRESCOTT."
+
+The amazing epistle took my breath away.
+
+"Of all the infernal scoundrels!" I cried.
+
+"There's going to be trouble," said Jaffery, and his look signified that
+it was he who intended to cause it.
+
+"But why Havre of all places in the world?" said I.
+
+"I suppose it's the only one he knows," replied Jaffery. "He must have
+once gone to Paris by that route. It's the cheapest."
+
+I glanced through the letter again, and I felt a warm gush of pity for
+our poor deluded Liosha.
+
+"We must get her out of this."
+
+"Going to," said Jaffery. "Let us have in Barbara at once."
+
+I opened the communicating door and threw the letter into the room where
+she was dressing. After a moment or two she appeared in cap and
+peignoir, and the three of us in dressing-gowns, I with lather crinkling
+over one-half of my face, held first an indignation meeting, and then a
+council of war.
+
+"I never dreamed the brute would do this," said Jaffery. "He couldn't
+offer her marriage in the ordinary way without committing bigamy, and I
+know she wouldn't consent to any other arrangement; so he has invented
+this poisonous plot to get her out of England."
+
+"And probably go through some fool form of ceremony," said Barbara.
+
+"But how can she be such a thundering idiot as to swallow it?" asked
+Jaffery.
+
+I was going to remark that women would believe anything, but Barbara's
+eye was upon me. Yet Liosha's unfamiliarity with the laws and
+formalities of English marriage was natural, considering the fact that,
+not so very long before, she was placidly prepared to be sold to a young
+Albanian cutthroat who met his death through coming to haggle over her
+price. I myself had found unworthy amusement in telling her wild fables
+of English life. Her ignorance in many ways was abysmal. Once having
+seen a photograph in the papers of the King in a bowler-hat she
+expressed her disappointment that he wore no insignia of royalty; and
+when I consoled her by saying that, by Act of Parliament, the King was
+obliged to wear his crown so many hours a day and therefore wore it
+always at breakfast, lunch and dinner in Buckingham Palace, she accepted
+my assurance with the credulity of a child of four. And when Barbara
+rebuked me for taking advantage of her innocence, she was very angry
+indeed. How was she to know when and where not to believe me?
+
+"She is fresh and ingenuous enough," said I, "to swallow any kind of
+plausible story. And her ingenuousness in writing you a full account of
+it is a proof."
+
+"She has given the whole show away," said Jaffery. He smiled. "If
+Fendihook knew, he would be as sick as a dog."
+
+"And the poor dear is so honest and truthful," said Barbara. "She
+thought she was doing the honourable thing in letting you know."
+
+"No doubt modelling herself on Mrs. Jupp, late Considine," said I.
+
+"Who let us know at the last minute," said Barbara with a quick knitting
+of the brow.
+
+"Precisely," said I.
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "Do you think she's gone off with the fellow
+already?"
+
+"You had better ring up Queen's Gate and find out."
+
+He rushed from the room. I hastily finished shaving, while Barbara
+discoursed to me on the neglect of our duties with regard to Liosha.
+
+Presently Jaffery burst in like a rhinoceros.
+
+"She's gone! She went on Thursday. And this is Saturday. Fendihook left
+last Sunday. Evidently she has joined him."
+
+We regarded each other in dismay.
+
+"They're in Havre by now," said Barbara.
+
+"I'm not so sure," said Jaffery, sweeping his beard from moustache
+downward. This I knew to be a sign of satisfaction. When he was puzzled
+he scrabbled at the whisker. "I'm not so sure. Why should he leave the
+boarding-house on Sunday? I'll tell you. Because his London engagement
+was over and he had to put in a week's engagement at some provincial
+music-hall. Theatrical folks always travel on Sunday. If he was still
+working in London and wanted to shift his lodgings he wouldn't have
+chosen Sunday. We can easily see by the advertisements in the morning
+paper. His London engagement was at the Atrium."
+
+"I've got the _Daily Telegraph_ here," said Barbara.
+
+She fetched it from her room, in the earthquake-stricken condition to
+which she, as usual, had reduced it, and after earnest search among the
+ruins disinterred the theatrical advertisement page. The attractions at
+the Atrium were set out fully; but the name of Ras Fendihook did not
+appear.
+
+"I'm right," said Jaffery. "The brute's not in town. Now where did she
+write from?" He fished the envelope from his bath-gown pocket.
+"Postmark, 'London, S.W., 5.45 p.m.' Posted yesterday afternoon. So
+she's in London." He glanced at the letter, which was written on her own
+note-paper headed with the Queen's Gate address, and then held it up
+before us. "See anything queer about this?"
+
+We looked and saw that it was dated "Thursday."
+
+"There's something fishy," said he. "Can I have the car?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I'm going to run 'em both to earth. I want Barbara to come along. I can
+tackle men right enough, but when it comes to women, I seem to be a bit
+of an ass. Besides--you'll come, won't you?"
+
+"With pleasure, if I can get back early this afternoon."
+
+"Early this afternoon? Why, my dear child, I want you to be prepared to
+come to Havre--all over France, if necessary."
+
+"You've got rather a nerve," said I, taken aback by the vast coolness of
+the proposal.
+
+"I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it."
+
+"I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave Susan."
+
+"Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you can't."
+He turned to me. "Then Hilary'll come."
+
+"Where?" I asked, stupidly.
+
+"Wherever I take you."
+
+"But, my dear fellow--" I remonstrated.
+
+He cut me short. "Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack his bag,
+and see that he's ready to start at ten sharp."
+
+He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor.
+
+"Why the deuce," I cried, "can't you do your manhunting by yourself?"
+
+"There are two of 'em and you may come in useful." He faced me and I met
+the cold steel in his eyes. "If you would rather not help me to save a
+woman we're both fond of from destruction, I can find somebody else."
+
+"Of course I'll come," said I.
+
+"Good," said he. "Ask Barbara to order a devil of a breakfast."
+
+He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like twenty Roman heroes
+rolled into one, quite a different Jaffery from the noisy, bellowing
+fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the normal tones of
+the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively.
+
+I rejoined Barbara. "My dear," said I, "what have we done that we should
+be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other people's lives?"
+
+She put her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just
+because we've done nothing--nothing otherwise to justify our existence.
+We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't
+take a share of other people's troubles we should die of congestion of
+the soul."
+
+I kissed her to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the steady
+vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's
+notice for anywhere--perhaps Havre, perhaps Marseilles, perhaps
+Singapore with its horrible damp climate, which wouldn't suit
+me--anywhere that tough and discomfort-loving Jaffery might choose to
+ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with my translation of
+Firdusi. . . .
+
+"Don't forget," said I, departing bathwards, "to tell Franklin to put in
+an Arctic sleeping-bag and a solar topee."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We drove first to the house in Queen's Gate and interviewed Mrs.
+Jardine, a pretentious woman with gold earrings and elaborately done
+black hair, who seemed to resent our examination as though we were
+calling in question the moral character of her establishment. She did
+not know where Mr. Fendihook and Mrs. Prescott had gone. She was not in
+the habit of putting such enquiries to her guests.
+
+"But one or other may have mentioned it casually," said I.
+
+"Mr. Fendihook went away on Sunday and Mrs. Prescott on Thursday. It was
+not my business to associate the two departures in any way."
+
+By pressing the various points we learned that Fendihook was an old
+client of the house. During Mrs. Considine's residence he had been
+touring in America. It had been his habit to go and come without much
+ceremonial. As for Liosha, she had given up her rooms, paid her bill and
+departed with her trunks.
+
+"When did she give notice to leave you?"
+
+"I knew nothing of her intentions till Thursday morning. Then she came
+with her hat on and asked for her bill and said her things were packed
+and ready to be brought downstairs."
+
+"What address did she give to the cabman?"
+
+Mrs. Jardine did not know. She rang for the luggage porter. Jaffery
+repeated his question.
+
+"Westminster Abbey, sir," answered the man.
+
+I laughed. It seemed rather comic. But every one else regarded it as the
+most natural thing in the world. Jaffery frowned on me.
+
+"I see nothing to laugh at. She was obeying instructions--covering up
+her tracks. When she got to Westminster she told the driver to cross the
+bridge--and what railway station is the other end of the bridge?"
+
+"Waterloo," said I.
+
+"And from Waterloo the train goes to Southampton, and from Southampton
+the boat leaves for Havre. There's nothing funny, believe me."
+
+I said no more.
+
+The porter was dismissed. Jaffery drew the letter from his pocket.
+
+"On the other hand she was in London yesterday afternoon in this
+district, for here is the 5:45 postmark."
+
+"Oh, I posted that letter," said Mrs. Jardine.
+
+"You?" cried Jaffery. He slapped his thigh. "I said there was something
+fishy about it."
+
+"There was nothing fishy, as you call it, at all, Mr. Chayne, and I'm
+surprised at your casting such an aspersion on my character. I had a
+short letter from Mrs. Prescott yesterday enclosing four other letters
+which she asked me to stamp and post, as I owed her fourpence change on
+her bill."
+
+"Where did she write from?" Jaffery asked eagerly.
+
+"Nowhere in particular," said the provoking lady.
+
+"But the postmark on the envelope."
+
+She had not looked at the postmark and the envelope had been destroyed.
+
+"Then where is she?" I asked.
+
+"At Southampton, you idiot," said Jaffery. "Let us get there at once."
+
+So after a visit to my bankers--for I am not the kind of person to set
+out for Santa Fe de Bogota with twopence halfpenny in my pocket--and
+after a hasty lunch at a restaurant, much to Jaffery's impatient
+disgust--"Why the dickens," cried he, "did I order a big breakfast if
+we're to fool about wasting time over lunch?"--but as I explained, if I
+don't have regular meals, I get a headache--and after having made other
+sane preparations for a journey, including the purchase of a toothbrush,
+an indispensable toilet adjunct, which Franklin, admirable fellow that
+he is, invariably forgets to put into my case, we started for
+Southampton. And along the jolly Portsmouth Road we went, through
+Guildford, along the Hog's Back, over the Surrey Downs rolling warm in
+the sunshine, through Farnham, through grey, dreamy Winchester, past St.
+Cross, with its old-world almshouse, through Otterbourne and up the hill
+and down to Southampton, seventy-eight miles, in two hours and a
+quarter. Jaffery drove.
+
+We began our search. First we examined the playbills at the various
+places of entertainment. Ras Fendihook was not playing in Southampton.
+We went round the hotels, the South-Western, the Royal, the Star, the
+Dolphin, the Polygon--and found no trace of the runaways. Jaffery
+interviewed officials at the stations and docks, dapper gentlemen with
+the air of diplomatists, tremendous fellows in uniform, policemen,
+porters, with all of whom he seemed to be on terms of familiar
+acquaintance; but none of them could trace or remember such a couple
+having crossed by the midnight boats of Thursday or Friday. Nor were
+their names down on the list of those who had secured berths in advance
+for this Saturday night.
+
+"You're rather at fault," said I, rather maliciously, not displeased at
+my masterful friend's failure.
+
+"Not a bit," said he. "Fendihook's leaving on Sunday certainly means
+that he was starting to fulfill a provincial engagement on Monday. If it
+was a week's engagement, he crosses to-night. We've only to wait and
+catch them. If it was a three nights' engagement, which is possible, he
+and Liosha crossed on Thursday night. In that case we'll cross ourselves
+and track them down."
+
+"Even if we have to go over the Andes and far away," I murmured.
+
+"Even so," said he. "Now listen. If he's had a week's engagement he must
+be finishing to-night. In order to catch the boat he must be working in
+the neighbourhood. Savvy? The only possible place besides this is
+Portsmouth. We'll run over to Portsmouth, only seventeen miles."
+
+"All right," said I, with a wistful look back at my peaceful,
+comfortable home, "let us go to Portsmouth. I'll resign myself to dine
+at Portsmouth. But supposing he isn't there?" I asked, as the car drove
+off.
+
+"Then he went to Havre on Thursday."
+
+"But suppose he's at Birmingham. He would then take to-morrow night's
+boat."
+
+"There isn't one on Sundays."
+
+"Then Monday night's boat."
+
+"Well, if he does, won't we be there on Tuesday morning to meet him on
+the quay? Lord!" he laughed, and brought his huge grip down on my leg
+above the knee, thereby causing me physical agony, "I should like to
+take you on an expedition. It would do you a thundering lot of good."
+
+We arrived at Portsmouth, where we conducted the same kind of enquiries
+as at Southampton. Neither there nor at adjoining Southsea could we find
+a sign of the Variety Star, Ras Fendihook, and still less of the obscure
+Liosha. We dined at a Southsea hotel. We dined very well. On that I
+insisted--without much expenditure of nervous force. Jaffery rails at me
+for a Sybarite and what not, but I have never seen him refuse viands on
+account of succulency or wine on account of flavour. We had a quart of
+excellent champagne, a pint of decent port and a good cigar, and we felt
+that the gods were good. That is how I like to feel. I felt it so
+gratefully that when Jaffery suggested it was time to start back to
+Southampton in order to waylay the London train at the docks, on the
+off-chance of our fugitives having come down by it, and to catch the
+Havre boat ourselves, I had not a weary word to say. I cheerfully
+contemplated the prospect of a night's voyage to Havre. And as Jaffery
+(also humanised by good cheer) had been entertaining me with juicy
+stories of China and other mythical lands, I felt equal to any
+dare-devil adventure.
+
+We went back to Southampton and collected our luggage at the
+South-Western Hotel--the hotel porter in charge thereof. Our uncertainty
+as to whether we would cross or not horribly disturbed his dull brain.
+Ten shillings and Jaffery's peremptory order to stick to his side and
+obey him slavishly took the place of intellectual workings. It was
+nearly midnight. We walked through the docks, a background of
+darkness, a foreground of confusing lights amid which shone vivid
+illuminated placards before the brightly lit steamers--"St.
+Malo"--"Cherbourg"--"Jersey"--"Havre." At the quiet gangway of the
+Havre boat we waited. The porter deposited our bags on the quay and
+stood patiently expectant like a dog who lays a stick at its master's
+feet.
+
+One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad ants
+swarmed to the various boats. At the Havre boat I took the fore, he the
+aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, vague human forms
+encumbered with queer projecting excrescences of impedimenta. They all
+seemed alike--just a herd of Britons, impelled by irrational instinct,
+like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway, to cross the sea. And all
+around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures
+mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the
+slither and thud of trunks being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail
+of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I
+went to the aft gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us had
+seen Fendihook or Liosha.
+
+A second train produced results equally barren.
+
+There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We went
+aboard followed by the porter with the luggage.
+
+My method of travel has always been to arrange everything beforehand
+with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains and boats I have
+thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear therefore that there were
+no berths free and that we should have to pass the night either on the
+windy deck or in the red-plush discomfort of the open saloon caused me
+not unreasonable dismay. I had to choose and I chose the saloon.
+Jaffery, of course, chose the raw winds of heaven. All night I did not
+get a wink of sleep. There was a gross fellow in the next section of
+red-plush whose snoring drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards long
+after they had cleared away the remains of supper from the long central
+table chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing stables of the
+world with a loudly dressed, red-faced man who, judging from the popping
+of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three a minute. I
+understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the human brain. I
+devised exquisite means of removing him from a nauseated world. Then
+there was a lamp which swung backwards and forwards and searched my
+eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I covered them.
+
+What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child
+and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea.
+There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of
+stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I
+was fully dressed and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body
+were tied up with twine. What was I doing in this galley?
+
+When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Jaffery was grinning over me and
+all was deathly still.
+
+"Good God!" I cried, sitting up. "Why has the ship stopped? Is there a
+fog?"
+
+"Fog?" he boomed. "What are you talking of? We're alongside of Havre."
+
+"What time is it?" I asked.
+
+"Half-past six."
+
+"A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock," said I, lying
+down again.
+
+He shook me rudely. "Get up," said he.
+
+The sleepless, unshaven, unkempt, twine-bound, self-hating wreck of
+Hilary Freeth rose to his feet with a groan.
+
+"What a ghastly night!"
+
+"Splendid," said Jaffery, ruddy and fresh. "I must have tramped over
+twenty miles."
+
+There was an onrush of blue-bloused porters, with metal plate numbers
+on their arms. One took our baggage. We followed him up the companion
+onto the deck, and joined the crowd that awaited the releasing gangway.
+I stood resentful in the sardine pack of humans. The sky was overcast.
+It was very cold. The universe had an uncared-for, unswept appearance,
+like a house surprised at dawn, before the housemaids are up. The forced
+appearance of a well-to-do philosopher at such an hour was nothing less
+than an outrage. I glared at the immature day. The day glared at me, and
+turned down its temperature about twenty degrees. From fool
+thoughtlessness I had not put on my overcoat, which was now far away in
+charge of the blue-bloused porter. I shivered. Jaffery was behind me. I
+glanced over my shoulder.
+
+"This is our so-called civilisation," I said bitterly.
+
+At the sound of my voice a tall woman in the rank five feet deep from us
+turned instinctively round, and Liosha and I looked into each other's
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Jaffery caught sight of her at the same time and gripped my arm. Her
+eyes travelling from mine to his flashed indignant anger. Then she
+turned haughtily. We tried to edge nearer her, but she was just beyond
+the convergence of two side currents which pushed us even further away.
+The gangway was fixed and the movement of the conglomerate mass began.
+Presently Jaffery again seized my arm.
+
+"There's the brute waiting for her."
+
+And there on the quay, with a flower in his buttonhole and a smile on
+his fat face, stood Mr. Ras Fendihook. He met her at the foot of the
+gangway, and obviously told at once of our presence, sought us anxiously
+with his gaze; then with an air of bravado waved his hat--a hard white
+felt--and cried out: "Cheer O!" We did not respond. He grinned at us and
+linking his arm through Liosha's joined the stream of passengers
+hurrying across the stones to the custom-sheds.
+
+"Stop," Jaffery roared.
+
+They turned, as indeed did everybody within earshot. Fendihook would
+have gone on, but Liosha very proudly drew him out of the stream into a
+clear space and, prepared for battle, awaited us. When we had struggled
+our slow way down and reached the quay she advanced a few steps looking
+very terrible in her wrath.
+
+"How dare you follow me?"
+
+"Come further away from the crowd," said Jaffery, and with an imperious
+gesture he swept the three of us along the quay to the stern of the
+boat, where only a few idle sailor men were lounging, and a sergeant de
+ville was pacing on his leisurely beat.
+
+"I said you would make a fool of yourself one of these days if I didn't
+play dragon," he said, at a sudden halt. "I've come to play dragon with
+a vengeance." He marched on Fendihook. "Now you."
+
+"How d'ye do, old cock? Didn't expect you here," he said jauntily.
+
+"Don't be insolent," replied Jaffery in a remarkably quiet tone. "You
+know very well why I'm here."
+
+"Jaff Chayne--" Liosha began.
+
+He waved her off. "Take her away, Hilary."
+
+"Come," said I. "I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"He has got to tell me, not you."
+
+"I certainly don't know why the devil you're here," said Fendihook, with
+sudden nastiness.
+
+"I've come to save this lady from a dirty blackguard."
+
+"How are you going to do it?"
+
+Jaffery addressed Liosha. "You said in your letter--"
+
+"You wrote to him, you crazy fool, after all my instructions?" snarled
+Fendihook.
+
+"You said in your letter you were going to marry this man."
+
+"Sure," said Liosha.
+
+"And are you going to marry this lady?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Why didn't you marry her in England?"
+
+"I told you in my letter," said Liosha. "See here--we don't want any of
+your interference." And she planted herself by the side of her abductor,
+glaring defiance at Jaffery.
+
+Jaffery smiled. "You told her that because she was a widow and an
+Albanian she would find considerable obstacles in her way and would
+forfeit half her money to the Government. You lying little skunk!"
+
+The vibration in Jaffery's voice arrested Liosha. She looked swiftly at
+Fendihook.
+
+"Wasn't it true what you told me?"
+
+"Of course not," I interposed. "You were as free to marry in England as
+Mrs. Considine."
+
+She paid no attention to me.
+
+"Wasn't it true?" she repeated.
+
+Fendihook laughed in vulgar bluster. "You didn't take all that rot
+seriously, you silly cuckoo?"
+
+Liosha drew a step away from him and regarded him wonderingly. For the
+first time doubt as to his straight-dealing rose in her candid mind.
+
+"She did," said Jaffery. "She also took seriously your promise to marry
+her in France."
+
+"Well, ain't I going to marry her?"
+
+"No," said Jaffery. "You can't."
+
+"Who says I can't?"
+
+"I do. You've got a wife already and three children."
+
+"I've divorced her."
+
+"You haven't. You've deserted her, which isn't the same thing. I've
+found out all about you. You shouldn't be such a famous character."
+
+Liosha stood speechless, for a moment, quivering all over, her eyes
+burning.
+
+"He's married already--" she gasped.
+
+"Certainly. He decoyed you here just to seduce you."
+
+Liosha made a sudden spring, like a tigress, and had it not been for
+Jaffery's intervening boom of an arm, her hands would have been round
+Fendihook's throat.
+
+"Steady on," growled Jaffery, controlling her with his iron strength.
+Fendihook, who had started back with an oath, grew as white as a sheet.
+I tapped him on the arm.
+
+"You had better hook it," said I. "And keep out of her way if you don't
+want a knife stuck into you. Yes," I added, meeting a scared look,
+"you've been playing with the wrong kind of woman. You had better stick
+to the sort you're accustomed to."
+
+"Thank you for those kind words," said he. "I will."
+
+"It would be wise also to keep out of the way of Jaffery Chayne. With my
+own eyes I've seen him pick up a man he didn't like and"--I made an
+expressive gesture--"throw him clean away."
+
+"Right O!" said he.
+
+He nodded, winked impudently and walked away. A thought struck me. I
+overtook him.
+
+"Where are you staying in Havre?"
+
+He looked at me suspiciously. "What do you want to know for?"
+
+"To save you from being murdered, as you would most certainly be if we
+chanced upon the same hotel."
+
+"I'm staying at the Phares--the swagger one on the beach near the
+Casino."
+
+"Excellent," said I. "Go on swaggering. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, old pal," said he.
+
+He tilted his white hat to a rakish angle and marched away.
+
+I rejoined Jaffery and Liosha. He still held her wrists; but she stood
+unresisting, tense and rigid, with averted head, looking sidewise down.
+Her lip quivered, her bosom heaved. Jaffery had mastered her fury, but
+now we had to deal with her shame and humiliation.
+
+"Let her go!" I whispered.
+
+Jaffery freed her. She rubbed her wrists mechanically, without moving
+her head. I wished Barbara had been there; she would have known exactly
+what to do. As it was, we stood by her, somewhat helplessly.
+
+"_Monsieur_," said a voice close by, and we saw our little blue-bloused
+porter. He explained that he had been seeking us everywhere. If we did
+not make haste we would lose the Paris train.
+
+I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not pressed for
+time; but this little outside happening broke the situation.
+
+"Better give this fellow your luggage ticket, Liosha," said Jaffery.
+
+She looked about her bewildered and then I noticed on the ground a
+leather satchel which she had been carrying. I picked it up. She
+extracted the ticket and we all went to the custom-house.
+
+"What's the programme now?" I asked Jaffery.
+
+"Hotel," said he. "This poor girl will want a rest. Besides, we'll have
+to stay the night."
+
+"Our friend is staying at the Hotel des Phares."
+
+"Then we'll go to Tortoni's."
+
+An ordinary woman would have drawn down the motor veil which she wore
+cockled-up on her travelling hat; but Liosha, grandly unconcerned with
+such vanities, showed her young shame-stricken face to all the world. I
+felt intensely sorry for her. She realised now from what a blatant
+scoundrel she had been saved; but she still bitterly resented our
+intervention. "I felt as if I was stripped naked walking between
+them"--that was her primitive account later of her state of mind.
+
+"Barbara," said I, "sent you her very dear love."
+
+She nodded, without looking at me.
+
+"Barbara would have come too, if Susan had not been ill."
+
+She gave a little start. I thought she was about to speak; but she
+remained silent. We entered the customs-shed, when she attended
+mechanically to her declarations.
+
+On emerging free into the open air again, we found that the cheery sun
+had pierced the morning clouds and gave promise of a glorious day. The
+luggage was piled on the hotel omnibus. We took an open cab and rattled
+through the narrow flag-paved streets of the harbour quarter of the
+town. As we emerged into a more spacious thoroughfare, suddenly from a
+gaudy column at the corner flared the name of Ras Fendihook. I caught
+the heading of the _affiche_: "Music-Hall-Eldorado." Part of the mystery
+was solved. Jaffery had been right in his deduction that he had left
+London on a professional engagement; but we had not thought of an
+engagement out of England. I had a correct answer now to my question:
+"Why Havre of all places?" Jaffery sitting with Liosha on the back seat
+of the victoria saw it too and we exchanged glances. But Liosha had eyes
+for nothing save her hands tightly clasped in her lap. We passed another
+column before we entered the Place Gambetta, where already at that early
+hour, above its wide terrace, the striped awning of Tortoni's was flung.
+We alighted at the hotel and ordered our three rooms; coffee and roll to
+be taken up to madame; we men would eat our petit dejeuner downstairs.
+Liosha left us without saying a word.
+
+Bathed, shaved, changed, refreshed by the good _cafe au lait_, gladdened
+by the sunshine and smugly satisfied with our morning's work, quite a
+different Hilary Freeth sat with Jaffery on the terrace from the
+sleepless wreck he had awakened two hours before. My urbane dismissal of
+Ras Fendihook lingered suave in my memory. The glow of conscious heroism
+warmed me, even like last night's dinner, to sympathy with my kind.
+After despatching, by the chasseur, a long telegram to Barbara, and
+sending up to Liosha's room a bunch of red roses we bought at a
+florist's hard by, I surrendered myself idly to the contemplation of the
+matutinal Sunday life of provincial France, while Jaffery smoked his
+pipe and uttered staccato maledictions on Mr. Ras Fendihook.
+
+I love provincial France. It is narrow, it is bourgeois, it is regarding
+of its _sous_, it is what you will. But it lives a spacious,
+out-of-door, corporate life. On Sundays, it does not bury itself, like
+provincial England, in a cellular house. It walks abroad. It indulges in
+its modest pleasures. It is serious, it is intensely conscious of
+family, but it can take deep breaths of freedom. It is not Sundayfied
+into our vacuous boredom. It clings to the picturesque, in which it
+finds its dignified delight. The little soldier clad in blue tunic and
+red trousers struts along with his _fiancee_ or _maitresse_ on his arm;
+the cuirassier swaggers by in brass helmet and horsehair plume; the
+cavalry officer, dapper in light blue, with his pretty wife, drinks
+syrup at a neighbouring table in your cafe. The work-girls, even on
+Sunday, go about bareheaded, as though they were at home in the friendly
+street. The cure in shovel hat and cassock; the workmen for whom Sunday
+happens not to be the _jour de repos hebdomadaire_ ordained by law, in
+their blue _sarreau_; the peasants from outlying villages--the men in
+queer shell-jackets with a complication of buttons, the women in
+dazzling white caps astonishingly gauffered; the lawyer in decent black,
+with his white cambric tie; the fat and greasy citizen with fat and
+greasy wife and prim, pig-tailed little daughter clad in an exiguous
+cotton frock of loud and unauthentic tartan, and showing a quarter of an
+inch of sock above high yellow boots; the superb pair of gendarmes with
+their cocked hats, wooden epaulettes and swords; the white-aproned
+waiters standing by cafe tables--all these types are distinct, picked
+out pleasurably by the eye; they give a cheery sense of variety; the
+stage is dressed.
+
+So when Jaffery asked me what in the world we were going to do all day,
+I replied:
+
+"Sit here."
+
+"Don't you want to see the place?"
+
+"The place," said I, "is parading before us."
+
+"We might hire a car and run over to Etretat."
+
+"There's Liosha," I objected. "We can't leave her alone and she's not in
+a mood for jaunts."
+
+"She won't leave her room to-day, poor girl. It must be awful for her.
+Oh, that swine of a blighter!"
+
+His wrath exploded again over the iniquitous Fendihook. For the dozenth
+time we went over the story.
+
+"What on earth are we going to do with her?" he asked. "She can't go
+back to the boarding-house."
+
+"For the time being, at any rate, I'll take her down to Barbara."
+
+"Barbara's a wonder," said he fervently. "And do you know, Hilary,
+there's the makings of a devilish fine woman in Liosha, if one only knew
+the right way to take her."
+
+The right way, I think, was known to me, but I did not reveal it. I
+assented to Jaffery's proposition.
+
+"She has a vile temper and the mind and facile passions of a Spanish
+gipsy, but she has stunning qualities. She's the soul of truth and
+honour and as straight as a die. And brave. This has been a nasty knock
+for her; but I don't mind betting you that as soon as she has pulled
+herself together she'll treat the thing quite in a big way."
+
+And as if to prove his assertion, who should come sailing towards us
+past the long line of empty tables but Liosha herself. Another woman
+would have lain weeping on her bed and one of us would have had to
+soothe her and sympathise with her, and coax her to eat and cajole her
+into revisiting the light of day. Not so Liosha. She arrayed herself in
+fresh, fawn-coloured coat and skirt, fitting close to her splendid
+figure, which she held erect, a smart hat with a feather, and new white
+gloves, and came to us the incarnation of summer, clear-eyed as the
+morning, our roses pinned in her corsage. Of course she was pale and her
+lips were not quite under control, but she made a valiant show.
+
+We arose as she approached, but she motioned us back to our chairs.
+
+"Don't get up. I guess I'll join you."
+
+We drew up a chair and she seated herself between us. Then she looked
+steadily and unsmilingly from one to the other.
+
+"I want to thank you two. I've been a damn fool."
+
+"Well, old girl," said Jaffery kindly, "I must own you've been rather
+indiscreet."
+
+"I've been a damn fool," she repeated.
+
+"Anyhow it's over now. Thank goodness," said I. "Did you eat your
+breakfast?"
+
+She made a little wry face. No, she could not touch it. What would she
+have now? I sent a waiter for cafe-au-lait and a brioche and lectured
+her on the folly of going without proper sustenance. The ghost of a
+smile crept into her eyes, in recognition, I suppose, of the hedonism
+with which I am wrongly credited by my friends. Then she thanked us for
+the roses. They were big, like her, she said. The waiter set out the
+little tray and the _verseur_ poured out the coffee and milk. We watched
+her eat and drink. Having finished she said she felt better.
+
+"You've got some sense, Hilary," she admitted.
+
+"Tell me," said Jaffery. "How did we come to miss you on the boat? We
+watched the London trains carefully."
+
+"I came from Southsea about an hour before the boat started and went to
+bed at once."
+
+"Southsea? Why, we were there all the evening," said I. "What were you
+doing at Southsea?"
+
+"Staying with Emma--Mrs. Jupp. The General lives there. I couldn't stick
+that boarding-house by myself any longer so I wrote to Emma to ask her
+to put me up."
+
+"So that's why you went on Thursday?"
+
+"That's why."
+
+"Pardon me if I'm inquisitive," said I, "but did you take Mrs.
+Considine--I mean Mrs. Jupp--into your confidence?"
+
+"Lord no! She's not my dragon any longer. She knew I was going to
+Havre--to meet friends. Of course I had to tell her that. But Jaff
+Chayne was the only person that had to know the truth."
+
+We questioned her as delicately as we could and gradually the intrigue
+that had puzzled us became clear. Ras Fendihook left London on Sunday
+for a fortnight's engagement at the Eldorado of Havre. As there was no
+Sunday night boat for Southampton he had to travel to Havre via Paris.
+Being a crafty villain, he would not run away with Liosha straight from
+London. She was to join him a week later, after he had had time to spy
+out the land and make his nefarious schemes for a mock marriage. His
+fortnight up, he was sailing away again to America. Liosha was to
+accompany him. In all probability, for I delight in thinking the worst
+of Mr. Ras Fendihook, he would have found occasion, towards the end of
+his tour, of sending her on a fool's errand, say, to Texas, while he
+worked his way to New York, where he would have an unembarrassed voyage
+back to England, leaving Liosha floundering helplessly in the railway
+network of the United States. I have made it my business to enquire into
+the ways of this entertaining but unholy villain. This is what I am sure
+he would have done. One girl some half dozen years before he had left
+penniless in San Francisco and the door over which burns the Red Lamp
+swallowed her up forever.
+
+For the present, however, Liosha was to join him in Havre. Not a soul
+must know. He gave sordid instructions as to secrecy. As Jaffery had
+guessed, he had instigated the comic destination of Westminster Abbey.
+Although her open nature abhorred the deception, she obeyed his
+instructions in minor details and thought she was acting in the spirit
+of the intrigue when she enclosed the letters to Mrs. Jardine to be
+posted in London. By risking discovery of her secret during her visit to
+the admirable lady at Southsea and by ingenuously disclosing the plot to
+Jaffery she showed herself to be a very sorry conspirator.
+
+She spoke so quietly and bravely that we had not the heart to touch upon
+the sentimental side of her adventure. As we could not stay in Havre all
+day at the risk of meeting Mr. Ras Fendihook, who might swagger into the
+town from his swagger hotel on the _plage_, we carried out Jaffery's
+proposal, hired an automobile and drove to Etretat. We came straight
+from inland into the tiny place, so coquettish in its mingling of
+fisher-folk and fashion, so cut off from the coast world by the jagged
+needle gates jutting out on each side of the small bay and by the sudden
+grass-grown bluff rising above them, so cleanly sparkling in the
+sunshine, and for the first time Liosha's face brightened. She drew a
+deep breath.
+
+"Oh, let us all come and live here."
+
+We laughed and wandered among the tarred, up-turned boats wherein the
+fishermen store their tackle and along the pebbly beach where a few
+belated bathers bobbed about in the water and up the curious steps to
+the terrace and listened to the last number of the orchestra. Then lunch
+at the clean, old-fashioned Hotel Blanquet among the fishing boats; and
+afterwards coffee and liqueurs in the little shady courtyard. Jaffery
+was very gentle with Liosha, treating her tenderly like a bruised thing,
+and talked of his adventures and cracked little jokes and attended
+solicitously to her wants. Several times I saw her raise her eyes in shy
+gratitude, and now and then she laughed. Her healthy youth also enabled
+her to make an excellent meal, and after it she smoked cigarettes and
+sipped _creme de menthe_ with frank gusto. To me she appeared like a
+naughty child who instead of meeting with expected punishment finds
+itself coddled in affectionate arms. All resentment had died away.
+Unreservedly she had laid herself as a "damn fool" at our feet--or
+rather at Jaffery's feet, for I did not count for much. Instead of
+blundering over her and tugging her up and otherwise exacerbating her
+wounds, he lifted her with tactful kindness to her self-respect. For the
+first time, save when Susan was the connecting-link, he entered into a
+spiritual relation with Liosha. She fulfilled his prophecy--she was
+dealing with a soul-shrivelling situation in a big way. He admired her
+immensely, as his great robust nature admired immense things. At the
+same time he realised all in her that was sore and grievously throbbing
+and needed the delicate touch. I shall never forget those few hours.
+
+To dream away a summer's afternoon had no place, however, in Jaffery's
+category of delights. He must be up and doing. I have threatened on many
+restless occasions to rig up at Northlands a gigantic wheel for his
+benefit similar to that in which Susan's white mice take futile
+exercise. If there was such a wheel he must, I am sure, get in and whirl
+it round; just as if there is a boat he must row it, or tree to be
+felled he must fell it, or a hill to be climbed he must climb it. At
+Etretat, as it happens, there are two hills. He stretched forth his hand
+to one, of course the highest, crowned by the fishermen's chapel and
+ordained an ascent. Liosha was in the chastened mood in which she would
+have dived with him to the depths of the English Channel. I, with
+grudging meekness and a prayer for another five minutes devoted to the
+deglutition of another liqueur brandy, acquiesced.
+
+It was not such an arduous climb after all. A light breeze tempered the
+fury of the July sun. The grass was crisp and agreeable to the feet. The
+smell of wild thyme mingling with the salt of the low-tide seaweed
+conveyed stimulating fragrance. When we reached the top and Jaffery
+suggested that we should lie down, I protested. Why not walk along the
+edge of the inspiring cliffs?
+
+"It's all very well for you, who've slept like a log all night," said he
+throwing his huge bulk on the ground, "but Liosha and I need rest."
+
+Liosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after the quick
+ascent. A little curly strand on her forehead played charmingly in the
+wind which blew her skirts close around her in fine modelling. I thought
+of the Winged Victory.
+
+"I'm not a bit tired," she said.
+
+But seeing Jaffery definitely prone with his bearded chin on his fists,
+she glanced at me as though she should say: "Who are we to go contrary
+to his desires?" and settled down beside him.
+
+So I stretched myself, too, on the grass and we watched the dancing sea
+and the flashing sails of fishing boats and the long plume from a
+steamer in the offing and the little town beneath us and the tiny
+golfers on the cliff on the other side of the bay, and were in fact
+giving ourselves up to an idyllic afternoon, when suddenly Liosha broke
+the spell.
+
+"If I had got hold of that man this morning I think I would have killed
+him."
+
+Since leaving Havre we had not referred to unhappy things.
+
+"It would have served him right," said Jaffery.
+
+"I did strike him once."
+
+"Oh?" said I.
+
+"Yes." She looked out to sea. There was a pause. I longed to hear the
+details of the scene, which could not have lacked humorous elements. But
+she left them to my imagination. "After that," she continued, "he saw I
+was an honest woman and talked about marriage."
+
+Jaffery's fingers fiddled with bits of grass. "What licks me, my dear,"
+said he, "is how you came to take up with the fellow."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders--it was the full shrug of the un-English
+child of nature. "I don't know," she said, with her gaze still far away.
+"He was so funny."
+
+"But he was such a bounder, old lady," said Jaffery, in gentle
+remonstrance.
+
+"You all said so. But I thought you didn't like him because he was
+different and could make me laugh. I guess I hated you all very much.
+You seemed to want me to behave like Euphemia, and I couldn't behave
+like Euphemia. I tried very hard when you used to take me out to
+dinner."
+
+Jaffery looked at her comically. But all he said was: "Go on."
+
+"What can I say?"--she shrugged her shoulders again. "With him I hadn't
+to be on my best behaviour. I could say anything I liked. You all think
+it dreadful because I know, like everybody else, how children come into
+the world, and can make jokes about things like that. Emma used to say
+it was not ladylike--but he--he did not say so. He laughed. His friends
+used to laugh. With him and his friends, I could, so to speak, take off
+my stays"--she threw out her hands largely--"ouf!"
+
+"I see," said Jaffery, frowning at his blades of grass.
+
+"But between liking, figuratively, to take off your corsets in a crowd
+of Bohemians and wanting to marry the worst of them lies a big
+difference. You must have got fond of the fellow," he added, in a low
+voice.
+
+I said nothing. It was their affair. I was responsible to Barbara for
+her safe deliverance and here she was delivered. My attitude, as you can
+understand, was solely one of kindly curiosity. Liosha, for some
+moments, also said nothing. Rather feverishly she pulled off her new
+white gloves and cast them away; and I noticed an all but imperceptible
+something--something, for want of a better word, like a ripple--sweep
+through her, faintly shaking her bosom, infinitesimally ruffling her
+neck and dying away in a flush on her cheek.
+
+"You loved the fellow," said Jaffery, still picking at the grass-blades.
+
+She bent forward, as she sat; hovered over him for a second or two and
+clutched his shoulder.
+
+"I didn't," she cried. "I didn't." She almost screamed. "I thought you
+understood. I would have married anybody who would have taken me out of
+prison. He was going to take me out of prison to places where I could
+breathe." She fell back onto her heels and beat her breast with both
+hands. "I was dying for want of air. I was suffocating."
+
+Her intensity caught him. He lumbered to his feet.
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+She rose, too, almost with a synchronous movement. An interested
+spectator, I continued sitting, my hands clasped round my knees.
+
+"The little prison you put me into. I felt this in my throat"--and
+forgetful of the admirable Mrs. Considine's discipline she mimed her
+words startlingly--"I was sick--sick--sick to death. You forget, Jaff
+Chayne, the mountains of Albania."
+
+"Perhaps I did," said he, with his steady eyes fixed on her. "But I
+remember 'em now. Would you like to go back?"
+
+She put her hands for a few seconds before her face, as though to hide
+swift visions of slaughtered enemies, then dashed them away. "No. Not
+now. Not after--No. But mountains, freedom--anything unlike prison. Oh,
+I've gone mad sometimes. I've wanted to take up a fender and smash
+things."
+
+"I've felt like that myself," said Jaffery.
+
+"And what have you done?"
+
+"I've broken out of prison and run away."
+
+"That's what I did," said Liosha.
+
+Then Jaffery burst into his great laugh and held her hands and looked at
+her with kindly, sympathetic mirth in his eyes. And Liosha laughed, too.
+
+"We're both of us savages under our skins, old lady. That's what it
+comes to."
+
+No more was said of Ras Fendihook. The man's broad, flashy good-humour
+had caught her fancy; his vagabond life stimulated her imagination of
+wider horizons; he promised her release from the conventions and
+restrictions of her artificial existence; she was ready to embark with
+him, as his wife, into the Unknown; but it was evident that she had not
+given him the tiniest little scrap of her heart.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?" asked Jaffery.
+
+"I tried to be good to please you--you and Barbara and Hilary, who've
+been so kind to me."
+
+"It's all this infernal civilisation," he declared. "My dear girl, I'm
+as much fed up with it as you are; I want to go somewhere and wear
+beads."
+
+"So do I," said Liosha.
+
+I thought of Barbara's lecture on the whole duty of woman and I
+chuckled. The attitude in which I was, my hands clasped round my knees,
+consorted with sardonic merriment. I was checked, however, a moment
+afterwards, by the sight of my barbarians in the perfect agreement of
+babyhood calmly walking away from me along the cliff road. I jumped to
+my feet and pursued them.
+
+"At any rate while you're with me," I panted, "you'll observe the
+decencies of civilised life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+"_Arretez! 'Arretez!_" roared Jaffery all of a sudden.
+
+We had just passed the Havre Casino on our way back from Etretat. The
+chauffeur pulled up. Jaffery flung open the door, leaped out and
+disappeared. In a few seconds we heard his voice reverberating from side
+to side of the Boulevard Maritime.
+
+"Hullo! hullo! hullo!"
+
+I raised myself and, looking over the back of the car, saw Jaffery in
+characteristic attitude, shaking a strange man by the shoulders and
+laughing in delighted welcome. He was a squat, broad, powerful-looking
+fellow, with a heavy black beard trimmed to a point, and wearing a
+curiously ill-fitting suit of tweeds and a bowler-hat. I noticed that he
+carried neither stick nor gloves. The ecstasies of encounter having
+subsided, Jaffery dragged him to the car.
+
+"This is my good old friend, Captain Maturin," he shouted, opening the
+door. "Mrs. Prescott. Mr. Freeth. Get in. We'll have a drink at
+Tortoni's."
+
+Captain Maturin, unconfused by Jaffery's unceremonious whirling, took
+off his hat very politely and entered the car in a grave, self-possessed
+manner. He had clear, unblinking, grey-green eyes, the colour of a
+stormy sea before the dawn. I was for surrendering him my seat next
+Liosha, but with a courteous "Pray don't," he quickly established
+himself on the small seat facing us, hitherto occupied by Jaffery.
+Jaffery jumped up in front next the chauffeur and leaned over the
+partition. The car started.
+
+"Captain and I are old shipmates." All Havre must have heard him. "From
+Christiania to Odessa, with all the Baltic and Mediterranean ports
+thrown in. In the depth of winter. Remember?"
+
+"It was five years ago," said Captain Maturin, twisting his head round.
+"We sailed from the port of Leith on the 27th of December."
+
+"And by gosh! Didn't it blow? Gales the whole time, there and back."
+
+"It was as dirty a voyage as ever I made," said Captain Maturin.
+
+"A ripping time, anyhow," said Jaffery.
+
+"Weren't you very seasick?" I asked.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" Jaffery roared derisively.
+
+"Mr. Chayne's pretty tough, sir," said the Captain with a grave smile.
+"He has missed his vocation. He's a good sailor lost."
+
+"Remember that night off Vigo?"
+
+"I don't ever want to see such another, Mr. Chayne. It was touch and
+go." Captain Maturin's smile faded. No commander likes to think of the
+time when a freakish Providence and not his helpless self was
+responsible for the saving of his ship.
+
+"He was on the bridge sixty hours at a stretch," said Jaffery.
+
+"Sixty hours?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Thousands have done it before and thousands have done it since, myself
+included. On this occasion Mr. Chayne saw it through with me."
+
+Two days and nights and a day without sleep; standing on a few planks,
+holding on to a rail, while you are tossed up and down and from side to
+side and drenched with dashing tons of ice-cold water and fronting a
+hurricane that blows ice-tipped arrows, and all the time not knowing
+from one minute to the next whether you are going to Kingdom come--No.
+It is my idea of duty, but not my idea of fun. And even as duty--I
+thanked merciful Heaven that never since the age of nine, when I was
+violently sick crossing to the Isle of Wight, have I had the remotest
+desire to be a mariner, either professional or amateur. I looked at the
+two adventurers wonderingly; and so did Liosha.
+
+"I love the sea," she said. "Don't you?"
+
+"I can't say I do, ma'am. I've got a wife and child at Pinner, and I
+grow sweet peas for exhibition. All of which I can't attend to on board
+ship."
+
+He said it very seriously. He was not the man to talk flippantly for the
+entertainment of a pretty woman.
+
+"But if he's a month ashore, he fumes to get back," boomed Jaffery.
+
+"It's the work I was bred to," replied the Captain soberly. "If a man
+doesn't love his work, he's not worth his salt. But that's not saying
+that I love the sea."
+
+With such discourse did we beguile the short journey to the Hotel,
+Restaurant and Cafe Tortoni in the Place Gambetta. The terrace was
+thronged with the good Havre folks, husbands and wives and families
+enjoying the Sunday afternoon _aperitif_.
+
+"Now let us have a drink," cried Jaffery, huge pioneer through the
+crowd. Liosha would have left us three men to our masculine devices. But
+Jaffery swept her along. Why shouldn't we have a pretty woman at our
+table as well as other people? She flushed at the compliment, the first,
+I think, he had ever paid her. A waiter conjured a vacant table and
+chairs from nowhere, in the midst of the sedentary throng. For Liosha
+was brought grenadine syrup and soda, for me absinthe, at which Captain
+Maturin, with the steady English sailor's suspicion of any other drink
+than Scotch whisky, glanced disapprovingly. Jaffery, to give himself an
+appetite for dinner, ordered half a litre of Munich beer.
+
+"And now, Captain," said he genially, "what have you been doing with
+yourself? Still on the Baltic-Mediterranean?"
+
+"No, Mr. Chayne. I left that some time ago. I'm on the Blue Cross
+Line--Ellershaw & Co.--trading between Havre and Mozambique."
+
+"Where's Mozambique?" Liosha asked me.
+
+I looked wise, but Captain Maturin supplied the information. "Portuguese
+East Africa, ma'am. We also run every other trip to Madagascar."
+
+"That's a place I've never been to," said Jaffery.
+
+"Interesting," said the Captain. He poured the little bottle of soda
+into his whisky, held up his glass, bowed to the lady, and to me,
+exchanged a solemnly confidential wink with Jaffery, and sipped his
+drink. Under Jaffery's questioning he informed us--for he was not a
+spontaneously communicative man--that he now had a very good command:
+steamship _Vesta_, one thousand five hundred tons, somewhat old, but
+sea-worthy, warranted to take more cargo than any vessel of her size he
+had ever set eyes on.
+
+"And when do you sail?" asked Jaffery.
+
+"To-morrow at daybreak. They're finishing loading her up now."
+
+Jaffery drained his tall glass mug of beer and ordered another.
+
+"Are you going to Madagascar this trip?"
+
+"Yes, worse luck."
+
+"Why worse luck?" I asked.
+
+"It cuts short my time at Pinner," replied Captain Maturin.
+
+Here was a man, I reflected, with the mystery and romance of Madagascar
+before him, who sighed for his little suburban villa and plot of garden
+at Pinner. Some people are never satisfied.
+
+"I've not been to Madagascar," said Jaffery again.
+
+Captain Maturin smiled gravely. "Why not come along with me. Mr.
+Chayne?"
+
+Jaffery's eyes danced and his smile broadened so that his white teeth
+showed beneath his moustache. "Why not?" he cried. And bringing down his
+hand with a clamp on Liosha's shoulder--"Why not? You and I. Out of this
+rotten civilisation?"
+
+Liosha drew a deep breath and looked at him in awed amazement. So did I.
+I thought he was going mad.
+
+"Would you like it?" he asked.
+
+"Like it!" She had no words to express the glory that sprang into her
+face.
+
+Captain Maturin leaned forward.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Chayne, we've no license for passengers, and certainly
+there's no accommodation for ladies."
+
+Jaffery threw up a hand. "But she's not a lady--in your silly old sailor
+sense of the term. She's a hefty savage like me. When you had me aboard,
+did you think of having accommodation for a gentleman? Ho! ho! ho! At
+any rate," said he, at the end of the peal, "you've a sort of spare
+cabin? There's always one."
+
+"A kind of dog-hole--for you, Mr. Chayne."
+
+Jaffery's keen eye caught the Captain's and read things. He jumped to
+his feet, upsetting his chair and causing disaster at two adjoining and
+crowded tables, for which, dismayed and bareheaded--Jaffery could be a
+very courtly gentleman when he chose--he apologized in fluent French,
+and, turning, caught Captain Maturin beneath the arm.
+
+"Let us have a private palaver about this."
+
+They threaded their way through the tables to the spaciousness of the
+Place Gambetta. Liosha followed them with her glance till they
+disappeared; then she looked at me and asked breathlessly:
+
+"Hilary! Do you think he means it?"
+
+"He's demented enough to mean anything," said I.
+
+"But, seriously." She caught my wrist, and only then did I notice that
+her hands were bare, her gloves reposing where she had cast them on the
+hillside at Etretat. "Did he mean it? I'd give my immortal soul to go."
+
+I looked into her eyes, and if I did not see stick, stark, staring
+craziness in them I don't know what stick, stark, staring craziness is.
+
+"Do you know what you're letting yourself in for?" said I, pretending to
+believe in her sanity. "Here's a rotten old tub of a tramp--without
+another woman on board, with all the inherited smells of all the animals
+in Noah's Ark, including the descendants of all the cockroaches that
+Noah forgot to land, with a crew of Dagoes and Dutchmen, with awful
+food, without a bath, with a beast of an unventilated rabbit-hutch to
+sleep in--a wallowing, rolling, tossing, pitching, antiquated parody of
+a steamer, a little trumpery cockleshell always wet, always shipping
+seas, always slithery, never a dry place to sit down upon, with people
+always standing, sixty hours at a time, without sleep, on the bridge to
+see that she doesn't burst asunder and go down--a floating--when she
+does float--a floating inferno of misery--here it is--I can tell you all
+about it--any child in a board school could tell you--an inferno of
+misery in which you would be always hungry, always sleepless, always
+suffering from indigestion, always wet through, always violently ill and
+always dirty, with your hair in ropes and your face bloused by the
+wind--to say nothing of icebergs and fogs and the cargo of cotton goods
+catching fire, and the wheezing mediaeval boilers bursting and sending
+you all to glory--"
+
+I paused for lack of breath. Liosha, who, elbows on table and chin on
+hands, had listened to me, first with amusement, then with absorbed
+interest, and lastly with glowing rapture, cried in a shaky voice:
+
+"I should love it! I should love it!"
+
+"But it's lunatic," said I.
+
+"So much the better."
+
+"But the proprieties."
+
+She shifted her position, threw herself back in her chair, and flung out
+her hands towards me.
+
+"You ought to be keeping Mrs. Jardine's boarding-house. What have Jaff
+Chayne and I to do with proprieties? Didn't he and I travel from Scutari
+to London?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "But aren't things just a little bit different now?"
+
+It was a searching question. Her swift change of expression from glow to
+defensive sombreness admitted its significance.
+
+"Nothing is different," she said curtly. "Things are exactly the same."
+She bent forward and looked at me straight from beneath lowering brows.
+"If you think just because he and I are good friends now there's any
+difference, you're making a great mistake. And just you tell Barbara
+that."
+
+"I will do so--" said I.
+
+"And you can also tell her," she continued, "that Liosha Prescott is not
+going to let herself be made a fool of by a man who's crazy mad over
+another woman. No, sirree! Not this child. Not me. And as for the
+proprieties"--she snapped her fingers--"they be--they be anything'd!"
+
+To this frank exposition of her feelings I could say nothing. I drank
+the remainder of my absinthe and lit a cigarette. I fell back on the
+manifest lunacy of the Madagascar voyage. I urged, somewhat
+anti-climatically after my impassioned harangue, its discomfort.
+
+"You'll be the fifth wheel to a coach. Your petticoats, my dear, will
+always be in the way."
+
+"I needn't wear petticoats," said Liosha.
+
+We argued until a red, grinning Jaffery, beaming like the fiery sun now
+about to set, appeared winding his way through the tables, followed by
+the black-bearded, grey-eyed sea captain.
+
+"It's all fixed up," said he, taking his seat. "The Cap'en understands
+the whole position. If you want to come to 'Jerusalem and Madagascar and
+North and South Amerikee,' come."
+
+"But this is midsummer madness," said I.
+
+"Suppose it is, what matter?" He waved a great hand and fortuitously
+caught a waiter by the arm. "_Meme chose pour tout le monde_." He
+flicked him away. "Now, this is business. Will you come and rough it?
+The _Vesta_ isn't a Cunard Liner. Not even a passenger boat. No
+luxuries. I hope you understand."
+
+"Hilary has been telling me just what I'm to expect," said Liosha.
+
+"We'll do our best for you, ma'am," said Captain Maturin; "but you
+mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know you'll have to sign on as
+one of the crew?"
+
+"And if you disobey orders," said I, "the Captain can tie you up to the
+binnacle, and give you forty lashes and put you in irons."
+
+"I guess I'll be obedient, Captain," said Liosha, proud of her
+incredulity.
+
+"I don't allow my ship's company to bring many trunks and portmanteaux
+aboard," smiled Captain Maturin.
+
+"I'll see to the dunnage," said Jaffery.
+
+"The _what_?" I asked.
+
+"It's only passengers that have luggage. Sailor folk like Liosha and me
+have dunnage."
+
+"I see," said I. "And you bring it on board in a bundle together with a
+parrot in a cage."
+
+Earnest persuasion being of no avail, I must have recourse to light
+mockery. But it met with little response. "And what," I asked, "is to
+become of the forty-odd _colis_ that we passed through the customs this
+morning?"
+
+"You can take 'em home with you," said Jaffery. He grinned over his
+third foaming beaker of dark beer. "Isn't it a blessing I brought him
+along? I told him he'd come in useful."
+
+"But, good Lord!" I protested, aghast, "what excuse can I, a lone man,
+give to the Southampton customs for the possession of all this baggage?
+They'll think I've murdered my wife on the voyage and I shall be
+arrested. No. There is the parcel post. There are agencies of
+expedition. We can forward the luggage by _grande vitesse_ or _petite
+vitesse_--how long are you likely to be away on this Theophile Gautier
+voyage--'_Cueillir la fleur de neige. Ou la fleur d'Angsoka_'?"
+
+"Four months," said Captain Maturin.
+
+"Then if I send them by the Great Swiftness, they'll arrive just in
+time."
+
+I love my friends and perform altruistic feats of astonishing
+difficulty; but I draw the line at being personally involved in a
+nightmare of curved-top trunks and green canvas hat-containing crates
+belonging to a woman who is not my wife.
+
+There followed a conversation on what seemed to me fantastic, but to the
+others practical details, in which I had no share. A suit of oilskins
+and sea-boots for Liosha formed the subject of much complicated
+argument, at the end of which Captain Maturin undertook to procure them
+from marine stores this peaceful Sunday night. Liosha, aglow with
+excitement and looking exceedingly beautiful, also mentioned her need of
+thick jersey and woollen cap and stout boots not quite so
+tempest-defying as the others; and these, too, the foolish and
+apparently infatuated mariner promised to provide. We drifted
+mechanically, still talking, into the interior of the Cafe-Restaurant,
+where we sat down to a dinner which I ordered to please myself, for not
+one of the others took the slightest interest in it. Jaffery, like a
+schoolboy son of Gargamelle, shovelled food into his mouth--it might
+have been tripe, or bullock's heart or chitterlings for all he knew or
+cared. His jolly laugh served as a bass for the more treble buzz and
+clatter of the pleasant place. I have never seen a man exude such
+plentiful happiness. Liosha ate unthinkingly, her elbows on the table,
+after the manner of Albania, her hat not straight--I whispered the
+information as (through force of training) I should have whispered it to
+Barbara, with no other result than an impatient push which rendered it
+more piquantly crooked than ever. Captain Maturin went through the
+performance with the grave face of another classical devotee to duty;
+but his heart--poor fellow!--was not in his food. It was partly in
+Pinner, partly in his antediluvian tramp, and partly in the prospect of
+having as cook's mate during his voyage the superbly vital young woman
+of the stone-age, now accidentally tricked out in twentieth century
+finery, who was sitting next to him.
+
+Captain Maturin took an early leave. He had various things to do before
+turning in--including, I suppose, the purchase of his cook's mate's
+outfit--and he was to sail at five-thirty in the morning. If his new
+deck-hand and cook's mate would come alongside at five or thereabouts,
+he would see to their adequate reception.
+
+"You wouldn't like to ship along with me, too, Mr. Freeth?" said he,
+with a grip like--like any horrible thing that is hard and iron and
+clamping in a steamer's machinery--and athwart his green-grey eyes
+filled with wind and sea passed a gleam of humour--"There's still
+time."
+
+"I would come with pleasure," said I, "were it not for the fact that all
+my spare moments are devoted to the translation of a Persian poet."
+
+If I am not urbane, I am nothing.
+
+He went. Liosha bade me good-bye. She must retire early. The
+rearrangement of her luggage--"dunnage," I corrected--would be a lengthy
+process. She thanked me, in her best Considine manner, for all the
+trouble I had taken on her account, sent her love to Barbara and to
+Susan, whose sickness, she trusted, would be transitory, expressed the
+hope that the care of her belongings would not be too great a strain
+upon my household--and then, like a flash of lightning, in the very
+middle of the humming restaurant filled with all the notabilities and
+respectabilities of Havre, she flung her generous arms around my neck in
+a great hug, and kissed me, and said: "Dear old Hilary, I do love you!"
+and marched away magnificently through the staring tables to the inner
+recesses of the hotel.
+
+Puzzledom reigned in Havre that night. English people are credited in
+France with any form of eccentricity, so long as it conforms with
+traditions of _le flegme britannique_; but there was not much _flegme_
+about Liosha's embrace, and so the good Havrais were mystified.
+
+There was no following Liosha. She had made her exit. To have run after
+her were an artistic crime; and in real life we are more instinctively
+artistic and dramatic than the unthinking might suppose. Besides, there
+was the bill to pay. We sat down again.
+
+"That little chap never seems to have any luck," said Jaffery. "He's one
+of the finest seamen afloat, with a nerve of steel and a damnable way of
+getting himself obeyed. He ought to be in command of a great liner
+instead of a rotten old tramp of fifteen hundred tons."
+
+I beamed. "I'm glad you call it a rotten old tramp. I described it in
+those terms to Liosha."
+
+"Oh!" said Jaffery. "Precious lot you know about it." He yawned
+cavernously. "I'll be turning in soon, myself."
+
+It was not yet ten o'clock. "And what shall I do?" I asked.
+
+"Better turn in, too, if you want to see us off."
+
+"My dear Jaff," said I, "you have always bewildered me, and when I
+contemplate this new caprice I am beyond the phenomenon of bewilderment.
+But in one respect my mind retains its serene equipoise. Nothing short
+of an Act of God shall drag me from my bed at half-past four in the
+morning."
+
+"I wanted to give you a few last instructions."
+
+"Give them to me now," said I.
+
+He handed me the key of his chambers. "If you wouldn't mind tidying up,
+some day--I left my papers in a deuce of a mess."
+
+"All right," said I.
+
+"And I had better give you a power of attorney, in case anything should
+crop up."
+
+He called for writing materials, and scribbled and signed the document,
+which I put into my letter case.
+
+"And what about letters?"
+
+"Don't want any. Unless"--said he, after a little pause, frowning in the
+plenitude of his content--"if you and Barbara can make things right
+again with Doria--then one of you might drop me a line. I'll send you a
+schedule of dates."
+
+"Still harping on my daughter?" said I.
+
+"You may think it devilish funny," he replied; "but for me there's only
+one woman in the world."
+
+"Let us have a final drink," said I.
+
+We drank, chatted a while, and went to bed.
+
+When I awoke the next morning the _Vesta_ was already four hours on her
+way to Madagascar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+I have one failing. Even I, Hilary Freeth, of Northlands in the County
+of Berkshire, Esquire, Gent, have one failing, and I freely confess it.
+I cannot keep a key. Were I as other men are--which, thank Heaven, I am
+not--I might wear a pound or so of hideous ironmongery chained to my
+person. This I decline to do, with the result that, as I say, I cannot
+keep a key. Of all the household stowaway places under my control (and
+Barbara limits their number) only one is locked; and that drawer
+containing I know not what treasures or rubbish is likely to continue so
+forever and ever--for the key is lost. Such important documents as I
+desire to place in security I send to bankers or solicitors, who are
+trained from childhood in the expert use of safes and strong-boxes. My
+other papers the world can read if it choose to waste its time; at any
+rate, I am not going to lock them up and have the worry of a key preying
+on my mind. I should only lose it as I lost the other one. Now, by a
+freak of fortune, the key of Jaffery's flat remained in the suit-case
+wherein I had flung it at Havre, until it was fished out by Franklin on
+my arrival at Northlands.
+
+"For goodness' sake, my dear," said I to Barbara, "take charge of this
+thing."
+
+But she refused. She had too many already to look after. I must accept
+the responsibility as a moral discipline. So I tied a luggage label to
+the elusive object, inscribed thereon the legend, "Key of Jaffery's
+flat," and hung it on a nail which I drove into the wall of my library.
+
+"Besides," said Barbara, satirically watching the operation, "I am not
+going to have anything to do with this crack-brained adventure."
+
+"To hear you speak," said I, for she had already spoken at considerable
+length on the subject, "one would think that I could have prevented it.
+If Jaffery chooses to go Baresark and Liosha to throw her cap over the
+topmasts, why in the world shouldn't they?"
+
+"I suppose I'm conventional," said Barbara. "And from the description
+you have given me of the boat, I'm sure the poor child will be utterly
+miserable, and she'll ruin her hands and her figure and her skin."
+
+I wished I had drawn a little less lurid picture of the steamship
+_Vesta_.
+
+As soon as business or idleness took me to town, I visited St. Quentin's
+Mansions, and after consultation with the porter, who, knowing me to be
+a friend of Mr. Chayne's, assured me that I need not have burdened
+myself with the horrible key, I entered Jaffery's chambers. I found the
+small sitting-room in very much the same state of litter as when Jaffery
+left it. He enjoyed litter and hated the devastating tidiness of
+housemaids. Give a young horse with a long, swishy tail a quarter of an
+hour's run in an ordinary bachelor's rooms, and you will have the normal
+appearance of Jaffery's home. As I knew he did not want me to dust his
+books and pictures (such as they were) or to make order out of a chaos,
+of old newspapers, or to put his pipes in the rack or to remove spurs
+and physical culture apparatus from the sofa, or to bestow tender care
+upon a cannon ball, an antiquated eighteen or twenty-pounder, which
+reposed--most useful piece of furniture--in the middle of the
+hearth-rug, or to see to the comfortless electric radiator that took the
+place of a grate, I let these things be, and concentrated my attention
+on his papers which lay loose on desk and table. This was obviously the
+tidying up to which he had referred. I swept his correspondence into one
+drawer. I gathered together the manuscript of his new novel and swept it
+into another. On the top of a pedestal bookcase I discovered the
+original manuscript of "The Greater Glory," neatly bound in brown paper
+and threaded through with red tape. This I dropped into the third drawer
+of the desk, which already contained a mass of papers. I went into his
+bedroom, where I found more letters lying about. I collected them and
+looked around. There seemed to be little left for me to do. I noticed
+two photographs on his dressing-table--one of his mother, whom I
+remembered, and, one of Doria--these I laid face downwards so that the
+light should not fade them. I noticed also a battered portmanteau from
+beneath the lid of which protruded three or four corners of scribbling
+paper, and lastly my eyes fell upon the offending beer-barrel in a dark
+alcove. The basin set below the tap, in order to catch the drip, was
+nearly full. In four months' time the room would be flooded with sour
+and horrible beer. Full of the thought, I deposited the letters in the
+drawer with the rest of the correspondence, and, leaving the flat,
+summoned the lift, and in Jaffery's name presented a delighted porter
+with the contents of a nine-gallon cask. I went away in the rich glow
+that mantles from man's heart to check when he knows that he has made a
+friend for life. It was only afterwards, when I got home, and hung the
+labelled key on my library wall, that I realised that old Jaffery and
+myself had, at least, one thing in common--videlicet, the keyless habit.
+I had often suspected that deep in our souls lurked some hidden
+_trait-d'union_. Now I had found it.
+
+And looking back on that wreck of a room, I reflected how congenial
+Jaffery must have found his surroundings on board the _Vesta_. The
+weather had changed from summer calm to storm. The gentleman from the
+meteorological office who writes for the newspapers talked about
+cyclonic disturbances, and reported gales in the channel and on the west
+coasts of France. The same was likely to continue. The wind blew hard
+enough in Berkshire, what must it have done in the Bay of Biscay? As a
+matter of fact, as we learned from a picture postcard from Jaffery and a
+short letter from Liosha posted at Bordeaux, and from their lips
+considerably later--for impossible as it may seem, they did not go to
+the bottom or die of scurvy or the cannibal's pole-axe--they had made
+their way from Havre in an ever-increasing tempest, during which they
+apparently had not slept or put on a dry rag. Heavy seas washed the
+deck, and kept out the galley fires, so that warm food had not been
+procurable. It seemed that every horror I had prophesied had come to
+pass. I should have pitied them, but for the blatant joyousness of their
+communications. "I was not seasick a minute, and I have never been so
+happy in my life," wrote Liosha. "Hilary should have been with us,"
+wrote Jaffery. "It would have made a man of him. Liosha in splendid
+fettle. She goes about in men's clothes and oilskins and can turn her
+hand to anything when she isn't lashed to a stanchion." You can just
+imagine them having cast off all semblance of Christians and wallowing
+in wet and dirt. . . .
+
+About this time, according to the sequence of events recorded in my all
+too scraggy diary, Doria came to us for a week-end, her first visit
+since Jaffery's outrageous conduct. She was glad to make friends with us
+once more, and to prove it showed the pleasanter side of her character.
+She professed not to have forgiven Jaffery; but she referred to the
+terrible episode in less vehement terms. It was obvious to us both that
+she missed him more than she would confess, even to herself. In her
+reconstituted existence he had stood for an essential element.
+Unconsciously she had counted on his devotion, his companionship, his
+constant service, his bulky protection from the winds of heaven. Now
+that she had driven him away, she found a girder wanting in her life's
+neat structure, which accordingly had begun to wobble uncomfortably.
+After all, she had provoked the man (this with some reluctance she
+admitted to Barbara), and he had only picked her up and shaken her. He
+had had no intention of dashing out her brains or even of giving her a
+beating. In her heart she repented. Otherwise why should she take so ill
+Jaffery's flight with Liosha, which she characterised as abominable, and
+Liosha's flight with Jaffery, which she characterised as monstrous?
+
+"I can't talk to Barbara about it," she said to me on the Sunday
+morning, perching herself on the corner of my library table, a
+disrespectful trick which she had caught from my wife, while I sat back
+in my writing-chair. "Barbara seems to be bemused about the woman. One
+would think she was a kind of saint, incapable of stain."
+
+"In one specific way," I replied, "I think she is."
+
+"Oh, rubbish, Hilary!" she smiled, and swung her little foot. "You, a
+man of the world, how can you talk so? First she runs off with that
+dreadful fellow and a few hours afterwards runs off with Jaffery. What
+respectable woman--well, what honest woman, according to the term of the
+lower classes--would run away with two men within twenty-five hours?"
+
+"She went off with Fendihook, honourably, thinking he was going to marry
+her. She has joined Jaffery honourably, too, because there's no question
+of marriage or anything else between them."
+
+"_Sancta simplicitas!_" She shook her head from side to side and looked
+at me pityingly. "I'll allow Jaffery is just a fool. But she isn't. The
+best one can say for her is that she has no moral sense. I know the
+type."
+
+"Where have you studied it, my dear?" I asked.
+
+She coloured, taken aback, but after half a second she replied with her
+ready sureness:
+
+"In my father's drawing-room among city people and in my own among
+literary people."
+
+"H'm!" said I. "Lioshas don't grow on every occasional chair."
+
+"You're as bemused as Barbara."
+
+"I haven't studied what you call the type," I replied. "But I've studied
+an individual, which you haven't."
+
+She swung off the table. "Oh, well, have it your own way--Paul and
+Virginia, if you like. What does it matter to me?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," said I. "That's just it--what the dickens does it matter
+to you?"
+
+"Nothing at all." She snapped a dainty finger and thumb.
+
+"You've turned Jaffery out of your house," I continued, with malicious
+intent. "You've sworn never to set eyes on him again. You've banished
+him beyond your horizon. His doings now can be no concern of yours. If
+he chose to elope with the fat woman in a freak museum, why shouldn't
+he? What would it have to do with you?"
+
+"Only this," said Doria, coming back to the table corner but not sitting
+on it. "It would make Jaffery's declaration to me all the more
+insulting."
+
+"'Having known me to decline'?" I quoted.
+
+"Precisely."
+
+She tossed her head, in her wounded pride. But unknowingly she had
+swallowed my bait. I had hooked my little fish. I smiled to myself. She
+was eaten up with jealousy.
+
+"Well," said I, "you remember the French proverb about the absent being
+always in the wrong. Let us wait until they come back and hear what
+they've got to say for themselves."
+
+She put her hands behind her back. As she stood, her little black and
+ivory head was not much above the level of mine. "What they may say is a
+matter of perfect indifference to me."
+
+I bent forward. "I think I ought to tell you what
+Jaffery's--practically--last words to me were: 'There's only one woman
+in the world for me.' Meaning you." She broke away with a laugh. "And to
+prove it, he elopes with the fat woman! Oh, Hilary"--with the tips of
+her fingers she brushed my hair--"you really are a simple old dear!"
+
+"All the same--" I began.
+
+"All the same," she interrupted, "this is a very untidy conversation. I
+didn't come in here to talk, but to borrow a copy of Baudelaire, if you
+have one."
+
+She turned to scan my shelves. I joined her and took down _Les Fleurs du
+Mal_. She thanked me, tucked the book under her arm, and went out.
+
+Rather uncharitably I rejoiced in her soreness. It was good discipline.
+It would give her a sense of values. Should she ever get Jaffery back
+again, with no Liosha hanging round his neck, I was certain that not
+only would she forgive past mishandling, but for the sake of keeping him
+would put up with a little more. Whether she would marry him was another
+story. I had every reason to believe that she would not. Adrian reigned
+her bosom's lord. In her worshipping fidelity she never wavered. She
+regarded a second marriage with horror. That was comprehensible enough,
+with her husband but seven months dead. No, should she ever get Jaffery
+back, I didn't think she would marry him; but beyond doubt she would
+treat him with more consideration and respect. These, of course, were my
+conjectures and deductions (confirmed by Barbara) from the patent fact
+that she found herself lost without Jaffery and that she was furiously
+jealous of Liosha.
+
+It was several weeks before we saw her again. August arrived. Barbara
+and I played the ever-fresh summer comedy. I swore by all my gods I
+would not leave Northlands. I went on vowing until I arrived with a
+mountain of luggage, a wife and a child and a maid at a great hotel on
+the Lido. Our days were unimportant. We bathed in the Adriatic. We
+revisited familiar churches and picture galleries in Venice. We mingled
+with a cosmopolitan crowd and developed the complexions (not only in our
+faces) of an Othello family. Doria, too, made holiday abroad. Every
+August, Mr. Jornicroft repaired the ravages of eleven months' civic and
+other feasting at Marienbad, and Doria, as she had done before her
+marriage, accompanied him. She and Barbara exchanged letters about
+nothing in particular. The time passed smoothly.
+
+Once or twice we had word from our runagates. The fury of the sea having
+subsided after they had left Bordeaux, they had settled down to the
+normal life of shipboard, and Jaffery took his turn with the hands,
+coiled ropes, sweated over cargo, and kept his watch. Liosha, we were
+given to understand, besides helping in the galley and the cabin and
+swabbing decks, found much delight in painting the ship's boats with
+paint which Jaffery had bought for the purpose at Bordeaux. She had
+struck up a friendship with the first mate, who, possessing a camera,
+had taken their photographs. They sent us one of the two standing side
+by side, and a more villainous-looking yet widely smiling pair you could
+not wish to see. Both wore sailors' caps and jerseys and sea-boots, and
+Barbara's keen eye detected the fact that Liosha, for freedom's sake,
+had cut a foot or so off the bottom of her skirt without taking the
+trouble to hem up the edge, which, now frayed, hung about her calves in
+disgraceful fringes.
+
+"I think you were wrong, my dear," said I. "The poor thing looks
+anything but utterly miserable."
+
+"I'm sure I was right about her hands and skin," she maintained.
+
+"Well, it's her own skin."
+
+"More's the pity," Barbara retorted.
+
+What on earth she meant, I do not know; but, as usual, she had the last
+word.
+
+The middle of September found us back in England, and shortly afterwards
+Doria returned also, and resumed her lonely life in the Adrian-haunted
+flat. But by and by she grew restless, complaining that no one but her
+father, of whose society she had wearied, was in town, and went off on a
+series of country-house visits. The flat, I suspected, for all its
+sacred memories, was dull without Jaffery. She still maintained her
+unrelenting attitude, and spoke scornfully of him; but once or twice she
+asked when this mad voyage would be over, thereby betraying curiosity
+rather than indifference.
+
+Meanwhile the autumn publishing season was in full swing. Wittekind's
+list of new novels in its deep black framing border stared at you from
+the advertisement pages of every periodical you picked up, and so did
+the list of every other publisher. Day after day Doria's eyes fell on
+this announcement of Wittekind, and day after day her indignation
+swelled at the continued omission of "The Greater Glory." All these
+nobodies, these ephemeral scribblers, were being thrust flamboyantly on
+public notice and her Adrian, the great Sun of the firm, was allowed to
+remain in eclipse. For what purpose had he lived and died if his memory
+was treated with this dark ingratitude? I strove to reason with her.
+Adrian's book had been prodigally advertised in the spring. It had sold
+enormously. It was still selling. There was no need to advertise it any
+longer. Besides, advertisement cost money, and poor Wittekind had to do
+his duty by his other authors. He had to push his new wares.
+"Tradesman!" cried Doria. If he wasn't, I remonstrated, if he wasn't a
+tradesman in a certain sense, an expert in the art of selling books, how
+could Adrian's novels have attained their wide circulation? It was to
+his interest to increase that circulation as much as possible. Why not
+let him run his very successful business his own way? Doria loftily
+assured me that she had no interest in his business, in the mere vulgar
+number of copies sold. Adrian's glory was above such sordid things. Of
+far higher importance was it that his name should be kept, like a
+beacon, before the public. Not to do so was callous ingratitude and
+tradesman's niggardliness on the part of Wittekind. Something ought to
+be done. I confessed my inability to do anything.
+
+"I know you have nothing to do with the literary side of the
+executorship. Jaffery undertook it. And now, instead of looking after
+his duties, he has gone on this impossible voyage."
+
+Here was another grievance against the unfortunate Jaffery. I might have
+asked her who drove him to Madagascar, for had she been kind, he would
+have made short work of Liosha, after having rescued her from Fendihook,
+and would have returned meekly to Doria's feet. But what would have been
+the use? I was tired of these windy arguments with Doria, and worn out
+with the awful irony of upholding our poor Adrian's genius.
+
+"I'm sorry he's not here," said I, somewhat tartly, "because he might
+have prevailed upon you to listen to common sense."
+
+A little while after this, another firm of publishers announced an
+_edition de luxe_ of the works of a brilliant novelist cut off like
+Adrian in the flower of his age. It was printed on special paper and
+illustrated by a famous artist, and limited to a certain number of
+copies. This set Doria aflare. From Scotland, where she was paying one
+of her restless visits, she sent me the newspaper cutting. If the
+commercial organism, she said, that passed with Wittekind for a soul
+would not permit him to advertise Adrian's spring book in his autumn
+list, why couldn't he do like Mackenzie & Co., and advertise an _edition
+de luxe_ of Adrian's two novels? And if Mackenzie & Co. thought it worth
+while to bring out such an edition of an entirely second-rate author,
+surely it would be to Wittekind's advantage to treat Adrian equally
+sumptuously. I advised her to write to Wittekind. She did. Accompanied
+by a fury of ink, she sent me his most courteous and sensible answer.
+Both books were doing splendidly. There was every prospect of a golden
+aftermath of cheap editions. The time was not ripe for an _edition de
+luxe_. It would come, a pleasurable thing to look forward to, when other
+sales showed signs of exhaustion.
+
+"He talks about exhaustion," she wrote. "I suppose he means when he
+sends the volumes to be pulped, 'remainder or waste'--there's a foolish
+woman here who evidently has written a foolish book, and has shown me
+her silly contract with a publisher. 'Remainder or waste.' That's what
+he's thinking of. It's intolerable. I've no one, dear Hilary, to turn to
+but you. Do advise me."
+
+I sent her a telegram. For one thing, it saved the trouble of concocting
+a letter, and, for another, it was more likely to impress the recipient.
+It ran:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I advise you strongly to go to Wittekind yourself and bite him."
+
+I was rather pleased at the humour--may I venture to qualify it as
+mordant?--of the suggestion. Even Barbara smiled. Of course, I was
+right. Let her fight it out herself with Wittekind.
+
+But I have regretted that telegram ever since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Luckily, I have kept most of Jaffery's letters written to me from all
+quarters of the globe. Excepting those concerned with the voyage of the
+_S.S. Vesta_, they were rare phenomena. Ordinarily, if I heard from him
+thrice a year I had to consider that he was indulging in an orgy of
+correspondence. But what with Doria and Adrian and Liosha, and what with
+Barbara and myself being so intimately mixed up in the matters which
+preoccupied his mind, the voyage of the _Vesta_ covered a period of
+abnormal epistolary activity. Instead of a wife, our amateur sailor
+found a post office at every port. He wrote reams. He had the
+journalist's trick of instantaneous composition. Like the Ouidaesque
+hero, who could ride a Derby Winner with one hand, and stroke a
+University Crew to victory with the other, Jaffery could with one hand
+hang on to a rope over a yawning abyss, while with the other he could
+scribble a graphic account of the situation on a knee-supported
+writing-pad. In ordinary circumstances--that is to say in what, to
+Jaffery, were ordinary circumstances--he performed these literary
+gymnastics for the sake of his newspaper; but the voyage of the _Vesta_
+was an exceptional affair. Save incidentally--for he did send
+descriptive articles to _The Daily Gazette_--he was not out on
+professional business. The gymnastics were performed for my benefit--yet
+with an ulterior motive. He had sailed away, not on a job, but to
+satisfy a certain nostalgia, to escape from civilisation, to escape from
+Doria, to escape from desire and from heartache . . . and the deeper he
+plunged into the fatness of primitive life, the closer did the poor ogre
+come to heartache and to desire. He wrote spaciously, in the foolish
+hope that I would reply narrowly, following a Doria scent laid down with
+the naivete of childhood. I received constant telegrams informing me of
+dates and addresses--I who, Jaffery out of England, never knew for
+certain whether he was doing the giant's stride around the North Pole or
+horizontal bar exercise on the Equator. It was rather pathetic, for I
+could give him but little comfort.
+
+Besides the letters, he (and Liosha) deluged us with photographs taken
+chiefly by the absurd second mate, from which it was possible to
+reconstruct the _S.S. Vesta_ in all her dismalness. You have seen scores
+of her rusty, grimy congeners in any port in the world. You have only to
+picture an old, two-masted, well-decked tramp with smokestack and foul
+clutter of bridge-house amidships, and fore and aft a miserable bit of a
+deck broken by hatches and capstans and donkey-engines and stanchions
+and chains and other unholy stumbling blocks and offences to the casual
+promenader. From the photographs and letters I learned that the
+dog-hole, intended by the Captain for Jaffery, but given over to Liosha,
+was away aft, beneath a kind of poop and immediately above the scrunch
+of the propeller; and that Jaffery, with singular lack of privacy,
+bunked in the stuffy, low cabin where the officers took their meals and
+relaxations. The more vividly did they present the details of their
+life, the more heartfelt were my thanksgivings to a merciful Providence
+for having been spared so dreadful an experience.
+
+Our two friends, however, found indiscriminate joy in everything; I have
+their letters to prove it. And Jaffery especially found perpetual
+enjoyment in the vagaries of Liosha. For instance, here is an extract
+from one of his letters:
+
+"It's a grand life, my boy! You're up against realities all the time.
+Not a sham within the horizon. You eat till you burst, work till you
+sleep, and sleep till you're kicked awake. You should just see Liosha.
+Maturin says he has only met one other woman sailor like her, and that
+was the daughter of a trader sailing among the Islands, who had lived
+all her life since birth on his ship and had scarcely slept ashore.
+She's as much born to it as any shell-back on board. She has the amazing
+gift of looking part of the tub, like the stokers and the man at the
+wheel. Unlike another woman, she's never in the way, and the more work
+you can give her to do, the happier she is. She's in magnificent health
+and as strong as a horse. At first the hands didn't know what to make of
+her; now she's friends with the whole bunch. The difficulty is to keep
+her from overfamiliar intercourse with them, for though she signed on as
+cook's mate, she eats in the cabin with the officers, and between the
+cabin and the fo'c'sle lies a great gulf. They come and tell her about
+their wives and their girls and what rotten food they've got--'Everybody
+has got rotten food on board ship, you silly ass!' quoth Liosha. 'What
+do you expect--sweetbreads and ices?'--and what soul-shattering
+blighters they've shipped with, and what deeds of heroism (mostly
+imaginary) they have performed in pursuit of their perilous calling.
+They're all children, you know, when you come to the bottom of them,
+these hell-tearing fellows--children afflicted with a perpetual thirst
+and a craving to punch heads--and Liosha's a child, too; so there's a
+kind of freemasonry between them.
+
+"There was the devil's own row in the fo'c'sle the other evening. The
+first mate went to look into it and found Liosha standing enraptured at
+the hatch looking down upon a free fight. There were knives about. The
+mate, being a blasphemous and pugilistic dog, soon restored order. Then
+he came up to Liosha--you and Barbara should have seen her--it was
+sultry, not a breath of air--and she just had on a thin bodice open at
+her throat and the sleeves rolled up and a short ragged skirt and was
+bareheaded.
+
+"'Why the Hades didn't you stop 'em, missus?'
+
+"For some reason or the other, the whole ship's company, except the
+skipper and myself, call her 'missus.' She gazed on him like an ox-eyed
+Juno; you know her way.
+
+"'Why should I interfere with their enjoyment?'
+
+"'Enjoyment--!' he gasped. 'Oh, my Gawd!' He flung out his arms and came
+over to me. I was smoking against the taffrail. 'There they was trying
+to cut one another's throats, and she calls it enjoyment.'
+
+"He went off spluttering. I watched Liosha. A Dutchman--what you would
+call a Swede--a hulking beggar, came up from the fo'c'sle very much the
+worse for wear. Liosha says:
+
+"'Mr. Andrews was very angry, Petersen.'
+
+"He grinned. 'He was, missus.'
+
+"'What was it all about?'
+
+"He explained in his sea-English, which is not the English of that
+mildewed Boarding House in South Kensington. Bill Figgins had called him
+a ----, he had retaliated, and the others had taken a hand, too."
+
+It is I who suppress the actual words reported by Jaffery. But, believe
+me, they were enough to annoy anybody.
+
+"She shouted down the stairway. 'Here you, Bill Figgins, come on deck
+for a minute.'
+
+"A lean, wiry, black-looking man-spawn of the Pool of London, emerged.
+
+"'What's the matter?'
+
+"Why did you call Petersen a ----?' she asked pleasantly and
+word-perfect.
+
+"'Cos he is one.'
+
+"'He isn't,' said Liosha. 'He's a very nice man. And so are you. And you
+both fought fine; I was looking on, and I was mad not to see the end of
+it. But Mr. Andrews doesn't like fighting. So see here, if you two don't
+shake hands, right now, and make friends and promise not to fight again,
+I'll not speak a word to either of you for the rest of the voyage.'
+
+"If I had tackled them like this, hefty chap that I am, they would have
+consigned me to a shambles of perdition. And if any other woman had
+attempted it, even our valiant Barbara, they would have told her in
+perhaps polite, but anyhow forcible, terms to mind her own business. In
+either case they would have resented to the depths of their simple souls
+the alien interference. But with Liosha it was different. Of course sex
+told. Naturally. But she was a child like themselves. She had looked on,
+placidly, and had caught the flash of knives without turning a hair.
+They felt that if she were drawn into a melee she would use a knife with
+the best of them. I'm panning out about this, because it seems so deuced
+interesting and I should like to know what you and Barbara think. Do you
+remember Gulliver? For all the world it was like Glumdalclitch making
+the peace between two little nine-year-old Brobdingnagians. The two men
+looked at each other sheepishly. Half a dozen grinning heads appeared at
+the fo'c'sle hatch. You never saw anything so funny in your life. At
+last the lean Bill Figgins stuck out his hand sideways to the Dutchman,
+without looking at him.
+
+"'All right, mate.'
+
+"And the Swede shook it heartily, and the grimy hands cried 'Bravo,
+missus!' and Liosha, turning and catching sight of me just a bit abaft
+the funnel beneath the bridge, for the first time, swung up the deck
+towards me, as pleased as Punch."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is another extract. . . . Well, wait for a minute.
+
+Jaffery's letters are an embarrassment of riches. If I printed them in
+full they would form a picturesque handbook to the coast of the African
+continent from Casablanca in Morocco, all the way round by the Cape of
+Good Hope to Port Said. But Jaffery, in his lavish way, duplicated these
+travel-pictures in articles to _The Daily Gazette_, which, supplemented
+by memory, he has already published in book form for all the world to
+read. Therefore, if I recorded his impressions of Grand Bassam, Cape
+Lopez, Boma, Matadi, Delagoa Bay, Montirana, Mombasa and other
+apocalyptic places, I should be merely plagiarising or infringing
+copyright, or what-not; and in any case I should be introducing matter
+entirely irrelevant to this chronicle. You must just imagine the rusty
+_Vesta_ wallowing along, about nine knots an hour, around Africa,
+disgorging cotton goods and cheap jewelry at each God-forsaken port, and
+making up cargo with whatever raw material could find a European market.
+If I had gone this voyage, I would tell you all about it; but you see, I
+remained in England. And if I subjected Jaffery's correspondence to
+microscopic examination, and read up blue books on the exports and
+imports of all the places on the South African coast line, and told you
+exactly what was taken out of the _S.S. Vesta_ and what was put into
+her, I cannot conceive your being in the slightest degree interested. To
+do so, would bore me to death. To me, cargo is just cargo. The
+transference of it from ship to shore and from shore to ship is a matter
+of awful noise and perspiring confusion. I have travelled, in so-called
+comfort, as a first-class passenger to Africa. I know all about it.
+Generally, the ship cannot get within quarter of a mile of the shore. On
+one side of it lies a fleet of flat-bottomed lighters manned by
+glistening and excited negroes. On board is a donkey-engine working a
+derrick with a Tophetical clatter. Vast bales and packing cases are
+lifted from the holds. A dingily white-suited officer stands by with
+greasy invoice sheets, while another at the yawning abyss whence the
+cargo emerges makes the tropical day hideous with horrible imprecations.
+And the merchandise swings over the side and is received in the lighter,
+by black uplifted arms, in the midst of a blood-curdling babel of
+unmeaning ferocity. That is all that unloading cargo means to me; and I
+cannot imagine that it means any more to any of the sons or daughters of
+men who are not intimately concerned in a particular trade. . . . You
+must imagine, I say, the _S.S. Vesta_ repeating this monotonous
+performance; Jaffery and Liosha and the little, black-bearded skipper,
+all clad in decent raiment, going ashore, and being entertained
+scraggily or copiously by German, French, Portuguese, English,
+fever-eyed commissioners, who took them on the _tour du proprietaire_,
+among the white wooden government buildings, the palm-covered huts of
+the natives, and shewed them the Mission Chapels and the new Custom
+Houses and the pigeon-like fowls and the little dirty naked nigger
+children, and the exiguity of their stock of glass and china, and the
+yearning of their souls for the fleshpots of the respective Egypts to
+which they belonged. You must imagine this. If anything relevant to the
+story of Jaffery, which, as you will remember, is all that I have to
+relate, happened at any of these ports, I should tell you. I should have
+chapter and verse for it in Jaffery's letters. But as far as I can make
+out, the moment they put foot on shore, they behaved like the
+best-conducted globe-trotters who dwell habitually in a semi-detached
+residence in Peckham Rye. I know Jaffery will be furious when he reads
+this. But great is the Truth, and it shall prevail. It was on the sea,
+away from ports and mission stations and exiles hungering for the last
+word of civilisation, and shore-going clothes, that life as depicted by
+Jaffery swelled with juiciness; and to my taste, the juiciest parts of
+his letters are those humoristically concerned with the doings of
+Liosha.
+
+As to his hopeless passion for Doria, he says very little. When Jaffery
+put pen to paper he was objective, loving to describe what he saw and
+letting what he felt go hang. In consequence the shy references to Doria
+were all the more poignant by reason of their rarity. But Liosha was the
+central figure in many a picture.
+
+Here, I say, is another extract:
+
+     "Liosha continues to thrive exceedingly. But there's one thing that
+     worries me about her. What the blazes are we going to do with her
+     after this voyage? No doubt she would like to keep on going round
+     and round Africa for the rest of her life. But I can't go with her.
+     I must get back and begin to earn my living. And I don't see her
+     settling down to afternoon tea and respectability again. I think
+     I'll have to set her up as a gipsy with a caravan and a snarling
+     tyke for company. How a creature with her physical energy has
+     managed to lie listless for all these months I can't imagine. It
+     shews strength of character anyway. But I don't see her putting in
+     another long stretch. . . .
+
+     "She has taken her position as cook's mate seriously, and shares
+     the galley with the cook, a sorrow-stricken little Portugee whose
+     wife ran away with another man during the last trip. He pours out
+     his woes to her while she wipes away the tears from the lobscouse.
+     I don't know how she stands it, for even I, who've got a pretty
+     strong stomach, draw the line at the galley. But she loves it. Now
+     and again, when it's my watch--I'm on the starboard watch, you
+     know--I see her turn out in the morning at two bells. She stands
+     for a few moments right aft of her cabin-door, and fills her lungs.
+     And the wind tugs at her hair beneath her cap, and at her skirts,
+     and the spindrift from the pale grey sea of dawn stings at her
+     face; and then she lurches like a sailor down the wet, slanting
+     deck--and I can tell you, she looks a devilish fine figure of a
+     woman. And soon afterwards there comes from the galley the smell of
+     bacon and eggs--my son, if you don't know the conglomerate smell of
+     fried bacon and eggs, bilge water, and the salt of the pure early
+     morning ocean, your ideas of perfume are rudimentary. She and the
+     Portugee between them, he contributing the science and she the
+     good-will, give us excellent grub; of course you would turn your
+     nose up at it--but you've never been hungry in your life! and there
+     hasn't been a grumble in the cabin. Maturin has offered her the
+     permanent job. Certainly she looks after us and attends to our
+     comforts in a way sailor men on tramps aren't accustomed to. She's
+     a great pal of the second mate's and at night they play
+     spoiled-five at a corner of the table, with the greasiest pack of
+     cards you ever saw, and she's perfectly happy.
+
+     "Now and again we discuss the future, without arriving at any
+     result. A day or two ago I chaffed her about marriage. She
+     considered the matter gravely.
+
+     "'I guess I'll have to. I'm twenty-four. But I haven't had much
+     luck so far, have I?'
+
+     "I replied: 'You won't always strike wrong 'uns.'
+
+     "'I don't know what kind of a man I'm going to strike,' she said.
+     'Not any of those little billy-goats in dinner jackets I used to
+     meet at Mrs. Jardine's. No, sirree. And no more Ras Fendihooks!'
+
+     "She rose--we had been sitting on the cabin sky-light--and leaned
+     over the taffrail and looked wistfully out to sea. I joined her.
+     She was silent for a bit. Then she said:
+
+     "'I guess I'm not going to marry at all; for I'm not going to marry
+     a man I don't love, and I couldn't love a man who couldn't beat
+     me--and there ain't many. That's the kind of fool way I'm built.'
+
+     "She turned and left me. I suppose she meant it. Liosha doesn't
+     talk through her hat. But if she ever does fall in love with a man
+     who can beat her, there'll be the devil to pay. Liosha in love
+     would be a tornado of a spectacle. But I shouldn't like it.
+     Honest--I shouldn't like it. I've got so used to this clean great
+     Amazon of a Liosha, that I should loathe the fellow were he as
+     decent a sort as you please."
+
+It is curious to observe how, as the voyage proceeded, Jaffery's horizon
+gradually narrowed to the small shipboard circle, just as an invalid's
+interests become circumscribed by the walls of his sick-room. He tells
+us of childish things, a catch of fish, a quarrel between the first and
+second mate over Liosha, second having accused first of a disrespectful
+attitude towards the lady, the sail-cloth screen rigged up aft behind
+which Liosha had her morning tub of sea-water, the stubbing of Liosha's
+toe and her temporary lameness, the illness of the Portugee cook and
+Liosha's supremacy in the galley. And he wrote it all with the air of
+the impresario vaunting the qualities of his prima donna, nay more--with
+a fatuous air of proprietorship, as though he himself had created
+Liosha.
+
+Here is the beginning of another letter, addressed to us both:
+
+     "A thousand thanks, dearest people, for what you tell me of Doria.
+     If she just misses me a little bit, all may be well. I've bought
+     some jolly gold barbaric ornaments that she may accept when I reach
+     home; and do try to persuade her that the poor old bear is rough
+     only on the outside.
+
+     "Things going on just as usual. Liosha has got a monkey given her
+     by the donkey-man. . . ."
+
+There follows a description of the monkey and its antics, and a long
+account of a chase all over the ship, in which all the ship's company
+including the captain took part, to the subversion of discipline and
+navigation. But you see--he switches off at once to Liosha and the
+trivial records of the humdrum day.
+
+At last he had something less trivial to write about. They were in the
+Mozambique Channel, making for Madagascar:
+
+     "Now that this darned cabin table is comparatively straight, I can
+     scribble a few lines to you. We've had a beast of a time. The
+     dirtiest weather ever since we left Beira and the cranky old tub
+     rolling and pitching and standing on her head as I've never known
+     ship do before. Consequence was the cargo got shifted and there was
+     a list to port, so that every time she ducked that side, she
+     shipped half the channel. Skies black as thunder and the sea the
+     colour of inky water. We had the devil's own job getting the cargo
+     straight. Just imagine a black rolling dungeon full of great
+     packing cases weighing about half a ton each all gone murderous
+     mad. Just imagine getting down among them, as practically all hands
+     had to do, save the engine-room, and sweating and fighting and
+     straining and lashing for hour after hour. And half the time the
+     port side of the lame old duck under water. How she didn't turn
+     turtle is known only to Allah and Maturin; and One is great and the
+     other's a damned fine sailor. Of course, I had to go down into the
+     inferno of the hold like the others. Part of the day's work; but I
+     didn't like it; no one liked it.
+
+     "When the order was given all hands tumbled up to the hatchway and
+     began swarming down the iron ladder. It was a swaying, staggering
+     crowd. When you stand on a wet deck at an angle of forty-five
+     degrees one way and thirty degrees another and constantly shifting
+     both angles, with nothing but a rope lashed athwart the ship to
+     catch hold of, your mind is pretty well concentrated on yourself. I
+     know mine was. I slipped and wallowed on my belly hanging on to the
+     rope like grim death till my turn came for the ladder. I got my
+     feet on the rungs. I was all right, when looking up into the livid
+     daylight whom do you think I saw calmly preparing to follow me?
+     Liosha. I hadn't noticed her. She had sea-boots and a jersey and
+     looked just like a man. I roared:
+
+     "'Clear out. This is no place for you.'
+
+     "'I'm coming. Go along down.'
+
+     "She put her foot on the rung just below my face. I gripped as much
+     of her ankle as the stiff leather allowed.
+
+     "'Clear out. Don't be a fool.'
+
+     "Andrews, the first mate, poured out a flood of blasphemy. What the
+     this, that and the other were we waiting for?
+
+     "'Mr. Andrews,' I shouted, 'send this woman to her cabin.'
+
+     "'Oh, go to hell! Tumble down every one of you, or I'll damn soon
+     make you,' cried Andrews.
+
+     "He was in a vile temper, being responsible for the snugness of the
+     cargo, and the cargo lay about as snug as a dormitory of devils. He
+     was sorry afterwards, poor chap, for his lack of courtesy, but at
+     the moment he didn't care who went down into the hold, or who was
+     killed, so long as this infernal cargo was righted and the crazy
+     old tub didn't go down.
+
+     "So I descended. It was ordained. Liosha followed. And once down we
+     were carried away out of ourselves by a nightmare of toil and
+     peril. Andrews and second were there yelling orders. We obeyed in
+     some subconscious way. How we heard I don't know. For peace and
+     quiet give me a battlefield. Twenty men in semi-darkness, scarce
+     able to stand, fighting blind, mad forces of half a ton each. The
+     huge crates of deal seemed so innocent and harmless on the
+     quay-side, but charging about that swaying, rocking lower deck,
+     they looked malignant, like grimy blocks of Hell's anger. I don't
+     know what I did. All I can say is that I never before felt my
+     muscles about to snap--queer feeling that--and I think I'm about as
+     tough as they make 'em.
+
+     "Liosha worked as well as any man in the bunch. I only caught sight
+     of her now and then . . . you see what we had to do, don't
+     you? . . . We had to secure all these infernal things that were
+     running amuck and ease up the rest of the cargo that had got
+     jammed on the port side. There were accidents. Three or four were
+     knocked out. Petersen, the Swede, had his leg crushed. I don't know
+     what was wrong at the time. He was working next me, and a roll of
+     the ship brought an ugly crate over him. He couldn't get up. He
+     looked ghastly. So I took him on my back and clawed my way up the
+     iron ladder and reached the deck somehow, and staggered along,
+     barging into everything--it was blowing half a gale--and once I
+     fell and he screamed like a pig, poor devil. But I picked him up
+     and got him into the fo'c'sle and stuck him in a bunk. The Portugee
+     cook, sick of fever--I think he's a blighted malingerer--was the
+     only creature there. I routed him out, in the dim mephitic place
+     reeking of sour bedding, and put Petersen in his charge. Then I
+     went back through the drenching seas to the hatch. There was just
+     enough room for a man's body to squeeze through down the ladder. I
+     went down into the same hell-broth of sweat and confusion. The
+     ground you stood upon might have been the back of a super-Titanic
+     butterfly. Stability was a nonexistent term. It was a helpless
+     scuttering surge of men and vast wooden cubes. Most of the men had
+     torn off their upper garments and fought half naked, the sweat
+     glistening on their skins in the feeble light. Soon the heat became
+     unbearable and I too tore off jersey and shirt. Liosha joined me
+     and we worked together without speaking. Her long thick hair had
+     come down and she had hastily tied it in a knot, just as you might
+     tie a knot in a towel, and she had thrown off things like everybody
+     else and only a flimsy cotton, sleeveless bodice, or whatever it's
+     called, drenched through and sticking to her, made a pretence of
+     covering her from her waist.
+
+     "You had to get like flies round these infernal things and wait
+     your time--if you could--for the roll, and push and then scramble
+     with ropes and make fast; awl at the same time dance out of the way
+     of the slithering hulks that bore down on you with fantastic
+     murderousness. And through it all thundered the roaring of the
+     storm, the grind of the engines, the shattering of the propeller
+     lifted above the waves, and the shrieks and creakings of every
+     plank and plate of this steam-driven old Noah's Ark.
+
+     "We had just, with exhausted muscles, made a whole stack fast, and
+     were standing by, panting, haggard eyed, the sweat running down
+     anyhow, twenty of us, Dagoes, Dutchmen, Englishmen, in the dim
+     twilight--just a shaft of pale illumination coming slick down the
+     ladder where the hatch was open,--hanging on to edges and corners
+     of cargo, when suddenly the ship, caught on top of a wave, vibrated
+     in a sickening shudder, plunged, and then with an impetus of
+     cataclysm wallowed to starboard. Andrews shrieked, 'Stand clear!'
+     Most of the men leaped and flung themselves away. But I stumbled
+     and fell. Before I realized the danger of a vast sliding crate,
+     two strong arms were curled round my waist and I was flung aside,
+     to slither and roll down the swaying deck until I was stopped by
+     the bulkhead. When I picked myself up, I saw half the men securing
+     the crate and the other half grovelling around something on the
+     deck. It was Liosha. She lay white and senseless with blood
+     streaming from her head.
+
+     [Illustration: Before I realized the danger . . . I was flung
+     aside.]
+
+     "In a mortal funk I took her up the ladder with the help of another
+     fellow, and carried her to her cabin. I never before realised the
+     appalling length of this vessel. We got her into her bunk aft; I
+     sent the other chap for brandy and first-aid appliances from the
+     ship's stores, and did what I could to discover how far she was
+     injured. . . .
+
+     "Thank God, nothing worse had happened than a nasty scalp wound.
+     But her escape had been miraculous. She had saved my life; for as I
+     lay on the deck, the crate charging direct would have squashed my
+     skull into jelly, and crushed my body against the side of the hold.
+     A fraction of a second later and it would have been her skull and
+     her body instead of mine; but she just managed to roll practically
+     clear until she got caught by the swerving side of the crate. I
+     hope you'll understand what a heroic thing she did. She faced what
+     seemed to be certain death for me; and it is thanks to Liosha that
+     I'm able to tell you that I'm alive. And she, God bless her, walks
+     about with her head bandaged, among an adoring ship's company, and
+     refuses to admit having done anything wonderful."
+
+And, indeed, to confirm Jaffery's last statement, here is a bit of a
+scrawl from Liosha--her complete account of the incident:
+
+     "We've just had the most awful storm I ever did see. The cargo go
+     loose in the hold and we had to fix it up. I got a cut on the head
+     and had to stay in bed till the storm finished. I must say it gave
+     me an awful headache, but there I guess I'm better now."
+
+Well, that seems to be the most exciting thing that happened to them.
+Afterwards, in the mind of each, it loomed as the great event in the
+amazing voyage. A man does not forget having his life saved by a woman
+at the risk of her own; and a woman, no matter how heroic in action and
+how magnanimous in after modesty, does not forget it either. Although he
+had been credited (to his ingenuous delight) by reviewers of "The
+Greater Glory" with uncanny knowledge of the complexities of a woman's
+nature, I have never met a more dunder-headed blunderer in his dealings
+with women. He perceived the symptoms of this unforgetfulness on
+Liosha's part, but seems to have been absolutely fogged in diagnosis.
+
+     "Liosha flourishes," he writes in one of his last _Vesta_ letters,
+     "like a virgin forest of green bay trees. Gosh! She's splendid. I
+     take back and swallow every presumptuous word I've said about her.
+     And, I suppose, owing to our knockabout sort of intimacy, she has
+     adopted a protective, motherly attitude towards me. In her great,
+     spacious, kind way, she gives you the impression that she owns
+     Jaffery Chayne, and knows exactly what is for his good. Women's
+     ways are wonderful but weird."
+
+He must have thought himself vastly clever with his alliterative
+epigram. But he hadn't the faintest idea of the fount of Liosha's
+motherliness.
+
+"Owing to our knockabout sort of intimacy"! Oh, the silly ass!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+It was not until the end of October that Doria completed her round of
+country-house visits and returned to the flat in St. John's Wood. The
+morning after her arrival in town she took my satirical counsel and
+called at Wittekind's office, and, I am afraid, tried to bite that very
+pleasant, well-intentioned gentleman. She went out to do battle,
+arraying herself in subtle panoply of war. This I gather from Barbara's
+account of the matter. She informs me that when a woman goes to see her
+solicitor, her banker, her husband's uncle, a woman she hates, or a man
+who really understands her, she wears in each case an entirely different
+kind of hat. Judging from a warehouse of tissue-paper-covered millinery
+at the top of my residence, which I once accidentally discovered when
+tracking down a smell of fire, I know that this must be true. Costumes
+also, Barbara implies, must correspond emotionally with the hats. I
+recognised this, too, as philosophic truth; for it explained many
+puzzling and apparently unnecessary transformations in my wee wife's
+personal appearance. And yet, the other morning when I was going up to
+town to see after some investments, and I asked her which was the more
+psychological tie, a green or a violet, in which to visit my
+stockbroker, she lost as much of her temper as she allows herself to
+lose and bade me not he silly. . . . But this has nothing to do with
+Doria.
+
+Doria, I say, with beaver cocked and plumes ruffled, intent on striking
+terror into the heart of Wittekind, presented herself in the outer
+office and sent in her card. At the name of Mrs. Adrian Boldero, doors
+flew open, and Doria marched straight away into Wittekind's comfortably
+furnished private room. Wittekind himself, tall, loose-limbed,
+courteous, the least tradesman-like person you can imagine, rose to
+receive her. For some reason or the other, or more likely against
+reason, she had pictured a rather soapy, smug little man hiding crafty
+eyes behind spectacles; but here he was, obviously a man of good
+breeding, who smiled at her most charmingly and gave her to understand
+that she was the one person in the world whom he had been longing to
+meet. And the office was not a sort of human _charcuterie_ hung round
+with brains of authors for sale, but a quiet, restful place to which
+valuable prints on the walls and a few bits of real Chippendale gave an
+air of distinction. Doria admits to being disconcerted. She had come to
+bite and she remained to smile. He seated her in a nice old armchair
+with a beautiful back--she was sensitive to such things--and spoke of
+Adrian as of his own blood brother. She had not anticipated such warmth
+of genuine feeling, or so fine an appreciation of her Adrian's work.
+
+"Believe me, my dear Mrs. Boldero," said he, "I am second only to you in
+my admiration and grief, and there's nothing I wouldn't do to keep your
+husband's memory green. But it is green, thank goodness. How do I know?
+By two signs. One that people wherever the English language is spoken
+are eagerly reading his books--I say reading, because you deprecate the
+purely commercial side of things; but you must forgive me if I say that
+the only proof of all their reading is the record of all their buying.
+And when people buy and read an author to this prodigious extent, they
+also discuss him. Adrian Boldero's name is a household word. You want
+advertisement and an _edition de luxe_. But it is only the little man
+that needs the big drum."
+
+"But still, Mr. Wittekind," Doria urged, "an _edition de luxe_ would be
+such a beautiful monument to him. I don't care a bit about the money,"
+she went on with a splendid disregard of her rights that would have sent
+a shiver down the incorporated back of the Incorporated Society of
+Authors, "I'm only too willing to contribute towards the expense. Please
+understand me. It's a tribute and a monument."
+
+"You only put up monuments to those who are dead," said Wittekind.
+
+"But my husband--"
+
+"--isn't dead," said he.
+
+"Oh!" said Doria. "Then--"
+
+"The time for your _edition de luxe_ is not yet."
+
+"Yet? But--you don't think Adrian's work is going to die?"
+
+She looked at him tragically. He reassured her.
+
+"Certainly not. Our future sumptuous edition will be a sign that he is
+among the immortals. But an _edition de luxe_ now would be a wanton _Hic
+jacet_."
+
+All of this may have been a bit sophistical, but it was sound business
+from the publisher's point of view, and conveyed through the medium of
+Wittekind's unaffected urbanity it convinced Doria. I listened to her
+account of it with a new moon of a smile across my soul--or across
+whatever part of oneself one smiles with when one's face is constrained
+to immobility.
+
+"I'm so glad I plucked up courage to come and see you, Mr. Wittekind,"
+she said. "I feel much happier. I'm quite content to leave Adrian's
+reputation in your hands. I wish, indeed, I had come to see you before."
+"I wish you had," said he.
+
+"Mr. Chayne has been most kind; but--"
+
+"Jaffery Chayne isn't you," he laughed. "But all the same, he's a
+splendid fellow and an admirable man of business."
+
+"In what way?" she asked, rather coldly.
+
+"Well--so prompt."
+
+"That's the very last word I should apply to him. He took an
+unconscionable time," said Doria.
+
+"He had a very difficult and delicate work of revision to do. Your
+husband's work was a first draft. The novel had to be pulled together.
+He did it admirably. That sort of thing takes time, although it was a
+labour of love."
+
+"It merely meant writing in bits of scenes. Oh, Mr. Wittekind," she
+cried, reverting to an old grievance, "I do wish I could see exactly
+what he wrote and what Adrian wrote. I've been so worried! Why do your
+printers destroy authors' manuscripts?"
+
+"They don't," said Wittekind. "They don't get them nowadays. They print
+from a typed copy."
+
+"'The Greater Glory' was printed from my husband's original manuscript."
+
+Wittekind smiled and shook his head. "No, my dear Mrs. Boldero. From two
+typed copies--one in England and one in America."
+
+"Mr. Chayne told me that in order to save time he sent you Adrian's
+original manuscript with his revisions."
+
+"I'm sure you must have misunderstood him," said Wittekind. "I read the
+typescript myself. I've never seen a line of your husband's manuscript."
+
+"But 'The Diamond Gate' was printed from Adrian's manuscript."
+
+"No, no, no. That, too, I read in type."
+
+Doria rose and the colour fled from her cheeks and her great dark eyes
+grew bigger, and she brought down her little gloved hand on the writing
+desk by which the publisher, cross-kneed, was sitting. He rose, too.
+
+"Mr. Chayne has definitely told me that both Adrian's original
+manuscripts went to the printers and were destroyed by the printers."
+
+"It's impossible," said Wittekind, in much perplexity. "You're making
+some extraordinary mistake."
+
+"I'm not. Mr. Chayne would not tell me a lie."
+
+Wittekind drew himself up. "Neither would I, Mrs. Boldero. Allow me."
+
+He took up his "house" telephone. "Ask Mr. Forest to come to me at
+once." He turned to Doria. "Let us get to the bottom of this. Mr. Forest
+is my literary adviser--everything goes through his hands."
+
+They waited in silence until Mr. Forest appeared. "You remember the
+Boldero manuscripts?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"What were they, manuscript or typescript?"
+
+"Typescript."
+
+"Have you even seen any of Mr. Boldero's original manuscript?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Do you think any of it has ever come into the office?"
+
+"I'm sure it hasn't."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Forest."
+
+The reader retired.
+
+"You see," said Wittekind.
+
+"Then where are the original manuscripts of 'The Diamond Gate' and 'The
+Greater Glory'?"
+
+"I'm very sorry, dear Mrs. Boldero, but I have no means of knowing."
+
+"Mr. Chayne said they were sent here, and used by the printers and
+destroyed by the printers."
+
+"I'm sure," said Wittekind, "there's some muddling misunderstanding.
+Jaffery Chayne, in his own line, is a distinguished man--and a man of
+unblemished honour. A word or two will clear up everything."
+
+"He's in Madagascar."
+
+"Then wait till he comes back."
+
+Doria insisted--and who in the world can blame her for insisting?
+
+"You may think me a silly woman, Mr. Wittekind; but I'm not--not to the
+extent of an hysterical invention. Mr. Chayne has told me definitely
+that those two manuscripts came to your office, that the books were
+printed from them and that they were destroyed by the printers."
+
+"And I," said Wittekind, "give you my word of honour--and I have also
+given you independent testimony--that no manuscript of your husband's
+has ever entered this office."
+
+"Suppose they had come in his handwriting, would they have been
+destroyed?"
+
+"Certainly not. Every sheet would have been returned with the proofs.
+Typed copy may or may not be returned."
+
+"But autograph copy is valuable?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"The manuscripts of Adrian's novels might be worth a lot of money?"
+
+"Quite a lot of money."
+
+"So you don't think Mr. Chayne destroyed them?"
+
+"It's an act of folly of which a literary man like Mr. Chayne would be
+incapable."
+
+"And you've never seen any of it?"
+
+"I've given you my word of honour."
+
+"Then it's very extraordinary," said Doria.
+
+"It is," said Wittekind, stiffly.
+
+She thrust out her hand and flashed a generous glance.
+
+"Forgive me for being bewildered. But it's so upsetting. You have
+nothing whatever to do with it. It's all Jaffery Chayne." She looked up
+at the loosely built, kindly man. "It's for him to give explanations. In
+the meanwhile, I leave my dear, dear husband's memory in your hands--to
+keep green, as you say"--tears came into her eyes--"and you will, won't
+you?"
+
+The pathos of her attitude dissolved all resentment. He bent over her,
+still holding her hand.
+
+"You may be quite sure of that," said he. "Even we publishers have our
+ideals--and our purest is to distribute through the world the works of a
+man of genius."
+
+So Doria having telephoned for permission to come and see us on urgent
+business, arrived at Northlands late in the afternoon, full of the
+virtues of Wittekind and the vices of Jaffery. She gave us a full
+account of her interview and appealed to me for explanations of
+Jaffery's extraordinary conduct. I upbraided myself bitterly for having
+counselled her to bite Wittekind. I ought, instead, to have thrown every
+possible obstacle in the way of her meeting him. I ought to have
+foreseen this question of the manuscripts, the one weak spot in our web
+of deception. Now I may be a liar when driven by necessity from the
+paths of truth, but I am not an accomplished liar. It is not my fault.
+Mere providence has guided my life through such gentle pastures that I
+have had no practice worth speaking of. Barbara, too, is an amateur in
+mendacity. Both of us were sorely put to it under Doria's indignant and
+suspicious cross-examination.
+
+"You saw the original manuscript of 'The Greater Glory'?"
+
+"Yes," I lied.
+
+"Did you see the original manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate'?"
+
+"No," I lied again.
+
+"Was it among Adrian's papers?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge. Probably if Adrian didn't send it to the printers,
+he destroyed it."
+
+"I don't believe he destroyed it. Jaffery has got it, and he has also
+got the manuscript of 'The Greater Glory.' What does he want them for?"
+
+"That's a leading question, my dear, which I can't answer, because I
+don't know whether he has them or not. In fact, I know nothing whatever
+about them."
+
+"It sounds horrid and ungracious, Hilary, after all you've done for me,"
+said Doria, "but I really think you ought to know something."
+
+From her point of view, and from any outside person's point of view, she
+was perfectly right. My bland ignorance was disgraceful. If she had
+brought an action against us for recovery of these wretched manuscripts
+and we managed to keep the essential secret, both counsel and judge
+would have flayed me alive. . . . Put yourself in her place for a
+minute--God knows I tried to do so hard enough--and you will see the
+logic of her position, all through. She was not a woman of broad human
+sympathies and generous outlook; she was intense and narrow. Her whole
+being had been concentrated on Adrian during their brief married life;
+it was concentrated now on his memory. To her, as to all the world, he
+flamed a dazzling meteor. Her faults, which were many and hard to bear
+with, all sprang from the bigotry of love. Nothing had happened to cloud
+her faith. She had come up against many incomprehensible things: the
+delay in publication of Adrian's book; the change of title; the burning
+of Adrian's last written words on the blotting pad; the vivid pictures
+that were obviously not Adrian's; the consignment to a printer's Limbo
+of the original manuscripts; my own placid disassociation from the
+literary side of the executorship. She had accepted them--not without
+protest; but she had in fact accepted them. Now she struck a reef of
+things more incomprehensible still. Jaffery had lied to her
+outrageously. I, for one, hold her justified in her indignation.
+
+But what on earth could I do? What on earth could my poor Barbara do? We
+sat, both of us, racking our brains for some fantastic invention, while
+Doria, like a diminutive tragedy queen, walked about my library,
+inveighing against Jaffery and crying for her manuscripts. And I dared
+not know anything at all about them. She had every reason to reproach
+me.
+
+Barbara, feeling very uncomfortable, said: "You mustn't blame Hilary.
+When Adrian died each of the executors took charge of a special
+department. Jaffery Chayne did not interfere with Hilary's management of
+financial affairs, and Hilary left Jaffery free with the literary side
+of things. It has worked very well. This silly muddle about the
+manuscripts doesn't matter a little bit."
+
+"But it does matter," cried Doria.
+
+And it did. Now that she knew that those sacred manuscripts written by
+the dear, dead hand had not been destroyed by printers, every fibre of
+her passionate self craved their possession. We argued futilely, as
+people must, who haven't the ghost of a case.
+
+"But why has Jaffery lied?"
+
+"The manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate,'" I declared, again perjuring
+myself, "has nothing whatever to do with Jaffery and me. As I've told
+you it was not among Adrian's papers which we went through together.
+We're narrowed down to 'The Greater Glory.' Possibly," said I, with a
+despairing flash, "Jaffery had to pull it about so much and deface it
+with his own great scrawl, that he thought it might pain you to see it,
+and so he told you that it had disappeared at the printer's. Now that I
+remember, he did say something of the kind."
+
+"Yes, he did," said Barbara.
+
+Doria brushed away the hypothesis. "You poor things! You're merely
+saying that to shield him. A blind imbecile could see through you"--I
+have already apologised to you for our being the unconvincing liars that
+we were--"you know nothing more about it than I do. You ought to, as
+I've already said. But you don't. In fact, you know considerably less.
+Shall I tell you where the manuscripts are at the present moment?"
+
+"No, my dear," said Barbara, in the plaintive voice of one who has come
+to the end of a profitless talk; for you cannot imagine how utterly
+wearied we were with the whole of the miserable business. "Let us wait
+till Jaffery comes home. It won't be so very long."
+
+"Yes, Doria," said I, soothingly. "Barbara's right. You can't condemn a
+man without a hearing?"
+
+Doria laughed scornfully. "Can't I? I'm a woman, my dear friend. And
+when a woman condemns a man unheard she's much more merciful than when
+she condemns him after listening to his pleadings. Then she gets really
+angry, and perhaps does the man injustice."
+
+I gasped at the monstrous proposition; but Barbara did not seem to
+detect anything particularly wrong about it.
+
+"At any rate," said I, "whether you condemn him or not, we can't do
+anything until he comes home. So we had better leave it at that."
+
+"Very well," said Doria. "Let us leave it for the present. I don't want
+to be more of a worry to you dear people than I can help. But that's
+where Adrian's manuscripts are, both of them"--and she pointed to the
+key of Jaffery's flat hanging with its staring label against my library
+wall.
+
+Of course it was rather mean to throw the entire onus on to Jaffery. But
+again, what could we do? Doria put her pistol at our heads and demanded
+Adrian's original manuscripts. She had every reason to believe in their
+existence. Wittekind had never seen them. Vandal and Goth and every kind
+of Barbarian that she considered Jaffery to be, it was inconceivable
+that he had deliberately destroyed them. It was equally inconceivable
+that he had sold the precious things for vulgar money. They remained
+therefore in his possession. Why did he lie? We could supply no
+satisfactory answer; and the more solutions we offered the more did we
+confirm in her mind the suspicion of dark and nefarious dealings. If it
+were only to gain time in order to think and consult, we had to refer
+her to the absent Jaffery.
+
+"My dear," said I to Barbara, when we were alone, "we're in a deuce of a
+mess."
+
+"I'm afraid we are."
+
+"Henceforward," said I, "we're going to live like selfish pigs, with no
+thought about anybody but ourselves and our own little pig and about
+anything outside our nice comfortable sty."
+
+"We'll do nothing of the kind," said Barbara.
+
+"You'll see," said I. "I'm a lion of egotism when I'm roused."
+
+We dined and had a pleasant evening. Doria did not raise the disastrous
+topic, but talked of Marienbad and her visits, and discussed the modern
+tendencies of the drama. She prided herself on being in the forefront of
+progress, and found no dramatic salvation outside the most advanced
+productions of the Incorporated Stage Society. I pleaded for beauty,
+which she called wedding-cake. She pleaded for courage and truth in the
+presentation of actual life, which I called dull and stupid photography
+which any dismal fool could do. We had quite an exciting and entirely
+profitless argument.
+
+"I'm not going to listen any longer," she cried at last, "to your silly
+old early Victorian platitudes!"
+
+"And I," I retorted, "am not going to be browbeaten in my own home by
+one-foot-nothing of crankiness and chiffon."
+
+So, laughingly, we parted for the night, the best of friends. If only, I
+thought, she could sweep her head clear of Adrian, what a fascinating
+little person she might be. And I understood how it had come to pass
+that our hulking old ogre had fallen in love with her so desperately.
+
+The next morning I was in the garden, superintending the planting of
+some roses in a new, bed, when Doria, in hat and furs, came through my
+library window, and sang out a good-bye. I hurried to her.
+
+"Surely not going already? I thought you were at least staying to
+lunch."
+
+No; she had to get back to town. The car, ordered by Barbara, was
+waiting to take her to the station.
+
+"I'll see you into the train," said I.
+
+"Oh, please don't trouble."
+
+"I will trouble," I laughed, and I accompanied her down the slope to the
+front door where stood Barbara by the car and Franklin with the luggage.
+Doria and I drove to the station. For the few minutes before the train
+came in we walked up and down the platform. She was in high spirits,
+full of jest and laughter. An unwonted flush in her cheeks and a
+brightness in her deep eyes rendered her perfectly captivating.
+
+"I haven't seen you looking so well and so pretty for ever such a long
+time," I said.
+
+The flush deepened. "You and Barbara have done me all the good in the
+world. You always do. Northlands is a sort of Fontaine de Jouvence for
+weary people."
+
+That was as graceful as could be. And when she shook hands with me a
+short while afterwards through the carriage window, she thanked me for
+our long-sufferance with more spontaneous cordiality than she had ever
+before exhibited. I returned to my roses, feeling that, after all, we
+had done something to help the poor little lady on her way. If I had
+been a cat, I should have purred. After an hour or so, Barbara summoned
+me from my contemplative occupation.
+
+"Yes, dear?" said I, at the library window.
+
+"Have you written to Rogers?"
+
+Rogers was a plumber.
+
+"He's a degraded wretch," said I, "and unworthy of receiving a letter
+from a clean-minded man."
+
+"Meanwhile," said Barbara, "the servants' bathroom continues to be
+unusable."
+
+"Good God!" said I, "does Rogers hold the cleanliness of this household
+in his awful hands?"
+
+"He does."
+
+"Then I will sink my pride and write to him."
+
+"Write now," said Barbara, leading me to my chair. "You ought to have
+done it three days ago."
+
+So with three days' bathlessness of my domestic staff upon my
+conscience, and with Barbara at my elbow, I wrote my summons. I turned
+in my chair, holding it up in my hand.
+
+"Is this sufficiently dignified and imperious?"
+
+I began to declaim it. "Sir, it has been brought to my notice that the
+pipes--". I broke off short. "Hullo!" said I, my eyes on the wall, "what
+has become of the key of Jaffery's flat?"
+
+There was the brass-headed nail on which I had hung it, impertinently
+and nakedly bright. The labelled key had vanished.
+
+"You've got it in your pocket, as usual," said Barbara.
+
+I may say that I have a habit of losing things and setting the household
+from the butler to the lower myrmidons of the kitchen in frantic search,
+and calling in gardeners and chauffeurs and nurses and wives and
+children to help, only to discover that I have had the wretched object
+in my pocket all the time. So accustomed is Barbara to this wolf-cry
+that if I came up to her without my head and informed her that I had
+lost it, she would be profoundly sceptical.
+
+But this time I was blameless. "I haven't touched it," I declared, "and
+I saw it this morning."
+
+"I don't know about this morning," said Barbara. "But I grant you it was
+there yesterday evening, because Doria drew our attention to it."
+
+"Doria!" I cried, and I rose, with mouth agape, and our eyes met in a
+sudden stare.
+
+"Good Heavens! do you think she has taken it?"
+
+"Who else?" said I. "She came out from here to say good-bye to me in the
+garden. She had the opportunity. She was preternaturally animated and
+demonstrative at the station--your sex's little guileful way ever since
+the world began. She had the stolen key about her. She's going straight
+to Jaffery's flat to hunt for those manuscripts."
+
+"Well, let her," said Barbara. "We know she can't find them, because
+they don't exist."
+
+"But, my darling Barbara," I cried, "everything else does. And
+everything else is there. And there's not a blessed thing locked up in
+the place!"
+
+"Do you mean--?" she cried aghast.
+
+"Yes, I do. I must get up to town at once and stop her."
+
+"I'll come with you," said Barbara.
+
+So once more, on altruistic errand, I motored post-haste to London. We
+alighted at St. Quentin's Mansions. My friend the porter came out to
+receive us.
+
+"Has a lady been here with a key of Mr. Chayne's flat?"
+
+"No, sir, not to my knowledge."
+
+We drew breaths of relief. Our journey had been something of a strain.
+
+"Thank goodness!" said Barbara.
+
+"Should a lady come, don't allow her to enter the flat," said I.
+
+[Illustration: And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and
+strewn papers, . . . lay a tiny, black, moaning heap of a woman.]
+
+"I shouldn't give a strange lady entrance in any case," said the porter.
+
+"Good!" said I, and I was about to go. But Barbara, with her ready
+common-sense, took me aside and whispered:
+
+"Why not take all these compromising manuscripts home with us?"
+
+In my letter case I had the half-forgotten power of attorney that
+Jaffery had given me at Havre. I shewed it to the porter.
+
+"I want to get some things out of Mr. Chayne's flat."
+
+"Certainly, sir," said the porter. "I'll take you up."
+
+We ascended in the lift. The porter opened Jaffery's door. We entered
+the sitting-room. And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and
+strewn papers, with her head against the cannon-ball on the hearthrug,
+lay a tiny, black, moaning heap of a woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+If a ministering angel walks abroad through this world of many sorrows,
+it is my wife Barbara. To her and to her alone did the soul-stricken
+little creature owe her life and her reason. For a fortnight she
+scarcely left Doria's room, sleeping for odd hours anywhere, and
+snatching meals with the casual swiftness of a swallow. For a whole
+fortnight she wrestled with the powers of darkness, which like Apollyon
+straddled quite over all the breadth of the way, and by sheer valiancy
+and beauty of heart, she made them spread forth their dragon's wings and
+speed them away so that Doria for a season saw them no more. How she
+fought and with what weapons, who am I to tell you? These things are
+written down; but in a Book which no human eye can see.
+
+We carried her moaning and distraught from that room of awful
+revelation, put her into the car, and brought her back to Northlands. It
+was the only thing to be done. Barbara's instinct foresaw madness if we
+took her to the flat in St. John's Wood. Her father's house, her natural
+refuge, was equally impossible. For what explanation could we have given
+to the worthy but uncomprehending man? He would have called in doctors
+to minister to a mind afflicted with a disease beyond their power of
+diagnosis. Unless, of course, we made public the facts of the tragedy;
+which was unthinkable. Barbara's instinct pierced surely through the
+gloom. The first coherent words that Doria said were:
+
+"Let me stay with you for a little. I've nowhere in the world to go. I
+can't ask father--and I can't go back home. It would drive me mad."
+
+Of course it would have driven her mad to return to the haunted
+flat--haunted now by no gracious ghost, but by an Unutterable Presence,
+the thought of which, even in her quiet, lavender-scented country
+bedroom, made her scream of nights. For she knew all. To save her
+reason, Barbara, with her wonderful tenderness, had bridged over the
+chasms between her stark peaks of discovery. She knew all that we knew.
+Further attempts at deception would have been vain cruelty. Barbara
+could palliate the offence; she could show how irresistible had been the
+temptation; she could prove how our love for Adrian had been unshaken by
+disastrous knowledge and urge that Doria's love should be unshaken
+likewise; she could apply all the healing remedies of which she only has
+the secret--but she could not leave the poor soul to stumble blindly in
+uncertainty.
+
+Doria could never enter her dishallowed paradise again. Even I, when I
+went through the place in order to make arrangements for closing it
+altogether, felt a teeth-chattering shiver in the condemned cell where
+Adrian had worked out his doom. It had been sacrosanct; not a thing had
+been disturbed; there was the iron safe empty, but yet a grim receptacle
+of abominable secrets; the quill pen, its point stained with idle ink,
+lay on the office writing-table. And the blotting-pad was still there
+under a clump of dusty, unused scribbling-paper. On a little stool in
+the corner stood the half-emptied decanter of brandy and a glass and a
+syphon of soda-water. . . . Goodness knows, I'm not a superstitious or
+even an imaginative man; I had been in that room before and had hated
+it, on account of its poignant associations; nothing transcendental had
+affected me; but now I shuddered, physically shuddered, as though the
+cubic space were informed with a spirit in the torture of an everlasting
+despair. Doria not knowing, he could have borne his punishment. But now
+Doria knew. He had lost her love, the rock on which he had built his
+hope of salvation. He was damned to eternity. It is the supreme and
+unspeakable horror of eternal life that you cannot dash your head
+against a wall and plunge into nothingness. Yet he tried. The awful
+Presence of Adrian was dashing his head against those bare and ghastly
+walls. . . .
+
+I never was so glad to breathe God's honest November fog again. Of
+course my affright was a silly matter of nerves. But I would not have
+slept in that flat for anything in the world.
+
+I had to make, of course, another expedition to Jaffery's chambers, in
+order to restore to order the chaos that Doria had made. She had
+ransacked every drawer in the place and strewn the contents of the old
+portmanteau, Adrian's mass of incoherent manuscript, about the floor. I
+did what I ought to have done on my first visit; I brought the tragic
+lumber to Northlands, and having made a bonfire in a corner of the
+kitchen garden, burned the whole lot. Why Jaffery had not got rid of the
+evidence of Adrian's guilt, I could not at the time imagine. It was only
+later that I heard the trivial and mechanical reason. He could not burn
+the papers in his flat, because he had no fire--only the electric
+radiator. You try, in these circumstances, to destroy five or six
+thousand sheets of thick paper, and see how you get on. Jaffery had his
+idea, when he transferred the manuscript from Adrian's study; on his
+next voyage he would take the portmanteau with him, weight it with the
+cannon-ball, which he used after his bath for physical exercise, and
+throw it overboard. By singular ill-luck, he had started on his two
+voyages that year--if a channel crossing can be termed a voyage--at a
+moment's notice. In each case he had not had occasion to call at his
+chambers, and the destroying journey had yet to be made. As for
+discovery of the secrets lying in unlocked receptacles, who was there to
+discover them? Such friends as he had would never pry into his private
+concerns; and as for housemaids and waiters and porters, the whole
+matter to them was unintelligible. While he was living in St. Quentin's
+Mansions, he considered himself secure. When he realised, at Havre, that
+he would be absent for some months, he put things into my charge. That I
+bitterly regretted not having put tinder lock and key or taken steps to
+destroy papers and manuscripts, I need not say. For a long time I felt
+the guiltiest wretch outside prison in the three kingdoms. If I had been
+a wild man of the jungle like Jaffery, it would not have mattered; but I
+have always prided myself on being--not the last word, for that would
+not be consonant with my natural modesty--but, say, the penultimate word
+of our modern civilisation; and the memory of having acted like an
+ingenuous child of nature still burns whenever it floats across my
+brain. Metaphorically, Jaffery and I sobbed with remorse on each other's
+bosoms, and called ourselves all the picturesque synonyms for careless
+fools we could think of; but that, naturally, did not a bit of good to
+anybody.
+
+The fact was accomplished. Our dear Humpty-Dumpty had had his great
+fall, and not all the king's horses and all the king's men could ever
+set Humpty-Dumpty up again.
+
+Greek tragedies are all very well in their way. They are vastly
+interesting in the inevitableness of their prearranged doom. _Moi qui
+vous parle_, I have read all of them; and I like them. I have even seen
+some of them acted. I have seen, for instance, the Agamemnon given by
+the boys of Bradfield College, in their model open-air Greek theatre,
+built out of a chalk-pit, and I have sat gripped from beginning to end
+by the tremendous drama. I am not talking foolishly. I know as much as
+the ordinary man need know about Greek tragedy. But in spite of
+Aristotle (who ought to have been strangled at birth, like all other
+bland doctrinaires--and of all the doctrinaires on art, there has none
+been so blandly egregious since the early morning long ago when the
+pre-historic artist who drew an elk on the omoplate of a bison was
+clubbed by the superior person of his day who could not draw for
+nuts)--in spite of Aristotle and the rest of the theorists, I assert
+that, as far as my experience goes, in the ordinary wary modern life to
+which we are accustomed, doom and inevitableness do not matter a hang.
+If we have any common-sense we can dodge them. Most of us do. Of course,
+if a woman marries a congenital idiot there are bound to be
+ructions--here we are entering the domain of pathology, which is as
+doomful as you please; but in our ordinary modern life ninety per cent.
+of the tragedies are determined by sheer million to one fortuities. The
+history of our great criminal trials, for instance, is a romance of
+coincidence. It is your melodramatist and not your Aristotelian purist
+that knows what he's talking about when he writes a play. He only has to
+look about him and draw what happens in real life. That there may be an
+Eternal Puckish Malice arranging and deranging human destinies is
+another question. I am neither a theologian nor a metaphysician, and I
+do not desire to discuss the subject. I only maintain that, had it not
+been for sheer chance, Adrian's secret would never have been discovered
+a second time. I cannot see any doom about it. A series of sheer, silly
+accidents on the part of Jaffery and myself had brought Doria face to
+face with these incriminating papers. As for her having gained access
+to the flat without the porter's knowledge, that had been calculation
+on her part. She had watched at the street entrance until he had taken
+some one up in the lift, and then she had mounted the interminable
+stairs.
+
+I could have caught Jaffery by letter at Genoa or Marseilles; but in
+view of his imminent return, I did not write to him. What useful purpose
+would have been served? He would have left the steamship _Vesta_ and
+travelled post-haste overland, dragging with him a resentful Liosha, and
+rushed like a mad bull into an upheaval in which he could have no place.
+We had arranged by correspondence that, after he had parted from the
+good Captain Maturin at Havre, he would come straight to us, in order to
+leave Liosha temporarily in our care. For what else could be done with
+her? Let him bring her, then, according to programme. It would be far
+better, we agreed, Barbara and I, to let them fulfil their lunatic
+adventure undisturbed, and on Jaffery's arrival at Northlands to break
+the disastrous tidings. It would give us time to watch Doria and see
+what direction the resultant of the forces now tearing her soul would
+take.
+
+"Let Jaffery stay away as long as possible," said Barbara. "I can't be
+bothered with him. I wish his old voyage could be extended for a year."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first time I met Doria, when she crawled out of her room, a great
+pity smote my heart. The ivory of her face had turned to wax, and she
+had dwindled into a fragile reed, and in her eyes quivered the
+apprehension of an ill-treated dog. I put my arm round her and hugged
+her reassuringly, not knowing what else to do, and mumbled a few silly
+words. Then I settled her down before the drawing-room fire, and rushed
+out into the garden and cut the last poor lingering autumn roses, and,
+returning, cast them into her lap. And we talked hard about the roses;
+and I told her which were Madame Abel Chatenay, which Marquise de
+Salisbury, and which Frau Karl Druska, which Lady Ursula and which Lady
+Hillingdon. We did not refer at all to unhappy things.
+
+It was only some days afterwards that she ventured to raise the veil of
+her awful desolation. But she had no need to tell me. Any fool could
+have divined it. Together with far less shattering of idols has many a
+woman's reason been brought down. And in our poor Doria's case it was
+not only the shattering of idols.
+
+"Hilary, dear," she said, with a mournful attempt at a smile. "I can't
+go on living here for ever."
+
+"Why not?" I asked. "This is a vast barrack of a place, and you're only
+just a bit of a wee white mouse. And we love our pets. Why do you want
+to go?"
+
+We were walking up and down the drive. It was a warm, damp morning and
+the trees shaken by the mild southwester shed their leaves around us in
+a golden shower; and the leaves that had fallen lay sodden on the grass
+borders. Here and there a surviving blossom of antirrhinum swaggered
+among its withered brethren as if to maintain the illusion of summer. A
+partridge or two whirred across the path from copse to meadow. The
+gentle sadness of the autumn day had moved her to discourse on the
+mutability of mundane things. Hence, by chain of association, I suppose,
+her sudden remark.
+
+"I don't want to go," she replied. "I should like to stay in the dreamy
+peace of Northlands for ever. But I have been a pet for such a long
+time--for years, and I've shown myself to be such a bad pet--biting the
+hand that fed me."
+
+I bade her not talk foolishly. She moved her small shoulder.
+
+"It's true. While the three of you--you and Barbara and Jaffery--were
+doing for me what has never been done for another human being, I was all
+the time snarling and snapping. I can't make out how you can bear the
+sight of me." She clenched her hands and straightened her arms down
+tense. "The thought of it scorches me," she cried suddenly.
+
+"Whatever you did, dear," said I, "was so natural; and we understood it
+all. How could we blame you?"
+
+We had, in fact, blamed her on many occasions, not being as gods to whom
+human hearts are open books; but this was not the occasion on which to
+tell her so. I don't like the devil being called the father of lies. I
+am convinced that the discoverer of mendacity was a warm-hearted
+philanthropist, who has never received due credit, and that the devil
+having seized hold of his discovery perverted it to his own diabolical
+uses. It is the sort of plagiaristic thing that devils, whether they
+promote ancient Gehennas or modern companies, have been doing since the
+world began.
+
+"That doesn't make it any the easier to me," said Doria. "The horrible
+things I said and did--the ghastliness of it--"
+
+"My dear girl," I interrupted, as kindly as I could. "Don't let this
+mere fringe of tragedy worry you."
+
+She laughed shrilly, with a set, white face; which is the most
+unmirthful kind of laugh you can imagine.
+
+"Don't you know that it's the fringe that is the maddening irritation?
+The big central thing numbs and stupefies, when it doesn't kill. And for
+some reason"--she threw out her little gloved hands--"the big thing
+hasn't killed me--it has paralysed me. The springs of feeling"--she
+clutched her bosom--"are dried up. My heart is withered and dead. I
+can't explain. For all the dead things I'm not responsible. I've gone
+through Hell the last two or three weeks and they've been burned up
+altogether. But what hasn't been burned up is the fringe, as you call
+it. That's only red-hot. It scorches me, and I can't sleep for the
+torture of it. . . ." She stopped, and fronting me laid an appealing
+touch on my arm. "Oh, Hilary, forgive me. I didn't mean to go on in this
+wild way. I thought I had a better hold on myself."
+
+"I don't see," said I, "why you shouldn't unburden your heart to one who
+has proved himself to be a friend not only of yours, but of Adrian."
+
+She released me, and with a wide gesture, swayed across the gravel path.
+I stepped to her side and mechanically we walked on, a few paces, before
+either of us spoke.
+
+"I have told you," she said at last. "I have no heart to unburden. There
+never was an Adrian."
+
+"There was indeed," said I, warmly.
+
+"Yours. Not mine."
+
+"Have you no forgiveness for him, then?" I asked earnestly.
+
+She halted again and looked at me and at the back of her great eyes
+gleamed black ice.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+I went straight to bed-rock.
+
+"He was the father of your dead child," said I.
+
+Her small frame heaved and she looked away from me down the drive. "I
+can only thank God that the child didn't live."
+
+Barbara had told me something of the fear in which she seemed to hold
+Adrian's memory. But I had not in the least realised it till now when I
+heard the profession from her own lips. In fact, I know that she had
+never yet spoken to Barbara with such passionate directness.
+
+"You oughtn't to say such a thing, Doria," I said sternly.
+
+"I am as God made me."
+
+"Adrian loved you. He sinned for your sake--in order to get you."
+
+She dismissed the argument with a gesture.
+
+"You must have pity on him," I insisted, "for the unspeakable torment of
+those months of barrenness, of abortive attempts at creation."
+
+She was silent for a moment. Having reached the front gates we turned
+and began to walk up the drive. Then she said:
+
+"Yes, I do pity him. It's enough to tear one's brain out,--his when he
+was alive--and mine now. The thought of it will freeze my soul for all
+eternity. I can't tell you what I feel." She cast out her hands
+imploringly to the autumn fields. "I pity him as I would pity some one
+remote from me--a criminal whom I might have seen done to death by awful
+tortures. It's a matter of the brain, not of the heart. No. I have all
+the understanding. But I can't find the pardon."
+
+"That will come," said I.
+
+"In the next world, perhaps, not in this."
+
+Her tone of finality forbade argument. Besides what was there to argue
+about? She had said: "There never was an Adrian." From her point of
+view, she was mercilessly right.
+
+"It's horrible to think," she went on after a pause, "that all this time
+I've been living, first on stolen property and now on charity--Jaffery's
+charity--and he hasn't even had a word of thanks. Quite the contrary."
+Again she laughed the shrill, dead laugh. "You see, I must go home--to
+my father's--I'm strong enough now--and start my life, such as it is,
+all over again. I can't touch another penny of the Wittekind money.
+Castleton's people and Jaffery must be paid."
+
+"Tom Castleton," I said, "was alone in the world, and Jaffery's not the
+man to take back a free gift beautifully given. If you don't like to
+keep the money--I appreciate your feelings--you can devote it to
+philanthropic purposes."
+
+"Yes, I might do that," she agreed. "But is this fraud--this false
+reputation--to go on forever?"
+
+"I'm afraid it must," said I. "Nobody would be benefited by throwing
+such a bombshell of scandal into society. If anybody living were
+suffering from wrong it might be different. But there's no reason to
+blacken unnecessarily the name you bear."
+
+"Then you really think I should be justified in keeping the secret?" she
+asked anxiously.
+
+"I think it would be outrageous of you to do anything else," said I.
+
+"That eases my mind. If it were essential for me to make things public,
+I would do it. I'm not a coward. But I should die of the disgrace."
+
+"To poor Adrian," said I.
+
+She flashed a quick, defiant glance.
+
+"To me."
+
+"To Adrian," I insisted, smitten with a queer inspiration. "He
+sinned--the unpardonable sin, if you like. But he expiated it. He's
+expiating it now. And you love him. And it's for his sake, not yours,
+that you shrink from public disgrace. You were so irrevocably wrapped up
+in him"--I pursued my advantage--"that you feel yourself a partner in
+his guilt. Which means that you love him still."
+
+She raised a stark, terror-stricken face. I touched her shoulder. Then,
+all of a sudden, she collapsed, and broke into an agony of sobs and
+tears. I drew her to a desolate rustic bench and put my arm round her
+and let her sob herself out.
+
+After that we did not speak of Adrian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+At last news came from Havre of the end of the preposterous voyage.
+
+     "Crossing to-night. Coming straight to you. Send car to meet us
+     Reading. Local trains beastly. Both fit as elephants. Love to all.
+
+     "JAFFERY."
+
+Such was the telegram. I wired to Southampton acquiescence in his
+proposal. It was far more sensible to come direct to Reading than to
+make a detour through London. Rooms were got ready. In the one destined
+for Liosha, we had already stowed the cargo of trunks which the Great
+Swiftness had delivered in the nick of time. The next day I took the car
+to Reading and waited for the train.
+
+From the far end of it I saw two familiar figures descend, and a moment
+afterwards the station resounded with a familiar roar.
+
+"Hullo! hullo! hullo!"
+
+Jaffery, red-bearded, grinning, perhaps a bit mightier, hairier, redder
+than ever, his great hands uplifted, rushed at me and shook me in his
+lunatic way, so that train, passengers, porters and Liosha all rocked
+and reeled before my eyes. He let me go, and, before I could recover,
+Liosha threw her arms round my neck and kissed me. A porter who picked
+up my hat restored me to mental equipoise. Then I looked at them, and
+anything more splendid in humanity than that simple, happy pair of
+gigantic children I have never seen in my life. I, too, felt the
+laughter of happiness swell in my heart, for their gladness at the sight
+of me was so true, so unaffected, and I wrung their hands and laughed
+aloud foolishly. It is good to be loved, especially when you've done
+nothing particular to deserve it. And in their primitive way these two
+loved me.
+
+"Isn't she fit?" roared Jaffery.
+
+"Magnificent," said I.
+
+She was. The thick tan of exposure to wind and sun gave her a gipsy
+swarthiness beneath which glowed the rich colour of health. When I had
+parted from her at Havre there had been just a thread of soft increase
+in her generous figure; but now all superfluous flesh had hardened down
+into muscle, and the superb lines proclaimed her splendour. And there
+seemed to be more authority in her radiant face and a new masterfulness
+and a quicker intelligence in her brown eyes. I noticed that it was she
+who first broke away from the clamour of greeting and gave directions as
+to the transport of their "dunnage." Jaffery followed her with the tail
+of his eye; then turned to me with a bass chuckle.
+
+"We're a sort of Jaff Chayne and Co., according to her, and she thinks
+she's managing director. Ho! ho! ho!" He put his arm round my shoulder
+and suddenly grew serious. "How's everybody?"
+
+"Flourishing," said I.
+
+"And Doria?"
+
+"At Northlands."
+
+"She knows I'm coming?"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+Liosha joined us, accompanied by a porter, carrying their exiguous
+baggage. We walked to the exit, without saying much, and settled
+ourselves in the limousine, my guests in the back seat, I on one of the
+little chairs facing them. We started.
+
+"My dear old chap," said I, leaning forward. "I've got something to tell
+you. I didn't like to write about it. But it has got to be told, and I
+may as well get it over now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a subdued and half-scared Jaffery who greeted Barbara and Susan
+at our front door. The jollity had gone out of him. He was nothing but a
+vast hulk filled with self-reproach. It was his fault, his very grievous
+and careless fault for having postponed the destruction of the papers,
+and for having left them loose and unsecured in his rooms. He all but
+beat his breast. If Doria had died of the shock his would be the blame.
+He saluted Barbara with the air of one entering a house of mourning.
+
+"You mustn't look so woe-begone," she said. "Something like this was
+bound to happen. I have dreaded it all along--and now it has happened
+and the earth hasn't come to an end."
+
+We stood in the hall, while Franklin divested the visitors of their
+outer wraps and trappings.
+
+"And, Liosha," Barbara continued, throwing her arms round as much of
+Liosha as they could grasp--she had already kissed her a warm
+welcome--"it's a shame, dear, to depress you the moment you come into
+the place. You'll wish you were at sea again."
+
+"I guess not," said Liosha. "I know now I'm among folks who love me.
+Isn't that true, Susan?"
+
+"Daddy loves you and mummy loves you and I adore you," cried Susan.
+
+Whereupon there was much hugging of a spoiled monkey.
+
+We went upstairs. At the drawing-room door Barbara gave me one of her
+queer glances, which meant, on interpretation, that I should leave her
+alone with Jaffery for a few minutes so that she could pour the balm of
+sense over his remorseful soul, and that in the meantime it would be
+advisable for me to explain the situation to Liosha. Aloud, she said,
+before disappearing:
+
+"Your old room, Liosha, dear--you'll find everything ready."
+
+In order to carry out my wife's orders, I had to disentangle Susan from
+Liosha's embrace and pack her off rueful to the nursery. But the promise
+to seat her at lunch between the two seafarers brought a measure of
+consolation.
+
+"Come into the library, Liosha," said I, throwing the door open. I
+followed her and settled her in an armchair before a big fire; and then
+stood on the hearthrug, looking at her and feeling rather a fool. I
+offered her refreshment. She declined. I commented again on her fine
+physical appearance and asked her how she was. I drew her attention to
+some beautiful narcissi and hyacinths that had come from the greenhouse.
+The more I talked and the longer she regarded me in her grave, direct
+fashion, the less I knew how to tell her, or how much to tell her, of
+Doria's story. The drive had been a short one, giving time only for a
+narration of the facts of the discovery. Liosha, although accepting my
+apology, had sat mystified; also profoundly disturbed by Jaffery's
+unconcealed agitation. Her life with him during the past four months had
+drawn her into the meshes of the little drama. For her own sake, for
+everybody's sake, we could not allow her to remain in complete
+ignorance. . . . I gave her a cigarette and took one myself. After the
+first puff, she smiled.
+
+"You want to tell me something."
+
+"I do. Something that is known only to four people in the world--and
+they're in this house."
+
+"If you tell me, I guess it'll be known only to five," said Liosha.
+
+To have questioned the loyalty of her eyes would have been to insult
+truth itself.
+
+"All right," said I. "You'll be the fifth and last." And then, as simply
+as I could, I told her all there was to know. She grasped the literary
+details more quickly than I had anticipated. I found afterwards that the
+long months of the voyage had not been entirely taken up with the
+cooking of bacon and the swabbing of decks; there had been long
+stretches of tedium beguiled by talk on most things under heaven, and
+aided by her swift and jealous intelligence her mental horizon had
+broadened prodigiously through constant association with a cultivated
+man. . . . When I reached the point in my story where Jaffery gave up
+the Persian expedition, she gripped the arms of her chair, and her lips
+worked in their familiar quiver.
+
+"He must have loved her to do that," she said in a low voice.
+
+I went on, and the more involved I became in the disastrous affair, the
+more was I convinced that it would he better for her to understand
+clearly the imbroglio of Jaffery and Doria. You see, I knew all along,
+as all along I hope I have given you to understand--ever since the day
+when she asked him to beat her with a golf-stick--that the poor girl
+loved Jaffery, heart and soul. I knew also that she made for herself no
+illusions as to Jaffery's devotion to Doria. On that point her words to
+me at Havre had left me in no doubt whatever. But since Havre all sorts
+of extraordinary things had happened. There had been their intimate
+comradeship in the savagery (from my point of view) of the last few
+months. There was now Doria's awful change of soul-attitude towards
+Adrian. It was right that Liosha should be made aware of the emotional
+subtleties that underlay the bare facts. It seemed cruel to tell her of
+the last scene, so pathetic, so tragic, so grotesque, between the man
+she loved and the other woman. But her unflinching bravery and her great
+heart demanded it. And as I told her, walking nervously about the room,
+she followed me with her steadfast eyes.
+
+"So that's why Jaff Chayne came abroad with me."
+
+"I suppose so," said I.
+
+"If I had been a man I should have strangled her, or flung her out of
+the window."
+
+"I dare say. But you wouldn't have been Jaff Chayne."
+
+"That's true," she assented. "No man like him ever walked the earth. And
+how a woman could be so puppy-blind as not to see it, I can't imagine."
+
+"Her head was full of another man, you see."
+
+"Oh yes, I see," she said with a touch of contempt. "And such a man! You
+were fond of him I know. But he was a sham. He used to look on me, I
+remember, as an amusing sort of animal out of the Zoological Gardens. It
+never occurred to him that I had sense. He was a fool."
+
+Intimately as we had known Liosha, this was the first time she had ever
+expressed an opinion regarding Adrian. We had assumed that, having
+touched her life so lightly, he had been but a shadowy figure in her
+mind, and that, save in so far as his death concerned us, she had viewed
+him with entire indifference. But her keen feminine brain had picked out
+the fatal flaw in poor Adrian's character, the shallow glitter that made
+us laugh and the want of vision from which he died.
+
+"Go on," said Liosha.
+
+I continued. In justice to Doria, I elaborated her reasons for setting
+Adrian on his towering pinnacle. Liosha nodded. She understood. False
+gods, whatever degree of godhead they usurped, had for a time the
+mystifying power of concealing their falsehood. And during that time
+they were gods, real live dwellers on Olympus, flaming Joves to poor
+mortal Semeles. Liosha quite understood.
+
+I ended, more or less, a recapitulation of what she had heard,
+uncomprehending, in the car.
+
+"And that's how it stands," said I.
+
+I was rather shaken, I must confess, by my narrative, and I turned aside
+and lit another cigarette. Liosha remained silent for a while, resting
+her cheek on her hand. At last she said in her deep tones:
+
+"Poor little devil! Good God! Poor little devil!"
+
+Tears flooded her eyes.
+
+"By heavens," I cried, "you're a good creature."
+
+"I'm nothing of the sort," said Liosha. She rose. "I guess I must have a
+clean up before lunch," and she made for the door.
+
+I looked at my watch. "You just have time," said I.
+
+I opened the door for her to pass out, and fell a-musing in front of the
+fire. Here was a new Liosha, as far apart from the serene young
+barbarian who had come to us two and a half years before blandly
+characterising Euphemia as a damn fool because she would not let her buy
+a stocked chicken incubator and take it to the Savoy Hotel, as a prairie
+wolf from the noble Great Dane. Her nature had undergone remarkable
+developments. As Jaffery had prophesied at Havre, she treated things in
+a big way, and she had learned restraint, not the restraint of
+convention, for not a convention would have stopped her from doing what
+she chose, but the restraint of self-discipline. And she had learned
+pity. A year ago she would not have wept over Doria, whom she had every
+woman's reason for hating. A new, generous tenderness had blossomed in
+her heart. If all the cutthroats of Albania who had murdered her family
+had been brought bound and set on their knees with bared necks before
+her and she had been presented with a sharp sword, I doubt whether she
+would have cut off one single head.
+
+A tap at the window aroused me. It was Jaffery in the rain, which had
+just begun to fail, seeking admittance. I let him in.
+
+"This is an awful business, old man," he said gloomily.
+
+From which I gather that for once Barbara's soothing had been of little
+avail.
+
+"Have you seen Doria yet?" I asked.
+
+He shook his head. "Barbara is with her. She's coming in to lunch."
+
+At the anti-climax, I smiled. "That shews she's not quite dead yet."
+
+But to Jaffery it was no smiling matter. "Look here, Hilary," he said
+hoarsely, "don't you think it would be better for me to cut the whole
+thing and go away right now?"
+
+"Go away--?" I stared at him. "What for?"
+
+"Why should I force myself on that poor, tortured child? Think of her
+feelings towards me. She must loathe the sound of my name."
+
+"Jaff Chayne," said I, "I believe you're afraid of mice."
+
+He frowned. "What the blazes do you mean?"
+
+"You're in a blue funk at the idea of meeting Doria."
+
+"Rot," said Jaffery.
+
+But he was.
+
+Franklin summoned us to luncheon. We went into the drawing-room where
+the rest of our little party were assembled, Susan and her governess,
+Liosha, Barbara and Doria. Doria stepped forward valiantly with
+outstretched hand, looking him squarely in the face.
+
+"Welcome back, Jaffery. It's good to see you again."
+
+Jaffery grew very red and bending over her hand muttered something into
+his beard.
+
+"You'll have to tell me about your wonderful voyage."
+
+"There was nothing so wonderful about it," said Jaffery.
+
+That was all for the moment, for Barbara hustled us into the
+dining-room. But the terrible meeting that both had dreaded was over.
+Nobody had fainted or shed tears; it was over in a perfectly well-bred
+way. At lunch Susan, between Liosha and Jaffery, became the centre of
+attention and saved conversation from constraint.
+
+To Doria, who had lingered at Northlands, in order to lose no time in
+setting herself right with Jaffery,--her own phrase--the ordinary table
+small-talk would have been an ordeal. As it was, she sat on my left,
+opposite Liosha, lending a polite ear to the answers to Susan's eager
+questions. The child had not received such universal invitation to
+chatter at mealtime since she had learned to speak. But, in spite of her
+inspiring assistance, a depressing sense of destinies in the balance
+pervaded the room, and we were all glad when the meal came to an end.
+Susan, refusing to be parted from her beloved Liosha, carried her off to
+the nursery to hear more fairy-tales of the steamship _Vesta_. Barbara
+and Doria went into the drawing-room, where Jaffery and I, after a
+perfunctory liqueur brandy, soon joined them. We talked for a while on
+different things, the child's robustious health, the garden, the
+weather, our summer holiday, much in the same dismal fashion as
+assembled mourners talk before the coffin is brought downstairs. At last
+Barbara said:
+
+"I must go and write some letters."
+
+And I said: "I'm going to have my afternoon nap."
+
+Both the others cried out with simultaneous anxiety and scarlet faces:
+
+"Oh, don't go, Barbara, dear."
+
+"Can't you cut the sleep out for once?"
+
+"I must!" said Barbara.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+And we left our nervous ogre and our poor little elf to fight out
+between themselves whatever battle they had to fight. Perhaps it was
+cold-blooded cruelty on our part. But these two had to come to mutual
+understanding sooner or later. Why not at once? They had the afternoon
+before them. It was pouring with rain. They had nothing else to do. In
+order that they should be undisturbed, Barbara had given orders that we
+were not at home to visitors. Besides, we were actuated by motives not
+entirely altruistic. If I seem to have posed before you as a
+noble-minded philanthropist, I have been guilty of careless
+misrepresentation. At the best I am but a not unkindly, easy-going man
+who loathes being worried. And I (and Barbara even more than myself) had
+been greatly worried over our friends' affairs for a considerable
+period. We therefore thought that the sooner we were freed from these
+worries the better for us both. Deliberately we hardened our hearts
+against their joint appeal and left them together in the drawing-room.
+
+"Whew!" said I, as we walked along the corridor. "What's going to
+happen?"
+
+"She'll marry him, of course."
+
+"She won't," said I.
+
+"She will. My dear Hilary, they always do."
+
+"If I have any knowledge of feminine character," said I, "that young
+woman harbours in her soul a bitter resentment against Jaffery."
+
+"If," she said. "But you haven't."
+
+"All right," said I.
+
+"All right," said Barbara.
+
+We paused at the library door. "What," I asked, "is going to become of
+Liosha?"
+
+Barbara sighed. "We're not out of this wood yet."
+
+"And with Liosha on our hands, I don't think we ever shall be."
+
+"I should like to shake Jaffery," said Barbara.
+
+"And I should like," said I, "to kick him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+So, as I have said, we left those two face to face in the big
+drawing-room. The man in an agony of self-reproach, helpless pity and
+realised failure; the woman--as it seemed to me, smoking reflectively in
+my library armchair, for sleep was impossible--the woman in the calm of
+desperation. The man who had performed a thousand chivalrous acts to
+shield her from harm, who lavished on her all the devotion and
+tenderness of his simple heart; the woman who owed him her life, and,
+but for fool accident and her own lack of faith in him, would still be
+owing him the twilight happiness of her Fool's Paradise. They had not
+met, or exchanged written words, since the early summer day at the St.
+John's Wood flat, when he had told her that he loved her, and by the
+sheer mischance of his hulking strength had thrown her to the ground;
+since that day when she had spat out at him her hatred and contempt,
+when she had called him "a barren rascal," and had lashed him into fury;
+when, white with realisation that the secret was about to escape from
+his lips, he had laid her on the sofa and had gone blindly into the
+street. Now facing each other for the first time after many months, they
+remembered all too poignantly that parting. The barren rascal who stood
+before her was the man who had written every word of Adrian's triumphant
+second novel, and had given it to her out of the largesse of his love.
+And he had borne with patience all her imperious strictures and had
+obeyed all her crazy and jealous whims. He had fooled her--quixotically
+fooled her, it is true--but fooled her as never woman had been fooled in
+the world before. And knowing Adrian to be the barren rascal, all the
+time, never had he wavered in his loyalty, never had he uttered one
+disparaging word. And he had secured the insertion of a life of Adrian
+in the next supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography; and he
+had helped her to set up that staring white marble monument in Highgate
+Cemetery, with its lying inscription. Never had human soul been invested
+in such a Nessus shirt of irony. No wonder she had passed through
+Hell-fire. No wonder her soul had been scorched and shrivelled up. No
+wonder the licking fires of unutterable shame kept her awake of nights.
+And if she writhed in the flaming humiliation of it all when she was
+alone, what was that woman's anguish of abasement when she stood face to
+face, and compelled to speech, with the man whose loving hand had
+unwittingly kindled that burning torment?
+
+The poor human love for Adrian was not dead. That secret I had plucked
+out of her heart a few weeks ago in the garden. How did she regard the
+man who must have held Adrian in the worst of contempt, the contempt of
+pity? She hated him. I was sure she hated him. I could not take my mind
+off those two closeted together. What was happening? Again and again I
+went over the whole disastrous story. What would be the end? I wearied
+myself for a long, long time with futile speculation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My library door opened, and Liosha, bright-eyed, with quivering lip and
+tragic face, burst in, and seeing me, flung herself down by my side and
+buried her head on the arm of the chair and began to cry wretchedly.
+
+"My dear, my dear," said I, bewildered by this tornado of misery. "My
+dear," said I, putting an arm round her shoulders, "what is the matter?"
+
+"I'm a fool," she wailed. "I know I'm a fool, but I can't help it. I
+went in there just now. I didn't know they were there. Susan's music
+mistress came and I had to go out of the nursery--and I went into the
+drawing-room. Oh, it's hard, Hilary, dear--it's damned hard."
+
+"My poor Liosha," said I.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be a place in the world for me."
+
+"There's lots of places in our hearts," I said as soothingly as I could.
+But the assurance gave her little comfort. Her body shook.
+
+"I wish the cargo had killed me," she said.
+
+I waited for a little, then rose and made her sit in my chair. I drew
+another near her.
+
+"Now," said I. "Tell me all about it."
+
+And she told me in her broken way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She walked into the drawing-room thinking to find Barbara. Instead, she
+sailed into a surging sea of passion. Doria crouched on a sofa hiding
+her face--the flame, poor little elf in the Nessus shirt, had been
+lapping her round, and with both hands outstretched she motioned away
+Jaffery who stood over her.
+
+"Don't touch me, don't touch me! I couldn't bear it!" she cried; and
+then, aware of Liosha's sudden presence, she started to her feet. Liosha
+did not move. The two women glared at each other.
+
+"What do you mean by coming in here?" cried Doria.
+
+"You had better leave us, Liosha," said Jaffery sombrely.
+
+But Liosha stood firm. The spurning of Jaffery by Doria struck a chord
+of the heroic that ran through her strange, wild nature. If this man she
+loved was not for her, at least no other woman should scorn him. She
+drew herself up in her full-bosomed magnificence.
+
+"Instead of telling him not to touch you, you little fool, you ought to
+fall at his feet. For what he has done for you, you ought to steal the
+wide world and give it to him. And you refuse your footling little
+insignificant self. If you had a thousand selves, they wouldn't be
+enough for him."
+
+"Stop!" shouted Jaffery.
+
+She wheeled round on him. "Hold your tongue, Jaff Chayne. I guess I've
+the right, if anybody has, to fix up your concerns."
+
+"What right?" Doria demanded.
+
+"Never mind." She took a step forward. "Oh, no; not that right! Don't
+you dare to think it. Jaff Chayne doesn't care a tinker's curse for me
+that way. But I have a right to speak, Jaff Chayne. Haven't I?"
+
+Jaffery's mind went back to the Bedlam of the slithering cargo. He
+turned to Doria.
+
+"Let her say what she wants."
+
+"I want nothing!" cried Liosha. "Nothing for myself. Not a thing! But I
+want Jaff Chayne to be happy. You think you know all he has done for
+you, but you don't. You don't know a bit. They offered him thousands of
+pounds to go to Persia, and he would have come back a great man, and he
+didn't go because of you."
+
+"Persia? I never heard of that," said Doria.
+
+"The job didn't suit me," Jaffery growled.
+
+"And you told her all about it?"
+
+"No, he didn't," said Liosha. "Hilary told me to-day."
+
+"I take your word for it," said Doria coldly. "It only shows that I'm
+under one more obligation than I thought to Mr. Chayne."
+
+From what I could gather, the word "obligation" infuriated Liosha. She
+uttered an avalanche of foolish things. And Jaffery (for what is man in
+a woman's battle but an impotent spectator?) looked in silence from one:
+to the other; from the little ivory, black and white Tanagra figure to
+the great full creature whom he had seen, but a few days ago, with the
+salt spray in her hair and the wind in her vestments. And at last she
+said:
+
+"If I were a woman like you and wouldn't marry a man who loved me like
+Jaff Chayne, and who had done for me all that Jaff Chayne had done for
+you, I'd pray to God to blast me and fill my body with worms."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And then she burst out of the room, and, like a child seeking
+protection, came and threw herself down by my side.
+
+What happened when she left them I know, because Jaffery kept me up till
+three o'clock in the morning narrating it to me, while he poured into
+his Gargantuan self hogsheads of whisky and soda.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Liosha had gone, they eyed one another for a while in embarrassing
+silence, until Doria spoke:
+
+"She misunderstood--when she came in. Quite natural. It was your touch
+of pity that I couldn't bear. I wasn't repelling you, as she seemed to
+think."
+
+"It cut me to the heart to see you in such grief," said Jaffery. "I only
+thought of comforting you."
+
+"I know." She sat on a chair by the window and looked out at the pouring
+rain.
+
+"Tell me," she said, without turning round, "what did she mean by saying
+she had the right to interfere in your affairs?"
+
+"She saved my life at the risk of her own," replied Jaffery.
+
+"I see. And you saved my life once; so perhaps you have rights over
+me."
+
+"That would be damnable!" he cried. "Such a thought has never entered my
+head."
+
+"It is firmly fixed in mine," said Doria.
+
+She sat for a while, with knitted brows deep in thought. Jaffery stood
+dejectedly by the fire, his hands in his pockets. Presently she rose.
+
+"Besides saving my life and doing for me the things I know, there must
+be many things you've done for me that I never heard of--like this
+sacrifice of the Persian expedition. Liosha was right. I ought to go on
+my knees to you. But I can't very well do that, can I?"
+
+"No," replied Jaffery, scrabbling at whiskers and beard. "That would be
+stupid. You mustn't worry about me at all. Whatever I did for you, my
+dear, I'd do a thousand times over again!"
+
+"You must have your reward, such as it is. God knows you have earned
+it."
+
+"Don't talk about rights or rewards," said he. "As I've said repeatedly
+this afternoon, I've forfeited even your thanks."
+
+"And I've said I forgive you--if there's anything to forgive," she
+smiled, just a little wearily. "So that is wiped out. All the rest
+remains. Let us bury all past unhappiness between us two."
+
+"I wish we could. But how?"
+
+"There is a way."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"You make things somewhat hard for me. You might guess. But I'll tell
+you. Liosha again was right. . . . If you want me still, I will marry
+you. Not quite yet; but, say, in six months' time. You are a
+great-hearted, loyal man"--she continued bravely, faltering under his
+gaze--"and I will learn to love you and will devote my life to making
+you happy."
+
+She glanced downwards with averted head, awaiting some outcry of
+gladness, surrendering herself to the quick clasp of strong arms. But
+no outcry came, and no arms clasped. She glanced up, and met a stricken
+look in the man's eyes.
+
+For Jaffery could not find a word to utter. A chill crept about his
+heart and his blood became as water. He could not move; a nightmare
+horror of dismay held him in its grip. The inconceivable had happened.
+He no longer desired her. The woman who had haunted his thoughts for
+over two years, for whom he had made quixotic sacrifices, for whom he
+had made a mat of his great body so that she should tread stony paths
+without hurt to her delicate feet, was his now for the taking--nobly
+self-offered--and with all the world as an apanage he could not have
+taken her. The phenomenon of sex he could not explain. Once he had
+desired her passionately. The ivory-white of her daintiness had fired
+his blood. He had fought with beasts. He had wrestled with his soul in
+the night watches. He had loved her purely and sweetly, too. But now, as
+she stood before him, recoiling a little from his fixed stare of pain,
+though she had suffered but little loss in beauty and in that of her
+which was desirable, he realised, in a kind of paralysis, that he
+desired her no more, that he loved her no more with the idealised love
+he had given to the elfin princess of his dreams. Not that he would not
+still do her infinite service. The pathos of her broken life moved him
+to an anguish of pity. For her soothing he would give all that life held
+for him, save one thing--which was no longer his to give. Another man
+glib of tongue and crafty of brain might have lied his way out of an
+abominable situation. But Jaffery's craft was of the simplest. He could
+not trick the dead love into smiling semblance of life. His nature was
+too primitive. He could only stare in spellbound affright at the icy
+barrier that separated him from Doria.
+
+"I see," she said tonelessly, moving slowly away from him. "Your
+feelings have changed. I am sorry."
+
+Then he found power of motion and speech. He threw out his arms. "My
+God, dear, forgive me!" he groaned, and sat down and clutched his head
+in his hands. She returned to the window and looked out at the rain. And
+there she fought with her woman's indignant humiliation. And there was a
+long, dead silence, broken only by the faintly heard notes of Susan's
+piano in the nursery and the splash of water on the terrace.
+
+Presently all that was good in Doria conquered. She crossed the room and
+laid a light hand on Jaffery's head. It was the finest moment in her
+life.
+
+"One can't help these things. I know it too well. And no hearts are
+broken. So it's all for the best."
+
+He groaned again. "I didn't know. I'd like to shoot myself."
+
+She smiled, conscious of feminine superiority. "If you did, I should
+die, too. I tell you, it's all for the best. I love you as I never loved
+you before. I usen't to love you a little bit. But I should have had to
+learn to love you as a wife--and it might have been difficult."
+
+A moment afterwards she appeared in the library, serenely
+matter-of-fact. Liosha started round in her chair and looked defiantly
+at her rival.
+
+"Would both of you mind coming into the drawing-room for a minute?"
+
+We followed her. She held the door, which I was about to shut, and left
+it open. Before Jaffery had time to rise at our entrance, I caught sight
+of him sitting as she had left him, great clumps of his red hair
+sticking through his fingers. His face was a picture of woe. I can
+imagine nothing more like it than that of a conscience smitten lion.
+Doria ran her arm through mine and kept me near the doorway.
+
+"I've asked Jaffery to marry me," she said, in a steady voice, "and he
+doesn't want to. It's because he loves a much better woman and wants to
+marry her."
+
+Then while Jaffery and Liosha gasped in blank astonishment, she swung me
+abruptly out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
+
+"There," she said, and flung up her little bead, "what do you think of
+that?"
+
+"Magnificent," said I, "but bewildering. Did Jaffery really--?"
+
+In a few words, she put me into possession of the bare facts.
+
+"I'm not sorry," she added. "Sometimes I love Jaffery--because he's so
+lovable. Sometimes I hate him--because--oh, well--because of Adrian. You
+can't understand."
+
+"I'm not altogether a fool," said I.
+
+"Well, that's how it is. I would have worn myself to death to try to
+make him happy. You believe me?"
+
+"I do indeed, my dear," I replied. And I replied with unshakable
+conviction. She was a woman who once having come under the domination of
+an idea would obey it blindly, ruthlessly, marching straight onwards,
+looking neither to right nor left. The very virtue that had made her
+overcruel to him in the past would have made her overkind to him in the
+future. Unwittingly she had used a phrase startlingly true. She would
+have worn herself to death in her determination to please. Incidentally
+she would have driven him mad with conscientious dutifulness.
+
+"He would have found no fault with me that I could help," she said. "But
+we needn't speak of it any more. I'm not the woman for him. Liosha is.
+It's all over. I'm glad. At any rate, I've made atonement--at least,
+I've tried--as far as things lay in my power."
+
+I took both her hands, greatly moved by her courage.
+
+"And what's going to happen to you, my dear?"
+
+"Now that all this is straight," she replied, with a faint smile, "I can
+turn round and remake my life. You and Barbara will help."
+
+"With all our hearts," said I.
+
+"It won't be so hard for you, ever again, I promise. I shall be more
+reasonable. And the first favour I'll ask you, dear Hilary, is to let me
+go this afternoon. It would be a bit of a strain on me to stay."
+
+"I know, my dear," I said. "The car is at your service."
+
+"Oh, no! I'll go by train."
+
+"You'll do as you're told, young woman, and go by car."
+
+At this rubbishy speech, the tears, for the first time, came into her
+eyes. She pulled down my shoulders--I am rather lank and tall--and
+kissed me.
+
+"You're a dear," she said, and went off in search of Barbara.
+
+I returned to my library, rang the bell, and gave orders for the
+chauffeur to stand at Mrs. Boldero's disposal. Then I sat down at a
+loose end, very much like a young professional man, doctor or
+estate-agent, waiting for the next client. And like the young
+professional man at a loose end, I made a pretence of looking through
+papers. Presently I became aware that I only had to open a window in
+order to summon a couple of clients at once. For there in the gathering
+November dusk and in the rain--it had ceased pouring, but it was
+drizzling, and therefore it was rain--I saw our pair of delectable
+savages strolling across the wet, sodden lawn, in loverlike proximity,
+for all the world as though it were a flowery mead in May. I might have
+summoned them, but it would have been an unprofessional thing to do.
+Instead, I drew my curtains and turned on the light, and continued to
+wait. I waited a long time. At last Barbara rushed in.
+
+"Doria's ready."
+
+"You've heard all about it?" She nodded. "I said there would be no
+marriage," I remarked blandly.
+
+"You said she wouldn't marry him. I said she would. And so she would, if
+he had let her. I know you're prepared to argue," she said, rather
+excitedly, "but it's no use. I was right all the time."
+
+I yielded.
+
+"You're always right, my dear," said I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That is practically all, up to the present, that I have to tell you
+about Jaffery. What words passed between him and Liosha in the
+drawing-room I have never known. Jaffery, with conscience still sore,
+and childishly anxious that I should not account him a traitor and a
+scoundrel, and a brute too despicable for human touch, told me, as I
+have already stated, over and over again, until I yawned for weariness
+in the small hours of the morning, what had taken place in his
+staggering interview with Doria; but as regards Liosha, he was shyly
+evasive. After all, I fancy, it was a very simple affair. She had told
+me bluntly that when the two men, Jaffery and Prescott, rode into the
+scene of Balkan desolation in which she was the central figure, Jaffery
+was the one who caused her heart to throb. And in her chaste, proud way
+she had loved him ever since that extraordinary moment. And though
+Jaffery has never confessed it, I am absolutely certain that, just as
+Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose, _sans le savoir_, so, without knowing it,
+was Jaffery in love with Liosha when she drove away from Northlands in
+Mr. Ras Fendihook's car. Perhaps before. _Quien sabe?_ But he imagined
+himself to be in love with a moonbeam. And the moonbeam shot like a
+glamorous, enchanted sword between him and Liosha, and kept them apart
+until the moment of dazed revelation, when he saw that the moonbeam
+was merely a pale, earnest, anxious, suffering little human thing, alien
+to his every instinct, a firmament away, in every vital essential, from
+the goddess of his idolatry.
+
+[Illustration: There is war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery is there as
+war correspondent. Liosha is there, too.]
+
+That is how I explain--and I have puzzled my head into aching over any
+other possible explanation--the attitude of Jaffery towards Liosha on
+the _Vesta_ voyage. Well, my conjectures are of not much value. I have
+done my best to put the facts, as I know them, before you; and if you
+are interested in the matter you can go on conjecturing to your heart's
+content. "Look here, my friend," said I, as soon as I could attune my
+mind to new conditions, "what about your new novel?"
+
+He frowned portentously. "It can go to blazes!" "Aren't you going to
+finish it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you must. Don't you realise that you're a born novelist?"
+
+"Don't you realise," he growled, "that you're a born fool?"
+
+"I don't," said I.
+
+He walked about the library in his space--occupying way.
+
+"I'm going to tear the damned thing up! I'm never going to write a novel
+again. I cut it out altogether. It's the least I can do for her."
+
+"Isn't that rather quixotic?" I asked.
+
+"Suppose it is. What have you to say against it?"
+
+"Nothing," said I.
+
+"Well, keep on saying it," replied Jaffery, with the steel flash in his
+eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were married. Our vicar performed the ceremony. I gave the bride
+away. Liosha revealed the feminine kink in her otherwise splendid
+character by insisting on the bridal panoply of white satin, veil and
+orange blossoms. I confess she looked superb. She looked like a Valkyr.
+A leather-visaged war correspondent, named Burchester, whom I had never
+seen before, and have not seen since, acted as best man. Susan, tense
+with the responsibilities of office, was the only bridesmaid. Mrs. Jupp
+(late Considine) and her General were our only guests. Doria excused
+herself from attendance, but sent the bride a travelling-case fitted
+with a myriad dazzling gold-stoppered bottles and a phantasmagoria of
+gold-mounted toilette implements.
+
+And then they went on their honeymoon. And where do you think they went?
+They signed again on the steamship _Vesta_. And Captain Maturin gave
+them his cabin, which is more than I would have done, and slept, I
+presume, in the dog-hole. And they were as happy as the ship was
+abominable.
+
+Now, as I write, there is a war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery is
+there as the correspondent of _The Daily Gazette_. Liosha is there, too,
+as the inseparable and peculiarly invaluable companion of Jaffery
+Chayne. They live impossible lives. But what has that got to do with you
+or me? They like it. They adore it. A more radiantly mated pair the
+earth cannot produce. Their two-year-old son is learning the practice of
+the heroic virtues at Cettinje, while his parents loaf about
+battlefields in full eruption.
+
+"Poor little mite!" says Barbara.
+
+But I say:
+
+"Lucky little Pantagruel!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jaffery, by William J. Locke
+
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