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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Tales, by John Galsworthy
+
+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.net
+
+
+Title: Five Tales
+
+Author: John Galsworthy
+
+Release Date: September 25, 2004 [EBook #2684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+FIVE TALES
+
+
+by John Galsworthy
+
+
+"Life calls the tune, we dance."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+THE FIRST AND LAST THE FIRST AND LAST
+
+A STOIC A STOIC
+
+THE APPLE TREE THE APPLE TREE
+
+THE JURYMAN THE JURYMAN
+
+INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE  [Also posted as Etext #2594]
+
+[In this 1919 edition of "Five Tales" the fifth tale was "Indian
+Summer of a Forsyte;" in later collections, "Indian Summer..." became
+the first section of the second volume of The Forsyte Saga]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST AND LAST
+
+"So the last shall be first, and the first last."--HOLY WRIT.
+
+
+
+It was a dark room at that hour of six in the evening, when just the
+
+single oil reading-lamp under its green shade let fall a dapple of light
+over the Turkey carpet; over the covers of books taken out of the
+bookshelves, and the open pages of the one selected; over the deep blue
+and gold of the coffee service on the little old stool with its Oriental
+embroidery.  Very dark in the winter, with drawn curtains, many rows of
+leather-bound volumes, oak-panelled walls and ceiling.  So large, too,
+that the lighted spot before the fire where he sat was just an oasis.
+But that was what Keith Darrant liked, after his day's work--the hard
+early morning study of his "cases," the fret and strain of the day in
+court; it was his rest, these two hours before dinner, with books,
+coffee, a pipe, and sometimes a nap. In red Turkish slippers and his old
+brown velvet coat, he was well suited to that framing of glow and
+darkness.  A painter would have seized avidly on his clear-cut, yellowish
+face, with its black eyebrows twisting up over eyes--grey or brown, one
+could hardly tell, and its dark grizzling hair still plentiful, in spite
+of those daily hours of wig.  He seldom thought of his work while he sat
+there, throwing off with practised ease the strain of that long attention
+to the multiple threads of argument and evidence to be disentangled--work
+profoundly interesting, as a rule, to his clear intellect, trained to
+almost instinctive rejection of all but the essential, to selection of
+what was legally vital out of the mass of confused tactical and human
+detail presented to his scrutiny; yet sometimes tedious and wearing.  As
+for instance to-day, when he had suspected his client of perjury, and was
+almost convinced that he must throw up his brief.  He had disliked the
+weak-looking, white-faced fellow from the first, and his nervous, shifty
+answers, his prominent startled eyes--a type too common in these days of
+canting tolerations and weak humanitarianism; no good, no good!
+
+Of the three books he had taken down, a Volume of Voltaire--curious
+fascination that Frenchman had, for all his destructive irony!--a volume
+of Burton's travels, and Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights," he had pitched
+upon the last.  He felt, that evening, the want of something sedative, a
+desire to rest from thought of any kind.  The court had been crowded,
+stuffy; the air, as he walked home, soft, sou'-westerly, charged with
+coming moisture, no quality of vigour in it; he felt relaxed, tired, even
+nervy, and for once the loneliness of his house seemed strange and
+comfortless.
+
+Lowering the lamp, he turned his face towards the fire.  Perhaps he would
+get a sleep before that boring dinner at the Tellasson's.  He wished it
+were vacation, and Maisie back from school.  A widower for many years, he
+had lost the habit of a woman about him; yet to-night he had a positive
+yearning for the society of his young daughter, with her quick ways, and
+bright, dark eyes.  Curious what perpetual need of a woman some men had!
+His brother Laurence--wasted--all through women--atrophy of willpower!  A
+man on the edge of things; living from hand to mouth; his gifts all down
+at heel!  One would have thought the Scottish strain might have saved
+him; and yet, when a Scotsman did begin to go downhill, who could go
+faster?  Curious that their mother's blood should have worked so
+differently in her two sons.  He himself had always felt he owed all his
+success to it.
+
+His thoughts went off at a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal
+conscience.  He had not wavered in the usual assumption of omniscience,
+but he was by no means sure that he had given right advice.  Well!
+Without that power to decide and hold to decision in spite of misgiving,
+one would never have been fit for one's position at the Bar, never have
+been fit for anything.  The longer he lived, the more certain he became
+of the prime necessity of virile and decisive action in all the affairs
+of life.  A word and a blow--and the blow first!  Doubts, hesitations,
+sentiment the muling and puking of this twilight age--!  And there welled
+up on his handsome face a smile that was almost devilish--the tricks of
+firelight are so many!  It faded again in sheer drowsiness; he slept....
+
+He woke with a start, having a feeling of something out beyond the light,
+and without turning his head said: "What's that?"  There came a sound as
+if somebody had caught his breath.  He turned up the lamp.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+A voice over by the door answered:
+
+"Only I--Larry."
+
+Something in the tone, or perhaps just being startled out of sleep like
+this, made him shiver.  He said:
+
+"I was asleep.  Come in!"
+
+It was noticeable that he did not get up, or even turn his head, now that
+he knew who it was, but waited, his half-closed eyes fixed on the fire,
+for his brother to come forward.  A visit from Laurence was not an
+unmixed blessing.  He could hear him breathing, and became conscious of a
+scent of whisky.  Why could not the fellow at least abstain when he was
+coming here!  It was so childish, so lacking in any sense of proportion
+or of decency!  And he said sharply:
+
+"Well, Larry, what is it?"
+
+It was always something.  He often wondered at the strength of that sense
+of trusteeship, which kept him still tolerant of the troubles, amenable
+to the petitions of this brother of his; or was it just "blood" feeling,
+a Highland sense of loyalty to kith and kin; an old-time quality which
+judgment and half his instincts told him was weakness but which, in spite
+of all, bound him to the distressful fellow?  Was he drunk now, that he
+kept lurking out there by the door?  And he said less sharply:
+
+"Why don't you come and sit down?"
+
+He was coming now, avoiding the light, skirting along the walls just
+beyond the radiance of the lamp, his feet and legs to the waist brightly
+lighted, but his face disintegrated in shadow, like the face of a dark
+ghost.
+
+"Are you ill, man?"
+
+Still no answer, save a shake of that head, and the passing up of a hand,
+out of the light, to the ghostly forehead under the dishevelled hair.
+The scent of whisky was stronger now; and Keith thought:
+
+'He really is drunk.  Nice thing for the new butler to see!  If he can't
+behave--'
+
+The figure against the wall heaved a sigh--so truly from an overburdened
+heart that Keith was conscious with a certain dismay of not having yet
+fathomed the cause of this uncanny silence.  He got up, and, back to the
+fire, said with a brutality born of nerves rather than design:
+
+"What is it, man?  Have you committed a murder, that you stand there dumb
+as a fish?"
+
+For a second no answer at all, not even of breathing; then, just the
+whisper:
+
+"Yes."
+
+The sense of unreality which so helps one at moments of disaster enabled
+Keith to say vigorously:
+
+"By Jove!  You have been drinking!"
+
+But it passed at once into deadly apprehension.
+
+"What do you mean?  Come here, where I can see you.  What's the matter
+with you, Larry?"
+
+With a sudden lurch and dive, his brother left the shelter of the shadow,
+and sank into a chair in the circle of light.  And another long, broken
+sigh escaped him.
+
+"There's nothing the matter with me, Keith!  It's true!"
+
+Keith stepped quickly forward, and stared down into his brother's face;
+and instantly he saw that it was true.  No one could have simulated the
+look in those eyes--of horrified wonder, as if they would never again get
+on terms with the face to which they belonged. To see them squeezed the
+heart-only real misery could look like that. Then that sudden pity became
+angry bewilderment.
+
+"What in God's name is this nonsense?"
+
+But it was significant that he lowered his voice; went over to the door,
+too, to see if it were shut.  Laurence had drawn his chair forward,
+huddling over the fire--a thin figure, a worn, high-cheekboned face with
+deep-sunk blue eyes, and wavy hair all ruffled, a face that still had a
+certain beauty.  Putting a hand on that lean shoulder, Keith said:
+
+"Come, Larry!  Pull yourself together, and drop exaggeration."
+
+"It's true; I tell you; I've killed a man."
+
+The noisy violence of that outburst acted like a douche.  What was the
+fellow about--shouting out such words!  But suddenly Laurence lifted his
+hands and wrung them.  The gesture was so utterly painful that it drew a
+quiver from Keith's face.
+
+"Why did you come here," he said, "and tell me this?"
+
+Larry's face was really unearthly sometimes, such strange gleams passed
+up on to it!
+
+"Whom else should I tell?  I came to know what I'm to do, Keith?  Give
+myself up, or what?"
+
+At that sudden introduction of the practical Keith felt his heart twitch.
+Was it then as real as all that?  But he said, very quietly:
+
+"Just tell me--How did it come about, this--affair?"
+
+That question linked the dark, gruesome, fantastic nightmare on to
+actuality.
+
+"When did it happen?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+In Larry's face there was--there had always been--something childishly
+truthful.  He would never stand a chance in court!  And Keith said:
+
+"How?  Where?  You'd better tell me quietly from the beginning. Drink
+this coffee; it'll clear your head."
+
+Laurence took the little blue cup and drained it.
+
+"Yes," he said.  "It's like this, Keith.  There's a girl I've known for
+some months now--"
+
+Women!  And Keith said between his teeth: "Well?"
+
+"Her father was a Pole who died over here when she was sixteen, and left
+her all alone.  A man called Walenn, a mongrel American, living in the
+same house, married her, or pretended to--she's very pretty, Keith--he
+left her with a baby six months old, and another coming. That one died,
+and she did nearly.  Then she starved till another fellow took her on.
+She lived with him two years; then Walenn turned up again, and made her
+go back to him.  The brute used to beat her black and blue, all for
+nothing.  Then he left her again.  When I met her she'd lost her elder
+child, too, and was taking anybody who came along."
+
+He suddenly looked up into Keith's face.
+
+"But I've never met a sweeter woman, nor a truer, that I swear. Woman!
+She's only twenty now!  When I went to her last night, that brute--that
+Walenn--had found her out again; and when he came for me, swaggering and
+bullying--Look!"--he touched a dark mark on his forehead--"I took his
+throat in my hands, and when I let go--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Dead.  I never knew till afterwards that she was hanging on to him
+behind."
+
+Again he made that gesture-wringing his hands.
+
+In a hard voice Keith said:
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"We sat by it a long time.  Then I carried it on my back down the street,
+round a corner to an archway."
+
+"How far?"
+
+"About fifty yards."
+
+"Was anyone--did anyone see?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What time?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Went back to her."
+
+"Why--in Heaven's name?"
+
+"She was lonely and afraid; so was I, Keith."
+
+"Where is this place?"
+
+"Forty-two, Borrow Street, Soho."
+
+"And the archway?"
+
+"Corner of Glove Lane."
+
+"Good God!  Why--I saw it in the paper!"
+
+And seizing the journal that lay on his bureau, Keith read again that
+paragraph: "The body of a man was found this morning under an archway in
+Glove Lane, Soho.  From marks about the throat grave suspicions of foul
+play are entertained.  The body had apparently been robbed, and nothing
+was discovered leading to identification."
+
+It was real earnest, then.  Murder!  His own brother!  He faced round and
+said:
+
+"You saw this in the paper, and dreamed it.  Understand--you dreamed it!"
+
+The wistful answer came:
+
+"If only I had, Keith--if only I had!"
+
+In his turn, Keith very nearly wrung his hands.
+
+"Did you take anything from the--body?"
+
+"This dropped while we were struggling.",
+
+It was an empty envelope with a South American post-mark addressed:
+"Patrick Walenn, Simon's Hotel, Farrier Street, London." Again with that
+twitching in his heart, Keith said:
+
+"Put it in the fire."
+
+Then suddenly he stooped to pluck it out.  By that command--he
+had--identified himself with this--this--But he did not pluck it out.  It
+blackened, writhed, and vanished.  And once more he said:
+
+"What in God's name made you come here and tell me?"
+
+"You know about these things.  I didn't mean to kill him.  I love the
+girl.  What shall I do, Keith?
+
+"Simple!  How simple!  To ask what he was to do!  It was like Larry!  And
+he said:
+
+"You were not seen, you think?"  "It's a dark street.  There was no one
+about."
+
+"When did you leave this girl the second time?"
+
+"About seven o'clock."
+
+"Where did you go?"
+
+"To my rooms."
+
+"In Fitzroy Street?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did anyone see you come in?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What have you done since?"
+
+"Sat there."
+
+"Not been out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not seen the girl?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You don't know, then, what she's done since?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Would she give you away?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Would she give herself away--hysteria?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who knows of your relations with her?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"No one?"
+
+"I don't know who should, Keith."
+
+"Did anyone see you going in last night, when you first went to her?"
+
+"No.  She lives on the ground floor.  I've got keys."
+
+"Give them to me.  What else have you that connects you with her?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"In your rooms?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No photographs.  No letters?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Be careful."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"No one saw you going back to her the second time?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No one saw you leave her in the morning?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were fortunate.  Sit down again, man.  I must think."
+
+Think!  Think out this accursed thing--so beyond all thought, and all
+belief.  But he could not think.  Not a coherent thought would come. And
+he began again:
+
+"Was it his first reappearance with her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She told you so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How did he find out where she was?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"How drunk were you?"
+
+"I was not drunk."
+
+"How much had you drunk?"
+
+"About two bottles of claret--nothing."
+
+"You say you didn't mean to kill him?"
+
+"No-God knows!"
+
+"That's something."
+
+What made you choose the arch?"
+
+"It was the first dark place."
+
+"Did his face look as if he had been strangled?"
+
+"Don't!"
+
+"Did it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very disfigured?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you look to see if his clothes were marked?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not?  My God!  If you had done it!"
+
+"You say he was disfigured.  Would he be recognisable?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When she lived with him last--where was that?"
+
+"I don't know for certain.  Pimlico, I think."
+
+"Not Soho?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How long has she been at the Soho place?"
+
+"Nearly a year."
+
+"Always the same rooms?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is there anyone living in that house or street who would be likely to
+know her as his wife?"
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"What was he?"
+
+"I should think he was a professional 'bully.'"
+
+"I see.  Spending most of his time abroad, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know if he was known to the police?"
+
+"I haven't heard of it."
+
+"Now, listen, Larry.  When you leave here go straight home, and don't go
+out till I come to you, to-morrow morning.  Promise that!"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"I've got a dinner engagement.  I'll think this out.  Don't drink. Don't
+talk!  Pull yourself together."
+
+"Don't keep me longer than you can help, Keith!"
+
+That white face, those eyes, that shaking hand!  With a twinge of pity in
+the midst of all the turbulence of his revolt, and fear, and disgust
+Keith put his hand on his brother's shoulder, and said:
+
+"Courage!"
+
+And suddenly he thought: 'My God!  Courage!  I shall want it all myself!'
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Laurence Darrant, leaving his brother's house in the Adelphi, walked
+northwards, rapidly, slowly, rapidly again.  For, if there are men who by
+force of will do one thing only at a time, there are men who from lack of
+will do now one thing, now another; with equal intensity.  To such
+natures, to be gripped by the Nemesis which attends the lack of
+self-control is no reason for being more self-controlled.  Rather does it
+foster their pet feeling: "What matter?  To-morrow we die!"  The effort of
+will required to go to Keith had relieved, exhausted and exasperated him.
+In accordance with those three feelings was the progress of his walk.  He
+started from the door with the fixed resolve to go home and stay there
+quietly till Keith came.  He was in Keith's hands, Keith would know what
+was to be done.  But he had not gone three hundred yards before he felt
+so utterly weary, body and soul, that if he had but had a pistol in his
+pocket he would have shot himself in the street.  Not even the thought of
+the girl--this young unfortunate with her strange devotion, who had kept
+him straight these last five months, who had roused in him a depth of
+feeling he had never known before--would have availed against that sudden
+black defection.  Why go on--a waif at the mercy of his own nature, a
+straw blown here and there by every gust which rose in him?  Why not have
+done with it for ever, and take it out in sleep?
+
+He was approaching the fatal street, where he and the girl, that early
+morning, had spent the hours clutched together, trying in the refuge of
+love to forget for a moment their horror and fear.  Should he go in?  He
+had promised Keith not to.  Why had he promised?  He caught sight of
+himself in a chemist's lighted window.  Miserable, shadowy brute!  And he
+remembered suddenly a dog he had picked up once in the streets of Pera, a
+black-and-white creature--different from the other dogs, not one of their
+breed, a pariah of pariahs, who had strayed there somehow.  He had taken
+it home to the house where he was staying, contrary to all custom of the
+country; had got fond of it; had shot it himself, sooner than leave it
+behind again to the mercies of its own kind in the streets.  Twelve years
+ago!  And those sleevelinks made of little Turkish coins he had brought
+back for the girl at the hairdresser's in Chancery Lane where he used to
+get shaved--pretty creature, like a wild rose.  He had asked of her a
+kiss for payment.  What queer emotion when she put her face forward to
+his lips--a sort of passionate tenderness and shame, at the softness and
+warmth of that flushed cheek, at her beauty and trustful gratitude.  She
+would soon have given herself to him--that one!  He had never gone there
+again!  And to this day he did not know why he had abstained; to this day
+he did not know whether he were glad or sorry not to have plucked that
+rose.  He must surely have been very different then!  Queer business,
+life--queer, queer business!--to go through it never knowing what you
+would do next.  Ah! to be like Keith, steady, buttoned-up in success; a
+brass pot, a pillar of society!  Once, as a boy, he had been within an
+ace of killing Keith, for sneering at him.  Once in Southern Italy he had
+been near killing a driver who was flogging his horse.  And now, that
+dark-faced, swinish bully who had ruined the girl he had grown to
+love--he had done it!  Killed him!  Killed a man!
+
+He who did not want to hurt a fly.  The chemist's window comforted him
+with the sudden thought that he had at home that which made him safe, in
+case they should arrest him.  He would never again go out without some of
+those little white tablets sewn into the lining of his coat.  Restful,
+even exhilarating thought!  They said a man should not take his own life.
+Let them taste horror--those glib citizens!  Let them live as that girl
+had lived, as millions lived all the world over, under their canting
+dogmas!  A man might rather even take his life than watch their cursed
+inhumanities.
+
+He went into the chemist's for a bromide; and, while the man was mixing
+it, stood resting one foot like a tired horse.  The "life" he had
+squeezed out of that fellow!  After all, a billion living creatures gave
+up life each day, had it squeezed out of them, mostly. And perhaps not
+one a day deserved death so much as that loathly fellow.  Life! a
+breath--aflame!  Nothing!  Why, then, this icy clutching at his heart?
+
+The chemist brought the draught.
+
+"Not sleeping, sir?"
+
+"No."
+
+The man's eyes seemed to say: 'Yes!  Burning the candle at both ends--I
+know!' Odd life, a chemist's; pills and powders all day long, to hold the
+machinery of men together!  Devilish odd trade!
+
+In going out he caught the reflection of his face in a mirror; it seemed
+too good altogether for a man who had committed murder.  There was a sort
+of brightness underneath, an amiability lurking about its shadows;
+how--how could it be the face of a man who had done what he had done?
+His head felt lighter now, his feet lighter; he walked rapidly again.
+
+Curious feeling of relief and oppression all at once!  Frightful--to long
+for company, for talk, for distraction; and--to be afraid of it!  The
+girl--the girl and Keith were now the only persons who would not give him
+that feeling of dread.  And, of those two--Keith was not...!  Who could
+consort with one who was never wrong, a successful, righteous fellow; a
+chap built so that he knew nothing about himself, wanted to know nothing,
+a chap all solid actions?  To be a quicksand swallowing up one's own
+resolutions was bad enough!  But to be like Keith--all willpower,
+marching along, treading down his own feelings and weaknesses!  No!  One
+could not make a comrade of a man like Keith, even if he were one's
+brother?  The only creature in all the world was the girl.  She alone
+knew and felt what he was feeling; would put up with him and love him
+whatever he did, or was done to him.  He stopped and took shelter in a
+doorway, to light a cigarette. He had suddenly a fearful wish to pass the
+archway where he had placed the body; a fearful wish that had no sense,
+no end in view, no anything; just an insensate craving to see the dark
+place again.  He crossed Borrow Street to the little lane.  There was
+only one person visible, a man on the far side with his shoulders hunched
+against the wind; a short, dark figure which crossed and came towards him
+in the flickering lamplight.  What a face!  Yellow, ravaged, clothed
+almost to the eyes in a stubbly greyish growth of beard, with blackish
+teeth, and haunting bloodshot eyes.  And what a figure of rags--one
+shoulder higher than the other, one leg a little lame, and thin!  A surge
+of feeling came up in Laurence for this creature, more unfortunate than
+himself.  There were lower depths than his!
+
+"Well, brother," he said, "you don't look too prosperous!"
+
+The smile which gleamed out on the man's face seemed as unlikely as a
+smile on a scarecrow.
+
+"Prosperity doesn't come my way," he said in a rusty voice.  "I'm a
+failure--always been a failure.  And yet you wouldn't think it, would
+you?--I was a minister of religion once."
+
+Laurence held out a shilling.  But the man shook his head.
+
+"Keep your money," he said.  "I've got more than you to-day, I daresay.
+But thank you for taking a little interest.  That's worth more than money
+to a man that's down."
+
+"You're right."
+
+"Yes," the rusty voice went on; "I'd as soon die as go on living as I do.
+And now I've lost my self-respect.  Often wondered how long a starving
+man could go without losing his self-respect.  Not so very long.  You
+take my word for that."  And without the slightest change in the monotony
+of that creaking voice he added:
+
+"Did you read of the murder?  Just here.  I've been looking at the
+place."
+
+The words: 'So have I!' leaped up to Laurence's lips; he choked them down
+with a sort of terror.
+
+"I wish you better luck," he said.  "Goodnight!" and hurried away.  A
+sort of ghastly laughter was forcing its way up in his throat.  Was
+everyone talking of the murder he had committed?  Even the very
+scarecrows?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+There are some natures so constituted that, due to be hung at ten
+o'clock, they will play chess at eight.  Such men invariably rise. They
+make especially good bishops, editors, judges, impresarios, Prime
+ministers, money-lenders, and generals; in fact, fill with exceptional
+credit any position of power over their fellow-men.  They have spiritual
+cold storage, in which are preserved their nervous systems.  In such men
+there is little or none of that fluid sense and continuity of feeling
+known under those vague terms, speculation, poetry, philosophy.  Men of
+facts and of decision switching imagination on and off at will,
+subordinating sentiment to reason... one does not think of them when
+watching wind ripple over cornfields, or swallows flying.
+
+Keith Darrant had need for being of that breed during his dinner at the
+Tellassons.  It was just eleven when he issued from the big house in
+Portland Place and refrained from taking a cab.  He wanted to walk that
+he might better think.  What crude and wanton irony there was in his
+situation!  To have been made father-confessor to a murderer, he--well on
+towards a judgeship!  With his contempt for the kind of weakness which
+landed men in such abysses, he felt it all so sordid, so "impossible,"
+that he could hardly bring his mind to bear on it at all.  And yet he
+must, because of two powerful instincts--self-preservation and
+blood-loyalty.
+
+The wind had still the sapping softness of the afternoon, but rain had
+held off so far.  It was warm, and he unbuttoned his fur overcoat.  The
+nature of his thoughts deepened the dark austerity of his face, whose
+thin, well-cut lips were always pressing together, as if, by meeting, to
+dispose of each thought as it came up.  He moved along the crowded
+pavements glumly.  That air of festive conspiracy which drops with the
+darkness on to lighted streets, galled him.  He turned off on a darker
+route.
+
+This ghastly business!  Convinced of its reality, he yet could not see
+it.  The thing existed in his mind, not as a picture, but as a piece of
+irrefutable evidence.  Larry had not meant to do it, of course.  But it
+was murder, all the same.  Men like Larry--weak, impulsive, sentimental,
+introspective creatures--did they ever mean what they did?  This man,
+this Walenn, was, by all accounts, better dead than alive; no need to
+waste a thought on him!  But, crime--the ugliness--Justice unsatisfied!
+Crime concealed--and his own share in the concealment!  And yet--brother
+to brother!  Surely no one could demand action from him!  It was only a
+question of what he was going to advise Larry to do.  To keep silent, and
+disappear?  Had that a chance of success?  Perhaps if the answers to his
+questions had been correct.  But this girl!  Suppose the dead man's
+relationship to her were ferreted out, could she be relied on not to
+endanger Larry?  These women were all the same, unstable as water,
+emotional, shiftless pests of society.  Then, too, a crime untracked,
+dogging all his brother's after life; a secret following him wherever he
+might vanish to; hanging over him, watching for some drunken moment, to
+slip out of his lips.  It was bad to think of.  A clean breast of it?
+But his heart twitched within him.  "Brother of Mr. Keith Darrant, the
+well-known King's Counsel"--visiting a woman of the town, strangling with
+his bare hands the woman's husband!  No intention to murder, but--a dead
+man!  A dead man carried out of the house, laid under a dark archway!
+Provocation!  Recommended to mercy--penal servitude for life!  Was that
+the advice he was going to give Larry to-morrow morning?
+
+And he had a sudden vision of shaven men with clay-coloured features,
+run, as it were, to seed, as he had seen them once in Pentonville, when
+he had gone there to visit a prisoner.  Larry!  Whom, as a baby creature,
+he had watched straddling; whom, as a little fellow, he had fagged; whom
+he had seen through scrapes at college; to whom he had lent money time
+and again, and time and again admonished in his courses.  Larry!  Five
+years younger than himself; and committed to his charge by their mother
+when she died.  To become for life one of those men with faces like
+diseased plants; with no hair but a bushy stubble; with arrows marked on
+their yellow clothes!  Larry!  One of those men herded like sheep; at the
+beck and call of common men!  A gentleman, his own brother, to live that
+slave's life, to be ordered here and there, year after year, day in, day
+out.  Something snapped within him.  He could not give that advice.
+Impossible!  But if not, he must make sure of his ground, must verify,
+must know.  This Glove Lane--this arch way?  It would not be far from
+where he was that very moment.  He looked for someone of whom to make
+enquiry.  A policeman was standing at the corner, his stolid face
+illumined by a lamp; capable and watchful--an excellent officer, no
+doubt; but, turning his head away, Keith passed him without a word.
+Strange to feel that cold, uneasy feeling in presence of the law!  A grim
+little driving home of what it all meant!  Then, suddenly, he saw that
+the turning to his left was Borrow Street itself.  He walked up one side,
+crossed over, and returned.  He passed Number Forty-two, a small house
+with business names printed on the lifeless windows of the first and
+second floors; with dark curtained windows on the ground floor, or was
+there just a slink of light in one corner?  Which way had Larry turned?
+Which way under that grisly burden?  Fifty paces of this squalid
+street-narrow, and dark, and empty, thank heaven!  Glove Lane!  Here it
+was!  A tiny runlet of a street.  And here--!  He had run right on to the
+arch, a brick bridge connecting two portions of a warehouse, and dark
+indeed.
+
+"That's right, gov'nor!  That's the place!"  He needed all his
+self-control to turn leisurely to the speaker.  "'Ere's where they found
+the body--very spot leanin' up 'ere.  They ain't got 'im yet. Lytest--me
+lord!"
+
+It was a ragged boy holding out a tattered yellowish journal.  His lynx
+eyes peered up from under lanky wisps of hair, and his voice had the
+proprietary note of one making "a corner" in his news.  Keith took the
+paper and gave him twopence.  He even found a sort of comfort in the
+young ghoul's hanging about there; it meant that others besides himself
+had come morbidly to look.  By the dim lamplight he read: "Glove Lane
+garrotting mystery.  Nothing has yet been discovered of the murdered
+man's identity; from the cut of his clothes he is supposed to be a
+foreigner."  The boy had vanished, and Keith saw the figure of a
+policeman coming slowly down this gutter of a street.  A second's
+hesitation, and he stood firm.  Nothing obviously could have brought him
+here save this "mystery," and he stayed quietly staring at the arch.  The
+policeman moved up abreast. Keith saw that he was the one whom he had
+passed just now.  He noted the cold offensive question die out of the
+man's eyes when they caught the gleam of white shirt-front under the
+opened fur collar. And holding up the paper, he said:
+
+"Is this where the man was found?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Still a mystery, I see?"
+
+"Well, we can't always go by the papers.  But I don't fancy they do know
+much about it, yet."
+
+"Dark spot.  Do fellows sleep under here?"
+
+The policeman nodded.  "There's not an arch in London where we don't get
+'em sometimes."
+
+"Nothing found on him--I think I read?"
+
+"Not a copper.  Pockets inside out.  There's some funny characters about
+this quarter.  Greeks, Hitalians--all sorts."
+
+Queer sensation this, of being glad of a policeman's confidential tone!
+
+"Well, good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, sir.  Good-night!"
+
+He looked back from Borrow Street.  The policeman was still standing
+there holding up his lantern, so that its light fell into the archway, as
+if trying to read its secret.
+
+Now that he had seen this dark, deserted spot, the chances seemed to him
+much better.  "Pockets inside out!"  Either Larry had had presence of
+mind to do a very clever thing, or someone had been at the body before
+the police found it.  That was the more likely.  A dead backwater of a
+place.  At three o'clock--loneliest of all hours--Larry's five minutes'
+grim excursion to and fro might well have passed unseen!  Now, it all
+depended on the girl; on whether Laurence had been seen coming to her or
+going away; on whether, if the man's relationship to her were discovered,
+she could be relied on to say nothing.  There was not a soul in Borrow
+Street now; hardly even a lighted window; and he took one of those rather
+desperate decisions only possible to men daily accustomed to the instant
+taking of responsibility.  He would go to her, and see for himself.  He
+came to the door of Forty-two, obviously one of those which are only shut
+at night, and tried the larger key.  It fitted, and he was in a
+gas-lighted passage, with an oil-clothed floor, and a single door to his
+left.  He stood there undecided.  She must be made to understand that he
+knew everything.  She must not be told more than that he was a friend of
+Larry's.  She must not be frightened, yet must be forced to give her very
+soul away.  A hostile witness--not to be treated as hostile--a matter for
+delicate handling!  But his knock was not answered.
+
+Should he give up this nerve-racking, bizarre effort to come at a basis
+of judgment; go away, and just tell Laurence that he could not advise
+him?  And then--what?  Something must be done.  He knocked again.  Still
+no answer.  And with that impatience of being thwarted, natural to him,
+and fostered to the full by the conditions of his life, he tried the
+other key.  It worked, and he opened the door. Inside all was dark, but a
+voice from some way off, with a sort of breathless relief in its foreign
+tones, said:
+
+"Oh! then it's you, Larry!  Why did you knock?  I was so frightened. Turn
+up the light, dear.  Come in!"
+
+Feeling by the door for a switch in the pitch blackness he was conscious
+of arms round his neck, a warm thinly clad body pressed to his own; then
+withdrawn as quickly, with a gasp, and the most awful terror-stricken
+whisper:
+
+"Oh!  Who is it?"
+
+With a glacial shiver down his own spine, Keith answered
+
+"A friend of Laurence.  Don't be frightened!"
+
+There was such silence that he could hear a clock ticking, and the sound
+of his own hand passing over the surface of the wall, trying to find the
+switch.  He found it, and in the light which leaped up he saw, stiffened
+against a dark curtain evidently screening off a bedroom, a girl
+standing, holding a long black coat together at her throat, so that her
+face with its pale brown hair, short and square-cut and curling up
+underneath, had an uncanny look of being detached from any body.  Her
+face was so alabaster pale that the staring, startled eyes, dark blue or
+brown, and the faint rose of the parted lips, were like colour stainings
+on a white mask; and it had a strange delicacy, truth, and pathos, such
+as only suffering brings. Though not susceptible to aesthetic emotion,
+Keith was curiously affected.  He said gently:
+
+"You needn't be afraid.  I haven't come to do you harm--quite the
+contrary.  May I sit down and talk?"  And, holding up the keys, he added:
+"Laurence wouldn't have given me these, would he, if he hadn't trusted
+me?"
+
+Still she did not move, and he had the impression that he was looking at
+a spirit--a spirit startled out of its flesh.  Nor at the moment did it
+seem in the least strange that he should conceive such an odd thought.
+He stared round the room--clean and tawdry, with its tarnished gilt
+mirror, marble-topped side-table, and plush-covered sofa.  Twenty years
+and more since he had been in such a place.  And he said:
+
+"Won't you sit down?  I'm sorry to have startled you."
+
+But still she did not move, whispering:
+
+"Who are you, please?"
+
+And, moved suddenly beyond the realm of caution by the terror in that
+whisper, he answered:
+
+"Larry's brother."
+
+She uttered a little sigh of relief which went to Keith's heart, and,
+still holding the dark coat together at her throat, came forward and sat
+down on the sofa.  He could see that her feet, thrust into slippers, were
+bare; with her short hair, and those candid startled eyes, she looked
+like a tall child.  He drew up a chair and said:
+
+"You must forgive me coming at such an hour; he's told me, you see." He
+expected her to flinch and gasp; but she only clasped her hands together
+on her knees, and said:
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Then horror and discomfort rose up in him, afresh.
+
+"An awful business!"
+
+Her whisper echoed him:
+
+"Yes, oh! yes!  Awful--it is awful!"
+
+And suddenly realising that the man must have fallen dead just where he
+was sitting, Keith became stock silent, staring at the floor.
+
+"Yes," she whispered; "Just there.  I see him now always falling!"
+
+How she said that!  With what a strange gentle despair!  In this girl of
+evil life, who had brought on them this tragedy, what was it which moved
+him to a sort of unwilling compassion?
+
+"You look very young," he said.
+
+"I am twenty."
+
+"And you are fond of--my brother?"
+
+"I would die for him."
+
+Impossible to mistake the tone of her voice, or the look in her eyes,
+true deep Slav eyes; dark brown, not blue as he had thought at first. It
+was a very pretty face--either her life had not eaten into it yet, or the
+suffering of these last hours had purged away those marks; or perhaps
+this devotion of hers to Larry.  He felt strangely at sea, sitting there
+with this child of twenty; he, over forty, a man of the world,
+professionally used to every side of human nature.  But he said,
+stammering a little:
+
+"I--I have come to see how far you can save him.  Listen, and just answer
+the questions I put to you."
+
+She raised her hands, squeezed them together, and murmured:
+
+"Oh!  I will answer anything."
+
+"This man, then--your--your husband--was he a bad man?"
+
+"A dreadful man."
+
+"Before he came here last night, how long since you saw him?"
+
+"Eighteen months."
+
+"Where did you live when you saw him last?"
+
+"In Pimlico."
+
+"Does anybody about here know you as Mrs. Walenn?"
+
+"No.  When I came here, after my little girl died, I came to live a bad
+life.  Nobody knows me at all.  I am quite alone."
+
+"If they discover who he was, they will look for his wife?"
+
+"I do not know.  He did not let people think I was married to him.  I was
+very young; he treated many, I think, like me."
+
+"Do you think he was known to the police?"
+
+She shook her head.  "He was very clever."
+
+"What is your name now?"
+
+"Wanda Livinska."
+
+"Were you known by that name before you were married?"
+
+"Wanda is my Christian name.  Livinska--I just call myself."
+
+"I see; since you came here."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did my brother ever see this man before last night?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"You had told him about his treatment of you?"
+
+"Yes.  And that man first went for him."
+
+"I saw the mark.  Do you think anyone saw my brother come to you?"
+
+"I do not know.  He says not."
+
+"Can you tell if anyone saw him carrying the--the thing away?"
+
+"No one in this street--I was looking."
+
+"Nor coming back?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"Nor going out in the morning?"
+
+"I do not think it."
+
+"Have you a servant?"
+
+"Only a woman who comes at nine in the morning for an hour."
+
+"Does she know Larry?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Friends, acquaintances?"
+
+"No; I am very quiet.  And since I knew your brother, I see no one.
+Nobody comes here but him for a long time now."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Five months."
+
+"Have you been out to-day?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What have you been doing?"
+
+"Crying."
+
+It was said with a certain dreadful simplicity, and pressing her hands
+together, she went on:
+
+"He is in danger, because of me.  I am so afraid for him." Holding up his
+hand to check that emotion, he said:
+
+"Look at me!"
+
+She fixed those dark eyes on him, and in her bare throat, from which the
+coat had fallen back, he could see her resolutely swallowing down her
+agitation.
+
+"If the worst comes to the worst, and this man is traced to you, can you
+trust yourself not to give my brother away?"
+
+Her eyes shone.  She got up and went to the fireplace:
+
+"Look!  I have burned all the things he has given me--even his picture.
+Now I have nothing from him."
+
+Keith, too, got up.
+
+"Good!  One more question: Do the police know you, because--because of
+your life?"
+
+She shook her head, looking at him intently, with those mournfully true
+eyes.  And he felt a sort of shame.
+
+"I was obliged to ask.  Do you know where he lives?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You must not go there.  And he must not come to you, here."
+
+Her lips quivered; but she bowed her head.  Suddenly he found her quite
+close to him, speaking almost in a whisper:
+
+"Please do not take him from me altogether.  I will be so careful.  I
+will not do anything to hurt him; but if I cannot see him sometimes, I
+shall die.  Please do not take him from me."  And catching his hand
+between her own, she pressed it desperately.  It was several seconds
+before Keith said:
+
+"Leave that to me.  I will see him.  I shall arrange.  You must leave
+that to me."
+
+"But you will be kind?"
+
+He felt her lips kissing his hand.  And the soft moist touch sent a queer
+feeling through him, protective, yet just a little brutal, having in it a
+shiver of sensuality.  He withdrew his hand.  And as if warned that she
+had been too pressing, she recoiled humbly.  But suddenly she turned, and
+stood absolutely rigid; then almost inaudibly whispered: "Listen!
+Someone out--out there!"  And darting past him she turned out the light.
+
+Almost at once came a knock on the door.  He could feel--actually feel
+the terror of this girl beside him in the dark.  And he, too, felt
+terror.  Who could it be?  No one came but Larry, she had said. Who else
+then could it be?  Again came the knock, louder!  He felt the breath of
+her whisper on his cheek: "If it is Larry!  I must open."  He shrank back
+against the wall; heard her open the door and say faintly: "Yes.  Please!
+Who?"
+
+Light painted a thin moving line on the wall opposite, and a voice which
+Keith recognised answered:
+
+"All right, miss.  Your outer door's open here.  You ought to keep it
+shut after dark."
+
+God!  That policeman!  And it had been his own doing, not shutting the
+outer door behind him when he came in.  He heard her say timidly in her
+foreign voice: "Thank you, sir!" the policeman's retreating steps, the
+outer door being shut, and felt her close to him again. That something in
+her youth and strange prettiness which had touched and kept him gentle,
+no longer blunted the edge of his exasperation, now that he could not see
+her.  They were all the same, these women; could not speak the truth!
+And he said brusquely:
+
+"You told me they didn't know you!"
+
+Her voice answered like a sigh:
+
+"I did not think they did, sir.  It is so long I was not out in the town,
+not since I had Larry."
+
+The repulsion which all the time seethed deep in Keith welled up at those
+words.  His brother--son of his mother, a gentleman--the property of this
+girl, bound to her, body and soul, by this unspeakable event!  But she
+had turned up the light.  Had she some intuition that darkness was
+against her?  Yes, she was pretty with that soft face, colourless save
+for its lips and dark eyes, with that face somehow so touchingly, so
+unaccountably good, and like a child's.
+
+"I am going now," he said.  "Remember!  He mustn't come here; you mustn't
+go to him.  I shall see him to-morrow.  If you are as fond of him as you
+say--take care, take care!"
+
+She sighed out, "Yes! oh, yes!"  and Keith went to the door.  She was
+standing with her back to the wall, and to follow him she only moved her
+head--that dove-like face with all its life in eyes which seemed saying:
+'Look into us; nothing we hide; all--all is there!'
+
+And he went out.
+
+In the passage he paused before opening the outer door.  He did not want
+to meet that policeman again; the fellow's round should have taken him
+well out of the street by now, and turning the handle cautiously, he
+looked out.  No one in sight.  He stood a moment, wondering if he should
+turn to right or left, then briskly crossed the street.  A voice to his
+right hand said:
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+There in the shadow of a doorway the policeman was standing.  The fellow
+must have seen him coming out!  Utterly unable to restrain a start, and
+muttering "Goodnight!"  Keith walked on rapidly:
+
+He went full quarter of a mile before he lost that startled and uneasy
+feeling in sardonic exasperation that he, Keith Darrant, had been taken
+for a frequenter of a lady of the town.  The whole thing--the whole
+thing!--a vile and disgusting business!  His very mind felt dirty and
+breathless; his spirit, drawn out of sheath, had slowly to slide back
+before he could at all focus and readjust his reasoning faculty.
+Certainly, he had got the knowledge he wanted.  There was less danger
+than he thought.  That girl's eyes!  No mistaking her devotion.  She
+would not give Larry away.  Yes!  Larry must clear out--South
+America--the East--it did not matter.  But he felt no relief.  The cheap,
+tawdry room had wrapped itself round his fancy with its atmosphere of
+murky love, with the feeling it inspired, of emotion caged within those
+yellowish walls and the red stuff of its furniture.  That girl's face!
+Devotion; truth, too, and beauty, rare and moving, in its setting of
+darkness and horror, in that nest of vice and of disorder!...  The dark
+archway; the street arab, with his gleeful: "They 'ain't got 'im yet!";
+the feel of those bare arms round his neck; that whisper of horror in the
+darkness; above all, again, her child face looking into his, so truthful!
+And suddenly he stood quite still in the street.  What in God's name was
+he about?  What grotesque juggling amongst shadows, what strange and
+ghastly eccentricity was all this?  The forces of order and routine, all
+the actualities of his daily life, marched on him at that moment, and
+swept everything before them.  It was a dream, a nightmare not real!  It
+was ridiculous!  That he--he should thus be bound up with things so black
+and bizarre!
+
+He had come by now to the Strand, that street down which every day he
+moved to the Law Courts, to his daily work; his work so dignified and
+regular, so irreproachable, and solid.  No!  The thing was all a
+monstrous nightmare!  It would go, if he fixed his mind on the familiar
+objects around, read the names on the shops, looked at the faces passing.
+Far down the thoroughfare he caught the outline of the old church, and
+beyond, the loom of the Law Courts themselves. The bell of a fire-engine
+sounded, and the horses came galloping by, with the shining metal, rattle
+of hoofs and hoarse shouting.  Here was a sensation, real and harmless,
+dignified and customary!  A woman flaunting round the corner looked up at
+him, and leered out: "Good-night!"  Even that was customary, tolerable.
+Two policemen passed, supporting between them a man the worse for liquor,
+full of fight and expletives; the sight was soothing, an ordinary thing
+which brought passing annoyance, interest, disgust.  It had begun to
+rain; he felt it on his face with pleasure--an actual thing, not
+eccentric, a thing which happened every day!
+
+He began to cross the street.  Cabs were going at furious speed now that
+the last omnibus had ceased to run; it distracted him to take this
+actual, ordinary risk run so often every day.  During that crossing of
+the Strand, with the rain in his face and the cabs shooting past, he
+regained for the first time his assurance, shook off this unreal sense of
+being in the grip of something, and walked resolutely to the corner of
+his home turning.  But passing into that darker stretch, he again stood
+still.  A policeman had also turned into that street on the other side.
+Not--surely not!  Absurd!  They were all alike to look at--those fellows!
+Absurd!  He walked on sharply, and let himself into his house.  But on
+his way upstairs he could not for the life of him help raising a corner
+of a curtain and looking from the staircase window.  The policeman was
+marching solemnly, about twenty-five yards away, paying apparently no
+attention to anything whatever.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Keith woke at five o'clock, his usual hour, without remembrance.  But the
+grisly shadow started up when he entered his study, where the lamp
+burned, and the fire shone, and the coffee was set ready, just as when
+yesterday afternoon Larry had stood out there against the wall.  For a
+moment he fought against realisation; then, drinking off his coffee, sat
+down sullenly at the bureau to his customary three hours' study of the
+day's cases.
+
+Not one word of his brief could he take in.  It was all jumbled with
+murky images and apprehensions, and for full half an hour he suffered
+mental paralysis.  Then the sheer necessity of knowing something of the
+case which he had to open at half-past ten that morning forced him to a
+concentration which never quite subdued the malaise at the bottom of his
+heart.  Nevertheless, when he rose at half-past eight and went into the
+bathroom, he had earned his grim satisfaction in this victory of
+will-power.  By half-past nine he must be at Larry's. A boat left London
+for the Argentine to-morrow.  If Larry was to get away at once, money
+must be arranged for.  And then at breakfast he came on this paragraph in
+the paper:
+
+           "SOHO MURDER.
+
+"Enquiry late last night established the fact that the Police have
+discovered the identity of the man found strangled yesterday morning
+under an archway in Glove Lane.  An arrest has been made."
+
+By good fortune he had finished eating, for the words made him feel
+physically sick.  At this very minute Larry might be locked up, waiting
+to be charged-might even have been arrested before his own visit to the
+girl last night.  If Larry were arrested, she must be implicated.  What,
+then, would be his own position?  Idiot to go and look at that archway,
+to go and see the girl!  Had that policeman really followed him home?
+Accessory after the fact!  Keith Darrant, King's Counsel, man of mark!
+He forced himself by an effort, which had something of the heroic, to
+drop this panicky feeling.  Panic never did good.  He must face it, and
+see.  He refused even to hurry, calmly collected the papers wanted for
+the day, and attended to a letter or two, before he set out in a taxi-cab
+to Fitzroy Street.
+
+Waiting outside there in the grey morning for his ring to be answered, he
+looked the very picture of a man who knew his mind, a man of resolution.
+But it needed all his will-power to ask without tremor: "Mr. Darrant in?"
+to hear without sign of any kind the answer: "He's not up yet, sir."
+
+"Never mind; I'll go in and see him.  Mr. Keith Darrant."
+
+On his way to Laurence's bedroom, in the midst of utter relief, he had
+the self-possession to think: 'This arrest is the best thing that could
+have happened.  It'll keep their noses on a wrong scent till Larry's got
+away.  The girl must be sent off too, but not with him.' Panic had ended
+in quite hardening his resolution.  He entered the bedroom with a feeling
+of disgust.  The fellow was lying there, his bare arms crossed behind his
+tousled head, staring at the ceiling, and smoking one of many cigarettes
+whose ends littered a chair beside him, whose sickly reek tainted the
+air.  That pale face, with its jutting cheek-bones and chin, its hollow
+cheeks and blue eyes far sunk back--what a wreck of goodness!
+
+He looked up at Keith through the haze of smoke and said quietly: "Well,
+brother, what's the sentence?  'Transportation for life, and then to be
+fined forty pounds?'"
+
+The flippancy revolted Keith.  It was Larry all over!  Last night
+horrified and humble, this morning, "Don't care" and feather-headed. He
+said sourly:
+
+"Oh!  You can joke about it now?"
+
+Laurence turned his face to the wall.
+
+"Must."
+
+Fatalism!  How detestable were natures like that!
+
+"I've been to see her," he said.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Last night.  She can be trusted."
+
+Laurence laughed.
+
+"That I told you."
+
+"I had to see for myself.  You must clear out at once, Larry.  She can
+come out to you by the next boat; but you can't go together. Have you any
+money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I can foot your expenses, and lend you a year's income in advance. But
+it must be a clean cut; after you get out there your whereabouts must
+only be known to me."
+
+A long sigh answered him.
+
+"You're very good to me, Keith; you've always been very good.  I don't
+know why."
+
+Keith answered drily
+
+"Nor I.  There's a boat to the Argentine tomorrow.  You're in luck;
+they've made an arrest.  It's in the paper."
+
+"What?"
+
+The cigarette end dropped, the thin pyjama'd figure writhed up and stood
+clutching at the bedrail.
+
+"What?"
+
+The disturbing thought flitted through Keith's brain: 'I was a fool. He
+takes it queerly; what now?'
+
+Laurence passed his hand over his forehead, and sat down on the bed.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," he said; "It does me!"
+
+Keith stared.  In his relief that the arrested man was not Laurence, this
+had not occurred to him.  What folly!
+
+"Why?"  he said quickly; "an innocent man's in no danger.  They always
+get the wrong man first.  It's a piece of luck, that's all. It gives us
+time."
+
+How often had he not seen that expression on Larry's face, wistful,
+questioning, as if trying to see the thing with his--Keith's-eyes, trying
+to submit to better judgment?  And he said, almost gently--
+
+"Now, look here, Larry; this is too serious to trifle with.  Don't worry
+about that.  Leave it to me.  Just get ready to be off'.  I'll take your
+berth and make arrangements.  Here's some money for kit.  I can come
+round between five and six, and let you know.  Pull yourself together,
+man.  As soon as the girl's joined you out there, you'd better get across
+to Chile, the further the better.  You must simply lose yourself: I must
+go now, if I'm to get to the Bank before I go down to the courts."  And
+looking very steadily at his brother, he added:
+
+"Come!  You've got to think of me in this matter as well as of yourself.
+No playing fast and loose with the arrangements. Understand?"
+
+But still Larry gazed up at him with that wistful questioning, and not
+till he had repeated, "Understand?"  did he receive "Yes" for answer.
+
+Driving away, he thought: 'Queer fellow!  I don't know him, shall never
+know him!' and at once began to concentrate on the practical
+arrangements.  At his bank he drew out L400; but waiting for the notes to
+be counted he suffered qualms.  A clumsy way of doing things!  If there
+had been more time!  The thought: 'Accessory after the fact!' now
+infected everything.  Notes were traceable.  No other way of getting him
+away at once, though.  One must take lesser risks to avoid greater.  From
+the bank he drove to the office of the steamship line.  He had told Larry
+he would book his passage.  But that would not do!  He must only ask
+anonymously if there were accommodation.  Having discovered that there
+were vacant berths, he drove on to the Law Courts.  If he could have
+taken a morning off, he would have gone down to the police court and seen
+them charge this man.  But even that was not too safe, with a face so
+well known as his.  What would come of this arrest?  Nothing, surely!
+The police always took somebody up, to keep the public quiet.  Then,
+suddenly, he had again the feeling that it was all a nightmare; Larry had
+never done it; the police had got the right man!  But instantly the
+memory of the girl's awe-stricken face, her figure huddling on the sofa,
+her words "I see him always falling!"  came back.  God!  What a business!
+
+He felt he had never been more clear-headed and forcible than that
+morning in court.  When he came out for lunch he bought the most
+sensational of the evening papers.  But it was yet too early for news,
+and he had to go back into court no whit wiser concerning the arrest.
+When at last he threw off wig and gown, and had got through a conference
+and other necessary work, he went out to Chancery Lane, buying a paper on
+the way.  Then he hailed a cab, and drove once more to Fitzroy Street.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Laurence had remained sitting on his bed for many minutes.  An innocent
+man in no danger!  Keith had said it--the celebrated lawyer!  Could he
+rely on that?  Go out 8,000 miles, he and the girl, and leave a
+fellow-creature perhaps in mortal peril for an act committed by himself?
+
+In the past night he had touched bottom, as he thought: become ready to
+face anything.  When Keith came in he would without murmur have accepted
+the advice: "Give yourself up!"  He was prepared to pitch away the end of
+his life as he pitched from him the fag-ends of his cigarettes.  And the
+long sigh he had heaved, hearing of reprieve, had been only half relief.
+Then, with incredible swiftness there had rushed through him a feeling of
+unutterable joy and hope.  Clean away--into a new country, a new life!
+The girl and he!  Out there he wouldn't care, would rejoice even to have
+squashed the life out of such a noisome beetle of a man.  Out there!
+Under a new sun, where blood ran quicker than in this foggy land, and
+people took justice into their own hands.  For it had been justice on
+that brute even though he had not meant to kill him.  And then to hear of
+this arrest!  They would be charging the man to-day.  He could go and see
+the poor creature accused of the murder he himself had committed!  And he
+laughed.  Go and see how likely it was that they might hang a fellow-man
+in place of himself?  He dressed, but too shaky to shave himself, went
+out to a barber's shop.  While there he read the news which Keith had
+seen.  In this paper the name of the arrested man was given: "John Evan,
+no address."  To be brought up on the charge at Bow Street.  Yes!  He
+must go.  Once, twice, three times he walked past the entrance of the
+court before at last he entered and screwed himself away among the tag
+and bobtail.
+
+The court was crowded; and from the murmurs round he could tell that it
+was his particular case which had brought so many there.  In a dazed way
+he watched charge after charge disposed of with lightning quickness.  But
+were they never going to reach his business?  And then suddenly he saw
+the little scarecrow man of last night advancing to the dock between two
+policemen, more ragged and miserable than ever by light of day, like some
+shaggy, wan, grey animal, surrounded by sleek hounds.
+
+A sort of satisfied purr was rising all round; and with horror Laurence
+perceived that this--this was the man accused of what he himself had
+done--this queer, battered unfortunate to whom he had shown a passing
+friendliness.  Then all feeling merged in the appalling interest of
+listening.  The evidence was very short. Testimony of the hotel-keeper
+where Walenn had been staying, the identification of his body, and of a
+snake-shaped ring he had been wearing at dinner that evening.  Testimony
+of a pawnbroker, that this same ring was pawned with him the first thing
+yesterday morning by the prisoner.  Testimony of a policeman that he had
+noticed the man Evan several times in Glove Lane, and twice moved him on
+from sleeping under that arch.  Testimony of another policeman that, when
+arrested at midnight, Evan had said: "Yes; I took the ring off his
+finger.  I found him there dead ....  I know I oughtn't to have done
+it....  I'm an educated man; it was stupid to pawn the ring.  I found him
+with his pockets turned inside out."
+
+Fascinating and terrible to sit staring at the man in whose place he
+should have been; to wonder when those small bright-grey bloodshot eyes
+would spy him out, and how he would meet that glance.  Like a baited
+raccoon the little man stood, screwed back into a corner, mournful,
+cynical, fierce, with his ridged, obtuse yellow face, and his stubbly
+grey beard and hair, and his eyes wandering now and again amongst the
+crowd.  But with all his might Laurence kept his face unmoved.  Then came
+the word "Remanded"; and, more like a baited beast than ever, the man was
+led away.
+
+Laurence sat on, a cold perspiration thick on his forehead.  Someone
+else, then, had come on the body and turned the pockets inside out before
+John Evan took the ring.  A man such as Walenn would not be out at night
+without money.  Besides, if Evan had found money on the body he would
+never have run the risk of taking that ring.  Yes, someone else had come
+on the body first.  It was for that one to come forward, and prove that
+the ring was still on the dead man's finger when he left him, and thus
+clear Evan.  He clung to that thought; it seemed to make him less
+responsible for the little man's position; to remove him and his own deed
+one step further back.  If they found the person who had taken the money,
+it would prove Evan's innocence.  He came out of the court in a sort of
+trance.  And a craving to get drunk attacked him.  One could not go on
+like this without the relief of some oblivion.  If he could only get
+drunk, keep drunk till this business was decided and he knew whether he
+must give himself up or no.  He had now no fear at all of people
+suspecting him; only fear of himself--fear that he might go and give
+himself up.  Now he could see the girl; the danger from that was as
+nothing compared with the danger from his own conscience.  He had
+promised Keith not to see her.  Keith had been decent and loyal to
+him--good old Keith!  But he would never understand that this girl was
+now all he cared about in life; that he would rather be cut off from life
+itself than be cut off from her.  Instead of becoming less and less, she
+was becoming more and more to him--experience strange and thrilling!  Out
+of deep misery she had grown happy--through him; out of a sordid,
+shifting life recovered coherence and bloom, through devotion to him him,
+of all people in the world!  It was a miracle.  She demanded nothing of
+him, adored him, as no other woman ever had--it was this which had
+anchored his drifting barque; this--and her truthful mild intelligence,
+and that burning warmth of a woman, who, long treated by men as but a
+sack of sex, now loves at last.
+
+And suddenly, mastering his craving to get drunk, he made towards Soho.
+He had been a fool to give those keys to Keith.  She must have been
+frightened by his visit; and, perhaps, doubly miserable since, knowing
+nothing, imagining everything!  Keith was sure to have terrified her.
+Poor little thing!
+
+Down the street where he had stolen in the dark with the dead body on his
+back, he almost ran for the cover of her house.  The door was opened to
+him before he knocked, her arms were round his neck, her lips pressed to
+his.  The fire was out, as if she had been unable to remember to keep
+warm.  A stool had been drawn to the window, and there she had evidently
+been sitting, like a bird in a cage, looking out into the grey street.
+Though she had been told that he was not to come, instinct had kept her
+there; or the pathetic, aching hope against hope which lovers never part
+with.
+
+Now that he was there, her first thoughts were for his comfort.  The fire
+was lighted.  He must eat, drink, smoke.  There was never in her doings
+any of the "I am doing this for you, but you ought to be doing that for
+me" which belongs to so many marriages, and liaisons.  She was like a
+devoted slave, so in love with the chains that she never knew she wore
+them.  And to Laurence, who had so little sense of property, this only
+served to deepen tenderness, and the hold she had on him.  He had
+resolved not to tell her of the new danger he ran from his own
+conscience.  But resolutions with him were but the opposites of what was
+sure to come; and at last the words:
+
+"They've arrested someone," escaped him.
+
+From her face he knew she had grasped the danger at once; had divined it,
+perhaps, before he spoke.  But she only twined her arms round him and
+kissed his lips.  And he knew that she was begging him to put his love
+for her above his conscience.  Who would ever have thought that he could
+feel as he did to this girl who had been in the arms of many!  The
+stained and suffering past of a loved woman awakens in some men only
+chivalry; in others, more respectable, it rouses a tigerish itch, a
+rancorous jealousy of what in the past was given to others.  Sometimes it
+will do both.  When he had her in his arms he felt no remorse for killing
+the coarse, handsome brute who had ruined her.  He savagely rejoiced in
+it.  But when she laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder, turning to
+him her white face with the faint colour-staining on the parted lips, the
+cheeks, the eyelids; when her dark, wide-apart, brown eyes gazed up in
+the happiness of her abandonment--he felt only tenderness and protection.
+
+He left her at five o'clock, and had not gone two streets' length before
+the memory of the little grey vagabond, screwed back in the far corner of
+the dock like a baited raccoon, of his dreary, creaking voice, took
+possession of him again; and a kind of savagery mounted in his brain
+against a world where one could be so tortured without having meant harm
+to anyone.
+
+At the door of his lodgings Keith was getting out of a cab.  They went in
+together, but neither of them sat down; Keith standing with his back to
+the carefully shut door, Laurence with his back to the table, as if they
+knew there was a tug coming.  And Keith said: "There's room on that boat.
+Go down and book your berth before they shut.  Here's the money!"
+
+"I'm going to stick it, Keith."
+
+Keith stepped forward, and put a roll of notes on the table.
+
+"Now look here, Larry.  I've read the police court proceedings. There's
+nothing in that.  Out of prison, or in prison for a few weeks, it's all
+the same to a night-bird of that sort.  Dismiss it from your
+mind--there's not nearly enough evidence to convict.  This gives you your
+chance.  Take it like a man, and make a new life for yourself."
+
+Laurence smiled; but the smile had a touch of madness and a touch of
+malice.  He took up the notes.
+
+"Clear out, and save the honour of brother Keith.  Put them back in your
+pocket, Keith, or I'll put them in the fire.  Come, take them!" And,
+crossing to the fire, he held them to the bars.  "Take them, or in they
+go!"
+
+Keith took back the notes.
+
+"I've still got some kind of honour, Keith; if I clear out I shall have
+none, not the rag of any, left.  It may be worth more to me than that--I
+can't tell yet--I can't tell."  There was a long silence before Keith
+answered.  "I tell you you're mistaken; no jury will convict.  If they
+did, a judge would never hang on it.  A ghoul who can rob a dead body
+ought to be in prison.  What he did is worse than what you did, if you
+come to that!"  Laurence lifted his face. "Judge not, brother," he said;
+"the heart is a dark well."  Keith's yellowish face grew red and swollen,
+as though he were mastering the tickle of a bronchial cough.  "What are
+you going to do, then?  I suppose I may ask you not to be entirely
+oblivious of our name; or is such a consideration unworthy of your
+honour?"  Laurence bent his head.  The gesture said more clearly than
+words: 'Don't kick a man when he's down!'
+
+"I don't know what I'm going to do--nothing at present.  I'm awfully
+sorry, Keith; awfully sorry."
+
+Keith looked at him, and without another word went out.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+To any, save philosophers, reputation may be threatened almost as much by
+disgrace to name and family as by the disgrace of self. Keith's instinct
+was always to deal actively with danger.  But this blow, whether it fell
+on him by discovery or by confession, could not be countered.  As blight
+falls on a rose from who knows where, the scandalous murk would light on
+him.  No repulse possible!  Not even a wriggling from under!  Brother of
+a murderer hung or sent to penal servitude!  His daughter niece to a
+murderer!  His dead mother-a murderer's mother!  And to wait day after
+day, week after week, not knowing whether the blow would fall, was an
+extraordinarily atrocious penance, the injustice of which, to a man of
+rectitude, seemed daily the more monstrous.
+
+The remand had produced evidence that the murdered man had been drinking
+heavily on the night of his death, and further evidence of the accused's
+professional vagabondage and destitution; it was shown, too, that for
+some time the archway in Glove Lane had been his favourite night haunt.
+He had been committed for trial in January. This time, despite
+misgivings, Keith had attended the police court. To his great relief
+Larry was not there.  But the policeman who had come up while he was
+looking at the archway, and given him afterwards that scare in the girl's
+rooms, was chief witness to the way the accused man haunted Glove Lane.
+Though Keith held his silk hat high, he still had the uncomfortable
+feeling that the man had recognised him.
+
+His conscience suffered few, if any, twinges for letting this man rest
+under the shadow of the murder.  He genuinely believed that there was not
+evidence enough to convict; nor was it in him to appreciate the tortures
+of a vagabond shut up.  The scamp deserved what he had got, for robbing a
+dead body; and in any case such a scarecrow was better off in prison than
+sleeping out under archways in December.  Sentiment was foreign to
+Keith's character, and his justice that of those who subordinate the
+fates of the weak and shiftless to the needful paramountcy of the strong
+and well established.
+
+His daughter came back from school for the Christmas holidays.  It was
+hard to look up from her bright eyes and rosy cheeks and see this shadow
+hanging above his calm and ordered life, as in a glowing room one's eye
+may catch an impending patch of darkness drawn like a spider's web across
+a corner of the ceiling.
+
+On the afternoon of Christmas Eve they went, by her desire, to a church
+in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away
+passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street. Ugh!  How that
+startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself against him in the
+dark, and her terror-stricken whisper: "Oh!  Who is it?"  leaped out
+before him!  Always that business--that ghastly business!  After the
+trial he would have another try to get them both away.  And he thrust his
+arm within his young daughter's, hurrying her on, out of this street
+where shadows filled all the winter air.
+
+But that evening when she had gone to bed he felt uncontrollably
+restless.  He had not seen Larry for weeks.  What was he about?  What
+desperations were hatching in his disorderly brain?  Was he very
+miserable; had he perhaps sunk into a stupor of debauchery?  And the old
+feeling of protectiveness rose up in him; a warmth born of long ago
+Christmas Eves, when they had stockings hung out in the night stuffed by
+a Santa Claus, whose hand never failed to tuck them up, whose kiss was
+their nightly waft into sleep.
+
+Stars were sparkling out there over the river; the sky frosty-clear, and
+black.  Bells had not begun to ring as yet.  And obeying an obscure, deep
+impulse, Keith wrapped himself once more into his fur coat, pulled a
+motoring cap over his eyes, and sallied forth. In the Strand he took a
+cab to Fitzroy Street.  There was no light in Larry's windows, and on a
+card he saw the words "To Let."  Gone!  Had he after all cleared out for
+good?  But how-without money?  And the girl?  Bells were ringing now in
+the silent frostiness.  Christmas Eve!  And Keith thought: 'If only this
+wretched business were off my mind!  Monstrous that one should suffer for
+the faults of others!' He took a route which led him past Borrow Street.
+Solitude brooded there, and he walked resolutely down on the far side,
+looking hard at the girl's window.  There was a light.  The curtains just
+failed to meet, so that a thin gleam shone through.  He crossed; and
+after glancing swiftly up and down, deliberately peered in.
+
+He only stood there perhaps twenty seconds, but visual records gleaned in
+a moment sometimes outlast the visions of hours and days. The electric
+light was not burning; but, in the centre of the room the girl was
+kneeling in her nightgown before a little table on which were four
+lighted candles.  Her arms were crossed on her breast; the candle-light
+shone on her fair cropped hair, on the profile of cheek and chin, on her
+bowed white neck.  For a moment he thought her alone; then behind her saw
+his brother in a sleeping suit, leaning against the wall, with arms
+crossed, watching.  It was the expression on his face which burned the
+whole thing in, so that always afterwards he was able to see that little
+scene--such an expression as could never have been on the face of one
+even faintly conscious that he was watched by any living thing on earth.
+The whole of Larry's heart and feeling seemed to have come up out of him.
+Yearning, mockery, love, despair!  The depth of his feeling for this
+girl, his stress of mind, fears, hopes; the flotsam good and evil of his
+soul, all transfigured there, exposed and unforgettable.  The
+candle-light shone upward on to his face, twisted by the strangest smile;
+his eyes, darker and more wistful than mortal eyes should be, seemed to
+beseech and mock the white-clad girl, who, all unconscious, knelt without
+movement, like a carved figure of devotion.  The words seemed coming from
+his lips: "Pray for us!  Bravo!  Yes!  Pray for us!"  And suddenly Keith
+saw her stretch out her arms, and lift her face with a look of ecstasy,
+and Laurence starting forward.  What had she seen beyond the candle
+flames?  It is the unexpected which invests visions with poignancy.
+Nothing more strange could Keith have seen in this nest of the murky and
+illicit.  But in sheer panic lest he might be caught thus spying he drew
+back and hurried on. So Larry was living there with her!  When the moment
+came he could still find him.
+
+Before going in, he stood full five minutes leaning on the terrace
+parapet before his house, gazing at the star-frosted sky, and the river
+cut by the trees into black pools, oiled over by gleams from the
+Embankment lamps.  And, deep down, behind his mere thoughts, he
+ached-somehow, somewhere ached.  Beyond the cage of all that he saw and
+heard and thought, he had perceived something he could not reach. But the
+night was cold, the bells silent, for it had struck twelve. Entering his
+house, he stole upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+If for Keith those six weeks before the Glove Lane murder trial came on
+were fraught with uneasiness and gloom, they were for Laurence almost the
+happiest since his youth.  From the moment when he left his rooms and
+went to the girl's to live, a kind of peace and exaltation took
+possession of him.  Not by any effort of will did he throw off the
+nightmare hanging over him.  Nor was he drugged by love.  He was in a
+sort of spiritual catalepsy.  In face of fate too powerful for his will,
+his turmoil, anxiety, and even restlessness had ceased; his life floated
+in the ether of "what must come, will." Out of this catalepsy, his spirit
+sometimes fell headlong into black waters.  In one such whirlpool he was
+struggling on the night of Christmas Eve.  When the girl rose from her
+knees he asked her:
+
+"What did you see?"
+
+Pressing close to him, she drew him down on to the floor before the fire;
+and they sat, knees drawn up, hands clasped, like two children trying to
+see over the edge of the world.
+
+"It was the Virgin I saw.  She stood against the wall and smiled.  We
+shall be happy soon."
+
+"When we die, Wanda," he said, suddenly, "let it be together.  We shall
+keep each other warm, out there."
+
+Huddling to him she whispered: "Yes, oh, yes!  If you die, I could not go
+on living."
+
+It was this utter dependence on him, the feeling that he had rescued
+something, which gave him sense of anchorage.  That, and his buried life
+in the retreat of these two rooms.  Just for an hour in the morning, from
+nine to ten, the charwoman would come, but not another soul all day.
+They never went out together.  He would stay in bed late, while Wanda
+bought what they needed for the day's meals; lying on his back, hands
+clasped behind his head, recalling her face, the movements of her slim,
+rounded, supple figure, robing itself before his gaze; feeling again the
+kiss she had left on his lips, the gleam of her soft eyes, so strangely
+dark in so fair a face.  In a sort of trance he would lie till she came
+back.  Then get up to breakfast about noon off things which she had
+cooked, drinking coffee.  In the afternoon he would go out alone and walk
+for hours, any where, so long as it was East.  To the East there was
+always suffering to be seen, always that which soothed him with the
+feeling that he and his troubles were only a tiny part of trouble; that
+while so many other sorrowing and shadowy creatures lived he was not cut
+off.  To go West was to encourage dejection.  In the West all was like
+Keith, successful, immaculate, ordered, resolute.  He would come back
+tired out, and sit watching her cook their little dinner.  The evenings
+were given up to love.  Queer trance of an existence, which both were
+afraid to break.  No sign from her of wanting those excitements which
+girls who have lived her life, even for a few months, are supposed to
+need.  She never asked him to take her anywhere; never, in word, deed,
+look, seemed anything but almost rapturously content.  And yet he knew,
+and she knew, that they were only waiting to see whether Fate would turn
+her thumb down on them.  In these days he did not drink.  Out of his
+quarter's money, when it came in, he had paid his debts--their expenses
+were very small.  He never went to see Keith, never wrote to him, hardly
+thought of him.  And from those dread apparitions--Walenn lying with the
+breath choked out of him, and the little grey, driven animal in the
+dock--he hid, as only a man can who must hide or be destroyed.  But daily
+he bought a newspaper, and feverishly, furtively scanned its columns.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Coming out of the Law Courts on the afternoon of January 28th, at the
+triumphant end of a desperately fought will case, Keith saw on a poster
+the words: "Glove Lane Murder: Trial and Verdict"; and with a rush of
+dismay he thought: 'Good God!  I never looked at the paper this morning!'
+The elation which had filled him a second before, the absorption he had
+felt for two days now in the case so hardly won, seemed suddenly quite
+sickeningly trivial.  What on earth had he been doing to forget that
+horrible business even for an instant?  He stood quite still on the
+crowded pavement, unable, really unable, to buy a paper.  But his face
+was like a piece of iron when he did step forward and hold his penny out.
+There it was in the Stop Press! "Glove Lane Murder.  The jury returned a
+verdict of Guilty.  Sentence of death was passed."
+
+His first sensation was simple irritation.  How had they come to commit
+such an imbecility?  Monstrous!  The evidence--!  Then the futility of
+even reading the report, of even considering how they had come to record
+such a verdict struck him with savage suddenness. There it was, and
+nothing he could do or say would alter it; no condemnation of this
+idiotic verdict would help reverse it.  The situation was desperate,
+indeed!  That five minutes' walk from the Law Courts to his chambers was
+the longest he had ever taken.
+
+Men of decided character little know beforehand what they will do in
+certain contingencies.  For the imaginations of decided people do not
+endow mere contingencies with sufficient actuality.  Keith had never
+really settled what he was going to do if this man were condemned. Often
+in those past weeks he had said to himself: "Of course, if they bring him
+in guilty, that's another thing!"  But, now that they had, he was beset
+by exactly the same old arguments and feelings, the same instincts of
+loyalty and protection towards Laurence and himself, intensified by the
+fearful imminence of the danger.  And yet, here was this man about to be
+hung for a thing he had not done!  Nothing could get over that!  But then
+he was such a worthless vagabond, a ghoul who had robbed a dead body.  If
+Larry were condemned in his stead, would there be any less miscarriage of
+justice?  To strangle a brute who had struck you, by the accident of
+keeping your hands on his throat a few seconds too long, was there any
+more guilt in that--was there even as much, as in deliberate theft from a
+dead man?  Reverence for order, for justice, and established fact, will,
+often march shoulder to shoulder with Jesuitry in natures to whom success
+is vital.
+
+In the narrow stone passage leading to his staircase, a friend had called
+out: "Bravo, Darrant!  That was a squeak!  Congratulations!" And with a
+bitter little smile Keith thought: 'Congratulations!  I!'
+
+At the first possible moment the hurried back to the Strand, and hailing
+a cab, he told the man to put him down at a turning near to Borrow
+Street.
+
+It was the girl who opened to his knock.  Startled, clasping her hands,
+she looked strange to Keith in her black skirt and blouse of some soft
+velvety stuff the colour of faded roses.  Her round, rather long throat
+was bare; and Keith noticed fretfully that she wore gold earrings.  Her
+eyes, so pitch dark against her white face, and the short fair hair,
+which curled into her neck, seemed both to search and to plead.
+
+"My brother?"
+
+"He is not in, sir, yet."
+
+"Do you know where he is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He is living with you here now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you still as fond of him as ever, then?"
+
+With a movement, as though she despaired of words, she clasped her hands
+over her heart.  And he said:
+
+"I see."
+
+He had the same strange feeling as on his first visit to her, and when
+through the chink in the curtains he had watched her kneeling--of pity
+mingled with some faint sexual emotion.  And crossing to the fire he
+asked:
+
+"May I wait for him?"
+
+"Oh!  Please!  Will you sit down?"
+
+But Keith shook his head.  And with a catch in her breath, she said:
+
+"You will not take him from me.  I should die."
+
+He turned round on her sharply.
+
+"I don't want him taken from you.  I want to help you keep him.  Are you
+ready to go away, at any time?"
+
+"Yes.  Oh, yes!"
+
+"And he?"
+
+She answered almost in a whisper:
+
+"Yes; but there is that poor man."
+
+"That poor man is a graveyard thief; a hyena; a ghoul--not worth
+consideration."  And the rasp in his own voice surprised him.
+
+"Ah!" she sighed.  "But I am sorry for him.  Perhaps he was hungry. I
+have been hungry--you do things then that you would not.  And perhaps he
+has no one to love; if you have no one to love you can be very bad.  I
+think of him often--in prison."
+
+Between his teeth Keith muttered: "And Laurence?"
+
+"We do never speak of it, we are afraid."
+
+"He's not told you, then, about the trial?"
+
+Her eyes dilated.
+
+"The trial!  Oh!  He was strange last night.  This morning, too, he got
+up early.  Is it-is it over?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What has come?"
+
+"Guilty."
+
+For a moment Keith thought she was going to faint.  She had closed her
+eyes, and swayed so that he took a step, and put his hands on her arms.
+
+"Listen!" he said.  "Help me; don't let Laurence out of your sight. We
+must have time.  I must see what they intend to do.  They can't be going
+to hang this man.  I must have time, I tell you.  You must prevent his
+giving himself up."
+
+She stood, staring in his face, while he still held her arms, gripping
+into her soft flesh through the velvety sleeves.
+
+"Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes-but if he has already!"
+
+Keith felt the shiver which ran through her.  And the thought rushed into
+his mind: 'My God!  Suppose the police come round while I'm here!'  If
+Larry had indeed gone to them!  If that Policeman who had seen him here
+the night after the murder should find him here again just after the
+verdict!  He said almost fiercely:
+
+"Can I trust you not to let Larry out of your sight?  Quick!  Answer!"
+
+Clasping her hands to her breast, she answered humbly:
+
+"I will try."
+
+"If he hasn't already done this, watch him like a lynx!  Don't let him go
+out without you.  I'll come to-morrow morning early.  You're a Catholic,
+aren't you?  Swear to me that you won't let him do anything till he's
+seen me again."
+
+She did not answer, looking past him at the door; and Keith heard a key
+in the latch.  There was Laurence himself, holding in his hand a great
+bunch of pink lilies and white narcissi.  His face was pale and haggard.
+He said quietly:
+
+"Hallo, Keith!"
+
+The girl's eyes were fastened on Larry's face; and Keith, looking from
+one to the other, knew that he had never had more need for wariness.
+
+"Have you seen?"  he said.
+
+Laurence nodded.  His expression, as a rule so tell-tale of his emotions,
+baffled Keith utterly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I've been expecting it."
+
+"The thing can't stand--that's certain.  But I must have time to look
+into the report.  I must have time to see what I can do.  D'you
+understand me, Larry--I must have time."  He knew he was talking at
+random.  The only thing was to get them away at once out of reach of
+confession; but he dared not say so.
+
+"Promise me that you'll do nothing, that you won't go out even till I've
+seen you to-morrow morning."
+
+Again Laurence nodded.  And Keith looked at the girl.  Would she see that
+he did not break that promise?  Her eyes were still fixed immovably on
+Larry's face.  And with the feeling that he could get no further, Keith
+turned to go.
+
+"Promise me," he said.
+
+Laurence answered: "I promise."
+
+He was smiling.  Keith could make nothing of that smile, nor of the
+expression in the girl's eyes.  And saying: "I have your promise, I rely
+on it!"  he went.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+To keep from any woman who loves, knowledge of her lover's mood, is as
+hard as to keep music from moving the heart.  But when that woman has
+lived in suffering, and for the first time knows the comfort of love,
+then let the lover try as he may to disguise his heart--no use!  Yet by
+virtue of subtler abnegation she will often succeed in keeping it from
+him that she knows.
+
+When Keith was gone the girl made no outcry, asked no questions, managed
+that Larry should not suspect her intuition; all that evening she acted
+as if she knew of nothing preparing within him, and through him, within
+herself.
+
+His words, caresses, the very zest with which he helped her to prepare
+the feast, the flowers he had brought, the wine he made her drink, the
+avoidance of any word which could spoil their happiness, all--all told
+her.  He was too inexorably gay and loving.  Not for her--to whom every
+word and every kiss had uncannily the desperate value of a last word and
+kiss--not for her to deprive herself of these by any sign or gesture
+which might betray her prescience.  Poor soul--she took all, and would
+have taken more, a hundredfold.  She did not want to drink the wine he
+kept tilting into her glass, but, with the acceptance learned by women
+who have lived her life, she did not refuse.  She had never refused him
+anything.  So much had been required of her by the detestable, that
+anything required by a loved one was but an honour.
+
+Laurence drank deeply; but he had never felt clearer, never seen things
+more clearly.  The wine gave him what he wanted, an edge to these few
+hours of pleasure, an exaltation of energy.  It dulled his sense of pity,
+too.  It was pity he was afraid of--for himself, and for this girl.  To
+make even this tawdry room look beautiful, with firelight and
+candlelight, dark amber wine in the glasses, tall pink lilies spilling
+their saffron, exuding their hot perfume he and even himself must look
+their best.  And with a weight as of lead on her heart, she managed that
+for him, letting him strew her with flowers and crush them together with
+herself.  Not even music was lacking to their feast.  Someone was playing
+a pianola across the street, and the sound, very faint, came stealing
+when they were silent--swelling, sinking, festive, mournful; having a
+far-off life of its own, like the flickering fire-flames before which
+they lay embraced, or the lilies delicate between the candles.  Listening
+to that music, tracing with his finger the tiny veins on her breast, he
+lay like one recovering from a swoon.  No parting.  None!  But sleep, as
+the firelight sleeps when flames die; as music sleeps on its deserted
+strings.
+
+And the girl watched him.
+
+It was nearly ten when he bade her go to bed.  And after she had gone
+obedient into the bedroom, he brought ink and paper down by the fire. The
+drifter, the unstable, the good-for-nothing--did not falter.  He had
+thought, when it came to the point, he would fail himself; but a sort of
+rage bore him forward.  If he lived on, and confessed, they would shut
+him up, take from him the one thing he loved, cut him off from her; sand
+up his only well in the desert.  Curse them!  And he wrote by firelight
+which mellowed the white sheets of paper; while, against the dark
+curtain, the girl, in her nightgown, unconscious of the cold, stood
+watching.
+
+Men, when they drown, remember their pasts.  Like the lost poet he had
+"gone with the wind."  Now it was for him to be true in his fashion.  A
+man may falter for weeks and weeks, consciously, subconsciously, even in
+his dreams, till there comes that moment when the only thing impossible
+is to go on faltering.  The black cap, the little driven grey man looking
+up at it with a sort of wonder--faltering had ceased!
+
+He had finished now, and was but staring into the fire.
+
+         "No more, no more, the moon is dead,
+          And all the people in it;
+          The poppy maidens strew the bed,
+          We'll come in half a minute."
+
+Why did doggerel start up in the mind like that?  Wanda!  The weed-flower
+become so rare he would not be parted from her!  The fire, the candles,
+and the fire--no more the flame and flicker!
+
+And, by the dark curtain, the girl watched.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Keith went, not home, but to his club; and in the room devoted to the
+reception of guests, empty at this hour, he sat down and read the report
+of the trial.  The fools had made out a case that looked black enough.
+And for a long time, on the thick soft carpet which let out no sound of
+footfall, he paced up and down, thinking.  He might see the defending
+counsel, might surely do that as an expert who thought there had been
+miscarriage of justice.  They must appeal; a petition too might be
+started in the last event.  The thing could--must be put right yet, if
+only Larry and that girl did nothing!
+
+He had no appetite, but the custom of dining is too strong.  And while he
+ate, he glanced with irritation at his fellow-members.  They looked so at
+their ease.  Unjust--that this black cloud should hang over one blameless
+as any of them!  Friends, connoisseurs of such things--a judge among
+them--came specially to his table to express their admiration of his
+conduct of that will case.  Tonight he had real excuse for pride, but he
+felt none.  Yet, in this well-warmed quietly glowing room, filled with
+decorously eating, decorously talking men, he gained insensibly some
+comfort.  This surely was reality; that shadowy business out there only
+the drear sound of a wind one must and did keep out--like the poverty and
+grime which had no real existence for the secure and prosperous.  He
+drank champagne. It helped to fortify reality, to make shadows seem more
+shadowy.  And down in the smoking-room he sat before the fire, in one of
+those chairs which embalm after-dinner dreams.  He grew sleepy there, and
+at eleven o'clock rose to go home.  But when he had once passed down the
+shallow marble steps, out through the revolving door which let in no
+draughts, he was visited by fear, as if he had drawn it in with the
+breath of the January wind.  Larry's face; and the girl watching it!  Why
+had she watched like that?  Larry's smile; and the flowers in his hand?
+Buying flowers at such a moment!  The girl was his slave-whatever he told
+her, she would do.  But she would never be able to stop him.  At this
+very moment he might be rushing to give himself up!
+
+His hand, thrust deep into the pocket of his fur coat, came in contact
+suddenly with something cold.  The keys Larry had given him all that time
+ago.  There they had lain forgotten ever since.  The chance touch decided
+him.  He turned off towards Borrow Street, walking at full speed.  He
+could but go again and see.  He would sleep better if he knew that he had
+left no stone unturned.  At the corner of that dismal street he had to
+wait for solitude before he made for the house which he now loathed with
+a deadly loathing.  He opened the outer door and shut it to behind him.
+He knocked, but no one came.  Perhaps they had gone to bed.  Again and
+again he knocked, then opened the door, stepped in, and closed it
+carefully.  Candles lighted, the fire burning; cushions thrown on the
+floor in front of it and strewn with flowers!  The table, too, covered
+with flowers and with the remnants of a meal.  Through the half-drawn
+curtain he could see that the inner room was also lighted.  Had they gone
+out, leaving everything like this?  Gone out!  His heart beat.  Bottles!
+Larry had been drinking!
+
+Had it really come?  Must he go back home with this murk on him; knowing
+that his brother was a confessed and branded murderer?  He went quickly,
+to the half-drawn curtains and looked in.  Against the wall he saw a bed,
+and those two in it.  He recoiled in sheer amazement and relief.  Asleep
+with curtains undrawn, lights left on?  Asleep through all his knocking!
+They must both be drunk.  The blood rushed up in his neck.  Asleep!  And
+rushing forward again, he called out: "Larry!"  Then, with a gasp he went
+towards the bed.  "Larry!" No answer!  No movement!  Seizing his
+brother's shoulder, he shook it violently.  It felt cold.  They were
+lying in each other's arms, breast to breast, lips to lips, their faces
+white in the light shining above the dressing-table.  And such a shudder
+shook Keith that he had to grasp the brass rail above their heads.  Then
+he bent down, and wetting his finger, placed it close to their joined
+lips. No two could ever swoon so utterly as that; not even a drunken
+sleep could be so fast.  His wet finger felt not the faintest stir of
+air, nor was there any movement in the pulses of their hands.  No breath!
+No life!  The eyes of the girl were closed.  How strangely innocent she
+looked!  Larry's open eyes seemed to be gazing at her shut eyes; but
+Keith saw that they were sightless.  With a sort of sob he drew down the
+lids.  Then, by an impulse that he could never have explained, he laid a
+hand on his brother's head, and a hand on the girl's fair hair.  The
+clothes had fallen down a little from her bare shoulder; he pulled them
+up, as if to keep her warm, and caught the glint of metal; a tiny gilt
+crucifix no longer than a thumbnail, on a thread of steel chain, had
+slipped down from her breast into the hollow of the arm which lay round
+Larry's neck.  Keith buried it beneath the clothes and noticed an
+envelope pinned to the coverlet; bending down, he read: "Please give this
+at once to the police.--LAURENCE DARRANT."  He thrust it into his pocket.
+Like elastic stretched beyond its uttermost, his reason, will, faculties
+of calculation and resolve snapped to within him.  He thought with
+incredible swiftness: 'I must know nothing of this.  I must go!' And,
+almost before he knew that he had moved, he was out again in the street.
+
+He could never have told of what he thought while he was walking home.
+He did not really come to himself till he was in his study. There, with a
+trembling hand, he poured himself out whisky and drank it off.  If he had
+not chanced to go there, the charwoman would have found them when she
+came in the morning, and given that envelope to the police!  He took it
+out.  He had a right--a right to know what was in it!  He broke it open.
+
+"I, Laurence Darrant, about to die by my own hand, declare that this is a
+solemn and true confession.  I committed what is known as the Glove Lane
+Murder on the night of November the 27th last in the following way"--on
+and on to the last words--"We didn't want to die; but we could not bear
+separation, and I couldn't face letting an innocent man be hung for me.
+I do not see any other way.  I beg that there may be no postmortem on our
+bodies.  The stuff we have taken is some of that which will be found on
+the dressing-table.  Please bury us together.
+
+"LAURENCE DARRANT. "January the 28th, about ten o'clock p.m."
+
+Full five minutes Keith stood with those sheets of paper in his hand,
+while the clock ticked, the wind moaned a little in the trees outside,
+the flames licked the logs with the quiet click and ruffle of their
+intense far-away life down there on the hearth.  Then he roused himself,
+and sat down to read the whole again.
+
+There it was, just as Larry had told it to him-nothing left out, very
+clear; even to the addresses of people who could identify the girl as
+having once been Walenn's wife or mistress.  It would convince.  Yes!  It
+would convince.
+
+The sheets dropped from his hand.  Very slowly he was grasping the
+appalling fact that on the floor beside his chair lay the life or death
+of yet another man; that by taking this confession he had taken into his
+own hands the fate of the vagabond lying under sentence of death; that he
+could not give him back his life without incurring the smirch of this
+disgrace, without even endangering himself.  If he let this confession
+reach the authorities, he could never escape the gravest suspicion that
+he had known of the whole affair during these two months.  He would have
+to attend the inquest, be recognised by that policeman as having come to
+the archway to see where the body had lain, as having visited the girl
+the very evening after the murder.  Who would believe in the mere
+coincidence of such visits on the part of the murderer's brother.  But
+apart from that suspicion, the fearful scandal which so sensational an
+affair must make would mar his career, his life, his young daughter's
+life!  Larry's suicide with this girl would make sensation enough as it
+was; but nothing to that other.  Such a death had its romance; involved
+him in no way save as a mourner, could perhaps even be hushed up!  The
+other--nothing could hush that up, nothing prevent its ringing to the
+house-tops.  He got up from his chair, and for many minutes roamed the
+room unable to get his mind to bear on the issue. Images kept starting up
+before him.  The face of the man who handed him wig and gown each
+morning, puffy and curious, with a leer on it he had never noticed
+before; his young daughter's lifted eyebrows, mouth drooping, eyes
+troubled; the tiny gilt crucifix glinting in the hollow of the dead
+girl's arm; the sightless look in Larry's unclosed eyes; even his own
+thumb and finger pulling the lids down.  And then he saw a street and
+endless people passing, turning to stare at him.  And, stopping in his
+tramp, he said aloud: "Let them go to hell!  Seven days' wonder!" Was he
+not trustee to that confession!  Trustee!  After all he had done nothing
+to be ashamed of, even if he had kept knowledge dark.  A brother!  Who
+could blame him?  And he picked up those sheets of paper.  But, like a
+great murky hand, the scandal spread itself about him; its coarse
+malignant voice seemed shouting: "Paiper!... Paiper!... Glove Lane
+Murder!... Suicide and confession of brother of well-known K.C....
+Well-known K.C.'s brother....  Murder and suicide.... Paiper!"  Was he to
+let loose that flood of foulness?  Was he, who had done nothing, to smirch
+his own little daughter's life; to smirch his dead brother, their dead
+mother--himself, his own valuable, important future?  And all for a sewer
+rat!  Let him hang, let the fellow hang if he must!  And that was not
+certain.  Appeal!  Petition!  He might--he should be saved!  To have got
+thus far, and then, by his own action, topple himself down!
+
+With a sudden darting movement he thrust the confession in among the
+burning coals.  And a smile licked at the folds in his dark face, like
+those flames licking the sheets of paper, till they writhed and
+blackened.  With the toe of his boot he dispersed their scorched and
+crumbling wafer.  Stamp them in!  Stamp in that man's life!  Burnt!  No
+more doubts, no more of this gnawing fear!  Burnt?  A man--an
+innocent-sewer rat!  Recoiling from the fire he grasped his forehead. It
+was burning hot and seemed to be going round.
+
+Well, it was done!  Only fools without will or purpose regretted. And
+suddenly he laughed.  So Larry had died for nothing!  He had no will, no
+purpose, and was dead!  He and that girl might now have been living,
+loving each other in the warm night, away at the other end of the world,
+instead of lying dead in the cold night here!  Fools and weaklings
+regretted, suffered from conscience and remorse.  A man trod firmly, held
+to his purpose, no matter what!
+
+He went to the window and drew back the curtain.  What was that?  A
+gibbet in the air, a body hanging?  Ah!  Only the trees--the dark
+trees--the winter skeleton trees!  Recoiling, he returned to his armchair
+and sat down before the fire.  It had been shining like that, the lamp
+turned low, his chair drawn up, when Larry came in that afternoon two
+months ago.  Bah!  He had never come at all!  It was a nightmare.  He had
+been asleep.  How his head burned!  And leaping up, he looked at the
+calendar on his bureau.  "January the 28th!"  No dream!  His face
+hardened and darkened.  On!  Not like Larry!  On!
+1914.
+
+
+
+
+A STOIC
+
+I
+
+1
+
+         "Aequam memento rebus in arduis
+          Servare mentem:"--Horace.
+
+In the City of Liverpool, on a January day of 1905, the Board-room of
+"The Island Navigation Company" rested, as it were, after the labours of
+the afternoon.  The long table was still littered with the ink, pens,
+blotting-paper, and abandoned documents of six persons--a deserted
+battlefield of the brain.  And, lonely, in his chairman's seat at the top
+end old Sylvanus Heythorp sat, with closed eyes, still and heavy as an
+image.  One puffy, feeble hand, whose fingers quivered, rested on the arm
+of his chair; the thick white hair on his massive head glistened in the
+light from a green-shaded lamp.  He was not asleep, for every now and
+then his sanguine cheeks filled, and a sound, half sigh, half grunt,
+escaped his thick lips between a white moustache and the tiny tuft of
+white hairs above his cleft chin. Sunk in the chair, that square thick
+trunk of a body in short black-braided coat seemed divested of all neck.
+
+Young Gilbert Farney, secretary of "The Island Navigation Company,"
+entering his hushed Board-room, stepped briskly to the table, gathered
+some papers, and stood looking at his chairman.  Not more than
+thirty-five, with the bright hues of the optimist in his hair, beard,
+cheeks, and eyes, he had a nose and lips which curled ironically.  For,
+in his view, he was the Company; and its Board did but exist to chequer
+his importance.  Five days in the week for seven hours a day he wrote,
+and thought, and wove the threads of its business, and this lot came down
+once a week for two or three hours, and taught their grandmother to suck
+eggs.  But watching that red-cheeked, white-haired, somnolent figure, his
+smile was not so contemptuous as might have been expected.  For after
+all, the chairman was a wonderful old boy.  A man of go and insight could
+not but respect him.  Eighty!  Half paralysed, over head and ears in
+debt, having gone the pace all his life--or so they said!--till at last
+that mine in Ecuador had done for him--before the secretary's day, of
+course, but he had heard of it.  The old chap had bought it up on
+spec'--"de l'audace, toujours de l'audace," as he was so fond of
+saying--paid for it half in cash and half in promises, and then--the
+thing had turned out empty, and left him with L20,000 worth of the old
+shares unredeemed.  The old boy had weathered it out without a bankruptcy
+so far.  Indomitable old buffer; and never fussy like the rest of them!
+Young Farney, though a secretary, was capable of attachment; and his eyes
+expressed a pitying affection.  The Board meeting had been long and
+"snadgy"--a final settling of that Pillin business.  Rum go the chairman
+forcing it on them like this!  And with quiet satisfaction the secretary
+thought 'And he never would have got it through if I hadn't made up my
+mind that it really is good business!'  For to expand the company was to
+expand himself. Still, to buy four ships with the freight market so
+depressed was a bit startling, and there would be opposition at the
+general meeting. Never mind!  He and the chairman could put it
+through--put it through.  And suddenly he saw the old man looking at him.
+
+Only from those eyes could one appreciate the strength of life yet
+flowing underground in that well-nigh helpless carcase--deep-coloured
+little blue wells, tiny, jovial, round windows.
+
+A sigh travelled up through layers of flesh, and he said almost
+inaudibly:
+
+"Have they come, Mr. Farney?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  I've put them in the transfer office; said you'd be with them
+in a minute; but I wasn't going to wake you."
+
+"Haven't been asleep.  Help me up."
+
+Grasping the edge of the table with his trembling hands, the old man
+pulled, and, with Farney heaving him behind, attained his feet.  He stood
+about five feet ten, and weighed fully fourteen stone; not corpulent, but
+very thick all through; his round and massive head alone would have
+outweighed a baby.  With eyes shut, he seemed to be trying to get the
+better of his own weight, then he moved with the slowness of a barnacle
+towards the door.  The secretary, watching him, thought: 'Marvellous old
+chap!  How he gets about by himself is a miracle!  And he can't retire,
+they say-lives on his fees!'
+
+But the chairman was through the green baize door.  At his tortoise gait
+he traversed the inner office, where the youthful clerks suspended their
+figuring--to grin behind his back--and entered the transfer office, where
+eight gentlemen were sitting.  Seven rose, and one did not.  Old Heythorp
+raised a saluting hand to the level of his chest and moving to an
+arm-chair, lowered himself into it.
+
+"Well, gentlemen?"
+
+One of the eight gentlemen got up again.
+
+"Mr. Heythorp, we've appointed Mr. Brownbee to voice our views.  Mr.
+Brownbee!"  And down he sat.
+
+Mr. Brownbee rose a stoutish man some seventy years of age, with little
+grey side whiskers, and one of those utterly steady faces only to be seen
+in England, faces which convey the sense of business from father to son
+for generations; faces which make wars, and passion, and free thought
+seem equally incredible; faces which inspire confidence, and awaken in
+one a desire to get up and leave the room. Mr. Brownbee rose, and said in
+a suave voice:
+
+"Mr. Heythorp, we here represent about L14,000.  When we had the pleasure
+of meeting you last July, you will recollect that you held out a prospect
+of some more satisfactory arrangement by Christmas. We are now in
+January, and I am bound to say we none of us get younger."
+
+From the depths of old Heythorp a preliminary rumble came travelling,
+reached the surface, and materialised--
+
+"Don't know about you--feel a boy, myself."
+
+The eight gentlemen looked at him.  Was he going to try and put them off
+again?  Mr. Brownbee said with unruffled calm:
+
+"I'm sure we're very glad to hear it.  But to come to the point.  We have
+felt, Mr. Heythorp, and I'm sure you won't think it unreasonable,
+that--er--bankruptcy would be the most satisfactory solution.  We have
+waited a long time, and we want to know definitely where we stand; for,
+to be quite frank, we don't see any prospect of improvement; indeed, we
+fear the opposite."
+
+"You think I'm going to join the majority."
+
+This plumping out of what was at the back of their minds produced in Mr.
+Brownbee and his colleagues a sort of chemical disturbance.  They
+coughed, moved their feet, and turned away their eyes, till the one who
+had not risen, a solicitor named Ventnor, said bluffly:
+
+"Well, put it that way if you like."
+
+Old Heythorp's little deep eyes twinkled.
+
+"My grandfather lived to be a hundred; my father ninety-six--both of them
+rips.  I'm only eighty, gentlemen; blameless life compared with theirs."
+
+"Indeed," Mr. Brownbee said, "we hope you have many years of this life
+before you."
+
+"More of this than of another."  And a silence fell, till old Heythorp
+added: "You're getting a thousand a year out of my fees. Mistake to kill
+the goose that lays the golden eggs.  I'll make it twelve hundred.  If
+you force me to resign my directorships by bankruptcy, you won't get a
+rap, you know."
+
+Mr. Brownbee cleared his throat:
+
+"We think, Mr. Heythorp, you should make it at least fifteen hundred. In
+that case we might perhaps consider--"
+
+Old Heythorp shook his head.
+
+"We can hardly accept your assertion that we should get nothing in the
+event of bankruptcy.  We fancy you greatly underrate the possibilities.
+Fifteen hundred a year is the least you can do for us."
+
+"See you d---d first."
+
+Another silence followed, then Ventnor, the solicitor, said irascibly:
+
+"We know where we are, then."
+
+Brownbee added almost nervously:
+
+"Are we to understand that twelve hundred a year is your--your last
+word?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.  "Come again this day month, and I'll see what I can
+do for you;" and he shut his eyes.
+
+Round Mr. Brownbee six of the gentlemen gathered, speaking in low voices;
+Mr. Ventnor nursed a leg and glowered at old Heythorp, who sat with his
+eyes closed.  Mr. Brownbee went over and conferred with Mr. Ventnor, then
+clearing his throat, he said:
+
+"Well, sir, we have considered your proposal; we agree to accept it for
+the moment.  We will come again, as you suggest, in a month's time.
+
+"We hope that you will by then have seen your way to something more
+substantial, with a view to avoiding what we should all regret, but which
+I fear will otherwise become inevitable."
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.  The eight gentlemen took their hats, and went out
+one by one, Mr. Brownbee courteously bringing up the rear.
+
+The old man, who could not get up without assistance, stayed musing in
+his chair.  He had diddled 'em for the moment into giving him another
+month, and when that month was up-he would diddle 'em again!  A month
+ought to make the Pillin business safe, with all that hung on it.  That
+poor funkey chap Joe Pillin!  A gurgling chuckle escaped his red lips.
+What a shadow the fellow had looked, trotting in that evening just a
+month ago, behind his valet's announcement: "Mr. Pillin, sir."
+
+What a parchmenty, precise, thread-paper of a chap, with his bird's claw
+of a hand, and his muffled-up throat, and his quavery:
+
+"How do you do, Sylvanus?  I'm afraid you're not--"
+
+"First rate.  Sit down.  Have some port."
+
+"Port!  I never drink it.  Poison to me!  Poison!"
+
+"Do you good!"
+
+"Oh!  I know, that's what you always say."
+
+You've a monstrous constitution, Sylvanus.  If I drank port and smoked
+cigars and sat up till one o'clock, I should be in my grave to-morrow.
+I'm not the man I was.  The fact is, I've come to see if you can help me.
+I'm getting old; I'm growing nervous...."
+
+"You always were as chickeny as an old hen, Joe."
+
+"Well, my nature's not like yours.  To come to the point, I want to sell
+my ships and retire.  I need rest.  Freights are very depressed. I've got
+my family to think of."
+
+"Crack on, and go broke; buck you up like anything!"
+
+"I'm quite serious, Sylvanus."
+
+"Never knew you anything else, Joe."
+
+A quavering cough, and out it had come:
+
+"Now--in a word--won't your 'Island Navigation Company' buy my ships?"
+
+A pause, a twinkle, a puff of smoke.  "Make it worth my while!"  He had
+said it in jest; and then, in a flash, the idea had come to him. Rosamund
+and her youngsters!  What a chance to put something between them and
+destitution when he had joined the majority!  And so he said: "We don't
+want your silly ships."
+
+That claw of a hand waved in deprecation.  "They're very good
+ships--doing quite well.  It's only my wretched health.  If I were a
+strong man I shouldn't dream...."
+
+"What d'you want for 'em?"  Good Lord! how he jumped if you asked him a
+plain question.  The chap was as nervous as a guinea-fowl!
+
+"Here are the figures--for the last four years.  I think you'll agree
+that I couldn't ask less than seventy thousand."
+
+Through the smoke of his cigar old Heythorp had digested those figures
+slowly, Joe Pillin feeling his teeth and sucking lozenges the while; then
+he said:
+
+"Sixty thousand!  And out of that you pay me ten per cent., if I get it
+through for you.  Take it or leave it."
+
+"My dear Sylvanus, that's almost-cynical."
+
+"Too good a price--you'll never get it without me."
+
+"But a--but a commission!  You could never disclose it!"
+
+"Arrange that all right.  Think it over.  Freights'll go lower yet. Have
+some port."
+
+"No, no!  Thank you.  No!  So you think freights will go lower?"
+
+"Sure of it."
+
+"Well, I'll be going.  I'm sure I don't know.  It's--it's--I must think."
+
+"Think your hardest."
+
+"Yes, yes.  Good-bye.  I can't imagine how you still go on smoking those
+things and drinking port.
+
+"See you in your grave yet, Joe."  What a feeble smile the poor fellow
+had!  Laugh-he couldn't!  And, alone again, he had browsed, developing
+the idea which had come to him.
+
+Though, to dwell in the heart of shipping, Sylvanus Heythorp had lived at
+Liverpool twenty years, he was from the Eastern Counties, of a family so
+old that it professed to despise the Conquest.  Each of its generations
+occupied nearly twice as long as those of less tenacious men.
+Traditionally of Danish origin, its men folk had as a rule bright
+reddish-brown hair, red cheeks, large round heads, excellent teeth and
+poor morals.  They had done their best for the population of any county
+in which they had settled; their offshoots swarmed.  Born in the early
+twenties of the nineteenth century, Sylvanus Heythorp, after an education
+broken by escapades both at school and college, had fetched up in that
+simple London of the late forties, where claret, opera, and eight per
+cent. for your money ruled a cheery roost.  Made partner in his shipping
+firm well before he was thirty, he had sailed with a wet sheet and a
+flowing tide; dancers, claret, Cliquot, and piquet; a cab with a tiger;
+some travel--all that delicious early-Victorian consciousness of nothing
+save a golden time.  It was all so full and mellow that he was forty
+before he had his only love affair of any depth--with the daughter of one
+of his own clerks, a liaison so awkward as to necessitate a sedulous
+concealment.  The death of that girl, after three years, leaving him a,
+natural son, had been the chief, perhaps the only real, sorrow of his
+life.  Five years later he married.  What for?  God only knew! as he was
+in the habit of remarking.  His wife had been a hard, worldly,
+well-connected woman, who presented him with two unnatural children, a
+girl and a boy, and grew harder, more worldly, less handsome, in the
+process.  The migration to Liverpool, which took place when he was sixty
+and she forty-two, broke what she still had of heart, but she lingered on
+twelve years, finding solace in bridge, and being haughty towards
+Liverpool.  Old Heythorp saw her to her rest without regret.  He had felt
+no love for her whatever, and practically none for her two children--they
+were in his view colourless, pragmatical, very unexpected characters.
+His son Ernest--in the Admiralty--he thought a poor, careful stick.  His
+daughter Adela, an excellent manager, delighting in spiritual
+conversation and the society of tame men, rarely failed to show him that
+she considered him a hopeless heathen.  They saw as little as need be of
+each other.  She was provided for under that settlement he had made on
+her mother fifteen years ago, well before the not altogether unexpected
+crisis in his affairs.  Very different was the feeling he had bestowed on
+that son of his "under the rose."  The boy, who had always gone by his
+mother's name of Larne, had on her death been sent to some relations of
+hers in Ireland, and there brought up.  He had been called to the Dublin
+bar, and married, young, a girl half Cornish and half Irish; presently,
+having cost old Heythorp in all a pretty penny, he had died impecunious,
+leaving his fair Rosamund at thirty with a girl of eight and a boy of
+five.  She had not spent six months of widowhood before coming over from
+Dublin to claim the old man's guardianship.  A remarkably pretty woman,
+like a full-blown rose, with greenish hazel eyes, she had turned up one
+morning at the offices of "The Island Navigation Company," accompanied by
+her two children--for he had never divulged to them his private address.
+And since then they had always been more or less on his hands, occupying
+a small house in a suburb of Liverpool.  He visited them there, but never
+asked them to the house in Sefton Park, which was in fact his daughter's;
+so that his proper family and friends were unaware of their existence.
+
+Rosamund Larne was one of those precarious ladies who make uncertain
+incomes by writing full-bodied storyettes.  In the most dismal
+circumstances she enjoyed a buoyancy bordering on the indecent; which
+always amused old Heythorp's cynicism.  But of his grandchildren Phyllis
+and Jock (wild as colts) he had become fond.  And this chance of getting
+six thousand pounds settled on them at a stroke had seemed to him nothing
+but heaven-sent.  As things were, if he "went off"--and, of course, he
+might at any moment, there wouldn't be a penny for them; for he would
+"cut up" a good fifteen thousand to the bad.  He was now giving them some
+three hundred a year out of his fees; and dead directors unfortunately
+earned no fees!  Six thousand pounds at four and a half per cent.,
+settled so that their mother couldn't "blue it," would give them a
+certain two hundred and fifty pounds a year-better than beggary.  And the
+more he thought the better he liked it, if only that shaky chap, Joe
+Pillin, didn't shy off when he'd bitten his nails short over it!
+
+Four evenings later, the "shaky chap" had again appeared at his house in
+Sefton Park.
+
+"I've thought it over, Sylvanus.  I don't like it.
+
+"No; but you'll do it."
+
+"It's a sacrifice.  Fifty-four thousand for four ships--it means a
+considerable reduction in my income."
+
+"It means security, my boy."
+
+"Well, there is that; but you know, I really can't be party to a secret
+commission.  If it came out, think of my name and goodness knows what."
+
+"It won't come out."
+
+"Yes, yes, so you say, but--"
+
+"All you've got to do's to execute a settlement on some third parties
+that I'll name.  I'm not going to take a penny of it myself.  Get your
+own lawyer to draw it up and make him trustee.  You can sign it when the
+purchase has gone through.  I'll trust you, Joe.  What stock have you got
+that gives four and a half per cent.?"
+
+"Midland"
+
+"That'll do.  You needn't sell."
+
+"Yes, but who are these people?"
+
+"Woman and her children I want to do a good turn to."  What a face the
+fellow had made!  "Afraid of being connected with a woman, Joe?"
+
+"Yes, you may laugh--I am afraid of being connected with someone else's
+woman.  I don't like it--I don't like it at all.  I've not led your life,
+Sylvanus."
+
+"Lucky for you; you'd have been dead long ago.  Tell your lawyer it's an
+old flame of yours--you old dog!"
+
+"Yes, there it is at once, you see.  I might be subject to blackmail."
+
+"Tell him to keep it dark, and just pay over the income, quarterly."
+
+"I don't like it, Sylvanus--I don't like it."
+
+"Then leave it, and be hanged to you.  Have a cigar?"
+
+"You know I never smoke.  Is there no other way?"
+
+"Yes.  Sell stock in London, bank the proceeds there, and bring me six
+thousand pounds in notes.  I'll hold 'em till after the general meeting.
+If the thing doesn't go through, I'll hand 'em back to you."
+
+"No; I like that even less."
+
+"Rather I trusted you, eh!"
+
+"No, not at all, Sylvanus, not at all.  But it's all playing round the
+law."
+
+"There's no law to prevent you doing what you like with your money. What
+I do's nothing to you.  And mind you, I'm taking nothing from it--not a
+mag.  You assist the widowed and the fatherless--just your line, Joe!"
+
+"What a fellow you are, Sylvanus; you don't seem capable of taking
+anything seriously."
+
+"Care killed the cat!"
+
+Left alone after this second interview he had thought: 'The beggar'll
+jump.'
+
+And the beggar had.  That settlement was drawn and only awaited
+signature.  The Board to-day had decided on the purchase; and all that
+remained was to get it ratified at the general meeting.  Let him but get
+that over, and this provision for his grandchildren made, and he would
+snap his fingers at Brownbee and his crew-the canting humbugs!  "Hope you
+have many years of this life before you!"  As if they cared for anything
+but his money--their money rather!  And becoming conscious of the length
+of his reverie, he grasped the arms of his chair, heaved at his own bulk,
+in an effort to rise, growing redder and redder in face and neck.  It was
+one of the hundred things his doctor had told him not to do for fear of
+apoplexy, the humbug!  Why didn't Farney or one of those young fellows
+come and help him up?  To call out was undignified.  But was he to sit
+there all night?  Three times he failed, and after each failure sat
+motionless again, crimson and exhausted; the fourth time he succeeded,
+and slowly made for the office.  Passing through, he stopped and said in
+his extinct voice:
+
+"You young gentlemen had forgotten me."
+
+"Mr. Farney said you didn't wish to be disturbed, sir."
+
+"Very good of him.  Give me my hat and coat."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Thank you.  What time is it?"
+
+"Six o'clock, sir."
+
+"Tell Mr. Farney to come and see me tomorrow at noon, about my speech for
+the general meeting."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Good-night to you."
+
+"Good-night, Sir."
+
+At his tortoise gait he passed between the office stools to the door,
+opened it feebly, and slowly vanished.
+
+Shutting the door behind him, a clerk said:
+
+"Poor old chairman!  He's on his last!"
+
+Another answered:
+
+"Gosh!  He's a tough old hulk.  He'll go down fightin'."
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+Issuing from the offices of "The Island Navigation Company," Sylvanus
+Heythorp moved towards the corner whence he always took tram to Sefton
+Park.  The crowded street had all that prosperous air of catching or
+missing something which characterises the town where London and New York
+and Dublin meet.  Old Heythorp had to cross to the far side, and he
+sallied forth without regard to traffic.  That snail-like passage had in
+it a touch of the sublime; the old man seemed saying: "Knock me down and
+be d---d to you--I'm not going to hurry."  His life was saved perhaps ten
+times a day by the British character at large, compounded of phlegm and a
+liking to take something under its protection.  The tram conductors on
+that line were especially used to him, never failing to catch him under
+the arms and heave him like a sack of coals, while with trembling hands
+he pulled hard at the rail and strap.
+
+"All right, sir?"
+
+"Thank you."
+
+He moved into the body of the tram, where somebody would always get up
+from kindness and the fear that he might sit down on them; and there he
+stayed motionless, his little eyes tight closed.  With his red face, tuft
+of white hairs above his square cleft block of shaven chin, and his big
+high-crowned bowler hat, which yet seemed too petty for his head with its
+thick hair--he looked like some kind of an idol dug up and decked out in
+gear a size too small.
+
+One of those voices of young men from public schools and exchanges where
+things are bought and sold, said:
+
+"How de do, Mr. Heythorp?"
+
+Old Heythorp opened his eyes.  That sleek cub, Joe Pillin's son!  What a
+young pup-with his round eyes, and his round cheeks, and his little
+moustache, his fur coat, his spats, his diamond pin!
+
+"How's your father?"  he said.
+
+"Thanks, rather below par, worryin' about his ships.  Suppose you haven't
+any news for him, sir?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.  The young man was one of his pet abominations,
+embodying all the complacent, little-headed mediocrity of this new
+generation; natty fellows all turned out of the same mould, sippers and
+tasters, chaps without drive or capacity, without even vices; and he did
+not intend to gratify the cub's curiosity.
+
+"Come to my house," he said; "I'll give you a note for him."
+
+"Tha-anks; I'd like to cheer the old man up."
+
+The old man!  Cheeky brat!  And closing his eyes he relapsed into
+immobility.  The tram wound and ground its upward way, and he mused. When
+he was that cub's age--twenty-eight or whatever it might be--he had done
+most things; been up Vesuvius, driven four-in-hand, lost his last penny
+on the Derby and won it back on the Oaks, known all the dancers and
+operatic stars of the day, fought a duel with a Yankee at Dieppe and
+winged him for saying through his confounded nose that Old England was
+played out; been a controlling voice already in his shipping firm; drunk
+five other of the best men in London under the table; broken his neck
+steeple-chasing; shot a burglar in the legs; been nearly drowned, for a
+bet; killed snipe in Chelsea; been to Court for his sins; stared a ghost
+out of countenance; and travelled with a lady of Spain.  If this young
+pup had done the last, it would be all he had; and yet, no doubt, he
+would call himself a "spark."
+
+The conductor touched his arm.
+
+"'Ere you are, sir."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+He lowered himself to the ground, and moved in the bluish darkness
+towards the gate of his daughter's house.  Bob Pillin walked beside him,
+thinking: 'Poor old josser, he is gettin' a back number!'  And he said:
+"I should have thought you ought to drive, sir.  My old guv'nor would
+knock up at once if he went about at night like this."
+
+The answer rumbled out into the misty air:
+
+"Your father's got no chest; never had."
+
+Bob Pillin gave vent to one of those fat cackles which come so readily
+from a certain type of man; and old Heythorp thought:
+
+'Laughing at his father!  Parrot!'
+
+They had reached the porch.
+
+A woman with dark hair and a thin, straight face and figure was arranging
+some flowers in the hall.  She turned and said:
+
+"You really ought not to be so late, Father!  It's wicked at this time of
+year.  Who is it--oh!  Mr. Pillin, how do you do?  Have you had tea?
+Won't you come to the drawing-room; or do you want to see my father?"
+
+"Tha-anks!  I believe your father--"  And he thought: 'By Jove! the old
+chap is a caution!'  For old Heythorp was crossing the hall without
+having paid the faintest attention to his daughter. Murmuring again:
+
+"Tha-anks awfully; he wants to give me something," he followed.  Miss
+Heythorp was not his style at all; he had a kind of dread of that thin
+woman who looked as if she could never be unbuttoned.  They said she was
+a great churchgoer and all that sort of thing.
+
+In his sanctum old Heythorp had moved to his writing-table, and was
+evidently anxious to sit down.
+
+"Shall I give you a hand, sir?"
+
+Receiving a shake of the head, Bob Pillin stood by the fire and watched.
+The old "sport" liked to paddle his own canoe.  Fancy having to lower
+yourself into a chair like that!  When an old Johnny got to such a state
+it was really a mercy when he snuffed out, and made way for younger men.
+How his Companies could go on putting up with such a fossil for chairman
+was a marvel!  The fossil rumbled and said in that almost inaudible
+voice:
+
+"I suppose you're beginning to look forward to your father's shoes?"
+
+Bob Pillin's mouth opened.  The voice went on:
+
+"Dibs and no responsibility.  Tell him from me to drink port--add five
+years to his life."
+
+To this unwarranted attack Bob Pillin made no answer save a laugh; he
+perceived that a manservant had entered the room.
+
+"A Mrs. Larne, sir.  Will you see her?"
+
+At this announcement the old man seemed to try and start; then he nodded,
+and held out the note he had written.  Bob Pillin received it together
+with the impression of a murmur which sounded like: "Scratch a poll,
+Poll!"  and passing the fine figure of a woman in a fur coat, who seemed
+to warm the air as she went by, he was in the hall again before he
+perceived that he had left his hat.
+
+A young and pretty girl was standing on the bearskin before the fire,
+looking at him with round-eyed innocence.  He thought: 'This is better; I
+mustn't disturb them for my hat'; and approaching the fire, said:
+
+"Jolly cold, isn't it?"
+
+The girl smiled: "Yes-jolly."
+
+He noticed that she had a large bunch of violets at her breast, a lot of
+fair hair, a short straight nose, and round blue-grey eyes very frank and
+open.  "Er" he said, "I've left my hat in there."
+
+"What larks!"  And at her little clear laugh something moved within Bob
+Pillin.
+
+"You know this house well?"
+
+She shook her head.  "But it's rather scrummy, isn't it?"
+
+Bob Pillin, who had never yet thought so answered:
+
+"Quite O.K."
+
+The girl threw up her head to laugh again.  "O.K.?  What's that?"
+
+Bob Pillin saw her white round throat, and thought: 'She is a ripper!'
+And he said with a certain desperation:
+
+"My name's Pillin.  Yours is Larne, isn't it?  Are you a relation here?"
+
+"He's our Guardy.  Isn't he a chook?"
+
+That rumbling whisper like "Scratch a Poll, Poll!"  recurring to Bob
+Pillin, he said with reservation:
+
+"You know him better than I do."  "Oh!  Aren't you his grandson, or
+something?"
+
+Bob Pillin did not cross himself.
+
+"Lord!  No!  My dad's an old friend of his; that's all."
+
+"Is your dad like him?"
+
+"Not much."
+
+"What a pity!  It would have been lovely if they'd been Tweedles."
+
+Bob Pillin thought: 'This bit is something new.  I wonder what her
+Christian name is.'  And he said:
+
+"What did your godfather and godmothers in your baptism---?"
+
+The girl laughed; she seemed to laugh at everything.
+
+"Phyllis."
+
+Could he say: "Is my only joy"?  Better keep it!  But-for what?  He
+wouldn't see her again if he didn't look out!  And he said:
+
+"I live at the last house in the park-the red one.  D'you know it?  Where
+do you?"
+
+"Oh! a long way--23, Millicent Villas.  It's a poky little house.  I hate
+it.  We have awful larks, though."
+
+"Who are we?"
+
+"Mother, and myself, and Jock--he's an awful boy.  You can't conceive
+what an awful boy he is.  He's got nearly red hair; I think he'll be just
+like Guardy when he gets old.  He's awful!"
+
+Bob Pillin murmured:
+
+"I should like to see him."
+
+"Would you?  I'll ask mother if you can.  You won't want to again; he
+goes off all the time like a squib."  She threw back her head, and again
+Bob Pillin felt a little giddy.  He collected himself, and drawled:
+
+"Are you going in to see your Guardy?"
+
+"No.  Mother's got something special to say.  We've never been here
+before, you see.  Isn't he fun, though?"
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"I think he's the greatest lark; but he's awfully nice to me.  Jock calls
+him the last of the Stoic'uns."
+
+A voice called from old Heythorp's den:
+
+"Phyllis!"  It had a particular ring, that voice, as if coming from
+beautifully formed red lips, of which the lower one must curve the least
+bit over; it had, too, a caressing vitality, and a kind of warm falsity.
+
+The girl threw a laughing look back over her shoulder, and vanished
+through the door into the room.
+
+Bob Pillin remained with his back to the fire and his puppy round eyes
+fixed on the air that her figure had last occupied.  He was experiencing
+a sensation never felt before.  Those travels with a lady of Spain,
+charitably conceded him by old Heythorp, had so far satisfied the
+emotional side of this young man; they had stopped short at Brighton and
+Scarborough, and been preserved from even the slightest intrusion of
+love.  A calculated and hygienic career had caused no anxiety either to
+himself or his father; and this sudden swoop of something more than
+admiration gave him an uncomfortable choky feeling just above his high
+round collar, and in the temples a sort of buzzing--those first symptoms
+of chivalry.  A man of the world does not, however, succumb without a
+struggle; and if his hat had not been out of reach, who knows whether he
+would not have left the house hurriedly, saying to himself: "No, no, my
+boy; Millicent Villas is hardly your form, when your intentions are
+honourable"?  For somehow that round and laughing face, bob of glistening
+hair, those wide-opened grey eyes refused to awaken the beginnings of
+other intentions--such is the effect of youth and innocence on even the
+steadiest young men.  With a kind of moral stammer, he was thinking: 'Can
+I--dare I offer to see them to their tram?  Couldn't I even nip out and
+get the car round and send them home in it?  No, I might miss
+them--better stick it out here!  What a jolly laugh!  What a tipping
+face--strawberries and cream, hay, and all that!  Millicent Villas!' And
+he wrote it on his cuff.
+
+The door was opening; he heard that warm vibrating voice: "Come along,
+Phyllis!"--the girl's laugh so high and fresh: "Right-o!  Coming!"  And
+with, perhaps, the first real tremor he had ever known, he crossed to the
+front door.  All the more chivalrous to escort them to the tram without a
+hat!  And suddenly he heard: "I've got your hat, young man!"  And her
+mother's voice, warm, and simulating shock: "Phyllis, you awful gairl!
+Did you ever see such an awful gairl; Mr.---"
+
+"Pillin, Mother."
+
+And then--he did not quite know how--insulated from the January air by
+laughter and the scent of fur and violets, he was between them walking to
+their tram.  It was like an experience out of the "Arabian Nights," or
+something of that sort, an intoxication which made one say one was going
+their way, though one would have to come all the way back in the same
+beastly tram.  Nothing so warming had ever happened to him as sitting
+between them on that drive, so that he forgot the note in his pocket, and
+his desire to relieve the anxiety of the "old man," his father.  At the
+tram's terminus they all got out.  There issued a purr of invitation to
+come and see them some time; a clear: "Jock'll love to see you!"  A low
+laugh: "You awful gairl!"  And a flash of cunning zigzagged across his
+brain.  Taking off his hat, he said:
+
+"Thanks awfully; rather!" and put his foot back on the step of the tram.
+Thus did he delicately expose the depths of his chivalry!
+
+"Oh! you said you were going our way!  What one-ers you do tell!  Oh!"
+The words were as music; the sight of those eyes growing rounder, the
+most perfect he had ever seen; and Mrs. Larne's low laugh, so warm yet so
+preoccupied, and the tips of the girl's fingers waving back above her
+head.  He heaved a sigh, and knew no more till he was seated at his club
+before a bottle of champagne.  Home!  Not he!  He wished to drink and
+dream.  "The old man" would get his news all right to-morrow!
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+The words: "A Mrs. Larne to see you, sir," had been of a nature to
+astonish weaker nerves.  What had brought her here?  She knew she mustn't
+come!  Old Heythorp had watched her entrance with cynical amusement.  The
+way she whiffed herself at that young pup in passing, the way her eyes
+slid round!  He had a very just appreciation of his son's widow; and a
+smile settled deep between his chin tuft and his moustache.  She lifted
+his hand, kissed it, pressed it to her splendid bust, and said:
+
+"So here I am at last, you see.  Aren't you surprised?"
+
+Old Heythorp, shook his head.
+
+"I really had to come and see you, Guardy; we haven't had a sight of you
+for such an age.  And in this awful weather!  How are you, dear old
+Guardy?"
+
+"Never better."  And, watching her green-grey eyes, he added:
+
+"Haven't a penny for you!"
+
+Her face did not fall; she gave her feather-laugh.
+
+"How dreadful of you to think I came for that!  But I am in an awful fix,
+Guardy."
+
+"Never knew you not to be."
+
+"Just let me tell you, dear; it'll be some relief.  I'm having the most
+terrible time."
+
+She sank into a low chair, disengaging an overpowering scent of violets,
+while melancholy struggled to subdue her face and body.
+
+"The most awful fix.  I expect to be sold up any moment.  We may be on
+the streets to-morrow.  I daren't tell the children; they're so happy,
+poor darlings.  I shall be obliged to take Jock away from school.  And
+Phyllis will have to stop her piano and dancing; it's an absolute crisis.
+And all due to those Midland Syndicate people. I've been counting on at
+least two hundred for my new story, and the wretches have refused it."
+
+With a tiny handkerchief she removed one tear from the corner of one eye.
+"It is hard, Guardy; I worked my brain silly over that story."
+
+From old Heythorp came a mutter which sounded suspiciously like:
+
+"Rats!"
+
+Heaving a sigh, which conveyed nothing but the generosity of her
+breathing apparatus, Mrs. Larne went on:
+
+"You couldn't, I suppose, let me have just one hundred?"
+
+"Not a bob."
+
+She sighed again, her eyes slid round the room; then in her warm voice
+she murmured:
+
+"Guardy, you were my dear Philip's father, weren't you?  I've never said
+anything; but of course you were.  He was so like you, and so is Jock."
+
+Nothing moved in old Heythorp's face.  No pagan image consulted with
+flowers and song and sacrifice could have returned less answer.  Her dear
+Philip!  She had led him the devil of a life, or he was a Dutchman!  And
+what the deuce made her suddenly trot out the skeleton like this?  But
+Mrs. Larne's eyes were still wandering.
+
+"What a lovely house!  You know, I think you ought to help me, Guardy.
+Just imagine if your grandchildren were thrown out into the street!"
+
+The old man grinned.  He was not going to deny his relationship--it was
+her look-out, not his.  But neither was he going to let her rush him.
+
+"And they will be; you couldn't look on and see it.  Do come to my rescue
+this once.  You really might do something for them."
+
+With a rumbling sigh he answered:
+
+"Wait.  Can't give you a penny now.  Poor as a church mouse."
+
+"Oh!  Guardy
+
+"Fact."
+
+Mrs. Larne heaved one of her most buoyant sighs.  She certainly did not
+believe him.
+
+"Well!" she said; "you'll be sorry when we come round one night and sing
+for pennies under your window.  Wouldn't you like to see Phyllis?  I left
+her in the hall.  She's growing such a sweet gairl. Guardy just fifty!"
+
+"Not a rap."
+
+Mrs. Larne threw up her hands.  "Well!  You'll repent it.  I'm at my last
+gasp."  She sighed profoundly, and the perfume of violets escaped in a
+cloud; Then, getting up, she went to the door and called: "Phyllis!"
+
+When the girl entered old Heythorp felt the nearest approach to a flutter
+of the heart for many years.  She had put her hair up!  She was like a
+spring day in January; such a relief from that scented humbug, her
+mother.  Pleasant the touch of her lips on his forehead, the sound of her
+clear voice, the sight of her slim movements, the feeling that she did
+him credit--clean-run stock, she and that young scamp Jock--better than
+the holy woman, his daughter Adela, would produce if anyone were ever
+fool enough to marry her, or that pragmatical fellow, his son Ernest.
+
+And when they were gone he reflected with added zest on the six thousand
+pounds he was getting for them out of Joe Pillin and his ships.  He would
+have to pitch it strong in his speech at the general meeting.  With
+freights so low, there was bound to be opposition.  No dash nowadays;
+nothing but gabby caution!  They were a scrim-shanking lot on the
+Board--he had had to pull them round one by one--the deuce of a tug
+getting this thing through!  And yet, the business was sound enough.
+Those ships would earn money, properly handled-good money
+
+His valet, coming in to prepare him for dinner, found him asleep.  He had
+for the old man as much admiration as may be felt for one who cannot put
+his own trousers on.  He would say to the housemaid Molly: "He's a game
+old blighter--must have been a rare one in his day. Cocks his hat at you,
+even now, I see!"  To which the girl, Irish and pretty, would reply:
+"Well, an' sure I don't mind, if it gives um a pleasure.  'Tis better
+anyway than the sad eye I get from herself."
+
+At dinner, old Heythorp always sat at one end of the rosewood table and
+his daughter at the other.  It was the eminent moment of the day. With
+napkin tucked high into his waistcoat, he gave himself to the meal with
+passion.  His palate was undimmed, his digestion unimpaired.  He could
+still eat as much as two men, and drink more than one.  And while he
+savoured each mouthful he never spoke if he could help it.  The holy
+woman had nothing to say that he cared to hear, and he nothing to say
+that she cared to listen to.  She had a horror, too, of what she called
+"the pleasures of the table"--those lusts of the flesh!  She was always
+longing to dock his grub, he knew.  Would see her further first!  What
+other pleasures were there at his age?  Let her wait till she was eighty.
+But she never would be; too thin and holy!
+
+This evening, however, with the advent of the partridge she did speak.
+
+"Who were your visitors, Father?"
+
+Trust her for nosing anything out!  Fixing his little blue eyes on her,
+he mumbled with a very full mouth: "Ladies."
+
+"So I saw; what ladies?"
+
+He had a longing to say: 'Part of one of my families under the rose.' As
+a fact it was the best part of the only one, but the temptation to
+multiply exceedingly was almost overpowering.  He checked himself,
+however, and went on eating partridge, his secret irritation crimsoning
+his cheeks; and he watched her eyes, those cold precise and round grey
+eyes, noting it, and knew she was thinking: 'He eats too much.'
+
+She said: "Sorry I'm not considered fit to be told.  You ought not to be
+drinking hock."
+
+Old Heythorp took up the long green glass, drained it, and repressing
+fumes and emotion went on with his partridge.  His daughter pursed her
+lips, took a sip of water, and said:
+
+"I know their name is Larne, but it conveyed nothing to me; perhaps it's
+just as well."
+
+The old man, mastering a spasm, said with a grin:
+
+"My daughter-in-law and my granddaughter."
+
+"What!  Ernest married--Oh! nonsense!"
+
+He chuckled, and shook his head.
+
+"Then do you mean to say, Father, that you were married before you
+married my mother?"
+
+"No."
+
+The expression on her face was as good as a play!
+
+She said with a sort of disgust: "Not married!  I see.  I suppose those
+people are hanging round your neck, then; no wonder you're always in
+difficulties.  Are there any more of them?"
+
+Again the old man suppressed that spasm, and the veins in his neck and
+forehead swelled alarmingly.  If he had spoken he would infallibly have
+choked.  He ceased eating, and putting his hands on the table tried to
+raise himself.  He could not and subsiding in his chair sat glaring at
+the stiff, quiet figure of his daughter.
+
+"Don't be silly, Father, and make a scene before Meller.  Finish your
+dinner."
+
+He did not answer.  He was not going to sit there to be dragooned and
+insulted!  His helplessness had never so weighed on him before.  It was
+like a revelation.  A log--that had to put up with anything!  A log!
+And, waiting for his valet to return, he cunningly took up his fork.
+
+In that saintly voice of hers she said:
+
+"I suppose you don't realise that it's a shock to me.  I don't know what
+Ernest will think--"
+
+"Ernest be d---d."
+
+"I do wish, Father, you wouldn't swear."
+
+Old Heythorp's rage found vent in a sort of rumble.  How the devil had he
+gone on all these years in the same house with that woman, dining with
+her day after day!  But the servant had come back now, and putting down
+his fork he said:
+
+"Help me up!"
+
+The man paused, thunderstruck, with the souffle balanced.  To leave
+dinner unfinished--it was a portent!
+
+"Help me up!"
+
+"Mr. Heythorp's not very well, Meller; take his other arm."
+
+The old man shook off her hand.
+
+"I'm very well.  Help me up.  Dine in my own room in future."
+
+Raised to his feet, he walked slowly out; but in his sanctum he did not
+sit down, obsessed by this first overwhelming realisation of his
+helplessness.  He stood swaying a little, holding on to the table, till
+the servant, having finished serving dinner, brought in his port.
+
+"Are you waiting to sit down, sir?"
+
+He shook his head.  Hang it, he could do that for himself, anyway. He
+must think of something to fortify his position against that woman.  And
+he said:
+
+"Send me Molly!"
+
+"Yes, sir."  The man put down the port and went.
+
+Old Heythorp filled his glass, drank, and filled again.  He took a cigar
+from the box and lighted it.  The girl came in, a grey-eyed, dark-haired
+damsel, and stood with her hands folded, her head a little to one side,
+her lips a little parted.  The old man said:
+
+"You're a human being."
+
+"I would hope so, sirr."
+
+"I'm going to ask you something as a human being--not a servant--see?"
+
+"No, sirr; but I will be glad to do anything you like."
+
+"Then put your nose in here every now and then, to see if I want
+anything.  Meller goes out sometimes.  Don't say anything; Just put your
+nose in."
+
+"Oh! an' I will; 'tis a pleasure 'twill be to do ut."
+
+He nodded, and when she had gone lowered himself into his chair with a
+sense of appeasement.  Pretty girl!  Comfort to see a pretty face--not a
+pale, peeky thing like Adela's.  His anger burned up anew.  So she
+counted on his helplessness, had begun to count on that, had she?  She
+should see that there was life in the old dog yet!  And his sacrifice of
+the uneaten souffle, the still less eaten mushrooms, the peppermint sweet
+with which he usually concluded dinner, seemed to consecrate that
+purpose.  They all thought he was a hulk, without a shot left in the
+locker!  He had seen a couple of them at the Board that afternoon
+shrugging at each other, as though saying: 'Look at him!' And young
+Farney pitying him.  Pity, forsooth!  And that coarse-grained solicitor
+chap at the creditors' meeting curling his lip as much as to say: 'One
+foot in the grave!'  He had seen the clerks dowsing the glim of their
+grins; and that young pup Bob Pillin screwing up his supercilious mug
+over his dog-collar.  He knew that scented humbug Rosamund was getting
+scared that he'd drop off before she'd squeezed him dry.  And his valet
+was always looking him up and down queerly.  As to that holy woman--!
+Not quite so fast!  Not quite so fast!  And filling his glass for the
+fourth time, he slowly sucked down the dark red fluid, with the "old
+boots" flavour which his soul loved, and, drawing deep at his cigar,
+closed his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+1
+
+The room in the hotel where the general meetings of "The Island
+Navigation Company" were held was nearly full when the secretary came
+through the door which as yet divided the shareholders from their
+directors.  Having surveyed their empty chairs, their ink and papers, and
+nodded to a shareholder or two, he stood, watch in hand, contemplating
+the congregation.  A thicker attendance than he had ever seen!  Due, no
+doubt, to the lower dividend, and this Pillin business.  And his tongue
+curled.  For if he had a natural contempt for his Board, with the
+exception of the chairman, he had a still more natural contempt for his
+shareholders.  Amusing spectacle when you came to think of it, a general
+meeting!  Unique!  Eighty or a hundred men, and five women, assembled
+through sheer devotion to their money.  Was any other function in the
+world so single-hearted. Church was nothing to it--so many motives were
+mingled there with devotion to one's soul.  A well-educated young
+man--reader of Anatole France, and other writers--he enjoyed ironic
+speculation.  What earthly good did they think they got by coming here?
+Half-past two!  He put his watch back into his pocket, and passed into the
+Board-room.
+
+There, the fumes of lunch and of a short preliminary meeting made cosy
+the February atmosphere.  By the fire four directors were conversing
+rather restlessly; the fifth was combing his beard; the chairman sat with
+eyes closed and red lips moving rhythmically in the sucking of a lozenge,
+the slips of his speech ready in his hand.  The secretary said in his
+cheerful voice: "Time, sir."
+
+Old Heythorp swallowed, lifted his arms, rose with help, and walked
+through to his place at the centre of the table.  The five directors
+followed.  And, standing at the chairman's right, the secretary read the
+minutes, forming the words precisely with his curling tongue. Then,
+assisting the chairman to his feet, he watched those rows of faces, and
+thought: 'Mistake to let them see he can't get up without help.  He ought
+to have let me read his speech--I wrote it.'
+
+The chairman began to speak:
+
+"It is my duty and my pleasure,' ladies and gentlemen, for the nineteenth
+consecutive year to present to you the directors' report and the accounts
+for the past twelve months.  You will all have had special notice of a
+measure of policy on which your Board has decided, and to which you will
+be asked to-day to give your adherence--to that I shall come at the end
+of my remarks...."
+
+"Excuse me, sir; we can't hear a word down here."
+
+'Ah!' thought the secretary, 'I was expecting that.'
+
+The chairman went on, undisturbed.  But several shareholders now rose,
+and the same speaker said testily: "We might as well go home. If the
+chairman's got no voice, can't somebody read for him?"
+
+The chairman took a sip of water, and resumed.  Almost all in the last
+six rows were now on their feet, and amid a hubbub of murmurs the
+chairman held out to the secretary the slips of his speech, and fell
+heavily back into his chair.
+
+The secretary re-read from the beginning; and as each sentence fell from
+his tongue, he thought: 'How good that is!'  'That's very clear!'  'A
+neat touch!'  'This is getting them.'  It seemed to him a pity they could
+not know it was all his composition.  When at last he came to the Pillin
+sale he paused for a second.
+
+"I come now to the measure of policy to which I made allusion at the
+beginning of my speech.  Your Board has decided to expand your enterprise
+by purchasing the entire fleet of Pillin & Co., Ltd.  By this transaction
+we become the owners of the four steamships Smyrna, Damascus, Tyre, and
+Sidon, vessels in prime condition with a total freight-carrying capacity
+of fifteen thousand tons, at the low inclusive price of sixty thousand
+pounds.  Gentlemen, de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"--it was the
+chairman's phrase, his bit of the speech, and the secretary did it more
+than justice.  "Times are bad, but your Board is emphatically of the
+opinion that they are touching bottom; and this, in their view, is the
+psychological moment for a forward stroke.  They confidently recommend
+your adoption of their policy and the ratification of this purchase,
+which they believe will, in the not far distant future, substantially
+increase the profits of the Company."  The secretary sat down with
+reluctance. The speech should have continued with a number of appealing
+sentences which he had carefully prepared, but the chairman had cut them
+out with the simple comment: "They ought to be glad of the chance."  It
+was, in his view, an error.
+
+The director who had combed his beard now rose--a man of presence, who
+might be trusted to say nothing long and suavely.  While he was speaking
+the secretary was busy noting whence opposition was likely to come.  The
+majority were sitting owl-like-a good sign; but some dozen were studying
+their copies of the report, and three at least were making
+notes--Westgate, for, instance, who wanted to get on the Board, and was
+sure to make himself unpleasant--the time-honoured method of vinegar; and
+Batterson, who also desired to come on, and might be trusted to support
+the Board--the time-honoured method of oil; while, if one knew anything
+of human nature, the fellow who had complained that he might as well go
+home would have something uncomfortable to say.  The director finished
+his remarks, combed his beard with his fingers, and sat down.
+
+A momentary pause ensued.  Then Messieurs Westgate and Batterson rose
+together.  Seeing the chairman nod towards the latter, the secretary
+thought: 'Mistake!  He should have humoured Westgate by giving him
+precedence.'  But that was the worst of the old man, he had no notion of
+the suaviter in modo!  Mr. Batterson thus unchained--would like, if he
+might be so allowed, to congratulate the Board on having piloted their
+ship so smoothly through the troublous waters of the past year.  With
+their worthy chairman still at the helm, he had no doubt that in spite of
+the still low--he would not say falling--barometer, and
+the-er-unseasonable climacteric, they might rely on weathering
+the--er--he would not say storm.  He would confess that the present
+dividend of four per cent. was not one which satisfied every aspiration
+(Hear, hear!), but speaking for himself, and he hoped for others--and
+here Mr. Batterson looked round--he recognised that in all the
+circumstances it was as much as they had the right--er--to expect.  But
+following the bold but to his mind prudent development which the Board
+proposed to make, he thought that they might reasonably, if not
+sanguinely, anticipate a more golden future. ("No, no!") A shareholder
+said, 'No, no!'  That might seem to indicate a certain lack of confidence
+in the special proposal before the meeting.  ("Yes!") From that lack of
+confidence he would like at once to dissociate himself.  Their chairman,
+a man of foresight and acumen, and valour proved on many a field
+and--er--sea, would not have committed himself to this policy without
+good reason.  In his opinion they were in safe hands, and he was glad to
+register his support of the measure proposed.  The chairman had well said
+in his speech: 'de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!'  Shareholders would
+agree with him that there could be no better motto for Englishmen. Ahem!
+
+Mr. Batterson sat down.  And Mr. Westgate rose: He wanted--he said--to
+know more, much more, about this proposition, which to his mind was of a
+very dubious wisdom....  'Ah!' thought the secretary, 'I told the old boy
+he must tell them more'....  To whom, for instance, had the proposal
+first been made?  To him!--the chairman said.  Good!  But why were Pillins
+selling, if freights were to go up, as they were told?
+
+"Matter of opinion."
+
+"Quite so; and in my opinion they are going lower, and Pillins were right
+to sell.  It follows that we are wrong to buy."  ("Hear, hear!" "No,
+no!") "Pillins are shrewd people.  What does the chairman say?  Nerves!
+Does he mean to tell us that this sale was the result of nerves?"
+
+The chairman nodded.
+
+"That appears to me a somewhat fantastic theory; but I will leave that
+and confine myself to asking the grounds on which the chairman bases his
+confidence; in fact, what it is which is actuating the Board in pressing
+on us at such a time what I have no hesitation in stigmatising as a rash
+proposal.  In a word, I want light as well as leading in this matter."
+
+Mr. Westgate sat down.
+
+What would the chairman do now?  The situation was distinctly
+awkward--seeing his helplessness and the lukewarmness of the Board behind
+him.  And the secretary felt more strongly than ever the absurdity of his
+being an underling, he who in a few well-chosen words could so easily
+have twisted the meeting round his thumb. Suddenly he heard the long,
+rumbling sigh which preluded the chairman's speeches.
+
+"Has any other gentleman anything to say before I move the adoption of
+the report?"
+
+Phew!  That would put their backs up.  Yes, sure enough it had brought
+that fellow, who had said he might as well go home, to his feet!  Now for
+something nasty!
+
+"Mr. Westgate requires answering.  I don't like this business.  I don't
+impute anything to anybody; but it looks to me as if there were something
+behind it which the shareholders ought to be told.  Not only that; but,
+to speak frankly, I'm not satisfied to be ridden over roughshod in this
+fashion by one who, whatever he may have been in the past, is obviously
+not now in the prime of his faculties."
+
+With a gasp the secretary thought: 'I knew that was a plain-spoken man!'
+
+He heard again the rumbling beside him.  The chairman had gone crimson,
+his mouth was pursed, his little eyes were very blue.
+
+"Help me up," he said.
+
+The secretary helped him, and waited, rather breathless.
+
+The chairman took a sip of water, and his voice, unexpectedly loud, broke
+an ominous hush:
+
+"Never been so insulted in my life.  My best services have been at your
+disposal for nineteen years; you know what measure of success this
+Company has attained.  I am the oldest man here, and my experience of
+shipping is, I hope, a little greater than that of the two gentlemen who
+spoke last.  I have done my best for you, ladies and gentlemen, and we
+shall see whether you are going to endorse an indictment of my judgment
+and of my honour, if I am to take the last speaker seriously.  This
+purchase is for your good.  'There is a tide in the affairs of men'--and
+I for one am not content, never have been, to stagnate.  If that is what
+you want, however, by all means give your support to these gentlemen and
+have done with it.  I tell you freights will go up before the end of the
+year; the purchase is a sound one, more than a sound one--I, at any rate,
+stand or fall by it.  Refuse to ratify it, if you like; if you do, I
+shall resign."
+
+He sank back into his seat.  The secretary, stealing a glance, thought
+with a sort of enthusiasm: 'Bravo!  Who'd have thought he could rally his
+voice like that?  A good touch, too, that about his honour!  I believe
+he's knocked them.
+
+It's still dicky, though, if that fellow at the back gets up again; the
+old chap can't work that stop a second time.  'Ah! here was 'old
+Apple-pie' on his hind legs.  That was all right!
+
+"I do not hesitate to say that I am an old friend of the chairman; we
+are, many of us, old friends of the chairman, and it has been painful to
+me, and I doubt not to others, to hear an attack made on him.  If he is
+old in body, he is young in mental vigour and courage.  I wish we were
+all as young.  We ought to stand by him; I say, we ought to stand by
+him."  ("Hear, hear!  Hear, hear!") And the secretary thought: 'That's
+done it!' And he felt a sudden odd emotion, watching the chairman bobbing
+his body, like a wooden toy, at old Appleby; and old Appleby bobbing
+back.  Then, seeing a shareholder close to the door get up, thought:
+'Who's that?  I know his face--Ah! yes; Ventnor, the solicitor--he's one
+of the chairman's creditors that are coming again this afternoon.  What
+now?'
+
+"I can't agree that we ought to let sentiment interfere with our judgment
+in this matter.  The question is simply: How are our pockets going to be
+affected?  I came here with some misgivings, but the attitude of the
+chairman has been such as to remove them; and I shall support the
+proposition."  The secretary thought: 'That's all right--only, he said it
+rather queerly--rather queerly.'
+
+Then, after a long silence, the chairman, without rising, said:
+
+"I move the adoption of the report and accounts."
+
+"I second that."
+
+"Those in favour signify the same in the usual way.  Contrary?  Carried."
+The secretary noted the dissentients, six in number, and that Mr.
+Westgate did not vote.
+
+A quarter of an hour later he stood in the body of the emptying room
+supplying names to one of the gentlemen of the Press.  The passionless
+fellow said: "Haythorp, with an 'a'; oh! an 'e'; he seems an old man.
+Thank you.  I may have the slips?  Would you like to see a proof?  With
+an 'a' you said--oh! an 'e.' Good afternoon!" And the secretary thought:
+'Those fellows, what does go on inside them?  Fancy not knowing the old
+chairman by now!'...
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+Back in the proper office of "The Island Navigation Company" old Heythorp
+sat smoking a cigar and smiling like a purring cat.  He was dreaming a
+little of his triumph, sifting with his old brain, still subtle, the
+wheat from the chaff of the demurrers: Westgate--nothing in
+that--professional discontent till they silenced him with a place on the
+board--but not while he held the reins!  That chap at the back--an
+ill-conditioned fellow!  "Something behind!"  Suspicious brute!  There
+was something--but--hang it! they might think themselves lucky to get
+four ships at that price, and all due to him!  It was on the last speaker
+that his mind dwelt with a doubt.  That fellow Ventnor, to whom he owed
+money--there had been something just a little queer about his tone--as
+much as to say, "I smell a rat." Well! one would see that at the
+creditors' meeting in half an hour.
+
+"Mr. Pillin, sir."
+
+"Show him in!"
+
+In a fur coat which seemed to extinguish his thin form, Joe Pillin
+entered.  It was snowing, and the cold had nipped and yellowed his meagre
+face between its slight grey whiskering.  He said thinly:
+
+"How are you, Sylvanus?  Aren't you perished in this cold?"
+
+"Warm as a toast.  Sit down.  Take off your coat."
+
+"Oh!  I should be lost without it.  You must have a fire inside you.
+So-so it's gone through?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded; and Joe Pillin, wandering like a spirit, scrutinised
+the shut door.  He came back to the table, and said in a low voice:
+
+"It's a great sacrifice."
+
+Old Heythorp smiled.
+
+"Have you signed the deed poll?"
+
+Producing a parchment from his pocket Joe Pillin unfolded it with caution
+to disclose his signature, and said:
+
+"I don't like it--it's irrevocable."
+
+A chuckle escaped old Heythorp.
+
+"As death."
+
+Joe Pillin's voice passed up into the treble clef.
+
+"I can't bear irrevocable things.  I consider you stampeded me, playing
+on my nerves."
+
+Examining the signatures old Heythorp murmured:
+
+"Tell your lawyer to lock it up.  He must think you a sad dog, Joe."
+
+"Ah!  Suppose on my death it comes to the knowledge of my wife!"
+
+"She won't be able to make it hotter for you than you'll be already."
+
+Joe Pillin replaced the deed within his coat, emitting a queer thin
+noise.  He simply could not bear joking on such subjects.
+
+"Well," he said, "you've got your way; you always do.  Who is this Mrs.
+Larne?  You oughtn't to keep me in the dark.  It seems my boy met her at
+your house.  You told me she didn't come there."
+
+Old Heythorp said with relish:
+
+"Her husband was my son by a woman I was fond of before I married; her
+children are my grandchildren.  You've provided for them.  Best thing you
+ever did."
+
+"I don't know--I don't know.  I'm sorry you told me.  It makes it all the
+more doubtful.  As soon as the transfer's complete, I shall get away
+abroad.  This cold's killing me.  I wish you'd give me your recipe for
+keeping warm."
+
+"Get a new inside."
+
+Joe Pillin regarded his old friend with a sort of yearning.  "And yet,"
+he said, "I suppose, with your full-blooded habit, your life hangs by a
+thread, doesn't it?"
+
+"A stout one, my boy"
+
+"Well, good-bye, Sylvanus.  You're a Job's comforter; I must be getting
+home."  He put on his hat, and, lost in his fur coat, passed out into the
+corridor.  On the stairs he met a man who said:
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Pillin?  I know your son.  Been' seeing the chairman?
+I see your sale's gone through all right.  I hope that'll do us some
+good, but I suppose you think the other way?"
+
+Peering at him from under his hat, Joe Pillin said:
+
+"Mr. Ventnor, I think?  Thank you!  It's very cold, isn't it?"  And, with
+that cautious remark, he passed on down.
+
+Alone again, old Heythorp thought: 'By George!  What a wavering,
+quavering, thread paper of a fellow!  What misery life must be to a chap
+like that!  He walks in fear--he wallows in it.  Poor devil!' And a
+curious feeling swelled his heart, of elation, of lightness such as he
+had not known for years.  Those two young things were safe now from
+penury-safe!  After dealing with those infernal creditors of his he would
+go round and have a look at the children.  With a hundred and twenty a
+year the boy could go into the Army--best place for a young scamp like
+that. The girl would go off like hot cakes, of course, but she needn't
+take the first calf that came along. As for their mother, she must look
+after herself; nothing under two thousand a year would keep her out of
+debt.  But trust her for wheedling and bluffing her way out of any
+scrape!  Watching his cigar-smoke curl and disperse he was conscious of
+the strain he had been under these last six weeks, aware suddenly of how
+greatly he had baulked at thought of to-day's general meeting. Yes!  It
+might have turned out nasty.  He knew well enough the forces on the
+Board, and off, who would be only too glad to shelve him.  If he were
+shelved here his other two Companies would be sure to follow suit, and
+bang would go every penny of his income--he would be a pauper dependant
+on that holy woman.  Well!  Safe now for another year if he could stave
+off these sharks once more.  It might be a harder job this time, but he
+was in luck--in luck, and it must hold.  And taking a luxurious pull at
+his cigar, he rang the handbell.
+
+"Bring 'em in here, Mr. Farney.  And let me have a cup of China tea as
+strong as you can make it."
+
+"Yes, sir.  Will you see the proof of the press report, or will you leave
+it to me?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"Yes, sir.  It was a good meeting, wasn't it?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.
+
+"Wonderful how your voice came back just at the right moment.  I was
+afraid things were going to be difficult.  The insult did it, I think.
+It was a monstrous thing to say.  I could have punched his head."
+
+Again old Heythorp nodded; and, looking into the secretary's fine blue
+eyes, he repeated: "Bring 'em in."
+
+The lonely minute before the entrance of his creditors passed in the
+thought: 'So that's how it struck him!  Short shrift I should get if it
+came out.'
+
+The gentlemen, who numbered ten this time, bowed to their debtor,
+evidently wondering why the deuce they troubled to be polite to an old
+man who kept them out of their money.  Then, the secretary reappearing
+with a cup of China tea, they watched while their debtor drank it.  The
+feat was tremulous.  Would he get through without spilling it all down
+his front, or choking?  To those unaccustomed to his private life it was
+slightly miraculous.  He put the cup down empty, tremblingly removed some
+yellow drops from the little white tuft below his lip, refit his cigar,
+and said:
+
+"No use beating about the bush, gentlemen; I can offer you fourteen
+hundred a year so long as I live and hold my directorships, and not a
+penny more.  If you can't accept that, you must make me bankrupt and get
+about sixpence in the pound.  My qualifying shares will fetch a couple of
+thousand at market price.  I own nothing else.  The house I live in, and
+everything in it, barring my clothes, my wine, and my cigars, belong to
+my daughter under a settlement fifteen years old. My solicitors and
+bankers will give you every information.  That's the position in a
+nutshell."
+
+In spite of business habits the surprise of the ten gentlemen was only
+partially concealed.  A man who owed them so much would naturally say he
+owned nothing, but would he refer them to his solicitors and bankers
+unless he were telling the truth?  Then Mr. Ventnor said:
+
+"Will you submit your pass books?"
+
+"No, but I'll authorise my bankers to give you a full statement of my
+receipts for the last five years--longer, if you like."
+
+The strategic stroke of placing the ten gentlemen round the Board table
+had made it impossible for them to consult freely without being
+overheard, but the low-voiced transference of thought travelling round
+was summed up at last by Mr. Brownbee.
+
+"We think, Mr. Heythorp, that your fees and dividends should enable you
+to set aside for us a larger sum.  Sixteen hundred, in fact, is what we
+think you should give us yearly.  Representing, as we do, sixteen
+thousand pounds, the prospect is not cheering, but we hope you have some
+good years before you yet.  We understand your income to be two thousand
+pounds."
+
+Old Heythorp shook his head.  "Nineteen hundred and thirty pounds in a
+good year.  Must eat and drink; must have a man to look after me not as
+active as I was.  Can't do on less than five hundred pounds. Fourteen
+hundred's all I can give you, gentlemen; it's an advance of two hundred
+pounds.  That's my last word."
+
+The silence was broken by Mr. Ventnor.
+
+"And it's my last word that I'm not satisfied.  If these other gentlemen
+accept your proposition I shall be forced to consider what I can do on my
+own account."
+
+The old man stared at him, and answered:
+
+"Oh! you will, sir; we shall see."
+
+The others had risen and were gathered in a knot at the end of the table;
+old Heythorp and Mr. Ventnor alone remained seated.  The old man's lower
+lip projected till the white hairs below stood out like bristles.  'You
+ugly dog,' he was thinking, 'you think you've got something up your
+sleeve.  Well, do your worst!'  The "ugly dog" rose abruptly and joined
+the others.  And old Heythorp closed his eyes, sitting perfectly still,
+with his cigar, which had gone out, sticking up between his teeth.  Mr.
+Brownbee turning to voice the decision come to, cleared his throat.
+
+"Mr. Heythorp," he said, "if your bankers and solicitors bear out your
+statements, we shall accept your offer faute de mieux, in consideration
+of your--" but meeting the old man's eyes, which said so very plainly:
+"Blow your consideration!" he ended with a stammer: "Perhaps you will
+kindly furnish us with the authorisation you spoke of?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded, and Mr. Brownbee, with a little bow, clasped his hat
+to his breast and moved towards the door.  The nine gentlemen followed.
+Mr. Ventnor, bringing up the rear, turned and looked back. But the old
+man's eyes were already closed again.
+
+The moment his creditors were gone, old Heythorp sounded the hand-bell.
+
+"Help me up, Mr. Farney.  That Ventnor--what's his holding?"
+
+"Quite small.  Only ten shares, I think."
+
+"Ah!  What time is it?"
+
+"Quarter to four, sir."
+
+"Get me a taxi."
+
+After visiting his bank and his solicitors he struggled once more into
+his cab and caused it to be driven towards Millicent Villas.  A kind of
+sleepy triumph permeated his whole being, bumped and shaken by the cab's
+rapid progress.  So!  He was free of those sharks now so long as he could
+hold on to his Companies; and he would still have a hundred a year or
+more to spare for Rosamund and her youngsters.  He could live on four
+hundred, or even three-fifty, without losing his independence, for there
+would be no standing life in that holy woman's house unless he could pay
+his own scot!  A good day's work!  The best for many a long month!
+
+The cab stopped before the villa.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+There are rooms which refuse to give away their owners, and rooms which
+seem to say: 'They really are like this.' Of such was Rosamund Larne's--a
+sort of permanent confession, seeming to remark to anyone who entered:
+'Her taste?  Well, you can see--cheerful and exuberant; her habits--yes,
+she sits here all the morning in a dressing-gown, smoking cigarettes and
+dropping ink; kindly observe my carpet. Notice the piano--it has a look
+of coming and going, according to the exchequer.  This very
+deep-cushioned sofa is permanent, however; the water-colours on the walls
+are safe, too--they're by herself.  Mark the scent of mimosa--she likes
+flowers, and likes them strong.  No clock, of course.  Examine the
+bureau--she is obviously always ringing for "the drumstick," and saying:
+"Where's this, Ellen, and where's that?  You naughty gairl, you've been
+tidying."  Cast an eye on that pile of manuscript--she has evidently a
+genius for composition; it flows off her pen--like Shakespeare, she never
+blots a line.  See how she's had the electric light put in, instead of
+that horrid gas; but try and turn either of them on--you can't; last
+quarter isn't paid, of course; and she uses an oil lamp, you can tell
+that by the ceiling: The dog over there, who will not answer to the name
+of 'Carmen,' a Pekinese spaniel like a little Djin, all prominent eyes
+rolling their blacks, and no nose between--yes, Carmen looks as if she
+didn't know what was coming next; she's right--it's a pet-and-slap-again
+life!  Consider, too, the fittings of the tea-tray, rather soiled, though
+not quite tin, but I say unto you that no millionaire's in all its glory
+ever had a liqueur bottle on it.'
+
+When old Heythorp entered this room, which extended from back to front of
+the little house, preceded by the announcement "Mr.  Aesop," it was
+resonant with a very clatter-bodandigo of noises, from Phyllis playing
+the Machiche; from the boy Jock on the hearthrug, emitting at short
+intervals the most piercing notes from an ocarina; from Mrs. Larne on the
+sofa, talking with her trailing volubility to Bob Pillin; from Bob Pillin
+muttering: "Ye-es!  Qui-ite!  Ye-es!" and gazing at Phyllis over his
+collar.  And, on the window-sill, as far as she could get from all this
+noise, the little dog Carmen was rolling her eyes.  At sight of their
+visitor Jock blew one rending screech, and bolting behind the sofa,
+placed his chin on its top, so that nothing but his round pink unmoving
+face was visible; and the dog Carmen tried to climb the blind cord.
+
+Encircled from behind by the arms of Phyllis, and preceded by the
+gracious perfumed bulk of Mrs. Larne, old Heythorp was escorted to the
+sofa.  It was low, and when he had plumped down into it, the boy Jock
+emitted a hollow groan.  Bob Pillin was the first to break the silence.
+
+"How are you, sir?  I hope it's gone through."
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.  His eyes were fixed on the liqueur, and Mrs. Larne
+murmured:
+
+"Guardy, you must try our new liqueur.  Jock, you awful boy, get up and
+bring Guardy a glass."
+
+The boy Jock approached the tea-table, took up a glass, put it to his eye
+and filled it rapidly.
+
+"You horrible boy, you could see that glass has been used."
+
+In a high round voice rather like an angel's, Jock answered:
+
+"All right, Mother; I'll get rid of it," and rapidly swallowing the
+yellow liquor, took up another glass.
+
+Mrs. Larne laughed.
+
+"What am I to do with him?"
+
+A loud shriek prevented a response.  Phyllis, who had taken her brother
+by the ear to lead him to the door, let him go to clasp her injured self.
+
+Bob Pillin went hastening towards her; and following the young man with
+her chin, Mrs. Larne said, smiling:
+
+"Aren't those children awful?  He's such a nice fellow.  We like him so
+much, Guardy."
+
+The old man grinned.  So she was making up to that young pup!  Rosamund
+Larne, watching him, murmured:
+
+"Oh!  Guardy, you're as bad as Jock.  He takes after you terribly. Look
+at the shape of his head.  Jock, come here!"  The innocent boy
+approached; with his girlish complexion, his flowery blue eyes, his
+perfect mouth, he stood before his mother like a large cherub.  And
+suddenly he blew his ocarina in a dreadful manner.  Mrs. Larne launched a
+box at his ears, and receiving the wind of it he fell prone.
+
+"That's the way he behaves.  Be off with you, you awful boy.  I want to
+talk to Guardy."
+
+The boy withdrew on his stomach, and sat against the wall cross-legged,
+fixing his innocent round eyes on old Heythorp.  Mrs. Larne sighed.
+
+"Things are worse and worse, Guardy.  I'm at my wits' end to tide over
+this quarter.  You wouldn't advance me a hundred on my new story?  I'm
+sure to get two for it in the end."
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"I've done something for you and the children," he said.  "You'll get
+notice of it in a day or two; ask no questions."
+
+"Oh!  Guardy!  Oh! you dear!"  And her gaze rested on Bob Pillin, leaning
+over the piano, where Phyllis again sat.
+
+Old Heythorp snorted.  "What are you cultivating that young gaby for?  She
+mustn't be grabbed up by any fool who comes along."
+
+Mrs. Larne murmured at once:
+
+"Of course, the dear gairl is much too young.  Phyllis, come and talk to
+Guardy!"
+
+When the girl was installed beside him on the sofa, and he had felt that
+little thrill of warmth the proximity of youth can bring, he said:
+
+"Been a good girl?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Can't, when Jock's not at school.  Mother can't pay for him this term."
+
+Hearing his name, the boy Jock blew his ocarina till Mrs. Larne drove him
+from the room, and Phyllis went on:
+
+"He's more awful than anything you can think of.  Was my dad at all like
+him, Guardy?  Mother's always so mysterious about him.  I suppose you
+knew him well."
+
+Old Heythorp, incapable of confusion,  answered stolidly:
+
+"Not very."
+
+"Who was his father?  I don't believe even mother knows."
+
+"Man about town in my day."
+
+"Oh! your day must have been jolly.  Did you wear peg-top trousers, and
+dundreary's?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.
+
+"What larks!  And I suppose you had lots of adventures with opera dancers
+and gambling.  The young men are all so good now."  Her eyes rested on
+Bob Pillin.  "That young man's a perfect stick of goodness."
+
+Old Heythorp grunted.
+
+"You wouldn't know how good he was," Phyllis went on musingly, "unless
+you'd sat next him in a tunnel.  The other day he had his waist squeezed
+and he simply sat still and did nothing.  And then when the tunnel ended,
+it was Jock after all, not me.  His face was--Oh! ah! ha! ha!  Ah! ha!"
+She threw back her head, displaying all her white, round throat.  Then
+edging near, she whispered:
+
+"He likes to pretend, of course, that he's fearfully lively.  He's
+promised to take mother and me to the theatre and supper afterwards.
+Won't it be scrummy!  Only, I haven't anything to go in."
+
+Old Heythorp said: "What do you want?  Irish poplin?"
+
+Her mouth opened wide: "Oh!  Guardy!  Soft white satin!"
+
+"How many yards'll go round you?"
+
+"I should think about twelve.  We could make it ourselves.  You are a
+chook!"
+
+A scent of hair, like hay, enveloped him, her lips bobbed against his
+nose,--and there came a feeling in his heart as when he rolled the first
+sip of a special wine against his palate.  This little house was a
+rumty-too affair, her mother was a humbug, the boy a cheeky young rascal,
+but there was a warmth here he never felt in that big house which had
+been his wife's and was now his holy daughter's.  And once more he
+rejoiced at his day's work, and the success of his breach of trust, which
+put some little ground beneath these young feet, in a hard and
+unscrupulous world.  Phyllis whispered in his ear:
+
+"Guardy, do look; he will stare at me like that.  Isn't it awful--like a
+boiled rabbit?"
+
+Bob Pillin, attentive to Mrs. Larne, was gazing with all his might over
+her shoulder at the girl.  The young man was moonstruck, that was clear!
+There was something almost touching in the stare of those puppy dog's
+eyes.  And he thought 'Young beggar--wish I were his age!'  The utter
+injustice of having an old and helpless body, when your desire for
+enjoyment was as great as ever!  They said a man was as old as he felt!
+Fools!  A man was as old as his legs and arms, and not a  day younger.
+He heard the girl beside him utter a discomfortable sound, and saw her
+face cloud as if tears were not far off; she jumped up, and going to the
+window, lifted the little dog and buried her face in its brown and white
+fur.  Old Heythorp thought: 'She sees that her humbugging mother is using
+her as a decoy.'  But she had come back, and the little dog, rolling its
+eyes horribly at the strange figure on the sofa, in a desperate effort to
+escape succeeded in reaching her shoulder, where it stayed perched like a
+cat, held by one paw and trying to back away into space.  Old Heythorp
+said abruptly:
+
+"Are you very fond of your mother?"
+
+"Of course I am, Guardy.  I adore her."
+
+"H'm!  Listen to me.  When you come of age or marry, you'll have a
+hundred and twenty a year of your own that you can't get rid of. Don't
+ever be persuaded into doing what you don't want.  And remember: Your
+mother's a sieve, no good giving her money; keep what you'll get for
+yourself--it's only a pittance, and you'll want it all--every penny."
+
+Phyllis's eyes had opened very wide; so that he wondered if she had taken
+in his words.
+
+"Oh!  Isn't money horrible, Guardy?"
+
+"The want of it."
+
+"No, it's beastly altogether.  If only we were like birds.  Or if one
+could put out a plate overnight, and have just enough in the morning to
+use during the day."
+
+Old Heythorp sighed.
+
+"There's only one thing in life that matters--independence.  Lose that,
+and you lose everything.  That's the value of money.  Help me up."
+
+Phyllis stretched out her hands, and the little dog, running down her
+back, resumed its perch on the window-sill, close to the blind cord.
+
+Once on his feet, old Heythorp said:
+
+"Give me a kiss.  You'll have your satin tomorrow."
+
+Then looking at Bob Pillin, he remarked:
+
+"Going my way?  I'll give you a lift."
+
+The young man, giving Phyllis one appealing look, answered dully:
+"Tha-anks!"  and they went out together to the taxi.  In that draughtless
+vehicle they sat, full of who knows what contempt of age for youth; and
+youth for age; the old man resenting this young pup's aspiration to his
+granddaughter; the young man annoyed that this old image had dragged him
+away before he wished to go.  Old Heythorp said at last:
+
+"Well?"
+
+Thus expected to say something, Bob Pillin muttered
+
+"Glad your meetin' went off well, sir.  You scored a triumph I should
+think."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh!  I don't know.  I thought you had a good bit of opposition to
+contend with."
+
+Old Heythorp looked at him.
+
+"Your grandmother!"  he said; then, with his habitual instinct of attack,
+added: "You make the most of your opportunities, I see."
+
+At this rude assault Bob Pillin's red-cheeked face assumed a certain
+dignity.  "I don't know what you mean, sir.  Mrs. Larne is very kind to
+me."
+
+"No doubt.  But don't try to pick the flowers."
+
+Thoroughly upset, Bob Pillin preserved a dogged silence.  This fortnight,
+since he had first met Phyllis in old Heythorp's hall, had been the most
+singular of his existence up to now.  He would never have believed that a
+fellow could be so quickly and completely bowled, could succumb without a
+kick, without even wanting to kick. To one with his philosophy of having
+a good time and never committing himself too far, it was in the nature of
+"a fair knock-out," and yet so pleasurable, except for the wear and tear
+about one's chances.  If only he knew how far the old boy really counted
+in the matter!  To say: "My intentions are strictly honourable" would be
+old-fashioned; besides--the old fellow might have no right to hear it.
+They called him Guardy, but without knowing more he did not want to admit
+the old curmudgeon's right to interfere.
+
+"Are you a relation of theirs, sir?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.
+
+Bob Pillin went on with desperation:
+
+"I should like to know what your objection to me is."
+
+The old man turned his head so far as he was able; a grim smile bristled
+the hairs about his lips, and twinkled in his eyes.  What did he object
+to?  Why--everything!  Object to!  That sleek head, those puppy-dog eyes,
+fattish red cheeks, high collars, pearl pin, spats, and drawl-pah! the
+imbecility, the smugness of his mug; no go, no devil in any of his sort,
+in any of these fish-veined, coddled-up young bloods, nothing but playing
+for safety!  And he wheezed out:
+
+"Milk and water masquerading as port wine."
+
+Bob Pillin frowned.
+
+It was almost too much for the composure even of a man of the world. That
+this paralytic old fellow should express contempt for his virility was
+really the last thing in jests.  Luckily he could not take it seriously.
+But suddenly he thought: 'What if he really has the power to stop my
+going there, and means to turn them against me!' And his heart quailed.
+
+"Awfully sorry, sir," he said, "if you don't think I'm wild enough.
+Anything I can do for you in that line--"
+
+The old man grunted; and realising that he had been quite witty, Bob
+Pillin went on:
+
+"I know I'm not in debt, no entanglements, got a decent income, pretty
+good expectations and all that; but I can soon put that all right if I'm
+not fit without."
+
+It was perhaps his first attempt at irony, and he could not help thinking
+how good it was.
+
+But old Heythorp preserved a deadly silence.  He looked like a stuffed
+man, a regular Aunt Sally sitting there, with the fixed red in his
+cheeks, his stivered hair, square block of a body, and no neck that you
+could see-only wanting the pipe in his mouth!  Could there really be
+danger from such an old idol?  The idol spoke:
+
+"I'll give you a word of advice.  Don't hang round there, or you'll burn
+your fingers.  Remember me to your father.  Good-night!"
+
+The taxi had stopped before the house in Sefton Park.  An insensate
+impulse to remain seated and argue the point fought in Bob Pillin with an
+impulse to leap out, shake his fist in at the window, and walk off.  He
+merely said, however:
+
+"Thanks for the lift.  Good-night!"  And, getting out deliberately, he
+walked off.
+
+Old Heythorp, waiting for the driver to help him up, thought 'Fatter, but
+no more guts than his father!'
+
+In his sanctum he sank at once into his chair.  It was wonderfully still
+there every day at this hour; just the click of the coals, just the
+faintest ruffle from the wind in the trees of the park.  And it was
+cosily warm, only the fire lightening the darkness.  A drowsy beatitude
+pervaded the old man.  A good day's work!  A triumph--that young pup had
+said.  Yes!  Something of a triumph!  He had held on, and won.  And
+dinner to look forward to, yet.  A nap--a nap!  And soon, rhythmic, soft,
+sonorous, his breathing rose, with now and then that pathetic twitching
+of the old who dream.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+1
+
+When Bob Pillin emerged from the little front garden of 23, Millicent
+Villas ten days later, his sentiments were ravelled, and he could not get
+hold of an end to pull straight the stuff of his mind.
+
+He had found Mrs. Larne and Phyllis in the sitting-room, and Phyllis had
+been crying; he was sure she had been crying; and that memory still
+infected the sentiments evoked by later happenings.  Old Heythorp had
+said: "You'll burn your fingers."  The process had begun.  Having sent
+her daughter away on a pretext really a bit too thin, Mrs. Larne had
+installed him beside her scented bulk on the sofa, and poured into his
+ear such a tale of monetary woe and entanglement, such a mass of present
+difficulties and rosy prospects, that his brain still whirled, and only
+one thing emerged clearly-that she wanted fifty pounds, which she would
+repay him on quarter-day; for their Guardy had made a settlement by
+which, until the dear children came of age, she would have sixty pounds
+every quarter.  It was only a question of a few weeks; he might ask
+Messrs.  Scriven and Coles; they would tell him the security was quite
+safe.  He certainly might ask Messrs.  Scriven and Coles--they happened
+to be his father's solicitors; but it hardly seemed to touch the point.
+Bob Pillin had a certain shrewd caution, and the point was whether he was
+going to begin to lend money to a woman who, he could see, might borrow
+up to seventy times seven on the strength of his infatuation for her
+daughter.  That was rather too strong!  Yet, if he didn't she might take
+a sudden dislike to him, and where would he be then?  Besides, would not a
+loan make his position stronger?  And then--such is the effect of love
+even on the younger generation--that thought seemed to him unworthy.  If
+he lent at all, it should be from chivalry--ulterior motives might go
+hang!  And the memory of the tear-marks on Phyllis's pretty pale-pink
+cheeks; and her petulantly mournful: "Oh! young man, isn't money
+beastly!" scraped his heart, and ravished his judgment.  All the same,
+fifty pounds was fifty pounds, and goodness knew how much more; and what
+did he know of Mrs. Larne, after all, except that she was a relative of
+old Heythorp's and wrote stories--told them too, if he was not mistaken?
+Perhaps it would be better to see Scrivens'.  But again that absurd
+nobility assaulted him.  Phyllis!  Phyllis!  Besides, were not
+settlements always drawn so that they refused to form security for
+anything?  Thus, hampered and troubled, he hailed a cab.  He was dining
+with the Ventnors on the Cheshire side, and would be late if he didn't
+get home sharp to dress.
+
+Driving, white-tied--and waist-coated, in his father's car, he thought
+with a certain contumely of the younger Ventnor girl, whom he had been
+wont to consider pretty before he knew Phyllis. And seated next her at
+dinner, he quite enjoyed his new sense of superiority to her charms, and
+the ease with which he could chaff and be agreeable. And all the time he
+suffered from the suppressed longing which scarcely ever left him now, to
+think and talk of Phyllis.  Ventnor's fizz was good and plentiful, his
+old Madeira absolutely first chop, and the only other man present a
+teetotal curate, who withdrew with the ladies to talk his parish shop.
+Favoured by these circumstances, and the perception that Ventnor was an
+agreeable fellow, Bob Pillin yielded to his secret itch to get near the
+subject of his affections.
+
+"Do you happen," he said airily, "to know a Mrs. Larne--relative of old
+Heythorp's--rather a handsome woman-she writes stories."
+
+Mr. Ventnor shook his head.  A closer scrutiny than Bob Pillin's would
+have seen that he also moved his ears.
+
+"Of old Heythorp's?  Didn't know he had any, except his daughter, and
+that son of his in the Admiralty."
+
+Bob Pillin felt the glow of his secret hobby spreading within him.
+
+"She is, though--lives rather out of town; got a son and daughter.  I
+thought you might know her stories--clever woman."
+
+Mr. Ventnor smiled.  "Ah!" he said enigmatically, "these lady novelists!
+Does she make any money by them?"
+
+Bob Pillin knew that to make money by writing meant success, but that not
+to make money by writing was artistic, and implied that you had private
+means, which perhaps was even more distinguished.  And he said:
+
+"Oh! she has private means, I know."
+
+Mr. Ventnor reached for the Madeira.
+
+"So she's a relative of old Heythorp's," he said.  "He's a very old
+friend of your father's.  He ought to go bankrupt, you know."
+
+To Bob Pillin, glowing with passion and Madeira, the idea of bankruptcy
+seemed discreditable in connection with a relative of Phyllis.  Besides,
+the old boy was far from that!  Had he not just made this settlement on
+Mrs. Larne?  And he said:
+
+"I think you're mistaken.  That's of the past."
+
+Mr. Ventnor smiled.
+
+"Will you bet?"  he said.
+
+Bob Pillin also smiled.  "I should be bettin' on a certainty."
+
+Mr. Ventnor passed his hand over his whiskered face.  "Don't you believe
+it; he hasn't a mag to his name.  Fill your glass."
+
+Bob Pillin said, with a certain resentment:
+
+"Well, I happen to know he's just made a settlement of five or six
+thousand pounds.  Don't know if you call that being bankrupt."
+
+"What!  On this Mrs. Larne?"
+
+Confused, uncertain whether he had said something derogatory or
+indiscreet, or something which added distinction to Phyllis, Bob Pillin
+hesitated, then gave a nod.
+
+Mr. Ventnor rose and extended his short legs before the fire.
+
+"No, my boy," he said.  "No!"
+
+Unaccustomed to flat contradiction, Bob Pillin reddened.
+
+"I'll bet you a tenner.  Ask Scrivens."
+
+Mr. Ventnor ejaculated:
+
+"Scrivens---but they're not--" then, staring rather hard, he added: "I
+won't bet.  You may be right.  Scrivens are your father's solicitors too,
+aren't they?  Always been sorry he didn't come to me. Shall we join the
+ladies?"  And to the drawing-room he preceded a young man more uncertain
+in his mind than on his feet....
+
+Charles Ventnor was not one to let you see that more was going on within
+than met the eye.  But there was a good deal going on that evening, and
+after his conversation with young Bob he had occasion more than once to
+turn away and rub his hands together.  When, after that second creditors'
+meeting, he had walked down the stairway which led to the offices of "The
+Island Navigation Company," he had been deep in thought.  Short, squarely
+built, rather stout, with moustache and large mutton-chop whiskers of a
+red brown, and a faint floridity in face and dress, he impressed at first
+sight only by a certain truly British vulgarity.  One felt that here was
+a hail-fellow--well-met man who liked lunch and dinner, went to
+Scarborough for his summer holidays, sat on his wife, took his daughters
+out in a boat and was never sick.  One felt that he went to church every
+Sunday morning, looked upwards as he moved through life, disliked the
+unsuccessful, and expanded with his second glass of wine. But then a
+clear look into his well-clothed face and red-brown eyes would give the
+feeling: 'There's something fulvous here; he might be a bit too foxy.'  A
+third look brought the thought: 'He's certainly a bully.' He was not a
+large creditor of old Heythorp.  With interest on the original, he
+calculated his claim at three hundred pounds--unredeemed shares in that
+old Ecuador mine. But he had waited for his money eight years, and could
+never imagine how it came about that he had been induced to wait so long.
+There had been, of course, for one who liked "big pots," a certain
+glamour about the personality of old Heythorp, still a bit of a swell in
+shipping circles, and a bit of an aristocrat in Liverpool.  But during
+the last year Charles Ventnor had realised that the old chap's star had
+definitely set--when that happens, of course, there is no more glamour,
+and the time has come to get your money.  Weakness in oneself and others
+is despicable!  Besides, he had food for thought, and descending the
+stairs he chewed it: He smelt a rat--creatures for which both by nature
+and profession he had a nose.  Through Bob Pillin, on whom he sometimes
+dwelt in connection with his younger daughter, he knew that old Pillin
+and old Heythorp had been friends for thirty years and more.  That, to an
+astute mind, suggested something behind this sale.  The thought had
+already occurred to him when he read his copy of the report.  A
+commission would be a breach of trust, of course, but there were ways of
+doing things; the old chap was devilish hard pressed, and human nature
+was human nature!  His lawyerish mind habitually put two and two
+together.  The old fellow had deliberately appointed to meet his
+creditors again just after the general meeting which would decide the
+purchase--had said he might do something for them then.  Had that no
+significance?
+
+In these circumstances Charles Ventnor had come to the meeting with eyes
+wide open and mouth tight closed.  And he had watched.  It was certainly
+remarkable that such an old and feeble man, with no neck at all, who
+looked indeed as if he might go off with apoplexy any moment, should
+actually say that he "stood or fell" by this purchase, knowing that if he
+fell he would be a beggar.  Why should the old chap be so keen on getting
+it through?  It would do him personally no good, unless--Exactly!  He had
+left the meeting, therefore, secretly confident that old Heythorp had got
+something out of this transaction which would enable him to make a
+substantial proposal to his creditors.  So that when the old man had
+declared that he was going to make none, something had turned sour in his
+heart, and he had said to himself: "All right, you old rascal!  You don't
+know C. V."  The cavalier manner of that beggarly old rip, the defiant
+look of his deep little eyes, had put a polish on the rancour of one who
+prided himself on letting no man get the better of him.  All that
+evening, seated on one side of the fire, while Mrs. Ventnor sat on the
+other, and the younger daughter played Gounod's Serenade on the
+violin--he cogitated.  And now and again he smiled, but not too much.  He
+did not see his way as yet, but had little doubt that before long he
+would.  It would not be hard to knock that chipped old idol off his
+perch.  There was already a healthy feeling among the shareholders that
+he was past work and should be scrapped.  The old chap should find that
+Charles V. was not to be defied; that when he got his teeth into a thing,
+he did not let it go.  By hook or crook he would have the old man off his
+Boards, or his debt out of him as the price of leaving him alone.  His
+life or his money--and the old fellow should determine which.  With the
+memory of that defiance fresh within him, he almost hoped it might come
+to be the first, and turning to Mrs. Ventnor, he said abruptly:
+
+"Have a little dinner Friday week, and ask young Pillin and the curate."
+He specified the curate, a tee-totaller, because he had two daughters,
+and males and females must be paired, but he intended to pack him off
+after dinner to the drawing-room to discuss parish matters while he and
+Bob Pillin sat over their wine.  What he expected to get out of the young
+man he did not as yet know.
+
+On the day of the dinner, before departing for the office, he had gone to
+his cellar.  Would three bottles of Perrier Jouet do the trick, or must
+he add one of the old Madeira?  He decided to be on the safe side.  A
+bottle or so of champagne went very little way with him personally, and
+young Pillin might be another.
+
+The Madeira having done its work by turning the conversation into such an
+admirable channel, he had cut it short for fear young Pillin might drink
+the lot or get wind of the rat.  And when his guests were gone, and his
+family had retired, he stood staring into the fire, putting together the
+pieces of the puzzle.  Five or six thousand pounds--six would be ten per
+cent. on sixty!  Exactly!  Scrivens--young Pillin had said!  But Crow &
+Donkin, not Scriven & Coles, were old Heythorp's solicitors.  What could
+that mean, save that the old man wanted to cover the tracks of a secret
+commission, and had handled the matter through solicitors who did not
+know the state of his affairs!  But why Pillin's solicitors?  With this
+sale just going through, it must look deuced fishy to them too.  Was it
+all a mare's nest, after all?  In such circumstances he himself would
+have taken the matter to a London firm who knew nothing of anybody.
+Puzzled, therefore, and rather disheartened, feeling too that touch of
+liver which was wont to follow his old Madeira, he went up to bed and
+woke his wife to ask her why the dickens they couldn't always have soup
+like that!
+
+Next day he continued to brood over his puzzle, and no fresh light came;
+but having a matter on which his firm and Scrivens' were in touch, he
+decided to go over in person, and see if he could surprise something out
+of them.  Feeling, from experience, that any really delicate matter would
+only be entrusted to the most responsible member of the firm, he had
+asked to see Scriven himself, and just as he had taken his hat to go, he
+said casually:
+
+"By the way, you do some business for old Mr. Heythorp, don't you?"
+
+Scriven, raising his eyebrows a little, murmured: "Er--no," in exactly
+the tone Mr. Ventnor himself used when he wished to imply that though he
+didn't as a fact do business, he probably soon would. He knew therefore
+that the answer was a true one.  And non-plussed, he hazarded:
+
+"Oh!  I thought you did, in regard to a Mrs. Larne."
+
+This time he had certainly drawn blood of sorts, for down came Scriven's
+eyebrows, and he said:
+
+"Mrs. Larne--we know a Mrs. Larne, but not in that connection.  Why?"
+
+"Oh!  Young Pillin told me--"
+
+"Young Pillin?  Why, it's his---!"  A little pause, and then: "Old Mr.
+Heythorp's solicitors are Crow & Donkin, I believe."
+
+Mr. Ventnor held out his hand.  "Yes, yes," he said; "goodbye.  Glad to
+have got that matter settled up," and out he went, and down the street,
+important, smiling.  By George!  He had got it!  "It's his
+father"--Scriven had been going to say.  What a plant!  Exactly!  Oh!
+neat!  Old Pillin had made the settlement direct; and the solicitors were
+in the dark; that disposed of his difficulty about them.  No money had
+passed between old Pillin and old Heythorp not a penny. Oh! neat!  But
+not neat enough for Charles Ventnor, who had that nose for rats.  Then
+his smile died, and with a little chill he perceived that it was all
+based on supposition--not quite good enough to go on!  What then?
+Somehow he must see this Mrs. Larne, or better--old Pillin himself.  The
+point to ascertain was whether she had any connection of her own with
+Pillin.  Clearly young Pillin didn't know of it; for, according to him,
+old Heythorp had made the settlement.  By Jove!  That old rascal was
+deep--all the more satisfaction in proving that he was not as deep as C.
+V.  To unmask the old cheat was already beginning to seem in the nature
+of a public service.  But on what pretext could he visit Pillin?  A
+subscription to the Windeatt almshouses!  That would make him talk in
+self-defence and he would take care not to press the request to the
+actual point of getting a subscription.  He caused himself to be driven
+to the Pillin residence in Sefton Park.  Ushered into a room on the
+ground floor, heated in American fashion, Mr. Ventnor unbuttoned his
+coat. A man of sanguine constitution, he found this hot-house atmosphere
+a little trying.  And having sympathetically obtained Joe Pillin's
+reluctant refusal--Quite so!  One could not indefinitely extend one's
+subscriptions even for the best of causes!--he said gently:
+
+"By the way, you know Mrs. Larne, don't you?"
+
+The effect of that simple shot surpassed his highest hopes.  Joe Pillin's
+face, never highly coloured, turned a sort of grey; he opened his thin
+lips, shut them quickly, as birds do, and something seemed to pass with
+difficulty down his scraggy throat.  The hollows, which nerve exhaustion
+delves in the cheeks of men whose cheekbones are not high, increased
+alarmingly.  For a moment he looked deathly; then, moistening his lips,
+he said:
+
+"Larne--Larne?  No, I don't seem---"
+
+Mr. Ventnor, who had taken care to be drawing on his gloves, murmured:
+
+"Oh!  I thought--your son knows her; a relation of old Heythorp's," and
+he looked up.
+
+Joe Pillin had his handkerchief to his mouth; he coughed feebly, then
+with more and more vigour:
+
+"I'm in very poor health," he said, at last.  "I'm getting abroad at
+once.  This cold's killing me.  What name did you say?"  And he remained
+with his handkerchief against his teeth.
+
+Mr. Ventnor repeated:
+
+"Larne.  Writes stories."
+
+Joe Pillin muttered into his handkerchief
+
+"Ali!  H'm!  No--I--no!  My son knows all sorts of people.  I shall have
+to try Mentone.  Are you going?  Good-bye!  Good-bye!  I'm sorry; ah! ha!
+My cough--ah! ha h'h'm!  Very distressing.  Ye-hes!  My cough-ah! ha
+h'h'm!  Most distressing.  Ye-hes!"
+
+Out in the drive Mr. Ventnor took a deep breath of the frosty air. Not
+much doubt now!  The two names had worked like charms.  This weakly old
+fellow would make a pretty witness, would simply crumple under
+cross-examination.  What a contrast to that hoary old sinner Heythorp,
+whose brazenness nothing could affect.  The rat was as large as life!
+And the only point was how to make the best use of it.  Then--for his
+experience was wide--the possibility dawned on him, that after all, this
+Mrs. Larne might only have been old Pillin's mistress--or be his natural
+daughter, or have some other blackmailing hold on him.  Any such
+connection would account for his agitation, for his denying her, for his
+son's ignorance.  Only it wouldn't account for young Pillin's saying that
+old Heythorp had made the settlement.  He could only have got that from
+the woman herself. Still, to make absolutely sure, he had better try and
+see her.  But how?  It would never do to ask Bob Pillin for an
+introduction, after this interview with his father.  He would have to go
+on his own and chance it.  Wrote stories did she?  Perhaps a newspaper
+would know her address; or the Directory would give it--not a common
+name!  And, hot on the scent, he drove to a post office.  Yes, there it
+was, right enough!  "Larne, Mrs. R., 23, Millicent Villas."  And thinking
+to himself: 'No time like the present,' he turned in that direction. The
+job was delicate.  He must be careful not to do anything which might
+compromise his power of making public use of his knowledge. Yes-ticklish!
+What he did now must have a proper legal bottom. Still, anyway you looked
+at it, he had a right to investigate a fraud on himself as a shareholder
+of "The Island Navigation Company," and a fraud on himself as a creditor
+of old Heythorp.  Quite!  But suppose this Mrs. Larne was really
+entangled with old Pillin, and the settlement a mere reward of virtue,
+easy or otherwise.  Well! in that case there'd be no secret commission to
+make public, and he needn't go further.  So that, in either event, he
+would be all right.  Only--how to introduce himself?  He might pretend he
+was a newspaper man wanting a story.  No, that wouldn't do!  He must not
+represent that he was what he was not, in case he had afterwards to
+justify his actions publicly, always a difficult thing, if you were not
+careful!  At that moment there came into his mind a question Bob Pillin
+had asked the other night.  "By the way, you can't borrow on a
+settlement, can you?  Isn't there generally some clause against it?" Had
+this woman been trying to borrow from him on that settlement?  But at this
+moment he reached the house, and got out of his cab still undecided as to
+how he was going to work the oracle.  Impudence, constitutional and
+professional, sustained him in saying to the little maid:
+
+"Mrs. Larne at home?  Say Mr. Charles Ventnor, will you?"
+
+His quick brown eyes took in the apparel of the passage which served for
+hall--the deep blue paper on the walls, lilac-patterned curtains over the
+doors, the well-known print of a nude young woman looking over her
+shoulder, and he thought: 'H'm!  Distinctly tasty!'  They noted, too, a
+small brown-and-white dog cowering in terror at the very end of the
+passage, and he murmured affably: "Fluffy!  Come here, Fluffy!" till
+Carmen's teeth chattered in her head.
+
+"Will you come in, sir?"
+
+Mr. Ventnor ran his hand over his whiskers, and, entering a room, was
+impressed at once by its air of domesticity.  On a sofa a handsome woman
+and a pretty young girl were surrounded by sewing apparatus and some
+white material.  The girl looked up, but the elder lady rose.
+
+Mr. Ventnor said easily
+
+"You know my young friend, Mr. Robert Pillin, I think."
+
+The lady, whose bulk and bloom struck him to the point of admiration,
+murmured in a full, sweet drawl:
+
+"Oh!  Ye-es.  Are you from Messrs. Scrivens?"
+
+With the swift reflection: 'As I thought!'  Mr. Ventnor answered:
+
+"Er--not exactly.  I am a solicitor though; came just to ask about a
+certain settlement that Mr. Pillin tells me you're entitled under."
+
+"Phyllis dear!"
+
+Seeing the girl about to rise from underneath the white stuff, Mr.
+Ventnor said quickly:
+
+"Pray don't disturb yourself--just a formality!"  It had struck him at
+once that the lady would have to speak the truth in the presence of this
+third party, and he went on: "Quite recent, I think.  This'll be your
+first interest-on six thousand pounds?  Is that right?"  And at the
+limpid assent of that rich, sweet voice, he thought: 'Fine woman; what
+eyes!'
+
+"Thank you; that's quite enough.  I can go to Scrivens for any detail.
+Nice young fellow, Bob Pillin, isn't he?"  He saw the girl's chin tilt,
+and Mrs. Larne's full mouth curling in a smile.
+
+"Delightful young man; we're very fond of him."
+
+And he proceeded:
+
+"I'm quite an old friend of his; have you known him long?"
+
+"Oh! no.  How long, Phyllis, since we met him at Guardy's?  About a
+month.  But he's so unaffected--quite at home with us.  A nice fellow."
+
+Mr. Ventnor murmured:
+
+"Very different from his father, isn't he?"
+
+"Is he?  We don't know his father; he's a shipowner, I think."
+
+Mr. Ventnor rubbed his hands: "Ye-es," he said, "just giving up--a warm
+man.  Young Pillin's a lucky fellow--only son.  So you met him at old Mr.
+Heythorp's.  I know him too--relation of yours, I believe."
+
+"Our dear Guardy such a wonderful man."
+
+Mr. Ventnor echoed: "Wonderful--regular old Roman."
+
+"Oh! but he's so kind!"  Mrs. Larne lifted the white stuff: "Look what
+he's given this naughty gairl!"
+
+Mr. Ventnor murmured: "Charming!  Charming!  Bob Pillin said, I think,
+that Mr. Heythorp was your settlor."
+
+One of those little clouds which visit the brows of women who have owed
+money in their time passed swiftly athwart Mrs. Larne's eyes. For a
+moment they seemed saying: 'Don't you want to know too much?' Then they
+slid from under it.
+
+"Won't you sit down?"  she said.  "You must forgive our being at work."
+
+Mr. Ventnor, who had need of sorting his impressions, shook his head.
+
+"Thank you; I must be getting on.  Then Messrs. Scriven can--a mere
+formality!  Goodbye!  Good-bye, Miss Larne.  I'm sure the dress will be
+most becoming."
+
+And with memories of a too clear look from the girl's eyes, of a warm
+firm pressure from the woman's hand, Mr. Ventnor backed towards the door
+and passed away just in time to avoid hearing in two voices:
+
+"What a nice lawyer!"
+
+"What a horrid man!"
+
+Back in his cab, he continued to rub his hands.  No, she didn't know old
+Pillin!  That was certain; not from her words, but from her face. She
+wanted to know him, or about him, anyway.  She was trying to hook young
+Bob for that sprig of a girl--it was clear as mud.  H'm! it would
+astonish his young friend to hear that he had called.  Well, let it!  And
+a curious mixture of emotions beset Mr. Ventnor.  He saw the whole thing
+now so plainly, and really could not refrain from a certain admiration.
+The law had been properly diddled!  There was nothing to prevent a man
+from settling money on a woman he had never seen; and so old Pillin's
+settlement could probably not be upset. But old Heythorp could.  It was
+neat, though, oh! neat!  And that was a fine woman--remarkably!  He had a
+sort of feeling that if only the settlement had been in danger, it might
+have been worth while to have made a bargain--a woman like that could
+have made it worth while!  And he believed her quite capable of
+entertaining the proposition!  Her eye!  Pity--quite a pity!  Mrs.
+Ventnor was not a wife who satisfied every aspiration.  But alas! the
+settlement was safe.  This baulking of the sentiment of love, whipped up,
+if anything, the longing for justice in Mr. Ventnor.  That old chap
+should feel his teeth now.  As a piece of investigation it was not so
+bad--not so bad at all!  He had had a bit of luck, of course,--no, not
+luck--just that knack of doing the right thing at the right moment which
+marks a real genius for affairs.
+
+But getting into his train to return to Mrs. Ventnor, he thought: 'A
+woman like that would have been--!' And he sighed.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+With a neatly written cheque for fifty pounds in his pocket Bob Pillin
+turned in at 23, Millicent Villas on the afternoon after Mr. Ventnor's
+visit.  Chivalry had won the day.  And he rang the bell with an elation
+which astonished him, for he knew he was doing a soft thing.
+
+"Mrs. Larne is out, sir; Miss Phyllis is at home."
+
+His heart leaped.
+
+"Oh-h!  I'm sorry.  I wonder if she'd see me?"
+
+The little maid answered
+
+"I think she's been washin' 'er'air, sir, but it may be dry be now. I'll
+see."
+
+Bob Pillin stood stock still beneath the young woman on the wall.  He
+could scarcely breathe.  If her hair were not dry--how awful!  Suddenly he
+heard floating down a clear but smothered "Oh!  Gefoozleme!"  and other
+words which he could not catch.  The little maid came running down.
+
+"Miss Phyllis says, sir, she'll be with you in a jiffy.  And I was to
+tell you that Master Jock is loose, sir."
+
+Bob Pillin answered "Tha-anks," and passed into the drawing-room.  He
+went to the bureau, took an envelope, enclosed the cheque, and addressing
+it: "Mrs. Larne," replaced it in his pocket.  Then he crossed over to the
+mirror.  Never till this last month had he really doubted his own face;
+but now he wanted for it things he had never wanted.  It had too much
+flesh and colour.  It did not reflect his passion.  This was a handicap.
+With a narrow white piping round his waistcoat opening, and a buttonhole
+of tuberoses, he had tried to repair its deficiencies.  But do what he
+would, he was never easy about himself nowadays, never up to that pitch
+which could make him confident in her presence.  And until this month to
+lack confidence had never been his wont.  A clear, high, mocking voice
+said:
+
+"Oh-h!  Conceited young man!"
+
+And spinning round he saw Phyllis in the doorway.  Her light brown hair
+was fluffed out on her shoulders, so that he felt a kind of
+fainting-sweet sensation, and murmured inarticulately:
+
+"Oh!  I say--how jolly!"
+
+"Lawks!  It's awful!  Have you come to see mother?"
+
+Balanced between fear and daring, conscious of a scent of hay and verbena
+and camomile, Bob Pillin stammered:
+
+"Ye-es.  I--I'm glad she's not in, though."
+
+Her laugh seemed to him terribly unfeeling.
+
+"Oh! oh!  Don't be foolish.  Sit down.  Isn't washing one's head awful?"
+
+Bob Pillin answered feebly:
+
+"Of course, I haven't much experience."
+
+Her mouth opened.
+
+"Oh!  You are--aren't you?"
+
+And he thought desperately: 'Dare I--oughtn't I--couldn't I somehow take
+her hand or put my arm round her, or something?'  Instead, he sat very
+rigid at his end of the sofa, while she sat lax and lissom at the other,
+and one of those crises of paralysis which beset would-be lovers fixed
+him to the soul.
+
+Sometimes during this last month memories of a past existence, when chaff
+and even kisses came readily to the lips, and girls were fair game, would
+make him think: 'Is she really such an innocent?  Doesn't she really want
+me to kiss her?'  Alas! such intrusions lasted but a moment before a
+blast of awe and chivalry withered them, and a strange and tragic
+delicacy--like nothing he had ever known--resumed its sway.  And suddenly
+he heard her say:
+
+"Why do you know such awful men?"
+
+"What?  I don't know any awful men."
+
+"Oh yes, you do; one came here yesterday; he had whiskers, and he was
+awful."
+
+"Whiskers?"  His soul revolted in disclaimer.  "I believe I only know one
+man with whiskers--a lawyer."
+
+"Yes--that was him; a perfectly horrid man.  Mother didn't mind him, but
+I thought he was a beast."
+
+"Ventnor!  Came here?  How d'you mean?"
+
+"He did; about some business of yours, too."  Her face had clouded over.
+Bob Pillin had of late been harassed by the still-born beginning of a
+poem:
+
+         "I rode upon my way and saw
+          A maid who watched me from the door."
+
+It never grew longer, and was prompted by the feeling that her face was
+like an April day.  The cloud which came on it now was like an April
+cloud, as if a bright shower of rain must follow.  Brushing aside the two
+distressful lines, he said:
+
+"Look here, Miss Larne--Phyllis--look here!"
+
+"All right, I'm looking!"
+
+"What does it mean--how did he come?  What did he say?"
+
+She shook her head, and her hair quivered; the scent of camomile,
+verbena, hay was wafted; then looking at her lap, she muttered:
+
+"I wish you wouldn't--I wish mother wouldn't--I hate it.  Oh!  Money!
+Beastly--beastly!" and a tearful sigh shivered itself into Bob Pillin's
+reddening ears.
+
+"I say--don't!  And do tell me, because--"
+
+"Oh! you know."
+
+"I don't--I don't know anything at all.  I never---"
+
+Phyllis looked up at him.  "Don't tell fibs; you know mother's borrowing
+money from you, and it's hateful!"
+
+A desire to lie roundly, a sense of the cheque in his pocket, a feeling
+of injustice, the emotion of pity, and a confused and black astonishment
+about Ventnor, caused Bob Pillin to stammer:
+
+"Well, I'm d---d!" and to miss the look which Phyllis gave him through
+her lashes--a look saying:
+
+"Ah! that's better!"
+
+"I am d---d!  Look here!  D'you mean to say that Ventnor came here about
+my lending money?  I never said a word to him---"
+
+"There you see--you are lending!"
+
+He clutched his hair.
+
+"We've got to have this out," he added.
+
+"Not by the roots!  Oh! you do look funny.  I've never seen you with your
+hair untidy.  Oh! oh!"
+
+Bob Pillin rose and paced the room.  In the midst of his emotion he could
+not help seeing himself sidelong in the mirror; and on pretext of holding
+his head in both his hands, tried earnestly to restore his hair.  Then
+coming to a halt he said:
+
+"Suppose I am lending money to your mother, what does it matter?  It's
+only till quarter-day.  Anybody might want money."
+
+Phyllis did not raise her face.
+
+"Why are you lending it?"
+
+"Because--because--why shouldn't I?"  and diving suddenly, he seized her
+hands.
+
+She wrenched them free; and with the emotion of despair, Bob Pillin took
+out the envelope.
+
+"If you like," he said, "I'll tear this up.  I don't want to lend it, if
+you don't want me to; but I thought--I thought--"  It was for her alone
+he had been going to lend this money!
+
+Phyllis murmured through her hair:
+
+"Yes!  You thought that I--that's what's so hateful!"
+
+Apprehension pierced his mind.
+
+"Oh!  I never--I swear I never--"
+
+"Yes, you did; you thought I wanted you to lend it."
+
+She jumped up, and brushed past him into the window.
+
+So she thought she was being used as a decoy!  That was awful--especially
+since it was true.  He knew well enough that Mrs. Larne was working his
+admiration for her daughter for all that it was worth.  And he said with
+simple fervour:
+
+"What rot!"  It produced no effect, and at his wits' end, he almost
+shouted: "Look, Phyllis!  If you don't want me to--here goes!" Phyllis
+turned.  Tearing the envelope across he threw the bits into the fire.
+"There it is," he said.
+
+Her eyes grew round; she said in an awed voice: "Oh!"
+
+In a sort of agony of honesty he said:
+
+"It was only a cheque.  Now you've got your way."
+
+Staring at the fire she answered slowly:
+
+"I expect you'd better go before mother comes."
+
+Bob Pillin's mouth fell afar; he secretly agreed, but the idea of
+sacrificing a moment alone with her was intolerable, and he said hardily:
+
+"No, I shall stick it!"
+
+Phyllis sneezed.
+
+"My hair isn't a bit dry," and she sat down on the fender with her back
+to the fire.
+
+A certain spirituality had come into Bob Pillin's face.  If only he could
+get that wheeze off: "Phyllis is my only joy!" or even: "Phyllis--do
+you--won't you--mayn't I?"  But nothing came--nothing.
+
+And suddenly she said:
+
+"Oh! don't breathe so loud; it's awful!"
+
+"Breathe?  I wasn't!"
+
+"You were; just like Carmen when she's dreaming."
+
+He had walked three steps towards the door, before he thought: 'What does
+it matter?  I can stand anything from her; and walked the three steps
+back again.
+
+She said softly:
+
+"Poor young man!"
+
+He answered gloomily:
+
+"I suppose you realise that this may be the last time you'll see me?"
+
+"Why?  I thought you were going to take us to the theatre."
+
+"I don't know whether your mother will--after---"
+
+Phyllis gave a little clear laugh.
+
+"You don't know mother.  Nothing makes any difference to her."
+
+And Bob Pillin muttered:
+
+"I see."  He did not, but it was of no consequence.  Then the thought of
+Ventnor again ousted all others.  What on earth-how on earth!  He
+searched his mind for what he could possibly have said the other night.
+Surely he had not asked him to do anything; certainly not given him their
+address.  There was something very odd about it that had jolly well got
+to be cleared up!  And he said:
+
+"Are you sure the name of that Johnny who came here yesterday was
+Ventnor?"
+
+Phyllis nodded.
+
+"And he was short, and had whiskers?"
+
+"Yes; red, and red eyes."
+
+He murmured reluctantly:
+
+"It must be him.  Jolly good cheek; I simply can't understand.  I shall
+go and see him.  How on earth did he know your address?"
+
+"I expect you gave it him."
+
+"I did not.  I won't have you thinking me a squirt."
+
+Phyllis jumped up.  "Oh!  Lawks!  Here's mother!"  Mrs. Larne was coming
+up the garden.  Bob Pillin made for the door.  "Good-bye," he said; "I'm
+going."  But Mrs. Larne was already in the hall. Enveloping him in fur
+and her rich personality, she drew him with her into the drawing-room,
+where the back window was open and Phyllis gone.
+
+"I hope," she said, "those naughty children have been making you
+comfortable.  That nice lawyer of yours came yesterday.  He seemed quite
+satisfied."
+
+Very red above his collar, Bob Pillin stammered:
+
+"I never told him to; he isn't my lawyer.  I don't know what it means."
+
+Mrs. Larne smiled.  "My dear boy, it's all right.  You needn't be so
+squeamish.  I want it to be quite on a business footing."
+
+Restraining a fearful inclination to blurt out: "It's not going to be on
+any footing!"  Bob Pillin mumbled: "I must go; I'm late."
+
+"And when will you be able---?"
+
+"Oh!  I'll--I'll send--I'll write.  Good-bye!"  And suddenly he found
+that Mrs. Larne had him by the lapel of his coat.  The scent of violets
+and fur was overpowering, and the thought flashed through him: 'I believe
+she only wanted to take money off old Joseph in the Bible.  I can't leave
+my coat in her hands!  What shall I do?'
+
+Mrs. Larne was murmuring:
+
+"It would be so sweet of you if you could manage it today"; and her hand
+slid over his chest.  "Oh!  You have brought your cheque-book--what a
+nice boy!"
+
+Bob Pillin took it out in desperation, and, sitting down at the bureau,
+wrote a cheque similar to that which he had torn and burned. A warm kiss
+lighted on his eyebrow, his head was pressed for a moment to a furry
+bosom; a hand took the cheque; a voice said: "How delightful!"  and a
+sigh immersed him in a bath of perfume.  Backing to the door, he gasped:
+
+"Don't mention it; and--and don't tell Phyllis, please.  Good-bye!"
+
+Once through the garden gate, he thought: 'By gum!  I've done it now.
+That Phyllis should know about it at all!  That beast Ventnor!'
+
+His face grew almost grim.  He would go and see what that meant anyway!
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+Mr. Ventnor had not left his office when his young friend's card was
+brought to him.  Tempted for a moment to deny his own presence, he
+thought: 'No!  What's the good?  Bound to see him some time!'  If he had
+not exactly courage, he had that peculiar blend of self-confidence and
+insensibility which must needs distinguish those who follow the law; nor
+did he ever forget that he was in the right.
+
+"Show him in!"  he said.
+
+He would be quite bland, but young Pillin might whistle for an
+explanation; he was still tormented, too, by the memory of rich curves
+and moving lips, and the possibilities of better acquaintanceship.
+
+While shaking the young man's hand his quick and fulvous eye detected at
+once the discomposure behind that mask of cheek and collar, and relapsing
+into one of those swivel chairs which give one an advantage over men more
+statically seated, he said:
+
+"You look pretty bobbish.  Anything I can do for you?"
+
+Bob Pillin, in the fixed chair of the consultor, nursed his bowler on his
+knee.
+
+"Well, yes, there is.  I've just been to see Mrs. Larne."
+
+Mr. Ventnor did not flinch.
+
+"Ah!  Nice woman; pretty daughter, too!"  And into those words he put a
+certain meaning.  He never waited to be bullied.  Bob Pillin felt the
+pressure of his blood increasing.
+
+"Look here, Ventnor," he said, "I want an explanation."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Why, of your going there, and using my name, and God knows what."
+
+Mr. Ventnor gave his chair two little twiddles before he said
+
+"Well, you won't get it."
+
+Bob Pillin remained for a moment taken aback; then he muttered
+resolutely:
+
+"It's not the conduct of a gentleman."
+
+Every man has his illusions, and no man likes them disturbed.  The
+gingery tint underlying Mr. Ventnor's colouring overlaid it; even the
+whites of his eyes grew red."
+
+"Oh!"  he said; "indeed!  You mind your own business, will you?"
+
+"It is my business--very much so.  You made use of my name, and I don't
+choose---"
+
+"The devil you don't!  Now, I tell you what---"
+
+Mr. Ventnor leaned forward--"you'd better hold your tongue, and not
+exasperate me.  I'm a good-tempered man, but I won't stand your
+impudence."
+
+Clenching his bowler hat, and only kept in his seat by that sense of
+something behind, Bob Pillin ejaculated:
+
+"Impudence!  That's good--after what you did!  Look here, why did you?
+It's so extraordinary!"
+
+Mr. Ventnor answered:
+
+"Oh! is it?  You wait a bit, my friend!"
+
+Still more moved by the mystery of this affair, Bob Pillin could only
+mutter:
+
+"I never gave you their address; we were only talking about old
+Heythorp."
+
+And at the smile which spread between Mr. Ventnor's whiskers, he jumped
+up, crying:
+
+"It's not the thing, and you're not going to put me off.  I insist on an
+explanation."
+
+Mr. Ventnor leaned back, crossing his stout legs, joining the tips of his
+thick fingers.  In this attitude he was always self-possessed.
+
+"You do--do you?"
+
+"Yes.  You must have had some reason."
+
+Mr. Ventnor gazed up at him.
+
+"I'll give you a piece of advice, young cock, and charge you nothing for
+it, too: Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.  And here's
+another: Go away before you forget yourself again."
+
+The natural stolidity of Bob Pilings face was only just proof against
+this speech.  He said thickly:
+
+"If you go there again and use my name, I'll Well, it's lucky for you
+you're not my age.  Anyway I'll relieve you of my acquaintanceship in
+future.  Good-evening!"  and he went to the door.  Mr. Ventnor had risen.
+
+"Very well," he said loudly.  "Good riddance!  You wait and see which
+boot the leg is on!"
+
+But Bob Pillin was gone, leaving the lawyer with a very red face, a very
+angry heart, and a vague sense of disorder in his speech.  Not only Bob
+Pillin, but his tender aspirations had all left him; he no longer dallied
+with the memory of Mrs. Larne, but like a man and a Briton thought only
+of how to get his own back, and punish evildoers. The atrocious words of
+his young friend, "It's not the conduct of a gentleman," festered in the
+heart of one who was made gentle not merely by nature but by Act of
+Parliament, and he registered a solemn vow to wipe the insult out, if not
+with blood, with verjuice.  It was his duty, and they should d---d well
+see him do it!
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Sylvanus Heythorp seldom went to bed before one or rose before eleven.
+The latter habit alone kept his valet from handing in the resignation
+which the former habit prompted almost every night.
+
+Propped on his pillows in a crimson dressing-gown, and freshly shaved, he
+looked more Roman than he ever did, except in his bath. Having disposed
+of coffee, he was wont to read his letters, and The Morning Post, for he
+had always been a Tory, and could not stomach paying a halfpenny for his
+news.  Not that there were many letters--when a man has reached the age
+of eighty, who should write to him, except to ask for money?
+
+It was Valentine's Day.  Through his bedroom window he could see the
+trees of the park, where the birds were in song, though he could not hear
+them.  He had never been interested in Nature--full-blooded men with
+short necks seldom are.
+
+This morning indeed there were two letters, and he opened that which
+smelt of something.  Inside was a thing like a Christmas card, save that
+the naked babe had in his hands a bow and arrow, and words coming out of
+his mouth: "To be your Valentine."  There was also a little pink note
+with one blue forget-me-not printed at the top.  It ran:
+
+"DEAREST GUARDY,--I'm sorry this is such a mangy little valentine; I
+couldn't go out to get it because I've got a beastly cold, so I asked
+Jock, and the pig bought this.  The satin is simply scrumptious.  If you
+don't come and see me in it some time soon, I shall come and show it to
+you.  I wish I had a moustache, because my top lip feels just like a
+matchbox, but it's rather ripping having breakfast in bed. Mr. Pillin's
+taking us to the theatre the day after to-morrow evening.  Isn't it
+nummy!  I'm going to have rum and honey for my cold.
+
+"Good-bye, "Your PHYLLIS."
+
+So this that quivered in his thick fingers, too insensitive to feel it,
+was a valentine for him!
+
+Forty years ago that young thing's grandmother had given him his last.
+It made him out a very old chap!  Forty years ago!  Had that been himself
+living then?  And himself, who, as a youth came on the town in
+'forty-five?  Not a thought, not a feeling the same!  They said you
+changed your body every seven years.  The mind with it, too, perhaps!
+Well, he had come to the last of his bodies, now!  And that holy woman
+had been urging him to take it to Bath, with her face as long as a
+tea-tray, and some gammon from that doctor of his.  Too full a
+habit--dock his port--no alcohol--might go off in a coma any night!
+Knock off not he!  Rather die any day than turn tee-totaller!  When a man
+had nothing left in life except his dinner, his bottle, his cigar, and
+the dreams they gave him--these doctors forsooth must want to cut them
+off!  No, no!  Carpe diem! while you lived, get something out of it.  And
+now that he had made all the provision he could for those youngsters, his
+life was no good to any one but himself; and the sooner he went off the
+better, if he ceased to enjoy what there was left, or lost the power to
+say: "I'll do this and that, and you be jiggered!"  Keep a stiff lip
+until you crashed, and then go clean!  He sounded the bell beside him
+twice-for Molly, not his man.  And when the girl came in, and stood,
+pretty in her print frock, her fluffy over-fine dark hair escaping from
+under her cap, he gazed at her in silence.
+
+"Yes, sirr?"
+
+"Want to look at you, that's all."
+
+"Oh I an' I'm not tidy, sirr."
+
+"Never mind.  Had your valentine?"
+
+"No, sirr; who would send me one, then?"
+
+"Haven't you a young man?"
+
+"Well, I might.  But he's over in my country.
+
+"What d'you think of this?"
+
+He held out the little boy.
+
+The girl took the card and scrutinised it reverently; she said in a
+detached voice:
+
+"Indeed, an' ut's pretty, too."
+
+"Would you like it?"
+
+"Oh I if 'tis not taking ut from you."
+
+Old Heythorp shook his head, and pointed to the dressing-table.
+
+"Over there--you'll find a sovereign.  Little present for a good girl."
+
+She uttered a deep sigh.  "Oh! sirr, 'tis too much; 'tis kingly."
+
+"Take it."
+
+She took it, and came back, her hands clasping the sovereign and the
+valentine, in an attitude as of prayer.
+
+The old man's gaze rested on her with satisfaction.
+
+"I like pretty faces--can't bear sour ones.  Tell Meller to get my bath
+ready."
+
+When she had gone he took up the other letter--some lawyer's writing, and
+opening it with the usual difficulty, read:
+
+"February 13, 1905.
+
+"SIR,--Certain facts having come to my knowledge, I deem it my duty to
+call a special meeting of the shareholders of 'The Island Navigation
+Coy.,' to consider circumstances in connection with the purchase of Mr.
+Joseph Pillin's fleet.  And I give you notice that at this meeting your
+conduct will be called in question.
+
+"I am, Sir, "Yours faithfully,
+"CHARLES VENTNOR.
+"SYLVANUS HEYTHORP, ESQ."
+
+Having read this missive, old Heythorp remained some minutes without
+stirring.  Ventnor!  That solicitor chap who had made himself unpleasant
+at the creditors' meetings!
+
+There are men whom a really bad bit of news at once stampedes out of all
+power of coherent thought and action, and men who at first simply do not
+take it in.  Old Heythorp took it in fast enough; coming from a lawyer it
+was about as nasty as it could be.  But, at once, with stoic wariness his
+old brain began casting round.  What did this fellow really know?  And
+what exactly could he do?  One thing was certain; even if he knew
+everything, he couldn't upset that settlement.  The youngsters were all
+right.  The old man grasped the fact that only his own position was at
+stake.  But this was enough in all conscience; a name which had been
+before the public fifty odd years--income, independence, more perhaps.
+It would take little, seeing his age and feebleness, to make his
+Companies throw him over. But what had the fellow got hold of?  How
+decide whether or no to take notice; to let him do his worst, or try and
+get into touch with him?  And what was the fellow's motive?  He held ten
+shares!  That would never make a man take all this trouble, and over a
+purchase which was really first-rate business for the Company.  Yes!  His
+conscience was quite clean.  He had not betrayed his Company--on the
+contrary, had done it a good turn, got them four sound ships at a low
+price--against much opposition.  That he might have done the Company a
+better turn, and got the ships at fifty-four thousand, did not trouble
+him--the six thousand was a deuced sight better employed; and he had not
+pocketed a penny piece himself!  But the fellow's motive?  Spite?  Looked
+like it.  Spite, because he had been disappointed of his money, and
+defied into the bargain!  H'm!  If that were so, he might still be got to
+blow cold again.  His eyes lighted on the pink note with the blue
+forget-me-not.  It marked as it were the high water mark of what was left
+to him of life; and this other letter in his hand-by Jove!  Low water
+mark!  And with a deep and rumbling sigh he thought: 'No, I'm not going
+to be beaten by this fellow.'
+
+"Your bath is ready, sir."
+
+Crumpling the two letters into the pocket of his dressing-gown, he said:
+
+"Help me up; and telephone to Mr. Farney to be good enough to come
+round." ....
+
+An hour later, when the secretary entered, his chairman was sitting by
+the fire perusing the articles of association.  And, waiting for him to
+look up, watching the articles shaking in that thick, feeble hand, the
+secretary had one of those moments of philosophy not too frequent with
+his kind.  Some said the only happy time of life was when you had no
+passions, nothing to hope and live for.  But did you really ever reach
+such a stage?  The old chairman, for instance, still had his passion for
+getting his own way, still had his prestige, and set a lot of store by
+it!  And he said:
+
+"Good morning, sir; I hope you're all right in this east wind.  The
+purchase is completed."
+
+"Best thing the company ever did.  Have you heard from a shareholder
+called Ventnor.  You know the man I mean?"
+
+"No, sir.  I haven't."
+
+"Well!  You may get a letter that'll make you open your eyes.  An
+impudent scoundrel!  Just write at my dictation."
+
+"February 14th, 1905.
+
+"CHARLES VENTNOR, Esq.
+
+"SIR,--I have your letter of yesterday's date, the contents of which I am
+at a loss to understand.  My solicitors will be instructed to take the
+necessary measures."
+
+'Phew What's all this about?' the secretary thought.
+
+"Yours truly...."
+
+"I'll sign."  And the shaky letters closed the page:
+"SYLVANUS HEYTHORP."
+
+"Post that as you go."
+
+"Anything else I can do for you, sir?"
+
+"Nothing, except to let me know if you hear from this fellow."
+
+When the secretary had gone the old man thought: 'So!  The ruffian hasn't
+called the meeting yet.  That'll bring him round here fast enough if it's
+his money he wants-blackmailing scoundrel!'
+
+"Mr. Pillin, sir; and will you wait lunch, or will you have it in the
+dining-room?"
+
+"In the dining-room."
+
+At sight of that death's-head of a fellow, old Heythorp felt a sort of
+pity.  He looked bad enough already--and this news would make him look
+worse.  Joe Pillin glanced round at the two closed doors.
+
+"How are you, Sylvanus?  I'm very poorly."  He came closer, and lowered
+his voice: "Why did you get me to make that settlement?  I must have been
+mad.  I've had a man called Ventnor--I didn't like his manner.  He asked
+me if I knew a Mrs. Larne."
+
+"Ha!  What did you say?"
+
+"What could I say?  I don't know her.  But why did he ask?"
+
+"Smells a rat."
+
+Joe Pillin grasped the edge of the table with both hands.
+
+"Oh!"  he murmured.  "Oh! don't say that!"
+
+Old Heythorp held out to him the crumpled letter.
+
+When he had read it Joe Pillin sat down abruptly before the fire.
+
+"Pull yourself together, Joe; they can't touch you, and they can't upset
+either the purchase or the settlement.  They can upset me, that's all."
+
+Joe Pillin answered, with trembling lips:
+
+"How you can sit there, and look the same as ever!  Are you sure they
+can't touch me?"
+
+Old Heyworth nodded grimly.
+
+"They talk of an Act, but they haven't passed it yet.  They might prove a
+breach of trust against me.  But I'll diddle them.  Keep your pecker up,
+and get off abroad."
+
+"Yes, yes.  I must.  I'm very bad.  I was going to-morrow.  But I don't
+know, I'm sure, with this hanging over me.  My son knowing her makes it
+worse.  He picks up with everybody.  He knows this man Ventnor too.  And
+I daren't say anything to Bob.  What are you thinking of, Sylvanus?  You
+look very funny!"
+
+Old Heythorp seemed to rouse himself from a sort of coma.
+
+"I want my lunch," he said.  "Will you stop and have some?"
+
+Joe Pillin stammered out:
+
+"Lunch!  I don't know when I shall eat again.  What are you going to do,
+Sylvanus?"
+
+"Bluff the beggar out of it."
+
+"But suppose you can't?"
+
+"Buy him off.  He's one--of my creditors."
+
+Joe Pillin stared at him afresh.  "You always had such nerve," he said
+yearningly.  "Do you ever wake up between two and four?  I do--and
+everything's black."
+
+"Put a good stiff nightcap on, my boy, before going to bed."
+
+"Yes; I sometimes wish I was less temperate.  But I couldn't stand it.
+I'm told your doctor forbids you alcohol."
+
+"He does.  That's why I drink it."
+
+Joe Pillin, brooding over the fire, said: "This meeting--d'you think they
+mean to have it?  D'you think this man really knows?  If my name gets
+into the newspapers--" but encountering his old friend's deep little
+eyes, he stopped.  "So you advise me to get off to-morrow, then?"
+
+Old Heythorp nodded.
+
+"Your lunch is served, sir."
+
+Joe Pillin started violently, and rose.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Sylvanus-good-bye!  I don't suppose I shall be back till
+the summer, if I ever come back!"  He sank his voice: "I shall rely on
+you.  You won't let them, will you?"
+
+Old Heythorp lifted his hand, and Joe Pillin put into that swollen
+shaking paw his pale and spindly fingers.  "I wish I had your pluck," he
+said sadly.  "Good-bye, Sylvanus," and turning, he passed out.
+
+Old Heythorp thought: 'Poor shaky chap.  All to pieces at the first
+shot!'  And, going to his lunch, ate more heavily than usual.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+Mr. Ventnor, on reaching his office and opening his letters, found, as he
+had anticipated, one from "that old rascal."  Its contents excited in him
+the need to know his own mind.  Fortunately this was not complicated by a
+sense of dignity--he only had to consider the position with an eye on not
+being made to look a fool.  The point was simply whether he set more
+store by his money than by his desire for--er--Justice.  If not, he had
+merely to convene the special meeting, and lay before it the plain fact
+that Mr. Joseph Pillin, selling his ships for sixty thousand pounds, had
+just made a settlement of six thousand pounds on a lady whom he did not
+know, a daughter, ward, or what-not--of the purchasing company's
+chairman, who had said, moreover, at the general meeting, that he stood
+or fell by the transaction; he had merely to do this, and demand that an
+explanation be required from the old man of such a startling coincidence.
+Convinced that no explanation would hold water, he felt sure that his
+action would be at once followed by the collapse, if nothing more, of
+that old image, and the infliction of a nasty slur on old Pillin and his
+hopeful son.  On the other hand, three hundred pounds was money; and, if
+old Heythorp were to say to him: "What do you want to make this fuss
+for--here's what I owe you!"  could a man of business and the world let
+his sense of justice--however he might itch to have it satisfied--stand
+in the way of what was after all also his sense of Justice?--for this
+money had been owing to him for the deuce of along time.  In this
+dilemma, the words:
+
+"My solicitors will be instructed" were of notable service in helping him
+to form a decision, for he had a certain dislike of other solicitors, and
+an intimate knowledge of the law of libel and slander; if by any remote
+chance there should be a slip between the cup and the lip, Charles
+Ventnor might be in the soup--a position which he deprecated both by
+nature and profession.  High thinking, therefore, decided him at last to
+answer thus:
+
+"February 19th, 1905.
+
+"SIR,--I have received your note.  I think it may be fair, before taking
+further steps in this matter, to ask you for a personal explanation of
+the circumstances to which I alluded.  I therefore propose with your
+permission to call on you at your private residence at five o'clock
+to-morrow afternoon.
+
+"Yours faithfully,
+"CHARLES VENTNOR.
+
+"SYLVANUS HEYTHORP, Esq."
+
+Having sent this missive, and arranged in his mind the damning, if
+circumstantial, evidence he had accumulated, he awaited the hour with
+confidence, for his nature was not lacking in the cock-surety of a
+Briton.  All the same, he dressed himself particularly well that morning,
+putting on a blue and white striped waistcoat which, with a
+cream-coloured tie, set off his fulvous whiskers and full blue eyes; and
+he lunched, if anything, more fully than his wont, eating a stronger
+cheese and taking a glass of special Club ale.  He took care to be late,
+too, to show the old fellow that his coming at all was in the nature of
+an act of grace.  A strong scent of hyacinths greeted him in the hall;
+and Mr. Ventnor, who was an amateur of flowers, stopped to put his nose
+into a fine bloom and think uncontrollably of Mrs. Larne.  Pity!  The
+things one had to give up in life--fine women--one thing and another.
+Pity!  The thought inspired in him a timely anger; and he followed the
+servant, intending to stand no nonsense from this paralytic old rascal.
+
+The room he entered was lighted by a bright fire, and a single electric
+lamp with an orange shade on a table covered by a black satin cloth.
+There were heavily gleaming oil paintings on the walls, a heavy old brass
+chandelier without candles, heavy dark red curtains, and an indefinable
+scent of burnt acorns, coffee, cigars, and old man.  He became conscious
+of a candescent spot on the far side of the hearth, where the light fell
+on old Heythorp's thick white hair.
+
+"Mr. Ventnor, sir."
+
+The candescent spot moved.  A voice said: "Sit down."
+
+Mr. Ventnor sat in an armchair on the opposite side of the fire; and,
+finding a kind of somnolence creeping over him, pinched himself.  He
+wanted all his wits about him.
+
+The old man was speaking in that extinct voice of his, and Mr. Ventnor
+said rather pettishly:
+
+"Beg pardon, I don't get you."
+
+Old Heythorp's voice swelled with sudden force:
+
+"Your letters are Greek to me."
+
+"Oh! indeed, I think we can soon make them into plain English!"
+
+"Sooner the better."
+
+Mr. Ventnor passed through a moment of indecision.  Should he lay his
+cards on the table?  It was not his habit, and the proceeding was
+sometimes attended with risk.  The knowledge, however, that he could
+always take them up again, seeing there was no third person here to
+testify that he had laid them down, decided him, and he said:
+
+"Well, Mr. Heythorp, the long and short of the matter is this: Our friend
+Mr. Pillin paid you a commission of ten per cent. on the sale of his
+ships.  Oh! yes.  He settled the money, not on you, but on your relative
+Mrs. Larne and her children.  This, as you know, is a breach of trust on
+your part."
+
+The old man's voice: "Where did you get hold of that cock-and-bull
+story?"  brought him to his feet before the fire.
+
+"It won't do, Mr. Heythorp.  My witnesses are Mr. Pillin, Mrs. Larne, and
+Mr. Scriven."
+
+"What have you come here for, then--blackmail?"
+
+Mr. Ventnor straightened his waistcoat; a rush of conscious virtue had
+dyed his face.
+
+"Oh! you take that tone," he said, "do you?  You think you can ride
+roughshod over everything?  Well, you're very much mistaken.  I advise
+you to keep a civil tongue and consider your position, or I'll make a
+beggar of you.  I'm not sure this isn't a case for a prosecution!"
+
+"Gammon!"
+
+The choler in Charles Ventnor kept him silent for a moment; then he burst
+out:
+
+"Neither gammon nor spinach.  You owe me three hundred pounds, you've
+owed it me for years, and you have the impudence to take this attitude
+with me, have you?  Now, I never bluster; I say what I mean. You just
+listen to me.  Either you pay me what you owe me at once, or I call this
+meeting and make what I know public.  You'll very soon find out where you
+are.  And a good thing, too, for a more unscrupulous--unscrupulous---" he
+paused for breath.
+
+Occupied with his own emotion, he had not observed the change in old
+Heythorp's face.  The imperial on that lower lip was bristling, the
+crimson of those cheeks had spread to the roots of his white hair. He
+grasped the arms of his chair, trying to rise; his swollen hands
+trembled; a little saliva escaped one corner of his lips.  And the words
+came out as if shaken by his teeth:
+
+"So-so-you-you bully me!"
+
+Conscious that the interview had suddenly passed from the phase of
+negotiation, Mr. Ventnor looked hard at his opponent.  He saw nothing but
+a decrepit, passionate, crimson-faced old man at bay, and all the
+instincts of one with everything on his side boiled up in him.  The
+miserable old turkey-cock--the apoplectic image!  And he said:
+
+"And you'll do no good for yourself by getting into a passion.  At your
+age, and in your condition, I recommend a little prudence.  Now just take
+my terms quietly, or you know what'll happen.  I'm not to be intimidated
+by any of your airs."  And seeing that the old man's rage was such that
+he simply could not speak, he took the opportunity of going on: "I don't
+care two straws which you do--I'm out to show you who's master.  If you
+think in your dotage you can domineer any longer--well, you'll find two
+can play at that game.  Come, now, which are you going to do?"
+
+The old man had sunk back in his chair, and only his little deep-blue
+eyes seemed living.  Then he moved one hand, and Mr. Ventnor saw that he
+was fumbling to reach the button of an electric bell at the end of a
+cord.  'I'll show him,' he thought, and stepping forward, he put it out
+of reach.
+
+Thus frustrated, the old man remained-motionless, staring up.  The word
+"blackmail" resumed its buzzing in Mr. Ventnor's ears.  The impudence the
+consummate impudence of it from this fraudulent old ruffian with one foot
+in bankruptcy and one foot in the grave, if not in the dock.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it's never too late to learn; and for once you've come
+up against someone a leetle bit too much for you.  Haven't you now?
+You'd better cry 'Peccavi.'"
+
+Then, in the deathly silence of the room, the moral force of his
+position, and the collapse as it seemed of his opponent, awakening a
+faint compunction, he took a turn over the Turkey carpet to readjust his
+mind.
+
+"You're an old man, and I don't want to be too hard on you.  I'm only
+showing you that you can't play fast and loose as if you were God
+Almighty any longer.  You've had your own way too many years.  And now
+you can't have it, see!"  Then, as the old man again moved forward in his
+chair, he added: "Now, don't get into a passion again; calm yourself,
+because I warn you--this is your last chance.  I'm a man of my word; and
+what I say, I do."
+
+By a violent and unsuspected effort the old man jerked himself up and
+reached the bell.  Mr. Ventnor heard it ring, and said sharply:
+
+"Mind you, it's nothing to me which you do.  I came for your own good.
+Please yourself.  Well?"
+
+He was answered by the click of the door and the old man's husky voice:
+
+"Show this hound out!  And then come back!"
+
+Mr. Ventnor had presence of mind enough not to shake his fist. Muttering:
+"Very well, Mr. Heythorp!  Ah!  Very well!" he moved with dignity to the
+door.  The careful shepherding of the servant renewed the fire of his
+anger.  Hound!  He had been called a hound!
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+After seeing Mr. Ventnor off the premises the man Meller returned to his
+master, whose face looked very odd--"all patchy-like," as he put it in
+the servants' hall, as though the blood driven to his head had mottled
+for good the snowy whiteness of the forehead.  He received the unexpected
+order:
+
+"Get me a hot bath ready, and put some pine stuff in it."
+
+When the old man was seated there, the valet asked:
+
+"How long shall I give you, sir?"
+
+"Twenty minutes."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+Lying in that steaming brown fragrant liquid, old Heythorp heaved a
+stertorous sigh.  By losing his temper with that ill-conditioned cur he
+had cooked his goose.  It was done to a turn; and he was a ruined man.
+If only--oh! if only he could have seized the fellow by the neck and
+pitched him out of the room!  To have lived to be so spoken to; to have
+been unable to lift hand or foot, hardly even his voice--he would sooner
+have been dead!  Yes--sooner have been dead!  A dumb and measureless
+commotion was still at work in the recesses of that thick old body,
+silver-brown in the dark water, whose steam he drew deep into his
+wheezing lungs, as though for spiritual relief.  To be beaten by a cur
+like that!  To have that common cad of a pettifogging lawyer drag him
+down and kick him about; tumble a name which had stood high, in the dust!
+The fellow had the power to make him a byword and a beggar!  It was
+incredible!  But it was a fact.  And to-morrow he would begin to do
+it--perhaps had begun already.  His tree had come down with a crash!
+Eighty years-eighty good years!  He regretted none of them-regretted
+nothing; least of all this breach of trust which had provided for his
+grandchildren--one of the best things he had ever done.  The fellow was a
+cowardly hound, too!  The way he had snatched the bell-pull out of his
+reach-despicable cur!  And a chap like that was to put "paid" to the
+account of Sylvanus Heythorp, to "scratch" him out of life--so near the
+end of everything, the very end!  His hand raised above the surface fell
+back on his stomach through the dark water, and a bubble or two rose. Not
+so fast--not so fast!  He had but to slip down a foot, let the water
+close over his head, and "Good-bye" to Master Ventnor's triumph Dead men
+could not be kicked off the Boards of Companies.  Dead men could not be
+beggared, deprived of their independence.  He smiled and stirred a little
+in the bath till the water reached the white hairs on his lower lip.  It
+smelt nice!  And he took a long sniff: He had had a good life, a good
+life!  And with the thought that he had it in his power at any moment to
+put Master Ventnor's nose out of joint--to beat the beggar after all, a
+sense of assuagement and well-being crept over him.  His blood ran more
+evenly again.  He closed his eyes.  They talked about an
+after-life--people like that holy woman. Gammon!  You went to sleep--a
+long sleep; no dreams.  A nap after dinner!  Dinner!  His tongue sought
+his palate!  Yes! he could eat a good dinner!  That dog hadn't put him
+off his stroke!  The best dinner he had ever eaten was the one he gave to
+Jack Herring, Chichester, Thornworthy, Nick Treffry and Jolyon Forsyte at
+Pole's. Good Lord!  In 'sixty--yes--'sixty-five?  Just before he fell in
+love with Alice Larne--ten years before he came to Liverpool.  That was a
+dinner!  Cost twenty-four pounds for the six of them--and Forsyte an
+absurdly moderate fellow.  Only Nick Treff'ry and himself had been
+three-bottle men!  Dead!  Every jack man of them.  And suddenly he
+thought: 'My name's a good one--I was never down before--never beaten!'
+
+A voice above the steam said:
+
+"The twenty minutes is up, sir."
+
+"All right; I'll get out.  Evening clothes."
+
+And Meller, taking out dress suit and shirt, thought: 'Now, what does the
+old bloomer want dressin' up again for; why can't he go to bed and have
+his dinner there?  When a man's like a baby, the cradle's the place for
+him.'....
+
+An hour later, at the scene of his encounter with Mr. Ventnor, where the
+table was already laid for dinner, old Heythorp stood and gazed. The
+curtains had been drawn back, the window thrown open to air the room, and
+he could see out there the shapes of the dark trees and a sky
+grape-coloured, in the mild, moist night.  It smelt good.  A sensuous
+feeling stirred in him, warm from his bath, clothed from head to foot in
+fresh garments.  Deuce of a time since he had dined in full fig!  He
+would have liked a woman dining opposite--but not the holy woman; no, by
+George!--would have liked to see light falling on a woman's shoulders
+once again, and a pair of bright eyes!  He crossed, snail-like, towards
+the fire.  There that bullying fellow had stood with his back to
+it--confound his impudence!--as if the place belonged to him.  And
+suddenly he had a vision of his three secretaries' faces--especially
+young Farney's as they would look, when the pack got him by the throat
+and pulled him down.  His co-directors, too!  Old Heythorp!  How are the
+mighty fallen!  And that hound jubilant!
+
+His valet passed across the room to shut the window and draw the
+curtains.  This chap too!  The day he could no longer pay his wages, and
+had lost the power to say "Shan't want your services any more"--when he
+could no longer even pay his doctor for doing his best to kill him off!
+Power, interest, independence, all--gone!  To be dressed and undressed,
+given pap, like a baby in arms, served as they chose to serve him, and
+wished out of the way--broken, dishonoured!
+
+By money alone an old man had his being!  Meat, drink, movement, breath!
+When all his money was gone the holy woman would let him know it fast
+enough.  They would all let him know it; or if they didn't, it would be
+out of pity!  He had never been pitied yet--thank God!  And he said:
+
+"Get me up a bottle of Perrier Jouet.  What's the menu?"
+
+"Germane soup, sir; filly de sole; sweetbread; cutlet soubees, rum
+souffly."
+
+"Tell her to give me a hors d'oeuvre, and put on a savoury."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+When the man had gone, he thought: 'I should have liked an oyster--too
+late now!' and going over to his bureau, he fumblingly pulled out the top
+drawer.  There was little in it--Just a few papers, business papers on
+his Companies, and a schedule of his debts; not even a copy of his
+will--he had not made one, nothing to leave!  Letters he had never kept.
+Half a dozen bills, a few receipts, and the little pink note with the
+blue forget-me-not.  That was the lot!  An old tree gives up bearing
+leaves, and its roots dry up, before it comes down in a wind; an old
+man's world slowly falls away from him till he stands alone in the night.
+Looking at the pink note, he thought: 'Suppose I'd married Alice--a man
+never had a better mistress!'  He fumbled the drawer to; but still he
+strayed feebly about the room, with a curious shrinking from sitting
+down, legacy from the quarter of an hour he had been compelled to sit
+while that hound worried at his throat.  He was opposite one of the
+pictures now.  It gleamed, dark and oily, limning a Scots Grey who had
+mounted a wounded Russian on his horse, and was bringing him back
+prisoner from the Balaclava charge.  A very old friend--bought in
+'fifty-nine.  It had hung in his chambers in the Albany--hung with him
+ever since.  With whom would it hang when he was gone?  For that holy
+woman would scrap it, to a certainty, and stick up some Crucifixion or
+other, some new-fangled high art thing!  She could even do that now if
+she liked--for she owned it, owned every mortal stick in the room, to the
+very glass he would drink his champagne from; all made over under the
+settlement fifteen years ago, before his last big gamble went wrong.  "De
+l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"  The gamble which had brought him down
+till his throat at last was at the mercy of a bullying hound. The pitcher
+and the well!  At the mercy---!  The sound of a popping cork dragged him
+from reverie.  He moved to his seat, back to the window, and sat down to
+his dinner.  By George!  They had got him an oyster!  And he said:
+
+"I've forgotten my teeth!"
+
+While the man was gone for them, he swallowed the oysters, methodically
+touching them one by one with cayenne, Chili vinegar, and lemon.  Ummm!
+Not quite what they used to be at Pimm's in the best days, but not
+bad--not bad!  Then seeing the little blue bowl lying before him, he
+looked up and said:
+
+"My compliments to cook on the oysters.  Give me the champagne."  And he
+lifted his trembling teeth.  Thank God, he could still put 'em in for
+himself!  The creaming goldenish fluid from the napkined bottle slowly
+reached the brim of his glass, which had a hollow stem; raising it to his
+lips, very red between the white hairs above and below, he drank with a
+gurgling noise, and put the glass down-empty. Nectar!  And just cold
+enough!
+
+"I frapped it the least bit, sir."
+
+"Quite right.  What's that smell of flowers?"
+
+"It's from those 'yacinths on the sideboard, sir.  They come from Mrs.
+Larne, this afternoon."
+
+"Put 'em on the table.  Where's my daughter?"
+
+"She's had dinner, sir; goin' to a ball, I think."
+
+"A ball!"
+
+"Charity ball, I fancy, sir."
+
+"Ummm!  Give me a touch of the old sherry with the soup."
+
+"Yes, sir.  I shall have to open a bottle:"
+
+"Very well, then, do!"
+
+On his way to the cellar the man confided to Molly, who was carrying the
+soup:
+
+"The Gov'nor's going it to-night!  What he'll be like tomorrow I dunno."
+
+The girl answered softly:
+
+"Poor old man, let um have his pleasure."  And, in the hall, with the
+soup tureen against her bosom, she hummed above the steam, and thought of
+the ribbons on her new chemises, bought out of the sovereign he had given
+her.
+
+And old Heythorp, digesting his osyters, snuffed the scent of the
+hyacinths, and thought of the St. Germain, his favourite soup.  It would
+n't be first-rate, at this time of year--should be made with little young
+home-grown peas.  Paris was the place for it.  Ah!  The French were the
+fellows for eating, and--looking things in the face!  Not hypocrites--not
+ashamed of their reason or their senses!
+
+The soup came in.  He sipped it, bending forward as far as he could, his
+napkin tucked in over his shirt-front like a bib.  He got the bouquet of
+that sherry to a T--his sense of smell was very keen to-night; rare old
+stuff it was--more than a year since he had tasted it--but no one drank
+sherry nowadays, hadn't the constitution for it!  The fish came up, and
+went down; and with the sweetbread he took his second glass of champagne.
+Always the best, that second glass--the stomach well warmed, and the
+palate not yet dulled.  Umm!  So that fellow thought he had him beaten,
+did he?  And he said suddenly:
+
+"The fur coat in the wardrobe, I've no use for it.  You can take it away
+to-night."
+
+With tempered gratitude the valet answered:
+
+"Thank you, sir; much obliged, I'm sure."  So the old buffer had found
+out there was moth in it!
+
+"Have I worried you much?"
+
+"No, sir; not at all, sir--that is, no more than reason."
+
+"Afraid I have.  Very sorry--can't help it.  You'll find that, when you
+get like me."
+
+"Yes, sir; I've always admired your pluck, sir.
+
+"Um!  Very good of you to say so."
+
+"Always think of you keepin' the flag flying', sir."
+
+Old Heythorp bent his body from the waist.
+
+"Much obliged to you."
+
+"Not at all, sir.  Cook's done a little spinach in cream with the
+soubees."
+
+"Ah!  Tell her from me it's a capital dinner, so far."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Alone again, old Heythorp sat unmoving, his brain just narcotically
+touched.  "The flag flyin'--the flag flyin'!"  He raised his glass and
+sucked.  He had an appetite now, and finished the three cutlets, and all
+the sauce and spinach.  Pity! he could have managed a snipe fresh shot!
+A desire to delay, to lengthen dinner, was strong upon him; there were
+but the souffle' and the savoury to come.  He would have enjoyed, too,
+someone to talk to.  He had always been fond of good company--been good
+company himself, or so they said--not that he had had a chance of late.
+Even at the Boards they avoided talking to him, he had noticed for a long
+time.  Well! that wouldn't trouble him again--he had sat through his last
+Board, no doubt.  They shouldn't kick him off, though; he wouldn't give
+them that pleasure--had seen the beggars hankering after his chairman's
+shoes too long. The souffle was before him now, and lifting his glass, he
+said:
+
+"Fill up."
+
+"These are the special glasses, sir; only four to the bottle."
+
+"Fill up."
+
+The servant filled, screwing up his mouth.
+
+Old Heythorp drank, and put the glass down empty with a sigh.  He had
+been faithful to his principles, finished the bottle before touching the
+sweet--a good bottle--of a good brand!  And now for the souffle!
+Delicious, flipped down with the old sherry!  So that holy woman was
+going to a ball, was she!  How deuced funny!  Who would dance with a dry
+stick like that, all eaten up with a piety which was just sexual
+disappointment?  Ah! yes, lots of women like that--had often noticed
+'em--pitied 'em too, until you had to do with them and they made you as
+unhappy as themselves, and were tyrants into the bargain.  And he asked:
+
+"What's the savoury?"
+
+"Cheese remmykin, sir."
+
+His favourite.
+
+"I'll have my port with it--the 'sixty-eight."  The man stood gazing with
+evident stupefaction.  He had not expected this.  The old man's face was
+very flushed, but that might be the bath.  He said feebly:
+
+"Are you sure you ought, sir?"
+
+"No, but I'm going to."
+
+"Would you mind if I spoke to Miss Heythorp, Sir?"
+
+"If you do, you can leave my service."
+
+"Well, Sir, I don't accept the responsibility."
+
+"Who asked you to?"
+
+"No, Sir...."
+
+"Well, get it, then; and don't be an ass."
+
+"Yes, Sir."  If the old man were not humoured he would have a fit,
+perhaps!
+
+And the old man sat quietly staring at the hyacinths.  He felt happy, his
+whole being lined and warmed and drowsed--and there was more to come!
+What had the holy folk to give you compared with the comfort of a good
+dinner?  Could they make you dream, and see life rosy for a little?  No,
+they could only give you promissory notes which never would be cashed.  A
+man had nothing but his pluck--they only tried to undermine it, and make
+him squeal for help.  He could see his precious doctor throwing up his
+hands: "Port after a bottle of champagne--you'll die of it!"  And a very
+good death too--none better.  A sound broke the silence of the closed-up
+room.  Music?  His daughter playing the piano overhead.  Singing too!
+What a trickle of a voice!  Jenny Lind!  The Swedish nightingale--he had
+never missed the nights when she was singing--Jenny Lind!
+
+"It's very hot, sir.  Shall I take it out of the case?"
+
+Ah!  The ramequin!
+
+"Touch of butter, and the cayenne!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He ate it slowly, savouring each mouthful; had never tasted a better.
+With cheese--port!  He drank one glass, and said:
+
+"Help me to my chair."
+
+And settled there before the fire with decanter and glass and hand-bell
+on the little low table by his side, he murmured:
+
+"Bring coffee, and my cigar, in twenty minutes."
+
+To-night he would do justice to his wine, not smoking till he had
+finished.  As old Horace said:
+
+"Aequam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem."
+
+And, raising his glass, he sipped slowly, spilling a drop or two,
+shutting his eyes.
+
+The faint silvery squealing of the holy woman in the room above, the
+scent of hyacinths, the drowse of the fire, on which a cedar log had just
+been laid, the feeling of the port soaking down into the crannies of his
+being, made up a momentary Paradise.  Then the music stopped; and no
+sound rose but the tiny groans of the log trying to resist the fire.
+Dreamily he thought: 'Life wears you out--wears you out.  Logs on a
+fire!'  And he filled his glass again.  That fellow had been careless;
+there were dregs at the bottom of the decanter and he had got down to
+them!  Then, as the last drop from his tilted glass trickled into the
+white hairs on his chin, he heard the coffee tray put down, and taking
+his cigar he put it to his ear, rolling it in his thick fingers.  In
+prime condition!  And drawing a first whiff, he said:
+
+"Open that bottle of the old brandy in the sideboard."
+
+"Brandy, sir?  I really daren't, sir."
+
+"Are you my servant or not?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but---"
+
+A minute of silence, then the man went hastily to the sideboard, took out
+the bottle, and drew the cork.  The tide of crimson in the old man's face
+had frightened him.
+
+"Leave it there."
+
+The unfortunate valet placed the bottle on the little table.  'I'll have
+to tell her,' he thought; 'but if I take away the port decanter and the
+glass, it won't look so bad.' And, carrying them, he left the room.
+
+Slowly the old man drank his coffee, and the liqueur of brandy.  The
+whole gamut!  And watching his cigar-smoke wreathing blue in the orange
+glow, he smiled.  The last night to call his soul his own, the last night
+of his independence.  Send in his resignations to-morrow--not wait to be
+kicked off!  Not give that fellow a chance!
+
+A voice which seemed to come from far off, said:
+
+"Father!  You're drinking brandy!  How can you--you know it's simple
+poison to you!"  A figure in white, scarcely actual, loomed up close. He
+took the bottle to fill up his liqueur glass, in defiance; but a hand in
+a long white glove, with another dangling from its wrist, pulled it away,
+shook it at him, and replaced it in the sideboard. And, just as when Mr.
+Ventnor stood there accusing him, a swelling and churning in his throat
+prevented him from speech; his lips moved, but only a little froth came
+forth.
+
+His daughter had approached again.  She stood quite close, in white
+satin, thin-faced, sallow, with eyebrows raised, and her dark hair
+frizzed--yes! frizzed--the holy woman!  With all his might he tried to
+say: 'So you bully me, do you--you bully me to-night!' but only the word
+"so" and a sort of whispering came forth.  He heard her speaking.  "It's
+no good your getting angry, Father.  After champagne--it's wicked!"  Then
+her form receded in a sort of rustling white mist; she was gone; and he
+heard the sputtering and growling of her taxi, bearing her to the ball.
+So!  She tyrannised and bullied, even before she had him at her mercy,
+did she?  She should see!  Anger had brightened his eyes; the room came
+clear again.  And slowly raising himself he sounded the bell twice, for
+the girl, not for that fellow Meller, who was in the plot.  As soon as
+her pretty black and white-aproned figure stood before him, he said:
+
+"Help me up."
+
+Twice her soft pulling was not enough, and he sank back.  The third time
+he struggled to his feet.
+
+"Thank you; that'll do."  Then, waiting till she was gone, he crossed the
+room, fumbled open the sideboard door, and took out the bottle. Reaching
+over the polished oak, he grasped a sherry glass; and holding the bottle
+with both hands, tipped the liquor into it, put it to his lips and
+sucked.  Drop by drop it passed over his palate mild, very old, old as
+himself, coloured like sunlight, fragrant.  To the last drop he drank it,
+then hugging the bottle to his shirt-front, he moved snail-like to his
+chair, and fell back into its depths.  For some minutes he remained there
+motionless, the bottle clasped to his chest, thinking: 'This is not the
+attitude of a gentleman.  I must put it down on the table-on the table;'
+but a thick cloud was between him and everything.  It was with his hands
+he would have to put the bottle on the table!  But he could not find his
+hands, could not feel them.  His mind see-sawed in strophe and
+antistrophe: "You can't move!"--"I will move!"  "You're beaten"--"I'm not
+beat."  "Give up"--"I won't."  That struggle to find his hands seemed to
+last for ever--he must find them!  After that--go down--all
+standing--after that!  Everything round him was red.  Then the red cloud
+cleared just a little, and he could hear the clock--"tick-tick-tick"; a
+faint sensation spread from his shoulders down to his wrists, down his
+palms; and yes--he could feel the bottle!  He redoubled his struggle to
+get forward in his chair; to get forward and put the bottle down. It was
+not dignified like this!  One arm he could move now; but he could not
+grip the bottle nearly tight enough to put it down. Working his whole
+body forward, inch by inch, he shifted himself up in the chair till he
+could lean sideways, and the bottle, slipping down his chest, dropped
+slanting to the edge of the low stool-table. Then with all his might he
+screwed his trunk and arms an inch further, and the bottle stood.  He had
+done it--done it!  His lips twitched into a smile; his body sagged back
+to its old position.  He had done it!  And he closed his eyes ....
+
+At half-past eleven the girl Molly, opening the door, looked at him and
+said softly: "Sirr! there's some ladies, and a gentleman!"  But he did
+not answer.  And, still holding the door, she whispered out into the
+hall:
+
+"He's asleep, miss."
+
+A voice whispered back:
+
+"Oh!  Just let me go in, I won't wake him unless he does.  But I do want
+to show him my dress."
+
+The girl moved aside; and on tiptoe Phyllis passed in.  She walked to
+where, between the lamp-glow and the fire-glow, she was lighted up. White
+satin--her first low-cut dress--the flush of her first supper party--a
+gardenia at her breast, another in her fingers!  Oh! what a pity he was
+asleep!  How red he looked!  How funnily old men breathed!  And
+mysteriously, as a child might, she whispered:
+
+"Guardy!"
+
+No answer!  And pouting, she stood twiddling the gardenia.  Then suddenly
+she thought: 'I'll put it in his buttonhole!  When he wakes up and sees
+it, how he'll jump!'
+
+And stealing close, she bent and slipped it in.  Two faces looked at her
+from round the door; she heard Bob Pillin's smothered chuckle; her
+mother's rich and feathery laugh.  Oh!  How red his forehead was!  She
+touched it with her lips; skipped back, twirled round, danced silently a
+second, blew a kiss, and like quicksilver was gone.
+
+And the whispering, the chuckling, and one little out-pealing laugh rose
+in the hall.
+
+But the old man slept.  Nor until Meller came at his usual hour of
+half-past twelve, was it known that he would never wake.
+
+
+
+
+THE APPLE TREE
+
+              "The Apple-tree, the singing and the gold."
+               MURRAY'S "HIPPOLYTUS of EURIPIDES."
+
+In their silver-wedding day Ashurst and his wife were motoring along the
+outskirts of the moor, intending to crown the festival by stopping the
+night at Torquay, where they had first met.  This was the idea of Stella
+Ashurst, whose character contained a streak of sentiment.  If she had
+long lost the blue-eyed, flower-like charm, the cool slim purity of face
+and form, the apple-blossom colouring, which had so swiftly and so oddly
+affected Ashurst twenty-six years ago, she was still at forty-three a
+comely and faithful companion, whose cheeks were faintly mottled, and
+whose grey-blue eyes had acquired a certain fullness.
+
+It was she who had stopped the car where the common rose steeply to the
+left, and a narrow strip of larch and beech, with here and there a pine,
+stretched out towards the valley between the road and the first long high
+hill of the full moor.  She was looking for a place where they might
+lunch, for Ashurst never looked for anything; and this, between the
+golden furze and the feathery green larches smelling of lemons in the
+last sun of April--this, with a view into the deep valley and up to the
+long moor heights, seemed fitting to the decisive nature of one who
+sketched in water-colours, and loved romantic spots.  Grasping her paint
+box, she got out.
+
+"Won't this do, Frank?"
+
+Ashurst, rather like a bearded Schiller, grey in the wings, tall,
+long-legged, with large remote grey eyes which sometimes filled with
+meaning and became almost beautiful, with nose a little to one side, and
+bearded lips just open--Ashurst, forty-eight, and silent, grasped the
+luncheon basket, and got out too.
+
+"Oh!  Look, Frank!  A grave!"
+
+By the side of the road, where the track from the top of the common
+crossed it at right angles and ran through a gate past the narrow wood,
+was a thin mound of turf, six feet by one, with a moorstone to the west,
+and on it someone had thrown a blackthorn spray and a handful of
+bluebells.  Ashurst looked, and the poet in him moved.  At cross-roads--a
+suicide's grave!  Poor mortals with their superstitions!  Whoever lay
+there, though, had the best of it, no clammy sepulchre among other
+hideous graves carved with futilities--just a rough stone, the wide sky,
+and wayside blessings!  And, without comment, for he had learned not to
+be a philosopher in the bosom of his family, he strode away up on to the
+common, dropped the luncheon basket under a wall, spread a rug for his
+wife to sit on--she would turn up from her sketching when she was
+hungry--and took from his pocket Murray's translation of the
+"Hippolytus."  He had soon finished reading of "The Cyprian" and her
+revenge, and looked at the sky instead.  And watching the white clouds so
+bright against the intense blue, Ashurst, on his silver-wedding day,
+longed for--he knew not what.  Maladjusted to life--man's organism!
+One's mode of life might be high and scrupulous, but there was always an,
+undercurrent of greediness, a hankering, and sense of waste.  Did women
+have it too?  Who could tell?  And yet, men who gave vent to their
+appetites for novelty, their riotous longings for new adventures, new
+risks, new pleasures, these suffered, no doubt, from the reverse side of
+starvation, from surfeit.  No getting out of it--a maladjusted animal,
+civilised man!  There could be no garden of his choosing, of "the
+Apple-tree, the singing, and the gold," in the words of that lovely Greek
+chorus, no achievable elysium in life, or lasting haven of happiness for
+any man with a sense of beauty--nothing which could compare with the
+captured loveliness in a work of art, set down for ever, so that to look
+on it or read was always to have the same precious sense of exaltation
+and restful inebriety.  Life no doubt had moments with that quality of
+beauty, of unbidden flying rapture, but the trouble was, they lasted no
+longer than the span of a cloud's flight over the sun; impossible to keep
+them with you, as Art caught beauty and held it fast.  They were fleeting
+as one of the glimmering or golden visions one had of the soul in nature,
+glimpses of its remote and brooding spirit.  Here, with the sun hot on
+his face, a cuckoo calling from a thorn tree, and in the air the honey
+savour of gorse--here among the little fronds of the young fern, the
+starry blackthorn, while the bright clouds drifted by high above the
+hills and dreamy valleys here and now was such a glimpse.  But in a
+moment it would pass--as the face of Pan, which looks round the corner of
+a rock, vanishes at your stare.  And suddenly he sat up.  Surely there
+was something familiar about this view, this bit of common, that ribbon
+of road, the old wall behind him.  While they were driving he had not
+been taking notice--never did; thinking of far things or of nothing--but
+now he saw!  Twenty-six years ago, just at this time of year, from the
+farmhouse within half a mile of this very spot he had started for that
+day in Torquay whence it might be said he had never returned.  And a
+sudden ache beset his heart; he had stumbled on just one of those past
+moments in his life, whose beauty and rapture he had failed to arrest,
+whose wings had fluttered away into the unknown; he had stumbled on a
+buried memory, a wild sweet time, swiftly choked and ended.  And, turning
+on his face, he rested his chin on his hands, and stared at the short
+grass where the little blue milkwort was growing....
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+And this is what he remembered.
+
+On the first of May, after their last year together at college, Frank
+Ashurst and his friend Robert Garton were on a tramp.  They had walked
+that day from Brent, intending to make Chagford, but Ashurst's football
+knee had given out, and according to their map they had still some seven
+miles to go.  They were sitting on a bank beside the-road, where a track
+crossed alongside a wood, resting the knee and talking of the universe,
+as young men will.  Both were over six feet, and thin as rails; Ashurst
+pale, idealistic, full of absence; Garton queer, round-the-corner,
+knotted, curly, like some primeval beast.  Both had a literary bent;
+neither wore a hat.
+
+Ashurst's hair was smooth, pale, wavy, and had a way of rising on either
+side of his brow, as if always being flung back; Carton's was a kind of
+dark unfathomed mop.  They had not met a soul for miles.
+
+"My dear fellow," Garton was saying, "pity's only an effect of
+self-consciousness; it's a disease of the last five thousand years.  The
+world was happier without."
+
+Ashurst, following the clouds with his eyes, answered:
+
+"It's the pearl in the oyster, anyway."
+
+"My dear chap, all our modern unhappiness comes from pity.  Look at
+animals, and Red Indians, limited to feeling their own occasional
+misfortunes; then look at ourselves--never free from feeling the
+toothaches of others.  Let's get back to feeling for nobody, and have a
+better time."
+
+"You'll never practise that."
+
+Garton pensively stirred the hotch-potch of his hair.
+
+"To attain full growth, one mustn't be squeamish.  To starve oneself
+emotionally's a mistake.  All emotion is to the good--enriches life."
+
+"Yes, and when it runs up against chivalry?"
+
+"Ah!  That's so English!  If you speak of emotion the English always
+think you want something physical, and are shocked.  They're afraid of
+passion, but not of lust--oh, no!--so long as they can keep it secret."
+
+Ashurst did not answer; he had plucked a blue floweret, and was twiddling
+it against the sky.  A cuckoo began calling from a thorn tree.  The sky,
+the flowers, the songs of birds!  Robert was talking through his hat!
+And he said:
+
+"Well, let's go on, and find some farm where we can put up."  In uttering
+those words, he was conscious of a girl coming down from the common just
+above them.  She was outlined against the sky, carrying a basket, and you
+could see that sky through the crook of her arm.  And Ashurst, who saw
+beauty without wondering how it could advantage him, thought: 'How
+pretty!'  The wind, blowing her dark frieze skirt against her legs,
+lifted her battered peacock tam-o'-shanter; her greyish blouse was worn
+and old, her shoes were split, her little hands rough and red, her neck
+browned.  Her dark hair waved untidy across her broad forehead, her face
+was short, her upper lip short, showing a glint of teeth, her brows were
+straight and dark, her lashes long and dark, her nose straight; but her
+grey eyes were the wonder-dewy as if opened for the first time that day.
+She looked at Ashurst--perhaps he struck her as strange, limping along
+without a hat, with his large eyes on her, and his hair falling back.  He
+could not take off what was not on his head, but put up his hand in a
+salute, and said:
+
+"Can you tell us if there's a farm near here where we could stay the
+night?  I've gone lame."
+
+"There's only our farm near, sir."  She spoke without shyness, in a
+pretty soft crisp voice.
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Down here, sir."
+
+"Would you put us up?"
+
+"Oh!  I think we would."
+
+"Will you show us the way?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+He limped on, silent, and Garton took up the catechism.
+
+"Are you a Devonshire girl?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"From Wales."
+
+"Ah!  I thought you were a Celt; so it's not your farm?"
+
+"My aunt's, sir."
+
+"And your uncle's?"
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"Who farms it, then?"
+
+"My aunt, and my three cousins."
+
+"But your uncle was a Devonshire man?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Have you lived here long?"  "Seven years."
+
+"And how d'you like it after Wales?"  "I don't know, sir."
+
+"I suppose you don't remember?"  "Oh, yes!  But it is different."
+
+"I believe you!"
+
+Ashurst broke in suddenly: "How old are you?"
+
+"Seventeen, Sir."
+
+"And what's your name?"  "Megan David."
+
+"This is Robert Garton, and I am Frank Ashurst.  We wanted to get on to
+Chagford."
+
+"It is a pity your leg is hurting you."
+
+Ashurst smiled, and when he smiled his face was rather beautiful.
+
+Descending past the narrow wood, they came on the farm suddenly-a long,
+low, stone-built dwelling with casement windows, in a farmyard where pigs
+and fowls and an old mare were straying.  A short steep-up grass hill
+behind was crowned with a few Scotch firs, and in front, an old orchard
+of apple trees, just breaking into flower, stretched down to a stream and
+a long wild meadow.  A little boy with oblique dark eyes was shepherding
+a pig, and by the house door stood a woman, who came towards them.  The
+girl said:
+
+"It is Mrs. Narracombe, my aunt."
+
+"Mrs. Narracombe, my aunt," had a quick, dark eye, like a mother
+wild-duck's, and something of the same snaky turn about her neck.
+
+"We met your niece on the road," said Ashurst; "she thought you might
+perhaps put us up for the night."
+
+Mrs. Narracombe, taking them in from head to heel, answered:
+
+"Well, I can, if you don't mind one room.  Megan, get the spare room
+ready, and a bowl of cream.  You'll be wanting tea, I suppose."
+
+Passing through a sort of porch made by two yew trees and some
+flowering-currant bushes, the girl disappeared into the house, her
+peacock tam-o'-shanter bright athwart that rosy-pink and the dark green
+of the yews.
+
+"Will you come into the parlour and rest your leg?  You'll be from
+college, perhaps?"
+
+"We were, but we've gone down now."
+
+Mrs. Narracombe nodded sagely.
+
+The parlour, brick-floored, with bare table and shiny chairs and sofa
+stuffed with horsehair, seemed never to have been used, it was so
+terribly clean.  Ashurst sat down at once on the sofa, holding his lame
+knee between his hands, and Mrs. Narracombe gazed at him.  He was the
+only son of a late professor of chemistry, but people found a certain
+lordliness in one who was often so sublimely unconscious of them.
+
+"Is there a stream where we could bathe?"
+
+"There's the strame at the bottom of the orchard, but sittin' down you'll
+not be covered!"
+
+"How deep?"
+
+"Well, 'tis about a foot and a half, maybe."
+
+"Oh!  That'll do fine.  Which way?"
+
+"Down the lane, through the second gate on the right, an' the pool's by
+the big apple tree that stands by itself.  There's trout there, if you
+can tickle them."
+
+"They're more likely to tickle us!"
+
+Mrs. Narracombe smiled.  "There'll be the tea ready when you come back."
+
+The pool, formed by the damming of a rock, had a sandy bottom; and the
+big apple tree, lowest in the orchard, grew so close that its boughs
+almost overhung the water; it was in leaf, and all but in flower-its
+crimson buds just bursting.  There was not room for more than one at a
+time in that narrow bath, and Ashurst waited his turn, rubbing his knee
+and gazing at the wild meadow, all rocks and thorn trees and feld
+flowers, with a grove of beeches beyond, raised up on a flat mound.
+Every bough was swinging in the wind, every spring bird calling, and a
+slanting sunlight dappled the grass.  He thought of Theocritus, and the
+river Cherwell, of the moon, and the maiden with the dewy eyes; of so
+many things that he seemed to think of nothing; and he felt absurdly
+happy.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+During a late and sumptuous tea with eggs to it, cream and jam, and thin,
+fresh cakes touched with saffron, Garton descanted on the Celts.  It was
+about the period of the Celtic awakening, and the discovery that there
+was Celtic blood about this family had excited one who believed that he
+was a Celt himself.  Sprawling on a horse hair chair, with a hand-made
+cigarette dribbling from the corner of his curly lips, he had been
+plunging his cold pin-points of eyes into Ashurst's and praising the
+refinement of the Welsh.  To come out of Wales into England was like the
+change from china to earthenware!  Frank, as a d---d Englishman, had not
+of course perceived the exquisite refinement and emotional capacity of
+that Welsh girl!  And, delicately stirring in the dark mat of his still
+wet hair, he explained how exactly she illustrated the writings of the
+Welsh bard Morgan-ap-Something in the twelfth century.
+
+Ashurst, full length on the horsehair sofa, and jutting far beyond its
+end, smoked a deeply-coloured pipe, and did not listen, thinking of the
+girl's face when she brought in a relay of cakes.  It had been exactly
+like looking at a flower, or some other pretty sight in Nature-till, with
+a funny little shiver, she had lowered her glance and gone out, quiet as
+a mouse.
+
+"Let's go to the kitchen," said Garton, "and see some more of her."
+
+The kitchen was a white-washed room with rafters, to which were attached
+smoked hams; there were flower-pots on the window-sill, and guns hanging
+on nails, queer mugs, china and pewter, and portraits of Queen Victoria.
+A long, narrow table of plain wood was set with bowls and spoons, under a
+string of high-hung onions; two sheep-dogs and three cats lay here and
+there.  On one side of the recessed fireplace sat two small boys, idle,
+and good as gold; on the other sat a stout, light-eyed, red-faced youth
+with hair and lashes the colour of the tow he was running through the
+barrel of a gun; between them Mrs. Narracombe dreamily stirred some
+savoury-scented stew in a large pot.  Two other youths, oblique-eyed,
+dark-haired, rather sly-faced, like the two little boys, were talking
+together and lolling against the wall; and a short, elderly, clean-shaven
+man in corduroys, seated in the window, was conning a battered journal.
+The girl Megan seemed the only active creature-drawing cider and passing
+with the jugs from cask to table.  Seeing them thus about to eat, Garton
+said:
+
+"Ah!  If you'll let us, we'll come back when supper's over," and without
+waiting for an answer they withdrew again to the parlour. But the colour
+in the kitchen, the warmth, the scents, and all those faces, heightened
+the bleakness of their shiny room, and they resumed their seats moodily.
+
+"Regular gipsy type, those boys.  There was only one Saxon--the fellow
+cleaning the gun.  That girl is a very subtle study psychologically."
+
+Ashurst's lips twitched.  Garton seemed to him an ass just then. Subtle
+study!  She was a wild flower.  A creature it did you good to look at.
+Study!
+
+Garton went on:
+
+"Emotionally she would be wonderful.  She wants awakening."
+
+"Are you going to awaken her?"
+
+Garton looked at him and smiled.  'How coarse and English you are!' that
+curly smile seemed saying.
+
+And Ashurst puffed his pipe.  Awaken her!  That fool had the best opinion
+of himself!  He threw up the window and leaned out.  Dusk had gathered
+thick.  The farm buildings and the wheel-house were all dim and bluish,
+the apple trees but a blurred wilderness; the air smelled of woodsmoke
+from the kitchen fire.  One bird going to bed later than the others was
+uttering a half-hearted twitter, as though surprised at the darkness.
+From the stable came the snuffle and stamp of a feeding horse.  And away
+over there was the loom of the moor, and away and away the shy stars
+which had not as yet full light, pricking white through the deep blue
+heavens.  A quavering owl hooted. Ashurst drew a deep breath.  What a
+night to wander out in!  A padding of unshod hoofs came up the lane, and
+three dim, dark shapes passed--ponies on an evening march.  Their heads,
+black and fuzzy, showed above the gate.  At the tap of his pipe, and a
+shower of little sparks, they shied round and scampered.  A bat went
+fluttering past, uttering its almost inaudible "chip, chip."  Ashurst
+held out his hand; on the upturned palm he could feel the dew.  Suddenly
+from overhead he heard little burring boys' voices, little thumps of
+boots thrown down, and another voice, crisp and soft--the girl's putting
+them to bed, no doubt; and nine clear words "No, Rick, you can't have the
+cat in bed"; then came a skirmish of giggles and gurgles, a soft slap, a
+laugh so low and pretty that it made him shiver a little.  A blowing
+sound, and the glim of the candle which was fingering the dusk above,
+went out; silence reigned.  Ashurst withdrew into the room and sat down;
+his knee pained him, and his soul felt gloomy.
+
+"You go to the kitchen," he said; "I'm going to bed."
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+For Ashurst the wheel of slumber was wont to turn noiseless and slick and
+swift, but though he seemed sunk in sleep when his companion came up, he
+was really wide awake; and long after Carton, smothered in the other bed
+of that low-roofed room, was worshipping darkness with his upturned nose,
+he heard the owls.  Barring the discomfort of his knee, it was not
+unpleasant--the cares of life did not loom large in night watches for
+this young man.  In fact he had none; just enrolled a barrister, with
+literary aspirations, the world before him, no father or mother, and four
+hundred a year of his own.  Did it matter where he went, what he did, or
+when he did it?  His bed, too, was hard, and this preserved him from
+fever.  He lay, sniffing the scent of the night which drifted into the
+low room through the open casement close to his head.  Except for a
+definite irritation with his friend, natural when you have tramped with a
+man for three days, Ashurst's memories and visions that sleepless night
+were kindly and wistful and exciting.  One vision, specially clear and
+unreasonable, for he had not even been conscious of noting it, was the
+face of the youth cleaning the gun; its intent, stolid, yet startled
+uplook at the kitchen doorway, quickly shifted to the girl carrying the
+cider jug.  This red, blue-eyed, light-lashed, tow-haired face stuck as
+firmly in his memory as the girl's own face, so dewy and simple.  But at
+last, in the square of darkness through the uncurtained casement, he saw
+day coming, and heard one hoarse and sleepy caw.  Then followed silence,
+dead as ever, till the song of a blackbird, not properly awake,
+adventured into the hush.  And, from staring at the framed brightening
+light, Ashurst fell asleep.
+
+Next day his knee was badly swollen; the walking tour was obviously over.
+Garton, due back in London on the morrow, departed at midday with an
+ironical smile which left a scar of irritation--healed the moment his
+loping figure vanished round the corner of the steep lane. All day
+Ashurst rested his knee, in a green-painted wooden chair on the patch of
+grass by the yew-tree porch, where the sunlight distilled the scent of
+stocks and gillyflowers, and a ghost of scent from the flowering-currant
+bushes.  Beatifically he smoked, dreamed, watched.
+
+A farm in spring is all birth-young things coming out of bud and shell,
+and human beings watching over the process with faint excitement feeding
+and tending what has been born.  So still the young man sat, that a
+mother-goose, with stately cross-footed waddle, brought her six
+yellow-necked grey-backed goslings to strop their little beaks against
+the grass blades at his feet.  Now and again Mrs. Narracombe or the girl
+Megan would come and ask if he wanted anything, and he would smile and
+say: "Nothing, thanks.  It's splendid here."  Towards tea-time they came
+out together, bearing a long poultice of some dark stuff in a bowl, and
+after a long and solemn scrutiny of his swollen knee, bound it on.  When
+they were gone, he thought of the girl's soft "Oh!"--of her pitying eyes,
+and the little wrinkle in her brow.  And again he felt that unreasoning
+irritation against his departed friend, who had talked such rot about
+her.  When she brought out his tea, he said:
+
+"How did you like my friend, Megan?"
+
+She forced down her upper lip, as if afraid that to smile was not polite.
+"He was a funny gentleman; he made us laugh.  I think he is very clever."
+
+"What did he say to make you laugh?"
+
+"He said I was a daughter of the bards.  What are they?"
+
+"Welsh poets, who lived hundreds of years ago."
+
+"Why am I their daughter, please?"
+
+"He meant that you were the sort of girl they sang about."
+
+She wrinkled her brows.  "I think he likes to joke.  Am I?"
+
+"Would you believe me, if I told you?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Well, I think he was right."
+
+She smiled.
+
+And Ashurst thought: 'You are a pretty thing!'
+
+"He said, too, that Joe was a Saxon type.  What would that be?"
+
+"Which is Joe?  With the blue eyes and red face?"
+
+"Yes.  My uncle's nephew."
+
+"Not your cousin, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, he meant that Joe was like the men who came over to England about
+fourteen hundred years ago, and conquered it."
+
+"Oh!  I know about them; but is he?"
+
+"Garton's crazy about that sort of thing; but I must say Joe does look a
+bit Early Saxon."
+
+"Yes."
+
+That "Yes" tickled Ashurst.  It was so crisp and graceful, so conclusive,
+and politely acquiescent in what was evidently.  Greek to her.
+
+"He said that all the other boys were regular gipsies.  He should not
+have said that.  My aunt laughed, but she didn't like it, of course, and
+my cousins were angry.  Uncle was a farmer--farmers are not gipsies.  It
+is wrong to hurt people."
+
+Ashurst wanted to take her hand and give it a squeeze, but he only
+answered:
+
+"Quite right, Megan.  By the way, I heard you putting the little ones to
+bed last night."
+
+She flushed a little.  "Please to drink your tea--it is getting cold.
+Shall I get you some fresh?"
+
+"Do you ever have time to do anything for yourself?"
+
+"Oh!  Yes."
+
+"I've been watching, but I haven't seen it yet."
+
+She wrinkled her brows in a puzzled frown, and her colour deepened.
+
+When she was gone, Ashurst thought: 'Did she think I was chaffing her?  I
+wouldn't for the world!' He was at that age when to some men "Beauty's a
+flower," as the poet says, and inspires in them the thoughts of chivalry.
+Never very conscious of his surroundings, it was some time before he was
+aware that the youth whom Garton had called "a Saxon type" was standing
+outside the stable door; and a fine bit of colour he made in his soiled
+brown velvet-cords, muddy gaiters, and blue shirt; red-armed, red-faced,
+the sun turning his hair from tow to flax; immovably stolid, persistent,
+unsmiling he stood.  Then, seeing Ashurst looking at him, he crossed the
+yard at that gait of the young countryman always ashamed not to be slow
+and heavy-dwelling on each leg, and disappeared round the end of the
+house towards the kitchen entrance.  A chill came over Ashurst's mood.
+Clods?  With all the good will in the world, how impossible to get on
+terms with them!  And yet--see that girl!  Her shoes were split, her
+hands rough; but--what was it?  Was it really her Celtic blood, as Garton
+had said?--she was a lady born, a jewel, though probably she could do no
+more than just read and write!
+
+The elderly, clean-shaven man he had seen last night in the kitchen had
+come into the yard with a dog, driving the cows to their milking. Ashurst
+saw that he was lame.
+
+"You've got some good ones there!"
+
+The lame man's face brightened.  He had the upward look in his eyes which
+prolonged suffering often brings.
+
+"Yeas; they'm praaper buties; gude milkers tu."
+
+"I bet they are."
+
+"'Ope as yure leg's better, zurr."
+
+"Thank you, it's getting on."
+
+The lame man touched his own: "I know what 'tes, meself; 'tes a main
+worritin' thing, the knee.  I've a-'ad mine bad this ten year."
+
+Ashurst made the sound of sympathy which comes so readily from those who
+have an independent income, and the lame man smiled again.
+
+"Mustn't complain, though--they mighty near 'ad it off."
+
+"Ho!"
+
+"Yeas; an' compared with what 'twas, 'tes almost so gude as nu."
+
+"They've put a bandage of splendid stuff on mine."
+
+"The maid she picks et.  She'm a gude maid wi' the flowers.  There's
+folks zeem to know the healin' in things.  My mother was a rare one for
+that.  'Ope as yu'll zune be better, zurr.  Goo ahn, therr!"
+
+Ashurst smiled.  "Wi' the flowers!"  A flower herself!
+
+That evening, after his supper of cold duck, junket, and cider, the girl
+came in.
+
+"Please, auntie says--will you try a piece of our Mayday cake?"
+
+"If I may come to the kitchen for it."
+
+"Oh, yes!  You'll be missing your friend."
+
+"Not I.  But are you sure no one minds?"
+
+"Who would mind?  We shall be very pleased."
+
+Ashurst rose too suddenly for his stiff knee, staggered, and subsided.
+The girl gave a little gasp, and held out her hands. Ashurst took them,
+small, rough, brown; checked his impulse to put them to his lips, and let
+her pull him up.  She came close beside him, offering her shoulder.  And
+leaning on her he walked across the room.  That shoulder seemed quite the
+pleasantest thing he had ever touched.  But, he had presence of mind
+enough to catch his stick out of the rack, and withdraw his hand before
+arriving at the kitchen.
+
+That night he slept like a top, and woke with his knee of almost normal
+size.  He again spent the morning in his chair on the grass patch,
+scribbling down verses; but in the afternoon he wandered about with the
+two little boys Nick and Rick.  It was Saturday, so they were early home
+from school; quick, shy, dark little rascals of seven and six, soon
+talkative, for Ashurst had a way with children.  By four o'clock they had
+shown him all their methods of destroying life, except the tickling of
+trout; and with breeches tucked up, lay on their stomachs over the trout
+stream, pretending they had this accomplishment also.  They tickled
+nothing, of course, for their giggling and shouting scared every spotted
+thing away.  Ashurst, on a rock at the edge of the beech clump, watched
+them, and listened to the cuckoos, till Nick, the elder and less
+persevering, came up and stood beside him.
+
+"The gipsy bogle zets on that stone," he said.
+
+"What gipsy bogie?"
+
+"Dunno; never zeen 'e.  Megan zays 'e zets there; an' old Jim zeed 'e
+once.  'E was zettin' there naight afore our pony kicked--in father's
+'ead.  'E plays the viddle."
+
+"What tune does he play?"
+
+"Dunno."
+
+"What's he like?"
+
+"'E's black.  Old Jim zays 'e's all over 'air.  'E's a praaper bogle. 'E
+don' come only at naight."  The little boy's oblique dark eyes slid
+round.  "D'yu think 'e might want to take me away?  Megan's feared of
+'e."
+
+"Has she seen him?"
+
+"No.  She's not afeared o' yu."
+
+"I should think not.  Why should she be?"
+
+"She zays a prayer for yu."
+
+"How do you know that, you little rascal?"
+
+"When I was asleep, she said: 'God bless us all, an' Mr. Ashes.'  I yeard
+'er whisperin'."
+
+"You're a little ruffian to tell what you hear when you're not meant to
+hear it!"
+
+The little boy was silent.  Then he said aggressively:
+
+"I can skin rabbets.  Megan, she can't bear skinnin' 'em.  I like blood."
+
+"Oh! you do; you little monster!"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A creature that likes hurting others."
+
+The little boy scowled.  "They'm only dead rabbets, what us eats."
+
+"Quite right, Nick.  I beg your pardon."
+
+"I can skin frogs, tu."
+
+But Ashurst had become absent.  "God bless us all, and Mr. Ashes!" And
+puzzled by that sudden inaccessibility, Nick ran back to the stream where
+the giggling and shouts again uprose at once.
+
+When Megan brought his tea, he said:
+
+"What's the gipsy bogle, Megan?"
+
+She looked up, startled.
+
+"He brings bad things."
+
+"Surely you don't believe in ghosts?"
+
+"I hope I will never see him."
+
+"Of course you won't.  There aren't such things.  What old Jim saw was a
+pony."
+
+"No!  There are bogies in the rocks; they are the men who lived long
+ago."
+
+"They aren't gipsies, anyway; those old men were dead long before gipsies
+came."
+
+She said simply: "They are all bad."
+
+"Why?  If there are any, they're only wild, like the rabbits.  The
+flowers aren't bad for being wild; the thorn trees were never
+planted--and you don't mind them.  I shall go down at night and look for
+your bogie, and have a talk with him."
+
+"Oh, no!  Oh, no!"
+
+"Oh, yes!  I shall go and sit on his rock."
+
+She clasped her hands together: "Oh, please!"
+
+"Why!  What 'does it matter if anything happens to me?"
+
+She did not answer; and in a sort of pet he added:
+
+"Well, I daresay I shan't see him, because I suppose I must be off soon."
+
+"Soon?"
+
+"Your aunt won't want to keep me here."
+
+"Oh, yes!  We always let lodgings in summer."
+
+Fixing his eyes on her face, he asked:
+
+"Would you like me to stay?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm going to say a prayer for you to-night!"
+
+She flushed crimson, frowned, and went out of the room.  He sat, cursing
+himself, till his tea was stewed.  It was as if he had hacked with his
+thick boots at a clump of bluebells.  Why had he said such a silly thing?
+Was he just a towny college ass like Robert Garton, as far from
+understanding this girl?
+
+Ashurst spent the next week confirming the restoration of his leg, by
+exploration of the country within easy reach.  Spring was a revelation to
+him this year.  In a kind of intoxication he would watch the pink-white
+buds of some backward beech tree sprayed up in the sunlight against the
+deep blue sky, or the trunks and limbs of the few Scotch firs, tawny in
+violent light, or again, on the moor, the gale-bent larches which had
+such a look of life when the wind streamed in their young green, above
+the rusty black underboughs.  Or he would lie on the banks, gazing at the
+clusters of dog-violets, or up in the dead bracken, fingering the pink,
+transparent buds of the dewberry, while the cuckoos called and yafes
+laughed, or a lark, from very high, dripped its beads of song.  It was
+certainly different from any spring he had ever known, for spring was
+within him, not without.  In the daytime he hardly saw the family; and
+when Megan brought in his meals she always seemed too busy in the house
+or among the young things in the yard to stay talking long.  But in the
+evenings he installed himself in the window seat in the kitchen, smoking
+and chatting with the lame man Jim, or Mrs. Narracombe, while the girl
+sewed, or moved about, clearing the supper things away.  And sometimes,
+with the sensation a cat must feel when it purrs, he would become
+conscious that Megan's eyes--those dew-grey eyes--were fixed on him with
+a sort of lingering soft look which was strangely flattering.
+
+It was on Sunday week in the evening, when he was lying in the orchard
+listening to a blackbird and composing a love poem, that he heard the
+gate swing to, and saw the girl come running among the trees, with the
+red-cheeked, stolid Joe in swift pursuit.  About twenty yards away the
+chase ended, and the two stood fronting each other, not noticing the
+stranger in the grass--the boy pressing on, the girl fending him off.
+Ashurst could see her face, angry, disturbed; and the youth's--who would
+have thought that red-faced yokel could look so distraught!  And
+painfully affected by that sight, he jumped up.  They saw him then.
+Megan dropped her hands, and shrank behind a tree trunk; the boy gave an
+angry grunt, rushed at the bank, scrambled over and vanished.  Ashurst
+went slowly up to her.  She was standing quite still, biting her lip-very
+pretty, with her fine, dark hair blown loose about her face, and her eyes
+cast down.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.
+
+She gave him one upward look, from eyes much dilated; then, catching her
+breath, turned away.  Ashurst followed.
+
+"Megan!"
+
+But she went on; and taking hold of her arm, he turned her gently round
+to him.
+
+"Stop and speak to me."
+
+"Why do you beg my pardon?  It is not to me you should do that."
+
+"Well, then, to Joe."
+
+"How dare he come after me?"
+
+"In love with you, I suppose."
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+Ashurst uttered a short laugh.  "Would you like me to punch his head?"
+
+She cried with sudden passion:
+
+"You laugh at me-you laugh at us!"
+
+He caught hold of her hands, but she shrank back, till her passionate
+little face and loose dark hair were caught among the pink clusters of
+the apple blossom.  Ashurst raised one of her imprisoned hands and put
+his lips to it.  He felt how chivalrous he was, and superior to that clod
+Joe--just brushing that small, rough hand with his mouth I Her shrinking
+ceased suddenly; she seemed to tremble towards him.  A sweet warmth
+overtook Ashurst from top to toe.  This slim maiden, so simple and fine
+and pretty, was pleased, then, at the touch of his lips!  And, yielding
+to a swift impulse, he put his arms round her, pressed her to him, and
+kissed her forehead.  Then he was frightened--she went so pale, closing
+her eyes, so that the long, dark lashes lay on her pale cheeks; her
+hands, too, lay inert at her sides.  The touch of her breast sent a
+shiver through him.  "Megan!"  he sighed out, and let her go.  In the
+utter silence a blackbird shouted.  Then the girl seized his hand, put it
+to her cheek, her heart, her lips, kissed it passionately, and fled away
+among the mossy trunks of the apple trees, till they hid her from him.
+
+Ashurst sat down on a twisted old tree growing almost along the ground,
+and, all throbbing and bewildered, gazed vacantly at the blossom which
+had crowned her hair--those pink buds with one white open apple star.
+What had he done?  How had he let himself be thus stampeded by
+beauty--pity--or--just the spring!  He felt curiously happy, all the
+same; happy and triumphant, with shivers running through his limbs, and a
+vague alarm.  This was the beginning of--what?  The midges bit him, the
+dancing gnats tried to fly into his mouth, and all the spring around him
+seemed to grow more lovely and alive; the songs of the cuckoos and the
+blackbirds, the laughter of the yaflies, the level-slanting sunlight, the
+apple blossom which had crowned her head!  He got up from the old trunk
+and strode out of the orchard, wanting space, an open sky, to get on
+terms with these new sensations.  He made for the moor, and from an ash
+tree in the hedge a magpie flew out to herald him.
+
+Of man--at any age from five years on--who can say he has never been in
+love?  Ashurst had loved his partners at his dancing class; loved his
+nursery governess; girls in school-holidays; perhaps never been quite out
+of love, cherishing always some more or less remote admiration.  But this
+was different, not remote at all.  Quite a new sensation; terribly
+delightful, bringing a sense of completed manhood.  To be holding in his
+fingers such a wild flower, to be able to put it to his lips, and feel it
+tremble with delight against them!  What intoxication, and--embarrassment!
+What to do with it--how meet her next time?  His first caress had been
+cool, pitiful; but the next could not be, now that, by her burning little
+kiss on his hand, by her pressure of it to her heart, he knew that she
+loved him.  Some natures are coarsened by love bestowed on them; others,
+like Ashurst's, are swayed and drawn, warmed and softened, almost
+exalted, by what they feel to be a sort of miracle.
+
+And up there among the tors he was racked between the passionate desire
+to revel in this new sensation of spring fulfilled within him, and a
+vague but very real uneasiness.  At one moment he gave himself up
+completely to his pride at having captured this pretty, trustful,
+dewy-eyed thing!  At the next he thought with factitious solemnity: 'Yes,
+my boy!  But look out what you're doing!  You know what comes of it!'
+
+Dusk dropped down without his noticing--dusk on the carved,
+Assyrian-looking masses of the rocks.  And the voice of Nature said:
+"This is a new world for you!"  As when a man gets up at four o'clock and
+goes out into a summer morning, and beasts, birds, trees stare at him and
+he feels as if all had been made new.
+
+He stayed up there for hours, till it grew cold, then groped his way down
+the stones and heather roots to the road, back into the lane, and came
+again past the wild meadow to the orchard.  There he struck a match and
+looked at his watch.  Nearly twelve!  It was black and unstirring in
+there now, very different from the lingering, bird-befriended brightness
+of six hours ago!  And suddenly he saw this idyll of his with the eyes of
+the outer world--had mental vision of Mrs. Narracombe's snake-like neck
+turned, her quick dark glance taking it all in, her shrewd face
+hardening; saw the gipsy-like cousins coarsely mocking and distrustful;
+Joe stolid and furious; only the lame man, Jim, with the suffering eyes,
+seemed tolerable to his mind.  And the village pub!--the gossiping
+matrons he passed on his walks; and then--his own friends--Robert
+Carton's smile when he went off that morning ten days ago; so ironical
+and knowing!  Disgusting!  For a minute he literally hated this earthy,
+cynical world to which one belonged, willy-nilly.  The gate where he was
+leaning grew grey, a sort of shimmer passed be fore him and spread into
+the bluish darkness. The moon!  He could just see it over the bank be
+hind; red, nearly round-a strange moon!  And turning away, he went up the
+lane which smelled of the night and cowdung and young leaves.  In the
+straw-yard he could see the dark shapes of cattle, broken by the pale
+sickles of their horns, like so many thin moons, fallen ends-up.  He
+unlatched the farm gate stealthily.  All was dark in the house.  Muffling
+his footsteps, he gained the porch, and, blotted against one of the yew
+trees, looked up at Megan's window. It was open.  Was she sleeping, or
+lying awake perhaps, disturbed--unhappy at his absence?  An owl hooted
+while he stood there peering up, and the sound seemed to fill the whole
+night, so quiet was all else, save for the never-ending murmur of the
+stream running below the orchard.  The cuckoos by day, and now the
+owls--how wonderfully they voiced this troubled ecstasy within him!  And
+suddenly he saw her at her window, looking out.  He moved a little from
+the yew tree, and whispered: "Megan!"  She drew back, vanished,
+reappeared, leaning far down.  He stole forward on the grass patch, hit
+his shin against the green-painted chair, and held his breath at the
+sound.  The pale blur of her stretched-down arm and face did not stir; he
+moved the chair, and noiselessly mounted it.  By stretching up his arm he
+could just reach.  Her hand held the huge key of the front door, and he
+clasped that burning hand with the cold key in it.  He could just see her
+face, the glint of teeth between her lips, her tumbled hair.  She was
+still dressed--poor child, sitting up for him, no doubt!  "Pretty Megan!"
+Her hot, roughened fingers clung to his; her face had a strange, lost
+look.  To have been able to reach it--even with his hand!  The owl
+hooted, a scent of sweetbriar crept into his nostrils. Then one of the
+farm dogs barked; her grasp relaxed, she shrank back.
+
+"Good-night, Megan!"
+
+"Good-night, sir!"  She was gone!  With a sigh he dropped back to earth,
+and sitting on that chair, took off his boots.  Nothing for it but to
+creep in and go to bed; yet for a long while he sat unmoving, his feet
+chilly in the dew, drunk on the memory of her lost, half-smiling face,
+and the clinging grip of her burning fingers, pressing the cold key into
+his hand.
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+He awoke feeling as if he had eaten heavily overnight, instead of having
+eaten nothing.  And far off, unreal, seemed yesterday's romance!  Yet it
+was a golden morning.  Full spring had burst at last--in one night the
+"goldie-cups," as the little boys called them, seemed to have made the
+field their own, and from his window he could see apple blossoms covering
+the orchard as with a rose and white quilt.  He went down almost dreading
+to see Megan; and yet, when not she but Mrs. Narracombe brought in his
+breakfast, he felt vexed and disappointed.  The woman's quick eye and
+snaky neck seemed to have a new alacrity this morning.  Had she noticed?
+
+"So you an' the moon went walkin' last night, Mr. Ashurst!  Did ye have
+your supper anywheres?"
+
+Ashurst shook his head.
+
+"We kept it for you, but I suppose you was too busy in your brain to
+think o' such a thing as that?"
+
+Was she mocking him, in that voice of hers, which still kept some Welsh
+crispness against the invading burr of the West Country?  If she knew!
+And at that moment he thought: 'No, no; I'll clear out.  I won't put
+myself in such a beastly false position.'
+
+But, after breakfast, the longing to see Megan began and increased with
+every minute, together with fear lest something should have been said to
+her which had spoiled everything.  Sinister that she had not appeared,
+not given him even a glimpse of her!  And the love poem, whose
+manufacture had been so important and absorbing yesterday afternoon under
+the apple trees, now seemed so paltry that he tore it up and rolled it
+into pipe spills.  What had he known of love, till she seized his hand
+and kissed it!  And now--what did he not know?  But to write of it seemed
+mere insipidity!  He went up to his bedroom to get a book, and his heart
+began to beat violently, for she was in there making the bed.  He stood
+in the doorway watching; and suddenly, with turbulent joy, he saw her
+stoop and kiss his pillow, just at the hollow made by his head last
+night.
+
+How let her know he had seen that pretty act of devotion?  And yet, if
+she heard him stealing away, it would be even worse.  She took the pillow
+up, holding it as if reluctant to shake out the impress of his cheek,
+dropped it, and turned round.
+
+"Megan!"
+
+She put her hands up to her cheeks, but her eyes seemed to look right
+into him.  He had never before realised the depth and purity and touching
+faithfulness in those dew-bright eyes, and he stammered:
+
+"It was sweet of you to wait up for me last night."
+
+She still said nothing, and he stammered on:
+
+"I was wandering about on the moor; it was such a jolly night.  I--I've
+just come up for a book."
+
+Then, the kiss he had seen her give the pillow afflicted him with sudden
+headiness, and he went up to her.  Touching her eyes with his lips, he
+thought with queer excitement: 'I've done it!  Yesterday all was
+sudden--anyhow; but now--I've done it!' The girl let her forehead rest
+against his lips, which moved downwards till they reached hers. That
+first real lover's kiss-strange, wonderful, still almost innocent--in
+which heart did it make the most disturbance?
+
+"Come to the big apple tree to-night, after they've gone to bed.
+Megan-promise!"
+
+She whispered back: "I promise."
+
+Then, scared at her white face, scared at everything, he let her go, and
+went downstairs again.  Yes!  He had done it now!  Accepted her love,
+declared his own!  He went out to the green chair as devoid of a book as
+ever; and there he sat staring vacantly before him, triumphant and
+remorseful, while under his nose and behind his back the work of the farm
+went on.  How long he had been sitting in that curious state of vacancy
+he had no notion when he saw Joe standing a little behind him to the
+right.  The youth had evidently come from hard work in the fields, and
+stood shifting his feet, breathing loudly, his face coloured like a
+setting sun, and his arms, below the rolled-up sleeves of his blue shirt,
+showing the hue and furry sheen of ripe peaches.  His red lips were open,
+his blue eyes with their flaxen lashes stared fixedly at Ashurst, who
+said ironically:
+
+"Well, Joe, anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yeas."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"Yu can goo away from yere.  Us don' want yu."
+
+Ashurst's face, never too humble, assumed its most lordly look.
+
+"Very good of you, but, do you know, I prefer the others should speak for
+themselves."
+
+The youth moved a pace or two nearer, and the scent of his honest heat
+afflicted Ashurst's nostrils.
+
+"What d'yu stay yere for?"
+
+"Because it pleases me."
+
+"Twon't please yu when I've bashed yure head in!"
+
+"Indeed!  When would you like to begin that?"
+
+Joe answered only with the loudness of his breathing, but his eyes looked
+like those of a young and angry bull.  Then a sort of spasm seemed to
+convulse his face.
+
+"Megan don' want yu."
+
+A rush of jealousy, of contempt, and anger with this thick,
+loud-breathing rustic got the better of Ashurst's self-possession; he
+jumped up, and pushed back his chair.
+
+"You can go to the devil!"
+
+And as he said those simple words, he saw Megan in the doorway with a
+tiny brown spaniel puppy in her arms.  She came up to him quickly:
+
+"Its eyes are blue!"  she said.
+
+Joe turned away; the back of his neck was literally crimson.
+
+Ashurst put his finger to the mouth of the little brown bullfrog of a
+creature in her arms.  How cosy it looked against her!
+
+"It's fond of you already.  Ah I Megan, everything is fond of you."
+
+"What was Joe saying to you, please?"
+
+"Telling me to go away, because you didn't want me here."
+
+She stamped her foot; then looked up at Ashurst.  At that adoring look he
+felt his nerves quiver, just as if he had seen a moth scorching its
+wings.
+
+"To-night!"  he said.  "Don't forget!"
+
+"No."  And smothering her face against the puppy's little fat, brown
+body, she slipped back into the house.
+
+Ashurst wandered down the lane.  At the gate of the wild meadow he came
+on the lame man and his cows.
+
+"Beautiful day, Jim!"
+
+"Ah!  'Tes brave weather for the grass.  The ashes be later than th' oaks
+this year.  'When th' oak before th' ash---'"
+
+Ashurst said idly: "Where were you standing when you saw the gipsy bogie,
+Jim?"
+
+"It might be under that big apple tree, as you might say."
+
+"And you really do think it was there?"
+
+The lame man answered cautiously:
+
+"I shouldn't like to say rightly that 't was there.  'Twas in my mind as
+'twas there."
+
+"What do you make of it?"
+
+The lame man lowered his voice.
+
+"They du zay old master, Mist' Narracombe come o' gipsy stock.  But
+that's tellin'.  They'm a wonderful people, yu know, for claimin' their
+own.  Maybe they knu 'e was goin', and sent this feller along for
+company.  That's what I've a-thought about it."
+
+"What was he like?"
+
+"'E 'ad 'air all over 'is face, an' goin' like this, he was, zame as if
+'e 'ad a viddle.  They zay there's no such thing as bogies, but I've
+a-zeen the 'air on this dog standin' up of a dark naight, when I couldn'
+zee nothin', meself."
+
+"Was there a moon?"
+
+"Yeas, very near full, but 'twas on'y just risen, gold-like be'ind them
+trees."
+
+"And you think a ghost means trouble, do you?"
+
+The lame man pushed his hat up; his aspiring eyes looked at Ashurst more
+earnestly than ever.
+
+"'Tes not for me to zay that but 'tes they bein' so unrestin'like.
+There's things us don' understand, that's zartin, for zure.  There's
+people that zee things, tu, an' others that don't never zee nothin'. Now,
+our Joe--yu might putt anything under'is eyes an e'd never zee it; and
+them other boys, tu, they'm rattlin' fellers.  But yu take an' putt our
+Megan where there's suthin', she'll zee it, an' more tu, or I'm
+mistaken."
+
+"She's sensitive, that's why."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I mean, she feels everything."
+
+"Ah!  She'm very lovin'-'earted."
+
+Ashurst, who felt colour coming into his cheeks, held out his tobacco
+pouch.
+
+"Have a fill, Jim?"
+
+"Thank 'ee, sir.  She'm one in an 'underd, I think."
+
+"I expect so," said Ashurst shortly, and folding up his pouch, walked on.
+
+"Lovin'-hearted!"  Yes!  And what was he doing?  What were his
+intentions--as they say towards this loving-hearted girl?  The thought
+dogged him, wandering through fields bright with buttercups, where the
+little red calves were feeding, and the swallows flying high. Yes, the
+oaks were before the ashes, brown-gold already; every tree in different
+stage and hue.  The cuckoos and a thousand birds were singing; the little
+streams were very bright.  The ancients believed in a golden age, in the
+garden of the Hesperides!...  A queen wasp settled on his sleeve.  Each
+queen wasp killed meant two thousand fewer wasps to thieve the apples
+which would grow from that blossom in the orchard; but who, with love in
+his heart, could kill anything on a day like this?  He entered a field
+where a young red bull was feeding.  It seemed to Ashurst that he looked
+like Joe.  But the young bull took no notice of this visitor, a little
+drunk himself, perhaps, on the singing and the glamour of the golden
+pasture, under his short legs.  Ashurst crossed out unchallenged to the
+hillside above the stream.  From that slope a for mounted to its crown of
+rocks.  The ground there was covered with a mist of bluebells, and nearly
+a score of crab-apple trees were in full bloom.  He threw himself down on
+the grass.  The change from the buttercup glory and oak-goldened glamour
+of the fields to this ethereal beauty under the grey for filled him with
+a sort of wonder; nothing the same, save the sound of running water and
+the songs of the cuckoos.  He lay there a long time, watching the
+sunlight wheel till the crab-trees threw shadows over the bluebells, his
+only companions a few wild bees.  He was not quite sane, thinking of that
+morning's kiss, and of to-night under the apple tree.  In such a spot as
+this, fauns and dryads surely lived; nymphs, white as the crab-apple
+blossom, retired within those trees; fauns, brown as the dead bracken,
+with pointed ears, lay in wait for them.  The cuckoos were still calling
+when he woke, there was the sound of running water; but the sun had
+couched behind the tor, the hillside was cool, and some rabbits had come
+out. 'Tonight!' he thought.  Just as from the earth everything was
+pushing up, unfolding under the soft insistent fingers of an unseen hand,
+so were his heart and senses being pushed, unfolded.  He got up and broke
+off a spray from a crab-apple tree.  The buds were like
+Megan--shell-like, rose-pink, wild, and fresh; and so, too, the opening
+flowers, white, and wild; and touching.  He put the spray into his coat.
+And all the rush of the spring within him escaped in a triumphant sigh.
+But the rabbits scurried away.
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+It was nearly eleven that night when Ashurst put down the pocket
+"Odyssey" which for half an hour he had held in his hands without
+reading, and slipped through the yard down to the orchard.  The moon had
+just risen, very golden, over the hill, and like a bright, powerful,
+watching spirit peered through the bars of an ash tree's half-naked
+boughs.  In among the apple trees it was still dark, and he stood making
+sure of his direction, feeling the rough grass with his feet.  A black
+mass close behind him stirred with a heavy grunting sound, and three
+large pigs settled down again close to each other, under the wall.  He
+listened.  There was no wind, but the stream's burbling whispering
+chuckle had gained twice its daytime strength.  One bird, he could not
+tell what, cried "Pippip," "Pip-pip," with perfect monotony; he could
+hear a night-Jar spinning very far off; an owl hooting.  Ashurst moved a
+step or two, and again halted, aware of a dim living whiteness all round
+his head.  On the dark unstirring trees innumerable flowers and buds all
+soft and blurred were being bewitched to life by the creeping moonlight.
+He had the oddest feeling of actual companionship, as if a million white
+moths or spirits had floated in and settled between dark sky and darker
+ground, and were opening and shutting their wings on a level with his
+eyes.  In the bewildering, still, scentless beauty of that moment he
+almost lost memory of why he had come to the orchard.  The flying glamour
+which had clothed the earth all day had not gone now that night had
+fallen, but only changed into this new form.  He moved on through the
+thicket of stems and boughs covered with that live powdering whiteness,
+till he reached the big apple tree.  No mistaking that, even in the dark,
+nearly twice the height and size of any other, and leaning out towards
+the open meadows and the stream. Under the thick branches he stood still
+again, to listen.  The same sounds exactly, and a faint grunting from the
+sleepy pigs.  He put his hands on the dry, almost warm tree trunk, whose
+rough mossy surface gave forth a peaty scent at his touch.  Would she
+come--would she?  And among these quivering, haunted, moon-witched trees
+he was seized with doubts of everything!  All was unearthly here, fit for
+no earthly lovers; fit only for god and goddess, faun and nymph not for
+him and this little country girl.  Would it not be almost a relief if she
+did not come?  But all the time he was listening.  And still that unknown
+bird went "Pip-pip," "Pip-pip," and there rose the busy chatter of the
+little trout stream, whereon the moon was flinging glances through the
+bars of her tree-prison.  The blossom on a level with his eyes seemed to
+grow more living every moment, seemed with its mysterious white beauty
+more and more a part of his suspense.  He plucked a fragment and held it
+close--three blossoms.  Sacrilege to pluck fruit-tree blossom--soft,
+sacred, young blossom--and throw it away!  Then suddenly he heard the
+gate close, the pigs stirring again and grunting; and leaning against the
+trunk, he pressed his hands to its mossy sides behind him, and held his
+breath.  She might have been a spirit threading the trees, for all the
+noise she made!  Then he saw her quite close--her dark form part of a
+little tree, her white face part of its blossom; so still, and peering
+towards him. He whispered: "Megan!" and held out his hands. She ran
+forward, straight to his breast.  When he felt her heart beating against
+him, Ashurst knew to the full the sensations of chivalry and passion.
+Because she was not of his world, because she was so simple and young and
+headlong, adoring and defenceless, how could he be other than her
+protector, in the dark!  Because she was all simple Nature and beauty, as
+much a part of this spring night as was the living blossom, how should he
+not take all that she would give him how not fulfil the spring in her
+heart and his!  And torn between these two emotions he clasped her close,
+and kissed her hair.  How long they stood there without speaking he knew
+not.  The stream went on chattering, the owls hooting, the moon kept
+stealing up and growing whiter; the blossom all round them and above
+brightened in suspense of living beauty.  Their lips had sought each
+other's, and they did not speak.  The moment speech began all would be
+unreal!  Spring has no speech, nothing but rustling and whispering.
+Spring has so much more than speech in its unfolding flowers and leaves,
+and the coursing of its streams, and in its sweet restless seeking!  And
+sometimes spring will come alive, and, like a mysterious Presence stand,
+encircling lovers with its arms, laying on them the fingers of
+enchantment, so that, standing lips to lips, they forget everything but
+just a kiss.  While her heart beat against him, and her lips quivered on
+his, Ashurst felt nothing but simple rapture--Destiny meant her for his
+arms, Love could not be flouted!  But when their lips parted for breath,
+division began again at once.  Only, passion now was so much the
+stronger, and he sighed:
+
+"Oh!  Megan!  Why did you come?"  She looked up, hurt, amazed.
+
+"Sir, you asked me to."
+
+"Don't call me 'sir,' my pretty sweet."  "What should I be callin" you?"
+
+"Frank."
+
+"I could not.  Oh, no!"
+
+"But you love me--don't you?"
+
+"I could not help lovin' you.  I want to be with you--that's all."
+
+"All!"
+
+So faint that he hardly heard, she whispered: "I shall die if I can't be
+with you."
+
+Ashurst took a mighty breath.
+
+"Come and be with me, then!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Intoxicated by the awe and rapture in that "Oh!" he went on, whispering:
+
+"We'll go to London.  I'll show you the world.
+
+"And I will take care of you, I promise, Megan.  I'll never be a brute to
+you!"
+
+"If I can be with you--that is all."
+
+He stroked her hair, and whispered on:
+
+"To-morrow I'll go to Torquay and get some money, and get you some
+clothes that won't be noticed, and then we'll steal away.  And when we
+get to London, soon perhaps, if you love me well enough, we'll be
+married."
+
+He could feel her hair shiver with the shake of her head.
+
+"Oh, no!  I could not.  I only want to be with you!"
+
+Drunk on his own chivalry, Ashurst went on murmuring, "It's I who am not
+good enough for you.  Oh!  Megan, when did you begin to love me?"
+
+"When I saw you in the road, and you looked at me.  The first night I
+loved you; but I never thought you would want me."
+
+She slipped down suddenly to her knees, trying to kiss his feet.
+
+A shiver of horror went through Ashurst; he lifted her up bodily and held
+her fast--too upset to speak.
+
+She whispered: "Why won't you let me?"
+
+"It's I who will kiss your feet!"
+
+Her smile brought tears into his eyes.  The whiteness of her moonlit face
+so close to his, the faint pink of her opened lips, had the living
+unearthly beauty of the apple blossom.
+
+And then, suddenly, her eyes widened and stared past him painfully; she
+writhed out of his arms, and whispered: "Look!"
+
+Ashurst saw nothing but the brightened stream, the furze faintly gilded,
+the beech trees glistening, and behind them all the wide loom of the
+moonlit hill.  Behind him came her frozen whisper: "The gipsy bogie!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There--by the stone--under the trees!"
+
+Exasperated, he leaped the stream, and strode towards the beech clump.
+Prank of the moonlight!  Nothing!  In and out of the boulders and thorn
+trees, muttering and cursing, yet with a kind of terror, he rushed and
+stumbled.  Absurd!  Silly!  Then he went back to the apple tree.  But she
+was gone; he could hear a rustle, the grunting of the pigs, the sound of
+a gate closing.  Instead of her, only this old apple tree!  He flung his
+arms round the trunk.  What a substitute for her soft body; the rough
+moss against his face--what a substitute for her soft cheek; only the
+scent, as of the woods, a little the same!  And above him, and around,
+the blossoms, more living, more moonlit than ever, seemed to glow and
+breathe.
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+Descending from the train at Torquay station, Ashurst wandered
+uncertainly along the front, for he did not know this particular queen of
+English watering places.  Having little sense of what he had on, he was
+quite unconscious of being remarkable among its inhabitants, and strode
+along in his rough Norfolk jacket, dusty boots, and battered hat, without
+observing that people gazed at him rather blankly.  He was seeking a
+branch of his London bank, and having found one, found also the first
+obstacle to his mood.  Did he know anyone in Torquay?  No.  In that case,
+if he would wire to his bank in London, they would be happy to oblige him
+on receipt of the reply.  That suspicious breath from the matter-of-fact
+world somewhat tarnished the brightness of his visions.  But he sent the
+telegram.
+
+Nearly opposite to the post office he saw a shop full of ladies'
+garments, and examined the window with strange sensations.  To have to
+undertake the clothing of his rustic love was more than a little
+disturbing.  He went in.  A young woman came forward; she had blue eyes
+and a faintly puzzled forehead.  Ashurst stared at her in silence.
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"I want a dress for a young lady."
+
+The young woman smiled.  Ashurst frowned the peculiarity of his request
+struck him with sudden force.
+
+The young woman added hastily:
+
+"What style would you like--something modish?"
+
+"No.  Simple."
+
+"What figure would the young lady be?"
+
+"I don't know; about two inches shorter than you, I should say."
+
+"Could you give me her waist measurement?"
+
+Megan's waist!
+
+"Oh! anything usual!"
+
+"Quite!"
+
+While she was gone he stood disconsolately eyeing the models in the
+window, and suddenly it seemed to him incredible that Megan--his Megan
+could ever be dressed save in the rough tweed skirt, coarse blouse, and
+tam-o'-shanter cap he was wont to see her in.  The young woman had come
+back with several dresses in her arms, and Ashurst eyed her laying them
+against her own modish figure.  There was one whose colour he liked, a
+dove-grey, but to imagine Megan clothed in it was beyond him.  The young
+woman went away, and brought some more. But on Ashurst there had now come
+a feeling of paralysis.  How choose?  She would want a hat too, and
+shoes, and gloves; and, suppose, when he had got them all, they
+commonised her, as Sunday clothes always commonised village folk!  Why
+should she not travel as she was?  Ah!  But conspicuousness would matter;
+this was a serious elopement.  And, staring at the young woman, he
+thought: 'I wonder if she guesses, and thinks me a blackguard?'
+
+"Do you mind putting aside that grey one for me?"  he said desperately at
+last.  "I can't decide now; I'll come in again this afternoon."
+
+The young woman sighed.
+
+"Oh! certainly.  It's a very tasteful costume.  I don't think you'll get
+anything that will suit your purpose better."
+
+"I expect not," Ashurst murmured, and went out.
+
+Freed again from the suspicious matter-of-factness of the world, he took
+a long breath, and went back to visions.  In fancy he saw the trustful,
+pretty creature who was going to join her life to his; saw himself and
+her stealing forth at night, walking over the moor under the moon, he
+with his arm round her, and carrying her new garments, till, in some
+far-off wood, when dawn was coming, she would slip off her old things and
+put on these, and an early train at a distant station would bear them
+away on their honeymoon journey, till London swallowed them up, and the
+dreams of love came true.
+
+"Frank Ashurst!  Haven't seen you since Rugby, old chap!"
+
+Ashurst's frown dissolved; the face, close to his own, was blue-eyed,
+suffused with sun--one of those faces where sun from within and without
+join in a sort of lustre.  And he answered:
+
+"Phil Halliday, by Jove!"
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh! nothing.  Just looking round, and getting some money.  I'm staying
+on the moor."
+
+"Are you lunching anywhere?  Come and lunch with us; I'm here with my
+young sisters.  They've had measles."
+
+Hooked in by that friendly arm Ashurst went along, up a hill, down a
+hill, away out of the town, while the voice of Halliday, redolent of
+optimism as his face was of sun, explained how "in this mouldy place the
+only decent things were the bathing and boating," and so on, till
+presently they came to a crescent of houses a little above and back from
+the sea, and into the centre one an hotel--made their way.
+
+"Come up to my room and have a wash.  Lunch'll be ready in a jiffy."
+
+Ashurst contemplated his visage in a looking-glass.  After his farmhouse
+bedroom, the comb and one spare shirt regime of the last fortnight, this
+room littered with clothes and brushes was a sort of Capua; and he
+thought: 'Queer--one doesn't realise But what--he did not quite know.
+
+When he followed Halliday into the sitting room for lunch, three faces,
+very fair and blue-eyed, were turned suddenly at the words: "This is
+Frank Ashurst my young sisters."
+
+Two were indeed young, about eleven and ten.  The third was perhaps
+seventeen, tall and fair-haired too, with pink-and-white cheeks just
+touched by the sun, and eyebrows, rather darker than the hair, running a
+little upwards from her nose to their outer points.  The voices of all
+three were like Halliday's, high and cheerful; they stood up straight,
+shook hands with a quick movement, looked at Ashurst critically, away
+again at once, and began to talk of what they were going to do in the
+afternoon.  A regular Diana and attendant nymphs!  After the farm this
+crisp, slangy, eager talk, this cool, clean, off-hand refinement, was
+queer at first, and then so natural that what he had come from became
+suddenly remote.  The names of the two little ones seemed to be Sabina
+and Freda; of the eldest, Stella.
+
+Presently the one called Sabina turned to him and said:
+
+"I say, will you come shrimping with us?--it's awful fun!"
+
+Surprised by this unexpected friendliness, Ashurst murmured:
+
+"I'm afraid I've got to get back this afternoon."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Can't you put it off?"
+
+Ashurst turned to the new speaker, Stella, shook his head, and smiled.
+She was very pretty!  Sabina said regretfully: "You might!" Then the talk
+switched off to caves and swimming.
+
+"Can you swim far?"
+
+"About two miles."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I say!"
+
+"How jolly!"
+
+The three pairs of blue eyes, fixed on him, made him conscious of his new
+importance--The sensation was agreeable.  Halliday said:
+
+"I say, you simply must stop and have a bathe.  You'd better stay the
+night."
+
+"Yes, do!"'
+
+But again Ashurst smiled and shook his head.  Then suddenly he found
+himself being catechised about his physical achievements.  He had
+rowed--it seemed--in his college boat, played in his college football
+team, won his college mile; and he rose from table a sort of hero. The
+two little girls insisted that he must see "their" cave, and they set
+forth chattering like magpies, Ashurst between them, Stella and her
+brother a little behind.  In the cave, damp and darkish like any other
+cave, the great feature was a pool with possibility of creatures which
+might be caught and put into bottles.  Sabina and Freda, who wore no
+stockings on their shapely brown legs, exhorted Ashurst to join them in
+the middle of it, and help sieve the water. He too was soon bootless and
+sockless.  Time goes fast for one who has a sense of beauty, when there
+are pretty children in a pool and a young Diana on the edge, to receive
+with wonder anything you can catch!  Ashurst never had much sense of
+time.  It was a shock when, pulling out his watch, he saw it was well
+past three.  No cashing his cheque to-day-the bank would be closed before
+he could get there. Watching his expression, the little girls cried out
+at once:
+
+"Hurrah!  Now you'll have to stay!"
+
+Ashurst did not answer.  He was seeing again Megan's face, when at
+breakfast time he had whispered: "I'm going to Torquay, darling, to get
+everything; I shall be back this evening.  If it's fine we can go
+to-night.  Be ready."  He was seeing again how she quivered and hung on
+his words.  What would she think?  Then he pulled himself together,
+conscious suddenly of the calm scrutiny of this other young girl, so tall
+and fair and Diana-like, at the edge of the pool, of her wondering blue
+eyes under those brows which slanted up a little. If they knew what was
+in his mind--if they knew that this very night he had meant!  Well, there
+would be a little sound of disgust, and he would be alone in the cave.
+And with a curious mixture of anger, chagrin, and shame, he put his watch
+back into his pocket and said abruptly:
+
+"Yes; I'm dished for to-day."
+
+"Hurrah!  Now you can bathe with us."
+
+It was impossible not to succumb a little to the contentment of these
+pretty children, to the smile on Stella's lips, to Halliday's "Ripping,
+old chap!  I can lend you things for the night!" But again a spasm of
+longing and remorse throbbed through Ashurst, and he said moodily:
+
+"I must send a wire!"
+
+The attractions of the pool palling, they went back to the hotel. Ashurst
+sent his wire, addressing it to Mrs. Narracombe: "Sorry, detained for the
+night, back to-morrow."  Surely Megan would understand that he had too
+much to do; and his heart grew lighter. It was a lovely afternoon, warm,
+the sea calm and blue, and swimming his great passion; the favour of
+these pretty children flattered him, the pleasure of looking at them, at
+Stella, at Halliday's sunny face; the slight unreality, yet extreme
+naturalness of it all--as of a last peep at normality before he took this
+plunge with Megan!  He got his borrowed bathing dress, and they all set
+forth.  Halliday and he undressed behind one rock, the three girls behind
+another.  He was first into the sea, and at once swam out with the
+bravado of justifying his self-given reputation.  When he turned he could
+see Halliday swimming along shore, and the girls flopping and dipping,
+and riding the little waves, in the way he was accustomed to despise, but
+now thought pretty and sensible, since it gave him the distinction of the
+only deep-water fish.  But drawing near, he wondered if they would like
+him, a stranger, to come into their splashing group; he felt shy,
+approaching that slim nymph.  Then Sabina summoned him to teach her to
+float, and between them the little girls kept him so busy that he had no
+time even to notice whether Stella was accustomed to his presence, till
+suddenly he heard a startled sound from her: She was standing submerged
+to the waist, leaning a little forward, her slim white arms stretched out
+and pointing, her wet face puckered by the sun and an expression of fear.
+
+"Look at Phil!  Is he all right?  Oh, look!"
+
+Ashurst saw at once that Phil was not all right.  He was splashing and
+struggling out of his depth, perhaps a hundred yards away; suddenly he
+gave a cry, threw up his arms, and went down.  Ashurst saw the girl
+launch herself towards him, and crying out: "Go back, Stella!  Go back!"
+he dashed out.  He had never swum so fast, and reached Halliday just as
+he was coming up a second time.  It was a case of cramp, but to get him
+in was not difficult, for he did not struggle.  The girl, who had stopped
+where Ashurst told her to, helped as soon as he was in his depth, and
+once on the beach they sat down one on each side of him to rub his limbs,
+while the little ones stood by with scared faces.  Halliday was soon
+smiling.  It was--he said--rotten of him, absolutely rotten!  If Frank
+would give him an arm, he could get to his clothes all right now.
+Ashurst gave him the arm, and as he did so caught sight of Stella's face,
+wet and flushed and tearful, all broken up out of its calm; and he
+thought: 'I called her Stella!  Wonder if she minded?'
+
+While they were dressing, Halliday said quietly, "You saved my life, old
+chap!"
+
+"Rot!"
+
+Clothed, but not quite in their right minds, they went up all together to
+the hotel and sat down to tea, except Halliday, who was lying down in his
+room.  After some slices of bread and jam, Sabina said:
+
+"I say, you know, you are a brick!"  And Freda chimed in:
+
+"Rather!"
+
+Ashurst saw Stella looking down; he got up in confusion, and went to the
+window.  From there he heard Sabina mutter: "I say, let's swear blood
+bond.  Where's your knife, Freda?"  and out of the corner of his eye
+could see each of them solemnly prick herself, squeeze out a drop of
+blood and dabble on a bit of paper.  He turned and made for the door.
+
+"Don't be a stoat!  Come back!"  His arms were seized; imprisoned between
+the little girls he was brought back to the table.  On it lay a piece of
+paper with an effigy drawn in blood, and the three names Stella Halliday,
+Sabina Halliday, Freda Halliday--also in blood, running towards it like
+the rays of a star.  Sabina said:
+
+"That's you.  We shall have to kiss you, you know."
+
+And Freda echoed:
+
+"Oh!  Blow--Yes!"
+
+Before Ashurst could escape, some wettish hair dangled against his face,
+something like a bite descended on his nose, he felt his left arm
+pinched, and other teeth softly searching his cheek.  Then he was
+released, and Freda said:
+
+"Now, Stella."
+
+Ashurst, red and rigid, looked across the table at a red and rigid
+Stella.  Sabina giggled; Freda cried:
+
+"Buck up--it spoils everything!"
+
+A queer, ashamed eagerness shot through Ashurst: then he said quietly:
+
+"Shut up, you little demons!"
+
+Again Sabina giggled.
+
+"Well, then, she can kiss her hand, and you can put it against your nose.
+It is on one side!"
+
+To his amazement the girl did kiss her hand and stretch it out. Solemnly
+he took that cool, slim hand and laid it to his cheek.  The two little
+girls broke into clapping, and Freda said:
+
+"Now, then, we shall have to save your life at any time; that's settled.
+Can I have another cup, Stella, not so beastly weak?" Tea was resumed,
+and Ashurst, folding up the paper, put it in his pocket.  The talk turned
+on the advantages of measles, tangerine oranges, honey in a spoon, no
+lessons, and so forth.  Ashurst listened, silent, exchanging friendly
+looks with Stella, whose face was again of its normal sun-touched pink
+and white.  It was soothing to be so taken to the heart of this jolly
+family, fascinating to watch their faces.  And after tea, while the two
+little girls pressed seaweed, he talked to Stella in the window seat and
+looked at her water-colour sketches.  The whole thing was like a
+pleasurable dream; time and incident hung up, importance and reality
+suspended. Tomorrow he would go back to Megan, with nothing of all this
+left save the paper with the blood of these children, in his pocket.
+Children!  Stella was not quite that--as old as Megan!  Her talk--quick,
+rather hard and shy, yet friendly--seemed to flourish on his silences,
+and about her there was something cool and virginal--a maiden in a bower.
+At dinner, to which Halliday, who had swallowed too much sea-water, did
+not come, Sabina said:
+
+"I'm going to call you Frank."
+
+Freda echoed:
+
+"Frank, Frank, Franky."
+
+Ashurst grinned and bowed.
+
+"Every time Stella calls you Mr. Ashurst, she's got to pay a forfeit.
+It's ridiculous."
+
+Ashurst looked at Stella, who grew slowly red.  Sabina giggled; Freda
+cried:
+
+"She's 'smoking'--'smoking!'--Yah!"
+
+Ashurst reached out to right and left, and grasped some fair hair in each
+hand.
+
+"Look here," he said, "you two!  Leave Stella alone, or I'll tie you
+together!"
+
+Freda gurgled:
+
+"Ouch!  You are a beast!"
+
+Sabina murmured cautiously:
+
+"You call her Stella, you see!"
+
+"Why shouldn't I?  It's a jolly name!"
+
+"All right; we give you leave to!"
+
+Ashurst released the hair.  Stella!  What would she call him--after this?
+But she called him nothing; till at bedtime he said, deliberately:
+
+"Good-night, Stella!"
+
+"Good-night, Mr.----Good-night, Frank!  It was jolly of you, you know!"
+
+"Oh-that!  Bosh!"
+
+Her quick, straight handshake tightened suddenly, and as suddenly became
+slack.
+
+Ashurst stood motionless in the empty sitting-room.  Only last night,
+under the apple tree and the living blossom, he had held Megan to him,
+kissing her eyes and lips.  And he gasped, swept by that rush of
+remembrance.  To-night it should have begun-his life with her who only
+wanted to be with him!  And now, twenty-four hours and more must pass,
+because-of not looking at his watch!  Why had he made friends with this
+family of innocents just when he was saying good-bye to innocence, and
+all the rest of it?  'But I mean to marry her,' he thought; 'I told her
+so!'
+
+He took a candle, lighted it, and went to his bedroom, which was next to
+Halliday's.  His friend's voice called, as he was passing:
+
+"Is that you, old chap?  I say, come in."
+
+He was sitting up in bed, smoking a pipe and reading.
+
+"Sit down a bit."
+
+Ashurst sat down by the open window.
+
+"I've been thinking about this afternoon, you know," said Halliday rather
+suddenly.  "They say you go through all your past.  I didn't. I suppose I
+wasn't far enough gone."
+
+"What did you think of?"
+
+Halliday was silent for a little, then said quietly
+
+"Well, I did think of one thing--rather odd--of a girl at Cambridge that
+I might have--you know; I was glad I hadn't got her on my mind. Anyhow,
+old chap, I owe it to you that I'm here; I should have been in the big
+dark by now.  No more bed, or baccy; no more anything.  I say, what d'you
+suppose happens to us?"
+
+Ashurst murmured:
+
+"Go out like flames, I expect."
+
+"Phew!"
+
+"We may flicker, and cling about a bit, perhaps."
+
+"H'm!  I think that's rather gloomy.  I say, I hope my young sisters have
+been decent to you?"
+
+"Awfully decent."
+
+Halliday put his pipe down, crossed his hands behind his neck, and turned
+his face towards the window.
+
+"They're not bad kids!"  he said.
+
+Watching his friend, lying there, with that smile, and the candle-light
+on his face, Ashurst shuddered.  Quite true!  He might have been lying
+there with no smile, with all that sunny look gone out for ever!  He
+might not have been lying there at all, but "sanded" at the bottom of the
+sea, waiting for resurrection on the ninth day, was it?  And that smile of
+Halliday's seemed to him suddenly something wonderful, as if in it were
+all the difference between life and death--the little flame--the all!  He
+got up, and said softly:
+
+"Well, you ought to sleep, I expect.  Shall I blow out?"
+
+Halliday caught his hand.
+
+"I can't say it, you know; but it must be rotten to be dead.  Good-night,
+old boy!"
+
+Stirred and moved, Ashurst squeezed the hand, and went downstairs. The
+hall door was still open, and he passed out on to the lawn before the
+Crescent.  The stars were bright in a very dark blue sky, and by their
+light some lilacs had that mysterious colour of flowers by night which no
+one can describe.  Ashurst pressed his face against a spray; and before
+his closed eyes Megan started up, with the tiny brown spaniel pup against
+her breast.  "I thought of a girl that I might have you know.  I was glad
+I hadn't got her on my mind!"  He jerked his head away from the lilac,
+and began pacing up and down over the grass, a grey phantom coming to
+substance for a moment in the light from the lamp at either end.  He was
+with her again under the living, breathing white ness of the blossom, the
+stream chattering by, the moon glinting steel-blue on the bathing-pool;
+back in the rapture of his kisses on her upturned face of innocence and
+humble passion, back in the suspense and beauty of that pagan night. He
+stood still once more in the shadow of the lilacs.  Here the sea, not the
+stream, was Night's voice; the sea with its sigh and rustle; no little
+bird, no owl, no night-Jar called or spun; but a piano tinkled, and the
+white houses cut the sky with solid curve, and the scent from the lilacs
+filled the air.  A window of the hotel, high up, was lighted; he saw a
+shadow move across the blind.  And most queer sensations stirred within
+him, a sort of churning, and twining, and turning of a single emotion on
+itself, as though spring and love, bewildered and confused, seeking the
+way, were baffled.  This girl, who had called him Frank, whose hand had
+given his that sudden little clutch, this girl so cool and pure--what
+would she think of such wild, unlawful loving?  He sank down on the
+grass, sitting there cross-legged, with his back to the house, motionless
+as some carved Buddha.  Was he really going to break through innocence,
+and steal?  Sniff the scent out of a wild flower, and--perhaps--throw it
+away? "Of a girl at Cambridge that I might have--you know!"  He put his
+hands to the grass, one on each side, palms downwards, and pressed; it
+was just warm still--the grass, barely moist, soft and firm and friendly.
+'What am I going to do?' he thought.  Perhaps Megan was at her window,
+looking out at the blossom, thinking of him!  Poor little Megan!  'Why
+not?' he thought.  'I love her!  But do I really love her? or do I only
+want her because she is so pretty, and loves me?  What am I going to do?'
+The piano tinkled on, the stars winked; and Ashurst gazed out before him
+at the dark sea, as if spell-bound.  He got up at last, cramped and
+rather chilly.  There was no longer light in any window.  And he went in
+to bed.
+
+Out of a deep and dreamless sleep he was awakened by the sound of
+thumping on the door.  A shrill voice called:
+
+"Hi!  Breakfast's ready."
+
+He jumped up.  Where was he--?  Ah!
+
+He found them already eating marmalade, and sat down in the empty place
+between Stella and Sabina, who, after watching him a little, said:
+
+"I say, do buck up; we're going to start at half-past nine."
+
+"We're going to Berry Head, old chap; you must come!"
+
+Ashurst thought: 'Come!  Impossible.  I shall be getting things and going
+back.'  He looked at Stella.  She said quickly:
+
+"Do come!"
+
+Sabina chimed in:
+
+"It'll be no fun without you."
+
+Freda got up and stood behind his chair.
+
+"You've got to come, or else I'll pull your hair!"
+
+Ashurst thought: 'Well--one day more--to think it over!  One day more!'
+And he said:
+
+"All right!  You needn't tweak my mane!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+At the station he wrote a second telegram to the farm, and then tore it
+up; he could not have explained why.  From Brixham they drove in a very
+little wagonette.  There, squeezed between Sabina and Freda, with his
+knees touching Stella's, they played "Up, Jenkins "; and the gloom he was
+feeling gave way to frolic.  In this one day more to think it over, he
+did not want to think!  They ran races, wrestled, paddled--for to-day
+nobody wanted to bathe--they sang catches, played games, and ate all they
+had brought.  The little girls fell asleep against him on the way back,
+and his knees still touched Stella's in the narrow wagonette.  It seemed
+incredible that thirty hours ago he had never set eyes on any of those
+three flaxen heads.  In the train he talked to Stella of poetry,
+discovering her favourites, and telling her his own with a pleasing sense
+of superiority; till suddenly she said, rather low:
+
+"Phil says you don't believe in a future life, Frank.  I think that's
+dreadful."
+
+Disconcerted, Ashurst muttered:
+
+"I don't either believe or not believe--I simply don't know."
+
+She said quickly:
+
+"I couldn't bear that.  What would be the use of living?"
+
+Watching the frown of those pretty oblique brows, Ashurst answered:
+
+"I don't believe in believing things because a one wants to."
+
+"But why should one wish to live again, if one isn't going to?"
+
+And she looked full at him.
+
+He did not want to hurt her, but an itch to dominate pushed him on to
+say:
+
+"While one's alive one naturally wants to go on living for ever; that's
+part of being alive.  But it probably isn't anything more."
+
+"Don't you believe in the Bible at all, then?"
+
+Ashurst thought: 'Now I shall really hurt her!'
+
+"I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it's beautiful and good
+for all time."
+
+"But don't you believe Christ was divine?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+She turned her face quickly to the window, and there sprang into his mind
+Megan's prayer, repeated by little Nick: "God bless us all, and Mr.
+Ashes!"  Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this
+moment must be waiting--waiting to see him come down the lane?  And he
+thought suddenly: 'What a scoundrel I am!'
+
+All that evening this thought kept coming back; but, as is not unusual,
+each time with less poignancy, till it seemed almost a matter of course
+to be a scoundrel.  And--strange!--he did not know whether he was a
+scoundrel if he meant to go back to Megan, or if he did not mean to go
+back to her.
+
+They played cards till the children were sent off to bed; then Stella
+went to the piano.  From over on the window seat, where it was nearly
+dark, Ashurst watched her between the candles--that fair head on the
+long, white neck bending to the movement of her hands.  She played
+fluently, without much expression; but what a Picture she made, the faint
+golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her!  Who
+could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of that
+swaying, white-clothed girl with the seraphic head?  She played a thing of
+Schumann's called "Warum?"  Then Halliday brought out a flute, and the
+spell was broken.  After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella playing him
+accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in the middle of "Ich
+grolle nicht," two small figures clad in blue dressing-gowns crept in and
+tried to conceal themselves beneath the piano.  The evening broke up in
+confusion, and what Sabina called "a splendid rag."
+
+That night Ashurst hardly slept at all.  He was thinking, tossing and
+turning.  The intense domestic intimacy of these last two days, the
+strength of this Halliday atmosphere, seemed to ring him round, and make
+the farm and Megan--even Megan--seem unreal.  Had he really made love to
+her--really promised to take her away to live with him?  He must have
+been bewitched by the spring, the night, the apple blossom!  This May
+madness could but destroy them both!  The notion that he was going to
+make her his mistress--that simple child not yet eighteen--now filled him
+with a sort of horror, even while it still stung and whipped his blood.
+He muttered to himself: "It's awful, what I've done--awful!"  And the
+sound of Schumann's music throbbed and mingled with his fevered thoughts,
+and he saw again Stella's cool, white, fair-haired figure and bending
+neck, the queer, angelic radiance about her.  'I must have been--I must
+be-mad!' he thought.  'What came into me?  Poor little Megan!'  "God
+bless us all, and Mr. Ashes!"  "I want to be with you--only to be with
+you!"  And burying his face in his pillow, he smothered down a fit of
+sobbing.  Not to go back was awful!  To go back--more awful still!
+
+Emotion, when you are young, and give real vent to it, loses its power of
+torture.  And he fell asleep, thinking: 'What was it--a few kisses--all
+forgotten in a month!'
+
+Next morning he got his cheque cashed, but avoided the shop of the
+dove-grey dress like the plague; and, instead, bought himself some
+necessaries.  He spent the whole day in a queer mood, cherishing a kind
+of sullenness against himself.  Instead of the hankering of the last two
+days, he felt nothing but a blank--all passionate longing gone, as if
+quenched in that outburst of tears.  After tea Stella put a book down
+beside him, and said shyly:
+
+"Have you read that, Frank?"
+
+It was Farrar's "Life of Christ."  Ashurst smiled.  Her anxiety about his
+beliefs seemed to him comic, but touching.  Infectious too, perhaps, for
+he began to have an itch to justify himself, if not to convert her.  And
+in the evening, when the children and Halliday were mending their
+shrimping nets, he said:
+
+"At the back of orthodox religion, so far as I can see, there's always
+the idea of reward--what you can get for being good; a kind of begging
+for favours.  I think it all starts in fear."
+
+She was sitting on the sofa making reefer knots with a bit of string. She
+looked up quickly:
+
+"I think it's much deeper than that."
+
+Ashurst felt again that wish to dominate.
+
+"You think so," he said; "but wanting the 'quid pro quo' is about the
+deepest thing in all of us!  It's jolly hard to get to the bottom of it!"
+
+She wrinkled her brows in a puzzled frown.
+
+"I don't think I understand."
+
+He went on obstinately:
+
+"Well, think, and see if the most religious people aren't those who feel
+that this life doesn't give them all they want.  I believe in being good
+because to be good is good in itself."
+
+"Then you do believe in being good?"
+
+How pretty she looked now--it was easy to be good with her!  And he
+nodded and said:
+
+"I say, show me how to make that knot!"
+
+With her fingers touching his, in manoeuvring the bit of string, he felt
+soothed and happy.  And when he went to bed he wilfully kept his thoughts
+on her, wrapping himself in her fair, cool sisterly radiance, as in some
+garment of protection.
+
+Next day he found they had arranged to go by train to Totnes, and picnic
+at Berry Pomeroy Castle.  Still in that resolute oblivion of the past, he
+took his place with them in the landau beside Halliday, back to the
+horses.  And, then, along the sea front, nearly at the turning to the
+railway station, his heart almost leaped into his mouth.  Megan--Megan
+herself!--was walking on the far pathway, in her old skirt and jacket and
+her tam-o'-shanter, looking up into the faces of the passers-by.
+Instinctively he threw his hand up for cover, then made a feint of
+clearing dust out of his eyes; but between his fingers he could see her
+still, moving, not with her free country step, but wavering,
+lost-looking, pitiful-like some little dog which has missed its master
+and does not know whether to run on, to run back--where to run.  How had
+she come like this?--what excuse had she found to get away?--what did she
+hope for?  But with every turn of the wheels bearing him away from her,
+his heart revolted and cried to him to stop them, to get out, and go to
+her!  When the landau turned the corner to the station he could stand it
+no more, and opening the carriage door, muttered: "I've forgotten
+something!  Go on--don't wait for me!  I'll join you at the castle by the
+next train!"  He jumped, stumbled, spun round, recovered his balance, and
+walked forward, while the carriage with the astonished Hallidays rolled
+on.
+
+From the corner he could only just see Megan, a long way ahead now. He
+ran a few steps, checked himself, and dropped into a walk.  With each
+step nearer to her, further from the Hallidays, he walked more and more
+slowly.  How did it alter anything--this sight of her?  How make the
+going to her, and that which must come of it, less ugly?  For there was no
+hiding it--since he had met the Hallidays he had become gradually sure
+that he would not marry Megan.  It would only be a wild love-time, a
+troubled, remorseful, difficult time--and then--well, then he would get
+tired, just because she gave him everything, was so simple, and so
+trustful, so dewy.  And dew--wears off!  The little spot of faded colour,
+her tam-o'-shanter cap, wavered on far in front of him; she was looking
+up into every face, and at the house windows.  Had any man ever such a
+cruel moment to go through?  Whatever he did, he felt he would be a
+beast.  And he uttered a groan which made a nursemaid turn and stare.  He
+saw Megan stop and lean against the sea-wall, looking at the sea; and he
+too stopped.  Quite likely she had never seen the sea before, and even in
+her distress could not resist that sight.  'Yes-she's seen nothing,' he
+thought; 'everything's before her.  And just for a few weeks' passion, I
+shall be cutting her life to ribbons.  I'd better go and hang myself
+rather than do it!'  And suddenly he seemed to see Stella's calm eyes
+looking into his, the wave of fluffy hair on her forehead stirred by the
+wind.  Ah! it would be madness, would mean giving up all that he
+respected, and his own self-respect.  He turned and walked quickly back
+towards the station.  But memory of that poor, bewildered little figure,
+those anxious eyes searching the passers-by, smote him too hard again,
+and once more he turned towards the sea.
+
+The cap was no longer visible; that little spot of colour had vanished in
+the stream of the noon promenaders.  And impelled by the passion of
+longing, the dearth which comes on one when life seems to be whirling
+something out of reach, he hurried forward.  She was nowhere to be seen;
+for half an hour he looked for her; then on the beach flung himself face
+downward in the sand.  To find her again he knew he had only to go to the
+station and wait till she returned from her fruitless quest, to take her
+train home; or to take train himself and go back to the farm, so that she
+found him there when she returned.  But he lay inert in the sand, among
+the indifferent groups of children with their spades and buckets.  Pity
+at her little figure wandering, seeking, was well-nigh merged in the
+spring-running of his blood; for it was all wild feeling now--the
+chivalrous part, what there had been of it, was gone.  He wanted her
+again, wanted her kisses, her soft, little body, her abandonment, all her
+quick, warm, pagan emotion; wanted the wonderful feeling of that night
+under the moonlit apple boughs; wanted it all with a horrible intensity,
+as the faun wants the nymph.  The quick chatter of the little bright
+trout-stream, the dazzle of the buttercups, the rocks of the old "wild
+men"; the calling of the cuckoos and yaffles, the hooting of the owls;
+and the red moon peeping out of the velvet dark at the living whiteness
+of the blossom; and her face just out of reach at the window, lost in its
+love-look; and her heart against his, her lips answering his, under the
+apple tree--all this besieged him.  Yet he lay inert.  What was it which
+struggled against pity and this feverish longing, and kept him there
+paralysed in the warm sand?  Three flaxen heads--a fair face with friendly
+blue--grey eyes, a slim hand pressing his, a quick voice speaking his
+name--"So you do believe in being good?"  Yes, and a sort of atmosphere
+as of some old walled-in English garden, with pinks, and cornflowers, and
+roses, and scents of lavender and lilaccool and fair, untouched, almost
+holy--all that he had been brought up to feel was clean and good.  And
+suddenly he thought: 'She might come along the front again and see me!'
+and he got up and made his way to the rock at the far end of the beach.
+There, with the spray biting into his face, he could think more coolly.
+To go back to the farm and love Megan out in the woods, among the rocks,
+with everything around wild and fitting--that, he knew, was impossible,
+utterly.  To transplant her to a great town, to keep, in some little flat
+or rooms, one who belonged so wholly to Nature--the poet in him shrank
+from it.  His passion would be a mere sensuous revel, soon gone; in
+London, her very simplicity, her lack of all intellectual quality, would
+make her his secret plaything--nothing else.  The longer he sat on the
+rock, with his feet dangling over a greenish pool from which the sea was
+ebbing, the more clearly he saw this; but it was as if her arms and all
+of her were slipping slowly, slowly down from him, into the pool, to be
+carried away out to sea; and her face looking up, her lost face with
+beseeching eyes, and dark, wet hair-possessed, haunted, tortured him!  He
+got up at last, scaled the low rock-cliff, and made his way down into a
+sheltered cove.  Perhaps in the sea he could get back his control--lose
+this fever!  And stripping off his clothes, he swam out.  He wanted to
+tire himself so that nothing mattered and swam recklessly, fast and far;
+then suddenly, for no reason, felt afraid.  Suppose he could not reach
+shore again--suppose the current set him out--or he got cramp, like
+Halliday!  He turned to swim in.  The red cliffs looked a long way off.
+If he were drowned they would find his clothes.  The Hallidays would
+know; but Megan perhaps never--they took no newspaper at the farm.  And
+Phil Halliday's words came back to him again: "A girl at Cambridge I
+might have   Glad I haven't got her on my mind!"  And in that moment of
+unreasoning fear he vowed he would not have her on his mind.  Then his
+fear left him; he swam in easily enough, dried himself in the sun, and
+put on his clothes.  His heart felt sore, but no longer ached; his body
+cool and refreshed.
+
+When one is as young as Ashurst, pity is not a violent emotion.  And,
+back in the Hallidays' sitting-room, eating a ravenous tea, he felt much
+like a man recovered from fever.  Everything seemed new and clear; the
+tea, the buttered toast and jam tasted absurdly good; tobacco had never
+smelt so nice.  And walking up and down the empty room, he stopped here
+and there to touch or look.  He took up Stella's work-basket, fingered
+the cotton reels and a gaily-coloured plait of sewing silks, smelt at the
+little bag filled with woodroffe she kept among them.  He sat down at the
+piano, playing tunes with one finger, thinking: 'To-night she'll play; I
+shall watch her while she's playing; it does me good to watch her.'  He
+took up the book, which still lay where she had placed it beside him, and
+tried to read.  But Megan's little, sad figure began to come back at
+once, and he got up and leaned in the window, listening to the thrushes
+in the Crescent gardens, gazing at the sea, dreamy and blue below the
+trees. A servant came in and cleared the tea away, and he still stood,
+inhaling the evening air, trying not to think.  Then he saw the Hallidays
+coming through the gate of the Crescent, Stella a little in front of Phil
+and the children, with their baskets, and instinctively he drew back.
+His heart, too sore and discomfited, shrank from this encounter, yet
+wanted its friendly solace--bore a grudge against this influence, yet
+craved its cool innocence, and the pleasure of watching Stella's face.
+From against the wall behind the piano he saw her come in and stand
+looking a little blank as though disappointed; then she saw him and
+smiled, a swift, brilliant smile which warmed yet irritated Ashurst.
+
+"You never came after us, Frank."
+
+"No; I found I couldn't."
+
+"Look!  We picked such lovely late violets!"  She held out a bunch.
+Ashurst put his nose to them, and there stirred within him vague
+longings, chilled instantly by a vision of Megan's anxious face lifted to
+the faces of the passers-by.
+
+He said shortly: "How jolly!"  and turned away.  He went up to his room,
+and, avoiding the children, who were coming up the stairs, threw himself
+on his bed, and lay there with his arms crossed over his face.  Now that
+he felt the die really cast, and Megan given up, he hated himself, and
+almost hated the Hallidays and their atmosphere of healthy, happy English
+homes.
+
+Why should they have chanced here, to drive away first love--to show him
+that he was going to be no better than a common seducer?  What right had
+Stella, with her fair, shy beauty, to make him know for certain that he
+would never marry Megan; and, tarnishing it all, bring him such
+bitterness of regretful longing and such pity?  Megan would be back by
+now, worn out by her miserable seeking--poor little thing!--expecting,
+perhaps, to find him there when she reached home. Ashurst bit at his
+sleeve, to stifle a groan of remorseful longing. He went to dinner glum
+and silent, and his mood threw a dinge even over the children.  It was a
+melancholy, rather ill tempered evening, for they were all tired; several
+times he caught Stella looking at him with a hurt, puzzled expression,
+and this pleased his evil mood. He slept miserably; got up quite early,
+and wandered out.  He went down to the beach.  Alone there with the
+serene, the blue, the sunlit sea, his heart relaxed a little.  Conceited
+fool--to think that Megan would take it so hard!  In a week or two she
+would almost have forgotten!  And he well, he would have the reward of
+virtue!  A good young man!  If Stella knew, she would give him her
+blessing for resisting that devil she believed in; and he uttered a hard
+laugh. But slowly the peace and beauty of sea and sky, the flight of the
+lonely seagulls, made him feel ashamed.  He bathed, and turned homewards.
+
+In the Crescent gardens Stella herself was sitting on a camp stool,
+sketching.  He stole up close behind.  How fair and pretty she was, bent
+diligently, holding up her brush, measuring, wrinkling her brows.
+
+He said gently:
+
+"Sorry I was such a beast last night, Stella."
+
+She turned round, startled, flushed very pink, and said in her quick way:
+
+"It's all right.  I knew there was something.  Between friends it doesn't
+matter, does it?"
+
+Ashurst answered:
+
+"Between friends--and we are, aren't we?"
+
+She looked up at him, nodded vehemently, and her upper teeth gleamed
+again in that swift, brilliant smile.
+
+Three days later he went back to London, travelling with the Hallidays.
+He had not written to the farm.  What was there he could say?
+
+On the last day of April in the following year he and Stella were
+married....
+
+Such were Ashurst's memories, sitting against the wall among the gorse,
+on his silver-wedding day.  At this very spot, where he had laid out the
+lunch, Megan must have stood outlined against the sky when he had first
+caught sight of her.  Of all queer coincidences!  And there moved in him a
+longing to go down and see again the farm and the orchard, and the meadow
+of the gipsy bogle.  It would not take long; Stella would be an hour yet,
+perhaps.
+
+How well he remembered it all--the little crowning group of pine trees,
+the steep-up grass hill behind!  He paused at the farm gate. The low
+stone house, the yew-tree porch, the flowering currants--not changed a
+bit; even the old green chair was out there on the grass under the
+window, where he had reached up to her that night to take the key.  Then
+he turned down the lane, and stood leaning on the orchard gate-grey
+skeleton of a gate, as then.  A black pig even was wandering in there
+among the trees.  Was it true that twenty-six years had passed, or had he
+dreamed and awakened to find Megan waiting for him by the big apple tree?
+Unconsciously he put up his hand to his grizzled beard and brought
+himself back to reality. Opening the gate, he made his way down through
+the docks and nettles till he came to the edge, and the old apple tree
+itself.  Unchanged!  A little more of the greygreen lichen, a dead branch
+or two, and for the rest it might have been only last night that he had
+embraced that mossy trunk after Megan's flight and inhaled its woody
+savour, while above his head the moonlit blossom had seemed to breathe
+and live. In that early spring a few buds were showing already; the
+blackbirds shouting their songs, a cuckoo calling, the sunlight bright
+and warm. Incredibly the same-the chattering trout-stream, the narrow
+pool he had lain in every morning, splashing the water over his flanks
+and chest; and out there in the wild meadow the beech clump and the stone
+where the gipsy bogie was supposed to sit.  And an ache for lost youth, a
+hankering, a sense of wasted love and sweetness, gripped Ashurst by the
+throat.  Surely, on this earth of such wild beauty, one was meant to hold
+rapture to one's heart, as this earth and sky held it!  And yet, one
+could not!
+
+He went to the edge of the stream, and looking down at the little pool,
+thought: 'Youth and spring!  What has become of them all, I wonder?'
+
+And then, in sudden fear of having this memory jarred by human encounter,
+he went back to the lane, and pensively retraced his steps to the
+crossroads.
+
+Beside the car an old, grey-bearded labourer was leaning on a stick,
+talking to the chauffeur.  He broke off at once, as though guilty of
+disrespect, and touching his hat, prepared to limp on down the lane.
+
+Ashurst pointed to the narrow green mound.  "Can you tell me what this
+is?"
+
+The old fellow stopped; on his face had come a look as though he were
+thinking: 'You've come to the right shop, mister!'
+
+"'Tes a grave," he said.
+
+"But why out here?"
+
+The old man smiled.  "That's a tale, as yu may say.  An' not the first
+time as I've a-told et--there's plenty folks asks 'bout that bit o' turf.
+'Maid's Grave' us calls et, 'ereabouts."
+
+Ashurst held out his pouch.  "Have a fill?"
+
+The old man touched his hat again, and slowly filled an old clay pipe.
+His eyes, looking upward out of a mass of wrinkles and hair, were still
+quite bright.
+
+"If yu don' mind, zurr, I'll zet down my leg's 'urtin' a bit today." And
+he sat down on the mound of turf.
+
+"There's always a flower on this grave.  An' 'tain't so very lonesome,
+neither; brave lot o' folks goes by now, in they new motor cars an'
+things--not as 'twas in th' old days.  She've a got company up 'ere.
+'Twas a poor soul killed 'erself."
+
+"I see!" said Ashurst.  "Cross-roads burial.  I didn't know that custom
+was kept up."
+
+"Ah! but 'twas a main long time ago.  Us 'ad a parson as was very
+God-fearin' then.  Let me see, I've a 'ad my pension six year come
+Michaelmas, an' I were just on fifty when t'appened.  There's none livin'
+knows more about et than what I du.  She belonged close 'ere; same farm
+as where I used to work along o' Mrs. Narracombe 'tes Nick Narracombe's
+now; I dus a bit for 'im still, odd times."
+
+Ashurst, who was leaning against the gate, lighting his pipe, left his
+curved hands before his face for long after the flame of the match had
+gone out.
+
+"Yes?"  he said, and to himself his voice sounded hoarse and queer.
+
+"She was one in an 'underd, poor maid!  I putts a flower 'ere every time
+I passes.  Pretty maid an' gude maid she was, though they wouldn't burry
+'er up to th' church, nor where she wanted to be burried neither."  The
+old labourer paused, and put his hairy, twisted hand flat down on the
+turf beside the bluebells.
+
+"Yes?"  said Ashurst.
+
+"In a manner of speakin'," the old man went on, "I think as 'twas a
+love-story--though there's no one never knu for zartin.  Yu can't tell
+what's in a maid's 'ead but that's wot I think about it."  He drew his
+hand along the turf.  "I was fond o' that maid--don' know as there was
+anyone as wasn' fond of 'er.  But she was to lovin'-'earted--that's where
+'twas, I think."  He looked up.  And Ashurst, whose lips were trembling
+in the cover of his beard, murmured again: "Yes?"
+
+"'Twas in the spring, 'bout now as 't might be, or a little
+later--blossom time--an' we 'ad one o' they young college gentlemen
+stayin' at the farm-nice feller tu, with 'is 'ead in the air.  I liked 'e
+very well, an' I never see nothin' between 'em, but to my thinkin' 'e
+turned the maid's fancy."  The old man took the pipe out of his mouth,
+spat, and went on:
+
+"Yu see, 'e went away sudden one day, an' never come back.  They got 'is
+knapsack and bits o' things down there still.  That's what stuck in my
+mind--'is never sendin' for 'em.  'Is name was Ashes, or somethen' like
+that."
+
+"Yes?"  said Ashurst once more.
+
+The old man licked his lips.
+
+"'Er never said nothin', but from that day 'er went kind of dazed lukin';
+didn'seem rightly therr at all.  I never knu a'uman creature so changed
+in me life--never.  There was another young feller at the farm--Joe
+Biddaford 'is name wer', that was praaperly sweet on 'er, tu; I guess 'e
+used to plague 'er wi 'is attentions.  She got to luke quite wild.  I'd
+zee her sometimes of an avenin' when I was bringin' up the calves; ther'
+she'd stand in th' orchard, under the big apple tree, lukin' straight
+before 'er.  'Well,' I used t'think, 'I dunno what 'tes that's the matter
+wi' yu, but yu'm lukin' pittiful, that yu be!'"
+
+The old man refit his pipe, and sucked at it reflectively.
+
+"Yes?"  said Ashurst.
+
+"I remembers one day I said to 'er: 'What's the matter, Megan?'--'er name
+was Megan David, she come from Wales same as 'er aunt, ol' Missis
+Narracombe.  'Yu'm frettin' about somethin'.  I says.  'No, Jim,' she
+says, 'I'm not frettin'.' 'Yes, yu be!' I says.  'No,' she says, and to
+tears cam' rollin' out.  'Yu'm cryin'--what's that, then?' I says.  She
+putts 'er 'and over 'er 'eart: 'It 'urts me,' she says; 'but 'twill sune
+be better,' she says.  'But if anything shude 'appen to me, Jim, I wants
+to be burried under this 'ere apple tree.' I laughed.  'What's goin' to
+'appen to yu?' I says; 'don't 'ee be fulish.' 'No,' she says, 'I won't be
+fulish.'  Well, I know what maids are, an' I never thought no more about
+et, till two days arter that, 'bout six in the avenin' I was comin' up
+wi' the calves, when I see somethin' dark lyin' in the strame, close to
+that big apple tree. I says to meself: 'Is that a pig-funny place for a
+pig to get to!' an' I goes up to et, an' I see what 'twas."
+
+The old man stopped; his eyes, turned upward, had a bright, suffering
+look.
+
+"'Twas the maid, in a little narrer pool ther' that's made by the
+stoppin' of a rock--where I see the young gentleman bathin' once or
+twice.  'Er was lyin' on 'er face in the watter.  There was a plant o'
+goldie-cups growin' out o' the stone just above 'er'ead.  An' when I come
+to luke at 'er face, 'twas luvly, butiful, so calm's a baby's--wonderful
+butiful et was.  When the doctor saw 'er, 'e said: 'Er culdn' never
+a-done it in that little bit o' watter ef' er 'adn't a-been in an
+extarsy.'  Ah! an' judgin' from 'er face, that was just 'ow she was.  Et
+made me cry praaper-butiful et was!  'Twas June then, but she'd afound a
+little bit of apple-blossom left over somewheres, and stuck et in 'er
+'air.  That's why I thinks 'er must abeen in an extarsy, to go to et gay,
+like that.  Why! there wasn't more than a fute and 'arf o' watter.  But I
+tell 'ee one thing--that meadder's 'arnted; I knu et, an' she knu et; an'
+no one'll persuade me as 'tesn't.  I told 'em what she said to me 'bout
+bein' burried under th' apple tree.  But I think that turned 'em--made et
+luke to much 's ef she'd 'ad it in 'er mind deliberate; an' so they
+burried 'er up 'ere.  Parson we 'ad then was very particular, 'e was."
+
+Again the old man drew his hand over the turf.
+
+"'Tes wonderful, et seems," he added slowly, "what maids 'll du for love.
+She 'ad a lovin-'eart; I guess 'twas broken.  But us never knu nothin'!"
+
+He looked up as if for approval of his story, but Ashurst had walked past
+him as if he were not there.
+
+Up on the top of the hill, beyond where he had spread the lunch, over,
+out of sight, he lay down on his face.  So had his virtue been rewarded,
+and "the Cyprian," goddess of love, taken her revenge!  And before his
+eyes, dim with tears, came Megan's face with the sprig of apple blossom
+in her dark, wet hair.  'What did I do that was wrong?' he thought.
+'What did I do?' But he could not answer.  Spring, with its rush of
+passion, its flowers and song-the spring in his heart and Megan's!  Was
+it just Love seeking a victim!  The Greek was right, then--the words of
+the "Hippolytus" as true to-day!
+
+    "For mad is the heart of Love,
+     And gold the gleam of his wing;
+     And all to the spell thereof
+     Bend when he makes his spring.
+     All life that is wild and young
+     In mountain and wave and stream
+     All that of earth is sprung,
+     Or breathes in the red sunbeam;
+     Yea, and Mankind.  O'er all a royal throne,
+     Cyprian, Cyprian, is thine alone!"
+
+The Greek was right!  Megan!  Poor little Megan--coming over the hill!
+Megan under the old apple tree waiting and looking!  Megan dead, with
+beauty printed on her!
+
+A voice said:
+
+"Oh, there you are!  Look!"
+
+Ashurst rose, took his wife's sketch, and stared at it in silence.
+
+"Is the foreground right, Frank?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But there's something wanting, isn't there?"
+
+Ashurst nodded.  Wanting?  The apple tree, the singing, and the gold!
+
+And solemnly he put his lips to her forehead.  It was his silver-wedding
+day.
+1916
+
+
+
+
+THE JURYMAN
+
+     "Don't you see, brother, I was reading yesterday the Gospel
+     about Christ, the little Father; how He suffered, how He walked
+     on the earth.  I suppose you have heard about it?"
+
+     "Indeed, I have," replied Stepanuitch; "but we are people in
+     darkness; we can't read."--TOLSTOI.
+
+Mr. Henry Bosengate, of the London Stock Exchange, seated himself in his
+car that morning during the great war with a sense of injury. Major in a
+Volunteer Corps; member of all the local committees; lending this very
+car to the neighbouring hospital, at times even driving it himself for
+their benefit; subscribing to funds, so far as his diminished income
+permitted--he was conscious of being an asset to the country, and one
+whose time could not be wasted with impunity. To be summoned to sit on a
+jury at the local assizes, and not even the grand jury at that!  It was
+in the nature of an outrage.
+
+Strong and upright, with hazel eyes and dark eyebrows, pinkish-brown
+cheeks, a forehead white, well-shaped, and getting high, with greyish
+hair glossy and well-brushed, and a trim moustache, he might have been
+taken for that colonel of Volunteers which indeed he was in a fair way of
+becoming.
+
+His wife had followed him out under the porch, and stood bracing her
+supple body clothed in lilac linen.  Red rambler roses formed a sort of
+crown to her dark head; her ivory-coloured face had in it just a
+suggestion of the Japanese.
+
+Mr. Bosengate spoke through the whirr of the engine:
+
+"I don't expect to be late, dear.  This business is ridiculous. There
+oughtn't to be any crime in these days."
+
+His wife--her name was Kathleen--smiled.  She looked very pretty and
+cool, Mr. Bosengate thought.  To him bound on this dull and stuffy
+business everything he owned seemed pleasant--the geranium beds beside
+the gravel drive, his long, red-brick house mellowing decorously in its
+creepers and ivy, the little clock-tower over stables now converted to a
+garage, the dovecote, masking at the other end the conservatory which
+adjoined the billiard-room.  Close to the red-brick lodge his two
+children, Kate and Harry, ran out from under the acacia trees, and waved
+to him, scrambling bare-legged on to the low, red, ivy-covered wall which
+guarded his domain of eleven acres. Mr. Bosengate waved back, thinking:
+'Jolly couple--by Jove, they are!'  Above their heads, through the trees,
+he could see right away to some Downs, faint in the July heat haze.  And
+he thought: 'Pretty a spot as one could have got, so close to Town!'
+
+Despite the war he had enjoyed these last two years more than any of the
+ten since he built "Charmleigh" and settled down to semi-rural
+domesticity with his young wife.  There had been a certain piquancy, a
+savour added to existence, by the country's peril, and all the public
+service and sacrifice it demanded.  His chauffeur was gone, and one
+gardener did the work of three.  He enjoyed-positively enjoyed, his
+committee work; even the serious decline of business and increase of
+taxation had not much worried one continually conscious of the national
+crisis and his own part therein.  The country had wanted waking up,
+wanted a lesson in effort and economy; and the feeling that he had not
+spared himself in these strenuous times, had given a zest to those quiet
+pleasures of bed and board which, at his age, even the most patriotic
+could retain with a good conscience.  He had denied himself many
+things--new clothes, presents for Kathleen and the children, travel, and
+that pine-apple house which he had been on the point of building when the
+war broke out; new wine, too, and cigars, and membership of the two Clubs
+which he had never used in the old days.  The hours had seemed fuller and
+longer, sleep better earned--wonderful, the things one could do without
+when put to it!  He turned the car into the high road, driving dreamily
+for he was in plenty of time.  The war was going pretty well now; he was
+no fool optimist, but now that conscription was in force, one might
+reasonably hope for its end within a year.  Then there would be a boom,
+and one might let oneself go a little.  Visions of theatres and supper
+with his wife at the Savoy afterwards, and cosy night drives back into
+the sweet-smelling country behind your own chauffeur once more teased a
+fancy which even now did not soar beyond the confines of domestic
+pleasures.  He pictured his wife in new dresses by Jay--she was fifteen
+years younger than himself, and "paid for dressing" as they said.  He had
+always delighted--as men older than their wives will--in the admiration
+she excited from others not privileged to enjoy her charms.  Her rather
+queer and ironical beauty, her cool irreproachable wifeliness, was a
+constant balm to him.  They would give dinner parties again, have their
+friends down from town, and he would once more enjoy sitting at the foot
+of the dinner table while Kathleen sat at the head, with the light soft
+on her ivory shoulders, behind flowers she had arranged in that original
+way of hers, and fruit which he had grown in his hot-houses; once more he
+would take legitimate interest in the wine he offered to his guests--once
+more stock that Chinese cabinet wherein he kept cigars.  Yes--there was a
+certain satisfaction in these days of privation, if only from the
+anticipation they created.
+
+The sprinkling of villas had become continuous on either side of the high
+road; and women going out to shop, tradesmen's boys delivering victuals,
+young men in khaki, began to abound.  Now and then a limping or bandaged
+form would pass--some bit of human wreckage; and Mr. Bosengate would
+think mechanically: 'Another of those poor devils!  Wonder if we've had
+his case before us!'
+
+Running his car into the best hotel garage of the little town, he made
+his way leisurely over to the court.  It stood back from the
+market-place, and was already lapped by a sea of persons having, as in
+the outer ring at race meetings, an air of business at which one must not
+be caught out, together with a soaked or flushed appearance. Mr.
+Bosengate could not resist putting his handkerchief to his nose. He had
+carefully drenched it with lavender water, and to this fact owed,
+perhaps, his immunity from the post of foreman on the jury--for, say what
+you will about the English, they have a deep instinct for affairs.
+
+He found himself second in the front row of the jury box, and through the
+odour of "Sanitas" gazed at the judge's face expressionless up there, for
+all the world like a bewigged bust.  His fellows in the box had that
+appearance of falling between two classes characteristic of jurymen.  Mr.
+Bosengate was not impressed.  On one side of him the foreman sat, a
+prominent upholsterer, known in the town as "Gentleman Fox."  His dark
+and beautifully brushed and oiled hair and moustache, his radiant linen,
+gold watch and chain, the white piping to his waistcoat, and a habit of
+never saying "Sir" had long marked him out from commoner men; he
+undertook to bury people too, to save them trouble; and was altogether
+superior.  On the other side Mr. Bosengate had one of those men, who,
+except when they sit on juries, are never seen without a little brown
+bag, and the appearance of having been interrupted in a drink.  Pale and
+shiny, with large loose eyes shifting from side to side, he had an
+underdone voice and uneasy flabby hands.  Mr. Bosengate disliked sitting
+next to him.  Beyond this commercial traveller sat a dark pale young man
+with spectacles; beyond him again, a short old man with grey moustache,
+mutton chops, and innumerable wrinkles; and the front row was completed
+by a chemist.  The three immediately behind, Mr. Bosengate did not
+thoroughly master; but the three at the end of the second row he learned
+in their order of an oldish man in a grey suit, given to winking; an
+inanimate person with the mouth of a moustachioed codfish, over whose
+long bald crown three wisps of damp hair were carefully arranged; and a
+dried, dapperish, clean-shorn man, whose mouth seemed terrified lest it
+should be surprised without a smile. Their first and second verdicts were
+recorded without the necessity for withdrawal, and Mr. Bosengate was
+already sleepy when the third case was called.  The sight of khaki
+revived his drooping attention. But what a weedy-looking specimen!  This
+prisoner had a truly nerveless pitiable dejected air.  If he had ever had
+a military bearing it had shrunk into him during his confinement.  His
+ill-shaped brown tunic, whose little brass buttons seemed trying to keep
+smiling, struck Mr. Bosengate as ridiculously short, used though he was
+to such things.  'Absurd,' he thought--'Lumbago!  Just where they ought
+to be covered!'  Then the officer and gentleman stirred in him, and he
+added to himself: 'Still, there must be some distinction made!'  The
+little soldier's visage had once perhaps been tanned, but was now the
+colour of dark dough; his large brown eyes with white showing below the
+iris, as so often in the eyes of very nervous people--wandered from face
+to face, of judge, counsel, jury, and public.  There were hollows in his
+cheeks, his dark hair looked damp; around his neck he wore a bandage.
+The commercial traveller on Mr. Bosengate's left turned, and whispered:
+"Felo de se!  My hat! what a guy!"  Mr. Bosengate pretended not to
+hear--he could not bear that fellow!--and slowly wrote on a bit of paper:
+"Owen Lewis."  Welsh!  Well, he looked it--not at all an English face.
+Attempted suicide--not at all an English crime!  Suicide implied
+surrender, a putting-up of hands to Fate--to say nothing of the religious
+aspect of the matter.  And suicide in khaki seemed to Mr. Bosengate
+particularly abhorrent; like turning tail in face of the enemy; almost
+meriting the fate of a deserter.  He looked at the prisoner, trying not
+to give way to this prejudice.  And the prisoner seemed to look at him,
+though this, perhaps, was fancy.
+
+The Counsel for the prosecution, a little, alert, grey, decided man,
+above military age, began detailing the circumstances of the crime. Mr.
+Bosengate, though not particularly sensitive to atmosphere, could
+perceive a sort of current running through the Court.  It was as if jury
+and public were thinking rhythmically in obedience to the same
+unexpressed prejudice of which he himself was conscious.  Even the
+Caesar-like pale face up there, presiding, seemed in its ironic serenity
+responding to that current.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, before I call my evidence, I direct your
+attention to the bandage the accused is still wearing.  He gave himself
+this wound with his Army razor, adding, if I may say so, insult to the
+injury he was inflicting on his country.  He pleads not guilty; and
+before the magistrates he said that absence from his wife was preying on
+his mind"--the advocate's close lips widened--"Well, gentlemen, if such
+an excuse is to weigh with us in these days, I'm sure I don't know what's
+to happen to the Empire."
+
+'No, by George!' thought Mr. Bosengate.
+
+The evidence of the first witness, a room-mate who had caught the
+prisoner's hand, and of the sergeant, who had at once been summoned, was
+conclusive and he began to cherish a hope that they would get through
+without withdrawing, and he would be home before five.  But then a hitch
+occurred.  The regimental doctor failed to respond when his name was
+called; and the judge having for the first time that day showed himself
+capable of human emotion, intimated that he would adjourn until the
+morrow.
+
+Mr. Bosengate received the announcement with equanimity.  He would be
+home even earlier!  And gathering up the sheets of paper he had scribbled
+on, he put them in his pocket and got up.  The would-be suicide was being
+taken out of the court--a shambling drab figure with shoulders hunched.
+What good were men like that in these days!  What good!  The prisoner
+looked up.  Mr. Bosengate encountered in full the gaze of those large
+brown eyes, with the white showing underneath.  What a suffering,
+wretched, pitiful face!  A man had no business to give you a look like
+that!  The prisoner passed on down the stairs, and vanished.  Mr.
+Bosengate went out and across the market place to the garage of the hotel
+where he had left his car. The sun shone fiercely and he thought: 'I must
+do some watering in the garden.'  He brought the car out, and was about
+to start the engine, when someone passing said: "Good evenin'.
+Seedy-lookin' beggar that last prisoner, ain't he?  We don't want men of
+that stamp."  It was his neighbour on the jury, the commercial traveller,
+in a straw hat, with a little brown bag already in his hand and the froth
+of an interrupted drink on his moustache.  Answering curtly: "Good
+evening!" and thinking: 'Nor of yours, my friend!'  Mr. Bosengate started
+the car with unnecessary clamour.  But as if brought back to life by the
+commercial traveller's remark, the prisoner's figure seemed to speed
+along too, turning up at Mr. Bosengate his pitifully unhappy eyes.  Want
+of his wife!--queer excuse that for trying to put it out of his power
+ever to see her again!  Why!  Half a loaf, even a slice, was better than
+no bread. Not many of that neurotic type in the Army--thank Heaven!  The
+lugubrious figure vanished, and Mr. Bosengate pictured instead the form
+of his own wife bending over her "Gloire de Dijon roses" in the rosery,
+where she generally worked a little before tea now that they were short
+of gardeners.  He saw her, as often he had seen her, raise herself and
+stand, head to one side, a gloved hand on her slender hip, gazing as it
+were ironically from under drooped lids at buds which did not come out
+fast enough.  And the word 'Caline,' for he was something of a French
+scholar, shot through his mind: 'Kathleen--Caline!'  If he found her
+there when he got in, he would steal up on the grass and--ah! but with
+great care not to crease her dress or disturb her hair!  'If only she
+weren't quite so self-contained,' he thought; 'It's like a cat you can't
+get near, not really near!'
+
+The car, returning faster than it had come down that morning, had already
+passed the outskirt villas, and was breasting the hill to where, among
+fields and the old trees, Charmleigh lay apart from commoner life.
+Turning into his drive, Mr. Bosengate thought with a certain surprise: 'I
+wonder what she does think of!  I wonder!'  He put his gloves and hat
+down in the outer hall and went into the lavatory, to dip his face in
+cool water and wash it with sweet-smelling soap--delicious revenge on the
+unclean atmosphere in which he had been stewing so many hours.  He came
+out again into the hall dazed by soap and the mellowed light, and a voice
+from half-way up the stairs said: "Daddy!  Look!"  His little daughter
+was standing up there with one hand on the banisters.  She scrambled on
+to them and came sliding down, her frock up to her eyes, and her holland
+knickers to her middle.  Mr. Bosengate said mildly:
+
+"Well, that's elegant!"
+
+"Tea's in the summer-house.  Mummy's waiting.  Come on!"
+
+With her hand in his, Mr. Bosengate went on, through the drawing-room,
+long and cool, with sun-blinds down, through the billiard-room, high and
+cool, through the conservatory, green and sweet-smelling, out on to the
+terrace and the upper lawn.  He had never felt such sheer exhilarated joy
+in his home surroundings, so cool, glistening and green under the July
+sun; and he said:
+
+"Well, Kit, what have you all been doing?"
+
+"I've fed my rabbits and Harry's; and we've been in the attic; Harry got
+his leg through the skylight."
+
+Mr. Bosengate drew in his breath with a hiss.
+
+"It's all right, Daddy; we got it out again, it's only grazed the skin.
+And we've been making swabs--I made seventeen, Mummy made thirty-three,
+and then she went to the hospital.  Did you put many men in prison?"
+
+Mr. Bosengate cleared his throat.  The question seemed to him untimely.
+
+"Only two."
+
+"What's it like in prison, Daddy?"
+
+Mr. Bosengate, who had no more knowledge than his little daughter,
+replied in an absent voice:
+
+"Not very nice."
+
+They were passing under a young oak tree, where the path wound round to
+the rosery and summer-house.  Something shot down and clawed Mr.
+Bosengate's neck.  His little daughter began to hop and suffocate with
+laughter.
+
+"Oh, Daddy!  Aren't you caught!  I led you on purpose!"
+
+Looking up, Mr. Bosengate saw his small son lying along a low branch
+above him--like the leopard he was declaring himself to be (for fear of
+error), and thought blithely: 'What an active little chap it is!' "Let me
+drop on your shoulders, Daddy--like they do on the deer."
+
+"Oh, yes!  Do be a deer, Daddy!"
+
+Mr. Bosengate did not see being a deer; his hair had just been brushed.
+But he entered the rosery buoyantly between his offspring. His wife was
+standing precisely as he had imagined her, in a pale blue frock open at
+the neck, with a narrow black band round the waist, and little accordion
+pleats below.  She looked her coolest. Her smile, when she turned her
+head, hardly seemed to take Mr. Bosengate seriously enough.  He placed
+his lips below one of her half-drooped eyelids.  She even smelled of
+roses.  His children began to dance round their mother, and Mr.
+Bosengate,--firmly held between them, was also compelled to do this,
+until she said:
+
+"When you've quite done, let's have tea!"
+
+It was not the greeting he had imagined coming along in the car. Earwigs
+were plentiful in the summer-house--used perhaps twice a year, but
+indispensable to every country residence--and Mr. Bosengate was not sorry
+for the excuse to get out again.  Though all was so pleasant, he felt
+oddly restless, rather suffocated; and lighting his pipe, began to move
+about among the roses, blowing tobacco at the greenfly; in war-time one
+was never quite idle!  And suddenly he said:
+
+"We're trying a wretched Tommy at the assizes."
+
+His wife looked up from a rose.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Attempted suicide."
+
+"Why did he?"
+
+"Can't stand the separation from his wife."
+
+She looked at him, gave a low laugh, and said:
+
+"Oh dear!"
+
+Mr. Bosengate was puzzled.  Why did she laugh?  He looked round, saw that
+the children were gone, took his pipe from his mouth, and approached her.
+
+"You look very pretty," he said.  "Give me a kiss!"
+
+His wife bent her body forward from the waist, and pushed her lips out
+till they touched his moustache.  Mr. Bosengate felt a sensation as if he
+had arisen from breakfast, without having eaten marmalade. He mastered
+it, and said:
+
+"That jury are a rum lot."
+
+His wife's eyelids flickered.  "I wish women sat on juries."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It would be an experience."
+
+Not the first time she had used that curious expression!  Yet her life
+was far from dull, so far as he could see; with the new interests created
+by the war, and the constant calls on her time made by the perfection of
+their home life, she had a useful and busy existence.  Again the random
+thought passed through him: 'But she never tells me anything!'  And
+suddenly that lugubrious khaki-clad figure started up among the rose
+bushes.  "We've got a lot to be thankful for!" he said abruptly.  "I must
+go to work!"  His wife, raising one eyebrow, smiled.  "And I to weep!"
+Mr. Bosengate laughed--she had a pretty wit!  And stroking his comely
+moustache where it had been kissed, he moved out into the sunshine.  All
+the evening, throughout his labours, not inconsiderable, for this jury
+business had put him behind time, he was afflicted by that restless
+pleasure in his surroundings; would break off in mowing the lower lawn to
+look at the house through the trees; would leave his study and committee
+papers, to cross into the drawing-room and sniff its dainty fragrance;
+paid a special good-night visit to the children having supper in the
+schoolroom; pottered in and out from his dressing room to admire his wife
+while she was changing for dinner; dined with his mind perpetually on the
+next course; talked volubly of the war; and in the billiard room
+afterwards, smoking the pipe which had taken the place of his cigar,
+could not keep still, but roamed about, now in conservatory, now in the
+drawing-room, where his wife and the governess were still making swabs.
+It seemed to him that he could not have enough of anything.  About eleven
+o'clock he strolled out beautiful night, only just dark enough--under the
+new arrangement with Time--and went down to the little round fountain
+below the terrace.  His wife was playing the piano.  Mr. Bosengate looked
+at the water and the flat dark water lily leaves which floated there;
+looked up at the house, where only narrow chinks of light showed, because
+of the Lighting Order.  The dreamy music  drifted out; there was a scent
+of heliotrope.  He moved a few steps back, and sat in the children's
+swing under an old lime tree.  Jolly--blissful--in the warm, bloomy dark!
+Of all hours of the day, this before going to bed was perhaps the
+pleasantest.  He saw the light go up in his wife's bed room, unscreened
+for a full minute, and thought: 'Aha!  If I did my duty as a special, I
+should "strafe" her for that.'  She came to the window, her figure
+lighted, hands up to the back of her head, so that her bare arms gleamed.
+Mr. Bosengate wafted her a kiss, knowing he could not be seen.  'Lucky
+chap!' he mused; 'she's a great joy!' Up went her arm, down came the
+blind the house was dark again.  He drew a long breath.  'Another ten
+minutes,' he thought, 'then I'll go in and shut up.  By Jove!  The limes
+are beginning to smell already!' And, the better to take in that acme of
+his well-being, he tilted the swing, lifted his feet from the ground, and
+swung himself toward the scented blossoms.  He wanted to whelm his senses
+in their perfume, and closed his eyes.  But instead of the domestic
+vision he expected, the face of the little Welsh soldier, hare-eyed,
+shadowy, pinched and dark and pitiful, started up with such disturbing
+vividness that he opened his eyes again at once.  Curse!  The fellow
+almost haunted one!  Where would he be now poor little devil!--lying in
+his cell, thinking--thinking of his wife!  Feeling suddenly morbid, Mr.
+Bosengate arrested the swing and stood up. Absurd!--all his well-being
+and mood of warm anticipation had deserted him!  'A d---d world!' he
+thought.  'Such a lot of misery!  Why should I have to sit in judgment on
+that poor beggar, and condemn him?'  He moved up on to the terrace and
+walked briskly, to rid himself of this disturbance before going in.
+'That commercial traveller chap,' he thought, 'the rest of those
+fellows--they see nothing!'  And, abruptly turning up the three stone
+steps, he entered the conservatory, locked it, passed into the billiard
+room, and drank his barley water.  One of the pictures was hanging
+crooked; he went up to put it straight.  Still life.  Grapes and apples,
+and--lobsters!  They struck him as odd for the first time.  Why lobsters?
+The whole picture seemed dead and oily.  He turned off the light, and
+went upstairs, passed his wife's door, into his own room, and undressed.
+Clothed in his pyjamas he opened the door between the rooms.  By the
+light coming from his own he could see her dark head on the pillow.  Was
+she asleep?  No--not asleep, certainly.  The moment of fruition had come;
+the crowning of his pride and pleasure in his home.  But he continued to
+stand there. He had suddenly no pride, no pleasure, no desire; nothing
+but a sort of dull resentment against everything.  He turned back; shut
+the door, and slipping between the heavy curtains and his open window,
+stood looking out at the night.  'Full of misery!' he thought.  'Full of
+d---d misery!'
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Filing into the jury box next morning, Mr. Bosengate collided slightly
+with a short juryman, whose square figure and square head of stiff
+yellow-red hair he had only vaguely noticed the day before. The man
+looked angry, and Mr. Bosengate thought: 'An ill-bred dog, that!'
+
+He sat down quickly, and, to avoid further recognition of his fellows,
+gazed in front of him.  His appearance on Saturdays was always military,
+by reason of the route march of his Volunteer Corps in the afternoon.
+Gentleman Fox, who belonged to the corps too, was also looking square;
+but that commercial traveller on his other side seemed more louche, and
+as if surprised in immorality, than ever; only the proximity of Gentleman
+Fox on the other side kept Mr. Bosengate from shrinking.  Then he saw the
+prisoner being brought in, shadowy and dark behind the brightness of his
+buttons, and he experienced a sort of shock, this figure was so exactly
+that which had several times started up in his mind.  Somehow he had
+expected a fresh sight of the fellow to dispel and disprove what had been
+haunting him, had expected to find him just an outside phenomenon, not,
+as it were, a part of his own life.  And he gazed at the carven
+immobility of the judge's face, trying to steady himself, as a drunken
+man will, by looking at a light.  The regimental doctor, unabashed by the
+judge's comment on his absence the day before, gave his evidence like a
+man who had better things to do, and the case for the prosecution was
+forthwith rounded in by a little speech from counsel.  The matter--he
+said--was clear as daylight.  Those who wore His Majesty's uniform,
+charged with the responsibility and privilege of defending their country,
+were no more entitled to desert their regiments by taking their own lives
+than they were entitled to desert in any other way.  He asked for a
+conviction.  Mr. Bosengate felt a sympathetic shuffle passing through all
+feet; the judge was speaking:
+
+"Prisoner, you can either go into the witness box and make your statement
+on oath, in which case you may be cross-examined on it; or you can make
+your statement there from the dock, in which case you will not be
+cross-examined.  Which do you elect to do?"
+
+"From here, my lord."
+
+Seeing him now full face, and, as it might be, come to life in the effort
+to convey his feelings, Mr. Bosengate had suddenly a quite different
+impression of the fellow.  It was as if his khaki had fallen off, and he
+had stepped out of his own shadow, a live and quivering creature.  His
+pinched clean-shaven face seemed to have an irregular, wilder, hairier
+look, his large nervous brown eyes darkened and glowed; he jerked his
+shoulders, his arms, his whole body, like a man suddenly freed from cramp
+or a suit of armour.
+
+He spoke, too, in a quick, crisp, rather high voice, pinching his
+consonants a little, sharpening his vowels, like a true Welshman.
+
+"My lord and misters the jury," he said: "I was a hairdresser when the
+call came on me to join the army.  I had a little home and a wife.  I
+never thought what it would be like to be away from them, I surely never
+did; and I'm ashamed to be speaking it out like this--how it can squeeze
+and squeeze a man, how it can prey on your mind, when you're nervous like
+I am.  'Tis not everyone that cares for his home--there's lots o' them
+never wants to see their wives again.  But for me 'tis like being shut up
+in a cage, it is!"  Mr. Bosengate saw daylight between the skinny fingers
+of the man's hand thrown out with a jerk.  "I cannot bear it shut up away
+from wife and home like what you are in the army.  So when I took my
+razor that morning I was wild--an' I wouldn't be here now but for that
+man catching my hand. There was no reason in it, I'm willing to confess.
+It was foolish; but wait till you get feeling like what I was, and see
+how it draws you.  Misters the jury, don't send me back to prison; it is
+worse still there.  If you have wives you will know what it is like for
+lots of us; only some is more nervous than others.  I swear to you, sirs,
+I could not help it---?"  Again the little man flung out his hand, his
+whole thin body shook and Mr. Bosengate felt the same sensation as when
+he drove his car over a dog--"Misters the jury, I hope you may never in
+your lives feel as I've been feeling."
+
+The little man ceased, his eyes shrank back into their sockets, his
+figure back into its mask of shadowy brown and gleaming buttons, and Mr.
+Bosengate was conscious that the judge was making a series of remarks;
+and, very soon, of being seated at a mahogany table in the jury's
+withdrawing room, hearing the, voice of the man with hair like an Irish
+terrier's saying: "Didn't he talk through his hat, that little blighter!"
+Conscious, too, of the commercial traveller, still on his left--always on
+his left!--mopping his brow, and muttering: "Phew!  It's hot in there
+to-day!"  while an effluvium, as of an inside accustomed to whisky came
+from him.  Then the man with the underlip and the three plastered wisps
+of hair said:
+
+"Don't know why we withdrew, Mr. Foreman!"
+
+Mr. Bosengate looked round to where, at the head of the table, Gentleman
+Fox sat, in defensive gentility and the little white piping to his
+waistcoat saying blandly:
+
+"I shall be happy to take the sense of the jury."
+
+There was a short silence, then the chemist murmured:
+
+"I should say he must have what they call claustrophobia."
+
+"Clauster fiddlesticks!  The feller's a shirker, that's all.  Missed his
+wife--pretty excuse!  Indecent, I call it!"
+
+The speaker was the little wire-haired man; and emotion, deep and angry,
+stirred in Mr. Bosengate.  That ill-bred little cur!  He gripped the edge
+of the table with both hands.
+
+"I think it's d-----d natural!"  he muttered.  But almost before the
+words had left his lips he felt dismay.  What had he said--he, nearly a
+colonel of volunteers--endorsing such a want of patriotism!  And hearing
+the commercial traveller murmuring: "'Ear, 'ear!"  he reddened violently.
+
+The wire-headed man said roughly:
+
+"There's too many of these blighted shirkers, and too much pampering of
+them."
+
+The turmoil in Mr. Bosengate increased; he remarked in an icy voice:
+
+"I agree to no verdict that'll send the man back to prison."
+
+At this a real tremor seemed to go round the table, as if they all saw
+themselves sitting there through lunch time.  Then the large grey-haired
+man given to winking, said:
+
+"Oh!  Come, sir--after what the judge said!  Come, sir!  What do you say,
+Mr. Foreman?"
+
+Gentleman Fox--as who should say 'This is excellent value, but I don't
+wish to press it on you!'--answered:
+
+"We are only concerned with the facts.  Did he or did he not try to
+shorten his life?"
+
+"Of course he did--said so himself," Mr. Bosengate heard the wire-haired
+man snap out, and from the following murmur of assent he alone abstained.
+Guilty!  Well--yes!  There was no way out of admitting that, but his
+feelings revolted against handing "that poor little beggar" over to the
+tender mercy of his country's law.  His whole soul rose in arms against
+agreeing with that ill-bred little cur, and the rest of this job-lot.  He
+had an impulse to get up and walk out, saying: "Settle it your own way.
+Good morning."
+
+"It seems, sir," Gentleman Fox was saying, "that we're all agreed to
+guilty, except yourself.  If you will allow me, I don't see how you can
+go behind what the prisoner himself admitted."
+
+Thus brought up to the very guns, Mr. Bosengate, red in the face, thrust
+his hands deep into the side pockets of his tunic, and, staring straight
+before him, said:
+
+"Very well; on condition we recommend him to mercy."
+
+"What do you say, gentlemen; shall we recommend him to mercy?"
+
+"'Ear, 'ear!" burst from the commercial traveller, and from the chemist
+came the murmur:
+
+"No harm in that."
+
+"Well, I think there is.  They shoot deserters at the front, and we let
+this fellow off.  I'd hang the cur."
+
+Mr. Bosengate stared at that little wire-haired brute.  "Haven't you any
+feeling for others?"  he wanted to say.  "Can't you see that this poor
+devil suffers tortures?"  But the sheer impossibility of doing this
+before ten other men brought a slight sweat out on his face and hands;
+and in agitation he smote the table a blow with his fist.  The effect was
+instantaneous.  Everybody looked at the wire-haired man, as if saying:
+"Yes, you've gone a bit too far there!"  The "little brute" stood it for
+a moment, then muttered surlily:
+
+"Well, commend 'im to mercy if you like; I don't care."
+
+"That's right; they never pay any attention to it," said the grey-haired
+man, winking heartily.  And Mr. Bosengate filed back with the others into
+court.
+
+But when from the jury box his eyes fell once more on the hare-eyed
+figure in the dock, he had his worst moment yet.  Why should this poor
+wretch suffer so--for no fault, no fault; while he, and these others, and
+that snapping counsel, and the Caesar-like judge up there, went off to
+their women and their homes, blithe as bees, and probably never thought
+of him again?  And suddenly he was conscious of the judge's voice:
+
+"You will go back to your regiment, and endeavour to serve your country
+with better spirit.  You may thank the jury that you are not sent to
+prison, and your good fortune that you were not at the front when you
+tried to commit this cowardly act.  You are lucky to be alive."
+
+A policeman pulled the little soldier by the arm; his drab figure with
+eyes fixed and lustreless, passed down and away.  From his very soul Mr.
+Bosengate wanted to lean out and say: "Cheer up, cheer up!  I understand."
+
+It was nearly ten o'clock that evening before he reached home, motoring
+back from the route march.  His physical tiredness was abated, for he had
+partaken of a snack and a whisky and soda at the hotel; but mentally he
+was in a curious mood.  His body felt appeased, his spirit hungry.
+Tonight he had a yearning, not for his wife's kisses, but for her
+understanding.  He wanted to go to her and say: "I've learnt a lot
+to-day-found out things I never thought of. Life's a wonderful thing,
+Kate, a thing one can't live all to oneself; a thing one shares with
+everybody, so that when another suffers, one suffers too.  It's come to
+me that what one has doesn't matter a bit--it's what one does, and how
+one sympathises with other people.  It came to me in the most
+extraordinary vivid way, when I was on that jury, watching that poor
+little rat of a soldier in his trap; it's the first time I've ever
+felt--the--the spirit of Christ, you know.  It's a wonderful thing,
+Kate--wonderful!  We haven't been close--really close, you and I, so that
+we each understand what the other is feeling.  It's all in that, you
+know; understanding--sympathy--it's priceless.  When I saw that poor
+little devil taken down and sent back to his regiment to begin his
+sorrows all over again--wanting his wife, thinking and thinking of her
+just as you know I would be thinking and wanting you, I felt what an
+awful outside sort of life we lead, never telling each other what we
+really think and feel, never being really close.  I daresay that little
+chap and his wife keep nothing from each other--live each other's lives.
+That's what we ought to do.  Let's get to feeling that what really
+matters is--understanding and loving, and not only just saying it as we
+all do, those fellows on the jury, and even that poor devil of a
+judge--what an awful life judging one's fellow-creatures.
+
+"When I left that poor little Tommy this morning, and ever since, I've
+longed to get back here quietly to you and tell you about it, and make a
+beginning.  There's something wonderful in this, and I want you to feel
+it as I do, because you mean such a lot to me."
+
+This was what he wanted to say to his wife, not touching, or kissing her,
+just looking into her eyes, watching them soften and glow as they surely
+must, catching the infection of his new ardour.  And he felt unsteady,
+fearfully unsteady with the desire to say it all as it should be said:
+swiftly, quietly, with the truth and fervour of his feeling.
+
+The hall was not lit up, for daylight still lingered under the new
+arrangement.  He went towards the drawing-room, but from the very door
+shied off to his study and stood irresolute under the picture of a "Man
+catching a flea" (Dutch school), which had come down to him from his
+father.  The governess would be in there with his wife!  He must wait.
+Essential to go straight to Kathleen and pour it all out, or he would
+never do it.  He felt as nervous as an undergraduate going up for his
+viva' voce.  This thing was so big, so astoundingly and unexpectedly
+important.  He was suddenly afraid of his wife, afraid of her coolness
+and her grace, and that something Japanese about her--of all those
+attributes he had been accustomed to admire most; afraid, as it were, of
+her attraction.  He felt young to-night, almost boyish; would she see
+that he was not really fifteen years older than herself, and she not
+really a part of his collection, of all the admirable appointments of his
+home; but a companion spirit to one who wanted a companion badly.  In
+this agitation of his soul he could keep still no more than he could last
+night in the agitation of his senses; and he wandered into the
+dining-room.  A dainty supper was set out there, sandwiches, and cake,
+whisky and the cigarettes--even an early peach. Mr. Bosengate looked at
+this peach with sorrow rather than disgust.  The perfection of it was of
+a piece with all that had gone before this new and sudden feeling.  Its
+delicious bloom seemed to heighten his perception of the hedge around
+him, that hedge of the things he so enjoyed, carefully planted and tended
+these many years.  He passed it by uneaten, and went to the window.  Out
+there all was darkening, the fountain, the lime tree, the flower-beds,
+and the fields below, with the Jersey cows who would come to your call;
+darkening slowly, losing form, blurring into soft blackness, vanishing,
+but there none the less--all there--the hedge of his possessions.  He
+heard the door of the drawing-room open, the voices of his wife and the
+governess in the hall, going up to bed. If only they didn't look in here!
+If only!  The voices ceased.  He was safe now--had but to follow in a few
+minutes, to make sure of Kathleen alone.  He turned round and stared down
+the length of the dark dining-room, over the rosewood table, to where in
+the mirror above the sideboard at the far end, his figure bathed, a
+stain, a mere blurred shadow; he made his way down to it along the table
+edge, and stood before himself as close as he could get.  His throat and
+the roof of his mouth felt dry with nervousness; he put out his finger
+and touched his face in the glass.  'You're an ass!' he thought.  'Pull
+yourself together, and get it over.  She will see; of course she will!'
+He swallowed, smoothed his moustache, and walked out.  Going up the
+stairs, his heart beat painfully; but he was in for it now, and marched
+straight into her room. Dressed only in a loose blue wrapper, she was
+brushing her dark hair before the glass.  Mr. Bosengate went up to her
+and stood there silent, looking down.  The words he had thought of were
+like a swarm of bees buzzing in his head, yet not one would fly from
+between his lips.  His wife went on brushing her hair under the light
+which shone on her polished elbows.  She looked up at him from beneath
+one lifted eyebrow.
+
+"Well, dear--tired?"
+
+With a sort of vehemence the single word "No" passed out.  A faint, a
+quizzical smile flitted over her face; she shrugged her shoulders ever so
+gently.  That gesture--he had seen it before!  And in desperate desire to
+make her understand, he put his hand on her lifted arm.
+
+"Kathleen, stop--listen to me!"  His fingers tightened in his agitation
+and eagerness to make his great discovery known.  But before he could get
+out a word he became conscious of that cool round arm, conscious of her
+eyes half-closed, sliding round at him, of her half-smiling lips, of her
+neck under the wrapper.  And he stammered:
+
+"I want--I must--Kathleen, I---"
+
+She lifted her shoulders again in that little shrug.  "Yes--I know; all
+right!"
+
+A wave of heat and shame, and of God knows what came over Mr. Bosengate;
+he fell on his knees and pressed his forehead to her arm; and he was
+silent, more silent than the grave.  Nothing--nothing came from him but
+two long sighs.  Suddenly he felt her hand stroke his
+cheek--compassionately, it seemed to him.  She made a little movement
+towards him; her lips met his, and he remembered nothing but that....
+
+In his own room Mr. Bosengate sat at his wide open window, smoking a
+cigarette; there was no light.  Moths went past, the moon was creeping
+up.  He sat very calm, puffing the smoke out in to the night air.
+Curious thing-life!  Curious world!  Curious forces in it--making one do
+the opposite of what one wished; always--always making one do the
+opposite, it seemed!  The furtive light from that creeping moon was
+getting hold of things down there, stealing in among the boughs of the
+trees.  'There's something ironical,' he thought, 'which walks about.
+Things don't come off as you think they will.  I meant, I tried but one
+doesn't change like that all of a sudden, it seems.  Fact is, life's too
+big a thing for one!  All the same, I'm not the man I was yesterday--not
+quite!'  He closed his eyes, and in one of those flashes of vision which
+come when the senses are at rest, he saw himself as it were far down
+below--down on the floor of a street narrow as a grave, high as a
+mountain, a deep dark slit of a street walking down there, a black midget
+of a fellow, among other black midgets--his wife, and the little soldier,
+the judge, and those jury chaps--fantoches straight up on their tiny
+feet, wandering down there in that dark, infinitely tall, and narrow
+street.  'Too much for one!' he thought; 'Too high for one--no getting on
+top of it. We've got to be kind, and help one another, and not expect too
+much, and not think too much.  That's--all!'  And, squeezing out his
+cigarette, he took six deep breaths of the night air, and got into bed.
+
+
+
+
+INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE
+
+      "And Summer's lease hath all
+                too short a date."
+                --Shakespeare
+
+I
+
+In the last day of May in the early 'nineties, about six o'clock of the
+evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the terrace of
+his house at Robin Hill.  He was waiting for the midges to bite him,
+before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.  His thin brown hand, where
+blue veins stood out, held the end of a cigar in its tapering,
+long-nailed fingers--a pointed polished nail had survived with him from
+those earlier Victorian days when to touch nothing, even with the tips of
+the fingers, had been so distinguished.  His domed forehead, great white
+moustache, lean cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering
+sunshine by an old brown Panama hat.  His legs were crossed; in all his
+attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an old man who every
+morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk handkerchief.  At his feet lay a
+woolly brown-and-white dog trying to be a Pomeranian--the dog Balthasar
+between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion had changed into attachment
+with the years.  Close to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was
+seated one of Holly's dolls--called 'Duffer Alice'--with her body fallen
+over her legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat.  She was
+never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.  Below
+the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the fernery, and,
+beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to the pond, the coppice,
+and the prospect--'Fine, remarkable'--at which Swithin Forsyte, from
+under this very tree, had stared five years ago when he drove down with
+Irene to look at the house.  Old Jolyon had heard of his brother's
+exploit--that drive which had become quite celebrated on Forsyte 'Change.
+Swithin!  And the fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of
+only seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for
+ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away.  Died! and left
+only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy, Julia, Hester,
+Susan!  And old Jolyon thought: 'Eighty-five!  I don't feel it--except
+when I get that pain.'
+
+His memory went searching.  He had not felt his age since he had bought
+his nephew Soames' ill-starred house and settled into it here at Robin
+Hill over three years ago.  It was as if he had been getting younger
+every spring, living in the country with his son and his
+grandchildren--June, and the little ones of the second marriage, Jolly
+and Holly; living down here out of the racket of London and the cackle of
+Forsyte 'Change,' free of his boards, in a delicious atmosphere of no
+work and all play, with plenty of occupation in the perfecting and
+mellowing of the house and its twenty acres, and in ministering to the
+whims of Holly and Jolly. All the knots and crankiness, which had
+gathered in his heart during that long and tragic business of June,
+Soames, Irene his wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out.
+Even June had thrown off her melancholy at last--witness this travel in
+Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.  Curiously
+perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful, yet blank, because
+his son was not there.  Jo was never anything but a comfort and a
+pleasure to him nowadays--an amiable chap; but women, somehow--even the
+best--got a little on one's nerves, unless of course one admired them.
+
+Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first elm-tree
+in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had sprung up after the
+last mowing!  The wind had got into the sou' west, too--a delicious air,
+sappy!  He pushed his hat back and let the sun fall on his chin and cheek.
+Somehow, to-day, he wanted company--wanted a pretty face to look at.
+People treated the old as if they wanted nothing.  And with the
+un-Forsytean philosophy which ever intruded on his soul, he thought:
+'One's never had enough. With a foot in the grave one'll want something,
+I shouldn't be surprised!'  Down here--away from the exigencies of
+affairs--his grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his little
+domain, to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above them, said, 'Open,
+sesame,' to him day and night.  And sesame had opened--how much, perhaps,
+he did not know.  He had always been responsive to what they had begun to
+call 'Nature,' genuinely, almost religiously responsive, though he had
+never lost his habit of calling a sunset a sunset and a view a view,
+however deeply they might move him. But nowadays Nature actually made him
+ache, he appreciated it so. Every one of these calm, bright, lengthening
+days, with Holly's hand in his, and the dog Balthasar in front looking
+studiously for what he never found, he would stroll, watching the roses
+open, fruit budding on the walls, sunlight brightening the oak leaves and
+saplings in the coppice, watching the water-lily leaves unfold and
+glisten, and the silvery young corn of the one wheat field; listening to
+the starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud,
+flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine days he
+ached a little from sheer love of it all, feeling perhaps, deep down,
+that he had not very much longer to enjoy it.  The thought that some
+day--perhaps not ten years hence, perhaps not five--all this world would
+be taken away from him, before he had exhausted his powers of loving it,
+seemed to him in the nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon. If
+anything came after this life, it wouldn't be what he wanted; not Robin
+Hill, and flowers and birds and pretty faces--too few, even now, of those
+about him!  With the years his dislike of humbug had increased; the
+orthodoxy he had worn in the 'sixties, as he had worn side-whiskers out
+of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off, leaving him reverent before
+three things alone--beauty, upright conduct, and the sense of property;
+and the greatest of these now was beauty.  He had always had wide
+interests, and, indeed could still read The Times, but he was liable at
+any moment to put it down if he heard a blackbird sing.  Upright conduct,
+property--somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never
+tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough
+of them.  Staring into the stilly radiance of the early evening and at
+the little gold and white flowers on the lawn, a thought came to him:
+This weather was like the music of 'Orfeo,' which he had recently heard
+at Covent Garden.  A beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite
+Mozart, but, in its way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical
+and of the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli
+'almost worthy of the old days'--highest praise he could bestow. The
+yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his love going down
+to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go--the yearning which sang and
+throbbed through the golden music, stirred also in the lingering beauty
+of the world that evening.  And with the tip of his cork-soled,
+elastic-sided boot he involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog
+Balthasar, causing the animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he
+was supposed to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact.  When
+he had finished he rubbed the place he had been scratching against his
+master's calf, and settled down again with his chin over the instep of
+the disturbing boot.  And into old Jolyon's mind came a sudden
+recollection--a face he had seen at that opera three weeks ago--Irene,
+the wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of property!  Though he
+had not met her since the day of  the 'At Home' in his old house at
+Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his granddaughter June's ill-starred
+engagement to young Bosinney, he had remembered her at once, for he had
+always admired her--a very pretty creature.  After the death of young
+Bosinney, whose mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard
+that she had left Soames at once.  Goodness only knew what she had been
+doing since.  That sight of her face--a side view--in the row in front,
+had been literally the only reminder these three years that she was still
+alive.  No one ever spoke of her.  And yet Jo had told him something
+once--something which had upset him completely. The boy had got it from
+George Forsyte, he believed, who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he
+was run over--something which explained the young fellow's distress--an
+act of Soames towards his wife--a shocking act.  Jo had seen her, too,
+that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his
+description had always lingered in old Jolyon's mind--'wild and lost' he
+had called her.  And next day June had gone there--bottled up her
+feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her
+mistress had slipped out in the night and vanished.  A tragic business
+altogether!  One thing was certain--Soames had never been able to lay
+hands on her again.  And he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and
+down--a fitting fate, the man of property!  For when he once took a
+dislike to anyone--as he had to his nephew--old Jolyon never got over it.
+He remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the news
+of Irene's disappearance.  It had been shocking to think of her a
+prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered back, when Jo saw
+her, wandered back for a moment--like a wounded animal to its hole after
+seeing that news, 'Tragic death of an Architect,' in the street.  Her
+face had struck him very much the other night--more beautiful than he had
+remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it.  A young
+woman still--twenty-eight perhaps.  Ah, well!  Very likely she had another
+lover by now.  But at this subversive thought--for married women should
+never love: once, even, had been too much--his instep rose, and with it
+the dog Balthasar's head.  The sagacious animal stood up and looked into
+old Jolyon's face.  'Walk?' he seemed to say; and old Jolyon answered:
+"Come on, old chap!"
+
+Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of
+buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery.  This feature, where
+very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of
+the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn
+and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture.
+Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes
+found a mole there.  Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it
+because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be, some
+day, and he would think: 'I must get Varr to come down and look at it;
+he's better than Beech.' For plants, like houses and human complaints,
+required the best expert consideration.  It was inhabited by snails, and
+if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one and tell them
+the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers got leggers, Mother?
+'No, sonny.'  'Then darned if I haven't been and swallowed a snileybob.'
+And when they skipped and clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob
+going down the little boy's 'red lane,' his eyes would twinkle.  Emerging
+from the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into
+the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within brick
+walls, the vegetable garden had been carved.  Old Jolyon avoided this,
+which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill towards the pond.
+Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two, gambolled in front, at the gait
+which marks an oldish dog who takes the same walk every day. Arrived at
+the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting another water-lily opened since
+yesterday; he would show it to Holly to-morrow, when 'his little sweet'
+had got over the upset which had followed on her eating a tomato at
+lunch--her little arrangements were very delicate.  Now that Jolly had
+gone to school--his first term--Holly was with him nearly all day long,
+and he missed her badly.  He felt that pain too, which often bothered him
+now, a little dragging at his left side.  He looked back up the hill.
+Really, poor young Bosinney had made an uncommonly good job of the house;
+he would have done very well for himself if he had lived!  And where was
+he now?  Perhaps, still haunting this, the site of his last work, of his
+tragic love affair.  Or was Philip Bosinney's spirit diffused in the
+general?  Who could say?  That dog was getting his legs muddy!  And he
+moved towards the coppice.  There had been the most delightful lot of
+bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered like little patches of
+sky fallen in between the trees, away out of the sun.  He passed the
+cow-houses and the hen-houses there installed, and pursued a path into
+the thick of the saplings, making for one of the bluebell plots.
+Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered a low growl.  Old Jolyon
+stirred him with his foot, but the dog remained motionless, just where
+there was no room to pass, and the hair rose slowly along the centre of
+his woolly back.  Whether from the growl and the look of the dog's
+stivered hair, or from the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old
+Jolyon also felt something move along his spine.  And then the path
+turned, and there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her
+face was turned away, and he had just time to think: 'She's
+trespassing--I must have a board put up!' before she turned. Powers
+above!  The face he had seen at the opera--the very woman he had just
+been thinking of!  In that confused moment he saw things blurred, as if a
+spirit--queer effect--the slant of sunlight perhaps on her violet-grey
+frock!  And then she rose and stood smiling, her head a little to one
+side.  Old Jolyon thought: 'How pretty she is!' She did not speak,
+neither did he; and he realized why with a certain admiration.  She was
+here no doubt because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out
+of it by vulgar explanation.
+
+"Don't let that dog touch your frock," he said; "he's got wet feet. Come
+here, you!"
+
+But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her hand down
+and stroked his head.  Old Jolyon said quickly:
+
+"I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn't notice me."
+
+"Oh, yes!  I did."
+
+He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: 'Do you think
+one could miss seeing you?'
+
+"They're all in Spain," he remarked abruptly.  "I'm alone; I drove up for
+the opera.  The Ravogli's good.  Have you seen the cow-houses?"
+
+In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like emotion he
+moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and she moved beside
+him.  Her figure swayed faintly, like the best kind of French figures;
+her dress, too, was a sort of French grey. He noticed two or three silver
+threads in her amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of
+hers, and that creamy-pale face.  A sudden sidelong look from the velvety
+brown eyes disturbed him.  It seemed to come from deep and far, from
+another world almost, or at all events from some one not living very much
+in this.  And he said mechanically:
+
+"Where are you living now?"
+
+"I have a little flat in Chelsea."
+
+He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
+anything; but the perverse word came out:
+
+"Alone?"
+
+She nodded.  It was a relief to know that.  And it came into his mind
+that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress of this
+coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.
+
+"All Alderneys," he muttered; "they give the best milk.  This one's a
+pretty creature.  Woa, Myrtle!"
+
+The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene's own, was
+standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.  She looked round
+at them out of the corner of those lustrous, mild, cynical eyes, and from
+her grey lips a little dribble of saliva threaded its way towards the
+straw.  The scent of hay and vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim light of
+the cool cow-house; and old Jolyon said:
+
+"You must come up and have some dinner with me.  I'll send you home in
+the carriage."
+
+He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt, with her
+memories.  But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a charming figure,
+beauty!  He had been alone all the afternoon. Perhaps his eyes were
+wistful, for she answered: "Thank you, Uncle Jolyon.  I should like to."
+
+He rubbed his hands, and said:
+
+"Capital!  Let's go up, then!" And, preceded by the dog Balthasar, they
+ascended through the field.  The sun was almost level in their faces now,
+and he could see, not only those silver threads, but little lines, just
+deep enough to stamp her beauty with a coin-like fineness--the special
+look of life unshared with others.  "I'll take her in by the terrace," he
+thought: "I won't make a common visitor of her."
+
+"What do you do all day?" he said.
+
+"Teach music; I have another interest, too."
+
+"Work!" said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing, and
+smoothing its black petticoat.  "Nothing like it, is there?  I don't do
+any now.  I'm getting on.  What interest is that?"
+
+"Trying to help women who've come to grief."  Old Jolyon did not quite
+understand.  "To grief?" he repeated; then realised with a shock that she
+meant exactly what he would have meant himself if he had used that
+expression.  Assisting the Magdalenes of London!  What a weird and
+terrifying interest!  And, curiosity overcoming his natural shrinking, he
+asked:
+
+"Why?  What do you do for them?"
+
+"Not much.  I've no money to spare.  I can only give sympathy and food
+sometimes."
+
+Involuntarily old Jolyon's hand sought his purse.  He said hastily: "How
+d'you get hold of them?"
+
+"I go to a hospital."
+
+"A hospital!  Phew!"
+
+"What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
+beauty."
+
+Old Jolyon straightened the doll.  "Beauty!" he ejaculated: "Ha!  Yes!  A
+sad business!" and he moved towards the house.  Through a French window,
+under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her into the room where he
+was wont to study The Times and the sheets of an agricultural magazine,
+with huge illustrations of mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided
+Holly with material for her paint brush.
+
+"Dinner's in half an hour.  You'd like to wash your hands!  I'll take you
+to June's room."
+
+He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last visited
+this house with her husband, or her lover, or both perhaps--he did not
+know, could not say!  All that was dark, and he wished to leave it so.
+But what changes!  And in the hall he said:
+
+"My boy Jo's a painter, you know.  He's got a lot of taste.  It isn't
+mine, of course, but I've let him have his way."
+
+She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall and music
+room, as it now was--all thrown into one, under the great skylight.  Old
+Jolyon had an odd impression of her.  Was she trying to conjure somebody
+from the shades of that space where the colouring was all pearl-grey and
+silver?  He would have had gold himself; more lively and solid.  But Jo
+had French tastes, and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect
+as of the fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and
+there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour.  It was not his dream!
+Mentally he had hung this space with those gold-framed masterpieces of
+still and stiller life which he had bought in days when quantity was
+precious.  And now where were they?  Sold for a song!  That something
+which made him, alone among Forsytes, move with the times had warned him
+against the struggle to retain them.  But in his study he still had
+'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.'
+
+He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his side.
+
+"These are the bathrooms," he said, "and other arrangements.  I've had
+them tiled.  The nurseries are along there.  And this is Jo's and his
+wife's.  They all communicate.  But you remember, I expect."
+
+Irene nodded.  They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large room
+with a small bed, and several windows.
+
+"This is mine," he said.  The walls were covered with the photographs of
+children and watercolour sketches, and he added doubtfully:
+
+"These are Jo's.  The view's first-rate.  You can see the Grand Stand at
+Epsom in clear weather."
+
+The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the 'prospect' a
+luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous day.  Few
+houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened, away to a loom of
+downs.
+
+"The country's changing," he said abruptly, "but there it'll be when
+we're all gone.  Look at those thrushes--the birds are sweet here in the
+mornings.  I'm glad to have washed my hands of London."
+
+Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its mournful
+look.  'Wish I could make her look happy!' he thought.  'A pretty face,
+but sad!'  And taking up his can of hot water he went out into the
+gallery.
+
+"This is June's room," he said, opening the next door and putting the can
+down; "I think you'll find everything." And closing the door behind her
+he went back to his own room.  Brushing his hair with his great ebony
+brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau de Cologne, he mused.  She had
+come so strangely--a sort of visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if
+his desire for company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was
+which fulfilled that sort of thing.  And before the mirror he
+straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over his great
+white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de Cologne, and rang
+the bell.
+
+"I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me. Let cook
+do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau and pair at
+half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night.  Is Miss Holly asleep?"
+
+The maid thought not.  And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery, stole on
+tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose hinges he kept
+specially oiled that he might slip in and out in the evenings without
+being heard.
+
+But Holly was asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that type
+which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they had completed
+her.  Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on her face was perfect
+peace--her little arrangements were evidently all right again.  And old
+Jolyon, in the twilight of the room, stood adoring her!  It was so
+charming, solemn, and loving--that little face.  He had more than his
+share of the blessed capacity of living again in the young.  They were to
+him his future life--all of a future life that his fundamental pagan
+sanity perhaps admitted.  There she was with everything before her, and
+his blood--some of it--in her tiny veins.  There she was, his little
+companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that she
+knew nothing but love.  His heart swelled, and he went out, stilling the
+sound of his patent-leather boots.  In the corridor an eccentric notion
+attacked him: To think that children should come to that which Irene had
+told him she was helping!  Women who were all, once, little things like
+this one sleeping there!  'I must give her a cheque!' he mused; 'Can't
+bear to think of them!'  They had never borne reflecting on, those poor
+outcasts; wounding too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under
+layers of conformity to the sense of property--wounding too grievously
+the deepest thing in him--a love of beauty which could give him, even
+now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the society of a
+pretty woman.  And he went downstairs, through the swinging doors, to the
+back regions.  There, in the wine-cellar, was a hock worth at least two
+pounds a bottle, a Steinberg Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg that
+ever went down throat; a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a
+nectarine--nectar indeed!  He got a bottle out, handling it like a baby,
+and holding it level to the light, to look.  Enshrined in its coat of
+dust, that mellow coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure.
+Three years to settle down again since the move from Town--ought to be in
+prime condition!  Thirty-five years ago he had bought it--thank God he had
+kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it.  She would appreciate
+this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen.  He wiped the bottle, drew the
+cork with his own hands, put his nose down, inhaled its perfume, and went
+back to the music room.
+
+Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a lace
+scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair was visible,
+and the pallor of her neck.  In her grey frock she made a pretty picture
+for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the piano.
+
+He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went.  The room, which had been
+designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort, held now but a
+little round table.  In his present solitude the big dining-table
+oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed till his son came
+back.  Here in the company of two really good copies of Raphael Madonnas
+he was wont to dine alone.  It was the only disconsolate hour of his day,
+this summer weather.  He had never been a large eater, like that great
+chap Swithin, or Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies
+of past times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him
+but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he might
+come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and cigar.  But this
+evening was a different matter!  His eyes twinkled at her across the
+little table and he spoke of Italy and Switzerland, telling her stories
+of his travels there, and other experiences which he could no longer
+recount to his son and grand-daughter because they knew them.  This fresh
+audience was precious to him; he had never become one of those old men
+who ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence.  Himself quickly
+fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided fatiguing others,
+and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty guarded him specially in
+his relations with a woman.  He would have liked to draw her out, but
+though she murmured and smiled and seemed to be enjoying what he told
+her, he remained conscious of that mysterious remoteness which
+constituted half her fascination.  He could not bear women who threw
+their shoulders and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-mouthed
+women who laid down the law and knew more than you did. There was only
+one quality in a woman that appealed to him--charm; and the quieter it
+was, the more he liked it.  And this one had charm, shadowy as afternoon
+sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had loved.  The feeling,
+too, that she was, as it were, apart, cloistered, made her seem nearer to
+himself, a strangely desirable companion.  When a man is very old and
+quite out of the running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of
+youth, for he would still be first in the heart of beauty.  And he drank
+his hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young.  But the dog
+Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart the
+interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those greenish glasses
+full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to him.
+
+The light was just failing when they went back into the music-room. And,
+cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:
+
+"Play me some Chopin."
+
+By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the
+texture of men's souls.  Old Jolyon could not bear a strong cigar or
+Wagner's music.  He loved Beethoven and Mozart, Handel and Gluck, and
+Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the operas of Meyerbeer; but of
+late years he had been seduced by Chopin, just as in painting he had
+succumbed to Botticelli.  In yielding to these tastes he had been
+conscious of divergence from the standard of the Golden Age.  Their
+poetry was not that of Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and
+Titian; Mozart and Beethoven.  It was, as it were, behind a veil; their
+poetry hit no one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and
+turned and twisted, and melted up the heart.  And, never certain that
+this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could see the
+pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.
+
+Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned with
+pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could see her,
+crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar.  She sat a few moments
+with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her mind for what to give
+him.  Then she began and within old Jolyon there arose a sorrowful
+pleasure, not quite like anything else in the world.  He fell slowly into
+a trance, interrupted only by the movements of taking the cigar out of
+his mouth at long intervals, and replacing it.  She was there, and the
+hock within him, and the scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of
+sunshine lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and
+bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and fields of
+lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a woman all shadowy,
+with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled, holding out her arms; and
+through air which was like music a star dropped and was caught on a cow's
+horn.  He opened his eyes.  Beautiful piece; she played well--the touch
+of an angel!  And he closed them again.  He felt miraculously sad and
+happy, as one does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower.  Not
+live one's own life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile of
+a woman's eyes, and enjoy the bouquet!  And he jerked his hand; the dog
+Balthasar had reached up and licked it.
+
+"Beautiful!" He said: "Go on--more Chopin!"
+
+She began to play again.  This time the resemblance between her and
+'Chopin' struck him.  The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in her
+playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the soft darkness of her
+eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight from a golden moon.
+Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her or in that music.  A long
+blue spiral from his cigar ascended and dispersed.  'So we go out!' he
+thought.  'No more beauty!  Nothing?'
+
+Again Irene stopped.
+
+"Would you like some Gluck?  He used to write his music in a sunlit
+garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him."
+
+"Ah! yes.  Let's have 'Orfeo.'"  Round about him now were fields of gold
+and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight, bright birds
+flying to and fro.  All was summer.  Lingering waves of sweetness and
+regret flooded his soul.  Some cigar ash dropped, and taking out a silk
+handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a mingled scent as of snuff and
+eau de Cologne.  'Ah!' he thought, 'Indian summer--that's all!' and he
+said: "You haven't played me 'Che faro.'"
+
+She did not answer; did not move.  He was conscious of something--some
+strange upset.  Suddenly he saw her rise and turn away, and a pang of
+remorse shot through him.  What a clumsy chap!  Like Orpheus, she of
+course--she too was looking for her lost one in the hall of memory!  And
+disturbed to the heart, he got up from his chair.  She had gone to the
+great window at the far end.  Gingerly he followed.  Her hands were
+folded over her breast; he could just see her cheek, very white.  And,
+quite emotionalized, he said:
+
+"There, there, my love!"  The words had escaped him mechanically, for
+they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but their effect
+was instantaneously distressing.  She raised her arms, covered her face
+with them, and wept.
+
+Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age.  The
+passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike the
+control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had never before
+broken down in the presence of another being.
+
+"There, there--there, there!" he murmured, and putting his hand out
+reverently, touched her.  She turned, and leaned the arms which covered
+her face against him.  Old Jolyon stood very still, keeping one thin hand
+on her shoulder.  Let her cry her heart out--it would do her good.
+
+And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine them.
+
+The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the last of
+daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from the lamp within;
+there was a scent of new-mown grass.  With the wisdom of a long life old
+Jolyon did not speak.  Even grief sobbed itself out in time; only Time
+was good for sorrow--Time who saw the passing of each mood, each emotion
+in turn; Time the layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: 'As
+panteth the hart after cooling streams'--but they were of no use to him.
+Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes.
+He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her forehead, and
+felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body, as of a tree which
+shakes itself free of raindrops.  She put his hand to her lips, as if
+saying: "All over now!  Forgive me!"
+
+The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to where she
+had been so upset.  And the dog Balthasar, following, laid the bone of
+one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.
+
+Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think of
+nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from cabinet to
+cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and Lowestoft and Chelsea,
+turning them round and round with his thin, veined hands, whose skin,
+faintly freckled, had such an aged look.
+
+"I bought this at Jobson's," he would say; "cost me thirty pounds. It's
+very old.  That dog leaves his bones all over the place.  This old
+'ship-bowl' I picked up at the sale when that precious rip, the Marquis,
+came to grief.  But you don't remember.  Here's a nice piece of Chelsea.
+Now, what would you say this was?"  And he was comforted, feeling that,
+with her taste, she was taking a real interest in these things; for,
+after all, nothing better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of
+china.
+
+When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he said:
+
+"You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you these
+by daylight, and my little sweet--she's a dear little thing. This dog
+seems to have taken a fancy to you."
+
+For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing his side
+against her leg.  Going out under the porch with her, he said:
+
+"He'll get you up in an hour and a quarter.  Take this for your
+protegees," and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her hand. He
+saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: "Oh!  Uncle Jolyon!" and a
+real throb of pleasure went through him.  That meant one or two poor
+creatures helped a little, and it meant that she would come again.  He
+put his hand in at the window and grasped hers once more.  The carriage
+rolled away.  He stood looking at the moon and the shadows of the trees,
+and thought: 'A sweet night!  She......!'
+II
+
+Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny.  Old Jolyon walked
+and talked with Holly.  At first he felt taller and full of a new vigour;
+then he felt restless.  Almost every afternoon they would enter the
+coppice, and walk as far as the log.  'Well, she's not there!' he would
+think, 'of course not!'  And he would feel a little shorter, and drag his
+feet walking up the hill home, with his hand clapped to his left side.
+Now and then the thought would move in him: 'Did she come--or did I dream
+it?' and he would stare at space, while the dog Balthasar stared at him.
+Of course she would not come again!  He opened the letters from Spain
+with less excitement.  They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly,
+that he could bear it.  Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes and
+looked at where she had sat.  She was not there, so he unscrewed his eyes
+again.
+
+On the seventh afternoon he thought: 'I must go up and get some boots.'
+He ordered Beacon, and set out.  Passing from Putney towards Hyde Park he
+reflected: 'I might as well go to Chelsea and see her.'  And he called
+out: "Just drive me to where you took that lady the other night."  The
+coachman turned his broad red face, and his juicy lips answered: "The
+lady in grey, sir?"
+
+"Yes, the lady in grey."  What other ladies were there!  Stodgy chap!
+
+The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,
+standing a little back from the river.  With a practised eye old Jolyon
+saw that they were cheap.  'I should think about sixty pound a year,'  he
+mused; and entering, he looked at the name-board.  The name 'Forsyte' was
+not on it, but against 'First Floor, Flat C' were the words: 'Mrs. Irene
+Heron.'  Ah!  She had taken her maiden name again!  And somehow this
+pleased him.  He went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little.  He
+stood a moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and
+fluttering there.  She would not be in!  And then--Boots!  The thought
+was black.  What did he want with boots at his age?  He could not wear out
+all those he had.
+
+"Your mistress at home?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."
+
+"Yes, sir, will you come this way?"
+
+Old Jolyon followed a very little maid--not more than sixteen one would
+say--into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn.  It
+held a cottage piano and little else save a vague fragrance and good
+taste.  He stood in the middle, with his top hat in his hand, and
+thought: 'I expect she's very badly off!' There was a mirror above the
+fireplace, and he saw himself reflected.  An old-looking chap!  He heard
+a rustle, and turned round.  She was so close that his moustache almost
+brushed her forehead, just under her hair.
+
+"I was driving up," he said.  "Thought I'd look in on you, and ask you
+how you got up the other night."
+
+And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved.  She was really glad to
+see him, perhaps.
+
+"Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the Park?"
+
+But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned.  The Park!  James
+and Emily!  Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his precious family
+would be there very likely, prancing up and down. And they would go and
+wag their tongues about having seen him with her, afterwards.  Better
+not!  He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on Forsyte
+'Change.  He removed a white hair from the lapel of his
+closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks,
+moustache, and square chin.  It felt very hollow there under the
+cheekbones.  He had not been eating much lately--he had better get that
+little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic.  But she
+had come back and when they were in the carriage, he said:
+
+"Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?" and added with a
+twinkle: "No prancing up and down there," as if she had been in the
+secret of his thoughts.
+
+Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and strolled
+towards the water.
+
+"You've gone back to your maiden name, I see," he said: "I'm not sorry."
+
+She slipped her hand under his arm: "Has June forgiven me, Uncle Jolyon?"
+
+He answered gently: "Yes--yes; of course, why not?"
+
+"And have you?"
+
+"I?  I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay."  And
+perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.
+
+She drew a deep breath.  "I never regretted--I couldn't.  Did you ever
+love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?"
+
+At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him.  Had he?  He did
+not seem to remember that he ever had.  But he did not like to say this
+to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose life was
+suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love.  And he thought: 'If I
+had met you when I was young I--I might have made a fool of myself,
+perhaps.'  And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.
+
+"Love's a queer thing," he said, "fatal thing often.  It was the
+Greeks--wasn't it?--made love into a goddess; they were right, I dare
+say, but then they lived in the Golden Age."
+
+"Phil adored them."
+
+Phil!  The word jarred him, for suddenly--with his power to see all round
+a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like this.  She
+wanted to talk about her lover!  Well!  If it was any pleasure to her!
+And he said: "Ah!  There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy."
+
+"Yes.  He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted way the
+Greeks gave themselves to art."
+
+Balance!  The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
+symmetry--clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of
+his, and high cheek-bones--Symmetry?
+
+"You're of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon."
+
+Old Jolyon looked round at her.  Was she chaffing him?  No, her eyes were
+soft as velvet.  Was she flattering him?  But if so, why?  There was
+nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
+
+"Phil thought so.  He used to say: 'But I can never tell him that I
+admire him.'"
+
+Ah!  There it was again.  Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him!  And
+he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as
+if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.
+
+"He was a very talented young fellow," he murmured.  "It's hot; I feel
+the heat nowadays.  Let's sit down."
+
+They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered
+them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon.  A pleasure to sit there
+and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to
+increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:
+
+"I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw.  He'd be at his best
+with you.  His ideas of art were a little new--to me "--he had stiffed
+the word 'fangled.'
+
+"Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty."  Old Jolyon
+thought: 'The devil he did!' but answered with a twinkle: "Well, I have,
+or I shouldn't be sitting here with you."  She was fascinating when she
+smiled with her eyes, like that!
+
+"He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old.  Phil had
+real insight."
+
+He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a
+longing to talk of her dead lover--not a bit; and yet it was precious to
+hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which--quite true!--had
+never grown old.  Was that because--unlike her and her dead lover, he had
+never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of
+symmetry.  Well!  It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty.
+And he thought, 'If I were a painter or a sculptor!  But I'm an old chap.
+Make hay while the sun shines.'
+
+A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at the edge
+of the shadow from their tree.  The sunlight fell cruelly on their pale,
+squashed, unkempt young faces.  "We're an ugly lot!" said old Jolyon
+suddenly.  "It amazes me to see how--love triumphs over that."
+
+"Love triumphs over everything!"
+
+"The young think so," he muttered.
+
+"Love has no age, no limit, and no death."
+
+With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so large
+and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life!  But this
+extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: "Well, if
+it had limits, we shouldn't be born; for by George! it's got a lot to put
+up with."
+
+Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff.  The great
+clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of
+blood to the head--his circulation was not what it had been.
+
+She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:
+
+"It's strange enough that I'm alive."
+
+Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.
+
+"Ah!" he said: "my son saw you for a moment--that day."
+
+"Was it your son?  I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it
+was--Phil."
+
+Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble.  She put her hand over them, took it
+away again, and went on calmly: "That night I went to the Embankment; a
+woman caught me by the dress.  She told me about herself.  When one knows
+that others suffer, one's ashamed."
+
+"One of those?"
+
+She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who
+has never known a struggle with desperation.  Almost against his will he
+muttered: "Tell me, won't you?"
+
+"I didn't care whether I lived or died.  When you're like that, Fate
+ceases to want to kill you.  She took care of me three days--she never
+left me.  I had no money.  That's why I do what I can for them, now."
+
+But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!'  What fate could compare with
+that?  Every other was involved in it.
+
+"I wish you had come to me," he said.  "Why didn't you?"  But Irene did
+not answer.
+
+"Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose?  Or was it June who kept you
+away?  How are you getting on now?"  His eyes involuntarily swept her
+body.  Perhaps even now she was--!  And yet she wasn't thin--not really!
+
+"Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough."  The answer did
+not reassure him; he had lost confidence.  And that fellow Soames!  But
+his sense of justice stifled condemnation.  No, she would certainly have
+died rather than take another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there
+must be strength in her somewhere--strength and fidelity.  But what
+business had young Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded
+like this!
+
+"Well, you must come to me now," he said, "for anything you want, or I
+shall be quite cut up."  And putting on his hat, he rose. "Let's go and
+get some tea.  I told that lazy chap to put the horses up for an hour,
+and come for me at your place.  We'll take a cab presently; I can't walk
+as I used to."
+
+He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens--the sound of
+her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty of a charming form
+moving beside him.  He enjoyed their tea at Ruffel's in the High Street,
+and came out thence with a great box of chocolates swung on his little
+finger.  He enjoyed the drive back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his
+cigar.  She had promised to come down next Sunday and play to him again,
+and already in thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her
+to carry back to town.  It was a pleasure to give her a little pleasure,
+if it WERE pleasure from an old chap like him!  The carriage was already
+there when they arrived.  Just like that fellow, who was always late when
+he was wanted!  Old Jolyon went in for a minute to say good-bye.  The
+little dark hall of the flat was impregnated with a disagreeable odour of
+patchouli, and on a bench against the wall--its only furniture--he saw a
+figure sitting.  He heard Irene say softly: "Just one minute."  In the
+little drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely: "One of
+your protegees?"
+
+"Yes.  Now thanks to you, I can do something for her."
+
+He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had frightened
+so many in its time.  The idea of her thus actually in contact with this
+outcast grieved and frightened him.  What could she do for them?  Nothing.
+Only soil and make trouble for herself, perhaps.  And he said: "Take
+care, my dear!  The world puts the worst construction on everything."
+
+"I know that."
+
+He was abashed by her quiet smile.  "Well then--Sunday," he murmured:
+"Good-bye."
+
+She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.
+
+"Good-bye," he said again; "take care of yourself."  And he went out, not
+looking towards the figure on the bench.  He drove home by way of
+Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of and tell them to
+send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy.  She must want picking-up
+sometimes!  Only in Richmond Park did he remember that he had gone up to
+order himself some boots, and was surprised that he could have had so
+paltry an idea.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The little spirits of the past which throng an old man's days had never
+pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy hours elapsing
+before Sunday came.  The spirit of the future, with the charm of the
+unknown, put up her lips instead.  Old Jolyon was not restless now, and
+paid no visits to the log, because she was coming to lunch.  There is
+wonderful finality about a meal; it removes a world of doubts, for no one
+misses meals except for reasons beyond control.  He played many games
+with Holly on the lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to
+be ready to bowl to Jolly in the holidays.  For she was not a Forsyte,
+but Jolly was--and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and
+reached the age of eighty-five.  The dog Balthasar, in attendance, lay on
+the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded, till his face
+was like the harvest moon.  And because the time was getting shorter,
+each day was longer and more golden than the last. On Friday night he
+took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and though it was not the
+liver side, there is no remedy like that. Anyone telling him that he had
+found a new excitement in life and that excitement was not good for him,
+would have been met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of
+his deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: 'I know my own business
+best.'  He always had and always would.
+
+On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to church, he
+visited the strawberry beds.  There, accompanied by the dog Balthasar, he
+examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in finding at least two dozen
+berries which were really ripe. Stooping was not good for him, and he
+became very dizzy and red in the forehead.  Having placed the
+strawberries in a dish on the dining-table, he washed his hands and
+bathed his forehead with eau de Cologne.  There, before the mirror, it
+occurred to him that he was thinner.  What a 'threadpaper' he had been
+when he was young!  It was nice to be slim--he could not bear a fat chap;
+and yet perhaps his cheeks were too thin!  She was to arrive by train at
+half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road past Drage's farm at
+the far end of the coppice.  And, having looked into June's room to see
+that there was hot water ready, he set forth to meet her, leisurely, for
+his heart was beating.  The air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand
+Stand at Epsom was visible.  A perfect day!  On just such a one, no
+doubt, six years ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to
+look at the site before they began to build.  It was Bosinney who had
+pitched on the exact spot for the house--as June had often told him.  In
+these days he was thinking much about that young fellow, as if his spirit
+were really haunting the field of his last work, on the chance of
+seeing--her.  Bosinney--the one man who had possessed her heart, to whom
+she had given her whole self with rapture!  At his age one could not, of
+course, imagine such things, but there stirred in him a queer vague
+aching--as it were the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling,
+too, more generous, of pity for that love so early lost.  All over in a
+few poor months!  Well, well!  He looked at his watch before entering the
+coppice--only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait!  And then,
+turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her
+the first time, on the log; and realised that she must have come by the
+earlier train to sit there alone for a couple of hours at least.  Two
+hours of her society missed!  What memory could make that log so dear to
+her?  His face showed what he was thinking, for she said at once:
+
+"Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew."
+
+"Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like.  You're looking a
+little Londony; you're giving too many lessons."
+
+That she should have to give lessons worried him.  Lessons to a parcel of
+young girls thumping out scales with their thick fingers.
+
+"Where do you go to give them?" he asked.
+
+"They're mostly Jewish families, luckily."
+
+Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and doubtful.
+
+"They love music, and they're very kind."
+
+"They had better be, by George!"  He took her arm--his side always hurt
+him a little going uphill--and said:
+
+"Did you ever see anything like those buttercups?  They came like that in
+a night."
+
+Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the flowers
+and the honey.  "I wanted you to see them--wouldn't let them turn the
+cows in yet."  Then, remembering that she had come to talk about
+Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the stables:
+
+"I expect he wouldn't have let me put that there--had no notion of time,
+if I remember."
+
+But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and he knew
+it was done that he might not feel she came because of her dead lover.
+
+"The best flower I can show you," he said, with a sort of triumph, "is my
+little sweet.  She'll be back from Church directly.  There's something
+about her which reminds me a little of you," and it did not seem to him
+peculiar that he had put it thus, instead of saying: "There's something
+about you which reminds me a little of her."  Ah!  And here she was!
+
+Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose digestion
+had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of Strasbourg, came
+rushing towards them from under the oak tree.  She stopped about a dozen
+yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that this was all she had in her
+mind.  Old Jolyon, who knew better, said:
+
+"Well, my darling, here's the lady in grey I promised you."
+
+Holly raised herself and looked up.  He watched the two of them with a
+twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry, passing into
+a shy smile too, and then to something deeper.  She had a sense of
+beauty, that child--knew what was what!  He enjoyed the sight of the kiss
+between them.
+
+"Mrs. Heron, Mam'zelle Beauce.  Well, Mam'zelle--good sermon?"
+
+For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part of the
+service connected with this world absorbed what interest in church
+remained to him.  Mam'zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand clad in a
+black kid glove--she had been in the best families--and the rather sad
+eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask: "Are you well-brrred?"
+Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her--a not uncommon
+occurrence--she would say to them: "The little Tayleurs never did
+that--they were such well-brrred little children."  Jolly hated the
+little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short
+of them.  'A thin rum little soul,' old Jolyon thought her--Mam'zelle
+Beauce.
+
+Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself had picked
+in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and another bottle of the
+Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain aromatic spirituality, and a
+conviction that he would have a touch of eczema to-morrow.
+
+After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee. It was
+no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce withdrew to write her
+Sunday letter to her sister, whose future had been endangered in the past
+by swallowing a pin--an event held up daily in warning to the children to
+eat slowly and digest what they had eaten.  At the foot of the bank, on a
+carriage rug, Holly and the dog Balthasar teased and loved each other,
+and in the shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar
+luxuriously savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing.  A light,
+vaguely swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon
+it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little drooped. She
+looked content; surely it did her good to come and see him!  The
+selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him, for he could still
+feel pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that what he wanted,
+though much, was not quite all that mattered.
+
+"It's quiet here," he said; "you mustn't come down if you find it dull.
+But it's a pleasure to see you.  My little sweet is the only face which
+gives me any pleasure, except yours."
+
+From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be appreciated,
+and this reassured him.  "That's not humbug," he said. "I never told a
+woman I admired her when I didn't.  In fact I don't know when I've told a
+woman I admired her, except my wife in the old days; and wives are
+funny."  He was silent, but resumed abruptly:
+
+"She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and there we
+were."  Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and, afraid that he had
+said something painful, he hurried on: "When my little sweet marries, I
+hope she'll find someone who knows what women feel.  I shan't be here to
+see it, but there's too much topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don't want her
+to pitch up against that."  And, aware that he had made bad worse, he
+added: "That dog will scratch."
+
+A silence followed.  Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature whose
+life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made for love?  Some
+day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another mate--not so
+disorderly as that young fellow who had got himself run over.  Ah! but
+her husband?
+
+"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head.  Her face had closed up suddenly.  For all her
+softness there was something irreconcilable about her.  And a glimpse of
+light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain
+which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation--so much older than this
+of his old age--had never thought about such primitive things.
+
+"That's a comfort," he said.  "You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall
+we take a turn round?"
+
+Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls peach
+trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables, the
+vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the
+summer-house, he conducted her--even into the kitchen garden to see the
+tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with her
+finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand.  Many
+delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced
+ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention.  It was one of the
+happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad
+to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea.  A special little
+friend of Holly's had come in--a fair child with short hair like a boy's.
+And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the stairs, and
+up in the gallery.  Old Jolyon begged for Chopin.  She played studies,
+mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood at the
+foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward, listening.
+Old Jolyon watched.
+
+"Let's see you dance, you two!"
+
+Shyly, with a false start, they began.  Bobbing and circling, earnest,
+not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of that
+waltz.  He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned
+smiling towards those little dancers thinking:
+
+'Sweetest picture I've seen for ages.'
+
+A voice said:
+
+"Hollee!  Mais enfin--qu'est-ce que tu fais la--danser, le dimanche!
+Viens, donc!"
+
+But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would save
+them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly 'caught out.'
+
+"Better the day, better the deed, Mam'zelle.  It's all my doing. Trot
+along, chicks, and have your tea."
+
+And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took every
+meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:
+
+"Well, there we are!  Aren't they sweet?  Have you any little ones among
+your pupils?"
+
+"Yes, three--two of them darlings."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Lovely!"
+
+Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very young.  "My
+little sweet," he said, "is devoted to music; she'll be a musician some
+day.  You wouldn't give me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?"
+
+"Of course I will."
+
+"You wouldn't like--" but he stifled the words "to give her lessons." The
+idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him; yet it would mean that
+he would see her regularly.  She left the piano and came over to his
+chair.
+
+"I would like, very much; but there is--June.  When are they coming
+back?"
+
+Old Jolyon frowned.  "Not till the middle of next month.  What does that
+matter?"
+
+"You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
+Jolyon."
+
+Forget!  She must forget, if he wanted her to.
+
+But as if answering, Irene shook her head.  "You know she couldn't; one
+doesn't forget."
+
+Always that wretched past!  And he said with a sort of vexed finality:
+
+"Well, we shall see."
+
+He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred little
+things, till the carriage came round to take her home.  And when she had
+gone he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing his face and
+chin, dreaming over the day.
+
+That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of paper.
+He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and stood under the
+masterpiece 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.'  He was not thinking of that
+picture, but of his life.  He was going to leave her something in his
+Will; nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of thought and
+memory.  He was going to leave her a portion of his wealth, of his
+aspirations, deeds, qualities, work--all that had made that wealth; going
+to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and
+steady pursuit of wealth.  All!  What had he missed?  'Dutch Fishing
+Boats' responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and drawing
+the curtain aside, opened it.  A wind had got up, and one of last year's
+oak leaves which had somehow survived the gardener's brooms, was dragging
+itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace in the
+twilight.  Except for that it was very quiet out there, and he could
+smell the heliotrope watered not long since.  A bat went by.  A bird
+uttered its last 'cheep.'  And right above the oak tree the first star
+shone.  Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of
+youth.  Morbid notion!  No such bargain was possible, that was real
+tragedy!  No making oneself new again for love or life or anything.
+Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and
+leave it something in your Will.  But how much?  And, as if he could not
+make that calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the country
+night, he turned back and went up to the chimney-piece.  There were his
+pet bronzes--a Cleopatra with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a
+greyhound playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses.
+'They last!' he thought, and a pang went through his heart.  They had a
+thousand years of life before them!
+
+'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before her
+time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and grey
+from soiling that bright hair.  He might live another five years.  She
+would be well over thirty by then.  'How much?'  She had none of his
+blood in her!  In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and
+more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family,
+came this warning thought--None of his blood, no right to anything!  It
+was a luxury then, this notion.  An extravagance, a petting of an old
+man's whim, one of those things done in dotage.  His real future was
+vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he was
+gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old
+leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars.
+And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress,
+fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why!  She cared
+nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers.
+But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her
+beauty and grace.  One had no right to inflict an old man's company, no
+right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her--for no
+reward!  Pleasure must be paid for in this world.  'How much?'  After
+all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never
+miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he
+could leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure.  He
+went back to the bureau.  'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them
+think what they like.  I'm going to!'  And he sat down.
+
+'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand--how much?  If only with his
+money he could buy one year, one month of youth.  And startled by that
+thought, he wrote quickly:
+
+'DEAR HERRING,--Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my niece
+Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen
+thousand pounds free of legacy duty." 'Yours faithfully, 'JOLYON
+FORSYTE.'
+
+When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window
+and drew in a long breath.  It was dark, but many stars shone now.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him
+brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts.  Experience had also
+taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed the
+folly of such panic.  On this particular morning the thought which
+gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at his age not
+improbable, he would not see her.  From this it was but a step to
+realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son and June returned
+from Spain.  How could he justify desire for the company of one who had
+stolen--early morning does not mince words--June's lover?  That lover was
+dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted, but stubborn as
+wood, and--quite true--not one who forgot!  By the middle of next month
+they would be back.  He had barely five weeks left to enjoy the new
+interest which had come into what remained of his life.  Darkness showed
+up to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling.  Admiration for
+beauty--a craving to see that which delighted his eyes.
+
+Preposterous, at his age!  And yet--what other reason was there for asking
+June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his son and his
+son's wife from thinking him very queer?  He would be reduced to sneaking
+up to London, which tired him; and the least indisposition would cut him
+off even from that.  He lay with eyes open, setting his jaw against the
+prospect, and calling himself an old fool, while his heart beat loudly,
+and then seemed to stop beating altogether.  He had seen the dawn
+lighting the window chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the
+cocks crow, before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane.  Five
+weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity!  But that early
+morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of one who
+had always had his own way.  He would see her as often as he wished!  Why
+not go up to town and make that codicil at his solicitor's instead of
+writing about it; she might like to go to the opera!  But, by train, for
+he would not have that fat chap Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants
+were such fools; and, as likely as not, they had known all the past
+history of Irene and young Bosinney--servants knew everything, and
+suspected the rest. He wrote to her that morning:
+
+"MY DEAR IRENE,--I have to be up in town to-morrow.  If you would like to
+have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me quietly ...."
+
+But where?  It was decades since he had dined anywhere in London save at
+his Club or at a private house.  Ah! that new-fangled place close to
+Covent Garden....
+
+"Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel whether to
+expect you there at 7 o'clock." "Yours affectionately, "JOLYON FORSYTE."
+
+She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little pleasure;
+for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to see her was
+instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly that one so old should
+go out of his way to see beauty, especially in a woman.
+
+The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his lawyer's,
+tired him.  It was hot too, and after dressing for dinner he lay down on
+the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.  He must have had a sort of
+fainting fit, for he came to himself feeling very queer; and with some
+difficulty rose and rang the bell.  Why! it was past seven!  And there he
+was and she would be waiting.  But suddenly the dizziness came on again,
+and he was obliged to relapse on the sofa.  He heard the maid's voice
+say:
+
+"Did you ring, sir?"
+
+"Yes, come here"; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in front of
+his eyes.  "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile."
+
+"Yes, sir."  Her voice sounded frightened.
+
+Old Jolyon made an effort.
+
+"Don't go.  Take this message to my niece--a lady waiting in the hall--a
+lady in grey.  Say Mr. Forsyte is not well--the heat.  He is very sorry;
+if he is not down directly, she is not to wait dinner."
+
+When she was gone, he thought feebly: 'Why did I say a lady in grey--she
+may be in anything.  Sal volatile!'  He did not go off again, yet was not
+conscious of how Irene came to be standing beside him, holding smelling
+salts to his nose, and pushing a pillow up behind his head.  He heard her
+say anxiously: "Dear Uncle Jolyon, what is it?" was dimly conscious of
+the soft pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of
+smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and sneezed.
+
+"Ha!" he said, "it's nothing.  How did you get here?  Go down and
+dine--the tickets are on the dressing-table.  I shall be all right in a
+minute."
+
+He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat divided
+between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all right.
+
+"Why!  You are in grey!" he said.  "Help me up."  Once on his feet he gave
+himself a shake.
+
+"What business had I to go off like that!"  And he moved very slowly to
+the glass.  What a cadaverous chap!  Her voice, behind him, murmured:
+
+"You mustn't come down, Uncle; you must rest."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!  A glass of champagne'll soon set me to rights.  I can't
+have you missing the opera."
+
+But the journey down the corridor was troublesome.  What carpets they had
+in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up in them at every
+step!  In the lift he noticed how concerned she looked, and said with the
+ghost of a twinkle:
+
+"I'm a pretty host."
+
+When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent its
+slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he felt much
+better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such solicitude
+into her manner towards him.
+
+"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and watching
+the smile in her eyes, went on:
+
+"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life; plenty of
+that when you get to my age.  That's a nice dress--I like the style."
+
+"I made it myself."
+
+Ah!  A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her
+interest in life.
+
+"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up.  I want to
+see some colour in your cheeks.  We mustn't waste life; it doesn't do.
+There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she won't be fat.  And
+Mephisto--anything more dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I
+can't imagine."
+
+But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from dinner
+the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his staying quiet
+and going to bed early.  When he parted from her at the door of the
+hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to Chelsea, he sat down again
+for a moment to enjoy the memory of her words: "You are such a darling to
+me, Uncle Jolyon!"  Why!  Who wouldn't be!  He would have liked to stay up
+another day and take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would
+bore her to death.  No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised
+to come then.  They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for a
+month.  It would be something.  That little Mam'zelle Beauce wouldn't
+like it, but she would have to lump it.  And crushing his old opera hat
+against his chest he sought the lift.
+
+He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say:
+'Drive me to Chelsea.'  But his sense of proportion was too strong.
+Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another aberration
+like that of last night, away from home.  Holly, too, was expecting him,
+and what he had in his bag for her.  Not that there was any cupboard love
+in his little sweet--she was a bundle of affection.  Then, with the
+rather bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a second whether it
+was not cupboard love which made Irene put up with him.  No, she was not
+that sort either.  She had, if anything, too little notion of how to
+butter her bread, no sense of property, poor thing!  Besides, he had not
+breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he--sufficient unto the
+day was the good thereof.
+
+In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was restraining the
+dog Balthasar, and their caresses made 'jubey' his drive home. All the
+rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was content and
+peaceful, reposing in the shade, while the long lingering sunshine
+showered gold on the lawns and the flowers.  But on Thursday evening at
+his lonely dinner he began to count the hours; sixty-five till he would
+go down to meet her again in the little coppice, and walk up through the
+fields at her side.  He had intended to consult the doctor about his
+fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no
+excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the leg, did
+not want to be told of an infirmity--if there were one, could not afford
+to hear of it at his time of life, now that this new interest had come.
+And he carefully avoided making any mention of it in a letter to his son.
+It would only bring them back with a run!  How far this silence was due
+to consideration for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he
+did not pause to consider.
+
+That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was dozing
+off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious of a scent of
+violets.  Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in grey, standing by the
+fireplace, holding out her arms.  The odd thing was that, though those
+arms seemed to hold nothing, they were curved as if round someone's neck,
+and her own neck was bent back, her lips open, her eyes closed.  She
+vanished at once, and there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes.  But
+those bronzes and the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only
+the fireplace and the wall!  Shaken and troubled, he got up.  'I must
+take medicine,' he thought; 'I can't be well.'  His heart beat too fast,
+he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the window, he
+opened it to get some air.  A dog was barking far away, one of the dogs
+at Gage's farm no doubt, beyond the coppice.  A beautiful still night,
+but dark.  'I dropped off,' he mused, 'that's it!  And yet I'll swear my
+eyes were open!'  A sound like a sigh seemed to answer.
+
+"What's that?" he said sharply, "who's there?"
+
+Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart, he
+stepped out on the terrace.  Something soft scurried by in the dark.
+"Shoo!"  It was that great grey cat.  'Young Bosinney was like a great
+cat!' he thought.  'It was him in there, that she--that she was--He's got
+her still!'  He walked to the edge of the terrace, and looked down into
+the darkness; he could just see the powdering of the daisies on the
+unmown lawn.  Here to-day and gone to-morrow!  And there came the moon,
+who saw all, young and old, alive and dead, and didn't care a dump!  His
+own turn soon.  For a single day of youth he would give what was left!
+And he turned again towards the house.  He could see the windows of the
+night nursery up there.  His little sweet would be asleep.  'Hope that
+dog won't wake her!' he thought.  'What is it makes us love, and makes us
+die!  I must go to bed.'
+
+And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed
+back within.
+
+How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent
+past?  In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale
+winter sunshine.  The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the
+dynamos of memory.  The present he should distrust; the future shun. From
+beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes.
+If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for
+the Indian-summer sun!  Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
+slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his wind-pipe and
+he gasps away to death some early morning before the world is aired, and
+they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of years!' yea!  If he
+preserve his principles in perfect order, a Forsyte may live on long
+after he is dead.
+
+Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him that which
+transcended Forsyteism.  For it is written that a Forsyte shall not love
+beauty more than reason; nor his own way more than his own health.  And
+something beat within him in these days that with each throb fretted at
+the thinning shell.  His sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he
+could not stop that beating, nor would if he could.  And yet, if you had
+told him he was living on his capital, he would have stared you down. No,
+no; a man did not live on his capital; it was not done!  The shibboleths
+of the past are ever more real than the actualities of the present.  And
+he, to whom living on one's capital had always been anathema, could not
+have borne to have applied so gross a phrase to his own case. Pleasure is
+healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in the youth of the
+young--and what else on earth was he doing!
+
+Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now arranged his
+time.  On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train; Irene came and dined
+with him.  And they went to the opera.  On Thursdays he drove to town,
+and, putting that fat chap and his horses up, met her in Kensington
+Gardens, picking up the carriage after he had left her, and driving home
+again in time for dinner. He threw out the casual formula that he had
+business in London on those two days.  On Wednesdays and Saturdays she
+came down to give Holly music lessons.  The greater the pleasure he took
+in her society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a
+matter-of-fact and friendly uncle.  Not even in feeling, really, was he
+more--for, after all, there was his age.  And yet, if she were late he
+fidgeted himself to death.  If she missed coming, which happened twice,
+his eyes grew sad as an old dog's, and he failed to sleep.
+
+And so a month went by--a month of summer in the fields, and in his
+heart, with summer's heat and the fatigue thereof.  Who could have
+believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward to his son's
+and his grand-daughter's return with something like dread!  There was such
+a delicious freedom, such recovery of that independence a man enjoys
+before he founds a family, about these weeks of lovely weather, and this
+new companionship with one who demanded nothing, and remained always a
+little unknown, retaining the fascination of mystery.  It was like a
+draught of wine to him who has been drinking water for so long that he
+has almost forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to
+his brain.  The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and the
+sunlight had a living value--were no longer mere reminders of past
+enjoyment.  There was something now to live for which stirred him
+continually to anticipation.  He lived in that, not in retrospection; the
+difference is considerable to any so old as he. The pleasures of the
+table, never of much consequence to one naturally abstemious, had lost
+all value.  He ate little, without knowing what he ate; and every day
+grew thinner and more worn to look at.  He was again a 'threadpaper'; and
+to this thinned form his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples,
+gave more dignity than ever.  He was very well aware that he ought to see
+the doctor, but liberty was too sweet.  He could not afford to pet his
+frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the expense of
+liberty.  Return to the vegetable existence he had led among the
+agricultural journals with the life-size mangold wurzels, before this new
+attraction came into his life--no!  He exceeded his allowance of cigars.
+Two a day had always been his rule.  Now he smoked three and sometimes
+four--a man will when he is filled with the creative spirit.  But very
+often he thought: 'I must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up
+rattling up to town.'  But he did not; there was no one in any sort of
+authority to notice him, and this was a priceless boon.
+
+The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam'zelle
+Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too 'wellbrrred' to
+make personal allusions.  Holly had not as yet an eye for the relative
+appearance of him who was her plaything and her god.  It was left for
+Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to rest in the hot part of the day,
+to take a tonic, and so forth. But she did not tell him that she was the
+a cause of his thinness--for one cannot see the havoc oneself is working.
+A man of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which produces
+passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes which crave
+the sight of Her.
+
+On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter from his
+son in Paris to say that they would all be back on Friday. This had
+always been more sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic improvidence
+given to the old, that they may endure to the end, he had never quite
+admitted it.  Now he did, and something would have to be done.  He had
+ceased to be able to imagine life without this new interest, but that
+which is not imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually
+finding to their cost.  He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
+letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar.  After
+to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be abandoned.  He
+could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his
+man of business.  But even that would be dependent on his health, for now
+they would begin to fuss about him.  The lessons!  The lessons must go
+on!  She must swallow down her scruples, and June must put her feelings
+in her pocket.  She had done so once, on the day after the news of
+Bosinney's death; what she had done then, she could surely do again now.
+Four years since that injury was inflicted on her--not Christian to keep
+the memory of old sores alive.  June's will was strong, but his was
+stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely she
+would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner than give him
+pain!  The lessons must continue; for if they did, he was secure.  And
+lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to shape out how to put it to
+them all, and explain this strange intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away
+from the naked truth--that he could not bear to be deprived of the sight
+of beauty.  Ah!  Holly!  Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her lessons.
+She would save him--his little sweet!  And with that happy thought he
+became serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about so fearfully.
+He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak, and as if but half
+present in his own body.
+
+That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness, though he did
+not faint.  He would not ring the bell, because he knew it would mean a
+fuss, and make his going up on the morrow more conspicuous.  When one
+grew old, the whole world was in conspiracy to limit freedom, and for
+what reason?--just to keep the breath in him a little longer.  He did not
+want it at such cost.  Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery
+from that weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and
+drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit.  When at last old
+Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed.  And, though
+still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening sustained and
+strengthened him.  It was always such a pleasure to give her a good
+dinner--he suspected her of undereating when she was alone; and, at the
+opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten, the unconscious smiling of her
+lips.  She hadn't much pleasure, and this was the last time he would be
+able to give her that treat.  But when he was packing his bag he caught
+himself wishing that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before
+him, and the exertion, too, of telling her about June's return.
+
+The opera that evening was 'Carmen,' and he chose the last entr'acte to
+break the news, instinctively putting it off till the latest moment.
+
+She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she had taken
+it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence became necessary.
+The mask was down over her face, that mask behind which so much went on
+that he could not see.  She wanted time to think it over, no doubt!  He
+would not press her, for she would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow
+afternoon, and he should see her then when she had got used to the idea.
+In the cab he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old
+days, but this one was not bad at all.  When he took her hand to say
+good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.
+
+"Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me."
+
+"To-morrow then," he said.  "Good-night.  Sleep well."  She echoed
+softly: "Sleep well" and from the cab window, already moving away, he saw
+her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put out in a gesture
+which seemed to linger.
+
+He sought his room slowly.  They never gave him the same, and he could
+not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy' bedrooms with new furniture and
+grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink roses.  He was wakeful
+and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in his head.
+
+His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he knew, if
+it had any sense, a gipsy thing--wild and unaccountable. Well, there was
+in life something which upset all your care and plans--something which
+made men and women dance to its pipes.  And he lay staring from deep-sunk
+eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway.  You thought
+you had hold of life, but it slipped away behind you, took you by the
+scruff of the neck, forced you here and forced you there, and then,
+likely as not, squeezed life out of you!  It took the very stars like
+that, he shouldn't wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them
+apart; it had never done playing its pranks.  Five million people in this
+great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy of that
+Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board when
+you struck your fist on it.  Ah, well!  Himself would not hop much
+longer--a good long sleep would do him good!
+
+How hot it was up here!--how noisy!  His forehead burned; she had kissed
+it just where he always worried; just there--as if she had known the very
+place and wanted to kiss it all away for him.  But, instead, her lips
+left a patch of grievous uneasiness.  She had never spoken in quite that
+voice, had never before made that lingering gesture or looked back at him
+as she drove away.
+
+He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced down over
+the river.  There was little air, but the sight of that breadth of water
+flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him.  'The great thing,' he thought
+'is not to make myself a nuisance.  I'll think of my little sweet, and go
+to sleep.'  But it was long before the heat and throbbing of the London
+night died out into the short slumber of the summer morning.  And old
+Jolyon had but forty winks.
+
+When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden, and with
+the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers, gathered a great
+bunch of carnations.  They were, he told her, for 'the lady in grey'--a
+name still bandied between them; and he put them in a bowl in his study
+where he meant to tackle Irene the moment she came, on the subject of
+June and future lessons.  Their fragrance and colour would help.  After
+lunch he lay down, for he felt very tired, and the carriage would not
+bring her from the station till four o'clock.  But as the hour approached
+he grew restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
+The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle Beauce,
+sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending to their
+silkworms.  Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these methodical
+creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of elephants; who nibbled
+such quantities of holes in nice green leaves; and smelled, as he
+thought, horrid.  He sat down on a chintz-covered windowseat whence he
+could see the drive, and get what air there was; and the dog Balthasar
+who appreciated chintz on hot days, jumped up beside him.  Over the
+cottage piano a violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and
+on it the first lavender, whose scent filled the room.  In spite of the
+coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life
+vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses.  Each sunbeam which came
+through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled very strong;
+the lavender perfume was overpowering; those silkworms heaving up their
+grey-green backs seemed horribly alive; and Holly's dark head bent over
+them had a wonderfully silky sheen.  A marvellous cruelly strong thing
+was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its
+multitude of forms and its beating vitality.  He had never, till those
+last few weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of him
+eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other half left
+on the bank, watching that helpless progress.  Only when Irene was with
+him did he lose this double consciousness.
+
+Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
+piano--for to point with a finger was not 'well-brrred'--and said slyly:
+
+"Look at the 'lady in grey,' Gran; isn't she pretty to-day?"
+
+Old Jolyon's heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was clouded;
+then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:
+
+"Who's been dressing her up?"
+
+"Mam'zelle."
+
+"Hollee!  Don't be foolish!"
+
+That prim little Frenchwoman!  She hadn't yet got over the music lessons
+being taken away from her.  That wouldn't help.  His little sweet was the
+only friend they had.  Well, they were her lessons. And he shouldn't
+budge shouldn't budge for anything.  He stroked the warm wool on
+Balthasar's head, and heard Holly say: "When mother's home, there won't
+be any changes, will there?  She doesn't like strangers, you know."
+
+The child's words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of opposition
+about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his new-found freedom.
+Ah!  He would have to resign himself to being an old man at the mercy of
+care and love, or fight to keep this new and prized companionship; and to
+fight tired him to death.  But his thin, worn face hardened into
+resolution till it appeared all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair;
+he should not budge!  He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself;
+he had owned it fifty years.  Past four already!  And kissing the top of
+Holly's head in passing, he went down to the hall.  He wanted to get hold
+of her before she went up to give her lesson.  At the first sound of
+wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the victoria
+was empty.
+
+"The train's in, sir; but the lady 'asn't come."
+
+Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push away
+that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter disappointment
+he was feeling.
+
+"Very well," he said, and turned back into the house.  He went to his
+study and sat down, quivering like a leaf.  What did this mean?  She might
+have lost her train, but he knew well enough she hadn't. 'Good-bye, dear
+Uncle Jolyon.'  Why 'Good-bye' and not 'Good-night'?  And that hand of
+hers lingering in the air.  And her kiss. What did it mean?  Vehement
+alarm and irritation took possession of him.  He got up and began to pace
+the Turkey carpet, between window and wall.  She was going to give him
+up!  He felt it for certain--and he defenceless.  An old man wanting to
+look on beauty!  It was ridiculous!  Age closed his mouth, paralysed his
+power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no right to
+anything but memories and sorrow.  He could not plead with her; even an
+old man has his dignity.  Defenceless!  For an hour, lost to bodily
+fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl of carnations he had
+plucked, which mocked him with its scent.  Of all things hard to bear,
+the prostration of will-power is hardest, for one who has always had his
+way.  Nature had got him in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned
+and swam at the meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking point.
+They brought him tea at five o'clock, and a letter.  For a moment hope
+beat up in him.  He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and read:
+
+"DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,--I can't bear to write anything that may
+disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night.  I feel I
+can't come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that June is coming
+back.  Some things go too deep to be forgotten.  It has been such a joy
+to see you and Holly.  Perhaps I shall still see you sometimes when you
+come up, though I'm sure it's not good for you; I can see you are tiring
+yourself too much.  I believe you ought to rest quite quietly all this
+hot weather, and now you have your son and June coming back you will be
+so happy.  Thank you a million times for all your sweetness to me.
+
+"Lovingly your IRENE."
+
+So, there it was!  Not good for him to have pleasure and what he chiefly
+cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable end of all things,
+the approach of death with its stealthy, rustling footsteps.  Not good
+for him!  Not even she could see how she was his new lease of interest in
+life, the incarnation of all the beauty he felt slipping from him.
+
+His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he paced,
+torn between his dignity and his hold on life.  Intolerable to be
+squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on when your will
+was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to the ground with care
+and love.  Intolerable!  He would see what telling her the truth would
+do--the truth that he wanted the sight of her more than just a lingering
+on.  He sat down at his old bureau and took a pen.  But he could not
+write.  There was something revolting in having to plead like this; plead
+that she should warm his eyes with her beauty.  It was tantamount to
+confessing dotage.  He simply could not.  And instead, he wrote:
+
+"I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to stand
+in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my little
+grand-daughter.  But old men learn to forego their whims; they are
+obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner or later; and
+perhaps the sooner the better. "My love to you, "JOLYON FORSYTE."
+
+'Bitter,' he thought, 'but I can't help it.  I'm tired.'  He sealed and
+dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it fall to the
+bottom, thought: 'There goes all I've looked forward to!'
+
+That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his cigar
+which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he went very slowly
+upstairs and stole into the night-nursery.  He sat down on the
+window-seat.  A night-light was burning, and he could just see Holly's
+face, with one hand underneath the cheek.  An early cockchafer buzzed in
+the Japanese paper with which they had filled the grate, and one of the
+horses in the stable stamped restlessly. To sleep like that child!  He
+pressed apart two rungs of the venetian blind and looked out.  The moon
+was rising, blood-red.  He had never seen so red a moon.  The woods and
+fields out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the
+summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked.  'I've had a long life,'
+he thought, 'the best of nearly everything.  I'm an ungrateful chap; I've
+seen a lot of beauty in my time.  Poor young Bosinney said I had a sense
+of beauty.  There's a man in the moon to-night!'  A moth went by,
+another, another.  'Ladies in grey!'  He closed his eyes.  A feeling that
+he would never open them again beset him; he let it grow, let himself
+sink; then, with a shiver, dragged the lids up.  There was something
+wrong with him, no doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor
+after all.  It didn't much matter now!  Into that coppice the moon-light
+would have crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be the
+only things awake.  No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just the
+shadows--moving; 'Ladies in grey!'  Over that log they would climb; would
+whisper together.  She and Bosinney!  Funny thought!  And the frogs and
+little things would whisper too!  How the clock ticked, in here!  It was
+all eerie--out there in the light of that red moon; in here with the
+little steady night-light and, the ticking clock and the nurse's
+dressing-gown hanging from the edge of the screen, tall, like a woman's
+figure.  'Lady in grey!'  And a very odd thought beset him: Did she
+exist?  Had she ever come at all?  Or was she but the emanation of all
+the beauty he had loved and must leave so soon?  The violet-grey spirit
+with the dark eyes and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and
+the moonlight, and at blue-bell time?  What was she, who was she, did she
+exist?  He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill, to give him
+a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door.  He
+stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as if conscious of his eyes
+fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and curled up closer in defence.  He
+tiptoed on and passed out into the dark passage; reached his room,
+undressed at once, and stood before a mirror in his night-shirt.  What a
+scarecrow--with temples fallen in, and thin legs!  His eyes resisted his
+own image, and a look of pride came on his face.  All was in league to
+pull him down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not
+down--yet!  He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping, trying
+to reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and
+disappointment were very bad for him.
+
+He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he sent for
+the doctor.  After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face as long as your
+arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up smoking.  That was no
+hardship; there was nothing to get up for, and when he felt ill, tobacco
+always lost its savour.  He spent the morning languidly with the
+sun-blinds down, turning and re-turning The Times, not reading much, the
+dog Balthasar lying beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a
+telegram, running thus:
+
+'Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you at
+four-thirty.  Irene.'
+
+Coming down!  After all!  Then she did exist--and he was not deserted.
+Coming down!  A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks and forehead felt
+hot.  He drank his soup, and pushed the tray-table away, lying very quiet
+until they had removed lunch and left him alone; but every now and then
+his eyes twinkled.  Coming down!  His heart beat fast, and then did not
+seem to beat at all.  At three o'clock he got up and dressed
+deliberately, noiselessly. Holly and Mam'zelle would be in the
+schoolroom, and the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn't
+wonder.  He opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs.  In the hall
+the dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon passed
+into his study and out into the burning afternoon.  He meant to go down
+and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he could not manage that in
+this heat.  He sat down instead under the oak tree by the swing, and the
+dog Balthasar, who also felt the heat, lay down beside him. He sat there
+smiling.  What a revel of bright minutes!  What a hum of insects, and
+cooing of pigeons!  It was the quintessence of a summer day.  Lovely!  And
+he was happy--happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be.  She was
+coming; she had not given him up!  He had everything in life he
+wanted--except a little more breath, and less weight--just here!  He
+would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying just a
+little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and dandelions and
+'soldiers' on the lawn--the soldiers with their flowery crowns.  He would
+not move, but she would come up to him and say: 'Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am
+sorry!' and sit in the swing and let him look at her and tell her that he
+had not been very well but was all right now; and that dog would lick her
+hand.  That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good dog.
+
+It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him, only
+make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the Grand Stand at
+Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows cropping the clover in the
+field and swishing at the flies with their tails.  He smelled the scent
+of limes, and lavender.  Ah! that was why there was such a racket of
+bees.  They were excited--busy, as his heart was busy and excited.
+Drowsy, too, drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was
+drugged and drowsy.  Summer--summer--they seemed saying; great bees and
+little bees, and the flies too!
+
+The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here. He would
+have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little sleep of late; and
+then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty, coming
+towards him across the sunlit lawn--lady in grey!  And settling back in
+his chair he closed his eyes.  Some thistle-down came on what little air
+there was, and pitched on his moustache more white than itself.  He did
+not know; but his breathing stirred it, caught there.  A ray of sunlight
+struck through and lodged on his boot.  A bumble-bee alighted and
+strolled on the crown of his Panama hat.  And the delicious surge of
+slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head swayed forward
+and rested on his breast.  Summer--summer!  So went the hum.
+
+The stable clock struck the quarter past.  The dog Balthasar stretched
+and looked up at his master.  The thistledown no longer moved.  The dog
+placed his chin over the sunlit foot.  It did not stir.  The dog withdrew
+his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old Jolyon's lap, looked in his
+face, whined; then, leaping down, sat on his haunches, gazing up.  And
+suddenly he uttered a long, long howl.
+
+But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old master.
+
+Summer--summer--summer!  The soundless footsteps on the grass!
+1917
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Tales, by John Galsworthy
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE TALES ***
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