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+Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Through the Postern Gate
+       A Romance in Seven Days
+
+Author: Florence L. Barclay
+
+Release Date: July 31, 2010 [EBook #33309]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Through the Postern Gate
+
+_A ROMANCE IN SEVEN DAYS_
+
+
+
+By
+
+Florence L. Barclay
+
+
+Author of
+
+  "The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone,"
+  "The Following of the Star," etc
+
+
+
+London and New York
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+146_th Thousand_
+
+
+
+  _Made and Printed in Great Britain by
+  The Camelot Press Limited,
+  Southampton._
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY
+
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY
+
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY
+
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY
+
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+
+
+THE FIFTH DAY
+
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+
+
+THE SIXTH DAY
+
+MISS ANN HAS "_MUCH_ TO SAY"
+
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+
+
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY
+
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BUTE
+
+"But it was not your niece!  It was always you I wanted," said the Boy.
+
+He lay back, in a deep wicker chair, under the old mulberry-tree.  He
+had taken the precaution of depositing his cup and saucer on the soft
+turf beneath his chair, because he knew that, under the stress of
+sudden emotion, china--especially the _best_ china--had a way of flying
+off his knee.  And there was no question as to the exquisite quality of
+the china on the dainty tea-table over which Miss Christobel Charteris
+presided.
+
+The Boy had watched her pouring the tea into those pretty rose-leaf
+cups, nearly every afternoon during the golden two weeks just over.  He
+knew every movement of those firm white hands, so soft, yet so strong
+and capable.
+
+The Boy used to stand beside her, ready to hand Mollie's cup, as
+punctiliously as if a dozen girls had been sitting in the old garden,
+waiting to be quickly served by the only man.
+
+The Boy enjoyed being the only man.  Also he had quite charming
+manners.  He never allowed the passing of bread-and-butter to interfere
+with the flow of conversation; yet the bread-and-butter was always
+within reach at the precise moment you wanted it, though the Boy's
+bright eyes were fixed just then in keenest interest on the person who
+happened to be speaking, and not a point of the story, or a word of the
+remark, was missed either by him or by you.
+
+He used to watch the Aunt's beautiful hands very closely; and at last,
+every time he looked at them, his brown eyes kissed them.  The Boy
+thought this was a delightful secret known only to himself.  But one
+day, when he was bending over her, holding his own cup while she filled
+it, the Aunt suddenly said: "Don't!"  It was so startling and
+unexpected, that the cup almost flew out of his hand.  The Boy might
+have said: "Don't _what_?" which would have put the Aunt in a
+difficulty, because it would have been so very impossible to explain.
+But he was too honest.  He at once _didn't_, and felt a little shy for
+five minutes; then recovered, and hugged himself with a fearful joy at
+the thought that she had _known_ his eyes had kissed her dear beautiful
+hands; then stole a look at her calm face, so completely unmoved in its
+classic beauty, and thought he must have been mistaken; only--what on
+earth else could she have said "Don't!" about, at that moment?
+
+But Mollie was there, then; so no explanations were possible.  Now at
+last, thank goodness, Mollie had gone, and his own seven days had
+begun.  This was the first day; and he was going to tell her
+everything.  There was absolutely nothing he would not be able to tell
+her.  The delight of this fairly swept the Boy off his feet.  He had
+kept on the curb so long; and he was not used to curbs of any kind.
+
+He lay back, his hands behind his head, and watched the Aunt's kind
+face, through half-closed lids.  His brown eyes were shining, but very
+soft.  When the Aunt looked at them, she quickly looked away.
+
+"How could you think the attraction would be gone?" he said.  "It was
+always you, I wanted, not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was _you_--YOU, just only you, all the
+time?"
+
+The Aunt raised her beautiful eyebrows and looked him straight in the
+face.
+
+"Is this a proposal?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"Of course it is," said the Boy; "and jolly hard it has been, having to
+wait two whole weeks to make it.  I want you to marry me, Christobel.
+I dare say you think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest it, point
+blank.  But I want you to give me seven days; and, in those seven days,
+I am going to win you.  Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the
+only possible thing to do."
+
+His brown eyes were wide open now; and the glory of the love shining
+out from them dazzled her.  She looked away.
+
+Then the swift colour swept over the face which all Cambridge
+considered classic in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed; but
+rather breathlessly.
+
+"You amazing boy!" she said.  "Do you consider it right to take away a
+person's breath, in this fashion?  Or are you trying to be funny?"
+
+"I have no designs on your breath," said the Boy; "and it is my
+misfortune, but not my fault, if I seem funny."  Then he sat forward in
+his chair, his elbows on his knees, and both brown hands held out
+towards her.  "I want you to understand, dear," he continued,
+earnestly, "that I have said only a very little of all I have to say.
+But I hope that little is to the point; and I jolly well mean it."
+
+The Aunt laughed again, and swung the toe of her neat brown shoe; a
+habit she had, when trying to appear more at ease than she felt.
+
+"It is certainly to the point," she said.  "There can be no possible
+doubt about that.  But are you aware, dear boy, that I have been
+assiduously chaperoning you and my niece, during the past two weeks;
+and watching, with the affectionate interest of a middle-aged relative,
+the course of true love running with satisfactory and unusual
+smoothness?"
+
+The Boy ignored the adjectives and innuendoes, and went straight to the
+point.  He always had a way of ignoring all side issues or carefully
+introduced irrelevancy.  It made him a difficult person to deal with,
+if the principal weapon in your armoury was elaborate argument.
+
+"Why did you say 'Don't'?" asked the Boy.
+
+The Aunt fell at once into the unintentional trap.  She dropped her
+calmly amused manner and answered hurriedly, while again the swift
+colour flooded her face: "Boy dear, I hardly know.  It was something
+you did, which, for a moment, I could not quite bear.  Something passed
+from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, to be quite right.  I said
+'Don't,' as involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to a threatened
+blow."
+
+"It wasn't a blow," said the Boy, tenderly.  "It was a kiss.  Every
+time I looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting the silver teapot, I
+kissed it.  Didn't you feel it was a kiss?"
+
+"No; I only felt it was unusual; something I could not understand; and
+I did not like it.  Therefore I said 'Don't.'"
+
+"But you admit it was sweet?" persisted the Boy.
+
+"Exactly," replied the Aunt; "quite incomprehensibly sweet.  And I do
+not like things I cannot comprehend; especially with amazing boys
+about!"
+
+"Didn't you know it was love?" asked the Boy, softly.
+
+"No," replied the Aunt, emphatically; "most certainly, I did not."
+
+The Boy got up, and came and knelt beside the arm of her chair.
+
+"It was love," he said, his lips very close to the soft waves of her
+hair.
+
+"Go back to your seat at once," said the Aunt, sternly.
+
+The Boy went.
+
+"And where does poor Mollie come in, in all this?" inquired the Aunt,
+with some asperity.
+
+"Mollie?" said the Boy, complacently.  "Oh, Mollie understood all
+right.  She loves Phil, you know; intends to stick to him, and knows
+you will back her.  The last part of the time, I brought her notes from
+Phil, every day.  Don't be angry, dear.  You would have done it
+yourself, if Mollie and Phil had got hold of you, and implored you to
+be a go-between.  You remember the day we invaded the kitchen to see
+how Martha made those little puffy buns--you know--the explosives?  You
+pinch them in the middle, and they burst into hundreds and thousands of
+little pieces.  Jolly things for a stiff
+stand-up-in-a-crowd-and-all-hold-your-own-cups kind of drawing-room
+party; what we used to call 'a Perpendicular' in my Cambridge days.  I
+suppose they still keep up the name.  Fancy those little buns exploding
+all over the place; and when you try to pick up the fragments, they go
+into simply millions of crumbs, between your agitated fingers and
+anxious thumb!"
+
+The Boy slapped his knee in intense enjoyment, and momentarily lost the
+thread of the conversation.  The Aunt's mind was not sufficiently
+detached to feel equal to a digression into peals of laughter over this
+vision of the explosive buns.  She wanted to find out how much Mollie
+knew.  When the Boy had finished rocking backwards and forwards in his
+chair, she suggested, tentatively: "You went to the kitchen--?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the Boy, recovering.  "We went to the kitchen to watch
+Martha make them, and to get the recipe.  You see Mollie wanted them
+for her father's clerical 'at homes.'  Oh, I say--fancy!  The
+archdeacons and curates, the rectors and vicars, all standing in a
+solemn crowd on the Bishop's best velvet-pile carpet; then Mollie, so
+demure, handing round the innocent-looking little buns; and, hey
+presto! the pinching begins, and the explosions, and the hopeless
+attempts to gather up the fragments!"
+
+The Boy nearly went off again; but he suddenly realized that the Aunt
+was not amused, and pulled himself together.
+
+"Well, we stopped on the way to the kitchen for mutual confidences.  It
+was not easy, bounded as we were by you on the one side, and Martha on
+the other.  We had to whisper.  I dare say you thought we were kissing
+behind the door, but we jolly well weren't!  She told me about Phil;
+and I told her--oh, I told her _something_ of what I am trying to tell
+you.  Just enough to make her understand; so that we could go ahead,
+and play the game fair, all round.  She was awfully glad, because she
+said: 'I have long feared my dear beautiful Aunt would marry an
+ichthyosaurus.'  I asked her what the--what the--I mean, what on earth
+the meaning of that was?  And she said: 'An old fossil.'"
+
+Again the swift flush swept over the calm face.  But this time the Aunt
+went off, intentionally, on a side issue.
+
+"I have heard you say 'What the deuce' before now, Boy.  But I am glad
+you appear to realize, judging by your laboured efforts to suppress
+them, that these expressions shock me."
+
+She looked at him, quizzically, through half-closed lids; but the Boy
+was wholly earnest.
+
+"Well, you see," he said, "I am trying most awfully hard to be, in
+every respect, just what you would wish the man who loves you should
+be."
+
+"Oh, you dear boy," said Christobel Charteris, a flood of sudden
+feeling softening her face; "I must make you understand that I cannot
+possibly take you seriously.  I shall have to tell you a story no one
+has ever heard before; a tender little story of a long-ago past.  I
+must tell you the story of my Little Boy Blue.  Wait here a few
+moments, while I go indoors and give orders that we are not to be
+disturbed."
+
+Rising, she passed up the lawn to the little white house.  The Boy's
+eyes followed her, noting with pride and delight the tall athletic
+figure, fully developed, gracious in its ample lines, yet graceful in
+the perfect swing of the well-poised walk.  During all his college
+years he had known that walk; admired that stately figure.  He had been
+in the set which called her "Juno" and "The Goddess"; which crowded to
+the clubs if there was a chance of watching her play tennis.  And now,
+during two wonderful weeks, he had been admitted, a welcomed guest, to
+this little old-world oasis, bounded by high red-brick walls, where she
+dwelt and ruled.  Quiet, sunny, happy hours he had spent in the hush of
+the old garden, strolling up and down the long narrow velvet turf,
+beneath the spreading trees, from the green postern gate in the
+right-hand corner of the bottom wall, to the flight of stone steps
+leading up to the garden-door of the little white house.
+
+The Boy knew, by now, exactly what he wanted.  He wanted to marry
+Christobel Charteris.
+
+He must have been rather a brave boy.  He looked very youthful and slim
+as he lay back in his chair, watching the stately proportions of the
+woman on whom he had set his young heart; very slight and boyish, in
+his silver-grey suit, with lavender tie, and buttonhole of violas.  The
+Boy was very particular about his ties and buttonholes.  They always
+matched.  This afternoon, for the first time, he had arrived without a
+buttonhole.  In the surprise and pleasure of his unexpected appearance,
+the Aunt had moved quickly down the sunlit lawn to meet and greet him.
+
+Mollie had departed, early that morning.  Her final words at the
+railway station, as her impish little face smiled farewell from the
+window of her compartment, had been: "Mind, Auntie dear, no mistake
+about Guy Chelsea!  He's a charming fellow; and thank you ever so much
+for giving me such a good time with him.  But you can report to Papa,
+that Guy Chelsea, _and_ his beautiful properties, _and_ his prospective
+peerage, _and_ his fifty thousand a year, _and_ his motor-cars, _and_
+his flying-machines, are absolutely powerless to tempt me away from my
+allegiance to Phil.  Beside, it so happens, Guy himself is altogether
+in love with SOME ONE ELSE."
+
+The train having begun to move at the words "You can report to Papa,"
+Mollie finished the remainder of the sentence in a screaming crescendo,
+holding on to her hat with one hand, and waving a tiny lace
+pocket-handkerchief, emphatically, with the other.  Even then, the Aunt
+lost most of the sentence, and disbelieved the rest.  The atmosphere of
+love had been so unmistakable during those two weeks; the superabundant
+overflow had even reached herself more than once, with an almost
+startling thrill of emotion.
+
+The Boy had been so full of vivid, glowing _joie-de-vivre_, radiating
+fun and gaiety around him.
+
+In their sets of tennis, played on her own court across the lane at the
+bottom of the garden, when she could beat him easily were he
+handicapped by partnership with Mollie; but in genuine singles, when
+Mollie had tactfully collapsed on to a seat and declared herself
+exhausted, his swift agility counterbalanced her magnificent service,
+and they were so evenly matched that each game proved a keen delight----
+
+In the quiet teas beneath the mulberry tree, where the incomprehensible
+atmosphere of unspoken tenderness gilded the light words and laughter,
+as sunlight touches leaf and flower to gold----
+
+At the cosy dinners, to which they sometimes asked him, sitting in the
+garden afterwards in the moonlight; when he would tell them thrilling
+tales of aviation, describing his initial flights, hairbreadth escapes;
+the joys of rapid soaring; the dangers of cross-currents, broken
+propellers, or twisted steering-gear----
+
+On all these occasions, the Boy--with his enthusiasm, his fun, and his
+fire--had been the life of the happy trio.
+
+During those evenings, in the moonlight, when he started off on
+airships, one heart stood still very often while the Boy talked; but it
+stood still, silently.  It was Mollie who clasped her hands and
+implored him never to fly again; then, in the next breath, begged him
+to take her as a passenger, on the first possible occasion.
+
+Happy days!  But Mollie was the attraction; therefore, with Mollie's
+departure, they would naturally come to an end.
+
+The Boy had not asked if he might come again; and, for the moment, she
+forgot that the Boy rarely asked for what he wanted.  He usually took
+it.
+
+She had a lonely luncheon; spent the afternoon over letters and
+accounts, picking up the dull threads of things laid aside during the
+gay holiday time.
+
+It was not the Professor's day for calling.  She was alone until four.
+Then she went out and sat under the mulberry.  The garden was very
+quiet.  The birds' hour of silence was barely over.
+
+Jenkins, the butler, had been sent into the town, so Martha brought out
+tea; as ample, as carefully arranged, as ever; and--cups for two!
+
+"Why two cups, Martha?" queried Miss Charteris, languidly.
+
+"Maybe there'll be a visitor," said Martha in grim prophetic tones.
+Then her hard old face relaxed and creased into an unaccustomed smile.
+"Maybe there is a visitor," she added, softly; for at that moment the
+postern gate banged, and they saw the Boy coming up the garden, in a
+shaft of sunlight.
+
+The Aunt walked quickly to meet him.  His arrival was so unexpected;
+and she had been so lonely, and so dull.
+
+"How nice of you," she said; "with the Attraction gone.  But Martha
+seems to have had a premonition of your coming.  She has just brought
+out tea, most suggestively arranged for two.  How festive you are, Boy!
+Why this wedding attire?  Are you coming from, or going to, a function?
+No?  Then don't you want tennis after tea--a few good hard sets; just
+we two, unhandicapped by our dear little Mollie?"
+
+"No," said the Boy; "talk, please, to-day; just we two, unhandicapped
+by our dear little Mollie.  Talk please; not tennis."
+
+He paused beside the border, full of mauve and purple flowers.  "How
+jolly those little what-d'-you-call-'ems look, in the sunshine," he
+said.
+
+Then the Aunt noticed that he wore no buttonhole, and that his tie was
+lavender.  She picked four of her little violas, and pinned them into
+his coat.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, "you are a dandy in the matter of ties and
+buttonholes; only it is so essentially _you_, that one rather enjoys
+it.  But this is the first day I have known you to arrive without one,
+and have need to fall back upon my garden."
+
+"It _is_ a first day," said the Boy, dropping into step with her, as
+she moved toward the mulberry tree.  "It starts a new régime, in the
+matter of buttonholes, and--other things.  I am going to have seven
+days, and this is the first."
+
+"Really?" smiled the Aunt, amused at the Boy's intense seriousness.  "I
+am flattered that you should spend a portion of 'the first day' with
+me.  Let us have tea, and then you shall tell me why seven days; and
+where you mean to pass them."
+
+The Boy was rather silent during tea.  The Aunt, trying to read his
+mind, thought at first that he regretted his flannels, and the chance
+of tennis; then that he was missing Mollie.  Whereupon the Aunt
+repeated her remark that it was nice of him to come, now the Attraction
+was no longer there.
+
+This gave him the cue for which he waited.  His cup was empty, and
+safely on the grass.  The floodgates of the Boy's pent-up love and
+longing burst open; the unforgettable words, "It was always you I
+wanted," were spoken; and now he waited for her, under the mulberry
+tree.  She had something to tell him; but, whatever it might be, it
+could not seriously affect the situation.  _He_ had told _her_--that
+was the great essential.  He would win her in seven days.  Already she
+knew just what he wanted--a big step for the first day.  He looked up,
+and saw her coming.
+
+She had regained her usual calm.  Her eyes were very kind.  She smiled
+at the Boy, gently.
+
+She took her seat in a low basket-work chair.  He had leapt to his
+feet.  She motioned him to another, just opposite hers.  She was
+feeling rather queenly.  Unconsciously her manner became somewhat
+regal.  The Boy enjoyed it.  He knew he was bent upon winning a queen
+among women.
+
+"I am going to tell you a story," she said.
+
+"Yes?" said the Boy.
+
+"It is about my Little Boy Blue."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"_You_ were my Little Boy Blue."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes; twenty years ago."
+
+"Then I was six," said the Boy, quite unperturbed.
+
+"We were staying at Dovercourt, on the east coast.  Our respective
+families had known each other.  I used to watch you playing on the
+shore.  You were a very tiny little boy."
+
+"I dare say I was quite a nice little boy," said the Boy, complacently.
+
+"Indeed you were; quite sweet.  You wore white flannel knickers, and a
+little blue coat."
+
+"I dare say it was quite a nice little coat," said the Boy, "and I hope
+my womenfolk had the tact to call it a 'blazer.'"
+
+"It was a dear little coat--I should say 'blazer,'" said the Aunt; "and
+I called you my 'Little Boy Blue.'  You also had a blue flannel cap,
+which you wore stuck on the back of your curls.  I spoke to you twice,
+Little Boy Blue."
+
+"Did you?" he said, and his brown eyes were tender.  "Then no wonder I
+feel I have loved you all my life."
+
+"Ah, but wait until you hear my story!  The first time I spoke to you,
+it happened thus.  Your nurse sat high up on the beach, in the long
+line of nurses, gossiping and doing needlework.  You took your little
+spade and bucket, and marched away, all by yourself, to a breakwater;
+and there you built a splendid sand castle.  I sat on the breakwater,
+higher up, and watched you.  You took immense pains; you overcame
+stupendous difficulties; and every time your little cap fell off, you
+picked it up, dusted off the sand with the sleeve of your little blue
+coat, and stuck it on the back of your curly head again.  You were very
+sweet, Little Boy Blue.  I can see you now."
+
+The Aunt paused, and let her eyes dwell upon the Boy in appreciative
+retrospection.  If he felt this something of an ordeal, he certainly
+showed no signs of it.  Not for a moment did his face lose its
+expression of delighted interest.
+
+"Presently," continued the Aunt, "your castle and courtyard finished,
+you made a little cannon in the centre of the courtyard, for defence.
+Then you looked around for a cannon-ball.  This was evidently a weighty
+matter, and indeed it turned out to be such.  You stood your spade
+against the breakwater; placed your bucket beside it; readjusted your
+little cap, and trotted off almost to the water's edge.  Your
+conception of the size of your castle and cannon must have become
+magnified with every step of those small sturdy feet, for, arrived at
+the water, you found a huge round stone nearly as large as your own
+little head.  This satisfied you completely, but you soon found you
+could not carry it in your hands.  You spent a moment in anxious
+consideration.  Then you took off your little blue coat, spread it upon
+the sand, rolled the cannon-ball upon it, tied the sleeves around it,
+picked up the hem and the collar, hoisted the heavy stone, and
+proceeded slowly and with difficulty up the shore.  Every moment it
+seemed as if the stone must fall, and crush the bare toes of my Little
+Boy Blue.  So I flew to the rescue.
+
+"'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may I help you to carry your stone?'
+
+"You paused, and looked up at me.  I doubt if you had breath to answer
+while you were walking.  Your little face was flushed and damp with
+exertion; the blue cap was almost off; you had sand on your eyebrows,
+and sand on your little straight nose.  But you looked at me with an
+expression of indomitable courage and pride, and you said: 'Fanks; but
+I always does my own cawwying.'  With that you started on, and I fell
+behind--rebuffed!"
+
+"Surly little beast!" ejaculated the Boy.
+
+"Not at all," said the Aunt.  "I won't have my Little Boy Blue called
+names!  He showed a fine independence of spirit.  Now hear what
+happened next.
+
+"Little Boy Blue had almost reached his castle, with his somewhat
+large, but otherwise suitable, cannon-ball, when his nurse, glancing up
+from her needlework, perceived him staggering along in his
+shirt-sleeves, and also saw the use to which he was putting his flannel
+coat.  She threw aside the blue over-all she was making, rushed down
+the shore, calling my Little Boy Blue every uncomplimentary compound
+noun and adjective which entered her irate and flurried mind; seized
+the precious stone, unwound the little jacket, flung the stone away,
+shook out the sand and seaweed, and straightened the twisted sleeves.
+Then she proceeded to shake the breath out of my Little Boy Blue's
+already rather breathless little body; put on the coat, jerked him up
+the shore, and plumped him down with his back to the sea and his
+castle, to sit in disgrace and listen, while she told the assembled
+nurses what a 'born _h_imp of _h_evil' he was!  I could have slain that
+woman!  And I knew my little Boy Blue had no dear mother of his own.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his tumbled curls, and comfort
+him.  And all this time he had not uttered a sound.  He had just
+explained to me that he always did his own carrying, and evidently he
+had learned to bear his childish sorrows in silence.  I watched the
+little disconsolate blue back, usually so gaily erect, now round with
+shame and woe.  Then I bethought me of something I could do.  I made
+quite sure he was not peeping round.  Then I went and found the chosen
+stone, and it was heavy indeed!  I carried it to the breakwater, and
+deposited it carefully within the courtyard of the castle.  Then I sat
+down behind the breakwater, on the other side, and waited.  I felt sure
+Little Boy Blue would come back for his spade and bucket.
+
+"Presently the nurses grew tired of bullying him.  The strength of his
+quiet non-resistance proved greater than their superior numbers and
+brute force.  Also his intelligent little presence was, undoubtedly, a
+check upon their gossip.  So he was told he might go; I conclude, on
+the understanding that he should 'be a good boy' and carry no more
+'nasty heavy stones.'  I saw him rise and shake the dust of the nurses'
+circle off his little feet!  Then he pushed back his curls, and,
+without looking to the right or to the left, trotted straight to his
+castle.  I wondered he did not glance, however hopelessly, in the
+supposed direction of the desired stone.  But, no!  He came gaily on;
+and the light of a great expectation shone in his brown eyes.
+
+"When he reached the breakwater, and found his castle, there--safely in
+the courtyard--reposed the mighty cannon-ball.  He stood still a
+moment, looking at it; and his cheeks went very pink.  Then he pulled
+off his little cap, and turned his radiant face up to the blue sky,
+flecked with fleeting white clouds.  And--'Fank de Lord,' said my
+Little Boy Blue."
+
+There were unconcealed tears in the Aunt's kind eyes, and she
+controlled her quiet voice with difficulty.  But the glory of a great
+gladness had come over the Boy.  Without as yet explaining itself in
+words, it rang in his voice and laughter.
+
+"I remember," he said.  "Why, of course I remember!  Not you, worse
+luck; but being lugged up the shore, and fearing I had lost my
+cannon-ball.  And, you know, as quite a tiny chap, I had formed a habit
+of praying about all my little wants and woes.  I sometimes think, how
+amused the angels must have been when my small petitions arrived.
+There was a scarecrow, in a field, I prayed for, regularly, every
+night, for weeks.  I had been struck by the fact that it looked lonely.
+Then I seriously upset the theology of the nursery, by passing through
+a course of persistent and fervent prayer for Satan.  It appeared as an
+obvious logical conclusion to my infant mind: that if the person
+who--according to nurse--spent all his time in going about making
+everybody naughty, could himself become good, all naughtiness would
+cease.  Also, that anybody must be considered as 'past praying for,'
+was an idea which nearly broke my small heart With rage and misery,
+when it was first crudely forced upon me.  I think the arch-fiend must
+have turned away, silent and nonplussed, if he ever chanced to pass by,
+while a very tiny boy was kneeling up in his crib, pleading with
+tearful earnestness: 'Please God, bless poor old Satan; make him good
+an' happy; an' take him back to heaven.'  But it used to annoy nurse
+considerably, when she came into the same prayer, with barely a comma
+between."
+
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue!" cried the Aunt.  "Why was I not your mother!"
+
+"Thank goodness, you were not!" said the Boy, imperturbably.  "I don't
+want you for a mother, dear.  I want you for my wife."
+
+"So you had prayed about the stone?" remarked the Aunt, hurriedly.
+
+"Yes.  While seated there in disgrace, I said: 'Please God, let an
+angel find my cannon-ball, which howwid old nurse fwowed away.  An' let
+the angel cawwy it safe to the courtyard of my castle.'  And I was not
+at all surprised to find it there; merely very glad.  So you see,
+Christobel, you were my guardian angel twenty years ago.  No wonder I
+feel I have known and loved you, all my life."
+
+"Wait until you hear the rest of my story, Little Boy Blue.  But I can
+testify that you were not surprised.  Your brown eyes were simply
+shining with faith and expectation, as you trotted down the shore.
+But--who said you might call me 'Christobel'?"
+
+"No one," replied the Boy.  "I thought of it myself.  It seemed so
+perfect to be able to say it on the first of my seven days.  And, if
+you consider, I have never called you 'Miss Charteris.'  You always
+seemed to me much too splendid to be 'Miss' anything.  One might as
+well say 'Miss Joan of Arc' or 'Miss Diana of the Ephesians.'  But of
+course I won't call you 'Christobel' if you would rather not."
+
+"You quite absurd boy!" said the Aunt, laughing.  "Call me anything you
+like--just for your seven days.  But you have not yet told me the
+meaning or significance of these seven days."
+
+The Boy sat forward, eagerly.
+
+"It's like this," he said.  "I have always loved the story of how the
+army of Israel marched round Jericho during seven days.  It appeals to
+me.  The well-garrisoned, invincible city, with its high walls and
+barred gates.  The silent, determined army, marching round it, once
+every day.  Apparently nothing was happening; but, in reality, their
+faith, enthusiasm, and will-power were undermining those mighty walls.
+And on the seventh day, when they marched round seven times to the
+blast of the priestly trumpets; at the seventh time, the ordeal of
+silence was over; leave was given to the great silent host to shout.
+So the rams' horns sounded a louder blast than ever; and then, with all
+the pent-up enthusiasm born of those seven days of silent marching, the
+people shouted!  Down fell the walls of Jericho, and up the conquerors
+went, right into the heart of the citadel....  _I_ am prepared to march
+round in silence, during seven days; but on the seventh day, Jericho
+will be taken."
+
+"_I_ being Jericho, I conclude," remarked the Aunt, dryly.  "I cannot
+say I have particularly noticed the silence.  But that part of the
+programme would be decidedly dull; so we will omit it, and say, from
+the first: 'little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!'"
+
+"I shall blow it all right, on the seventh day," said the Boy, "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+
+He got up, came across, and knelt by the arm of her chair.
+
+"I shall walk right up into the heart of the citadel," he said, "when
+the gates fly open, and the walls fall down; and there I shall find
+you, my Queen; and together we shall 'inherit the kingdom.'  O dear
+unconquered Citadel!  O beautiful, golden kingdom!  Don't you wish it
+was the seventh day _now_, Christobel?"
+
+His mouth looked so sweet, as he bent over her and said "Christo_bel_,"
+with a queer little accent on the final syllable, that the Aunt felt
+momentarily dizzy.
+
+"Go back to your chair, at once, Boy," she whispered.
+
+And he went.
+
+Neither spoke a word, for some minutes.  The Boy lay back, watching the
+mysterious moving of the mulberry leaves.  The triumphant happiness in
+his face was a rather breathless thing to see.  It made you want to
+hear a great orchestra burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.
+
+The Aunt watched the Boy, and wondered whether she must tell him about
+the Professor, before the seventh day; and what he would say, when she
+did tell him; and how Jericho would feel when the army of Israel, with
+silent trumpets and banners drooping, marched disconsolate away,
+leaving its walls still standing; its gates still barred.  Poor walls,
+supposed to be so mighty!  Already they were trembling.  If the Boy had
+not been so chivalrously obedient, he could have broken into the
+citadel, five minutes ago.  Did he know? ....  She looked at his
+radiant face....  Yes; he knew.  There were not many things the Boy did
+not know.  She must not allow the seven days, even though she could
+absolutely trust his obedience and his chivalry.  She must tell him the
+rest of the story, and send him away to-day.  Poor invading army, shorn
+of its glad triumph!  Poor Jericho, left desolate!  It was decidedly
+unusual to be compared to Jericho, and Diana of the Ephesians, and Joan
+of Arc, all in the same conversation; and it was rather funny to enjoy
+it.  But then most things which happened by reason of the Boy _were_
+funny and unusual.  He would always come marching 'as an army with
+banners.'  The Professor would drive up to Jericho in a fly, and knock
+a decorous rat-tat on the gate.  Would the walls tremble at that knock?
+Alas, alas!  They had never trembled yet.  Would they ever tremble
+again, save for the march-past of the Boy?  Would the gates ever really
+fly open, except to the horn-blast of little Boy Blue? ... The Aunt
+dared not think any longer.  She felt she must take refuge in immediate
+action.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, in her most maternal voice, "come down from the
+clouds, and listen to me.  I want to tell you the rest of the story of
+my Little Boy Blue."
+
+He sprang up, and came and sat on the grass at her feet.  All the Boy's
+movements were so bewilderingly sudden.  They were over and done,
+before you had time to consider whether or no you intended to allow
+them.  But this new move was quite satisfactory.  He looked less big
+and manly, down on the grass; and she _really_ felt maternal, with his
+curly head so close to her knee.  She even ventured to put out a cool
+motherly hand and smooth the hair back from his forehead, as she began
+to speak.  She had intended to touch it only once--just to accentuate
+the fact of her motherliness--but it was the sort of soft thick hair
+which seemed meant for the gentle passing through it of a woman's
+fingers.  And the Boy seemed to like it, for he gave one long sigh of
+content, and leaned his head against her knee.
+
+"Now I must tell you," said the Aunt, "of the only other time when I
+ventured to speak to my Little Boy Blue.  He had come to his favourite
+place beside the breakwater.  The tide had long ago swept away castle,
+courtyard, and cannon; but the cannon-ball was still there.  It partook
+of the nature of 'things that remain.' Heavy stones usually do!  When I
+peeped over the breakwater, Little Boy Blue was sitting on the sand.
+His sturdy legs were spread wide.  His bare toes looked like ten little
+pink sea-shells.  Between his small brown knees, he had planted his
+bucket.  His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on the handle of which
+was writ large, in blue pencil: _Master Guy Chelsea_.  He was bent upon
+filling his bucket with sand.  But the spade being long, and the bucket
+too close to him--(Boy, leave my shoe alone!  It does not require
+attention)--most of the sand missed the bucket, and went over himself.
+I heard him sigh rather wearily, and say 'Blow!' in a tired little
+voice.  I leaned over the breakwater.  'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may
+I play with you, and help you to fill your bucket with sand?'
+
+"Little Boy Blue looked up.  His curls, his eyebrows, his long dark
+eyelashes were full of sand.  There was sand on his little straight
+nose.  But no amount of sand could detract from the dignity of his
+little face, or weaken its stern decision.  He laid down his spade, put
+up a damp little hand, and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks;
+but I don't like girls.'  Oh, Master Guy Chelsea, how you snubbed me!"
+
+The Boy's broad shoulders shook with laughter, but he captured the hand
+still smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down to his lips, kissed it
+gently, back and palm, and then each finger.
+
+"Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little girl," he said.  "But she must
+admit, little girls of seven are not always attractive to small boys of
+six."
+
+"I was not seven," said the Aunt, with portentous emphasis.  "Leave go
+of my hand, Boy, and listen.  _When you were six, I was sixteen_."
+
+This bomb of the Aunt's was received with a moment's respectful
+silence, as befitted the discharge of her principal field-piece.  Then
+the Boy's gay voice said:
+
+"And what of that, dear?  When I was six, you were sixteen.  When I was
+twenty, you were twenty-nine----"
+
+"Thirty, Boy; thirty!  Be accurate.  And now--you are twenty-six, and I
+am getting on towards forty----"
+
+"Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six!  Be accurate!" pleaded the Boy.
+
+"And when you are forty, I shall be fifty; and when you are fifty,
+Boy--only fifty; a man is in his prime at fifty--I shall be sixty."
+
+"And when I am eighty," said the Boy, "you will be ninety--an old lady
+is in her prime at ninety.  What a charming old couple we shall be!  I
+wonder if we shall still play tennis.  I think quite the jolliest thing
+to do, when we are very _very_ old--quite decrepit, you know--will be
+to stay at Folkestone, and hire two bath-chairs, with nice active old
+men to draw them; ancient, of course, but they would seem young
+compared to us; and then make them race on the Leas, a five-pound note
+to the winner, to insure them really galloping.  We would start at the
+most crowded time, when the band was playing, and race in and out among
+lots of other bath-chairs going slowly, and simply terrified at us.
+Let's be sure and remember to do it, Christobel, sixty years from
+to-day.  Have you a pocket-book?  I shall be a gay young person of
+eighty-six, and you----"
+
+"Boy dear," she said, bending over him, with a catch in her voice; "you
+_must_ be serious and listen.  When I have said that which I must say,
+you will understand directly that it is no use having your seven days.
+It will be better and wiser to raise the siege at once, and march away.
+Listen! ... Hush, stay perfectly still.  No; I can say what I am going
+to say more easily if you don't look at me....  Please, Boy;
+_please_....  I told you my 'Little Boy Blue stories' to make you
+realize how very much older I am than you.  I was practically grown up,
+when you were still a dear delightful baby.  I could have picked you up
+in my arms and carried you about.  Oh, _cannot_ you see that, however
+much I loved him--perhaps I should rather say: just _because_ I love
+him, because I have always wanted to help him carry his heavy stones;
+make the best of his life, and accomplish manfully the tasks he sets
+himself to do--I could not possibly marry my Little Boy Blue?  I could
+not, oh I _could_ not, let him tie his youth and brightness to a woman,
+staid and middle-aged, who might almost be his mother!"
+
+The earnest, anxious voice, eager in its determined insistence, ceased.
+
+The Boy sat very still, his head bent forward, his brown hands clasping
+his knees.  Then suddenly he knelt up beside her, leaned over the arm
+of her chair, and looked into her eyes.  There was in his face such a
+tender reverence of adoration, that the Aunt knew she need not be
+afraid to have him so near.  This was holy ground.  She put from off
+her feet the shoes of doubt and distrust; waiting, in perfect calmness,
+to hear what he had to say.
+
+"Dear," murmured the Boy, tenderly, "your little stories might possibly
+have had the effect you intended--specially the place where you paused
+and gazed at me as if you saw me still with sand upon my nose, and ten
+pink toes like sea-shells!  That was calculated to make any chap feel
+youngish, and a bit shy.  Wasn't it?  Yes; they might have told the way
+you meant, were it not for one dear sentence which overshadows all the
+rest.  You said just now: 'I knew my little Boy Blue had no mother.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his curls, and comfort him.'
+Christobel, that dear wish of yours was a gift you then gave to your
+Little Boy Blue.  You can't take it away now, because he has grown
+bigger.  He still has no mother, no sisters, no near relations in the
+world.  That all holds good.  Can you refuse him the haven, the help,
+the comfort you would have given him then, now--when at last he is old
+enough to know and understand; to turn to them, in grateful worship and
+wonder?  Would you have me marry a girl as feather-brained, as
+harum-scarum, as silly as I often am myself?  You suggest Mollie; but
+the Boy Blue of to-day agrees with his small wise self of twenty years
+ago and says: 'Fanks, but I don't like girls!'  Oh, Christobel, I want
+a woman's love, a woman's arms, a woman's understanding tenderness!
+You said, just now, you wished you had been my mother.  Does not the
+love of the sort of wife a fellow really wants, have a lot of the
+mother in it too?  I've been filled with such a glory, Christobel,
+since you admitted what you felt for your Little Boy Blue because I
+seemed to know, somehow, that having once felt it, though the feeling
+may have gone to sleep, you could never put it quite away.  But, if
+your Little Boy Blue came back, from the other end of the world, and
+wanted you----"
+
+The Boy stopped suddenly, struck dumb by the look on the beautiful face
+beneath his.  He saw it pale to absolute whiteness, while the dear firm
+lips faltered and trembled.  He saw the startled pain leap into the
+eyes.  He did not understand the cause of her emotion, or know that he
+had wakened in that strongly repressed nature the desperate hunger for
+motherhood, possible only to woman at the finest and best.
+
+She realized now why she had never forgotten her Little Boy Blue of the
+Dovercourt sands.  He, in his baby beauty and sweetness, had wakened
+the embryo mother in the warm-hearted girl of sixteen.  And now he had
+come back, in the full strength of his young manhood, overflowing with
+passionate ideality and romance, to teach the lonely woman of
+thirty-six the true sweet meaning of love and of wifehood.
+
+Her heart seemed to turn to marble and cease beating.  She felt
+helpless in her pain.  Only the touch of her Little Boy Blue, or of
+baby Boy Blues so like him, that they must have come trotting down the
+sands of life straight from the heaven of his love and hers, could ever
+still this ache at her bosom.
+
+She looked helplessly up into his longing, glowing, boyish face--so
+sweet, so young, so beautiful.
+
+Should she put up her arms and draw it to her breast?
+
+She had given no actual promise to the Professor.  She had not
+mentioned him to the Boy.
+
+Ah, dear God!  If one had waited twelve long years for a thing which
+was to prove but an empty husk after all!  In order not to fail the
+possible expectations of another, had she any right to lay such a heavy
+burden of disappointment upon her little Boy Blue?  And, if she _must_
+do so, how could she best help him to bear it?
+
+"Fanks," came a brave little voice, with almost startling distinctness,
+across the shore of memory; "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+
+At last she found her voice.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "please go now.  I am tired."
+
+Then she shut her eyes.
+
+In a few seconds she heard the gate close, and knew the garden was
+empty.
+
+Tears slipped from between the closed lids, and coursed slowly down her
+cheeks.  The only right way is apt to be a way of such pain at the
+moment, that even those souls possessing clearest vision and endowed
+with strongest faith, are unable to hear the golden clarion-call,
+sounding amid the din of present conflict: "Through much tribulation,
+enter into the kingdom."
+
+Thus hopeless tears fell in the old garden.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And Martha, the elderly housekeeper, faithful but curious, let fall the
+lath of the green Venetian blind covering the storeroom window, through
+which she had permitted herself to peep.  As the postern gate closed on
+the erect figure of the Boy, she dropped the blind and turned away, an
+unwonted tear running down the furrows of her hard old face.
+
+"Lord love 'im!" she said.  "He'll get what he wants in time.  There's
+not a woman walks this earth as couldn't never refuse _'im_ nothing."
+
+With which startling array of negatives, old Martha compiled one
+supreme positive in favour of the Boy, leaving altogether out of
+account--alas!--the Professor.
+
+Then she wiped her eyes with her apron, and chid her nose harshly for
+an unexpected display of sentiment.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And the Boy tramped back to his hotel with his soul full of glory,
+knowing his first march round had been to some purpose.  The walls of
+the belovčd Citadel had trembled indeed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the first day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY
+
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+
+The Boy arrived in flannels, his racket under his arm.  He came in, as
+usual, through the little green gate in the red-brick fruit-wall at the
+bottom of the garden.  From the first, he had taken this privilege,
+which as a matter of fact had never been accorded to anybody.
+
+The Professor always entered by the front door, placed his umbrella in
+the stand, wet or shine; left his goloshes on the mat: hung up his cap
+and gown, and followed Jenkins into the drawing-room.  Though he had
+called regularly, twice a week, during the last dozen years--first on
+his old friend and tutor, Professor Charteris; after his death, on his
+widow and daughter; and, when Miss Charteris was left alone, on herself
+only--he never failed to knock and ring; nor did he ever enter
+unannounced.
+
+The Boy had dashed in at the garden gate on the occasion of his second
+visit, and appeared to consider that he had thus created a precedent
+which should always be followed.
+
+Once, and once only--on her thirtieth birthday--the Professor had
+brought Miss Charteris a bouquet; but, being very absent-minded, he
+deposited the bouquet on the mat, and advanced into the drawing-room
+carrying his goloshes in his left hand.  Having shaken hands with his
+right, he vaguely presented the goloshes.  Miss Charteris, never at a
+loss where her friends were concerned, took the Professor's goloshes
+from his hand, carried them out into the hall, found the bouquet on the
+mat, and saved the situation by putting the flowers in water, and
+thanking the Professor with somewhat more hilarity than the ordinary
+presentation of a bouquet would have called forth.
+
+But to return to the second day.  The Boy arrived in flannels, and tea
+was a merry meal.  The Boy wanted particulars concerning the marriage,
+which had taken place a year or so before, between Martha--maid of
+thirty years' standing, now acting as cook-housekeeper to Miss
+Charteris--and Jenkins, the butler.  The Boy wanted to know which
+proposed, Jenkins or Martha; in what terms they announced the fact of
+their engagement, to Miss Charteris; whether Jenkins ever "bucked up
+and looked like a bridegroom," and whether Martha wore orange-blossom
+and a wedding veil.  He extorted the admission that Christobel had been
+present at the wedding, and insisted on a detailed account; over which,
+when given at last, he slapped his knee so often, and went into such
+peals of laughter, that Miss Charteris glanced anxiously towards the
+kitchen and pantry windows, which unfortunately looked out on the
+garden.
+
+The Boy expatiated on his enthusiastic admiration for Martha; but at
+the same time was jolly well certain he would have bolted when it came
+to "I, Martha, take thee, Jenkins," had he stood in the latter's shoes.
+Miss Charteris did not dare admit, that as a matter of fact the
+sentence had been: "I, Martha, take thee, Noah."  That the meek Jenkins
+should possess so historical and patriarchal a name, would completely
+have finished the Boy, who was already taking considerable risks by
+combining much laughter with an unusually large number of explosive
+buns.
+
+The Boy would have it, that, excepting in the rôle of bride and
+subsequent conjugal owner and disciplinarian, Martha was perfect.
+
+Miss Charteris admitted Martha's unrivalled excellence as a cook, her
+economy in management, and fidelity of heart.  But Martha had a temper.
+Also, though undoubtedly a superficial fault, yet trying to the
+artistic eye of Miss Charteris, Martha's hair was apt to be dishevelled
+and untidy.
+
+"It _is_ a bit wispy," admitted the Boy, reluctantly.  "Why don't you
+tell her so?"
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Boy dear, I daren't!  It would be as much as
+my place is worth, to make a personal observation to Martha!"
+
+"I'll tell her for you, if you like," said the Boy, coolly.
+
+"If you do," warned Miss Charteris, "it will be the very last remark
+you will ever make in Martha's kitchen, Boy."
+
+"Oh, there are _ways of telling_," said the Boy, airily; and pinched an
+explosive bun.
+
+After tea they took their rackets and strolled down the lawn, pausing a
+moment while she chose him a buttonhole.  The tie was orange on this
+second day, and she gathered the opening bud of a William Allen
+Richardson rose.  She smiled into its golden heart as she pinned it in
+his white flannel coat.  Somehow it brought a flash of remembrance of
+the golden heart of Little Boy Blue, who could not bear that any one
+should be past praying for, or that even a scarecrow should seem lonely.
+
+They crossed the lane and entered the paddock; tightened the net on the
+tennis-court; chose out half a dozen brand-new balls, and settled down
+to fast and furious singles.
+
+Miss Charteris played as well as she had ever played in her life; but
+the Boy was off his service, and she beat him six to four.  Next time,
+he pulled off 'games all,' but lost the set; then was beaten, three to
+six.
+
+Miss Charteris was glowing with the exercise, and the consciousness of
+being in great form.
+
+"Boy dear!" she called, as she played the winning stroke of the third
+set, "I'm afraid you're lazy to-day!"
+
+The Boy walked up to the net, and looked at her through his racket.
+
+"I'm not lazy," he said; "but I'm on the wrong side of Jordan.  This
+sort of thing is waste of time.  I want to go over, and start marching."
+
+"Don't be absurd, Boy.  I prefer _this_ side Jordan, thank you; and you
+shall stay here until you beat me."
+
+The Boy won the next set.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was deliciously cool and quiet under the mulberry-tree.
+
+The Boy was quite subdued--for him.  He seemed inclined to do his
+marching in silence, on this second day.
+
+Miss Charteris felt her mental balance restored.  She held the reins
+to-day, and began considering how to deal wisely with the Boy.  So much
+depended upon how she managed him.
+
+At length she said: "Boy, when you were at Trinity, I often used to see
+you.  I knew you were my Little Boy Blue of all those years ago.  I
+used to feel inclined to send for you, talk to you for your good, and
+urge you to set to, and do great things; but I remembered the stone,
+and the bucket; and I did not want to let myself in for a third
+snubbing."
+
+The Boy smiled.  "Did you think me a lazy beggar?" he asked.  "I wasn't
+really, you know.  I did quite a good deal of all kinds of things.  But
+I didn't want to get played out.  I wanted to do things all the rest of
+my life.  Fellows who grind at college and come out Senior Wranglers,
+begin and end there.  You don't hear of 'em again."
+
+"I see," said Miss Charteris, amusement in her eyes.  "So you felt it
+wisest to avoid being Senior Wrangler?"
+
+"Just so," said the Boy.  "I was content with a fairly respectable B.A.
+and I hope you saw me take it.  How rotten it is, going up in a bunch,
+all hanging on to an old chap's fingers."
+
+"Boy, Boy!  I know all about you!  You wasted golden opportunities; you
+declined to use your excellent abilities; you gave the authorities an
+anxious time.  You were so disgracefully popular, that everybody
+thought your example the finest thing to follow, and you were more or
+less responsible for every lark and row which took place during your
+time."
+
+The Boy did not smile.  He looked at her, with a quaint, innocent
+seriousness, which made her feel almost uncomfortable.
+
+"Dear," he said, "I had plenty of money, and heaps of friends, and I
+wanted to have a good time.  Also I wanted all the other fellows to
+have a good time; and I enjoyed getting the better of all the old
+fogies who had forgotten what youth was like--if they'd ever known it.
+And I had no mother to ask me questions, and no sisters to turn up at
+my rooms unexpectedly.  But I can tell you this, Christobel.  I hope to
+be married soon; and I hope to marry a woman so sweet and noble and
+pure, that her very presence tests a man's every thought, feeling, and
+memory.  And I can honestly look into your dear eyes and say: My wife
+will be welcome to know every detail of every prank I ever played in
+Cambridge; nor is there a thing in those three years I need feel
+ashamed of her knowing.  There!  Will that do?"
+
+Miss Charteris threw out a deprecatory hand.  "Oh, Boy dear!" she said.
+"I never doubted that.  My Little Boy Blue, don't I know you?  But I
+cannot let you talk as if you owe me any explanations.  How curious to
+think I saw you so often during those years, yet we never actually met."
+
+The Boy smiled.  "Yes," he said, "we were all awfully proud of you, you
+know.  What was it you took at Girton?"
+
+Miss Charteris mentioned, modestly, the highest honours in classics as
+yet taken by a woman.  The Boy had often heard it before.  But he
+listened with bated breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we were awfully proud of it, because of your tennis,
+and because of you being--well, just _you_.  If you had been a
+round-shouldered little person in a placket, we should have taken it
+differently.  We always called you 'The Goddess,' because of your
+splendid walk.  Did you know?"
+
+"No, Boy, I did not know; but I confess to feeling immensely flattered.
+Only, take a friend's advice, and avoid conversational allusions to
+plackets, because you are obviously ignorant of the meaning of the
+word.  And now, tell me?  Having successfully escaped so serious a
+drawback to future greatness as becoming Senior Wrangler, on what
+definite enterprise have you embarked?"
+
+"Flying," said the Boy, sitting forward in his chair.  "I am going to
+break every record.  I am going to fly higher, farther, faster, than
+any man has ever flown before.  This week, if I had not stayed on
+here--you know originally I came up only for the 'May week'--I was to
+have done a Channel flight.  Ah, you don't know what it means, to own
+three flying-machines, all of different make, and each the best of its
+kind!  You feel you own the world!  And then to climb into your seat
+and go whirling away, with the wonderful hum in your ears, mastering
+the air--the hitherto invincible air.  May I tell you what I am going
+to do for my next fly?  Start from the high ground between Dover and
+Folkestone; fly over the Channel; circle round Boulogne Cathedral--you
+remember the high dome, rising out of the old town surrounded by the
+ramparts?  Then back across the Channel, and to ground again at
+Folkestone; all in one flight; and I hope to do it in record time, if
+winds are right."
+
+"And if winds are wrong, Boy?  If you rush out and take the horrid
+risks of the cross-currents you told us about?  If something happens to
+your propeller, and you fall headlong into the sea?"
+
+"Oh, it's all U P then," said the Boy, lightly.  "But one never expects
+that sort of thing to happen; and when it does, all is over so quickly
+that there is no time for anticipation.  Beside, there must be
+pioneers.  Every good life given, advances the cause."
+
+Christobel Charteris looked at him.  His was not the terrible,
+unmistakable, relentless face of the bird-man.  He was brilliant with
+enthusiasm, but it was the enthusiasm of the sportsman, keen to excel;
+of Young England, dauntless, fearless, eager to break records.  The
+spirit of the true bird-man had not, as yet, entered into her Little
+Boy Blue.
+
+She pressed her hand upon her bosom.  It ached still.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, softly.  "Has it ever struck you that, if you
+marry, your wife--whoever she might be--would most probably want you to
+give up flying?  I cannot imagine a woman being able to bear that a man
+who was her _all_, should do these things."
+
+The Boy never turned a hair!  He did not bound in his seat.  He did not
+even look at her.
+
+"Why, of course, dear," he said, "if you wished it, I should give up
+flying, like a shot, and sell my aeroplanes.  I know plenty of chaps
+who would like to buy them to-morrow.  And I'll tell you what we would
+do.  We'd buy the biggest, most powerful motor-car we could get, and
+we'd tear all over the country, exceeding the speed-limit, and doing
+everything jolly we could think of.  That would be every bit as good as
+flying, if--if we did it together.  I say, Christobel--do you know how
+to make a sentence of 'together'?  Just three words: _to get her_!
+That's what 'together' spells for me now."
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "You might have taken honours in spelling, Boy.
+And I am not the sort of person who enjoys exceeding speed-limits.
+Also I am afraid I have a troublesome habit of always wanting to stop
+and see all there is to see."
+
+But the Boy was infinitely accommodating.  "Oh, we wouldn't exceed the
+speed-limit--much.  And we would stop everywhere, and see everything.
+You should breakfast in London; lunch at the Old White Horse, Mr.
+Pickwick's inn at Ipswich; have tea at the Maid's Head, beneath the
+shadow of Norwich Cathedral, where you could wash your hands in Queen
+Elizabeth's fusty old bedroom--what a lot of bedrooms Queen Elizabeth
+slept in, and made them all fusty--and have time to show me Little Boy
+Blue's breakwater at Dovercourt, before dinner.  There's nothing like
+motoring!"
+
+"It sounds interesting, certainly," said Miss Charteris.
+
+"And then," continued the Boy, in a calm business-like voice, "it's
+less expensive than flying.  You run through fifty thousand a year in
+no time with aeroplanes.  And of course we should want to open both my
+places.  I'm awfully glad I didn't let the tenants in the old home
+renew their lease.  As it is, they turn out in three months.  Oh, I
+say, Christobel, I do believe it is a setting worthy of you.  Have you
+ever seen it?  The great hall, the old pictures, the oak staircase--I
+once rode down it on my rocking-horse and came to utter smash.  And
+outside--the park, the lake, the beech avenue, the rose-garden, the
+peacocks.  And a funny little old village belongs to us.  Think how the
+people must want looking after.  I believe you would like it all--I
+really believe you would!  And think, ah, just think what it would be
+to me, to see my own splendid wife, queen over everything in my dear
+jolly old home!  Hullo!--Hark to all the clocks!  What is that
+striking?  Seven?  Oh, I say!  I'm dining with the Master to-night.  I
+must rush off, and change.  Though I was such a bad lot, they all seem
+quite pleased to see me again.  Really they do!  Have I stayed too
+long? ... Sure? ... May I come to-morrow? ... You _are_ most awfully
+good to me.  Good-bye."
+
+And the Boy was gone.  He had held her hand, in a firm, strong clasp, a
+second longer than the conventional handshake; his clear eyes, exactly
+on a level with hers, had looked at her gravely, wistfully, tenderly;
+and he was gone.
+
+She walked slowly up the lawn.  She must write a few letters before
+post time; then dress for her solitary dinner.
+
+She felt a little flat; quite without cause.  What could have been more
+satisfactory, in every way, than the Boy's visit; in spite of his
+absurd castles in the air?  These must be tactfully demolished
+to-morrow.  To-day, it was wisest just to let him talk.
+
+Poor Little Boy Blue!  Instead of the walls of Jericho falling, his own
+castles in the air would come tumbling about his ears.  Poor Little Boy
+Blue!
+
+She felt she had been completely mistress of the situation to-day,
+holding it exactly as she wished it to be.  There was no need to fear
+the remaining days.
+
+And when the seven days were over--what then? ... She certainly felt
+very flat this evening.  How suddenly the Boy had gone!  There was
+still so much she wanted to say to him....  And to-morrow was the
+Professor's afternoon.  Mercifully, he never stayed later than four
+o'clock.  It was to be hoped the Boy would not turn up early!  But
+there was never any knowing what the Boy would do.
+
+She smiled as she mounted the flight of stone steps, and passed into
+the house.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And, outside the postern gate, the Boy threw up his cap, and caught it;
+then started off and sprinted a hundred yards; then, turning aside,
+leapt a five-barred gate, and made off across the fields.  When he
+pulled up at last, in his own bedroom, he had just time to tub, shave,
+and wrestle with his evening clothes.  He communed with himself in the
+few moments of enforced stillness, while he mastered his tie.
+
+"That was all right," he said.  "I jolly well worked _that_ all right!
+There was nothing to frighten her to-day--not a thing.  Dear lips!
+They never trembled once; and no more turning faint.  And, my Goody,
+how she lectured me!  I wonder who's been telling her what.  I know why
+she did it too.  She wanted to feel quite sure she was bossing the
+show.  And so she was, bless her!  But I marched round!  Yes, I jolly
+well marched round....  Oh, I say!  Can't you stop where I put you?"
+This, to his tie.
+
+Then, with _her_ golden rose in his button-hole, fastened by _the_ pin
+from his flannel coat, off went the Boy to dine with the Master of his
+college.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the second day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY
+
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+
+The Boy sat on a corner of the kitchen table, swinging a loose leg, and
+watching Martha make hot buttered-toast.
+
+He had arrived early, and, finding no one in the garden, had entered
+the house by the garden-door, to pursue investigations upstairs.
+
+On the mat in the hall he saw a pair of goloshes; in the
+umbrella-stand, a very large, badly-rolled umbrella; hanging on a peg
+near by, a professor's cap and gown.
+
+The Boy stood stock still in the middle of the little hall, and looked
+at the goloshes.
+
+Then from the drawing-room, through the closed door, came the voice of
+Miss Charteris--full, clear, measured, melodious--reading Greek tragedy.
+
+  _érrois anaidés, én táchei neanía_
+
+declaimed Miss Charteris; and the Boy fled.
+
+Arrived in the kitchen, he persuaded Martha that cigarette smoke was
+fatal to black-beetles.  He went about, blowing fragrant clouds into
+every possible crack and cranny.  Martha watched him, out of the corner
+of her eye, crawling along under the dresser in his immaculate white
+flannels, and Martha blessed her stars that her kitchen floor was so
+spotlessly clean.  Only this morning she had remarked to Jenkins that
+he could very well eat his dinner off the boards.  Mercifully,
+Jenkins--tiresome man though he usually was--had not taken this
+literally; or he might have made the floor less fit for the Boy's
+perambulations.
+
+Having taken all this trouble in order to establish his unquestioned
+right to smoke in Martha's kitchen, and to pose as a public benefactor
+while so doing, the Boy seated himself on the edge of the table,
+exactly behind Martha; lighted a fresh "Zenith," and prepared to enjoy
+himself.
+
+Martha glanced nervously at the smoke, issuing from cracks and holes on
+all sides.  It gave her a feeling that the house was on fire.  Of
+course she knew it was not; but to _feel_ the house is on fire, is only
+one degree less alarming than to _know_ it is.  However, beetles are
+nasty things; and the condescending kindness and regard for Martha's
+personal comfort, which crawled about after them in white flannels, was
+gratifying to a degree.
+
+So Martha turned and gave the Boy one of her unusual smiles.  He was
+very intently blowing rings--"bubbles" Martha called them afterwards,
+when explaining them to Jenkins; but that was Martha's mistake.  They
+were smoke rings.  It was one of the Boy's special accomplishments.  He
+was an expert at blowing rings.
+
+Presently:--"Martha, my duck--" he said suddenly.
+
+Martha jumped.  "Bless us, Mr. Guy!  What a name!"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" inquired the Boy, innocently.  "I consider
+it a very nice name, and scriptural."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean m' own name," explained Martha, more flushed than
+the warmth of the fire warranted.  "Not but what m' godfathers and
+godmothers might well 'ave chosen me a better."
+
+"Oh, don't blame them, overmuch, Martha," said the Boy, earnestly.
+"You see their choice was limited.  If you study your catechism you
+will find that it had to be 'N' or 'M'--'Naomi' or 'Martha.'  Even at
+that early age, they thought you favoured 'Martha' rather than 'Naomi';
+so they named you 'Martha.'"
+
+"Well I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins.  "'N' or 'M'!  So it is!  Now I
+never noticed _that_ before.  We live and learn!  And Jenkins--silly
+man--'as always bin annoyed that they named 'im 'Noah.'  But how about
+when _you_ was christened, Mr. Guy?"
+
+"Oh," explained the Boy, with a wave of his cigarette, "I was
+christened a bit later than you, Martha; and, by that time, Parliament
+had sat in solemn convocation, and had brought in a Bill to the effect
+that all needless and vexatious limitations and restrictions in the
+Prayer Book might for the future be disregarded.  The first to go was
+'N' or 'M.'"
+
+"Well, I never!" said Martha.  "I wish they'd ha' done it afore _my_
+time."
+
+"You see," expounded the Boy, who was enjoying himself vastly, and
+getting the conjunction of the goloshes and the Greek play off his
+mind; "you see, Martha, those progressive Bills, intimately affecting
+the whole community, of vital importance to the nation at large, are
+always blocked by the House of Lords.  If the Commons could have had
+their own way, you might have been named 'Lucy' or 'Clara.'"
+
+"I don't incline to 'Lucy' or 'Clara,' sir," said Mrs. Jenkins,
+decidedly; "being, as they always strikes me, sickly story-book sort of
+names; but I _do_ like justice and a free country!  I always have felt
+doubtful o' them Lords, since I listened to my married niece's husband,
+a very respectable journeyman tailor but mostly out of work; and if
+it's _their_ doing that I'm 'Martha,' well, _I_ shall know what to do
+with Jenkins's vote--that's all!"
+
+The Boy slapped his leg and rocked.  "Martha, you ought to be put up to
+speak at political meetings.  That's the whole thing in a nutshell:
+cause, effect, results, arguments, everything!  Oh, my wig!--Yes, they
+are a lot of old stick-in-the-muds in the Upper House, aren't they?"
+pursued the Boy--who had had a long line of dignified ancestors in that
+much abused place; had an uncle there at the present moment, and was
+more than likely eventually to have to sit there himself--"a rotten lot
+of old stick-in-the-muds, Martha; but I think they did well by you.
+I'd give them the benefit of Jenkins's vote.  I really would.  I am
+glad they chose 'M,' not 'N.'  Naomi was a widow and dismal.  She never
+made the smallest effort to buck up.  But Martha was a nice person; a
+bit flurried perhaps, and hot-tempered; but well up in cooking, and
+keen on it.  I like Martha."
+
+The Boy sat and meditated.  Why did she read Greek plays with a person
+who left goloshes on the mat, and brought out an ancient umbrella with
+a waist, on an absolutely cloudless day?
+
+"It wasn't m' own name surprised me, Mr. Guy, sir," remarked Martha,
+coyly; "it was the name you was pleased to _h_add."
+
+The Boy pulled himself together.  "Eh, what?  Oh, 'Martha, my duck'?  I
+see.  I hope you don't mind, Martha.  It seemed to me rather a suitable
+and pretty addition to 'Martha.'  You see, yours is a name which cannot
+be shortened when one feels affectionate.  'Sarah' can be 'Sally';
+'Amelia' can be 'Milly'; 'Caroline' can be 'Carrie'; but 'Martha'
+remains 'Martha' however loving people feel.  What does Jenkins call
+you when he feels affectionate?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "Jenkins knows 'is place," she said, jerking the round
+lid off the stove, and putting on the kettle.
+
+"Jenkins is a model," smiled the Boy.
+
+Then Martha looked round, her feminine curiosity, and perhaps a touch
+of jealousy, getting the better of her respectful discretion.  She had
+seen so much, and heard so little; and she was a very old family
+servant.
+
+"What do you call _her_, Mr. Guy?" she asked, in a confidential
+whisper, with a jerk of the head toward the mulberry-tree.
+
+"Her?" repeated the Boy, surprised.  Then his whole tone softened.  It
+was so sweet to speak her name to some one.  "I call her 'Christobel,'"
+he said, gently.
+
+But Martha wanted to know more.  Martha was woman enough to desire an
+unshared possession of her own.  She bent over the fire, stirring it
+through the bars.
+
+"Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't--I suppose you do--that is to say,
+sir--Do you call _her_ what you've been pleased to call me?"
+
+"Eh, what?" said the Boy, vaguely.
+
+"Oh, I see.  'Christobel, my----'  Oh, no, Martha.  No, I don't!  Not
+even when I feel most affectionate."  Here the Boy was seized with
+sudden convulsions, slapped his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the
+kitchen table.  He whispered it, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
+"'Christobel, my duck!'  Oh, lor!  'Christobel, my duck!'  I hope I
+shall be able to resist telling her.  I should have to own I had called
+Martha so.  'Christobel, my----'"
+
+Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly.  But the Boy
+had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of
+the table.
+
+"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this
+conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair
+you have, behind your left ear?"
+
+"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing.  "You're making
+game of me."
+
+"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously.  "If you made it into a
+curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite
+too fascinating.  You ask Jenkins.  I say, Martha?  What's a placket?"
+
+"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a
+shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing
+which shows when it shouldn't."
+
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one.
+Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.
+
+The Boy considered this.  "And does the umbrella with the waist belong
+to the same old woman?"
+
+Martha nodded.
+
+"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"
+
+Martha hesitated.  "'Tain't always petticoats makes an old woman," she
+said, sententiously.
+
+"Martha, you are _pro_-foundly right," said the Boy.  "Does the
+Professor stay to tea?"
+
+"Thank goodness no, sir.  We draw the line at that, 'cept when Miss
+_H_ann comes too."
+
+"Who is Miss _H_ann?"
+
+"She's the Professor's sister."  Martha hesitated; poured hot water
+into the silver teapot; then turned to whisper confidentially, with
+concentrated dislike: "She's always a-_h_egging of 'em on!"
+
+"What a curious occupation," remarked the Boy, blowing a smoke-ring.
+"Does Miss _H_ann come often?"
+
+"No, Mr. Guy.  Thanks be, she's a _h_invalid."
+
+"Poor Miss _H_ann.  What's the matter with her?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "Fancies herself too much."
+
+"What a curious complaint.  What are the symptoms?"
+
+"Fancies herself in a bath-chair," said Martha, scornfully.
+
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Oh, poor Miss _H_ann!  I should feel very sick
+if I fancied myself in a bath-chair.  I wish I could meet Miss _H_ann.
+I should like to talk to her about the _h_egging-on business."
+
+"_You'd_ make her sit up," said Martha, with spiteful enjoyment.
+
+"Oh no, I shouldn't," said the Boy.  "That would not be kind to an
+invalid.  I should see that she reclined, comfortably; and then I
+should jolly well flatten her out."
+
+At that moment a shadow fell across the sunny window.  Miss Charteris,
+her guest having departed, passed down the garden steps, and moved
+across the lawn.
+
+The Boy sprang to his feet.  At sight of her, his conscience smote him
+that he should have thus gossiped and chaffed with old Martha.  He
+suddenly remembered why he had originally found his way to the kitchen.
+
+"Martha," he said; "I want you to let me carry out the tea-tray this
+afternoon.  She doesn't know I am here.  She will think it is you or
+Jenkins, till she looks round.  Let me carry it out, Martha, there's a
+duck!"
+
+"As you please, sir," said Martha; "but if you want her to think it's
+Jenkins, you must put it down with a clatter.  It takes a man to be
+clumsy."
+
+The Boy walked over to the window.  The mulberry-tree was not visible
+from the kitchen table.
+
+"Don't go there, Mr. Guy!" cried Martha.  "Miss Christobel will see
+you, sir.  This window, and the pantry, show from the garden.  If you
+want to 'ave a look at her, go through that door into the storeroom.
+The Venetian blind is always down in there.  There is one crack through
+which I----"
+
+Martha stopped short, disconcerted.
+
+"One crack through which you think I could see?  Thank you, Martha,"
+said the Boy, readily.  "Hurry up with the tray."
+
+He went into the store-room; found Martha's chink, and realized exactly
+what had been the extent of Martha's view, during the last two days.
+
+Then he bent his hungry young eyes on Christobel.
+
+She was seated in a garden chair, her back to the house, her face
+towards the postern gate in the old red wall at the bottom of the
+garden.  The rustic table, upon which he would soon deposit the
+tea-tray, was slightly behind and to the left of her.  The sun shone
+through the mulberry leaves, glinting on the pure whiteness of her
+gown.  She leaned her beautiful head back wearily.  Her whole attitude
+betokened fatigue.  He could not see her face; but he felt sure her
+eyes were open; and he knew her eyes were on the gate.
+
+The Boy's lips moved.  "Christobel," he whispered.
+"Christobel--belovčd?"
+
+She was waiting; and he knew she was waiting for him.
+
+Presently he dropped the lath of the Venetian blind, and turned to go.
+But first he took out his pocket-book and fastened the lath which
+lifted most easily, to those above and below it, with halfpenny stamps.
+He knew old Martha would take a hint from him.  There must be no eyes
+on the mulberry-tree to-day.
+
+In the kitchen the tray was ready; tea freshly made, thin
+bread-and-butter, cucumber sandwiches; hot buttered-toast in
+perfection; cornflour buns, warranted to explode; all the things he
+liked most; and, best of all, cups for two.  He grasped the tray firmly
+with both hands.
+
+"Martha," he said, "you are a jewel!  I give you leave to watch me down
+the lawn from the kitchen window.  But when I have safely arrived, turn
+your attention to your own tea, or I shall look up and shake my fist at
+your dear nice old face.  And, I say, Martha, do you ever write
+postcards?  Because, if you want any ha'penny stamps, you will find
+some on the storeroom blind.  Only, _don't want them_, Martha, till
+this week is over, and I am gone."
+
+Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and made for the door.
+
+Down the lawn he bore it, and set it safely on the rustic table.  He
+was very deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, remembering his
+instructions, he contrived to set it down with something of a clatter.
+
+Miss Charteris did not turn her head Her eyes, half closed beneath the
+long lashes, were on the postern gate.
+
+"Jenkins?" she said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied the Boy, in excellent imitation of the meek tones
+of Jenkins.
+
+"Should any one call this afternoon, Jenkins, please remember that I am
+not 'at home.'"
+
+"Hip, hip, hurrah!" said the Boy.
+
+Then she turned--and her face was all, and more than all, he had hoped
+it might be.
+
+"Oh, Boy," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After that, it was a very happy tea.  Neither had been quite natural,
+nor had they been really true to themselves, the day before; so the
+delight of meeting seemed to follow a longer parting than the actual
+twenty-four hours.  The Boy's brown eyes rested in tenderness on the
+hand that filled his cup, and she did not say "Don't"; she merely
+smiled indulgently, and added the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let
+him do what he willed.
+
+The hum of bees was in the garden; a sense of youth was in the air.
+The sunbeams danced among the mulberry leaves.
+
+The Boy insisted upon carrying back the tray, to do away at once with
+the possibility of interruption from Jenkins.  Then he drew their
+chairs into the deeper shade of the mulberry-tree, a corner invisible
+from all windows.  The Boy had learned a lesson while looking through
+the storeroom blind.
+
+There they sat and talked, in calm content.  It did not seem to matter
+much of what they spoke, so long as they could lie back facing one
+another; each listening to the voice which held so much more of meaning
+in it than the mere words it uttered; each looking into the eyes which
+had now become clear windows through which shone the soul.
+
+Suddenly the Boy said: "How silly we were, the other day, to talk of
+the relative ages of our bodies.  What do they matter?  Our souls are
+the real you and I.  And our souls are always the same age.  Some souls
+are old--old from the first.  I have seen an old soul look out of the
+eyes of a little child; and I have seen a young soul dance in the eyes
+of an old, old woman.  You and I, thank God, have young souls,
+Christobel, and we shall be eternally young."
+
+He stretched his arms over his head, in utter joyful content with life.
+
+"Go on, Boy dear," said Christobel.  "I am not sure that I agree with
+you; but I like to hear you talk."
+
+"At first," he said, "our bodies are so babyish that our souls do not
+find them an adequate medium of expression.  But by and by our bodies
+grow and develop; after which come the beautiful years of perfection,
+ten, twenty, thirty of them, when the young soul goes strong and gay
+through life, clad in the strong gay young body.  Then--gradually,
+gradually, the strong young soul, in its unwearied, immortal youth,
+wears out the body.  The body grows old, but not the soul.  Nothing can
+age that; and when at last the body quite wears out, the young soul
+breaks free, and begins again.  Youthful souls wear out their bodies
+quicker than old ones; just as a strong young boy romps through a suit
+of clothes sooner than a weakly old man.  But there is always life more
+abundant, and a fuller life farther on.  So the mating of souls is the
+all-important thing; and when young souls meet and mate, what does it
+matter if there be a few years' difference in the ages of their bodies?
+Their essential youthfulness will surmount all that."
+
+Christobel looked at him, and truly for a moment the young soul in her
+leapt out to his, in glad response.  Then the other side of the
+question rose before her.
+
+"Ah, but, Boy dear," she said, "the souls express themselves--their
+needs, their delights, their activities--through the bodies.  And
+suppose one body, in the soul-union, is wearing out sooner than the
+other; that is hard on the other--hard on both.  Boy--my Little Boy
+Blue--shall I tell you an awful secret?  I suppose I sat too closely
+over my books at Girton; I suppose I was not sufficiently careful about
+good print, or good light.  Anyway--Boy dear--I have to use glasses
+when I read."  She looked wistfully into his bright eyes.  "You see?
+Already I am beginning to grow old."  Her sweet lips trembled.
+
+In a moment he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, bending over her,
+as he did on the first day; but as he did not do yesterday.  Suddenly
+she realized why she had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone.
+
+He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, back and palm.  Then he parted
+the third finger from the rest, with his own brown ones, and held that
+against his warm young lips.
+
+She drew her hand slowly away; passed it over his hair; then let it
+fall upon her lap.  She could not speak; she could not move; she could
+not send him away.  She wanted him so--her little Boy Blue, of long ago.
+
+"Old, my Belovčd?" he said.  "You--old!  Never!  Always
+perfect--perfect to me.  And why not wear glasses?  Heaps of mere kids
+wear glasses, and wear them all the time.  Only--how alarmingly clever
+you must look in spectacles, Christobel.  It would terrify me now; but
+by and by it will make me feel proud.  I think one would expect glasses
+to go with those awe-inspiring classical honours.  With my barely
+respectable B.A., I daren't lay claim to any outward marks of
+erudition."  Then, as she did not smile, but still gazed up at him,
+wistfully, his look softened to still deeper tenderness: "Dear eyes,"
+he murmured, "oh dear, dear eyes," and gently laid his lips on each in
+turn.
+
+"Don't," she said, with a half sob.  "Ah, Boy, don't!  You know you
+must not kiss me."
+
+"Kiss you!" he said, still bending over her.  "Do you call that
+kissing?"  Then he laughed; and the joyous love in his laughter wrung
+her heart.  "Christobel, on the seventh day, when the gates fly open,
+and the walls fall down; when the citadel surrenders; when you admit
+you are my own--_then_ I shall kiss you; _then_ you will know what
+kissing really means."
+
+He bent above her.  His lips were very near to hers.  She closed her
+eyes and waited.  Her own lips trembled.  She knew how fearfully it
+tempted the Boy that her lips should tremble because his were near; yet
+she let them tremble.  She forgot to remember the past; she forgot to
+consider the future.  She was conscious of only one thing: that she
+wanted her Little Boy Blue to teach her what kissing really meant.  So
+she closed her eyes and waited.
+
+She did not hear him go; but presently she knew he was no longer there.
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+The Boy had walked across the lawn, and stood looking into the golden
+heart of an opening yellow rose.  His back appeared very
+uncompromising; very determined; very erect.
+
+She rose and walked over to him.  As she moved forward, with the
+graceful dignity of motion which was always hers, her mental balance
+returned.
+
+She slipped her hand beneath his arm.  "Come, Boy," she said; "let us
+walk up and down, and talk.  It is enervating to sit too long in the
+sunshine."
+
+He turned at once, suiting his step to hers, and they paced the lawn in
+silence.
+
+When they reached the postern gate the Boy stood still.  Something in
+his look suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when the sand on his
+small nose could not detract from the dignity of his little face, nor
+weaken its stern decision.
+
+He took both her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
+
+"Christobel," he said, "I must go.  I must go, because I dare not stay.
+You are so wonderful this afternoon; so dear beyond expression.  I know
+you trust me absolutely; but this is only the third day; and I cannot
+trust myself, dear.  So I'm off!"
+
+He lifted both her hands to his lips.
+
+"May I go, my Queen?" he said.
+
+"Yes, Boy," she answered.  "Go."
+
+And he went.
+
+It was hard to hear the thud of the closing door.  For some time she
+stood waiting, just on the inside.  She thought he would come back, and
+she wished him to find her there, the moment he opened the door.
+
+But the Boy--being the Boy--did not come back.
+
+Presently she returned to her chair, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+She lay, with closed eyes, and lived again through the afternoon, from
+the moment when the Boy had said: "Hip, hip, hurrah!"  There came a
+time when she turned very pale, and her lips trembled, as they had done
+before.
+
+At length she rose and paced slowly up the lawn.  On her face was the
+quiet calm of an irrevocable decision.
+
+"To-morrow," she said, "I must tell the Boy about the Professor."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+In the middle of the night, Martha, being wakeful, became haunted by
+the remembrance of the smoke, as it had curled from cracks and keyholes
+in the kitchen.  She felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink
+wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the stairs to make sure the house
+was not on fire.  Martha's wakefulness was partly caused by the unusual
+fact of a large and hard curl-paper, behind her left ear.
+
+Miss Charteris was also awake.  She was not worried by memories of
+smoke, or visions of fire; and her soft hair was completely innocent of
+curl-papers.  But she was considering how she should tell the boy about
+the Professor; and that consideration was not conducive to calm
+slumber.  She heard Martha go creaking down the stairs; and, as Martha
+came creaking up again, she opened her door, and confronted her.
+
+"What are you doing, Martha?" she said.
+
+Martha, intensely conscious of her curl-paper, was about to answer with
+more than her usual respectful irritability, when the eyes of the two
+women--mistress and maid--met, in the light of their respective
+candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in the cause of their night
+vigil passed between them.
+
+Martha smiled--a crooked smile, half ashamed to be seen smiling.  When
+she spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more completely than in the
+daytime.
+
+"'E went crawlin' about the kitchen," she said, in a muffled midnight
+whisper; "all in 'is white flannels, puffin' smoke in every crack an'
+'ole to kill the beetles.  So kind 'e meant it; but I couldn't sleep
+for wonderin' if the place was smokin' still.  I 'ad to go down an'
+see.  'Ow came you to be awake, Miss Christobel?"
+
+"Things he said in the garden, Martha, have given me food for thought.
+I began thinking them over; and sleep went."
+
+Martha smiled again--and this time the smile came more easily.  "'E
+_'as_ a way of keepin' one on the go," she said; "but we'd best be
+gittin' to sleep now, miss.  'E'll be at it again to-morrow, bless 'is
+'eart!"  And Martha, in her pink wrapper, lumbered upwards.
+
+But the Boy, who had this disturbing effect on the women who loved him,
+slept soundly himself, one arm flung high above his tumbled head.  And
+if the sweet mother, who perforce had had to let her dying arms slip
+from about her baby-boy, almost before his little feet could carry him
+across a room, saw from above the pure radiance on his lips and brow as
+he slept, she must have turned to the Emerald Throne with glad
+thanksgiving for the answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's prayers.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the third day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY
+
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+
+"I am exhausted," said the Boy, reaching out a long arm, and securing
+his third piece of hot buttered-toast.  "I am ruffled.  My usual calm
+mental poise is overthrown--and on the Sabbath, of all days!  Every
+feather I possess has been rubbed up the wrong way."  He lay back in
+the depths of his chair, stretched out his legs, and looked dejectedly
+at Christobel.
+
+Her quiet smile enveloped him.  Her look was as a cool touch on a hot
+forehead.
+
+"Poor Little Boy Blue!  I thought something was wrong.  I should feel a
+keener anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less obviously consoling."
+
+"I'll jolly well never go again," said the Boy, with indignation.  "Not
+me!"
+
+"Before you were born, Boy; when I went to school," said Miss
+Charteris, "we were taught to say 'Not _I_.'  And if you were to tell
+me where you have been, on this Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to
+give you more intelligent sympathy."
+
+"I've been to a drawing-room meeting," said the Boy, "and I've heard a
+woman hold forth.  For an hour and a quarter, I've sat stuffed up,
+breathing the atmosphere of other people's go-to-meeting clothes, and
+heard a good lady go meandering on, while I had no room for my legs."
+
+"I thought you seemed finding them extra long, Boy.  Why did you go to
+a drawing-room meeting?"
+
+"I went," said the Boy, "because the dear old thing in whose house it
+was held asked me to go.  She used to know my mother.  When I was at
+Trinity she looked me up, often invited me to her charming home, gave
+me excellent little dinners, followed by the kindest, nicest, most
+nervous little preachments.  Don't look amused, dear.  I never failed
+to profit.  I respected her for it.  She is as good and genuine as they
+make 'em; and if _she_ had stood up this afternoon, with her friendly
+smile, and dear shaky old voice, and given us an exposition of the
+twenty-third Psalm, we should have all come away quite 'good and
+happy.'  Instead of which--oh, my wig!"
+
+The Boy took an explosive bun, and put it whole into his mouth.  "The
+only way to manage them on Sunday," he explained, as soon as speech was
+possible, "when sweeping is not the right thing.  But let us hope
+Mollie's papa's 'clerical brethren' won't find it out.  There would
+certainly be less conversation and fewer crumbs, but no fun at all."
+
+"I don't think you need be afraid, Boy dear.  Even should such a way
+out of the difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to think they would
+prefer the explosion, to the whole bun at a mouthful.  It has a rather
+startling effect, you know, until one gets used to seeing it done.  I
+can't quite imagine an archdeacon doing it, while standing on the
+hearthrug in conversation with my brother.  Now tell me what the good
+lady said, which you found so trying."
+
+"Oh, she meandered on," grumbled the Boy.  "She told us all we should
+have been, if we had not been what we were; and all we might be, if we
+were not what we are; and all we shall be, when we are not what we are!
+She implored us to consider, and weigh well, _where_ we should go, if,
+by a sudden and unexpected dispensation of Providence, we ceased to be
+where we then were.  I jolly well knew the answer to _that_; for if
+Providence had suddenly dispensated--which it didn't, for a good
+three-quarters of an hour--I should have been here, _here_, HERE, as
+fast as my best Sunday boots could carry me!"  His brown eyes softened.
+"Ah, think what '_here_' means," he said.  "Think!  'Here' means _You_!"
+
+But Miss Charteris did not wish the conversation to become too
+meltingly personal.
+
+"What else did she say, Boy?"
+
+He consulted the mulberry leaves, then bounded in his chair.  "Ha, I
+have it!  I kept this tit-bit for you.  She used an astronomical
+illustration, I haven't the least idea apropos of what, but she told us
+exactly how many millions of miles the sun is from the earth; and then
+she smiled upon us blandly, and said: 'Or is it billions?'  Think of
+that!  She said: '_Or is it billions?_' in exactly the same tone of
+voice as she might have said of the bonnet she had on: 'I bought it, at
+a sale, for elevenpence three farthings, _or was it a shilling_?'"
+
+"Oh, Boy, you really _are_ naughty!  I never connected you with
+personal sarcasm."
+
+"Yes, but that sort of woman shouldn't," complained the Boy.  "And with
+half Cambridge sitting listening.  'Millions, or is it billions?'  Oh
+lor!"
+
+"Poor thing!" remarked Miss Charteris.  "She could not have known that
+she had in the audience a person who had only just avoided the drawback
+to future enterprise, of being Senior Wrangler.  Had she realized that,
+she would have been more careful with her figures."
+
+"Tease away!" said the Boy.  "I don't care, now I am safe here.  Only I
+shan't tell you any more."
+
+"I don't want to hear any more, Boy.  I always enjoy appreciations,
+even of things I do not myself appreciate.  But non-appreciations do
+not appeal to me.  If a person has meant to be effective and proved
+inadequate, or tried to do good and done harm, I would rather not know
+it, unless I can help to put matters right.  Have some more tea, Boy;
+and then I want to talk to you myself.  I have something rather special
+to tell you."
+
+The Boy stood up and brought his cup to the little table.  When she had
+filled it, he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow on the arm of her
+chair, and drank his tea there.
+
+"I am sorry, dear," he said, presently.  "I won't do it again.  Perhaps
+I listened wrong, because I was bored at being there at all.  I say,
+Christobel--it has just occurred to me--did you know my mother?"
+
+The old garden was very still.  A hush, as of the Paradise of God,
+seemed suddenly to fall upon it.  As the Boy asked his quiet question,
+a spirit seemed to hover, between them and the green dome of mulberry
+leaves above them, smoothing the Boy's tumbled hair, and touching the
+noble brow of the woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, thankful
+spirit--eternally remembering, and tenderly glad to be remembered.  For
+a few moments the silence was a silence which could not be broken.  The
+Boy lifted wondering eyes to the moving leaves.  Christobel laid her
+hand upon his, as it gripped her chair.  An unseen voice seemed to
+whisper to the Boy--not in the stern tones of the Church, but as an
+eager, anxious, question: "Wilt thou--have--this woman--to be thy
+wedded wife?"  And silently the Boy replied: "Please God, I will"; and,
+bending, kissed the hand resting on his.
+
+The spell lifted.  Christobel spoke.
+
+"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her.  I have often wondered whether I might tell
+you.  She and my mother were dear friends.  I was thirteen when she
+died.  You were three, poor Little Boy Blue!  Two things I specially
+remember about your mother: the peculiar radiance of her face--a light
+from within, shining out; and the fact that when she was in a room the
+whole atmosphere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted.  I think she
+lived very near heaven, Boy; and, like Enoch, she walked straight in
+one day, and came back no more.  She 'was not'; for God took her."
+
+Another long holy silence.  The mulberry leaves were still.  Then the
+Boy said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me heaps more--details--lots
+of little things about her?  No one ever has.  But I seem almost to
+begin to remember her, when you talk of her.  Meanwhile, may I show you
+this?"
+
+He drew from the inner pocket of his coat, a small well-worn
+pocket-Bible.  Opening it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss
+Charteris.
+
+"It was hers," he said.
+
+She bent over it and read the inscription:
+
+  _M. A. Chelsea_
+
+  "_Through faith and patience inherit the promises._"
+
+
+Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a hand that trembled:
+
+  _To my Baby Boy from his Mother_
+
+  "_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
+
+
+She looked at it in silence.  How much had this book meant during all
+these years, to the "Baby Boy"?  Had the book in his pocket, and the
+prayers hovering about him, something to do with the fact that he was
+still--just Little Boy Blue?
+
+The Boy had taken a fountain pen from his pocket, and was shaking it
+vigorously over the grass.
+
+Now he passed it to her.
+
+"Write your dear name beneath," he said.
+
+Infinitely touched, she made no comment, raised no question.  She took
+the pen, and wrote just "_Christobel_."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the fourth day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH DAY
+
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+
+"Now, Sir Boy," said Miss Charteris with decision, "this is your fifth
+day.  Our time is nearly over.  You have done most of the talking.  You
+have had things entirely your own way.  What? ... Oh, well, _almost_
+entirely your own way.  I have allowed you to play your Old Testament
+game to your heart's content.  With commendable adaptability, _I_ have
+been Jericho, and _you_ have marched round.  I have been Jericho in my
+own garden, and have refreshed the invading army with hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns.  Now it is my turn to take the
+initiative.  Jenkins having removed the tea, and it being too hot for
+tennis, I am going to ask you to sit still, while I explain to you
+quite clearly why I must send you away at the close of the seventh day."
+
+She tried to hide her extreme trepidation beneath a tone of gay banter.
+She hoped it did not sound as forced to him as it did to herself.  The
+Boy's clear eyes were fixed upon her.  Had he noticed the trembling of
+her hands, before she steadied them by laying hold of the arms of her
+chair?
+
+"So now for a serious talk, if you please, Sir Boy."
+
+"Excuse me, dear," said the Boy, "the Israelites were not allowed to
+parley."
+
+"You need not parley," said Miss Charteris; "you are requested merely
+to listen.  You may smoke if you like.  I understand cigarette smoke is
+fatal to black-beetles.  Possibly it has the same effect on garden
+insects.  Russell tells me we are overrun by snails.  Smoke, Boy, if
+you like."
+
+"Dear," said the Boy, his head thrown back, his hands thrust deep into
+his coat pockets, "I never have the smallest desire to smoke in your
+presence.  I should feel as if I were smoking in church."
+
+"Oh, you dear amazing altogether absurd boy!  Don't look at me like
+that.  And don't say such unexpected things, or I shall be unable to
+parley satisfactorily."
+
+"When _I_ went to school," remarked the Boy, "and you were an engaging
+little girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: 'Do not look at me
+_thus_'; at least, masters frequently appeared to think it necessary to
+make that remark to me.  I can't imagine why; because they were not
+specially worth looking at; excepting that a very large person, in a
+very angry condition, always presented a spectacle of extreme interest
+to my juvenile mind.  It was so fascinating to watch and see what they
+would do next.  They were like those wooden monkeys and bears you buy
+in Swiss shops, don't you know?  You pull a hanging string, and their
+legs and arms jump about unexpectedly.  One always felt a really angry
+grown-up was a mere puppet.  Unseen fingers were pulling the string;
+and it was funny to watch.  There was an exciting element of danger,
+too; because sometimes a hand jerked up and boxed your ears."
+
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "it must have been quite impossible ever
+to be _mildly_ angry with you.  Either one would have waxed impotently
+furious; or one would have wanted to--to hug you!"
+
+The Boy leapt up.
+
+"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or I shall send you away.  And I do
+not wish to do that; because I have quite made up my mind to tell you
+to-day, a thing which I suppose I ought to have told you long ago; and
+I tried to do so, Boy; but somehow you always made it impossible.  I
+want to--to tell you about--the Professor."  She paused.
+
+It was so very difficult.  It was like rolling a heavy stone up a steep
+hill.  And the Boy made no attempt to help her.  He lay back with an
+exaggerated display of resignation.  He looked at her with sleepy,
+amused eyes.  And he asked no questions.  The army of Israel obviously
+declined to parley.
+
+"I have long felt I ought to tell you about the Professor," continued
+Miss Charteris.
+
+The Boy sighed.  "I think I jolly well know all there is to know about
+professors," he said.
+
+"Not about this one," explained Miss Charteris.  "He is _my_ Professor."
+
+"Oh, if he's _your_ Professor," said the Boy, sitting up, "of course I
+am interested.  But I am not sure that I approve of you having a tame
+Professor; especially when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves them in
+the hall."
+
+"I am afraid nobody will ask whether you approve or not, Little Boy
+Blue.  The Professor has been a great friend of mine during nearly
+twelve years; and I think I am possibly--in fact, very probably--going
+to marry the Professor."
+
+"Really?" said the Boy.  "May I ask when he proposed?"
+
+"He has not proposed, Boy."
+
+The Boy produced his pocket-book, took out a calendar, and studied it
+attentively.
+
+"Then I'm afraid you will have some time to wait," he said.  "It will
+not be leap year again until 1912."
+
+This sounded impertinent; but the Boy could no more have been guilty of
+intentional impertinence toward her, than he could have picked her
+pocket; and Miss Charteris knew it.  There was one thing of which those
+who had dealings with Christobel Charteris could always be
+sure--absolute justice.  She had seen the Boy's face whiten suddenly,
+to a terrible pallor, beneath his tan.  She knew he was making a
+desperate fight for self-control.  How best could she help?  Her own
+part seemed almost more than she could manage.
+
+"Come here, Boy dear," she said, holding out her hand.
+
+He hesitated one instant; then rose unsteadily to his feet, and
+came--not to his usual place at the side, bending over her; but in
+front of her, on one knee, silently waiting.
+
+She bent forward.  "Take my hand, Boy."
+
+He took it, in a firm unhesitating clasp.  They held each other so, in
+silence.  The colour came back into the Boy's face.  The dumb horror
+died out of his eyes.  They smiled into hers again.
+
+"Now promise me, Boy dear, that you will let me tell you all; and that
+you will try not to misunderstand."
+
+"My dearest," said the Boy, "I promise.  But I do not need to say I
+will try not to misunderstand.  I could not misunderstand you, if I
+tried."
+
+"Then go back to your chair, Boy."
+
+He went.  His eyes were bright again.
+
+"Boy, please to understand that I am not engaged to the Professor.  Of
+course, had that been the case, I should have told you, long ago.  He
+has never said one word to me of love or marriage.  But he has been a
+great friend--an intimate friend, intellectually; and I have reason to
+know that he wishes--has wished for years--a good deal more than he has
+ever expressed to me.  He has waited, Boy; and when anybody has waited
+nearly twelve years, could one fail them?"
+
+"Why, of course!" cried the Boy, eagerly.  "If a man could wait twelve
+years--good heavens, why shouldn't he wait twenty!  A man has no
+business to wait; or to be able to wait; or to keep a woman waiting.
+Twelve years?  Oh, I say!  I didn't wait twelve days.  Now, did I?"
+
+She smiled.  "You break all speed records, Boy, always.  But cannot you
+understand that all men have not fifty thousand a year, and the world
+at their feet?  Had you been penniless, Boy, you--even you--would have
+had to wait."
+
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy, stoutly.  "I would drive a cab, I would
+sweep a crossing, I would _do_ anything, or _be_ anything; but I
+wouldn't wait for the woman I loved; nor would I"--his voice dropped
+almost to a whisper--"keep the woman who loved me, waiting."
+
+"But suppose she had a comfortable little income of her own; and you
+had less--much less--to offer her?  Surely, Boy, proper pride would
+keep you from asking her to marry you, until your income at least
+equalled hers?"
+
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy.  "That sort of rot isn't proper pride.  It's
+just selfish false pride.  However much a woman had, when a man--a
+_man_, mind you, not an old woman, or a _thing_ with no pluck or
+vertebra--when a man gives a woman his whole love, his whole life, the
+worship of his whole body, heart, and soul, he has given her that which
+no money could buy; and were she a millionairess she would still be
+poor if, from false pride, he robbed her of that gift which was his to
+give her--and perhaps his alone."
+
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "it sounds very plausible.  But it is so
+easy to be plausible with fifty thousand a year in the background.  Let
+me tell you about the Professor.  He has, of course, his fellowship,
+and is quite comfortably off now, living as a bachelor, in rooms.  But
+he practically supports his unmarried sister, considerably older than
+himself, who lives in a tiny little villa, and keeps one maid.  The
+Professor could not afford to marry, and set up a larger establishment,
+on his present income; at least he apparently thinks he could not.  And
+your theory of robbing the woman who--the woman he loves, does not
+appear to have occurred to him.  But, during all these years he has
+been compiling an Encyclopedia--I don't suppose you know what an
+Encyclopedia is, Boy."
+
+"Oh, don't I?" said the Boy.  "It's a thing you pile up on the floor to
+stand upon when you want to fix a new pipe-rack."
+
+Miss Charteris ignored this trying definition of an Encyclopedia.
+
+"The Professor is compiling a wonderful book," she said, with dignity;
+"and, when it is completed and published, he will be in a position to
+marry."
+
+"Has he told you so?" inquired the Boy.
+
+"No, Boy.  He has never mentioned the subject of marriage to me.  But
+he has told his sister; and she has told me."
+
+"Ha!" said the Boy.  "Miss _H_ann, I suppose.  I must say, I distrust
+Miss _H_ann."
+
+"What do _you_ know of Miss Ann?" inquired Christobel, astonished.
+
+"Only that she's always a-_h_egging of 'em on," said the Boy, calmly.
+
+The indignant blood rushed into the fair proud face.
+
+"Boy!  You've been gossiping with Martha."
+
+"I have, dear; I admit it.  You see, I arrived early, on the third day;
+found the garden empty; went gaily into the house to look for you.  Ran
+up into the hall; when up got a pair of old goloshes--eh, what?  Oh,
+sorry--up got a pair of _new_ goloshes, and hit me in the eye!  A
+professor's cap and gown hung up, as if at home; and while I meditated
+upon these things, the voice of my Belovčd was uplifted in loud and
+sonorous Greek, exclaiming: 'Avaunt, rash youth!  Thou impudent
+intruder!'  Can you wonder that I avaunted--to Martha?"
+
+"You will please tell me at once all Martha said to you."
+
+"Of course I will, dear.  Don't be vexed.  I always meant to tell you,
+some time or other.  I asked her whose were the goloshes; the umbrella
+with the--er--decided figure; the suspended cap and gown.  Martha said
+they were the Professor's.  I inquired whether the Professor stayed to
+tea.  You really can't blame me for asking that; because I had gone to
+the kitchen for the express purpose of carrying out the tea-tray, yours
+and mine; but _not_ the Professor's.  No possible pleasure could have
+resulted, either to you, or to me, or to the Professor, from my
+unexpected appearance with the tea-tray, if the Professor had been
+there.  Now could it?  I think it would be nice of you, dear, and only
+fair, if, remembering the peculiar circumstances of that afternoon, you
+just said: 'No; it couldn't.'
+
+"Well, I asked Martha whether the Professor stayed to tea, and heard
+that 'Thank goodness, no!' we drew the line at that, except when Miss
+_H_ann came too.  With the awful possibility of Miss _H_ann 'coming
+too,' on one of my priceless days, I naturally desired a little light
+thrown on Miss _H_ann.  I was considerably relieved to learn that Miss
+_H_ann suffers from the peculiar complaint--mental, I gather--of
+'fancying herself in a bath-chair.'  This might be no hindrance to the
+'_h_egging on' propensities, but it certainly diminished the chances of
+the 'coming too.'  That was all, dear."
+
+"Boy, you ought to have been ashamed of yourself!"
+
+"So I was, the moment I saw you walk down the lawn.  But you really
+needn't look so indignant.  I was working for you, at the same time."
+
+"Working for me?"
+
+"Yes, dear.  I told Martha her wisps would look nicer if she curled
+them.  I also suggested 'invisible pins.'  If you like I will tell you
+how I came to know about 'invisible pins'; but it is a very long story,
+and not _specially_ interesting, for the lady in the case was my
+great-aunt."
+
+"Oh, Boy," said Miss Charteris, laughing in spite of herself; "I wish
+you were the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands at Dovercourt.  I
+would dearly like to shake you."
+
+"Well," he said, "you did more than shake me, just now.  You gave me
+about the worst five minutes I ever had in my life.  Christobel?  You
+don't really care about the Professor?"
+
+"Boy, dear, I really do.  I have cared about him very much, for years."
+
+"Yes, as a woman loves a book; but not as a woman loves a man."
+
+"Explain your meaning, please."
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, violently.  "Do you love his
+mouth, his eyes, his hair----?"  The Boy choked, and stopped short.
+
+Miss Charteris considered, and replied with careful deliberation.  "I
+do not know that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears a beard.  His
+eyes are not strong, but they look very kind through his glasses.  His
+hair?  Well, really, he has not much to speak of.  But all these things
+matter very little.  His _mind_ is great and beautiful; his thoughts
+appeal to me.  I understand his way of viewing things: he understands
+mine.  It would be a wonderful privilege to be able to make life easy
+and happy for one for whom I have so profound a respect and esteem.  I
+have looked upon it, during the last few years, as a privilege which
+is, eventually, to be mine."
+
+"Christobel," cried the Boy, "it is wrong, it is terrible!  It is not
+the highest.  I can't stand it, and I won't.  I will not let you give
+yourself to a wizened old bookworm----"
+
+"Be quiet, Boy," she said, sharply.  "Do you wish to make me really
+angry?  The Professor is not old.  He is only fourteen years my senior.
+To your extreme youth, fifty may seem old.  The Professor is in his
+prime.  I am afraid we have nothing to gain, Boy, by prolonging this
+discussion."
+
+"But we can't leave it at this," said the Boy, desperately.  "Where do
+I come in?"
+
+"My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you don't come in at all, excepting as
+a very sweet idyll which, all through the years to come, I shall never
+forget.  You begged for your seven days, and I gave them.  But I never
+led you to assume I could say 'Yes.'  Now listen, Boy, and I will tell
+you the honest truth.  I do not know that I am ever going to marry the
+Professor.  I only feel pledged to him from the vague belief that we
+each consider the other is waiting.  Don't break your heart over it,
+Boy; because it is more than likely it will never come to pass.
+But--even were there no Professor--oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you.
+I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly and deeply than I have ever
+before loved anything or any one on this earth.  But I could not marry
+a boy, however dearly I loved him; however sweet was his love to me.  I
+am a woman grown, and I could surrender myself wholly, only to a man
+who would wholly be my mate and master.  I cannot pretend to call my
+Little Boy Blue 'the _man_ I love,' because he is really dearest to me
+when I think of him, with expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down
+the sands to find his cannon-ball....  Oh, Boy, I am hurting you!  I
+hate to hurt you, Boy.  Your love is so beautiful.  Nothing as perfect
+will ever touch my life again.  Yet I cannot, honestly, give what you
+ask....  Boy dear, ought I to have told you, quite plainly, sooner?  If
+so, you must forgive me."
+
+The Boy had risen, and stood before her.  "You always do the right
+thing," he said, "and never, under any circumstances, could there be
+anything for me to forgive you.  I have been an egregious young ass.  I
+have taken things for granted, all along the line.  What must you think
+of me!  Why should you care?  _You_, with your intellectual
+attainments, your honours, your high standing in the world of books?
+_Why_ should you care, Christobel?  Why _should_ you care?"
+
+He stood before her, straight and tall and desperately implacable.  The
+exuberant youth had died out of his face.  For the first time, she
+could not see in him her Little Boy Blue.
+
+"Why should you care?" he said again.
+
+She rose and faced him.  "But I _do_ care, Boy," she said.  "How dare
+you pretend to think I don't?  I care very tenderly and deeply."
+
+"Pooh!" said the Boy.  "Do you suppose I wished you to marry a
+bare-toed baby, with sand on its nose?"  He laughed wildly; paused and
+looked at her, then laughed again.  "A silly little ass that said it
+didn't like girls?  Oh, I say!  I think it's about time I was off.
+Will you walk down to the gate? ... Thanks.  You are always most
+awfully good to me.  I say, Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor's
+name?"
+
+"Harvey," she said, quietly.  "Kenrick Harvey."  The dull anguish at
+her heart seemed almost more than she could bear.  Yet what could she
+say or do?  He was merely accepting her own decision.
+
+"Harvey?" he said.  "Why of course I know him.  He's not much to look
+at, is he?  But we always thought him an awfully good sort, and kind as
+they make 'em.  We considered him a confirmed bachelor; but--well, we
+didn't know he was waiting."
+
+They had reached the postern gate.  Oh, would he see the growing pain
+in her eyes?  What was she losing?  What had she lost?  Why did her
+whole life seem passing out through that green gate?
+
+"Good-bye," he said, "and please forget all the rot I talked about
+Jericho.  It goes with the spade and bucket, and all the rest.  You
+have been most awfully kind to me, all along.  But the very kindest
+thing you can do now, is to forget all the impossible things I thought
+and said...  Allow me....  I'll shut the door."
+
+He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but he was bareheaded.  He laughed
+again; turned, and passed out.
+
+"Boy!  Boy!  Come back," said Christobel.  But the door had closed on
+the first word.
+
+She stood alone.
+
+This time she did not wait.  Where was the good of waiting?
+
+She turned and walked slowly up the lawn, pausing to look at the
+flowers in the border.  The yellow roses still looked golden.  The
+jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale purple faces to the
+sky.
+
+But the Boy was gone.
+
+She reached her chair, where he had placed it, deep in the shade of the
+mulberry-tree.  She felt tired; worn-out; old.
+
+The Boy was gone.
+
+She leaned back with closed eyes.  She had hurt him so.  She remembered
+all the glad, sweet confident things he had said each day.  Now she had
+hurt him so....  What radiant faith, in love and in life, had been his.
+But she had spoiled that faith, and dimmed that brightness.
+
+Suddenly she remembered his dead mother's prayer for him.  "_I have
+prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not_."  And under those words she
+had written "_Christobel_."  Would he want to obliterate that name?
+No, she knew he would not.  Nothing approaching a hard or a bitter
+thought could ever find a place in his heart.  It would always be the
+golden heart of her little Boy Blue.
+
+Tears forced their way beneath her closed lashes, and rolled slowly
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said aloud, "I love you so--I love you so!"
+
+"I know you do, dear," he said.  "It's almost unbelievable--yet I know
+you do."
+
+She opened her eyes.  The Boy had come back.  She had not heard his
+light step, on the springy turf.  He knelt in his favourite place, on
+the left of her chair, and bent over her.  Once more his face was
+radiant.  His faith had not failed.
+
+She looked up into his shining eyes, and the joy in her own heart made
+her dizzy.
+
+"Boy dear," she whispered, "not my lips, because--I am not altogether
+yours--I may have to--you know?--the Professor.  But, oh Boy, I can't
+help it!  I'm afraid I care terribly."
+
+He was quite silent; yet it seemed to her that he had shouted.  A burst
+of trumpet-triumph seemed to fill the air.
+
+He bent lower.  "Of course I wouldn't, Christobel," he said; "not
+before the seventh day.  But there's a lot beside lips, and it's all so
+dear."
+
+Then she felt the Boy's kisses on her hair, on her brow, on her eyes.
+"Dear eyes," he said, "shedding tears for my pain.  Ah, dear eyes!"
+And he kissed them again.
+
+She put up her hand, to push him gently away.  He captured it, and held
+it to his lips.
+
+"Stop, Boy dear," she said.  "Be good now, and sit down."
+
+He slipped to the grass at her feet, and rested his head against her
+knee.
+
+She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch.  Her Little Boy Blue
+had come back to her.  Oh, bliss unutterable!  Why worry about the
+future?
+
+"How silly we were, dear!" he said.  "How silly to suppose we could
+part like that--you and I!"  Then his sudden merry laugh rang out--oh,
+such music! such sweet music!  "I say, Christobel," he said, "it is all
+very well _now_ to say 'Stop, and be good.'  But on the seventh day,
+when the walls fall down, and I march up into the citadel, I shall give
+you millions of kisses--or will it be _billions_?"
+
+"Judging from my knowledge of you, Boy dear," she said, "I rather
+_think_ it would be billions."
+
+Later, as they stood once more by the postern gate, he turned, framed
+in the doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye.
+
+It was their second parting that day, and how different from the first.
+There was to be a third, unlike either, before the day was over; but
+its approach was, as yet, unsuspected.
+
+But as he stood in the doorway, full in a shaft of sunlight, the glad
+certainty in his eyes smote her with sudden apprehension.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said, "take care!  You are building castles again.
+They will tumble about our ears.  I haven't promised you anything,
+Little Boy Blue of mine; and I am afraid I shall _have_ to marry the
+Professor."
+
+"If you do, dear," he said, "I shall have to give him a new umbrella as
+a wedding present!"  And the Boy went whistling down the lane.
+
+But, out of sight of the postern gate and of the woman who, leaning
+against it, watched him to the turning, he dropped his bounding step
+and jaunty bearing.  His face grew set and anxious; his walk, perplexed.
+
+"Oh, God," said the Boy, as he walked, "don't let me lose her!"
+
+A few minutes later, a telegram was put into his hand from the friend
+left on the coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane.
+
+"_Arrange Channel flight, if possible, day after to-morrow_."
+
+"Not I," said the Boy, crumpling the message into his pocket.  "The day
+after to-morrow is the seventh day."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+He was dining with friends, but an unaccountable restlessness seized
+him during the evening.  He made his excuses, and returned to the Bull
+Hotel soon after nine o'clock.  The hall-porter at once handed him a
+note, left by special messenger, ten minutes earlier.  It was marked
+"urgent."  The handwriting was Christobel's.
+
+The Boy flung away his cigarette, tore the note open, and turned to a
+light.  It was very short and clear.
+
+
+"_Boy dear,--I must see you at once.  You will find me in the garden._
+
+"_Christobel._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When the Boy had turned the corner and disappeared, Miss Charteris
+passed through the little postern gate, and moved slowly up the lawn.
+Ah, how different to her sad return from that gate an hour before!
+
+The William Allen Richardsons still opened their golden hearts to the
+sunset.  The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" still lifted their
+purple faces to the sky.  But instead of stabbing her with agony, they
+sang a fragrant psalm of love.
+
+Ah, why was the Boy so dear?  Why was the Boy so near?  She had watched
+him go striding down the lane, yet he still walked beside her; his gay
+young laugh of glad content was in her ears; his pure young kisses on
+her brow and eyes; his head against her knee.
+
+Just as she reached the mulberry, Jenkins hastened from the house.  The
+note he brought, in a familiar handwriting, thin and pointed, was
+marked "urgent" in one corner, and "immediate" in the other; but Miss
+Ann's notes usually were one or other.  This happened to be both.
+
+"You need not wait, Jenkins," she said.
+
+She stood close to a spreading branch of the mulberry.  Her tall head
+was up among the moving leaves.  Whispering, they caressed her.
+Something withheld her from entering the soft shade, sacred to herself
+and the Boy.  She stood, to read Ann Harvey's letter.
+
+As she read, every vestige of colour left her face.  Bending over the
+letter, she might have been a sorely troubled and perplexed replica of
+the noble Venus of Milo.
+
+Folding the letter, she went slowly up the lawn, still wearing that
+white look of cold dismay.  She spoke to Martha through the open
+window, keeping her face out of sight.
+
+"Martha," she said, "I am obliged to go immediately to Miss Ann.  If I
+am not back by eight o'clock, I shall be remaining with her for
+dinner."  She passed on, and Martha turned to Jenkins.
+
+By the way, Jenkins was having an unusually festive time.  During the
+last twenty-four hours, Martha had been kinder to him than he had ever
+known her to be.  He was now comfortably ensconced in the Windsor
+armchair in a corner of the kitchen, reading yesterday's daily paper,
+and enjoying his pipe.  Never before had his pipe been allowed in the
+kitchen; but he had just been graciously told he might bring it in, if
+he wouldn't be "messy with the _h_ashes"; Mrs. Jenkins volunteering the
+additional remarkable information, that it was "good for the beetles."
+Jenkins was doubtful as to whether this meant that his pipe gave
+pleasure to the beetles, or the reverse; but experience had taught him
+that a condition of peaceful uncertainty in his own mind was to be
+preferred to a torrent of vituperative explanation from Martha.  He
+therefore also received in silence the apparently unnecessary
+injunction not to go "crawlin' about all over the floor"; it took "a
+figure to do that!"
+
+Eight o'clock came, and Miss Charteris had not returned.
+
+"Remaining with 'er for dinner," pronounced Martha, flinging open the
+oven, and wrathfully relegating to the larder the chicken she had been
+roasting with extreme care; "an' a precious poor dinner it'll be!
+Jenkins, _you_ may 'ave this sparrow-grass.  _I_ 'aven't the 'eart.
+An' me 'oping she'd 'ave 'ad the sense to keep _'im_ to dinner; knowing
+as there was a chicking an' 'grass for two.  Now what's took Miss
+_H_ann 'urgent and immediate,' I'd like to know!" continued Martha,
+deriving considerable comfort from banging the plates and tumblers on
+to the kitchen table, with just as much violence as was consistent with
+their personal safety, as she walked round it, laying the table for
+supper.  "Ate a biscuit, I should think, an' flown to 'er cheat.  I've
+no patience; no, _that_ I 'aven't!"  And Martha attacked the loaf, with
+fury.
+
+At a quarter before nine, Miss Charteris returned.  In a few moments
+the bell summoned Jenkins.  The note he was to take was also marked
+"Immediate."  He left it on the kitchen table, and, while he changed
+his coat, Martha fetched her glasses.  Then she followed him to the
+pantry.
+
+"'Ere, run man!" she said, "run!  Never mind your muffler.  Who wants a
+muffler in June?  _'E_'s in it!  It's something more than a biscuit.
+Drat that woman!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+A quarter of an hour later, a tall white figure moved noiselessly down
+the lawn, to the seats beneath the mulberry.  The full moon was just
+rising above the high red wall, gliding up among the trees, huge and
+golden through their branches.  Christobel Charteris waited in the
+garden for the Boy.
+
+He came.
+
+By then, the lawn was bathed in moonlight.  She saw him, tall and slim,
+in the conventional black and white of a man's evening dress, pass
+silently through the postern gate.  She noted that he did not bang it.
+He came up the lawn slowly--for him.  He wore no hat, and every
+clear-cut feature of the clean-shaven young face showed up in the
+moonlight.
+
+At the mulberry, he paused, uncertain; peering into the dark shadow.
+
+"Christo_bel_?" he said, softly.
+
+"Boy dear; I am here.  Come."
+
+He came; feeling his way among the chairs, and moving aside a table,
+which stood between.
+
+He found her, sitting where he had found her, on his return, three
+hours before.  A single ray of moonlight pierced the thick foliage of
+the mulberry, and fell across her face.  He marked its unusual pallor.
+He stood before her, put one hand on each arm of her chair, and bent
+over her.
+
+"What is it?" he said, softly.  "What is it, dear heart?  It is so
+wonderful to be wanted, and sent for.  But let me know quickly that you
+are not in any trouble."
+
+She looked up at him dumbly, during five, ten, twenty seconds.  Then
+she said: "Boy, I have something to tell you.  Will you help me to tell
+it?"
+
+"Of course I will," he said.  "How can I help best?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered.  "Oh, I _don't_ know!"
+
+He considered a moment.  Then he sat down on the grass at her feet, and
+leaned his head against her knees.  She passed her fingers softly
+through his hair.
+
+"What happened after I had gone?" asked the Boy.
+
+"Jenkins brought me a note from Miss Harvey, asking me to come to her
+at once, to hear some very wonderful news, intimately affecting
+herself, and the Professor, and--and me.  She wrote very ecstatically
+and excitedly, poor dear.  She always does.  Of course, I went."
+
+"Well?" said the Boy, gently.  The pause was so very long, that it
+seemed to require supplementing.  He felt for the other hand, which had
+been holding the lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips.  It was
+wet with tears.
+
+The Boy started.  He sat up; turned, resting his arm upon her lap, and
+tried to see her face.
+
+"Go on, dear," he said.  "Get it over."
+
+"Boy," said Miss Charteris, "a rich old uncle of the Harveys has died,
+leaving the Professor a very considerable legacy, sufficient to make
+him quite independent of his fellowship, and of the production of the
+Encyclopedia."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They are very happy about it, naturally.  Poor Ann is happier than I
+have ever seen her.  And the chief cause of their joy appears to be
+that now the Professor is, at last, in a position to marry."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann is full of it.  She told me a
+good many very touching things.  I had no idea it had meant so much--to
+him--all these years.--Boy dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall have to marry the Professor."
+
+No answer.
+
+"I don't know how to make you understand why I feel so bound to them.
+They were very old friends of my father and mother.  They were so good
+to me through all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone.  Miss Ann
+is a great invalid, and very dependent upon love and care, and upon not
+being thwarted in her little hopes and plans.  She expects to come and
+live in--in her brother's home.  She knows I should love to have her.
+And he has done so much for me, intellectually; so patiently kept my
+mind alive, when it was inclined to stagnate; and working, when it
+would have grown slack.  He has given up hours of his valuable time to
+me, every week, for years."
+
+No answer.
+
+Suddenly the moonlight, through an opening in the mulberry leaves, fell
+upon his upturned face.  She saw the anguish in his eyes.  She turned
+his head away, resting it against her knee, and clasped her hands upon
+it.
+
+"Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I know.  In a most extraordinary
+way--in a way I cannot understand--you have won my body.  It yearns to
+be with you; it aches if you suffer; it lives in your gladness; it
+grows young in your youth.  Nobody else has ever made me feel this; I
+do not suppose anybody else ever will.  But--oh Boy--bodies are not
+everything.  Bodies are the least of all.  And I think--I _think_ the
+Professor holds my mind.  He won it long ago.  I have grown much older
+since then, and very tired of waiting.  But I can look back to the time
+when I used to think the greatest privilege in the world would be, to
+be the--to marry the Professor."
+
+She paused, and waited.
+
+"Bodies count," said the Boy, in a low voice.  "You'll jolly well find,
+that bodies count."
+
+It was such a relief to hear him speak at last.
+
+"Oh, I know, Boy dear," she said.  "But more between some, than others.
+The Professor and I are united, primarily, on the mental and spiritual
+plane.  Being so sure of this, realizing the difference, makes it less
+hard, in a way, to--to give up my Little Boy Blue.  Boy dear, you must
+help me; because I love you as I have never loved anybody else in this
+world before; as I know I never shall love again.  But I am bound in
+honour not to disappoint the man who _knows_ I have waited for him.
+Miss Ann admitted to me to-night that she has told him.  She said, in
+the first moments of joy she _had_ to tell him; he was so anxious; and
+so diffident.  Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think I should
+have begged off.  But--as he knows--as they have trusted me--dear, we
+must say 'good-bye' to-night.  He is going to write to me to-morrow,
+asking if he may come.  I shall say: 'Yes.' ... Boy dear?  Is it very
+hard? ... Oh, can't you see where duty comes in?  There can be no true
+happiness if one has failed to be true to what one knows is just and
+right....  Can't you realize, Boy, that _they_ have been everything to
+me for seven _years_?  _You_ have come in, for seven _days_."
+
+"Time is nothing," said the Boy, suddenly.  "You and I are one,
+Christobel; eternally, indissolubly _one_.  You will find it out, when
+it is too late.  Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!"
+
+She hesitated.  The Boy's theories were so vital, so vigorous, so
+assured.  Was she making a mistake?  There was no question as to the
+pain involved by her decision; but was that pain to result as she
+believed, in higher good to all; or was it to mean irreparable loss?
+The very knowledge that her body so yearned for him, led her to
+emphasize the fact that the Boy could not--oh surely could not--be a
+fit mate for her mind.  Yet he was so confident, so sure of himself, in
+regard to her, on every point; so unhesitatingly certain that they were
+meant for each other.
+
+And then she saw Ann Harvey, with clasped hands, saying: "_Darling_
+child, forgive me, but I _had_ to tell Kenrick!  He is so _humble_--he
+was so _diffident_, so doubtful of his own powers of attraction.  I
+_had_ to tell him that I knew you had been very fond of him for
+_years_.  I did not say much, sweet child; but just enough to give dear
+Kenrick _hope_ and _confidence_."
+
+She could see Miss Ann's delicate wrinkled face; the tearful eyes; the
+lavender ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious hair-brooch, fastening
+the old lace at her neck.  The scene was photographed upon her memory;
+for, in that moment, Hope--the young Hope, born of the youthful Boy and
+his desires--had died.  Christobel Charteris had taken up the burden of
+life; a life apart from the seven days' romance, created by the amazing
+over-confidence of her Little Boy Blue.
+
+The masterful man attracts; but, in the end, it is usually the
+diffident man who wins.  The innate unselfishness of the noblest type
+of woman, causes her to yield more readily to the insistence of her
+pity than to the force of her desire.  In these cases, marriage and
+martyrdom are really--though unconsciously--synonymous; and the same
+pure, holy courage which went smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the
+altar.  Does a martyr's crown await it, in another world?  Possibly.
+The only perplexing question, in these cases, being: What awaits the
+wrecked life of "the other man"?
+
+Christobel Charteris had put her hand to the plough; she would not look
+back.
+
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "you must say 'good-bye' and go.  I am
+going to marry the Professor quite soon, and I must not see you again.
+Say 'good-bye,' Boy dear."
+
+Then the Boy's anguish broke through all bounds.  He flung his arms
+around her, and hid his face in her lap.  A sudden throb of speechless
+agony seemed to overwhelm them both, submerging all arguments, all
+casuistry, all obligations to others, in a molten ocean of love and
+pain.
+
+Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, give her to me!  Give her to me!
+O God, give her to me!"
+
+"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!"
+
+He was silent at once.
+
+Then bending, she gathered him to her, holding his face against her
+breast; sheltering him in the tenderness of her arms.  He had never
+seemed so completely her own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, when
+she listened to his hopeless prayer: "O God, give her to me!"  This was
+the Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon-balls; who faced the
+world, with sand upon his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes;
+indomitable courage in his heart.  She forgot the man's estate to which
+he had attained; she forgot the man's request to which she had given a
+final denial.  She held him as she had first longed to do, when his
+nurse, in unreasonable wrath, shook him on the sands; she rocked him
+gently to and fro, as his dead mother might have done, long years ago.
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" she said.
+
+Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears upon her neck.
+
+Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart stood still.  Then the full
+passion of her tenderness awoke, and found voice in an exceeding bitter
+cry.
+
+"Oh, I cannot bear it!  I cannot bear it!  Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you
+shall have all you wish--all--all! ... Do you hear, my Little Boy Blue?
+It shall all be for you, darling; all for you!  Nobody else matters.
+You shall have all you want--all--all--all!"
+
+Silence under the mulberry-tree; the silence of a great decision.
+
+Then he drew himself gently but firmly from her arms.
+
+He stood before her, tall, erect, unbending.  The moonlight fell upon
+his face.  It had lost its look of youth, taking on a new power.  It
+was the face of a man; and of a man who, having come to a decision,
+intended, at all costs, to abide by it.
+
+"No, Christobel," he said.  "No, my Belovčd.  I could not accept
+happiness--even _such_ happiness--at so great a cost to you.  There
+could be no bliss for you, no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great
+love, if you had gone against your supreme sense of duty; your own high
+conception of right and wrong.  Also, Christobel, dearest--you must not
+give yourself in a rush of emotion.  You must give yourself
+deliberately where your mind has chosen, and where your great soul is
+content.  That being so, I must be off, Christobel; and don't you worry
+about me.  You've been heavenly good to me, dear; and I've put you
+through so much.  I will go up to town to-night.  I shall not come
+back, unless you send for me.  But when you want me and send--why, my
+Love, I will come from the other end of the world."
+
+He stooped and took both her hands in his; lifted them reverently,
+tenderly, to his lips; held them there one moment, then laid them back
+upon her lap, and turned away.
+
+She saw him walk down the moonlit lawn, tall and erect.  She saw him
+pass through the gate, without looking back.  She heard it close
+quietly--not with the old boyish bang--yet close irrevocably,
+decisively.
+
+Then she shut her eyes, and began again to rock gently to and fro.
+Little Boy Blue was still in her arms; it comforted her to rock him
+there.  But the man who had arisen and left her, when he might, taking
+advantage of her weakness, have won her against her own conscience and
+will; the man who, mastering his own agony, had thus been brave and
+strong for her--had carried her whole heart with him, when he went out
+through the postern gate.
+
+In rising, he left the Boy in her arms.  Through the long hard years to
+come, she prayed she might keep him there--her own Little Boy Blue.
+
+But he who went out alone, for her sake to face life without her, was
+_the man she loved_.
+
+She knew it, at last.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the fifth day_."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE SIXTH DAY
+
+MISS ANN HAS "MUCH TO SAY"
+
+On the afternoon of the sixth day, at the hour which had hitherto been
+kept for the Boy, Christobel Charteris, in response to another urgent
+and immediate summons, went to take tea with Miss Ann.
+
+It had been a long, dull, uneventful day, holding at first a certain
+amount of restless uncertainty as to whether the Boy was really gone;
+mingled with apprehensive anticipation of a call from the Professor.
+
+But before noon a reply-paid telegram arrived from the Boy, sent off at
+Charing Cross.
+
+
+"_Good morning.  All's well.  Just off for Folkestone.  Please tell me
+how you are._"
+
+
+To which, while Jenkins and the telegraph-boy waited, Miss Charteris
+replied:
+
+
+"_Quite well, thank you.  Do be careful at Folkestone._"
+
+
+and afterwards thought of many other messages which she might have
+sent, holding more, and better expressed.  But that precious moment in
+touch with the Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed so impossible to
+think of anything but commonplace words, while Jenkins stood at
+attention near the table; and the telegraph-boy kept ringing his
+bicycle-bell outside, as a reminder that he waited.
+
+Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted by this momentary contact with
+the Boy.  He still cared to know how she was.  And it was so like him
+to put: "All's well."  He wished her to know he had not gone down
+beneath his trouble.  "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+Brave Little Boy Blue, of long ago!
+
+The expectation of the Professor's note or call remained, keeping her
+anxious; until she heard from Ann Harvey, that her brother had been
+obliged to go to London on business, and would not return until the
+evening.  "Come to tea with me, dear child," the note concluded; "we
+have _much_ to say!"
+
+It seemed to Christobel that there remained nothing which Miss Ann had
+not already said, in every possible form and way.  Nevertheless, she
+put on her hat, and went.  Miss Ann had succeeded in impressing all her
+friends with the conviction that her wishes must never be thwarted.
+
+Miss Ann had named her villa "Shiloh," undoubtedly a suitable name, so
+far as she herself was concerned; her time being mostly spent upon a
+comfortable sofa in her tiny drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker
+lounge beneath the one tree in her small garden; or being carefully
+wheeled out in a bath-chair.
+
+But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa in any sense a "resting-place."
+She had a way of keeping everybody about her--from jaded Emma to the
+most casual caller--on the move, while she herself presented a delicate
+picture of frail inactivity.  Immediately upon their arrival, her
+friends found an appointed task awaiting them; but it was always
+something which Miss Ann would have given to somebody else to do, had
+they not chanced at that moment to appear; and they were usually left
+with the feeling that the particular somebody else--whose _privilege_
+they, in their well-meant zeal, had usurped--would have accomplished it
+better.
+
+Directing them from the sofa, Miss Ann kept her entourage busy and
+perpetually on the move.  Yet she never felt she was asking much of
+them; nor, however weary at the conclusion of the task, did they ever
+feel much had been accomplished, owing to the judicious use of the word
+"just."
+
+"My dear," Miss Ann would say, "as you _are_ here, will you _just_
+clean the canary?"  Cleaning the canary meant a very thorough turning
+out of an intricate little brass cage; several journeys up and down
+stairs in quest of sand, seed, and brass polish, and an out-door
+excursion to a neighbour's garden for groundsel.  The canary's name was
+"Sweetie-weet," and, however much annoyed Miss Ann's friends might be
+feeling with the canary, they had to call him "Sweetie-weet" all the
+time they "cleaned him," lest his flutterings should upset Miss Ann.
+Now you cannot say "Sweetie-weet" in an angry voice.  Try, and you will
+see.  Consequently Miss Ann's friends had no vent for their feelings
+during the process of getting a rather large hand in and out of a very
+small brass door with a spring, which always snapped to, at the wrong
+moment, while the hand, which seemed to its possessor larger than it
+had ever seemed before, was crooked round in an impossible position in
+a strained attempt to fix Sweetie-weet's perches.  If anything went
+wrong during the cleaning process, Miss Ann, from her vantage-ground on
+the sofa would sigh, and exclaim: "Poor patient little Sweetie-weet!"
+Miss Ann was in full possession of all her faculties.  Her hearing was
+preternaturally sharp.  It was no use saying "Fiend!" to Sweetie-weet,
+in an emphatic whisper.  He fluttered the more.
+
+When the task was completed, the cage had to be brought to Miss Ann's
+couch for inspection.  She then usually discovered the perches to have
+been put back before they were perfectly dry.  Now _nothing_--as surely
+you hardly ought to require to be told--was so prejudicial to
+Sweetie-weet's delicate constitution as to have _damp_ wood beneath his
+_precious_ little feet.  Consequently all the perches had _just_ to be
+taken out again, dried before the kitchen fire, and put back once more.
+When this mandate went forth, the glee in the bright black eyes in
+Sweetie-weet's yellow head was unmistakable.  He shared Miss Ann's
+mania for keeping people busy.
+
+When, at last, the second installation of perches was over, and the
+cage was suspended from the brass chain in the sunny window,
+Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill crescendo of ear-piercing
+sarcasm--"a little song of praise" Miss Ann called it--directed full at
+the hot and exhausted friend, who was applying a pocket-handkerchief to
+the wire scratches on the back of her hand, and trying to smile at Miss
+Ann's recital of all Emma would say, when she found that her special
+privilege and delight--the cleaning of Sweetie-weet--had been wrested
+from her by the over-zealous friend.  As a matter of fact, jaded Emma's
+personal remarks about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-drying process in
+the kitchen, had been of a nature which would not bear repeating in
+Sweetie-weet's presence, and had provided the only amusement the friend
+had got out of the whole performance.
+
+When Christobel Charteris arrived at Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the
+green velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; a Shetland shawl
+about her shoulders, fastened by the largest and most mysterious of her
+hair-brooches--a gold-mounted oval brooch, in which a weeping willow of
+fair hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark hair; while a crescent
+moon of grey hair kept watch over both.  This funereal collection of
+family hair always possessed a weird fascination for small children,
+brought by their parents to call upon Miss Ann.  The most
+undemonstrative became affectionate, and hastened with ready docility
+to the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to obtain a closer view, and to
+settle the much disputed point as to the significance of a small round
+object in the left-hand corner at the bottom.  In fact, to the
+undisguised dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster once emerged from
+Miss Ann's embrace, exclaiming eagerly to his little sister: "It's a
+furze-bush, _not_ a hedgehog!"  An unfortunate remark, which might have
+been taken by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal matters than a
+detail in her brooch.
+
+Christobel herself was not altogether free from the spell of this
+hirsute cemetery; chiefly because she knew it was worn on days when
+deep emotion was to be felt and expressed.  At sight of it, she was
+quite prepared for the tearful smile with which Miss Ann signed to her
+to close the door.  Then extending her arms, "Sweet sister," she said,
+with emotion, "let me take you to my heart."
+
+It was somewhat startling to Christobel to be apostrophized as "sister"
+by Miss Ann.  The Boy had made her feel so young, and so completely his
+contemporary, that if Miss Ann had called her "daughter," or even
+"granddaughter," it would have seemed more appropriate.  Also her
+magnificent proportions constituted a somewhat large order for Miss
+Ann's proposed embrace.
+
+However, she knelt beside the sofa, and allowed herself to be taken to
+Miss Ann's heart in sections.  Then, having found and restored Miss
+Ann's lace pocket-handkerchief, she seated herself in a low chair
+beside the couch, hoping for enlightenment upon the immediate prospects
+of her own future.
+
+Miss Ann wept gently for a while.  Christobel sat silent.  Her recent
+experience of tears, wrung from such deep anguish of soul, made it less
+easy for her to feel sympathetic towards tears which flowed from no
+apparent cause, and fell delicately into perfumed lace.  So she waited
+in silence, while Miss Ann wept.
+
+The room was very still.  The bang with which the Boy usually made his
+entry anywhere, would have been terrific in its joyful suddenness.  At
+the mere thought of it, Christobel's heart stood still and listened.
+But this was a place into which the Boy would never make an entry,
+noisy or otherwise.  Besides--the Boy was gone.  Oh, silent, sober,
+sorry world!  The Boy was gone.
+
+Sweetie-weet put his head on one side, and chirped interrogatively.  In
+his judgment, the silence had lasted sufficiently long.
+
+Miss Ann dried her eyes, making an effort to control her emotion.  Then
+she spoke, in a voice which still trembled.
+
+"Dearest child," she said, "I want you _just_ to cover this book for
+me.  Emma has offered to do it, several times, but I said: 'No, Emma.
+We must keep it for Miss Christobel.  I do not know _what_ she would
+say to you, if you took to covering my books!'  Emma is a good soul,
+and willing; but has not the _mind_ and _method_ required to cover a
+book properly.  If you will _just_ run up to my room, dear child, you
+will find a neat piece of whity-brown paper laid aside on purpose....
+Hush, Sweetie-weet!  Christobel knows you are pleased to see her....
+It is either on the ottoman behind the screen, or in the top left-hand
+drawer of the mahogany chest, between the window and the fireplace.
+Ah, how much we have come through, during the last twenty-four hours!
+The scissors, dear Love, are hanging by black tape from a nail in the
+store-room.  You require a large and _common_ pair for cutting brown
+paper.  How truly wonderful are the ways of Providence, dear
+Christobel!  The paste is in the little cupboard under the stairs."
+
+When Miss Charteris had finished covering the book, having bent upon it
+all the _mind_ and _method_ it required, she forestalled the setting of
+another task, by saying firmly: "I want an important talk now, please.
+Ann, are you sure you told your brother that I had cared for him for
+years?"
+
+"Darling, dear Kenrick was so _diffident_; so unable to realize his own
+powers of _attraction_; so----"
+
+"Do you think it was fair toward a woman, even if it were true, to tell
+a man who had never asked her love, that that love has long been his?"
+
+"Sweet child, how crudely you put it!  I merely _hinted, whispered_;
+gave the most _delicate_ indications of what I knew to be your feeling.
+For you _do_ love my brother; do you not, dear Christobel?"
+
+"I think," said Miss Charteris, slowly, weighing each word; "I think I
+love the Professor as a woman loves a book."
+
+There was a moment of tense silence in Miss Ann's drawing-room.
+Christobel Charteris looked straight before her, a stern light upon her
+face, as of one confronted on the path of duty by the clear shining of
+the mirror of self-revelation.
+
+Into Miss Ann's pale blue eyes shot a gleam of nervous anxiety.
+
+Sweetie-weet chirped, interrogatively.
+
+Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her hands.  "Ah, what a beautiful
+definition!" she said.  "What _could_ be more pure, more perfect?"
+
+Miss Charteris knew a love of a very different kind, which was
+absolutely pure, and altogether perfect.  But that was the love she had
+put from her.
+
+"A woman could hardly marry a book," she said.
+
+Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory shriek.  "Darling child!" she cried.
+"_No_ simile, however beautiful, should be pressed too far!  Your
+exquisite description of your love for dear Kenrick merely assures us
+that your union with him will prove one of complete contentment to the
+mind.  And the _mind_--that sensitive instrument, attuned to all the
+immensities of the intellectual spheres--the _mind_ is what really
+matters."
+
+"Bodies count," said Miss Charteris, with conviction; adding beneath
+her breath, the dawning of a smile in her sad eyes: "We shall jolly
+well find, bodies count."
+
+Miss Ann's hearing, as we have already remarked, was preternaturally
+sharp.  She started.  "My dear Christobel, what an expression!  And do
+you not think, that, under these circumstances, any mention of bodies
+savours of impropriety?"
+
+Miss Charteris turned quickly.  The colour flamed into her beautiful
+face.  The glint of angry indignation flashed from her eyes.  But the
+elderly figure on the couch looked so small and frail.  To wound and
+crush it would be so easy; and so unworthy of her strength, and wider
+experience.
+
+Suddenly she remembered a little blue back, round with grief and shame;
+a small sandy face, silent and unflinching; a brave little heart which
+kept its faith in God, and prayed on trustfully, while nurses
+misunderstood and bullied.  Then Miss Charteris conquered her own wrath.
+
+"Dear Ann," she said, gently, "do you really believe your brother would
+be much disappointed if--after all--when he asks me to marry him--which
+he has not done yet--I feel it better not to do so?"
+
+"My _darling_ child!" exclaimed Miss Ann, and her hair-brooch flew
+open, as if to accentuate her horror and amazement.  "My _darling_
+child!  Think how patiently he has waited!  Remember the long years!
+Remember----"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Miss Charteris.  "You told me all that last night,
+didn't you?  But it seems to me that, if a man can wait twelve years,
+he might as well wait twenty."
+
+"So he would have!" cried Miss Ann.  "_Undoubtedly_ dear Kenrick would
+have waited _twenty years_, had it not been for this fortunate legacy,
+which places him in a position to marry at once.  But why should you
+wish to keep him waiting any longer?  Is not twelve years sufficiently
+long?"
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Twelve days would be too long for some
+people," she said, gently.  "I have no wish to keep him waiting.  But
+you must remember, Ann, the Professor has, as yet, spoken no word of
+love to me."
+
+"Dear child," said Miss Ann, eagerly; "he would have come to you
+to-day, but imperative legal business, connected with our uncle's will,
+took him to town.  I know for certain that he intends writing to you
+this evening; and, if you then give him leave to do so, he will call
+upon you to-morrow.  Oh, _darling_ girl, you will not disappoint us?
+We have so trusted you; so _believed_ in you!  A less scrupulously
+honourable man than Kenrick, might have tried to bind you by a promise,
+before he was in a position to offer you immediate marriage.  Think of
+all the hopes--the hopes and p-_plans_, which depend upon your
+faithfulness!"  Miss Ann dissolved into tears--but not to a degree
+which should hinder her flow of eloquence.  "Ah, sweetest child!  You
+knelt beside this _very_ sofa, five years ago, and you said: 'Ann, I
+think _any_ woman might be proud to become the wife of the Professor!'
+Have you forgotten that you said that, kneeling beside this _very_
+sofa?"
+
+"I have not forgotten," said Miss Charteris; "and I think so still."
+
+"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" said Miss Ann, through her tears.
+
+Christobel Charteris rose.  She stood, for a moment, tall and
+immovable, in the small, low room, crowded with knick-knacks--china,
+bric-ŕ-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph
+frames--overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were
+overfilled with a varied assortment of cushions.  Miss Ann's
+drawing-room gave the effect of a rather prettily arranged bazaar.  You
+mentally pictured yourself walking round, admiring everything, but
+seeing nothing you liked quite well enough to wish to buy it, and take
+it home.
+
+Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, in her simple white gown,
+looked so utterly apart from the trumpery elegance of these
+surroundings.  As the Boy had said, the mellow beauty of his ancestral
+homes would indeed be a fit setting for her stately grace.  But she had
+sent away the Boy, with his beautiful castles in the air, and places in
+the shires.  The atmosphere and surroundings of Shiloh were those to
+which she must be willing to bend her fastidious taste.  Miss Ann would
+expect to make her home with the Professor.
+
+"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" whispered Miss Ann, through her lace
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Christobel bent over her, tenderly; fastening the clasp of the
+mysterious hair-brooch.
+
+"Dear Ann," she said.  "It will not be leap year again, until 1912.
+And, meanwhile, the Professor has not proposed marriage to me."
+
+Miss Ann instantly brightened.  Laughing gaily, she wiped away a few
+remaining tears.
+
+"Ah, naughty!" she said.  "Naughty, to make me tell!  But as you _will_
+ask--_he is going to write to-night_.  But you must never let him know
+I told you!  And now I want you just to find the _Spectator_--it is
+laid over that exquisitely embroidered blotter on the writing-table in
+the window, sent me last Christmas by that kind creature, Lady
+Goldsmith; so thoughtful, tasteful, and _quite_ touching; Emma, careful
+soul, spread it over the blotter, while darling Sweetie-weetie took his
+bath.  Dear pet, it is a sight to see him splash and splutter.  Lady
+Goldsmith thinks so much of dear Kenrick.  The first time she saw him,
+she was _immensely_ struck by his extraordinarily clever _appearance_.
+He sat exactly opposite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she told me
+afterwards that the mere sight of him was sufficient to take away all
+inclination for food; excepting for that intellectual nourishment which
+he is so well able to supply.  I thought that was rather well
+expressed, and, coming from a _florid_ woman, such as Lady Goldsmith,
+was quite a tribute to my brother.  You _would_ call Lady Goldsmith
+'florid,' would you not, dear Christobel? ... Oh, you do not know her
+by sight?  I am surprised.  As the _wife_ of the _Professor_, you will
+soon know all these distinguished people by sight.  Yes, she is
+undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be what my dear father used to call
+'a woman of a stout habit.'  This being the case, it was certainly a
+_tribute_--a tribute of which you and I, dearest child, have a right to
+feel justly proud....  Oh, is it still damp?  Naughty Sweetie-weet!
+Don't you think it might be wise, _just_ to take it to the kitchen.
+Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before the fire.  I _have_ heard
+of fatalities caused by damp newspapers.  Precious _child_, we can have
+you run no risks!  What would _Kenrick_ say?  But when it is
+_absolutely_ dry, I want you just to explain to me the _gist_ of that
+article on the effect of oriental literature on modern thought.
+Kenrick tells me you have read it.  He wishes to discuss it with me.  I
+really cannot undertake to read it through.  I have not the _time_
+required.  Yet I must be prepared to talk it over intelligently with my
+brother, when next he pays me a visit.  He may look in this evening,
+weary with his day in town, and requiring the relaxation of a little
+intellectual conversation.  I must be ready."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+An hour later, somewhat tired in body, and completely exhausted in
+mind, Miss Charteris walked home.  She made a detour, in order to pass
+along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the
+garden.
+
+She opened it, and passed in.
+
+A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn.  The jolly little "what
+d'-you-call-'ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.
+
+She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green
+seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading
+mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green
+shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in.  She
+knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect,
+than his casual acquaintances might suppose.  It would not surprise her
+some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction
+of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems"
+in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the
+mulberry-tree.  She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the
+artist's name.  The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year
+before.  She had chanced to see it.  Noticing the name of her Little
+Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way
+through the crowded rooms, and found his picture.  It hung on the line.
+She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative
+skill.  She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days
+she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting
+in the Academy.  Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had
+greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things
+critics had said of it.
+
+But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to
+the Boy to mention it.  The Boy never talked of what he had done,
+_because_ he had done it.  But were a subject mentioned upon which he
+was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he
+knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and
+all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular
+thing.  He would never have thought of informing you that he owned
+three aeroplanes.  But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said
+to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward,
+beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk
+aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen.  This
+trait of the Boy's, caused shallow-minded people to consider him
+conceited.  But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between
+keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical
+self-assertion; and the woman who loved him, smiled tenderly as she
+remembered that even on the day when she scolded him, and he had to
+admit his "barely respectable B.A.," he had not told her of the
+painting hung on the line and mentioned in the _Times_.  Yet if the
+question of art had come up, the Boy would very probably have sat
+forward in his chair, and talked about his painting, straight on end,
+for half an hour.
+
+She still stood beneath the archway, in the red-brick wall, as these
+thoughts chased quickly through her mind.  She would have made a fair
+picture for any one who had chanced to be waiting beneath the
+mulberry-tree, with eyes upon the gate.
+
+"Straight on end for half an hour, he would have talked about his
+picture; and how bright his eyes would have been.  And then I should
+have said: 'I saw it, Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as you
+say.'  And he would have answered: 'It jolly well gave you the feeling
+of the scene, didn't it, Christo_bel_?'  And I should have known that
+his delight in it, as an artistic success, had nothing to do with the
+fact that it was painted by himself.  Just because egotism is
+impossible to him, he is free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm."
+
+She smiled again.  A warm glow seemed to enfold her.  "How well I know
+my Boy!" she said aloud; then remembered with a sudden pang that she
+must not call him _her_ Boy.  She had let him go.  She was--very
+probably--going to marry the Professor.  She had not--with the whole of
+her being--wanted him to stay, until he had had the manliness to rise
+up and go.  Then--it had been too late.  Ah, was it too late?  If the
+Boy came back to plead once more?  If once again she could hear him
+say: "Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!" would she not
+answer: "Yes, Guy.  Love _is_ all"?
+
+The blood rushed into her sweet proud face.  The name of the man she
+loved had come into her mind unconsciously.  It had never yet--as a
+name for him--passed her lips.  That she should unconsciously call him
+so in her heart, gave her another swift moment of self-revelation.
+
+She closed the gate gently, careful not to let it bang.  As she passed
+up the lawn, her heart stood still.  It seemed to her that he must be
+waiting, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+
+She hardly dared to look.  She felt so sure he was there....  Yes, she
+knew he was there....  She felt certain the Boy had come back.  He
+could not stay away from her on his sixth day.  Had he not said he
+would "march round" every day?  Ah, dear waiting army of Israel!  Here
+was Jericho hastening to meet it.  Why had she allowed Ann Harvey to
+keep her so late?  Why had she gone at all, during the Boy's own time?
+She might have known he would come....  Should she walk past the
+mulberry, as if making for the house, just for the joy of hearing him
+call "Christo_bel_"?  No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he
+was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
+
+She passed, breathlessly, under the drooping branches.  Her cheeks
+glowed; her lips were parted.  Her eyes shone with love and expectation.
+
+She lifted a hanging bough, and passed beneath.
+
+His chair was there, and hers; but they were empty.  The Boy--being the
+Boy--had not come back.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Presently she went slowly up to the house.
+
+A telegram lay on the hall table.  She knew at once from whom it came.
+There was but one person who carried on a correspondence by telegraph.
+_Reply paid_ was written on the envelope.
+
+She stood quite still for a moment.  Then she opened it slowly.
+Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used
+to jump about.  He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet,
+before she knew he was going to move.
+
+She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
+
+
+"_How are you, dear?  Please tell me.  I am going to do my big fly
+to-morrow.  I jolly well mean to break the record.  Wish me luck._"
+
+
+She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
+
+
+"_Quite well.  Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue._"
+
+
+She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so
+often called him.  But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all
+over.  It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who
+had gone out at the gate.  It was best he should not know what she
+would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now.  She
+was--undoubtedly--going to marry the Professor.  In which case she
+would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue."  So she put it
+into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear."  Then she
+went out, and sent it off herself.  It was comforting to have
+something, however small, to do for him.
+
+She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined.  She was
+thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the
+mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing:
+"_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow....  He is going to do a big
+fly to-morrow!  Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"
+
+She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read.  But
+between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He
+is going to fly to-morrow._"
+
+She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree.  It
+was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
+
+She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight.  "_He
+is going to do a big fly to-morrow.  He jolly well means to break the
+record._"
+
+She passed in, and went to her bedroom.  She lay in the darkness and
+tried to sleep.  She tried in vain.  What if he got into
+cross-currents?  What if the propeller broke?  What if the
+steering-gear twisted?  She began remembering every detail he had told
+herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
+lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue....  "_Oh
+of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"
+
+At last she could bear it no longer.  She lighted her candle, and rose.
+She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
+before, in the whole of her healthy life.  She took a sleeping draught.
+The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
+visit.  She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
+
+She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
+
+The bromide began to act.
+
+The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
+
+The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
+
+She talked to him softly.  Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
+own.  "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said.  "You may jolly
+well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don't
+break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
+
+The bromide was acting strongly now.  The bird with the broken wing had
+gone.  There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears.  It was
+the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him.  She knew sleep
+was coming; merciful oblivion.  Yet now she was too happy to wish to
+sleep.
+
+The Boy drew nearer.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
+darkness; "I love you so."
+
+"I know you do, dear," said the Boy.  "It is almost unbelievable,
+Christobel; but I know you do."
+
+Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
+
+Thus the Boy--though far away--marched round.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+
+When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her
+room.  The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
+She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea
+on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
+
+She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave
+her.
+
+She dressed, and went downstairs.
+
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened
+and read it.
+
+The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor
+would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal.  He
+touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them
+both.  He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie,
+but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position
+to offer her a suitable home and income.  This was now fortunately the
+case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly
+conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth
+in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to
+win.  She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and
+comrade, during many years.  If she could now bring herself to trust
+him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to
+disappoint or fail her.
+
+The letter was signed:
+
+"_Yours in sincere devotion,_
+  "_KENRICK HARVEY._"
+
+
+A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that
+afternoon, for a reply.
+
+Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave
+the Professor leave to call at three.
+
+The Professor called at three.
+
+He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the
+hall.  He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them
+back again.
+
+At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss
+Charteris awaited him.  He was very nervous.  He repeated the substance
+of his letter, only rather less well expressed.  He alluded to Miss
+Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having
+Christobel as a sister.  But he completely ignored, both in the letter
+and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence.
+For this she was grateful to him.
+
+As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters
+of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an
+actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the
+affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
+
+He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great
+affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth
+of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified
+it.  Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back
+to his seat.
+
+A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor
+had an inspiration.
+
+Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child
+for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
+
+"That--er--matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he
+said, "should we not find it decidedly--er--refreshing to spend an hour
+over our Persian translation?"
+
+Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read,
+translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of
+various passages, her mind wandered.
+
+She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how
+the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what
+the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done.  She was not
+quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the
+Boy with the curb completely off.  But she suddenly remembered:
+"Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a
+shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
+
+The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise.  Then he smiled,
+indulgently.
+
+"My dear--er--Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous,"
+he said.
+
+"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris.  "I beg your pardon.  I
+laughed involuntarily."
+
+The Professor resumed his reading.
+
+No; she was not quite sure as to _all_ the Boy would have done; but she
+knew quite well what he would have said.
+
+And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for
+what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the
+Professor.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing
+became dream-like to Miss Charteris.  She found herself helpless in the
+grip of Miss Ann's iron will--up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland
+and lace.  At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die
+alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul,
+being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in
+order to go home and nurse her mother.  Emma had seemed a broken woman,
+ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one
+ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind
+not to grant.
+
+She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands.
+Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires.  The Professor
+danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss
+Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist.  The Boy having
+gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter.  It was her duty to
+marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the
+postponement of duty.
+
+But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a
+week.  It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having
+just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were
+researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost
+importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of
+Brussels.  It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being
+obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her
+brother, the bishop.  Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea
+of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland,
+and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival
+would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if
+she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such
+poignant memories of the Boy.
+
+So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being
+dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris--who should have had the
+most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge--found herself
+standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated
+church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old
+clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and
+partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with
+Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while
+Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other.  Martha had
+flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid
+her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most
+morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly:
+"'Ow about _'im_?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the
+room, sobbing.
+
+"_How about him?  How about him?_"
+
+Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh
+to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
+
+_How about him_?  But _he_ had left her to do that which she felt to be
+right, and she was doing it.
+
+Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and
+he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
+
+Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation.  In this
+nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to
+play.  The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would
+come with him.  He would walk straight up the church to her, saying:
+"We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!"  Then they would
+all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say:
+"Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
+
+But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking
+unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching
+nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old
+clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the
+Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
+
+The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann
+sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Christobel looked at the Professor.  His outward appearance seemed
+greatly improved.  His beard had been trimmed; his hair--what there was
+of it--cut.  He had not once looked at her since she entered the church
+and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes
+would be kind--kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex
+lenses.  The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth,
+eyes, and hair.  What questions the amazing Boy used to ask!  And she
+had answered----
+
+But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts.  The
+all-important question had been put to her.  She had not heard one word
+of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
+
+The silence became alarming.  This was the exact psychological moment
+in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue.  But the Boy did
+not dash in.
+
+Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of
+brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question.
+Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
+
+Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly.  The old clergyman peered
+at her, in astonishment, over his glasses.  His eyes were red-rimmed
+and bloodshot.
+
+Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
+tone of reproof, which made of it a menace.  Miss Charteris listened
+carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
+
+Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman
+between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the
+third finger of her left hand.  As they did so, her thoughts wandered
+again.  She was back in the garden with the Boy.  He had caught her
+left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger
+from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he
+had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and
+tenderness.  She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger
+separately.  She looked down at it.  The Professor's ring encircled it.
+
+Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon
+her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she
+might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan
+for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in
+time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by
+an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, _en route_
+for Brussels.
+
+Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely.  She had
+never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to
+her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels--and the best
+of hotels.  But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an
+authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that
+hotels--particularly _Metropole_ hotels--were scarcely proper places.
+Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the
+company so congenial.  But here the Professor had interposed, laying
+his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial
+company with us."
+
+This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which
+the Professor had as yet ventured.  The sober, middle-aged side of Miss
+Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful
+emotion.  But the youthful soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how
+the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a
+sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition
+bordering on hysterics.
+
+They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to
+themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation
+which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's
+minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual
+appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past.  Before
+long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the
+tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and
+they were deep in translation.
+
+Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and
+trundled slowly off to Cannon Street.  Christobel had imagined
+four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her
+suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression,
+indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the
+sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.
+
+(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler--you dear
+record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy?  That
+ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal
+Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into
+Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting
+on, only to be stopped again; and your Belovčd inside it, Boy dear,
+looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see
+something of the London you had planned to show her in your own
+delightful extravagant way.  Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this!  It is not
+your show.  This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the
+Professor.  The lady within is the bride of the Professor.  Hands off,
+Boy!)
+
+They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad
+Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it--a
+delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books.
+The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty
+entrance through the narrow doorway.  Here he always found precisely
+the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research.  With an
+incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the
+Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop,
+oblivious of his cab, his bride, and his train.  Christobel had
+followed him, and stood, a dignified, but somewhat lonely figure, just
+within the doorway.  She had been to this shop with her father, during
+his lifetime, on several occasions, and had since often written for
+books.  The bookseller came forward.  He was a man possessed of the
+useful faculty of remembering faces and the names appertaining to them.
+Also he had cultivated the habit of taking an intelligent interest in
+his customers.  But he did not connect this beautiful waiting figure,
+with the absorbed back of the Professor.
+
+"What can I do for you to-day, Miss Charteris?" he inquired, with ready
+courtesy.
+
+Christobel started.  "Nothing to-day, thank you, Mr. Taylor.  But I am
+much obliged to you for so often supplying my requirements by return of
+post.  And, by the way, you have an excellent memory.  It is many years
+since I came here last, with my father."
+
+"Professor Charteris was one of my best customers," said the
+bookseller, in an undertone of deferential sympathy.  "I never knew a
+finer judge of a book than he.  If I may be allowed to say so, I deeply
+deplored his loss, Miss Charteris."
+
+Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, allowing the kindly expression of
+appreciation and regret to reach her with comfort in these moments of
+dream-like isolation.  A friendly hand seemed to have been outstretched
+across the chasm which divides the passionately regretted past, from
+the scarcely appreciated present.  She could see her father's tall
+scholarly figure, as he stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in
+earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, regardless of the passing of
+time; until she was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and hurry him
+through the crowded streets, down the steep incline, to the platform
+from which the Cambridge express was on the point of starting.  And
+when safely seated, with barely a minute to spare, he would turn to
+her, with a smile of gentle reproof, saying: "But, my dear child, we
+had not concluded our conversation."  And she would laugh and say: "But
+we had to get home to-night, Papa."  Whereupon he would lean back,
+contentedly, replying: "Quite right, my dear.  So we had."
+
+Ah, happy those whose fathers and mothers still walk the earth beside
+them.  Youth remains, notwithstanding the passing of years, while there
+is still a voice to say, in reproof or approbation: "My child."
+
+But the bookseller, not yet connecting her with the Professor, still
+waited her pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck Christobel.  An
+eager wish awoke within her.
+
+"Mr. Taylor," she said, hurriedly; "can you supply me with the very
+newest thing on the subject of aviation?  I want to learn all there is
+to know about propellers, steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to
+avoid the dangers----"
+
+She stopped short.  The Professor had found what he wanted, and was
+fumbling for his purse.
+
+The bookseller turned quickly to a pile at his elbow, took up a
+paper-covered book, and placed it in her hands.  "The very latest," he
+said.  "Published yesterday.  You will find in it all you want to
+know."  Then, as he handed the Professor his change, "Allow me to place
+it to your account, Miss Charteris," he said.
+
+Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense of elation and fresh interest
+in life, Christobel, armed with her book on aviation, re-entered the
+four-wheeler.  The Professor, absorbed in his own purchase, had not
+noticed her private transaction.  He followed her into the cab, and
+made three ineffectual attempts to close the door.  Just as the driver
+was slowly beginning to prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came across
+the crowded pavement, to their rescue; released the Professor's
+coat-tail, shut them in, and signed to the cabman to drive on.  With a
+good deal of "gee-up" and whip-flourishing, they re-commenced to
+trundle.  Mr. Taylor was not merely a provider of literature; he was
+also a keen observer of life, and of human nature.  As Christobel
+leaned forward to acknowledge his help, and to smile her farewell, his
+expression seemed to say: "A four-wheeler, Professor Harvey, and the
+latest work on aviation!  An unusual combination."  "Very unusual," she
+said to herself, and smiled again.  Then it seemed to her that her
+friend of the bookshop had said: "You will find what you want, on page
+274."  She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, mentioned any page;
+but the figures came into her mind.  She opened the book, and glanced
+at page 274.  It was headed: "Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea."
+She shut it quickly.  There was no room for the actual presence of the
+Boy in the Professor's four-wheeler.
+
+They lunched at a depôt of the Aerated Bread Company, close to Cannon
+Street station.  While Christobel was struggling with a very large
+plateful of cold tongue, she suddenly remembered that one of the Boy's
+many plans had been to take her to lunch at his favourite restaurant in
+Piccadilly; where she would be able to order any dish she fancied, and
+find it better served than she had ever known it before; or to dine at
+the Hotel Metropole, where Monsieur Delma's perfect orchestra would
+play for her any mortal thing for which she chose to ask, and play it
+better than she had ever heard it played.
+
+These memories, and a really excellent cup of coffee, helped Christobel
+in her struggles with the round of cold tongue; and she looked across
+the little marble-topped table brightly at the Professor, and spoke
+with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised herself.
+
+But something, other than his own plate of cold tongue, seemed weighing
+on the Professor.  He had become preoccupied and distrait.
+
+When they reached the Folkestone train, Christobel found out the cause
+of his preoccupation.
+
+"My dear Ann--I should say Christobel," remarked the Professor,
+hurriedly, as he put her into an empty compartment, and hesitated in
+the doorway.  "I am always accustomed at this hour to have my pipe and
+a nap.  Should you object, my dear Ann--er--that is, Christobel, if I
+sought a smoking compartment?"
+
+"Oh, _please_ do!" she exclaimed, eagerly.  The idea of two hours of
+freedom and solitude suddenly seemed an undreamed of joy.  "Don't think
+of me.  I am quite happy here."
+
+"I will provide you with a paper," said the Professor, and hailed a
+passing boy.  He laid the paper on her lap, and disappeared.
+
+The train started.
+
+Christobel looked out of the window as they slowly steamed across the
+bridge over the Thames.  She loved the flow of the river, with its
+constant procession of barges, dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent,
+moving highway, right through the heart of the noisy whirl of London
+street-traffic.  They ran past old St. Saviour's Church, now promoted
+to be Southwark Cathedral; out through the suburbs, until streets
+became villas, woods and meadows appeared, and the train ran through
+Chislehurst--peaceful English resting-place where lie entombed the
+bright Imperial hopes of France--then on through Sevenoaks, into the
+bowery green of the Kentish hop-gardens.
+
+After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the Professor's paper and glanced
+at it.  Somehow she had felt sure it would be the _Daily Graphic_.  It
+was the _Daily Mirror_!  She had never held a halfpenny illustrated
+paper in her hands before.  No doubt it was an excellent paper, and met
+the need of an immense number of people, to whom an additional
+halfpenny a day would be a consideration.  But, that the Professor,
+when providing her with one paper, should have chosen a halfpenny
+instead of a penny paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, and
+called up sudden swift memories of the Boy.  He would have bought
+_Punch_, the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated_, the _Spectator_, and a
+_Morning Post_, plumped them all down on the seat in front of her; then
+sat beside her, and talked, the whole journey through, so that she
+would not have had a moment in which to open one of them.
+
+(Oh, Boy dear!  Don't look at this _Daily Mirror_.  You might misjudge
+the good Professor.  With your fifty thousand a year, how can you be
+expected to understand a mind which _must_ consider ha'pence, even when
+brides and wedding journeys are concerned.  _Do_ keep away, Boy dear.
+This is not your wedding journey.)
+
+Then she opened the _Daily Mirror_, and there looked out at her, from
+its central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little
+Boy Blue!
+
+He was seated in his flying machine, steering-wheel in hand, looking
+out from among many wires.  His cap was on the back of his head; his
+bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm lips, parted in a
+smile, seemed to be saying: "I jolly well mean to do it."  Beneath was
+an account of him, and a description of the flight he was to attempt on
+that day, across the Channel, circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and
+back.  He was to start at two o'clock.  At that very moment he must be
+in mid-air.
+
+Oh, Little Boy Blue!  Little Boy Blue!  You have a way of making hearts
+stand still.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The boarding-house proved to be a place decidedly conducive to the
+taking of a fresh-air cure; because nobody remained within its four
+walls, if the weather could possibly admit of their going out.
+
+As soon as Christobel and the Professor had taken tea, and replied to
+Miss Slinker's many questions, they went out to walk on the Leas until
+sunset.  It was a radiant afternoon, and the strong wind which had
+suddenly arisen, blowing, in unexpected gusts, from the sea, acted as a
+tonic to weary heart and brain.  Christobel, holding on her hat as she
+walked, battled her way beside the Professor, up a cross street, into
+the Sandgate Road.
+
+There they went to the telegraph office, and sent Miss Ann news of
+their safe arrival, and of the extreme comfort they felt sure of
+experiencing at Miss Slinker's delightful abode.  (This was the
+Professor's wording.)
+
+They looked in at Parson's Library _just_ to order a book Miss Ann
+wanted; and, on a little farther, _just_ to match some crewel silks for
+a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making.
+
+These commissions duly executed, they were free to make their way to
+the Leas parade, whence they would look down upon the beach, and enjoy
+a distance view across the Channel.  They took the side street which
+brought them out upon the esplanade, close to the lift by which people
+continuously mounted or descended the steep face of the cliff.
+
+A considerable crowd lined the esplanade railing, looking over eagerly.
+Apparently there was some object of particular interest to be seen
+below.
+
+Christobel and the Professor advanced to the railing, and also looked
+over.
+
+She saw a strange thing floating in the sea, between the promenade pier
+and the harbour.  It seemed a huge insect, with broken wings.  Its body
+was a mass of twisted wires.  Around this, a little fleet of
+rowing-boats had gathered.  They looked black, on the blue wind-swept
+waters, like water-boatmen on a village pond.  They darted in and out
+and round about the wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, and
+seemed waiting for a chance to help.
+
+A man stood next to Christobel and the Professor; a man who talked to
+himself.
+
+"Ah, poor chap," he said; "poor chap!  So nearly back!  So nearly broke
+the record!  Such a sport!"
+
+"What is that thing in the water?" inquired the Professor.
+
+The man turned and looked at him.
+
+"An aeroplane," he said, slowly, speaking with a sort of stolid
+deliberation.  "A wrecked aeroplane.  Caught in a cross-current, worse
+luck!  Just accomplished one of the finest flights on record.  Started
+from up here; skimmed over the Channel to Boulogne; circled round the
+cathedral--such a clear day; we could watch the whole flight with
+field-glasses--came gaily back without a stop; was making for the cliff
+again, when a cross-current caught him; something went wrong with the
+steering-gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, head first into the
+sea."
+
+"And the--er--occupant?" inquired the Professor.
+
+"The aeronaut?  Ah, he didn't fall clear, worse luck, or they could
+soon have fished him out.  He stuck to his seat and his wheel, and fell
+smash in among his wires.  They are trying to extricate him now.  Bad
+luck, poor chap!  Such a sport."
+
+"Do you know his name?" asked the Professor, peering down at the
+waiting crowd which lined the beach.
+
+"Guy Chelsea," said the man.  "And I give you my word, he was the
+finest, pluckiest young amateur we had among the airmen."
+
+Then Christobel's heart began to beat again, and her limbs seemed to
+regain the power to move.
+
+"He is mine," she said.  "I must go to him.  He is my own Little Boy
+Blue."  And she began to run along the Leas toward the stone steps
+which zigzag down to the shore.
+
+She heard the Professor running after her.
+
+"Ann," he called, "Ann!  Stay!  This is--most--unnecessary!"
+
+She flew on.
+
+"At least take the lift!" bawled the Professor.
+
+She hurried on and reached the steps, pausing an instant to glance back.
+
+The Professor had stopped at the lift, and was waving to her with his
+umbrella.
+
+She could never remember running down those steps.  In what seemed but
+a moment from the time she reached them, she found herself stumbling
+painfully down the steep slope of shingle to the water's edge.
+
+The lift, bearing the Professor, had just begun to crawl down the face
+of the cliff.  She could see him gesticulating through the glass
+windows.
+
+The crowd on the shore, chiefly composed of rough men, was thickest
+round the base of a wide stone breakwater, jutting out into the sea.
+On this break-water stood an empty stretcher.  A coast-guardsman
+marched up and down, keeping the crowd off the breakwater.
+
+Christobel reached the outskirts of the crowd, and could get no farther.
+
+"Please let me through," she said.  "I belong to him.  He is mine."
+
+They turned and looked at her.
+
+"She's 'is mother," said a voice.  "Let 'er through."
+
+"Mother be blowed!" said another voice, hoarsely.  "Get out!  She's 'is
+_wife_."
+
+"Yes," she cried eagerly.  "Yes!  Oh, do let me through!  I am his
+wife."
+
+Suddenly she knew it was true.  The Boy's great love had made her his
+wife.  Had he not said: "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally,
+indissolubly _one_.  You will find it out, when it is too late"?
+
+The crowd parted, making a way for her, straight to the foot of the
+breakwater.
+
+She mounted it, and walked towards the empty stretcher.
+
+The coast-guardsman confronted her.
+
+"He is mine," she said, quietly.  "I have the right to be here."
+
+The man saluted, in respectful silence.
+
+She stood gazing out to where the crowd of boats hovered about the
+great insect with broken wings.
+
+The sea gleamed golden in the sunset.
+
+One boat, larger than the rest, slowly detached itself from the general
+męlée, pulling with measured stroke toward the breakwater.
+
+Something lay very still in the bow, covered with a sail-cloth.
+
+Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered.
+
+The boat came toward the breakwater, in a shaft of sunlight.
+
+Christobel turned to the man beside her.
+
+"Is there any hope?" she asked.
+
+"'Fraid not, lady.  My mate just signalled: all U P."
+
+"Ah!" she said, looking wide-eyed into his face.  "Ah!--But there must
+be pioneers."
+
+The coast-guardsman turned and walked toward the crowd.
+
+"She's 'is wife, men," he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his
+shoulder.  "She's 'is wife; yet when I told her it was all U P, she
+said: 'There must be pioneers.'"
+
+The crowd of roughs doffed their caps.
+
+The boat drew slowly nearer.
+
+Then she saw the Professor, hurrying down the shingle, waving his
+umbrella.
+
+He must not come yet.
+
+She advanced to the shore end of the breakwater, and spoke to the crowd.
+
+"Please," she said, "oh, please, if possible, prevent that gentleman
+from reaching the breakwater."
+
+They turned, and saw the advancing figure of the Professor, flurried
+and irate.
+
+"'Ullo, Bill," cried a voice.  "She says: Don't let the old bloke
+through."
+
+They passed the word from one to the other.  "Don't let the old bloke
+through."  They closed the outer ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder.
+The Professor's umbrella waved wildly on the outskirts.
+
+She moved along the breakwater.  Yes, that was it.  "Don't let the old
+bloke through."  She had never used such a word in her life before, but
+it just met the needs of the case.  "Don't let the old bloke through."
+
+The boat drew nearer.
+
+A bugle, away up on the cliff, sounded the call to arms.
+
+"Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!  The cow's in the meadow; the
+sheep, in the corn.  Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  Ah,
+dear God!  Where is the Boy?  Where is the Boy?  Where is the
+Boy?--He's under the sailcloth--fast asleep."
+
+The boat drew nearer.  She could hear the measured plash of the oars;
+the rhythmic rattle of the rowlocks.  They advanced, to the beat of the
+words in her brain.
+
+"There must--be pion--eers!  Don't let the old bloke through.  Oh,
+where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  He's under the sail-cloth,
+fast asleep."
+
+The boat drew level with the breakwater, grating against it.
+
+"Under the sail-cloth, Boy dear; under the sail-cloth--fast asleep."
+
+Tenderly, carefully, they lifted their burden.  As the boat rocked, and
+their feet shuffled beneath the weight, she closed her eyes.  When she
+opened them once more, the quiet Thing under the sail-cloth lay upon
+the stretcher.  Every man within sight stood silent and bareheaded.
+
+The bugle on the cliff sounded: "lights out."
+
+The golden shaft of sunlight died from off the sea.
+
+Then she came forward, and knelt beside her Boy.
+
+Suddenly she understood the cry of anguish wrung from the loving heart
+of a woman at a tomb: "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will
+take Him away!"  Oh, faithful heart of woman, alike through all the
+ages; ready, with superhuman effort, to prove a limitless love and a
+measureless grief!
+
+She knelt beside the stretcher, and lifted the sail-cloth.
+
+Yes, it was the Boy--her own Little Boy Blue.
+
+His curly hair was matted with blood and salt water.  There was a deep
+gash across his temple, from the ear, right up into the hair His eyes
+were closed; but his lips smiled, triumphant.  "There must be pioneers!
+Every good life given, advances the cause."  "Yes, Little Boy Blue.
+But has it ever struck you, that, if you marry, your wife will most
+probably want you to give up flying; not being able to bear that a man
+who was her ALL, should do these things?"  She lifted the sail-cloth
+quite away, and stood looking down upon him, so shattered, yet so
+beautiful, in his triumphant sleep.
+
+Suddenly her arm was seized from behind.  She turned.
+
+The Professor had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd, and
+in mounting the breakwater.  His cravat was awry; his top-hat was on
+the back of his head.  He looked at her through his glasses, in amazed
+indignation.
+
+"Christobel," he said, "this is no place for you.  Come away at once.
+Do you hear?  I _bid_ you come with me at once."
+
+The only thing she really minded was that his hat was on, in the
+presence of her Dead.
+
+She could not free her arm from the grip of the Professor.
+
+She turned and pointed to the stretcher, with her left hand.
+
+"My place is here," she said, clearly and deliberately.  "I have the
+right to be here.  This is all a fearful nightmare, from which we are
+bound before long to wake.  But meanwhile, I tell you plainly--as I
+ought to have told you before--_this is the body of the man I love_."
+
+At that moment, one of the crowd, springing on to the breakwater behind
+the Professor, struck off his hat with a cane.  It fell into the sea.
+
+The Professor let go her arm, and turned to see who had perpetrated the
+outrage, and whether the hat could be recovered.
+
+Then she bent over the stretcher.
+
+"Boy dear," she whispered, in tones of ineffable tenderness; "this is
+where they have laid you; but _I_ will take you away."
+
+She put her arms beneath the body; then, with an almost superhuman
+effort, lifted it, and gathered it to her.  It felt limp and broken.
+The head fell heavily against her breast.  The blood and salt-water
+soaked through her thin muslin blouse.  But she held him, and would not
+let him go.  "I will take him away," she whispered; "I will take him
+away."
+
+She knew she was losing her reason, but she had known that, ever since
+she first looked down from the top of the cliff, and saw the broken
+wings floating on the sea.  Now, with her Boy in her arms, her one idea
+was to get away from the Professor; away from the coast-guardsmen; away
+from the crowd.
+
+Turning her back upon the beach, she staggered along the breakwater,
+toward the open sea.
+
+"I will take him away," she repeated; "I will take him away."
+
+Then her foot slipped.  She still held the Boy, but she felt herself
+falling.
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+She never knew which she struck first, the stone breakwater, or the
+sea----
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+
+When Christobel recovered consciousness and opened her eyes, she found
+herself in bed, in her own room, at home.
+
+Martha bent over her.
+
+The morning light entered dimly, through closed curtains.
+
+In dumb anguish of mind, she looked up into Martha's grim old face.
+
+"Tell me where you have laid him," she said, "and I will take him away."
+
+Martha snorted.
+
+"I've laid your tea-tray on the table beside your bed, Miss," she said;
+"and when you 'ave finished with it, _I_ will take it away."
+
+Whereupon, Martha lumbered to the large bow-window, drew back all the
+curtains with a vigorous clatter of brass rings, and let in a blaze of
+morning sunshine.
+
+Christobel lay quite still, trying to collect her thoughts.
+
+One of her pillows was clasped tightly in her arms.
+
+She lifted her left hand, and looked at it.
+
+No ring encircled the third finger.
+
+"Martha," she called, softly.
+
+Martha loomed large at the side of the bed.
+
+"What is to-day?"
+
+"Wednesday, Miss," replied Martha, too much surprised to be
+contemptuous.
+
+"Martha--where is Mr. Chelsea?"
+
+"Lord only knows," said Martha, tragically.
+
+"Martha--is he--living?"
+
+"Living?" repeated Martha, deliberately.  Then she smiled, her crooked
+smile.  "Living don't express it, Miss Christobel.  Lively's more like
+it, when Mr. Guy is concerned.  And I reckon, wherever 'e is, e's
+makin' things lively somewhere for somebody.  You don't look quite the
+thing this morning, Miss.  Sit up and take your tea."
+
+She sat up, loosing the pillow out of her arms--the pillow which had
+been, first her Little Boy Blue, as she drew him to her in the
+darkness; then the dead body of Guy Chelsea, as she lifted it on the
+breakwater.
+
+She took her tea from Martha's hand, and drank it quickly.  She wanted
+Martha to go.
+
+It was Wednesday!  Then the Boy had left her only the day before
+yesterday.  His telegram had come last night.  The Professor's proposal
+had not yet reached her.
+
+Martha lifted the tray and departed.
+
+Then Christobel Charteris rose, and stood at her open window, in the
+morning sunlight.  She looked out upon the mulberry-tree and the long
+vista of soft turf; in the dim distance, the postern gate in the old
+red wall--his paradise, and hers.
+
+She lifted her beautiful arms above her head.  The loose sleeves of her
+nightdress fell away, baring them to the elbows.  She might have stood,
+in her noble development of face and form, for a splendid statue of
+hope and praise.
+
+"Ah, dear God!" she breathed, "is it indeed true?  Is it possible?  Is
+my Boy alive?  And am I free--free to be his alone?  Am I free to give
+him all he wants, free to be all he needs?"
+
+She stood long at the window motionless, realizing the mental
+adjustment which had come to her during the strenuous hours of the
+night.
+
+Her dream had taught her one great lesson: That under no circumstances
+whatever, can it be right for a woman to marry one man, while with her
+whole being she loves another.  Love is Lord of all.  Love reigns
+paramount.  No expectations, past or present, based on friendship or
+gratitude; no sense of duty or obligations of any kind could make a
+marriage right, if, in view of that marriage, Love had to stand by with
+broken wings.
+
+She felt quite sure, now, that she could never marry the Professor; and
+humbly she thanked God for opening her eyes to the wrong she had
+contemplated, before it was too late.
+
+But there still remained the difficult prospect of having to disappoint
+a man she esteemed so highly; a man who had been led to believe she
+cared for him, and had waited years for him; a man who, for years, had
+set his heart upon her.  This was a heavy stone, and it lay right in
+the path of perfect bliss which she longed to tread with her Little Boy
+Blue.
+
+Who should roll it away?
+
+Could she feel free to take happiness with the Boy, if she had
+disappointed and crushed a deeply sensitive nature which trusted her?
+
+She dressed, and went down to the breakfast-room, her soul filled, in
+spite of perplexities, with a radiance of glad thanksgiving.
+
+Martha and Jenkins came in to prayers.  Martha had now taken to curling
+all her wisps.  She appeared with many frizzled ringlets, kept in place
+by invisible pins.
+
+Martha always came in to prayers, as if she were marching at the head
+of a long row of men and maids.  Jenkins followed meekly, placing his
+chair at what would have been the tail of Martha's imaginary retinue.
+According to the triumphant dignity of Martha's entry, Jenkins placed
+his chair near or far away.  Martha was in great form to-day.  Jenkins
+sat almost at the door.  If the door-bell rang during prayers, the
+first ring was tacitly ignored; but if it rang again, Martha signed to
+Jenkins, who tiptoed reverently out, and answered it.  No matter how
+early in the morning's devotions the interruption occurred, Jenkins
+never considered it etiquette to return.  Miss Charteris used to dread
+a duet alone with Martha.  She always became too intensely conscious of
+herself and of Martha, to be uplifted as usual by the inspired words of
+Bible and Prayer-book.  The presence of Jenkins at once constituted a
+congregation.
+
+On this particular morning, no interruptions occurred.
+
+The portion for the day chanced to be the scene at the empty tomb, in
+the early dawn of that first Easter Day, as given by Saint Mark.
+
+The quiet voice vibrated with unusual emotion as Miss Charteris read:
+
+
+"_And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
+unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.  And they said among
+themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
+sepulchre?  And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled
+away: for it was very great._"
+
+
+Christobel Charteris paused.  She seemed to see the shore at
+Dovercourt, and the brave little figure struggling to carry the heavy
+stone; and, later on when the cannon-ball lay safely in the castle
+court-yard, Little Boy Blue standing erect, with lifted cap, and
+shining eyes, a picture of faith triumphant.
+
+"_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
+
+How far were the happenings of this strange night owing to that dead
+mother's prayers; and to the Boy's unfailing faith, even through these
+hard days?
+
+Miss Charteris could read no farther.  She closed the Bible.  "Let us
+pray," she said, and turned to the Collect for the week.
+
+
+"_O God, Whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in
+heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all
+hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us;
+through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+She had known it would be there.
+
+She poured out her coffee and buttered her toast.
+
+Then she opened the letter.
+
+
+"My dear Ann"----
+
+After the nightmare through which she had just passed, this beginning
+scarcely surprised her.  She glanced back at the envelope to make quite
+sure it was addressed to herself; then read on.  It was dated the
+evening before, from the Professor's rooms in College.
+
+
+"MY DEAR ANN,--I regret to have been unable to look in upon you this
+evening, on my return from town, and my duties will keep me from paying
+you a visit until to-morrow, in the late afternoon.  Hence this letter.
+
+"Needless to say, I have been thinking over, carefully, the remarkable
+statement you saw fit to make to me, concerning the feelings and
+expectations of our young friend.  It came to me as a genuine surprise.
+I have always looked upon our friendship as purely Platonic; based
+entirely upon the intellectual enjoyment we found in pursuing our
+classical studies together.
+
+"I admit, I cannot bring myself to contemplate matrimony with much
+enthusiasm.
+
+"At the same time, your feeling in the matter being so strong, and my
+sense of gratitude toward my late friend, a thing never to be
+forgotten; if you are quite sure, Ann--and I confess it seems to me
+altogether incredible--that our young friend entertains, toward me,
+feelings which will mean serious disappointment to her, if I fail----"
+
+
+This brought the letter to the bottom of the first page.
+
+Without reading any farther, Miss Charteris folded it, and replaced it
+in the envelope.
+
+The indignant blood had mounted to the roots of her soft fair hair.
+But already, in her heart, sounded a song of wondering praise.
+
+
+"_And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it
+was very great._"
+
+
+The iron gate of the front garden swung open.  Hurried steps flew up
+the path.  Emma, poor soul, had been told to _fly_; and Emma had flown.
+She almost fell into the arms of Jenkins, as he opened the hall door.
+
+The note with which Emma had run, at a speed which was now causing her
+"such a stitch as never was," came from Miss Ann, and was marked
+"_urgent_" and "_immediate_."
+
+The corners of Christobel's proud mouth curved into a quiet smile as
+she took it from the salver.  She had expected this note.
+
+"Take Emma downstairs, Jenkins," she said.  "Ask Martha to give her a
+cup of coffee, and an egg, if she fancies it.  Tell Emma, I wish her to
+sit down comfortably and rest.  The answer to this note will be ready
+in about half an hour; not before."
+
+Miss Charteris finished her coffee and toast, poured out a fresh cup,
+and took some marmalade.  She did not hurry over her breakfast.
+
+When she had quite finished, she rose, and walked over to the
+writing-table.  She sat down, opened her blotter, took paper and
+envelopes; found a pen, and tried it.
+
+Then she opened Miss Ann's letter, marked "urgent" and "immediate."
+
+
+"SWEETEST CHILD" (wrote Miss Ann)--"See what Kenrick has done!  We--you
+and I--_so_ understand his dear absent-minded ways.  He wrote this
+letter to you last night, and, owing to his natural emotion and tension
+of mind, addressed it to me!  Needless to say, I have read only the
+opening sentences.  Darling Christobel, you will, I feel sure, overlook
+the very natural mistake, and not allow it in any way to affect your
+answer to my brother's proposal.  Remember how difficult it is for
+_great_ minds to be accurate in the _small_ details of _daily_ life.  I
+have known Kenrick to put two spoonfuls of mustard into a cup of
+coffee, stir it round, and drink it, _quite_ unaware that anything was
+wrong--I have indeed!  See how our dear Professor needs a _wife_!
+
+"I feel quite foolishly anxious this morning.  Do send me one line of
+assurance that all is well.  You cannot but be touched by my brother's
+letter.  From beginning to end, it breathes the faithful devotion of a
+lifetime.  Do not misunderstand the natural reticence of one wholly
+unaccustomed to the voicing of sentiment.  I only wish you could hear
+all he _says_ to me!"
+
+
+Then followed a few prayers and devout allusions to Providence--which
+brought a stern look to the face of Miss Charteris--and, with a whiff
+of effusive sentiment, Ann Harvey closed her epistle.
+
+An open letter from the Professor to herself was enclosed; but this,
+Christobel quietly laid aside.
+
+She took pen and paper, and wrote at once the note for which Emma
+waited.
+
+
+"DEAR ANN,--I enclose a letter from your brother which came, addressed
+to me, this morning, but was evidently intended for you.  I have read
+only the first page, which was quite sufficient to make the true state
+of affairs perfectly clear to me.
+
+"Providence has indeed interposed, by means of the Professor's
+absent-minded ways, to prevent the wrecking of three lives--mine, your
+brother's, and that of the man I love; to whom I shall be betrothed
+before the day is over.
+
+"I shall not tell the Professor that I have seen a portion of his
+letter to you.  I think we owe it to him not to do so.  He has always
+been a true and honourable friend to me.
+
+"Yours,
+  "C. C."
+
+
+When Emma had duly departed with this letter and enclosure, Miss
+Charteris breathed more freely.  She had been afraid lest, in her
+righteous indignation, in her consciousness of the terrible mischief so
+nearly wrought, she should write too strongly to Miss Ann, thus causing
+her unnecessary pain.
+
+It was quite impossible, to the fine generosity of a nature such as
+that of Christobel Charteris, really to understand the mean,
+self-centred, unscrupulous dishonesty of an action such as this of Miss
+Ann's.  From the calm heights whereon she walked, such small-minded
+selfishness of motive did not come within her field of vision.  She
+could never bring herself to believe worse of Miss Ann than that, in
+some incomprehensible way, she had laboured under a delusion regarding
+herself and the Professor.
+
+Miss Ann disposed of, she turned to the Professor's letter.
+
+It was not the letter of her dream, by any means; nor was it the letter
+she had sometimes dreamed he would write.
+
+It was straightforward and simple; and, holding the key to the
+situation, she could read between the lines a certain amount of
+dismayed surprise, which made her heartily sorry for her old friend.
+
+The Professor touched on their long friendship, his regard for her
+parents, his sincere admiration for herself; their unity of interests
+and congeniality of tastes; his sudden change of fortunes; quoted a
+little Greek, a little Sanskrit, and a little Persian; then, fortified
+by these familiar aids to the emotions, offered her marriage, in
+valiant and unmistakable terms.
+
+Christobel's heart stood still as she realized that not one word in
+that letter would have revealed to her the true state of the case.
+Truly, under Providence, she had cause to bless the Professor's "dear
+absent-minded ways."
+
+As she took pen and paper to reply to his letter, her heart felt very
+warm toward her old friend.  She gave him full credit for the effort
+with which he had done what he had been led to consider was the right
+thing toward her.
+
+
+"MY DEAR PROFESSOR" (she wrote),--"I rejoice to hear of your good
+fortune.  It is well indeed when the great thinkers of the world are
+rendered independent of all anxious taking of thought as to what they
+shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be
+clothed.  I like to think of you, my friend, as now set completely free
+from all mundane cares; able to give your undivided attention to the
+work you love.
+
+"I appreciate, more than I can say, the kind proposition concerning
+myself, which you make in your letter.  I owe it to our friendship to
+tell you quite frankly that I feel, and have long felt, how great an
+honour it would be for any woman to be in a position so to administer
+your household as to set you completely free for your great
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"But marriage would mean more than this, and our long friendship
+emboldens me to say that I should grieve to see you--owing perhaps to
+pressure or advice from others--burden your life with family ties for
+which you surely do not yourself feel any special inclination.
+
+"And, now, my friend, I must not close my letter without telling you
+how great a happiness has come into my lonely life.  I am about to
+marry a man whom--" Miss Charteris paused, and looked through the open
+window to the softly moving leaves of the old mulberry-tree.  A gleam
+of amusement shone in her eyes, curving her lips into a tender smile.
+The Boy seemed beside her, slapping his knee and rocking with merriment
+at the way she was about to bewilder Miss Ann and the Professor--"a man
+whom I have known and loved for over twenty years.
+
+"I am sure you will wish me joy, dear Professor.
+
+"Believe me, always,
+  "Gratefully and affectionately yours,
+    "CHRISTOBEL CHARTERIS."
+
+
+She rang the bell, and sent the answer to the Professor's letter, by
+Jenkins.  She could not wait for the slow medium of the post.  She
+could not let him remain another hour in the belief that, in order to
+save her from disappointment, he was compelled to marry Christobel
+Charteris.
+
+She stood at the breakfast-room window, and watched Jenkins as he
+hurried down the garden with the note.  Going by the lane, and taking a
+short cut across the fields, he would reach the Professor's rooms in a
+quarter of an hour.  Until then, life was somewhat intolerable.
+
+The proud blood mantled again over the face, the strong sweet beauty of
+which the Boy so loved.  Her letter to the Professor had not been easy
+to write.  She had had to be true to herself, and true to him, in the
+light of what she knew to be his real feeling in the matter; bearing in
+mind that before long he would almost certainly learn from Miss Ann
+that she had replied to his proposal after having read his sentiments
+on the subject, so candidly expressed on the first page of his letter
+to his sister.
+
+To relieve her mind, after this intricate whirl of
+cross-correspondence, she took up the _Daily Graphic_, and opened it,
+casually turning the pages.
+
+Suddenly there looked out at her from the central page, the merry,
+handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue.  He was seated in his
+flying-machine steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many
+wires.  His cap was on the back of his head, his bright eyes looked
+straight into hers; his firm young lips, parted in a smile, seemed to
+say; "I jolly well mean to do it!"  It was the very picture she had
+seen in the Professor's _Daily Mirror_, in her dream of the night
+before.  Below was an account of the flight from Folkestone which he
+was about to attempt.
+
+Then she remembered, with a shock of realization, that the flight
+across the Channel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, was to take
+place on that very day.  His telegram, of the night before, had said:
+"I am going to do a big fly to-morrow.  Wish me luck."  Ah, what if it
+ended as she had seen it end in her dream: great broken wings; a mass
+of tangled wire; and the Boy--_her_ Boy--with matted hair, and wounded
+head, asleep beneath the sailcloth!
+
+Her heart stood still.
+
+With their perfect joy so near its fulfilment, she could not let him
+take the risk.  Was there time to stop him?
+
+She looked at the paper.  The start was for 2 p.m.  It was now eleven
+o'clock.
+
+She remembered his last words: "When you want me and send--why, I will
+come from the other end of the world."
+
+She never quite knew how she reached the telegraph-office.  It seemed
+almost as dreamlike as her flight from the top to the bottom of the
+Folkestone cliffs.  But it was not a dream this time; it was desperate
+reality.
+
+Why do people always break the points of the pencils hanging from
+strings in the telegraph-offices?  Surely it is possible to write a
+telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that
+condition, for the next person in a hurry.
+
+She flew from compartment to compartment, and at last produced her own
+pencil, and wrote her telegram in the final section of the row,
+independent of official broken points.
+
+
+"_Do not fly to-day.  Come to me.  I want you._
+
+"_Christobel._"
+
+
+She addressed it to the hotel from which he had telegraphed on the
+previous day; but added to the address: "If not there, send immediately
+to aviation sheds."  She had no idea what to call the places, but this
+sounded well, and seemed an intuition, or an unconscious recollection
+of some remark of the Boy's.
+
+She handed it over the counter.  "Please see that it goes through at
+once," she said.
+
+The clerk knew her.  "Yes, Miss Charteris," he replied.  He began
+reading the message aloud, but almost immediately stopped, and checked
+the words off silently.  He glanced at the clock.  "It should be there
+before noon, Miss Charteris," he said.
+
+He did not look at her, as he passed her the stamps.  He had long
+thought her one of the finest women who stepped in and out of the
+post-office.  He had never expected to see her hands tremble.  And
+fancy _any_ woman--even _she_--being able to tell Guy Chelsea not to
+fly!  He had a bet on, about that flight, with an enthusiastic backer
+of Chelsea's.  He was glad he had taken the odds against its coming
+off, before seeing this wire.  But--after all!  It is easy enough to
+_ask_ a chap not to fly; but----
+
+He took up a copy of the _Daily Mirror_, and looked at the brave
+smiling face.  "I jolly well mean to do it!" the young aeronaut seemed
+to be saying.  The clerk laughed, and shook his head.  "Hurry up that
+wire," he called to the operator.  Then he jingled the loose change in
+his pockets.  "I wonder," he said.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+During the hours which followed, Christobel Charteris knew suspense.
+
+Perhaps that strong, self-contained nature could never have fully
+sounded the depths of its own surrender, without those hours of
+uncertainty, when nothing stood between her and the man she loved, but
+the possibility that her telegram would fail to reach him; that he
+would carry out his dangerous flight; that disaster and death would
+overtake him and wrest him from her, and that he would die--Guy Chelsea
+would die--without ever knowing of the cup of bliss she was now ready,
+with utterly loving hand, to hold to his lips.
+
+Having sent her message, there was nothing more she could do, and the
+burden of inaction seemed almost too great a weight to carry, during
+the hours which must elapse, before his coming could turn uncertainty
+into assurance; restlessness, into peace.
+
+It did not occur to her, as a possibility, that Guy Chelsea would elect
+to fly, after receiving her request.  She knew her slightest wish would
+be law to the Boy's tender loyalty; and though he knew nothing of her
+cause for anxiety, nor of the complete change of circumstances since he
+left her, not forty-eight hours before, she felt sure he would not fly;
+she felt certain he would come--if--_if_ the message reached him in
+time.
+
+At two o'clock it came to her, with overwhelming certainty, that her
+message had not reached him, and that he had started on his flight.
+She seemed to see the great wings mounting--mounting; then skimming
+over the sea.  She almost heard the hum he had so often described--the
+hum of the giant insect on which the bird-man flew.
+
+Her own Little Boy Blue was flying through space.  O God, what might
+not any minute be bringing!  He had said: "One never expects those
+things to happen, and when they do happen, it's over so quickly that
+there is no time for expectation."  Was it happening now?  Was it going
+to be over so quickly, that her cup of bliss would be dashed from her
+lips untasted?  Was she to lose her all, because of a cross-current or
+a twisted wire?
+
+She was walking up and down the garden now, and paused beside the chair
+in which she had sat when he had said, only seven days ago: "It was
+always you I wanted; not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was you--you--just only you, all the
+time?"  And she, half-laughing at him, had asked: "Is this a proposal?"
+
+"My ALL," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear, my ALL.  If I lose you, I lose my
+ALL."
+
+She walked on slowly, moving to the repetition of those words.  It
+seemed a comfort to repeat the great fact that, at last, he was this to
+her.  Surely it would reach him, by some sort of wireless telegraphy
+through space.  Surely it would control cross-currents, keep propellers
+acting as they should; steering-gear from twisting.
+
+"O God, he is my ALL--he is my ALL!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The afternoon sun began to glint through the trees.
+
+The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale anxious faces to
+the sky.
+
+Clocks all around chimed the hour of four.
+
+Suddenly her limbs weakened.  She could walk no longer.
+
+She sank into a chair, beneath the mulberry-tree.
+
+In a few minutes Jenkins would bring out tea.  Would Martha have
+arranged a tea such as the Boy loved, with cups for two, hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns?
+
+What a boy he was, at heart--this man who had won her; what a gay,
+laughter-loving boy!
+
+She lay back, very still, under the mulberry-tree, and lived again
+through each of the Boy's days, from the first to the sixth.
+
+She kept her eyes closed.  The sunlight, glinting through the mulberry
+leaves, fell in bright patches on her white gown, and on her soft
+golden hair.
+
+The garden was very still.  All nature seemed waiting with the heart
+that waited.
+
+"_Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!_"
+
+"I shall blow it all right on the seventh day," the Boy had said; "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+
+This was the seventh day.
+
+
+Suddenly the horn of a motor tooted loudly in the lane.
+
+She rose, her hands clasped upon her breast, and stood waiting
+
+A shaft of golden sunlight streamed down the garden, and seemed to
+focus on the postern gate.
+
+Then the gate swung open and the Boy came in, slamming it behind him.
+She saw him coming up the lawn toward her, bareheaded; the sunlight in
+his shining eyes.
+
+"I couldn't wait for trains," he shouted.  "I came by motor.  And I
+jolly well exceeded the speed-limit all the way!"
+
+She moved a few steps to meet him.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, "you always exceed all speed-limits.  It is a way
+you have.  Exceed them as much as you like, so long as I am with you
+when you do it.  But--oh, my Little Boy Blue!--don't fly again; for, if
+you fall and break your wings, indeed you will break my heart."
+
+In a moment she was sobbing on his breast, her arms flung around him.
+There was nothing broken or limp about his strong young body, pulsating
+with life.
+
+He put his arms about her, holding her in a clasp of close possessive
+tenderness.
+
+He did not yet understand what had happened; but he knew the great gift
+he desired had been given him.  He waited for her to speak.
+
+She lifted her face to his.
+
+"Guy," she said; "ah, take me, hold me, keep me!  I am altogether your
+own.  I will explain to you fully, by and by.  The stone was very
+great; but lo, as we reached it, the Angel of the Lord had rolled it
+away....  No other man has a shadow of claim over me.  I am free to
+say, to the only man I have ever really loved: Take me; I am yours.
+Oh, Boy!  I am altogether yours."
+
+He bent over her.
+
+The sweet proud lips were parted in utter surrender, and lifted to his.
+
+He paused--just for one exquisite moment, of realization.
+
+She waited his kiss with closed eyes, so she did not see the radiance
+of his face, as he looked up to the blue sky, flecked with fleeting
+white clouds.  But she heard the voice, which from that hour was to
+make the music of her life:
+
+"Thank the Lord," said Little Boy Blue.
+
+Then--he kissed her.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the seventh day._"
+
+
+
+
+_List of_
+
+MRS. BARCLAY'S NOVELS
+
+
+
+
+By FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+
+
+THE ROSARY
+
+Over One Million Copies Sold
+
+_Translated into French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish,
+Dutch, and Spanish._
+
+"The sentiment is never mawkish; it rings true, and throughout the
+whole story there is a vein of elevating emotion which should attract
+lovers of wholesome fiction."--_Times_.
+
+
+THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+
+"A youthful sentiment, fresh and romantic, flows through Mrs. Barclay's
+new book, and gives to the story some of the delicate odour of lavender
+and jessamine, and old-fashioned flowers."--_Daily Graphic_.
+
+
+THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+
+"A worthy successor to 'The Rosary.'  It has the same charm and grip,
+whilst the plot is again unusual and clever...."--_Evening Standard_.
+
+
+THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+
+"It is a book to turn over in a sunny garden, under shady trees, when
+one might look up from the clear print and see a happy prince coming in
+through the green gate to lead one's own self to
+fairyland."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+
+THE BROKEN HALO
+
+"It is the record of the saving of a soul by charity.  The end
+represents the triumph of mortal kindness."--_Standard_.
+
+
+THE WALL OF PARTITION
+
+"A brisk, readable story with a strong plot, full of incident and sure
+of a wide appreciation."--_Globe_.
+
+
+THE UPAS TREE
+
+"The book is full of that mixture of humour, feeling, and religion that
+gain for Mrs. Barclay so wide a popularity."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
+
+
+RETURNED EMPTY
+
+"This is certainly the most arresting tale that the authoress has
+produced since her first huge success."--_Daily Mail_.
+
+
+SHORTER WORKS
+
+Seven of Mrs. Barclay's Shorter Stories now collected for the first
+time into one volume, and including one which has never before been
+printed in book form.
+
+
+THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+
+3s. 6d. net.
+
+Mrs. Barclay's Last Long Novel.
+
+"It has tenderness, it has a story which never flags, above all it has
+humanity."--_Observer_.
+
+
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
+
+
+
+_SOME PRESS OPINIONS ON THE LATE_
+
+FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+
+"A writer who appealed to and won the affection of so many of her
+fellow countrymen and women is no negligible quantity.  Indeed there is
+reason to think that Mrs. Barclay understood the tendency of her age
+better than many contemporary novelists whose technical skill exceeded
+hers."--_Times_.
+
+"Mrs. Barclay's death will be regretted by many thousands of
+readers."--_Morning Post_.
+
+"'The Rosary' and nearly all her other books were inspired by true
+religious feeling, which she always managed to infuse into the
+imagination of her readers."--_Sphere_.
+
+"From the highest to the lowest she commanded an attentive
+public."--_Liverpool Daily Courier_.
+
+"There was a purpose behind all she wrote that lifted her books above
+the common, and enabled her to reach readers who would turn away from
+the 'typical best-seller' in disgust."--_Sunday Times_.
+
+"Mrs. Barclay was not merely a popular authoress.  The ideals she
+preached were high and noble and tended to elevate her
+readers."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
+
+"The underlying quality of Mrs. Barclay's literary art was her
+wonderful gift of depicting home life, and it was this characteristic
+which made her name loved in countless homes all over the
+land."--_Lady_.
+
+"She gave wholesale enjoyment to countless thousands, while she was
+also one of the comparatively few popular authoresses who are in
+themselves as good as the very best of their books."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY_
+
+
+  THE ROSARY
+  THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+  THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+  THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+  THE UPAS TREE
+  THE BROKEN HALO
+  THE WALL OF PARTITION
+  THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+  RETURNED EMPTY
+  SHORTER WORKS
+
+
+_BY ONE OF HER DAUGHTERS_
+
+  THE LIFE OF FLORENCE BARCLAY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE ***
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+<TITLE>
+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+</TITLE>
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+BODY { color: Black;
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Through the Postern Gate
+       A Romance in Seven Days
+
+Author: Florence L. Barclay
+
+Release Date: July 31, 2010 [EBook #33309]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+Through the Postern Gate
+</H1>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+<I>A ROMANCE IN SEVEN DAYS</I>
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+By
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Florence L. Barclay
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Author of
+<BR>
+"The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone,"<BR>
+"The Following of the Star," etc<BR>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+London and New York
+<BR>
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+<BR>
+1912
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+146<I>th Thousand</I>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+<I>Made and Printed in Great Britain by<BR>
+The Camelot Press Limited,<BR>
+Southampton.</I><BR>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TO
+<BR>
+MY MOTHER
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Contents
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FIRST DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap01">
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SECOND DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap02">
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE THIRD DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap03">
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FOURTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap04">
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FIFTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap05">
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SIXTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap06">
+MISS ANN HAS "<I>MUCH</I> TO SAY"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AN INTERLUDE
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap06a">
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+<A HREF="#chap07">
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FIRST DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"But it was not your niece!  It was always you I wanted," said the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay back, in a deep wicker chair, under the old mulberry-tree.  He
+had taken the precaution of depositing his cup and saucer on the soft
+turf beneath his chair, because he knew that, under the stress of
+sudden emotion, china&mdash;especially the <I>best</I> china&mdash;had a way of flying
+off his knee.  And there was no question as to the exquisite quality of
+the china on the dainty tea-table over which Miss Christobel Charteris
+presided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had watched her pouring the tea into those pretty rose-leaf
+cups, nearly every afternoon during the golden two weeks just over.  He
+knew every movement of those firm white hands, so soft, yet so strong
+and capable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy used to stand beside her, ready to hand Mollie's cup, as
+punctiliously as if a dozen girls had been sitting in the old garden,
+waiting to be quickly served by the only man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy enjoyed being the only man.  Also he had quite charming
+manners.  He never allowed the passing of bread-and-butter to interfere
+with the flow of conversation; yet the bread-and-butter was always
+within reach at the precise moment you wanted it, though the Boy's
+bright eyes were fixed just then in keenest interest on the person who
+happened to be speaking, and not a point of the story, or a word of the
+remark, was missed either by him or by you.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He used to watch the Aunt's beautiful hands very closely; and at last,
+every time he looked at them, his brown eyes kissed them.  The Boy
+thought this was a delightful secret known only to himself.  But one
+day, when he was bending over her, holding his own cup while she filled
+it, the Aunt suddenly said: "Don't!"  It was so startling and
+unexpected, that the cup almost flew out of his hand.  The Boy might
+have said: "Don't <I>what</I>?" which would have put the Aunt in a
+difficulty, because it would have been so very impossible to explain.
+But he was too honest.  He at once <I>didn't</I>, and felt a little shy for
+five minutes; then recovered, and hugged himself with a fearful joy at
+the thought that she had <I>known</I> his eyes had kissed her dear beautiful
+hands; then stole a look at her calm face, so completely unmoved in its
+classic beauty, and thought he must have been mistaken; only&mdash;what on
+earth else could she have said "Don't!" about, at that moment?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Mollie was there, then; so no explanations were possible.  Now at
+last, thank goodness, Mollie had gone, and his own seven days had
+begun.  This was the first day; and he was going to tell her
+everything.  There was absolutely nothing he would not be able to tell
+her.  The delight of this fairly swept the Boy off his feet.  He had
+kept on the curb so long; and he was not used to curbs of any kind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay back, his hands behind his head, and watched the Aunt's kind
+face, through half-closed lids.  His brown eyes were shining, but very
+soft.  When the Aunt looked at them, she quickly looked away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How could you think the attraction would be gone?" he said.  "It was
+always you, I wanted, not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was <I>you</I>&mdash;YOU, just only you, all the
+time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt raised her beautiful eyebrows and looked him straight in the
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is this a proposal?" she asked, quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course it is," said the Boy; "and jolly hard it has been, having to
+wait two whole weeks to make it.  I want you to marry me, Christobel.
+I dare say you think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest it, point
+blank.  But I want you to give me seven days; and, in those seven days,
+I am going to win you.  Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the
+only possible thing to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His brown eyes were wide open now; and the glory of the love shining
+out from them dazzled her.  She looked away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the swift colour swept over the face which all Cambridge
+considered classic in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed; but
+rather breathlessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You amazing boy!" she said.  "Do you consider it right to take away a
+person's breath, in this fashion?  Or are you trying to be funny?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no designs on your breath," said the Boy; "and it is my
+misfortune, but not my fault, if I seem funny."  Then he sat forward in
+his chair, his elbows on his knees, and both brown hands held out
+towards her.  "I want you to understand, dear," he continued,
+earnestly, "that I have said only a very little of all I have to say.
+But I hope that little is to the point; and I jolly well mean it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt laughed again, and swung the toe of her neat brown shoe; a
+habit she had, when trying to appear more at ease than she felt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is certainly to the point," she said.  "There can be no possible
+doubt about that.  But are you aware, dear boy, that I have been
+assiduously chaperoning you and my niece, during the past two weeks;
+and watching, with the affectionate interest of a middle-aged relative,
+the course of true love running with satisfactory and unusual
+smoothness?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy ignored the adjectives and innuendoes, and went straight to the
+point.  He always had a way of ignoring all side issues or carefully
+introduced irrelevancy.  It made him a difficult person to deal with,
+if the principal weapon in your armoury was elaborate argument.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did you say 'Don't'?" asked the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt fell at once into the unintentional trap.  She dropped her
+calmly amused manner and answered hurriedly, while again the swift
+colour flooded her face: "Boy dear, I hardly know.  It was something
+you did, which, for a moment, I could not quite bear.  Something passed
+from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, to be quite right.  I said
+'Don't,' as involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to a threatened
+blow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It wasn't a blow," said the Boy, tenderly.  "It was a kiss.  Every
+time I looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting the silver teapot, I
+kissed it.  Didn't you feel it was a kiss?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; I only felt it was unusual; something I could not understand; and
+I did not like it.  Therefore I said 'Don't.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you admit it was sweet?" persisted the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Exactly," replied the Aunt; "quite incomprehensibly sweet.  And I do
+not like things I cannot comprehend; especially with amazing boys
+about!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Didn't you know it was love?" asked the Boy, softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," replied the Aunt, emphatically; "most certainly, I did not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy got up, and came and knelt beside the arm of her chair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was love," he said, his lips very close to the soft waves of her
+hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go back to your seat at once," said the Aunt, sternly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And where does poor Mollie come in, in all this?" inquired the Aunt,
+with some asperity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mollie?" said the Boy, complacently.  "Oh, Mollie understood all
+right.  She loves Phil, you know; intends to stick to him, and knows
+you will back her.  The last part of the time, I brought her notes from
+Phil, every day.  Don't be angry, dear.  You would have done it
+yourself, if Mollie and Phil had got hold of you, and implored you to
+be a go-between.  You remember the day we invaded the kitchen to see
+how Martha made those little puffy buns&mdash;you know&mdash;the explosives?  You
+pinch them in the middle, and they burst into hundreds and thousands of
+little pieces.  Jolly things for a stiff
+stand-up-in-a-crowd-and-all-hold-your-own-cups kind of drawing-room
+party; what we used to call 'a Perpendicular' in my Cambridge days.  I
+suppose they still keep up the name.  Fancy those little buns exploding
+all over the place; and when you try to pick up the fragments, they go
+into simply millions of crumbs, between your agitated fingers and
+anxious thumb!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy slapped his knee in intense enjoyment, and momentarily lost the
+thread of the conversation.  The Aunt's mind was not sufficiently
+detached to feel equal to a digression into peals of laughter over this
+vision of the explosive buns.  She wanted to find out how much Mollie
+knew.  When the Boy had finished rocking backwards and forwards in his
+chair, she suggested, tentatively: "You went to the kitchen&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes," said the Boy, recovering.  "We went to the kitchen to watch
+Martha make them, and to get the recipe.  You see Mollie wanted them
+for her father's clerical 'at homes.'  Oh, I say&mdash;fancy!  The
+archdeacons and curates, the rectors and vicars, all standing in a
+solemn crowd on the Bishop's best velvet-pile carpet; then Mollie, so
+demure, handing round the innocent-looking little buns; and, hey
+presto! the pinching begins, and the explosions, and the hopeless
+attempts to gather up the fragments!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy nearly went off again; but he suddenly realized that the Aunt
+was not amused, and pulled himself together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we stopped on the way to the kitchen for mutual confidences.  It
+was not easy, bounded as we were by you on the one side, and Martha on
+the other.  We had to whisper.  I dare say you thought we were kissing
+behind the door, but we jolly well weren't!  She told me about Phil;
+and I told her&mdash;oh, I told her <I>something</I> of what I am trying to tell
+you.  Just enough to make her understand; so that we could go ahead,
+and play the game fair, all round.  She was awfully glad, because she
+said: 'I have long feared my dear beautiful Aunt would marry an
+ichthyosaurus.'  I asked her what the&mdash;what the&mdash;I mean, what on earth
+the meaning of that was?  And she said: 'An old fossil.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the swift flush swept over the calm face.  But this time the Aunt
+went off, intentionally, on a side issue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have heard you say 'What the deuce' before now, Boy.  But I am glad
+you appear to realize, judging by your laboured efforts to suppress
+them, that these expressions shock me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at him, quizzically, through half-closed lids; but the Boy
+was wholly earnest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you see," he said, "I am trying most awfully hard to be, in
+every respect, just what you would wish the man who loves you should
+be."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you dear boy," said Christobel Charteris, a flood of sudden
+feeling softening her face; "I must make you understand that I cannot
+possibly take you seriously.  I shall have to tell you a story no one
+has ever heard before; a tender little story of a long-ago past.  I
+must tell you the story of my Little Boy Blue.  Wait here a few
+moments, while I go indoors and give orders that we are not to be
+disturbed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rising, she passed up the lawn to the little white house.  The Boy's
+eyes followed her, noting with pride and delight the tall athletic
+figure, fully developed, gracious in its ample lines, yet graceful in
+the perfect swing of the well-poised walk.  During all his college
+years he had known that walk; admired that stately figure.  He had been
+in the set which called her "Juno" and "The Goddess"; which crowded to
+the clubs if there was a chance of watching her play tennis.  And now,
+during two wonderful weeks, he had been admitted, a welcomed guest, to
+this little old-world oasis, bounded by high red-brick walls, where she
+dwelt and ruled.  Quiet, sunny, happy hours he had spent in the hush of
+the old garden, strolling up and down the long narrow velvet turf,
+beneath the spreading trees, from the green postern gate in the
+right-hand corner of the bottom wall, to the flight of stone steps
+leading up to the garden-door of the little white house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy knew, by now, exactly what he wanted.  He wanted to marry
+Christobel Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He must have been rather a brave boy.  He looked very youthful and slim
+as he lay back in his chair, watching the stately proportions of the
+woman on whom he had set his young heart; very slight and boyish, in
+his silver-grey suit, with lavender tie, and buttonhole of violas.  The
+Boy was very particular about his ties and buttonholes.  They always
+matched.  This afternoon, for the first time, he had arrived without a
+buttonhole.  In the surprise and pleasure of his unexpected appearance,
+the Aunt had moved quickly down the sunlit lawn to meet and greet him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mollie had departed, early that morning.  Her final words at the
+railway station, as her impish little face smiled farewell from the
+window of her compartment, had been: "Mind, Auntie dear, no mistake
+about Guy Chelsea!  He's a charming fellow; and thank you ever so much
+for giving me such a good time with him.  But you can report to Papa,
+that Guy Chelsea, <I>and</I> his beautiful properties, <I>and</I> his prospective
+peerage, <I>and</I> his fifty thousand a year, <I>and</I> his motor-cars, <I>and</I>
+his flying-machines, are absolutely powerless to tempt me away from my
+allegiance to Phil.  Beside, it so happens, Guy himself is altogether
+in love with SOME ONE ELSE."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The train having begun to move at the words "You can report to Papa,"
+Mollie finished the remainder of the sentence in a screaming crescendo,
+holding on to her hat with one hand, and waving a tiny lace
+pocket-handkerchief, emphatically, with the other.  Even then, the Aunt
+lost most of the sentence, and disbelieved the rest.  The atmosphere of
+love had been so unmistakable during those two weeks; the superabundant
+overflow had even reached herself more than once, with an almost
+startling thrill of emotion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had been so full of vivid, glowing <I>joie-de-vivre</I>, radiating
+fun and gaiety around him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In their sets of tennis, played on her own court across the lane at the
+bottom of the garden, when she could beat him easily were he
+handicapped by partnership with Mollie; but in genuine singles, when
+Mollie had tactfully collapsed on to a seat and declared herself
+exhausted, his swift agility counterbalanced her magnificent service,
+and they were so evenly matched that each game proved a keen delight&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the quiet teas beneath the mulberry tree, where the incomprehensible
+atmosphere of unspoken tenderness gilded the light words and laughter,
+as sunlight touches leaf and flower to gold&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the cosy dinners, to which they sometimes asked him, sitting in the
+garden afterwards in the moonlight; when he would tell them thrilling
+tales of aviation, describing his initial flights, hairbreadth escapes;
+the joys of rapid soaring; the dangers of cross-currents, broken
+propellers, or twisted steering-gear&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On all these occasions, the Boy&mdash;with his enthusiasm, his fun, and his
+fire&mdash;had been the life of the happy trio.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During those evenings, in the moonlight, when he started off on
+airships, one heart stood still very often while the Boy talked; but it
+stood still, silently.  It was Mollie who clasped her hands and
+implored him never to fly again; then, in the next breath, begged him
+to take her as a passenger, on the first possible occasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Happy days!  But Mollie was the attraction; therefore, with Mollie's
+departure, they would naturally come to an end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had not asked if he might come again; and, for the moment, she
+forgot that the Boy rarely asked for what he wanted.  He usually took
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had a lonely luncheon; spent the afternoon over letters and
+accounts, picking up the dull threads of things laid aside during the
+gay holiday time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not the Professor's day for calling.  She was alone until four.
+Then she went out and sat under the mulberry.  The garden was very
+quiet.  The birds' hour of silence was barely over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jenkins, the butler, had been sent into the town, so Martha brought out
+tea; as ample, as carefully arranged, as ever; and&mdash;cups for two!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why two cups, Martha?" queried Miss Charteris, languidly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe there'll be a visitor," said Martha in grim prophetic tones.
+Then her hard old face relaxed and creased into an unaccustomed smile.
+"Maybe there is a visitor," she added, softly; for at that moment the
+postern gate banged, and they saw the Boy coming up the garden, in a
+shaft of sunlight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt walked quickly to meet him.  His arrival was so unexpected;
+and she had been so lonely, and so dull.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How nice of you," she said; "with the Attraction gone.  But Martha
+seems to have had a premonition of your coming.  She has just brought
+out tea, most suggestively arranged for two.  How festive you are, Boy!
+Why this wedding attire?  Are you coming from, or going to, a function?
+No?  Then don't you want tennis after tea&mdash;a few good hard sets; just
+we two, unhandicapped by our dear little Mollie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said the Boy; "talk, please, to-day; just we two, unhandicapped
+by our dear little Mollie.  Talk please; not tennis."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused beside the border, full of mauve and purple flowers.  "How
+jolly those little what-d'-you-call-'ems look, in the sunshine," he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the Aunt noticed that he wore no buttonhole, and that his tie was
+lavender.  She picked four of her little violas, and pinned them into
+his coat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, "you are a dandy in the matter of ties and
+buttonholes; only it is so essentially <I>you</I>, that one rather enjoys
+it.  But this is the first day I have known you to arrive without one,
+and have need to fall back upon my garden."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It <I>is</I> a first day," said the Boy, dropping into step with her, as
+she moved toward the mulberry tree.  "It starts a new régime, in the
+matter of buttonholes, and&mdash;other things.  I am going to have seven
+days, and this is the first."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really?" smiled the Aunt, amused at the Boy's intense seriousness.  "I
+am flattered that you should spend a portion of 'the first day' with
+me.  Let us have tea, and then you shall tell me why seven days; and
+where you mean to pass them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy was rather silent during tea.  The Aunt, trying to read his
+mind, thought at first that he regretted his flannels, and the chance
+of tennis; then that he was missing Mollie.  Whereupon the Aunt
+repeated her remark that it was nice of him to come, now the Attraction
+was no longer there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This gave him the cue for which he waited.  His cup was empty, and
+safely on the grass.  The floodgates of the Boy's pent-up love and
+longing burst open; the unforgettable words, "It was always you I
+wanted," were spoken; and now he waited for her, under the mulberry
+tree.  She had something to tell him; but, whatever it might be, it
+could not seriously affect the situation.  <I>He</I> had told <I>her</I>&mdash;that
+was the great essential.  He would win her in seven days.  Already she
+knew just what he wanted&mdash;a big step for the first day.  He looked up,
+and saw her coming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had regained her usual calm.  Her eyes were very kind.  She smiled
+at the Boy, gently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She took her seat in a low basket-work chair.  He had leapt to his
+feet.  She motioned him to another, just opposite hers.  She was
+feeling rather queenly.  Unconsciously her manner became somewhat
+regal.  The Boy enjoyed it.  He knew he was bent upon winning a queen
+among women.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am going to tell you a story," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes?" said the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is about my Little Boy Blue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>You</I> were my Little Boy Blue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes; twenty years ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I was six," said the Boy, quite unperturbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We were staying at Dovercourt, on the east coast.  Our respective
+families had known each other.  I used to watch you playing on the
+shore.  You were a very tiny little boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dare say I was quite a nice little boy," said the Boy, complacently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed you were; quite sweet.  You wore white flannel knickers, and a
+little blue coat."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dare say it was quite a nice little coat," said the Boy, "and I hope
+my womenfolk had the tact to call it a 'blazer.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was a dear little coat&mdash;I should say 'blazer,'" said the Aunt; "and
+I called you my 'Little Boy Blue.'  You also had a blue flannel cap,
+which you wore stuck on the back of your curls.  I spoke to you twice,
+Little Boy Blue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you?" he said, and his brown eyes were tender.  "Then no wonder I
+feel I have loved you all my life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, but wait until you hear my story!  The first time I spoke to you,
+it happened thus.  Your nurse sat high up on the beach, in the long
+line of nurses, gossiping and doing needlework.  You took your little
+spade and bucket, and marched away, all by yourself, to a breakwater;
+and there you built a splendid sand castle.  I sat on the breakwater,
+higher up, and watched you.  You took immense pains; you overcame
+stupendous difficulties; and every time your little cap fell off, you
+picked it up, dusted off the sand with the sleeve of your little blue
+coat, and stuck it on the back of your curly head again.  You were very
+sweet, Little Boy Blue.  I can see you now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt paused, and let her eyes dwell upon the Boy in appreciative
+retrospection.  If he felt this something of an ordeal, he certainly
+showed no signs of it.  Not for a moment did his face lose its
+expression of delighted interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Presently," continued the Aunt, "your castle and courtyard finished,
+you made a little cannon in the centre of the courtyard, for defence.
+Then you looked around for a cannon-ball.  This was evidently a weighty
+matter, and indeed it turned out to be such.  You stood your spade
+against the breakwater; placed your bucket beside it; readjusted your
+little cap, and trotted off almost to the water's edge.  Your
+conception of the size of your castle and cannon must have become
+magnified with every step of those small sturdy feet, for, arrived at
+the water, you found a huge round stone nearly as large as your own
+little head.  This satisfied you completely, but you soon found you
+could not carry it in your hands.  You spent a moment in anxious
+consideration.  Then you took off your little blue coat, spread it upon
+the sand, rolled the cannon-ball upon it, tied the sleeves around it,
+picked up the hem and the collar, hoisted the heavy stone, and
+proceeded slowly and with difficulty up the shore.  Every moment it
+seemed as if the stone must fall, and crush the bare toes of my Little
+Boy Blue.  So I flew to the rescue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may I help you to carry your stone?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You paused, and looked up at me.  I doubt if you had breath to answer
+while you were walking.  Your little face was flushed and damp with
+exertion; the blue cap was almost off; you had sand on your eyebrows,
+and sand on your little straight nose.  But you looked at me with an
+expression of indomitable courage and pride, and you said: 'Fanks; but
+I always does my own cawwying.'  With that you started on, and I fell
+behind&mdash;rebuffed!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Surly little beast!" ejaculated the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not at all," said the Aunt.  "I won't have my Little Boy Blue called
+names!  He showed a fine independence of spirit.  Now hear what
+happened next.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little Boy Blue had almost reached his castle, with his somewhat
+large, but otherwise suitable, cannon-ball, when his nurse, glancing up
+from her needlework, perceived him staggering along in his
+shirt-sleeves, and also saw the use to which he was putting his flannel
+coat.  She threw aside the blue over-all she was making, rushed down
+the shore, calling my Little Boy Blue every uncomplimentary compound
+noun and adjective which entered her irate and flurried mind; seized
+the precious stone, unwound the little jacket, flung the stone away,
+shook out the sand and seaweed, and straightened the twisted sleeves.
+Then she proceeded to shake the breath out of my Little Boy Blue's
+already rather breathless little body; put on the coat, jerked him up
+the shore, and plumped him down with his back to the sea and his
+castle, to sit in disgrace and listen, while she told the assembled
+nurses what a 'born <I>h</I>imp of <I>h</I>evil' he was!  I could have slain that
+woman!  And I knew my little Boy Blue had no dear mother of his own.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his tumbled curls, and comfort
+him.  And all this time he had not uttered a sound.  He had just
+explained to me that he always did his own carrying, and evidently he
+had learned to bear his childish sorrows in silence.  I watched the
+little disconsolate blue back, usually so gaily erect, now round with
+shame and woe.  Then I bethought me of something I could do.  I made
+quite sure he was not peeping round.  Then I went and found the chosen
+stone, and it was heavy indeed!  I carried it to the breakwater, and
+deposited it carefully within the courtyard of the castle.  Then I sat
+down behind the breakwater, on the other side, and waited.  I felt sure
+Little Boy Blue would come back for his spade and bucket.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Presently the nurses grew tired of bullying him.  The strength of his
+quiet non-resistance proved greater than their superior numbers and
+brute force.  Also his intelligent little presence was, undoubtedly, a
+check upon their gossip.  So he was told he might go; I conclude, on
+the understanding that he should 'be a good boy' and carry no more
+'nasty heavy stones.'  I saw him rise and shake the dust of the nurses'
+circle off his little feet!  Then he pushed back his curls, and,
+without looking to the right or to the left, trotted straight to his
+castle.  I wondered he did not glance, however hopelessly, in the
+supposed direction of the desired stone.  But, no!  He came gaily on;
+and the light of a great expectation shone in his brown eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When he reached the breakwater, and found his castle, there&mdash;safely in
+the courtyard&mdash;reposed the mighty cannon-ball.  He stood still a
+moment, looking at it; and his cheeks went very pink.  Then he pulled
+off his little cap, and turned his radiant face up to the blue sky,
+flecked with fleeting white clouds.  And&mdash;'Fank de Lord,' said my
+Little Boy Blue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were unconcealed tears in the Aunt's kind eyes, and she
+controlled her quiet voice with difficulty.  But the glory of a great
+gladness had come over the Boy.  Without as yet explaining itself in
+words, it rang in his voice and laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I remember," he said.  "Why, of course I remember!  Not you, worse
+luck; but being lugged up the shore, and fearing I had lost my
+cannon-ball.  And, you know, as quite a tiny chap, I had formed a habit
+of praying about all my little wants and woes.  I sometimes think, how
+amused the angels must have been when my small petitions arrived.
+There was a scarecrow, in a field, I prayed for, regularly, every
+night, for weeks.  I had been struck by the fact that it looked lonely.
+Then I seriously upset the theology of the nursery, by passing through
+a course of persistent and fervent prayer for Satan.  It appeared as an
+obvious logical conclusion to my infant mind: that if the person
+who&mdash;according to nurse&mdash;spent all his time in going about making
+everybody naughty, could himself become good, all naughtiness would
+cease.  Also, that anybody must be considered as 'past praying for,'
+was an idea which nearly broke my small heart With rage and misery,
+when it was first crudely forced upon me.  I think the arch-fiend must
+have turned away, silent and nonplussed, if he ever chanced to pass by,
+while a very tiny boy was kneeling up in his crib, pleading with
+tearful earnestness: 'Please God, bless poor old Satan; make him good
+an' happy; an' take him back to heaven.'  But it used to annoy nurse
+considerably, when she came into the same prayer, with barely a comma
+between."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue!" cried the Aunt.  "Why was I not your mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank goodness, you were not!" said the Boy, imperturbably.  "I don't
+want you for a mother, dear.  I want you for my wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you had prayed about the stone?" remarked the Aunt, hurriedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes.  While seated there in disgrace, I said: 'Please God, let an
+angel find my cannon-ball, which howwid old nurse fwowed away.  An' let
+the angel cawwy it safe to the courtyard of my castle.'  And I was not
+at all surprised to find it there; merely very glad.  So you see,
+Christobel, you were my guardian angel twenty years ago.  No wonder I
+feel I have known and loved you, all my life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait until you hear the rest of my story, Little Boy Blue.  But I can
+testify that you were not surprised.  Your brown eyes were simply
+shining with faith and expectation, as you trotted down the shore.
+But&mdash;who said you might call me 'Christobel'?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No one," replied the Boy.  "I thought of it myself.  It seemed so
+perfect to be able to say it on the first of my seven days.  And, if
+you consider, I have never called you 'Miss Charteris.'  You always
+seemed to me much too splendid to be 'Miss' anything.  One might as
+well say 'Miss Joan of Arc' or 'Miss Diana of the Ephesians.'  But of
+course I won't call you 'Christobel' if you would rather not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You quite absurd boy!" said the Aunt, laughing.  "Call me anything you
+like&mdash;just for your seven days.  But you have not yet told me the
+meaning or significance of these seven days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sat forward, eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's like this," he said.  "I have always loved the story of how the
+army of Israel marched round Jericho during seven days.  It appeals to
+me.  The well-garrisoned, invincible city, with its high walls and
+barred gates.  The silent, determined army, marching round it, once
+every day.  Apparently nothing was happening; but, in reality, their
+faith, enthusiasm, and will-power were undermining those mighty walls.
+And on the seventh day, when they marched round seven times to the
+blast of the priestly trumpets; at the seventh time, the ordeal of
+silence was over; leave was given to the great silent host to shout.
+So the rams' horns sounded a louder blast than ever; and then, with all
+the pent-up enthusiasm born of those seven days of silent marching, the
+people shouted!  Down fell the walls of Jericho, and up the conquerors
+went, right into the heart of the citadel....  <I>I</I> am prepared to march
+round in silence, during seven days; but on the seventh day, Jericho
+will be taken."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>I</I> being Jericho, I conclude," remarked the Aunt, dryly.  "I cannot
+say I have particularly noticed the silence.  But that part of the
+programme would be decidedly dull; so we will omit it, and say, from
+the first: 'little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall blow it all right, on the seventh day," said the Boy, "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He got up, came across, and knelt by the arm of her chair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall walk right up into the heart of the citadel," he said, "when
+the gates fly open, and the walls fall down; and there I shall find
+you, my Queen; and together we shall 'inherit the kingdom.'  O dear
+unconquered Citadel!  O beautiful, golden kingdom!  Don't you wish it
+was the seventh day <I>now</I>, Christobel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His mouth looked so sweet, as he bent over her and said "Christo<I>bel</I>,"
+with a queer little accent on the final syllable, that the Aunt felt
+momentarily dizzy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go back to your chair, at once, Boy," she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither spoke a word, for some minutes.  The Boy lay back, watching the
+mysterious moving of the mulberry leaves.  The triumphant happiness in
+his face was a rather breathless thing to see.  It made you want to
+hear a great orchestra burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Aunt watched the Boy, and wondered whether she must tell him about
+the Professor, before the seventh day; and what he would say, when she
+did tell him; and how Jericho would feel when the army of Israel, with
+silent trumpets and banners drooping, marched disconsolate away,
+leaving its walls still standing; its gates still barred.  Poor walls,
+supposed to be so mighty!  Already they were trembling.  If the Boy had
+not been so chivalrously obedient, he could have broken into the
+citadel, five minutes ago.  Did he know? ....  She looked at his
+radiant face....  Yes; he knew.  There were not many things the Boy did
+not know.  She must not allow the seven days, even though she could
+absolutely trust his obedience and his chivalry.  She must tell him the
+rest of the story, and send him away to-day.  Poor invading army, shorn
+of its glad triumph!  Poor Jericho, left desolate!  It was decidedly
+unusual to be compared to Jericho, and Diana of the Ephesians, and Joan
+of Arc, all in the same conversation; and it was rather funny to enjoy
+it.  But then most things which happened by reason of the Boy <I>were</I>
+funny and unusual.  He would always come marching 'as an army with
+banners.'  The Professor would drive up to Jericho in a fly, and knock
+a decorous rat-tat on the gate.  Would the walls tremble at that knock?
+Alas, alas!  They had never trembled yet.  Would they ever tremble
+again, save for the march-past of the Boy?  Would the gates ever really
+fly open, except to the horn-blast of little Boy Blue? ... The Aunt
+dared not think any longer.  She felt she must take refuge in immediate
+action.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, in her most maternal voice, "come down from the
+clouds, and listen to me.  I want to tell you the rest of the story of
+my Little Boy Blue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sprang up, and came and sat on the grass at her feet.  All the Boy's
+movements were so bewilderingly sudden.  They were over and done,
+before you had time to consider whether or no you intended to allow
+them.  But this new move was quite satisfactory.  He looked less big
+and manly, down on the grass; and she <I>really</I> felt maternal, with his
+curly head so close to her knee.  She even ventured to put out a cool
+motherly hand and smooth the hair back from his forehead, as she began
+to speak.  She had intended to touch it only once&mdash;just to accentuate
+the fact of her motherliness&mdash;but it was the sort of soft thick hair
+which seemed meant for the gentle passing through it of a woman's
+fingers.  And the Boy seemed to like it, for he gave one long sigh of
+content, and leaned his head against her knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now I must tell you," said the Aunt, "of the only other time when I
+ventured to speak to my Little Boy Blue.  He had come to his favourite
+place beside the breakwater.  The tide had long ago swept away castle,
+courtyard, and cannon; but the cannon-ball was still there.  It partook
+of the nature of 'things that remain.' Heavy stones usually do!  When I
+peeped over the breakwater, Little Boy Blue was sitting on the sand.
+His sturdy legs were spread wide.  His bare toes looked like ten little
+pink sea-shells.  Between his small brown knees, he had planted his
+bucket.  His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on the handle of which
+was writ large, in blue pencil: <I>Master Guy Chelsea</I>.  He was bent upon
+filling his bucket with sand.  But the spade being long, and the bucket
+too close to him&mdash;(Boy, leave my shoe alone!  It does not require
+attention)&mdash;most of the sand missed the bucket, and went over himself.
+I heard him sigh rather wearily, and say 'Blow!' in a tired little
+voice.  I leaned over the breakwater.  'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may
+I play with you, and help you to fill your bucket with sand?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little Boy Blue looked up.  His curls, his eyebrows, his long dark
+eyelashes were full of sand.  There was sand on his little straight
+nose.  But no amount of sand could detract from the dignity of his
+little face, or weaken its stern decision.  He laid down his spade, put
+up a damp little hand, and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks;
+but I don't like girls.'  Oh, Master Guy Chelsea, how you snubbed me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy's broad shoulders shook with laughter, but he captured the hand
+still smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down to his lips, kissed it
+gently, back and palm, and then each finger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little girl," he said.  "But she must
+admit, little girls of seven are not always attractive to small boys of
+six."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was not seven," said the Aunt, with portentous emphasis.  "Leave go
+of my hand, Boy, and listen.  <I>When you were six, I was sixteen</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This bomb of the Aunt's was received with a moment's respectful
+silence, as befitted the discharge of her principal field-piece.  Then
+the Boy's gay voice said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what of that, dear?  When I was six, you were sixteen.  When I was
+twenty, you were twenty-nine&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thirty, Boy; thirty!  Be accurate.  And now&mdash;you are twenty-six, and I
+am getting on towards forty&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six!  Be accurate!" pleaded the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And when you are forty, I shall be fifty; and when you are fifty,
+Boy&mdash;only fifty; a man is in his prime at fifty&mdash;I shall be sixty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And when I am eighty," said the Boy, "you will be ninety&mdash;an old lady
+is in her prime at ninety.  What a charming old couple we shall be!  I
+wonder if we shall still play tennis.  I think quite the jolliest thing
+to do, when we are very <I>very</I> old&mdash;quite decrepit, you know&mdash;will be
+to stay at Folkestone, and hire two bath-chairs, with nice active old
+men to draw them; ancient, of course, but they would seem young
+compared to us; and then make them race on the Leas, a five-pound note
+to the winner, to insure them really galloping.  We would start at the
+most crowded time, when the band was playing, and race in and out among
+lots of other bath-chairs going slowly, and simply terrified at us.
+Let's be sure and remember to do it, Christobel, sixty years from
+to-day.  Have you a pocket-book?  I shall be a gay young person of
+eighty-six, and you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, bending over him, with a catch in her voice; "you
+<I>must</I> be serious and listen.  When I have said that which I must say,
+you will understand directly that it is no use having your seven days.
+It will be better and wiser to raise the siege at once, and march away.
+Listen! ... Hush, stay perfectly still.  No; I can say what I am going
+to say more easily if you don't look at me....  Please, Boy;
+<I>please</I>....  I told you my 'Little Boy Blue stories' to make you
+realize how very much older I am than you.  I was practically grown up,
+when you were still a dear delightful baby.  I could have picked you up
+in my arms and carried you about.  Oh, <I>cannot</I> you see that, however
+much I loved him&mdash;perhaps I should rather say: just <I>because</I> I love
+him, because I have always wanted to help him carry his heavy stones;
+make the best of his life, and accomplish manfully the tasks he sets
+himself to do&mdash;I could not possibly marry my Little Boy Blue?  I could
+not, oh I <I>could</I> not, let him tie his youth and brightness to a woman,
+staid and middle-aged, who might almost be his mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earnest, anxious voice, eager in its determined insistence, ceased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sat very still, his head bent forward, his brown hands clasping
+his knees.  Then suddenly he knelt up beside her, leaned over the arm
+of her chair, and looked into her eyes.  There was in his face such a
+tender reverence of adoration, that the Aunt knew she need not be
+afraid to have him so near.  This was holy ground.  She put from off
+her feet the shoes of doubt and distrust; waiting, in perfect calmness,
+to hear what he had to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear," murmured the Boy, tenderly, "your little stories might possibly
+have had the effect you intended&mdash;specially the place where you paused
+and gazed at me as if you saw me still with sand upon my nose, and ten
+pink toes like sea-shells!  That was calculated to make any chap feel
+youngish, and a bit shy.  Wasn't it?  Yes; they might have told the way
+you meant, were it not for one dear sentence which overshadows all the
+rest.  You said just now: 'I knew my little Boy Blue had no mother.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his curls, and comfort him.'
+Christobel, that dear wish of yours was a gift you then gave to your
+Little Boy Blue.  You can't take it away now, because he has grown
+bigger.  He still has no mother, no sisters, no near relations in the
+world.  That all holds good.  Can you refuse him the haven, the help,
+the comfort you would have given him then, now&mdash;when at last he is old
+enough to know and understand; to turn to them, in grateful worship and
+wonder?  Would you have me marry a girl as feather-brained, as
+harum-scarum, as silly as I often am myself?  You suggest Mollie; but
+the Boy Blue of to-day agrees with his small wise self of twenty years
+ago and says: 'Fanks, but I don't like girls!'  Oh, Christobel, I want
+a woman's love, a woman's arms, a woman's understanding tenderness!
+You said, just now, you wished you had been my mother.  Does not the
+love of the sort of wife a fellow really wants, have a lot of the
+mother in it too?  I've been filled with such a glory, Christobel,
+since you admitted what you felt for your Little Boy Blue because I
+seemed to know, somehow, that having once felt it, though the feeling
+may have gone to sleep, you could never put it quite away.  But, if
+your Little Boy Blue came back, from the other end of the world, and
+wanted you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy stopped suddenly, struck dumb by the look on the beautiful face
+beneath his.  He saw it pale to absolute whiteness, while the dear firm
+lips faltered and trembled.  He saw the startled pain leap into the
+eyes.  He did not understand the cause of her emotion, or know that he
+had wakened in that strongly repressed nature the desperate hunger for
+motherhood, possible only to woman at the finest and best.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She realized now why she had never forgotten her Little Boy Blue of the
+Dovercourt sands.  He, in his baby beauty and sweetness, had wakened
+the embryo mother in the warm-hearted girl of sixteen.  And now he had
+come back, in the full strength of his young manhood, overflowing with
+passionate ideality and romance, to teach the lonely woman of
+thirty-six the true sweet meaning of love and of wifehood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her heart seemed to turn to marble and cease beating.  She felt
+helpless in her pain.  Only the touch of her Little Boy Blue, or of
+baby Boy Blues so like him, that they must have come trotting down the
+sands of life straight from the heaven of his love and hers, could ever
+still this ache at her bosom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked helplessly up into his longing, glowing, boyish face&mdash;so
+sweet, so young, so beautiful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Should she put up her arms and draw it to her breast?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had given no actual promise to the Professor.  She had not
+mentioned him to the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ah, dear God!  If one had waited twelve long years for a thing which
+was to prove but an empty husk after all!  In order not to fail the
+possible expectations of another, had she any right to lay such a heavy
+burden of disappointment upon her little Boy Blue?  And, if she <I>must</I>
+do so, how could she best help him to bear it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fanks," came a brave little voice, with almost startling distinctness,
+across the shore of memory; "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last she found her voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "please go now.  I am tired."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she shut her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few seconds she heard the gate close, and knew the garden was
+empty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tears slipped from between the closed lids, and coursed slowly down her
+cheeks.  The only right way is apt to be a way of such pain at the
+moment, that even those souls possessing clearest vision and endowed
+with strongest faith, are unable to hear the golden clarion-call,
+sounding amid the din of present conflict: "Through much tribulation,
+enter into the kingdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus hopeless tears fell in the old garden.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+And Martha, the elderly housekeeper, faithful but curious, let fall the
+lath of the green Venetian blind covering the storeroom window, through
+which she had permitted herself to peep.  As the postern gate closed on
+the erect figure of the Boy, she dropped the blind and turned away, an
+unwonted tear running down the furrows of her hard old face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord love 'im!" she said.  "He'll get what he wants in time.  There's
+not a woman walks this earth as couldn't never refuse <I>'im</I> nothing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With which startling array of negatives, old Martha compiled one
+supreme positive in favour of the Boy, leaving altogether out of
+account&mdash;alas!&mdash;the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she wiped her eyes with her apron, and chid her nose harshly for
+an unexpected display of sentiment.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+And the Boy tramped back to his hotel with his soul full of glory,
+knowing his first march round had been to some purpose.  The walls of
+the belovčd Citadel had trembled indeed.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the first day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SECOND DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The Boy arrived in flannels, his racket under his arm.  He came in, as
+usual, through the little green gate in the red-brick fruit-wall at the
+bottom of the garden.  From the first, he had taken this privilege,
+which as a matter of fact had never been accorded to anybody.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor always entered by the front door, placed his umbrella in
+the stand, wet or shine; left his goloshes on the mat: hung up his cap
+and gown, and followed Jenkins into the drawing-room.  Though he had
+called regularly, twice a week, during the last dozen years&mdash;first on
+his old friend and tutor, Professor Charteris; after his death, on his
+widow and daughter; and, when Miss Charteris was left alone, on herself
+only&mdash;he never failed to knock and ring; nor did he ever enter
+unannounced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had dashed in at the garden gate on the occasion of his second
+visit, and appeared to consider that he had thus created a precedent
+which should always be followed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once, and once only&mdash;on her thirtieth birthday&mdash;the Professor had
+brought Miss Charteris a bouquet; but, being very absent-minded, he
+deposited the bouquet on the mat, and advanced into the drawing-room
+carrying his goloshes in his left hand.  Having shaken hands with his
+right, he vaguely presented the goloshes.  Miss Charteris, never at a
+loss where her friends were concerned, took the Professor's goloshes
+from his hand, carried them out into the hall, found the bouquet on the
+mat, and saved the situation by putting the flowers in water, and
+thanking the Professor with somewhat more hilarity than the ordinary
+presentation of a bouquet would have called forth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But to return to the second day.  The Boy arrived in flannels, and tea
+was a merry meal.  The Boy wanted particulars concerning the marriage,
+which had taken place a year or so before, between Martha&mdash;maid of
+thirty years' standing, now acting as cook-housekeeper to Miss
+Charteris&mdash;and Jenkins, the butler.  The Boy wanted to know which
+proposed, Jenkins or Martha; in what terms they announced the fact of
+their engagement, to Miss Charteris; whether Jenkins ever "bucked up
+and looked like a bridegroom," and whether Martha wore orange-blossom
+and a wedding veil.  He extorted the admission that Christobel had been
+present at the wedding, and insisted on a detailed account; over which,
+when given at last, he slapped his knee so often, and went into such
+peals of laughter, that Miss Charteris glanced anxiously towards the
+kitchen and pantry windows, which unfortunately looked out on the
+garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy expatiated on his enthusiastic admiration for Martha; but at
+the same time was jolly well certain he would have bolted when it came
+to "I, Martha, take thee, Jenkins," had he stood in the latter's shoes.
+Miss Charteris did not dare admit, that as a matter of fact the
+sentence had been: "I, Martha, take thee, Noah."  That the meek Jenkins
+should possess so historical and patriarchal a name, would completely
+have finished the Boy, who was already taking considerable risks by
+combining much laughter with an unusually large number of explosive
+buns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy would have it, that, excepting in the rôle of bride and
+subsequent conjugal owner and disciplinarian, Martha was perfect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris admitted Martha's unrivalled excellence as a cook, her
+economy in management, and fidelity of heart.  But Martha had a temper.
+Also, though undoubtedly a superficial fault, yet trying to the
+artistic eye of Miss Charteris, Martha's hair was apt to be dishevelled
+and untidy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It <I>is</I> a bit wispy," admitted the Boy, reluctantly.  "Why don't you
+tell her so?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Boy dear, I daren't!  It would be as much as
+my place is worth, to make a personal observation to Martha!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll tell her for you, if you like," said the Boy, coolly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you do," warned Miss Charteris, "it will be the very last remark
+you will ever make in Martha's kitchen, Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, there are <I>ways of telling</I>," said the Boy, airily; and pinched an
+explosive bun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After tea they took their rackets and strolled down the lawn, pausing a
+moment while she chose him a buttonhole.  The tie was orange on this
+second day, and she gathered the opening bud of a William Allen
+Richardson rose.  She smiled into its golden heart as she pinned it in
+his white flannel coat.  Somehow it brought a flash of remembrance of
+the golden heart of Little Boy Blue, who could not bear that any one
+should be past praying for, or that even a scarecrow should seem lonely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They crossed the lane and entered the paddock; tightened the net on the
+tennis-court; chose out half a dozen brand-new balls, and settled down
+to fast and furious singles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris played as well as she had ever played in her life; but
+the Boy was off his service, and she beat him six to four.  Next time,
+he pulled off 'games all,' but lost the set; then was beaten, three to
+six.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris was glowing with the exercise, and the consciousness of
+being in great form.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear!" she called, as she played the winning stroke of the third
+set, "I'm afraid you're lazy to-day!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy walked up to the net, and looked at her through his racket.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not lazy," he said; "but I'm on the wrong side of Jordan.  This
+sort of thing is waste of time.  I want to go over, and start marching."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't be absurd, Boy.  I prefer <I>this</I> side Jordan, thank you; and you
+shall stay here until you beat me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy won the next set.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+It was deliciously cool and quiet under the mulberry-tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy was quite subdued&mdash;for him.  He seemed inclined to do his
+marching in silence, on this second day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris felt her mental balance restored.  She held the reins
+to-day, and began considering how to deal wisely with the Boy.  So much
+depended upon how she managed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length she said: "Boy, when you were at Trinity, I often used to see
+you.  I knew you were my Little Boy Blue of all those years ago.  I
+used to feel inclined to send for you, talk to you for your good, and
+urge you to set to, and do great things; but I remembered the stone,
+and the bucket; and I did not want to let myself in for a third
+snubbing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy smiled.  "Did you think me a lazy beggar?" he asked.  "I wasn't
+really, you know.  I did quite a good deal of all kinds of things.  But
+I didn't want to get played out.  I wanted to do things all the rest of
+my life.  Fellows who grind at college and come out Senior Wranglers,
+begin and end there.  You don't hear of 'em again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," said Miss Charteris, amusement in her eyes.  "So you felt it
+wisest to avoid being Senior Wrangler?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just so," said the Boy.  "I was content with a fairly respectable B.A.
+and I hope you saw me take it.  How rotten it is, going up in a bunch,
+all hanging on to an old chap's fingers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, Boy!  I know all about you!  You wasted golden opportunities; you
+declined to use your excellent abilities; you gave the authorities an
+anxious time.  You were so disgracefully popular, that everybody
+thought your example the finest thing to follow, and you were more or
+less responsible for every lark and row which took place during your
+time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy did not smile.  He looked at her, with a quaint, innocent
+seriousness, which made her feel almost uncomfortable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear," he said, "I had plenty of money, and heaps of friends, and I
+wanted to have a good time.  Also I wanted all the other fellows to
+have a good time; and I enjoyed getting the better of all the old
+fogies who had forgotten what youth was like&mdash;if they'd ever known it.
+And I had no mother to ask me questions, and no sisters to turn up at
+my rooms unexpectedly.  But I can tell you this, Christobel.  I hope to
+be married soon; and I hope to marry a woman so sweet and noble and
+pure, that her very presence tests a man's every thought, feeling, and
+memory.  And I can honestly look into your dear eyes and say: My wife
+will be welcome to know every detail of every prank I ever played in
+Cambridge; nor is there a thing in those three years I need feel
+ashamed of her knowing.  There!  Will that do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris threw out a deprecatory hand.  "Oh, Boy dear!" she said.
+"I never doubted that.  My Little Boy Blue, don't I know you?  But I
+cannot let you talk as if you owe me any explanations.  How curious to
+think I saw you so often during those years, yet we never actually met."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy smiled.  "Yes," he said, "we were all awfully proud of you, you
+know.  What was it you took at Girton?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris mentioned, modestly, the highest honours in classics as
+yet taken by a woman.  The Boy had often heard it before.  But he
+listened with bated breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," he said, "we were awfully proud of it, because of your tennis,
+and because of you being&mdash;well, just <I>you</I>.  If you had been a
+round-shouldered little person in a placket, we should have taken it
+differently.  We always called you 'The Goddess,' because of your
+splendid walk.  Did you know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Boy, I did not know; but I confess to feeling immensely flattered.
+Only, take a friend's advice, and avoid conversational allusions to
+plackets, because you are obviously ignorant of the meaning of the
+word.  And now, tell me?  Having successfully escaped so serious a
+drawback to future greatness as becoming Senior Wrangler, on what
+definite enterprise have you embarked?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flying," said the Boy, sitting forward in his chair.  "I am going to
+break every record.  I am going to fly higher, farther, faster, than
+any man has ever flown before.  This week, if I had not stayed on
+here&mdash;you know originally I came up only for the 'May week'&mdash;I was to
+have done a Channel flight.  Ah, you don't know what it means, to own
+three flying-machines, all of different make, and each the best of its
+kind!  You feel you own the world!  And then to climb into your seat
+and go whirling away, with the wonderful hum in your ears, mastering
+the air&mdash;the hitherto invincible air.  May I tell you what I am going
+to do for my next fly?  Start from the high ground between Dover and
+Folkestone; fly over the Channel; circle round Boulogne Cathedral&mdash;you
+remember the high dome, rising out of the old town surrounded by the
+ramparts?  Then back across the Channel, and to ground again at
+Folkestone; all in one flight; and I hope to do it in record time, if
+winds are right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And if winds are wrong, Boy?  If you rush out and take the horrid
+risks of the cross-currents you told us about?  If something happens to
+your propeller, and you fall headlong into the sea?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it's all U P then," said the Boy, lightly.  "But one never expects
+that sort of thing to happen; and when it does, all is over so quickly
+that there is no time for anticipation.  Beside, there must be
+pioneers.  Every good life given, advances the cause."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel Charteris looked at him.  His was not the terrible,
+unmistakable, relentless face of the bird-man.  He was brilliant with
+enthusiasm, but it was the enthusiasm of the sportsman, keen to excel;
+of Young England, dauntless, fearless, eager to break records.  The
+spirit of the true bird-man had not, as yet, entered into her Little
+Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She pressed her hand upon her bosom.  It ached still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, softly.  "Has it ever struck you that, if you
+marry, your wife&mdash;whoever she might be&mdash;would most probably want you to
+give up flying?  I cannot imagine a woman being able to bear that a man
+who was her <I>all</I>, should do these things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy never turned a hair!  He did not bound in his seat.  He did not
+even look at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, of course, dear," he said, "if you wished it, I should give up
+flying, like a shot, and sell my aeroplanes.  I know plenty of chaps
+who would like to buy them to-morrow.  And I'll tell you what we would
+do.  We'd buy the biggest, most powerful motor-car we could get, and
+we'd tear all over the country, exceeding the speed-limit, and doing
+everything jolly we could think of.  That would be every bit as good as
+flying, if&mdash;if we did it together.  I say, Christobel&mdash;do you know how
+to make a sentence of 'together'?  Just three words: <I>to get her</I>!
+That's what 'together' spells for me now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "You might have taken honours in spelling, Boy.
+And I am not the sort of person who enjoys exceeding speed-limits.
+Also I am afraid I have a troublesome habit of always wanting to stop
+and see all there is to see."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Boy was infinitely accommodating.  "Oh, we wouldn't exceed the
+speed-limit&mdash;much.  And we would stop everywhere, and see everything.
+You should breakfast in London; lunch at the Old White Horse, Mr.
+Pickwick's inn at Ipswich; have tea at the Maid's Head, beneath the
+shadow of Norwich Cathedral, where you could wash your hands in Queen
+Elizabeth's fusty old bedroom&mdash;what a lot of bedrooms Queen Elizabeth
+slept in, and made them all fusty&mdash;and have time to show me Little Boy
+Blue's breakwater at Dovercourt, before dinner.  There's nothing like
+motoring!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It sounds interesting, certainly," said Miss Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then," continued the Boy, in a calm business-like voice, "it's
+less expensive than flying.  You run through fifty thousand a year in
+no time with aeroplanes.  And of course we should want to open both my
+places.  I'm awfully glad I didn't let the tenants in the old home
+renew their lease.  As it is, they turn out in three months.  Oh, I
+say, Christobel, I do believe it is a setting worthy of you.  Have you
+ever seen it?  The great hall, the old pictures, the oak staircase&mdash;I
+once rode down it on my rocking-horse and came to utter smash.  And
+outside&mdash;the park, the lake, the beech avenue, the rose-garden, the
+peacocks.  And a funny little old village belongs to us.  Think how the
+people must want looking after.  I believe you would like it all&mdash;I
+really believe you would!  And think, ah, just think what it would be
+to me, to see my own splendid wife, queen over everything in my dear
+jolly old home!  Hullo!&mdash;Hark to all the clocks!  What is that
+striking?  Seven?  Oh, I say!  I'm dining with the Master to-night.  I
+must rush off, and change.  Though I was such a bad lot, they all seem
+quite pleased to see me again.  Really they do!  Have I stayed too
+long? ... Sure? ... May I come to-morrow? ... You <I>are</I> most awfully
+good to me.  Good-bye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the Boy was gone.  He had held her hand, in a firm, strong clasp, a
+second longer than the conventional handshake; his clear eyes, exactly
+on a level with hers, had looked at her gravely, wistfully, tenderly;
+and he was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She walked slowly up the lawn.  She must write a few letters before
+post time; then dress for her solitary dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She felt a little flat; quite without cause.  What could have been more
+satisfactory, in every way, than the Boy's visit; in spite of his
+absurd castles in the air?  These must be tactfully demolished
+to-morrow.  To-day, it was wisest just to let him talk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Poor Little Boy Blue!  Instead of the walls of Jericho falling, his own
+castles in the air would come tumbling about his ears.  Poor Little Boy
+Blue!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She felt she had been completely mistress of the situation to-day,
+holding it exactly as she wished it to be.  There was no need to fear
+the remaining days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when the seven days were over&mdash;what then? ... She certainly felt
+very flat this evening.  How suddenly the Boy had gone!  There was
+still so much she wanted to say to him....  And to-morrow was the
+Professor's afternoon.  Mercifully, he never stayed later than four
+o'clock.  It was to be hoped the Boy would not turn up early!  But
+there was never any knowing what the Boy would do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled as she mounted the flight of stone steps, and passed into
+the house.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+And, outside the postern gate, the Boy threw up his cap, and caught it;
+then started off and sprinted a hundred yards; then, turning aside,
+leapt a five-barred gate, and made off across the fields.  When he
+pulled up at last, in his own bedroom, he had just time to tub, shave,
+and wrestle with his evening clothes.  He communed with himself in the
+few moments of enforced stillness, while he mastered his tie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That was all right," he said.  "I jolly well worked <I>that</I> all right!
+There was nothing to frighten her to-day&mdash;not a thing.  Dear lips!
+They never trembled once; and no more turning faint.  And, my Goody,
+how she lectured me!  I wonder who's been telling her what.  I know why
+she did it too.  She wanted to feel quite sure she was bossing the
+show.  And so she was, bless her!  But I marched round!  Yes, I jolly
+well marched round....  Oh, I say!  Can't you stop where I put you?"
+This, to his tie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, with <I>her</I> golden rose in his button-hole, fastened by <I>the</I> pin
+from his flannel coat, off went the Boy to dine with the Master of his
+college.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the second day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE THIRD DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sat on a corner of the kitchen table, swinging a loose leg, and
+watching Martha make hot buttered-toast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had arrived early, and, finding no one in the garden, had entered
+the house by the garden-door, to pursue investigations upstairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the mat in the hall he saw a pair of goloshes; in the
+umbrella-stand, a very large, badly-rolled umbrella; hanging on a peg
+near by, a professor's cap and gown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy stood stock still in the middle of the little hall, and looked
+at the goloshes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then from the drawing-room, through the closed door, came the voice of
+Miss Charteris&mdash;full, clear, measured, melodious&mdash;reading Greek tragedy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>érrois anaidés, én táchei neanía</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+declaimed Miss Charteris; and the Boy fled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arrived in the kitchen, he persuaded Martha that cigarette smoke was
+fatal to black-beetles.  He went about, blowing fragrant clouds into
+every possible crack and cranny.  Martha watched him, out of the corner
+of her eye, crawling along under the dresser in his immaculate white
+flannels, and Martha blessed her stars that her kitchen floor was so
+spotlessly clean.  Only this morning she had remarked to Jenkins that
+he could very well eat his dinner off the boards.  Mercifully,
+Jenkins&mdash;tiresome man though he usually was&mdash;had not taken this
+literally; or he might have made the floor less fit for the Boy's
+perambulations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having taken all this trouble in order to establish his unquestioned
+right to smoke in Martha's kitchen, and to pose as a public benefactor
+while so doing, the Boy seated himself on the edge of the table,
+exactly behind Martha; lighted a fresh "Zenith," and prepared to enjoy
+himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha glanced nervously at the smoke, issuing from cracks and holes on
+all sides.  It gave her a feeling that the house was on fire.  Of
+course she knew it was not; but to <I>feel</I> the house is on fire, is only
+one degree less alarming than to <I>know</I> it is.  However, beetles are
+nasty things; and the condescending kindness and regard for Martha's
+personal comfort, which crawled about after them in white flannels, was
+gratifying to a degree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Martha turned and gave the Boy one of her unusual smiles.  He was
+very intently blowing rings&mdash;"bubbles" Martha called them afterwards,
+when explaining them to Jenkins; but that was Martha's mistake.  They
+were smoke rings.  It was one of the Boy's special accomplishments.  He
+was an expert at blowing rings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently:&mdash;"Martha, my duck&mdash;" he said suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha jumped.  "Bless us, Mr. Guy!  What a name!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter with it?" inquired the Boy, innocently.  "I consider
+it a very nice name, and scriptural."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I didn't mean m' own name," explained Martha, more flushed than
+the warmth of the fire warranted.  "Not but what m' godfathers and
+godmothers might well 'ave chosen me a better."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, don't blame them, overmuch, Martha," said the Boy, earnestly.
+"You see their choice was limited.  If you study your catechism you
+will find that it had to be 'N' or 'M'&mdash;'Naomi' or 'Martha.'  Even at
+that early age, they thought you favoured 'Martha' rather than 'Naomi';
+so they named you 'Martha.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins.  "'N' or 'M'!  So it is!  Now I
+never noticed <I>that</I> before.  We live and learn!  And Jenkins&mdash;silly
+man&mdash;'as always bin annoyed that they named 'im 'Noah.'  But how about
+when <I>you</I> was christened, Mr. Guy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," explained the Boy, with a wave of his cigarette, "I was
+christened a bit later than you, Martha; and, by that time, Parliament
+had sat in solemn convocation, and had brought in a Bill to the effect
+that all needless and vexatious limitations and restrictions in the
+Prayer Book might for the future be disregarded.  The first to go was
+'N' or 'M.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I never!" said Martha.  "I wish they'd ha' done it afore <I>my</I>
+time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see," expounded the Boy, who was enjoying himself vastly, and
+getting the conjunction of the goloshes and the Greek play off his
+mind; "you see, Martha, those progressive Bills, intimately affecting
+the whole community, of vital importance to the nation at large, are
+always blocked by the House of Lords.  If the Commons could have had
+their own way, you might have been named 'Lucy' or 'Clara.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't incline to 'Lucy' or 'Clara,' sir," said Mrs. Jenkins,
+decidedly; "being, as they always strikes me, sickly story-book sort of
+names; but I <I>do</I> like justice and a free country!  I always have felt
+doubtful o' them Lords, since I listened to my married niece's husband,
+a very respectable journeyman tailor but mostly out of work; and if
+it's <I>their</I> doing that I'm 'Martha,' well, <I>I</I> shall know what to do
+with Jenkins's vote&mdash;that's all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy slapped his leg and rocked.  "Martha, you ought to be put up to
+speak at political meetings.  That's the whole thing in a nutshell:
+cause, effect, results, arguments, everything!  Oh, my wig!&mdash;Yes, they
+are a lot of old stick-in-the-muds in the Upper House, aren't they?"
+pursued the Boy&mdash;who had had a long line of dignified ancestors in that
+much abused place; had an uncle there at the present moment, and was
+more than likely eventually to have to sit there himself&mdash;"a rotten lot
+of old stick-in-the-muds, Martha; but I think they did well by you.
+I'd give them the benefit of Jenkins's vote.  I really would.  I am
+glad they chose 'M,' not 'N.'  Naomi was a widow and dismal.  She never
+made the smallest effort to buck up.  But Martha was a nice person; a
+bit flurried perhaps, and hot-tempered; but well up in cooking, and
+keen on it.  I like Martha."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sat and meditated.  Why did she read Greek plays with a person
+who left goloshes on the mat, and brought out an ancient umbrella with
+a waist, on an absolutely cloudless day?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It wasn't m' own name surprised me, Mr. Guy, sir," remarked Martha,
+coyly; "it was the name you was pleased to <I>h</I>add."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy pulled himself together.  "Eh, what?  Oh, 'Martha, my duck'?  I
+see.  I hope you don't mind, Martha.  It seemed to me rather a suitable
+and pretty addition to 'Martha.'  You see, yours is a name which cannot
+be shortened when one feels affectionate.  'Sarah' can be 'Sally';
+'Amelia' can be 'Milly'; 'Caroline' can be 'Carrie'; but 'Martha'
+remains 'Martha' however loving people feel.  What does Jenkins call
+you when he feels affectionate?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha snorted.  "Jenkins knows 'is place," she said, jerking the round
+lid off the stove, and putting on the kettle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jenkins is a model," smiled the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Martha looked round, her feminine curiosity, and perhaps a touch
+of jealousy, getting the better of her respectful discretion.  She had
+seen so much, and heard so little; and she was a very old family
+servant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you call <I>her</I>, Mr. Guy?" she asked, in a confidential
+whisper, with a jerk of the head toward the mulberry-tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Her?" repeated the Boy, surprised.  Then his whole tone softened.  It
+was so sweet to speak her name to some one.  "I call her 'Christobel,'"
+he said, gently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Martha wanted to know more.  Martha was woman enough to desire an
+unshared possession of her own.  She bent over the fire, stirring it
+through the bars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't&mdash;I suppose you do&mdash;that is to say,
+sir&mdash;Do you call <I>her</I> what you've been pleased to call me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, what?" said the Boy, vaguely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I see.  'Christobel, my&mdash;&mdash;'  Oh, no, Martha.  No, I don't!  Not
+even when I feel most affectionate."  Here the Boy was seized with
+sudden convulsions, slapped his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the
+kitchen table.  He whispered it, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
+"'Christobel, my duck!'  Oh, lor!  'Christobel, my duck!'  I hope I
+shall be able to resist telling her.  I should have to own I had called
+Martha so.  'Christobel, my&mdash;&mdash;'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly.  But the Boy
+had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of
+the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this
+conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair
+you have, behind your left ear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing.  "You're making
+game of me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously.  "If you made it into a
+curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite
+too fascinating.  You ask Jenkins.  I say, Martha?  What's a placket?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a
+shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing
+which shows when it shouldn't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one.
+Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha snorted.  "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy considered this.  "And does the umbrella with the waist belong
+to the same old woman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha hesitated.  "'Tain't always petticoats makes an old woman," she
+said, sententiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha, you are <I>pro</I>-foundly right," said the Boy.  "Does the
+Professor stay to tea?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank goodness no, sir.  We draw the line at that, 'cept when Miss
+<I>H</I>ann comes too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is Miss <I>H</I>ann?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's the Professor's sister."  Martha hesitated; poured hot water
+into the silver teapot; then turned to whisper confidentially, with
+concentrated dislike: "She's always a-<I>h</I>egging of 'em on!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What a curious occupation," remarked the Boy, blowing a smoke-ring.
+"Does Miss <I>H</I>ann come often?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Mr. Guy.  Thanks be, she's a <I>h</I>invalid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor Miss <I>H</I>ann.  What's the matter with her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha snorted.  "Fancies herself too much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What a curious complaint.  What are the symptoms?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fancies herself in a bath-chair," said Martha, scornfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Oh, poor Miss <I>H</I>ann!  I should feel very sick
+if I fancied myself in a bath-chair.  I wish I could meet Miss <I>H</I>ann.
+I should like to talk to her about the <I>h</I>egging-on business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>You'd</I> make her sit up," said Martha, with spiteful enjoyment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh no, I shouldn't," said the Boy.  "That would not be kind to an
+invalid.  I should see that she reclined, comfortably; and then I
+should jolly well flatten her out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment a shadow fell across the sunny window.  Miss Charteris,
+her guest having departed, passed down the garden steps, and moved
+across the lawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sprang to his feet.  At sight of her, his conscience smote him
+that he should have thus gossiped and chaffed with old Martha.  He
+suddenly remembered why he had originally found his way to the kitchen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha," he said; "I want you to let me carry out the tea-tray this
+afternoon.  She doesn't know I am here.  She will think it is you or
+Jenkins, till she looks round.  Let me carry it out, Martha, there's a
+duck!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you please, sir," said Martha; "but if you want her to think it's
+Jenkins, you must put it down with a clatter.  It takes a man to be
+clumsy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy walked over to the window.  The mulberry-tree was not visible
+from the kitchen table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't go there, Mr. Guy!" cried Martha.  "Miss Christobel will see
+you, sir.  This window, and the pantry, show from the garden.  If you
+want to 'ave a look at her, go through that door into the storeroom.
+The Venetian blind is always down in there.  There is one crack through
+which I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha stopped short, disconcerted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One crack through which you think I could see?  Thank you, Martha,"
+said the Boy, readily.  "Hurry up with the tray."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went into the store-room; found Martha's chink, and realized exactly
+what had been the extent of Martha's view, during the last two days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he bent his hungry young eyes on Christobel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was seated in a garden chair, her back to the house, her face
+towards the postern gate in the old red wall at the bottom of the
+garden.  The rustic table, upon which he would soon deposit the
+tea-tray, was slightly behind and to the left of her.  The sun shone
+through the mulberry leaves, glinting on the pure whiteness of her
+gown.  She leaned her beautiful head back wearily.  Her whole attitude
+betokened fatigue.  He could not see her face; but he felt sure her
+eyes were open; and he knew her eyes were on the gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy's lips moved.  "Christobel," he whispered.
+"Christobel&mdash;belovčd?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was waiting; and he knew she was waiting for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently he dropped the lath of the Venetian blind, and turned to go.
+But first he took out his pocket-book and fastened the lath which
+lifted most easily, to those above and below it, with halfpenny stamps.
+He knew old Martha would take a hint from him.  There must be no eyes
+on the mulberry-tree to-day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the kitchen the tray was ready; tea freshly made, thin
+bread-and-butter, cucumber sandwiches; hot buttered-toast in
+perfection; cornflour buns, warranted to explode; all the things he
+liked most; and, best of all, cups for two.  He grasped the tray firmly
+with both hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha," he said, "you are a jewel!  I give you leave to watch me down
+the lawn from the kitchen window.  But when I have safely arrived, turn
+your attention to your own tea, or I shall look up and shake my fist at
+your dear nice old face.  And, I say, Martha, do you ever write
+postcards?  Because, if you want any ha'penny stamps, you will find
+some on the storeroom blind.  Only, <I>don't want them</I>, Martha, till
+this week is over, and I am gone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and made for the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down the lawn he bore it, and set it safely on the rustic table.  He
+was very deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, remembering his
+instructions, he contrived to set it down with something of a clatter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris did not turn her head Her eyes, half closed beneath the
+long lashes, were on the postern gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jenkins?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, ma'am," replied the Boy, in excellent imitation of the meek tones
+of Jenkins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Should any one call this afternoon, Jenkins, please remember that I am
+not 'at home.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hip, hip, hurrah!" said the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she turned&mdash;and her face was all, and more than all, he had hoped
+it might be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear!"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+After that, it was a very happy tea.  Neither had been quite natural,
+nor had they been really true to themselves, the day before; so the
+delight of meeting seemed to follow a longer parting than the actual
+twenty-four hours.  The Boy's brown eyes rested in tenderness on the
+hand that filled his cup, and she did not say "Don't"; she merely
+smiled indulgently, and added the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let
+him do what he willed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hum of bees was in the garden; a sense of youth was in the air.
+The sunbeams danced among the mulberry leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy insisted upon carrying back the tray, to do away at once with
+the possibility of interruption from Jenkins.  Then he drew their
+chairs into the deeper shade of the mulberry-tree, a corner invisible
+from all windows.  The Boy had learned a lesson while looking through
+the storeroom blind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There they sat and talked, in calm content.  It did not seem to matter
+much of what they spoke, so long as they could lie back facing one
+another; each listening to the voice which held so much more of meaning
+in it than the mere words it uttered; each looking into the eyes which
+had now become clear windows through which shone the soul.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the Boy said: "How silly we were, the other day, to talk of
+the relative ages of our bodies.  What do they matter?  Our souls are
+the real you and I.  And our souls are always the same age.  Some souls
+are old&mdash;old from the first.  I have seen an old soul look out of the
+eyes of a little child; and I have seen a young soul dance in the eyes
+of an old, old woman.  You and I, thank God, have young souls,
+Christobel, and we shall be eternally young."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stretched his arms over his head, in utter joyful content with life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go on, Boy dear," said Christobel.  "I am not sure that I agree with
+you; but I like to hear you talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At first," he said, "our bodies are so babyish that our souls do not
+find them an adequate medium of expression.  But by and by our bodies
+grow and develop; after which come the beautiful years of perfection,
+ten, twenty, thirty of them, when the young soul goes strong and gay
+through life, clad in the strong gay young body.  Then&mdash;gradually,
+gradually, the strong young soul, in its unwearied, immortal youth,
+wears out the body.  The body grows old, but not the soul.  Nothing can
+age that; and when at last the body quite wears out, the young soul
+breaks free, and begins again.  Youthful souls wear out their bodies
+quicker than old ones; just as a strong young boy romps through a suit
+of clothes sooner than a weakly old man.  But there is always life more
+abundant, and a fuller life farther on.  So the mating of souls is the
+all-important thing; and when young souls meet and mate, what does it
+matter if there be a few years' difference in the ages of their bodies?
+Their essential youthfulness will surmount all that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel looked at him, and truly for a moment the young soul in her
+leapt out to his, in glad response.  Then the other side of the
+question rose before her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, but, Boy dear," she said, "the souls express themselves&mdash;their
+needs, their delights, their activities&mdash;through the bodies.  And
+suppose one body, in the soul-union, is wearing out sooner than the
+other; that is hard on the other&mdash;hard on both.  Boy&mdash;my Little Boy
+Blue&mdash;shall I tell you an awful secret?  I suppose I sat too closely
+over my books at Girton; I suppose I was not sufficiently careful about
+good print, or good light.  Anyway&mdash;Boy dear&mdash;I have to use glasses
+when I read."  She looked wistfully into his bright eyes.  "You see?
+Already I am beginning to grow old."  Her sweet lips trembled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, bending over her,
+as he did on the first day; but as he did not do yesterday.  Suddenly
+she realized why she had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, back and palm.  Then he parted
+the third finger from the rest, with his own brown ones, and held that
+against his warm young lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She drew her hand slowly away; passed it over his hair; then let it
+fall upon her lap.  She could not speak; she could not move; she could
+not send him away.  She wanted him so&mdash;her little Boy Blue, of long ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Old, my Belovčd?" he said.  "You&mdash;old!  Never!  Always
+perfect&mdash;perfect to me.  And why not wear glasses?  Heaps of mere kids
+wear glasses, and wear them all the time.  Only&mdash;how alarmingly clever
+you must look in spectacles, Christobel.  It would terrify me now; but
+by and by it will make me feel proud.  I think one would expect glasses
+to go with those awe-inspiring classical honours.  With my barely
+respectable B.A., I daren't lay claim to any outward marks of
+erudition."  Then, as she did not smile, but still gazed up at him,
+wistfully, his look softened to still deeper tenderness: "Dear eyes,"
+he murmured, "oh dear, dear eyes," and gently laid his lips on each in
+turn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't," she said, with a half sob.  "Ah, Boy, don't!  You know you
+must not kiss me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Kiss you!" he said, still bending over her.  "Do you call that
+kissing?"  Then he laughed; and the joyous love in his laughter wrung
+her heart.  "Christobel, on the seventh day, when the gates fly open,
+and the walls fall down; when the citadel surrenders; when you admit
+you are my own&mdash;<I>then</I> I shall kiss you; <I>then</I> you will know what
+kissing really means."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent above her.  His lips were very near to hers.  She closed her
+eyes and waited.  Her own lips trembled.  She knew how fearfully it
+tempted the Boy that her lips should tremble because his were near; yet
+she let them tremble.  She forgot to remember the past; she forgot to
+consider the future.  She was conscious of only one thing: that she
+wanted her Little Boy Blue to teach her what kissing really meant.  So
+she closed her eyes and waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not hear him go; but presently she knew he was no longer there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She opened her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had walked across the lawn, and stood looking into the golden
+heart of an opening yellow rose.  His back appeared very
+uncompromising; very determined; very erect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rose and walked over to him.  As she moved forward, with the
+graceful dignity of motion which was always hers, her mental balance
+returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She slipped her hand beneath his arm.  "Come, Boy," she said; "let us
+walk up and down, and talk.  It is enervating to sit too long in the
+sunshine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned at once, suiting his step to hers, and they paced the lawn in
+silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they reached the postern gate the Boy stood still.  Something in
+his look suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when the sand on his
+small nose could not detract from the dignity of his little face, nor
+weaken its stern decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took both her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Christobel," he said, "I must go.  I must go, because I dare not stay.
+You are so wonderful this afternoon; so dear beyond expression.  I know
+you trust me absolutely; but this is only the third day; and I cannot
+trust myself, dear.  So I'm off!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lifted both her hands to his lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"May I go, my Queen?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Boy," she answered.  "Go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was hard to hear the thud of the closing door.  For some time she
+stood waiting, just on the inside.  She thought he would come back, and
+she wished him to find her there, the moment he opened the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Boy&mdash;being the Boy&mdash;did not come back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently she returned to her chair, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+She lay, with closed eyes, and lived again through the afternoon, from
+the moment when the Boy had said: "Hip, hip, hurrah!"  There came a
+time when she turned very pale, and her lips trembled, as they had done
+before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length she rose and paced slowly up the lawn.  On her face was the
+quiet calm of an irrevocable decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-morrow," she said, "I must tell the Boy about the Professor."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+In the middle of the night, Martha, being wakeful, became haunted by
+the remembrance of the smoke, as it had curled from cracks and keyholes
+in the kitchen.  She felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink
+wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the stairs to make sure the house
+was not on fire.  Martha's wakefulness was partly caused by the unusual
+fact of a large and hard curl-paper, behind her left ear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris was also awake.  She was not worried by memories of
+smoke, or visions of fire; and her soft hair was completely innocent of
+curl-papers.  But she was considering how she should tell the boy about
+the Professor; and that consideration was not conducive to calm
+slumber.  She heard Martha go creaking down the stairs; and, as Martha
+came creaking up again, she opened her door, and confronted her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you doing, Martha?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha, intensely conscious of her curl-paper, was about to answer with
+more than her usual respectful irritability, when the eyes of the two
+women&mdash;mistress and maid&mdash;met, in the light of their respective
+candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in the cause of their night
+vigil passed between them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha smiled&mdash;a crooked smile, half ashamed to be seen smiling.  When
+she spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more completely than in the
+daytime.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'E went crawlin' about the kitchen," she said, in a muffled midnight
+whisper; "all in 'is white flannels, puffin' smoke in every crack an'
+'ole to kill the beetles.  So kind 'e meant it; but I couldn't sleep
+for wonderin' if the place was smokin' still.  I 'ad to go down an'
+see.  'Ow came you to be awake, Miss Christobel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Things he said in the garden, Martha, have given me food for thought.
+I began thinking them over; and sleep went."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha smiled again&mdash;and this time the smile came more easily.  "'E
+<I>'as</I> a way of keepin' one on the go," she said; "but we'd best be
+gittin' to sleep now, miss.  'E'll be at it again to-morrow, bless 'is
+'eart!"  And Martha, in her pink wrapper, lumbered upwards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Boy, who had this disturbing effect on the women who loved him,
+slept soundly himself, one arm flung high above his tumbled head.  And
+if the sweet mother, who perforce had had to let her dying arms slip
+from about her baby-boy, almost before his little feet could carry him
+across a room, saw from above the pure radiance on his lips and brow as
+he slept, she must have turned to the Emerald Throne with glad
+thanksgiving for the answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's prayers.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the third day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FOURTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"I am exhausted," said the Boy, reaching out a long arm, and securing
+his third piece of hot buttered-toast.  "I am ruffled.  My usual calm
+mental poise is overthrown&mdash;and on the Sabbath, of all days!  Every
+feather I possess has been rubbed up the wrong way."  He lay back in
+the depths of his chair, stretched out his legs, and looked dejectedly
+at Christobel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her quiet smile enveloped him.  Her look was as a cool touch on a hot
+forehead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor Little Boy Blue!  I thought something was wrong.  I should feel a
+keener anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less obviously consoling."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll jolly well never go again," said the Boy, with indignation.  "Not
+me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Before you were born, Boy; when I went to school," said Miss
+Charteris, "we were taught to say 'Not <I>I</I>.'  And if you were to tell
+me where you have been, on this Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to
+give you more intelligent sympathy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've been to a drawing-room meeting," said the Boy, "and I've heard a
+woman hold forth.  For an hour and a quarter, I've sat stuffed up,
+breathing the atmosphere of other people's go-to-meeting clothes, and
+heard a good lady go meandering on, while I had no room for my legs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought you seemed finding them extra long, Boy.  Why did you go to
+a drawing-room meeting?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I went," said the Boy, "because the dear old thing in whose house it
+was held asked me to go.  She used to know my mother.  When I was at
+Trinity she looked me up, often invited me to her charming home, gave
+me excellent little dinners, followed by the kindest, nicest, most
+nervous little preachments.  Don't look amused, dear.  I never failed
+to profit.  I respected her for it.  She is as good and genuine as they
+make 'em; and if <I>she</I> had stood up this afternoon, with her friendly
+smile, and dear shaky old voice, and given us an exposition of the
+twenty-third Psalm, we should have all come away quite 'good and
+happy.'  Instead of which&mdash;oh, my wig!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy took an explosive bun, and put it whole into his mouth.  "The
+only way to manage them on Sunday," he explained, as soon as speech was
+possible, "when sweeping is not the right thing.  But let us hope
+Mollie's papa's 'clerical brethren' won't find it out.  There would
+certainly be less conversation and fewer crumbs, but no fun at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't think you need be afraid, Boy dear.  Even should such a way
+out of the difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to think they would
+prefer the explosion, to the whole bun at a mouthful.  It has a rather
+startling effect, you know, until one gets used to seeing it done.  I
+can't quite imagine an archdeacon doing it, while standing on the
+hearthrug in conversation with my brother.  Now tell me what the good
+lady said, which you found so trying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, she meandered on," grumbled the Boy.  "She told us all we should
+have been, if we had not been what we were; and all we might be, if we
+were not what we are; and all we shall be, when we are not what we are!
+She implored us to consider, and weigh well, <I>where</I> we should go, if,
+by a sudden and unexpected dispensation of Providence, we ceased to be
+where we then were.  I jolly well knew the answer to <I>that</I>; for if
+Providence had suddenly dispensated&mdash;which it didn't, for a good
+three-quarters of an hour&mdash;I should have been here, <I>here</I>, HERE, as
+fast as my best Sunday boots could carry me!"  His brown eyes softened.
+"Ah, think what '<I>here</I>' means," he said.  "Think!  'Here' means <I>You</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Miss Charteris did not wish the conversation to become too
+meltingly personal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What else did she say, Boy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He consulted the mulberry leaves, then bounded in his chair.  "Ha, I
+have it!  I kept this tit-bit for you.  She used an astronomical
+illustration, I haven't the least idea apropos of what, but she told us
+exactly how many millions of miles the sun is from the earth; and then
+she smiled upon us blandly, and said: 'Or is it billions?'  Think of
+that!  She said: '<I>Or is it billions?</I>' in exactly the same tone of
+voice as she might have said of the bonnet she had on: 'I bought it, at
+a sale, for elevenpence three farthings, <I>or was it a shilling</I>?'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy, you really <I>are</I> naughty!  I never connected you with
+personal sarcasm."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, but that sort of woman shouldn't," complained the Boy.  "And with
+half Cambridge sitting listening.  'Millions, or is it billions?'  Oh
+lor!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor thing!" remarked Miss Charteris.  "She could not have known that
+she had in the audience a person who had only just avoided the drawback
+to future enterprise, of being Senior Wrangler.  Had she realized that,
+she would have been more careful with her figures."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tease away!" said the Boy.  "I don't care, now I am safe here.  Only I
+shan't tell you any more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want to hear any more, Boy.  I always enjoy appreciations,
+even of things I do not myself appreciate.  But non-appreciations do
+not appeal to me.  If a person has meant to be effective and proved
+inadequate, or tried to do good and done harm, I would rather not know
+it, unless I can help to put matters right.  Have some more tea, Boy;
+and then I want to talk to you myself.  I have something rather special
+to tell you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy stood up and brought his cup to the little table.  When she had
+filled it, he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow on the arm of her
+chair, and drank his tea there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry, dear," he said, presently.  "I won't do it again.  Perhaps
+I listened wrong, because I was bored at being there at all.  I say,
+Christobel&mdash;it has just occurred to me&mdash;did you know my mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old garden was very still.  A hush, as of the Paradise of God,
+seemed suddenly to fall upon it.  As the Boy asked his quiet question,
+a spirit seemed to hover, between them and the green dome of mulberry
+leaves above them, smoothing the Boy's tumbled hair, and touching the
+noble brow of the woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, thankful
+spirit&mdash;eternally remembering, and tenderly glad to be remembered.  For
+a few moments the silence was a silence which could not be broken.  The
+Boy lifted wondering eyes to the moving leaves.  Christobel laid her
+hand upon his, as it gripped her chair.  An unseen voice seemed to
+whisper to the Boy&mdash;not in the stern tones of the Church, but as an
+eager, anxious, question: "Wilt thou&mdash;have&mdash;this woman&mdash;to be thy
+wedded wife?"  And silently the Boy replied: "Please God, I will"; and,
+bending, kissed the hand resting on his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The spell lifted.  Christobel spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her.  I have often wondered whether I might tell
+you.  She and my mother were dear friends.  I was thirteen when she
+died.  You were three, poor Little Boy Blue!  Two things I specially
+remember about your mother: the peculiar radiance of her face&mdash;a light
+from within, shining out; and the fact that when she was in a room the
+whole atmosphere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted.  I think she
+lived very near heaven, Boy; and, like Enoch, she walked straight in
+one day, and came back no more.  She 'was not'; for God took her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another long holy silence.  The mulberry leaves were still.  Then the
+Boy said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me heaps more&mdash;details&mdash;lots
+of little things about her?  No one ever has.  But I seem almost to
+begin to remember her, when you talk of her.  Meanwhile, may I show you
+this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew from the inner pocket of his coat, a small well-worn
+pocket-Bible.  Opening it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss
+Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was hers," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She bent over it and read the inscription:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center">
+<I>M. A. Chelsea</I><BR>
+<BR>
+"<I>Through faith and patience inherit the promises.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a hand that trembled:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center">
+<I>To my Baby Boy from his Mother</I><BR>
+<BR>
+"<I>I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She looked at it in silence.  How much had this book meant during all
+these years, to the "Baby Boy"?  Had the book in his pocket, and the
+prayers hovering about him, something to do with the fact that he was
+still&mdash;just Little Boy Blue?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had taken a fountain pen from his pocket, and was shaking it
+vigorously over the grass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now he passed it to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Write your dear name beneath," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Infinitely touched, she made no comment, raised no question.  She took
+the pen, and wrote just "<I>Christobel</I>."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FIFTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Sir Boy," said Miss Charteris with decision, "this is your fifth
+day.  Our time is nearly over.  You have done most of the talking.  You
+have had things entirely your own way.  What? ... Oh, well, <I>almost</I>
+entirely your own way.  I have allowed you to play your Old Testament
+game to your heart's content.  With commendable adaptability, <I>I</I> have
+been Jericho, and <I>you</I> have marched round.  I have been Jericho in my
+own garden, and have refreshed the invading army with hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns.  Now it is my turn to take the
+initiative.  Jenkins having removed the tea, and it being too hot for
+tennis, I am going to ask you to sit still, while I explain to you
+quite clearly why I must send you away at the close of the seventh day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She tried to hide her extreme trepidation beneath a tone of gay banter.
+She hoped it did not sound as forced to him as it did to herself.  The
+Boy's clear eyes were fixed upon her.  Had he noticed the trembling of
+her hands, before she steadied them by laying hold of the arms of her
+chair?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So now for a serious talk, if you please, Sir Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Excuse me, dear," said the Boy, "the Israelites were not allowed to
+parley."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You need not parley," said Miss Charteris; "you are requested merely
+to listen.  You may smoke if you like.  I understand cigarette smoke is
+fatal to black-beetles.  Possibly it has the same effect on garden
+insects.  Russell tells me we are overrun by snails.  Smoke, Boy, if
+you like."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear," said the Boy, his head thrown back, his hands thrust deep into
+his coat pockets, "I never have the smallest desire to smoke in your
+presence.  I should feel as if I were smoking in church."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you dear amazing altogether absurd boy!  Don't look at me like
+that.  And don't say such unexpected things, or I shall be unable to
+parley satisfactorily."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When <I>I</I> went to school," remarked the Boy, "and you were an engaging
+little girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: 'Do not look at me
+<I>thus</I>'; at least, masters frequently appeared to think it necessary to
+make that remark to me.  I can't imagine why; because they were not
+specially worth looking at; excepting that a very large person, in a
+very angry condition, always presented a spectacle of extreme interest
+to my juvenile mind.  It was so fascinating to watch and see what they
+would do next.  They were like those wooden monkeys and bears you buy
+in Swiss shops, don't you know?  You pull a hanging string, and their
+legs and arms jump about unexpectedly.  One always felt a really angry
+grown-up was a mere puppet.  Unseen fingers were pulling the string;
+and it was funny to watch.  There was an exciting element of danger,
+too; because sometimes a hand jerked up and boxed your ears."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "it must have been quite impossible ever
+to be <I>mildly</I> angry with you.  Either one would have waxed impotently
+furious; or one would have wanted to&mdash;to hug you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy leapt up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or I shall send you away.  And I do
+not wish to do that; because I have quite made up my mind to tell you
+to-day, a thing which I suppose I ought to have told you long ago; and
+I tried to do so, Boy; but somehow you always made it impossible.  I
+want to&mdash;to tell you about&mdash;the Professor."  She paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was so very difficult.  It was like rolling a heavy stone up a steep
+hill.  And the Boy made no attempt to help her.  He lay back with an
+exaggerated display of resignation.  He looked at her with sleepy,
+amused eyes.  And he asked no questions.  The army of Israel obviously
+declined to parley.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have long felt I ought to tell you about the Professor," continued
+Miss Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy sighed.  "I think I jolly well know all there is to know about
+professors," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not about this one," explained Miss Charteris.  "He is <I>my</I> Professor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, if he's <I>your</I> Professor," said the Boy, sitting up, "of course I
+am interested.  But I am not sure that I approve of you having a tame
+Professor; especially when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves them in
+the hall."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am afraid nobody will ask whether you approve or not, Little Boy
+Blue.  The Professor has been a great friend of mine during nearly
+twelve years; and I think I am possibly&mdash;in fact, very probably&mdash;going
+to marry the Professor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really?" said the Boy.  "May I ask when he proposed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has not proposed, Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy produced his pocket-book, took out a calendar, and studied it
+attentively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I'm afraid you will have some time to wait," he said.  "It will
+not be leap year again until 1912."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This sounded impertinent; but the Boy could no more have been guilty of
+intentional impertinence toward her, than he could have picked her
+pocket; and Miss Charteris knew it.  There was one thing of which those
+who had dealings with Christobel Charteris could always be
+sure&mdash;absolute justice.  She had seen the Boy's face whiten suddenly,
+to a terrible pallor, beneath his tan.  She knew he was making a
+desperate fight for self-control.  How best could she help?  Her own
+part seemed almost more than she could manage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come here, Boy dear," she said, holding out her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He hesitated one instant; then rose unsteadily to his feet, and
+came&mdash;not to his usual place at the side, bending over her; but in
+front of her, on one knee, silently waiting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She bent forward.  "Take my hand, Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took it, in a firm unhesitating clasp.  They held each other so, in
+silence.  The colour came back into the Boy's face.  The dumb horror
+died out of his eyes.  They smiled into hers again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now promise me, Boy dear, that you will let me tell you all; and that
+you will try not to misunderstand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dearest," said the Boy, "I promise.  But I do not need to say I
+will try not to misunderstand.  I could not misunderstand you, if I
+tried."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then go back to your chair, Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went.  His eyes were bright again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, please to understand that I am not engaged to the Professor.  Of
+course, had that been the case, I should have told you, long ago.  He
+has never said one word to me of love or marriage.  But he has been a
+great friend&mdash;an intimate friend, intellectually; and I have reason to
+know that he wishes&mdash;has wished for years&mdash;a good deal more than he has
+ever expressed to me.  He has waited, Boy; and when anybody has waited
+nearly twelve years, could one fail them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, of course!" cried the Boy, eagerly.  "If a man could wait twelve
+years&mdash;good heavens, why shouldn't he wait twenty!  A man has no
+business to wait; or to be able to wait; or to keep a woman waiting.
+Twelve years?  Oh, I say!  I didn't wait twelve days.  Now, did I?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled.  "You break all speed records, Boy, always.  But cannot you
+understand that all men have not fifty thousand a year, and the world
+at their feet?  Had you been penniless, Boy, you&mdash;even you&mdash;would have
+had to wait."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy, stoutly.  "I would drive a cab, I would
+sweep a crossing, I would <I>do</I> anything, or <I>be</I> anything; but I
+wouldn't wait for the woman I loved; nor would I"&mdash;his voice dropped
+almost to a whisper&mdash;"keep the woman who loved me, waiting."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But suppose she had a comfortable little income of her own; and you
+had less&mdash;much less&mdash;to offer her?  Surely, Boy, proper pride would
+keep you from asking her to marry you, until your income at least
+equalled hers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy.  "That sort of rot isn't proper pride.  It's
+just selfish false pride.  However much a woman had, when a man&mdash;a
+<I>man</I>, mind you, not an old woman, or a <I>thing</I> with no pluck or
+vertebra&mdash;when a man gives a woman his whole love, his whole life, the
+worship of his whole body, heart, and soul, he has given her that which
+no money could buy; and were she a millionairess she would still be
+poor if, from false pride, he robbed her of that gift which was his to
+give her&mdash;and perhaps his alone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "it sounds very plausible.  But it is so
+easy to be plausible with fifty thousand a year in the background.  Let
+me tell you about the Professor.  He has, of course, his fellowship,
+and is quite comfortably off now, living as a bachelor, in rooms.  But
+he practically supports his unmarried sister, considerably older than
+himself, who lives in a tiny little villa, and keeps one maid.  The
+Professor could not afford to marry, and set up a larger establishment,
+on his present income; at least he apparently thinks he could not.  And
+your theory of robbing the woman who&mdash;the woman he loves, does not
+appear to have occurred to him.  But, during all these years he has
+been compiling an Encyclopedia&mdash;I don't suppose you know what an
+Encyclopedia is, Boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, don't I?" said the Boy.  "It's a thing you pile up on the floor to
+stand upon when you want to fix a new pipe-rack."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris ignored this trying definition of an Encyclopedia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Professor is compiling a wonderful book," she said, with dignity;
+"and, when it is completed and published, he will be in a position to
+marry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has he told you so?" inquired the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Boy.  He has never mentioned the subject of marriage to me.  But
+he has told his sister; and she has told me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ha!" said the Boy.  "Miss <I>H</I>ann, I suppose.  I must say, I distrust
+Miss <I>H</I>ann."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do <I>you</I> know of Miss Ann?" inquired Christobel, astonished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Only that she's always a-<I>h</I>egging of 'em on," said the Boy, calmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The indignant blood rushed into the fair proud face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy!  You've been gossiping with Martha."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have, dear; I admit it.  You see, I arrived early, on the third day;
+found the garden empty; went gaily into the house to look for you.  Ran
+up into the hall; when up got a pair of old goloshes&mdash;eh, what?  Oh,
+sorry&mdash;up got a pair of <I>new</I> goloshes, and hit me in the eye!  A
+professor's cap and gown hung up, as if at home; and while I meditated
+upon these things, the voice of my Belovčd was uplifted in loud and
+sonorous Greek, exclaiming: 'Avaunt, rash youth!  Thou impudent
+intruder!'  Can you wonder that I avaunted&mdash;to Martha?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will please tell me at once all Martha said to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I will, dear.  Don't be vexed.  I always meant to tell you,
+some time or other.  I asked her whose were the goloshes; the umbrella
+with the&mdash;er&mdash;decided figure; the suspended cap and gown.  Martha said
+they were the Professor's.  I inquired whether the Professor stayed to
+tea.  You really can't blame me for asking that; because I had gone to
+the kitchen for the express purpose of carrying out the tea-tray, yours
+and mine; but <I>not</I> the Professor's.  No possible pleasure could have
+resulted, either to you, or to me, or to the Professor, from my
+unexpected appearance with the tea-tray, if the Professor had been
+there.  Now could it?  I think it would be nice of you, dear, and only
+fair, if, remembering the peculiar circumstances of that afternoon, you
+just said: 'No; it couldn't.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I asked Martha whether the Professor stayed to tea, and heard
+that 'Thank goodness, no!' we drew the line at that, except when Miss
+<I>H</I>ann came too.  With the awful possibility of Miss <I>H</I>ann 'coming
+too,' on one of my priceless days, I naturally desired a little light
+thrown on Miss <I>H</I>ann.  I was considerably relieved to learn that Miss
+<I>H</I>ann suffers from the peculiar complaint&mdash;mental, I gather&mdash;of
+'fancying herself in a bath-chair.'  This might be no hindrance to the
+'<I>h</I>egging on' propensities, but it certainly diminished the chances of
+the 'coming too.'  That was all, dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, you ought to have been ashamed of yourself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I was, the moment I saw you walk down the lawn.  But you really
+needn't look so indignant.  I was working for you, at the same time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Working for me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, dear.  I told Martha her wisps would look nicer if she curled
+them.  I also suggested 'invisible pins.'  If you like I will tell you
+how I came to know about 'invisible pins'; but it is a very long story,
+and not <I>specially</I> interesting, for the lady in the case was my
+great-aunt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy," said Miss Charteris, laughing in spite of herself; "I wish
+you were the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands at Dovercourt.  I
+would dearly like to shake you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," he said, "you did more than shake me, just now.  You gave me
+about the worst five minutes I ever had in my life.  Christobel?  You
+don't really care about the Professor?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, dear, I really do.  I have cared about him very much, for years."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, as a woman loves a book; but not as a woman loves a man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Explain your meaning, please."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, violently.  "Do you love his
+mouth, his eyes, his hair&mdash;&mdash;?"  The Boy choked, and stopped short.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris considered, and replied with careful deliberation.  "I
+do not know that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears a beard.  His
+eyes are not strong, but they look very kind through his glasses.  His
+hair?  Well, really, he has not much to speak of.  But all these things
+matter very little.  His <I>mind</I> is great and beautiful; his thoughts
+appeal to me.  I understand his way of viewing things: he understands
+mine.  It would be a wonderful privilege to be able to make life easy
+and happy for one for whom I have so profound a respect and esteem.  I
+have looked upon it, during the last few years, as a privilege which
+is, eventually, to be mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Christobel," cried the Boy, "it is wrong, it is terrible!  It is not
+the highest.  I can't stand it, and I won't.  I will not let you give
+yourself to a wizened old bookworm&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be quiet, Boy," she said, sharply.  "Do you wish to make me really
+angry?  The Professor is not old.  He is only fourteen years my senior.
+To your extreme youth, fifty may seem old.  The Professor is in his
+prime.  I am afraid we have nothing to gain, Boy, by prolonging this
+discussion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But we can't leave it at this," said the Boy, desperately.  "Where do
+I come in?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you don't come in at all, excepting as
+a very sweet idyll which, all through the years to come, I shall never
+forget.  You begged for your seven days, and I gave them.  But I never
+led you to assume I could say 'Yes.'  Now listen, Boy, and I will tell
+you the honest truth.  I do not know that I am ever going to marry the
+Professor.  I only feel pledged to him from the vague belief that we
+each consider the other is waiting.  Don't break your heart over it,
+Boy; because it is more than likely it will never come to pass.
+But&mdash;even were there no Professor&mdash;oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you.
+I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly and deeply than I have ever
+before loved anything or any one on this earth.  But I could not marry
+a boy, however dearly I loved him; however sweet was his love to me.  I
+am a woman grown, and I could surrender myself wholly, only to a man
+who would wholly be my mate and master.  I cannot pretend to call my
+Little Boy Blue 'the <I>man</I> I love,' because he is really dearest to me
+when I think of him, with expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down
+the sands to find his cannon-ball....  Oh, Boy, I am hurting you!  I
+hate to hurt you, Boy.  Your love is so beautiful.  Nothing as perfect
+will ever touch my life again.  Yet I cannot, honestly, give what you
+ask....  Boy dear, ought I to have told you, quite plainly, sooner?  If
+so, you must forgive me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy had risen, and stood before her.  "You always do the right
+thing," he said, "and never, under any circumstances, could there be
+anything for me to forgive you.  I have been an egregious young ass.  I
+have taken things for granted, all along the line.  What must you think
+of me!  Why should you care?  <I>You</I>, with your intellectual
+attainments, your honours, your high standing in the world of books?
+<I>Why</I> should you care, Christobel?  Why <I>should</I> you care?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood before her, straight and tall and desperately implacable.  The
+exuberant youth had died out of his face.  For the first time, she
+could not see in him her Little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why should you care?" he said again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rose and faced him.  "But I <I>do</I> care, Boy," she said.  "How dare
+you pretend to think I don't?  I care very tenderly and deeply."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pooh!" said the Boy.  "Do you suppose I wished you to marry a
+bare-toed baby, with sand on its nose?"  He laughed wildly; paused and
+looked at her, then laughed again.  "A silly little ass that said it
+didn't like girls?  Oh, I say!  I think it's about time I was off.
+Will you walk down to the gate? ... Thanks.  You are always most
+awfully good to me.  I say, Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor's
+name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Harvey," she said, quietly.  "Kenrick Harvey."  The dull anguish at
+her heart seemed almost more than she could bear.  Yet what could she
+say or do?  He was merely accepting her own decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Harvey?" he said.  "Why of course I know him.  He's not much to look
+at, is he?  But we always thought him an awfully good sort, and kind as
+they make 'em.  We considered him a confirmed bachelor; but&mdash;well, we
+didn't know he was waiting."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had reached the postern gate.  Oh, would he see the growing pain
+in her eyes?  What was she losing?  What had she lost?  Why did her
+whole life seem passing out through that green gate?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye," he said, "and please forget all the rot I talked about
+Jericho.  It goes with the spade and bucket, and all the rest.  You
+have been most awfully kind to me, all along.  But the very kindest
+thing you can do now, is to forget all the impossible things I thought
+and said...  Allow me....  I'll shut the door."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but he was bareheaded.  He laughed
+again; turned, and passed out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy!  Boy!  Come back," said Christobel.  But the door had closed on
+the first word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This time she did not wait.  Where was the good of waiting?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned and walked slowly up the lawn, pausing to look at the
+flowers in the border.  The yellow roses still looked golden.  The
+jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale purple faces to the
+sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Boy was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She reached her chair, where he had placed it, deep in the shade of the
+mulberry-tree.  She felt tired; worn-out; old.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She leaned back with closed eyes.  She had hurt him so.  She remembered
+all the glad, sweet confident things he had said each day.  Now she had
+hurt him so....  What radiant faith, in love and in life, had been his.
+But she had spoiled that faith, and dimmed that brightness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she remembered his dead mother's prayer for him.  "<I>I have
+prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not</I>."  And under those words she
+had written "<I>Christobel</I>."  Would he want to obliterate that name?
+No, she knew he would not.  Nothing approaching a hard or a bitter
+thought could ever find a place in his heart.  It would always be the
+golden heart of her little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tears forced their way beneath her closed lashes, and rolled slowly
+down her cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said aloud, "I love you so&mdash;I love you so!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know you do, dear," he said.  "It's almost unbelievable&mdash;yet I know
+you do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She opened her eyes.  The Boy had come back.  She had not heard his
+light step, on the springy turf.  He knelt in his favourite place, on
+the left of her chair, and bent over her.  Once more his face was
+radiant.  His faith had not failed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked up into his shining eyes, and the joy in her own heart made
+her dizzy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she whispered, "not my lips, because&mdash;I am not altogether
+yours&mdash;I may have to&mdash;you know?&mdash;the Professor.  But, oh Boy, I can't
+help it!  I'm afraid I care terribly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was quite silent; yet it seemed to her that he had shouted.  A burst
+of trumpet-triumph seemed to fill the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent lower.  "Of course I wouldn't, Christobel," he said; "not
+before the seventh day.  But there's a lot beside lips, and it's all so
+dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she felt the Boy's kisses on her hair, on her brow, on her eyes.
+"Dear eyes," he said, "shedding tears for my pain.  Ah, dear eyes!"
+And he kissed them again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put up her hand, to push him gently away.  He captured it, and held
+it to his lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop, Boy dear," she said.  "Be good now, and sit down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He slipped to the grass at her feet, and rested his head against her
+knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch.  Her Little Boy Blue
+had come back to her.  Oh, bliss unutterable!  Why worry about the
+future?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How silly we were, dear!" he said.  "How silly to suppose we could
+part like that&mdash;you and I!"  Then his sudden merry laugh rang out&mdash;oh,
+such music! such sweet music!  "I say, Christobel," he said, "it is all
+very well <I>now</I> to say 'Stop, and be good.'  But on the seventh day,
+when the walls fall down, and I march up into the citadel, I shall give
+you millions of kisses&mdash;or will it be <I>billions</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Judging from my knowledge of you, Boy dear," she said, "I rather
+<I>think</I> it would be billions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Later, as they stood once more by the postern gate, he turned, framed
+in the doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was their second parting that day, and how different from the first.
+There was to be a third, unlike either, before the day was over; but
+its approach was, as yet, unsuspected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as he stood in the doorway, full in a shaft of sunlight, the glad
+certainty in his eyes smote her with sudden apprehension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said, "take care!  You are building castles again.
+They will tumble about our ears.  I haven't promised you anything,
+Little Boy Blue of mine; and I am afraid I shall <I>have</I> to marry the
+Professor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you do, dear," he said, "I shall have to give him a new umbrella as
+a wedding present!"  And the Boy went whistling down the lane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, out of sight of the postern gate and of the woman who, leaning
+against it, watched him to the turning, he dropped his bounding step
+and jaunty bearing.  His face grew set and anxious; his walk, perplexed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, God," said the Boy, as he walked, "don't let me lose her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few minutes later, a telegram was put into his hand from the friend
+left on the coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Arrange Channel flight, if possible, day after to-morrow</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not I," said the Boy, crumpling the message into his pocket.  "The day
+after to-morrow is the seventh day."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+He was dining with friends, but an unaccountable restlessness seized
+him during the evening.  He made his excuses, and returned to the Bull
+Hotel soon after nine o'clock.  The hall-porter at once handed him a
+note, left by special messenger, ten minutes earlier.  It was marked
+"urgent."  The handwriting was Christobel's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy flung away his cigarette, tore the note open, and turned to a
+light.  It was very short and clear.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Boy dear,&mdash;I must see you at once.  You will find me in the garden.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"<I>Christobel.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+When the Boy had turned the corner and disappeared, Miss Charteris
+passed through the little postern gate, and moved slowly up the lawn.
+Ah, how different to her sad return from that gate an hour before!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The William Allen Richardsons still opened their golden hearts to the
+sunset.  The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" still lifted their
+purple faces to the sky.  But instead of stabbing her with agony, they
+sang a fragrant psalm of love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ah, why was the Boy so dear?  Why was the Boy so near?  She had watched
+him go striding down the lane, yet he still walked beside her; his gay
+young laugh of glad content was in her ears; his pure young kisses on
+her brow and eyes; his head against her knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just as she reached the mulberry, Jenkins hastened from the house.  The
+note he brought, in a familiar handwriting, thin and pointed, was
+marked "urgent" in one corner, and "immediate" in the other; but Miss
+Ann's notes usually were one or other.  This happened to be both.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You need not wait, Jenkins," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood close to a spreading branch of the mulberry.  Her tall head
+was up among the moving leaves.  Whispering, they caressed her.
+Something withheld her from entering the soft shade, sacred to herself
+and the Boy.  She stood, to read Ann Harvey's letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she read, every vestige of colour left her face.  Bending over the
+letter, she might have been a sorely troubled and perplexed replica of
+the noble Venus of Milo.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Folding the letter, she went slowly up the lawn, still wearing that
+white look of cold dismay.  She spoke to Martha through the open
+window, keeping her face out of sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha," she said, "I am obliged to go immediately to Miss Ann.  If I
+am not back by eight o'clock, I shall be remaining with her for
+dinner."  She passed on, and Martha turned to Jenkins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By the way, Jenkins was having an unusually festive time.  During the
+last twenty-four hours, Martha had been kinder to him than he had ever
+known her to be.  He was now comfortably ensconced in the Windsor
+armchair in a corner of the kitchen, reading yesterday's daily paper,
+and enjoying his pipe.  Never before had his pipe been allowed in the
+kitchen; but he had just been graciously told he might bring it in, if
+he wouldn't be "messy with the <I>h</I>ashes"; Mrs. Jenkins volunteering the
+additional remarkable information, that it was "good for the beetles."
+Jenkins was doubtful as to whether this meant that his pipe gave
+pleasure to the beetles, or the reverse; but experience had taught him
+that a condition of peaceful uncertainty in his own mind was to be
+preferred to a torrent of vituperative explanation from Martha.  He
+therefore also received in silence the apparently unnecessary
+injunction not to go "crawlin' about all over the floor"; it took "a
+figure to do that!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eight o'clock came, and Miss Charteris had not returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Remaining with 'er for dinner," pronounced Martha, flinging open the
+oven, and wrathfully relegating to the larder the chicken she had been
+roasting with extreme care; "an' a precious poor dinner it'll be!
+Jenkins, <I>you</I> may 'ave this sparrow-grass.  <I>I</I> 'aven't the 'eart.
+An' me 'oping she'd 'ave 'ad the sense to keep <I>'im</I> to dinner; knowing
+as there was a chicking an' 'grass for two.  Now what's took Miss
+<I>H</I>ann 'urgent and immediate,' I'd like to know!" continued Martha,
+deriving considerable comfort from banging the plates and tumblers on
+to the kitchen table, with just as much violence as was consistent with
+their personal safety, as she walked round it, laying the table for
+supper.  "Ate a biscuit, I should think, an' flown to 'er cheat.  I've
+no patience; no, <I>that</I> I 'aven't!"  And Martha attacked the loaf, with
+fury.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At a quarter before nine, Miss Charteris returned.  In a few moments
+the bell summoned Jenkins.  The note he was to take was also marked
+"Immediate."  He left it on the kitchen table, and, while he changed
+his coat, Martha fetched her glasses.  Then she followed him to the
+pantry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Ere, run man!" she said, "run!  Never mind your muffler.  Who wants a
+muffler in June?  <I>'E</I>'s in it!  It's something more than a biscuit.
+Drat that woman!"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+A quarter of an hour later, a tall white figure moved noiselessly down
+the lawn, to the seats beneath the mulberry.  The full moon was just
+rising above the high red wall, gliding up among the trees, huge and
+golden through their branches.  Christobel Charteris waited in the
+garden for the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He came.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By then, the lawn was bathed in moonlight.  She saw him, tall and slim,
+in the conventional black and white of a man's evening dress, pass
+silently through the postern gate.  She noted that he did not bang it.
+He came up the lawn slowly&mdash;for him.  He wore no hat, and every
+clear-cut feature of the clean-shaven young face showed up in the
+moonlight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the mulberry, he paused, uncertain; peering into the dark shadow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Christo<I>bel</I>?" he said, softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear; I am here.  Come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He came; feeling his way among the chairs, and moving aside a table,
+which stood between.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found her, sitting where he had found her, on his return, three
+hours before.  A single ray of moonlight pierced the thick foliage of
+the mulberry, and fell across her face.  He marked its unusual pallor.
+He stood before her, put one hand on each arm of her chair, and bent
+over her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it?" he said, softly.  "What is it, dear heart?  It is so
+wonderful to be wanted, and sent for.  But let me know quickly that you
+are not in any trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked up at him dumbly, during five, ten, twenty seconds.  Then
+she said: "Boy, I have something to tell you.  Will you help me to tell
+it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I will," he said.  "How can I help best?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," she answered.  "Oh, I <I>don't</I> know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He considered a moment.  Then he sat down on the grass at her feet, and
+leaned his head against her knees.  She passed her fingers softly
+through his hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What happened after I had gone?" asked the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jenkins brought me a note from Miss Harvey, asking me to come to her
+at once, to hear some very wonderful news, intimately affecting
+herself, and the Professor, and&mdash;and me.  She wrote very ecstatically
+and excitedly, poor dear.  She always does.  Of course, I went."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?" said the Boy, gently.  The pause was so very long, that it
+seemed to require supplementing.  He felt for the other hand, which had
+been holding the lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips.  It was
+wet with tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy started.  He sat up; turned, resting his arm upon her lap, and
+tried to see her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go on, dear," he said.  "Get it over."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy," said Miss Charteris, "a rich old uncle of the Harveys has died,
+leaving the Professor a very considerable legacy, sufficient to make
+him quite independent of his fellowship, and of the production of the
+Encyclopedia."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are very happy about it, naturally.  Poor Ann is happier than I
+have ever seen her.  And the chief cause of their joy appears to be
+that now the Professor is, at last, in a position to marry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann is full of it.  She told me a
+good many very touching things.  I had no idea it had meant so much&mdash;to
+him&mdash;all these years.&mdash;Boy dear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall have to marry the Professor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know how to make you understand why I feel so bound to them.
+They were very old friends of my father and mother.  They were so good
+to me through all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone.  Miss Ann
+is a great invalid, and very dependent upon love and care, and upon not
+being thwarted in her little hopes and plans.  She expects to come and
+live in&mdash;in her brother's home.  She knows I should love to have her.
+And he has done so much for me, intellectually; so patiently kept my
+mind alive, when it was inclined to stagnate; and working, when it
+would have grown slack.  He has given up hours of his valuable time to
+me, every week, for years."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the moonlight, through an opening in the mulberry leaves, fell
+upon his upturned face.  She saw the anguish in his eyes.  She turned
+his head away, resting it against her knee, and clasped her hands upon
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I know.  In a most extraordinary
+way&mdash;in a way I cannot understand&mdash;you have won my body.  It yearns to
+be with you; it aches if you suffer; it lives in your gladness; it
+grows young in your youth.  Nobody else has ever made me feel this; I
+do not suppose anybody else ever will.  But&mdash;oh Boy&mdash;bodies are not
+everything.  Bodies are the least of all.  And I think&mdash;I <I>think</I> the
+Professor holds my mind.  He won it long ago.  I have grown much older
+since then, and very tired of waiting.  But I can look back to the time
+when I used to think the greatest privilege in the world would be, to
+be the&mdash;to marry the Professor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She paused, and waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bodies count," said the Boy, in a low voice.  "You'll jolly well find,
+that bodies count."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was such a relief to hear him speak at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I know, Boy dear," she said.  "But more between some, than others.
+The Professor and I are united, primarily, on the mental and spiritual
+plane.  Being so sure of this, realizing the difference, makes it less
+hard, in a way, to&mdash;to give up my Little Boy Blue.  Boy dear, you must
+help me; because I love you as I have never loved anybody else in this
+world before; as I know I never shall love again.  But I am bound in
+honour not to disappoint the man who <I>knows</I> I have waited for him.
+Miss Ann admitted to me to-night that she has told him.  She said, in
+the first moments of joy she <I>had</I> to tell him; he was so anxious; and
+so diffident.  Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think I should
+have begged off.  But&mdash;as he knows&mdash;as they have trusted me&mdash;dear, we
+must say 'good-bye' to-night.  He is going to write to me to-morrow,
+asking if he may come.  I shall say: 'Yes.' ... Boy dear?  Is it very
+hard? ... Oh, can't you see where duty comes in?  There can be no true
+happiness if one has failed to be true to what one knows is just and
+right....  Can't you realize, Boy, that <I>they</I> have been everything to
+me for seven <I>years</I>?  <I>You</I> have come in, for seven <I>days</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Time is nothing," said the Boy, suddenly.  "You and I are one,
+Christobel; eternally, indissolubly <I>one</I>.  You will find it out, when
+it is too late.  Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hesitated.  The Boy's theories were so vital, so vigorous, so
+assured.  Was she making a mistake?  There was no question as to the
+pain involved by her decision; but was that pain to result as she
+believed, in higher good to all; or was it to mean irreparable loss?
+The very knowledge that her body so yearned for him, led her to
+emphasize the fact that the Boy could not&mdash;oh surely could not&mdash;be a
+fit mate for her mind.  Yet he was so confident, so sure of himself, in
+regard to her, on every point; so unhesitatingly certain that they were
+meant for each other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then she saw Ann Harvey, with clasped hands, saying: "<I>Darling</I>
+child, forgive me, but I <I>had</I> to tell Kenrick!  He is so <I>humble</I>&mdash;he
+was so <I>diffident</I>, so doubtful of his own powers of attraction.  I
+<I>had</I> to tell him that I knew you had been very fond of him for
+<I>years</I>.  I did not say much, sweet child; but just enough to give dear
+Kenrick <I>hope</I> and <I>confidence</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She could see Miss Ann's delicate wrinkled face; the tearful eyes; the
+lavender ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious hair-brooch, fastening
+the old lace at her neck.  The scene was photographed upon her memory;
+for, in that moment, Hope&mdash;the young Hope, born of the youthful Boy and
+his desires&mdash;had died.  Christobel Charteris had taken up the burden of
+life; a life apart from the seven days' romance, created by the amazing
+over-confidence of her Little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The masterful man attracts; but, in the end, it is usually the
+diffident man who wins.  The innate unselfishness of the noblest type
+of woman, causes her to yield more readily to the insistence of her
+pity than to the force of her desire.  In these cases, marriage and
+martyrdom are really&mdash;though unconsciously&mdash;synonymous; and the same
+pure, holy courage which went smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the
+altar.  Does a martyr's crown await it, in another world?  Possibly.
+The only perplexing question, in these cases, being: What awaits the
+wrecked life of "the other man"?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel Charteris had put her hand to the plough; she would not look
+back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "you must say 'good-bye' and go.  I am
+going to marry the Professor quite soon, and I must not see you again.
+Say 'good-bye,' Boy dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the Boy's anguish broke through all bounds.  He flung his arms
+around her, and hid his face in her lap.  A sudden throb of speechless
+agony seemed to overwhelm them both, submerging all arguments, all
+casuistry, all obligations to others, in a molten ocean of love and
+pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, give her to me!  Give her to me!
+O God, give her to me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was silent at once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then bending, she gathered him to her, holding his face against her
+breast; sheltering him in the tenderness of her arms.  He had never
+seemed so completely her own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, when
+she listened to his hopeless prayer: "O God, give her to me!"  This was
+the Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon-balls; who faced the
+world, with sand upon his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes;
+indomitable courage in his heart.  She forgot the man's estate to which
+he had attained; she forgot the man's request to which she had given a
+final denial.  She held him as she had first longed to do, when his
+nurse, in unreasonable wrath, shook him on the sands; she rocked him
+gently to and fro, as his dead mother might have done, long years ago.
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears upon her neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart stood still.  Then the full
+passion of her tenderness awoke, and found voice in an exceeding bitter
+cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I cannot bear it!  I cannot bear it!  Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you
+shall have all you wish&mdash;all&mdash;all! ... Do you hear, my Little Boy Blue?
+It shall all be for you, darling; all for you!  Nobody else matters.
+You shall have all you want&mdash;all&mdash;all&mdash;all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Silence under the mulberry-tree; the silence of a great decision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he drew himself gently but firmly from her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood before her, tall, erect, unbending.  The moonlight fell upon
+his face.  It had lost its look of youth, taking on a new power.  It
+was the face of a man; and of a man who, having come to a decision,
+intended, at all costs, to abide by it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Christobel," he said.  "No, my Belovčd.  I could not accept
+happiness&mdash;even <I>such</I> happiness&mdash;at so great a cost to you.  There
+could be no bliss for you, no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great
+love, if you had gone against your supreme sense of duty; your own high
+conception of right and wrong.  Also, Christobel, dearest&mdash;you must not
+give yourself in a rush of emotion.  You must give yourself
+deliberately where your mind has chosen, and where your great soul is
+content.  That being so, I must be off, Christobel; and don't you worry
+about me.  You've been heavenly good to me, dear; and I've put you
+through so much.  I will go up to town to-night.  I shall not come
+back, unless you send for me.  But when you want me and send&mdash;why, my
+Love, I will come from the other end of the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stooped and took both her hands in his; lifted them reverently,
+tenderly, to his lips; held them there one moment, then laid them back
+upon her lap, and turned away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She saw him walk down the moonlit lawn, tall and erect.  She saw him
+pass through the gate, without looking back.  She heard it close
+quietly&mdash;not with the old boyish bang&mdash;yet close irrevocably,
+decisively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she shut her eyes, and began again to rock gently to and fro.
+Little Boy Blue was still in her arms; it comforted her to rock him
+there.  But the man who had arisen and left her, when he might, taking
+advantage of her weakness, have won her against her own conscience and
+will; the man who, mastering his own agony, had thus been brave and
+strong for her&mdash;had carried her whole heart with him, when he went out
+through the postern gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In rising, he left the Boy in her arms.  Through the long hard years to
+come, she prayed she might keep him there&mdash;her own Little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he who went out alone, for her sake to face life without her, was
+<I>the man she loved</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She knew it, at last.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the fifth day</I>."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SIXTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+MISS ANN HAS "MUCH TO SAY"
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+On the afternoon of the sixth day, at the hour which had hitherto been
+kept for the Boy, Christobel Charteris, in response to another urgent
+and immediate summons, went to take tea with Miss Ann.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had been a long, dull, uneventful day, holding at first a certain
+amount of restless uncertainty as to whether the Boy was really gone;
+mingled with apprehensive anticipation of a call from the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before noon a reply-paid telegram arrived from the Boy, sent off at
+Charing Cross.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Good morning.  All's well.  Just off for Folkestone.  Please tell me
+how you are.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+To which, while Jenkins and the telegraph-boy waited, Miss Charteris
+replied:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Quite well, thank you.  Do be careful at Folkestone.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+and afterwards thought of many other messages which she might have
+sent, holding more, and better expressed.  But that precious moment in
+touch with the Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed so impossible to
+think of anything but commonplace words, while Jenkins stood at
+attention near the table; and the telegraph-boy kept ringing his
+bicycle-bell outside, as a reminder that he waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted by this momentary contact with
+the Boy.  He still cared to know how she was.  And it was so like him
+to put: "All's well."  He wished her to know he had not gone down
+beneath his trouble.  "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+Brave Little Boy Blue, of long ago!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The expectation of the Professor's note or call remained, keeping her
+anxious; until she heard from Ann Harvey, that her brother had been
+obliged to go to London on business, and would not return until the
+evening.  "Come to tea with me, dear child," the note concluded; "we
+have <I>much</I> to say!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed to Christobel that there remained nothing which Miss Ann had
+not already said, in every possible form and way.  Nevertheless, she
+put on her hat, and went.  Miss Ann had succeeded in impressing all her
+friends with the conviction that her wishes must never be thwarted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann had named her villa "Shiloh," undoubtedly a suitable name, so
+far as she herself was concerned; her time being mostly spent upon a
+comfortable sofa in her tiny drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker
+lounge beneath the one tree in her small garden; or being carefully
+wheeled out in a bath-chair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa in any sense a "resting-place."
+She had a way of keeping everybody about her&mdash;from jaded Emma to the
+most casual caller&mdash;on the move, while she herself presented a delicate
+picture of frail inactivity.  Immediately upon their arrival, her
+friends found an appointed task awaiting them; but it was always
+something which Miss Ann would have given to somebody else to do, had
+they not chanced at that moment to appear; and they were usually left
+with the feeling that the particular somebody else&mdash;whose <I>privilege</I>
+they, in their well-meant zeal, had usurped&mdash;would have accomplished it
+better.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Directing them from the sofa, Miss Ann kept her entourage busy and
+perpetually on the move.  Yet she never felt she was asking much of
+them; nor, however weary at the conclusion of the task, did they ever
+feel much had been accomplished, owing to the judicious use of the word
+"just."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear," Miss Ann would say, "as you <I>are</I> here, will you <I>just</I>
+clean the canary?"  Cleaning the canary meant a very thorough turning
+out of an intricate little brass cage; several journeys up and down
+stairs in quest of sand, seed, and brass polish, and an out-door
+excursion to a neighbour's garden for groundsel.  The canary's name was
+"Sweetie-weet," and, however much annoyed Miss Ann's friends might be
+feeling with the canary, they had to call him "Sweetie-weet" all the
+time they "cleaned him," lest his flutterings should upset Miss Ann.
+Now you cannot say "Sweetie-weet" in an angry voice.  Try, and you will
+see.  Consequently Miss Ann's friends had no vent for their feelings
+during the process of getting a rather large hand in and out of a very
+small brass door with a spring, which always snapped to, at the wrong
+moment, while the hand, which seemed to its possessor larger than it
+had ever seemed before, was crooked round in an impossible position in
+a strained attempt to fix Sweetie-weet's perches.  If anything went
+wrong during the cleaning process, Miss Ann, from her vantage-ground on
+the sofa would sigh, and exclaim: "Poor patient little Sweetie-weet!"
+Miss Ann was in full possession of all her faculties.  Her hearing was
+preternaturally sharp.  It was no use saying "Fiend!" to Sweetie-weet,
+in an emphatic whisper.  He fluttered the more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the task was completed, the cage had to be brought to Miss Ann's
+couch for inspection.  She then usually discovered the perches to have
+been put back before they were perfectly dry.  Now <I>nothing</I>&mdash;as surely
+you hardly ought to require to be told&mdash;was so prejudicial to
+Sweetie-weet's delicate constitution as to have <I>damp</I> wood beneath his
+<I>precious</I> little feet.  Consequently all the perches had <I>just</I> to be
+taken out again, dried before the kitchen fire, and put back once more.
+When this mandate went forth, the glee in the bright black eyes in
+Sweetie-weet's yellow head was unmistakable.  He shared Miss Ann's
+mania for keeping people busy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When, at last, the second installation of perches was over, and the
+cage was suspended from the brass chain in the sunny window,
+Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill crescendo of ear-piercing
+sarcasm&mdash;"a little song of praise" Miss Ann called it&mdash;directed full at
+the hot and exhausted friend, who was applying a pocket-handkerchief to
+the wire scratches on the back of her hand, and trying to smile at Miss
+Ann's recital of all Emma would say, when she found that her special
+privilege and delight&mdash;the cleaning of Sweetie-weet&mdash;had been wrested
+from her by the over-zealous friend.  As a matter of fact, jaded Emma's
+personal remarks about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-drying process in
+the kitchen, had been of a nature which would not bear repeating in
+Sweetie-weet's presence, and had provided the only amusement the friend
+had got out of the whole performance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Christobel Charteris arrived at Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the
+green velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; a Shetland shawl
+about her shoulders, fastened by the largest and most mysterious of her
+hair-brooches&mdash;a gold-mounted oval brooch, in which a weeping willow of
+fair hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark hair; while a crescent
+moon of grey hair kept watch over both.  This funereal collection of
+family hair always possessed a weird fascination for small children,
+brought by their parents to call upon Miss Ann.  The most
+undemonstrative became affectionate, and hastened with ready docility
+to the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to obtain a closer view, and to
+settle the much disputed point as to the significance of a small round
+object in the left-hand corner at the bottom.  In fact, to the
+undisguised dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster once emerged from
+Miss Ann's embrace, exclaiming eagerly to his little sister: "It's a
+furze-bush, <I>not</I> a hedgehog!"  An unfortunate remark, which might have
+been taken by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal matters than a
+detail in her brooch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel herself was not altogether free from the spell of this
+hirsute cemetery; chiefly because she knew it was worn on days when
+deep emotion was to be felt and expressed.  At sight of it, she was
+quite prepared for the tearful smile with which Miss Ann signed to her
+to close the door.  Then extending her arms, "Sweet sister," she said,
+with emotion, "let me take you to my heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was somewhat startling to Christobel to be apostrophized as "sister"
+by Miss Ann.  The Boy had made her feel so young, and so completely his
+contemporary, that if Miss Ann had called her "daughter," or even
+"granddaughter," it would have seemed more appropriate.  Also her
+magnificent proportions constituted a somewhat large order for Miss
+Ann's proposed embrace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+However, she knelt beside the sofa, and allowed herself to be taken to
+Miss Ann's heart in sections.  Then, having found and restored Miss
+Ann's lace pocket-handkerchief, she seated herself in a low chair
+beside the couch, hoping for enlightenment upon the immediate prospects
+of her own future.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann wept gently for a while.  Christobel sat silent.  Her recent
+experience of tears, wrung from such deep anguish of soul, made it less
+easy for her to feel sympathetic towards tears which flowed from no
+apparent cause, and fell delicately into perfumed lace.  So she waited
+in silence, while Miss Ann wept.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room was very still.  The bang with which the Boy usually made his
+entry anywhere, would have been terrific in its joyful suddenness.  At
+the mere thought of it, Christobel's heart stood still and listened.
+But this was a place into which the Boy would never make an entry,
+noisy or otherwise.  Besides&mdash;the Boy was gone.  Oh, silent, sober,
+sorry world!  The Boy was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sweetie-weet put his head on one side, and chirped interrogatively.  In
+his judgment, the silence had lasted sufficiently long.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann dried her eyes, making an effort to control her emotion.  Then
+she spoke, in a voice which still trembled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dearest child," she said, "I want you <I>just</I> to cover this book for
+me.  Emma has offered to do it, several times, but I said: 'No, Emma.
+We must keep it for Miss Christobel.  I do not know <I>what</I> she would
+say to you, if you took to covering my books!'  Emma is a good soul,
+and willing; but has not the <I>mind</I> and <I>method</I> required to cover a
+book properly.  If you will <I>just</I> run up to my room, dear child, you
+will find a neat piece of whity-brown paper laid aside on purpose....
+Hush, Sweetie-weet!  Christobel knows you are pleased to see her....
+It is either on the ottoman behind the screen, or in the top left-hand
+drawer of the mahogany chest, between the window and the fireplace.
+Ah, how much we have come through, during the last twenty-four hours!
+The scissors, dear Love, are hanging by black tape from a nail in the
+store-room.  You require a large and <I>common</I> pair for cutting brown
+paper.  How truly wonderful are the ways of Providence, dear
+Christobel!  The paste is in the little cupboard under the stairs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Miss Charteris had finished covering the book, having bent upon it
+all the <I>mind</I> and <I>method</I> it required, she forestalled the setting of
+another task, by saying firmly: "I want an important talk now, please.
+Ann, are you sure you told your brother that I had cared for him for
+years?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Darling, dear Kenrick was so <I>diffident</I>; so unable to realize his own
+powers of <I>attraction</I>; so&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you think it was fair toward a woman, even if it were true, to tell
+a man who had never asked her love, that that love has long been his?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sweet child, how crudely you put it!  I merely <I>hinted, whispered</I>;
+gave the most <I>delicate</I> indications of what I knew to be your feeling.
+For you <I>do</I> love my brother; do you not, dear Christobel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," said Miss Charteris, slowly, weighing each word; "I think I
+love the Professor as a woman loves a book."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a moment of tense silence in Miss Ann's drawing-room.
+Christobel Charteris looked straight before her, a stern light upon her
+face, as of one confronted on the path of duty by the clear shining of
+the mirror of self-revelation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Into Miss Ann's pale blue eyes shot a gleam of nervous anxiety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sweetie-weet chirped, interrogatively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her hands.  "Ah, what a beautiful
+definition!" she said.  "What <I>could</I> be more pure, more perfect?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris knew a love of a very different kind, which was
+absolutely pure, and altogether perfect.  But that was the love she had
+put from her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A woman could hardly marry a book," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory shriek.  "Darling child!" she cried.
+"<I>No</I> simile, however beautiful, should be pressed too far!  Your
+exquisite description of your love for dear Kenrick merely assures us
+that your union with him will prove one of complete contentment to the
+mind.  And the <I>mind</I>&mdash;that sensitive instrument, attuned to all the
+immensities of the intellectual spheres&mdash;the <I>mind</I> is what really
+matters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bodies count," said Miss Charteris, with conviction; adding beneath
+her breath, the dawning of a smile in her sad eyes: "We shall jolly
+well find, bodies count."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann's hearing, as we have already remarked, was preternaturally
+sharp.  She started.  "My dear Christobel, what an expression!  And do
+you not think, that, under these circumstances, any mention of bodies
+savours of impropriety?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris turned quickly.  The colour flamed into her beautiful
+face.  The glint of angry indignation flashed from her eyes.  But the
+elderly figure on the couch looked so small and frail.  To wound and
+crush it would be so easy; and so unworthy of her strength, and wider
+experience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she remembered a little blue back, round with grief and shame;
+a small sandy face, silent and unflinching; a brave little heart which
+kept its faith in God, and prayed on trustfully, while nurses
+misunderstood and bullied.  Then Miss Charteris conquered her own wrath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear Ann," she said, gently, "do you really believe your brother would
+be much disappointed if&mdash;after all&mdash;when he asks me to marry him&mdash;which
+he has not done yet&mdash;I feel it better not to do so?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My <I>darling</I> child!" exclaimed Miss Ann, and her hair-brooch flew
+open, as if to accentuate her horror and amazement.  "My <I>darling</I>
+child!  Think how patiently he has waited!  Remember the long years!
+Remember&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know," said Miss Charteris.  "You told me all that last night,
+didn't you?  But it seems to me that, if a man can wait twelve years,
+he might as well wait twenty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So he would have!" cried Miss Ann.  "<I>Undoubtedly</I> dear Kenrick would
+have waited <I>twenty years</I>, had it not been for this fortunate legacy,
+which places him in a position to marry at once.  But why should you
+wish to keep him waiting any longer?  Is not twelve years sufficiently
+long?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Twelve days would be too long for some
+people," she said, gently.  "I have no wish to keep him waiting.  But
+you must remember, Ann, the Professor has, as yet, spoken no word of
+love to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear child," said Miss Ann, eagerly; "he would have come to you
+to-day, but imperative legal business, connected with our uncle's will,
+took him to town.  I know for certain that he intends writing to you
+this evening; and, if you then give him leave to do so, he will call
+upon you to-morrow.  Oh, <I>darling</I> girl, you will not disappoint us?
+We have so trusted you; so <I>believed</I> in you!  A less scrupulously
+honourable man than Kenrick, might have tried to bind you by a promise,
+before he was in a position to offer you immediate marriage.  Think of
+all the hopes&mdash;the hopes and p-<I>plans</I>, which depend upon your
+faithfulness!"  Miss Ann dissolved into tears&mdash;but not to a degree
+which should hinder her flow of eloquence.  "Ah, sweetest child!  You
+knelt beside this <I>very</I> sofa, five years ago, and you said: 'Ann, I
+think <I>any</I> woman might be proud to become the wife of the Professor!'
+Have you forgotten that you said that, kneeling beside this <I>very</I>
+sofa?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have not forgotten," said Miss Charteris; "and I think so still."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you <I>will</I> marry Kenrick?" said Miss Ann, through her tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel Charteris rose.  She stood, for a moment, tall and
+immovable, in the small, low room, crowded with knick-knacks&mdash;china,
+bric-ŕ-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph
+frames&mdash;overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were
+overfilled with a varied assortment of cushions.  Miss Ann's
+drawing-room gave the effect of a rather prettily arranged bazaar.  You
+mentally pictured yourself walking round, admiring everything, but
+seeing nothing you liked quite well enough to wish to buy it, and take
+it home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, in her simple white gown,
+looked so utterly apart from the trumpery elegance of these
+surroundings.  As the Boy had said, the mellow beauty of his ancestral
+homes would indeed be a fit setting for her stately grace.  But she had
+sent away the Boy, with his beautiful castles in the air, and places in
+the shires.  The atmosphere and surroundings of Shiloh were those to
+which she must be willing to bend her fastidious taste.  Miss Ann would
+expect to make her home with the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you <I>will</I> marry Kenrick?" whispered Miss Ann, through her lace
+pocket-handkerchief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel bent over her, tenderly; fastening the clasp of the
+mysterious hair-brooch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear Ann," she said.  "It will not be leap year again, until 1912.
+And, meanwhile, the Professor has not proposed marriage to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann instantly brightened.  Laughing gaily, she wiped away a few
+remaining tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, naughty!" she said.  "Naughty, to make me tell!  But as you <I>will</I>
+ask&mdash;<I>he is going to write to-night</I>.  But you must never let him know
+I told you!  And now I want you just to find the <I>Spectator</I>&mdash;it is
+laid over that exquisitely embroidered blotter on the writing-table in
+the window, sent me last Christmas by that kind creature, Lady
+Goldsmith; so thoughtful, tasteful, and <I>quite</I> touching; Emma, careful
+soul, spread it over the blotter, while darling Sweetie-weetie took his
+bath.  Dear pet, it is a sight to see him splash and splutter.  Lady
+Goldsmith thinks so much of dear Kenrick.  The first time she saw him,
+she was <I>immensely</I> struck by his extraordinarily clever <I>appearance</I>.
+He sat exactly opposite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she told me
+afterwards that the mere sight of him was sufficient to take away all
+inclination for food; excepting for that intellectual nourishment which
+he is so well able to supply.  I thought that was rather well
+expressed, and, coming from a <I>florid</I> woman, such as Lady Goldsmith,
+was quite a tribute to my brother.  You <I>would</I> call Lady Goldsmith
+'florid,' would you not, dear Christobel? ... Oh, you do not know her
+by sight?  I am surprised.  As the <I>wife</I> of the <I>Professor</I>, you will
+soon know all these distinguished people by sight.  Yes, she is
+undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be what my dear father used to call
+'a woman of a stout habit.'  This being the case, it was certainly a
+<I>tribute</I>&mdash;a tribute of which you and I, dearest child, have a right to
+feel justly proud....  Oh, is it still damp?  Naughty Sweetie-weet!
+Don't you think it might be wise, <I>just</I> to take it to the kitchen.
+Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before the fire.  I <I>have</I> heard
+of fatalities caused by damp newspapers.  Precious <I>child</I>, we can have
+you run no risks!  What would <I>Kenrick</I> say?  But when it is
+<I>absolutely</I> dry, I want you just to explain to me the <I>gist</I> of that
+article on the effect of oriental literature on modern thought.
+Kenrick tells me you have read it.  He wishes to discuss it with me.  I
+really cannot undertake to read it through.  I have not the <I>time</I>
+required.  Yet I must be prepared to talk it over intelligently with my
+brother, when next he pays me a visit.  He may look in this evening,
+weary with his day in town, and requiring the relaxation of a little
+intellectual conversation.  I must be ready."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+An hour later, somewhat tired in body, and completely exhausted in
+mind, Miss Charteris walked home.  She made a detour, in order to pass
+along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the
+garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She opened it, and passed in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn.  The jolly little "what
+d'-you-call-'ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green
+seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading
+mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green
+shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in.  She
+knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect,
+than his casual acquaintances might suppose.  It would not surprise her
+some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction
+of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems"
+in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the
+mulberry-tree.  She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the
+artist's name.  The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year
+before.  She had chanced to see it.  Noticing the name of her Little
+Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way
+through the crowded rooms, and found his picture.  It hung on the line.
+She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative
+skill.  She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days
+she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting
+in the Academy.  Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had
+greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things
+critics had said of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to
+the Boy to mention it.  The Boy never talked of what he had done,
+<I>because</I> he had done it.  But were a subject mentioned upon which he
+was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he
+knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and
+all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular
+thing.  He would never have thought of informing you that he owned
+three aeroplanes.  But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said
+to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward,
+beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk
+aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen.  This
+trait of the Boy's, caused shallow-minded people to consider him
+conceited.  But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between
+keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical
+self-assertion; and the woman who loved him, smiled tenderly as she
+remembered that even on the day when she scolded him, and he had to
+admit his "barely respectable B.A.," he had not told her of the
+painting hung on the line and mentioned in the <I>Times</I>.  Yet if the
+question of art had come up, the Boy would very probably have sat
+forward in his chair, and talked about his painting, straight on end,
+for half an hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She still stood beneath the archway, in the red-brick wall, as these
+thoughts chased quickly through her mind.  She would have made a fair
+picture for any one who had chanced to be waiting beneath the
+mulberry-tree, with eyes upon the gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Straight on end for half an hour, he would have talked about his
+picture; and how bright his eyes would have been.  And then I should
+have said: 'I saw it, Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as you
+say.'  And he would have answered: 'It jolly well gave you the feeling
+of the scene, didn't it, Christo<I>bel</I>?'  And I should have known that
+his delight in it, as an artistic success, had nothing to do with the
+fact that it was painted by himself.  Just because egotism is
+impossible to him, he is free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled again.  A warm glow seemed to enfold her.  "How well I know
+my Boy!" she said aloud; then remembered with a sudden pang that she
+must not call him <I>her</I> Boy.  She had let him go.  She was&mdash;very
+probably&mdash;going to marry the Professor.  She had not&mdash;with the whole of
+her being&mdash;wanted him to stay, until he had had the manliness to rise
+up and go.  Then&mdash;it had been too late.  Ah, was it too late?  If the
+Boy came back to plead once more?  If once again she could hear him
+say: "Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!" would she not
+answer: "Yes, Guy.  Love <I>is</I> all"?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blood rushed into her sweet proud face.  The name of the man she
+loved had come into her mind unconsciously.  It had never yet&mdash;as a
+name for him&mdash;passed her lips.  That she should unconsciously call him
+so in her heart, gave her another swift moment of self-revelation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She closed the gate gently, careful not to let it bang.  As she passed
+up the lawn, her heart stood still.  It seemed to her that he must be
+waiting, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hardly dared to look.  She felt so sure he was there....  Yes, she
+knew he was there....  She felt certain the Boy had come back.  He
+could not stay away from her on his sixth day.  Had he not said he
+would "march round" every day?  Ah, dear waiting army of Israel!  Here
+was Jericho hastening to meet it.  Why had she allowed Ann Harvey to
+keep her so late?  Why had she gone at all, during the Boy's own time?
+She might have known he would come....  Should she walk past the
+mulberry, as if making for the house, just for the joy of hearing him
+call "Christo<I>bel</I>"?  No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he
+was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She passed, breathlessly, under the drooping branches.  Her cheeks
+glowed; her lips were parted.  Her eyes shone with love and expectation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She lifted a hanging bough, and passed beneath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His chair was there, and hers; but they were empty.  The Boy&mdash;being the
+Boy&mdash;had not come back.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+Presently she went slowly up to the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A telegram lay on the hall table.  She knew at once from whom it came.
+There was but one person who carried on a correspondence by telegraph.
+<I>Reply paid</I> was written on the envelope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood quite still for a moment.  Then she opened it slowly.
+Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used
+to jump about.  He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet,
+before she knew he was going to move.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>How are you, dear?  Please tell me.  I am going to do my big fly
+to-morrow.  I jolly well mean to break the record.  Wish me luck.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Quite well.  Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so
+often called him.  But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all
+over.  It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who
+had gone out at the gate.  It was best he should not know what she
+would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now.  She
+was&mdash;undoubtedly&mdash;going to marry the Professor.  In which case she
+would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue."  So she put it
+into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear."  Then she
+went out, and sent it off herself.  It was comforting to have
+something, however small, to do for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined.  She was
+thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the
+mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing:
+"<I>He is going to do a big fly to-morrow....  He is going to do a big
+fly to-morrow!  Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read.  But
+between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "<I>He
+is going to fly to-morrow.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree.  It
+was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight.  "<I>He
+is going to do a big fly to-morrow.  He jolly well means to break the
+record.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She passed in, and went to her bedroom.  She lay in the darkness and
+tried to sleep.  She tried in vain.  What if he got into
+cross-currents?  What if the propeller broke?  What if the
+steering-gear twisted?  She began remembering every detail he had told
+herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
+lover, though all the while he had been her&mdash;Little Boy Blue....  "<I>Oh
+of course then it is all U P.&mdash;But there must be pioneers!</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last she could bear it no longer.  She lighted her candle, and rose.
+She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
+before, in the whole of her healthy life.  She took a sleeping draught.
+The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
+visit.  She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bromide began to act.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She talked to him softly.  Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
+own.  "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said.  "You may jolly
+well&mdash;what an expression!&mdash;break the record if you like; but don't
+break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bromide was acting strongly now.  The bird with the broken wing had
+gone.  There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears.  It was
+the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him.  She knew sleep
+was coming; merciful oblivion.  Yet now she was too happy to wish to
+sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Boy drew nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
+darkness; "I love you so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know you do, dear," said the Boy.  "It is almost unbelievable,
+Christobel; but I know you do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the Boy&mdash;though far away&mdash;marched round.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06a"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AN INTERLUDE
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her
+room.  The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
+She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea
+on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave
+her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She dressed, and went downstairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened
+and read it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor
+would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal.  He
+touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them
+both.  He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie,
+but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position
+to offer her a suitable home and income.  This was now fortunately the
+case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly
+conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth
+in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to
+win.  She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and
+comrade, during many years.  If she could now bring herself to trust
+him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to
+disappoint or fail her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The letter was signed:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%">
+"<I>Yours in sincere devotion,</I>
+"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<I>KENRICK HARVEY.</I>"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that
+afternoon, for a reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave
+the Professor leave to call at three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor called at three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the
+hall.  He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them
+back again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss
+Charteris awaited him.  He was very nervous.  He repeated the substance
+of his letter, only rather less well expressed.  He alluded to Miss
+Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having
+Christobel as a sister.  But he completely ignored, both in the letter
+and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence.
+For this she was grateful to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters
+of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an
+actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the
+affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great
+affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth
+of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified
+it.  Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back
+to his seat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor
+had an inspiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child
+for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That&mdash;er&mdash;matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he
+said, "should we not find it decidedly&mdash;er&mdash;refreshing to spend an hour
+over our Persian translation?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read,
+translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of
+various passages, her mind wandered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how
+the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what
+the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done.  She was not
+quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the
+Boy with the curb completely off.  But she suddenly remembered:
+"Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a
+shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise.  Then he smiled,
+indulgently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear&mdash;er&mdash;Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous,"
+he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris.  "I beg your pardon.  I
+laughed involuntarily."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor resumed his reading.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No; she was not quite sure as to <I>all</I> the Boy would have done; but she
+knew quite well what he would have said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for
+what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the
+Professor.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing
+became dream-like to Miss Charteris.  She found herself helpless in the
+grip of Miss Ann's iron will&mdash;up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland
+and lace.  At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die
+alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul,
+being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in
+order to go home and nurse her mother.  Emma had seemed a broken woman,
+ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one
+ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind
+not to grant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands.
+Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires.  The Professor
+danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss
+Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist.  The Boy having
+gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter.  It was her duty to
+marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the
+postponement of duty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a
+week.  It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having
+just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were
+researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost
+importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of
+Brussels.  It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being
+obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her
+brother, the bishop.  Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea
+of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland,
+and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival
+would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if
+she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such
+poignant memories of the Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being
+dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris&mdash;who should have had the
+most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge&mdash;found herself
+standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated
+church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old
+clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and
+partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with
+Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while
+Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other.  Martha had
+flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid
+her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most
+morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly:
+"'Ow about <I>'im</I>?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the
+room, sobbing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>How about him?  How about him?</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh
+to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>How about him</I>?  But <I>he</I> had left her to do that which she felt to be
+right, and she was doing it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and
+he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation.  In this
+nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to
+play.  The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would
+come with him.  He would walk straight up the church to her, saying:
+"We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!"  Then they would
+all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say:
+"Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking
+unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching
+nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old
+clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the
+Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann
+sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel looked at the Professor.  His outward appearance seemed
+greatly improved.  His beard had been trimmed; his hair&mdash;what there was
+of it&mdash;cut.  He had not once looked at her since she entered the church
+and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes
+would be kind&mdash;kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex
+lenses.  The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth,
+eyes, and hair.  What questions the amazing Boy used to ask!  And she
+had answered&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts.  The
+all-important question had been put to her.  She had not heard one word
+of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The silence became alarming.  This was the exact psychological moment
+in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue.  But the Boy did
+not dash in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of
+brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question.
+Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly.  The old clergyman peered
+at her, in astonishment, over his glasses.  His eyes were red-rimmed
+and bloodshot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
+tone of reproof, which made of it a menace.  Miss Charteris listened
+carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman
+between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the
+third finger of her left hand.  As they did so, her thoughts wandered
+again.  She was back in the garden with the Boy.  He had caught her
+left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger
+from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he
+had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and
+tenderness.  She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger
+separately.  She looked down at it.  The Professor's ring encircled it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon
+her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she
+might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan
+for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in
+time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by
+an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, <I>en route</I>
+for Brussels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely.  She had
+never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to
+her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels&mdash;and the best
+of hotels.  But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an
+authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that
+hotels&mdash;particularly <I>Metropole</I> hotels&mdash;were scarcely proper places.
+Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the
+company so congenial.  But here the Professor had interposed, laying
+his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial
+company with us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which
+the Professor had as yet ventured.  The sober, middle-aged side of Miss
+Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful
+emotion.  But the youthful soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how
+the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a
+sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition
+bordering on hysterics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to
+themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation
+which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's
+minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual
+appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past.  Before
+long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the
+tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and
+they were deep in translation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and
+trundled slowly off to Cannon Street.  Christobel had imagined
+four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her
+suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression,
+indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the
+sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler&mdash;you dear
+record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy?  That
+ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal
+Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into
+Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting
+on, only to be stopped again; and your Belovčd inside it, Boy dear,
+looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see
+something of the London you had planned to show her in your own
+delightful extravagant way.  Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this!  It is not
+your show.  This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the
+Professor.  The lady within is the bride of the Professor.  Hands off,
+Boy!)
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad
+Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it&mdash;a
+delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books.
+The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty
+entrance through the narrow doorway.  Here he always found precisely
+the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research.  With an
+incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the
+Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop,
+oblivious of his cab, his bride, and his train.  Christobel had
+followed him, and stood, a dignified, but somewhat lonely figure, just
+within the doorway.  She had been to this shop with her father, during
+his lifetime, on several occasions, and had since often written for
+books.  The bookseller came forward.  He was a man possessed of the
+useful faculty of remembering faces and the names appertaining to them.
+Also he had cultivated the habit of taking an intelligent interest in
+his customers.  But he did not connect this beautiful waiting figure,
+with the absorbed back of the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What can I do for you to-day, Miss Charteris?" he inquired, with ready
+courtesy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel started.  "Nothing to-day, thank you, Mr. Taylor.  But I am
+much obliged to you for so often supplying my requirements by return of
+post.  And, by the way, you have an excellent memory.  It is many years
+since I came here last, with my father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Professor Charteris was one of my best customers," said the
+bookseller, in an undertone of deferential sympathy.  "I never knew a
+finer judge of a book than he.  If I may be allowed to say so, I deeply
+deplored his loss, Miss Charteris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, allowing the kindly expression of
+appreciation and regret to reach her with comfort in these moments of
+dream-like isolation.  A friendly hand seemed to have been outstretched
+across the chasm which divides the passionately regretted past, from
+the scarcely appreciated present.  She could see her father's tall
+scholarly figure, as he stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in
+earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, regardless of the passing of
+time; until she was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and hurry him
+through the crowded streets, down the steep incline, to the platform
+from which the Cambridge express was on the point of starting.  And
+when safely seated, with barely a minute to spare, he would turn to
+her, with a smile of gentle reproof, saying: "But, my dear child, we
+had not concluded our conversation."  And she would laugh and say: "But
+we had to get home to-night, Papa."  Whereupon he would lean back,
+contentedly, replying: "Quite right, my dear.  So we had."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ah, happy those whose fathers and mothers still walk the earth beside
+them.  Youth remains, notwithstanding the passing of years, while there
+is still a voice to say, in reproof or approbation: "My child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the bookseller, not yet connecting her with the Professor, still
+waited her pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck Christobel.  An
+eager wish awoke within her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Taylor," she said, hurriedly; "can you supply me with the very
+newest thing on the subject of aviation?  I want to learn all there is
+to know about propellers, steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to
+avoid the dangers&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stopped short.  The Professor had found what he wanted, and was
+fumbling for his purse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bookseller turned quickly to a pile at his elbow, took up a
+paper-covered book, and placed it in her hands.  "The very latest," he
+said.  "Published yesterday.  You will find in it all you want to
+know."  Then, as he handed the Professor his change, "Allow me to place
+it to your account, Miss Charteris," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense of elation and fresh interest
+in life, Christobel, armed with her book on aviation, re-entered the
+four-wheeler.  The Professor, absorbed in his own purchase, had not
+noticed her private transaction.  He followed her into the cab, and
+made three ineffectual attempts to close the door.  Just as the driver
+was slowly beginning to prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came across
+the crowded pavement, to their rescue; released the Professor's
+coat-tail, shut them in, and signed to the cabman to drive on.  With a
+good deal of "gee-up" and whip-flourishing, they re-commenced to
+trundle.  Mr. Taylor was not merely a provider of literature; he was
+also a keen observer of life, and of human nature.  As Christobel
+leaned forward to acknowledge his help, and to smile her farewell, his
+expression seemed to say: "A four-wheeler, Professor Harvey, and the
+latest work on aviation!  An unusual combination."  "Very unusual," she
+said to herself, and smiled again.  Then it seemed to her that her
+friend of the bookshop had said: "You will find what you want, on page
+274."  She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, mentioned any page;
+but the figures came into her mind.  She opened the book, and glanced
+at page 274.  It was headed: "Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea."
+She shut it quickly.  There was no room for the actual presence of the
+Boy in the Professor's four-wheeler.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They lunched at a depôt of the Aerated Bread Company, close to Cannon
+Street station.  While Christobel was struggling with a very large
+plateful of cold tongue, she suddenly remembered that one of the Boy's
+many plans had been to take her to lunch at his favourite restaurant in
+Piccadilly; where she would be able to order any dish she fancied, and
+find it better served than she had ever known it before; or to dine at
+the Hotel Metropole, where Monsieur Delma's perfect orchestra would
+play for her any mortal thing for which she chose to ask, and play it
+better than she had ever heard it played.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These memories, and a really excellent cup of coffee, helped Christobel
+in her struggles with the round of cold tongue; and she looked across
+the little marble-topped table brightly at the Professor, and spoke
+with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But something, other than his own plate of cold tongue, seemed weighing
+on the Professor.  He had become preoccupied and distrait.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they reached the Folkestone train, Christobel found out the cause
+of his preoccupation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear Ann&mdash;I should say Christobel," remarked the Professor,
+hurriedly, as he put her into an empty compartment, and hesitated in
+the doorway.  "I am always accustomed at this hour to have my pipe and
+a nap.  Should you object, my dear Ann&mdash;er&mdash;that is, Christobel, if I
+sought a smoking compartment?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, <I>please</I> do!" she exclaimed, eagerly.  The idea of two hours of
+freedom and solitude suddenly seemed an undreamed of joy.  "Don't think
+of me.  I am quite happy here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will provide you with a paper," said the Professor, and hailed a
+passing boy.  He laid the paper on her lap, and disappeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The train started.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel looked out of the window as they slowly steamed across the
+bridge over the Thames.  She loved the flow of the river, with its
+constant procession of barges, dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent,
+moving highway, right through the heart of the noisy whirl of London
+street-traffic.  They ran past old St. Saviour's Church, now promoted
+to be Southwark Cathedral; out through the suburbs, until streets
+became villas, woods and meadows appeared, and the train ran through
+Chislehurst&mdash;peaceful English resting-place where lie entombed the
+bright Imperial hopes of France&mdash;then on through Sevenoaks, into the
+bowery green of the Kentish hop-gardens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the Professor's paper and glanced
+at it.  Somehow she had felt sure it would be the <I>Daily Graphic</I>.  It
+was the <I>Daily Mirror</I>!  She had never held a halfpenny illustrated
+paper in her hands before.  No doubt it was an excellent paper, and met
+the need of an immense number of people, to whom an additional
+halfpenny a day would be a consideration.  But, that the Professor,
+when providing her with one paper, should have chosen a halfpenny
+instead of a penny paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, and
+called up sudden swift memories of the Boy.  He would have bought
+<I>Punch</I>, the <I>Graphic</I>, the <I>Illustrated</I>, the <I>Spectator</I>, and a
+<I>Morning Post</I>, plumped them all down on the seat in front of her; then
+sat beside her, and talked, the whole journey through, so that she
+would not have had a moment in which to open one of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+(Oh, Boy dear!  Don't look at this <I>Daily Mirror</I>.  You might misjudge
+the good Professor.  With your fifty thousand a year, how can you be
+expected to understand a mind which <I>must</I> consider ha'pence, even when
+brides and wedding journeys are concerned.  <I>Do</I> keep away, Boy dear.
+This is not your wedding journey.)
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she opened the <I>Daily Mirror</I>, and there looked out at her, from
+its central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little
+Boy Blue!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was seated in his flying machine, steering-wheel in hand, looking
+out from among many wires.  His cap was on the back of his head; his
+bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm lips, parted in a
+smile, seemed to be saying: "I jolly well mean to do it."  Beneath was
+an account of him, and a description of the flight he was to attempt on
+that day, across the Channel, circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and
+back.  He was to start at two o'clock.  At that very moment he must be
+in mid-air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Oh, Little Boy Blue!  Little Boy Blue!  You have a way of making hearts
+stand still.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+The boarding-house proved to be a place decidedly conducive to the
+taking of a fresh-air cure; because nobody remained within its four
+walls, if the weather could possibly admit of their going out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as Christobel and the Professor had taken tea, and replied to
+Miss Slinker's many questions, they went out to walk on the Leas until
+sunset.  It was a radiant afternoon, and the strong wind which had
+suddenly arisen, blowing, in unexpected gusts, from the sea, acted as a
+tonic to weary heart and brain.  Christobel, holding on her hat as she
+walked, battled her way beside the Professor, up a cross street, into
+the Sandgate Road.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There they went to the telegraph office, and sent Miss Ann news of
+their safe arrival, and of the extreme comfort they felt sure of
+experiencing at Miss Slinker's delightful abode.  (This was the
+Professor's wording.)
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They looked in at Parson's Library <I>just</I> to order a book Miss Ann
+wanted; and, on a little farther, <I>just</I> to match some crewel silks for
+a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These commissions duly executed, they were free to make their way to
+the Leas parade, whence they would look down upon the beach, and enjoy
+a distance view across the Channel.  They took the side street which
+brought them out upon the esplanade, close to the lift by which people
+continuously mounted or descended the steep face of the cliff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A considerable crowd lined the esplanade railing, looking over eagerly.
+Apparently there was some object of particular interest to be seen
+below.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel and the Professor advanced to the railing, and also looked
+over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She saw a strange thing floating in the sea, between the promenade pier
+and the harbour.  It seemed a huge insect, with broken wings.  Its body
+was a mass of twisted wires.  Around this, a little fleet of
+rowing-boats had gathered.  They looked black, on the blue wind-swept
+waters, like water-boatmen on a village pond.  They darted in and out
+and round about the wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, and
+seemed waiting for a chance to help.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man stood next to Christobel and the Professor; a man who talked to
+himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, poor chap," he said; "poor chap!  So nearly back!  So nearly broke
+the record!  Such a sport!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is that thing in the water?" inquired the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man turned and looked at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An aeroplane," he said, slowly, speaking with a sort of stolid
+deliberation.  "A wrecked aeroplane.  Caught in a cross-current, worse
+luck!  Just accomplished one of the finest flights on record.  Started
+from up here; skimmed over the Channel to Boulogne; circled round the
+cathedral&mdash;such a clear day; we could watch the whole flight with
+field-glasses&mdash;came gaily back without a stop; was making for the cliff
+again, when a cross-current caught him; something went wrong with the
+steering-gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, head first into the
+sea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the&mdash;er&mdash;occupant?" inquired the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The aeronaut?  Ah, he didn't fall clear, worse luck, or they could
+soon have fished him out.  He stuck to his seat and his wheel, and fell
+smash in among his wires.  They are trying to extricate him now.  Bad
+luck, poor chap!  Such a sport."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know his name?" asked the Professor, peering down at the
+waiting crowd which lined the beach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guy Chelsea," said the man.  "And I give you my word, he was the
+finest, pluckiest young amateur we had among the airmen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Christobel's heart began to beat again, and her limbs seemed to
+regain the power to move.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is mine," she said.  "I must go to him.  He is my own Little Boy
+Blue."  And she began to run along the Leas toward the stone steps
+which zigzag down to the shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She heard the Professor running after her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ann," he called, "Ann!  Stay!  This is&mdash;most&mdash;unnecessary!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She flew on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At least take the lift!" bawled the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hurried on and reached the steps, pausing an instant to glance back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor had stopped at the lift, and was waving to her with his
+umbrella.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She could never remember running down those steps.  In what seemed but
+a moment from the time she reached them, she found herself stumbling
+painfully down the steep slope of shingle to the water's edge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lift, bearing the Professor, had just begun to crawl down the face
+of the cliff.  She could see him gesticulating through the glass
+windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd on the shore, chiefly composed of rough men, was thickest
+round the base of a wide stone breakwater, jutting out into the sea.
+On this break-water stood an empty stretcher.  A coast-guardsman
+marched up and down, keeping the crowd off the breakwater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel reached the outskirts of the crowd, and could get no farther.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please let me through," she said.  "I belong to him.  He is mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They turned and looked at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's 'is mother," said a voice.  "Let 'er through."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother be blowed!" said another voice, hoarsely.  "Get out!  She's 'is
+<I>wife</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she cried eagerly.  "Yes!  Oh, do let me through!  I am his
+wife."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she knew it was true.  The Boy's great love had made her his
+wife.  Had he not said: "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally,
+indissolubly <I>one</I>.  You will find it out, when it is too late"?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd parted, making a way for her, straight to the foot of the
+breakwater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She mounted it, and walked towards the empty stretcher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The coast-guardsman confronted her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is mine," she said, quietly.  "I have the right to be here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man saluted, in respectful silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood gazing out to where the crowd of boats hovered about the
+great insect with broken wings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sea gleamed golden in the sunset.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One boat, larger than the rest, slowly detached itself from the general
+męlée, pulling with measured stroke toward the breakwater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something lay very still in the bow, covered with a sail-cloth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boat came toward the breakwater, in a shaft of sunlight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel turned to the man beside her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is there any hope?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Fraid not, lady.  My mate just signalled: all U P."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!" she said, looking wide-eyed into his face.  "Ah!&mdash;But there must
+be pioneers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The coast-guardsman turned and walked toward the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's 'is wife, men," he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his
+shoulder.  "She's 'is wife; yet when I told her it was all U P, she
+said: 'There must be pioneers.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd of roughs doffed their caps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boat drew slowly nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she saw the Professor, hurrying down the shingle, waving his
+umbrella.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He must not come yet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She advanced to the shore end of the breakwater, and spoke to the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Please," she said, "oh, please, if possible, prevent that gentleman
+from reaching the breakwater."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They turned, and saw the advancing figure of the Professor, flurried
+and irate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Ullo, Bill," cried a voice.  "She says: Don't let the old bloke
+through."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They passed the word from one to the other.  "Don't let the old bloke
+through."  They closed the outer ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder.
+The Professor's umbrella waved wildly on the outskirts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She moved along the breakwater.  Yes, that was it.  "Don't let the old
+bloke through."  She had never used such a word in her life before, but
+it just met the needs of the case.  "Don't let the old bloke through."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boat drew nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A bugle, away up on the cliff, sounded the call to arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!  The cow's in the meadow; the
+sheep, in the corn.  Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  Ah,
+dear God!  Where is the Boy?  Where is the Boy?  Where is the
+Boy?&mdash;He's under the sailcloth&mdash;fast asleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boat drew nearer.  She could hear the measured plash of the oars;
+the rhythmic rattle of the rowlocks.  They advanced, to the beat of the
+words in her brain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There must&mdash;be pion&mdash;eers!  Don't let the old bloke through.  Oh,
+where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  He's under the sail-cloth,
+fast asleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boat drew level with the breakwater, grating against it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Under the sail-cloth, Boy dear; under the sail-cloth&mdash;fast asleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tenderly, carefully, they lifted their burden.  As the boat rocked, and
+their feet shuffled beneath the weight, she closed her eyes.  When she
+opened them once more, the quiet Thing under the sail-cloth lay upon
+the stretcher.  Every man within sight stood silent and bareheaded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bugle on the cliff sounded: "lights out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The golden shaft of sunlight died from off the sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she came forward, and knelt beside her Boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly she understood the cry of anguish wrung from the loving heart
+of a woman at a tomb: "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will
+take Him away!"  Oh, faithful heart of woman, alike through all the
+ages; ready, with superhuman effort, to prove a limitless love and a
+measureless grief!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She knelt beside the stretcher, and lifted the sail-cloth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, it was the Boy&mdash;her own Little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His curly hair was matted with blood and salt water.  There was a deep
+gash across his temple, from the ear, right up into the hair His eyes
+were closed; but his lips smiled, triumphant.  "There must be pioneers!
+Every good life given, advances the cause."  "Yes, Little Boy Blue.
+But has it ever struck you, that, if you marry, your wife will most
+probably want you to give up flying; not being able to bear that a man
+who was her ALL, should do these things?"  She lifted the sail-cloth
+quite away, and stood looking down upon him, so shattered, yet so
+beautiful, in his triumphant sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly her arm was seized from behind.  She turned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd, and
+in mounting the breakwater.  His cravat was awry; his top-hat was on
+the back of his head.  He looked at her through his glasses, in amazed
+indignation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Christobel," he said, "this is no place for you.  Come away at once.
+Do you hear?  I <I>bid</I> you come with me at once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only thing she really minded was that his hat was on, in the
+presence of her Dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She could not free her arm from the grip of the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned and pointed to the stretcher, with her left hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My place is here," she said, clearly and deliberately.  "I have the
+right to be here.  This is all a fearful nightmare, from which we are
+bound before long to wake.  But meanwhile, I tell you plainly&mdash;as I
+ought to have told you before&mdash;<I>this is the body of the man I love</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment, one of the crowd, springing on to the breakwater behind
+the Professor, struck off his hat with a cane.  It fell into the sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor let go her arm, and turned to see who had perpetrated the
+outrage, and whether the hat could be recovered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she bent over the stretcher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she whispered, in tones of ineffable tenderness; "this is
+where they have laid you; but <I>I</I> will take you away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put her arms beneath the body; then, with an almost superhuman
+effort, lifted it, and gathered it to her.  It felt limp and broken.
+The head fell heavily against her breast.  The blood and salt-water
+soaked through her thin muslin blouse.  But she held him, and would not
+let him go.  "I will take him away," she whispered; "I will take him
+away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She knew she was losing her reason, but she had known that, ever since
+she first looked down from the top of the cliff, and saw the broken
+wings floating on the sea.  Now, with her Boy in her arms, her one idea
+was to get away from the Professor; away from the coast-guardsmen; away
+from the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Turning her back upon the beach, she staggered along the breakwater,
+toward the open sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will take him away," she repeated; "I will take him away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then her foot slipped.  She still held the Boy, but she felt herself
+falling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She closed her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She never knew which she struck first, the stone breakwater, or the
+sea&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+When Christobel recovered consciousness and opened her eyes, she found
+herself in bed, in her own room, at home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha bent over her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The morning light entered dimly, through closed curtains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In dumb anguish of mind, she looked up into Martha's grim old face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me where you have laid him," she said, "and I will take him away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha snorted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've laid your tea-tray on the table beside your bed, Miss," she said;
+"and when you 'ave finished with it, <I>I</I> will take it away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon, Martha lumbered to the large bow-window, drew back all the
+curtains with a vigorous clatter of brass rings, and let in a blaze of
+morning sunshine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel lay quite still, trying to collect her thoughts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of her pillows was clasped tightly in her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She lifted her left hand, and looked at it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No ring encircled the third finger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha," she called, softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha loomed large at the side of the bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is to-day?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wednesday, Miss," replied Martha, too much surprised to be
+contemptuous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha&mdash;where is Mr. Chelsea?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord only knows," said Martha, tragically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Martha&mdash;is he&mdash;living?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Living?" repeated Martha, deliberately.  Then she smiled, her crooked
+smile.  "Living don't express it, Miss Christobel.  Lively's more like
+it, when Mr. Guy is concerned.  And I reckon, wherever 'e is, e's
+makin' things lively somewhere for somebody.  You don't look quite the
+thing this morning, Miss.  Sit up and take your tea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sat up, loosing the pillow out of her arms&mdash;the pillow which had
+been, first her Little Boy Blue, as she drew him to her in the
+darkness; then the dead body of Guy Chelsea, as she lifted it on the
+breakwater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She took her tea from Martha's hand, and drank it quickly.  She wanted
+Martha to go.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was Wednesday!  Then the Boy had left her only the day before
+yesterday.  His telegram had come last night.  The Professor's proposal
+had not yet reached her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha lifted the tray and departed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Christobel Charteris rose, and stood at her open window, in the
+morning sunlight.  She looked out upon the mulberry-tree and the long
+vista of soft turf; in the dim distance, the postern gate in the old
+red wall&mdash;his paradise, and hers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She lifted her beautiful arms above her head.  The loose sleeves of her
+nightdress fell away, baring them to the elbows.  She might have stood,
+in her noble development of face and form, for a splendid statue of
+hope and praise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, dear God!" she breathed, "is it indeed true?  Is it possible?  Is
+my Boy alive?  And am I free&mdash;free to be his alone?  Am I free to give
+him all he wants, free to be all he needs?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood long at the window motionless, realizing the mental
+adjustment which had come to her during the strenuous hours of the
+night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her dream had taught her one great lesson: That under no circumstances
+whatever, can it be right for a woman to marry one man, while with her
+whole being she loves another.  Love is Lord of all.  Love reigns
+paramount.  No expectations, past or present, based on friendship or
+gratitude; no sense of duty or obligations of any kind could make a
+marriage right, if, in view of that marriage, Love had to stand by with
+broken wings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She felt quite sure, now, that she could never marry the Professor; and
+humbly she thanked God for opening her eyes to the wrong she had
+contemplated, before it was too late.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But there still remained the difficult prospect of having to disappoint
+a man she esteemed so highly; a man who had been led to believe she
+cared for him, and had waited years for him; a man who, for years, had
+set his heart upon her.  This was a heavy stone, and it lay right in
+the path of perfect bliss which she longed to tread with her Little Boy
+Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who should roll it away?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Could she feel free to take happiness with the Boy, if she had
+disappointed and crushed a deeply sensitive nature which trusted her?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She dressed, and went down to the breakfast-room, her soul filled, in
+spite of perplexities, with a radiance of glad thanksgiving.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha and Jenkins came in to prayers.  Martha had now taken to curling
+all her wisps.  She appeared with many frizzled ringlets, kept in place
+by invisible pins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha always came in to prayers, as if she were marching at the head
+of a long row of men and maids.  Jenkins followed meekly, placing his
+chair at what would have been the tail of Martha's imaginary retinue.
+According to the triumphant dignity of Martha's entry, Jenkins placed
+his chair near or far away.  Martha was in great form to-day.  Jenkins
+sat almost at the door.  If the door-bell rang during prayers, the
+first ring was tacitly ignored; but if it rang again, Martha signed to
+Jenkins, who tiptoed reverently out, and answered it.  No matter how
+early in the morning's devotions the interruption occurred, Jenkins
+never considered it etiquette to return.  Miss Charteris used to dread
+a duet alone with Martha.  She always became too intensely conscious of
+herself and of Martha, to be uplifted as usual by the inspired words of
+Bible and Prayer-book.  The presence of Jenkins at once constituted a
+congregation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On this particular morning, no interruptions occurred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The portion for the day chanced to be the scene at the empty tomb, in
+the early dawn of that first Easter Day, as given by Saint Mark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The quiet voice vibrated with unusual emotion as Miss Charteris read:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
+unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.  And they said among
+themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
+sepulchre?  And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled
+away: for it was very great.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Christobel Charteris paused.  She seemed to see the shore at
+Dovercourt, and the brave little figure struggling to carry the heavy
+stone; and, later on when the cannon-ball lay safely in the castle
+court-yard, Little Boy Blue standing erect, with lifted cap, and
+shining eyes, a picture of faith triumphant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How far were the happenings of this strange night owing to that dead
+mother's prayers; and to the Boy's unfailing faith, even through these
+hard days?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris could read no farther.  She closed the Bible.  "Let us
+pray," she said, and turned to the Collect for the week.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>O God, Whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in
+heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all
+hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us;
+through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+She had known it would be there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She poured out her coffee and buttered her toast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she opened the letter.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"My dear Ann"&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After the nightmare through which she had just passed, this beginning
+scarcely surprised her.  She glanced back at the envelope to make quite
+sure it was addressed to herself; then read on.  It was dated the
+evening before, from the Professor's rooms in College.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"MY DEAR ANN,&mdash;I regret to have been unable to look in upon you this
+evening, on my return from town, and my duties will keep me from paying
+you a visit until to-morrow, in the late afternoon.  Hence this letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Needless to say, I have been thinking over, carefully, the remarkable
+statement you saw fit to make to me, concerning the feelings and
+expectations of our young friend.  It came to me as a genuine surprise.
+I have always looked upon our friendship as purely Platonic; based
+entirely upon the intellectual enjoyment we found in pursuing our
+classical studies together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I admit, I cannot bring myself to contemplate matrimony with much
+enthusiasm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At the same time, your feeling in the matter being so strong, and my
+sense of gratitude toward my late friend, a thing never to be
+forgotten; if you are quite sure, Ann&mdash;and I confess it seems to me
+altogether incredible&mdash;that our young friend entertains, toward me,
+feelings which will mean serious disappointment to her, if I fail&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+This brought the letter to the bottom of the first page.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without reading any farther, Miss Charteris folded it, and replaced it
+in the envelope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The indignant blood had mounted to the roots of her soft fair hair.
+But already, in her heart, sounded a song of wondering praise.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it
+was very great.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The iron gate of the front garden swung open.  Hurried steps flew up
+the path.  Emma, poor soul, had been told to <I>fly</I>; and Emma had flown.
+She almost fell into the arms of Jenkins, as he opened the hall door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The note with which Emma had run, at a speed which was now causing her
+"such a stitch as never was," came from Miss Ann, and was marked
+"<I>urgent</I>" and "<I>immediate</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The corners of Christobel's proud mouth curved into a quiet smile as
+she took it from the salver.  She had expected this note.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take Emma downstairs, Jenkins," she said.  "Ask Martha to give her a
+cup of coffee, and an egg, if she fancies it.  Tell Emma, I wish her to
+sit down comfortably and rest.  The answer to this note will be ready
+in about half an hour; not before."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Charteris finished her coffee and toast, poured out a fresh cup,
+and took some marmalade.  She did not hurry over her breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When she had quite finished, she rose, and walked over to the
+writing-table.  She sat down, opened her blotter, took paper and
+envelopes; found a pen, and tried it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she opened Miss Ann's letter, marked "urgent" and "immediate."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"SWEETEST CHILD" (wrote Miss Ann)&mdash;"See what Kenrick has done!  We&mdash;you
+and I&mdash;<I>so</I> understand his dear absent-minded ways.  He wrote this
+letter to you last night, and, owing to his natural emotion and tension
+of mind, addressed it to me!  Needless to say, I have read only the
+opening sentences.  Darling Christobel, you will, I feel sure, overlook
+the very natural mistake, and not allow it in any way to affect your
+answer to my brother's proposal.  Remember how difficult it is for
+<I>great</I> minds to be accurate in the <I>small</I> details of <I>daily</I> life.  I
+have known Kenrick to put two spoonfuls of mustard into a cup of
+coffee, stir it round, and drink it, <I>quite</I> unaware that anything was
+wrong&mdash;I have indeed!  See how our dear Professor needs a <I>wife</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel quite foolishly anxious this morning.  Do send me one line of
+assurance that all is well.  You cannot but be touched by my brother's
+letter.  From beginning to end, it breathes the faithful devotion of a
+lifetime.  Do not misunderstand the natural reticence of one wholly
+unaccustomed to the voicing of sentiment.  I only wish you could hear
+all he <I>says</I> to me!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Then followed a few prayers and devout allusions to Providence&mdash;which
+brought a stern look to the face of Miss Charteris&mdash;and, with a whiff
+of effusive sentiment, Ann Harvey closed her epistle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An open letter from the Professor to herself was enclosed; but this,
+Christobel quietly laid aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She took pen and paper, and wrote at once the note for which Emma
+waited.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"DEAR ANN,&mdash;I enclose a letter from your brother which came, addressed
+to me, this morning, but was evidently intended for you.  I have read
+only the first page, which was quite sufficient to make the true state
+of affairs perfectly clear to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Providence has indeed interposed, by means of the Professor's
+absent-minded ways, to prevent the wrecking of three lives&mdash;mine, your
+brother's, and that of the man I love; to whom I shall be betrothed
+before the day is over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall not tell the Professor that I have seen a portion of his
+letter to you.  I think we owe it to him not to do so.  He has always
+been a true and honourable friend to me.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"Yours,
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"C. C."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+When Emma had duly departed with this letter and enclosure, Miss
+Charteris breathed more freely.  She had been afraid lest, in her
+righteous indignation, in her consciousness of the terrible mischief so
+nearly wrought, she should write too strongly to Miss Ann, thus causing
+her unnecessary pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was quite impossible, to the fine generosity of a nature such as
+that of Christobel Charteris, really to understand the mean,
+self-centred, unscrupulous dishonesty of an action such as this of Miss
+Ann's.  From the calm heights whereon she walked, such small-minded
+selfishness of motive did not come within her field of vision.  She
+could never bring herself to believe worse of Miss Ann than that, in
+some incomprehensible way, she had laboured under a delusion regarding
+herself and the Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ann disposed of, she turned to the Professor's letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not the letter of her dream, by any means; nor was it the letter
+she had sometimes dreamed he would write.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was straightforward and simple; and, holding the key to the
+situation, she could read between the lines a certain amount of
+dismayed surprise, which made her heartily sorry for her old friend.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Professor touched on their long friendship, his regard for her
+parents, his sincere admiration for herself; their unity of interests
+and congeniality of tastes; his sudden change of fortunes; quoted a
+little Greek, a little Sanskrit, and a little Persian; then, fortified
+by these familiar aids to the emotions, offered her marriage, in
+valiant and unmistakable terms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Christobel's heart stood still as she realized that not one word in
+that letter would have revealed to her the true state of the case.
+Truly, under Providence, she had cause to bless the Professor's "dear
+absent-minded ways."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she took pen and paper to reply to his letter, her heart felt very
+warm toward her old friend.  She gave him full credit for the effort
+with which he had done what he had been led to consider was the right
+thing toward her.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"MY DEAR PROFESSOR" (she wrote),&mdash;"I rejoice to hear of your good
+fortune.  It is well indeed when the great thinkers of the world are
+rendered independent of all anxious taking of thought as to what they
+shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be
+clothed.  I like to think of you, my friend, as now set completely free
+from all mundane cares; able to give your undivided attention to the
+work you love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I appreciate, more than I can say, the kind proposition concerning
+myself, which you make in your letter.  I owe it to our friendship to
+tell you quite frankly that I feel, and have long felt, how great an
+honour it would be for any woman to be in a position so to administer
+your household as to set you completely free for your great
+intellectual pursuits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But marriage would mean more than this, and our long friendship
+emboldens me to say that I should grieve to see you&mdash;owing perhaps to
+pressure or advice from others&mdash;burden your life with family ties for
+which you surely do not yourself feel any special inclination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, now, my friend, I must not close my letter without telling you
+how great a happiness has come into my lonely life.  I am about to
+marry a man whom&mdash;" Miss Charteris paused, and looked through the open
+window to the softly moving leaves of the old mulberry-tree.  A gleam
+of amusement shone in her eyes, curving her lips into a tender smile.
+The Boy seemed beside her, slapping his knee and rocking with merriment
+at the way she was about to bewilder Miss Ann and the Professor&mdash;"a man
+whom I have known and loved for over twenty years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sure you will wish me joy, dear Professor.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"Believe me, always,<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Gratefully and affectionately yours,</SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">"CHRISTOBEL CHARTERIS."</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She rang the bell, and sent the answer to the Professor's letter, by
+Jenkins.  She could not wait for the slow medium of the post.  She
+could not let him remain another hour in the belief that, in order to
+save her from disappointment, he was compelled to marry Christobel
+Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stood at the breakfast-room window, and watched Jenkins as he
+hurried down the garden with the note.  Going by the lane, and taking a
+short cut across the fields, he would reach the Professor's rooms in a
+quarter of an hour.  Until then, life was somewhat intolerable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The proud blood mantled again over the face, the strong sweet beauty of
+which the Boy so loved.  Her letter to the Professor had not been easy
+to write.  She had had to be true to herself, and true to him, in the
+light of what she knew to be his real feeling in the matter; bearing in
+mind that before long he would almost certainly learn from Miss Ann
+that she had replied to his proposal after having read his sentiments
+on the subject, so candidly expressed on the first page of his letter
+to his sister.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To relieve her mind, after this intricate whirl of
+cross-correspondence, she took up the <I>Daily Graphic</I>, and opened it,
+casually turning the pages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly there looked out at her from the central page, the merry,
+handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue.  He was seated in his
+flying-machine steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many
+wires.  His cap was on the back of his head, his bright eyes looked
+straight into hers; his firm young lips, parted in a smile, seemed to
+say; "I jolly well mean to do it!"  It was the very picture she had
+seen in the Professor's <I>Daily Mirror</I>, in her dream of the night
+before.  Below was an account of the flight from Folkestone which he
+was about to attempt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she remembered, with a shock of realization, that the flight
+across the Channel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, was to take
+place on that very day.  His telegram, of the night before, had said:
+"I am going to do a big fly to-morrow.  Wish me luck."  Ah, what if it
+ended as she had seen it end in her dream: great broken wings; a mass
+of tangled wire; and the Boy&mdash;<I>her</I> Boy&mdash;with matted hair, and wounded
+head, asleep beneath the sailcloth!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her heart stood still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With their perfect joy so near its fulfilment, she could not let him
+take the risk.  Was there time to stop him?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at the paper.  The start was for 2 p.m.  It was now eleven
+o'clock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She remembered his last words: "When you want me and send&mdash;why, I will
+come from the other end of the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She never quite knew how she reached the telegraph-office.  It seemed
+almost as dreamlike as her flight from the top to the bottom of the
+Folkestone cliffs.  But it was not a dream this time; it was desperate
+reality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Why do people always break the points of the pencils hanging from
+strings in the telegraph-offices?  Surely it is possible to write a
+telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that
+condition, for the next person in a hurry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She flew from compartment to compartment, and at last produced her own
+pencil, and wrote her telegram in the final section of the row,
+independent of official broken points.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Do not fly to-day.  Come to me.  I want you.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"<I>Christobel.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She addressed it to the hotel from which he had telegraphed on the
+previous day; but added to the address: "If not there, send immediately
+to aviation sheds."  She had no idea what to call the places, but this
+sounded well, and seemed an intuition, or an unconscious recollection
+of some remark of the Boy's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She handed it over the counter.  "Please see that it goes through at
+once," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clerk knew her.  "Yes, Miss Charteris," he replied.  He began
+reading the message aloud, but almost immediately stopped, and checked
+the words off silently.  He glanced at the clock.  "It should be there
+before noon, Miss Charteris," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not look at her, as he passed her the stamps.  He had long
+thought her one of the finest women who stepped in and out of the
+post-office.  He had never expected to see her hands tremble.  And
+fancy <I>any</I> woman&mdash;even <I>she</I>&mdash;being able to tell Guy Chelsea not to
+fly!  He had a bet on, about that flight, with an enthusiastic backer
+of Chelsea's.  He was glad he had taken the odds against its coming
+off, before seeing this wire.  But&mdash;after all!  It is easy enough to
+<I>ask</I> a chap not to fly; but&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took up a copy of the <I>Daily Mirror</I>, and looked at the brave
+smiling face.  "I jolly well mean to do it!" the young aeronaut seemed
+to be saying.  The clerk laughed, and shook his head.  "Hurry up that
+wire," he called to the operator.  Then he jingled the loose change in
+his pockets.  "I wonder," he said.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+During the hours which followed, Christobel Charteris knew suspense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perhaps that strong, self-contained nature could never have fully
+sounded the depths of its own surrender, without those hours of
+uncertainty, when nothing stood between her and the man she loved, but
+the possibility that her telegram would fail to reach him; that he
+would carry out his dangerous flight; that disaster and death would
+overtake him and wrest him from her, and that he would die&mdash;Guy Chelsea
+would die&mdash;without ever knowing of the cup of bliss she was now ready,
+with utterly loving hand, to hold to his lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having sent her message, there was nothing more she could do, and the
+burden of inaction seemed almost too great a weight to carry, during
+the hours which must elapse, before his coming could turn uncertainty
+into assurance; restlessness, into peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It did not occur to her, as a possibility, that Guy Chelsea would elect
+to fly, after receiving her request.  She knew her slightest wish would
+be law to the Boy's tender loyalty; and though he knew nothing of her
+cause for anxiety, nor of the complete change of circumstances since he
+left her, not forty-eight hours before, she felt sure he would not fly;
+she felt certain he would come&mdash;if&mdash;<I>if</I> the message reached him in
+time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At two o'clock it came to her, with overwhelming certainty, that her
+message had not reached him, and that he had started on his flight.
+She seemed to see the great wings mounting&mdash;mounting; then skimming
+over the sea.  She almost heard the hum he had so often described&mdash;the
+hum of the giant insect on which the bird-man flew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her own Little Boy Blue was flying through space.  O God, what might
+not any minute be bringing!  He had said: "One never expects those
+things to happen, and when they do happen, it's over so quickly that
+there is no time for expectation."  Was it happening now?  Was it going
+to be over so quickly, that her cup of bliss would be dashed from her
+lips untasted?  Was she to lose her all, because of a cross-current or
+a twisted wire?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was walking up and down the garden now, and paused beside the chair
+in which she had sat when he had said, only seven days ago: "It was
+always you I wanted; not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was you&mdash;you&mdash;just only you, all the
+time?"  And she, half-laughing at him, had asked: "Is this a proposal?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My ALL," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear, my ALL.  If I lose you, I lose my
+ALL."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She walked on slowly, moving to the repetition of those words.  It
+seemed a comfort to repeat the great fact that, at last, he was this to
+her.  Surely it would reach him, by some sort of wireless telegraphy
+through space.  Surely it would control cross-currents, keep propellers
+acting as they should; steering-gear from twisting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O God, he is my ALL&mdash;he is my ALL!"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+The afternoon sun began to glint through the trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale anxious faces to
+the sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clocks all around chimed the hour of four.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly her limbs weakened.  She could walk no longer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sank into a chair, beneath the mulberry-tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few minutes Jenkins would bring out tea.  Would Martha have
+arranged a tea such as the Boy loved, with cups for two, hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What a boy he was, at heart&mdash;this man who had won her; what a gay,
+laughter-loving boy!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She lay back, very still, under the mulberry-tree, and lived again
+through each of the Boy's days, from the first to the sixth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She kept her eyes closed.  The sunlight, glinting through the mulberry
+leaves, fell in bright patches on her white gown, and on her soft
+golden hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The garden was very still.  All nature seemed waiting with the heart
+that waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall blow it all right on the seventh day," the Boy had said; "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the seventh day.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the horn of a motor tooted loudly in the lane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rose, her hands clasped upon her breast, and stood waiting
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shaft of golden sunlight streamed down the garden, and seemed to
+focus on the postern gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the gate swung open and the Boy came in, slamming it behind him.
+She saw him coming up the lawn toward her, bareheaded; the sunlight in
+his shining eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't wait for trains," he shouted.  "I came by motor.  And I
+jolly well exceeded the speed-limit all the way!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She moved a few steps to meet him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy dear," she said, "you always exceed all speed-limits.  It is a way
+you have.  Exceed them as much as you like, so long as I am with you
+when you do it.  But&mdash;oh, my Little Boy Blue!&mdash;don't fly again; for, if
+you fall and break your wings, indeed you will break my heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment she was sobbing on his breast, her arms flung around him.
+There was nothing broken or limp about his strong young body, pulsating
+with life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He put his arms about her, holding her in a clasp of close possessive
+tenderness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not yet understand what had happened; but he knew the great gift
+he desired had been given him.  He waited for her to speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She lifted her face to his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guy," she said; "ah, take me, hold me, keep me!  I am altogether your
+own.  I will explain to you fully, by and by.  The stone was very
+great; but lo, as we reached it, the Angel of the Lord had rolled it
+away....  No other man has a shadow of claim over me.  I am free to
+say, to the only man I have ever really loved: Take me; I am yours.
+Oh, Boy!  I am altogether yours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent over her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sweet proud lips were parted in utter surrender, and lifted to his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused&mdash;just for one exquisite moment, of realization.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She waited his kiss with closed eyes, so she did not see the radiance
+of his face, as he looked up to the blue sky, flecked with fleeting
+white clouds.  But she heard the voice, which from that hour was to
+make the music of her life:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank the Lord," said Little Boy Blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then&mdash;he kissed her.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"<I>And the evening and the morning were the seventh day.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<HR SIZE="5" NOSHADE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>List of</I>
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+MRS. BARCLAY'S NOVELS
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+By FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE ROSARY
+</H4>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="text-align: center">
+Over One Million Copies Sold
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="text-align: center">
+<I>Translated into French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, <BR>
+Finnish, Dutch, and Spanish.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sentiment is never mawkish; it rings true, and throughout the
+whole story there is a vein of elevating emotion which should attract
+lovers of wholesome fiction."&mdash;<I>Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"A youthful sentiment, fresh and romantic, flows through Mrs. Barclay's
+new book, and gives to the story some of the delicate odour of lavender
+and jessamine, and old-fashioned flowers."&mdash;<I>Daily Graphic</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"A worthy successor to 'The Rosary.'  It has the same charm and grip,
+whilst the plot is again unusual and clever...."&mdash;<I>Evening Standard</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"It is a book to turn over in a sunny garden, under shady trees, when
+one might look up from the clear print and see a happy prince coming in
+through the green gate to lead one's own self to
+fairyland."&mdash;<I>Manchester Guardian</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE BROKEN HALO
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"It is the record of the saving of a soul by charity.  The end
+represents the triumph of mortal kindness."&mdash;<I>Standard</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE WALL OF PARTITION
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"A brisk, readable story with a strong plot, full of incident and sure
+of a wide appreciation."&mdash;<I>Globe</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE UPAS TREE
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"The book is full of that mixture of humour, feeling, and religion that
+gain for Mrs. Barclay so wide a popularity."&mdash;<I>Church Family Newspaper</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+RETURNED EMPTY
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"This is certainly the most arresting tale that the authoress has
+produced since her first huge success."&mdash;<I>Daily Mail</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+SHORTER WORKS
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Seven of Mrs. Barclay's Shorter Stories now collected for the first
+time into one volume, and including one which has never before been
+printed in book form.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+</H4>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="text-align: center">
+3s. 6d. net.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="text-align: center">
+Mrs. Barclay's Last Long Novel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It has tenderness, it has a story which never flags, above all it has
+humanity."&mdash;<I>Observer</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+<BR>
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, &amp; New York
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>SOME PRESS OPINIONS ON THE LATE</I>
+</H4>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+</H2>
+
+<P>
+"A writer who appealed to and won the affection of so many of her
+fellow countrymen and women is no negligible quantity.  Indeed there is
+reason to think that Mrs. Barclay understood the tendency of her age
+better than many contemporary novelists whose technical skill exceeded
+hers."&mdash;<I>Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mrs. Barclay's death will be regretted by many thousands of
+readers."&mdash;<I>Morning Post</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'The Rosary' and nearly all her other books were inspired by true
+religious feeling, which she always managed to infuse into the
+imagination of her readers."&mdash;<I>Sphere</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From the highest to the lowest she commanded an attentive
+public."&mdash;<I>Liverpool Daily Courier</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was a purpose behind all she wrote that lifted her books above
+the common, and enabled her to reach readers who would turn away from
+the 'typical best-seller' in disgust."&mdash;<I>Sunday Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mrs. Barclay was not merely a popular authoress.  The ideals she
+preached were high and noble and tended to elevate her
+readers."&mdash;<I>Church Family Newspaper</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The underlying quality of Mrs. Barclay's literary art was her
+wonderful gift of depicting home life, and it was this characteristic
+which made her name loved in countless homes all over the
+land."&mdash;<I>Lady</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She gave wholesale enjoyment to countless thousands, while she was
+also one of the comparatively few popular authoresses who are in
+themselves as good as the very best of their books."&mdash;<I>Glasgow Herald</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+<BR>
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, &amp; New York
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY</I>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE ROSARY<BR>
+THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE<BR>
+THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR<BR>
+THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE<BR>
+THE UPAS TREE<BR>
+THE BROKEN HALO<BR>
+THE WALL OF PARTITION<BR>
+THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER<BR>
+RETURNED EMPTY<BR>
+SHORTER WORKS<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>BY ONE OF HER DAUGHTERS</I>
+</H4>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE LIFE OF FLORENCE BARCLAY<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Through the Postern Gate
+       A Romance in Seven Days
+
+Author: Florence L. Barclay
+
+Release Date: July 31, 2010 [EBook #33309]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Through the Postern Gate
+
+_A ROMANCE IN SEVEN DAYS_
+
+
+
+By
+
+Florence L. Barclay
+
+
+Author of
+
+  "The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone,"
+  "The Following of the Star," etc
+
+
+
+London and New York
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+146_th Thousand_
+
+
+
+  _Made and Printed in Great Britain by
+  The Camelot Press Limited,
+  Southampton._
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY
+
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY
+
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY
+
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY
+
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+
+
+THE FIFTH DAY
+
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+
+
+THE SIXTH DAY
+
+MISS ANN HAS "_MUCH_ TO SAY"
+
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+
+
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY
+
+THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BUTE
+
+"But it was not your niece!  It was always you I wanted," said the Boy.
+
+He lay back, in a deep wicker chair, under the old mulberry-tree.  He
+had taken the precaution of depositing his cup and saucer on the soft
+turf beneath his chair, because he knew that, under the stress of
+sudden emotion, china--especially the _best_ china--had a way of flying
+off his knee.  And there was no question as to the exquisite quality of
+the china on the dainty tea-table over which Miss Christobel Charteris
+presided.
+
+The Boy had watched her pouring the tea into those pretty rose-leaf
+cups, nearly every afternoon during the golden two weeks just over.  He
+knew every movement of those firm white hands, so soft, yet so strong
+and capable.
+
+The Boy used to stand beside her, ready to hand Mollie's cup, as
+punctiliously as if a dozen girls had been sitting in the old garden,
+waiting to be quickly served by the only man.
+
+The Boy enjoyed being the only man.  Also he had quite charming
+manners.  He never allowed the passing of bread-and-butter to interfere
+with the flow of conversation; yet the bread-and-butter was always
+within reach at the precise moment you wanted it, though the Boy's
+bright eyes were fixed just then in keenest interest on the person who
+happened to be speaking, and not a point of the story, or a word of the
+remark, was missed either by him or by you.
+
+He used to watch the Aunt's beautiful hands very closely; and at last,
+every time he looked at them, his brown eyes kissed them.  The Boy
+thought this was a delightful secret known only to himself.  But one
+day, when he was bending over her, holding his own cup while she filled
+it, the Aunt suddenly said: "Don't!"  It was so startling and
+unexpected, that the cup almost flew out of his hand.  The Boy might
+have said: "Don't _what_?" which would have put the Aunt in a
+difficulty, because it would have been so very impossible to explain.
+But he was too honest.  He at once _didn't_, and felt a little shy for
+five minutes; then recovered, and hugged himself with a fearful joy at
+the thought that she had _known_ his eyes had kissed her dear beautiful
+hands; then stole a look at her calm face, so completely unmoved in its
+classic beauty, and thought he must have been mistaken; only--what on
+earth else could she have said "Don't!" about, at that moment?
+
+But Mollie was there, then; so no explanations were possible.  Now at
+last, thank goodness, Mollie had gone, and his own seven days had
+begun.  This was the first day; and he was going to tell her
+everything.  There was absolutely nothing he would not be able to tell
+her.  The delight of this fairly swept the Boy off his feet.  He had
+kept on the curb so long; and he was not used to curbs of any kind.
+
+He lay back, his hands behind his head, and watched the Aunt's kind
+face, through half-closed lids.  His brown eyes were shining, but very
+soft.  When the Aunt looked at them, she quickly looked away.
+
+"How could you think the attraction would be gone?" he said.  "It was
+always you, I wanted, not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was _you_--YOU, just only you, all the
+time?"
+
+The Aunt raised her beautiful eyebrows and looked him straight in the
+face.
+
+"Is this a proposal?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"Of course it is," said the Boy; "and jolly hard it has been, having to
+wait two whole weeks to make it.  I want you to marry me, Christobel.
+I dare say you think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest it, point
+blank.  But I want you to give me seven days; and, in those seven days,
+I am going to win you.  Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the
+only possible thing to do."
+
+His brown eyes were wide open now; and the glory of the love shining
+out from them dazzled her.  She looked away.
+
+Then the swift colour swept over the face which all Cambridge
+considered classic in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed; but
+rather breathlessly.
+
+"You amazing boy!" she said.  "Do you consider it right to take away a
+person's breath, in this fashion?  Or are you trying to be funny?"
+
+"I have no designs on your breath," said the Boy; "and it is my
+misfortune, but not my fault, if I seem funny."  Then he sat forward in
+his chair, his elbows on his knees, and both brown hands held out
+towards her.  "I want you to understand, dear," he continued,
+earnestly, "that I have said only a very little of all I have to say.
+But I hope that little is to the point; and I jolly well mean it."
+
+The Aunt laughed again, and swung the toe of her neat brown shoe; a
+habit she had, when trying to appear more at ease than she felt.
+
+"It is certainly to the point," she said.  "There can be no possible
+doubt about that.  But are you aware, dear boy, that I have been
+assiduously chaperoning you and my niece, during the past two weeks;
+and watching, with the affectionate interest of a middle-aged relative,
+the course of true love running with satisfactory and unusual
+smoothness?"
+
+The Boy ignored the adjectives and innuendoes, and went straight to the
+point.  He always had a way of ignoring all side issues or carefully
+introduced irrelevancy.  It made him a difficult person to deal with,
+if the principal weapon in your armoury was elaborate argument.
+
+"Why did you say 'Don't'?" asked the Boy.
+
+The Aunt fell at once into the unintentional trap.  She dropped her
+calmly amused manner and answered hurriedly, while again the swift
+colour flooded her face: "Boy dear, I hardly know.  It was something
+you did, which, for a moment, I could not quite bear.  Something passed
+from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, to be quite right.  I said
+'Don't,' as involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to a threatened
+blow."
+
+"It wasn't a blow," said the Boy, tenderly.  "It was a kiss.  Every
+time I looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting the silver teapot, I
+kissed it.  Didn't you feel it was a kiss?"
+
+"No; I only felt it was unusual; something I could not understand; and
+I did not like it.  Therefore I said 'Don't.'"
+
+"But you admit it was sweet?" persisted the Boy.
+
+"Exactly," replied the Aunt; "quite incomprehensibly sweet.  And I do
+not like things I cannot comprehend; especially with amazing boys
+about!"
+
+"Didn't you know it was love?" asked the Boy, softly.
+
+"No," replied the Aunt, emphatically; "most certainly, I did not."
+
+The Boy got up, and came and knelt beside the arm of her chair.
+
+"It was love," he said, his lips very close to the soft waves of her
+hair.
+
+"Go back to your seat at once," said the Aunt, sternly.
+
+The Boy went.
+
+"And where does poor Mollie come in, in all this?" inquired the Aunt,
+with some asperity.
+
+"Mollie?" said the Boy, complacently.  "Oh, Mollie understood all
+right.  She loves Phil, you know; intends to stick to him, and knows
+you will back her.  The last part of the time, I brought her notes from
+Phil, every day.  Don't be angry, dear.  You would have done it
+yourself, if Mollie and Phil had got hold of you, and implored you to
+be a go-between.  You remember the day we invaded the kitchen to see
+how Martha made those little puffy buns--you know--the explosives?  You
+pinch them in the middle, and they burst into hundreds and thousands of
+little pieces.  Jolly things for a stiff
+stand-up-in-a-crowd-and-all-hold-your-own-cups kind of drawing-room
+party; what we used to call 'a Perpendicular' in my Cambridge days.  I
+suppose they still keep up the name.  Fancy those little buns exploding
+all over the place; and when you try to pick up the fragments, they go
+into simply millions of crumbs, between your agitated fingers and
+anxious thumb!"
+
+The Boy slapped his knee in intense enjoyment, and momentarily lost the
+thread of the conversation.  The Aunt's mind was not sufficiently
+detached to feel equal to a digression into peals of laughter over this
+vision of the explosive buns.  She wanted to find out how much Mollie
+knew.  When the Boy had finished rocking backwards and forwards in his
+chair, she suggested, tentatively: "You went to the kitchen--?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the Boy, recovering.  "We went to the kitchen to watch
+Martha make them, and to get the recipe.  You see Mollie wanted them
+for her father's clerical 'at homes.'  Oh, I say--fancy!  The
+archdeacons and curates, the rectors and vicars, all standing in a
+solemn crowd on the Bishop's best velvet-pile carpet; then Mollie, so
+demure, handing round the innocent-looking little buns; and, hey
+presto! the pinching begins, and the explosions, and the hopeless
+attempts to gather up the fragments!"
+
+The Boy nearly went off again; but he suddenly realized that the Aunt
+was not amused, and pulled himself together.
+
+"Well, we stopped on the way to the kitchen for mutual confidences.  It
+was not easy, bounded as we were by you on the one side, and Martha on
+the other.  We had to whisper.  I dare say you thought we were kissing
+behind the door, but we jolly well weren't!  She told me about Phil;
+and I told her--oh, I told her _something_ of what I am trying to tell
+you.  Just enough to make her understand; so that we could go ahead,
+and play the game fair, all round.  She was awfully glad, because she
+said: 'I have long feared my dear beautiful Aunt would marry an
+ichthyosaurus.'  I asked her what the--what the--I mean, what on earth
+the meaning of that was?  And she said: 'An old fossil.'"
+
+Again the swift flush swept over the calm face.  But this time the Aunt
+went off, intentionally, on a side issue.
+
+"I have heard you say 'What the deuce' before now, Boy.  But I am glad
+you appear to realize, judging by your laboured efforts to suppress
+them, that these expressions shock me."
+
+She looked at him, quizzically, through half-closed lids; but the Boy
+was wholly earnest.
+
+"Well, you see," he said, "I am trying most awfully hard to be, in
+every respect, just what you would wish the man who loves you should
+be."
+
+"Oh, you dear boy," said Christobel Charteris, a flood of sudden
+feeling softening her face; "I must make you understand that I cannot
+possibly take you seriously.  I shall have to tell you a story no one
+has ever heard before; a tender little story of a long-ago past.  I
+must tell you the story of my Little Boy Blue.  Wait here a few
+moments, while I go indoors and give orders that we are not to be
+disturbed."
+
+Rising, she passed up the lawn to the little white house.  The Boy's
+eyes followed her, noting with pride and delight the tall athletic
+figure, fully developed, gracious in its ample lines, yet graceful in
+the perfect swing of the well-poised walk.  During all his college
+years he had known that walk; admired that stately figure.  He had been
+in the set which called her "Juno" and "The Goddess"; which crowded to
+the clubs if there was a chance of watching her play tennis.  And now,
+during two wonderful weeks, he had been admitted, a welcomed guest, to
+this little old-world oasis, bounded by high red-brick walls, where she
+dwelt and ruled.  Quiet, sunny, happy hours he had spent in the hush of
+the old garden, strolling up and down the long narrow velvet turf,
+beneath the spreading trees, from the green postern gate in the
+right-hand corner of the bottom wall, to the flight of stone steps
+leading up to the garden-door of the little white house.
+
+The Boy knew, by now, exactly what he wanted.  He wanted to marry
+Christobel Charteris.
+
+He must have been rather a brave boy.  He looked very youthful and slim
+as he lay back in his chair, watching the stately proportions of the
+woman on whom he had set his young heart; very slight and boyish, in
+his silver-grey suit, with lavender tie, and buttonhole of violas.  The
+Boy was very particular about his ties and buttonholes.  They always
+matched.  This afternoon, for the first time, he had arrived without a
+buttonhole.  In the surprise and pleasure of his unexpected appearance,
+the Aunt had moved quickly down the sunlit lawn to meet and greet him.
+
+Mollie had departed, early that morning.  Her final words at the
+railway station, as her impish little face smiled farewell from the
+window of her compartment, had been: "Mind, Auntie dear, no mistake
+about Guy Chelsea!  He's a charming fellow; and thank you ever so much
+for giving me such a good time with him.  But you can report to Papa,
+that Guy Chelsea, _and_ his beautiful properties, _and_ his prospective
+peerage, _and_ his fifty thousand a year, _and_ his motor-cars, _and_
+his flying-machines, are absolutely powerless to tempt me away from my
+allegiance to Phil.  Beside, it so happens, Guy himself is altogether
+in love with SOME ONE ELSE."
+
+The train having begun to move at the words "You can report to Papa,"
+Mollie finished the remainder of the sentence in a screaming crescendo,
+holding on to her hat with one hand, and waving a tiny lace
+pocket-handkerchief, emphatically, with the other.  Even then, the Aunt
+lost most of the sentence, and disbelieved the rest.  The atmosphere of
+love had been so unmistakable during those two weeks; the superabundant
+overflow had even reached herself more than once, with an almost
+startling thrill of emotion.
+
+The Boy had been so full of vivid, glowing _joie-de-vivre_, radiating
+fun and gaiety around him.
+
+In their sets of tennis, played on her own court across the lane at the
+bottom of the garden, when she could beat him easily were he
+handicapped by partnership with Mollie; but in genuine singles, when
+Mollie had tactfully collapsed on to a seat and declared herself
+exhausted, his swift agility counterbalanced her magnificent service,
+and they were so evenly matched that each game proved a keen delight----
+
+In the quiet teas beneath the mulberry tree, where the incomprehensible
+atmosphere of unspoken tenderness gilded the light words and laughter,
+as sunlight touches leaf and flower to gold----
+
+At the cosy dinners, to which they sometimes asked him, sitting in the
+garden afterwards in the moonlight; when he would tell them thrilling
+tales of aviation, describing his initial flights, hairbreadth escapes;
+the joys of rapid soaring; the dangers of cross-currents, broken
+propellers, or twisted steering-gear----
+
+On all these occasions, the Boy--with his enthusiasm, his fun, and his
+fire--had been the life of the happy trio.
+
+During those evenings, in the moonlight, when he started off on
+airships, one heart stood still very often while the Boy talked; but it
+stood still, silently.  It was Mollie who clasped her hands and
+implored him never to fly again; then, in the next breath, begged him
+to take her as a passenger, on the first possible occasion.
+
+Happy days!  But Mollie was the attraction; therefore, with Mollie's
+departure, they would naturally come to an end.
+
+The Boy had not asked if he might come again; and, for the moment, she
+forgot that the Boy rarely asked for what he wanted.  He usually took
+it.
+
+She had a lonely luncheon; spent the afternoon over letters and
+accounts, picking up the dull threads of things laid aside during the
+gay holiday time.
+
+It was not the Professor's day for calling.  She was alone until four.
+Then she went out and sat under the mulberry.  The garden was very
+quiet.  The birds' hour of silence was barely over.
+
+Jenkins, the butler, had been sent into the town, so Martha brought out
+tea; as ample, as carefully arranged, as ever; and--cups for two!
+
+"Why two cups, Martha?" queried Miss Charteris, languidly.
+
+"Maybe there'll be a visitor," said Martha in grim prophetic tones.
+Then her hard old face relaxed and creased into an unaccustomed smile.
+"Maybe there is a visitor," she added, softly; for at that moment the
+postern gate banged, and they saw the Boy coming up the garden, in a
+shaft of sunlight.
+
+The Aunt walked quickly to meet him.  His arrival was so unexpected;
+and she had been so lonely, and so dull.
+
+"How nice of you," she said; "with the Attraction gone.  But Martha
+seems to have had a premonition of your coming.  She has just brought
+out tea, most suggestively arranged for two.  How festive you are, Boy!
+Why this wedding attire?  Are you coming from, or going to, a function?
+No?  Then don't you want tennis after tea--a few good hard sets; just
+we two, unhandicapped by our dear little Mollie?"
+
+"No," said the Boy; "talk, please, to-day; just we two, unhandicapped
+by our dear little Mollie.  Talk please; not tennis."
+
+He paused beside the border, full of mauve and purple flowers.  "How
+jolly those little what-d'-you-call-'ems look, in the sunshine," he
+said.
+
+Then the Aunt noticed that he wore no buttonhole, and that his tie was
+lavender.  She picked four of her little violas, and pinned them into
+his coat.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, "you are a dandy in the matter of ties and
+buttonholes; only it is so essentially _you_, that one rather enjoys
+it.  But this is the first day I have known you to arrive without one,
+and have need to fall back upon my garden."
+
+"It _is_ a first day," said the Boy, dropping into step with her, as
+she moved toward the mulberry tree.  "It starts a new regime, in the
+matter of buttonholes, and--other things.  I am going to have seven
+days, and this is the first."
+
+"Really?" smiled the Aunt, amused at the Boy's intense seriousness.  "I
+am flattered that you should spend a portion of 'the first day' with
+me.  Let us have tea, and then you shall tell me why seven days; and
+where you mean to pass them."
+
+The Boy was rather silent during tea.  The Aunt, trying to read his
+mind, thought at first that he regretted his flannels, and the chance
+of tennis; then that he was missing Mollie.  Whereupon the Aunt
+repeated her remark that it was nice of him to come, now the Attraction
+was no longer there.
+
+This gave him the cue for which he waited.  His cup was empty, and
+safely on the grass.  The floodgates of the Boy's pent-up love and
+longing burst open; the unforgettable words, "It was always you I
+wanted," were spoken; and now he waited for her, under the mulberry
+tree.  She had something to tell him; but, whatever it might be, it
+could not seriously affect the situation.  _He_ had told _her_--that
+was the great essential.  He would win her in seven days.  Already she
+knew just what he wanted--a big step for the first day.  He looked up,
+and saw her coming.
+
+She had regained her usual calm.  Her eyes were very kind.  She smiled
+at the Boy, gently.
+
+She took her seat in a low basket-work chair.  He had leapt to his
+feet.  She motioned him to another, just opposite hers.  She was
+feeling rather queenly.  Unconsciously her manner became somewhat
+regal.  The Boy enjoyed it.  He knew he was bent upon winning a queen
+among women.
+
+"I am going to tell you a story," she said.
+
+"Yes?" said the Boy.
+
+"It is about my Little Boy Blue."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"_You_ were my Little Boy Blue."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes; twenty years ago."
+
+"Then I was six," said the Boy, quite unperturbed.
+
+"We were staying at Dovercourt, on the east coast.  Our respective
+families had known each other.  I used to watch you playing on the
+shore.  You were a very tiny little boy."
+
+"I dare say I was quite a nice little boy," said the Boy, complacently.
+
+"Indeed you were; quite sweet.  You wore white flannel knickers, and a
+little blue coat."
+
+"I dare say it was quite a nice little coat," said the Boy, "and I hope
+my womenfolk had the tact to call it a 'blazer.'"
+
+"It was a dear little coat--I should say 'blazer,'" said the Aunt; "and
+I called you my 'Little Boy Blue.'  You also had a blue flannel cap,
+which you wore stuck on the back of your curls.  I spoke to you twice,
+Little Boy Blue."
+
+"Did you?" he said, and his brown eyes were tender.  "Then no wonder I
+feel I have loved you all my life."
+
+"Ah, but wait until you hear my story!  The first time I spoke to you,
+it happened thus.  Your nurse sat high up on the beach, in the long
+line of nurses, gossiping and doing needlework.  You took your little
+spade and bucket, and marched away, all by yourself, to a breakwater;
+and there you built a splendid sand castle.  I sat on the breakwater,
+higher up, and watched you.  You took immense pains; you overcame
+stupendous difficulties; and every time your little cap fell off, you
+picked it up, dusted off the sand with the sleeve of your little blue
+coat, and stuck it on the back of your curly head again.  You were very
+sweet, Little Boy Blue.  I can see you now."
+
+The Aunt paused, and let her eyes dwell upon the Boy in appreciative
+retrospection.  If he felt this something of an ordeal, he certainly
+showed no signs of it.  Not for a moment did his face lose its
+expression of delighted interest.
+
+"Presently," continued the Aunt, "your castle and courtyard finished,
+you made a little cannon in the centre of the courtyard, for defence.
+Then you looked around for a cannon-ball.  This was evidently a weighty
+matter, and indeed it turned out to be such.  You stood your spade
+against the breakwater; placed your bucket beside it; readjusted your
+little cap, and trotted off almost to the water's edge.  Your
+conception of the size of your castle and cannon must have become
+magnified with every step of those small sturdy feet, for, arrived at
+the water, you found a huge round stone nearly as large as your own
+little head.  This satisfied you completely, but you soon found you
+could not carry it in your hands.  You spent a moment in anxious
+consideration.  Then you took off your little blue coat, spread it upon
+the sand, rolled the cannon-ball upon it, tied the sleeves around it,
+picked up the hem and the collar, hoisted the heavy stone, and
+proceeded slowly and with difficulty up the shore.  Every moment it
+seemed as if the stone must fall, and crush the bare toes of my Little
+Boy Blue.  So I flew to the rescue.
+
+"'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may I help you to carry your stone?'
+
+"You paused, and looked up at me.  I doubt if you had breath to answer
+while you were walking.  Your little face was flushed and damp with
+exertion; the blue cap was almost off; you had sand on your eyebrows,
+and sand on your little straight nose.  But you looked at me with an
+expression of indomitable courage and pride, and you said: 'Fanks; but
+I always does my own cawwying.'  With that you started on, and I fell
+behind--rebuffed!"
+
+"Surly little beast!" ejaculated the Boy.
+
+"Not at all," said the Aunt.  "I won't have my Little Boy Blue called
+names!  He showed a fine independence of spirit.  Now hear what
+happened next.
+
+"Little Boy Blue had almost reached his castle, with his somewhat
+large, but otherwise suitable, cannon-ball, when his nurse, glancing up
+from her needlework, perceived him staggering along in his
+shirt-sleeves, and also saw the use to which he was putting his flannel
+coat.  She threw aside the blue over-all she was making, rushed down
+the shore, calling my Little Boy Blue every uncomplimentary compound
+noun and adjective which entered her irate and flurried mind; seized
+the precious stone, unwound the little jacket, flung the stone away,
+shook out the sand and seaweed, and straightened the twisted sleeves.
+Then she proceeded to shake the breath out of my Little Boy Blue's
+already rather breathless little body; put on the coat, jerked him up
+the shore, and plumped him down with his back to the sea and his
+castle, to sit in disgrace and listen, while she told the assembled
+nurses what a 'born _h_imp of _h_evil' he was!  I could have slain that
+woman!  And I knew my little Boy Blue had no dear mother of his own.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his tumbled curls, and comfort
+him.  And all this time he had not uttered a sound.  He had just
+explained to me that he always did his own carrying, and evidently he
+had learned to bear his childish sorrows in silence.  I watched the
+little disconsolate blue back, usually so gaily erect, now round with
+shame and woe.  Then I bethought me of something I could do.  I made
+quite sure he was not peeping round.  Then I went and found the chosen
+stone, and it was heavy indeed!  I carried it to the breakwater, and
+deposited it carefully within the courtyard of the castle.  Then I sat
+down behind the breakwater, on the other side, and waited.  I felt sure
+Little Boy Blue would come back for his spade and bucket.
+
+"Presently the nurses grew tired of bullying him.  The strength of his
+quiet non-resistance proved greater than their superior numbers and
+brute force.  Also his intelligent little presence was, undoubtedly, a
+check upon their gossip.  So he was told he might go; I conclude, on
+the understanding that he should 'be a good boy' and carry no more
+'nasty heavy stones.'  I saw him rise and shake the dust of the nurses'
+circle off his little feet!  Then he pushed back his curls, and,
+without looking to the right or to the left, trotted straight to his
+castle.  I wondered he did not glance, however hopelessly, in the
+supposed direction of the desired stone.  But, no!  He came gaily on;
+and the light of a great expectation shone in his brown eyes.
+
+"When he reached the breakwater, and found his castle, there--safely in
+the courtyard--reposed the mighty cannon-ball.  He stood still a
+moment, looking at it; and his cheeks went very pink.  Then he pulled
+off his little cap, and turned his radiant face up to the blue sky,
+flecked with fleeting white clouds.  And--'Fank de Lord,' said my
+Little Boy Blue."
+
+There were unconcealed tears in the Aunt's kind eyes, and she
+controlled her quiet voice with difficulty.  But the glory of a great
+gladness had come over the Boy.  Without as yet explaining itself in
+words, it rang in his voice and laughter.
+
+"I remember," he said.  "Why, of course I remember!  Not you, worse
+luck; but being lugged up the shore, and fearing I had lost my
+cannon-ball.  And, you know, as quite a tiny chap, I had formed a habit
+of praying about all my little wants and woes.  I sometimes think, how
+amused the angels must have been when my small petitions arrived.
+There was a scarecrow, in a field, I prayed for, regularly, every
+night, for weeks.  I had been struck by the fact that it looked lonely.
+Then I seriously upset the theology of the nursery, by passing through
+a course of persistent and fervent prayer for Satan.  It appeared as an
+obvious logical conclusion to my infant mind: that if the person
+who--according to nurse--spent all his time in going about making
+everybody naughty, could himself become good, all naughtiness would
+cease.  Also, that anybody must be considered as 'past praying for,'
+was an idea which nearly broke my small heart With rage and misery,
+when it was first crudely forced upon me.  I think the arch-fiend must
+have turned away, silent and nonplussed, if he ever chanced to pass by,
+while a very tiny boy was kneeling up in his crib, pleading with
+tearful earnestness: 'Please God, bless poor old Satan; make him good
+an' happy; an' take him back to heaven.'  But it used to annoy nurse
+considerably, when she came into the same prayer, with barely a comma
+between."
+
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue!" cried the Aunt.  "Why was I not your mother!"
+
+"Thank goodness, you were not!" said the Boy, imperturbably.  "I don't
+want you for a mother, dear.  I want you for my wife."
+
+"So you had prayed about the stone?" remarked the Aunt, hurriedly.
+
+"Yes.  While seated there in disgrace, I said: 'Please God, let an
+angel find my cannon-ball, which howwid old nurse fwowed away.  An' let
+the angel cawwy it safe to the courtyard of my castle.'  And I was not
+at all surprised to find it there; merely very glad.  So you see,
+Christobel, you were my guardian angel twenty years ago.  No wonder I
+feel I have known and loved you, all my life."
+
+"Wait until you hear the rest of my story, Little Boy Blue.  But I can
+testify that you were not surprised.  Your brown eyes were simply
+shining with faith and expectation, as you trotted down the shore.
+But--who said you might call me 'Christobel'?"
+
+"No one," replied the Boy.  "I thought of it myself.  It seemed so
+perfect to be able to say it on the first of my seven days.  And, if
+you consider, I have never called you 'Miss Charteris.'  You always
+seemed to me much too splendid to be 'Miss' anything.  One might as
+well say 'Miss Joan of Arc' or 'Miss Diana of the Ephesians.'  But of
+course I won't call you 'Christobel' if you would rather not."
+
+"You quite absurd boy!" said the Aunt, laughing.  "Call me anything you
+like--just for your seven days.  But you have not yet told me the
+meaning or significance of these seven days."
+
+The Boy sat forward, eagerly.
+
+"It's like this," he said.  "I have always loved the story of how the
+army of Israel marched round Jericho during seven days.  It appeals to
+me.  The well-garrisoned, invincible city, with its high walls and
+barred gates.  The silent, determined army, marching round it, once
+every day.  Apparently nothing was happening; but, in reality, their
+faith, enthusiasm, and will-power were undermining those mighty walls.
+And on the seventh day, when they marched round seven times to the
+blast of the priestly trumpets; at the seventh time, the ordeal of
+silence was over; leave was given to the great silent host to shout.
+So the rams' horns sounded a louder blast than ever; and then, with all
+the pent-up enthusiasm born of those seven days of silent marching, the
+people shouted!  Down fell the walls of Jericho, and up the conquerors
+went, right into the heart of the citadel....  _I_ am prepared to march
+round in silence, during seven days; but on the seventh day, Jericho
+will be taken."
+
+"_I_ being Jericho, I conclude," remarked the Aunt, dryly.  "I cannot
+say I have particularly noticed the silence.  But that part of the
+programme would be decidedly dull; so we will omit it, and say, from
+the first: 'little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!'"
+
+"I shall blow it all right, on the seventh day," said the Boy, "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+
+He got up, came across, and knelt by the arm of her chair.
+
+"I shall walk right up into the heart of the citadel," he said, "when
+the gates fly open, and the walls fall down; and there I shall find
+you, my Queen; and together we shall 'inherit the kingdom.'  O dear
+unconquered Citadel!  O beautiful, golden kingdom!  Don't you wish it
+was the seventh day _now_, Christobel?"
+
+His mouth looked so sweet, as he bent over her and said "Christo_bel_,"
+with a queer little accent on the final syllable, that the Aunt felt
+momentarily dizzy.
+
+"Go back to your chair, at once, Boy," she whispered.
+
+And he went.
+
+Neither spoke a word, for some minutes.  The Boy lay back, watching the
+mysterious moving of the mulberry leaves.  The triumphant happiness in
+his face was a rather breathless thing to see.  It made you want to
+hear a great orchestra burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.
+
+The Aunt watched the Boy, and wondered whether she must tell him about
+the Professor, before the seventh day; and what he would say, when she
+did tell him; and how Jericho would feel when the army of Israel, with
+silent trumpets and banners drooping, marched disconsolate away,
+leaving its walls still standing; its gates still barred.  Poor walls,
+supposed to be so mighty!  Already they were trembling.  If the Boy had
+not been so chivalrously obedient, he could have broken into the
+citadel, five minutes ago.  Did he know? ....  She looked at his
+radiant face....  Yes; he knew.  There were not many things the Boy did
+not know.  She must not allow the seven days, even though she could
+absolutely trust his obedience and his chivalry.  She must tell him the
+rest of the story, and send him away to-day.  Poor invading army, shorn
+of its glad triumph!  Poor Jericho, left desolate!  It was decidedly
+unusual to be compared to Jericho, and Diana of the Ephesians, and Joan
+of Arc, all in the same conversation; and it was rather funny to enjoy
+it.  But then most things which happened by reason of the Boy _were_
+funny and unusual.  He would always come marching 'as an army with
+banners.'  The Professor would drive up to Jericho in a fly, and knock
+a decorous rat-tat on the gate.  Would the walls tremble at that knock?
+Alas, alas!  They had never trembled yet.  Would they ever tremble
+again, save for the march-past of the Boy?  Would the gates ever really
+fly open, except to the horn-blast of little Boy Blue? ... The Aunt
+dared not think any longer.  She felt she must take refuge in immediate
+action.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, in her most maternal voice, "come down from the
+clouds, and listen to me.  I want to tell you the rest of the story of
+my Little Boy Blue."
+
+He sprang up, and came and sat on the grass at her feet.  All the Boy's
+movements were so bewilderingly sudden.  They were over and done,
+before you had time to consider whether or no you intended to allow
+them.  But this new move was quite satisfactory.  He looked less big
+and manly, down on the grass; and she _really_ felt maternal, with his
+curly head so close to her knee.  She even ventured to put out a cool
+motherly hand and smooth the hair back from his forehead, as she began
+to speak.  She had intended to touch it only once--just to accentuate
+the fact of her motherliness--but it was the sort of soft thick hair
+which seemed meant for the gentle passing through it of a woman's
+fingers.  And the Boy seemed to like it, for he gave one long sigh of
+content, and leaned his head against her knee.
+
+"Now I must tell you," said the Aunt, "of the only other time when I
+ventured to speak to my Little Boy Blue.  He had come to his favourite
+place beside the breakwater.  The tide had long ago swept away castle,
+courtyard, and cannon; but the cannon-ball was still there.  It partook
+of the nature of 'things that remain.' Heavy stones usually do!  When I
+peeped over the breakwater, Little Boy Blue was sitting on the sand.
+His sturdy legs were spread wide.  His bare toes looked like ten little
+pink sea-shells.  Between his small brown knees, he had planted his
+bucket.  His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on the handle of which
+was writ large, in blue pencil: _Master Guy Chelsea_.  He was bent upon
+filling his bucket with sand.  But the spade being long, and the bucket
+too close to him--(Boy, leave my shoe alone!  It does not require
+attention)--most of the sand missed the bucket, and went over himself.
+I heard him sigh rather wearily, and say 'Blow!' in a tired little
+voice.  I leaned over the breakwater.  'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may
+I play with you, and help you to fill your bucket with sand?'
+
+"Little Boy Blue looked up.  His curls, his eyebrows, his long dark
+eyelashes were full of sand.  There was sand on his little straight
+nose.  But no amount of sand could detract from the dignity of his
+little face, or weaken its stern decision.  He laid down his spade, put
+up a damp little hand, and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks;
+but I don't like girls.'  Oh, Master Guy Chelsea, how you snubbed me!"
+
+The Boy's broad shoulders shook with laughter, but he captured the hand
+still smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down to his lips, kissed it
+gently, back and palm, and then each finger.
+
+"Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little girl," he said.  "But she must
+admit, little girls of seven are not always attractive to small boys of
+six."
+
+"I was not seven," said the Aunt, with portentous emphasis.  "Leave go
+of my hand, Boy, and listen.  _When you were six, I was sixteen_."
+
+This bomb of the Aunt's was received with a moment's respectful
+silence, as befitted the discharge of her principal field-piece.  Then
+the Boy's gay voice said:
+
+"And what of that, dear?  When I was six, you were sixteen.  When I was
+twenty, you were twenty-nine----"
+
+"Thirty, Boy; thirty!  Be accurate.  And now--you are twenty-six, and I
+am getting on towards forty----"
+
+"Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six!  Be accurate!" pleaded the Boy.
+
+"And when you are forty, I shall be fifty; and when you are fifty,
+Boy--only fifty; a man is in his prime at fifty--I shall be sixty."
+
+"And when I am eighty," said the Boy, "you will be ninety--an old lady
+is in her prime at ninety.  What a charming old couple we shall be!  I
+wonder if we shall still play tennis.  I think quite the jolliest thing
+to do, when we are very _very_ old--quite decrepit, you know--will be
+to stay at Folkestone, and hire two bath-chairs, with nice active old
+men to draw them; ancient, of course, but they would seem young
+compared to us; and then make them race on the Leas, a five-pound note
+to the winner, to insure them really galloping.  We would start at the
+most crowded time, when the band was playing, and race in and out among
+lots of other bath-chairs going slowly, and simply terrified at us.
+Let's be sure and remember to do it, Christobel, sixty years from
+to-day.  Have you a pocket-book?  I shall be a gay young person of
+eighty-six, and you----"
+
+"Boy dear," she said, bending over him, with a catch in her voice; "you
+_must_ be serious and listen.  When I have said that which I must say,
+you will understand directly that it is no use having your seven days.
+It will be better and wiser to raise the siege at once, and march away.
+Listen! ... Hush, stay perfectly still.  No; I can say what I am going
+to say more easily if you don't look at me....  Please, Boy;
+_please_....  I told you my 'Little Boy Blue stories' to make you
+realize how very much older I am than you.  I was practically grown up,
+when you were still a dear delightful baby.  I could have picked you up
+in my arms and carried you about.  Oh, _cannot_ you see that, however
+much I loved him--perhaps I should rather say: just _because_ I love
+him, because I have always wanted to help him carry his heavy stones;
+make the best of his life, and accomplish manfully the tasks he sets
+himself to do--I could not possibly marry my Little Boy Blue?  I could
+not, oh I _could_ not, let him tie his youth and brightness to a woman,
+staid and middle-aged, who might almost be his mother!"
+
+The earnest, anxious voice, eager in its determined insistence, ceased.
+
+The Boy sat very still, his head bent forward, his brown hands clasping
+his knees.  Then suddenly he knelt up beside her, leaned over the arm
+of her chair, and looked into her eyes.  There was in his face such a
+tender reverence of adoration, that the Aunt knew she need not be
+afraid to have him so near.  This was holy ground.  She put from off
+her feet the shoes of doubt and distrust; waiting, in perfect calmness,
+to hear what he had to say.
+
+"Dear," murmured the Boy, tenderly, "your little stories might possibly
+have had the effect you intended--specially the place where you paused
+and gazed at me as if you saw me still with sand upon my nose, and ten
+pink toes like sea-shells!  That was calculated to make any chap feel
+youngish, and a bit shy.  Wasn't it?  Yes; they might have told the way
+you meant, were it not for one dear sentence which overshadows all the
+rest.  You said just now: 'I knew my little Boy Blue had no mother.  I
+wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his curls, and comfort him.'
+Christobel, that dear wish of yours was a gift you then gave to your
+Little Boy Blue.  You can't take it away now, because he has grown
+bigger.  He still has no mother, no sisters, no near relations in the
+world.  That all holds good.  Can you refuse him the haven, the help,
+the comfort you would have given him then, now--when at last he is old
+enough to know and understand; to turn to them, in grateful worship and
+wonder?  Would you have me marry a girl as feather-brained, as
+harum-scarum, as silly as I often am myself?  You suggest Mollie; but
+the Boy Blue of to-day agrees with his small wise self of twenty years
+ago and says: 'Fanks, but I don't like girls!'  Oh, Christobel, I want
+a woman's love, a woman's arms, a woman's understanding tenderness!
+You said, just now, you wished you had been my mother.  Does not the
+love of the sort of wife a fellow really wants, have a lot of the
+mother in it too?  I've been filled with such a glory, Christobel,
+since you admitted what you felt for your Little Boy Blue because I
+seemed to know, somehow, that having once felt it, though the feeling
+may have gone to sleep, you could never put it quite away.  But, if
+your Little Boy Blue came back, from the other end of the world, and
+wanted you----"
+
+The Boy stopped suddenly, struck dumb by the look on the beautiful face
+beneath his.  He saw it pale to absolute whiteness, while the dear firm
+lips faltered and trembled.  He saw the startled pain leap into the
+eyes.  He did not understand the cause of her emotion, or know that he
+had wakened in that strongly repressed nature the desperate hunger for
+motherhood, possible only to woman at the finest and best.
+
+She realized now why she had never forgotten her Little Boy Blue of the
+Dovercourt sands.  He, in his baby beauty and sweetness, had wakened
+the embryo mother in the warm-hearted girl of sixteen.  And now he had
+come back, in the full strength of his young manhood, overflowing with
+passionate ideality and romance, to teach the lonely woman of
+thirty-six the true sweet meaning of love and of wifehood.
+
+Her heart seemed to turn to marble and cease beating.  She felt
+helpless in her pain.  Only the touch of her Little Boy Blue, or of
+baby Boy Blues so like him, that they must have come trotting down the
+sands of life straight from the heaven of his love and hers, could ever
+still this ache at her bosom.
+
+She looked helplessly up into his longing, glowing, boyish face--so
+sweet, so young, so beautiful.
+
+Should she put up her arms and draw it to her breast?
+
+She had given no actual promise to the Professor.  She had not
+mentioned him to the Boy.
+
+Ah, dear God!  If one had waited twelve long years for a thing which
+was to prove but an empty husk after all!  In order not to fail the
+possible expectations of another, had she any right to lay such a heavy
+burden of disappointment upon her little Boy Blue?  And, if she _must_
+do so, how could she best help him to bear it?
+
+"Fanks," came a brave little voice, with almost startling distinctness,
+across the shore of memory; "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+
+At last she found her voice.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "please go now.  I am tired."
+
+Then she shut her eyes.
+
+In a few seconds she heard the gate close, and knew the garden was
+empty.
+
+Tears slipped from between the closed lids, and coursed slowly down her
+cheeks.  The only right way is apt to be a way of such pain at the
+moment, that even those souls possessing clearest vision and endowed
+with strongest faith, are unable to hear the golden clarion-call,
+sounding amid the din of present conflict: "Through much tribulation,
+enter into the kingdom."
+
+Thus hopeless tears fell in the old garden.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And Martha, the elderly housekeeper, faithful but curious, let fall the
+lath of the green Venetian blind covering the storeroom window, through
+which she had permitted herself to peep.  As the postern gate closed on
+the erect figure of the Boy, she dropped the blind and turned away, an
+unwonted tear running down the furrows of her hard old face.
+
+"Lord love 'im!" she said.  "He'll get what he wants in time.  There's
+not a woman walks this earth as couldn't never refuse _'im_ nothing."
+
+With which startling array of negatives, old Martha compiled one
+supreme positive in favour of the Boy, leaving altogether out of
+account--alas!--the Professor.
+
+Then she wiped her eyes with her apron, and chid her nose harshly for
+an unexpected display of sentiment.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And the Boy tramped back to his hotel with his soul full of glory,
+knowing his first march round had been to some purpose.  The walls of
+the beloved Citadel had trembled indeed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the first day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY
+
+MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
+
+The Boy arrived in flannels, his racket under his arm.  He came in, as
+usual, through the little green gate in the red-brick fruit-wall at the
+bottom of the garden.  From the first, he had taken this privilege,
+which as a matter of fact had never been accorded to anybody.
+
+The Professor always entered by the front door, placed his umbrella in
+the stand, wet or shine; left his goloshes on the mat: hung up his cap
+and gown, and followed Jenkins into the drawing-room.  Though he had
+called regularly, twice a week, during the last dozen years--first on
+his old friend and tutor, Professor Charteris; after his death, on his
+widow and daughter; and, when Miss Charteris was left alone, on herself
+only--he never failed to knock and ring; nor did he ever enter
+unannounced.
+
+The Boy had dashed in at the garden gate on the occasion of his second
+visit, and appeared to consider that he had thus created a precedent
+which should always be followed.
+
+Once, and once only--on her thirtieth birthday--the Professor had
+brought Miss Charteris a bouquet; but, being very absent-minded, he
+deposited the bouquet on the mat, and advanced into the drawing-room
+carrying his goloshes in his left hand.  Having shaken hands with his
+right, he vaguely presented the goloshes.  Miss Charteris, never at a
+loss where her friends were concerned, took the Professor's goloshes
+from his hand, carried them out into the hall, found the bouquet on the
+mat, and saved the situation by putting the flowers in water, and
+thanking the Professor with somewhat more hilarity than the ordinary
+presentation of a bouquet would have called forth.
+
+But to return to the second day.  The Boy arrived in flannels, and tea
+was a merry meal.  The Boy wanted particulars concerning the marriage,
+which had taken place a year or so before, between Martha--maid of
+thirty years' standing, now acting as cook-housekeeper to Miss
+Charteris--and Jenkins, the butler.  The Boy wanted to know which
+proposed, Jenkins or Martha; in what terms they announced the fact of
+their engagement, to Miss Charteris; whether Jenkins ever "bucked up
+and looked like a bridegroom," and whether Martha wore orange-blossom
+and a wedding veil.  He extorted the admission that Christobel had been
+present at the wedding, and insisted on a detailed account; over which,
+when given at last, he slapped his knee so often, and went into such
+peals of laughter, that Miss Charteris glanced anxiously towards the
+kitchen and pantry windows, which unfortunately looked out on the
+garden.
+
+The Boy expatiated on his enthusiastic admiration for Martha; but at
+the same time was jolly well certain he would have bolted when it came
+to "I, Martha, take thee, Jenkins," had he stood in the latter's shoes.
+Miss Charteris did not dare admit, that as a matter of fact the
+sentence had been: "I, Martha, take thee, Noah."  That the meek Jenkins
+should possess so historical and patriarchal a name, would completely
+have finished the Boy, who was already taking considerable risks by
+combining much laughter with an unusually large number of explosive
+buns.
+
+The Boy would have it, that, excepting in the role of bride and
+subsequent conjugal owner and disciplinarian, Martha was perfect.
+
+Miss Charteris admitted Martha's unrivalled excellence as a cook, her
+economy in management, and fidelity of heart.  But Martha had a temper.
+Also, though undoubtedly a superficial fault, yet trying to the
+artistic eye of Miss Charteris, Martha's hair was apt to be dishevelled
+and untidy.
+
+"It _is_ a bit wispy," admitted the Boy, reluctantly.  "Why don't you
+tell her so?"
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Boy dear, I daren't!  It would be as much as
+my place is worth, to make a personal observation to Martha!"
+
+"I'll tell her for you, if you like," said the Boy, coolly.
+
+"If you do," warned Miss Charteris, "it will be the very last remark
+you will ever make in Martha's kitchen, Boy."
+
+"Oh, there are _ways of telling_," said the Boy, airily; and pinched an
+explosive bun.
+
+After tea they took their rackets and strolled down the lawn, pausing a
+moment while she chose him a buttonhole.  The tie was orange on this
+second day, and she gathered the opening bud of a William Allen
+Richardson rose.  She smiled into its golden heart as she pinned it in
+his white flannel coat.  Somehow it brought a flash of remembrance of
+the golden heart of Little Boy Blue, who could not bear that any one
+should be past praying for, or that even a scarecrow should seem lonely.
+
+They crossed the lane and entered the paddock; tightened the net on the
+tennis-court; chose out half a dozen brand-new balls, and settled down
+to fast and furious singles.
+
+Miss Charteris played as well as she had ever played in her life; but
+the Boy was off his service, and she beat him six to four.  Next time,
+he pulled off 'games all,' but lost the set; then was beaten, three to
+six.
+
+Miss Charteris was glowing with the exercise, and the consciousness of
+being in great form.
+
+"Boy dear!" she called, as she played the winning stroke of the third
+set, "I'm afraid you're lazy to-day!"
+
+The Boy walked up to the net, and looked at her through his racket.
+
+"I'm not lazy," he said; "but I'm on the wrong side of Jordan.  This
+sort of thing is waste of time.  I want to go over, and start marching."
+
+"Don't be absurd, Boy.  I prefer _this_ side Jordan, thank you; and you
+shall stay here until you beat me."
+
+The Boy won the next set.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was deliciously cool and quiet under the mulberry-tree.
+
+The Boy was quite subdued--for him.  He seemed inclined to do his
+marching in silence, on this second day.
+
+Miss Charteris felt her mental balance restored.  She held the reins
+to-day, and began considering how to deal wisely with the Boy.  So much
+depended upon how she managed him.
+
+At length she said: "Boy, when you were at Trinity, I often used to see
+you.  I knew you were my Little Boy Blue of all those years ago.  I
+used to feel inclined to send for you, talk to you for your good, and
+urge you to set to, and do great things; but I remembered the stone,
+and the bucket; and I did not want to let myself in for a third
+snubbing."
+
+The Boy smiled.  "Did you think me a lazy beggar?" he asked.  "I wasn't
+really, you know.  I did quite a good deal of all kinds of things.  But
+I didn't want to get played out.  I wanted to do things all the rest of
+my life.  Fellows who grind at college and come out Senior Wranglers,
+begin and end there.  You don't hear of 'em again."
+
+"I see," said Miss Charteris, amusement in her eyes.  "So you felt it
+wisest to avoid being Senior Wrangler?"
+
+"Just so," said the Boy.  "I was content with a fairly respectable B.A.
+and I hope you saw me take it.  How rotten it is, going up in a bunch,
+all hanging on to an old chap's fingers."
+
+"Boy, Boy!  I know all about you!  You wasted golden opportunities; you
+declined to use your excellent abilities; you gave the authorities an
+anxious time.  You were so disgracefully popular, that everybody
+thought your example the finest thing to follow, and you were more or
+less responsible for every lark and row which took place during your
+time."
+
+The Boy did not smile.  He looked at her, with a quaint, innocent
+seriousness, which made her feel almost uncomfortable.
+
+"Dear," he said, "I had plenty of money, and heaps of friends, and I
+wanted to have a good time.  Also I wanted all the other fellows to
+have a good time; and I enjoyed getting the better of all the old
+fogies who had forgotten what youth was like--if they'd ever known it.
+And I had no mother to ask me questions, and no sisters to turn up at
+my rooms unexpectedly.  But I can tell you this, Christobel.  I hope to
+be married soon; and I hope to marry a woman so sweet and noble and
+pure, that her very presence tests a man's every thought, feeling, and
+memory.  And I can honestly look into your dear eyes and say: My wife
+will be welcome to know every detail of every prank I ever played in
+Cambridge; nor is there a thing in those three years I need feel
+ashamed of her knowing.  There!  Will that do?"
+
+Miss Charteris threw out a deprecatory hand.  "Oh, Boy dear!" she said.
+"I never doubted that.  My Little Boy Blue, don't I know you?  But I
+cannot let you talk as if you owe me any explanations.  How curious to
+think I saw you so often during those years, yet we never actually met."
+
+The Boy smiled.  "Yes," he said, "we were all awfully proud of you, you
+know.  What was it you took at Girton?"
+
+Miss Charteris mentioned, modestly, the highest honours in classics as
+yet taken by a woman.  The Boy had often heard it before.  But he
+listened with bated breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we were awfully proud of it, because of your tennis,
+and because of you being--well, just _you_.  If you had been a
+round-shouldered little person in a placket, we should have taken it
+differently.  We always called you 'The Goddess,' because of your
+splendid walk.  Did you know?"
+
+"No, Boy, I did not know; but I confess to feeling immensely flattered.
+Only, take a friend's advice, and avoid conversational allusions to
+plackets, because you are obviously ignorant of the meaning of the
+word.  And now, tell me?  Having successfully escaped so serious a
+drawback to future greatness as becoming Senior Wrangler, on what
+definite enterprise have you embarked?"
+
+"Flying," said the Boy, sitting forward in his chair.  "I am going to
+break every record.  I am going to fly higher, farther, faster, than
+any man has ever flown before.  This week, if I had not stayed on
+here--you know originally I came up only for the 'May week'--I was to
+have done a Channel flight.  Ah, you don't know what it means, to own
+three flying-machines, all of different make, and each the best of its
+kind!  You feel you own the world!  And then to climb into your seat
+and go whirling away, with the wonderful hum in your ears, mastering
+the air--the hitherto invincible air.  May I tell you what I am going
+to do for my next fly?  Start from the high ground between Dover and
+Folkestone; fly over the Channel; circle round Boulogne Cathedral--you
+remember the high dome, rising out of the old town surrounded by the
+ramparts?  Then back across the Channel, and to ground again at
+Folkestone; all in one flight; and I hope to do it in record time, if
+winds are right."
+
+"And if winds are wrong, Boy?  If you rush out and take the horrid
+risks of the cross-currents you told us about?  If something happens to
+your propeller, and you fall headlong into the sea?"
+
+"Oh, it's all U P then," said the Boy, lightly.  "But one never expects
+that sort of thing to happen; and when it does, all is over so quickly
+that there is no time for anticipation.  Beside, there must be
+pioneers.  Every good life given, advances the cause."
+
+Christobel Charteris looked at him.  His was not the terrible,
+unmistakable, relentless face of the bird-man.  He was brilliant with
+enthusiasm, but it was the enthusiasm of the sportsman, keen to excel;
+of Young England, dauntless, fearless, eager to break records.  The
+spirit of the true bird-man had not, as yet, entered into her Little
+Boy Blue.
+
+She pressed her hand upon her bosom.  It ached still.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, softly.  "Has it ever struck you that, if you
+marry, your wife--whoever she might be--would most probably want you to
+give up flying?  I cannot imagine a woman being able to bear that a man
+who was her _all_, should do these things."
+
+The Boy never turned a hair!  He did not bound in his seat.  He did not
+even look at her.
+
+"Why, of course, dear," he said, "if you wished it, I should give up
+flying, like a shot, and sell my aeroplanes.  I know plenty of chaps
+who would like to buy them to-morrow.  And I'll tell you what we would
+do.  We'd buy the biggest, most powerful motor-car we could get, and
+we'd tear all over the country, exceeding the speed-limit, and doing
+everything jolly we could think of.  That would be every bit as good as
+flying, if--if we did it together.  I say, Christobel--do you know how
+to make a sentence of 'together'?  Just three words: _to get her_!
+That's what 'together' spells for me now."
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "You might have taken honours in spelling, Boy.
+And I am not the sort of person who enjoys exceeding speed-limits.
+Also I am afraid I have a troublesome habit of always wanting to stop
+and see all there is to see."
+
+But the Boy was infinitely accommodating.  "Oh, we wouldn't exceed the
+speed-limit--much.  And we would stop everywhere, and see everything.
+You should breakfast in London; lunch at the Old White Horse, Mr.
+Pickwick's inn at Ipswich; have tea at the Maid's Head, beneath the
+shadow of Norwich Cathedral, where you could wash your hands in Queen
+Elizabeth's fusty old bedroom--what a lot of bedrooms Queen Elizabeth
+slept in, and made them all fusty--and have time to show me Little Boy
+Blue's breakwater at Dovercourt, before dinner.  There's nothing like
+motoring!"
+
+"It sounds interesting, certainly," said Miss Charteris.
+
+"And then," continued the Boy, in a calm business-like voice, "it's
+less expensive than flying.  You run through fifty thousand a year in
+no time with aeroplanes.  And of course we should want to open both my
+places.  I'm awfully glad I didn't let the tenants in the old home
+renew their lease.  As it is, they turn out in three months.  Oh, I
+say, Christobel, I do believe it is a setting worthy of you.  Have you
+ever seen it?  The great hall, the old pictures, the oak staircase--I
+once rode down it on my rocking-horse and came to utter smash.  And
+outside--the park, the lake, the beech avenue, the rose-garden, the
+peacocks.  And a funny little old village belongs to us.  Think how the
+people must want looking after.  I believe you would like it all--I
+really believe you would!  And think, ah, just think what it would be
+to me, to see my own splendid wife, queen over everything in my dear
+jolly old home!  Hullo!--Hark to all the clocks!  What is that
+striking?  Seven?  Oh, I say!  I'm dining with the Master to-night.  I
+must rush off, and change.  Though I was such a bad lot, they all seem
+quite pleased to see me again.  Really they do!  Have I stayed too
+long? ... Sure? ... May I come to-morrow? ... You _are_ most awfully
+good to me.  Good-bye."
+
+And the Boy was gone.  He had held her hand, in a firm, strong clasp, a
+second longer than the conventional handshake; his clear eyes, exactly
+on a level with hers, had looked at her gravely, wistfully, tenderly;
+and he was gone.
+
+She walked slowly up the lawn.  She must write a few letters before
+post time; then dress for her solitary dinner.
+
+She felt a little flat; quite without cause.  What could have been more
+satisfactory, in every way, than the Boy's visit; in spite of his
+absurd castles in the air?  These must be tactfully demolished
+to-morrow.  To-day, it was wisest just to let him talk.
+
+Poor Little Boy Blue!  Instead of the walls of Jericho falling, his own
+castles in the air would come tumbling about his ears.  Poor Little Boy
+Blue!
+
+She felt she had been completely mistress of the situation to-day,
+holding it exactly as she wished it to be.  There was no need to fear
+the remaining days.
+
+And when the seven days were over--what then? ... She certainly felt
+very flat this evening.  How suddenly the Boy had gone!  There was
+still so much she wanted to say to him....  And to-morrow was the
+Professor's afternoon.  Mercifully, he never stayed later than four
+o'clock.  It was to be hoped the Boy would not turn up early!  But
+there was never any knowing what the Boy would do.
+
+She smiled as she mounted the flight of stone steps, and passed into
+the house.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And, outside the postern gate, the Boy threw up his cap, and caught it;
+then started off and sprinted a hundred yards; then, turning aside,
+leapt a five-barred gate, and made off across the fields.  When he
+pulled up at last, in his own bedroom, he had just time to tub, shave,
+and wrestle with his evening clothes.  He communed with himself in the
+few moments of enforced stillness, while he mastered his tie.
+
+"That was all right," he said.  "I jolly well worked _that_ all right!
+There was nothing to frighten her to-day--not a thing.  Dear lips!
+They never trembled once; and no more turning faint.  And, my Goody,
+how she lectured me!  I wonder who's been telling her what.  I know why
+she did it too.  She wanted to feel quite sure she was bossing the
+show.  And so she was, bless her!  But I marched round!  Yes, I jolly
+well marched round....  Oh, I say!  Can't you stop where I put you?"
+This, to his tie.
+
+Then, with _her_ golden rose in his button-hole, fastened by _the_ pin
+from his flannel coat, off went the Boy to dine with the Master of his
+college.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the second day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY
+
+THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
+
+The Boy sat on a corner of the kitchen table, swinging a loose leg, and
+watching Martha make hot buttered-toast.
+
+He had arrived early, and, finding no one in the garden, had entered
+the house by the garden-door, to pursue investigations upstairs.
+
+On the mat in the hall he saw a pair of goloshes; in the
+umbrella-stand, a very large, badly-rolled umbrella; hanging on a peg
+near by, a professor's cap and gown.
+
+The Boy stood stock still in the middle of the little hall, and looked
+at the goloshes.
+
+Then from the drawing-room, through the closed door, came the voice of
+Miss Charteris--full, clear, measured, melodious--reading Greek tragedy.
+
+  _errois anaides, en tachei neania_
+
+declaimed Miss Charteris; and the Boy fled.
+
+Arrived in the kitchen, he persuaded Martha that cigarette smoke was
+fatal to black-beetles.  He went about, blowing fragrant clouds into
+every possible crack and cranny.  Martha watched him, out of the corner
+of her eye, crawling along under the dresser in his immaculate white
+flannels, and Martha blessed her stars that her kitchen floor was so
+spotlessly clean.  Only this morning she had remarked to Jenkins that
+he could very well eat his dinner off the boards.  Mercifully,
+Jenkins--tiresome man though he usually was--had not taken this
+literally; or he might have made the floor less fit for the Boy's
+perambulations.
+
+Having taken all this trouble in order to establish his unquestioned
+right to smoke in Martha's kitchen, and to pose as a public benefactor
+while so doing, the Boy seated himself on the edge of the table,
+exactly behind Martha; lighted a fresh "Zenith," and prepared to enjoy
+himself.
+
+Martha glanced nervously at the smoke, issuing from cracks and holes on
+all sides.  It gave her a feeling that the house was on fire.  Of
+course she knew it was not; but to _feel_ the house is on fire, is only
+one degree less alarming than to _know_ it is.  However, beetles are
+nasty things; and the condescending kindness and regard for Martha's
+personal comfort, which crawled about after them in white flannels, was
+gratifying to a degree.
+
+So Martha turned and gave the Boy one of her unusual smiles.  He was
+very intently blowing rings--"bubbles" Martha called them afterwards,
+when explaining them to Jenkins; but that was Martha's mistake.  They
+were smoke rings.  It was one of the Boy's special accomplishments.  He
+was an expert at blowing rings.
+
+Presently:--"Martha, my duck--" he said suddenly.
+
+Martha jumped.  "Bless us, Mr. Guy!  What a name!"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" inquired the Boy, innocently.  "I consider
+it a very nice name, and scriptural."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean m' own name," explained Martha, more flushed than
+the warmth of the fire warranted.  "Not but what m' godfathers and
+godmothers might well 'ave chosen me a better."
+
+"Oh, don't blame them, overmuch, Martha," said the Boy, earnestly.
+"You see their choice was limited.  If you study your catechism you
+will find that it had to be 'N' or 'M'--'Naomi' or 'Martha.'  Even at
+that early age, they thought you favoured 'Martha' rather than 'Naomi';
+so they named you 'Martha.'"
+
+"Well I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins.  "'N' or 'M'!  So it is!  Now I
+never noticed _that_ before.  We live and learn!  And Jenkins--silly
+man--'as always bin annoyed that they named 'im 'Noah.'  But how about
+when _you_ was christened, Mr. Guy?"
+
+"Oh," explained the Boy, with a wave of his cigarette, "I was
+christened a bit later than you, Martha; and, by that time, Parliament
+had sat in solemn convocation, and had brought in a Bill to the effect
+that all needless and vexatious limitations and restrictions in the
+Prayer Book might for the future be disregarded.  The first to go was
+'N' or 'M.'"
+
+"Well, I never!" said Martha.  "I wish they'd ha' done it afore _my_
+time."
+
+"You see," expounded the Boy, who was enjoying himself vastly, and
+getting the conjunction of the goloshes and the Greek play off his
+mind; "you see, Martha, those progressive Bills, intimately affecting
+the whole community, of vital importance to the nation at large, are
+always blocked by the House of Lords.  If the Commons could have had
+their own way, you might have been named 'Lucy' or 'Clara.'"
+
+"I don't incline to 'Lucy' or 'Clara,' sir," said Mrs. Jenkins,
+decidedly; "being, as they always strikes me, sickly story-book sort of
+names; but I _do_ like justice and a free country!  I always have felt
+doubtful o' them Lords, since I listened to my married niece's husband,
+a very respectable journeyman tailor but mostly out of work; and if
+it's _their_ doing that I'm 'Martha,' well, _I_ shall know what to do
+with Jenkins's vote--that's all!"
+
+The Boy slapped his leg and rocked.  "Martha, you ought to be put up to
+speak at political meetings.  That's the whole thing in a nutshell:
+cause, effect, results, arguments, everything!  Oh, my wig!--Yes, they
+are a lot of old stick-in-the-muds in the Upper House, aren't they?"
+pursued the Boy--who had had a long line of dignified ancestors in that
+much abused place; had an uncle there at the present moment, and was
+more than likely eventually to have to sit there himself--"a rotten lot
+of old stick-in-the-muds, Martha; but I think they did well by you.
+I'd give them the benefit of Jenkins's vote.  I really would.  I am
+glad they chose 'M,' not 'N.'  Naomi was a widow and dismal.  She never
+made the smallest effort to buck up.  But Martha was a nice person; a
+bit flurried perhaps, and hot-tempered; but well up in cooking, and
+keen on it.  I like Martha."
+
+The Boy sat and meditated.  Why did she read Greek plays with a person
+who left goloshes on the mat, and brought out an ancient umbrella with
+a waist, on an absolutely cloudless day?
+
+"It wasn't m' own name surprised me, Mr. Guy, sir," remarked Martha,
+coyly; "it was the name you was pleased to _h_add."
+
+The Boy pulled himself together.  "Eh, what?  Oh, 'Martha, my duck'?  I
+see.  I hope you don't mind, Martha.  It seemed to me rather a suitable
+and pretty addition to 'Martha.'  You see, yours is a name which cannot
+be shortened when one feels affectionate.  'Sarah' can be 'Sally';
+'Amelia' can be 'Milly'; 'Caroline' can be 'Carrie'; but 'Martha'
+remains 'Martha' however loving people feel.  What does Jenkins call
+you when he feels affectionate?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "Jenkins knows 'is place," she said, jerking the round
+lid off the stove, and putting on the kettle.
+
+"Jenkins is a model," smiled the Boy.
+
+Then Martha looked round, her feminine curiosity, and perhaps a touch
+of jealousy, getting the better of her respectful discretion.  She had
+seen so much, and heard so little; and she was a very old family
+servant.
+
+"What do you call _her_, Mr. Guy?" she asked, in a confidential
+whisper, with a jerk of the head toward the mulberry-tree.
+
+"Her?" repeated the Boy, surprised.  Then his whole tone softened.  It
+was so sweet to speak her name to some one.  "I call her 'Christobel,'"
+he said, gently.
+
+But Martha wanted to know more.  Martha was woman enough to desire an
+unshared possession of her own.  She bent over the fire, stirring it
+through the bars.
+
+"Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't--I suppose you do--that is to say,
+sir--Do you call _her_ what you've been pleased to call me?"
+
+"Eh, what?" said the Boy, vaguely.
+
+"Oh, I see.  'Christobel, my----'  Oh, no, Martha.  No, I don't!  Not
+even when I feel most affectionate."  Here the Boy was seized with
+sudden convulsions, slapped his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the
+kitchen table.  He whispered it, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
+"'Christobel, my duck!'  Oh, lor!  'Christobel, my duck!'  I hope I
+shall be able to resist telling her.  I should have to own I had called
+Martha so.  'Christobel, my----'"
+
+Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly.  But the Boy
+had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of
+the table.
+
+"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this
+conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair
+you have, behind your left ear?"
+
+"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing.  "You're making
+game of me."
+
+"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously.  "If you made it into a
+curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite
+too fascinating.  You ask Jenkins.  I say, Martha?  What's a placket?"
+
+"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a
+shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing
+which shows when it shouldn't."
+
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one.
+Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.
+
+The Boy considered this.  "And does the umbrella with the waist belong
+to the same old woman?"
+
+Martha nodded.
+
+"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"
+
+Martha hesitated.  "'Tain't always petticoats makes an old woman," she
+said, sententiously.
+
+"Martha, you are _pro_-foundly right," said the Boy.  "Does the
+Professor stay to tea?"
+
+"Thank goodness no, sir.  We draw the line at that, 'cept when Miss
+_H_ann comes too."
+
+"Who is Miss _H_ann?"
+
+"She's the Professor's sister."  Martha hesitated; poured hot water
+into the silver teapot; then turned to whisper confidentially, with
+concentrated dislike: "She's always a-_h_egging of 'em on!"
+
+"What a curious occupation," remarked the Boy, blowing a smoke-ring.
+"Does Miss _H_ann come often?"
+
+"No, Mr. Guy.  Thanks be, she's a _h_invalid."
+
+"Poor Miss _H_ann.  What's the matter with her?"
+
+Martha snorted.  "Fancies herself too much."
+
+"What a curious complaint.  What are the symptoms?"
+
+"Fancies herself in a bath-chair," said Martha, scornfully.
+
+"I see," said the Boy.  "Oh, poor Miss _H_ann!  I should feel very sick
+if I fancied myself in a bath-chair.  I wish I could meet Miss _H_ann.
+I should like to talk to her about the _h_egging-on business."
+
+"_You'd_ make her sit up," said Martha, with spiteful enjoyment.
+
+"Oh no, I shouldn't," said the Boy.  "That would not be kind to an
+invalid.  I should see that she reclined, comfortably; and then I
+should jolly well flatten her out."
+
+At that moment a shadow fell across the sunny window.  Miss Charteris,
+her guest having departed, passed down the garden steps, and moved
+across the lawn.
+
+The Boy sprang to his feet.  At sight of her, his conscience smote him
+that he should have thus gossiped and chaffed with old Martha.  He
+suddenly remembered why he had originally found his way to the kitchen.
+
+"Martha," he said; "I want you to let me carry out the tea-tray this
+afternoon.  She doesn't know I am here.  She will think it is you or
+Jenkins, till she looks round.  Let me carry it out, Martha, there's a
+duck!"
+
+"As you please, sir," said Martha; "but if you want her to think it's
+Jenkins, you must put it down with a clatter.  It takes a man to be
+clumsy."
+
+The Boy walked over to the window.  The mulberry-tree was not visible
+from the kitchen table.
+
+"Don't go there, Mr. Guy!" cried Martha.  "Miss Christobel will see
+you, sir.  This window, and the pantry, show from the garden.  If you
+want to 'ave a look at her, go through that door into the storeroom.
+The Venetian blind is always down in there.  There is one crack through
+which I----"
+
+Martha stopped short, disconcerted.
+
+"One crack through which you think I could see?  Thank you, Martha,"
+said the Boy, readily.  "Hurry up with the tray."
+
+He went into the store-room; found Martha's chink, and realized exactly
+what had been the extent of Martha's view, during the last two days.
+
+Then he bent his hungry young eyes on Christobel.
+
+She was seated in a garden chair, her back to the house, her face
+towards the postern gate in the old red wall at the bottom of the
+garden.  The rustic table, upon which he would soon deposit the
+tea-tray, was slightly behind and to the left of her.  The sun shone
+through the mulberry leaves, glinting on the pure whiteness of her
+gown.  She leaned her beautiful head back wearily.  Her whole attitude
+betokened fatigue.  He could not see her face; but he felt sure her
+eyes were open; and he knew her eyes were on the gate.
+
+The Boy's lips moved.  "Christobel," he whispered.
+"Christobel--beloved?"
+
+She was waiting; and he knew she was waiting for him.
+
+Presently he dropped the lath of the Venetian blind, and turned to go.
+But first he took out his pocket-book and fastened the lath which
+lifted most easily, to those above and below it, with halfpenny stamps.
+He knew old Martha would take a hint from him.  There must be no eyes
+on the mulberry-tree to-day.
+
+In the kitchen the tray was ready; tea freshly made, thin
+bread-and-butter, cucumber sandwiches; hot buttered-toast in
+perfection; cornflour buns, warranted to explode; all the things he
+liked most; and, best of all, cups for two.  He grasped the tray firmly
+with both hands.
+
+"Martha," he said, "you are a jewel!  I give you leave to watch me down
+the lawn from the kitchen window.  But when I have safely arrived, turn
+your attention to your own tea, or I shall look up and shake my fist at
+your dear nice old face.  And, I say, Martha, do you ever write
+postcards?  Because, if you want any ha'penny stamps, you will find
+some on the storeroom blind.  Only, _don't want them_, Martha, till
+this week is over, and I am gone."
+
+Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and made for the door.
+
+Down the lawn he bore it, and set it safely on the rustic table.  He
+was very deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, remembering his
+instructions, he contrived to set it down with something of a clatter.
+
+Miss Charteris did not turn her head Her eyes, half closed beneath the
+long lashes, were on the postern gate.
+
+"Jenkins?" she said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied the Boy, in excellent imitation of the meek tones
+of Jenkins.
+
+"Should any one call this afternoon, Jenkins, please remember that I am
+not 'at home.'"
+
+"Hip, hip, hurrah!" said the Boy.
+
+Then she turned--and her face was all, and more than all, he had hoped
+it might be.
+
+"Oh, Boy," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After that, it was a very happy tea.  Neither had been quite natural,
+nor had they been really true to themselves, the day before; so the
+delight of meeting seemed to follow a longer parting than the actual
+twenty-four hours.  The Boy's brown eyes rested in tenderness on the
+hand that filled his cup, and she did not say "Don't"; she merely
+smiled indulgently, and added the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let
+him do what he willed.
+
+The hum of bees was in the garden; a sense of youth was in the air.
+The sunbeams danced among the mulberry leaves.
+
+The Boy insisted upon carrying back the tray, to do away at once with
+the possibility of interruption from Jenkins.  Then he drew their
+chairs into the deeper shade of the mulberry-tree, a corner invisible
+from all windows.  The Boy had learned a lesson while looking through
+the storeroom blind.
+
+There they sat and talked, in calm content.  It did not seem to matter
+much of what they spoke, so long as they could lie back facing one
+another; each listening to the voice which held so much more of meaning
+in it than the mere words it uttered; each looking into the eyes which
+had now become clear windows through which shone the soul.
+
+Suddenly the Boy said: "How silly we were, the other day, to talk of
+the relative ages of our bodies.  What do they matter?  Our souls are
+the real you and I.  And our souls are always the same age.  Some souls
+are old--old from the first.  I have seen an old soul look out of the
+eyes of a little child; and I have seen a young soul dance in the eyes
+of an old, old woman.  You and I, thank God, have young souls,
+Christobel, and we shall be eternally young."
+
+He stretched his arms over his head, in utter joyful content with life.
+
+"Go on, Boy dear," said Christobel.  "I am not sure that I agree with
+you; but I like to hear you talk."
+
+"At first," he said, "our bodies are so babyish that our souls do not
+find them an adequate medium of expression.  But by and by our bodies
+grow and develop; after which come the beautiful years of perfection,
+ten, twenty, thirty of them, when the young soul goes strong and gay
+through life, clad in the strong gay young body.  Then--gradually,
+gradually, the strong young soul, in its unwearied, immortal youth,
+wears out the body.  The body grows old, but not the soul.  Nothing can
+age that; and when at last the body quite wears out, the young soul
+breaks free, and begins again.  Youthful souls wear out their bodies
+quicker than old ones; just as a strong young boy romps through a suit
+of clothes sooner than a weakly old man.  But there is always life more
+abundant, and a fuller life farther on.  So the mating of souls is the
+all-important thing; and when young souls meet and mate, what does it
+matter if there be a few years' difference in the ages of their bodies?
+Their essential youthfulness will surmount all that."
+
+Christobel looked at him, and truly for a moment the young soul in her
+leapt out to his, in glad response.  Then the other side of the
+question rose before her.
+
+"Ah, but, Boy dear," she said, "the souls express themselves--their
+needs, their delights, their activities--through the bodies.  And
+suppose one body, in the soul-union, is wearing out sooner than the
+other; that is hard on the other--hard on both.  Boy--my Little Boy
+Blue--shall I tell you an awful secret?  I suppose I sat too closely
+over my books at Girton; I suppose I was not sufficiently careful about
+good print, or good light.  Anyway--Boy dear--I have to use glasses
+when I read."  She looked wistfully into his bright eyes.  "You see?
+Already I am beginning to grow old."  Her sweet lips trembled.
+
+In a moment he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, bending over her,
+as he did on the first day; but as he did not do yesterday.  Suddenly
+she realized why she had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone.
+
+He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, back and palm.  Then he parted
+the third finger from the rest, with his own brown ones, and held that
+against his warm young lips.
+
+She drew her hand slowly away; passed it over his hair; then let it
+fall upon her lap.  She could not speak; she could not move; she could
+not send him away.  She wanted him so--her little Boy Blue, of long ago.
+
+"Old, my Beloved?" he said.  "You--old!  Never!  Always
+perfect--perfect to me.  And why not wear glasses?  Heaps of mere kids
+wear glasses, and wear them all the time.  Only--how alarmingly clever
+you must look in spectacles, Christobel.  It would terrify me now; but
+by and by it will make me feel proud.  I think one would expect glasses
+to go with those awe-inspiring classical honours.  With my barely
+respectable B.A., I daren't lay claim to any outward marks of
+erudition."  Then, as she did not smile, but still gazed up at him,
+wistfully, his look softened to still deeper tenderness: "Dear eyes,"
+he murmured, "oh dear, dear eyes," and gently laid his lips on each in
+turn.
+
+"Don't," she said, with a half sob.  "Ah, Boy, don't!  You know you
+must not kiss me."
+
+"Kiss you!" he said, still bending over her.  "Do you call that
+kissing?"  Then he laughed; and the joyous love in his laughter wrung
+her heart.  "Christobel, on the seventh day, when the gates fly open,
+and the walls fall down; when the citadel surrenders; when you admit
+you are my own--_then_ I shall kiss you; _then_ you will know what
+kissing really means."
+
+He bent above her.  His lips were very near to hers.  She closed her
+eyes and waited.  Her own lips trembled.  She knew how fearfully it
+tempted the Boy that her lips should tremble because his were near; yet
+she let them tremble.  She forgot to remember the past; she forgot to
+consider the future.  She was conscious of only one thing: that she
+wanted her Little Boy Blue to teach her what kissing really meant.  So
+she closed her eyes and waited.
+
+She did not hear him go; but presently she knew he was no longer there.
+
+She opened her eyes.
+
+The Boy had walked across the lawn, and stood looking into the golden
+heart of an opening yellow rose.  His back appeared very
+uncompromising; very determined; very erect.
+
+She rose and walked over to him.  As she moved forward, with the
+graceful dignity of motion which was always hers, her mental balance
+returned.
+
+She slipped her hand beneath his arm.  "Come, Boy," she said; "let us
+walk up and down, and talk.  It is enervating to sit too long in the
+sunshine."
+
+He turned at once, suiting his step to hers, and they paced the lawn in
+silence.
+
+When they reached the postern gate the Boy stood still.  Something in
+his look suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when the sand on his
+small nose could not detract from the dignity of his little face, nor
+weaken its stern decision.
+
+He took both her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
+
+"Christobel," he said, "I must go.  I must go, because I dare not stay.
+You are so wonderful this afternoon; so dear beyond expression.  I know
+you trust me absolutely; but this is only the third day; and I cannot
+trust myself, dear.  So I'm off!"
+
+He lifted both her hands to his lips.
+
+"May I go, my Queen?" he said.
+
+"Yes, Boy," she answered.  "Go."
+
+And he went.
+
+It was hard to hear the thud of the closing door.  For some time she
+stood waiting, just on the inside.  She thought he would come back, and
+she wished him to find her there, the moment he opened the door.
+
+But the Boy--being the Boy--did not come back.
+
+Presently she returned to her chair, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+She lay, with closed eyes, and lived again through the afternoon, from
+the moment when the Boy had said: "Hip, hip, hurrah!"  There came a
+time when she turned very pale, and her lips trembled, as they had done
+before.
+
+At length she rose and paced slowly up the lawn.  On her face was the
+quiet calm of an irrevocable decision.
+
+"To-morrow," she said, "I must tell the Boy about the Professor."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+In the middle of the night, Martha, being wakeful, became haunted by
+the remembrance of the smoke, as it had curled from cracks and keyholes
+in the kitchen.  She felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink
+wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the stairs to make sure the house
+was not on fire.  Martha's wakefulness was partly caused by the unusual
+fact of a large and hard curl-paper, behind her left ear.
+
+Miss Charteris was also awake.  She was not worried by memories of
+smoke, or visions of fire; and her soft hair was completely innocent of
+curl-papers.  But she was considering how she should tell the boy about
+the Professor; and that consideration was not conducive to calm
+slumber.  She heard Martha go creaking down the stairs; and, as Martha
+came creaking up again, she opened her door, and confronted her.
+
+"What are you doing, Martha?" she said.
+
+Martha, intensely conscious of her curl-paper, was about to answer with
+more than her usual respectful irritability, when the eyes of the two
+women--mistress and maid--met, in the light of their respective
+candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in the cause of their night
+vigil passed between them.
+
+Martha smiled--a crooked smile, half ashamed to be seen smiling.  When
+she spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more completely than in the
+daytime.
+
+"'E went crawlin' about the kitchen," she said, in a muffled midnight
+whisper; "all in 'is white flannels, puffin' smoke in every crack an'
+'ole to kill the beetles.  So kind 'e meant it; but I couldn't sleep
+for wonderin' if the place was smokin' still.  I 'ad to go down an'
+see.  'Ow came you to be awake, Miss Christobel?"
+
+"Things he said in the garden, Martha, have given me food for thought.
+I began thinking them over; and sleep went."
+
+Martha smiled again--and this time the smile came more easily.  "'E
+_'as_ a way of keepin' one on the go," she said; "but we'd best be
+gittin' to sleep now, miss.  'E'll be at it again to-morrow, bless 'is
+'eart!"  And Martha, in her pink wrapper, lumbered upwards.
+
+But the Boy, who had this disturbing effect on the women who loved him,
+slept soundly himself, one arm flung high above his tumbled head.  And
+if the sweet mother, who perforce had had to let her dying arms slip
+from about her baby-boy, almost before his little feet could carry him
+across a room, saw from above the pure radiance on his lips and brow as
+he slept, she must have turned to the Emerald Throne with glad
+thanksgiving for the answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's prayers.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the third day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY
+
+CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
+
+"I am exhausted," said the Boy, reaching out a long arm, and securing
+his third piece of hot buttered-toast.  "I am ruffled.  My usual calm
+mental poise is overthrown--and on the Sabbath, of all days!  Every
+feather I possess has been rubbed up the wrong way."  He lay back in
+the depths of his chair, stretched out his legs, and looked dejectedly
+at Christobel.
+
+Her quiet smile enveloped him.  Her look was as a cool touch on a hot
+forehead.
+
+"Poor Little Boy Blue!  I thought something was wrong.  I should feel a
+keener anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less obviously consoling."
+
+"I'll jolly well never go again," said the Boy, with indignation.  "Not
+me!"
+
+"Before you were born, Boy; when I went to school," said Miss
+Charteris, "we were taught to say 'Not _I_.'  And if you were to tell
+me where you have been, on this Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to
+give you more intelligent sympathy."
+
+"I've been to a drawing-room meeting," said the Boy, "and I've heard a
+woman hold forth.  For an hour and a quarter, I've sat stuffed up,
+breathing the atmosphere of other people's go-to-meeting clothes, and
+heard a good lady go meandering on, while I had no room for my legs."
+
+"I thought you seemed finding them extra long, Boy.  Why did you go to
+a drawing-room meeting?"
+
+"I went," said the Boy, "because the dear old thing in whose house it
+was held asked me to go.  She used to know my mother.  When I was at
+Trinity she looked me up, often invited me to her charming home, gave
+me excellent little dinners, followed by the kindest, nicest, most
+nervous little preachments.  Don't look amused, dear.  I never failed
+to profit.  I respected her for it.  She is as good and genuine as they
+make 'em; and if _she_ had stood up this afternoon, with her friendly
+smile, and dear shaky old voice, and given us an exposition of the
+twenty-third Psalm, we should have all come away quite 'good and
+happy.'  Instead of which--oh, my wig!"
+
+The Boy took an explosive bun, and put it whole into his mouth.  "The
+only way to manage them on Sunday," he explained, as soon as speech was
+possible, "when sweeping is not the right thing.  But let us hope
+Mollie's papa's 'clerical brethren' won't find it out.  There would
+certainly be less conversation and fewer crumbs, but no fun at all."
+
+"I don't think you need be afraid, Boy dear.  Even should such a way
+out of the difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to think they would
+prefer the explosion, to the whole bun at a mouthful.  It has a rather
+startling effect, you know, until one gets used to seeing it done.  I
+can't quite imagine an archdeacon doing it, while standing on the
+hearthrug in conversation with my brother.  Now tell me what the good
+lady said, which you found so trying."
+
+"Oh, she meandered on," grumbled the Boy.  "She told us all we should
+have been, if we had not been what we were; and all we might be, if we
+were not what we are; and all we shall be, when we are not what we are!
+She implored us to consider, and weigh well, _where_ we should go, if,
+by a sudden and unexpected dispensation of Providence, we ceased to be
+where we then were.  I jolly well knew the answer to _that_; for if
+Providence had suddenly dispensated--which it didn't, for a good
+three-quarters of an hour--I should have been here, _here_, HERE, as
+fast as my best Sunday boots could carry me!"  His brown eyes softened.
+"Ah, think what '_here_' means," he said.  "Think!  'Here' means _You_!"
+
+But Miss Charteris did not wish the conversation to become too
+meltingly personal.
+
+"What else did she say, Boy?"
+
+He consulted the mulberry leaves, then bounded in his chair.  "Ha, I
+have it!  I kept this tit-bit for you.  She used an astronomical
+illustration, I haven't the least idea apropos of what, but she told us
+exactly how many millions of miles the sun is from the earth; and then
+she smiled upon us blandly, and said: 'Or is it billions?'  Think of
+that!  She said: '_Or is it billions?_' in exactly the same tone of
+voice as she might have said of the bonnet she had on: 'I bought it, at
+a sale, for elevenpence three farthings, _or was it a shilling_?'"
+
+"Oh, Boy, you really _are_ naughty!  I never connected you with
+personal sarcasm."
+
+"Yes, but that sort of woman shouldn't," complained the Boy.  "And with
+half Cambridge sitting listening.  'Millions, or is it billions?'  Oh
+lor!"
+
+"Poor thing!" remarked Miss Charteris.  "She could not have known that
+she had in the audience a person who had only just avoided the drawback
+to future enterprise, of being Senior Wrangler.  Had she realized that,
+she would have been more careful with her figures."
+
+"Tease away!" said the Boy.  "I don't care, now I am safe here.  Only I
+shan't tell you any more."
+
+"I don't want to hear any more, Boy.  I always enjoy appreciations,
+even of things I do not myself appreciate.  But non-appreciations do
+not appeal to me.  If a person has meant to be effective and proved
+inadequate, or tried to do good and done harm, I would rather not know
+it, unless I can help to put matters right.  Have some more tea, Boy;
+and then I want to talk to you myself.  I have something rather special
+to tell you."
+
+The Boy stood up and brought his cup to the little table.  When she had
+filled it, he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow on the arm of her
+chair, and drank his tea there.
+
+"I am sorry, dear," he said, presently.  "I won't do it again.  Perhaps
+I listened wrong, because I was bored at being there at all.  I say,
+Christobel--it has just occurred to me--did you know my mother?"
+
+The old garden was very still.  A hush, as of the Paradise of God,
+seemed suddenly to fall upon it.  As the Boy asked his quiet question,
+a spirit seemed to hover, between them and the green dome of mulberry
+leaves above them, smoothing the Boy's tumbled hair, and touching the
+noble brow of the woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, thankful
+spirit--eternally remembering, and tenderly glad to be remembered.  For
+a few moments the silence was a silence which could not be broken.  The
+Boy lifted wondering eyes to the moving leaves.  Christobel laid her
+hand upon his, as it gripped her chair.  An unseen voice seemed to
+whisper to the Boy--not in the stern tones of the Church, but as an
+eager, anxious, question: "Wilt thou--have--this woman--to be thy
+wedded wife?"  And silently the Boy replied: "Please God, I will"; and,
+bending, kissed the hand resting on his.
+
+The spell lifted.  Christobel spoke.
+
+"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her.  I have often wondered whether I might tell
+you.  She and my mother were dear friends.  I was thirteen when she
+died.  You were three, poor Little Boy Blue!  Two things I specially
+remember about your mother: the peculiar radiance of her face--a light
+from within, shining out; and the fact that when she was in a room the
+whole atmosphere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted.  I think she
+lived very near heaven, Boy; and, like Enoch, she walked straight in
+one day, and came back no more.  She 'was not'; for God took her."
+
+Another long holy silence.  The mulberry leaves were still.  Then the
+Boy said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me heaps more--details--lots
+of little things about her?  No one ever has.  But I seem almost to
+begin to remember her, when you talk of her.  Meanwhile, may I show you
+this?"
+
+He drew from the inner pocket of his coat, a small well-worn
+pocket-Bible.  Opening it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss
+Charteris.
+
+"It was hers," he said.
+
+She bent over it and read the inscription:
+
+  _M. A. Chelsea_
+
+  "_Through faith and patience inherit the promises._"
+
+
+Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a hand that trembled:
+
+  _To my Baby Boy from his Mother_
+
+  "_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
+
+
+She looked at it in silence.  How much had this book meant during all
+these years, to the "Baby Boy"?  Had the book in his pocket, and the
+prayers hovering about him, something to do with the fact that he was
+still--just Little Boy Blue?
+
+The Boy had taken a fountain pen from his pocket, and was shaking it
+vigorously over the grass.
+
+Now he passed it to her.
+
+"Write your dear name beneath," he said.
+
+Infinitely touched, she made no comment, raised no question.  She took
+the pen, and wrote just "_Christobel_."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the fourth day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH DAY
+
+GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
+
+"Now, Sir Boy," said Miss Charteris with decision, "this is your fifth
+day.  Our time is nearly over.  You have done most of the talking.  You
+have had things entirely your own way.  What? ... Oh, well, _almost_
+entirely your own way.  I have allowed you to play your Old Testament
+game to your heart's content.  With commendable adaptability, _I_ have
+been Jericho, and _you_ have marched round.  I have been Jericho in my
+own garden, and have refreshed the invading army with hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns.  Now it is my turn to take the
+initiative.  Jenkins having removed the tea, and it being too hot for
+tennis, I am going to ask you to sit still, while I explain to you
+quite clearly why I must send you away at the close of the seventh day."
+
+She tried to hide her extreme trepidation beneath a tone of gay banter.
+She hoped it did not sound as forced to him as it did to herself.  The
+Boy's clear eyes were fixed upon her.  Had he noticed the trembling of
+her hands, before she steadied them by laying hold of the arms of her
+chair?
+
+"So now for a serious talk, if you please, Sir Boy."
+
+"Excuse me, dear," said the Boy, "the Israelites were not allowed to
+parley."
+
+"You need not parley," said Miss Charteris; "you are requested merely
+to listen.  You may smoke if you like.  I understand cigarette smoke is
+fatal to black-beetles.  Possibly it has the same effect on garden
+insects.  Russell tells me we are overrun by snails.  Smoke, Boy, if
+you like."
+
+"Dear," said the Boy, his head thrown back, his hands thrust deep into
+his coat pockets, "I never have the smallest desire to smoke in your
+presence.  I should feel as if I were smoking in church."
+
+"Oh, you dear amazing altogether absurd boy!  Don't look at me like
+that.  And don't say such unexpected things, or I shall be unable to
+parley satisfactorily."
+
+"When _I_ went to school," remarked the Boy, "and you were an engaging
+little girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: 'Do not look at me
+_thus_'; at least, masters frequently appeared to think it necessary to
+make that remark to me.  I can't imagine why; because they were not
+specially worth looking at; excepting that a very large person, in a
+very angry condition, always presented a spectacle of extreme interest
+to my juvenile mind.  It was so fascinating to watch and see what they
+would do next.  They were like those wooden monkeys and bears you buy
+in Swiss shops, don't you know?  You pull a hanging string, and their
+legs and arms jump about unexpectedly.  One always felt a really angry
+grown-up was a mere puppet.  Unseen fingers were pulling the string;
+and it was funny to watch.  There was an exciting element of danger,
+too; because sometimes a hand jerked up and boxed your ears."
+
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "it must have been quite impossible ever
+to be _mildly_ angry with you.  Either one would have waxed impotently
+furious; or one would have wanted to--to hug you!"
+
+The Boy leapt up.
+
+"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or I shall send you away.  And I do
+not wish to do that; because I have quite made up my mind to tell you
+to-day, a thing which I suppose I ought to have told you long ago; and
+I tried to do so, Boy; but somehow you always made it impossible.  I
+want to--to tell you about--the Professor."  She paused.
+
+It was so very difficult.  It was like rolling a heavy stone up a steep
+hill.  And the Boy made no attempt to help her.  He lay back with an
+exaggerated display of resignation.  He looked at her with sleepy,
+amused eyes.  And he asked no questions.  The army of Israel obviously
+declined to parley.
+
+"I have long felt I ought to tell you about the Professor," continued
+Miss Charteris.
+
+The Boy sighed.  "I think I jolly well know all there is to know about
+professors," he said.
+
+"Not about this one," explained Miss Charteris.  "He is _my_ Professor."
+
+"Oh, if he's _your_ Professor," said the Boy, sitting up, "of course I
+am interested.  But I am not sure that I approve of you having a tame
+Professor; especially when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves them in
+the hall."
+
+"I am afraid nobody will ask whether you approve or not, Little Boy
+Blue.  The Professor has been a great friend of mine during nearly
+twelve years; and I think I am possibly--in fact, very probably--going
+to marry the Professor."
+
+"Really?" said the Boy.  "May I ask when he proposed?"
+
+"He has not proposed, Boy."
+
+The Boy produced his pocket-book, took out a calendar, and studied it
+attentively.
+
+"Then I'm afraid you will have some time to wait," he said.  "It will
+not be leap year again until 1912."
+
+This sounded impertinent; but the Boy could no more have been guilty of
+intentional impertinence toward her, than he could have picked her
+pocket; and Miss Charteris knew it.  There was one thing of which those
+who had dealings with Christobel Charteris could always be
+sure--absolute justice.  She had seen the Boy's face whiten suddenly,
+to a terrible pallor, beneath his tan.  She knew he was making a
+desperate fight for self-control.  How best could she help?  Her own
+part seemed almost more than she could manage.
+
+"Come here, Boy dear," she said, holding out her hand.
+
+He hesitated one instant; then rose unsteadily to his feet, and
+came--not to his usual place at the side, bending over her; but in
+front of her, on one knee, silently waiting.
+
+She bent forward.  "Take my hand, Boy."
+
+He took it, in a firm unhesitating clasp.  They held each other so, in
+silence.  The colour came back into the Boy's face.  The dumb horror
+died out of his eyes.  They smiled into hers again.
+
+"Now promise me, Boy dear, that you will let me tell you all; and that
+you will try not to misunderstand."
+
+"My dearest," said the Boy, "I promise.  But I do not need to say I
+will try not to misunderstand.  I could not misunderstand you, if I
+tried."
+
+"Then go back to your chair, Boy."
+
+He went.  His eyes were bright again.
+
+"Boy, please to understand that I am not engaged to the Professor.  Of
+course, had that been the case, I should have told you, long ago.  He
+has never said one word to me of love or marriage.  But he has been a
+great friend--an intimate friend, intellectually; and I have reason to
+know that he wishes--has wished for years--a good deal more than he has
+ever expressed to me.  He has waited, Boy; and when anybody has waited
+nearly twelve years, could one fail them?"
+
+"Why, of course!" cried the Boy, eagerly.  "If a man could wait twelve
+years--good heavens, why shouldn't he wait twenty!  A man has no
+business to wait; or to be able to wait; or to keep a woman waiting.
+Twelve years?  Oh, I say!  I didn't wait twelve days.  Now, did I?"
+
+She smiled.  "You break all speed records, Boy, always.  But cannot you
+understand that all men have not fifty thousand a year, and the world
+at their feet?  Had you been penniless, Boy, you--even you--would have
+had to wait."
+
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy, stoutly.  "I would drive a cab, I would
+sweep a crossing, I would _do_ anything, or _be_ anything; but I
+wouldn't wait for the woman I loved; nor would I"--his voice dropped
+almost to a whisper--"keep the woman who loved me, waiting."
+
+"But suppose she had a comfortable little income of her own; and you
+had less--much less--to offer her?  Surely, Boy, proper pride would
+keep you from asking her to marry you, until your income at least
+equalled hers?"
+
+"Not a bit!" said the Boy.  "That sort of rot isn't proper pride.  It's
+just selfish false pride.  However much a woman had, when a man--a
+_man_, mind you, not an old woman, or a _thing_ with no pluck or
+vertebra--when a man gives a woman his whole love, his whole life, the
+worship of his whole body, heart, and soul, he has given her that which
+no money could buy; and were she a millionairess she would still be
+poor if, from false pride, he robbed her of that gift which was his to
+give her--and perhaps his alone."
+
+"Boy dear," she said, gently; "it sounds very plausible.  But it is so
+easy to be plausible with fifty thousand a year in the background.  Let
+me tell you about the Professor.  He has, of course, his fellowship,
+and is quite comfortably off now, living as a bachelor, in rooms.  But
+he practically supports his unmarried sister, considerably older than
+himself, who lives in a tiny little villa, and keeps one maid.  The
+Professor could not afford to marry, and set up a larger establishment,
+on his present income; at least he apparently thinks he could not.  And
+your theory of robbing the woman who--the woman he loves, does not
+appear to have occurred to him.  But, during all these years he has
+been compiling an Encyclopedia--I don't suppose you know what an
+Encyclopedia is, Boy."
+
+"Oh, don't I?" said the Boy.  "It's a thing you pile up on the floor to
+stand upon when you want to fix a new pipe-rack."
+
+Miss Charteris ignored this trying definition of an Encyclopedia.
+
+"The Professor is compiling a wonderful book," she said, with dignity;
+"and, when it is completed and published, he will be in a position to
+marry."
+
+"Has he told you so?" inquired the Boy.
+
+"No, Boy.  He has never mentioned the subject of marriage to me.  But
+he has told his sister; and she has told me."
+
+"Ha!" said the Boy.  "Miss _H_ann, I suppose.  I must say, I distrust
+Miss _H_ann."
+
+"What do _you_ know of Miss Ann?" inquired Christobel, astonished.
+
+"Only that she's always a-_h_egging of 'em on," said the Boy, calmly.
+
+The indignant blood rushed into the fair proud face.
+
+"Boy!  You've been gossiping with Martha."
+
+"I have, dear; I admit it.  You see, I arrived early, on the third day;
+found the garden empty; went gaily into the house to look for you.  Ran
+up into the hall; when up got a pair of old goloshes--eh, what?  Oh,
+sorry--up got a pair of _new_ goloshes, and hit me in the eye!  A
+professor's cap and gown hung up, as if at home; and while I meditated
+upon these things, the voice of my Beloved was uplifted in loud and
+sonorous Greek, exclaiming: 'Avaunt, rash youth!  Thou impudent
+intruder!'  Can you wonder that I avaunted--to Martha?"
+
+"You will please tell me at once all Martha said to you."
+
+"Of course I will, dear.  Don't be vexed.  I always meant to tell you,
+some time or other.  I asked her whose were the goloshes; the umbrella
+with the--er--decided figure; the suspended cap and gown.  Martha said
+they were the Professor's.  I inquired whether the Professor stayed to
+tea.  You really can't blame me for asking that; because I had gone to
+the kitchen for the express purpose of carrying out the tea-tray, yours
+and mine; but _not_ the Professor's.  No possible pleasure could have
+resulted, either to you, or to me, or to the Professor, from my
+unexpected appearance with the tea-tray, if the Professor had been
+there.  Now could it?  I think it would be nice of you, dear, and only
+fair, if, remembering the peculiar circumstances of that afternoon, you
+just said: 'No; it couldn't.'
+
+"Well, I asked Martha whether the Professor stayed to tea, and heard
+that 'Thank goodness, no!' we drew the line at that, except when Miss
+_H_ann came too.  With the awful possibility of Miss _H_ann 'coming
+too,' on one of my priceless days, I naturally desired a little light
+thrown on Miss _H_ann.  I was considerably relieved to learn that Miss
+_H_ann suffers from the peculiar complaint--mental, I gather--of
+'fancying herself in a bath-chair.'  This might be no hindrance to the
+'_h_egging on' propensities, but it certainly diminished the chances of
+the 'coming too.'  That was all, dear."
+
+"Boy, you ought to have been ashamed of yourself!"
+
+"So I was, the moment I saw you walk down the lawn.  But you really
+needn't look so indignant.  I was working for you, at the same time."
+
+"Working for me?"
+
+"Yes, dear.  I told Martha her wisps would look nicer if she curled
+them.  I also suggested 'invisible pins.'  If you like I will tell you
+how I came to know about 'invisible pins'; but it is a very long story,
+and not _specially_ interesting, for the lady in the case was my
+great-aunt."
+
+"Oh, Boy," said Miss Charteris, laughing in spite of herself; "I wish
+you were the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands at Dovercourt.  I
+would dearly like to shake you."
+
+"Well," he said, "you did more than shake me, just now.  You gave me
+about the worst five minutes I ever had in my life.  Christobel?  You
+don't really care about the Professor?"
+
+"Boy, dear, I really do.  I have cared about him very much, for years."
+
+"Yes, as a woman loves a book; but not as a woman loves a man."
+
+"Explain your meaning, please."
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, violently.  "Do you love his
+mouth, his eyes, his hair----?"  The Boy choked, and stopped short.
+
+Miss Charteris considered, and replied with careful deliberation.  "I
+do not know that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears a beard.  His
+eyes are not strong, but they look very kind through his glasses.  His
+hair?  Well, really, he has not much to speak of.  But all these things
+matter very little.  His _mind_ is great and beautiful; his thoughts
+appeal to me.  I understand his way of viewing things: he understands
+mine.  It would be a wonderful privilege to be able to make life easy
+and happy for one for whom I have so profound a respect and esteem.  I
+have looked upon it, during the last few years, as a privilege which
+is, eventually, to be mine."
+
+"Christobel," cried the Boy, "it is wrong, it is terrible!  It is not
+the highest.  I can't stand it, and I won't.  I will not let you give
+yourself to a wizened old bookworm----"
+
+"Be quiet, Boy," she said, sharply.  "Do you wish to make me really
+angry?  The Professor is not old.  He is only fourteen years my senior.
+To your extreme youth, fifty may seem old.  The Professor is in his
+prime.  I am afraid we have nothing to gain, Boy, by prolonging this
+discussion."
+
+"But we can't leave it at this," said the Boy, desperately.  "Where do
+I come in?"
+
+"My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you don't come in at all, excepting as
+a very sweet idyll which, all through the years to come, I shall never
+forget.  You begged for your seven days, and I gave them.  But I never
+led you to assume I could say 'Yes.'  Now listen, Boy, and I will tell
+you the honest truth.  I do not know that I am ever going to marry the
+Professor.  I only feel pledged to him from the vague belief that we
+each consider the other is waiting.  Don't break your heart over it,
+Boy; because it is more than likely it will never come to pass.
+But--even were there no Professor--oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you.
+I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly and deeply than I have ever
+before loved anything or any one on this earth.  But I could not marry
+a boy, however dearly I loved him; however sweet was his love to me.  I
+am a woman grown, and I could surrender myself wholly, only to a man
+who would wholly be my mate and master.  I cannot pretend to call my
+Little Boy Blue 'the _man_ I love,' because he is really dearest to me
+when I think of him, with expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down
+the sands to find his cannon-ball....  Oh, Boy, I am hurting you!  I
+hate to hurt you, Boy.  Your love is so beautiful.  Nothing as perfect
+will ever touch my life again.  Yet I cannot, honestly, give what you
+ask....  Boy dear, ought I to have told you, quite plainly, sooner?  If
+so, you must forgive me."
+
+The Boy had risen, and stood before her.  "You always do the right
+thing," he said, "and never, under any circumstances, could there be
+anything for me to forgive you.  I have been an egregious young ass.  I
+have taken things for granted, all along the line.  What must you think
+of me!  Why should you care?  _You_, with your intellectual
+attainments, your honours, your high standing in the world of books?
+_Why_ should you care, Christobel?  Why _should_ you care?"
+
+He stood before her, straight and tall and desperately implacable.  The
+exuberant youth had died out of his face.  For the first time, she
+could not see in him her Little Boy Blue.
+
+"Why should you care?" he said again.
+
+She rose and faced him.  "But I _do_ care, Boy," she said.  "How dare
+you pretend to think I don't?  I care very tenderly and deeply."
+
+"Pooh!" said the Boy.  "Do you suppose I wished you to marry a
+bare-toed baby, with sand on its nose?"  He laughed wildly; paused and
+looked at her, then laughed again.  "A silly little ass that said it
+didn't like girls?  Oh, I say!  I think it's about time I was off.
+Will you walk down to the gate? ... Thanks.  You are always most
+awfully good to me.  I say, Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor's
+name?"
+
+"Harvey," she said, quietly.  "Kenrick Harvey."  The dull anguish at
+her heart seemed almost more than she could bear.  Yet what could she
+say or do?  He was merely accepting her own decision.
+
+"Harvey?" he said.  "Why of course I know him.  He's not much to look
+at, is he?  But we always thought him an awfully good sort, and kind as
+they make 'em.  We considered him a confirmed bachelor; but--well, we
+didn't know he was waiting."
+
+They had reached the postern gate.  Oh, would he see the growing pain
+in her eyes?  What was she losing?  What had she lost?  Why did her
+whole life seem passing out through that green gate?
+
+"Good-bye," he said, "and please forget all the rot I talked about
+Jericho.  It goes with the spade and bucket, and all the rest.  You
+have been most awfully kind to me, all along.  But the very kindest
+thing you can do now, is to forget all the impossible things I thought
+and said...  Allow me....  I'll shut the door."
+
+He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but he was bareheaded.  He laughed
+again; turned, and passed out.
+
+"Boy!  Boy!  Come back," said Christobel.  But the door had closed on
+the first word.
+
+She stood alone.
+
+This time she did not wait.  Where was the good of waiting?
+
+She turned and walked slowly up the lawn, pausing to look at the
+flowers in the border.  The yellow roses still looked golden.  The
+jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale purple faces to the
+sky.
+
+But the Boy was gone.
+
+She reached her chair, where he had placed it, deep in the shade of the
+mulberry-tree.  She felt tired; worn-out; old.
+
+The Boy was gone.
+
+She leaned back with closed eyes.  She had hurt him so.  She remembered
+all the glad, sweet confident things he had said each day.  Now she had
+hurt him so....  What radiant faith, in love and in life, had been his.
+But she had spoiled that faith, and dimmed that brightness.
+
+Suddenly she remembered his dead mother's prayer for him.  "_I have
+prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not_."  And under those words she
+had written "_Christobel_."  Would he want to obliterate that name?
+No, she knew he would not.  Nothing approaching a hard or a bitter
+thought could ever find a place in his heart.  It would always be the
+golden heart of her little Boy Blue.
+
+Tears forced their way beneath her closed lashes, and rolled slowly
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said aloud, "I love you so--I love you so!"
+
+"I know you do, dear," he said.  "It's almost unbelievable--yet I know
+you do."
+
+She opened her eyes.  The Boy had come back.  She had not heard his
+light step, on the springy turf.  He knelt in his favourite place, on
+the left of her chair, and bent over her.  Once more his face was
+radiant.  His faith had not failed.
+
+She looked up into his shining eyes, and the joy in her own heart made
+her dizzy.
+
+"Boy dear," she whispered, "not my lips, because--I am not altogether
+yours--I may have to--you know?--the Professor.  But, oh Boy, I can't
+help it!  I'm afraid I care terribly."
+
+He was quite silent; yet it seemed to her that he had shouted.  A burst
+of trumpet-triumph seemed to fill the air.
+
+He bent lower.  "Of course I wouldn't, Christobel," he said; "not
+before the seventh day.  But there's a lot beside lips, and it's all so
+dear."
+
+Then she felt the Boy's kisses on her hair, on her brow, on her eyes.
+"Dear eyes," he said, "shedding tears for my pain.  Ah, dear eyes!"
+And he kissed them again.
+
+She put up her hand, to push him gently away.  He captured it, and held
+it to his lips.
+
+"Stop, Boy dear," she said.  "Be good now, and sit down."
+
+He slipped to the grass at her feet, and rested his head against her
+knee.
+
+She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch.  Her Little Boy Blue
+had come back to her.  Oh, bliss unutterable!  Why worry about the
+future?
+
+"How silly we were, dear!" he said.  "How silly to suppose we could
+part like that--you and I!"  Then his sudden merry laugh rang out--oh,
+such music! such sweet music!  "I say, Christobel," he said, "it is all
+very well _now_ to say 'Stop, and be good.'  But on the seventh day,
+when the walls fall down, and I march up into the citadel, I shall give
+you millions of kisses--or will it be _billions_?"
+
+"Judging from my knowledge of you, Boy dear," she said, "I rather
+_think_ it would be billions."
+
+Later, as they stood once more by the postern gate, he turned, framed
+in the doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye.
+
+It was their second parting that day, and how different from the first.
+There was to be a third, unlike either, before the day was over; but
+its approach was, as yet, unsuspected.
+
+But as he stood in the doorway, full in a shaft of sunlight, the glad
+certainty in his eyes smote her with sudden apprehension.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear," she said, "take care!  You are building castles again.
+They will tumble about our ears.  I haven't promised you anything,
+Little Boy Blue of mine; and I am afraid I shall _have_ to marry the
+Professor."
+
+"If you do, dear," he said, "I shall have to give him a new umbrella as
+a wedding present!"  And the Boy went whistling down the lane.
+
+But, out of sight of the postern gate and of the woman who, leaning
+against it, watched him to the turning, he dropped his bounding step
+and jaunty bearing.  His face grew set and anxious; his walk, perplexed.
+
+"Oh, God," said the Boy, as he walked, "don't let me lose her!"
+
+A few minutes later, a telegram was put into his hand from the friend
+left on the coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane.
+
+"_Arrange Channel flight, if possible, day after to-morrow_."
+
+"Not I," said the Boy, crumpling the message into his pocket.  "The day
+after to-morrow is the seventh day."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+He was dining with friends, but an unaccountable restlessness seized
+him during the evening.  He made his excuses, and returned to the Bull
+Hotel soon after nine o'clock.  The hall-porter at once handed him a
+note, left by special messenger, ten minutes earlier.  It was marked
+"urgent."  The handwriting was Christobel's.
+
+The Boy flung away his cigarette, tore the note open, and turned to a
+light.  It was very short and clear.
+
+
+"_Boy dear,--I must see you at once.  You will find me in the garden._
+
+"_Christobel._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When the Boy had turned the corner and disappeared, Miss Charteris
+passed through the little postern gate, and moved slowly up the lawn.
+Ah, how different to her sad return from that gate an hour before!
+
+The William Allen Richardsons still opened their golden hearts to the
+sunset.  The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" still lifted their
+purple faces to the sky.  But instead of stabbing her with agony, they
+sang a fragrant psalm of love.
+
+Ah, why was the Boy so dear?  Why was the Boy so near?  She had watched
+him go striding down the lane, yet he still walked beside her; his gay
+young laugh of glad content was in her ears; his pure young kisses on
+her brow and eyes; his head against her knee.
+
+Just as she reached the mulberry, Jenkins hastened from the house.  The
+note he brought, in a familiar handwriting, thin and pointed, was
+marked "urgent" in one corner, and "immediate" in the other; but Miss
+Ann's notes usually were one or other.  This happened to be both.
+
+"You need not wait, Jenkins," she said.
+
+She stood close to a spreading branch of the mulberry.  Her tall head
+was up among the moving leaves.  Whispering, they caressed her.
+Something withheld her from entering the soft shade, sacred to herself
+and the Boy.  She stood, to read Ann Harvey's letter.
+
+As she read, every vestige of colour left her face.  Bending over the
+letter, she might have been a sorely troubled and perplexed replica of
+the noble Venus of Milo.
+
+Folding the letter, she went slowly up the lawn, still wearing that
+white look of cold dismay.  She spoke to Martha through the open
+window, keeping her face out of sight.
+
+"Martha," she said, "I am obliged to go immediately to Miss Ann.  If I
+am not back by eight o'clock, I shall be remaining with her for
+dinner."  She passed on, and Martha turned to Jenkins.
+
+By the way, Jenkins was having an unusually festive time.  During the
+last twenty-four hours, Martha had been kinder to him than he had ever
+known her to be.  He was now comfortably ensconced in the Windsor
+armchair in a corner of the kitchen, reading yesterday's daily paper,
+and enjoying his pipe.  Never before had his pipe been allowed in the
+kitchen; but he had just been graciously told he might bring it in, if
+he wouldn't be "messy with the _h_ashes"; Mrs. Jenkins volunteering the
+additional remarkable information, that it was "good for the beetles."
+Jenkins was doubtful as to whether this meant that his pipe gave
+pleasure to the beetles, or the reverse; but experience had taught him
+that a condition of peaceful uncertainty in his own mind was to be
+preferred to a torrent of vituperative explanation from Martha.  He
+therefore also received in silence the apparently unnecessary
+injunction not to go "crawlin' about all over the floor"; it took "a
+figure to do that!"
+
+Eight o'clock came, and Miss Charteris had not returned.
+
+"Remaining with 'er for dinner," pronounced Martha, flinging open the
+oven, and wrathfully relegating to the larder the chicken she had been
+roasting with extreme care; "an' a precious poor dinner it'll be!
+Jenkins, _you_ may 'ave this sparrow-grass.  _I_ 'aven't the 'eart.
+An' me 'oping she'd 'ave 'ad the sense to keep _'im_ to dinner; knowing
+as there was a chicking an' 'grass for two.  Now what's took Miss
+_H_ann 'urgent and immediate,' I'd like to know!" continued Martha,
+deriving considerable comfort from banging the plates and tumblers on
+to the kitchen table, with just as much violence as was consistent with
+their personal safety, as she walked round it, laying the table for
+supper.  "Ate a biscuit, I should think, an' flown to 'er cheat.  I've
+no patience; no, _that_ I 'aven't!"  And Martha attacked the loaf, with
+fury.
+
+At a quarter before nine, Miss Charteris returned.  In a few moments
+the bell summoned Jenkins.  The note he was to take was also marked
+"Immediate."  He left it on the kitchen table, and, while he changed
+his coat, Martha fetched her glasses.  Then she followed him to the
+pantry.
+
+"'Ere, run man!" she said, "run!  Never mind your muffler.  Who wants a
+muffler in June?  _'E_'s in it!  It's something more than a biscuit.
+Drat that woman!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+A quarter of an hour later, a tall white figure moved noiselessly down
+the lawn, to the seats beneath the mulberry.  The full moon was just
+rising above the high red wall, gliding up among the trees, huge and
+golden through their branches.  Christobel Charteris waited in the
+garden for the Boy.
+
+He came.
+
+By then, the lawn was bathed in moonlight.  She saw him, tall and slim,
+in the conventional black and white of a man's evening dress, pass
+silently through the postern gate.  She noted that he did not bang it.
+He came up the lawn slowly--for him.  He wore no hat, and every
+clear-cut feature of the clean-shaven young face showed up in the
+moonlight.
+
+At the mulberry, he paused, uncertain; peering into the dark shadow.
+
+"Christo_bel_?" he said, softly.
+
+"Boy dear; I am here.  Come."
+
+He came; feeling his way among the chairs, and moving aside a table,
+which stood between.
+
+He found her, sitting where he had found her, on his return, three
+hours before.  A single ray of moonlight pierced the thick foliage of
+the mulberry, and fell across her face.  He marked its unusual pallor.
+He stood before her, put one hand on each arm of her chair, and bent
+over her.
+
+"What is it?" he said, softly.  "What is it, dear heart?  It is so
+wonderful to be wanted, and sent for.  But let me know quickly that you
+are not in any trouble."
+
+She looked up at him dumbly, during five, ten, twenty seconds.  Then
+she said: "Boy, I have something to tell you.  Will you help me to tell
+it?"
+
+"Of course I will," he said.  "How can I help best?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered.  "Oh, I _don't_ know!"
+
+He considered a moment.  Then he sat down on the grass at her feet, and
+leaned his head against her knees.  She passed her fingers softly
+through his hair.
+
+"What happened after I had gone?" asked the Boy.
+
+"Jenkins brought me a note from Miss Harvey, asking me to come to her
+at once, to hear some very wonderful news, intimately affecting
+herself, and the Professor, and--and me.  She wrote very ecstatically
+and excitedly, poor dear.  She always does.  Of course, I went."
+
+"Well?" said the Boy, gently.  The pause was so very long, that it
+seemed to require supplementing.  He felt for the other hand, which had
+been holding the lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips.  It was
+wet with tears.
+
+The Boy started.  He sat up; turned, resting his arm upon her lap, and
+tried to see her face.
+
+"Go on, dear," he said.  "Get it over."
+
+"Boy," said Miss Charteris, "a rich old uncle of the Harveys has died,
+leaving the Professor a very considerable legacy, sufficient to make
+him quite independent of his fellowship, and of the production of the
+Encyclopedia."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They are very happy about it, naturally.  Poor Ann is happier than I
+have ever seen her.  And the chief cause of their joy appears to be
+that now the Professor is, at last, in a position to marry."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann is full of it.  She told me a
+good many very touching things.  I had no idea it had meant so much--to
+him--all these years.--Boy dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall have to marry the Professor."
+
+No answer.
+
+"I don't know how to make you understand why I feel so bound to them.
+They were very old friends of my father and mother.  They were so good
+to me through all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone.  Miss Ann
+is a great invalid, and very dependent upon love and care, and upon not
+being thwarted in her little hopes and plans.  She expects to come and
+live in--in her brother's home.  She knows I should love to have her.
+And he has done so much for me, intellectually; so patiently kept my
+mind alive, when it was inclined to stagnate; and working, when it
+would have grown slack.  He has given up hours of his valuable time to
+me, every week, for years."
+
+No answer.
+
+Suddenly the moonlight, through an opening in the mulberry leaves, fell
+upon his upturned face.  She saw the anguish in his eyes.  She turned
+his head away, resting it against her knee, and clasped her hands upon
+it.
+
+"Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I know.  In a most extraordinary
+way--in a way I cannot understand--you have won my body.  It yearns to
+be with you; it aches if you suffer; it lives in your gladness; it
+grows young in your youth.  Nobody else has ever made me feel this; I
+do not suppose anybody else ever will.  But--oh Boy--bodies are not
+everything.  Bodies are the least of all.  And I think--I _think_ the
+Professor holds my mind.  He won it long ago.  I have grown much older
+since then, and very tired of waiting.  But I can look back to the time
+when I used to think the greatest privilege in the world would be, to
+be the--to marry the Professor."
+
+She paused, and waited.
+
+"Bodies count," said the Boy, in a low voice.  "You'll jolly well find,
+that bodies count."
+
+It was such a relief to hear him speak at last.
+
+"Oh, I know, Boy dear," she said.  "But more between some, than others.
+The Professor and I are united, primarily, on the mental and spiritual
+plane.  Being so sure of this, realizing the difference, makes it less
+hard, in a way, to--to give up my Little Boy Blue.  Boy dear, you must
+help me; because I love you as I have never loved anybody else in this
+world before; as I know I never shall love again.  But I am bound in
+honour not to disappoint the man who _knows_ I have waited for him.
+Miss Ann admitted to me to-night that she has told him.  She said, in
+the first moments of joy she _had_ to tell him; he was so anxious; and
+so diffident.  Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think I should
+have begged off.  But--as he knows--as they have trusted me--dear, we
+must say 'good-bye' to-night.  He is going to write to me to-morrow,
+asking if he may come.  I shall say: 'Yes.' ... Boy dear?  Is it very
+hard? ... Oh, can't you see where duty comes in?  There can be no true
+happiness if one has failed to be true to what one knows is just and
+right....  Can't you realize, Boy, that _they_ have been everything to
+me for seven _years_?  _You_ have come in, for seven _days_."
+
+"Time is nothing," said the Boy, suddenly.  "You and I are one,
+Christobel; eternally, indissolubly _one_.  You will find it out, when
+it is too late.  Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!"
+
+She hesitated.  The Boy's theories were so vital, so vigorous, so
+assured.  Was she making a mistake?  There was no question as to the
+pain involved by her decision; but was that pain to result as she
+believed, in higher good to all; or was it to mean irreparable loss?
+The very knowledge that her body so yearned for him, led her to
+emphasize the fact that the Boy could not--oh surely could not--be a
+fit mate for her mind.  Yet he was so confident, so sure of himself, in
+regard to her, on every point; so unhesitatingly certain that they were
+meant for each other.
+
+And then she saw Ann Harvey, with clasped hands, saying: "_Darling_
+child, forgive me, but I _had_ to tell Kenrick!  He is so _humble_--he
+was so _diffident_, so doubtful of his own powers of attraction.  I
+_had_ to tell him that I knew you had been very fond of him for
+_years_.  I did not say much, sweet child; but just enough to give dear
+Kenrick _hope_ and _confidence_."
+
+She could see Miss Ann's delicate wrinkled face; the tearful eyes; the
+lavender ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious hair-brooch, fastening
+the old lace at her neck.  The scene was photographed upon her memory;
+for, in that moment, Hope--the young Hope, born of the youthful Boy and
+his desires--had died.  Christobel Charteris had taken up the burden of
+life; a life apart from the seven days' romance, created by the amazing
+over-confidence of her Little Boy Blue.
+
+The masterful man attracts; but, in the end, it is usually the
+diffident man who wins.  The innate unselfishness of the noblest type
+of woman, causes her to yield more readily to the insistence of her
+pity than to the force of her desire.  In these cases, marriage and
+martyrdom are really--though unconsciously--synonymous; and the same
+pure, holy courage which went smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the
+altar.  Does a martyr's crown await it, in another world?  Possibly.
+The only perplexing question, in these cases, being: What awaits the
+wrecked life of "the other man"?
+
+Christobel Charteris had put her hand to the plough; she would not look
+back.
+
+"Little Boy Blue," she said, "you must say 'good-bye' and go.  I am
+going to marry the Professor quite soon, and I must not see you again.
+Say 'good-bye,' Boy dear."
+
+Then the Boy's anguish broke through all bounds.  He flung his arms
+around her, and hid his face in her lap.  A sudden throb of speechless
+agony seemed to overwhelm them both, submerging all arguments, all
+casuistry, all obligations to others, in a molten ocean of love and
+pain.
+
+Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, give her to me!  Give her to me!
+O God, give her to me!"
+
+"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!"
+
+He was silent at once.
+
+Then bending, she gathered him to her, holding his face against her
+breast; sheltering him in the tenderness of her arms.  He had never
+seemed so completely her own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, when
+she listened to his hopeless prayer: "O God, give her to me!"  This was
+the Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon-balls; who faced the
+world, with sand upon his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes;
+indomitable courage in his heart.  She forgot the man's estate to which
+he had attained; she forgot the man's request to which she had given a
+final denial.  She held him as she had first longed to do, when his
+nurse, in unreasonable wrath, shook him on the sands; she rocked him
+gently to and fro, as his dead mother might have done, long years ago.
+"Oh, my Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" she said.
+
+Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears upon her neck.
+
+Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart stood still.  Then the full
+passion of her tenderness awoke, and found voice in an exceeding bitter
+cry.
+
+"Oh, I cannot bear it!  I cannot bear it!  Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you
+shall have all you wish--all--all! ... Do you hear, my Little Boy Blue?
+It shall all be for you, darling; all for you!  Nobody else matters.
+You shall have all you want--all--all--all!"
+
+Silence under the mulberry-tree; the silence of a great decision.
+
+Then he drew himself gently but firmly from her arms.
+
+He stood before her, tall, erect, unbending.  The moonlight fell upon
+his face.  It had lost its look of youth, taking on a new power.  It
+was the face of a man; and of a man who, having come to a decision,
+intended, at all costs, to abide by it.
+
+"No, Christobel," he said.  "No, my Beloved.  I could not accept
+happiness--even _such_ happiness--at so great a cost to you.  There
+could be no bliss for you, no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great
+love, if you had gone against your supreme sense of duty; your own high
+conception of right and wrong.  Also, Christobel, dearest--you must not
+give yourself in a rush of emotion.  You must give yourself
+deliberately where your mind has chosen, and where your great soul is
+content.  That being so, I must be off, Christobel; and don't you worry
+about me.  You've been heavenly good to me, dear; and I've put you
+through so much.  I will go up to town to-night.  I shall not come
+back, unless you send for me.  But when you want me and send--why, my
+Love, I will come from the other end of the world."
+
+He stooped and took both her hands in his; lifted them reverently,
+tenderly, to his lips; held them there one moment, then laid them back
+upon her lap, and turned away.
+
+She saw him walk down the moonlit lawn, tall and erect.  She saw him
+pass through the gate, without looking back.  She heard it close
+quietly--not with the old boyish bang--yet close irrevocably,
+decisively.
+
+Then she shut her eyes, and began again to rock gently to and fro.
+Little Boy Blue was still in her arms; it comforted her to rock him
+there.  But the man who had arisen and left her, when he might, taking
+advantage of her weakness, have won her against her own conscience and
+will; the man who, mastering his own agony, had thus been brave and
+strong for her--had carried her whole heart with him, when he went out
+through the postern gate.
+
+In rising, he left the Boy in her arms.  Through the long hard years to
+come, she prayed she might keep him there--her own Little Boy Blue.
+
+But he who went out alone, for her sake to face life without her, was
+_the man she loved_.
+
+She knew it, at last.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the fifth day_."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+THE SIXTH DAY
+
+MISS ANN HAS "MUCH TO SAY"
+
+On the afternoon of the sixth day, at the hour which had hitherto been
+kept for the Boy, Christobel Charteris, in response to another urgent
+and immediate summons, went to take tea with Miss Ann.
+
+It had been a long, dull, uneventful day, holding at first a certain
+amount of restless uncertainty as to whether the Boy was really gone;
+mingled with apprehensive anticipation of a call from the Professor.
+
+But before noon a reply-paid telegram arrived from the Boy, sent off at
+Charing Cross.
+
+
+"_Good morning.  All's well.  Just off for Folkestone.  Please tell me
+how you are._"
+
+
+To which, while Jenkins and the telegraph-boy waited, Miss Charteris
+replied:
+
+
+"_Quite well, thank you.  Do be careful at Folkestone._"
+
+
+and afterwards thought of many other messages which she might have
+sent, holding more, and better expressed.  But that precious moment in
+touch with the Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed so impossible to
+think of anything but commonplace words, while Jenkins stood at
+attention near the table; and the telegraph-boy kept ringing his
+bicycle-bell outside, as a reminder that he waited.
+
+Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted by this momentary contact with
+the Boy.  He still cared to know how she was.  And it was so like him
+to put: "All's well."  He wished her to know he had not gone down
+beneath his trouble.  "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
+Brave Little Boy Blue, of long ago!
+
+The expectation of the Professor's note or call remained, keeping her
+anxious; until she heard from Ann Harvey, that her brother had been
+obliged to go to London on business, and would not return until the
+evening.  "Come to tea with me, dear child," the note concluded; "we
+have _much_ to say!"
+
+It seemed to Christobel that there remained nothing which Miss Ann had
+not already said, in every possible form and way.  Nevertheless, she
+put on her hat, and went.  Miss Ann had succeeded in impressing all her
+friends with the conviction that her wishes must never be thwarted.
+
+Miss Ann had named her villa "Shiloh," undoubtedly a suitable name, so
+far as she herself was concerned; her time being mostly spent upon a
+comfortable sofa in her tiny drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker
+lounge beneath the one tree in her small garden; or being carefully
+wheeled out in a bath-chair.
+
+But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa in any sense a "resting-place."
+She had a way of keeping everybody about her--from jaded Emma to the
+most casual caller--on the move, while she herself presented a delicate
+picture of frail inactivity.  Immediately upon their arrival, her
+friends found an appointed task awaiting them; but it was always
+something which Miss Ann would have given to somebody else to do, had
+they not chanced at that moment to appear; and they were usually left
+with the feeling that the particular somebody else--whose _privilege_
+they, in their well-meant zeal, had usurped--would have accomplished it
+better.
+
+Directing them from the sofa, Miss Ann kept her entourage busy and
+perpetually on the move.  Yet she never felt she was asking much of
+them; nor, however weary at the conclusion of the task, did they ever
+feel much had been accomplished, owing to the judicious use of the word
+"just."
+
+"My dear," Miss Ann would say, "as you _are_ here, will you _just_
+clean the canary?"  Cleaning the canary meant a very thorough turning
+out of an intricate little brass cage; several journeys up and down
+stairs in quest of sand, seed, and brass polish, and an out-door
+excursion to a neighbour's garden for groundsel.  The canary's name was
+"Sweetie-weet," and, however much annoyed Miss Ann's friends might be
+feeling with the canary, they had to call him "Sweetie-weet" all the
+time they "cleaned him," lest his flutterings should upset Miss Ann.
+Now you cannot say "Sweetie-weet" in an angry voice.  Try, and you will
+see.  Consequently Miss Ann's friends had no vent for their feelings
+during the process of getting a rather large hand in and out of a very
+small brass door with a spring, which always snapped to, at the wrong
+moment, while the hand, which seemed to its possessor larger than it
+had ever seemed before, was crooked round in an impossible position in
+a strained attempt to fix Sweetie-weet's perches.  If anything went
+wrong during the cleaning process, Miss Ann, from her vantage-ground on
+the sofa would sigh, and exclaim: "Poor patient little Sweetie-weet!"
+Miss Ann was in full possession of all her faculties.  Her hearing was
+preternaturally sharp.  It was no use saying "Fiend!" to Sweetie-weet,
+in an emphatic whisper.  He fluttered the more.
+
+When the task was completed, the cage had to be brought to Miss Ann's
+couch for inspection.  She then usually discovered the perches to have
+been put back before they were perfectly dry.  Now _nothing_--as surely
+you hardly ought to require to be told--was so prejudicial to
+Sweetie-weet's delicate constitution as to have _damp_ wood beneath his
+_precious_ little feet.  Consequently all the perches had _just_ to be
+taken out again, dried before the kitchen fire, and put back once more.
+When this mandate went forth, the glee in the bright black eyes in
+Sweetie-weet's yellow head was unmistakable.  He shared Miss Ann's
+mania for keeping people busy.
+
+When, at last, the second installation of perches was over, and the
+cage was suspended from the brass chain in the sunny window,
+Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill crescendo of ear-piercing
+sarcasm--"a little song of praise" Miss Ann called it--directed full at
+the hot and exhausted friend, who was applying a pocket-handkerchief to
+the wire scratches on the back of her hand, and trying to smile at Miss
+Ann's recital of all Emma would say, when she found that her special
+privilege and delight--the cleaning of Sweetie-weet--had been wrested
+from her by the over-zealous friend.  As a matter of fact, jaded Emma's
+personal remarks about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-drying process in
+the kitchen, had been of a nature which would not bear repeating in
+Sweetie-weet's presence, and had provided the only amusement the friend
+had got out of the whole performance.
+
+When Christobel Charteris arrived at Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the
+green velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; a Shetland shawl
+about her shoulders, fastened by the largest and most mysterious of her
+hair-brooches--a gold-mounted oval brooch, in which a weeping willow of
+fair hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark hair; while a crescent
+moon of grey hair kept watch over both.  This funereal collection of
+family hair always possessed a weird fascination for small children,
+brought by their parents to call upon Miss Ann.  The most
+undemonstrative became affectionate, and hastened with ready docility
+to the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to obtain a closer view, and to
+settle the much disputed point as to the significance of a small round
+object in the left-hand corner at the bottom.  In fact, to the
+undisguised dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster once emerged from
+Miss Ann's embrace, exclaiming eagerly to his little sister: "It's a
+furze-bush, _not_ a hedgehog!"  An unfortunate remark, which might have
+been taken by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal matters than a
+detail in her brooch.
+
+Christobel herself was not altogether free from the spell of this
+hirsute cemetery; chiefly because she knew it was worn on days when
+deep emotion was to be felt and expressed.  At sight of it, she was
+quite prepared for the tearful smile with which Miss Ann signed to her
+to close the door.  Then extending her arms, "Sweet sister," she said,
+with emotion, "let me take you to my heart."
+
+It was somewhat startling to Christobel to be apostrophized as "sister"
+by Miss Ann.  The Boy had made her feel so young, and so completely his
+contemporary, that if Miss Ann had called her "daughter," or even
+"granddaughter," it would have seemed more appropriate.  Also her
+magnificent proportions constituted a somewhat large order for Miss
+Ann's proposed embrace.
+
+However, she knelt beside the sofa, and allowed herself to be taken to
+Miss Ann's heart in sections.  Then, having found and restored Miss
+Ann's lace pocket-handkerchief, she seated herself in a low chair
+beside the couch, hoping for enlightenment upon the immediate prospects
+of her own future.
+
+Miss Ann wept gently for a while.  Christobel sat silent.  Her recent
+experience of tears, wrung from such deep anguish of soul, made it less
+easy for her to feel sympathetic towards tears which flowed from no
+apparent cause, and fell delicately into perfumed lace.  So she waited
+in silence, while Miss Ann wept.
+
+The room was very still.  The bang with which the Boy usually made his
+entry anywhere, would have been terrific in its joyful suddenness.  At
+the mere thought of it, Christobel's heart stood still and listened.
+But this was a place into which the Boy would never make an entry,
+noisy or otherwise.  Besides--the Boy was gone.  Oh, silent, sober,
+sorry world!  The Boy was gone.
+
+Sweetie-weet put his head on one side, and chirped interrogatively.  In
+his judgment, the silence had lasted sufficiently long.
+
+Miss Ann dried her eyes, making an effort to control her emotion.  Then
+she spoke, in a voice which still trembled.
+
+"Dearest child," she said, "I want you _just_ to cover this book for
+me.  Emma has offered to do it, several times, but I said: 'No, Emma.
+We must keep it for Miss Christobel.  I do not know _what_ she would
+say to you, if you took to covering my books!'  Emma is a good soul,
+and willing; but has not the _mind_ and _method_ required to cover a
+book properly.  If you will _just_ run up to my room, dear child, you
+will find a neat piece of whity-brown paper laid aside on purpose....
+Hush, Sweetie-weet!  Christobel knows you are pleased to see her....
+It is either on the ottoman behind the screen, or in the top left-hand
+drawer of the mahogany chest, between the window and the fireplace.
+Ah, how much we have come through, during the last twenty-four hours!
+The scissors, dear Love, are hanging by black tape from a nail in the
+store-room.  You require a large and _common_ pair for cutting brown
+paper.  How truly wonderful are the ways of Providence, dear
+Christobel!  The paste is in the little cupboard under the stairs."
+
+When Miss Charteris had finished covering the book, having bent upon it
+all the _mind_ and _method_ it required, she forestalled the setting of
+another task, by saying firmly: "I want an important talk now, please.
+Ann, are you sure you told your brother that I had cared for him for
+years?"
+
+"Darling, dear Kenrick was so _diffident_; so unable to realize his own
+powers of _attraction_; so----"
+
+"Do you think it was fair toward a woman, even if it were true, to tell
+a man who had never asked her love, that that love has long been his?"
+
+"Sweet child, how crudely you put it!  I merely _hinted, whispered_;
+gave the most _delicate_ indications of what I knew to be your feeling.
+For you _do_ love my brother; do you not, dear Christobel?"
+
+"I think," said Miss Charteris, slowly, weighing each word; "I think I
+love the Professor as a woman loves a book."
+
+There was a moment of tense silence in Miss Ann's drawing-room.
+Christobel Charteris looked straight before her, a stern light upon her
+face, as of one confronted on the path of duty by the clear shining of
+the mirror of self-revelation.
+
+Into Miss Ann's pale blue eyes shot a gleam of nervous anxiety.
+
+Sweetie-weet chirped, interrogatively.
+
+Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her hands.  "Ah, what a beautiful
+definition!" she said.  "What _could_ be more pure, more perfect?"
+
+Miss Charteris knew a love of a very different kind, which was
+absolutely pure, and altogether perfect.  But that was the love she had
+put from her.
+
+"A woman could hardly marry a book," she said.
+
+Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory shriek.  "Darling child!" she cried.
+"_No_ simile, however beautiful, should be pressed too far!  Your
+exquisite description of your love for dear Kenrick merely assures us
+that your union with him will prove one of complete contentment to the
+mind.  And the _mind_--that sensitive instrument, attuned to all the
+immensities of the intellectual spheres--the _mind_ is what really
+matters."
+
+"Bodies count," said Miss Charteris, with conviction; adding beneath
+her breath, the dawning of a smile in her sad eyes: "We shall jolly
+well find, bodies count."
+
+Miss Ann's hearing, as we have already remarked, was preternaturally
+sharp.  She started.  "My dear Christobel, what an expression!  And do
+you not think, that, under these circumstances, any mention of bodies
+savours of impropriety?"
+
+Miss Charteris turned quickly.  The colour flamed into her beautiful
+face.  The glint of angry indignation flashed from her eyes.  But the
+elderly figure on the couch looked so small and frail.  To wound and
+crush it would be so easy; and so unworthy of her strength, and wider
+experience.
+
+Suddenly she remembered a little blue back, round with grief and shame;
+a small sandy face, silent and unflinching; a brave little heart which
+kept its faith in God, and prayed on trustfully, while nurses
+misunderstood and bullied.  Then Miss Charteris conquered her own wrath.
+
+"Dear Ann," she said, gently, "do you really believe your brother would
+be much disappointed if--after all--when he asks me to marry him--which
+he has not done yet--I feel it better not to do so?"
+
+"My _darling_ child!" exclaimed Miss Ann, and her hair-brooch flew
+open, as if to accentuate her horror and amazement.  "My _darling_
+child!  Think how patiently he has waited!  Remember the long years!
+Remember----"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Miss Charteris.  "You told me all that last night,
+didn't you?  But it seems to me that, if a man can wait twelve years,
+he might as well wait twenty."
+
+"So he would have!" cried Miss Ann.  "_Undoubtedly_ dear Kenrick would
+have waited _twenty years_, had it not been for this fortunate legacy,
+which places him in a position to marry at once.  But why should you
+wish to keep him waiting any longer?  Is not twelve years sufficiently
+long?"
+
+Miss Charteris smiled.  "Twelve days would be too long for some
+people," she said, gently.  "I have no wish to keep him waiting.  But
+you must remember, Ann, the Professor has, as yet, spoken no word of
+love to me."
+
+"Dear child," said Miss Ann, eagerly; "he would have come to you
+to-day, but imperative legal business, connected with our uncle's will,
+took him to town.  I know for certain that he intends writing to you
+this evening; and, if you then give him leave to do so, he will call
+upon you to-morrow.  Oh, _darling_ girl, you will not disappoint us?
+We have so trusted you; so _believed_ in you!  A less scrupulously
+honourable man than Kenrick, might have tried to bind you by a promise,
+before he was in a position to offer you immediate marriage.  Think of
+all the hopes--the hopes and p-_plans_, which depend upon your
+faithfulness!"  Miss Ann dissolved into tears--but not to a degree
+which should hinder her flow of eloquence.  "Ah, sweetest child!  You
+knelt beside this _very_ sofa, five years ago, and you said: 'Ann, I
+think _any_ woman might be proud to become the wife of the Professor!'
+Have you forgotten that you said that, kneeling beside this _very_
+sofa?"
+
+"I have not forgotten," said Miss Charteris; "and I think so still."
+
+"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" said Miss Ann, through her tears.
+
+Christobel Charteris rose.  She stood, for a moment, tall and
+immovable, in the small, low room, crowded with knick-knacks--china,
+bric-a-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph
+frames--overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were
+overfilled with a varied assortment of cushions.  Miss Ann's
+drawing-room gave the effect of a rather prettily arranged bazaar.  You
+mentally pictured yourself walking round, admiring everything, but
+seeing nothing you liked quite well enough to wish to buy it, and take
+it home.
+
+Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, in her simple white gown,
+looked so utterly apart from the trumpery elegance of these
+surroundings.  As the Boy had said, the mellow beauty of his ancestral
+homes would indeed be a fit setting for her stately grace.  But she had
+sent away the Boy, with his beautiful castles in the air, and places in
+the shires.  The atmosphere and surroundings of Shiloh were those to
+which she must be willing to bend her fastidious taste.  Miss Ann would
+expect to make her home with the Professor.
+
+"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" whispered Miss Ann, through her lace
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Christobel bent over her, tenderly; fastening the clasp of the
+mysterious hair-brooch.
+
+"Dear Ann," she said.  "It will not be leap year again, until 1912.
+And, meanwhile, the Professor has not proposed marriage to me."
+
+Miss Ann instantly brightened.  Laughing gaily, she wiped away a few
+remaining tears.
+
+"Ah, naughty!" she said.  "Naughty, to make me tell!  But as you _will_
+ask--_he is going to write to-night_.  But you must never let him know
+I told you!  And now I want you just to find the _Spectator_--it is
+laid over that exquisitely embroidered blotter on the writing-table in
+the window, sent me last Christmas by that kind creature, Lady
+Goldsmith; so thoughtful, tasteful, and _quite_ touching; Emma, careful
+soul, spread it over the blotter, while darling Sweetie-weetie took his
+bath.  Dear pet, it is a sight to see him splash and splutter.  Lady
+Goldsmith thinks so much of dear Kenrick.  The first time she saw him,
+she was _immensely_ struck by his extraordinarily clever _appearance_.
+He sat exactly opposite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she told me
+afterwards that the mere sight of him was sufficient to take away all
+inclination for food; excepting for that intellectual nourishment which
+he is so well able to supply.  I thought that was rather well
+expressed, and, coming from a _florid_ woman, such as Lady Goldsmith,
+was quite a tribute to my brother.  You _would_ call Lady Goldsmith
+'florid,' would you not, dear Christobel? ... Oh, you do not know her
+by sight?  I am surprised.  As the _wife_ of the _Professor_, you will
+soon know all these distinguished people by sight.  Yes, she is
+undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be what my dear father used to call
+'a woman of a stout habit.'  This being the case, it was certainly a
+_tribute_--a tribute of which you and I, dearest child, have a right to
+feel justly proud....  Oh, is it still damp?  Naughty Sweetie-weet!
+Don't you think it might be wise, _just_ to take it to the kitchen.
+Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before the fire.  I _have_ heard
+of fatalities caused by damp newspapers.  Precious _child_, we can have
+you run no risks!  What would _Kenrick_ say?  But when it is
+_absolutely_ dry, I want you just to explain to me the _gist_ of that
+article on the effect of oriental literature on modern thought.
+Kenrick tells me you have read it.  He wishes to discuss it with me.  I
+really cannot undertake to read it through.  I have not the _time_
+required.  Yet I must be prepared to talk it over intelligently with my
+brother, when next he pays me a visit.  He may look in this evening,
+weary with his day in town, and requiring the relaxation of a little
+intellectual conversation.  I must be ready."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+An hour later, somewhat tired in body, and completely exhausted in
+mind, Miss Charteris walked home.  She made a detour, in order to pass
+along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the
+garden.
+
+She opened it, and passed in.
+
+A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn.  The jolly little "what
+d'-you-call-'ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.
+
+She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green
+seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading
+mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green
+shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in.  She
+knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect,
+than his casual acquaintances might suppose.  It would not surprise her
+some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction
+of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems"
+in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the
+mulberry-tree.  She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the
+artist's name.  The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year
+before.  She had chanced to see it.  Noticing the name of her Little
+Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way
+through the crowded rooms, and found his picture.  It hung on the line.
+She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative
+skill.  She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days
+she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting
+in the Academy.  Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had
+greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things
+critics had said of it.
+
+But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to
+the Boy to mention it.  The Boy never talked of what he had done,
+_because_ he had done it.  But were a subject mentioned upon which he
+was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he
+knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and
+all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular
+thing.  He would never have thought of informing you that he owned
+three aeroplanes.  But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said
+to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward,
+beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk
+aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen.  This
+trait of the Boy's, caused shallow-minded people to consider him
+conceited.  But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between
+keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical
+self-assertion; and the woman who loved him, smiled tenderly as she
+remembered that even on the day when she scolded him, and he had to
+admit his "barely respectable B.A.," he had not told her of the
+painting hung on the line and mentioned in the _Times_.  Yet if the
+question of art had come up, the Boy would very probably have sat
+forward in his chair, and talked about his painting, straight on end,
+for half an hour.
+
+She still stood beneath the archway, in the red-brick wall, as these
+thoughts chased quickly through her mind.  She would have made a fair
+picture for any one who had chanced to be waiting beneath the
+mulberry-tree, with eyes upon the gate.
+
+"Straight on end for half an hour, he would have talked about his
+picture; and how bright his eyes would have been.  And then I should
+have said: 'I saw it, Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as you
+say.'  And he would have answered: 'It jolly well gave you the feeling
+of the scene, didn't it, Christo_bel_?'  And I should have known that
+his delight in it, as an artistic success, had nothing to do with the
+fact that it was painted by himself.  Just because egotism is
+impossible to him, he is free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm."
+
+She smiled again.  A warm glow seemed to enfold her.  "How well I know
+my Boy!" she said aloud; then remembered with a sudden pang that she
+must not call him _her_ Boy.  She had let him go.  She was--very
+probably--going to marry the Professor.  She had not--with the whole of
+her being--wanted him to stay, until he had had the manliness to rise
+up and go.  Then--it had been too late.  Ah, was it too late?  If the
+Boy came back to plead once more?  If once again she could hear him
+say: "Age is nothing!  Time is nothing!  Love is all!" would she not
+answer: "Yes, Guy.  Love _is_ all"?
+
+The blood rushed into her sweet proud face.  The name of the man she
+loved had come into her mind unconsciously.  It had never yet--as a
+name for him--passed her lips.  That she should unconsciously call him
+so in her heart, gave her another swift moment of self-revelation.
+
+She closed the gate gently, careful not to let it bang.  As she passed
+up the lawn, her heart stood still.  It seemed to her that he must be
+waiting, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
+
+She hardly dared to look.  She felt so sure he was there....  Yes, she
+knew he was there....  She felt certain the Boy had come back.  He
+could not stay away from her on his sixth day.  Had he not said he
+would "march round" every day?  Ah, dear waiting army of Israel!  Here
+was Jericho hastening to meet it.  Why had she allowed Ann Harvey to
+keep her so late?  Why had she gone at all, during the Boy's own time?
+She might have known he would come....  Should she walk past the
+mulberry, as if making for the house, just for the joy of hearing him
+call "Christo_bel_"?  No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he
+was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
+
+She passed, breathlessly, under the drooping branches.  Her cheeks
+glowed; her lips were parted.  Her eyes shone with love and expectation.
+
+She lifted a hanging bough, and passed beneath.
+
+His chair was there, and hers; but they were empty.  The Boy--being the
+Boy--had not come back.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Presently she went slowly up to the house.
+
+A telegram lay on the hall table.  She knew at once from whom it came.
+There was but one person who carried on a correspondence by telegraph.
+_Reply paid_ was written on the envelope.
+
+She stood quite still for a moment.  Then she opened it slowly.
+Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used
+to jump about.  He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet,
+before she knew he was going to move.
+
+She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
+
+
+"_How are you, dear?  Please tell me.  I am going to do my big fly
+to-morrow.  I jolly well mean to break the record.  Wish me luck._"
+
+
+She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
+
+
+"_Quite well.  Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue._"
+
+
+She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so
+often called him.  But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all
+over.  It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who
+had gone out at the gate.  It was best he should not know what she
+would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now.  She
+was--undoubtedly--going to marry the Professor.  In which case she
+would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue."  So she put it
+into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear."  Then she
+went out, and sent it off herself.  It was comforting to have
+something, however small, to do for him.
+
+She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined.  She was
+thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the
+mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing:
+"_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow....  He is going to do a big
+fly to-morrow!  Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"
+
+She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read.  But
+between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He
+is going to fly to-morrow._"
+
+She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree.  It
+was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
+
+She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight.  "_He
+is going to do a big fly to-morrow.  He jolly well means to break the
+record._"
+
+She passed in, and went to her bedroom.  She lay in the darkness and
+tried to sleep.  She tried in vain.  What if he got into
+cross-currents?  What if the propeller broke?  What if the
+steering-gear twisted?  She began remembering every detail he had told
+herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
+lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue....  "_Oh
+of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"
+
+At last she could bear it no longer.  She lighted her candle, and rose.
+She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
+before, in the whole of her healthy life.  She took a sleeping draught.
+The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
+visit.  She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
+
+She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
+
+The bromide began to act.
+
+The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
+
+The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
+
+She talked to him softly.  Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
+own.  "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said.  "You may jolly
+well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don't
+break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
+
+The bromide was acting strongly now.  The bird with the broken wing had
+gone.  There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears.  It was
+the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him.  She knew sleep
+was coming; merciful oblivion.  Yet now she was too happy to wish to
+sleep.
+
+The Boy drew nearer.
+
+"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
+darkness; "I love you so."
+
+"I know you do, dear," said the Boy.  "It is almost unbelievable,
+Christobel; but I know you do."
+
+Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
+
+Thus the Boy--though far away--marched round.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+AN INTERLUDE
+
+"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
+
+When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her
+room.  The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
+She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea
+on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
+
+She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave
+her.
+
+She dressed, and went downstairs.
+
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened
+and read it.
+
+The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor
+would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal.  He
+touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them
+both.  He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie,
+but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position
+to offer her a suitable home and income.  This was now fortunately the
+case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly
+conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth
+in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to
+win.  She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and
+comrade, during many years.  If she could now bring herself to trust
+him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to
+disappoint or fail her.
+
+The letter was signed:
+
+"_Yours in sincere devotion,_
+  "_KENRICK HARVEY._"
+
+
+A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that
+afternoon, for a reply.
+
+Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave
+the Professor leave to call at three.
+
+The Professor called at three.
+
+He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the
+hall.  He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them
+back again.
+
+At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss
+Charteris awaited him.  He was very nervous.  He repeated the substance
+of his letter, only rather less well expressed.  He alluded to Miss
+Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having
+Christobel as a sister.  But he completely ignored, both in the letter
+and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence.
+For this she was grateful to him.
+
+As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters
+of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an
+actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the
+affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
+
+He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great
+affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth
+of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified
+it.  Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back
+to his seat.
+
+A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor
+had an inspiration.
+
+Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child
+for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
+
+"That--er--matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he
+said, "should we not find it decidedly--er--refreshing to spend an hour
+over our Persian translation?"
+
+Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read,
+translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of
+various passages, her mind wandered.
+
+She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how
+the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what
+the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done.  She was not
+quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the
+Boy with the curb completely off.  But she suddenly remembered:
+"Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a
+shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
+
+The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise.  Then he smiled,
+indulgently.
+
+"My dear--er--Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous,"
+he said.
+
+"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris.  "I beg your pardon.  I
+laughed involuntarily."
+
+The Professor resumed his reading.
+
+No; she was not quite sure as to _all_ the Boy would have done; but she
+knew quite well what he would have said.
+
+And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for
+what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the
+Professor.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing
+became dream-like to Miss Charteris.  She found herself helpless in the
+grip of Miss Ann's iron will--up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland
+and lace.  At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die
+alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul,
+being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in
+order to go home and nurse her mother.  Emma had seemed a broken woman,
+ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one
+ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind
+not to grant.
+
+She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands.
+Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires.  The Professor
+danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss
+Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist.  The Boy having
+gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter.  It was her duty to
+marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the
+postponement of duty.
+
+But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a
+week.  It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having
+just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were
+researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost
+importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of
+Brussels.  It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being
+obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her
+brother, the bishop.  Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea
+of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland,
+and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival
+would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if
+she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such
+poignant memories of the Boy.
+
+So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being
+dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris--who should have had the
+most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge--found herself
+standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated
+church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old
+clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and
+partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with
+Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while
+Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other.  Martha had
+flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid
+her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most
+morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly:
+"'Ow about _'im_?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the
+room, sobbing.
+
+"_How about him?  How about him?_"
+
+Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh
+to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
+
+_How about him_?  But _he_ had left her to do that which she felt to be
+right, and she was doing it.
+
+Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and
+he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
+
+Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation.  In this
+nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to
+play.  The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would
+come with him.  He would walk straight up the church to her, saying:
+"We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!"  Then they would
+all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say:
+"Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
+
+But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking
+unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching
+nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old
+clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the
+Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
+
+The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann
+sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Christobel looked at the Professor.  His outward appearance seemed
+greatly improved.  His beard had been trimmed; his hair--what there was
+of it--cut.  He had not once looked at her since she entered the church
+and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes
+would be kind--kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex
+lenses.  The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth,
+eyes, and hair.  What questions the amazing Boy used to ask!  And she
+had answered----
+
+But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts.  The
+all-important question had been put to her.  She had not heard one word
+of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
+
+The silence became alarming.  This was the exact psychological moment
+in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue.  But the Boy did
+not dash in.
+
+Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of
+brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question.
+Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
+
+Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly.  The old clergyman peered
+at her, in astonishment, over his glasses.  His eyes were red-rimmed
+and bloodshot.
+
+Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
+tone of reproof, which made of it a menace.  Miss Charteris listened
+carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
+
+Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman
+between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the
+third finger of her left hand.  As they did so, her thoughts wandered
+again.  She was back in the garden with the Boy.  He had caught her
+left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger
+from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he
+had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and
+tenderness.  She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger
+separately.  She looked down at it.  The Professor's ring encircled it.
+
+Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon
+her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she
+might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan
+for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in
+time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by
+an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, _en route_
+for Brussels.
+
+Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely.  She had
+never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to
+her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels--and the best
+of hotels.  But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an
+authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that
+hotels--particularly _Metropole_ hotels--were scarcely proper places.
+Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the
+company so congenial.  But here the Professor had interposed, laying
+his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial
+company with us."
+
+This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which
+the Professor had as yet ventured.  The sober, middle-aged side of Miss
+Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful
+emotion.  But the youthful soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how
+the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a
+sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition
+bordering on hysterics.
+
+They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to
+themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation
+which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's
+minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual
+appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past.  Before
+long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the
+tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and
+they were deep in translation.
+
+Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and
+trundled slowly off to Cannon Street.  Christobel had imagined
+four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her
+suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression,
+indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the
+sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.
+
+(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler--you dear
+record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy?  That
+ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal
+Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into
+Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting
+on, only to be stopped again; and your Beloved inside it, Boy dear,
+looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see
+something of the London you had planned to show her in your own
+delightful extravagant way.  Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this!  It is not
+your show.  This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the
+Professor.  The lady within is the bride of the Professor.  Hands off,
+Boy!)
+
+They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad
+Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it--a
+delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books.
+The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty
+entrance through the narrow doorway.  Here he always found precisely
+the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research.  With an
+incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the
+Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop,
+oblivious of his cab, his bride, and his train.  Christobel had
+followed him, and stood, a dignified, but somewhat lonely figure, just
+within the doorway.  She had been to this shop with her father, during
+his lifetime, on several occasions, and had since often written for
+books.  The bookseller came forward.  He was a man possessed of the
+useful faculty of remembering faces and the names appertaining to them.
+Also he had cultivated the habit of taking an intelligent interest in
+his customers.  But he did not connect this beautiful waiting figure,
+with the absorbed back of the Professor.
+
+"What can I do for you to-day, Miss Charteris?" he inquired, with ready
+courtesy.
+
+Christobel started.  "Nothing to-day, thank you, Mr. Taylor.  But I am
+much obliged to you for so often supplying my requirements by return of
+post.  And, by the way, you have an excellent memory.  It is many years
+since I came here last, with my father."
+
+"Professor Charteris was one of my best customers," said the
+bookseller, in an undertone of deferential sympathy.  "I never knew a
+finer judge of a book than he.  If I may be allowed to say so, I deeply
+deplored his loss, Miss Charteris."
+
+Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, allowing the kindly expression of
+appreciation and regret to reach her with comfort in these moments of
+dream-like isolation.  A friendly hand seemed to have been outstretched
+across the chasm which divides the passionately regretted past, from
+the scarcely appreciated present.  She could see her father's tall
+scholarly figure, as he stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in
+earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, regardless of the passing of
+time; until she was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and hurry him
+through the crowded streets, down the steep incline, to the platform
+from which the Cambridge express was on the point of starting.  And
+when safely seated, with barely a minute to spare, he would turn to
+her, with a smile of gentle reproof, saying: "But, my dear child, we
+had not concluded our conversation."  And she would laugh and say: "But
+we had to get home to-night, Papa."  Whereupon he would lean back,
+contentedly, replying: "Quite right, my dear.  So we had."
+
+Ah, happy those whose fathers and mothers still walk the earth beside
+them.  Youth remains, notwithstanding the passing of years, while there
+is still a voice to say, in reproof or approbation: "My child."
+
+But the bookseller, not yet connecting her with the Professor, still
+waited her pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck Christobel.  An
+eager wish awoke within her.
+
+"Mr. Taylor," she said, hurriedly; "can you supply me with the very
+newest thing on the subject of aviation?  I want to learn all there is
+to know about propellers, steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to
+avoid the dangers----"
+
+She stopped short.  The Professor had found what he wanted, and was
+fumbling for his purse.
+
+The bookseller turned quickly to a pile at his elbow, took up a
+paper-covered book, and placed it in her hands.  "The very latest," he
+said.  "Published yesterday.  You will find in it all you want to
+know."  Then, as he handed the Professor his change, "Allow me to place
+it to your account, Miss Charteris," he said.
+
+Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense of elation and fresh interest
+in life, Christobel, armed with her book on aviation, re-entered the
+four-wheeler.  The Professor, absorbed in his own purchase, had not
+noticed her private transaction.  He followed her into the cab, and
+made three ineffectual attempts to close the door.  Just as the driver
+was slowly beginning to prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came across
+the crowded pavement, to their rescue; released the Professor's
+coat-tail, shut them in, and signed to the cabman to drive on.  With a
+good deal of "gee-up" and whip-flourishing, they re-commenced to
+trundle.  Mr. Taylor was not merely a provider of literature; he was
+also a keen observer of life, and of human nature.  As Christobel
+leaned forward to acknowledge his help, and to smile her farewell, his
+expression seemed to say: "A four-wheeler, Professor Harvey, and the
+latest work on aviation!  An unusual combination."  "Very unusual," she
+said to herself, and smiled again.  Then it seemed to her that her
+friend of the bookshop had said: "You will find what you want, on page
+274."  She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, mentioned any page;
+but the figures came into her mind.  She opened the book, and glanced
+at page 274.  It was headed: "Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea."
+She shut it quickly.  There was no room for the actual presence of the
+Boy in the Professor's four-wheeler.
+
+They lunched at a depot of the Aerated Bread Company, close to Cannon
+Street station.  While Christobel was struggling with a very large
+plateful of cold tongue, she suddenly remembered that one of the Boy's
+many plans had been to take her to lunch at his favourite restaurant in
+Piccadilly; where she would be able to order any dish she fancied, and
+find it better served than she had ever known it before; or to dine at
+the Hotel Metropole, where Monsieur Delma's perfect orchestra would
+play for her any mortal thing for which she chose to ask, and play it
+better than she had ever heard it played.
+
+These memories, and a really excellent cup of coffee, helped Christobel
+in her struggles with the round of cold tongue; and she looked across
+the little marble-topped table brightly at the Professor, and spoke
+with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised herself.
+
+But something, other than his own plate of cold tongue, seemed weighing
+on the Professor.  He had become preoccupied and distrait.
+
+When they reached the Folkestone train, Christobel found out the cause
+of his preoccupation.
+
+"My dear Ann--I should say Christobel," remarked the Professor,
+hurriedly, as he put her into an empty compartment, and hesitated in
+the doorway.  "I am always accustomed at this hour to have my pipe and
+a nap.  Should you object, my dear Ann--er--that is, Christobel, if I
+sought a smoking compartment?"
+
+"Oh, _please_ do!" she exclaimed, eagerly.  The idea of two hours of
+freedom and solitude suddenly seemed an undreamed of joy.  "Don't think
+of me.  I am quite happy here."
+
+"I will provide you with a paper," said the Professor, and hailed a
+passing boy.  He laid the paper on her lap, and disappeared.
+
+The train started.
+
+Christobel looked out of the window as they slowly steamed across the
+bridge over the Thames.  She loved the flow of the river, with its
+constant procession of barges, dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent,
+moving highway, right through the heart of the noisy whirl of London
+street-traffic.  They ran past old St. Saviour's Church, now promoted
+to be Southwark Cathedral; out through the suburbs, until streets
+became villas, woods and meadows appeared, and the train ran through
+Chislehurst--peaceful English resting-place where lie entombed the
+bright Imperial hopes of France--then on through Sevenoaks, into the
+bowery green of the Kentish hop-gardens.
+
+After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the Professor's paper and glanced
+at it.  Somehow she had felt sure it would be the _Daily Graphic_.  It
+was the _Daily Mirror_!  She had never held a halfpenny illustrated
+paper in her hands before.  No doubt it was an excellent paper, and met
+the need of an immense number of people, to whom an additional
+halfpenny a day would be a consideration.  But, that the Professor,
+when providing her with one paper, should have chosen a halfpenny
+instead of a penny paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, and
+called up sudden swift memories of the Boy.  He would have bought
+_Punch_, the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated_, the _Spectator_, and a
+_Morning Post_, plumped them all down on the seat in front of her; then
+sat beside her, and talked, the whole journey through, so that she
+would not have had a moment in which to open one of them.
+
+(Oh, Boy dear!  Don't look at this _Daily Mirror_.  You might misjudge
+the good Professor.  With your fifty thousand a year, how can you be
+expected to understand a mind which _must_ consider ha'pence, even when
+brides and wedding journeys are concerned.  _Do_ keep away, Boy dear.
+This is not your wedding journey.)
+
+Then she opened the _Daily Mirror_, and there looked out at her, from
+its central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little
+Boy Blue!
+
+He was seated in his flying machine, steering-wheel in hand, looking
+out from among many wires.  His cap was on the back of his head; his
+bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm lips, parted in a
+smile, seemed to be saying: "I jolly well mean to do it."  Beneath was
+an account of him, and a description of the flight he was to attempt on
+that day, across the Channel, circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and
+back.  He was to start at two o'clock.  At that very moment he must be
+in mid-air.
+
+Oh, Little Boy Blue!  Little Boy Blue!  You have a way of making hearts
+stand still.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The boarding-house proved to be a place decidedly conducive to the
+taking of a fresh-air cure; because nobody remained within its four
+walls, if the weather could possibly admit of their going out.
+
+As soon as Christobel and the Professor had taken tea, and replied to
+Miss Slinker's many questions, they went out to walk on the Leas until
+sunset.  It was a radiant afternoon, and the strong wind which had
+suddenly arisen, blowing, in unexpected gusts, from the sea, acted as a
+tonic to weary heart and brain.  Christobel, holding on her hat as she
+walked, battled her way beside the Professor, up a cross street, into
+the Sandgate Road.
+
+There they went to the telegraph office, and sent Miss Ann news of
+their safe arrival, and of the extreme comfort they felt sure of
+experiencing at Miss Slinker's delightful abode.  (This was the
+Professor's wording.)
+
+They looked in at Parson's Library _just_ to order a book Miss Ann
+wanted; and, on a little farther, _just_ to match some crewel silks for
+a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making.
+
+These commissions duly executed, they were free to make their way to
+the Leas parade, whence they would look down upon the beach, and enjoy
+a distance view across the Channel.  They took the side street which
+brought them out upon the esplanade, close to the lift by which people
+continuously mounted or descended the steep face of the cliff.
+
+A considerable crowd lined the esplanade railing, looking over eagerly.
+Apparently there was some object of particular interest to be seen
+below.
+
+Christobel and the Professor advanced to the railing, and also looked
+over.
+
+She saw a strange thing floating in the sea, between the promenade pier
+and the harbour.  It seemed a huge insect, with broken wings.  Its body
+was a mass of twisted wires.  Around this, a little fleet of
+rowing-boats had gathered.  They looked black, on the blue wind-swept
+waters, like water-boatmen on a village pond.  They darted in and out
+and round about the wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, and
+seemed waiting for a chance to help.
+
+A man stood next to Christobel and the Professor; a man who talked to
+himself.
+
+"Ah, poor chap," he said; "poor chap!  So nearly back!  So nearly broke
+the record!  Such a sport!"
+
+"What is that thing in the water?" inquired the Professor.
+
+The man turned and looked at him.
+
+"An aeroplane," he said, slowly, speaking with a sort of stolid
+deliberation.  "A wrecked aeroplane.  Caught in a cross-current, worse
+luck!  Just accomplished one of the finest flights on record.  Started
+from up here; skimmed over the Channel to Boulogne; circled round the
+cathedral--such a clear day; we could watch the whole flight with
+field-glasses--came gaily back without a stop; was making for the cliff
+again, when a cross-current caught him; something went wrong with the
+steering-gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, head first into the
+sea."
+
+"And the--er--occupant?" inquired the Professor.
+
+"The aeronaut?  Ah, he didn't fall clear, worse luck, or they could
+soon have fished him out.  He stuck to his seat and his wheel, and fell
+smash in among his wires.  They are trying to extricate him now.  Bad
+luck, poor chap!  Such a sport."
+
+"Do you know his name?" asked the Professor, peering down at the
+waiting crowd which lined the beach.
+
+"Guy Chelsea," said the man.  "And I give you my word, he was the
+finest, pluckiest young amateur we had among the airmen."
+
+Then Christobel's heart began to beat again, and her limbs seemed to
+regain the power to move.
+
+"He is mine," she said.  "I must go to him.  He is my own Little Boy
+Blue."  And she began to run along the Leas toward the stone steps
+which zigzag down to the shore.
+
+She heard the Professor running after her.
+
+"Ann," he called, "Ann!  Stay!  This is--most--unnecessary!"
+
+She flew on.
+
+"At least take the lift!" bawled the Professor.
+
+She hurried on and reached the steps, pausing an instant to glance back.
+
+The Professor had stopped at the lift, and was waving to her with his
+umbrella.
+
+She could never remember running down those steps.  In what seemed but
+a moment from the time she reached them, she found herself stumbling
+painfully down the steep slope of shingle to the water's edge.
+
+The lift, bearing the Professor, had just begun to crawl down the face
+of the cliff.  She could see him gesticulating through the glass
+windows.
+
+The crowd on the shore, chiefly composed of rough men, was thickest
+round the base of a wide stone breakwater, jutting out into the sea.
+On this break-water stood an empty stretcher.  A coast-guardsman
+marched up and down, keeping the crowd off the breakwater.
+
+Christobel reached the outskirts of the crowd, and could get no farther.
+
+"Please let me through," she said.  "I belong to him.  He is mine."
+
+They turned and looked at her.
+
+"She's 'is mother," said a voice.  "Let 'er through."
+
+"Mother be blowed!" said another voice, hoarsely.  "Get out!  She's 'is
+_wife_."
+
+"Yes," she cried eagerly.  "Yes!  Oh, do let me through!  I am his
+wife."
+
+Suddenly she knew it was true.  The Boy's great love had made her his
+wife.  Had he not said: "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally,
+indissolubly _one_.  You will find it out, when it is too late"?
+
+The crowd parted, making a way for her, straight to the foot of the
+breakwater.
+
+She mounted it, and walked towards the empty stretcher.
+
+The coast-guardsman confronted her.
+
+"He is mine," she said, quietly.  "I have the right to be here."
+
+The man saluted, in respectful silence.
+
+She stood gazing out to where the crowd of boats hovered about the
+great insect with broken wings.
+
+The sea gleamed golden in the sunset.
+
+One boat, larger than the rest, slowly detached itself from the general
+melee, pulling with measured stroke toward the breakwater.
+
+Something lay very still in the bow, covered with a sail-cloth.
+
+Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered.
+
+The boat came toward the breakwater, in a shaft of sunlight.
+
+Christobel turned to the man beside her.
+
+"Is there any hope?" she asked.
+
+"'Fraid not, lady.  My mate just signalled: all U P."
+
+"Ah!" she said, looking wide-eyed into his face.  "Ah!--But there must
+be pioneers."
+
+The coast-guardsman turned and walked toward the crowd.
+
+"She's 'is wife, men," he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his
+shoulder.  "She's 'is wife; yet when I told her it was all U P, she
+said: 'There must be pioneers.'"
+
+The crowd of roughs doffed their caps.
+
+The boat drew slowly nearer.
+
+Then she saw the Professor, hurrying down the shingle, waving his
+umbrella.
+
+He must not come yet.
+
+She advanced to the shore end of the breakwater, and spoke to the crowd.
+
+"Please," she said, "oh, please, if possible, prevent that gentleman
+from reaching the breakwater."
+
+They turned, and saw the advancing figure of the Professor, flurried
+and irate.
+
+"'Ullo, Bill," cried a voice.  "She says: Don't let the old bloke
+through."
+
+They passed the word from one to the other.  "Don't let the old bloke
+through."  They closed the outer ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder.
+The Professor's umbrella waved wildly on the outskirts.
+
+She moved along the breakwater.  Yes, that was it.  "Don't let the old
+bloke through."  She had never used such a word in her life before, but
+it just met the needs of the case.  "Don't let the old bloke through."
+
+The boat drew nearer.
+
+A bugle, away up on the cliff, sounded the call to arms.
+
+"Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!  The cow's in the meadow; the
+sheep, in the corn.  Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  Ah,
+dear God!  Where is the Boy?  Where is the Boy?  Where is the
+Boy?--He's under the sailcloth--fast asleep."
+
+The boat drew nearer.  She could hear the measured plash of the oars;
+the rhythmic rattle of the rowlocks.  They advanced, to the beat of the
+words in her brain.
+
+"There must--be pion--eers!  Don't let the old bloke through.  Oh,
+where is the boy who looks after the sheep?  He's under the sail-cloth,
+fast asleep."
+
+The boat drew level with the breakwater, grating against it.
+
+"Under the sail-cloth, Boy dear; under the sail-cloth--fast asleep."
+
+Tenderly, carefully, they lifted their burden.  As the boat rocked, and
+their feet shuffled beneath the weight, she closed her eyes.  When she
+opened them once more, the quiet Thing under the sail-cloth lay upon
+the stretcher.  Every man within sight stood silent and bareheaded.
+
+The bugle on the cliff sounded: "lights out."
+
+The golden shaft of sunlight died from off the sea.
+
+Then she came forward, and knelt beside her Boy.
+
+Suddenly she understood the cry of anguish wrung from the loving heart
+of a woman at a tomb: "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will
+take Him away!"  Oh, faithful heart of woman, alike through all the
+ages; ready, with superhuman effort, to prove a limitless love and a
+measureless grief!
+
+She knelt beside the stretcher, and lifted the sail-cloth.
+
+Yes, it was the Boy--her own Little Boy Blue.
+
+His curly hair was matted with blood and salt water.  There was a deep
+gash across his temple, from the ear, right up into the hair His eyes
+were closed; but his lips smiled, triumphant.  "There must be pioneers!
+Every good life given, advances the cause."  "Yes, Little Boy Blue.
+But has it ever struck you, that, if you marry, your wife will most
+probably want you to give up flying; not being able to bear that a man
+who was her ALL, should do these things?"  She lifted the sail-cloth
+quite away, and stood looking down upon him, so shattered, yet so
+beautiful, in his triumphant sleep.
+
+Suddenly her arm was seized from behind.  She turned.
+
+The Professor had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd, and
+in mounting the breakwater.  His cravat was awry; his top-hat was on
+the back of his head.  He looked at her through his glasses, in amazed
+indignation.
+
+"Christobel," he said, "this is no place for you.  Come away at once.
+Do you hear?  I _bid_ you come with me at once."
+
+The only thing she really minded was that his hat was on, in the
+presence of her Dead.
+
+She could not free her arm from the grip of the Professor.
+
+She turned and pointed to the stretcher, with her left hand.
+
+"My place is here," she said, clearly and deliberately.  "I have the
+right to be here.  This is all a fearful nightmare, from which we are
+bound before long to wake.  But meanwhile, I tell you plainly--as I
+ought to have told you before--_this is the body of the man I love_."
+
+At that moment, one of the crowd, springing on to the breakwater behind
+the Professor, struck off his hat with a cane.  It fell into the sea.
+
+The Professor let go her arm, and turned to see who had perpetrated the
+outrage, and whether the hat could be recovered.
+
+Then she bent over the stretcher.
+
+"Boy dear," she whispered, in tones of ineffable tenderness; "this is
+where they have laid you; but _I_ will take you away."
+
+She put her arms beneath the body; then, with an almost superhuman
+effort, lifted it, and gathered it to her.  It felt limp and broken.
+The head fell heavily against her breast.  The blood and salt-water
+soaked through her thin muslin blouse.  But she held him, and would not
+let him go.  "I will take him away," she whispered; "I will take him
+away."
+
+She knew she was losing her reason, but she had known that, ever since
+she first looked down from the top of the cliff, and saw the broken
+wings floating on the sea.  Now, with her Boy in her arms, her one idea
+was to get away from the Professor; away from the coast-guardsmen; away
+from the crowd.
+
+Turning her back upon the beach, she staggered along the breakwater,
+toward the open sea.
+
+"I will take him away," she repeated; "I will take him away."
+
+Then her foot slipped.  She still held the Boy, but she felt herself
+falling.
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+She never knew which she struck first, the stone breakwater, or the
+sea----
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH DAY
+
+THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
+
+When Christobel recovered consciousness and opened her eyes, she found
+herself in bed, in her own room, at home.
+
+Martha bent over her.
+
+The morning light entered dimly, through closed curtains.
+
+In dumb anguish of mind, she looked up into Martha's grim old face.
+
+"Tell me where you have laid him," she said, "and I will take him away."
+
+Martha snorted.
+
+"I've laid your tea-tray on the table beside your bed, Miss," she said;
+"and when you 'ave finished with it, _I_ will take it away."
+
+Whereupon, Martha lumbered to the large bow-window, drew back all the
+curtains with a vigorous clatter of brass rings, and let in a blaze of
+morning sunshine.
+
+Christobel lay quite still, trying to collect her thoughts.
+
+One of her pillows was clasped tightly in her arms.
+
+She lifted her left hand, and looked at it.
+
+No ring encircled the third finger.
+
+"Martha," she called, softly.
+
+Martha loomed large at the side of the bed.
+
+"What is to-day?"
+
+"Wednesday, Miss," replied Martha, too much surprised to be
+contemptuous.
+
+"Martha--where is Mr. Chelsea?"
+
+"Lord only knows," said Martha, tragically.
+
+"Martha--is he--living?"
+
+"Living?" repeated Martha, deliberately.  Then she smiled, her crooked
+smile.  "Living don't express it, Miss Christobel.  Lively's more like
+it, when Mr. Guy is concerned.  And I reckon, wherever 'e is, e's
+makin' things lively somewhere for somebody.  You don't look quite the
+thing this morning, Miss.  Sit up and take your tea."
+
+She sat up, loosing the pillow out of her arms--the pillow which had
+been, first her Little Boy Blue, as she drew him to her in the
+darkness; then the dead body of Guy Chelsea, as she lifted it on the
+breakwater.
+
+She took her tea from Martha's hand, and drank it quickly.  She wanted
+Martha to go.
+
+It was Wednesday!  Then the Boy had left her only the day before
+yesterday.  His telegram had come last night.  The Professor's proposal
+had not yet reached her.
+
+Martha lifted the tray and departed.
+
+Then Christobel Charteris rose, and stood at her open window, in the
+morning sunlight.  She looked out upon the mulberry-tree and the long
+vista of soft turf; in the dim distance, the postern gate in the old
+red wall--his paradise, and hers.
+
+She lifted her beautiful arms above her head.  The loose sleeves of her
+nightdress fell away, baring them to the elbows.  She might have stood,
+in her noble development of face and form, for a splendid statue of
+hope and praise.
+
+"Ah, dear God!" she breathed, "is it indeed true?  Is it possible?  Is
+my Boy alive?  And am I free--free to be his alone?  Am I free to give
+him all he wants, free to be all he needs?"
+
+She stood long at the window motionless, realizing the mental
+adjustment which had come to her during the strenuous hours of the
+night.
+
+Her dream had taught her one great lesson: That under no circumstances
+whatever, can it be right for a woman to marry one man, while with her
+whole being she loves another.  Love is Lord of all.  Love reigns
+paramount.  No expectations, past or present, based on friendship or
+gratitude; no sense of duty or obligations of any kind could make a
+marriage right, if, in view of that marriage, Love had to stand by with
+broken wings.
+
+She felt quite sure, now, that she could never marry the Professor; and
+humbly she thanked God for opening her eyes to the wrong she had
+contemplated, before it was too late.
+
+But there still remained the difficult prospect of having to disappoint
+a man she esteemed so highly; a man who had been led to believe she
+cared for him, and had waited years for him; a man who, for years, had
+set his heart upon her.  This was a heavy stone, and it lay right in
+the path of perfect bliss which she longed to tread with her Little Boy
+Blue.
+
+Who should roll it away?
+
+Could she feel free to take happiness with the Boy, if she had
+disappointed and crushed a deeply sensitive nature which trusted her?
+
+She dressed, and went down to the breakfast-room, her soul filled, in
+spite of perplexities, with a radiance of glad thanksgiving.
+
+Martha and Jenkins came in to prayers.  Martha had now taken to curling
+all her wisps.  She appeared with many frizzled ringlets, kept in place
+by invisible pins.
+
+Martha always came in to prayers, as if she were marching at the head
+of a long row of men and maids.  Jenkins followed meekly, placing his
+chair at what would have been the tail of Martha's imaginary retinue.
+According to the triumphant dignity of Martha's entry, Jenkins placed
+his chair near or far away.  Martha was in great form to-day.  Jenkins
+sat almost at the door.  If the door-bell rang during prayers, the
+first ring was tacitly ignored; but if it rang again, Martha signed to
+Jenkins, who tiptoed reverently out, and answered it.  No matter how
+early in the morning's devotions the interruption occurred, Jenkins
+never considered it etiquette to return.  Miss Charteris used to dread
+a duet alone with Martha.  She always became too intensely conscious of
+herself and of Martha, to be uplifted as usual by the inspired words of
+Bible and Prayer-book.  The presence of Jenkins at once constituted a
+congregation.
+
+On this particular morning, no interruptions occurred.
+
+The portion for the day chanced to be the scene at the empty tomb, in
+the early dawn of that first Easter Day, as given by Saint Mark.
+
+The quiet voice vibrated with unusual emotion as Miss Charteris read:
+
+
+"_And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
+unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.  And they said among
+themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
+sepulchre?  And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled
+away: for it was very great._"
+
+
+Christobel Charteris paused.  She seemed to see the shore at
+Dovercourt, and the brave little figure struggling to carry the heavy
+stone; and, later on when the cannon-ball lay safely in the castle
+court-yard, Little Boy Blue standing erect, with lifted cap, and
+shining eyes, a picture of faith triumphant.
+
+"_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
+
+How far were the happenings of this strange night owing to that dead
+mother's prayers; and to the Boy's unfailing faith, even through these
+hard days?
+
+Miss Charteris could read no farther.  She closed the Bible.  "Let us
+pray," she said, and turned to the Collect for the week.
+
+
+"_O God, Whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in
+heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all
+hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us;
+through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen._"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
+She had known it would be there.
+
+She poured out her coffee and buttered her toast.
+
+Then she opened the letter.
+
+
+"My dear Ann"----
+
+After the nightmare through which she had just passed, this beginning
+scarcely surprised her.  She glanced back at the envelope to make quite
+sure it was addressed to herself; then read on.  It was dated the
+evening before, from the Professor's rooms in College.
+
+
+"MY DEAR ANN,--I regret to have been unable to look in upon you this
+evening, on my return from town, and my duties will keep me from paying
+you a visit until to-morrow, in the late afternoon.  Hence this letter.
+
+"Needless to say, I have been thinking over, carefully, the remarkable
+statement you saw fit to make to me, concerning the feelings and
+expectations of our young friend.  It came to me as a genuine surprise.
+I have always looked upon our friendship as purely Platonic; based
+entirely upon the intellectual enjoyment we found in pursuing our
+classical studies together.
+
+"I admit, I cannot bring myself to contemplate matrimony with much
+enthusiasm.
+
+"At the same time, your feeling in the matter being so strong, and my
+sense of gratitude toward my late friend, a thing never to be
+forgotten; if you are quite sure, Ann--and I confess it seems to me
+altogether incredible--that our young friend entertains, toward me,
+feelings which will mean serious disappointment to her, if I fail----"
+
+
+This brought the letter to the bottom of the first page.
+
+Without reading any farther, Miss Charteris folded it, and replaced it
+in the envelope.
+
+The indignant blood had mounted to the roots of her soft fair hair.
+But already, in her heart, sounded a song of wondering praise.
+
+
+"_And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it
+was very great._"
+
+
+The iron gate of the front garden swung open.  Hurried steps flew up
+the path.  Emma, poor soul, had been told to _fly_; and Emma had flown.
+She almost fell into the arms of Jenkins, as he opened the hall door.
+
+The note with which Emma had run, at a speed which was now causing her
+"such a stitch as never was," came from Miss Ann, and was marked
+"_urgent_" and "_immediate_."
+
+The corners of Christobel's proud mouth curved into a quiet smile as
+she took it from the salver.  She had expected this note.
+
+"Take Emma downstairs, Jenkins," she said.  "Ask Martha to give her a
+cup of coffee, and an egg, if she fancies it.  Tell Emma, I wish her to
+sit down comfortably and rest.  The answer to this note will be ready
+in about half an hour; not before."
+
+Miss Charteris finished her coffee and toast, poured out a fresh cup,
+and took some marmalade.  She did not hurry over her breakfast.
+
+When she had quite finished, she rose, and walked over to the
+writing-table.  She sat down, opened her blotter, took paper and
+envelopes; found a pen, and tried it.
+
+Then she opened Miss Ann's letter, marked "urgent" and "immediate."
+
+
+"SWEETEST CHILD" (wrote Miss Ann)--"See what Kenrick has done!  We--you
+and I--_so_ understand his dear absent-minded ways.  He wrote this
+letter to you last night, and, owing to his natural emotion and tension
+of mind, addressed it to me!  Needless to say, I have read only the
+opening sentences.  Darling Christobel, you will, I feel sure, overlook
+the very natural mistake, and not allow it in any way to affect your
+answer to my brother's proposal.  Remember how difficult it is for
+_great_ minds to be accurate in the _small_ details of _daily_ life.  I
+have known Kenrick to put two spoonfuls of mustard into a cup of
+coffee, stir it round, and drink it, _quite_ unaware that anything was
+wrong--I have indeed!  See how our dear Professor needs a _wife_!
+
+"I feel quite foolishly anxious this morning.  Do send me one line of
+assurance that all is well.  You cannot but be touched by my brother's
+letter.  From beginning to end, it breathes the faithful devotion of a
+lifetime.  Do not misunderstand the natural reticence of one wholly
+unaccustomed to the voicing of sentiment.  I only wish you could hear
+all he _says_ to me!"
+
+
+Then followed a few prayers and devout allusions to Providence--which
+brought a stern look to the face of Miss Charteris--and, with a whiff
+of effusive sentiment, Ann Harvey closed her epistle.
+
+An open letter from the Professor to herself was enclosed; but this,
+Christobel quietly laid aside.
+
+She took pen and paper, and wrote at once the note for which Emma
+waited.
+
+
+"DEAR ANN,--I enclose a letter from your brother which came, addressed
+to me, this morning, but was evidently intended for you.  I have read
+only the first page, which was quite sufficient to make the true state
+of affairs perfectly clear to me.
+
+"Providence has indeed interposed, by means of the Professor's
+absent-minded ways, to prevent the wrecking of three lives--mine, your
+brother's, and that of the man I love; to whom I shall be betrothed
+before the day is over.
+
+"I shall not tell the Professor that I have seen a portion of his
+letter to you.  I think we owe it to him not to do so.  He has always
+been a true and honourable friend to me.
+
+"Yours,
+  "C. C."
+
+
+When Emma had duly departed with this letter and enclosure, Miss
+Charteris breathed more freely.  She had been afraid lest, in her
+righteous indignation, in her consciousness of the terrible mischief so
+nearly wrought, she should write too strongly to Miss Ann, thus causing
+her unnecessary pain.
+
+It was quite impossible, to the fine generosity of a nature such as
+that of Christobel Charteris, really to understand the mean,
+self-centred, unscrupulous dishonesty of an action such as this of Miss
+Ann's.  From the calm heights whereon she walked, such small-minded
+selfishness of motive did not come within her field of vision.  She
+could never bring herself to believe worse of Miss Ann than that, in
+some incomprehensible way, she had laboured under a delusion regarding
+herself and the Professor.
+
+Miss Ann disposed of, she turned to the Professor's letter.
+
+It was not the letter of her dream, by any means; nor was it the letter
+she had sometimes dreamed he would write.
+
+It was straightforward and simple; and, holding the key to the
+situation, she could read between the lines a certain amount of
+dismayed surprise, which made her heartily sorry for her old friend.
+
+The Professor touched on their long friendship, his regard for her
+parents, his sincere admiration for herself; their unity of interests
+and congeniality of tastes; his sudden change of fortunes; quoted a
+little Greek, a little Sanskrit, and a little Persian; then, fortified
+by these familiar aids to the emotions, offered her marriage, in
+valiant and unmistakable terms.
+
+Christobel's heart stood still as she realized that not one word in
+that letter would have revealed to her the true state of the case.
+Truly, under Providence, she had cause to bless the Professor's "dear
+absent-minded ways."
+
+As she took pen and paper to reply to his letter, her heart felt very
+warm toward her old friend.  She gave him full credit for the effort
+with which he had done what he had been led to consider was the right
+thing toward her.
+
+
+"MY DEAR PROFESSOR" (she wrote),--"I rejoice to hear of your good
+fortune.  It is well indeed when the great thinkers of the world are
+rendered independent of all anxious taking of thought as to what they
+shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be
+clothed.  I like to think of you, my friend, as now set completely free
+from all mundane cares; able to give your undivided attention to the
+work you love.
+
+"I appreciate, more than I can say, the kind proposition concerning
+myself, which you make in your letter.  I owe it to our friendship to
+tell you quite frankly that I feel, and have long felt, how great an
+honour it would be for any woman to be in a position so to administer
+your household as to set you completely free for your great
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"But marriage would mean more than this, and our long friendship
+emboldens me to say that I should grieve to see you--owing perhaps to
+pressure or advice from others--burden your life with family ties for
+which you surely do not yourself feel any special inclination.
+
+"And, now, my friend, I must not close my letter without telling you
+how great a happiness has come into my lonely life.  I am about to
+marry a man whom--" Miss Charteris paused, and looked through the open
+window to the softly moving leaves of the old mulberry-tree.  A gleam
+of amusement shone in her eyes, curving her lips into a tender smile.
+The Boy seemed beside her, slapping his knee and rocking with merriment
+at the way she was about to bewilder Miss Ann and the Professor--"a man
+whom I have known and loved for over twenty years.
+
+"I am sure you will wish me joy, dear Professor.
+
+"Believe me, always,
+  "Gratefully and affectionately yours,
+    "CHRISTOBEL CHARTERIS."
+
+
+She rang the bell, and sent the answer to the Professor's letter, by
+Jenkins.  She could not wait for the slow medium of the post.  She
+could not let him remain another hour in the belief that, in order to
+save her from disappointment, he was compelled to marry Christobel
+Charteris.
+
+She stood at the breakfast-room window, and watched Jenkins as he
+hurried down the garden with the note.  Going by the lane, and taking a
+short cut across the fields, he would reach the Professor's rooms in a
+quarter of an hour.  Until then, life was somewhat intolerable.
+
+The proud blood mantled again over the face, the strong sweet beauty of
+which the Boy so loved.  Her letter to the Professor had not been easy
+to write.  She had had to be true to herself, and true to him, in the
+light of what she knew to be his real feeling in the matter; bearing in
+mind that before long he would almost certainly learn from Miss Ann
+that she had replied to his proposal after having read his sentiments
+on the subject, so candidly expressed on the first page of his letter
+to his sister.
+
+To relieve her mind, after this intricate whirl of
+cross-correspondence, she took up the _Daily Graphic_, and opened it,
+casually turning the pages.
+
+Suddenly there looked out at her from the central page, the merry,
+handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue.  He was seated in his
+flying-machine steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many
+wires.  His cap was on the back of his head, his bright eyes looked
+straight into hers; his firm young lips, parted in a smile, seemed to
+say; "I jolly well mean to do it!"  It was the very picture she had
+seen in the Professor's _Daily Mirror_, in her dream of the night
+before.  Below was an account of the flight from Folkestone which he
+was about to attempt.
+
+Then she remembered, with a shock of realization, that the flight
+across the Channel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, was to take
+place on that very day.  His telegram, of the night before, had said:
+"I am going to do a big fly to-morrow.  Wish me luck."  Ah, what if it
+ended as she had seen it end in her dream: great broken wings; a mass
+of tangled wire; and the Boy--_her_ Boy--with matted hair, and wounded
+head, asleep beneath the sailcloth!
+
+Her heart stood still.
+
+With their perfect joy so near its fulfilment, she could not let him
+take the risk.  Was there time to stop him?
+
+She looked at the paper.  The start was for 2 p.m.  It was now eleven
+o'clock.
+
+She remembered his last words: "When you want me and send--why, I will
+come from the other end of the world."
+
+She never quite knew how she reached the telegraph-office.  It seemed
+almost as dreamlike as her flight from the top to the bottom of the
+Folkestone cliffs.  But it was not a dream this time; it was desperate
+reality.
+
+Why do people always break the points of the pencils hanging from
+strings in the telegraph-offices?  Surely it is possible to write a
+telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that
+condition, for the next person in a hurry.
+
+She flew from compartment to compartment, and at last produced her own
+pencil, and wrote her telegram in the final section of the row,
+independent of official broken points.
+
+
+"_Do not fly to-day.  Come to me.  I want you._
+
+"_Christobel._"
+
+
+She addressed it to the hotel from which he had telegraphed on the
+previous day; but added to the address: "If not there, send immediately
+to aviation sheds."  She had no idea what to call the places, but this
+sounded well, and seemed an intuition, or an unconscious recollection
+of some remark of the Boy's.
+
+She handed it over the counter.  "Please see that it goes through at
+once," she said.
+
+The clerk knew her.  "Yes, Miss Charteris," he replied.  He began
+reading the message aloud, but almost immediately stopped, and checked
+the words off silently.  He glanced at the clock.  "It should be there
+before noon, Miss Charteris," he said.
+
+He did not look at her, as he passed her the stamps.  He had long
+thought her one of the finest women who stepped in and out of the
+post-office.  He had never expected to see her hands tremble.  And
+fancy _any_ woman--even _she_--being able to tell Guy Chelsea not to
+fly!  He had a bet on, about that flight, with an enthusiastic backer
+of Chelsea's.  He was glad he had taken the odds against its coming
+off, before seeing this wire.  But--after all!  It is easy enough to
+_ask_ a chap not to fly; but----
+
+He took up a copy of the _Daily Mirror_, and looked at the brave
+smiling face.  "I jolly well mean to do it!" the young aeronaut seemed
+to be saying.  The clerk laughed, and shook his head.  "Hurry up that
+wire," he called to the operator.  Then he jingled the loose change in
+his pockets.  "I wonder," he said.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+During the hours which followed, Christobel Charteris knew suspense.
+
+Perhaps that strong, self-contained nature could never have fully
+sounded the depths of its own surrender, without those hours of
+uncertainty, when nothing stood between her and the man she loved, but
+the possibility that her telegram would fail to reach him; that he
+would carry out his dangerous flight; that disaster and death would
+overtake him and wrest him from her, and that he would die--Guy Chelsea
+would die--without ever knowing of the cup of bliss she was now ready,
+with utterly loving hand, to hold to his lips.
+
+Having sent her message, there was nothing more she could do, and the
+burden of inaction seemed almost too great a weight to carry, during
+the hours which must elapse, before his coming could turn uncertainty
+into assurance; restlessness, into peace.
+
+It did not occur to her, as a possibility, that Guy Chelsea would elect
+to fly, after receiving her request.  She knew her slightest wish would
+be law to the Boy's tender loyalty; and though he knew nothing of her
+cause for anxiety, nor of the complete change of circumstances since he
+left her, not forty-eight hours before, she felt sure he would not fly;
+she felt certain he would come--if--_if_ the message reached him in
+time.
+
+At two o'clock it came to her, with overwhelming certainty, that her
+message had not reached him, and that he had started on his flight.
+She seemed to see the great wings mounting--mounting; then skimming
+over the sea.  She almost heard the hum he had so often described--the
+hum of the giant insect on which the bird-man flew.
+
+Her own Little Boy Blue was flying through space.  O God, what might
+not any minute be bringing!  He had said: "One never expects those
+things to happen, and when they do happen, it's over so quickly that
+there is no time for expectation."  Was it happening now?  Was it going
+to be over so quickly, that her cup of bliss would be dashed from her
+lips untasted?  Was she to lose her all, because of a cross-current or
+a twisted wire?
+
+She was walking up and down the garden now, and paused beside the chair
+in which she had sat when he had said, only seven days ago: "It was
+always you I wanted; not your niece.  Good heavens!  How can you have
+thought it was Mollie, when it was you--you--just only you, all the
+time?"  And she, half-laughing at him, had asked: "Is this a proposal?"
+
+"My ALL," she said.  "Oh, Boy dear, my ALL.  If I lose you, I lose my
+ALL."
+
+She walked on slowly, moving to the repetition of those words.  It
+seemed a comfort to repeat the great fact that, at last, he was this to
+her.  Surely it would reach him, by some sort of wireless telegraphy
+through space.  Surely it would control cross-currents, keep propellers
+acting as they should; steering-gear from twisting.
+
+"O God, he is my ALL--he is my ALL!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The afternoon sun began to glint through the trees.
+
+The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale anxious faces to
+the sky.
+
+Clocks all around chimed the hour of four.
+
+Suddenly her limbs weakened.  She could walk no longer.
+
+She sank into a chair, beneath the mulberry-tree.
+
+In a few minutes Jenkins would bring out tea.  Would Martha have
+arranged a tea such as the Boy loved, with cups for two, hot
+buttered-toast and explosive buns?
+
+What a boy he was, at heart--this man who had won her; what a gay,
+laughter-loving boy!
+
+She lay back, very still, under the mulberry-tree, and lived again
+through each of the Boy's days, from the first to the sixth.
+
+She kept her eyes closed.  The sunlight, glinting through the mulberry
+leaves, fell in bright patches on her white gown, and on her soft
+golden hair.
+
+The garden was very still.  All nature seemed waiting with the heart
+that waited.
+
+"_Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!_"
+
+"I shall blow it all right on the seventh day," the Boy had said; "and
+when I do, you will hear it."
+
+This was the seventh day.
+
+
+Suddenly the horn of a motor tooted loudly in the lane.
+
+She rose, her hands clasped upon her breast, and stood waiting
+
+A shaft of golden sunlight streamed down the garden, and seemed to
+focus on the postern gate.
+
+Then the gate swung open and the Boy came in, slamming it behind him.
+She saw him coming up the lawn toward her, bareheaded; the sunlight in
+his shining eyes.
+
+"I couldn't wait for trains," he shouted.  "I came by motor.  And I
+jolly well exceeded the speed-limit all the way!"
+
+She moved a few steps to meet him.
+
+"Boy dear," she said, "you always exceed all speed-limits.  It is a way
+you have.  Exceed them as much as you like, so long as I am with you
+when you do it.  But--oh, my Little Boy Blue!--don't fly again; for, if
+you fall and break your wings, indeed you will break my heart."
+
+In a moment she was sobbing on his breast, her arms flung around him.
+There was nothing broken or limp about his strong young body, pulsating
+with life.
+
+He put his arms about her, holding her in a clasp of close possessive
+tenderness.
+
+He did not yet understand what had happened; but he knew the great gift
+he desired had been given him.  He waited for her to speak.
+
+She lifted her face to his.
+
+"Guy," she said; "ah, take me, hold me, keep me!  I am altogether your
+own.  I will explain to you fully, by and by.  The stone was very
+great; but lo, as we reached it, the Angel of the Lord had rolled it
+away....  No other man has a shadow of claim over me.  I am free to
+say, to the only man I have ever really loved: Take me; I am yours.
+Oh, Boy!  I am altogether yours."
+
+He bent over her.
+
+The sweet proud lips were parted in utter surrender, and lifted to his.
+
+He paused--just for one exquisite moment, of realization.
+
+She waited his kiss with closed eyes, so she did not see the radiance
+of his face, as he looked up to the blue sky, flecked with fleeting
+white clouds.  But she heard the voice, which from that hour was to
+make the music of her life:
+
+"Thank the Lord," said Little Boy Blue.
+
+Then--he kissed her.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"_And the evening and the morning were the seventh day._"
+
+
+
+
+_List of_
+
+MRS. BARCLAY'S NOVELS
+
+
+
+
+By FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+
+
+THE ROSARY
+
+Over One Million Copies Sold
+
+_Translated into French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish,
+Dutch, and Spanish._
+
+"The sentiment is never mawkish; it rings true, and throughout the
+whole story there is a vein of elevating emotion which should attract
+lovers of wholesome fiction."--_Times_.
+
+
+THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+
+"A youthful sentiment, fresh and romantic, flows through Mrs. Barclay's
+new book, and gives to the story some of the delicate odour of lavender
+and jessamine, and old-fashioned flowers."--_Daily Graphic_.
+
+
+THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+
+"A worthy successor to 'The Rosary.'  It has the same charm and grip,
+whilst the plot is again unusual and clever...."--_Evening Standard_.
+
+
+THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+
+"It is a book to turn over in a sunny garden, under shady trees, when
+one might look up from the clear print and see a happy prince coming in
+through the green gate to lead one's own self to
+fairyland."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+
+THE BROKEN HALO
+
+"It is the record of the saving of a soul by charity.  The end
+represents the triumph of mortal kindness."--_Standard_.
+
+
+THE WALL OF PARTITION
+
+"A brisk, readable story with a strong plot, full of incident and sure
+of a wide appreciation."--_Globe_.
+
+
+THE UPAS TREE
+
+"The book is full of that mixture of humour, feeling, and religion that
+gain for Mrs. Barclay so wide a popularity."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
+
+
+RETURNED EMPTY
+
+"This is certainly the most arresting tale that the authoress has
+produced since her first huge success."--_Daily Mail_.
+
+
+SHORTER WORKS
+
+Seven of Mrs. Barclay's Shorter Stories now collected for the first
+time into one volume, and including one which has never before been
+printed in book form.
+
+
+THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+
+3s. 6d. net.
+
+Mrs. Barclay's Last Long Novel.
+
+"It has tenderness, it has a story which never flags, above all it has
+humanity."--_Observer_.
+
+
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
+
+
+
+_SOME PRESS OPINIONS ON THE LATE_
+
+FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
+
+"A writer who appealed to and won the affection of so many of her
+fellow countrymen and women is no negligible quantity.  Indeed there is
+reason to think that Mrs. Barclay understood the tendency of her age
+better than many contemporary novelists whose technical skill exceeded
+hers."--_Times_.
+
+"Mrs. Barclay's death will be regretted by many thousands of
+readers."--_Morning Post_.
+
+"'The Rosary' and nearly all her other books were inspired by true
+religious feeling, which she always managed to infuse into the
+imagination of her readers."--_Sphere_.
+
+"From the highest to the lowest she commanded an attentive
+public."--_Liverpool Daily Courier_.
+
+"There was a purpose behind all she wrote that lifted her books above
+the common, and enabled her to reach readers who would turn away from
+the 'typical best-seller' in disgust."--_Sunday Times_.
+
+"Mrs. Barclay was not merely a popular authoress.  The ideals she
+preached were high and noble and tended to elevate her
+readers."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
+
+"The underlying quality of Mrs. Barclay's literary art was her
+wonderful gift of depicting home life, and it was this characteristic
+which made her name loved in countless homes all over the
+land."--_Lady_.
+
+"She gave wholesale enjoyment to countless thousands, while she was
+also one of the comparatively few popular authoresses who are in
+themselves as good as the very best of their books."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
+
+24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY_
+
+
+  THE ROSARY
+  THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+  THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+  THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+  THE UPAS TREE
+  THE BROKEN HALO
+  THE WALL OF PARTITION
+  THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+  RETURNED EMPTY
+  SHORTER WORKS
+
+
+_BY ONE OF HER DAUGHTERS_
+
+  THE LIFE OF FLORENCE BARCLAY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
+
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