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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second String, by Anthony Hope
+
+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: Second String
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38796]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND STRING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+The frontispiece illustration has been removed from text version.
+
+Italics in original are marked with _underscores_.
+
+Small caps have been changed to ALL CAPS.
+
+Punctuation has been regularized.
+
+The following typographical corrections were made:
+
+  p. 517, "dumurely" changed to "demurely." (the Nun admitted demurely)
+  p. 536, "that's he" changed to "that he's." (that he's terribly)
+  p. 539, "thing" changed to "think," (think you're perfectly)
+
+
+
+
+                          SECOND STRING
+
+                         BY ANTHONY HOPE
+
+
+
+                      THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
+                    LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN,
+                       LEEDS, AND NEW YORK
+
+  LEIPZIG: 35-37 Königstrasse.   PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Pères.
+
+
+
+
+                      First Published 1910.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     I. HOME AGAIN                                              5
+
+    II. A VERY LITTLE HUNTING                                  27
+
+   III. THE POTENT VOICE                                       45
+
+    IV. SETTLED PROGRAMMES                                     66
+
+     V. BROADENING LIFE                                        87
+
+    VI. THE WORLDS OF MERITON                                 106
+
+   VII. ENTERING FOR THE RACE                                 128
+
+  VIII. WONDERFUL WORDS                                       148
+
+    IX. "INTERJECTION"                                        169
+
+     X. FRIENDS IN NEED                                       190
+
+    XI. THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW                               212
+
+   XII. CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS                              235
+
+  XIII. A LOVER LOOKS PALE                                    256
+
+   XIV. SAVING THE NATION                                     278
+
+    XV. LOVE AND FEAR                                         300
+
+   XVI. A CHOICE OF EVILS                                     321
+
+  XVII. REFORMATION                                           342
+
+ XVIII. PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS                                362
+
+   XIX. MARKED MONEY                                          384
+
+    XX. NO GOOD?                                              404
+
+   XXI. THE EMPTY PLACE                                       424
+
+  XXII. GRUBBING AWAY                                         446
+
+ XXIII. A STOP-GAP                                            468
+
+  XXIV. PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!                                 490
+
+   XXV. THE LAST FIGHT                                        512
+
+  XXVI. TALES OUT OF SCHOOL FOR ONCE                          533
+
+ XXVII. NOT OF HIS SEEKING                                    555
+
+
+
+
+SECOND STRING.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+HOME AGAIN.
+
+
+Jack Rock stood in his shop in High Street. He was not very often to be
+seen there nowadays; he bred and bought, but he no longer killed, and
+rarely sold, in person. These latter and lesser functions he left to his
+deputy, Simpson, for he had gradually developed a bye-trade which took
+up much of his time, and was no less profitable than his ostensible
+business. He bought horses, "made" them into hunters, and sold them
+again. He was a rare judge and a fine rider, and his heart was in this
+line of work.
+
+However to-day he was in his shop because the Christmas beef was on
+show. Here were splendid carcasses decked with blue rosettes, red
+rosettes, or cards of "Honourable Mention;" poor bodies sadly
+unconscious (as one may suppose all bodies are) of their posthumous
+glories. Jack Rock, a spruce spare little man with a thin red face and a
+get-up of the most "horsy" order, stood before them, expatiating to
+Simpson on their beauties. Simpson, who was as fat as his master was
+thin, and even redder in the face, chimed in; they were for all the
+world like a couple of critics hymning the praise of poets who have paid
+the debt of nature, but are decorated with the insignia of fame. Verily
+Jack Rock's shop in the days before Christmas might well seem an Abbey
+or a Pantheon of beasts.
+
+"Beef for me on Christmas Day," said Jack. "None of your turkeys or
+geese, or such-like truck. Beef!" He pointed to a blue-rosetted carcass.
+"Look at him; just look at him! I've known him since he was calved. Cuts
+up well, doesn't he? I'll have a joint off him for my own table,
+Simpson."
+
+"You couldn't do better, sir," said Simpson, just touching, careful not
+to bruise, the object of eulogy with his professional knife. A train of
+thought started suddenly in his brain. "Them vegetarians, sir!" he
+exclaimed. Was it wonder, or contempt, or such sheer horror as the
+devotee has for atheism? Or the depths of the first and the depths of
+the second poured into the depths of the third to make immeasurable
+profundity?
+
+A loud burst of laughter came from the door of the shop. Nothing
+startled Jack Rock. He possessed in perfection a certain cheerful
+seriousness which often marks the amateurs of the horse. These men are
+accustomed to take chances, to encounter the unforeseen, to endure
+disappointment, to withstand the temptations of high success. _Mens
+Aequa!_ Life, though a pleasant thing, is not a laughing matter. So Jack
+turned slowly and gravely round to see whence the irreverent
+interruption proceeded. But when he saw the intruder his face lit up,
+and he darted across the shop with outstretched hand. Simpson followed,
+hastily rubbing his right hand on the under side of his blue apron.
+
+"Welcome, my lad, welcome home!" cried Jack, as he greeted with a hard
+squeeze a young man who stood in the doorway. "First-rate you look too.
+He's filled out, eh, Simpson?" He tapped the young man's chest
+appreciatively, and surveyed his broad and massive shoulders with almost
+professional admiration. "Canada's agreed with you, Andy. Have you just
+got here?"
+
+"No; I got here two hours ago. You were out, so I left my bag and went
+for a walk round the old place. It seems funny to be in Meriton again."
+
+"Come into the office. We must drink your health. You too, Simpson. Come
+along."
+
+He led the way to a back room, where, amid more severe furniture and
+appliances, there stood a cask of beer. From this he filled three pint
+mugs, and Andy Hayes' health and safe return were duly honoured. Andy
+winked his eye.
+
+"Them teetotallers!" he ejaculated, with a very fair imitation of
+Simpson, who acknowledged the effort with an answering wink as he
+drained his mug and then left the other two to themselves.
+
+"Yes, I've been poking about everywhere--first up to have a look at the
+old house. Not much changed there--well, except that everything's
+changed by the dear old governor's not being there any more."
+
+"Ah, it was a black Christmas that year--four years ago now. First, the
+old gentleman; then poor Nancy, a month later. She caught the fever
+nursin' him; she would do it, and I couldn't stop her. Did you go to the
+churchyard, Andy?"
+
+"Yes, I went there." After a moment's grave pause his face brightened
+again. "And I went to the old school. Nobody there--it's holidays, of
+course--but how everything came back to me! There was my old seat,
+between Chinks and the Bird--you know? Wat Money, I mean, and young Tom
+Dove."
+
+"Oh, they're both in the place still. Tom Dove's helpin' his father at
+the Lion, and Wat Money's articled to old Mr. Foulkes the lawyer."
+
+"I sat down at my old desk, and, by Jove, I absolutely seemed to hear
+the old governor talking--talking about the Pentathlon. You've heard him
+talk about the Pentathlon? He was awfully keen on the Pentathlon; wanted
+to have it at the sports. I believe he thought I should win it."
+
+"I don't exactly remember what it was, but you'd have had a good go for
+it, Andy."
+
+"Leaping, running, wrestling, throwing the discus, hurling the spear--I
+think that's right. He was talking about it the very last day I sat at
+that desk--eight years ago! Yes, it's eight years since I went out to
+the war, and nearly five since I went to Canada. And I've never been
+back! Well, except for not seeing him and Nancy again, I'm glad of it.
+I've done better out there. There wasn't any opening here. I wasn't
+clever, and if I had been, there was no money to send me to Oxford,
+though the governor was always dreaming of that."
+
+"Naturally, seein' he was B.A. Oxon, and a gentleman himself," said
+Jack.
+
+He spoke in a tone of awe and admiration. Andy looked at him with a
+smile. Among the townsfolk of Meriton Andy's father had always been
+looked up to by reason of the letters after his name on the prospectus
+of the old grammar school, of which he had been for thirty years the
+hard-worked and very ill-paid headmaster. In Meriton eyes the letters
+carried an academical distinction great if obscure, a social distinction
+equally great and far more definite. They ranked Mr. Hayes with the
+gentry, and their existence had made his second marriage--with Jack Rock
+the butcher's sister--a _mésalliance_ of a pronounced order. Jack
+himself was quite of this mind. He had always treated his brother-in-law
+with profound respect; even his great affection for his sister had never
+quite persuaded him that she had not been guilty of gross presumption in
+winning Mr. Hayes' heart. He could not, even as the second Mrs. Hayes'
+brother, forget the first--Andy's mother; for she, though the gentlest
+of women, had always called Jack "Butcher." True, that was in days
+before Jack had won his sporting celebrity and set up his private gig;
+but none the less it would have seemed impossible to conceive of a
+family alliance--even a posthumous one--with a lady whose recognition of
+him was so exclusively commercial.
+
+"Well, I'm not a B.A.--Oxon. or otherwise," laughed Andy. "I don't know
+whether I'm a gentleman. If I am, so are you. Meriton Grammar School is
+responsible for us both. And if you're in trade, so am I. What's the
+difference between timber and meat?"
+
+"I expect there's a difference between Meriton and Canada, though," Jack
+Rock opined shrewdly. "Are you goin' to stay at home, or goin' back?"
+
+"I shall stay here if I can develop the thing enough to make it pay to
+have a man on this side. If not, pack up! But I shall be here for the
+next six months anyway, I expect."
+
+"What's it worth to you?" asked Jack.
+
+"Oh, nothing much just now. Two hundred a year guaranteed, and a
+commission--if it's earned. But it looks like improving. Only the orders
+must come in before the commission does! However it's not so bad; I'm
+lucky to have found a berth at all."
+
+"Yes, lucky thing you got pals with that Canadian fellow down in South
+Africa."
+
+"A real stroke of luck. It was a bit hard to make up my mind not to come
+home with the boys, but I'm sure I did the right thing. Only I'm sorry
+about the old governor and Nancy."
+
+"The old gentleman himself told me he thought you'd done right."
+
+"It was an opening; and it had to be taken or left, then and there. So
+here I am, and I'm going to start an office in London."
+
+Jack Rock nodded thoughtfully; he seemed to be revolving something in
+his mind. Andy's eyes rested affectionately on him. The two had been
+great friends all through Andy's boyhood. Jack had been "Jack" to him
+long before he became a family connection, and "Jack" he had continued
+to be. As for the _mésalliance_--well, looking back, Andy could not with
+candour deny that it had been a surprise, perhaps even a shock. It had
+to some degree robbed him of the exceptional position he held in the
+grammar school, where, among the sons of tradesmen, he alone, or almost
+alone, enjoyed a vague yet real social prestige. The son shared the
+father's fall. The feeling of caste is very persistent, even though it
+may be shamed into silence by modern doctrines, or by an environment in
+which it is an alien plant. But he had got over his boyish feeling now,
+and was delighted to come back to Meriton as Jack Rock's visitor, and to
+stay with him at the comfortable little red-brick house adjoining the
+shop in High Street. In fact he flattered himself that his service in
+the ranks and his Canadian experiences had taken the last of "that sort
+of nonsense" out of him. It was, perhaps, a little too soon to pronounce
+so confident a judgment.
+
+Andy was smitten with a sudden compunction. "Why, I've never asked after
+Harry Belfield!" he cried.
+
+He was astonished at his own disloyalty. Harry Belfield had been the
+hero of his youth, his ideal, his touchstone of excellence in all
+things, the standard by which he humbly measured his own sore
+deficiencies, and contemptuously assessed the demerits of his
+schoolfellows. Of these Harry had not been one. No grammar school for
+him! He was the son of Mr. Belfield of Halton Park--Harrow and Oxford
+were the programme for him. The same favourable conditions gave him the
+opportunity--which, of course, he took--of excelling in all the
+accomplishments that Andy lacked and envied--riding, shooting, games of
+skill that cost money. The difference of position set a gulf between the
+two boys. Meetings had been rare events--to Andy always notable events,
+occasions of pleasure and of excitement, landmarks in memory. The
+acquaintance between the houses had been of the slightest. In Andy's
+earliest days Mr. and the first Mrs. Hayes had dined once a year with
+Mr. and Mrs. Belfield; they were not expected to return the hospitality.
+After Andy's mother died and Nancy came on the scene, the annual dinner
+had gone on, but it had become a men's dinner; and Mrs. Belfield, though
+she bowed in the street, had not called on the second Mrs. Hayes--Nancy
+Rock that had been. It was not to be expected. Yet Mr. Belfield had
+recognized an equal in Andy's father; he also, perhaps, yielded some
+homage to the B.A. Oxon. And Harry, though he undoubtedly drew a line
+between himself and Andy, drew another between Andy and Andy's
+schoolfellows, Chinks, the Bird, and the rest. He was rewarded--and to
+his worship-loving nature it was a reward--by an adoration due as much,
+perhaps, to the first line as to the second. The more definite a line,
+the more graciousness lies in stepping over it.
+
+These boyish devotions are common, and commonly are short-lived. But
+Andy's habit of mind was stable and his affections tenacious. He still
+felt that a meeting with Harry Belfield would be an event.
+
+"He's all right," Jack Rock answered, his tone hardly responding to
+Andy's eagerness. "He's a barrister now, you know; but I don't fancy he
+does much at it. Better at spendin' money than makin' it! If you want to
+see him, you can do it to-night."
+
+"Can I? How?"
+
+"There's talk of him bein' candidate for the Division next election, and
+he's goin' to speak at a meeting in the Town Hall to-night, him and a
+chap in Parliament."
+
+"Good! Which side is he?"
+
+"You've been a good while away to ask that!"
+
+"I suppose I have. I say, Jack, let's go."
+
+"You can go; I shan't," said Jack Rock. "You'll get back in time for
+supper--and need it too, I should say. I never listen to speeches except
+when they put me on a jury at assizes. Then I do like to hear a chap
+fight for his man. That's racin', that is; and I like specially, Andy,
+to see him bring it off when the odds are against him. But this
+politics--in my opinion, if you put their names in a hat and drew 'em
+blindfolded, you'd get just as good a Gover'ment as you do now, or just
+as bad."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going for the politics. I'm going to hear Harry Belfield."
+
+"The only question as particularly interests me," said Jack, with one of
+his occasional lapses into doubtful grammar, "is the matter of chilled
+meat. But which of 'em does anything for me there? One says 'Free
+Trade--let it all come!' The other says, 'No chilled meat, certainly
+not, unless it comes from British possessions'--which is where it does
+come from mostly. And it's ruin to the meat, Andy, in my opinion. I hate
+to see it. Not that I lose much by it, havin' a high-class connection.
+Would you like to have another look in the shop?"
+
+"Suppose we say to-morrow morning?" laughed Andy.
+
+Jack shook his head; he seemed disappointed at this lack of enthusiasm.
+"I've got some beauties this Christmas," he said. "All the same I shan't
+be lookin' at 'em much to-morrow mornin'! I've got a young horse, and I
+want just to show him what a foxhound's like. The meet's at Fyfold
+to-morrow, Andy. I wish I could mount you. I expect you ride fourteen,
+eh?"
+
+"Hard on it, I fancy--and I'm a fool on a horse anyhow. But I shall
+go--on shanks' mare."
+
+"Will you now? Well, if you're as good on your legs as you used to be,
+it's odds you'll see a bit of the run. I recollect you in the old days,
+Andy; you were hard to shake off unless the goin' was uncommon good.
+Knew the country, you did, and where the fox was likely to make for. And
+I don't think you'll get the scent too good for you to-morrow. Come
+along and have tea. Oh, but you're a late-dinner man, eh?"
+
+"Dinner when, where, and how it comes! Tea sounds capital--with supper
+after my meeting. I say, Jack, it's good to see you again!"
+
+"Wish you'd stay here, lad. I'm much alone these days--with the old
+gentleman gone, and poor Nancy gone!"
+
+"Perhaps I shall. Anyhow I might stay here for the summer, and go up to
+town to the office."
+
+"Aye, you might do that, anyhow." Again Jack Rock seemed meditative, as
+though he had an idea and were half-minded to disclose it. But he was a
+man of caution; he bided his time.
+
+Andy--nobody had ever called him Andrew since the parson who christened
+him--seemed to himself to have got home again, very thoroughly home
+again. Montreal with its swelling hill, its mighty river, its winter
+snow, its Frenchness, its opposing self-defensive, therefore
+self-assertive, Britishness, was very remote. A talk with Jack Rock, a
+Conservative meeting with a squire in the chair (that was safely to be
+assumed), a meet of the hounds next morning--these and a tide of
+intimate personal memories stamped him as at home again. The long years
+in the little house at the extreme end of Highcroft--Highcroft led out
+of High Street, tending to the west, Fyfold way--in the old grammar
+school, in the peace of the sleepy town--had been a poignant memory in
+South Africa, a fading dream in the city by the great river. They sprang
+again into actuality. If he felt a certain contraction in his horizon he
+felt also a peace in his mind. Meriton might or might not admire
+"hustlers;" it did not hustle itself. It was a parasitic little town; it
+had no manufactures, no special industry. It lived on the country
+surrounding it--on the peasants, the farmers, the landowners. So it did
+not grow; neither did it die. It remained much as it had been for
+hundreds of years, save that it was seriously considering the
+introduction of electric light.
+
+The meeting was rather of an impromptu order; Christmas holidays are
+generally held sacred from such functions. But Mr. Foot, M.P., a rising
+young member and a friend of Harry Belfield's, happened to be staying at
+Halton Park for shooting. Why waste him? He liked to speak, and he spoke
+very well. The more Harry showed himself and got himself heard, the
+better. The young men would enjoy it. A real good dinner beforehand
+would send them down in rare spirits. A bit of supper, with a
+whisky-and-soda or two, and recollections of their own "scores," would
+end the evening pleasantly. Meriton would not be excited--it was not
+election time--but it would be amused, benevolent, and present in
+sufficiently large numbers to make the thing go with _éclat_.
+
+There was, indeed, one topic which, from a platform at all events, one
+could describe as "burning." A Bill dealing with the sale of
+intoxicating liquor had, the session before, been introduced as the
+minimum a self-respecting nation could do, abused as the maximum
+fanatics could clamour for, carried through a second reading
+considerably amended, and squeezed out by other matters. It was to be
+re-introduced. The nation was recommended to consider the question in
+the interval. Now the nation, though professing its entire desire to be
+sober--it could not well do anything else--was not sure that it desired
+to be made sober, was not quite clear as to the precise point at which
+it could or could not be held to be sober, and felt that the argument
+that it would, by the gradual progress of general culture, become sober
+in the next generation or so--without feeling the change, so to say, and
+with no violent break in the habits of this generation (certainly
+everybody must wish the next generation to be sober)--that this
+argument, which men of indisputable wisdom adduced, had great
+attractions. Also the nation was much afraid of the teetotallers,
+especially of the subtle ones who said that true freedom lay in freedom
+from temptation. The nation thought that sort of freedom not much worth
+having, whether in the matter of drink or of any other pleasure. So
+there were materials for a lively and congenial discussion, and Mr.
+Foot, M.P., was already in the thick of it when Andy Hayes, rather late
+by reason of having been lured into the stables to see the hunters after
+tea, reached the Town Hall and sidled his way to a place against the
+wall in good view of the platform and of the front benches where the
+big-wigs sat. The Town Hall was quite two-thirds full--very good indeed
+for the Christmas season!
+
+Andy Hayes was not much of a politician. Up to now he had been content
+with the politics of his _métier_, the politics of a man trying to build
+up a business. But it was impossible not to enjoy Mr. Foot. He riddled
+the enemy with epigram till he fell to the earth, then he jumped on to
+his prostrate form and chopped it to pieces with logic. He set his
+audience wondering--this always happens at political meetings, whichever
+party may be in power--by what odd freak of fate, by what inexplicable
+blunder, the twenty men chosen to rule the country should be not only
+the twenty most unprincipled but also the twenty stupidest in it. Mr.
+Foot demonstrated the indisputable truth of this strange fact so
+cogently before he had been on his legs twenty minutes that gradually
+Andy felt absolved from listening any longer to so plain a matter; his
+attention began to wander to the company. It was a well-to-do
+audience--there were not many poor in Meriton. A few old folk might have
+to go to "the house," but there were no distress or "unemployment"
+troubles. The tradesfolk, their families, and employees formed the bulk.
+They were presided over by Mr. Wellgood of Nutley, who might be
+considered to hold the place of second local magnate, after Mr. Belfield
+of Halton. He was a spare, strongly built man of two or three and forty;
+his hair was clipped very close to his head; he wore a bristly moustache
+just touched with gray, but it too was kept so short that the lines of
+his mouth, with its firm broad lips, were plain to see; his eyes were
+light-blue, hard, and wary; they seemed to keep a constant watch over
+the meeting, and once, when a scuffle arose among some children at the
+back of the hall, they gave out a fierce and formidable glance of
+rebuke. He had the reputation of being a strict master and a stern
+magistrate; but he was a good sportsman, and Jack Rock's nearest rival
+after the hounds.
+
+Beside him, waiting his turn to speak and seeming rather nervous--he was
+not such an old hand at the game as Mr. Foot--sat Andy's hero, Harry
+Belfield. He was the pet of the town for his gay manner, good looks, and
+cheery accessibility to every man--and even more to every woman. His
+youthful record was eminently promising, his career the subject of high
+hopes to his family and his fellow-citizens. Tall and slight, wearing
+his clothes with an elegance free from affectation, he suggested "class"
+and "blood" in every inch of him. He was rather pale, with thick, soft,
+dark hair; his blue eyes were vivacious and full of humour, his mouth a
+little small, but delicate and sensitive, the fingers of his hands long
+and tapering. "A thoroughbred" was the only possible verdict--evidently
+also a man full of sensibility, awake to the charms of life as well as
+to its labours; that was in keeping with all Andy's memories.
+
+The moment he rose it was obvious with what favour he was regarded; the
+audience was predisposed towards all he said. He was not so epigrammatic
+nor so cruelly logical as Mr. Foot; he was easier, more colloquial, more
+confidential; he had some chaff for his hearers as well as denunciation
+for his enemies; his speech was seasoned now by a local allusion, now by
+a sporting simile. A veteran might have found its strongest point of
+promise in its power of adaptation to the listeners, its gift of
+creating sympathy between them and the speaker by the grace of a very
+attractive personality. It was a success, perhaps, more of charm than of
+strength; but it may be doubted whether in the end the one does not
+carry as far as the other.
+
+On good terms as he was with them all, it soon became evident to so
+interested an onlooker as Andy Hayes that he was on specially good
+terms, or at any rate anxious to be, in one particular quarter. After he
+had made a point and was waiting for the applause to die down, not once
+but three or four times he smiled directly towards the front row, and
+towards that part of it where two young women sat side by side. They
+were among his most enthusiastic auditors, and Andy presently found
+himself, by a natural leaning towards any one who admired Harry
+Belfield, according to them a share of the attention which had hitherto
+been given exclusively to the hero himself.
+
+The pair made a strong contrast. There was a difference of six or seven
+years only in their ages, but while the one seemed scarcely more than a
+child, it was hard to think of the other as even a girl--there was about
+her such an air of self-possession, of conscious strength, of a maturity
+of faculties. Even in applauding she seemed also to judge and assess.
+Her favour was discriminating; she let the more easy hits go by with a
+slight, rather tolerant smile, while her neighbour greeted them with
+outright merry laughter. She was not much beyond medium height, but of
+full build, laid on ample lines; her features were rather large, and her
+face wore, in repose, a thoughtful tranquillity. The other, small,
+frail, and delicate, with large eyes that seemed to wonder even as she
+laughed, would turn to her friend with each laugh and appear to ask her
+sympathy--or even her permission to be pleased.
+
+Andy's scrutiny--somewhat prolonged since it yielded him all the above
+particulars--was ended by his becoming aware that he in his turn was the
+object of an attention not less thoroughgoing. Turning back to the
+platform, he found the chairman's hard and alert eyes fixed on him in a
+gaze that plainly asked who he was and why he was so much interested in
+the two girls. Andy blushed in confusion at being caught, but Mr.
+Wellgood made no haste to relieve him from his rebuking glance. He held
+him under it for full half a minute, turning away, indeed, only when
+Harry sat down among the cheers of the meeting. What business was it of
+Wellgood's if Andy did forget his manners and stare too hard at the
+girls? The next moment Andy laughed at himself for the question. In a
+sudden flash he remembered the younger girl. She was Wellgood's daughter
+Vivien. He recalled her now as a little child; he remembered the
+wondering eyes and the timidly mirthful curl of her lips. Was it really
+as long ago as that since he had been in Meriton? However childlike she
+might look, now she was grown-up!
+
+His thoughts, which carried him through the few sentences with which the
+chairman dismissed the meeting, were scattered by the sudden grasp of
+Harry Belfield's hand. The moment he saw Andy he ran down from the
+platform to him. His greeting was all his worshipper could ask.
+
+"Well now, I am glad to see you back!" he cried. "Oh, we all heard how
+well you'd done out at the front, and we thought it too bad of you not
+to come back and be lionized. But here you are at last, and it's all
+right. I must take Billy Foot home now--he's got to go to town at heaven
+knows what hour in the morning--but we must have a good jaw soon. Are
+you at the Lion?"
+
+"No," said Andy, "I'm staying a day or two with Jack Rock."
+
+"With Jack Rock?" Harry's voice sounded surprised. "Oh yes, of course, I
+remember! He's a capital chap, old Jack! But if you're going to
+stay--and I hope you are, old fellow--you'll want some sort of a place
+of your own, won't you? Well, good-night. I'll hunt you up some time in
+the next day or two, for certain. Did you like my speech?"
+
+"Yes, and I expected you to make a good one."
+
+"You shall hear me make better ones than that. Well, I really must--All
+right, Billy, I'm coming." With another clasp of the hand he rushed
+after Mr. Foot, who was undisguisedly in a hurry, shouting as he went,
+"Good-night, Wellgood! Good-night, Vivien! Good-night, Miss Vintry!"
+
+Miss Vintry--that was the other girl, the one with Vivien Wellgood. Andy
+was glad to know her name and docket her by it in her place among the
+impressions of the evening.
+
+So home to a splendid round of cold beef and another pint of that
+excellent beer at Jack Rock's. What days life sometimes gives--or used
+to!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+A VERY LITTLE HUNTING.
+
+
+If more were needed to make a man feel at home--more than old Meriton
+itself, Jack Rock with his beef, and the clasp of Harry Belfield's
+hand--the meet of the hounds supplied it. There were hunts in other
+lands; Andy could not persuade himself that there were meets like this,
+so entirely English it seemed in the manner of it. Everybody was there,
+high and low, rich and poor, young and old. An incredible coincidence of
+unplausible accidents had caused an extraordinary number of people to
+have occasion to pass by Fyfold Green that morning at that hour, let
+alone all the folk who chanced to have a "morning off" and proposed to
+see some of the run, on horseback or on foot. The tradesmen's carts were
+there in a cluster, among them two of Jack Rock's: his boys knew that a
+blind eye would be turned to half an hour's lateness in the delivery of
+the customers' joints. For centre of the scene were the waving tails,
+the glossy impatient horses, the red coats, the Master himself, Lord
+Meriton, in his glory and, it may be added, in the peremptory mood which
+is traditionally associated with his office.
+
+Andy Hayes moved about, meeting many old friends--more, indeed, than he
+recognized, till a reminiscence of old days established for them again a
+place in his memory. He saw Tom Dove--the Bird--mounted on a showy
+screw. Wat Money--Chinks--was one of those who "happened to be passing"
+on his way to a client's who lived in the opposite direction. He gave
+Andy a friendly greeting, and told him that if he thought of taking a
+house in Meriton, he should be careful about his lease: Foulkes,
+Foulkes, and Askew would look after it. Jack Rock was there, of course,
+keeping himself to himself, on the outskirts of the throng: the young
+horse was nervous. Harry Belfield, in perfect array, talked to Vivien
+Wellgood, her father on a raking hunter close beside them. A great swell
+of home-feeling assailed Andy; suddenly he had a passionate hope that
+the timber business would develop; he did not want to go back to Canada.
+
+It was a good hunting morning, cloudy and cool, with the wind veering to
+the north-east and dropping as it veered. No frost yet, but the
+weather-wise predicted one before long. The scent should be good--a bit
+too good, Andy reflected, for riders on shanks' mare. Their turn is best
+served by a scent somewhat variable and elusive. A check here and there,
+a fresh cast, the hounds feeling for the scent--these things, added to a
+cunning use of short cuts and a knowledge of the country shared by the
+fox, aid them to keep on terms and see something of the run--just as
+they aid the heavy old gentlemen on big horses and the small boys on fat
+ponies to get their humble share of the sport.
+
+But in truth Andy cared little so that he could run--run hard, fast, and
+long. His powerful body craved work, work, and work yet more abundantly.
+His way of indulging it was to call on it for all its energies; he
+exulted in feeling its brave response. Fatigue he never knew--at least
+not till he had changed and bathed; and then it was not real fatigue: it
+was no more than satiety. Now when they had found--and they had the luck
+to find directly--he revelled in the heavy going of a big ploughed
+field. He was at the game he loved.
+
+Yes, but the pace was good--distinctly good. The spirit was willing, but
+human legs are but human, and only two in number. Craft was required.
+The fox ran straight now--but had he never a thought in his mind? The
+field streamed off to the right, lengthening out as it went. Andy bore
+to his left: he remembered Croxton's Dip. Did the fox? That was the
+question. If he did, the hunt would describe the two sides of a
+triangle, while Andy cut across the base.
+
+He was out of sight of the field now, but he could hear the hounds
+giving tongue from time to time and the thud of the hoofs. The sounds
+grew nearer! A thrill of triumph ran through him; his old-time knowledge
+had not failed him. The fox had doubled back, making for Croxton's Dip.
+Over the edge of yonder hill it lay, half a mile off--a deep depression
+in the ground, covered with thick undergrowth. In the hope of catching
+up, Andy Hayes felt that he could run all day and grudge the falling of
+an over-hasty night.
+
+"Blown," indeed, but no more than a rest of a minute would put right, he
+reached the ledge whence the ground sloped down sharply to the Dip. He
+was in time to see the hunt race past him along the bottom--leaders, the
+ruck, stragglers. Jack Rock and Wellgood were with the Master in the
+van; he could not make out Harry Belfield; a forlorn figure looking like
+the Bird laboured far in the rear.
+
+They swept into the Dip as Andy started to race down the slope. But to
+his chagrin they swept out of it again, straight up a long slope which
+rose on his left, the fox running game, a near kill promising, a fast
+point-to-point secured. The going was too good for shanks' mare to-day.
+Before he got to the bottom even the Bird had galloped by, walloping his
+showy screw.
+
+To the left, then, and up that long slope! There was nothing else for
+it, if he were so much as to see the kill from afar. This was exercise,
+if you like! His heart throbbed like the engines of a great ship; the
+sweat broke out on him. Oh, it was fine! That slope must be won--then
+Heaven should send the issue!
+
+Suddenly--even as he braced himself to face the long ascent, as the last
+sounds from the hunt died away over its summit--he saw a derelict, and,
+amazed, came to a full stop.
+
+The girl was not on her pony; she was standing beside it. The pony
+appeared distressed, and the girl looked no whit more cheerful. With a
+pang to the very heart, Andy Hayes recognized a duty, and acknowledged
+it by a snatch at his cap.
+
+"I beg your pardon; anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+He had been interested in Vivien Wellgood the evening before, but he was
+much more than interested in the hunt. Still, she looked forlorn and
+desolate.
+
+"Would you mind looking at my pony's right front leg?" she asked. "I
+think he's gone lame."
+
+"I know nothing about horses, but he does seem to stand rather gingerly
+on his--er--right front leg. And he's certainly badly blown--worse than
+I am!"
+
+"We shall never catch them, shall we? It's not the least use going on,
+is it?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if you'd let me pilot you--"
+
+"Harry Belfield was going to pilot me, but--well, I told him not to wait
+for me, and he didn't. You were at the meeting last night, weren't you?
+You're Mr. Hayes, aren't you? What did you think of the speeches?"
+
+"Really, you know, if we're to have a chance of seeing any more of
+the--" It was not the moment to discuss political speeches, however
+excellent.
+
+"I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go home; I'll risk it."
+
+"Risk what?" he asked. There seemed no risk in going home; and there
+was, by now, small profit in going on.
+
+She did not answer his question. "I think hunting's the most wretched
+amusement I've ever tried!" she broke out. "The pony's lame--yes, he is;
+I've torn my habit" (she exhibited a sore rent); "I've scratched my
+face" (her finger indicated the wound); "and here I am! All I hope is
+that they won't catch that poor fox. How far do you think it is to
+Nutley?"
+
+"Oh, about three miles, I should think. You could strike the road half a
+mile from here."
+
+"I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go back."
+
+"Would you like me to come with you?"
+
+During their talk her eyes had wavered between indignation and
+piteousness--the one at the so-called sport of hunting, the other for
+her own woes. At Andy's question a gleam of welcome flashed into them,
+followed in an instant by a curious sort of veiling of all expression.
+She made a pathetic little figure, with her habit sorely rent and a
+nasty red scratch across her forehead. The pony lame too--if he were
+lame! Andy hit on the idea that it was a question whether he were lame
+enough to swear by: that was what she was going to risk--in a case to be
+tried before some tribunal to which she was amenable.
+
+"But don't you want to go on?" she asked. "You're enjoying it, aren't
+you?" The question carried no rebuke; it recognized as legitimate the
+widest differences of taste.
+
+"I haven't the least chance of catching up with them. I may as well come
+back with you."
+
+The curious expression--or rather eclipse of expression--was still in
+her eyes, a purely negative defensiveness that seemed as though it could
+spring only from an instinctive resolve to show nothing of her feelings.
+The eyes were a dark blue; but with Vivien's eyes colour never counted
+for much, nor their shape, nor what one would roughly call their beauty,
+were it more or less. Their meaning--that was what they set a man asking
+after.
+
+"It really would be very kind of you," she said.
+
+Andy mounted her on the suppositiously lame pony--her weight wouldn't
+hurt him much, anyhow--and they set out at a walk towards the highroad
+which led to Nutley and thence, half a mile farther on, to Meriton.
+
+She was silent till they reached the road. Then she asked abruptly, "Are
+you ever afraid?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Andy, with a laugh, "I never know whether I'm
+afraid or only excited--in fighting, I mean. Otherwise I don't fancy I'm
+either often."
+
+"Well, you're big," she observed. "I'm afraid of pretty nearly
+everything--horses, dogs, motor-cars--and I'm passionately afraid of
+hunting."
+
+"You're not big, you see," said Andy consolingly. Indeed her hand on the
+reins looked almost ridiculously small.
+
+"I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. My father's teaching me.
+You know who I am, don't you?"
+
+"Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! Is that why you're out hunting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And why you think that the pony--?"
+
+"Is lame enough to let me risk going home? Yes." There was a hint of
+defiance in her voice. "You must think what you like," she seemed to
+say.
+
+Andy considered the matter in his impartial, solid, rather slowly moving
+mind. It was foolish to be frightened at such things; it must be
+wholesome to be taught not to be. Still, hunting wasn't exactly a moral
+duty, and the girl looked very fragile. He had not arrived at any final
+decision on the case--on the issue whether the girl were silly or the
+father cruel (the alternatives might not be true alternatives, not
+strictly exclusive of one another)--before she spoke again.
+
+"And then I'm fastidious. Are you?"
+
+"I hope not!" said Andy, with an amused chuckle. A great lump of a
+fellow like him fastidious!
+
+"Father doesn't like that either, and I've got to get over it."
+
+"How does it--er--take you?" Andy made bold to inquire.
+
+"Oh, lots of ways. I hate dirt, and dust, and getting very hot, and
+going into butchers' shops, and--"
+
+"Butchers' shops!" exclaimed Andy, rather hit on the raw. "You eat meat,
+don't you?"
+
+"Things don't look half as dead when they're cooked. I couldn't touch a
+butcher!" Horror rang in her tones.
+
+"Oh, but I say, Jack Rock's a butcher, and he's about the best fellow in
+Meriton. You know him?"
+
+"I've seen him," she admitted reluctantly, the subject being evidently
+distasteful.
+
+For the second time Andy Hayes was conscious of a duty: he must not
+be--or seem--ashamed of Jack Rock, just because this girl was
+fastidious.
+
+"I'm related to him, you know. My stepmother was his sister. And I'm
+staying in his house."
+
+She glanced at him, a slight flush rising to her cheeks; he saw that her
+lips trembled a little.
+
+"It's no use trying to unsay things, is it?" she asked.
+
+"Not a bit," laughed Andy. "Don't think I'm hurt; but I should be a
+low-down fellow if I didn't stand up for old Jack."
+
+"I should rather like to have you to stand up for me sometimes," she
+said, and broke into a smile as she added, "You're so splendidly solid,
+you see, Mr. Hayes. Here we are at home--you may as well make a complete
+thing of it and see me as far as the stables."
+
+"I'd like to come in--I'm not exactly a stranger here. I've often been a
+trespasser. Don't tell Mr. Wellgood unless you think he'll forgive me,
+but as a boy I used to come and bathe in the lake early in the
+morning--before anybody was up. I used to undress in the bushes and slip
+in for my swim pretty nearly every morning in the summer. It's fine
+bathing, but you want to be able to swim; there's a strong undercurrent,
+where the stream runs through. Are you fond of bathing?"
+
+Andy was hardly surprised when she gave a little shudder. "No, I'm
+rather afraid of water." She added quickly, "Don't tell my father, or I
+expect I should have to try to learn to swim. He hasn't thought of that
+yet. No more has Isobel--Miss Vintry, my companion. You know? You saw
+her at the meeting. I have a companion now, instead of a governess.
+Isobel isn't afraid of anything, and she's here to teach me not to be."
+
+"You don't mind my asking your father to let me come and swim, if I'm
+here in the summer?"
+
+"I don't suppose I ought to mind that," she said doubtfully.
+
+The house stood with its side turned to the drive by which they
+approached it from the Meriton road. Its long, low, irregular front--it
+was a jumble of styles and periods--faced the lake, a stone terrace
+running between the façade and the water; it was backed by a thick wood;
+across the lake the bushes grew close down to the water's edge. The
+drive too ran close by the water, deep water as Andy was well aware, and
+was fenced from it by a wooden paling, green from damp. The place had a
+certain picturesqueness, but a sadness too. Water and trees--trees and
+water--and between them the long squat house. To Andy it seemed to brood
+there like a toad. But his healthy mind reverted to the fact that for a
+strong swimmer the bathing was really splendid.
+
+"Here comes Isobel! Now nothing about swimming, and say the pony's
+lame!"
+
+The injunction recalled Andy from his meditations and also served to
+direct his attention to Miss Vintry, who stood, apparently waiting for
+them, at the end of the drive, with the house on her right and the
+stables on her left. She was dressed in a business-like country frock,
+rather noticeably short, and carried a stick with a spike at the end of
+it. She looked very efficient and also very handsome.
+
+Vivien told her story: Andy, not claiming expert knowledge, yet stoutly
+maintained that the pony was--or anyhow had been--lame.
+
+"He seems to be getting over it," said Miss Vintry, with a smile that
+was not malicious but was, perhaps, rather annoyingly amused. "I'm
+afraid your having had to turn back will vex your father, but I suppose
+there was no help for it, and I'm sure he'll be much obliged to--"
+
+"Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and Andy made his bow.
+
+"Oh yes, I've heard Mr. Harry Belfield speak of you." Her tone was
+gracious, and she smiled at Andy good-humouredly. If she confirmed his
+impression of capability, and perhaps added a new one of masterfulness,
+there was at least nothing to hint that her power would not be well used
+or that her sway would be other than benevolent.
+
+Vivien had dismounted, and a stable-boy was leading the pony away, after
+receiving instructions to submit the suspected off fore-leg to his
+chief's inspection. There seemed nothing to keep Andy, and he was about
+to take his leave when Miss Vintry called to the retreating stable-boy,
+"Oh, and let Curly out, will you? He hasn't had his run this afternoon."
+
+Vivien turned her head towards the stables with a quick apprehensive
+jerk. A big black retriever, released in obedience to Isobel Vintry's
+order, ran out, bounding joyously. He leapt up at Isobel, pawing her and
+barking in an ecstasy of delight. In passing Andy, the stranger, he gave
+him another bark of greeting and a hasty pawing; then he clumsily
+gambolled on to where Vivien stood.
+
+"He won't hurt you, Vivien. You know he won't hurt you, don't you?" The
+dog certainly seemed to warrant Isobel's assertion; he appeared a most
+good-natured animal, though his play was rough.
+
+"Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien.
+
+The dog leapt up at her, barking, frisking, pawing her, trying to reach
+her face to lick it. She made no effort to repel him; she had a little
+riding-whip in her hand, but she did not use it; her arms hung at her
+side; she was rather pale.
+
+"There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" asked Isobel. "Down,
+Curly, down! Come here!"
+
+The dog obeyed her at her second bidding, and sat down at her feet. Andy
+was glad to see that the ordeal--for that was what it looked like--was
+over, and had been endured with tolerable fortitude; he had not enjoyed
+the scene. Somewhat to his surprise Vivien's lips curved in a smile.
+
+"Somehow I wasn't nearly so frightened to-day," she said. Apparently the
+ordeal was a daily one--perhaps one of several daily ones, for she had
+already been out hunting. "I didn't run away as I did yesterday, when
+Harry Belfield was here."
+
+"You are getting used to it," Isobel affirmed. "Mr. Wellgood's quite
+right. We shall have you as brave as a lion in a few months." Her tone
+was not unkind or hard, neither was it sympathetic. It was just
+extremely matter-of-fact. "It's all nerves," she added to Andy. "She
+overworked herself at school--she's very clever, aren't you,
+Vivien?--and now she's got to lead an open-air life. She must get used
+to things, mustn't she?"
+
+Andy had a shamefaced feeling that the ordeals or lessons, if they were
+necessary at all, had better be conducted in privacy. That had not
+apparently occurred to Mr. Wellgood or to Isobel Vintry. Indeed that
+aspect of the case did not seem to trouble Vivien herself either; she
+showed no signs of shame; she was smiling still, looking rather puzzled.
+
+"I wonder why I was so much less frightened." She turned her eyes
+suddenly to Andy. "I know. It was because you were there!"
+
+"You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being here yesterday," Isobel
+reminded her.
+
+"Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big--so splendidly big and solid," said
+Vivien, thoughtfully regarding Andy's proportions. "When he's here, I
+don't think I shall be half so much afraid."
+
+"Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come again," laughed Isobel. "You
+see how useful you'll be, Mr. Hayes!"
+
+"I shall be delighted to come again, anyhow, if I'm asked--whether I'm
+useful or not. And I think it was jolly plucky of you to stand still as
+you did, Miss Wellgood. If I were in a funk, I should cut and run for
+it, I know."
+
+"I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel.
+
+"Oh, well, it's different when there are a lot of you together.
+Besides--" He chuckled. "You're not going to get me to let on that I was
+in a funk then. Those are our secrets, Miss Vintry. Well now, I must go,
+unless--"
+
+"No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, Mr. Hayes," laughed
+Isobel.
+
+Vivien's eyes had relapsed into inexpressiveness; they told Andy nothing
+of her view of the trials, or of Miss Vintry, who had conducted the
+latest one; they told him no more of her view of himself as she gave him
+her hand in farewell. He left her still standing on the spot where she
+had endured Curly's violent though well-meant attentions--again rather a
+pathetic figure, in her torn habit, with the long red scratch (by-the-by
+Miss Vintry had made no inquiry about it--that was part of the system
+perhaps) on her forehead, and with the background, as it were, of
+ordeals, or tests, or whatever they were to be called. Andy wondered
+what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he
+would not be there--to help her with his bigness and solidity.
+
+It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was
+absurd for a grown girl--a girl living in the country--to be frightened
+at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by
+getting very hot--and by butchers' shops. All these were things which
+she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at
+present constituted. Still he was sorry for her; she was so slight and
+frail. Andy would have liked to take on his broad shoulders all her
+worldly share of dogs and horses, of dust, of getting very hot (a thing
+he positively liked), and of butchers; these things would not have
+troubled him in the least; he would have borne them as easily as he
+could have carried Vivien herself in his arms. As he walked home he had
+a vision of her shuddering figure, with its pale face and reticent eyes,
+being led by Isobel Vintry's firm hand into Jack Rock's shop in High
+Street, and there being compelled to inspect, to touch, to smell, the
+blue-rosetted, red-rosetted, and honourably mentioned carcasses which
+adorned that Valhalla of beasts--nay, being forced, in spite of all
+horror, to touch Jack Rock the butcher himself! Isobel Vintry would, he
+thought, be capable of shutting her up alone with all those dead things,
+and with the man who, as she supposed, had butchered them.
+
+"I should have to break in the door!" thought Andy, his vanity flattered
+by remembering that she had seen in him a stand-by, and a security which
+apparently even Harry Belfield had been unable to afford. True it was
+that in order to win the rather humble compliment of being held a
+protection against an absolutely harmless retriever dog he had lost his
+day's hunting. Andy's heart was lowly; he did not repine.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+THE POTENT VOICE.
+
+
+After anxious consultation at Halton it had been decided that Harry
+Belfield was justified in adopting a political career and treating the
+profession of the Bar, to which he had been called, as nominal. The
+prospects of an opening--and an opening in his native Division--were
+rosy. His personal qualifications admitted of no dispute, his social
+standing was all that could be desired. The money was the only
+difficulty. Mr. Belfield's income, though still large, was not quite
+what it had been; he was barely rich enough to support his son in what
+is still, in spite of all that has been done in the cause of electoral
+purity, a costly career. However the old folk exercised economies, Harry
+promised them, and it was agreed that the thing could be managed. It
+was, perhaps, at the back of the father's mind that for a young man of
+his son's attractions there was one obvious way of increasing his
+income--quite obvious and quite proper for the future owner of Halton
+Park.
+
+For the moment political affairs were fairly quiet--next year it would
+be different--and Harry, ostensibly engaged on a course of historical
+and sociological reading, spent his time pleasantly between Meriton and
+his rooms in Jermyn Street. He had access to much society of one kind
+and another, and was universally popular; his frank delight in pleasing
+people made him pleasant to them. With women especially he was a great
+favourite, not for his looks only, though they were a passport to open
+the door of any drawing-room, but more because they felt that he was a
+man who appreciated them, valued them, needed them, to whom they were a
+very big and precious part of life. He had not a shred of that
+indifference--that independence of them--which is the worst offence in
+women's eyes. Knowing that they counted for so much to him, it was as
+fair as it was natural that they should let him count for a good deal
+with them.
+
+But even universal favourites have their particular ties. For the last
+few months Harry had been especially attached to Mrs. Freere, the wife
+of a member of Parliament of his own party who lived in Grosvenor
+Street. Mr. Freere was an exceedingly laborious person; he sat on more
+committees than any man in London, and had little leisure for the joys
+of home life. Mrs. Freere could take very good care of herself, and, all
+question of principles apart, had no idea of risking the position and
+the comforts she enjoyed. Subject to the limits thus clearly imposed on
+her, she had no objection at all to her friendship with Harry Belfield
+being as sentimental as Harry had been disposed to make it; indeed she
+had a taste for that kind of thing herself. Once or twice he had tried
+to overstep the limits, elastic as they were--he was impulsive, Mrs.
+Freere was handsome--but he had accepted her rebuke with frank
+penitence, and the friendship had been switched back on to its appointed
+lines without an accident. The situation was pleasant to her; she was
+convinced that it was good for Harry. Certainly he met at her house many
+people whom it was proper and useful for him to meet; and her partiality
+offered him every opportunity of making favourable impressions. If her
+conscience needed any other salve--it probably did not feel the need
+acutely--she could truthfully aver that she was in the constant habit of
+urging him to lose no time in looking out for a suitable wife.
+
+"A wife is such a help to a man in the House," she would say. "She can
+keep half the bores away from him. I don't do it because Wilson
+positively loves bores--being bored gives him a sense of serving his
+country--but I could if he'd let me."
+
+Harry had been accustomed to meet such prudent counsels with protests of
+a romantic order; but Mrs. Freere, a shrewd woman, had for some weeks
+past noticed that the protests were becoming rather less vehement, and
+decidedly more easy for her to control. When she repeated her advice one
+day, in the spring after Andy Hayes came back from Canada, Harry looked
+at her for a moment and said,
+
+"Would you drop me altogether if I did, Lily?" He called her Lily when
+they were alone.
+
+"I'm married; you haven't dropped me," said Mrs. Freere with a smile.
+
+"Oh, that's different. I shouldn't marry a woman unless I was awfully in
+love with her."
+
+"I don't think I ought to make that a reason for finally dropping you,
+because you'll probably be awfully in love with several. Put that
+difficulty--if it is one--out of your mind. We shall be friends."
+
+"And you wouldn't mind? You--you wouldn't think it--?" He wanted to ask
+her whether she would think it what, on previous occasions, he had said
+that he would think it.
+
+Mrs. Freere laughed. "Oh, of course your wife would be rather a
+bore--just at first, anyhow. But, you know, I can even contemplate my
+life without you altogether, Harry." She was really fond of him, but she
+was not a woman given to illusions either about her friends or about
+herself.
+
+Harry did not protest that he could not contemplate his life without
+Mrs. Freere, though he had protested that on more than one of those
+previous occasions. Mrs. Freere leant against the mantelpiece, smiling
+down at him in the armchair.
+
+"Seen somebody?" she asked.
+
+Harry blushed hotly. "You're an awfully good sort, Lily," he said.
+
+She laughed a little, then sighed a little. Well, it had been very
+agreeable to have this handsome boy at her beck and call, gracefully
+adoring, flattering her vanity, amusing her leisure, giving her the
+luxury of reflecting that she was behaving well in the face of
+considerable temptation--she really felt entitled to plume herself on
+this exploit. But such things could not last--Mrs. Freere knew that. The
+balance was too delicate; a topple over on one side or the other was
+bound to come; she had always meant that the toppling over, when it
+came, should be on the safe side--on to the level ground, not over the
+precipice. A bump is a bump, there's no denying it, but it's better than
+a broken neck. Mrs. Freere took her bump smiling, though it certainly
+hurt a little.
+
+"Is she very pretty?"
+
+He jumped up from the armchair. He was highly serious about the matter,
+and that, perhaps, may be counted a grace in him.
+
+"I suppose I shall do it--if I can. But I'm hanged if I can talk to you
+about it!"
+
+"That's rather nice of you. Thank you, Harry."
+
+He bowed his comely head, with its waving hair, over her hand and kissed
+it.
+
+"Good-bye, Harry," she said.
+
+He straightened himself and looked her in the face for an instant. He
+shrugged his shoulders; she understood and nodded. There was, in fact,
+no saying what one's emotions would be up to next--what would be the new
+commands of the Restless and Savage Master. Poor Harry! She knew his
+case. She herself had "taken him" from her dear friend Rosa Hinde.
+
+He was gone. She stood still by the mantelpiece a moment longer,
+shrugged shoulders in her turn--really that Savage Master!--crossed the
+room to a looking-glass--not much wrong there happily--and turned on the
+opening of the door. Mr. Freere came in--between committees. He had just
+time for a cup of tea.
+
+"Just time, Wilson?"
+
+"I've a committee at five, my dear."
+
+She rang the bell. "Talk of road-hogs! You're a committee-hog, you
+know."
+
+He rubbed his bald head perplexedly. "They accumulate," he pleaded in a
+puzzled voice. "I'm sorry to leave you so much alone, my dear." He came
+up to her and kissed her. "I always want to be with you, Lily."
+
+"I know," she said. She did know--and the knowledge was one of the odd
+things in life.
+
+"Goodness, I forgot to telephone!" He hurried out of the room again.
+
+"Serves me right, I suppose!" said Mrs. Freere; to which of recent
+incidents she referred must remain uncertain.
+
+Mr. Freere came back for his hasty cup of tea.
+
+The Park was gay in its spring bravery--a fine setting for the play of
+elegance and luxury which took place there on this as on every
+afternoon. Harry Belfield sought to occupy and to distract his mind by
+the spectacle, familiar though it was. He did not want to congratulate
+himself on the thing that had just happened, yet this was what he found
+himself doing if he allowed his thoughts to possess him. "That's over
+anyhow!" was the spontaneous utterance of his feelings. Yet he felt very
+mean. He did not see why, having done the right thing, he should feel so
+mean. It seemed somehow unfair--as though there were no pleasing
+conscience, whatever one did. Conscience might have retorted that in
+some situations there is no "right thing;" there is a bold but fatal
+thing, and there is a prudent but shabby thing; the right thing has
+vanished earlier in the proceedings. Still he had done the best thing
+open to him, and, reflecting on that, he began to pluck up his spirits.
+His sensuous nature turned to the pleasant side; his volatile emotions
+forsook the past for the future. As he walked along he began to hear
+more plainly and to listen with less self-reproach to the voice which
+had been calling him now for many days--ever since he had addressed that
+meeting in the Town Hall at Meriton. Meriton was calling him back with
+the voice of Vivien Wellgood, and with her eyes begging him to hearken.
+He had "seen somebody," in Mrs. Freere's sufficient phrase. Great and
+gay was London, full of lures and charms; many were they who were ready
+to pet, to spoil, and to idolize; many there were to play, to laugh, and
+to revel with. Potent must be the voice which could draw him from all
+this! Yet he was listening to it as he walked along. He was free to
+listen to it now--free since he had left Mrs. Freere's house in
+Grosvenor Street.
+
+Suddenly he found himself face to face with Andy Hayes--not a man he
+expected to meet in Hyde Park at four o'clock in the afternoon. But Andy
+explained that he had "knocked off early at the shop" and come west, to
+have a last look at the idle end of the town--everybody there seemed
+idle, even if all were not.
+
+"Because it's my last day in London. I'm going down to Meriton to-morrow
+for the summer. I've taken lodgings there--going to be an
+up-and-downer," Andy explained. "And I think I shall generally be able
+to get Friday to Monday down there."
+
+To Meriton to-morrow! Harry suffered a sharp and totally unmistakable
+pang of envy.
+
+"Upon my soul, I believe you're right!" he said. "I'm half sick of the
+racket of town. What's the good of it all? And one gets through the
+devil of a lot of money. And no time to do anything worth doing! I don't
+believe I've opened a book for a week."
+
+"Well, why don't you come down too? It would be awfully jolly if you
+did."
+
+"Oh, it's not altogether easy to chuck everything and everybody," Harry
+reminded his friend, who did not seem to have reflected what a gap would
+be caused by Mr. Harry Belfield's departure from the metropolis. "Still
+I shall think about it. I could get through a lot of work at home." The
+historical and sociological reading obligingly supplied an excellent
+motive for a flight from the too-engrossing gaieties of town. "And, of
+course, there's no harm in keeping an eye on the Division." The potent
+voice was gathering allies apace! Winning causes have that way. "I might
+do much worse," Harry concluded thoughtfully.
+
+Andy was delighted. Harry's presence would make Meriton a different
+place to him. He too, for what he was worth (it is not possible to say
+that he was worth very much in this matter), became another ally of the
+potent voice, urging the joys of country life and declaring that Harry
+already looked "fagged out" by the arduous pleasures of London life.
+
+"I shall think about it seriously," said Harry, knowing in himself that
+the voice had won. "Are you doing anything to-night? I happen for once
+to have an off evening."
+
+"No; only I'd thought of dropping into the pit somewhere. I haven't seen
+'Hamlet' at the--"
+
+"Oh lord!" interrupted Harry. "Let's do something a bit more cheerful
+than that! Have you seen the girl at the Empire--the Nun? Not seen her?
+Oh, you must! We'll dine at the club and go; and I'll get her and
+another girl to come on to supper. I'll give you a little fling for your
+last night in town. Will you come?"
+
+"Will I come? I should rather think I would!" cried Andy.
+
+"All right; dinner at eight. We shall have lots of time--she doesn't
+come on till nearly ten. Meet me at the Artemis at eight. Till then, old
+chap!" Harry darted after a lady who had favoured him with a gracious
+bow as she passed by, a moment before.
+
+Here was an evening-out for Andy Hayes, whose conscience had suggested
+"Hamlet" and whose finances had dictated the pit. He went home to his
+lodgings off Russell Square all smiles, and spent a laborious hour
+trying to get the creases out of his dress coat. "Well, I shall enjoy an
+evening like that just for once," he said out loud as he laboured.
+
+"I've got her and another girl," Harry announced when Andy turned up at
+the Artemis. "The nuisance is that Billy Foot here insists on coming
+too, so we shall be a man over. I've told him I don't want him, but the
+fellow will come."
+
+"I'm certainly coming," said the tall long-faced young man--for Billy
+Foot was still several years short of forty--to whom Andy had listened
+with such admiration at Meriton. In private life he was not oppressively
+epigrammatic or logical, and not at all ruthless; and everybody called
+him "Billy," which in itself did much to deprive him of his terrors.
+
+The Artemis was a small and luxurious club in King Street. Why it was
+called the "Artemis" nobody knew. Billy Foot said that the name had been
+chosen just because nobody would know why it had been chosen--it was a
+bad thing, he maintained, to label a club. Harry, however, conjectured
+that the name indicated that the club was half-way between the Athenæum
+and the Turf--which you might take in the geographical sense or in any
+other you pleased.
+
+Andy ate of several foods that he had never tasted before and drank
+better wine than he had ever drunk before. His physique and his steady
+brain made any moderate quantity of wine no more than water to him.
+Harry Belfield, on the contrary, responded felicitously to even his
+first glass of champagne; his eyes grew bright and his spirit gay. Any
+shadow cast over him by his interview with Mrs. Freere was not long in
+vanishing.
+
+They enjoyed themselves so well that a cab had only just time to land
+them at their place of entertainment before the Nun, whose name was Miss
+Doris Flower, came on the stage. She was having a prodigious success
+because she did look like a nun and sang songs that a nun might really
+be supposed to sing--and these things, being quite different from what
+the public expected, delighted the public immensely. When Miss Flower,
+whose performance was of high artistic merit, sang about the baby which
+she might have had if she had not been a nun, and in the second song
+(she was on her death-bed in the second song, but this did not at all
+impair her vocal powers) about the angel whom she saw hovering over her
+bed, and the angel's likeness to her baby sister who had died in
+infancy, the public cried like a baby itself.
+
+"Jolly good!" said Billy Foot, taking his cigar out of his mouth and
+wiping away a furtive tear. "But there, she is a ripper, bless her!" His
+tone was distinctly affectionate.
+
+But supper was the great event to Andy: that was all new to him, and he
+took it in eagerly while they waited for the Nun and her friend. Such a
+din, such a chatter, such a lot of diamonds, such a lot of smoke--and
+the white walls, the gilding, the pink lampshades, the band ever and
+anon crashing into a new tune, and the people shouting to make
+themselves heard through it--Andy would have sat on happily watching,
+even though he had got no supper at all. Indeed he was no more hungry
+than most of the other people there. One does not go to supper there
+because one is hungry--that is a vulgar reason for eating.
+
+However supper he had, sitting between Billy Foot and the Nun's friend,
+a young woman named Miss Dutton, who had a critical, or even sardonic,
+manner, but was extremely pretty. The Nun herself contrived to be rather
+like a nun even off the stage; she did not talk much herself, but
+listened with an innocent smile to the sallies of Billy Foot and Harry
+Belfield.
+
+"Been to hear her?" Miss Dutton asked Andy.
+
+Andy said that they had, and uttered words of admiration.
+
+"Sort of thing they like, isn't it?" said Miss Dutton. "You can't put in
+too much rot for them."
+
+"But she sings it so--" Andy began to plead.
+
+"Yes, she can sing. It's a wonder she's succeeded. How sick one gets of
+this place!"
+
+"Do you come often?"
+
+"Every night--with her generally."
+
+"I've never been here before in my life."
+
+"Well, I hope you like the look of us!"
+
+Harry Belfield looked towards him. "Don't mind what she says, Andy. We
+call her Sulky Sally--don't we, Sally?--But she looks so nice that we
+have to put up with her ways."
+
+Miss Dutton smiled reluctantly, but evidently could not help smiling at
+Harry. "I know the value of your compliments," she remarked. "There are
+plenty of them going about the place to judge by!"
+
+"Mercy, Sally, mercy! Don't show me up before my friends!"
+
+Miss Dutton busied herself with her supper. The Nun ate little; most of
+the time she sat with her pretty hands clasped on the table in front of
+her. Suddenly she began to tell what proved to be a rather long story
+about a man named Tommy--everybody except Andy knew whom she meant. She
+told this story in a low, pleasant, but somewhat monotonous voice. In
+truth the Nun was a trifle prolix and prosy, but she also looked so nice
+that they were quite content to listen and to look. It appeared that
+Tommy had done what no man should do; he had made love to two girls at
+once. For a long time all went well; but one day Tommy, being away from
+the sources of supply of cash (as a rule he transacted all his business
+in notes), wrote two cheques--the Nun specified the amounts, one being
+considerably larger than the other--placed them in two envelopes, and
+proceeded to address them wrongly. Each lady got the other lady's
+cheque, and--"Well, they wanted to know about it," said the Nun, with a
+pensive smile. So, being acquaintances, they laid their heads together,
+and the next time Tommy (who had never discovered his mistake) asked
+lady number one to dinner, she asked lady number two, "and when Tommy
+arrived," said the Nun, "they told him he'd find it cheaper that way,
+because there'd only be one tip for the waiter!" The Nun, having reached
+her point, gave a curiously pretty little gurgle of laughter.
+
+"Rather neat!" said Billy Foot. "And did they chuck him?"
+
+"They'd agreed to, but Maud weakened on it. Nellie did."
+
+"Poor old Tommy!" mused Harry Belfield.
+
+It was not a story of surpassing merit whether it were regarded from the
+moral or from the artistic point of view; but the Nun had grown
+delighted with herself as she told it, and her delight made her look
+even more pretty. Andy could not keep his eyes off her; she perceived
+his honest admiration and smiled serenely at him across the table.
+
+"I suppose it was Nellie who was to have the small cheque?" Billy Foot
+suggested.
+
+"No; it was Maud."
+
+"Then I drink to Maud as a true woman and a forgiving creature!"
+
+Andy broke into a hearty enjoying laugh. Nothing had passed which would
+stand a critical examination in humour, much less in wit; but Andy was
+very happy. He had never had such a good time, never seen so many gay
+and pretty women, never been so in touch with the holiday side of life.
+The Nun delighted him; Miss Dutton was a pleasantly acid pickle to
+stimulate the palate for all this rich food. Billy Foot and Harry looked
+at him, looked at one another, and laughed.
+
+"They're laughing at you," said Miss Dutton in her most sardonic tone.
+
+"I don't mind. Of course they are! I'm such an outsider."
+
+"Worth a dozen of either of them," she remarked, with a calmly
+impersonal air that reduced her compliment to a mere statement of fact.
+
+"Oh, I heard!" cried Harry. "You don't think much of us, do you, Sally?"
+
+"I come here every night," said Miss Dutton. "Consequently I know."
+
+The pronouncement was so confident, so conclusive, that there was
+nothing to do but laugh at it. They all laughed. If you came there every
+night, "consequently" you would know many things!
+
+"We must eat somewhere," observed the Nun with placid resignation.
+
+"We must be as good as we can and hope for mercy," said Billy Foot.
+
+"You'll need it," commented Miss Dutton.
+
+"Let's hope the law of supply and demand will hold good!" laughed Harry.
+
+"How awfully jolly all this is!" said Andy.
+
+He had just time to observe Miss Dutton's witheringly patient smile
+before the lights went out. "Hullo!" cried Andy; and the rest laughed.
+
+Up again the lights went, but the Nun rose from her chair.
+
+"Had enough of it?" asked Harry.
+
+"Yes," said the Nun with her simple, candid, yet almost scornful
+directness. "Oh, it's been all right. I like your friend, Harry--not
+Billy, of course--the new one, I mean."
+
+When they had got their cloaks and coats and were waiting for the Nun's
+electric brougham, Harry made an announcement that filled Andy with joy
+and the rest of the company with amazement.
+
+"This is good-bye for a bit, Doris," he said. "I'm off to the country
+the day after to-morrow."
+
+"What have we done to you?" the Nun inquired with sedate anxiety.
+
+"I've got to work, and I can't do it in London. I've got a career to
+look after."
+
+The Nun gurgled again--for the second time only in the course of the
+evening. "Oh yes," she murmured with obvious scepticism. "Well, come and
+see me when you get back." She turned her eyes to Andy, and, to his
+great astonishment, asked, "Would you like to come too?"
+
+Andy could hardly believe that he was himself, but he had no doubt about
+his answer. The Nun interested him very much, and was so very pretty. "I
+should like to awfully," he replied.
+
+"Come alone--not with these men, or we shall only talk nonsense," said
+the Nun, as she got into her brougham. "Get in, Sally."
+
+"Where's the hurry?" asked Miss Dutton, getting in nevertheless. The Nun
+slapped her arm smartly; the two girls burst into a giggle, and so went
+off.
+
+"Where to now?" asked Harry.
+
+Andy wondered what other place there was.
+
+"Bed for me," said Billy Foot. "I've a consultation at half-past nine,
+and I haven't opened the papers yet."
+
+"Bed is best," Harry agreed, though rather reluctantly. "Going to take a
+cab, Billy?"
+
+"What else is there to take?"
+
+"Thought you might be walking."
+
+"Oh, walking be ----!" He climbed into a hansom.
+
+"I'll walk with you, Harry. I haven't had exercise enough."
+
+Harry suggested that they should go home by the Embankment. When they
+had cut down a narrow street to it, he put his arm in Andy's and led him
+across the road. They leant on the parapet, looking at the river. The
+night was fine, but hazy and still--a typical London night.
+
+"You've given me a splendid evening," said Andy. "And what a good sort
+those girls were!"
+
+"Yes," said Harry, rather absently, "not a bad sort. Doris has got her
+head on her shoulders, and she's quite straight. Poor Sally's come one
+awful cropper. She won't come another; she's had more than enough of it.
+So one doesn't mind her being a bit snarly."
+
+Poor Sally! Andy had had no idea of anything of the sort, but he had an
+instinct that people who come one cropper--and one only--feel that one
+badly.
+
+"I'm feeling happy to-night, old fellow," said Harry suddenly. "You may
+not happen to know it, but I've gone it a bit for the last two or three
+years, made rather a fool of myself, and--well, one gets led on. Now
+I've made up my mind to chuck all that. Some of it's all right--at any
+rate it seems to happen; but I've had enough. I really do want to work
+at the politics, you know."
+
+"It's all before you, if you do," said Andy in unquestioning loyalty.
+
+"I'm going to work, and to pull up a bit all round, and--" Harry broke
+off, but a smile was on his lips. There on the bank of the Thames, fresh
+from his party in the gay restaurant, he heard the potent voice calling.
+It seemed to him that the voice was potent enough not only to loose him
+from Mrs. Freere, to lure him from London delights, to carry him down to
+Meriton and peaceful country life; but potent enough, too, to transform
+him, to make him other than he was, to change the nature that had till
+now been his very self. He appealed from passion to passion; from the
+soiled to the clean, from the turgid to the clear. A new desire of his
+eyes was to make a new thing of his life.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+SETTLED PROGRAMMES.
+
+
+Mark Wellgood of Nutley had a bugbear, an evil thing to which he gave
+the name of sentimentality. Wherever he saw it he hated it--and he saw
+it everywhere. No matter what was the sphere of life, there was the
+enemy ready to raise its head, and Mark Wellgood ready to hit that head.
+In business and in public affairs he warred against it unceasingly; in
+other people's religion--he had very little of his own--he was keen to
+denounce it; even from the most intimate family and personal
+relationships he had always been resolved to banish it, or, failing
+that, to suppress its manifestations. Himself a man of uncompromising
+temper and strong passions, he saw in this hated thing the root of all
+the vices with which he had least sympathy. It made people cowards who
+shrank from manfully taking their own parts; it made them hypocrites who
+would not face the facts of human nature and human society, but sought
+to cover up truths that they would have called "ugly" by specious names,
+by veils, screens, and fine paraphrases. It made men soft, women
+childish, and politicians flabby; it meant sheer ruin to a nation.
+
+Sentimentality was, of course, at the bottom of what was the matter with
+his daughter, of those things of which, with the aid of Isobel Vintry's
+example, he hoped to cure her--her timidity and her fastidiousness. But
+it was at the bottom of much more serious things than these--since to
+make too much fuss about a girl's nonsensical fancies would be
+sentimental in himself. Notably it was at the bottom of all shades of
+opinion from Liberalism to Socialism, both included. Harry Belfield,
+lunching at Nutley a week or so after his return to Meriton, had the
+benefit of these views, with which, as a prospective Conservative
+candidate, he was confidently expected to sympathise.
+
+"I've only one answer to make to a Socialist," said Wellgood. "I say to
+him, 'You can have my property when you're strong enough to take it.
+Until then, you can't.' Under democracy we count heads instead of
+breaking them. It's a bad system, but it's tolerable as long as the
+matter isn't worth fighting about. When you come to vital issues, it'll
+break down--it always has. We, the governing classes, shall keep our
+position and our property just as long as we're able and willing to
+defend them. If the Socialists mean business, they'd better stop talking
+and learn to shoot."
+
+"That might be awkward for us," said Harry, with a smile at Vivien
+opposite.
+
+"But if they think we're going to sit still and be voted out of
+everything, they're much mistaken. That's what I hope, at all events,
+though it needs a big effort not to despair of the country sometimes.
+People won't look at the facts of nature. All nature's a fight from
+beginning to end. All through, the strong hold down the weak; and the
+strong grow stronger by doing it--never mind whether they're men or
+beasts."
+
+"There's a lot of truth in that; but I don't know that it would be very
+popular on a platform--even on one of ours!"
+
+"You political fellows have to wrap it up, I suppose, but the cleverer
+heads among the working men know all about it--trust them! They're on
+the make themselves; they want to get where we are; gammoning the common
+run helps towards that. Oh, they're not sentimental! I do them the
+justice to believe that."
+
+"But isn't there a terrible lot of misery, father?" asked Vivien.
+
+"You can't cure misery by quackery, my dear," he answered concisely.
+"Half of it's their own fault, and for the rest--hasn't there always
+been? So long as some people are weaker than others, they'll fare worse.
+I don't see any particular attraction in the idea of making weaklings or
+cowards as comfortable as the strong and the brave." His glance at his
+daughter was stern. Vivien flushed a little; the particular ordeal of
+that morning, a cross-country ride with her father, had not been a
+brilliant success.
+
+"To him that hath shall be given, eh?" Harry suggested.
+
+"Matter of Scripture, Harry, and you can't get away from it!" said
+Wellgood with a laugh.
+
+Psychology is not the strong point of a mind like Wellgood's. To study
+his fellow-creatures curiously seems to such a man rather unnecessary
+and rather twaddling work; in its own sphere it corresponds to the hated
+thing itself, to an over-scrupulous worrying about other people's
+feelings or even about your own. It had not occurred to Wellgood to
+study Harry Belfield. He liked him, as everybody did, and he had no idea
+how vastly Harry's temperament differed from his own. Harry had many
+material guarantees against folly--his birth, the property that was to
+be his, the career opening before him. If Wellgood saw any signs of what
+he condemned, he set them down to youth and took up the task of a mentor
+with alacrity. Moreover he was glad to have Harry coming to the house;
+matters were still at an early stage, but if there were a purpose in his
+coming, there was nothing to be said against the project. He would
+welcome an alliance with Halton, and it would be an alliance on even
+terms; for Vivien had some money of her own, apart from what he could
+leave her. Whether she would have Nutley or not--well, that was
+uncertain. Wellgood was only forty-three and young for his years; he
+might yet marry and have a son. A second marriage was more than an idea
+in his head; it was an intention fully formed. The woman he meant to ask
+to be his wife at the suitable moment lived in his house and sat at his
+table with him--his daughter's companion, Isobel Vintry.
+
+Isobel had sat silent through Wellgood's talk, not keenly interested in
+the directly political aspect of it, but appreciating the view of human
+nature and of the way of the world which underlay it. She also was on
+the side of the efficient--of the people who knew what they wanted and
+at any rate made a good fight to get it. Yet while she listened to
+Wellgood, her eyes had often been on Harry; she too was beginning to ask
+why Harry came so much to Nutley; the obvious answer filled her with a
+vague stirring of discontent. An ambitious self-confident nature does
+not like to be "counted out," to be reckoned out of the running before
+the race is fairly begun. Why was the answer obvious? There was more
+than one marriageable young woman at Nutley. Her feeling of protest was
+still vague; but it was there, and when she looked at Harry's comely
+face, her eyes were thoughtful.
+
+Though Wellgood had business after lunch, Harry stayed on awhile,
+sitting out on the terrace by the lake, for the day was warm and fine.
+The coming of spring had mitigated the grimness of Nutley; the water
+that had looked dreary and dismal in the winter now sparkled in the sun.
+Harry was excellently well content with himself and his position. He
+told the two girls that things were shaping very well. Old Sir George
+Millington had decided to retire. He was to be the candidate; he would
+start his campaign through the villages of the Division in the late
+summer, when harvest was over; he could hardly be beaten; and he was
+"working like a horse" at his subjects.
+
+"The horse gets out of harness now and then!" said Isobel.
+
+"You don't want him to kill himself with work, Isobel?" asked Vivien
+reproachfully.
+
+"Visits to Nutley help the work; they inspire me," Harry declared,
+looking first at Vivien, then at Isobel. They were both, in their
+different ways, pleasant to look at. Their interest in him--in all he
+said and did, and in all he was going to do--was very pleasant also.
+
+"Oh yes, I'm working all right!" he laughed. "Really I have to, because
+of old Andy Hayes. He's getting quite keen on politics--reads all the
+evening after he gets back from town. Well, he's good enough to think
+I've read everything and know everything, and whenever we meet he pounds
+me with questions. I don't want Andy to catch me out, so I have to mug
+away."
+
+"That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with a smile and a nod.
+
+"Yes, the solid man."
+
+"Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. He thought you behaved
+like a brick."
+
+"He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him here, Harry?"
+
+"He's in town all day; I'll try and get him here some Saturday."
+
+"Does he still stay with the--with Mr. Rock?" asked Vivien.
+
+"No; he's taken lodgings. He's very thick with old Jack still, though.
+Of course it wouldn't do to tell him so, but it's rather a bore that he
+should be connected with Jack in that way. It doesn't make my mother any
+keener to have him at Halton, and it's a little difficult for me to
+press it."
+
+"It does make his position seem--just rather betwixt and between,
+doesn't it?" asked Isobel.
+
+"If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien.
+
+"O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing against butchers," was one of
+the rules.
+
+"I know, but I would so much rather it had been a draper, or a
+stationer, or something--something clean of that sort."
+
+"I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, Vivien!"
+
+"However it's not so bad if he doesn't stay there any more," Harry
+charitably concluded. "Just going in for a drink with old
+Jack--everybody does that; and after all he's no blood relation." He
+laughed. "Though I dare say that's exactly what you'd call him, Vivien."
+
+Just as he made his little joke Vivien had risen. It was her time for
+"doing the flowers," one of the few congenial tasks allowed her. She
+smiled and blushed at Harry's hit at her, looking very charming. Harry
+indulged himself in a glance of bold admiration. It made her cheeks
+redder still as she turned away, Harry looking after her till she
+rounded the corner of the house. In answering the call of the voice he
+had found no disappointment. Closer and more intimate acquaintance
+revealed her as no less charming than she had promised to be. Harry was
+sure now of what he wanted, and remained quite sure of all the wonderful
+things that it was going to do for him and for his life.
+
+Suddenly on the top of all this legitimate and proper feeling--to which
+not even Mark Wellgood himself could object, since it was straight in
+the way of nature--there came on Harry Belfield a sensation rare, yet
+not unknown, in his career--a career still so short, yet already so
+emotionally eventful.
+
+Isobel Vintry was not looking at him--she was gazing over the lake--nor
+he at her; he was engaged in the process of lighting a cigarette. Yet he
+became intensely aware of her, not merely as one in his company, but as
+a being who influenced him, affected him, in some sense stretched out a
+hand to him. He gave a quick glance at her; she was motionless, her eyes
+still aloof from him. He stirred restlessly in his chair; the air seemed
+very close and heavy. He wanted to make some ordinary, some light
+remark; for the moment it did not come. A remembrance of the first time
+that Mrs. Freere and he had passed the bounds of ordinary friendship
+struck across his mind, unpleasantly, and surely without relevance!
+Isobel had said nothing, had done nothing, nor had he. Yet it was as
+though some mystic sign had passed from her to him--he could not tell
+whether from him to her also--a sign telling that, whatever
+circumstances might do, there was in essence a link between them, a
+reminder from her that she too was a woman, that she too had her power.
+He did not doubt that she was utterly unconscious, but neither did he
+believe that he was solely responsible, that he had merely imagined.
+There was an atmosphere suddenly formed--an atmosphere still and heavy
+as the afternoon air that brooded over the unruffled lake.
+
+Harry had no desire to abide in it. His mind was made up; his heart was
+single. He picked up a stone which had been swept from somewhere on to
+the terrace and pitched it into the lake. A plop, and many ripples. The
+heavy stillness was broken.
+
+Isobel turned to him with a start.
+
+"I thought you were going to sleep, Miss Vintry. I couldn't think of
+anything to say, so I threw a stone into the water. I'm afraid you were
+finding me awfully dull!"
+
+"You dull! You're a change from what sometimes does seem a little
+dull--life at Nutley. But perhaps you can't conceive life at Nutley
+being dull?" Her eyes mocked him with the hint that she had discovered
+his secret.
+
+"Well, I think I should be rather hard to please if I found Nutley
+dull," he said gaily. "But if you do, why do you stay?"
+
+"Perpetual amusement isn't in a companion's contract, Mr. Harry.
+Besides, I'm fond of Vivien. I should be sorry to leave her before the
+natural end of my stay comes."
+
+"The natural end?"
+
+"Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled with a good-humoured scorn
+at his homage to pretence.
+
+"Well, of course, girls do marry. It's been known to happen," said
+Harry, neither "cornered" nor embarrassed. "But perhaps"--he glanced at
+her, wondering whether to risk a snub. His charm, his gift of gay
+impudence, had so often stood him in stead and won him a liberty that a
+heavy-handed man could not hope to be allowed; he was not much
+afraid--"Perhaps you'd be asked to stay on--in another capacity, Miss
+Vintry."
+
+"It looks as if your thoughts were running on such things." She did not
+affect not to understand, but she was not easy to corner either.
+
+"I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, a confession
+without much trace of penitence.
+
+"Mine don't often; and they're never supposed to--in my position."
+
+"Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, Miss Vintry. Why, a girl
+like you, with such--"
+
+"Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry."
+
+"You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how limited my powers are."
+
+Harry Belfield could no more help this sort of thing than a bird can
+help flying. In childhood he had probably lisped in compliments, as the
+poet in numbers. In itself it was harmless, even graceful, and quite
+devoid of serious meaning. Yet it was something new in his relations
+with Isobel Vintry; though it had arisen out of a desire to dispel that
+mysterious atmosphere, yet it was a sequel to it. Hitherto she had been
+Vivien's companion. In that brief session of theirs--alone together by
+the lake--she had assumed an independent existence for him, a vivid,
+distinctive, rather compelling one. The impressionable mind received a
+new impression, the plastic feelings suffered the moulding of a fresh
+hand. Harry, who was alert to watch himself and always knew when he was
+interested, was telling himself that she was such a notable foil to
+Vivien; that was why he was interested. Vivien was still the centre of
+gravity. The explanation vindicated his interest, preserved his loyalty,
+and left his resolve unshaken. These satisfactory effects were all on
+himself; the idea of effects on Isobel Vintry did not occur to him. He
+was not vain, he was hardly a conscious or intentional "lady-killer." He
+really suffered love affairs rather than sought them; he was driven into
+them by an overpowering instinct to prove his powers. He could not help
+"playing the game"--the rather hazardous game--to the full extent of his
+natural ability. That extent was very considerable.
+
+He said good-bye to her, laughingly declaring that after all he would
+prepare a catalogue, and send it to her by post. Then he went into the
+house, to find Vivien and pay another farewell. Left alone, Isobel rose
+from her chair with an abrupt and impatient movement. She was a woman of
+feelings not only more mature but far stronger than Vivien's; she had
+ambitious yearnings which never crossed Vivien's simple soul. But she
+was stern with herself. Perhaps she had caught and unconsciously copied
+some of Wellgood's anti-sentimental attitude. She often told herself
+that the feelings were merely dangerous and the yearnings silly. Yet
+when others seemed tacitly to accept that view, made no account of her,
+and assumed to regard her place in life as settled, she glowed with a
+deep resentment against them, crying that she would make herself felt.
+To-day she knew that somehow, to some degree however small, she had made
+herself felt by Harry Belfield. The discovery could not be said to bring
+pleasure, but it brought triumph--triumph and an oppressive
+restlessness.
+
+Wellgood strolled out of the house and joined her. "Where's Harry?" he
+asked.
+
+"He went into the house to say good-bye to Vivien; or perhaps he's gone
+altogether by now."
+
+Wellgood stood in thought, his hands in his pockets.
+
+"He's a bit inclined to be soft, but I think we shall make a man of him.
+He's got a great chance, anyhow. Vivien seems to like him, doesn't she?"
+
+"Oh, everybody must!" She smiled at him. "Are you thinking of
+match-making, like a good father?"
+
+"She might do worse, and I'd like her to marry a man we know all about.
+The poor child hasn't backbone to stand up for herself if she happened
+on a rascal."
+
+Isobel had a notion that Wellgood was over-confident if he assumed that
+he, or they, knew all about Harry Belfield. His parentage, his position,
+his prospects--yes. Did these exhaust the subject? But Wellgood's
+downright mind would have seen only "fancies" in such a suggestion.
+
+"If that's the programme, I must begin to think of packing up my
+trunks," she said with a laugh.
+
+He did not join in her laugh, but his stern lips relaxed into a smile.
+"Lots of time to think about that," he told her, his eyes seeming to
+make a careful inspection of her. "Nutley would hardly be itself without
+you, Isobel."
+
+She showed no sign of embarrassment under his scrutiny; she stood
+handsome and apparently serene in her composure.
+
+"Oh, poor Nutley would soon recover from the blow," she said. "But I
+shall be sorry to go. You've been very kind to me."
+
+"You've done your work very well. People who work well are well treated
+at Nutley; people who work badly--"
+
+"Aren't exactly petted? No, they're not, Mr. Wellgood, I know."
+
+"You'd always do your work, whatever it might be, well, so you'd always
+be well treated."
+
+"At any rate you'll give me a good character?" she asked mockingly.
+
+"Oh, I'll see that you get a good place," he answered her in the same
+tone, but with a hint of serious meaning in his eyes.
+
+His plan was quite definite, his confidence in the issue of it absolute.
+But "one thing at a time" was among his maxims. He would like to see
+Vivien's affair settled before his own was undertaken. His idea was that
+his declaration and acceptance should follow on his daughter's
+engagement.
+
+Isobel was not afraid of Mark Wellgood, as his daughter was, and as so
+many women would have been. She had a self-confidence equal to his own;
+she added to it a subtlety which would secure her a larger share of
+independence than it would be politic to claim openly. She had not
+feared him as a master, and would not fear him as a husband. Moreover
+she understood him far better than he read her. Understanding gives
+power. And she liked him; there was much that was congenial to her in
+his mind and modes of thought. He was a man, a strong man. But the
+prospect at which his words hinted--she was not blind to their meaning,
+and for some time back had felt little doubt of his design--did not
+enrapture her. At first sight it seemed that it ought. She had no money,
+her family were poor, marriage was her only chance of independence.
+Nutley meant both a comfort and a status beyond her reasonable hopes.
+But it meant also an end to the ambitious dreams. It was finality. Just
+this life she led now for all her life--or at least all Wellgood's! He
+was engrossed in the occupations of a country gentleman of moderate
+means, in his estate work and his public work. He hardly ever went to
+London; he never travelled farther afield; he visited little even among
+his neighbours. Some of these habits a wife might modify; the essentials
+of the life she would hardly be able to change. Yet, if she got the
+chance, there was no question but that she ought to take it. Common
+sense told her that, just as it told Wellgood that it would be absurd to
+doubt of her acceptance.
+
+Common sense might say what it liked. Her feelings were in revolt, and
+their insurrection gathered fresh strength to-day. It was not so much
+that Wellgood was nearly twenty years her senior. That counted, but not
+as heavily as perhaps might be expected, since his youthful vigour was
+still all his. It was the certainty with which his thoughts disposed of
+her, his assumption that his suit would be free from difficulty and from
+rivalry, his matter-of-course conclusion that Harry could come to Nutley
+only for Vivien's sake. If these things wounded her woman's pride, the
+softer side of her nature lamented the absence of romance, of the thrill
+of love, of being wooed and won in some poetic fashion, of
+everything--she found her thoughts insensibly taking this
+direction--that it would be for Harry Belfield's chosen mistress to
+enjoy. Nobody--least of all the man who was content to take her to wife
+himself--seemed to think of her as a choice even possible to Harry. He
+was, of course, for Vivien. All the joys of love, all the life of
+pleasure, the participation in his career, the moving many-coloured
+existence to be led by his side--all these were for Vivien. Her heart
+cried out in protest at the injustice; she might not even have her
+chance! It would be counted treachery if she strove for it, if she
+sought to attract Harry or allowed herself to be attracted by him. She
+had to stand aside; she was to be otherwise disposed of, her assent to
+the arrangement being asked so confidently that it could hardly be said
+to be asked at all. Suppose she did not assent? Suppose she fought for
+herself, treachery or no treachery? Suppose she followed the way of her
+feelings, if so be that they led her towards Harry Belfield? Suppose she
+put forth what strength she had to upset Wellgood's plan, to fight for
+herself?
+
+She played with these questions as she walked up and down the terrace by
+the lake. She declared to herself that she was only playing with them,
+but they would not leave her.
+
+Certainly the questions found no warrant in Harry Belfield's present
+mood. He had made up his mind, his eager blood was running apace. That
+very evening, as his father and he sat alone together after dinner, in
+the long room graced by the two Vandykes which were the boast of Halton,
+he broached the matter in confidence. Mr. Belfield was a frail man of
+sixty. He had always been delicate in health, a sufferer from asthma and
+prone to chills; but he was no acknowledged invalid, and would not
+submit to the _rôle_. He did his share of county work; his judgment was
+highly esteemed, his sense of honour strict and scrupulous. He had a
+dryly humorous strain in him, which found food for amusement in his
+son's exuberant feelings and dashing impulses, without blinding him to
+their dangers.
+
+"Well, it's not a great match, but it's quite satisfactory, Harry.
+You'll find no opposition here. I like her very much, and your mother
+does too, I know. But"--he smiled and lifted his brows--"it's a trifle
+sudden, isn't it?"
+
+"Sudden?" cried Harry. "Why, I've known her all my life!"
+
+"Yes, but you haven't been in love with her all your life. And, if
+report speaks true, you have been in love with some other women." Mr.
+Belfield was a man of the world; his tone was patient and not unduly
+severe as he referred to Harry's adventures of the heart, which had
+reached his ears from friends in London.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Harry; "but those were only--well, passing sort of
+things, you know."
+
+"And this isn't a passing sort of thing?"
+
+"Not a bit of it; I'm dead sure of it. Well, a fellow can't tell
+another--not even his father--what he feels."
+
+"No, no, don't try; keep all that for the lady. But if I were you I'd go
+a bit slow, and I wouldn't tell your mother yet. There's no particular
+hurry, is there?"
+
+Harry laughed. "Well, I suppose that depends on how one feels. I happen
+to feel rather in a hurry."
+
+"Go as slow as you can. Passing things pass: a wife's a more permanent
+affair. And undoing a mistake is neither a very easy nor a very savoury
+business."
+
+"I'm absolutely sure. Still I'll try to wait and see if I can manage to
+get a little bit surer still, just to please you, pater."
+
+"Thank you, old boy; I don't think you'll repent it. And, after all, it
+may be as well to give the lady time to get quite sure too--eh?" His
+eyes twinkled. He was fully aware that Harry would not think a great
+deal of time necessary for that. "Oh, by-the-bye," he went on, "I've a
+little bit of good news for you. I've interceded with your mother on
+Andy Hayes' behalf, and her heart is softened. She says she'll be very
+glad to see him here--"
+
+"Hurrah! That's very good of the mater."
+
+"--when we're alone, or have friends who we know won't object." He
+laughed a little, and Harry joined in the laugh. "A prudent woman's
+prudent provisoes, Harry! I wish both you and I were as wise as your
+mother is."
+
+"Dear old Andy--he's getting quite the fashion! I'm to take him to
+Nutley too."
+
+"Excellent! Because it looks as if Nutley would be coming here to a
+certain extent in the immediate future, and he'll be able to come when
+Nutley does." He rose from his chair. "My throat's bothersome to-night;
+I'll leave you alone with your cigarette."
+
+Harry smoked a cigarette that seemed to emit clouds of rosy smoke. All
+that lay in the past was forgotten; the future beckoned him to
+glittering joys.
+
+"Marriage is his best chance, but even that's a considerable chance with
+Master Harry!" thought his father as he sat down to his book.
+
+The one man who had serious fears--or at least doubts--about Harry
+Belfield's future was his own father.
+
+"I probably shan't live to see the trouble, if any comes," he thought.
+"And if his mother does--she won't believe it's his fault."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+BROADENING LIFE.
+
+
+"Five all, and deuce!" cried Wellgood, who had taken on himself the
+function of umpire. He turned to Isobel and Vivien, who sat by in wicker
+armchairs, watching the game. "I never thought it would be so close.
+Hayes has pulled up wonderfully!"
+
+"I think Mr. Hayes'll win now," said Vivien.
+
+An "exhibition single" was being played, by request, before the audience
+above indicated. Andy Hayes had protested that, though of course he
+would play if they wished, he could not give Harry a game--he had not
+played for more than a year. At first it looked as if he were right:
+Harry romped away with the first four games, so securely superior that
+he fired friendly chaff at Andy's futile rushes across the court in
+pursuit of a ball skilfully placed where he least expected it. But in
+the fifth game the rallies became very long; Andy was playing for
+safety--playing deadly safe. He did not try to kill; Harry did, but
+often committed suicide. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh game went to
+Andy. A flash of brilliancy gave Harry the eighth--five, three! The
+ninth was his service--he should have had it, and the set. Andy's
+returns were steady, low, all good length, possible to return, almost
+impossible to kill. But Harry tried to kill. Four, five. Andy served,
+and found a "spot"--at least Harry's malevolent glances at a particular
+piece of turf implied a theory that he had. Five all! And now "Deuce"!
+
+"He's going to lick me, see if he isn't!" cried Harry Belfield,
+perfectly good-natured, but not hiding his opinion that such a result
+would be paradoxical.
+
+Andy felt terribly ashamed of himself--he wanted to win so much. To play
+Harry Belfield on equal terms and beat him, just for once! This spirit
+of emulation was new to his soul; it seemed rather alarming when it
+threatened his old-time homage in all things to Harry. Where was
+ambition going to stop? None the less, eye and hand had no idea of not
+doing their best. A slashing return down the side line and a clever lob
+gave him the game--six, five!
+
+Harry Belfield was the least bit vexed--amusedly vexed. He remembered
+Andy's clumsy elephantine sprawlings (no other word for them) about the
+court when in their boyhood he had first undertaken to teach him the
+game. Andy must have played a lot in Canada.
+
+"Now I'll take three off you, Andy," he cried, and served a double
+fault. The "gallery" laughed. "Oh, damn it!" exclaimed Harry,
+indecorously loud, and served another. Andy could not help laughing--the
+first time he had ever laughed at Harry Belfield. Given a handicap of
+thirty, the game was, barring extraordinary accidents, his. So it
+proved. He won it at forty-fifteen, with a stroke that a child ought to
+have returned; Harry put it into the net.
+
+"Lost your nerve, Harry?" said the umpire.
+
+"The beggar's such a sticker!" grumbled Harry, laughing. "You think
+you've got him licked--and you haven't!"
+
+"I'm glad Mr. Hayes won." This from Vivien.
+
+"Not only defeated, but forsaken!" Harry cried. "Andy, I'll have your
+blood!"
+
+Andy Hayes laughed joyously. This victory came as an unlooked-for
+adornment to a day already notable. A Saturday half-holiday, down from
+town in time to lunch at Nutley, tennis and tea, and the prospect (not
+free from piquant alarm) of dinner at Halton--this was a day for Andy
+Hayes! With an honest vanity--a vanity based on true affection--he
+thought how the account of it would tickle Jack Rock. His life seemed
+broadening out before him, and he would like to tell dear old Jack all
+about it. Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, dining at Halton--here were
+things just as delightful, just as enlightening, as supping at the great
+restaurant in the company of the Nun and pretty sardonic Miss Dutton. He
+owed them all to Harry--he almost wished he had lost the set. At any
+rate he felt that he ought to wish it.
+
+"It was an awful fluke!" he protested apologetically.
+
+"You'd beat him three times out of five," Wellgood asserted in that
+confident tone of his.
+
+Harry looked a little vexed. He bore an occasional defeat with admirable
+good-nature: to be judged consistently inferior was harder schooling to
+his temper. Triumphing in whatever the contest might be had grown into
+something of a custom with him. It brooked occasional breaches:
+abrogation was another matter. But "Oh no!" cried both the girls
+together.
+
+Harry was on his feet again in a moment. Women's praise was always sweet
+to him, and not the less sweet for being open to a suspicion of
+partiality--which is, after all, a testimony to achievement in other
+fields.
+
+Such a partiality accounted for the conviction of Harry's superiority in
+Vivien's case at least. She had grown up in the midst of the universal
+Meriton adoration of him as the most accomplished, the kindest, the
+merriest son of that soil, the child of promise, the present pride and
+the future glory of his native town. Any facts or reports not to the
+credit of the idol or reflecting on his divinity had not reached her
+cloistered ears. Wellgood, like Harry's own father, had heard some, but
+Wellgood held common-sense views even more fully than Mr. Belfield;
+facts were facts, and all men had to be young for a time. Now, if signs
+were to be trusted, if the idol's own words, eyes, and actions meant
+what she could not but deem they meant (or where stood the idol's
+honesty?), he proposed to ask her to share his throne; he, the adored,
+offered adoration--an adoration on a basis of reciprocity, be it
+understood. She did not grumble at that. To give was so easy, so
+inevitable; to receive--to be asked to accept--so wonderful. It could
+not enter her head or her heart to question the value of the gift or to
+doubt the whole-heartedness with which it was bestowed. It was to her so
+great a thing that she held it must be as great to Harry. Really at the
+present moment it was as great to Harry. His courtship of her seemed a
+very great thing, his absolute exclusive devotion a rare flower of
+romance.
+
+But she had been glad to see Andy win. Oh yes, she was compassionate.
+She knew so well what it was not to do things as cleverly as other
+people, and how oppressive it felt to be always inferior. Besides Andy
+had a stock of gratitude to draw on; somehow he had, by his solidity,
+caused Curly to appear far less terrible. With a genuine gladness she
+saw him pluck one leaf from Harry's wreath. It must mean so much to Mr.
+Hayes; it mattered nothing to Harry. Nay, rather, it was an added chance
+for his graces of manner to shine forth.
+
+They did shine forth. "Very good of you, ladies, but I think he holds me
+safe," said Harry.
+
+"I shouldn't if you'd only play steady," Andy observed in his reflective
+way. "Taking chances--that's your fault, Harry."
+
+"Taking chances--why, it's life!" cried Harry, any shadow of vexation
+utterly gone and leaving not the smallest memory.
+
+"Well, ordinary people can't look at it like that," Andy said, with no
+touch of sarcasm, amply acknowledging that Harry and the ordinary were
+things remote from one another.
+
+Was life taking chances? To one only of the party did that seem really
+true. Harry had said it, but he was not the one. He was possessed by a
+new triumphant certainty; Wellgood by the thought of a mastery he deemed
+already established, and waiting only for his word to be declared;
+Vivien by a dream that glowed and glittered, refusing too close a touch
+with earth; Andy by a stout conviction that he must not think about
+chances, but work away at his timber (he still called it lumber in his
+inner mind) and his books, pausing only to thank heaven for a wonderful
+Saturday holiday.
+
+But life was taking chances! Supine in her chair, silent since her one
+exclamation in championship of Harry Belfield, Isobel Vintry echoed the
+cry. Life was taking chances? Yes, any life worth having perhaps was.
+But what if the chances did not come one's way? Who can take what fate
+never offers?
+
+All the present party was to meet again at Halton in the evening. It
+seemed hardly a separation when Harry and Andy started off together
+towards Meriton, Harry, as usual, chattering briskly, Andy listening,
+considering, absorbing. At a turn of the road they passed two old
+friends of his, Wat Money, the lawyer's clerk, and Tom Dove, the budding
+publican--"Chinks" and "The Bird" of days of yore.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Harry! Hullo, Andy!" said Chinks and the Bird. When
+they were past, the Bird nudged Chinks with his elbow and winked his
+eye.
+
+"Yes, he's getting no end of a swell, isn't he?" said Chinks.
+"Hand-and-glove with Harry Belfield!"
+
+"I suppose you don't see much of those chaps now?" Harry was asking Andy
+at the same moment. There was just a shadow of admonition in the
+question.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't. Well, we're all at work. And when I do get a day
+off--"
+
+"You don't need to spend it at the Lion!" laughed Harry. "As good drink
+and better company in other places!"
+
+There were certainly good things to drink and eat at Halton, and Andy
+could not be blamed if he found the company at least as well to his
+liking. He had not been there since he was quite a small boy--in the
+days before Nancy Rock migrated from the house next the butcher's shop
+in High Street to preside over his home--but he had never forgotten the
+handsome dining-room with its two Vandykes, nor the glass of sherry
+which Mr. Belfield had once given him there. Mrs. Belfield received him
+with graciousness, Mr. Belfield with cordiality. Of course he was the
+first to arrive, being very fearful of unpunctuality. Even Harry was not
+down yet. Not being able, for obvious reasons, to ask after her guest's
+relations--her invariable way, when it was possible, of opening a
+conversation--Mrs. Belfield expressed her pleasure at seeing him back in
+Meriton.
+
+"My husband thinks you're such a good companion for Harry," she added,
+showing that her pleasure was genuine, even if somewhat interested.
+
+"Yes, Hayes," said Mr. Belfield. "See all you can of him; we shall be
+grateful. He wants just what a steady-going sensible fellow, as
+everybody says you are, can give him--a bit of ballast, eh?"
+
+"Everybody" had been, in fact, Jack Rock, but--again for obvious
+reasons--the authority was not cited by name.
+
+"You may be sure I shall give him as much of my company as he'll take,
+sir," said Andy, infinitely pleased, enormously complimented.
+
+Placidity was Mrs. Belfield's dominant note--a soothing placidity. She
+was rather short and rather plump--by no means an imposing figure; but
+this quality gave her a certain dignity, and even a certain power in her
+little world. People let her have her own way because she was so
+placidly sure that they would, and it seemed almost profane to disturb
+the placidity. Even her husband's humour was careful to stop short of
+that. Her physical movements were in harmony with her temper--leisurely,
+smooth, noiseless; her voice was gentle, low, and even. She seemed to
+Andy to fit in well with the life she lived and always had lived, to be
+a good expression or embodiment of its sheltered luxury and sequestered
+tranquillity. Storms and stress and struggles--these things had nothing
+to do with Mrs. Belfield, and really ought to have none; they would be
+quite out of keeping with her. She seemed to have a right to ask that
+things about her should go straight and go quietly. There was perhaps a
+flavour of selfishness about this disposition; certainly an
+inaccessibility to strong feeling. For instance, while placidly assuming
+Harry's success and Harry's career, she was not excited nor what would
+be called enthusiastic about them--not half so excited and enthusiastic
+as Andy Hayes.
+
+The dinner in the fine old room, under the Vandykes, with Mrs. Belfield
+in her lavender silk and precious lace, the girls in their white frocks,
+the old silver, the wealth of flowers, seemed rather wonderful to Andy
+Hayes. His life in boyhood had been poor and meagre, in manhood hard and
+rough. Here was a side of existence he had not seen; as luxurious as the
+life of which he had caught a glimpse at the great restaurant, but far
+more serene, more dignified. His opening mind received another new
+impression and a rarely attractive one.
+
+But the centre of the scene for him was Vivien Wellgood. From his first
+sight of her in the drawing-room he could not deny that. He had never
+seen her in the evening before, and it was in the evening that her frail
+beauty showed forth. She was like a thing of gossamer that a touch would
+spoil. She was so white in her low-cut frock; all so white save for a
+little glow on the cheeks that excitement and pleasure brought, save for
+the brightness of her hair in the soft candle light, save for the dark
+blue eyes which seemed to keep watch and ward over her hidden thoughts.
+Yes, she was--why, she was good enough for Harry--good enough for Harry
+Belfield himself! And he, Andy, Harry's faithful follower and
+worshipper, would worship her too, if she would let him (Harry, he knew,
+would), if she would not be afraid of him, not dislike him or shrink
+from him. That was all he asked, having in his mind not only a bashful
+consciousness of his rude strength and massive frame--they seemed almost
+threatening beside her delicacy--but also a haunting recollection that
+she could not endure such a number of things, including butchers' shops.
+
+No thought for himself, no thought of trying to rival Harry, so much as
+crossed his mind. If it had, it would have been banished as rank
+treachery; but it could not, for the simple reason that his attitude
+towards Harry made such an idea utterly foreign to his thoughts. He was
+not asking, as Isobel Vintry had asked that afternoon, why he might not
+have his chance. It was not the way of his nature to put forward claims
+for himself--and, above all, claims that conflicted with Harry's claims.
+The bare notion was to him impossible.
+
+He sat by her, but for some time she gave herself wholly to listening to
+Harry, who had found, on getting home, a letter from Billy Foot, full of
+the latest political gossip from town. But presently, the conversation
+drifting into depths of politics where she could not follow, she turned
+to Andy and said, "I'm getting on much better with Curly. I pat him
+now!"
+
+"That's right. It's only his fun."
+
+"People's fun is sometimes the worst thing about them."
+
+"Well now, that's true," Andy acknowledged, rather surprised to hear the
+remark from her.
+
+"But I am getting on much better. And--well, rather better at riding."
+She smiled at him in confidence. "And nobody's said anything about
+swimming. Do you know, when I feel myself inclined to get frightened, I
+think about you!"
+
+"Do you find it helps?" asked Andy, much amused and rather pleased.
+
+"Yes, it's like thinking of a policeman in the middle of the night."
+
+"I suppose I do look rather like a policeman," said Andy reflectively.
+
+"Yes, you do! That's it, I think." The vague "it" seemed to signify the
+explanation of the confidence Andy inspired.
+
+"And how about dust and dirt, and getting very hot?" he inquired.
+
+"Isobel says I'm a bit better about courage, but not the least about
+fastidiousness."
+
+"Fastidiousness suits some people, Miss Wellgood."
+
+"It doesn't suit father, not in me," she murmured with a woeful smile.
+
+"Doesn't thinking about me help you there? On the same principle it
+ought to."
+
+"It doesn't," she murmured, with a trace of confusion, and suddenly her
+eyes went blank. Something was in her thoughts that she did not want
+Andy to see. Was it the butcher's shop? Andy's wits were not quick
+enough to ask the question; but he saw that her confidential mood had
+suffered a check.
+
+Her confidence had been very pleasant, but there were other things to
+listen to at the table. Andy was heart-whole and intellectually
+voracious.
+
+They, the rest of the company, had begun on politics--imperial
+politics--and had discussed them not without some friction. No Radical
+was present--_Procul, O procul este, profani!_--but Wellgood had the
+perversities of his anti-sentimental attitude. A Tory at home, why was
+he to be a democrat--or a Socialist--at the Antipodes? Competition and
+self-interest were the golden rule in England; was there to be another
+between England and her colonies? The tie of blood--one flag, one crown,
+one destiny--Wellgood suspected his bugbear in every one of these cries.
+Nothing for nothing--and for sixpence no more than the coin was
+worth--with a preference for five penn'orth if you could get out of it
+at that! He stood steady on his firmly-rooted narrow foundation.
+
+All of Harry was on fire against him. Was blood nothing--race,
+colour, memories, associations, the Flag, the Crown, and the Destiny?
+A destiny to rule, or at least to manage, the planet! Mother and
+Daughters--nothing in that?
+
+Things were getting hot, and the ladies, who always like to look on at
+the men fighting, much interested. Mr. Belfield, himself no politician,
+rather a student of human nature and addicted to the Socratic attitude
+(so justly vexatious to practical men who have to do something, good,
+bad, or if not better, at least more plausible, than nothing) interposed
+a suggestion.
+
+"Mother and daughters? Hasn't husband and wives become a more
+appropriate parallel?" He smiled across the table at his own wife. "No
+personal reference, my dear! But an attitude of independence, without
+any particular desire to pay the bills? Oh, I'm only asking questions!"
+
+Andy was listening hard now. So was Vivien, for she saw Harry's eyes
+alight and his mouth eager to utter truths that should save the nation.
+
+"If we could reach," said Harry, marvellously handsome, somewhat
+rhetorical for a small party, "if only we could once reach a true
+understanding between ourselves and the self-governing--"
+
+"Oh, but that's going beyond my parallel, my dear boy," his father
+interrupted. "If marriage demanded mutual understanding, what man or
+woman could risk it with eyes open?"
+
+"Doesn't it?" Isobel Vintry was the questioner.
+
+"Heavens, no, my dear Miss Vintry! Something much less, something much
+less fundamentally impossible. A good temper and a bad memory, that's
+all!"
+
+"Well done, pater!" cried Harry, readily switched off from his heated
+enthusiasm. "Which for the husband, which for the wife?"
+
+"Both for both, Harry. Toleration to-day, and an unlimited power of
+oblivion to-morrow."
+
+"What nonsense you're talking, dear," placidly smiled Mrs. Belfield.
+
+"I'm exactly defining your own characteristics," he replied. "If you do
+that to a woman, she always says you're talking nonsense."
+
+"An unlimited supply of the water of Lethe, pater? That does it?"
+
+"That's about it, Harry. If you mix it with a little sound Scotch whisky
+before you go to bed--"
+
+Andy burst into a good guffaw; the kindly mocking humour pleased him.
+Vivien was alert too; there was nothing to frighten, much to enjoy; the
+glow deepened on her cheeks.
+
+But Wellgood was not content; he was baulked of his argument, of his
+fight.
+
+"We've wandered from the point," he said dourly. ("As if wanderings were
+not the best things in the world!" thought more than one of the party,
+more or less explicitly.) "We give, they take." He was back to the
+United Kingdom and the Colonies.
+
+"Could anything be more nicely exact to my parallel?" asked Belfield,
+socratically smiling. "Did you ever know a marriage where each partner
+didn't say, 'I give, you take'? Some add that they're content with the
+arrangement, others don't."
+
+"Pater, you always mix up different things," Harry protested, laughing.
+
+"I'm always trying to find out whether there are any different things,
+Harry." He smiled at his son. "Wives, that's what they are! And several
+of them! Harry, we're in for all the difficulties of polygamy! A
+preference to one--oh no, I'm not spelling it with a big P! But--well,
+the ladies ought to be able to help us here. Could you share a heart,
+Miss Vintry?"
+
+Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; she looked sumptuous.
+"I shouldn't like it," she answered.
+
+"What has all this got to do with the practical problem?" Wellgood
+demanded. "Our trade with the Colonies is no more than thirty per
+cent--"
+
+"I agree with you, Mr. Wellgood. The gentlemen had much better have kept
+to their politics," Mrs. Belfield interposed with suave placidity. "They
+understand them. When they begin to talk about women--"
+
+"Need of Lethe--whisky and Lethe-water!" chuckled Harry. "In a large
+glass, eh, Andy?"
+
+Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've lived in Canada. What do you
+say?"
+
+Andy had been far too much occupied in listening. Besides, he was no
+politician. He thought deeply for a moment.
+
+"A lot depends on whether you want to buy or to sell." He delivered
+himself of this truth quite solemnly.
+
+"A very far-reaching observation," said Mr. Belfield. "Goes to the root
+of human traffic, and, quite possibly, to that of both the institutions
+which we have been discussing. I wonder whether either will be
+permanent!"
+
+"Look here, pater, we're at dessert! Aren't you starting rather big
+subjects?"
+
+"Your father likes to amuse himself with curious ideas," Mrs. Belfield
+remarked. "So did my father; he once asked me what I thought would
+happen if I didn't say my prayers. Men like to ask questions like that,
+but I never pay much attention to them. Shall we go into the
+drawing-room, Vivien? It may be warm enough for a turn in the garden,
+perhaps." She addressed the men. "Bring your cigars and try."
+
+The men were left alone. "The garden would be jolly," said Harry.
+
+Mr. Belfield coughed, and suddenly wheezed. "Intimations of mortality!"
+he said apologetically. "We've talked of a variety of subjects--to
+little purpose, I suppose. But it's entertaining to survey the field of
+humanity. Your views were briefly expressed, Hayes."
+
+"Everybody else was talking such a lot, sir," said Andy.
+
+Belfield's humorous laugh was entangled in a cough. "You'll never get
+that obstacle out of the way of your oratory," he managed to stutter
+out. "They always are! Talk rules the world--eh, Wellgood?" He was
+maliciously provocative.
+
+"We wait till they've finished talking. Then we do what we want," said
+Wellgood. "Force rules in the end--the readiness to kill and be killed.
+That's the _ultima ratio_, the final argument."
+
+"The women say that's out of date."
+
+"The women!" exclaimed Wellgood contemptuously.
+
+"They'll be in the garden," Harry opined. "Shall we move, pater?"
+
+"We might as well," said Belfield. "Are you ready, Wellgood?"
+
+Wellgood was ready--in spite of his contempt.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+THE WORLDS OF MERITON.
+
+
+The garden at Halton was a pleasant place on a fine evening, with a moon
+waxing, yet not obtrusively full, with billowing shrubberies, clear-cut
+walks, lawns spreading in a gentle drabness that would be bright green
+in to-morrow's sun--a place pleasant in its calm, its spaciousness and
+isolation. They all sat together in a ring for a while; smoke curled up;
+a servant brought glasses that clinked as they were set down with a
+cheery, yet not urgent, suggestion.
+
+"I suppose you're right to go in for it," said Wellgood to Harry. "It's
+your obvious line." (He was referring to a public career.) "But, after
+all, it's casting pearls before swine."
+
+"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. "Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"
+
+"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through their noses--that's the
+thing for them!"
+
+"Has anybody got a copy--well, another copy of 'Coriolanus'?" Harry
+inquired in an affectation of eagerness.
+
+"Casting pearls before swine is bad business, of course," said Belfield
+in his husky voice--he was really unwise to be out of doors at all; "but
+there are degrees of badness. If your pearls are indifferent as pearls,
+and your swine admirable as swine? And that's often the truth of it."
+
+"My husband is sometimes perverse in his talk, my dear," said Mrs.
+Belfield, aside to Vivien, to whom she was being very kind. "You needn't
+notice what he says."
+
+"He's rather amusing," Vivien ventured, not quite sure whether the
+adjective were respectful enough.
+
+"Andy, pronounce!" cried Harry Belfield; for his friend sat in his usual
+meditative absorbing silence.
+
+"If I had to, I'd like to say a word from the point of view of
+the--swine." Had the moon been stronger, he might have been seen to
+blush. "I don't want to be--oh, well, serious. That's rot, I know--after
+dinner. But--well, you're all in it--insiders--I'm an outsider. And I
+say that what the swine want is--pearls!"
+
+"If we've got them?" The question, or insinuation, was Belfield's. He
+was looking at Andy with a real, if an only half-serious, interest.
+
+"Swine are swine," remarked Wellgood. "They mustn't forget it. Neither
+must we."
+
+"But pearls by no means always pearls?" Belfield suggested. "Though they
+may look the real thing if a pretty woman hangs them round her neck."
+
+Their talk went only for an embellishment of their general state--so
+comfortable, so serene, so exceptionally fortunate. Were not they
+pearls? Andy had seen something of the swine, had perhaps even been one
+of them. A vague protest stirred in him; were they not too serene, too
+comfortable, too fortunate? Yet he loved it all; it was beautiful. How
+many uglies go to make one beautiful? It is a bit of social arithmetic.
+When you have got the result, the deduction may well seem difficult.
+
+"It doesn't much matter whether they're real or not, if a really pretty
+woman hangs them round her neck," Harry laughed. "The neck carries the
+pearls!"
+
+"But we'd all rather they were real," said Isobel Vintry suddenly, the
+first of the women to intervene. "Other women guess, you see."
+
+"Does it hurt so much if they do?" Belfield asked.
+
+"The only thing that really does hurt," Isobel assured him, smiling.
+
+"Oh, my dear, how disproportionate!" sighed Mrs. Belfield.
+
+"I'd never have anything false about me--pearls, or lace, or hair,
+or--or anything about me," exclaimed Vivien. "I should hate it!" Feeling
+carried her into sudden unexpected speech.
+
+Very gradually, very tentatively, Andy was finding himself able to speak
+in this sort of company, to speak as an equal to equals, not socially
+only, but in an intellectual regard.
+
+"Riches seem to me all wrong, but what they produce, leaving out the
+wasters, all right." He let it out, apprehensive of a censuring silence.
+Belfield relieved him in a minute.
+
+"I'm with you. I always admire most the things to which I'm on principle
+opposed--a melancholy state of one's mental interior! Kings, lords, and
+bishops--crowns, coronets, and aprons--all very attractive and
+picturesque!"
+
+"We all know that the governor's a crypto-Radical," said Harry.
+
+"I thought Carlyle, among others, had taught that we were all Radicals
+when in our pyjamas--or less," said Belfield. "But that's not the point.
+The excellence of things that are wrong, the narrowness of the moral
+view!"
+
+"My dear! Oh, well, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Belfield.
+
+"I've got a touch of asthma--I must say what I like." Belfield
+humorously traded on his infirmity. "A dishonest fellow who won't pay
+his tradesmen, a flirtatious minx who will make mischief, a spoilt
+urchin who insists on doing what he shouldn't--all rather attractive,
+aren't they? If everybody behaved properly we should have no
+'situations.' What would become of literature and the drama?"
+
+"And if nobody had any spare cash, what would become of them, either?"
+asked Harry.
+
+"Well, we could do with a good deal less of them. I'll go so far as to
+admit that," said Wellgood.
+
+Belfield laughed. "Even from Wellgood we've extracted one plea for the
+redistribution of wealth. A dialectical triumph! Let's leave it at
+that."
+
+Mrs. Belfield carried her husband off indoors; Wellgood went with them,
+challenging his host to a game of bezique; Harry invited Vivien to a
+stroll; Isobel Vintry and Andy were left together. She asked him a
+sudden question:
+
+"Do you think Harry Belfield a selfish man?"
+
+"Selfish! Harry? Heavens, no! He'd do anything for his friends."
+
+"I don't mean quite in that way. I daresay he would--and, of course,
+he's too well-mannered to be selfish about trifles. But I suppose even
+to ask questions about him is treason to you?"
+
+"Oh, well, a little bit," laughed Andy. "I'm an old follower, you see!"
+
+"Yes, and he thinks it natural you should be," she suggested quickly.
+
+"Well, if it is natural, why shouldn't he think so?"
+
+"It seems natural to him that he should always come first, and--and have
+the pick of things."
+
+"You mean he's spoilt? According to his father, that makes him more
+attractive."
+
+"Yes, I'm not saying it doesn't do that. Only--do you never mind it?
+Never mind playing second fiddle?"
+
+"Second fiddle seems rather a high position. I hardly reckon myself in
+the orchestra at all," he laughed. "You remember--I'm accustomed to
+following the hunt on foot."
+
+"While Harry Belfield rides! Yes! Vivien rides too--and doesn't like
+it!"
+
+She was bending forward in her chair, handsome, sumptuous in her white
+and gold (Wellgood had made her a present the quarter-day before), with
+her smile very bitter. The smile told that she spoke with a meaning more
+than literal. Andy surveyed, at his leisure, possible metaphorical
+bearings.
+
+"Oh yes, I think I see," he announced, after an interval fully
+perceptible. "You mean she doesn't really appreciate her advantages? By
+riding you mean--?"
+
+"Oh, really, Mr. Hayes!" She broke into vexed amused laughter. "I
+mustn't try it any more with you," she declared.
+
+"But I shall understand if you give me time to think it over," Andy
+protested. "Don't rush me, that's all, Miss Vintry."
+
+"As if I could rush any one or anything!" she said, handsome still, now
+handsomely despairing.
+
+To Andy she was a problem, needing time to think over; to Wellgood she
+was a postulate, assumed not proved, yet assumed to be proved; to Harry
+she was--save for that subtle momentary feeling on the terrace by the
+lake--Vivien's companion. She wanted to be something other than any of
+these. Follow the hounds on foot? She would know what it was to ride!
+Know and not like--in Vivien's fashion? Andy, slowly digesting, saw her
+lips curve in that bitter smile again.
+
+From a path near by, yet secluded behind a thick trim hedge of yew,
+there sounded a girl's nervous flutter of a laugh, a young man's
+exultant merriment. Harry and Vivien, not far away, seemed the space of
+a world apart--to Isobel; Andy was normally conscious that they were not
+more than twenty yards off, and almost within hearing if they spoke. But
+he had been getting at Isobel's meaning--slowly and surely.
+
+"Being able to ride--having the opportunity--and not caring--that's
+pearls before--?"
+
+"I congratulate you, Mr. Hayes. I can imagine you making a very good
+speech--after the election is over!"
+
+Andy laughed heartily, leaning back in his chair.
+
+"That's jolly good, Miss Vintry!" he said.
+
+"Ten minutes after the poll closed you'd begin to persuade the
+electors!" She spoke rather lower. "Ten minutes after a girl had taken
+another man, you'd--"
+
+"Give me time! I've never thought about myself like that," cried Andy.
+
+No more sounds from the path behind the yew hedge. She was impatient
+with Andy--would Harry never come back from that path?
+
+He came back the next moment--he and Vivien. Vivien's face was a
+confession, Harry's air a self-congratulation.
+
+"I hope you've been making yourself amusing, Andy?" asked Harry. His
+tone conveyed a touch of amusement at the idea of Andy being amusing.
+
+"Miss Vintry's been pitching into me like anything," said Andy, smiling
+broadly. "She says I'm always a day after the fair. I'm going to think
+it over--and try to get a move on."
+
+His good-nature, his simplicity, his serious intention to attempt
+self-improvement, tickled Harry intensely. Why, probably Isobel had
+wanted to flirt, and Andy had failed to play up to her! He burst into a
+laugh; Vivien's laugh followed as an applauding echo.
+
+"A lecture, was it, Miss Vintry?" Harry asked in banter.
+
+"I could give you one too," said Isobel, colouring a little.
+
+"She gives me plenty!" Vivien remarked, with a solemnly comic shake of
+her head.
+
+"It's my business in life," said Isobel.
+
+Just for a second Harry looked at her; an impish smile was on his lips.
+Did she think that, was she honest about it? Or was she provocative? It
+crossed Harry's mind--past experiences facilitating the transit of the
+idea--that she might be saying to him, "Is that all a young woman of my
+looks is good for? To give lectures?"
+
+"You shall give me one at the earliest opportunity, if you'll be so
+kind," he laughed, his eyes boldly conveying that he would enjoy the
+lesson. Vivien laughed again; it was great fun to see Harry chaffing
+Isobel! She liked Isobel, but was in awe of her. Had not Isobel all the
+difficult virtues which it was her own woeful task to learn? But Harry
+could chaff her--Harry could do anything.
+
+"If I do, I'll teach you something you don't know, Mr. Harry," Isobel
+said, letting her eyes meet his with a boldness equal to his own. Again
+that subtle feeling touched him, as it had on the terrace by the lake.
+
+"I'm ready to learn my lesson," he assured her, with a challenging gleam
+in his eye.
+
+She nodded rather scornfully, but accepting his challenge. There was a
+last bit of by-play between their eyes.
+
+"It's really time to go, if Mr. Wellgood has finished his game," said
+Isobel, rising.
+
+The insinuation of the words, the by-play of the eyes, had passed over
+Vivien's head and outside the limits of Andy's perspicacity. To both of
+them the bandying of words was but chaff; by both the exchange of
+glances went unmarked. Well, the whole thing was no more than chaff to
+Harry himself; such chaff as he was very good at, a practised hand--and
+not ignorant of why the chaff was pleasant. And Isobel? Oh yes, she
+knew! Harry was amused to find this knowledge in Vivien's
+companion--this provocation, this freemasonry of flirtation. Poor old
+Andy had, of course, seen none of it! Well, perhaps it needed a bit of
+experience--besides the temperament.
+
+Indoors, farewell was soon said--hours ruled early at Meriton. Soon
+said, yet not without some significance in the saying. Mrs. Belfield was
+openly affectionate to Vivien, and Belfield paternal in a courtly way;
+Harry very devoted to the same young lady, yet with a challenging
+"aside" of his eyes for Isobel; Andy brimming over with a vain effort to
+express adequately but without gush his thanks for the evening.
+Belfield, being two pounds the better of Wellgood over their bezique,
+was in more than his usual good-temper--it was spiced with malice, for
+the defeat of Wellgood (a bad loser) counted for more than the forty
+shillings--and gave Andy his hand and a pat on the back.
+
+"It's not often one has to tell a man not to undervalue himself," he
+remarked. "But I fancy I might say that to you. Well, I'm no prophet;
+but at any rate be sure you're always welcome at this house for your own
+sake, as well as for Harry's."
+
+Getting into the carriage with Isobel and her father, Vivien felt like
+going back to school. But in all likelihood she would see Harry's eyes
+again to-morrow. She did not forget to give a kindly glance to solid
+Andy Hayes--not exciting, nor bewildering, nor inflaming (as another
+was!), but somehow comforting and reassuring to think of. She sat down
+on the narrow seat, fronting her father and Isobel. Yes--but school
+wouldn't last much longer! And after school? Ineffable heaven! Being
+with Harry, loving Harry, being loved by--? That vaulting imagination
+seemed still almost--nay, it seemed quite--impossible. Yet if your own
+eyes assure you of things impossible--well, there's a good case for
+believing your eyes, and the belief is pleasant. Wellgood sore over his
+two pounds, Isobel dissatisfied with fate but challenging it, sat
+silent. The young girl's lips curved in sweet memories and triumphant
+anticipations. The best thing in the world--was it actually to be hers?
+Almost she knew it, though she would not own to the knowledge yet.
+
+Happy was she in the handkerchief flung by her hero! Happy was Harry
+Belfield in the ready devotion, the innocent happy surrender, of one
+girl, and the vexed challenge of another whom he had--whom he had at
+least meant to ignore; he could never answer for it that he would quite
+ignore a woman who displayed such a challenge in the lists of sex. But
+there was a happier being still among those who left Halton that night.
+It was Andy Hayes, before whom life had opened so, who had enjoyed such
+a wonderful day-off, who had been told not to undervalue himself, had
+been reproached with being a day after the fair, had undergone (as it
+seemed) an initiation into a life of which he had hardly dreamt, yet of
+which he appeared, in that one summer's day, to have been accepted as a
+part.
+
+Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest--happier even than Harry, to
+whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even
+than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of
+love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent
+incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had
+lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told
+that her challenge should be taken up--some day! Mrs. Belfield was
+intent on sleeping well, as she always did; Mr. Belfield on not coughing
+too much--as he generally did. They were not competitors in happiness.
+
+Andy walked home. Halton lay half a mile outside the town; his lodgings
+were at the far end of High Street. All through the long, broad,
+familiar street--in old days he had known who lived in well-nigh every
+house--his road lay. He walked home under the stars. The day had been
+wonderful; they who had figured in it peopled his brain--delicate dainty
+Vivien first; with her, brilliant Harry; that puzzling Miss Vintry; Mr.
+Belfield, who talked so whimsically and had told him not to undervalue
+himself; Wellgood, grim, hard, merciless, yet somehow with the stamp of
+a man about him; Mrs. Belfield serenely matching with her house, her
+Vandykes, her garden, and the situation to which it had pleased Heaven
+to call her. Soberly now--soberly now--had he ever expected to be a part
+of all this?
+
+High Street lay dark and quiet. It was eleven o'clock. He passed the old
+grammar school with a thought of the dear old father--B.A. Oxon, which
+had something to do with his wonderful day. He passed the Lion, where
+"the Bird" officiated, and Mr. Foulkes' office, where "Chinks" aspired
+to become "gentleman, one etc."--so runs the formula that gives a
+solicitor his status. All dark! Now if by chance Jack Rock were up, and
+willing to listen to a little honest triumphing! It had been a day to
+talk about.
+
+Yes, Jack was up; his parlour lights glowed cosily behind red blinds.
+Yet Andy was not to have a clear field for the recital of his
+adventures; it was no moment for an exhibition of his honest pride,
+based on an unimpaired humility. Jack Rock had a party. The table was
+furnished with beer, whisky, gin, tobacco, and clay pipes. Round it sat
+old friends--Chinks and the Bird; the Bird's father, Mr. Dove, landlord
+of the Lion; and Cox, the veterinary surgeon. After the labours of the
+week they were having a little "fling" on Saturday night--convivially,
+yet in all reasonable temperance. The elder men--Jack, Mr. Dove, and
+Cox--greeted Andy with intimate and affectionate cordiality; a certain
+constraint marked the manner of Chinks and the Bird--they could not
+forget the afternoon's encounter. His evening coat too, and his
+shirt-front! Everybody marked them; but they had a notion that he might
+have caught that habit in London.
+
+Andy's welcome over, Mr. Dove of the Lion took up his tale at the point
+at which he had left it. Mr. Dove had not Jack Rock's education--he had
+never been at the grammar school but he was a shrewd sensible old
+fellow, who prided himself on the respectability of his "house" and felt
+his responsibilities as a publican without being too fond of the folk
+who were always dinning them into his ears.
+
+"I says to the girl, 'We don't want no carryings-on at the Lion.' That's
+what I says, Jack. She says, 'That wasn't nothing, Mr. Dove--only a give
+and take o' nonsense. The bar between us too! W'ere's the 'arm?' 'I
+don't like it, Miss Miles,' I says, 'I don't like it, that's all.' 'Oh,
+very good, Mr. Dove! You're master 'ere, o' course; only, if you won't
+'ave that, you won't keep up your takings, that's all!' That's the way
+she put it, Jack."
+
+"Bit of truth in it, perhaps," Jack opined.
+
+"There's a lot of truth in it," said the Bird solemnly. "Fellers like to
+show off before a good-looking girl--whether she's behind a bar or
+whether she ain't."
+
+"If there never 'adn't been barmaids, I wouldn't be the one to begin
+it," said Mr. Dove. "I knows its difficulties. But there they are--all
+them nice girls bred to it! What are ye to do with 'em, Jack?"
+
+"A drink doesn't taste any worse for being 'anded--handed--to you by a
+pretty girl," said Chinks with a knowing chuckle.
+
+"Then you give 'er one--then you stand me one--then you 'ave another
+yourself--just to say 'Blow the expense!' Oh, the girl knew the way of
+it--I ain't saying she didn't!" Mr. Dove smoked fast, evidently puzzled
+in his mind. "And she's a good girl 'erself too, ain't she, Tom?"
+
+Tom blushed--blushed very visibly. Miss Miles was not a subject of
+indifference to the Bird.
+
+"She's very civil-spoken," he mumbled shamefacedly.
+
+"That she is--and a fine figure of a girl too," added Jack Rock. "Know
+her, Andy?"
+
+Well, no! Andy did not know her; he felt profoundly apologetic. Miss
+Miles was evidently a person whom one ought to know, if one would be in
+the world of Meriton. The world of Meriton? It came home to him that
+there was more than one.
+
+Mr. Cox was a man who listened--in that respect rather like Andy
+himself; but, when he did speak, he was in the habit of giving a
+verdict, therein deviating from Andy's humble way.
+
+"Barmaids oughtn't to a' come into existence," he said. "Being there,
+they're best left--under supervision." He nodded at old Dove, as though
+to say, "You won't get any further than that if you talk all night," and
+put his pipe back into his mouth.
+
+"The doctor's right, I daresay," said old Dove in a tone of relief. It
+is always something of a comfort to be told that one's problems are
+insoluble; the obligation of trying to solve them is thereby removed.
+
+Jack accepted this ending to the discussion.
+
+"And what have you been doing with yourself, Andy?" he asked.
+
+Andy found a curious difficulty in answering. Tea and tennis at Nutley,
+dinner at Halton--it seemed impossible to speak the words without
+self-consciousness. He felt that Chinks and the Bird had their eyes on
+him.
+
+"Been at work all the week, Jack. Had a day-off to-day."
+
+Luckily Jack fastened on the first part of his answer. He turned a keen
+glance on Andy. "Business doin' well?"
+
+"Not particularly," Andy confessed. "It's a bit hard for a new-comer to
+establish a connection."
+
+"You're right there, Andy," commented old Mr. Dove, serenely happy in
+the knowledge of an ancient and good connection attaching to the Lion.
+
+"Oh, not particularly well?" Jack nodded with an air of what looked like
+satisfaction, though it would not be kind to Andy to be satisfied.
+
+"Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, weren't you?" asked Chinks suddenly.
+
+All faces turned to Andy.
+
+"Yes, I was, Chinks," he said.
+
+"Half expected you to supper, Andy," said Jack Rock.
+
+"Sorry, Jack. I would have come if I'd been free. But--"
+
+"Well, where were you?"
+
+There was no help for it.
+
+"I was dining out, Jack."
+
+Andy's tone became as airy as he could make it, as careless, as natural.
+His effort in this kind was not a great success.
+
+"Harry Belfield asked me to Halton."
+
+A short silence followed. They were good fellows, one and all of them;
+nobody had a jibe for him; the envy, if envy there were, was even as his
+own for Harry Belfield. Cox looked round and raised his glass.
+
+"'Ere's to you, Andy! You went to the war, you went to foreign parts. If
+you've learned a bit and got on a bit, nobody in Meriton's goin' to
+grudge it you--least of all them as knew your good father, who was a
+gentleman if ever there was one--and I've known some of the best,
+consequent on my business layin' mainly with 'orses."
+
+"Dined at Halton, did you?" Old Jack Rock beamed, then suddenly grew
+thoughtful.
+
+"Well, of course, I've always known Harry Belfield, and--" He was
+apologizing.
+
+"The old gentleman used to dine there--once a year reg'lar," Jack
+reminded him. "Quite right of 'em to keep it up with you." But still
+Jack looked thoughtful.
+
+Eleven-thirty sounded from the squat tower of the long low church which
+presided over the west end--the Fyfold end--of High Street. Old Cox
+knocked out his pipe decisively. "Bedtime!" he pronounced.
+
+Nobody contested the verdict. Only across Andy's mind flitted an
+outlandish memory that it was the hour at which one sat down to supper
+at the great restaurant--with Harry, the Nun, sardonic Miss Dutton,
+Billy Foot, and London at large--and at liberty.
+
+"You stop a bit, my lad," said Jack with affection, also with a touch of
+old-time authority. "I've something to say to you, Andy."
+
+Andy stayed willingly enough; he liked Jack, and he was loth to end that
+day.
+
+Jack filled and pressed, lit, pressed, and lit again, a fresh clay pipe.
+
+"You like all that sort of thing, Andy?" he asked. "Oh, you know what I
+mean--what you've been doin' to-day."
+
+"Yes, I like it, Jack." Andy saw that his dear old friend--dear Nancy's
+brother--had something of moment on his mind.
+
+"But it don't count in the end. It's not business, Andy." Jack's tone
+had become, suddenly and strangely, persuasive, reasonably
+persuasive--almost what one might call coaxing.
+
+"I've never considered it in the light of business, Jack."
+
+"Don't let it turn you from business, Andy. You said the timber was
+worth about two hundred a year to you?"
+
+"About that; it'll be more--or less--before I'm six months older. It's
+sink or swim, you know."
+
+"You've no call to sink," said Jack Rock with emphasis. "Your father's
+son ain't goin' to sink while Jack Rock can throw a lifebelt to him."
+
+"I know, Jack. I'd ask you for half your last crust, and you'd soak it
+in milk for me as you used to--if you had to steal the milk! But--well,
+what's up?"
+
+"I'm gettin' on in life, boy. I've enough to do with the horses. I do
+uncommon well with the horses. I've a mind to give myself to that. Not
+but what I like the meat. Still I've a mind to give myself to the
+horses. The meat's worth--Oh, I'll surprise you, Andy, and don't let it
+go outside o' this room--the meat's worth nigh on five hundred a year!
+Aye, nigh on that! The chilled meat don't touch me much, nor the London
+stores neither. Year in, year out, nigh on five hundred! Nancy loved
+you; the old gentleman never said a word as showed he knew a difference
+between me and him. Though he must have known it. I'm all alone, Andy.
+While I can I'll keep the horses--Lord, I love the horses! You drop your
+timber. Take over the meat, Andy. You're a learnin' chap; you'll soon
+pick it up from me and Simpson. Take over the meat, Andy. It's a safe
+five hundred a year!"
+
+So he pleaded to have his great benefaction accepted. He had meant to
+give in a manner perhaps somewhat magnificent; what he gave was to him
+great. The news of tea and tennis at Nutley, of dinner at Halton,
+induced a new note. Proud still, yet he pleaded. It was a fine
+business--the meat! Nor chilled meat, nor stores mattered seriously; his
+connection was so high-class. Five hundred a year! It was luxury,
+position, importance; it was all these in Meriton. His eyes waited
+anxiously for Andy's answer.
+
+Andy caught his hand across the table. "Dear old Jack, how splendid of
+you!"
+
+"Well, lad?"
+
+For the life of him Andy could say nothing more adequate, nothing less
+disappointing, less ungrateful, than "I'd like to think it over. And
+thanks, Jack!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+ENTERING FOR THE RACE.
+
+
+Andy Hayes had never supposed that he would be the victim of a problem,
+or exposed to the necessity of a momentous choice. Life had hitherto
+been very simple to him--doing his work, taking his pay, spending the
+money frugally and to the best advantage, sparing a small percentage for
+the Savings Bank, and reconciling with this programme the keen enjoyment
+of such leisure hours as fell to his lot. A reasonable, wholesome,
+manageable scheme of life! Or, rather, not a scheme at all--Andy was no
+schemer. That was the way life came--the way an average man saw it and
+accepted it. From first to last he never lost the conception of himself
+as an average man, having his capabilities, yet strictly conditioned by
+the limits of the practicable; free in his soul, by no means perfectly
+free in his activities. Andy never thought in terms of "environment" or
+such big words, but he always had a strong sense of what a fellow like
+himself could expect; the two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the
+same thing.
+
+In South Africa he had achieved his sergeant's stripes--not a
+commission, nor the Victoria Cross, nor anything brilliant. In Canada he
+had not become a millionaire, nor even a prosperous man or a dashing
+speculator; he had been thought a capable young fellow, who would,
+perhaps, be equal to developing the English side of the business. Andy
+might be justified in holding himself no fool: he had no ground for
+higher claims, no warrant for anything like ambition.
+
+Thus unaccustomed to problems, he had expected to toss uneasily (he had
+read of many heroes who "tossed uneasily") on his bed all night through.
+Lawn-tennis and a good dinner saved him from that romantic but
+uncomfortable ordeal; he slept profoundly till eight-thirty. Just before
+he was called--probably between his landlady's knock and her remark that
+it was eight-fifteen (she was late herself)--he had a brief vivid dream
+of selling a very red joint of beef to a very pallid Vivien Wellgood--a
+fantastic freak of the imagination which could have nothing to do with
+the grave matter in hand.
+
+Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile in the leisure of Sunday
+morning, with no train to catch, he remembered his father's B.A. Oxon;
+he recalled his mother's unvarying designation of old Jack as "the
+butcher;" he recollected Nancy's pride in marrying "out of her
+class"--it had been her own phrase, sometimes in boast, sometimes in
+apology. Though Nancy had a dowry of a hundred pounds a year--charged on
+the business, and now returned to Jack Rock since Nancy left no
+children--she never forgot that she had married out of her class. And
+into his father's? And into his own? "I'm a snob!" groaned Andy.
+
+He grew a little drowsy again, and in his drowsiness again played tennis
+at Nutley, again dined at Halton, again saw Vivien in the butcher's
+shop, and again was told by Mr. Belfield not to undervalue himself. But
+is to take nigh on five hundred pounds a year to undervalue
+yourself--you who are making a precarious two? And where lies the
+difference between selling wood and selling meat--wood from Canada and
+meat in Meriton? Andy's broad conception of the world told him that
+there was none; his narrow observation of the same sphere convinced him
+that the difference was, in its practical bearings, considerable. Nay,
+confine yourself to meat alone: was there no difference between
+importing cargoes of that questionable "chilled" article and disposing
+of joints of unquestionable "home-bred" over the counter? All the
+argument was for the home-bred. But to sell the home-bred joints one
+wore a blue apron and carried a knife and a steel--or, at all events,
+smacked of doing these things; whereas the wholesale cargoes of
+"chilled" involved no such implements or associations. Once again,
+Canada was Canada, New Zealand New Zealand, Meriton Meriton. With these
+considerations mingled two pictures--dinner at Halton, and Jack Rock's
+convivial party.
+
+"I'll get up," said Andy, too sore beset by his problem to lie abed any
+more.
+
+Church! The bells rang almost as soon as Andy--he had dawdled and
+lounged over dressing and breakfast in Sunday's beneficent leisure--was
+equipped for the day. In Meriton everybody went to Church, except an
+insignificant, tolerated, almost derided minority who frequented a very
+small, very ugly Methodist chapel in a by-street--for towns like Meriton
+are among the best preserves of the Establishment. Andy always went to
+church on a Sunday morning, answering the roll-call, attending parade,
+accepting the fruits of his fathers' wisdom, as his custom was. "Church,
+and a slice of that cold beef, and then a jolly long walk!" he said to
+himself. He had a notion that this typical English Sunday--the relative
+value of whose constituents he did not, and we need not, exactly
+assess--might help him to settle his problem. The cold beef and the long
+walk made part of the day's character--the "Church" completed it. This
+was Andy's feeling; it is not, of course, put forward as what he ought
+to have felt.
+
+So Andy went to church--in a cut-away coat and a tall hat, though it
+drizzled, and he would sooner have been in a felt hat, impervious to the
+rain. He sat just half-way down the nave, and it must be confessed that
+his attention wandered. He had such a very important thing to settle in
+this world; it would not go out of his mind, though he strove to address
+himself to the issues which the service suggested. He laboured under the
+disadvantage of not being conscious of flagrant iniquity, though he duly
+confessed himself a miserable offender. He looked round on the
+neighbours he knew so well; they were all confessing that they were
+miserable offenders. Andy believed it--it was in the book--but he
+considered most of them to be good and honest people, and he was almost
+glad to see that they did not look hopelessly distressed over their
+situation.
+
+The First Lesson caught and chained his wandering attention. It was
+about David and Jonathan; it contained the beautiful lament of friend
+for friend, the dirge of a brotherly love. The Rector's voice was rather
+sing-song, but it would have needed a worse delivery to spoil the words:
+"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou
+wast slain in thine high places! I am distressed for thee, my brother
+Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was
+wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the
+weapons of war perished!" Thus ended the song, so rich in splendour, so
+charged with sorrow.
+
+"Clinking!" was Andy's inward comment. Then in a flash came the thought,
+"Why, of course, I must ask Harry Belfield; he'll tell me what to do all
+right."
+
+The reference of his problem to Harry ought to have disposed of it for
+good, and left Andy free to perform his devotions with a single mind.
+But it only set him wondering what Harry would decide, wondering hard
+and--there was no escaping from it--jealously. His service in the ranks,
+his residence in communities at least professedly democratic, had not
+made him a thorough democrat, it seemed. He might have acquired the side
+of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call
+any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the
+harder task of seeing himself, whatever his work or station, as any
+man's equal--at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in
+Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton
+would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from
+equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted
+inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? That
+would mean that Harry thought of him (for all his kindness) as of Chinks
+or of the Bird. Could he risk discovering that, after all, Harry--and
+Harry's friends--thought of him like that? A sore pang struck him. Had
+he been at Nutley--at Halton--only on sufferance? He had an idea that
+Harry would send him to the butcher's shop--would do the thing ever so
+kindly, ever so considerately, but all the same would do it. "Well, it's
+the safe thing, isn't it, old chap?" he fancied Harry saying; and then
+returning to his own high ambitions, and being thereafter very
+friendly--whenever he chanced to pass the shop. Andy never deceived
+himself as to the quality of Harry's friendship: it lay, at the most, in
+appreciative acceptance of unbounded affection. It was not like
+Jonathan's for David. Andy was content. And must not acceptance, after
+all, breed some return? For whatever return came he was grateful. In
+this sphere there was no room even for theories of equality, let alone
+for its practice.
+
+For some little time back Andy had been surprised to observe a certain
+attribute of his own--that of pretty often turning out right. He
+accounted for it by saying that an average man, judging of average men
+and things, would fairly often be right--on an average; men would do
+what he expected, things would go as he expected--on an average. Such
+discernment as was implied in this Andy felt as no endowment, no
+clairvoyance; rather it was that his limitations qualified him to
+appreciate other people's. He would have liked to feel able to except
+Harry Belfield who should have no limitations--only he felt terribly
+sure of what Harry Belfield would say: Safety, and the shop!
+
+By this time the church service was ended, the cold beef eaten, most of
+the long walk achieved. For while these things went straight on to an
+end, Andy's thoughts rolled round and round, like a squirrel in a cage.
+
+"A man's only got one life," Andy was thinking to himself for the
+hundredth time as, having done his fifteen miles, he came opposite the
+entry to Nutley on his way home after his walk. What a lot of thoughts
+and memories there had been on that walk! Walking alone, a man is the
+victim--or the beneficiary--of any number of stray recollections, ideas,
+or fancies. He had even thought of--and smiled over--sardonic Miss
+Dutton's sardonic remark that he was worth ten of either Billy Foot
+or--Harry Belfield! Well, the poor girl had come one cropper; allowances
+must be made.
+
+Cool, serene, with what might appear to the eyes of less happy people an
+almost insolently secure possession of fortune's favour, Harry Belfield
+stood at Nutley gate. Andy, hot and dusty, winced at being seen by him;
+Harry was so remote from any disarray. Andy's heart leapt at the sight
+of his friend--and seemed to stand still in the presence of his judge.
+Because the thing--the problem--must come out directly. There was no
+more possibility of shirking it.
+
+Vivien was flitting--her touch of the ground seemed so light--down the
+drive, past the deep dark water, to join Harry for a stroll. His
+invitation to a stroll on that fine still Sunday afternoon had not been
+given without significance nor received without a thousand tremblings.
+So it would appear that it was Andy's ill-fortune to interrupt.
+
+Harry was smoking. He took his cigar out of his mouth to greet Andy.
+
+"Treadmill again, old boy? Getting the fat off?"
+
+"You're the one man I wanted to see." Then Andy's face fell; it was an
+awful moment. "I want to ask your advice."
+
+"Look sharp!" said Harry, smiling. "I've an appointment. She'll be here
+any minute."
+
+"Jack Rock's offered to turn the shop over to me, as soon as I learn the
+business. I say, I--I suppose I ought to accept? He says it's worth hard
+on five hundred a year. I say, keep that dark; he told me not to tell
+anybody."
+
+"Gad, is it?" said Harry, and whistled softly.
+
+Vivien came in sight of him, and walked more slowly, dallying with
+anticipation.
+
+"Splendid of him, isn't it? I say, I suppose I ought to--to think it
+over?" He had been doing nothing else for what seemed eternity.
+
+Harry laughed--that merry irresponsible laugh of his. "Blue suits your
+complexion, Andy. It seems damned funny--but five hundred a year! Worth
+that, is it now, really? And he'd probably leave you anything else he
+has."
+
+Silently-flitting Vivien was just behind Harry now. Andy saw her, Harry
+was unaware of her presence. She laid her finger on her lips, making a
+confidant of Andy, in her joy at a trick on her lover.
+
+"Of course it--well, it sort of defines matters--ties you down, eh?"
+Harry's laugh broke out again. "Andy, old boy, you'll look infernally
+funny, pricing joints to old Dove or Miss Pink! Oh, I say, I don't think
+you can do it, Andy!"
+
+"Don't you, Harry?" Andy's tone was eager, beseeching, full of hope.
+
+"But I suppose you ought." Harry tried to be grave, and chuckled again.
+"You'd look it uncommon well, you know. You'd soon develop the figure.
+Old Jack never has--doesn't look as if his own steaks did him any good.
+But you--we'd send you to Smithfield in no time!"
+
+"What are you two talking about?" asked Vivien suddenly.
+
+"Oh, there you are at last! Why, the funniest thing! Old Andy here wants
+to be a butcher."
+
+"I don't want--" Andy began.
+
+"A butcher! What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Harry!" She stood by
+Harry's side, so happy in him, so friendly to Andy.
+
+"Fact!" said Harry, and acquainted her with the situation.
+
+Vivien blushed red. "I--I'm very sorry I said what--what I did to you.
+You remember?"
+
+"Oh yes, I remember," said Andy.
+
+"Of course I--I never knew--I never thought--Of course, somebody
+must--Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Hayes!"
+
+Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. "All this is a secret
+to me."
+
+"I--I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like--well--places where they sold
+meat--raw meat, Harry."
+
+"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy asked.
+
+Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, old man," he said. "You've
+looked at all sides of it, of course. It's getting latish, Vivien."
+
+Andy would almost rather have had the verdict which he feared. "Your
+choice, old man"--and a shrug of the shoulders. Yet his loyalty
+intervened to tell him that Harry was right. It was his choice, and must
+be. He found Vivien's eyes on him--those distant, considering eyes.
+
+"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, Miss Wellgood?" he asked,
+mustering a smile with some difficulty.
+
+Vivien's lips drooped; her eyes grew rather sad and distinctly remote.
+She gave no judgment; she merely uttered a regret--a regret in which
+social and personal prejudice (it could not be acquitted of that)
+struggled with kindliness for Andy.
+
+"Oh, I thought you were going to be a friend of ours," she murmured
+sadly. She gave Andy a mournful little nod of farewell--of final
+farewell, as it seemed to his agitated mind--and walked off with Harry,
+who was still looking decidedly amused.
+
+That our great crises can have an amusing side even in the eyes of those
+who wish us well is one of life's painful discoveries. Andy had expected
+to be told that he must accept Jack Rock's offer, but he had not thought
+that Harry would chaff him about it. He tried, in justice to Harry and
+in anxiety not to feel sore with his hero, to see the humorous side for
+himself. He admitted that he could not. A butcher was no more ridiculous
+than any other tradesman. Well, the comic papers were rather fond of
+putting in butchers, for some inscrutable reason. Perhaps Harry happened
+to think of some funny picture. Could that idea give Andy a rag of
+comfort to wrap about his wound? The comfort was of indifferent quality;
+the dressing made the wound smart.
+
+He was alone in the road again, gay Harry and dainty Vivien gone,
+thinking little of him by now, no doubt. Yes, the choice must be his
+own. On one side lay safety for him and joy for old Jack; on the other a
+sore blow to Jack, and for himself the risk of looking a sad fool if he
+came to grief in London. So far the choice appeared easy.
+
+But that statement of the case left out everything that really tugged at
+Andy's heart. For the first time in his existence he was, vaguely and
+dimly, trying to conceive and to consider his life as a whole, and
+asking what he meant to do with it. Acutest self-reproach assailed him;
+he accused himself inwardly of many faults and follies--of ingratitude,
+of snobbishness, of a ridiculous self-conceit. Wasn't it enough for a
+chap like him to earn a good living honestly? Oughtn't he to be thankful
+for the chance? What did he expect anyhow? He was very scornful with
+himself, fiercely reproving all the new stirrings in him, yet at the
+same time trying to see what they came to; trying to make out what they,
+in their turn, asked, what they meant, what would content them. He could
+not satisfy himself what the stirrings meant nor whence they came. When
+he asked what would content them he could get only a negative answer;
+keeping the shop in Meriton would not. In regard neither to what it
+entailed nor to what it abandoned could the stirrings find contentment
+in that.
+
+He had been walking along slowly and moodily. Suddenly he quickened his
+pace; his steps became purposeful. He was going to Jack Rock's. Jack
+would be just having his tea, or smoking the pipe that always followed
+it.
+
+Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and his pipe already alight.
+When he saw Andy's face he chuckled.
+
+"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" he exclaimed joyfully.
+"Not as you did when you went away last night."
+
+"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed at this greeting.
+
+"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; and so you have, and
+better than that."
+
+All unknown to himself, Andy's face had answered to his feelings--to the
+sense of escape from bondage, of liberty restored, of possibilities once
+more within his reach. The renewed lightness of his heart had made his
+face happy and triumphant. But it fell with a vengeance now.
+
+"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of expression was bewildering.
+
+"I'm sorry--I've never been so sorry in my life--but I--I can't do it,
+Jack."
+
+Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin'
+so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never
+afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where
+does the fun come in, Andy?"
+
+"O lord, Jack, I can't--I can't tell you about it. I--"
+
+"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose you've got to do it."
+
+Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. Jack took it and gave it a
+squeeze.
+
+"I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over
+things since last night--and goin' back to old things too--about the old
+gentleman and Nancy."
+
+"It seems so awfully--Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten,
+Jack."
+
+"No, it don't," said old Jack quietly. "It's a bit of a facer for me--I
+tell you that straight--but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm
+sorry like."
+
+"If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it
+is--there isn't."
+
+"I'm not so sure about that." He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to
+be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy
+with Jack.
+
+"You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there,
+I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from
+my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no
+better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country
+through--I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right
+to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy,
+though."
+
+"Well, if there's anything else in the world--"
+
+"I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman--well, as I've
+told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin--unless I
+can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit
+of--of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times
+in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready
+makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself
+placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you,
+lad?" Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "No call for you to go back
+across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's
+bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put
+up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more
+about the shop."
+
+Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack."
+
+"You'll come to me first--you won't go to any one before me?" old Jack
+insisted jealously.
+
+"I'll come to you first--and last," said Andy.
+
+"Aye, lad." The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. "Then it'll be our
+race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pass the post
+first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you?
+The favourite don't always win."
+
+"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool
+as that."
+
+"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin'
+my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but
+what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but
+I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I
+did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have
+liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not
+him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old
+gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy,
+"Dinin' at Halton again to-night?"
+
+"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll
+have me. What have you got?"
+
+"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good
+condition."
+
+"Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen
+or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt."
+
+"We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely.
+
+"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door.
+
+"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," Jack called after him,
+pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.
+
+Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king,"
+and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had
+understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded.
+There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence.
+And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify
+his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as
+he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back
+into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous
+exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in
+London.
+
+Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells
+ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with
+these stern resolves. Memories of his "Saturday-off" glided across his
+mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded
+in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by
+suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for
+which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of
+which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of
+interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very
+comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All
+doors were open now.
+
+"I thought you were going to be a friend of ours." Andy, sitting in the
+twilight, listening to the bells, smiled at the echo of those regretful
+words. He cherished their kindliness, and smiled at their prejudice. The
+shop and Vivien were always connected in his mind since the first day he
+had met her. Her words came back to him now, summing up all that he
+would have lost by acceptance, hinting pregnantly at all that his
+refusal might save or bring.
+
+He stretched his arms and yawned; mind and body both enjoyed a happy
+relaxation after effort.
+
+"What a week-end it's been!" he thought. Indeed it had--a week-end that
+was the beginning of many things.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+WONDERFUL WORDS.
+
+
+Fully aware of his son's disposition and partly acquainted with his
+experiences, Mr. Belfield had urged Harry to "go slow" in his courting
+of Vivien Wellgood. An opinion that marriage was Harry's best chance was
+not inconsistent with advising that any particular marriage should be
+approached with caution and due consideration, that a solid basis of
+affection should be raised, calculated to stand even though the winds of
+time carried away the lighter and more fairy-like erections of Harry's
+romantic fancy. To do Harry justice, he did his best to obey the
+paternal counsel; but ideas of speed in such matters, and of cautious
+consideration, differ. What to Harry was sage delay would have seemed to
+many others lighthearted impetuosity. He waited a full fortnight after
+he was absolutely sure of--well, of the wonderful thing he was so sure
+of--a fortnight after he was absolutely sure that Vivien was absolutely
+sure also. (The fortnights ran concurrently.) Then he began to feel
+rather foolish. What on earth was he waiting for? A man could not be
+more than absolutely sure. Yet perhaps, in pure deference to his father,
+he would have waited a week longer, and so achieved, or sunk to, an
+almost cold-blooded deliberation. (He had known Mrs. Freere only a week
+before he declared--and abjured--a passion!) He was probably right; it
+was no good waiting. No greater security could be achieved by that.
+Whether the pursuit were deliberate or impetuous, an end must come to
+it. It was afterwards--when the chase was over and the quarry won--that
+the danger came for Harry and men like him. Sage delay and a solid basis
+of affection could not obviate that peril; the born hunter would still
+listen to the horn that sounded a new chase. Somewhere in the world--so
+the theory ran--there must live the woman who could deafen Harry's ears
+to a fresh blast of the horn. On that theory monogamy depends for its
+personal--as distinguished from its social--justification. So Mr.
+Belfield reasoned, with a smile, and counselled delay. But there were no
+means of ransacking the world, and even the theory itself was doubtful.
+Harry was an eager advocate of the theory, but thought that there was no
+need to search beyond little Meriton for the woman. At any rate, if
+Meriton did not hold her, she did not exist--the theory stood condemned.
+Still he would wait one week more--to please his father.
+
+A thing happened, a word was spoken, the like of which he had never
+anticipated. To defend himself laughingly against comparisons with the
+proverbial Lothario, to protest with burlesque earnestness against
+charges of susceptibility, fickleness, and extreme boldness of
+assault--Harry played that part well, and was well-accustomed to play
+it. But to suffer a challenge, to endure a taunt, to be subjected to a
+sneer, as a slow-coach, a faint-heart, a boy afraid to tell a girl he
+loved her, afraid to snatch what he desired! This was a new experience
+for Harry Belfield, new and unbearable. And when he had only been trying
+to please his father! Hang this pleasing of one's father, if it leads to
+things like that!
+
+He dashed up to Nutley one fine afternoon on his bicycle; he was
+teaching Vivien the exercise, and she was finding that even peril had
+its charms. But he was late for his appointment. Isobel Vintry sat alone
+on the terrace by the water.
+
+"How are you, Miss Vintry? I say, I'm afraid I'm late. Where's Vivien?"
+
+"You're nearly half an hour late."
+
+"Well, I know. I couldn't help it. Where is she?"
+
+"She got tired of waiting for you, and went for a walk in the wood."
+
+"She might have waited."
+
+"Well, yes. One would think she'd be accustomed to it by now," said
+Isobel. Her tone was lazily indolent, but her eyes were set on him in
+mockery.
+
+Harry looked at her with a sudden alertness. He looked at her hard.
+"Accustomed to waiting for me?"
+
+"Yes." She was exasperating in her malicious tranquillity, meaning more
+than she said, saying nothing that he could lay hold of, quite grave,
+and laughing at him.
+
+"Any hidden meanings, Miss Vintry?" For, as a fact, Harry had generally
+been punctual, and knew it.
+
+"Nothing but what's quite obvious," she retorted, dexterously fencing.
+
+"Or ought to be, to a man not so slow as I am?"
+
+"You slow, Mr. Harry! You're Meriton's ideal of reckless dash!"
+
+"Meriton's?"
+
+"That's the name of the town, isn't it? Or did you think I said
+London's?"
+
+Harry laughed, but he was stung; she put him on his mettle. "Oh no, I
+understood your emphasis."
+
+"You needn't keep her waiting any longer--while you talk about nothing
+to me. You'll find her in the west wood--if you want to. She left you
+that message."
+
+Harry had no doubt of what she meant, yet she had not spoken a word of
+it. The saying goes that words are given us to conceal our thoughts; has
+anybody ever ventured to say that lips and eyes are? Her meaning carried
+without speech; understanding it, Harry took fire.
+
+"I won't be late again, Miss Vintry," he said. "It would be a pity to
+disappoint Meriton in its ideal!"
+
+He would have liked to speak to her for a moment sincerely, to ask her
+if she really thought--But no, it could not be risked. She would make
+him feel and look ridiculous. Asking her opinion about the right moment
+to--to--to come up to the scratch (he could find no more dignified
+phrase)! Her eyes would never let him hear the end of that.
+
+"Still lingering?" she said, stifling a yawn. "While poor Vivien waits!"
+
+There are unregenerate atavistic impulses; Harry would dearly have liked
+to box her ears. "Meriton's ideal" rankled horribly. What business was
+it of hers? It could not concern her in the least--a conclusion which
+made matters worse, since disinterested criticism is much the more
+formidable.
+
+"I can find her in a few minutes."
+
+"Oh yes, if you look! Shall you be back to tea?"
+
+"Yes, we'll be back to tea, Miss Vintry. Both of us--together!"
+
+Isobel smiled lazily again. "Come, you are going to make an effort.
+Nothing of the laggard now!"
+
+"Oh, that's the word you've been thinking suits me?"
+
+"It really will if you don't get to the west wood soon."
+
+"I'll get there--and be back--in half an hour."
+
+The one thing he could not endure was that any woman--above all, an
+attractive woman--should find in him, Harry Belfield, anything that was
+ridiculous. She might chide, she might admire; laugh she must not, or
+her laugh should straightway be confounded. Isobel's hint that he had
+been a laggard in love banished, in a moment, the uncongenial prudence
+which he had been enforcing on himself.
+
+She watched him with a contemptuous smile as he strode off on his quest.
+Why had she mocked, why had she hinted? In part for pure mockery's sake.
+She found a malicious pleasure in giving his complacency a dig, in
+shaking up his settled good opinion of himself. In part from sheer
+impatience of the simple obvious love affair, to which she was called by
+her situation to play witness, chaperon, and practically accomplice. It
+was quite clear how it was going to end--better have the end at once!
+Her smile of contempt had been not so much for Harry as for the business
+on which he was engaged; yet Harry had his share of it, since her veiled
+banter had such power to move him. But that same thing in him had its
+fascination; there was a great temptation to exercise her power when the
+man succumbed to it so easily. In this case she had used it only to send
+him a little faster whither he was going already; but did that touch the
+limits of it?
+
+So she speculated within herself, yet not quite candidly. Her feeling
+for Harry was far from being all contempt. She mocked him with her
+"Meriton ideal," but she was not independent of the Meriton standard
+herself. To her as to the rest of his neighbours he was a bright star;
+to her as to them his looks, his charm, his accomplishments appealed. In
+her more than in most of them his emotions, so ready and quick to take
+fire, found a counterpart. To her more than to most of them indifference
+from him seemed in some sort a slight, a slur, a mark of failure.
+Unconsciously she had fallen into the Meriton way of thinking that
+notice from Harry Belfield was a distinction, his favour a thing marking
+off the recipient from less happy mortals. She had received little
+notice and little favour--a crumb or two of flirtation, flung from
+Vivien's rich table!
+
+To Vivien, after all the person most intimately concerned, Harry had
+seemed no laggard; she would have liked him none the worse if he had
+shown more of that quality. Nothing that he did could be wrong, but some
+things could be--and were--alarming. Her fastidiousness was not hurt,
+but her timidity was aroused. She feared crises, important moments, the
+crossing of Rubicons, even when the prospect looked fair and delightful
+on the other side of the stream.
+
+To-day, in the west wood, the crossing had to be made. It by no means
+follows that the man who falls in love lightly makes love lightly; he is
+as much possessed by the feeling he has come by so easily as though it
+were the one passion of a lifetime. In his short walk from Isobel
+Vintry's side to Vivien's, Harry's feelings had found full time to rise
+to boiling-point. Isobel was far out of his mind; already it seemed to
+him inconceivable that he should not, all along, have meant to make his
+proposal--to declare his love--to-day. How could he have thought to hold
+it in for an hour longer?
+
+"I know I was late, Vivien," he said. "I'm so sorry. But--well, I half
+believe I was on purpose." He was hardly saying what was untrue; he was
+coming to half-believe it--or very nearly.
+
+"On purpose! O Harry! Didn't you want to give me my lesson to-day?"
+
+"Not in bicycling," he answered, his eyes set ardently on her face.
+
+She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, which had been stripped
+of its bark and shaped into a primitive bench. He sat down by her and
+took her hand.
+
+"Your hand shakes! What's the matter? You're not afraid of me?"
+
+"Not of you--no, not of you, Harry."
+
+"Of something then? Is it of something I might do--or say?" He raised
+her hand to his lips and kissed it.
+
+It was no use trying to get answers out of her; she was past that; but
+she did not turn away from him, she let her eyes meet his in a silent
+appeal.
+
+"Vivien, I love you more than all my life!"
+
+"You--you can't," he could just hear her murmur, her lips scarcely
+parted.
+
+"More than everything in the world besides!"
+
+What wonderful words they were. "More than everything in the world
+besides!" "More than all my life!" Could there be such words? Could she
+have heard--and Harry uttered them? Her hands trembled violently in his;
+she was sore afraid amidst bewildering joy. Anything she had
+foreshadowed in her dreams seemed now so faint, so poor, against
+marvellous reality. Surely the echo of the wonderful words would be in
+her ears for all her life!
+
+She had none wherewith to answer them; her hands were his already; for
+the tears in her eyes she could hardly see his face, but she turned her
+lips up to his in mute consent.
+
+"That makes you mine," said Harry, "and me yours--yours only--for ever."
+
+She released her hands from his, and put her arm under his arm. Still
+she said nothing, but now she smiled beneath her dim eyes, and pressed
+his arm.
+
+"Not frightened now?" he asked softly. "You need never be frightened
+again."
+
+She spoke at last just to say "No" very softly, yet with a wealth of
+confident happiness.
+
+"The things we'll do, the things we'll see, the times we'll have!" cried
+Harry gaily. "And to think that it's only a month or two ago that the
+idea occurred to me!" He teased her. "Occurred to us, Vivien?"
+
+"Oh no, Harry. Well, then, yes." She laughed lightly, pressing his arm
+again. "But never that it could be like this."
+
+"Is this--nice?" he asked in banter.
+
+"Is it--real?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes, it's real and it's nice--real nice, in fact,"
+laughed Harry.
+
+"Don't talk just for a little while," she begged, and he humoured her,
+watching her delicate face during the silence she entreated. "You must
+tell them," she said suddenly, with a return of her alarm.
+
+"Oh yes, I'll do all the hard work," he promised her, smiling.
+
+She fell into silence again, the wonderful words re-echoing in her
+ears--"More than everything in the world besides!" "More than all my
+life!"
+
+"I promised Miss Vintry we'd be back to tea. Do you think you can face
+her?" asked Harry.
+
+"Yes, with you. But you've got to tell. You promised."
+
+"You'll have somebody to help you over all the stiles--now and
+hereafter."
+
+The suggestion brought a radiant smile of happiness to her lips; it
+expressed to her the transformation of her life. So many things had been
+stiles to her, and her father's gospel was that people must get over
+their own stiles for themselves; that was the lesson he inculcated, with
+Isobel Vintry to help him. But now--well, if stiles were still possible
+things at all, with Harry to help her over they lost all their terrors.
+
+"We'll remember this old tree-trunk. In fact I think that the proper
+thing is to carve our initials on it--two hearts and our initials.
+That's real keeping company!"
+
+"Oh no," she protested with a merry little laugh. "Keeping company!
+Harry!"
+
+"Well, I'll let you off the hearts, but I must have the initials--very,
+very small. Do let me have the initials!"
+
+"Somewhere where nobody will look, nobody be likely to see them!"
+
+"Oh yes; I'll find a very secret place! And once a year--on the
+anniversary, if we're here--we'll come and freshen them up with a
+penknife."
+
+He had his out now, and set about his pleasant silly task, choosing one
+end of the tree-trunk, near to the ground, where, in fact, nobody who
+was not in the secret would find the record.
+
+"There you are--a beautiful monogram; 'H' and 'V' intertwined. I'm proud
+of that!"
+
+"So am I--very proud, Harry!" she said softly, taking his arm as they
+moved away. Was she not blessed among the daughters of women? To say
+nothing of being the envy of all Meriton!
+
+And for Harry the past was all over, the dead had buried its dead. The
+new life--and the life of the new man--had begun.
+
+Wellgood was back from a ride round his farms--a weekly observance with
+him. He had been grimly encouraging the good husbandmen, badly scaring
+the inefficient, advising them all to keep their labourers in order, and
+their womankind as near to reason as could be hoped for. Now he had his
+hour of relaxation over tea. He was a great tea-drinker--four or five
+cups made his allowance. Tea is often the libertinism of people
+otherwise severe. He leant back in his garden-chair, his gaitered legs
+outstretched, and drank his tea, Isobel Vintry replenishing the
+swiftly-emptied cup. She performed the office absent-mindedly--with an
+air of detachment which hinted that she would fulfil her duties, routine
+though they might be, but must not be expected to think about them.
+
+"Where's Vivien?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"In the west wood--with Mr. Harry. He said they'd be back for tea."
+
+"Oh!" He finished his third cup and handed the vessel over to her to be
+refilled. "Things getting on?"
+
+"Yes, I think so. Here's your tea."
+
+"Why do you think so? Give me another lump of sugar."
+
+"Sugar at that rate'll make you put on too much weight. Well, I gave him
+a hint that the pear was ripe."
+
+"You did? Well, I'm hanged!"
+
+"You think I'm very impudent?"
+
+"What did you say? But I daresay you said nothing. You've a trick with
+those eyes of yours, Isobel."
+
+"I've devoted them solely to supervising your daughter's education, Mr.
+Wellgood."
+
+"Oh yes!" he chuckled. He liked impudence from a woman; to primitive
+man--Wellgood had a good leaven of the primitive--it is an agreeable
+provocation.
+
+"I'll bet you," she said--with her challenging indolence that seemed to
+say "Disturb me if you can!"--"I'll bet you we hear of the engagement in
+ten minutes."
+
+"You know a lot about it! What'll you bet me?"
+
+"Anything you like--from a quarter's salary downwards!" said Isobel. She
+sat facing the path from the west wood. On it she saw two figures, arm
+in arm. Wellgood had his back turned that way. The situation was
+favourable for Isobel's bet.
+
+A light hand in flirtation could not be expected from a man to whom the
+heavy hand--the strong decisive grip--was gospel in matters public and
+private. Besides, he had grown impatient; his affair waited on Harry's.
+
+"From a quarter's salary downwards? Will you bet me a kiss?"
+
+"Yes," she smiled, "if losing means the kiss. Because I know I shall
+win, Mr. Wellgood."
+
+Harry and Vivien came near, still exalted in dreams, the new man and the
+girl transformed. Wellgood had not noticed them, perhaps would have
+forgotten them anyhow.
+
+"If winning meant the kiss?" he said.
+
+"I don't bet as high as that, except on a certainty,"
+smiled Isobel. "Another cup?"
+
+"No, but I tell you, Isobel--" He leant over the table towards her.
+
+"Don't tell me, and don't touch me! They're just behind you, Mr.
+Wellgood."
+
+He swore under his breath. A plaguy mean trick this of women's--defying
+just when they are safe! He had to play the father--and the
+father-in-law to be; to seem calm, wise, benevolent, paternally
+affectionate, patronizing to young love from the sage eminence of years
+that he was just, a second ago, forgetting.
+
+Since she had come into his house, to be Vivien's companion and
+exemplar, a year ago, they had had many of these rough defiant
+flirtations. He was not easily snubbed, she not readily frightened. They
+had worked together over Vivien's rather severe training in a
+matter-of-fact way; but there had been this diversion for hours of
+leisure. Why not? Flirtation of this order was not the conventional
+thing between the girl's father and the girl's companion. No matter!
+They were both vigorously self-confident people; the flirtation suited
+the taste of at least one of them, and served the ends of both.
+
+The near approach of the lovers--the imminence of a declared
+engagement--made a change. Wellgood advanced more openly; Isobel
+challenged and repelled more impudently. The moment for which he had
+waited seemed near at hand; she suffered under an instinctive impulse to
+prove that she too had her woman's power and could use it. But, deep
+down in her mind, the proof was more for Harry's enlightenment than for
+Wellgood's subjugation. She had an overwhelming desire not to appear, in
+Harry's conquering eyes, a negligible neglected woman. She mocked the
+Meriton standard--but shared it.
+
+"Look round!"
+
+He obeyed her.
+
+"Arm in arm!"
+
+He started, and glowered at the approaching couple. Vivien hastily
+dropped Harry's arm.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing--she's just afraid! It's settled all the same. And
+within my ten minutes!"
+
+"Aye, you're a--!" He smiled in grim fierce admiration.
+
+"Shall I take three months' notice, Mr. Wellgood?" She was lying back in
+her chair again, insolent and serenely defiant. "I might have betted
+after all, and been quite safe," she said.
+
+Harry victorious in conquest, Vivien with her more precious conquest in
+surrender, were at Wellgood's elbow. He had to wrench himself away from
+his own devices.
+
+"Well, what have you got to say, Vivien?" he asked his daughter rather
+sharply. She was looking more than usually timid. What was there to be
+frightened at?
+
+"She hasn't got anything to say," Harry interposed gaily. "I'm going to
+do the talking. Are you feeling romantic to-day, Mr. Wellgood?"
+
+Wellgood smiled sourly. "You know better than to try that on me, Master
+Harry."
+
+"Yes! Well, I'll cut that, but I just want to mention--as a matter of
+business, which may affect your arrangements--that Vivien has promised
+to marry me."
+
+Vivien had stolen up to her father and now laid her hand lightly on his
+shoulder. He looked at her with a kindly sneer, then patted her hand.
+"You like the fellow, do you, Vivien?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"Then I daresay we can fix matters up. Shake hands, Harry."
+
+Vivien kissed his forehead; the two men shook hands.
+
+"I daresay you're not exactly taken by surprise," said Harry, laughing.
+"I've been calling rather often!"
+
+"It had struck me that something was up."
+
+Wellgood was almost genial; he was really highly pleased. The match was
+an excellent one for his daughter; he liked Harry, despite a lurking
+suspicion that he was "soft;" and the way now lay open for his own plan.
+
+"You haven't asked me for my congratulations, Vivien," said Isobel.
+
+Vivien went over to her and kissed her, then sat down by the table, her
+eyes fixed on Harry. She was very quiet in her happiness; she felt so
+peaceful, so secure. Such was the efficacy of those wonderful words!
+
+"And I wish you all happiness too, Mr. Harry," Isobel went on with a
+smile. "Perhaps you'll forgive me if I say that I'm not altogether taken
+by surprise either?"
+
+Harry did not quite like her smile; there seemed to be a touch of
+ridicule about it. It covertly reminded him of their talk before tea,
+before he went to the west wood.
+
+"I never had much hope of blinding your eyes, so I didn't even try, Miss
+Vintry."
+
+"I was thinking it must come to a head soon," she remarked.
+
+Harry flushed ever so slightly. She was hinting at the laggard in love
+again; it almost seemed as if she were hinting that she had brought the
+affair to a head. In the west wood he had forgotten her subtle taunt; he
+had thought of nothing but his passion, and how impatient it was. Now he
+remembered, and knew that he was being derided, even in his hour of
+triumph. He felt another impulse of anger against her. This time it took
+the form of a desire to show her that he was no fool, not a man a woman
+could play with as she chose. He would like to show her what a dangerous
+game that was. He was glad when, having shot her tiny sharp-pointed
+dart, she rose and went into the house. "You'll want to talk it all over
+with Mr. Wellgood!" He did not want to think of her; only of Vivien.
+
+"Poor Isobel!" said Vivien. "She's very nice about it, isn't she?
+Because she can't really be pleased."
+
+Both men looked rather surprised; each was roused from his train of
+thought. Both had been thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of
+neither consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"
+
+"Why not?" asked Harry.
+
+"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."
+
+"Of course! I never thought of that."
+
+"Don't you young people be in too great a hurry," said Wellgood, with
+the satisfied smile of a man with a secret. "You're not going to be
+married the day after to-morrow! There's lots of time for something to
+turn up for Isobel. She needn't be pitied. Perhaps she may be tired of
+you and your ways, young woman, and glad to be rid of her job!"
+
+"Lucky there's somebody ready to take her place, then, isn't it?"
+laughed Harry.
+
+Wellgood laughed too as he rose. "It seems very lucky all round," he
+said, smiling again as he left them. He was quite secure that they would
+spend no time in thinking about good luck other than their own.
+
+The lovers sat on beside the water till twilight fell, talking of a
+thousand things, yet always of one thing--of one thing through which
+they saw all the thousand other things, and saw them transfigured with
+the radiance of the one. Even the bright hues of Harry's future grew a
+hundredfold brighter when beheld through this enchanted medium, while
+Vivien's simple ideal of life seemed heaven realized. Visions were their
+only facts, and dreams alone their truth. Neither from without nor from
+within could aught harm the airy fabric that they built--Vivien out of
+ignorance, Harry by help of that fine oblivion of his.
+
+For a long while Isobel Vintry--fled to her room lest Wellgood should
+seek her--watched them from her window with envious eyes. For them the
+dreams; for her, most uninspiring reality! At last she turned away with
+a weary impatient shrug.
+
+"Well, it's a good thing to have it over and done with, anyhow!" she
+exclaimed, and smiled once more to think how she had stung Harry
+Belfield with her insinuations and her "Meriton ideal." If we cannot be
+happy ourselves, it is a temptation to make happy people a little
+uncomfortable. In that lies an evidence of power consolatory to the
+otherwise unfortunate.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+"INTERJECTION."
+
+
+Settling the question of the butcher's shop had seemed to Andy Hayes
+like a final solution of life's problems. Therein he showed the quality
+of his mind. One thing at a time, settle that. As he had learnt to say
+'on the other side,' "Don't look for trouble!" He had yet to realize
+what the man of imagination knows instinctively--that the problems of
+life end only with life itself.
+
+An eight-ten train to town is not, however, favourable to such a large
+and leisurely survey as a consideration of life in its totality. It
+involved a half-hour's race for the station. And this morning the
+Bird--standing at the door of his father's hostelry--delayed a
+hard-pressed man who had absolutely no time to stop.
+
+"Heard the news about Mr. Harry?" cried the Bird across the street.
+
+Andy slowed down. "About Harry?"
+
+"Engaged to Miss Wellgood!" shouted the Bird.
+
+"No, is he?" yelled Andy in reply. "Hurrah!"
+
+It was but two days after the great event had happened. Recently Andy
+had seen nothing of his Meriton friends. He had been working early and
+late in town; down at seven-thirty, up to work again at eight-ten. He
+had been a very draught-horse, straining at a load which would not
+move--straining at it on a slippery slope. Business was so "quiet."
+Could not work command success? At present he had to be content with the
+meagre consolation proffered to Sempronius. He must be at the office not
+a second later than nine. If the American letters came in, replies could
+get off by the same day's mail.
+
+Yet the news of the engagement--he wished he could have had it from
+Harry's own lips--cut clean across his personal preoccupations. How
+right! How splendid! Dear old Harry! And how he would like to
+congratulate Miss Vivien! All that on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Andy
+was one of the world's toilers; for them works of charity, friendship,
+and love have for the most part to wait for Saturday afternoon or
+Sunday; the other five days and a half--it's the struggle for life,
+grimly individual.
+
+He loved Harry Belfield, and stored up untold enthusiasm for Saturday
+afternoon or Sunday--those altruistic hours when we have time to
+consider our own souls and other people's fortunes. But to-day was only
+Thursday; Thursday is well in the zone of the struggle. Andy's timber
+business was--just turning the corner! So many businesses always are.
+Shops expensively installed, hotels over-built, newspapers--above all,
+newspapers--started with a mighty flourish of heavy dividends combined
+with national regeneration--they are all so often just turning the
+corner. The phrase signifies that you hope you are going to lose next
+year rather less than you lost last year. If somebody will go on
+supplying the deficit--in that sanguine spirit which is the strength of
+a commercial nation--or can succeed in inducing others to supply it in a
+similar spirit, the corner may in the end be turned. If not, you stay
+this side of the magical corner of success, and presently find yourself
+in another--to be described as "tight." A life-long experience of
+questions--of problems and riddles--was not, for Andy Hayes, to stop
+short at the felicitous solution of the puzzle about Jack Rock's
+butcher's shop in Meriton High Street.
+
+Andy had to postpone reflection on Harry Belfield's happiness and
+Vivien's emancipation. Yet he had a passing appreciation of the end of
+ordeals--of Curly, cross-country rides, and the like. Would the mail
+from Montreal bring a remittance for the rent of the London office? The
+other business men in the fast morning train were grumpy. Money was
+tight, the bank rate stiff, times bad. No moment to launch out! There
+were sounded all the familiar jeremiads of the City train. What could
+you expect with a Liberal Government in office? The stars in their
+courses fought against business. Nobody would trust anybody. It was not
+that nobody had the money--nobody ever has--but hardly anybody was
+believed to be able, in the last resort, to get it. That impression
+spells collapse. The men in the first-class carriage--Andy had decided
+that it was on the whole "good business" to stand himself a first-class
+"season"--seemed well-fed, affluent, possessed of good cigars; yet they
+were profoundly depressed, anticipative of little less than imminent
+starvation. One of them explicitly declared his envy of a platelayer
+whom the train passed on the line.
+
+"Twenty-two bob a week certain," he said. "Better than losing a couple
+of hundred pounds, Jack. Not much longer hours either, and an open-air
+life!"
+
+"Well, take it on," Jack, who had a cynical turn of humour, advised. "He
+(the platelayer he meant) couldn't very well lose more than you do; and
+you'll never make more than he does. Swap!"
+
+The first speaker retired behind the _Telegraph_ in some disgust. It is
+hard to meet a rival wit as early as eight-thirty in the morning.
+
+The American mail was not in when Andy
+reached Dowgate Hill, in which important locality
+he occupied an insignificant attic. A fog off the
+coast of Ireland accounted for the delay. But
+on his table, as indicated by the small boy who
+constituted his staff--the staff would, of course,
+be larger when that corner was turned--lay a
+cable. There was no other correspondence. Things
+were quiet. Andy could not suppress a reflection
+that a rather later train would have done as well.
+Still there was a cable; no doubt it advised
+the remittance. The remittance was a matter of
+peremptory necessity, unless Andy were to empty
+his private pocket.
+
+"Incontestable--Incubation--Ineffective." So ran the cable.
+
+Andy scratched his nose and reached for the code.
+
+If ever a digression were allowable, if expatiation on human fortune and
+vicissitudes were still the fashion, what a text lies in the cable code!
+This cold-blooded provision for all emergencies, this business-like
+abbreviation of tragedy! "Asbestos" means "Cannot remit." "Despairing"
+signifies "If you think it best." (Could despair sound more despairing?)
+"Patriotic--Who are the heaviest creditors?" Passing to other fields of
+life: "Risible--Doctor gives up hope." "Refreshing--Sinking steadily;
+prepare for the worst." "Resurrection--There is no hope of recovery."
+"Resurgam--Realization of estate proceeding satisfactorily."
+
+The cable code is a masterly epitome of life.
+
+However Andy Hayes was not given to digression or to expatiation.
+Patiently he turned the leaves to find the interpretation of his own
+three mystic words.
+
+The result was not encouraging.
+
+"Incontestable--Incubation--Ineffective."
+
+Which being interpreted ran: "Most essential to retrench all unnecessary
+expense. Cannot see prospects of your branch becoming paying
+proposition. Advise you to close up and return as soon as possible."
+
+There was a fourth word. The "operator"--Andy still chose in his mind
+the transatlantic term--had squeezed it into a corner, so that it did
+not at first catch the reader's notice. "Infusoria." Andy turned up
+"Infusoria." It was a hideously uncompromising word, as the code
+rendered it; the code makes a wonderful effort sometimes. "Infusoria"
+meant: "We expect you to act on this advice at once, and we cannot be
+responsible for expenditure beyond what is strictly necessary to wind
+up."
+
+Andy did not often smoke in his office in business hours, but he had a
+cigarette now.
+
+"Well, that's pretty straight," he thought. The instructions were
+certainly free from ambiguity. "Made a failure of it!" The cigarette
+tended to resignation. "Needed a cleverer fellow than I am to make it
+go." This was his usual sobriety of judgment. "Rather glad to be out of
+it." That was the draught-horse's instinctive cry of joy at being
+released from a hopeless effort. They were right on the other side--it
+was not a "paying proposition." He was good at seeing facts; they did
+not offend him. So many people are offended at facts--really a useless
+touchiness.
+
+"All right!" said Andy, flinging the end of the cigarette into the
+grate, and taking up that fateful code again.
+
+"Passionately" met his need: "Will act on instructions received without
+delay and with all possible saving of expense."
+
+"Yes," said Andy, his stylograph moving in mid-air. He turned over the
+pages again, seeking another word, thinking very hard whether he should
+send that other word when he found it.
+
+The word was "Interjection." It meant: "My personal movements uncertain.
+Will advise you of them at the earliest moment possible."
+
+To cable "Interjection" would mean an admission of considerable import,
+both to his principals in Montreal and to himself. It would imply that
+he was thinking of cutting adrift. Andy was thinking terribly hard about
+it. It might cause his principals to consider that he was taking too
+much on himself. Andy was not a partner; he was only on a salary, with a
+small contingent profit from commissions. It seemed complimentary--and
+delusive--now to call the profit contingent; the salary was all he had
+in the world. Such an independently minded word as "Interjection"
+incurred a risk. Before he had done thinking about cutting adrift, he
+might find himself cut adrift. The principals were peremptory men. In
+view of his failure to make the London branch a "paying proposition,"
+perhaps he was lucky in that he had not been cut adrift already. There
+was a code word for that--"Seltzer." It meant, "We shall be able to
+dispense with your services on the ---- prox."
+
+"Seltzer thirtieth" would have thrown--and might still throw--Andy on
+the mercy of the world. Turning up the code (if you are not thoroughly
+familiar with it) may be interesting work--"as exciting as any novel,"
+as reviewers kindly say of books of travel.
+
+Andy had suddenly, and with some surprise, become aware how very much he
+wished not to go back to Montreal, pleasant city as it is. When he was
+puzzling about the Meriton shop, Canada had stood for freedom, scope,
+and opportunity. Why should it not stand for them still, just as well
+as, or better than, London? Canada and London had ranked together then,
+in sharp opposition to the narrow limits of his native town. Nobody
+could deny the scope and the opportunities of Canada. But Andy did not
+want to go back. He was profoundly apologetic to himself about the
+feeling; he would not have ventured to justify it; it was wrong. But,
+after his long exile, his native land had laid hold on him--England with
+her ripe rich sweetness, London baited with a thousand lures. He had no
+pluck, no grit, no go; so he said to himself. There were fortunes to be
+made over there--a mighty nation to help in building up. That was all
+true, but he did not want to go. The stylograph hung longingly over the
+cable form; it wanted to write "Interjection."
+
+The fog had apparently been very persistent in the Irish Channel, for no
+mail came; the principals in Montreal seemed quite right about the
+London branch, for no business offered. At half-past twelve Andy
+determined to go out for lunch and a walk. By the time he got back the
+mail might have come--and he might have made up his mind whether or not
+to cable "Interjection."
+
+A man who has it in mind to risk his livelihood often decides that he
+may as well treat himself liberally at lunch or dinner. Monte Carlo is a
+terribly expensive place to stay at if you do not gamble; if you do, it
+costs nothing--at least, what it costs does not matter, which comes to
+the same thing. Andy decided that, having two hours off, he would go
+west for lunch. His thoughts were on the great restaurant by the river.
+If he were really leaving London in a week (obedient to "Infusoria"), it
+would be interesting to go there once again.
+
+Entering the grill-room, on his left as he came in from the Strand (at
+the last moment the main restaurant had struck him as absurd for his
+chop), he was impressed by the air of habituality worn by his
+fellow-guests. What was humdrum to them was a treat to him, their
+routine his adventure. They knew the waiters, knew the maître d'hôtel,
+and inquired after the cook. They knew one another too, marking who was
+there to-day, who was an absentee. Andy ate his chop, with his mouth
+healthily hungry, with his eyes voracious of what passed about him.
+
+He sat near a glass screen some six or seven feet high, dividing the
+room in two. Suddenly from the other side of it came a voice:
+
+"Hallo, is that you, Hayes? Come and have your coffee with us. Where
+have you been all this time?"
+
+There they sat--and there they might have been sitting ever since Andy
+parted from them, so much at home they looked--Billy Foot, the Nun, and
+Miss Dutton. Another young man was with them, completing the party. He
+was plump, while Billy was thin--placid, while Billy always suggested a
+reserve of excitement; but he had a likeness to Billy all the same.
+
+"Oh, I say, may I come?" cried Andy, boyishly loud; but the luck of
+meeting these friends again was too extraordinary. He trotted round the
+glass screen with his tumbler in his hand; he had not quite finished his
+lager beer.
+
+"Chair and coffee for Mr. Hayes," said Billy Foot. "You remember him,
+girls? My brother, Hayes--Gilly, Mr. Hayes. How did you leave Harry?"
+
+"How awfully funny I should meet you!" gasped Andy.
+
+"It's not funny if you ever come here," observed Miss Dutton; "because
+we come here nearly every day--with somebody." She was more sardonic
+than ever.
+
+The Nun--she was not, by the way, a Nun any longer, but a Quaker girl
+("All in the same line," her manager said, with a fine indifference to
+the smaller theological distinctions), and now sang of how, owing to her
+having to wear sombre garments (expressed by a charming dove-tinted
+costume that sent the stalls mad), she had lost her first and only
+love--the Nun smiled at Andy in a most friendly fashion.
+
+"I'd quite forgotten you," she remarked, "but I'm glad to see you again.
+Let's see, you're--?"
+
+"Harry Belfield's friend."
+
+"Yes, you're Mr. Hayes. Oh, I remember you quite well. Been away since?"
+
+"No, I've been here. I mean--at work, and so on."
+
+"Oh, well!" sighed the Nun (Andy ventured to call her the Nun in his
+thoughts, though she had changed her persuasion). She seemed to express
+a gentle resignation to not being able to keep track of people; she met
+so many, coming every day to the restaurant.
+
+"I ask five, I want four, but with just the right fellow I'd take
+three," said Billy's brother Gilly, apparently continuing a conversation
+which seemed to interest nobody but himself; for the Nun was looking at
+neighbouring hats, Miss Dutton had relapsed into gloomy abstraction, and
+Billy was thoughtfully revolving a small quantity of old brandy round a
+very large glass. Gilly had an old brandy too, but his attitude towards
+it was one of studied neglect. His favourite vintage had given out the
+year before, so his life was rather desolate.
+
+"Harry's engaged," Andy volunteered to the Nun, glad to possess a remark
+of such commanding interest.
+
+"To a girl?" asked the Nun, absently and without turning her face
+towards him.
+
+"Well, of course!" said Andy. What else could one be engaged to?
+
+"Everybody comes to it," said Billy Foot. "Take three, if you must,
+Gilly."
+
+"At a push," said his brother sadly.
+
+"I hate that hat on that woman," said the Nun with a sudden vehemence,
+nodding her head at a fat woman in a large purple erection. Hats moved
+the Nun perhaps more than anything else in the world.
+
+"Rot, Doris," commented Miss Dutton. "It's what they're wearing."
+
+"But they aren't all as fat as that," the Nun objected.
+
+"Flourishing, Hayes?" asked Billy Foot.
+
+"Well, I rather think I've just lost my job," said Andy.
+
+"If you're looking out for a really sound way of investing five thousand
+pounds--" Gilly began.
+
+"Four to a gentleman," said Billy.
+
+"Three to a friend," corrected the Nun.
+
+"Oh, what the devil's the good of trying to talk business here?" cried
+Gilly in vexation. "Only a chance is a chance, you know."
+
+Billy Foot saw that Andy was puzzled. "Gilly--my brother, you know--I
+suppose I introduced you?--has unfortunately come here with a problem on
+his mind. I didn't know he had one, or I wouldn't have asked him,
+because problems bore the girls."
+
+"No, they don't. It interests me to see you trying to think." This, of
+course, from Miss Dutton. The Nun, now imbibing an iced green fluid
+through a straw, was sublimely abstracted.
+
+"My brother," Billy resumed, with a glance of protest towards his
+interruptor, "has, for some reason or another, become a publisher.
+That's all right. Not being an author, I don't complain. Having done
+pretty badly--"
+
+"The public's no good," said Gilly gloomily.
+
+"He wants to drag in some unfortunate person to be his partner. I
+understand, Gilly, that, if really well recommended, your accepted
+partner can lose his time, and the rest of his money, for no more than
+three thousand pounds--paid down on the nail without discount?"
+
+"You've a charming way of recommending the project to Mr. Hayes'
+consideration," said Gilly, in reproachful resignation.
+
+"To my consideration," Andy exclaimed, laughing. "What's it got to do
+with me?"
+
+"It's a real chance," Gilly persisted. "And if you're out of a job, and
+happen to be able to lay your hands on five--"
+
+"Three!" whispered Billy.
+
+"--thousand pounds, you might do worse than look into it. Now, I must
+go," and with no more than a nod to serve as farewell to all the party
+he rose and sauntered slowly away. He had not touched his brandy; his
+brother reached over thoughtfully and appropriated it. "I may as well,
+as I'm going to pay for it," he remarked.
+
+Suddenly Andy found himself telling the Nun all about his cable and his
+affairs. The other two listened; all three were very friendly and
+sympathetic; even Miss Dutton forbore to sneer. Andy expanded in the
+kindly atmosphere of interest. "I don't want to go back, you know," he
+said with a smile that appealed for understanding. "But I must, unless
+something turns up."
+
+"Well, why not talk to Gilly?" the Nun suggested.
+
+"Yes, you go round and talk to Gilly," agreed Billy. "Rotting apart,
+he's got a nice little business, and one or two very good schemes on,
+but he wants a bit more capital, as well as somebody to help him. He
+doesn't look clever, but in five years he's built up--yes, a tidy little
+business. You wouldn't come to grief with Gilly."
+
+"But I haven't got the money, or anything like it. I've got nothing."
+
+The Nun and Billy exchanged glances. The Nun nodded to Billy, but he
+shook his head. Miss Dutton watched them for a moment, then she smiled
+scornfully.
+
+"I don't mind saying it," she observed, and to Andy's astonishment she
+asked him, "What about your old friend the butcher?"
+
+"How did you hear of that?"
+
+"Harry Belfield was up one day last week lunching here, and--"
+
+"We were awfully amused," the Nun interrupted, with her pretty rare
+gurgle. "If you'd done it, we were all coming down to buy chops and give
+you a splendid send-off. I rather wish you had." The imagined scene
+amused the Nun very much.
+
+"Jack Rock? Oh, I couldn't possibly ask him, after refusing his offer!"
+
+"What did you say his name was?" the Nun inquired.
+
+Andy repeated the name, and the Nun nodded, smiling still. Andy became
+portentously thoughtful.
+
+"We have sown a seed!" said Billy Foot. "I'll drop a word to Gilly to
+keep the offer open. Now you must go, girls, because I've got some work
+to do in the world, though you never seem to believe it."
+
+"Heavens, I must go too!" cried Andy, with a horrified look at his
+watch.
+
+"All right, you go," said Miss Dutton. "We promised to meet a man here
+at half-past three and go motoring."
+
+"Did we? I don't believe we did," objected the Nun. "I don't think I
+want to go."
+
+"Then don't," said Miss Dutton. "I shall go anyhow."
+
+"Well, I'll wait and see the car," the Nun conceded. She did not appear
+to have any curiosity about its owner. "You really must come and see
+me--and don't go back to Canada!" she called after Andy. Then, when she
+was alone with her friend, she said, "No, I shan't come motoring, Sally,
+I shall go home and write a letter. So much trouble is caused in this
+world by people being afraid to do the obvious thing. Now I'm never
+afraid to do the obvious thing."
+
+"That's just what you said the night you found me--and took me home with
+you," said Miss Dutton. She spoke very low, and her voice was strangely
+soft.
+
+"It was the obvious thing to do, and I did it," the Nun pursued, shaking
+her head at Sally in mild rebuke of an uncalled-for touch of sentiment.
+"I shall do the obvious thing now. I shall write to Mr. Jack Rock."
+
+"You'll get yourself into a row, meddling with other people's business."
+
+"Oh no, I shan't," said the Nun serenely. "I shall insist on a personal
+interview before my action is condemned. I generally come out of
+personal interviews all right."
+
+"Arts and tricks!" said Sally scornfully.
+
+"Just an innocent and appealing manner," smiled the Nun. "At any rate,
+this very afternoon I write to Mr. Rock. He'll produce three thousand
+pounds, Gilly will get a good partner, Andy Hayes can stay in England, I
+shall feel I've done a sensible thing. All that just by a letter!" A
+thought struck her. "I may as well write it here." She called a waiter
+and asked for notepaper and the A B C railway guide. "Don't wait for me,
+Sally. This letter will take some time to write."
+
+"Not going to take it down yourself, are you?" asked Sally, pointing to
+the A B C.
+
+"Oh no. Messenger boy. With any luck, it'll get there before Andy Hayes
+does. Rather fun if Jack Rock plays up to me properly!"--and she allowed
+herself the second gurgle of the afternoon.
+
+Sally stood looking at her with an apparently unwilling smile. She loved
+her better than anybody in the world, and would have died for her at
+that or any other moment; but nothing of that sort was ever said between
+them. They were almost unsentimental enough to please Mark Wellgood
+himself. Only the Nun did like her little plans to be appreciated. Sally
+gave her all she wanted--a sharp little bark of a laugh in answer to the
+gurgle--before she walked away. The Nun settled to her task in demure
+serenity, seeming (yet not being) entirely unconscious of the extreme
+slowness with which most of the young men passed her table as they went
+out.
+
+Billy Foot had walked with Andy as far as the Temple and had reasoned
+with him. Yet Billy himself admitted that there was great difficulty in
+the case. Asked whether he himself would do what he advised, he was
+forced to admit that he would hesitate. Still he would not give up the
+idea; he would see Gilly about it; perhaps the payment could be
+"spread."
+
+"It would have to be spread very thin before I could pay it," smiled
+Andy ruefully. He gave Billy Foot's hand a hearty squeeze when they
+parted. "It's so awfully good of you to be so interested--and of those
+nice girls too."
+
+"Well, old chap, if we can help a pal!" said Billy with a laugh.
+"Besides, it's good business for Gilly too."
+
+Andy went back to Dowgate Hill and climbed up to his attic. The staff
+reported no callers in his absence; the baleful cable lay still in
+possession of the table. But Andy refused to be depressed. His lunch had
+done him good. Steady and sober as his mind was, yet he was a little
+infected by the gay confidence that had reigned among his company. They
+seemed all so sure that something would turn up, that what they wanted
+would get itself done somehow. Spoilt children of fate, the brothers
+Foot and the Nun! Things they wanted had come easily to them; they
+expected them to come easily to their friends. The Nun in particular
+appeared to treat fortune absolutely as a slave; she was not even
+grateful; it was all too much a matter of course that things should
+happen in the way she wanted. He did not appreciate yet the way in which
+the Nun assisted the course of events sometimes.
+
+Well, his reply to the cable must go. He took up the form and read
+"Passionately." It was significant of his changed mood--of what the
+atmosphere of the lunch-party had done for him--that he hesitated hardly
+more than one minute before he added the possibly fateful
+"Interjection," and sent off the despatch before he had time again to
+waver.
+
+"If they choose to take offence--well, I can make a living somehow, I
+suppose."
+
+Andy's confidence in himself was slowly but steadily ripening.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+FRIENDS IN NEED.
+
+
+Old Jack Rock was, in his own phrase, "fair tickled to death" at the
+whole thing. The messenger boy reached him soon after five, just as he
+was having his tea. It was not long before the boy was having tea
+too--such a tea as seldom came his way. Butter and jam together--why,
+jam on cake, if he liked--and cream in his tea! Something in that letter
+pleased the old gentleman uncommon, thought the boy, as he watched Jack
+chuckling over it, his forgotten bread-and-butter half-way between plate
+and mouth.
+
+"Doris Flower! Well now, that's a pretty name," murmured Jack. "And I'll
+lay she's a pretty girl!" He asked the boy whether she was a pretty
+girl.
+
+"'Er? Why, they're all mad about 'er," the boy told him. "She's out o'
+sight, she is!"
+
+"Writes a pretty letter too," said Jack, and started to read it all
+afresh. It was, indeed, a persuasive letter:--
+
+  "DEAR MR. ROCK,--I have heard so much that is nice about you from our
+  friends Harry Belfield and your nephew (isn't he?) Mr. Hayes, that I
+  feel quite sure you will not mind my writing to you. I know it is
+  rather an unusual thing to do, but I don't mind doing unusual things
+  when they're sensible, do you? Mr. Hayes was lunching with us to-day,
+  and he told us that something had gone wrong with his business, and
+  that he would have to go back to Canada. I'm sure you don't want him
+  to go back to Canada any more than we do. We like him so much, and you
+  must be very fond of him, aren't you? Well, by the most wonderful
+  chance, Billy Foot's brother (you know Billy, don't you? He has been
+  down to Meriton, I know) was at lunch too--Gilly Foot. Gilly has got a
+  most tremendously good business as a publisher, and he wants a
+  partner. Wasn't it lucky? Just as Mr. Hayes wants a new business,
+  Gilly Foot wants a partner! It might have been arranged on purpose,
+  mightn't it? And they took to one another directly. I'm sure Gilly
+  will be delighted to take Mr. Hayes (That does sound stiff--I think I
+  shall say 'Andy'), and Andy (!) would be delighted to join Gilly.
+  There's only one thing--Gilly must have a partner with some money, and
+  Andy says he hasn't got any. We knew about you and all you had wanted
+  to do for him, so of course we said he must ask you to give it to him
+  or lend it to him; but he said he couldn't possibly, as he had refused
+  your previous offer. But I'm sure you don't feel like that about it,
+  do you? I'm sure you would like to help him. And then we could keep
+  him here instead of his going back to Canada; we should all be so
+  pleased with that, and so would you, wouldn't you? Do please do it,
+  dear Mr. Rock!
+
+  "I wonder if you know who I am. Perhaps you've seen my picture in the
+  papers? I'm generally done as a Nun. Have you? I wonder if you would
+  ever care to hear me sing? If you would, _do_ let me know when you can
+  come, and I will send you a box. And you won't forget to come round
+  and see me in my dressing-room afterwards, will you? It is so pleasant
+  to see one's friends afterwards; and I'll sing, oh, ever so much
+  better than usual for you!
+
+  "I told the boy to wait--just in case you wanted to send an answer.
+  I'm very excited and anxious! It's three thousand pounds Gilly wants.
+  It seems to me an awful lot, but I don't know much about publishing.
+  Do forgive me, dear Mr. Rock, but I was sure you would like to know,
+  and I don't believe Andy would have told you himself. Mind, when you
+  come to town--don't forget!--I am, dear Mr. Rock, yours very
+  sincerely,
+
+                                                   "DORIS FLOWER.
+
+  _P.S._--Some day soon, when I'm out motoring, I may stop and see
+  you--if you've been nice!"
+
+Jack Rock's heart was very soft; his vanity was also tickled. "Excited
+and anxious, is she? Bless her! There'll be a rare talk in Meriton if
+she comes to see old Jack!" He chuckled. "Me go and sit in a box, and
+hear her sing! Asked to her dressing-room too!"
+
+The novel picture of himself was altogether too much for Jack.
+
+"As soon as you've done your tea, my lad, you can take an answer."
+
+Jack's epistolary style was of a highly polite but rather unpractised
+order. He struggled between his punctilious recognition of his own
+station and the temptation of the Nun's friendliness--also (perhaps by
+consequence) between the third, second, and first grammatical persons:--
+
+  "Mr. John Rock presents his respectful compliments to Miss Doris
+  Flower. Mr. Rock has the matter of which Miss Flower is good enough to
+  write under his careful consideration. Mr. Rock begs to assure you
+  that he will do his best to meet Miss Flower's wishes. There is
+  nothing I would not do for Andy, and I am sure that the boy will prove
+  himself deserving of Miss Flower's kind interest. When next visiting
+  London, Mr. Rock will feel himself highly honoured by availing himself
+  of Miss Flower's much-esteemed invitation. If Miss Flower should visit
+  Meriton, he would be very proud to welcome you at his house, next door
+  to the shop in High Street--anybody in Meriton knows where that is;
+  and I beg to remain, dear madam, your most obedient servant to
+  command,
+
+                                                    JOHN ROCK."
+
+"You can take it," said Jack to the messenger boy. "And here's half a
+crown for yourself."
+
+The messenger boy was a London boy; his professional belt was tight with
+tea; and half a crown for himself! He put on his cap and stood on the
+threshold. Escape was easy; he indulged his native humour.
+
+"From this"--he exhibited the half-crown--"and your looks, gov'nor," he
+said, "I gather that she's accepted ye! My best wishes for yer
+'appiness!"
+
+"Damn the boy!" said Jack, charging for the door in an explosion of
+laughter. The boy was already half-way down the street. "Hope my letter
+was all right," Jack reflected, as he came back, baulked of his prey.
+"May stop and see me, may she! Bless her heart!"
+
+Jack Rock felt that he had the chance of his life. He also felt that he
+would like to obliterate what, in his humility, he now declared to have
+been a sad blunder--the offer of his butcher's shop. A man like Andy, a
+lad with friends like that--Mr. Harry Belfield, Mr. Foot, M.P., Mr. and
+Miss Wellgood, above all this dazzling Miss Doris Flower--to be the
+Meriton butcher! Perish the thought! Publishing was a gentleman's
+business. Aye, and his Andy should not go back to Canada. If he did, old
+Jack felt that the best part of his own life would be carried far away
+across the seas.
+
+The thing should be done dramatically. "I'd like Andy to have a story to
+tell her!" It was not at all doubtful whom he meant by "her."
+
+Nearly six--the bank was shut long ago. But George Croton was a friend
+as well as a bank manager; he would just have had tea. Jack crossed the
+street and dropped in.
+
+"Why, of course I can, Jack," said Mr. Croton, wiping his bald head with
+a red handkerchief. "You've securities lodged with us that more than
+cover it. Draw your cheque. We won't wrong you over the interest till
+you adjust the account. Going to buy a Derby winner?"
+
+"I ain't so sure I'm not goin' to enter one," said Jack. He wrote his
+cheque. "That'll be all right to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Unless our shutters are up, it will, Jack," Mr. Croton jestingly
+replied.
+
+"Thank God I've been a careful man," thought old Jack. "One that knows a
+horse too! Her talkin' about 'Andy'!" The Nun continued to amuse and
+delight him immensely. Why, he'd seen her picture on the hoardings last
+time he went up to Tattersall's, to sell that bay filly! Lord, not to
+have thought of that! That was her--the Nun! He thought much more about
+Miss Flower than about Andy as he took his way to Andy's lodgings.
+
+Andy was at home; he had been back from town nearly an hour. But his own
+concerns were quite out of his head. Harry Belfield had been waiting for
+him--actually waiting, Harry the Great!--and had hailed him with "I had
+to come and tell you all about it myself, old fellow!"
+
+In Andy's great devotion to Harry there was mingled an element which
+seemed to himself absurd, but which held its place obstinately--dim and
+denied, yet always there. It was a sense of something compassionate,
+something protective, not diminishing his admiration but qualifying it;
+making him not only believe that all would, but also urgently pray that
+all might, go well with Harry, that Harry might have everything that he
+wished, possibly that Harry might wish the things that he ought to have,
+though Andy's conscious analysis of the feeling did not reach as far as
+this. He would not only set his hero on a pedestal, he would have the
+pedestal securely fenced round, barricaded against danger, ensured
+against bombs; even a screen against strong and sudden winds might be
+useful to the statue.
+
+The statue, it now appeared, had taken all these precautions for itself.
+Vivien Wellgood was each and all of these things--fence, screen, and
+barricade. And many other things besides, such as an ideal, an
+incentive, an inspiration. It was among Harry's attractions that he was
+not in the least ashamed of his emotions or shy about them.
+
+"With the girls one meets in town it's a bargain," said Harry. "With
+her--oh, I can talk to you, old man!--it really does seem a sort of
+sacrament."
+
+"I know. I mean I can imagine."
+
+"Not things a fellow can talk about to everybody," Harry pursued.
+"Too--well, sacred, you know. But when for absolutely the first time in
+your life you feel the real thing, you know the difference. The pater
+told me not to be in a hurry about it; but a thing like that's just the
+same now or a thousand years hence. It's there--and that's all about
+it!"
+
+Andy felt a little out of his depth. He had had one fancy himself, but
+it had been nothing like so wonderful as this.  It was Harry's privilege
+to be able to feel things in that marvellous way. Andy was not equal
+even to commenting on them.
+
+"When are you going to be married?" he asked, sticking to a
+matter-of-fact line of sympathy.
+
+"Going to wait till October--rather a bore! But here it's nearly July,
+and I've got my tour of the Division fixed for September. After all,
+things aren't so bad as they might be. And when I'm through with the
+campaign--a honeymoon in Italy! Pretty good, Andy?"
+
+"Sounds all right," laughed Andy. "I expect I shall have to send you my
+blessing from Montreal."
+
+"From Montreal? What--you're not going back?"
+
+"The business is a frost in London, Harry; and I've nothing else to look
+to."
+
+"Lord, now, what a pity! Well, I'm sorry. We shall miss you, Andy.
+Still, it's a ripping fine country, isn't it? Mind you cable us
+congratulations!"
+
+"I'm not quite certain about going yet," said Andy. He felt rather like
+being seen off by the train--very kindly.
+
+"Oh, well, I hope you won't have to, old chap, I really do. But it'll be
+better than the shop! I say--I told Billy and the girls about that. They
+roared."
+
+"I know they did--I met them at lunch to-day."
+
+"Had they heard about me?" Harry asked rather eagerly. "Or did you tell
+them? What did they say?"
+
+"Oh--er--awfully pleased," said Andy, rather confused. It seemed strange
+to remember how very little had been said on the wonderful topic.
+Somehow they had wandered off to other things.
+
+"I must give them all one more dinner," said Harry, smiling, "before I
+settle down."
+
+"Foot's brother was there--Gilly Foot--and--"
+
+"Did they ask what she was like?"
+
+"I--I don't quite remember--everybody was talking. Gilly Foot--"
+
+"I expect they were a bit surprised, weren't they?"
+
+"Oh yes, they seemed surprised." Andy was really trying to remember.
+"Yes, they did."
+
+"I don't think I've got the character of a marrying man," smiled Harry.
+"I hope you told them I meant business?" Harry rose to his feet with a
+laugh. "They used to rot a lot, you know."
+
+Harry was not to be got off the engrossing subject of himself, his past,
+and his future; evidently he could not imagine that the lunch-party had
+kept off these subjects either. With a smile Andy made up his mind not
+to trouble him with the matter of Gilly Foot.
+
+"I'll walk back with you as far as Halton gates," he said.
+
+"No, you won't, old chap," laughed Harry. "Vivien's been in the town and
+is going to call for me here, and I'm going to walk with her as far as
+Nutley gates--at least."
+
+Voices came from outside. "Wish you good evenin', miss!"--and a very
+timid "Good evening, Mr. Rock." Vivien and Jack! How was Vivien bearing
+the encounter?
+
+"There she is!" cried Harry, and ran out of the house, Andy following.
+
+"Ah, Jack, how are you? Why, you're looking like a two-year-old!"
+
+Jack indeed looked radiant as he made bold to offer his congratulations.
+He gave Harry his hand and a hearty squeeze, then looked at Vivien
+tentatively. She blushed, pulled herself together, and offered Jack her
+hand. The feat accomplished, she glanced quickly at Andy, blushing yet
+more deeply. He knew what was in her mind, and nodded his head at her in
+applause. In Harry's cause she had touched a butcher.
+
+"I like to see young folks happy. I like to see 'em get what they want,
+Mr. Harry."
+
+"You see before you one at least who has, Jack. I wonder if I may say
+two, Vivien? And I wish I could say three, Andy."
+
+"Maybe you wouldn't be so far wrong, Mr. Harry," chuckled Jack. "But
+that's neither here nor there, and I mustn't be keepin' you and your
+young lady."
+
+With blithe salutations the lovers went off. Andy watched them; they
+were good to see. He felt himself their friend--Vivien's as well as
+Harry's, for Vivien trusted him with her shy confidences. They were hard
+to leave--even as were the delights of London with its lunch-parties and
+the like.
+
+"Going for a walk, Jack?"
+
+"No, I want a talk with you, Andy." He led the way in, and sat down at
+the table. "I've been thinkin' a bit about you, Andy; so have some
+others, I reckon. Mr. Belfield--he speaks high of you--and there's
+others. There's no reason you shouldn't take your part with the best of
+'em. Why, they feel that--they make you one of themselves. So you shall
+be. I can't make you a rich man, not as they reckon money, but I can
+help a bit."
+
+"O Jack, you're always at it," Andy groaned affectionately.
+
+The old fellow's eyes twinkled as he drew out a cheque and pushed it
+across the table.
+
+"Put that in your pocket, and go and talk to Mr. Foot's brother," he
+said.
+
+Andy's start was almost a jump; old Jack's pent-up mirth broke out
+explosively.
+
+"But this--this is supernatural!" cried Andy.
+
+"Looks like it, don't it? How did I find out about that? Well, it shows,
+Andy, that it's no use you thinkin' of tryin' not to keep a certain
+promise you made to me--because I find you out!"
+
+"Dear old Jack!" Andy was standing by him now, his hand on his shoulder.
+"I don't believe I could have kept the promise in this case. I think I
+should have gone back--since the thing's no go in London."
+
+"Yes, you'd have gone back--just like your obstinate ways. But I found
+out. I've my correspondents."
+
+"But there's been no time! Well, you are one too many for me, Jack!"
+
+Jack's pride in his cunning was even greater than his delight in his
+benevolence. "Perhaps I've had a wireless telegram?" he suggested,
+wagging his head. "Or a carrier pigeon? Who knows?"
+
+"But who was it told you?"
+
+"You've got some friends I didn't know of, up there in London. Havin'
+your fling, are you, Andy? That's right. And very good taste you seem to
+have too." He nodded approvingly.
+
+"Oh, I give it up," said Andy. "You're a wizard, Jack."
+
+"If you talk about a witch, you'll be a bit nearer the point, I reckon.
+Not meanin' me, I need hardly say! Well, I must let you into the
+secret." With enormous pride he produced Miss Doris Flower's letter.
+"Read that, my lad."
+
+"The Nun!" cried Andy, as his eye fell on the signature. "Who'd have
+thought of that?"
+
+He read the letter; he listened to Jack's enraptured story of how it had
+arrived. "And you're not goin' to shame her by refusin' the money now,
+are you?" asked cunning Jack. "If you do, you'll make her feel she's
+been meddlin'. Nice thing to make her feel that!"
+
+Andy saw through this little device, but he only patted Jack's shoulder
+again, saying quietly, "I'll take the money, Jack." All the kindness
+made his heart very full--whether it came from old-time friends or these
+new friends from a new world who made his cause theirs with so ready a
+sympathy.
+
+"You're launched now, lad--fair launched! And I know you'll float," said
+old Jack, grave at last, as he took his leave, his precious letter most
+carefully stowed away in his breast-pocket. It had been a great day for
+Jack, great for what he had done, great for the way in which his doing
+it had come about.
+
+Within less than twenty-four hours Montreal had been written to, Gilly
+Foot had been written to--and Andy was at the Nun's door.
+
+She dwelt with Miss Dutton in a big block of flats near Sloane Street,
+very high up. Her sitting-room was small and cosy, presenting, however,
+one marked peculiarity. On two of the walls the paper was red, on the
+other two green. Seeing Andy's eyes attracted by this phenomenon, the
+Nun explained: "We quarrelled over the colour to such an extent that at
+last I lost my temper, and, when Sally was away for a day, had it done
+like this--to spite her. Now she won't let me alter it, because it's a
+perpetual warning to me not to lose my temper. But it does look a little
+queer, doesn't it?"
+
+She had received him with her usual composure. "I knew you'd come,
+because I knew Mr. Jack Rock would do as I wanted, and I was sure he
+couldn't keep the letter to himself. Well, that's all right! It was only
+that the obvious thing wanted doing."
+
+"But I don't see--well, I don't see why you should care."
+
+She looked at him, a lurking laugh in her eye.
+
+"Oh, you needn't suppose that it was life and death to me! It was rather
+fun, just on its own account. You'll like Gilly; he's a good sort,
+though he's rather greedy. Did you notice that? Billy's really my
+friend. I'm very fond of Billy. Are you ambitious? Billy's very
+ambitious."
+
+"No, I don't think I am."
+
+The Nun lay back on a long chair; she was certainly wonderfully pretty
+as she smiled lazily at Andy.
+
+"You look a size too large for the room," she remarked. "Yes, Billy's
+ambitious. He'd like to marry me, only he's ambitious. It doesn't make
+any difference to me, because I'm not in love with him; but I'm afraid
+it's an awfully uncomfortable state of affairs for poor Billy."
+
+"Well, if he'd have no chance anyhow, couldn't you sort of let him know
+that?" Andy suggested, much amused at an innocent malice which marked
+her description of Billy's conflict of feeling.
+
+"No use at all. I've tried. But he's quite sure he could persuade me. In
+fact I don't think he believes I should refuse if it came to the point.
+So there he is, always just pulling up on the brink! He can't like it,
+but he goes on. Oh, but tell me all about Harry Belfield. Now I've got
+you off my mind, I'm awfully interested about that."
+
+Andy was not very ready at description. She assisted him by a detailed
+and skilful cross-examination, directed to eliciting full information
+about Vivien Wellgood's appearance, habits, and character--how old she
+was, where she had been, what she had seen. When the picture of Vivien
+had thus emerged--of Vivien's youth and secluded life, how she had been
+nowhere and seen nothing, how she was timid and shy, innocent and
+trustful, above all, how she idolized Harry--the Nun considered it for a
+moment in silence.
+
+"Poor girl!" she said at last. Andy looked sharply at her. She smiled.
+"Oh yes, you worship Harry, don't you? Well, he's a very charming man. I
+was rather inclined to fall in love with him once myself. Luckily for me
+I didn't."
+
+"I'm sure he'd have responded," Andy laughed.
+
+"Yes, that's just it; he would have! When did you say they were going to
+be married?"
+
+"October, I think Harry said."
+
+"Four months! And he dotes on her?"
+
+"I should think so. You should just hear him!"
+
+"I daresay I shall. He always likes talking to one girl about how much
+he's in love with another."
+
+The Nun's matter-of-fact way of speaking may have contributed to the
+effect, but in the end the effect of what she said was to give the
+impression that she regarded Harry Belfield's present passion as one of
+a series--far from the first, not at all likely to be the last. The
+inflection of tone with which she had exclaimed "Four months!" implied
+that it was a very long while to wait.
+
+"You'd understand it better if you saw them together," said Andy, eager,
+as always, to champion his friend.
+
+"You're very enthusiastic about her, anyhow," smiled the Nun. "It almost
+sounds as if you were a little in love with her yourself."
+
+"Such a thing never occurred to me." Then he laughed, for the Nun was
+laughing at him. "Well, she would make every man want to--well, sort of
+want to take care of her, you know."
+
+"Well, there's no harm in your doing that--in moderation; and she may
+come to want it. Have you ever been in love yourself?"
+
+"Yes, once," he confessed; "a long while ago, just before I left South
+Africa."
+
+"Got over it?" she inquired anxiously.
+
+"Yes, of course I have, long ago. It wasn't very fatal."
+
+"Fickle creature!"
+
+Andy gave one of his bursts of hearty laughter to hear himself thus
+described.
+
+"I like you," she said; "and I'm glad you're going in with Gilly,
+because we shall often see you at lunch-time."
+
+"Oh, but I can't afford to lunch at that place every day!"
+
+"You'll have to--with Gilly; because lunch is the only time he ever gets
+ideas--he always says so--and unless he can tell somebody else he
+forgets them again, and they're lost beyond recall. He used to tell them
+to me, but I always forgot them too. Now he'll tell you; so you'll have
+to be at lunch, and put it down as office expenses."
+
+Andy had risen to go. The Nun sat up. "I can only tell you once again
+how grateful I am for all your kindness," he said.
+
+She gave him a whimsically humorous look. "It's really time somebody
+told you," she said; "and as I feel rather responsible for you, after my
+letter to Mr. Jack Rock, I expect I'm the proper person to do it. If
+you're not told, you may go about doing a lot of mischief without
+knowing anything about it. Prepare for a surprise. You're attractive!
+Yes, you are. You're attractive to women, moreover. People don't do
+things for you out of mere kindness, as they might be kind to a little
+boy in the street or to a lost dog. They do them because you're
+attractive, because it gives them pleasure to please you. That sort of
+thing will go on happening to you; very likely it'll help you a good
+deal." She nodded at him wisely, then broke suddenly into her gurgle.
+"Oh, dear me, you do look so much astonished, and if you only knew how
+red you've got!"
+
+"Oh, I feel the redness all right; I know that's there," muttered Andy,
+whose confusion was indeed lamentable. "But when a--a person like you
+says that sort of thing to me--"
+
+"A person, like me?" She lifted her brows. "What am I? I'm the fashion
+for three or four seasons--that's what I am. Nobody knows where I come
+from; nobody knows where I'm going to; and nobody cares. I don't know
+myself, and I'm not sure I care. My small opinion doesn't count for
+much. Only, in this case, it happens to be true."
+
+"Where do you come from?" asked Andy, in a sudden impulse of great
+friendliness.
+
+She looked him straight in the face. "Nobody knows. Nobody must ask."
+
+"I've got no people belonging to me either. Even Jack Rock's no
+relation--or only a 'step.'"
+
+Her eyes grew a little clouded. "You mustn't make me silly. Only we're
+friends now, aren't we? We don't do what we can for one another out of
+kindness, but for love?" She daintily blew him a kiss, and smiled again.
+"And because we're both very attractive--aren't we?"
+
+"Oh, I'll accept the word if I'm promoted to share it with you. But I
+can't say I've got over the surprise yet."
+
+"You've stopped blushing, anyhow. That's something. Good-bye. I shall
+see you at lunch, I expect, to-morrow."
+
+Andy was very glad that she liked him, but he was glad of it because he
+liked her. His head was not turned by her assurance that he was
+attractive in a general sense: in the first place, because he remained
+distinctly sceptical as to the correctness of her opinion, sincere as it
+obviously was; in the second, because the matter did not appear to be
+one of much moment. No doubt folks sometimes did one a good turn for
+love's sake, but, taking the world broadly, a man had to make his way
+without relying on such help as that. That sort of help had given him a
+fair start now. He was not going to expect any more of it. It seemed to
+him that Jack Rock--or Jack and the Nun between them?--had already given
+him more than his share. It was curious to associate her with Jack Rock
+in the work; a queer freak of chance that she had come into it! But she
+had come into it--by chance and her own wilful fancy. Odd her share in
+it certainly was, but it was not unpleasant to him. He felt that he had
+gained a friend, as well as an opening in Gilly Foot's publishing house.
+
+"But I wish," he found himself reflecting as he travelled back in the
+Underground, "that she understood Harry better."
+
+Here he fell into an error unusual with him; he overrated his own
+judgment, led thereto by old love and admiration. The Nun had clear
+eyes; she had seen much of Harry Belfield, and no small amount of life.
+She had had to dodge many dangers. She knew what she was talking about.
+In all the side of things she knew so well, Andy, with his one
+attachment before he left South Africa long ago, was an innocent.
+Perhaps it was some dim consciousness of this, some half-realized
+feeling that he was on strange ground where she was on familiar, which
+made him find it difficult to get what she had said or hinted out of his
+head. It was apt to come back to him when he saw Vivien Wellgood; an
+unlooked-for association in his mind of people who seemed far remote
+from one another. Thus the Nun had come into the old circle of his
+thoughts; henceforward she too belonged, in a way, to the world of
+Meriton.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW.
+
+
+Vivien and Isobel were alone at Nutley. It had been Wellgood's custom to
+go every summer to Norway by himself, leaving his daughter at school, to
+the care of her governess, or, for the last year or two, of her
+companion. He saw no reason against following his practice this year;
+indeed he was glad to go. The interval before the wedding dragged for
+him, as perhaps it did for others. He had carried matters with Isobel as
+far as he well could, unless he meant to carry them to the end--and it
+was not his intention to do that just yet. A last bachelor excursion--he
+told himself confidently that it was to be his last--had its attraction.
+Early in July he packed his portmanteau and went, leaving instructions
+with Isobel that her chaperonage was to be vigilant and strict. "Err on
+the safe side," he said. "No harm in that."
+
+"I shall bore them very much," Isobel suggested.
+
+"That's what you're here for." He added, with his hard confident smile,
+"Later on we'll try to give you a change from it."
+
+She knew well what he meant, and was glad to see the last of him for a
+while; nay, in her heart would have been glad to see the last of him for
+ever. She clung to what his words and acts promised, from no affection
+for him, but because it saved her from the common fate which her pride
+despised--being dismissed, turned off, now that she was to become
+superfluous. She had been in effect Vivien's governess, her
+schoolmistress, invested with power and authority. She hated to step
+down; it was open to her to step up. (A case not unlike Andy's.) Here
+was the secret which maintained her pride. In the strength of it she
+still ruled her charge with no lessening of prestige. It was no more in
+Vivien's nature than in her position to wonder at that; her eyes were
+set on a near sure liberty. Temporary restraint, though it might be
+irksome, seemed no more than a natural passing incident. Harry noticed
+and was amused. He thought that Wellgood must have said a word to
+Isobel; hinted perhaps that Vivien was wax in her lover's hands, and
+that her lover was impetuous. That Wellgood, or Isobel herself, or
+anybody else, should harbour that idea did not displease Harry Belfield;
+not to be able to resist him would be a venial sin, even in Vivien.
+
+It was an empty season in the little circle of Meriton society. Harry's
+father and mother were away, gone to Switzerland. Andy came down for
+week-ends generally; all the working days his nose was close to the
+grindstone in the office of Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co. He was learning
+the business, delighting in his new activity. Harry would not have been
+in Meriton either, had he not been in love in Meriton. As it was, he had
+his early ride, then read his books, then went over to Nutley for lunch,
+and spent all the rest of the day there. Often the curate would come in
+and make a four at tennis, but he did not stay to dinner. Almost every
+evening the three were alone, in the house or on the terrace by the
+water. One night in the week Harry might be in town, one night perhaps
+he would bring Andy. Four or five nights those three would be together;
+and the question for Isobel was how often, for how long, how completely
+she was to leave the engaged couple to themselves. To put it more
+brutally--how much of a bore was she to make herself?
+
+To be a spy, a hindrance, a clog, to know that joy waited on the closing
+of the door behind her back, to listen to allusions half-intelligible,
+to turn a blind ear to words too tender, not to notice a furtive caress,
+to play the dragon of convention, the old-maid duenna--that was her
+function in Vivien's eyes. And the same in Harry's? Oh yes! the same in
+Harry Belfield's handsome, mischievous, deriding eyes! He laughed at her
+for what she did--for what she did in the discharge of her duty, earning
+her bread-and-butter. Earning more than he thought, though! Because of
+the derision in Harry's eyes, again she would not let Wellgood go.
+Vivien should awake to realize that she was more than a chaperon,
+tiresome for the moment, soon to be dismissed; Harry should understand
+that to one man she was no old-maid duenna, but the woman he wanted for
+wife. While she played chaperon at Nutley she wrote letters to
+Wellgood--letters keeping his passion alive, playing with his
+confidence, transparently feigning to ignore, hardly pretending to deny.
+They were letters a lover successful in the end would laugh at. If in
+the issue the man found himself jockeyed, they would furnish matter for
+fury as a great deceit.
+
+Harry Belfield was still looking forward to his marriage with ardour; it
+would not be fair even to say that he was getting tired of his
+engagement. But he would have been wise to imitate Wellgood--take a last
+bachelor holiday, and so come back again hungry for Vivien's society.
+Much as he liked the fare, he could not be said to hunger for it now, it
+came to him so easily and so constantly. The absence of his parents, the
+emptiness of the town, his own want of anything particular to do,
+prevented even the small hindrances and interruptions that might have
+whetted appetite by thwarting or delaying its satisfaction. Love-making
+became the business of his days, when it ought to have been the
+diversion. Harry must always have a diversion--by preference one with
+something of audacity, venture, or breaking of bounds in it. His
+relations with Vivien, legitimate though romantic, secure yet
+delightful, did not satisfy this requirement. His career might have
+served, and would serve in the future (so it was to be hoped), but the
+career was at a temporary halt till the autumn campaign began. He took
+the diversion which lay nearest to hand; that also was his way. Isobel
+Vintry possessed attractions; she had a temper too, as he knew very
+well. He found his amusement in teasing, chaffing, and challenging her,
+in forcing her to play duenna more and more conspicuously, and in
+laughing at her when she did it; in letting his handsome eyes rest on
+her in admiration for a second before he hastily turned them back to a
+renewed contemplation of their proper shrine; in seeming half-vexed when
+she left him alone with Vivien, not altogether sorry when she came back.
+He was up to a dozen such tricks; they were his diversion; they
+flavoured the sweetness of his love-making with the spice of mischief.
+
+He saw that Isobel felt, that she understood. Vivien noticed nothing,
+understood nothing. There was a secret set up between Isobel and
+himself; Vivien was a stranger to it. Harry enlarged his interests! His
+relations with Vivien were delightful, with Isobel they had a piquant
+flavour. Well, was not this a more agreeable state of things than that
+Isobel should be simply a bore to him, and he simply a bore to Isobel?
+The fact of being an engaged man did not reconcile Harry Belfield to
+being simply a bore to a handsome woman.
+
+Among Wellgood's orders there was one that Vivien should go to bed at
+ten o'clock sharp, and Harry depart at the same hour. Wherever they
+were, in house or garden, the lovers had to be found and parted--Vivien
+ordered upstairs, Harry sent about his business. Isobel's duty was to
+enforce this rule. Harry found a handle in it; his malice laid hold of
+it.
+
+"Here comes the strict governess!" he cried. Or, "Here's nurse! Bedtime!
+Won't you really let us have ten minutes more? I believe you sit with
+your watch in your hand."
+
+Vivien rebuked him. "It's not poor Isobel's fault, Harry. She's got to."
+
+"No, she likes doing it. She's a born martinet! She positively loves to
+separate us. You've no sympathy with the soft emotions, Miss Vintry.
+You're just a born dragon."
+
+"Please come, Vivien," Isobel said, flushing a little. "It's not my
+fault, you know."
+
+"Do you never break rules, Miss Vintry? It's what they're made for, you
+know."
+
+"We've not been taught to think that in this house, have we, Vivien?"
+
+"No, indeed," said Vivien with marked emphasis.
+
+Harry laughed. "A pattern child and a pattern governess! Well, we must
+kiss good-night. You and I, I mean, of course, Vivien. And I'm sent home
+too, as usual?"
+
+"You don't want to stay here alone, do you?" asked Isobel.
+
+"Well, no, that wouldn't be very lively." His eyes rested on her a
+moment, possibly--just possibly--hinting that, though Vivien left him,
+yet he need not be alone.
+
+One evening, a very fine one--when it seemed more absurd than usual to
+be ordered to bed or to be sent home so early--Harry chaffed Isobel in
+this fashion, yet with a touch of real contempt. He did feel a genuine
+contempt for people who kept rules just because they were rules. Vivien
+again interceded. "Isobel can't help it, Harry. It's father's orders."
+
+"Surely some discretion is left to the trusty guardian?"
+
+"It's no pleasure to me to be a nuisance, I assure you," said Isobel
+rather hotly. "Please come in, Vivien; it's well past ten o'clock."
+
+Vivien rose directly.
+
+"You've hurt Isobel, I think," she whispered to Harry. "Say something
+kind to her. Good-night, dear Harry!"
+
+She ran off, ahead of Isobel, who was about to follow, with no word to
+Harry.
+
+"Oh, wait a minute, please, Miss Vintry! I say, you know, I was only
+joking. Of course I know it's not your fault. I'm awfully sorry if I
+sounded rude. I thought you wouldn't mind a bit of chaff."
+
+She stood looking at him with a hostile air.
+
+"Why does it amuse you?" she asked.
+
+The square question puzzled Harry, but he was apt at an encounter. He
+found a good answer. "I suppose because what you do--what you have to
+do--seems somehow so incongruous, coming from you. I won't do it again,
+if you don't like it. Please forgive me--and walk with me to the gate to
+prove it. There's no rule against that!"
+
+For half a minute she stood, still looking at him. The moonlight was
+amply bright enough to let them see one another's faces.
+
+"Very well," she said. "Come along."
+
+Harry followed her with a pleasant feeling of curiosity. It was some
+little while before she spoke again. They had already reached the drive.
+
+"Why do you say that it's incongruous, coming from me?" she asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't answer that without being impertinent again,"
+laughed Harry.
+
+She turned to him with a slight smile. "Risk that!"
+
+It was many days since he had been alone with her--so devoted had he
+been to Vivien. Now again he felt her power; again he did not know
+whether she put it forth consciously.
+
+"Well, then, you playing sheep-dog when you ought to be--" He broke off,
+leaving his eyes to finish for him.
+
+"So your teasing is to be considered as a compliment?"
+
+"I'll go on with it, if you'll take it like that."
+
+"Does Vivien take it like that, do you think?"
+
+"I don't believe she thinks anything about it--one way or the other.
+She's partial to my small efforts to be amusing, that's all."
+
+"Well, if it's a compliment, I don't want any more of it. I think you'd
+better, under the circumstances, keep all your compliments for
+Vivien--till you're married, at all events!"
+
+Harry lifted his brows.
+
+"Rules! Oh, those rules!" he said with mock ruefulness.
+
+"Is there any good in breaking them--for nothing?"
+
+He turned quickly towards her. She was smiling at him. "For nothing?"
+
+"Yes. Here we are at the gate. Good-night, Mr. Harry."
+
+"What do you mean by--?"
+
+"I really can't stay any longer." She was doing the mockery now; his
+eagerness had given her the advantage. "You can think over my
+meaning--if you like. Good-night!"
+
+Harry said good-night. When he had gone fifty yards he looked back. She
+was still there, holding the gate half open with her hand, looking along
+the road. After him? As he went on, his thoughts were not all of Vivien.
+Isobel Vintry was a puzzling girl!
+
+The next evening he brought Vivien into the drawing-room punctually at
+ten.
+
+"We're good children to-night!" he said gaily. "We've even said
+good-night to one another already, and Vivien's ready to run up to bed."
+
+"There, Isobel, aren't we good?" cried Vivien, with her good-night kiss
+to Isobel.
+
+"Any reward?" asked Harry, as the door closed behind his _fiancée_.
+
+"What do you ask?"
+
+"A walk to the gate. And--perhaps--an explanation."
+
+"Certainly no explanation. I don't mind five minutes' walk to the gate."
+
+This time very little was said on the way to the gate. A constraint
+seemed to fall on both of them. The night felt very silent, very still;
+the lake stretched silent and still too, mysteriously tranquil.
+
+At last Harry spoke. "You've forgiven me--quite?"
+
+"Oh yes. Naturally you didn't think how--how it seemed to me. It isn't
+always easy to--" She paused for a moment, looking over the water. "But
+it's my place in life--for the present, at all events."
+
+"It won't be for long. It can't be." He laughed. "But I must take
+care--compliments barred!"
+
+"From you to me--yes."
+
+Again her words--or the way she said them--stirred him to an eager
+curiosity. She half said things, or said things with half-meanings. Was
+that art or accident? She did not say "from an engaged man to his
+_fiancée's_ companion," but "from you to me." Was the concrete--the
+personal--form significant?
+
+No more passed, save only, at the gate, "Good-night." But with the word
+she gave him her hand and smiled at him--and ever so slightly shook her
+head.
+
+The next day, and the next, and the next, she left Vivien and him
+entirely to themselves, save when meals forced her to appear; and on
+none of the three nights would she walk with him to the gate, though he
+asked twice in words and the third time with his eyes. Was that what the
+little shake of her head had meant? But the two walks had left their
+mark. Harry chaffed and teased no more.
+
+Vivien praised his forbearance, adding, "I really think you hurt her
+feelings a little, Harry. But it was being rather absurdly touchy,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"She seems to be sensitive about her position."
+
+Vivien made a little grimace. She was thinking that Isobel's position in
+the house had been at least as pleasant as her own--till Harry came to
+woo.
+
+"Oh, confound this political business!" Harry suddenly broke out. "But
+for that we could get married in the middle of August--as soon as your
+father and my people are back. I hate this waiting till October, don't
+you? Now you know you do, Vivien!"
+
+She put her hand on his and pressed it gently. "Yes, but it's pleasant
+as it is. I'm not so very impatient--so long as I see you every day."
+
+But Harry was impatient now, and rather restless. The days had ceased to
+glide by so easily, almost imperceptibly, in the company of his lover.
+There was a feeling in him which did not make for peace--a recrudescence
+of those impulses of old days which his engagement was utterly to have
+banished. Marriage was invoked to banish them utterly now. The sooner
+marriage came, the better! Harry was ardent in his love-making that
+afternoon, and Vivien in a heaven of delight. If there was no chaff,
+there was no appeal to Isobel for a walk to the gate either.
+
+"I wish she wasn't there," he said to himself as he walked down, alone,
+to the gate at a punctual ten o'clock. Somehow his delight in his love
+for Vivien, and in hers for him, was being marred. Ever so little, ever
+so faintly, yet still a little, his romance was turning to duty. A
+delightful duty, of course, one in which his whole heart was engaged,
+but still no longer just the one thing--the spontaneous voluntary
+thing--which filled his life. It had now an opposite. Besides all else
+that it was, it had also--even now, even before that marriage so slow in
+coming--taken on the aspect of the right thing. In the remote corners of
+his mind--banished to those--hovered the shadowy image of its opposite.
+Quite impossible that the image should put on bones and flesh--should
+take life! Yes, Harry was sure of that. But even its phantom presence
+was disturbing.
+
+"I thought I'd got rid of all that!" Some such protest, yet even vaguer
+and less formulated, stirred in his thoughts. He conceived that he had
+become superior to temptation. Had he? For he was objecting to being
+tempted. Who tempted him? Did she--or only he himself, the man he was?
+The question hung doubtful, and thereby pressed him the closer. He
+flattered himself that he knew women. What else had he to show for a
+good deal of time--to say nothing of wear and tear of the emotions? Here
+was a woman whose meaning, whose feeling towards himself, he did not
+know.
+
+Andy Hayes was free the next afternoon--his half-holiday. Harry picked
+him up at his lodgings and carried him with him to Nutley. Harry was
+glad to have him, glad to hear all about Gilbert Foot and Co., even more
+glad to see his own position through Andy's eyes. Andy's vision was
+always so normal, so sane, so simple; his assumptions were always so
+right. A man really had only to live up to Andy's assumptions to be
+perfectly right. He assumed that a man was honest, straight,
+single-minded--unreservedly and exclusively in love with the girl he was
+going to marry. Why, of course a man was! Or why marry her? Even
+foolishly in love with her? Rather spoonily, as some might think? Andy,
+perhaps, went so far as to assume that. Well, it was a most healthy
+assumption--eminently right on the practical side; primitive perhaps,
+but tremendously right.
+
+"I'll take Miss Vintry off your hands. Don't be afraid about that!"
+laughed Andy.
+
+"I don't know that you'll be allowed to. You're no end of a favourite of
+Vivien's. She often talks about you. In fact I think I'm a bit jealous,
+Andy!"
+
+Andy's presence seemed to restore his balance, which had seemed
+shaken--even if very slightly. He found himself again dwelling on the
+charms of Vivien, recalling her pretty ways and the shy touches of
+humour that sometimes ornamented her timidity.
+
+"I asked her the other day--I was playing the fool, you know--what she
+would do if I forsook her. What do think she said?"
+
+Andy was prepared for anything brilliant, but, naturally, unable to
+suggest it.
+
+"She said, 'Drown myself in the lake, Harry--or else send for Andy
+Hayes.'"
+
+"Did she say that?" cried Andy, hugely delighted, blushing as red as he
+had when the Nun told him that he was attractive.
+
+If Andy's simplicity and ready enthusiasm were congenial to some minds
+and some moods, to others they could be very exasperating. To have it
+assumed that you are feeling just what you ought to feel--or even rather
+more than could in strictness be expected from you--may be a strain on
+your patience. Harry had welcomed in Andy an assumption of this order;
+at the moment it helped him. Isobel gave a similar assumption about her
+feelings a much less hearty welcome. While Harry and Vivien took a
+stroll by themselves after lunch, Andy sat by her and was enthusiastic
+about them; he had forgotten the Nun's unjust hints.
+
+Isobel chafed. "Oh, yes, it's all very ideal, I daresay, Mr. Hayes.
+Let's hope it'll last! But Mr. Harry's been in love before, hasn't he?"
+
+"Most people have had a fancy or two." (Even he himself had indulged in
+one.) "This is quite different to him, I know. And how could anybody
+help being fond of her?"
+
+"At any rate she's pretty free from the dangers of competition down
+here." She looked at Andy with a curious smile.
+
+He laughed heartily. "Yes, that's all right, anyhow! Not that it would
+make any difference, I'm sure."
+
+"If it were only to show this simpleton--" The angry thought was in her
+heart. But there was more. Harry's devotion was seeming very
+whole-hearted that day. Had she lost her power to disturb it? Was Andy
+in the end right in leaving her utterly out of consideration? Every day
+now and every hour it hurt her more to see Harry's handsome head ever
+bowed to Vivien, his eyes asking her love and receiving the loving
+answer. A wave of jealousy and of defiance swept over her. Andy need not
+know--she could afford to leave him in his folly. Vivien must not
+know--that would be too inconvenient. But Harry himself--was he quite to
+forget those two walks to the gate? She burned to use her power. A
+letter from Wellgood had reached her that morning; it was not a proposal
+of marriage, but by his talk of future plans--of what was to happen
+after Vivien left them--it assumed that she was still to be at Nutley.
+The implication was definite; matters only awaited his return.
+
+"I haven't had a single word with you--by ourselves--all day," said
+Vivien to Andy after dinner. "You'll walk with me, won't you?"
+
+"For my part I don't think I want to walk at all," said Harry. "It's
+rather chilly. Will you keep me company indoors, and forgive my cigar,
+Miss Vintry?"
+
+Isobel assented rather coldly, but her heart beat quicker. Now that the
+chance came--by no contrivance of hers and unexpectedly--she was
+suddenly afraid of it, and afraid of what seemed a sudden revelation of
+the strength of her feeling for Harry. She had meant to play with him,
+to show him that, if she was to be left out of the reckoning, it was by
+her own choice; to make him see her power fully for once before she hid
+it for ever. Could she carry out her dangerous programme? Harry had been
+at his gayest that night, just in the mood which had carried him to most
+of his conquests--gaily daring, skirting topics of gallantry with
+defiant ease, provoking, yet never offending. If his eyes spoke true, he
+was in the mood still.
+
+"Only a week more!" he said. "Then papa-in-law comes back, and I go
+electioneering. Well, I suppose we've had enough of what they call
+dalliance." He sank into an armchair by the fireplace, sighing in
+pleasant indolence, lolling gracefully.
+
+The long windows were open to the terrace; the evening air came in cool
+and sweet. She looked out on the terrace; Vivien and Andy had wandered
+away; they were not in sight. Vivien's wrap lay on a chair close to the
+window.
+
+"Vivien ought to have taken her wrap," said Isobel absently, as she came
+back and stood by the mantelpiece opposite Harry. Her cheeks were a
+little flushed and her eyes bright to-night; she responded to Harry's
+gaiety, his mood acted on hers.
+
+"What are you going to do after we're--after the break-up here?" he
+asked suddenly.
+
+She smiled down at him, pausing a moment before she answered. "You seem
+quite sure that there will be a complete break-up," she said.
+
+He looked hard at her; she smiled steadily. "Well, I know that Vivien
+won't be here," he said.
+
+"Oh, I know that much too, Mr. Harry. But I suppose her father will."
+
+"I suppose that too. Which leaves only one of the party unaccounted
+for."
+
+"Yes, only one of us unaccounted for."
+
+"One that may be Miss Wellgood's companion, but could hardly be Mr.
+Wellgood's. He can scarcely claim the privileges of old age yet."
+
+"You think I ought to be looking out for another situation? But
+supposing--merely supposing--Mr. Wellgood didn't agree?"
+
+Harry flung his cigar into the grate. "Do you mean--?" he said slowly.
+She gave a little laugh. He laughed too, rather uneasily. "I say, you
+can't mean--?"
+
+"Can't I? Well, I only said 'supposing.' And I think you chaffed me
+about it yourself once. You forget what you say to women, Mr. Harry."
+
+"Should you like it?"
+
+"Beggars mustn't be choosers. We can't all be as lucky as Vivien!"
+
+"Was I serious? No--I mean--are you? Wellgood!"
+
+"Why shouldn't I be? Or why shouldn't Mr. Wellgood? It seems absurd?"
+
+"Not in Wellgood, anyhow."
+
+"Beggars mustn't be choosers."
+
+"You a beggar! Why, you're--"
+
+"What am I?"
+
+"Shall I break the rules?"
+
+She gave him a long look before answering. "No, don't." Her voice shook
+a little, her composure was less perfect.
+
+Harry was no novice; the break in the voice did not escape him. He
+marked it with a thrill of triumph; it told him that she was not merely
+playing with him; he was holding his own, he had his power. The fight
+was equal. He rose to his feet and stood facing her, both of them by the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"I don't want you to say anything about this to Vivien, because it's not
+definite yet. If the opportunity were offered to me, don't you think I
+should be wise to accept?"
+
+"Are you in love with him?" He looked in her eyes. "No, you can't be!"
+
+"Your standard of romance is so high. I like him--and perhaps I don't
+like looking out for another situation." Her tone was lighter; she
+seemed mistress of herself again. But Harry had not forgotten the break
+in her voice.
+
+"Have you considered that this arrangement--"
+
+"Which we have supposed--"
+
+"Would make you my mother-in-law?"
+
+"Well, your stepmother-in-law. That doesn't sound quite so oppressive, I
+hope?"
+
+"They both sound to me considerably absurd."
+
+"I really can't see why they should."
+
+Their eyes met in confidence, mirthful and defiant. They fought their
+duel now, forgetful of everybody except themselves. His old spirit had
+seized on Harry; it carried him away. She gave herself up to the delight
+of her triumph and to the pleasure that his challenge gave her. Out of
+sight, out of mind, were Vivien and Andy.
+
+"But relationship has its consolations, its privileges," said Harry,
+leaning towards her, his face alight with mischievous merriment. He
+offered her his hand. "At all events, accept my congratulations."
+
+She gave him her hand. "You're premature, both with congratulations and
+with relationship."
+
+"Oh, I'm always in a hurry about things," laughed Harry, holding her
+hand. He leant closer yet; his face was very near hers now--his comely
+face with its laughing luring eyes. She did not retreat. Harry saw in
+her eyes, in her flushed cheeks and quickened breath, in her
+motionlessness, the permission that he sought. Bending, he kissed her
+cheek.
+
+She gave a little laugh, triumphant, yet deprecatory and nervous. Her
+face was all aflame. Harry's gaze was on her; slowly he released her
+hand. She stood an instant longer, then, with a shrug of her shoulders,
+walked across the room towards the windows. Harry stood watching her,
+exultant and merry still.
+
+Suddenly she came to a stand. She spoke without looking round. "Vivien's
+shawl was on that chair."
+
+The words hardly reached his preoccupied brain. "What? Whose shawl?"
+
+She turned round slowly. "Vivien's shawl was on that chair, and it's
+gone," she said.
+
+Harry darted past her to the window, and looked out. He came back to her
+on tiptoe and whispered, "Andy! He's about two-thirds of the way across
+the terrace with the thing now."
+
+"He must have come in just a moment ago," she whispered in return.
+
+Harry nodded. "Yes--just a moment ago. I wonder--!" He pursed up his
+lips, but still there was a laughing devil in his eye. "Lucky she didn't
+come for it herself!" he said. "But--well, I wonder!"
+
+She laid her finger on her lips. They heard steps approaching, and
+Vivien's merry voice. Harry made a queer, half-puzzled, half-amused
+grimace. Isobel walked quickly on to the terrace. Inside the light fell
+too mercilessly on her cheeks; she would meet them beneath the friendly
+cover of the night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS.
+
+
+A stolen kiss may mean very different things--almost nothing (not quite
+nothing, or why steal it?), something yet not too much, or well-nigh
+everything. The two parties need not give it the same value; a witness
+of it is not, of necessity, bound by the valuation of either of them. It
+may be merely a jest, of such taste as charity can allow in the
+circumstances; it may be the crown and end of a slight and passing
+flirtation; it may be the first visible mark of a passion destined to
+grow to fierce intensity. Or it may seem utterly evasive in its
+significance at the moment, as it were indecipherable and imponderable,
+waiting to receive from the future its meaning and its weight.
+
+The last man to find his way through a maze of emotional analysis was
+Andy Hayes; his mind held no thread of experience whereby to track the
+path, his temperament no instinct to divine it. He could not assign a
+value--or values--to the incident of which chance had made him a
+witness; what Harry's impulse, Isobel's obvious acceptance of it, the
+intensity and absorption that marked the bearing of the two in the brief
+moment in which he saw them as he lifted Vivien's shawl, stood looking
+for a flash of time, and quickly turned away--what these things meant or
+amounted to he could not tell. But there was no uncertainty about his
+feelings; he was filled with deep distaste. He was not a man of
+impracticable ideals--his mind walked always in the mean--but he was
+naturally averse from intrigue, from underhand doings, from the playing
+of double parts. They were traitors in this thing; let it mean the least
+it could, even to mere levity or unbecoming jocularity (their faces rose
+in his mind to contradict this view even as he put it), still they were
+so far traitors. The first brunt of his censure fell on Isobel, but his
+allegiance to Harry was also so sorely shaken that it seemed as though
+it could never be the same again. The engagement had been to Andy a
+sacrosanct thing; it was now sacrilegiously defaced by the hands of the
+two most bound to guard it. "Very low-down!" was Andy's humble phrase of
+condemnation--at least very low-down; how much more he knew not but that
+in the best view of the case. At the moment his heart had gone out to
+Vivien in a great pang of compassion; it seemed such a shame to tamper
+with, even if not actually to betray, a trust like hers. His face, like
+Isobel's, had been red--but red with anger--under the cover of the
+night. He was echoing the Nun's "Poor girl!" which in loyalty to his
+friend he had before resented.
+
+His first impulse had been to shield Vivien from any suspicion; it
+taught him a new cunning, an hypocrisy not his own. If Isobel delayed
+their return to the brightly lighted room, he did not hurry it--let all
+the faces have time to recover! But his voice was calm and unmoved; for
+him he was even talkative and exuberant. When they went in, he met Harry
+with an unembarrassed air. Relief rose in Isobel; yet Harry doubted. So
+far as Harry could reason, he must have all but seen, probably had
+actually seen. And in one thing there was significance. He went on
+devoting himself to Vivien; he did not efface himself in Harry's favour,
+as his wont was. He seemed to make his presence a fence round her,
+forbidding her lover's approach. Harry, now talking trifles to Isobel,
+watched him keenly, hardly doubting, hardly venturing to hope.
+
+"Till lunch to-morrow, Harry," said Vivien gaily, when the time for
+good-night came. "You'll come too, won't you, Mr. Hayes?"
+
+"Thanks awfully, but I'm off for a big tramp."
+
+"To dinner then?" asked Isobel very graciously.
+
+"Thanks awfully, but I--I really must sup with old Jack."
+
+The quickest glance ran from Harry to Isobel.
+
+What was to be done? Take the chance--the bare chance--that he had not
+seen anything, or not seen all? Or confess the indiscretion and plead
+its triviality--with a vow of penitence, serious if Andy must be serious
+over such a trifle, light if he proved man of the world enough to join
+in laughing it off? No, Harry would take the chance, poor as it was.
+Even if Andy had seen, how could he interfere? To confess, however
+lightly, would be to give him a standing in the case, a right to put his
+oar in. It would be silly to do that; as matters stood now, his title
+could be denied if he sought to meddle. He knew Andy well enough to be
+sure that he would do nothing against him without fair warning. If he
+meant to tell tales to Vivien or to Wellgood, he would warn Harry first.
+Time enough to wrestle with him then! Meanwhile they--he was coupling
+Isobel with himself--would stand on the defensive; nothing should be
+admitted, everything should be ignored.
+
+So much for Andy! He was assessed--a possible danger, a certain cause
+for vigilance, also, it must be confessed, rather an uncomfortable
+presence, an embarrassing witness of his friend's orthodox love-making,
+as he had been an unwilling one of his heterodox. Meanwhile Harry's tact
+was equal to the walk back to Meriton, Andy proving inclined to silence
+but not unfriendly or morose, still less actively aggressive or
+reproachful. And he would not be at Meriton to-morrow. The word could be
+passed to Isobel--be careful but say nothing! Very careful in Andy's
+presence--but no admissions to be made!
+
+Aye, so much for Andy! But besides the witness there are the parties.
+Besides the person who catches you kissing, there is the person you
+kiss. There is also you, who kiss. All questions of value are not
+decided by the impression you chance to make on the witness. The
+bystander may see most of the game; the players settle the stakes.
+
+"Perverse!" was Harry's verdict on the whole affair, given from his own
+point of view; not only perverse that he should have been caught--if he
+had been--but no less perverse that he should have done the thing, that
+he should have wanted to do it, and that he should feel as he now did
+about it. Perhaps the last element was really the most perverse of all,
+because it set up in his mind an opposition to what was plainly the only
+course open to him from Isobel's point of view. (Here the question of
+the third value came in.) That was surely open and avowed penitence--a
+sincere apology, as serious or as light as was demanded or would be
+accepted. She could not pretend that she felt outraged. In truth they
+had shared in the indiscretion and been partners in the peccadillo. An
+apology not too abject, a hint at the temptation, gracefully put, to
+serve for excuse, a return to the safe ground of friendship--and a total
+oblivion of the incident! Or, if they must think of it at all, it would
+be without words--with a smile, maybe, in a few days' time; that is how
+we feel about some not serious, by no means unpleasant, little scrape
+that is well over. Harry had been in a good many such--perverse but not
+fatal, annoying at the time, not necessarily things on which the memory
+dwelt with pain in after days; far from it sometimes, in fact.
+
+That was the right thing to do, and the right way to regard the episode.
+But Harry was conscious of a complication--in the circumstances and in
+his own feelings. Owing to his engagement with Vivien he must go on
+frequenting Isobel's society; owing to the memory of his kiss the
+necessity was not distasteful. Well, these little complications must be
+unravelled; the first difficulty faced, the second ignored or overcome.
+He arrived at so clear, sound, and prudent a resolution thus to minimise
+the effects of his indiscretion that he felt almost more virtuous than
+if he had been discreet.
+
+So the parties, as well as the witness, were assessed. But who had put
+into his hand the standard whereby to assess Isobel? She might measure
+by another rule.
+
+The confession--and absolution--thus virtuously and comfortably planned
+did not take place the next day, for the simple reason that Miss Vintry
+afforded no opportunity for them; she was ill and invisible. On the
+following day she was on a sofa. Immediately on his appearance, Harry
+was sent home again, Vivien declaring that she must be in unremitting
+attendance on her friend. The third day matters seemed back on their
+usual footing; but still he got no private word with Isobel. Once or
+twice he caught her looking at him in what seemed a thoughtful way; when
+observed, she averted her glance, but without embarrassment. Perhaps
+this avoidance of all chance of private talk--of all possibility of
+referring to the incident--was her way of treating it; perhaps she meant
+to dispense with apology and go straight to oblivion. If that were her
+intention, she misjudged Harry's feelings. He felt baulked of his scheme
+of confession and absolution--baulked and tantalized. He felt almost
+insulted--did she not think him gentleman enough to apologise? He felt
+curious--did she not feel the desire for an apology herself? He felt
+amazed--had she no anxiety about Andy? The net result was that he could
+think of little else than of her and of the incident. And under these
+circumstances he had to carry on his orthodox love-making! The way of
+trangressors is said to be hard; at moments Harry felt his worse than
+that; it had a tendency to become ridiculous.
+
+Against this abhorred peril he struck back vigorously and instinctively
+on effective lines. He could hold his own in a duel of the sexes. His
+court of Vivien not only seemed but became more ardent--in these matters
+the distinction between being and seeming runs very thin, since the
+acting excites the reality. If one woman teased him, occupying his
+thoughts without satisfying his desire, he turned to the adoration of
+another, and gave her of his own that hers might be more complete.
+Adoring Vivien found herself adored; Harry's worship would break out
+even in Isobel's presence! He who had been rather too content to accept
+now asked; she could not do enough to witness her love.
+Half-unconsciously fighting for a victory he less than consciously
+desired, he struck at Isobel through Vivien--and made Vivien supremely
+happy. Happiness gave her confidence; confidence gave her new charm, a
+new vivacity, a daring to speak her gay and loving thoughts. Who should
+not listen if Harry loved to hear? Her growth in power to allure made
+Harry wonder that he could not love single-heartedly, why his
+recollection of the incident remained so fresh and so ever-present. If
+Isobel would give him a chance to wind it up! It was troublesome now
+only because it hung in a mystery created by her silence, because the
+memory of it was irritated by a curiosity which her evasion of him
+maintained. Did she think it nothing? Or could she not bear to speak of
+it, because it was so much more? At any rate she should see how he loved
+Vivien!
+
+The three had this week to themselves--Andy engulfed in town and Gilbert
+Foot and Co., Wellgood not due back till the Saturday. So they passed
+it--Vivien in a new ecstasy; Harry ardent, troubled, wondering; Isobel
+apart, thoughtful, impossible to read. Thus they came to the Friday.
+To-morrow Wellgood would be back. Harry, thinking on this, thought
+suddenly of what had led up to the incident--what had been the excuse,
+the avenue, for his venture. It had been absorbed in the incident
+itself. Wellgood's coming gave it back to independent life. If what
+Isobel had said were true, another lover entered on the scene--Isobel's!
+
+That night--when Harry had gone--Vivien came to Isobel and kissed her,
+saying, "It's wonderful, but to-night I'm sure!"
+
+Isobel was looking at an illustrated paper. She let her hand rest in
+Vivien's, but she did not raise her eyes from the pictures. "Silly
+child, you've been sure all along!"
+
+"Not as I am to-night. I've been sure I pleased him, that he liked me,
+that he liked my love. I've never been sure that he really wanted it
+till the last two or three days." She paused a moment, and added softly,
+"Never sure he must have it, as much as I must have his!"
+
+Isobel's paper slipped from her knees on to the floor, but still she did
+not look at Vivien.
+
+"It's a wonderful feeling that," the girl went on; "to feel he must have
+it--that he must have my love as I must have his. Before he seemed to be
+doing all the giving--and I could hardly believe! Now I'm giving
+too--we're sharing. Somehow it makes a woman of me." She playfully
+caressed Isobel's hand, running fingers lightly over fingers. "I don't
+believe I'm afraid even of you any more!" Her tone was gay,
+affectionately bantering.
+
+Now Isobel looked up at her as she leant over her shoulder. "It makes
+you look very pretty."
+
+"It makes me feel prettier still," laughed Vivien. She put her face
+close to her friend's and whispered, blushing, "He kisses me differently
+now."
+
+Isobel Vintry sharply drew her hand away. Vivien's blush grew painfully
+bright.
+
+"Oh, I--I oughtn't to have said that. You're right, Isobel. It's--it's
+too sacred. But I was so happy in it. Do forgive me, dear. I've got no
+mother to talk to, Isobel. Not even a sister! I know what you felt, but
+you must forgive me."
+
+"There's nothing to forgive, child. I meant nothing when I took my hand
+away. I was going to pick up the paper."
+
+"Then kiss me, Isobel."
+
+Isobel slowly turned her head and kissed the girl's cheek. "I know what
+you mean, Vivien," she said with a smile that to the girl seemed
+wistful, almost bitter.
+
+"You dear!" she whispered. "Some day you must be very happy too." Her
+voice carolled in song as she sped upstairs.
+
+"The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I
+do." That--and possibly one other--reminiscence of the Scriptures came
+back to Isobel Vintry when, with a kiss, she had dismissed Vivien to her
+happy rest. There was another law, warring against the law of her
+mind--the law of the Restless and Savage Master. He broke friendship's
+power and blurred the mirror of loyalty. He drove her whither she would
+not go, commanded her to set her hand to what she would not touch,
+forced love to mate with loathing. "The child is so beautifully happy,"
+her spirit cried. "Aye, in Harry Belfield's kisses," came the Master's
+answer. "Wouldn't she be? You've tasted them. You know." She knew. They
+were different now! From those he had given Vivien before? Yes. From the
+one he had given her? Or like that one? Her jealousy caught fresh flame
+from Vivien's shy revelation--fresh flame and new shame. Harry was
+repenting--with smiles of memory. She was sinning still, with groans,
+with all her cunning, and with all her might. Pass the theory that it is
+each man for himself in this fight, and each woman for her own hand. No
+doubt; but should not the fight be fair? The girl did not so much as
+know there was a fight, and should not and must not, unless and until it
+had gone irrevocably against her. "All's fair in love--and war." Yet
+traitors suffer death from their own side and the enemy's contempt.
+
+His kisses were different now--that set her aflame. Aye, and to mark how
+under their new charm Vivien opened into new power and took hold on new
+weapons! The new kisses somehow made a woman of her! It might be
+tolerable to see him make his marriage of convenience, doing no more
+than somewhat indolently allowing himself to be adored. But to see him
+adoring this other--that was to be worsted on the merits--not merely to
+be impossible, but to be undesired. Was that coming about? Had it come
+about--so soon after the stolen kiss? Then the kiss had been all
+failure, all shame; he had mocked while he kissed. She was cheapened,
+yet not aided. The cunning of the last six days had been bent to prove
+that she had been aided--her value not cheapened but enhanced.
+
+Looking again out of the window whence she had watched the pair at their
+love-making, looking over the terrace, now empty, across the water
+(water seems ever to answer to the onlooker's mood), she exclaimed
+against the absence of safeguards. Were she a wife--or were Vivien! That
+would be a fence, making for protection--a sturdy fence, which to break
+down or to leap over would be plain trespassing, a profanation, open
+offence. Were she--or were Vivien--a mother! The Savage Master himself
+must own a worthy foe in motherhood--one that gave him trouble, one that
+he vanquished only after hard fighting, and then saw his victory
+bitterly grudged, piteously wept over, deplored in a heart-rending
+fashion; you could see that in the morning's paper. She chanced to have
+read such a case a day or two before. The letter of confession was
+signed "Mother the outcast." To have to sign like that--if you let the
+Master beat you--was a deterrent, a safeguard, a shield. Such defences
+she had not. Vivien was neither wife nor mother; no more was she. The
+engagement seemed but victory in the first bout; was it forbidden to try
+the best of three? Nothing was irrevocable yet--on either side. "At
+lovers' vows--!" Or a stolen kiss! Or a stolen victory?
+
+Suddenly she remembered, and with the same quality of smile as Vivien
+had marked, that she had been an exemplary child, ever extolled, never
+punished; a pattern schoolgirl, with the highest marks, Queen on May-day
+(a throne not to be achieved without the Principal's _congé d'élire!_),
+a model student at Cambridge. Hence the unexceptionable credentials
+which had introduced her to Nutley, had made her Vivien's preceptress,
+Vivien's bulwark against fear and weakness, Vivien's shield--and
+destined to be a shield to successive young ladies after Vivien. Who
+first had undermined that accepted view of destiny, had disordered that
+well-schooled, almost Sunday-schooled, scheme of her life? Vivien's
+father, who came back to-morrow. At whose challenge was the shaken
+fortress like to fall? Vivien's lover, who came yesterday and the day
+before, to-morrow and the day after, every day till he went out of life
+with Vivien.
+
+As with minds greatly preoccupied, the ordinary traffic of the hours
+passed unnoticed; bed, sleep, breakfast, were a moment. She found
+herself greeting Wellgood, newly arrived, ruddy and robust, confident,
+self-satisfied--as she saw in a moment, eager. His kiss to his daughter
+was carelessly kind, and with it he let her go, she not unwilling; Harry
+was due at the gate. Wellgood's real greeting was for the woman whom to
+see was his home-coming. He led her with him into his study; he laid his
+hand on her arm as he made her sit down near him.
+
+"Well, have the lovers bored you to death with their spooning since I've
+been away?"
+
+"There's been a good deal of it, and not much relief. Only Andy Hayes
+now and then."
+
+"Rather tiresome to be the onlooker all the time. Wouldn't you like a
+little on your own account?"
+
+"I'm in no hurry." She looked him straight in the face, rather
+defiantly.
+
+"I've made up my mind since I've been away. I'm not a good hand at
+speeches or at spooning, but I'm fond of you, Isobel. I'll make you a
+good husband--and it's for you to consider whether you'll ever get a
+better chance."
+
+"I should like more time to think it over."
+
+"Oh, come, don't tell me you haven't been thinking it over for weeks
+past. What's the difficulty?"
+
+"I'm not in love with you--that's all."
+
+"I don't expect to inspire a romantic passion, like young Harry."
+
+"Can't you leave Harry Belfield out of it?" she asked irritably.
+
+"I see he has bored you," chuckled Wellgood. "But you like me? We get on
+together?"
+
+"Yes, I like you, and we get on together. But I don't want to marry
+yet."
+
+"No more do I--just yet!" He rose and went to the mantelpiece to choose
+a pipe. "Have you got any friends you could stay a month with?"
+
+His back was to her; he was busy filling the pipe. He saw neither the
+sudden stiffening of her figure nor the fear in her eyes. Was he going
+to send her away--now? But she answered coolly, "Yes, I think I could
+arrange it, if you wish."
+
+"Somehow a man feels rather a fool, being engaged himself while his
+girl's getting married. We should have all the idiots in the
+neighbourhood buzzing about with their jokes and congratulations. I've
+made a plan to avoid all that. We keep it quite dark till Vivien's
+wedding; then you go off, ostensibly for good. I stay here and give the
+place an overhauling; then I'll join you in town, we'll be married
+there, and go for a jaunt. By the time we come back they'll have cooled
+down--and they'll be jolly glad to have shirked their wedding presents."
+By now he had turned round; the strain and the fear had passed from
+Isobel; the month's visit to friends was not to come now. "How do you
+like the scheme?" he asked.
+
+"I like the scheme very much, and I'm all for keeping it quiet till
+Vivien is disposed of."
+
+He stood before her, smoking his pipe, his hands in his pockets. "Shall
+we call it settled?"
+
+"I don't want to call it settled yet."
+
+He put down his pipe. "Look here, Isobel, because I can't make pretty
+speeches, don't you think I don't feel this thing. I want you, and I
+want the thing settled. You ought to know your mind by now. If you want
+to say no, you can say it now, but I don't believe you do. Then why
+can't you say yes? It's devilishly uncomfortable to go on living in the
+house with you while the thing's unsettled."
+
+Would the visit come into play after all, unless she consented? Isobel
+sat in thought.
+
+"Just understood between ourselves--that's what I mean. I shan't bother
+you with much love-making, as I daresay you can guess."
+
+She had cried out for a fence, a protection. Did not one offer itself
+now? It might prove of service. She saw that the man loved her in his
+rough way; his love might help her. For the time, at least, his honest
+sincerity of affection touched her heart. His "I want you" was grateful
+to her. That other thing--the thing to which the stolen kiss
+belonged--was madness. Surely she had resolution to withstand it and to
+do what was wise? Surely she could be honest? If only because, in all
+likelihood, dishonesty led nowhere.
+
+"Suppose I said yes--and changed my mind?" She was trying to be
+honest--or perhaps to put herself in a position to maintain that she had
+been honest, if need arose.
+
+"I must take my chance of that, like other men," laughed Wellgood. "But,
+like other men too, I don't suppose I should be very pleasant about it.
+Especially not if there was another fellow!"
+
+"No, I don't suppose you would." She smiled at him for a moment; he
+showed there a side of him that she liked--his courage, his
+self-confidence, his power to stand up for himself.
+
+"You leave it to me to keep you when once I've got you," he went on,
+smiling grimly. "That's my affair; you'll find I shall look after it."
+
+She smiled back at him--defiance in return for his grimness. "Very well,
+I'll leave it to you to keep me. After all, there's no reason to expect
+competition."
+
+"Not in Meriton, perhaps! But what of London, Miss Isobel? I must keep
+an eye on you there!" He took hold of her hands and pulled her to her
+feet. "It's a promise?"
+
+"In the way I've told you--yes."
+
+"Oh, that's good enough for me!" He drew her to him and kissed her. "We
+shan't have many chances of kissing--or we should give the thing away.
+But give me one now, Isobel!"
+
+She did as she was bid in a very friendly fashion. His kiss had been
+hearty but not passionate, and hers was an adequate response. It left
+Wellgood entirely content.
+
+"That's all right! Gad, I feel ten years younger! You shan't repent it.
+I'll look after you well--while I'm alive and after I'm gone too. Don't
+be afraid about that. Perhaps there'll be somebody else to look after
+you, by the time I get notice to quit. I'd like to leave a Wellgood of
+Nutley behind me."
+
+"Do you know, that's sentimental?" said Isobel. "Mere sentiment!"
+
+"Not a bit of it, miss. It's a sound natural instinct, and I'm proud of
+it." He kissed her again. "Now be off, there's a good girl. I've got a
+thousand things to do, and probably everything's been going to the devil
+while I've been away."
+
+"I rather pity everybody now you've come back!"
+
+"Don't you worry. I know I shall find your department in good order. Be
+off!" He took her by the shoulders in a rough playfulness and turned her
+towards the door. She left him chuckling to himself. He was very content
+with the issue of his suit.
+
+Was her department in good order? Her lips twisted in a wry smile.
+
+As she approached the drawing-room door, Harry Belfield came out of it.
+He started a little to see her--not that it was strange she should be
+there, but because he had not seen her alone since the night of the
+stolen kiss. He closed the door behind him and came to her.
+
+"Vivien"--a jerk of his head told that Vivien was in the
+drawing-room--"has sent me to say 'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood."
+
+"He's in his study, Mr. Harry. Don't stay long. He's very busy." She
+drew aside, to let him pass, but Harry stood still.
+
+"Are you never going to give me an opportunity?" he asked in a low
+voice.
+
+"An opportunity for what?"
+
+Harry jumped at the chance of his confession and absolution. "Why, of
+saying how awfully sorry and--and ashamed I am that I yielded--"
+
+"What's the use of saying anything about it? It's best forgotten."
+
+"Now Wellgood's back?" he whispered, with a flash of his eyes.
+
+"Certainly best forgotten, now that Vivien's father is back."
+
+He shook his head at her with a smile, owning her skilful parry. "You
+won't give me one chance?"
+
+"Does the dashing Mr. Harry Belfield need to have chances given him? I
+thought he made them for himself."
+
+Harry's eyes gleamed. "I'll take you at your word in that!"
+
+"You've been in no hurry about it up to now--and you seem in none to say
+'How do you do?' to Mr. Wellgood." She motioned him to go on, adding,
+"It was very silly, but no harm's done. We'll forget."
+
+Harry gave her a long look. She met it with a steady smile. He held out
+his hand.
+
+"Thank you. We'll forget. There's my hand on it."
+
+She gave a little laugh, shook her head, and put her hands behind her
+back.
+
+"I seem to remember it began that way before," she said, and darted past
+him swiftly.
+
+That was how they set about forgetting the stolen kiss.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+A LOVER LOOKS PALE.
+
+
+It speedily appeared that Gilly Foot had other than pecuniary reasons
+for wanting a partner; he wanted a pair of hands to work for him. He was
+lazy, at times even lethargic; nothing could make him hurry. He hated
+details, and, above all other details, figures. His work was to hatch
+ideas; somebody else had to bring up the chickens. Andy could hardly
+have allowed the cool shuffling-off of all the practical business work
+on to his shoulders--which was what happened as soon as he had learnt
+even the rudiments of it--had it not been that the ideas were good. The
+indolent young man would sit all the morning--not that his morning began
+very early--apparently doing nothing, then spend two hours at lunch at
+the restaurant, come back smoking a large cigar, and after another
+hour's rumination be delivered of an idea. The budding business--Andy
+wondered how it had even budded under a gardener who no doubt planted
+but never watered--lay mainly with educational works; and here Gilly's
+ingenuity came in. He was marvellously good at guessing what would
+appeal to a schoolmaster; how or whence he got this instinct it was
+impossible to say; it seemed just a freak of genius. The prospectus of a
+new "series," or the "syllabus" of a new course of study (contained in
+Messrs. Gilbert Foot and Co.'s primers) became in his hands a most
+skilful bait. And if he hooked one schoolmaster, as he pointed out to
+Andy, it was equivalent to hooking scores, perhaps hundreds, conceivably
+thousands, of boys. Girls too perhaps! Gilly was all for the higher
+education of girls. Generations of the youth of both sexes rose before
+his prophetically sanguine eye, all brought up on Gilbert Foot and Co.'s
+primers.
+
+"A single really good idea for a series may mean a small fortune, Andy,"
+he would say impressively. "And now I think I may as well go to lunch."
+
+Andy accepted the situation and did the hard work. He also provided his
+partner with a note-book, urging him to put down (or, failing that, to
+get somebody else to put down) any brilliant idea which occurred to him
+at lunch. For himself he made a rule--lunch at the restaurant not more
+than once a week. Only ideas justified lunch there every day. Lunch
+there might be good for ideas; it was not good for figures.
+
+So Andy was working hard, no less hard than when he was trying to drag
+his poor timber business out of the mud, but with far more heart, hope,
+and zest. He buckled to the figures; he bargained with the gentlemen who
+wrote the primers, with the printers, and the binders, and the
+advertisement canvassers; he tracked shy discounts to their lairs, and
+bagged them; his eye on office expenses was the eye of a lynx. The
+chickens hatched by Gilly found a loving and assiduous foster-mother.
+And in September, after the new primers had been packed off to meet the
+boys going back to school, Andy was to have a holiday; he was looking
+forward to it intensely. He meant to spend it in attending Harry
+Belfield on his autumn campaign in the Meriton Division--an odd idea of
+a holiday to most men's thinking, but Harry was still Harry, and Andy's
+appetite for new experiences had lost none of its voracity. Meanwhile,
+for recreation, there was Sunday with its old programme of church, a
+tramp, and supper with Jack Rock; there was lunch on Friday at the
+restaurant with the Nun--she never missed Andy's day--and other friends;
+and on both the Saturdays which followed the Belfields' return home he
+was bidden to dine at Halton.
+
+That the Nun had taken a fancy to him he had been informed by that
+candid young woman herself; her assurance that he was "attractive" held
+good as regarded Belfield at least; even Andy's modesty could not deny
+that. Belfield singled him out for especial attention, drew him out,
+listened to him, advised him. It was at the first of the two evenings at
+Halton that he kept Andy with him after dinner, while the rest went into
+the garden--Wellgood and Vivien were there, but not Isobel, who had
+pleaded a cold--and insisted on hearing all about his business,
+listening with evident interest to Andy's description of it and of his
+partner, Gilly Foot.
+
+"And in your holiday you're going to help Harry, I hear?"
+
+"Help him!" laughed Andy. "I'm going to listen to him."
+
+"I recommend you to try your own hand too. You couldn't have a better
+opportunity of learning the job than at these village meetings."
+
+"I could never do it. It never entered my head. Why, I know nothing!"
+
+"More than your audience; that's enough. If you do break down at first,
+it doesn't matter. After a month of it you wouldn't mind Trafalgar
+Square."
+
+"The--the idea's absolutely new to me."
+
+"So have a lot of things been lately, haven't they? And they're turning
+out well."
+
+A slow smile spread over Andy's face. "I should look a fool," he
+reflected.
+
+"Try it," said Belfield, quite content with the reception of his
+suggestion. He saw that Andy would turn it over in his mind, would give
+it full, careful, impartial consideration. He was coming to have no
+small idea of Andy's mind. He passed to another topic.
+
+"You were at Nutley two or three times when we were away, Harry tells
+me. Everything seems going on very pleasantly?"
+
+Andy recalled himself with a start from his rumination over a possible
+speech.
+
+"Oh, yes--er--it looks like it, Mr. Belfield."
+
+"And Harry's not been to town more than once or twice!" He smiled. "He
+really seems to have said farewell to the temptations of London. An
+exemplary swain!"
+
+"I think it's going on all right, sir," said Andy.
+
+Belfield was a little puzzled at his lack of enthusiasm. Andy showed no
+actual signs of embarrassment, but his tone was cold, and his interest
+seemed perfunctory.
+
+"I daresay you've been too busy to pay much attention to such frivolous
+affairs," he said; but to Andy's ears his voice sounded the least bit
+resentful.
+
+"No; I--I assure you I take the keenest interest in it. I'd give
+anything to have it go all right."
+
+Belfield's eyes were on him with a shrewd kindness. "No reason to
+suppose it won't, is there?"
+
+"None that I know of." Now Andy was frowning a little and smoking rather
+fast.
+
+Belfield said no more. He could not cross-examine Andy; indeed he had no
+materials, even if he had the right. But Andy's manner left him with a
+feeling of uneasiness.
+
+"Ah, well, there's only six weeks to wait for the wedding!"
+
+The next Saturday found him again at Halton. One of the six weeks had
+passed; a week of happy work, yet somewhat shadowed by the recollection
+of Belfield's questions and his own poor answers. Had he halted midway
+between honest truth and useful lying? In fact he knew nothing of what
+had been happening of late. He had not visited Nutley again--since that
+night. Suddenly it struck him that he had not been invited. Then--did
+they suspect? How could they have timed his entrance so exactly as to
+suspect? He did not know that Harry had seen his retreating figure.
+Still it would seem to them possible that he might have seen--possible,
+if unlikely. That might be enough to make him a less desired guest.
+
+The great campaign was to begin on the following Monday, though Andy
+would not be at leisure to devote himself to it till a week later. The
+talk ran on it. Wellgood, who seemed in excellent spirits, displayed
+keen interest in the line Harry meant to take, and was ready to be
+chairman whenever desired. Even Mrs. Belfield herself showed some mild
+excitement, and promised to attend one meeting. The girls were to go to
+as many as possible, Vivien being full of tremulous anticipation of
+Harry's triumph, Isobel almost as enthusiastic a partisan. She had met
+Andy with a perfection of composure which drove out of his head any idea
+that she suspected him of secret knowledge.
+
+"I'm afraid Harry's been overworking himself over it, poor boy," said
+Mrs. Belfield. "Don't you think he looks pale, Mr. Wellgood?"
+
+"I don't know where he's found the time to overwork," Wellgood answered,
+with a gruff laugh. "We can account for most of his time at Nutley."
+
+Harry burst into a laugh, and gulped down his wine. He was drinking a
+good deal of champagne.
+
+"I sigh as a lover, mother," he explained.
+
+"That's what makes me pale--if I am pale." His tone turned to sudden
+irritation. "Don't all look at me. There's nothing the matter." He
+laughed again; he seemed full of changes of mood to-night. "The speeches
+won't give me much trouble."
+
+"I'm sure you need have no other trouble, dear," said Mrs. Belfield,
+with an affectionate glance at Vivien.
+
+"He'll have much more trouble with me, won't he?" Vivien laughed.
+
+Andy stole a look at Isobel. He was filled with admiration; a smile of
+just the right degree of sympathy ornamented her lips. A profane idea
+that she must be in the habit of being kissed crossed his mind. It was
+difficult to see how she could be, though--at Nutley. Kissing takes two.
+He did not suspect Wellgood, and he was innocent himself.
+
+Another eye was watching--shrewder and more experienced than
+Andy's--watching Harry, watching Isobel, watching while Andy stole his
+glance at Isobel. It was easy to keep bluff Wellgood in the dark; his
+own self-confidence hoodwinked him. Belfield was harder to blind; for
+those who had anything to conceal, it was lucky that he did not live at
+Nutley.
+
+"Well, waiting for a wedding's tiresome work for all concerned, isn't
+it?" he said to Isobel, who sat next him.
+
+"Yes, even waiting for other people's. It's such a provisional sort of
+time, Mr. Belfield."
+
+"You've forsworn one set of pleasures, and haven't got the other yet.
+You've ceased to be a rover, and you haven't got a home."
+
+"You don't seem to consider being engaged a very joyful period?" she
+smiled.
+
+"On the whole, I don't, Miss Vintry, though Vivien there looks pretty
+happy. But it's telling on Harry, I'm sure."
+
+She looked across at Harry. "Yes, I think it is a little," came
+apparently as the result of a scrutiny suggested by Belfield's words. "I
+hadn't noticed it, but I'm afraid you're right."
+
+"If there's anything up, she's a cool hand," thought Belfield. "You must
+try to distract his thoughts," he told her.
+
+"I try to let them see as little of me as possible."
+
+"Too complete a realization of matrimonial solitude _à deux_ before
+marriage--Is that advisable?"
+
+"You put too difficult questions for a poor spinster to answer, Mr.
+Belfield."
+
+He got nothing out of her, but from the corner of his eye he saw Harry
+watching him as he talked to Isobel. Turning his head sharply, he met
+his son's glance full and straight. Harry dropped his eyes suddenly, and
+again drank off his champagne. Belfield looked sideways at the composed
+lady on his right, and pursed up his lips a little.
+
+Wellgood stayed with him to-night after dinner, the young men joining
+the ladies in the garden for coffee.
+
+"Our friend Miss Vintry's in great good looks to-night, Wellgood.
+Remarkably handsome girl!"
+
+"That dress suits her very well. I thought so myself," Wellgood agreed,
+well-pleased to have his secret choice thus endorsed.
+
+Belfield knew nothing of his secret, nothing of his plans. He was only
+trying to find out whether Vivien's father were fully at his ease; of
+Isobel's lover and his ease he took no account.
+
+"Upon my word," he laughed, "if I were engaged, even to a girl as
+charming as your Vivien, I should almost feel it an injury to have
+another as attractive about all day. 'How happy could I be with
+either--!' you know. The unregenerate man in one would feel that good
+material was being wasted; and my boy used to be rather unregenerate,
+I'm afraid."
+
+Wellgood smiled in a satisfied fashion. "Even if Master Harry was
+disposed to play tricks, I don't think he'd get much encouragement
+from--"
+
+"'T'other dear charmer?' Of course you've perfect confidence in her, or
+she wouldn't be where she is."
+
+"No, nor where she's going to be," thought Wellgood, enjoying his
+secret.
+
+"My licentious fancy has wronged my son. I must have felt a touch of the
+old Adam myself, Wellgood. Don't tell my wife."
+
+"You wouldn't tell me, if you knew a bit more," thought triumphant
+Wellgood.
+
+"I think Harry's constancy has stood a good trial. Oh, you'll think I
+don't appreciate Vivien! I do; but I know Harry."
+
+Wellgood answered him in kind, with a bludgeon-like wit. "You'll think I
+don't appreciate Harry. I do; but I know Miss Vintry, and she doesn't
+care a button about him."
+
+"We proud parents put one another in our places!" laughed Belfield.
+
+Wellgood saw no danger, and he had been home a fortnight! True, he had,
+before that, been away six weeks. But such mischief, if it existed,
+would have grown. If it had been there during the six weeks, it would
+have been there, in fuller growth, during the fortnight. Belfield felt
+reassured. He had found out what he wanted, and yet had given no hint to
+Vivien's father. But one or two of his remarks abode in the mind of
+Isobel's lover, to whom he did not know that he was speaking. Wellgood's
+secret position towards Isobel at once made Belfield's fears, if the
+fears were more than a humorous fancy, absurd, and made them, even
+though no more than a fancy, stick. He recked nothing of them as a
+father; he remembered them as a lover, yet remembered only to laugh in
+his robust security. He thought it would be a good joke to tell to
+Isobel, not realizing that it is never a good joke to tell a woman that
+she has been, without cause and ridiculously, considered a source of
+danger to legitimate affections. She may feel this or that about the
+charge; she will not feel its absurdity. She is generally right. Few
+women pass through the world without stirring in somebody once or twice
+an unruly impulse--a fact which should incline them all to
+circumspection in themselves, and to charity towards one another, if
+possible, and at any rate towards us.
+
+"And what," asked Belfield, with an air of turning to less important
+matters, "about the life of this Parliament?"
+
+Wellgood opined that it would prove much what a certain philosopher
+declared the life of man to be--nasty, short, and brutish.
+
+In the garden Mrs. Belfield, carefully enfolded in rugs, dozed the doze
+of the placid. Isobel and Harry whispered across her unconscious form.
+
+"You shouldn't drink so much champagne, Harry."
+
+"Hang it, I want it! I said nothing wrong, did I?"
+
+"You don't keep control of your eyes. I think your father noticed. Why
+look at me?"
+
+"You know I can't help it. And I can't stand it all much longer."
+
+"You can end it as soon as you like. Am I preventing you?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Vintry? I'm afraid I'm drowsy."
+
+"I was just saying I hoped I wasn't preventing Mr. Harry from strolling
+with Vivien, Mrs. Belfield."
+
+"Oh yes, my dear, of course!" The placid lids fell over the placid eyes
+again.
+
+"End it? How?"
+
+"By behaving as Vivien's _fiancé_ ought."
+
+"Or by not being Vivien's _fiancé_ any longer?"
+
+"What, Harry love? What's that about not being Vivien's _fiancé_ any
+longer?" Mrs. Belfield was roused by words admitting of so startling an
+interpretation.
+
+"Well, we shall be married soon, shan't we, mother?"
+
+"How stupid of me, Harry dear!" Sleep again descended. Harry swore
+softly; Isobel laughed low.
+
+"This is ridiculous!" she remarked. "Couldn't you take just one turn
+with Vivien's companion? Your mother might hear straight just once."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night," said Harry. "I'll take
+Wellgood on at billiards."
+
+"Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may bring back your colour,
+Harry."
+
+Harry looked at her in exasperation--and in longing. "I wish there
+wasn't a woman in the world!" he growled.
+
+"It's men like you who say that," she retorted, smiling. "Go and forget
+us for an hour."
+
+He went without more words--with only such a shrug as he had given when
+he said good-bye to Mrs. Freere. Isobel sat on, by dozing Mrs. Belfield,
+the picture of a dutiful neglected companion, while Wellgood and Harry
+played billiards, and Belfield, wheezing over an unread evening paper,
+honoured her with a tribute of distrustful curiosity. Left alone in the
+flesh, she could boast that she occupied several minds that evening.
+Perhaps she knew it, as she sat silent, thoughtfully gazing across to
+where Vivien and Andy sat together, their dim figures just visible in
+enshrouding darkness. "He saw--but he won't speak!" she was thinking.
+
+"How funny of Harry to say he sighed as a lover!" Vivien remarked to
+Andy.
+
+Andy had the pride and pleasure of informing her that her lover was
+indulging in a quotation from another lover, more famous and more
+temperate.
+
+"'I sighed as a lover. I obeyed as a son.' I see! How funny! Do you
+think Gibbon was right, Mr. Hayes?"
+
+"The oldest question since men had sons and women had lovers, isn't it?"
+
+"Doesn't love come first--when once it has come?"
+
+"After honour, the poet tells us, Miss Wellgood."
+
+Vivien knew that quotation, anyhow. "It's beautiful, but isn't it--just
+a little priggish?"
+
+"I think we must admit that it's at least a very graceful apology,"
+laughed Andy.
+
+Their pleasant banter bred intimacy; she was treating him as an old
+friend. He felt himself hardly audacious in saying "How you've grown!"
+
+She understood him--nay, thanked him with a smile and a flash, revealing
+pleasure, from her eyes, often so reticent. "Am I different from the
+days of the lame pony and Curly? Not altogether, I'm afraid, but I hope
+a little." She sat silent for a moment. "I love Harry--well, so do you."
+
+"Yes, I love Harry." But he had a sore grudge against Harry at that
+moment. Who at Halton had once talked about pearls and swine? And in
+what connection?
+
+"That's why I'm different." She laughed softly. "If you'd so far
+honoured me, Mr. Hayes, and I had--responded, I might never have become
+different. I should just have relied on the--policeman."
+
+"The Force is always ready to do its duty," said Andy.
+
+"Take care; you're nearly flirting!" she admonished him merrily; and
+Andy, rather proud of himself for a gallant remark, laughed and blushed
+in answer. She went on more seriously, yet still with her serene smile.
+"First I've got to please him; then I've got to help him. He must have
+both, you know."
+
+"Please him, oh, yes! Help him, how?"
+
+"I'm sure you know. Poor boy! His ups and downs! Sometimes he comes to
+me almost in despair. It's so hard to help then. Isobel can't either.
+He's not happy, you know, to-night."
+
+She had grown. This penetration was new; should he wish that it might
+become less or greater? Less for the sake of her peace, or greater for
+her enlightenment's?
+
+"It seems as if a darkness swept over him sometimes, and got between him
+and me." Her voice trembled a little. "I want to keep that darkness away
+from him; so I mustn't be afraid."
+
+"Whether you're afraid or not, you won't run away. Remember Curly!"
+
+She turned to him with affectionate friendliness. "But you'll be there
+in this too, so far as you can, won't you? Don't forsake me, will you?
+It's sometimes--very difficult." Her face lit up in a smile again. "I
+hope it'll make a man of me, as father used to say of that odious
+hunting."
+
+It had, at least, made an end of the mere child in her. The discernment
+of her lover's trouble, the ignorance of whence it came, the need of
+fighting it--she faced these things as part of her work. Her engagement
+was no more either amazement merely, or merely joy. She might still be
+afraid of dogs, or shrink from a butcher's shop. She knew a difficulty
+when she saw one, and for love's sake faced it. Andy thought it made the
+love dearer to her; with an inward groan he saw that it did. For he was
+afraid. What she told of Harry told more than she could fathom for
+herself.
+
+Andy was a partisan. He cried whole-heartedly, "The pity for Vivien!" He
+could say, "The pity for Harry!" for old Harry's sake, and more for
+Vivien's. No, "The pity for Isobel!" was breathed in his heart. The case
+seemed to him a plain one there; and he was not of the party who would
+have the Recording Angel as liberal with tears as with ink, sedulously
+obliterating everything that he punctiliously wrote--in the end, on that
+view, a somewhat ineffectual registrar, who might be spared both ink and
+tears, and provided with a retiring pension by triumphant believers in
+Necessity. It may come to that.
+
+"I think Harry may be wanting me." She rose in her slim grace, and held
+out a hand to him--not in formal farewell, but in an impulse of
+good-will. She had come into her heritage of womanhood, and bore it with
+a shy stateliness. "Thank you"--a pause rather merry than timid--"Thank
+you, policeman Andy."
+
+"No, but I thank you--and you seem to me rather like the queen of the
+fairies."
+
+She smiled, and sighed lightly. "If I can make the king think so
+always!"
+
+Then she was gone, a white shadow gliding over the grass--a woman now,
+still in a child's shape. She flitted past Isobel Vintry, kissing her
+hand, and so passed in to where "Harry wanted her."
+
+Politeness dictated that Andy, thus left to himself, should join his
+hostess; he did not know that she was asleep, quite sound asleep by now.
+
+Having sat down before he discovered this state of affairs, he found
+himself committed to a virtual _tête-à-tête_ with Isobel Vintry, quite
+the last thing he desired. He did not find it easy to open the
+conversation.
+
+"Oh, we can talk! We shan't disturb her," Miss Vintry hastened to assure
+him with a smile. "You've been quite a stranger at Nutley. Did you find
+the atmosphere too romantic? Too much love-making for your taste?"
+
+"I did feel rather in the way now and then."
+
+"Perhaps you were once or twice! When you attached yourself to Vivien
+after dinner, and left Mr. Harry no resource but poor me!"
+
+Surely if she spoke like that--actually recalling the critical
+occasion--she could have no suspicion? Either she must never have
+noticed the shawl at all, or feel sure that it had been removed before
+her talk with Harry reached the point of danger.
+
+"I'm sure you entertained him very well. I don't think he'd complain."
+
+"Well, sometimes people like talking over their affairs with a third
+person for a change--as I daresay Vivien has been doing with you just
+now! And, after all, because you're engaged, everybody else in the world
+needn't at once seem hopelessly stupid."
+
+Certainly Isobel Vintry could never seem hopelessly stupid, thought
+Andy. Rather she was superbly plausible.
+
+"And perhaps even Mr. Harry may like a rest from devotion--or will you
+be polite enough to suggest that a temporary change in its object is a
+better way of putting it?"
+
+Precisely what it had been in Andy's mind to suggest--but not exactly by
+way of politeness! It was disconcerting to have the sting drawn from his
+thoughts or his talk in this way.
+
+"That might be polite to you--in one sense; it might sound rather unjust
+to Harry," he answered.
+
+"Am I the first person who has ever dared to make such an insinuation?
+How shocking! But I've even dared to do it to Mr. Harry himself, and he
+hardly denied that he was an incorrigible flirt."
+
+Andy knew that he was no match for her. For any advantage he could ever
+win from her, he must thank chance or surprise.
+
+"Don't be so terribly strict, Mr. Hayes. If you were engaged, would you
+like every word--absolutely every word--you said to another girl to be
+repeated to your _fiancée_?"
+
+Andy, always honest, considered. "Perhaps I shouldn't--and a few pretty
+speeches hurt nobody."
+
+"Why, really you're becoming quite human! You encourage me to confess
+that Mr. Harry has made one or two to me--and I've not repeated them to
+Vivien. I'm relieved to find you don't think me a terrible sinner."
+
+She was skilfully pressing for an indication of what he knew, of how
+much he had seen--without letting him, if he did know too much, have a
+chance of confronting her openly with his knowledge. Must he be
+considered in the game she was playing, or could he safely be neglected?
+
+Andy's temper was rather tried. She talked of a few idle words, a few
+pretty speeches--ordinary gallantries. His memory was of two figures
+tense with passion, and of a lover's kiss accepted as though by a
+willing lover.
+
+"How far would you carry the doctrine?" he asked dryly.
+
+There was a pause before she answered; she was shaping her reply so that
+it might produce the result she wanted--information, yet not
+confrontation with his possible knowledge.
+
+"As far as a respectful kiss?" Peering through the darkness, she saw a
+quick movement of Andy's head. Instantly she added with a laugh, "On the
+hand, I mean, of course!"
+
+"You won't ask me to go any further, if I admit that?" asked Andy.
+
+"No. I'll agree with you on that," she said.
+
+Mrs. Belfield suddenly woke up. "Yes, I'm sure Harry's looking pale,"
+she remarked.
+
+Isobel had got her information; she was sure now. The sudden movement of
+Andy's head had been too startled, too outraged, to have been elicited
+merely by an audacious suggestion put forward in discussion; it spoke of
+memories roused; it expressed wonder at shameless effrontery. Andy had
+revealed his knowledge, but he did not know that he had. He had parted
+with his secret; yet it had become no easier for him to meddle. If he
+had thought himself bound to say nothing, not to interfere, before, he
+would seem to himself so bound still. And if he tried to meddle, at
+least she would be fighting now with her eyes open. There might be
+danger--there could be no surprise.
+
+When Harry Belfield put on her cloak for her in the hall, she whispered
+to him: "Take care of Andy Hayes! He did see us that first night."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+SAVING THE NATION.
+
+
+On a fine afternoon Jack Rock stood smoking his pipe on the pavement of
+High Street. His back was towards the road, his face turned to his own
+shop-window, where was displayed a poster of such handsome dimensions
+that it covered nearly the whole of the plate glass, to the prejudice of
+Jack's usual display of mutton and beef. He took no account of that; he
+was surveying the intruding poster with enormous complacency. It
+announced that there would be held, under the auspices of the Meriton
+Conservative and Unionist Association, an open-air Public Meeting that
+evening on Fyfold Green. Chairman--The Rt. Hon. Lord Meriton (his
+lordship was rarely "drawn;" his name indicated a great occasion).
+Speakers--William Foot, Esq., K. C., M. P. (very large letters); Henry
+Belfield, Esq., Prospective Candidate etc. (letters not quite so large);
+and Andrew Hayes, Esq. (letters decidedly smaller, but still easily
+legible from across the street). Needless to say that it was the sight
+of the last name which caused Mr. Jack Rock's extreme complacency. He
+had put up the stakes; now he was telling himself that the "numbers"
+were up for the race. Andy was in good company--too good, of course, for
+a colt like him on the present occasion; but in Jack's mind the race
+comprised more than one meeting. There was plenty of time for the colt
+to train on! Meanwhile there he was, on a platform with Lord Meriton,
+with Mr. Foot, King's Counsel, Member of Parliament (Jack's thoughts
+rehearsed these titles--the former of which Billy had recently
+achieved--at full length, for all the world like the toastmaster at a
+public dinner), and Mr. Henry Belfield, Prospective Candidate etc. Mr.
+Rock hurled at himself many contemptuous and opprobrious epithets when
+he recollected the career which he had once offered for the grateful
+acceptance of Andrew Hayes, Esq. To him the poster was a first and
+splendid dividend on the three thousand pounds which Miss Doris Flower
+had so prettily extracted from his pocket. Here was his return; he
+willingly left to Andy the mere pecuniary fruits of the investment.
+
+Thus immensely gratified, Jack refused to own that he was surprised. The
+autumn campaign had now been in progress nearly three weeks, and,
+although Andy had not been heard before in Meriton, reports of his
+doings had come in from outlying villages with which Jack had business
+dealings. Nay, Mr. Belfield of Halton himself, who had braved the
+evening air by going to one meeting to hear his son, found time to stop
+at the shop and tell Jack that he had been favourably impressed by Andy.
+
+"No flowers of rhetoric, Jack," he said with twinkling eyes, "such as my
+boy indulges in, but good sound sense--knows his facts. I shouldn't
+wonder if the labourers like that better. He knows what their bacon
+costs 'em, and how many loaves a week go to a family of six, and so on.
+I heard one or two old fellows saying 'Aye, that's right!' half a dozen
+times while he was speaking. I wish our old friend at the grammar school
+could have heard him!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Belfield; the old gentleman would have been proud, wouldn't
+he?"
+
+"And you've a right to be proud, Jack. I know what you've done for the
+lad."
+
+"He's a good lad, sir. He comes to supper with me every Sunday,
+punctual, when he's in Meriton."
+
+"You've every reason to hope he'll do very well--a sensible steady
+fellow! It'd be a good thing if there were more like him."
+
+Then Chinks and the Bird had made an excursion on their bicycles to hear
+Andy, and brought back laudatory accounts--this though Chinks was
+suspected of Radical leanings, which he was not allowed by his firm to
+obtrude. And old Cox had heard him and pronounced the verdict that,
+though he might be no flyer like Mr. Harry, yet he had the makings of a
+horse in him. "Wants work, and can stand as much as you give him," said
+Mr. Cox.
+
+Immersed in a contemplation of the placard and in the reflections it
+evoked, Mr. Rock stepped backwards into the road in order to get a new
+view of the relative size of the lettering. Thereby he nearly lost his
+life, and made Andy present possessor of a tidy bit of money for which,
+in the natural course, he would have to wait many years. (This is
+trenching on old Jack's darling secret.) The agitated hoot of a
+motor-car sent him on a jump back to the pavement, just in time. The car
+came to a standstill.
+
+"I didn't come all this way on purpose to kill you, Mr. Rock!"
+
+Jack had turned round already, in order to swear at his all but
+murderer, who might reasonably have pleaded contributory negligence.
+Angry words died away. A small figure, enveloped in a dust cloak,
+wrapped about the head with an infinite number of yards of soft fabric,
+sat alone in the back of the car. The driver yawned, surveying Meriton
+with a scornful air, appearing neither disturbed by Mr. Rock's danger
+nor gratified by his escape.
+
+"It's so convenient," the small figure proceeded to observe, "when
+people have their names written over their houses. Still I think I
+should have known you without that. Andy has described you to me, you
+see."
+
+"Why, it's never--?" The broadest smile spread on Jack Rock's face.
+
+"Oh yes, it is! I always keep my word. I'm taking a holiday, and I
+thought I'd combine my visit to you with--" She suddenly broke off her
+sentence, and gave a gurgle. Jack thought it a curiously pleasant sound.
+"Why, there it is!" the Nun gurgled, pointing a finger at the wonderful
+placard in Jack's window.
+
+"You're--you're Miss Flower?" gasped Jack.
+
+"Yes, yes--but look at it! Those three boys! Billy, and Harry--and Andy!
+Andy! Well, of course, one knows they do do things, but somehow it's so
+hard to realise. I shall certainly stay for the meeting! Seymour, let me
+out!"
+
+Seymour got down in a leisurely fashion, hiding a yawn with one hand and
+a cigarette in the other. "I suppose there isn't a hotel in this place,
+Miss Flower?" he remarked. (Seymour always called the Nun "Miss Flower,"
+never merely "Miss.")
+
+"Oh yes; the Lion, Seymour. Excellent hotel, isn't it, Mr. Rock? Kept by
+Mr. Dove, who's got a son named the Bird; and the Bird's got a friend
+named Chinks, and--"
+
+"Well, you do beat creation!" cried Jack. "How do you--?"
+
+"Secret sources of information!" said the Nun gravely. "Have I got to go
+to the Lion, Mr. Rock? Or--or what time do you have tea?"
+
+"You'll have tea with me, miss?" cried Jack.
+
+"At what hour will you require the car, Miss Flower?" asked Seymour.
+
+"You're goin' to the meetin', miss? Tell the young chap to be round at
+six, and mind he's punctual."
+
+"Do as Mr. Rock says, Seymour," smiled the Nun. It was part of the day's
+fun to hear Seymour ordered about--and called a young chap!--by the
+butcher of Meriton. But she could not get into the house without another
+look at the poster. "Billy, Harry--and Andy! I wonder if those boys
+really imagine that what they say or think matters!"
+
+Miss Flower was already a privileged person. Jack had no rebuke for her
+profanity. She took his arm, saying,
+
+"I want to see the shop. You wanted Andy to have the shop, didn't you?"
+
+"I was an old fool. I--I meant it well, Miss Flower."
+
+The Nun squeezed his arm.
+
+"Were these nice animals when they were alive, Mr. Rock?"
+
+"Prime uns, alive or dead!" chuckled Jack. "You come back to supper,
+after the meetin', miss, and taste; but maybe you'll be goin' back to
+London, or takin' your supper at Halton?"
+
+"I'm sorry, but I've promised to take Billy Foot back to town. Oh, but
+tea now, Mr. Rock!"
+
+Not even the messenger boy whom she had sent enjoyed Jack Rock's tea
+more than the Nun herself. For a girl of her inches, she ate immensely;
+even more heartily she praised. Jack could hardly eat at all, she was so
+daintily wonderful, her being there at all so amazing. Seeking
+explanation of the marvel, the simple affectionate old fellow could come
+only on one. She must be very fond of Andy! She had written to plead for
+Andy; she came and had tea with the old butcher--because he had given
+Andy help. And now she was lauding Andy, telling him in her quiet way
+that his lad was much thought of by her and her smart friends in London.
+Jack had, of course, a very inadequate realisation of what "smartness"
+in London really meant--a view which some might have called both
+inadequate and charitable.
+
+"Yes, he's a fine lad, miss. I say, the girl as gets Andy'll be lucky!"
+(That "as" always tripped Jack up in moments of thoughtlessness.)
+
+The Nun deliberately disposed of a piece of plum cake and a sip of
+tea--the latter to wash the former down.
+
+"I don't fall in love myself," she observed, in a tone decided yet
+tolerant--as though she had said, "I don't take liqueurs myself--but if
+you like to risk it!"
+
+"You miss the best thing in life, miss," Jack cried.
+
+"And most of the worst too," added the Nun serenely.
+
+"Don't say it, miss. It don't come well from your pretty lips."
+
+"Have I put you on your mettle? I meant to, of course, Mr. Rock."
+
+Old Jack slapped his thigh, laughing immensely. Now wasn't this
+good--that she should be here, having tea, getting at him like that?
+
+It was a happy conjuncture, for the Nun was hardly less well pleased.
+She divided her life into two categories; one was "the mill," the other
+was "fun." The mill included making a hundred and eighty pounds by
+singing two silly songs eight times each every week, being much adored,
+and eating meals at that restaurant; "fun" meant anything rather
+different. Having tea with Jack Rock, the Meriton butcher, was rather
+different, and Miss Flower (as Seymour called her--almost the only
+person who did) was enjoying herself.
+
+"I should like to take a walk along the street before we go to the
+meeting, Jack."
+
+"Jack," casually dropped, with no more than a distant twinkle, finished
+Mr. Rock.
+
+"Your letter was pretty good, but you, miss--!"
+
+"I'm considered attractive on a postcard. It costs a penny," said the
+Nun, rising, fully refreshed, from the table. "Take me to the Lion,
+please. I must see that Seymour isn't dissatisfied. He's a gentleman by
+birth, you know, and a chauffeur by profession. So he rather alarms me,
+though his manner is always carefully indifferent." This remark of hers
+suddenly pleased the Nun. She gurgled; her own rare successes always
+gratified her--witness that somewhat stupid story about the two ladies
+and Tommy, told a long while ago.
+
+Accompanied by proud Jack Rock, she traversed Meriton High Street,
+greatly admiring the church, the grammar school, and that ancient and
+respectable hostelry, the Lion. Indeed she fell so much in love with the
+Lion that she questioned Jack as to the accommodation it provided, and
+was assured that it boasted a private sitting-room, with oak panelling
+and oak beams across the ceiling (always supposed to be irresistible
+attractions to London visitors), and bedrooms sufficient in case she and
+Miss Dutton should be minded to spend a part of their holiday there.
+Room also for a maid--and for Seymour and the motor. "It's rather a nice
+idea. I'll think it over," she said.
+
+Then it was time to think about the meeting; and Jack must come with her
+in the car, sit with her, and tell her all about it. "Oh yes, you must!"
+
+"I shall never hear the last of it, long as I live!" Jack protested,
+half in delight, half in a real shyness.
+
+Behold them, then, thus installed on the outskirts of the meeting, with
+a good view of the platform where "the boys" were seated, together with
+Wellgood, supporting the great Lord Meriton. Vivien and Isobel also had
+chairs at the back. The Nun produced a field-glass from a pocket in the
+car, and favoured these ladies with a steady inspection. "Which did you
+say was Harry's?" she asked.
+
+"The fair one, miss--that's Miss Wellgood."
+
+"The other's quite good-looking too," the Nun pronounced.
+
+The salient features of Mr. Foot's oratory have been indicated on a
+previous occasion. This evening he surpassed himself in epigram and
+logic; no doubt he desired to overcome the Nun's obstinate scepticism as
+to his career, no less than to maintain his popularity in Meriton. For
+the Nun he had a special treat--a surprise. He told them her story of
+Tommy and the two ladies, slightly adapting it to the taste of a general
+audience; the cheques were softened down to invitations to _tête-à-tête_
+dinners, couched in highly affectionate language. In Billy's apologue
+the Ministry was Tommy, one of the ladies was Liberalism, the other
+Socialism. The apologue took on very well; Billy made great play with
+Tommy's double flirtation, and the Ministry's double flirtation, ending
+up, "Yes, gentlemen, there will be only one tip to pay the waiter, but
+that'll be a tip-over, if I'm not much mistaken!" (Cheers and laughter.)
+
+The Nun was smiling all over her face. "That really was rather clever of
+Billy." She felt herself shining with reflected glory.
+
+But Billy--astute electioneerer--meant to get more out of the Nun than
+just that Tommy story. When he had finished a wonderful peroration, in
+which he bade Meriton decide once and for all--it would probably never
+have another chance before it was too late--between Imperial greatness
+and Imperial decay, he slipped from the platform, and made his way round
+the skirts of the meeting to her motor-car. Lord Meriton's compliments,
+and would Miss Flower oblige him and delight the meeting by singing the
+National Anthem at the close of the proceedings? The Nun was so agitated
+by this request that she lost most of Andy's speech; he was sandwiched
+in between the more famous orators. As Andy--from what she did
+hear--appeared to be talking about loaves, and sugar, and bacon, and
+things of that sort, she was of opinion that she was not missing very
+much, and was surprised to see the men listening and the bareheaded
+women nodding approvingly and nudging one another in the ribs. "He's
+jolly good! Upon my word, he is," said Billy Foot suddenly, and old Jack
+chuckled delightedly. When Andy sat down, without any peroration, she
+said to Billy, "Was he good? It sounded rather dull to me. Yours was
+fine, Billy!"
+
+"Awfully glad you liked it. But they'll forget my jokes; they'll talk
+about old Andy's figures when they get home. Every woman in the place'll
+want to prove 'em right or wrong. Gad, how he must have mugged all that
+up!"
+
+Then came Harry; to him she listened, at him she looked. Whatever the
+difficulties of his private life might be, they did not avail to spoil
+his speaking; it is conceivable that they improved it, since nerves on
+the strain sometimes result in brilliant flashes. And he looked so
+handsome, with pale, eager, excited face. He could fall in love with a
+subject almost as deeply, almost as quickly, as with a woman, and for
+the moment be hardly less devoted to it, heart and soul. Perhaps he was
+a little over the heads of most of his audience, but they knew that it
+was a fine performance and were willing to take for granted some things
+which they did not understand.
+
+"That's talking, that is!" said a man near the car. "Mr. Harry's the one
+to give ye that."
+
+Of course the Nun was persuaded in the matter of the National Anthem.
+Billy led her round to the platform, where Lord Meriton welcomed her,
+and introduced her to the meeting as Miss Doris Flower, the famous
+London singer, who had kindly consented to sing the National Anthem. For
+once in her life the Nun was very nervous, but she sang. Her sweet voice
+and her remarkable prettiness stormed the meeting. They would have
+another song. The applause brought back her confidence. Before she had
+become a nun or a Quaker she had once been, in early days, a Cameron
+Highlander. A couple of martial and patriotic ditties remained in her
+memory; she gave them one, and excited enthusiasm. They cried for
+more--more! An encore was insisted upon. In spite of the brilliant
+speakers, the Nun was the heroine of the evening. She bowed, she smiled,
+she fell altogether in love with Meriton. Thoughts of the Lion rose
+strongly in her mind.
+
+"A great success, and we owe a great deal of it to you, Miss Flower,"
+said the noble chairman. "You just put the crown on it all. I wish we
+could have you here at election time!"
+
+The whole platform besought the Nun to come down at election time with
+more patriotic songs. Most urgent was the pretty, slight, fair girl who
+was Harry Belfield's _fiancée_. Her eyes were so friendly and gentle
+that the Nun could refuse her nothing.
+
+"At one bound, Doris, you've become a personage in Meriton," laughed
+Billy Foot.
+
+"She's a personage wherever she goes," said Andy in frank and
+affectionate admiration.
+
+The Nun gurgled happily. But where was her old friend Harry with his
+congratulations? He had greeted her, but not with much enthusiasm; he
+was now talking to the other girl--Miss Vintry--in a low voice, with a
+frown on his face; he looked weary and spent. She moved over to him and
+laid her hand on his arm; he started violently.
+
+"I'll never laugh at you about your speeches again, Harry. But, poor old
+fellow, how done up you look!"
+
+"Doing this sort of thing every night's pretty tiring."
+
+"Besides all the other things you have to do just now! I think I must
+come and stay at the Lion and look after you."
+
+Harry looked at her with an expression that puzzled her; it almost
+seemed like resentment, though the idea was surely absurd. Miss Vintry
+said nothing; she stood by in silent composure.
+
+"You're thinking of--of coming to Meriton?"
+
+"I had an idea of it, for a week or two. I'm doing nothing, you know.
+Sally would come with me."
+
+"I should think you'd find it awfully dull," said Harry.
+
+The Nun could not make him out. Was he ashamed of her? Did he not want
+her to know Miss Wellgood, his _fiancée_? It almost looked like that.
+The Nun was a little hurt. She was aware that certain people held
+certain views; but Harry was an old, old friend. "Well, if I do come and
+find it dull, you needn't feel responsible. You haven't pressed me, have
+you?" and with a little laugh she went back to more expansive friends.
+
+"That'd make another of them, and she's infernally sharp!" Harry said to
+Isobel Vintry, in that low careful voice to which he was nowadays so
+much addicted.
+
+"Oh well, we can't keep it up this way long anyhow," she answered, and
+sauntered off to join Vivien.
+
+With Billy, with Andy, as with old Jack, the Nun found enthusiasm enough
+and to spare.
+
+"How perfectly ripping an idea!" cried Billy. "Because Harry's governor
+had asked me to stay a fortnight at Halton, and do half a dozen more
+meetings; and I'm going to. And Andy'll be down here too. Why, we shall
+all be together! You come, Doris!"
+
+Her hurt feelings found expression. "Harry didn't seem to want me when I
+spoke to him about it."
+
+Billy Foot looked at her curiously. "Oh, didn't he?" Andy had moved off
+with Jack Rock. "It's a funny thing, but I don't think he wants me at
+Halton. He was far from enthusiastic. If you ask me, Doris, there's
+something wrong with him. Overworked, I suppose. Oh, but he can't be;
+these little meetings are no trouble."
+
+"If I want to come, I shall. Only one doesn't like the idea that one's
+friends are ashamed--"
+
+"Oh, rot, it can't be that! That's not a bit like Harry."
+
+"He's engaged now, you know."
+
+"Well, I can't see why that should make any difference. He's got the
+blues over something or other; never mind him. You come, you and Sally."
+
+She lowered her voice. "Can it be because of poor old Sally?"
+
+"Oh, I don't think so. He's always been awfully kind about that wretched
+old business."
+
+"It's something," she persisted with a vexed frown.
+
+Vivien Wellgood came up to them with Andy. "Mr. Hayes tells me you may
+possibly come to Meriton for a stay, Miss Flower. I do hope you will.
+The Lion's quite good, and we'll all do all we can to amuse you, if only
+you'll sing to us just now and then. Do say you'll come; don't only
+think about it!"
+
+"Your being so kind makes me want to come more," said the Nun. "Oh, and
+I do congratulate you, Miss Wellgood. I hope you'll be ever so happy."
+
+"Thank you. I hope so," said Vivien softly, her eyes assuming their
+veiled look.
+
+The car was waiting; Seymour was yawning and looking at his watch. The
+Nun said her farewells, but not one to Harry Belfield, who had already
+strolled off along the road. Not very polite of Harry!
+
+"Did you like the speeches, Seymour?" she inquired.
+
+"Mr. Foot, of course, is a good speaker. The other gentlemen did very
+well for such a meeting as this, Miss Flower. Mr. Belfield is very
+promising."
+
+"Was I in good voice?"
+
+"Very fair. But you had better not use it much in the open air. Not good
+for the chords, Miss Flower."
+
+Meanwhile he had skilfully tucked her in with Billy Foot, and off they
+went, Billy comforting himself after his labours with a pull at his
+flask and a very big cigar.
+
+"I've made you do some work for the good cause to-night, Doris," he
+remarked. "A song or two goes jolly well at a meeting."
+
+"Thinking of enlisting me in your own service?" she asked.
+
+"You'd be uncommon valuable. The man they're putting up against me has
+got a pretty wife." Billy allowed himself a glance; it met with
+inadequate appreciation.
+
+"Oh, I'll come and sing for you if you ask me, Billy." Her voice sounded
+absent. She was enjoying the motion and the air, but her thoughts were
+with Vivien Wellgood, the girl who had been so kind, and whose eyes had
+gone blank when the Nun wished her happiness.
+
+"Yes, Harry's off colour," said Billy, puffing away with much enjoyment.
+"He can't take anything right; didn't even like your story!"
+
+"Why, you brought it in so cleverly, Billy!"
+
+"Harry asked me what I thought they'd make of that kind of rot. It
+seemed to me they took it all right. Rather liked it, didn't they?"
+
+The Nun turned to him suddenly. "That girl isn't happy."
+
+"There's something up!" Billy concluded.
+
+"Do you know that Miss Vintry well?"
+
+Billy took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her. "You do jump to
+conclusions."
+
+"Oh, I know Harry better than any of you."
+
+"Do you?" he asked, seeming just a little disturbed.
+
+The Nun marked his disturbance with a side glance of amusement, but she
+was not diverted from the main line of her thoughts. "He doesn't want me
+to come to Meriton--"
+
+"I say, Doris, did Harry Belfield ever try to--?"
+
+"Tales out of school? I thought you knew me, Billy."
+
+The reproach carried home to Billy. There had been one occasion when,
+over-night, his career had seemed not so imperative, and Doris had
+seemed very imperative indeed, demanding vows and protestations of high
+fervour, bearing only one legitimate interpretation. This happened long
+before Billy was K.C. or M.P., and when his income was still meagre. The
+morning had brought back counsel, and thoughts of the career. Billy had
+written a letter. The next time they met, she had taken occasion to
+observe that she always burnt letters, just as she never fell in love.
+The episode was not among Billy's proudest recollections. In telling
+Andy that Billy had always pulled himself up on the brink, the Nun had
+been guilty of just this one suppression. No tales out of school was
+always her motto.
+
+"If he does come to grief, it'll be over a woman," said Billy. He took a
+big puff. "That's the only thing worth coming to grief over, either," he
+added, looking into his companion's eyes.
+
+"What about the great cause I sang for?" she asked, serenely evasive.
+Sentiment in a motor-car at night really does not count.
+
+Billy laughed. "I do my best for my client."
+
+"But you believe it?"
+
+"Honestly, I believe we've got, say, seven points out of ten. So we
+ought to get the verdict."
+
+"I suppose that's honest enough. You leave the other side to put their
+three points?"
+
+"That oughtn't to be over-straining them," Billy opined.
+
+"Politics are rather curious. I might go to another meeting or two while
+I'm at Meriton; but I won't sing out of doors any more. Seymour doesn't
+approve of it."
+
+"You're really going to take rooms there?"
+
+"Yes, if Sally consents." She turned round to him. "Do you know what it
+is to see somebody asking for help?"
+
+"To me they always call it temporary assistance."
+
+"Yes. Well, I think I saw that to-night." She was silent a minute, then
+she gurgled. "And really they're all great fun, you know."
+
+"I look forward to our stay at Meriton with the gravest apprehension,"
+said Billy Foot.
+
+The Nun looked at him, smiled, looked away, looked back once more.
+
+"Well, I shall have nothing else to do--in the way of recreation," she
+said.
+
+A long silence followed. Billy threw away the stump of his cigar.
+
+"Hang it, he's got the style, that fellow has!"
+
+"Who's got what style?" asked the Nun. Her voice sounded drowsy.
+
+"What the House likes--Andy."
+
+"What house?" drawled the Nun, terribly and happily sleepy.
+
+"Oh, you're a lively girl to drive home with in a motor at night!"
+
+Her eyes were closed, her lips ever so little parted. Half asleep, still
+she smiled. He made a trumpet of his hands and shouted into her ear.
+"The House of Commons, stupid!"
+
+"Don't tickle my ear," said the Nun. "And try if you can't be quiet!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+LOVE AND FEAR.
+
+
+Well might Harry Belfield be subject to fits of temper and impatience!
+Well might he show signs of wear and tear not to be accounted for by the
+labours of a mild political campaign, carried on under circumstances of
+great amenity! He had fallen into a state of feeling which forbade peace
+within, and made security from without impossible. He was terribly at
+war in his soul. If he could have put the case so simply as that, being
+pledged to one girl, he had fallen in love with another, he would have
+had a plain solution open to him: he could break the engagement, facing
+the pain that he gave and the discredit that he suffered. His feelings
+admitted of no such straightforward remedy. The beliefs and the
+aspirations with which he had wooed Vivien were not dead; they were
+struggling for life against their old and mighty enemy. For him Vivien
+still meant happiness, and more than happiness--a haven for anything
+that was good in him, a refuge from all that was bad. With all his
+instincts of pure affection, of loyalty and chivalry, still he loved her
+and clung to her. She it was still who had power to comfort and soothe
+him, to send him forth able to do his work again. She was the best thing
+in his life; she seemed to him well-nigh his only chance against
+himself. Was he to throw the last chance away?
+
+Then why not be true? Why deceive when he loved? Every day, nay, every
+hour, that question had to be asked in scorn and answered in bitterness.
+His happiness lay with one; the present desire of his eyes was for
+another. His mind towards Isobel was strange: often he hardly liked her;
+sometimes his hatred for what she was doing to his life made him almost
+hate her; always his passion for her was strong and compelling. Since
+the stolen kiss had set it aflame, it had spread and spread through him,
+fed by their secret interviews, till it seemed now to consume all his
+being in one fierce blaze. How could affectionate and loyal instincts
+stand against it? Yet he hated it. All the good of his nature his
+kindliness, his amiability, his chivalry--hated it. He was become as it
+were two men; and the one reviled the other. But when he reviled the
+passion in him as the murderer of all his happiness, it answered with a
+fell insinuation. Why these heroics and this despair? Why talk of
+happiness being murdered? There was another way. "Don't murder happiness
+for me," passion urged slyly. "I am violent, but I am a passing thing.
+You know how often I have come to you, and raged, and passed by. There's
+another way." That whisper was ever in his ears, and would not be
+silenced. That it might gain its end, his passion subtly minimized
+itself; it sought to enter into an unnatural alliance with his better
+part; it prayed in aid his purer love, his tottering loyalty, his
+old-time chivalry. A permanent reconciliation with these it could not,
+and dared not, ask; but a _modus vivendi_ till it, transitory thing as
+it was, should pass away? So the tempter tempted with all his cunning.
+
+Avoiding plain words for what that way was, he was seduced into asking
+whether it were open. He could not answer. Through all the stolen
+interviews, through other stolen kisses, he had never come to the
+knowledge of Isobel's heart and mind. He could read no more than she
+chose to let him read. She allowed his flirtation and his kisses, but
+almost scornfully. When he declared his state to be intolerable, she
+told him it was easy to end it--easy to end either the engagement or the
+flirtation at his option. She had not owned to love. A certain sour
+amusement seemed to lie for her in the affair. "We're a pair of fools,"
+her eyes seemed to say when he embraced her, "but it doesn't much
+matter; nothing can come of it, and it'll soon be all over." When he saw
+that look, his old desire for conquest came over him; he was impelled at
+any cost to break down this indifference, to make his sway complete. Of
+her relations towards Wellgood she had flatly refused to say another
+word. "The less we talk about that just now the better." In some such
+phrase she always forbade the topic. There again he was left in an
+uncertainty which stung his pride and bred a fierce jealousy. By what
+she gave and what she withheld, by her silence no less than by her
+words, she inflamed his passion. She yielded enough to fill him with
+desire and hope of a full triumph; but even though she yielded, though
+her voice might falter and her eyes drop, she did not own love's mastery
+yet.
+
+Thus torn and rent within, from without he seemed ringed round with
+enemies. Eyes that must needs be watchful were all about him. There was
+Andy Hayes with his chance knowledge of the first false step; Wellgood,
+who must have a jealous vigilance for the woman whom he had at least
+thought of making his wife; his own father, with his shrewd estimate of
+his son and acquaintance with past histories; Vivien herself, to whom he
+must still play devoted lover, with whom most spare hours must still be
+spent. To add to all these, now there came this girl from London! She
+had knowledge of past histories too; she had the sharpest of eyes; he
+feared even the directness of her tongue. Andy had seen, but not spoken;
+he did not trust Doris, if she saw, not to speak. He was terribly afraid
+of her. Small wonder that the suggestion of her stay at the Lion had
+called forth no enthusiasm from him! She took rank as an enemy the more.
+And Billy Foot was to be at Halton! She and Billy would lay their heads
+together and talk. Out of talk would come suspicion, out of suspicion
+more watchfulness. It was no business of theirs, but they would watch.
+
+Political campaigning amidst all this! Well, in part it was a relief.
+The speeches and their preparation perforce occupied his mind for the
+time; on his platforms he forgot. Yet to go away--to leave Nutley for so
+many hours--seemed to his overwrought fancy a sore danger. What might
+happen while he was away? To what state of things might he any evening
+come back? Vivien might have revealed suspicions to Wellgood, or
+Wellgood might have challenged Isobel and compelled an answer. Once when
+Andy did not come to the meeting, he made sure that he had stayed behind
+on purpose to reveal his knowledge to Vivien or her father, and the
+evening was a long torture which no speeches could deaden, no applause
+allay.
+
+In this fever of conflict and of fear his days passed. At this cost he
+bought the joy of the stolen interviews--that joy so mixed with doubt,
+so tainted by pain, so assailed by remorse. Yet for him so tense, so
+keen, so surcharged with the great primitive struggle. Ten minutes
+stolen once a day--it seldom came to more than that. Now and then, when
+he had no political excursion, a second ten, late at night, after his
+ostensible departure from Nutley. When he had "gone home," when Vivien
+had been sent to bed, and Wellgood had repaired to his pipe in the
+study, Isobel would chance to wander down the drive, looking into the
+waters of the lake, and he, lingering by the gate, see her and come
+back. Whether she would saunter out or not he never knew. Waiting to see
+whether she would seemed waiting for the fate of a lifetime.
+
+One night--a week after the Fyfold Green meeting, a day after the Nun
+had taken possession of her quarters at the Lion--Harry had dined at
+Nutley and--gone home.
+
+Isobel stole stealthily out; she had a quarter of an hour before doors
+would be locked. She strolled down the drive, a long dark cloak hiding
+the white dress which would have shown too conspicuously. As she went
+she dropped a letter; coming back she would pick it up. If any one asked
+why she had come out, the answer was--to find that letter, accidentally
+dropped. There had never been need of the excuse yet; it was still
+available.
+
+Harry came swiftly, yet warily, back from the gate. For a fleeting
+instant all his being seemed satisfied. But she stretched out her arms,
+holding him off.
+
+"No, I want to say something, Harry. This--this has gone on long enough.
+To-morrow I want you to know--only Miss Vintry!" There was the break in
+her voice; it was too dark to see her eyes.
+
+"That's impossible," he answered, very low.
+
+"Everything else is impossible, you mean." Her voice faltered
+again--into a tenderness new to him, filling him with rapture. "You're
+dying of it, poor boy! End it, Harry! I watched you to-night. Oh, you're
+tired to death--do you ever sleep? End it, Harry--because I can't."
+
+So she had broken at last, her long fencing ended, her strong composure
+gone. "I can't bear it for you any longer. Have the strength. Go back
+to--" She broke into tremulous laughter. "Go back to duty, Harry--and
+forget this nonsense."
+
+"Come to me, Isobel!"
+
+"No, I daren't. From to-morrow there is--nothing."
+
+He caught the arms that would have defended her face. "You love me?"
+
+Her smile was piteous. "Not after to-night!"
+
+His triumph rose on the crest of passion. "Ah, you do!" He kissed her.
+
+"That's good-bye," she said. "I shall go through it all right, Harry.
+You'll see no signs. Or would you rather I went away?"
+
+"What made you tell me you loved me to-night?"
+
+"So many things are tormenting you, poor boy! Must I go on doing it? Oh,
+I have done it, I know. It was my self-defence. Now my self-defence must
+be forgetfulness." The clock over the stables struck a quarter past ten.
+"I must go back. I've told you."
+
+"Do you see Wellgood before you go to bed?"
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"What happens?"
+
+"Don't, don't, Harry! What does it matter?"
+
+"Are you going to marry him?"
+
+"You're going to marry Vivien! I must go--or the door will be locked." A
+smile wavered at him in the darkness. "It's back to the house or into
+the lake!"
+
+"Swear you'll manage to see me to-morrow!"
+
+"Yes, yes, anything. And--good-bye."
+
+He let her go--without another kiss. His mind was all of a whirl. She
+sped swiftly up the avenue. He made for the gate with furtive haste.
+
+Isobel came to a stop. As the shawl had gone once, the letter had gone.
+Whither? Had the wind taken it? She had heard no tread, but what could
+she have heard save the beating of her own heart? No use looking for it.
+
+"Ah, miss," said the butler, who had just come to lock up, "so you'd
+missed it? I saw it blowing about, and went and picked it up. And you've
+been searching for it, miss?"
+
+"Yes, Fellowes. Thanks. I must have dropped it this afternoon.
+Good-night."
+
+She went in; the hall door was bolted behind her. The letter had served
+its purpose, but she was hardly awake to the fact that anything had
+happened about the letter. She had told Harry! The great secret was out.
+Oh, such bad tactics! Such a dangerous thing to do! But everybody had a
+breaking-point. Hers had been reached that night--for herself as well as
+for his sake. Nobody could live like this any longer.
+
+Now it was good-night to Wellgood; another ten minutes there--the one
+brief space of time in which he played the lover, masterfully, roughly,
+secure from interruption.
+
+"I can't do it to-night!" she groaned, leaning against the wall of the
+passage between drawing-room and study, as though stricken by a failure
+of the heart.
+
+There she rested for minutes. The lights were left for Wellgood to find
+his way by when he went to bed; Fellowes would not come to put them out.
+And there the truth came to her. She could not play that deep-laid game.
+She could no more try for Harry, and yet keep Wellgood in reserve. It
+was too hard, too hideous, too unnatural. She dared not try any more for
+Harry; she had lost confidence in herself. She could not keep
+Wellgood--it was too odious. Then what to do? To tell Wellgood, too,
+that from to-morrow there was only Miss Vintry? Yes! And to try to tell
+Harry so again to-morrow? Yes!
+
+She had sought to make puppets and to pull the strings. Vivien,
+Wellgood, Harry--all the puppets of her cool, clever, contriving brain.
+It had been a fine scheme, bound to end well for her. Now she was
+revealed as a puppet herself; she danced to the string. The great scheme
+broke down--because Harry had looked tired and worried, because
+Wellgood's rough fondness had grown so odious.
+
+"I won't go to him to-night. He can't follow me if I go straight
+upstairs." The thought came as an inspiration; at least it offered a
+reprieve till to-morrow.
+
+The study door opened, and Wellgood looked out. Isobel was behind her
+time; he was waiting for his secret ten minutes, his stolen interview.
+
+"Isobel! What the deuce are you doing there? Why didn't you come in?"
+
+The part she had been trying to play, and had backed herself to play,
+seemed to have become this evening, of a sudden on this evening, more
+than hopeless. It had turned ridiculous; it must have been caught from
+some melodrama. She had been playing the scheming dazzling villain of a
+woman, heartless, with never a feeling, intent only on the title, or the
+money, or the diamonds, or whatever it might be, single in purpose,
+desperate in action, glitteringly hard, glitteringly fearless. What
+nonsense! How away from human nature! She was now terribly afraid.
+Playing that part, which seemed now so ridiculous because it assumed
+that there was no real woman in her, she had brought herself into a
+perilous pass--between one man's love and another man's wrath. She knew
+which she feared the more; but she feared both. Somehow her confession
+to Harry had taken all the courage out of her. She felt as if she could
+not stand any more by herself. She wanted Harry.
+
+She could not tell Wellgood that henceforth there was to be only his
+daughter's companion, only Miss Vintry; she could not tell him that
+to-night. Neither could she play the old part to-night--suffer his
+fondness, and defend herself with the shining weapons of her wit and her
+provocative parries.
+
+"I--I think I turned faint. I was coming in, but I turned faint. My
+heart, I think."
+
+"I never heard of anything being the matter with your heart." His voice
+sounded impatient rather than solicitous.
+
+"Please let me go straight to bed to-night. I'm really not well."
+
+He came along the passage to her. He took her by the shoulders and
+looked hard in her face. Now she summoned her old courage to its last
+stand and met his gaze steadily.
+
+"You look all right," he said with a sneer, yet smiling at her
+handsomeness.
+
+"Oh, of course, yes! At least I shall be to-morrow morning. Let me go
+now." Really, at the moment, to be let go was her only desire.
+
+"Be off with you, then," he said, smartly tapping--almost slapping--her
+cheek. "But you'll have to give me twice as long to-morrow."
+
+He turned on his heel. With a smarting cheek she fled down the passage.
+
+Though disappointed of his ten minutes, Wellgood was on the whole not
+ill-pleased. The calm composure, the suppression of emotion which he
+admired so much in theory--and as exhibited in Vivien's companion--he
+had begun to find a little overdone for his taste in his own lover.
+To-night there was a softness about her, a gentleness--signs of fear.
+The signs of fear were welcome to his nature. He felt that he had taken
+a step towards asserting his proper position, and she one towards
+acknowledging it. He was also more than ever sure that he need pay no
+heed to Belfield's silly hints. The old fellow seemed to assume that his
+precious son was irresistible! Wellgood chuckled over that. He chuckled
+again over the thought that, if Isobel were going to be like this, they
+might have a difficulty in keeping their secret till the proper time.
+
+Isobel's confession to Harry was a confession to herself also. If it
+left her with one great excuse, it stripped her of all others. She could
+no longer say that she was making her woman's protest against being
+reckoned of no account, or that she was merely punishing Harry for
+daring to think that he could play with her and come off scathless
+himself. Even the great excuse found its force impaired, because she had
+brought her state upon herself. Led by those impulses of pride or of
+spite, she had set herself to tamper with Vivien's happiness; in the
+attempt she had fatally involved her own.
+
+Some of her old courage--her old hardness--remained, not altogether
+swept away by the new current. "I shall get over it in time," she told
+herself impatiently. "These things don't last a lifetime." True,
+perhaps! But meanwhile--the time before the wedding? To-morrow, when she
+had promised to meet Harry? Every day after that--when he must come to
+woo Vivien? There had been protection for her in pretences. Pretences
+were over with Harry; they had to go on with Vivien and with Wellgood.
+On both sides of her position she felt herself now in a sore peril; it
+had become so much harder to blind the others, so infinitely harder to
+hold Harry back, if it were his mind to advance. Tasks like these
+perhaps needed the zest of pride and spite to make them possible--to
+make them tolerable anyhow. She loathed them now.
+
+Next day she kept her room. Courage failed. Wellgood grumbled about
+women's vapours, but in his caution asked no questions and showed no
+concern. Harry, coming in the afternoon, in his caution risked no more
+than a polite inquiry and a polite expression of regret. Yet he had come
+hot of heart, resolved--resolved on what? To break his engagement? No,
+he was not resolved on that. To know in future only Vivien's companion,
+Miss Vintry? No. He had been resolved on nothing, save to see Isobel
+again, and to hear once more her love. To what lay beyond he was blind;
+his heart was obstinately set on the one desire, and had eyes for
+nothing else. But Isobel was not to be seen; he accused her of her old
+tactics--making advances, then drawing back. The whole thing had begun
+that way; she was at it again! Was he never to feel quite sure of her?
+She paid the price of past cunning, she who now lay in simple fear.
+
+Vivien watched her lover's pale face and fretful gestures. Harry seemed
+always on a strain now, and the means he adopted to relieve it would not
+be permanently beneficial to his nerves; whisky-and-soda and cigarettes
+in quick succession were his prescription this afternoon. In vain she
+tried to soothe him, as she still sometimes could. He was now merry, now
+moody, often amusing, gay, gallant. He was everything except the
+contented man he had been in the early days.
+
+"The dear old Rector's a little tiresome, Harry, isn't he? He won't fix
+the date of his return within a week. And I couldn't be married by
+anybody else, he'd be so hurt. Naturally he doesn't think a few days one
+way or the other matter. He doesn't think of my frocks!"
+
+"Nor of my feelings either," said Harry, gallantly kissing her hand.
+
+"Do you mind very much?" she asked shyly.
+
+"I'll do anything you like about it." He caressed her hand gently,
+kindly. He had at least the grace to feel shame for himself, pity for
+her--when he was with her.
+
+"Harry, are you quite--quite happy?"
+
+He made his effort. "I should be as happy as the day's long if it
+weren't for those wretched meetings that take up half my time." His
+voice grew fretful. "And they worry me to death."
+
+"They'll soon be over now, and then we can have all the time to
+ourselves together." She looked at him with a smile. "If only you won't
+get tired of that!"
+
+He made his protest. Suddenly a memory of other protests swept over
+him--of how they had begun by being wholehearted and vehement, and had
+sunk first to weakness, then to insincerity, at last to silence. He
+hoped his present protest sounded all right.
+
+"Oh, you needn't be too vehement!" she laughed, with a little shake of
+her head. "I know myself, and I believe I know more about you than you
+think. I'm quite aware that you'll sometimes be bored with me, Harry."
+
+"Who's put that idea in your head?" he asked rather sharply. His mind
+was on those enemies, that ring of watching eyes.
+
+"Nobody except yourself--who else should?" she asked in surprise. "After
+all I've seen of you, I ought to know that you have your moods--I
+suppose clever men have--and that I don't suit all the moods equally
+well." She squeezed his hand for a second. "But I'm going to be very
+wise--Isobel's taught me to be wise, among other things, you know--I'm
+going to be very wise, and not mind that!"
+
+The true affection rose in him. "Poor little sweetheart!" he murmured.
+"I'm afraid you haven't taken on an easy job."
+
+"No, I don't think I have," she laughed. "All the more credit if I bring
+it off! There'd be nothing to be proud of in making--oh, well, Andy
+Hayes, for instance--happy. He just is happy as long as he can be
+working at something or walking somewhere--it doesn't matter where--at
+five miles an hour--in the dust by preference. A girl would have nothing
+to do but just smile at him and send him for a walk. But you're
+different, aren't you, Harry?"
+
+"By Jove, I am! Andy's one of the best fellows in the world."
+
+"Yes, but I think--oh, it's only my view--that you're more interesting,
+Harry. Only, when you are bored, I want you--"
+
+"Now don't say you want me to tell you so! Do let us be decently polite,
+even if I am your husband."
+
+She laughed. "I won't strain your manners so far as that; I'm proud of
+their being so good myself. No, I want you just to go away and amuse
+yourself somewhere else till the fit's over. You may even flirt just a
+little, if you feel it really necessary, Harry! You needn't be quite so
+religiously strict all your life as you've been lately."
+
+"Religiously strict? How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, all this time I don't believe you've allowed yourself one good
+look at Isobel, though she's very good-looking; and I know you haven't
+called at the Lion yet, though Miss Flower has been there two days, and
+she such an old friend of yours in London."
+
+"Have you called there?"
+
+"Yes, I went yesterday. I like her so much, and I like that odd friend
+of hers too."
+
+"Oh, Sally Dutton! I suppose she got her knife into me, didn't she?"
+
+"She got her knife, as you call it, into everybody who was mentioned. Oh
+yes, including you!" Vivien laughed merrily.
+
+"It's rather a bore--those girls coming down here. I hope we shan't see
+too much of them." He rose. "I'm afraid I must go, Vivien. We're due at
+Medfold Crossways to-night, and it's a good long drive, even with the
+motor. I've got to have some abominable hybrid of a meal at five."
+
+She too rose and came to him, putting her hands in his. Her laughing
+face grew grave and tender.
+
+"Dear, you really are happy?" she asked softly, yet rather insistently.
+
+He looked into her eyes; they were not veiled or remote for him.
+"Honestly I believe you're the only chance of happiness I've got in the
+world, Vivien. Is that enough?"
+
+"I think it's really more than being happy, or than being sure you will
+be happy." She smiled. "It gives me more to do, at all events."
+
+"And if I made you unhappy?"
+
+"Don't be hurt, please don't be hurt, but just a little of that wouldn't
+surprise me. Oh, my dear, you don't think I should change to you just
+because of a little unhappiness? When you've given me all the happiness
+I've ever had!"
+
+"All you've ever had? Poor child!"
+
+"It wasn't quite loyal to let that slip out. And it was my own fault, of
+course, mostly. But they--they were sometimes rather hard on me." She
+smiled piteously. "For my good? Perhaps it was. Without it, you mightn't
+have cared for me."
+
+"Is it as much to you as that?" he asked, a note of fear, almost of
+distress, in his voice.
+
+She marked it, and answered gaily, "It wouldn't be worth having if it
+wasn't, Harry!"
+
+He kissed her fondly and tenderly, praying in his heart that he might
+not turn all her happiness to grief.
+
+Her presence had wrought on him at last in its old way; if it had not
+given him peace, yet it had shown him where the chance of peace lay, if
+he would take it. It had again made him hate the thing he had been
+doing, and himself for doing it; again it had made him almost hate the
+woman whom and whom only he had, in truth, that day come to see. It had
+made the right thing seem again within his reach, made the idea of
+giving up Vivien look both impossibly cruel to her and impossibly
+foolish for himself. Yet he was, like Isobel, in great fear--in almost
+hopeless fear. These two, with their imperious desire for one another,
+became, each to the other, a terror--in themselves terrors, and the
+source of every danger threatening from outside.
+
+"She gave me the chance of ending it last night. If only I could take
+her at her word!"
+
+"Not after to-night!" she had said. He remembered the words in a flash
+of hope. But he remembered also that his answer had been, "Ah, you do!"
+and a kiss. If she said again, "Not after to-night!"--aye, said it again
+and again--would not the answer always be, "Ah, but to-night at least!"
+Such words ever promised salvation, but brought none; they were worse
+than useless. Under a specious pledge of the future, they abandoned the
+present hour.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+A CHOICE OF EVILS.
+
+
+The best parlour--the private sitting-room--at the Lion was on the
+ground floor, just opposite the private bar, and boasted a large bay
+window, commanding a full view of High Street. A low broad bench,
+comfortably cushioned, ran round the window, and afforded to Miss Flower
+a favourable station from which to observe what was doing in the town.
+On fine days, such as ruled just now, when the window was thrown up, the
+position also served as a rendezvous to which her growing band of
+friends and admirers could resort to exchange compliments, to post her
+in the latest news, or just to get a sight of her. Jack Rock would
+stroll across from his shop three or four times a day; Andy would stop a
+few minutes on his way to or from his lodgings; Billy would stretch his
+long legs over the sill and effect an entry; Vivien ask if she might
+come in for a few minutes; Chinks cast an eye as he hurried to his
+office; the Bird find an incredible number of occasions for passing on
+his daily duties. There the Nun sat, surveying the traffic of Meriton,
+and fully aware that Meriton, in its turn, honoured her with a
+flattering attention. Within the Lion itself she already reigned
+supreme; old Mr. Dove was at her feet, so was old Cox and the other
+_habitués_ of the private bar; the Bird, as already hinted, was "knocked
+silly"--this contemptuous phrase for a sudden passion was Miss Miles'.
+Yet even Miss Miles was affable, and quite content to avenge herself for
+the Bird's desertion (which she justly conceived to be temporary) by a
+marked increase in those across-the-counter pleasantries which she had
+once assured her employer were carried on wholly and solely for the
+benefit of his business. The fact was that Miss Miles had once
+officiated at the bar of a "theatre of varieties," and this constituted
+a professional tie between the Nun and herself, strong enough to defy
+any trifling awkwardness caused by a wavering in the Bird's affections.
+
+But the Nun's most notable and complete conquest was over Mr. Belfield.
+Billy Foot had brought him--not his son Harry--and speedily thereafter
+he called on his own account, full of courtly excuses because his wife,
+owing to a touch of cold, was not with him; he hoped that she would be
+able to come very soon. (Mr. Belfield was engaged on another small
+domestic struggle, such as had preceded Andy Hayes' first dinner at
+Halton.) Serenely indifferent to the minutiæ of etiquette, Miss Flower
+allowed it to appear that she would just as soon receive Mr. Belfield by
+himself.
+
+He interpreted her permission as applying to more than one visit;
+somehow or other, most days found him by the bay window, and generally,
+on being pressed, at leisure to come in and rest. They would chat over
+all manner of things together, each imparting to the other from a store
+of experiences strange to the listener; or together they would discuss
+their common friends in Meriton. She liked his shrewd and humorous
+wisdom; her directness and simplicity charmed him no less than the
+extreme prettiness of her face.
+
+"Well, Miss Flower," he said one morning, "the boys finish their
+speechifying to-morrow, and then they'll be more at liberty to amuse
+you, instead of leaving it so much to the old stagers."
+
+"And then you'll all be getting busy about the wedding. In three weeks
+now, isn't it?"
+
+"Just a few days over three weeks. Individually I shall be glad when
+it's over."
+
+"Have they done well with their speeches?" she asked. "After all my good
+intentions, I only went once."
+
+"They think they've made the seat absolutely safe for Harry. Parliament
+and marriage--the boy's taking on responsibilities!"
+
+"It seems funny, when one's just played about with them! It's a funny
+thing to be just one of people's amusements--off the stage as well as on
+it."
+
+"Oh, come!" He smiled. "Is that all you claim to be--to any of those
+boys?"
+
+"That's the way they look at me--in their sober moments. Except Andy;
+he's quite different. He's never been about town, you see. For him girls
+and women are all in the same class."
+
+"I was once about town myself," Belfield remarked thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, and you take your son's view--and Billy Foot's." He smiled again,
+and she smiled too, meeting his glance directly. "Oh yes, Billy
+too--though he may have his temptations! Squarely now, Mr. Belfield,
+if--for the sake of argument--your son treated Miss Wellgood badly, or
+even Miss Vintry, it would seem a different thing from treating Sally or
+me badly, wouldn't it?"
+
+"You do put it pretty squarely," said Belfield, twisting his lips.
+
+"A glass of beer gives you the right to flirt with poor Miss Miles. It's
+supposed to be champagne with us. When you were about town--don't you
+remember?"
+
+"I suppose it was. It's not a tradition to be proud of."
+
+"There are compensations--which some of us like. If Sally or I behave
+badly, who cares? But if Miss Wellgood or Miss Vintry--! Oh, dear me,
+the heavens would fall in Meriton!"
+
+"By the way, I'm afraid I drive your friend away? Miss Dutton always
+disappears when I call."
+
+"She generally disappears when people come. Sally's shy of strangers.
+Well, you know, as I was saying, Andy Hayes hasn't got that tradition. I
+think if I ever fell in love--I never do, Mr. Belfield--I should fall in
+love with a man who hadn't that tradition. But they're very hard to
+find."
+
+"Let's suppose it's one of those thousand things that are going to
+change," he suggested, with his sceptical smile.
+
+"Do things between men and women change much, in spite of all the talk?
+You've read history, I haven't."
+
+"Yes, I have to a certain extent. I don't know that I'm inclined to give
+you the result of my researches. Not very cheerful! And, meanwhile,
+there's Andy Hayes!"
+
+"I never do it," the Nun repeated firmly. "Besides, in this case I've
+not been asked. I'm not the sort of girl he would fall in love with."
+
+"Will you forgive an old man's compliment, Miss Flower, if I say I don't
+know the sort of man who wouldn't--I'll put it mildly, I'll say
+mightn't--fall in love with the sort of girl you are?"
+
+"I forgive it, but it's not as clever as you generally are. Andy always
+wants to help. Well, I don't want anybody to help me, you see."
+
+"The delight of the eyes?" he suggested. "What? That doesn't count? Only
+such as you can afford to say so!"
+
+"I don't think it counts much with Andy. He appreciates, oh yes! He
+almost stared me out of countenance the first time we met; and that's
+supposed to be difficult--in London! But I don't think it really counts
+for a great deal. Andy's not a love-making man; he's emphatically a
+marrying man."
+
+"You draw that distinction? But the love-making men marry?"
+
+"In the end perhaps--generally rather by accident. They haven't the
+instinct."
+
+"You've thought about these things a good deal, Miss Flower."
+
+"I live almost entirely among men, you see," she answered simply. "And
+they show me more than they show girls of--of that other class. Shall I
+call again on your reminiscences?" She smiled suddenly and brightly.
+"Miss Wellgood's being awfully nice to me. She's been here twice, and
+I'm going to tea at Nutley to-morrow."
+
+"She's one of the dearest girls in the world," said Belfield. "Harry's a
+lucky fellow." He glanced at the Nun. "I hope he appreciates it
+properly. I believe he does."
+
+She offered no comment, and a rather blank silence followed. If Belfield
+had sought a reassurance, he had not received it. On the other hand she
+gave away no secrets. She, like the silence, was blank, looking away
+from him, down High Street.
+
+The Bird passed the window; Jack Rock trotted by on a young horse; one
+of his business equipages clattered along not far behind him; the quiet
+old street basked and dozed in the sun.
+
+"What a dear rest it is--this little town!" said the Nun softly. "Surely
+nothing but what's happy and peaceful and pleasant can ever happen
+here?"
+
+Sally Dutton came by, returning from a stroll to which she had betaken
+herself on Belfield's arrival.
+
+"Well, Sally, been amusing yourself?" the Nun called.
+
+"The streets present their usual gay and animated aspect," observed Miss
+Dutton, as she entered the Lion.
+
+"There are the two sides of the question," laughed Belfield. "The line
+between peace and dullness--each man draws it for himself--in
+pencil--with india-rubber handy! I'm really afraid we're not amusing
+Miss Dutton?"
+
+"Oh yes, she's all right. That's only her way." She smiled reflectively;
+Sally always amused her.
+
+Belfield rose to take leave. "We can't let Nutley beat us," he said. "We
+must have you at Halton too!" He was led into assuming that his little
+domestic struggle would end in victory.
+
+She looked at him, still smiling. "Wait and see how I behave at Nutley
+first. If Harry gives a good report of me--I suppose he'll be
+there?--ask me to Halton!"
+
+He laughed, and so let the question go. After all, it would not do to be
+too sudden with his wife.
+
+"You needn't be afraid of Harry. But Wellgood's rather a formidable
+character."
+
+"And Miss Vintry? Is she alarming?"
+
+He pursed up his lips. "I think she might be called a little--alarming."
+
+"I'll have a good look at her--and perhaps I'll let you know what I
+think of her," said the Nun, with no more than the slightest twinkle in
+her eyes. It was enough for Belfield's quickness; it was much more
+informing than the blank silence--though even that had set him thinking.
+
+But the Nun's account of her first visit to Nutley chanced--or perhaps
+it was not chance--to be rendered not to Belfield, but to Andy Hayes.
+After the last meeting of the campaign, he had gone round to smoke a
+pipe with Jack Rock. Leaving him hard on midnight--there had been much
+to be wormed out of Andy concerning his speeches, their reception, the
+applause--he saw a light still burning in the window at the Lion. As he
+drew near, he perceived that the window was open, and he heard a voice
+crooning softly. He made bold to look in. The Nun was alone; she sat in
+the window, doing nothing, singing to herself. "Boo!" said Andy, putting
+his big head in at the window.
+
+"Andy!" she cried, her face lighting up. "Jump in! You've come to scare
+the devils! There are a hundred of them, and they won't go away for all
+my singing. And Sally's gone to bed, prophesying a breaking of at least
+six out of the Ten Commandments! And only yesterday I told Mr. Belfield
+that nothing unpleasant could happen in Meriton! Where is one to go for
+quiet if things happen in Meriton?"
+
+An outburst like this was most unusual with the Nun. It produced on
+Andy's face such a look of mild wonder as may be seen on a St. Bernard's
+when a toy-terrier barks furiously.
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"I've been at Nutley."
+
+"Oh yes! Harry came on from there in the car--got to the meeting rather
+late."
+
+"Something's happened--or is happening--in that house." She looked at
+him sharply. "You've been here longer than I have--do you know anything?
+Go on with your pipe."
+
+Andy considered long, smoking his pipe.
+
+"You do know something!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I've ground for some uneasiness," he admitted.
+
+She nodded. "It was all sort of underground," she said. "Really most
+uncomfortable! They'd try to get away from it, and yet come back to
+it--those three--Mr. Wellgood, Harry, and that Miss Vintry. Poor Vivien
+seemed quite outside of it all, but somehow conscious of it--and
+unhappy. She saw there was--what shall I say?--antagonism, you know. And
+she didn't know why. Have you seen anything that would make Mr. Wellgood
+savage if he saw it?"
+
+"He didn't see what I saw."
+
+"Not that time anyhow!" she amended quickly.
+
+Andy frowned. "That time, I mean, of course. If he's seen anything of
+that sort, or suspected it, naturally, as Vivien Wellgood's father--"
+
+"Vivien's father!" Her tone was full of impatience for his stupidity. "I
+suppose no woman has ever been to Nutley lately? Oh, Vivien's not one;
+she's a saint--and that's neither male nor female. Vivien's father!"
+
+"I've been there off and on," said Andy.
+
+"You! Have you ever seen--not that I suppose you'd notice it--a woman
+keeping two men from one another's throats, trying to make them think
+there's nothing to quarrel about, trying to say things that one could
+take in one way, and the other in the other--and third persons not take
+in any way at all? Oh, it's a pretty game, and I'm bound to say she
+plays it finely. But she's on thin ice, that woman, and she knows it.
+Vivien's father!"
+
+"Why do you go on repeating 'Vivien's father'?"
+
+"I won't." She leant forward and laid her small hand on his arm. "Isobel
+Vintry's lover, then! The man's in love with her, Andy, as sure as we
+sit here. In love--and furious!"
+
+"I'd never thought of that. Do you feel sure of it?"
+
+"You have thought of the other thing--and you're sure of that?"
+
+"You know Harry. I hoped it would all--all come to nothing. How much do
+you think Wellgood knows, or suspects?"
+
+"Hard to say. I think he's groping in the dark. He's had a check, I
+expect, or a set-back. Men always think that's due to another man--I
+suppose it generally is. Well, it's not you, and it's not Billy. Who
+else sees her--who else goes to Nutley?"
+
+"But he'd never suspect his own daughter's--"
+
+"You do!"
+
+"I had the evidence of my eyes."
+
+"Jealousy's quicker than the eyes, Andy." She leant forward again. "What
+did you see?"
+
+"It seems disloyal to tell--disloyal to Harry."
+
+"My loyalty's for Vivien!" she said. "What about yours?"
+
+"Take it that what I saw justifies your fears about Harry," said Andy
+slowly. "I think--I'm not sure--I think he suspects I saw. I don't know
+whether she does." He was not aware that Isobel had made herself quite
+certain of his knowledge. "But it's nearly a month ago. You know Harry.
+I hoped it was all over. Only he seemed a little--queer."
+
+"'Come and spend a quiet afternoon in the garden'--that was her
+invitation. Poor girl!"
+
+"That's what you called her the first time I told you of their
+engagement."
+
+"A nice quiet afternoon--sitting on the top of a volcano! With an
+eruption overdue!"
+
+"It isn't possible to feel quite comfortable about it, is it?" said
+Andy.
+
+The Nun laughed a little scornfully. "Not quite. Going to do anything
+about it?"
+
+Andy raised his eyes to hers. "I owe almost everything I value most in
+the world to Harry, directly or indirectly; even what I owe to you and
+Jack came in a way through him."
+
+"And he's never taken ten minutes' real trouble about you in his life."
+
+"I'm not sure that makes any difference--even if it's true. He stands
+for all those things to me. As for Miss Vintry--" He shrugged his
+ponderous shoulders.
+
+"Oh, by all means to blazes with Miss Vintry!" the Nun agreed
+pleasantly.
+
+Miss Dutton put her head in at the door--her hair about her shoulders.
+"Ever coming to bed?"
+
+"Not yet. I'm talking to Andy. Don't you see him, Sally?"
+
+"It's not respectable."
+
+"The window's open, there's a street lamp opposite, and a policeman
+standing under it. Good-night."
+
+"Well, don't come into my room and wake me up jawing." Miss Dutton
+withdrew.
+
+The Nun looked at Andy. "I wonder if it's quite fair to say 'To blazes
+with Miss Vintry!'"
+
+"You said it with a good deal of conviction a moment ago. What makes
+you--?" His eyes met hers.
+
+"Who told you about Sally? I never did," the Nun exclaimed.
+
+"Harry, after our first supper."
+
+"Here was rather the same case--only, of course, she never knew the
+other girl. I think that makes a difference. And she never really had a
+chance. That makes no difference, I suppose. The policeman's gone. I
+expect you'd better go too, Andy."
+
+Andy swung his legs over the window-sill. "Are you going to try and put
+your oar in?" he asked.
+
+"Would you think me wrong if I did?"
+
+Andy sat quite a long while on the window-sill, dangling his legs over
+the pavement of High Street.
+
+"I've thought about it a good deal," he answered. "Especially lately."
+
+She knelt on the broad low bench just behind him. "Yes, and the
+result--when you're ready?"
+
+"I think a row would be the best thing that could happen." He turned his
+face round to her as he spoke.
+
+The Nun gasped. "That's thorough," she remarked. "So much for your
+opinion about Harry!"
+
+"Yes, so much for that," Andy admitted.
+
+"If there is a row, I hope you'll be there."
+
+"Oh, I don't!" exclaimed Andy with a natural and human sincerity.
+
+"To prevent bloodshed!" She laid her hand on his arm. "I'm not
+altogether joking. I didn't like Mr. Wellgood's eyes this afternoon."
+She patted his arm gently before she withdrew her hand. "Good-night,
+dear old Andy. You're terribly right as a rule. But about this--" She
+broke off, impatiently jerking her head.
+
+With a clasp of her hand and a doleful smile, Andy let his legs drop on
+the pavement and departed.
+
+So that was his verdict, given with all his deliberation, with all the
+weight of his leisurely broad-viewing judgment. The real thing to avoid
+was not the "row;" that was his conclusion. There was a thing, then,
+worse than the "row"--the thing for which Halton and Nutley--nay, all
+Meriton, would soon be making joyful preparation. His calm face had not
+moved even at her word "bloodshed." Oh yes, Andy was thorough! Not even
+that word swayed his mind. Perhaps he did not believe in her fears. But
+his look had not been scornful; it had been thoughtfully interrogative.
+He had possessed that knowledge of his for a long while; he had never
+used it. At first from loyalty to Harry--even now that would, she
+thought, be enough to make him very loth to use it. But another reason
+was predominant, born of his long silent brooding. He had come to a
+conclusion about his hero; the court had taken time for consideration;
+the judgment was advised. There was no helping some people. They must be
+left to their own ways, their own devices, their own doom. To help them
+was to harm others; to fight for them was to serve under the banner of
+wrong and of injustice. Friendship and loyalty could not justify that.
+
+The conclusion seemed a hard one. She stood long at the big window--a
+dainty little figure thrown up by the light behind her--painfully
+reaching forward to the understanding of how what seems hardness may be
+a broader, a truer, a better-directed sympathy, how it may be a duty to
+leave a wastrel to waste, how not every drowning man is worth the labour
+that it takes to get him out of the water--for that once. At all events,
+not worth the risk of another, a more valuable life.
+
+And that was his conclusion about his hero, the man to whom he owed, as
+he had said, almost everything he prized? Had he, then, any right to the
+conclusion, right in the abstract though it might be? It was a hard
+world that drove men to such hard conclusions.
+
+The case was hard--and the conclusion. But not, of necessity, the man
+who painfully arrived at it. Yet the man might be biassed; sympathy for
+the deceived might paint the deceiver's conduct in colours even blacker
+than the truth demanded. Doris did not think of this, in part because
+the judgment had seemed too calm and too reluctant to be the offspring
+of bias, more because, if there were any partiality in it, she herself
+had become a no less strong, and a more impetuous, adherent of the same
+cause. Vivien had won all her fealty. The one pleasant feature of the
+afternoon had been when Vivien walked home with her and, wrought upon by
+the troubled atmosphere of Nutley even though ignorant of its cause, had
+opened her heart to Harry's old friend, to a girl who, as she felt, must
+know more of the world than she did, and perhaps, out of her experience,
+could comfort and even guide. With sweet and simple gravity, with a
+delicacy that made her confidence seem still reserved although it was
+well-nigh complete, she showed to her companion her love and her
+apprehension--a love so pure in quality, an apprehension based on so
+rare an understanding of the man she loved. She did not know the things
+he had done, nor the thing he was now doing; but the man himself she
+knew, and envisaged dimly the perils by which he was beset. Her loving
+sympathy tried to leap across the wide chasm that separated her life and
+her nature from his, and came wonderfully little short of its mark.
+
+"I really knew hardly anything about him when I accepted him; he was
+just a girl's hero to me. But I have watched and watched, and now I know
+a good deal."
+
+An excellent mood for a wife, no doubt--or for a husband--excellent,
+and, it may be, inevitable. But for a lover yet unmated, a bride still
+to be, a girl in her first love? Should she not leave reverend seniors
+to prate to her--quite vainly--of difficulties and dangers, while her
+fancy is roaming far afield in dreamy lands of golden joy? To endeavour,
+by an affectionate study of and consideration for your partner, to avoid
+unhappiness and to give comfort--such is wont to be the text of the
+officiating minister's little homily at a wedding. Is it to be supposed
+that bride and bridegroom are putting the matter quite that way in their
+hearts? If they were, a progressive diminution in the marriage-rate
+might be expected.
+
+So ran the Nun's criticism, full of sympathy with the girl, not perhaps
+quite so full of sympathy for what seemed to her an over-saintly
+abnegation of her sex's right. The bitterest anti-feminist will agree
+that a girl should be worshipped while she is betrothed; he will allow
+her that respite of dominion in a life which, according to his
+opponents, his theories reduce, for all its remaining years, to
+servitude. Vivien was already serving--serving and watching
+anxiously--amid all her love. At this Doris rebelled--she who never fell
+in love. But she was quicker to grow fond of people than to criticize
+their points of view. Vivien's over-saintliness did sinful Harry's cause
+no service. If this were Vivien's mood in the light of her study of what
+her lover was, how would she stand towards the knowledge of what he did?
+
+Yet Andy Hayes thought that the best thing now possible was that she
+should come to the knowledge of it--that was what he meant by there
+being a "row." That opinion of his was a mightily strong endorsement of
+Vivien's anxiety.
+
+"Don't you now and then feel like backing out of it?" the Nun had asked
+with her usual directness.
+
+Vivien's answer came with a laugh, suddenly scornful, suddenly merry,
+"Why, it's all my life!"
+
+The Nun shook her sage little head; these things were not all people's
+lives--oh dear, no! She knew better than that, did Doris! But then the
+foolish obstinate folk would go on believing that they were, and
+thereby, for the time, made the trouble just as great as though their
+delusion were gospel truth.
+
+Then Vivien had turned penitent about her fears, and remorseful for the
+expression of them. By an easy process penitence led to triumph, and she
+fell to singing Harry's praises, to painting again that brightly
+coloured future--the marvellous things to be seen and done by Harry's
+side. She smiled gently, rather mysteriously; the sound of the wonderful
+words was echoing in her ears. Doris saw her face, and pressed her hand
+in a holy silence.
+
+The result of her various conversations, of her own reflections, and of
+her personal inspection of the situation at Nutley was to throw Miss
+Doris Flower into perhaps the gravest perplexity under which she had
+ever suffered. When you are accustomed to rule your life--and other
+people's, on occasion--by the simple rule of doing the obvious thing, it
+is disconcerting to be confronted with a case in which there appears to
+be no obvious thing to do, where there is only a choice of evils, and
+the choice seems balanced with a perverse and malicious equality. From
+Vivien's side of the matter--Doris troubled herself no more with her old
+friend Harry's--the marriage was risky far beyond the average of
+matrimonial risks; but the "row" was terribly risky too, with the girl
+in that mood about "all her life." If she had that mood badly upon her,
+she might do--well, girls did do all sorts of things sometimes, holding
+that life had nothing left in it.
+
+Though there was nothing obvious, there must be something sensible; at
+least one thing must be more sensible than the other. Was it more
+sensible to do nothing--which was to favour the "row"--or to attempt
+something--which was to work for the marriage? Her temperament asserted
+itself, and led her to a conclusion in conflict with Andy's. She was by
+nature inclined always to do something. In the end the "row" was a
+certain evil; the marriage only a risk. Men do settle down--sometimes!
+(She wrinkled her nose as she propounded, and qualified, this
+proposition.) The risk was preferable to the certainty. After all, her
+practical sense whispered, in these days even marriage is not wholly
+irrevocable. Yes, she would be for the marriage and against the
+"row"--and she would tell Andy that.
+
+Something was to be done then. But what? That seemed to the Nun a much
+easier question--a welcome reappearance of the obvious thing.
+
+"I must find out what the woman really wants. Until we know that, it's
+simply working in the dark."
+
+So she concluded, and at last turned on her side and went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+REFORMATION.
+
+
+In very truth the atmosphere at Nutley was heavy with threatening
+clouds; unless a fair wind came to scatter them, the storm must soon
+break. Isobel had fled within her feminine barricades--the barricades
+which women are so clever at constructing and at persuading the
+conventions of life to help them to defend. A woman's solitudes may not
+be stormed; with address she can escape private encounters. In sore fear
+of Harry because sore afraid of herself, she gave him no opportunity. In
+sore fear of Wellgood, she shrank from facing him with a rupture of
+their secret arrangement. Both men were tricked out of their stolen
+interviews--Wellgood out of his legitimate privilege, Harry out of his
+trespassing. Each asked why; in each jealousy harked back to its one
+definite starting-point--Harry's to her suggestions about her relations
+with Vivien's father, Wellgood's to Belfield's hints that, as a
+companion, Isobel was needlessly good looking. To each of them matter of
+amusement at the time when they were made, they took on now a new
+significance; so irony loves to confront our past and present moods. But
+Wellgood held a card that was not in Harry's hand--a card which could
+not win the game, but could at least secure an opening. He was employer
+as well as lover. Vivien's father could command the presence of Vivien's
+companion--not indeed late at night, for that would be a scarcely
+judicious straining of his powers, but at any reputable
+business-transacting hour of the day. For two nights--and that day of
+which the Nun had been a witness--he suffered the evasion of his rights;
+then, with a suavity dangerous in a man so rough, he prayed Miss
+Vintry's presence in the study for ten minutes (the established period!)
+before dinner; there were ways and means to be discussed, he said,
+matters touching the _trousseau_ and the wedding entertainment. Vivien
+was bidden to run away and dress. "We're preparing one or two surprises
+for you, my dear," he said to her, with a grim smile which carried for
+Isobel a hidden reference.
+
+Thus commanded in Vivien's presence, Isobel was cleverly caught between
+the duty of obedience and the abandonment of her ostensible position in
+the house. Her barricade was being outflanked; she was forced into the
+open.
+
+She was in fear of him, almost actual physical fear; whether more of his
+fondness or of his roughness she could not tell; she felt that she could
+hardly bear either. Since her avowal to Harry, her courage had never
+returned, her weapons seemed blunted, she was no more mistress of all
+her resources. Yet in the end she feared the fondness more, and would at
+all costs avoid that. She summoned the remnants of her once brilliant
+array of bravery.
+
+Alone with her, he wasted no time on the artifice which had secured him
+privacy.
+
+"What's this new fad, Isobel? You're wilfully avoiding me. One evening
+you turn faint; another you dodge me, and are off to bed! Though I don't
+think I've ever made exacting claims on your time, considering!"
+
+"I've been afraid--you'd better hear the truth--to speak to you."
+
+"I should like the truth, certainly, if I can get it. What have you been
+afraid to speak to me about?"
+
+"Our engagement." She made the plunge, her eyes fixed apprehensively on
+his face. "I--I can't go on with it, Mr. Wellgood."
+
+He had schooled himself for this answer; he made no outburst. His tone
+was mild; the cunning of jealousy gave him an alien smoothness.
+
+"Sit down, my dear, and tell me why."
+
+She sat facing him, his writing-table between them.
+
+"My feelings haven't--haven't developed as I hoped they would."
+
+"Oh, your feelings haven't developed?" he repeated slowly. "Towards me?"
+
+"I reserved the right to change my mind--you remember?"
+
+"And I the right to be unpleasant about it." He smiled under intent
+eyes.
+
+"I'll leave the house to-morrow, if you like," she cried, eager now to
+accept a banishment she had once dreaded.
+
+"Oh, no! I'm not going to be unpleasant. We needn't do things like
+that."
+
+"I--I think I should prefer it."
+
+"I'm sorry you should feel that. There's no need; you shan't be
+annoyed."
+
+"That's good of you. I thought you'd be very, very hard to me."
+
+"Would that be the best way to win you back? I don't know--at any rate I
+don't feel like following it. But really you can't go off at a moment's
+notice--and just now! What would Vivien think? What are we to say to
+her? What would everybody think? And how are Vivien and I to get through
+all this business of the wedding?"
+
+"I know it would be awkward, and look odd, but it might be better. Your
+feelings--"
+
+"Never mind my feelings; you know they're not my weak spot. Come,
+Isobel, you see now you've no cause to be afraid of me, don't you?"
+
+"You're behaving very kindly--more kindly than perhaps I could expect."
+Down in her mind there was latent distrust of this unwonted
+uncharacteristic kindness. Yet it looked genuine enough. There was no
+reference to the name she dreaded; no hint, no sneer, about Harry
+Belfield. She rose to a hope that her tricks and her fencing had been
+successful, that he was quite in the dark, that the issue was to his
+mind between their two selves alone, with no intruder.
+
+Wellgood's jealousy bade him be proud of his effort, and encouraged him
+to persevere. The natural temper of the man might be raging, almost to
+the laying of hands on her; it must be kept down; the time for it was
+not yet. Rudeness or roughness would give her an excuse for flight; he
+would not have her fly. A plausible kindness, a considerate
+smoothness--that was the card jealousy selected for him to play.
+
+"You shan't be troubled, you shan't be annoyed. I'll give up my evening
+treat. We'll go back to our old footing--before I spoke to you about
+this. I'll ask nothing of you as a lover--well, except not to decide
+finally against me till the wedding. Only three weeks! But as my friend,
+and Vivien's, I do ask you not to leave us in the lurch now--at this
+particular moment--and not to risk setting everybody talking. If you
+insist on leaving me, go after the wedding. That means no change in our
+plan, except that you won't come back. That'll seem quite natural; it's
+what they all expect."
+
+Still never a word of Harry, no hint of resentment, nothing that could
+alarm her or give her a handle for offence! Whether from friend or
+lover, his request sounded most moderate and reasonable. Not to leave
+the friend in the lurch, not to decide with harsh haste against a
+patient lover who had been given cause for confident hope, almost for
+certainty! He left her no plausible answer, for she could adduce no
+grievance against him. He had but taken what for her own purposes she
+had been content to allow--first in his bluff flirtation, then in his
+ill-restrained endearments. There was no plausibility in turning round
+and pretending to resent these things now. She dared not take false
+points in an encounter so perilous; that would be to expose herself to a
+crushing reply.
+
+"If you go now--all of a sudden, at this moment--I can't help thinking
+you'll put yourself under a slur, or else put me under one. People know
+the position you've been in here--practically mistress of the house,
+with Vivien in your entire charge. Very queer to leave three weeks
+before her wedding! You may invent excuses, or we may. An aunt
+dying--something of that sort! Nobody ever believes in those dying
+aunts!"
+
+It was all true; people did not believe in those dying aunts, not when
+sudden departures of handsome young women were in question. People would
+talk; the thing would look odd. His plausible cunning left her no
+loophole.
+
+"If you wish it, I'll stay till the wedding, on our old footing--as we
+were before all this, I mean. But you mustn't think there's any chance
+of my--my changing again."
+
+"Thank you." He put out his hand across the table. She could not but
+take it. Though he seemed so cool and quiet, the hand was very hot. He
+held hers for a long while, his eyes intently fixed on her in a regard
+which she could not fathom, but which filled her anew with fear. She
+fell into a tremble; her lips quivered.
+
+"Let me go now, please," she entreated, her eyes unable to meet his any
+longer.
+
+He released her hand, and leant back in his chair. He smiled at her
+again, as he said, "Yes, go now. I'm afraid this interview has been
+rather trying to you--perhaps to us both."
+
+Of all the passions, the sufferings, the undergoings of mankind, none
+has so relentlessly been put to run the gauntlet of ridicule as
+jealousy. It is the sport of the composer of light verses, the born
+material of the writer of farce--especially when it is well founded. It
+is perhaps strange to remark--could any strangeness outlast
+familiarity--that the supreme study of it treats of it as utterly
+unfounded, and finds its highest tragedy in its baselessness. Ridiculous
+when justifiable, tragic when all a delusion! Is that nature's view,
+even as it is so often art's? Certainly the race is obstinate in holding
+real failure in the conflict of sex as small recommendation in a hero,
+imagined as the opportunity for his highest effect. King Arthur hardly
+bears the burden of being deceived; on the baseless suspicion of it the
+Moor rides through murder to a triumphant death--and a general
+sympathy--unless nowadays women have anything to say on the latter
+point.
+
+Yet this poor passion--commonly so ridiculous,
+even more commonly, among the polite, held ill-bred--must be allowed its
+features of interest. It is remarkably alert, acute, ingenious, even
+laborious, in its sweeping of details into its net. It works up its
+brief very industriously, be the instructions never so meagre--somehow
+it invites legal metaphor, being always plaintiff in the court of sex,
+always with its grievance to prove, generally faced with singularly hard
+swearing in the witness box. It has its successes, as witnessed by
+notable phrases; there is the "unwritten law," and there are
+"extenuating circumstances." The phrases throw back a rather startling
+illumination on the sport of versifiers and the material of farce. But
+the exceptional cases have a trick of stamping themselves on
+phraseology. Most of us are jealous with no very momentous results. We
+grumble a little, watch a little, sulk a little, and decide that there
+is nothing in it. Often there is not. Likewise we are ambitious without
+convulsing the world--or even our own family circle. So with our lives,
+our loves, our deaths--history, poetry, elegy find no place for them.
+Only nature has and keeps a mother's love for the ordinary man, and
+holds his doings legitimate matter for her interest, nay, essential to
+her eternal unresting plan. She may be figured as investing the bulk of
+her fortune in him, as in three per cents.--genius being her occasional
+"flutter."
+
+Mark Wellgood was an ordinary man, and he was proud of the fact; that
+must, perhaps, be considered a circumstance of aggravation. He refused
+the suggestions of civilization to modify, and of sentiment to soften,
+his primitive instincts; he was proud of them just as they were. If any
+man had come between him and his woman--primitive also were the terms
+his thoughts used--that man should pay for it. If there were any man at
+all, who could it be but Harry Belfield? If it were Harry Belfield,
+Wellgood refused to hold him innocent of an inkling of how matters stood
+between Isobel and Vivien's father--he must have pretty nearly guessed,
+even if she had not told him. At least there were relations between
+Vivien herself and the suspected trespasser. Did they not give cause
+enough for a father's anger, deep and righteous, demanding vengeance?
+They gave cause--and they gave cover. The jealous suitor could use the
+indignant father's plea, the indignant father's weapons. The lover's
+revenge would make the father's duty sweet. He was not indifferent to
+the wrong done to Vivien; yet he almost prized it for the advantage it
+gave him in his own quarrel. It was not often that jealousy could plume
+itself on so honourable and so useful an ally!
+
+Single-hearted concern for Vivien would have let Isobel go, as she
+prayed, and given Harry either his dismissal or the chance to mend his
+ways in the absence of temptation. Jealousy imperiously vetoed such
+suggestions. Isobel should not go. Harry should neither be dismissed nor
+given a fair chance and a fresh start. If he could, Wellgood would still
+keep Isobel; at least he would punish Harry, if he caught him. For the
+sake of these things he compromised his daughter's cause, and made her
+an instrument for his own purposes. And he did this with no sense of
+wrong-doing. So masterful was his self-regarding passion that his
+daughter's claim fell to the status of his pretext.
+
+So he smoothed his face and watched.
+
+But Isobel too was now on the alert. She was no longer merely resolved
+that she would behave herself because she ought; she saw that perforce
+she must. At least, no more secret dealings! Harry must be told that.
+The hidden hope that his answer would be, "Open dealings, then, at any
+cost," beat still in her heart, faintly, yet without ceasing. But if
+that answer came not, then all must be over. Word must go to him of that
+before he next came to Nutley. Such consolation as lay in knowing that
+she would not marry Wellgood should be his also. Then, perhaps, things
+would go a little easier, and these terrible three weeks slip past
+without disaster. Terrible--yes; but, alas, the end of them seemed more
+terrible yet.
+
+Even had the post seemed safe, there was none which could reach Harry
+before he was due at Nutley again. She had to find a messenger. She
+decided on Andy Hayes. He was a safe man; he would not forget to fulfil
+his charge. The very fact of that bit of knowledge he possessed made him
+in her eyes the safest messenger; if he had not talked about that other
+thing, he was not likely to talk about the letter; unlikely to mention
+it in malice, certain not to refer to it in innocence or inadvertence.
+And she knew where to find him. Andy had, with Wellgood's permission,
+resumed his practice of bathing before breakfast in Nutley lake. The
+stripes of his bathing-suit were a familiar object to her as he emerged
+from the bushes or plunged into the water; from her window she could
+watch his powerful strokes. His hour was half-past seven; before eight
+nobody but servants would be about.
+
+Andy, then, emerging from the shrubbery dressed after his dip, found
+Miss Vintry strolling up and down.
+
+"You're surprised to see me out so early, Mr. Hayes? But I know your
+habits. My window looks out this way."
+
+"I'm awfully careful to keep well hidden in the bushes."
+
+"Oh yes!" she laughed. "I've not come to warn you off. Are you likely to
+see Mr. Harry this morning?"
+
+"I easily can; I shall be passing Halton."
+
+"I specially want this note to reach him early in the morning. It's
+rather important. I should be so much obliged if you'd take it; and will
+you give it to him yourself?"
+
+Andy stood silent for a moment, not offering to take the letter from her
+hand. She had foreseen that he might hesitate, knowing what he did; she
+had even thought that his hesitation might give her an opportunity.
+Feigning to notice nothing in his manner, she went on, "I must add that
+I shall be glad if you'll give it to him when he's alone, and if you
+won't mention it. It relates to a private matter."
+
+Andy spoke slowly. "I'm not sure you'd choose me to carry it if you
+knew--"
+
+"I do know; at least I never had much doubt, and I've had none since a
+talk we had together at Halton. Do you remember?"
+
+"I didn't say anything about it then, did I?" asked Andy.
+
+She smiled. "Not in so many words. You saw a great piece of
+foolishness--the first and last, I need hardly tell you. I'm very much
+ashamed of it. In that letter I ask Mr. Harry to forget all about it,
+and to remember only that I am, and want to go on being, Vivien's
+friend."
+
+It sounded well, but Andy was not quite convinced.
+
+"It's some time ago now. Mightn't you just ignore it?"
+
+"As far as he's concerned, no doubt I might; but I rather want to get it
+off my own conscience, Mr. Hayes. It'll make me happier in meeting him.
+I shall be happier in meeting you too, after this little talk. Somehow
+that wretched bit of silliness seems to have made an awkwardness between
+us, and I want to leave Nutley good friends with every one."
+
+She sounded very sincere; nay, in a sense she was sincere. She was
+ashamed; she did want to end the whole matter--unless that unexpected
+answer came. At any rate she was--or sounded--sincere enough to make
+Andy hold out his hand for the letter.
+
+"I'll take it and give it to him as you wish, Miss Vintry. I'm bound to
+say, though, that, if apologies are being made, I think Harry's the one
+to make them."
+
+"We women are taught to think such things worse in ourselves than in
+men. Men get carried away; they're allowed to, now and then. We
+mustn't."
+
+The appeal to his chivalry--another wrong to woman!--touched Andy.
+"That's infernally unfair!"
+
+"It sometimes seems so, just a little. I'm sincerely grateful to you,
+Mr. Hayes." She held out her hand to him. "You won't think it necessary
+to mention to Mr. Harry all I've told you? I don't think he was so sure
+as I was about--about your presence. And somehow it makes it seem worse
+if he knew that you--"
+
+"I shall say nothing whatever, if he doesn't," said Andy, as he shook
+hands.
+
+"Thank you again. I don't think I dare risk asking you to be
+friends--real friends--yet; but I may, perhaps, on the wedding day."
+
+"I've never been your enemy, Miss Vintry."
+
+"No; you've been kind, considerate"--her voice dropped--"merciful. Thank
+you. Good-bye."
+
+She left Andy with her letter in his hands, and her humble thanks
+echoing in his ears--words that, in thanking him for his silence, bound
+him to a continuance of it. Andy felt most of the guilt suddenly
+transferred to his shoulders, because he had told the Nun--well, very
+nearly all about it! That could not be helped now. After all, it was
+Miss Vintry's own fault; she should have done sooner what she had done
+now. "All the same," thought chivalrous Andy, "I might give Doris a hint
+that things look a good bit better."
+
+Certainly Isobel Vintry had cause to congratulate herself on a useful
+morning's work--Harry safely warned, Andy in great measure conciliated.
+She felt more able to face Wellgood over the teapot.
+
+The first round had gone in her favour; the zone of danger was
+appreciably contracted. Her courage rose; her conscience, too, was
+quieter. She felt comparatively honest. With Wellgood she had gone as
+near to absolute honesty as the circumstances permitted. She had broken
+the engagement; she had even prayed to be allowed to go away, with all
+that meant to her. Wellgood made her stay. Then, so far as he was
+concerned, the issue must be on his own head. If that unexpected answer
+should come in the course of the weeks still left for it, it would be
+Wellgood's own lookout. As for Vivien--well, she was perceptibly more
+honest even in regard to Vivien. If she fought still, in desperate hope,
+for Vivien's lover, she fought now in fairer fashion, by refusing, not
+by accepting, his society, his attentions, his kisses. She would be
+nothing to him unless he found himself forced to cry, "Be everything!"
+She would abide no longer on that half-way ground; there were to be no
+more sly tricks and secret meetings. The kisses, if kisses came, would
+not be stolen, but ravished in conquest from a rival's lips. If sin,
+that was sin in the grand manner.
+
+At lunch-time a note came for Vivien, brought by a groom on a bicycle.
+
+"Oh, from Harry!" she exclaimed, tearing it open.
+
+Isobel, sitting opposite Wellgood, set her face. She had expected a note
+to come for Vivien from Harry. She was on her mettle, fighting warily,
+risking no points. No note should come to her from Harry, to be opened
+perhaps under Wellgood's eyes; he had been known to ask to see letters,
+in his matter-of-course way assuming that there could be nothing private
+in them. Harry's answer to the note Andy delivered was to come to Isobel
+through Vivien, and to come in terms dictated by Isobel, terms that she
+alone would understand. She could always contrive to see Vivien's
+letters; generally they were left about.
+
+"He's so sorry he can't bring Mr. Foot to tennis with him this
+afternoon; they're going to play golf," Vivien announced, rather
+disappointed. But she cheered up. "Oh well, it's rather hot for tennis;
+and I shall see him to-night, at dinner at Halton."
+
+"Does he say anything else?" asked Isobel carelessly.
+
+"Only that he's bored to death with politics." She laughed. "What's
+worrying him, I wonder?"
+
+For a moment Isobel sat with eyes lowered; then she raised them and
+looked across to Wellgood. He was not looking at her; he was carving
+beef. Then it did not matter if her face had changed a little when she
+heard that Harry was bored with politics. Neither Wellgood nor Vivien
+had seen any change there might possibly have been in her face.
+
+That trivial observation about politics was the answer--the expected
+answer, not that unexpected one. It meant, "I accept your decision."
+
+Oddly enough her first feeling, the one that rose instinctively in her
+mind, was of triumph over Wellgood. Had she expressed it with the
+primitive simplicity on which he prided himself, she would have cried,
+"Sold again!" She had got out of her great peril; she had settled the
+whole thing. He had not scored a single point against her. She had
+regained her independence of him, and without cost. There was no longer
+anything for him to discover. He had no more rights over her; he had to
+renew his wooing, again to court, to conciliate. He had no way of
+finding out the past; Andy Hayes was safe. The future was again in her
+hands. Her smile at Wellgood was serene and confident. She was
+retreating in perfect order, after fighting a brilliantly successful
+rearguard action.
+
+Even of the retreat itself she was, for the moment at least, half glad.
+Fear and longing had so mingled in her dreams of that unexpected answer.
+To be free from that crisis and that revelation! They would have meant
+flight for her, pursued by a chorus of condemning voices. They would
+have meant at least days, perhaps weeks, of straining vigilance, of
+harrowing suspense--never sure of her ground, never sure of herself;
+above all, never sure of Harry. Who, if not she, should know that you
+never could be sure of Harry? Who, if not she, should know that neither
+his plighted word nor his hottest impulse could be relied upon to last?
+Yes, she was--half glad; almost more than half glad, when she looked at
+Vivien. In the back of her mind, save maybe when passion ran at full
+flood for those rare minutes, the stolen ten that had come for so few
+days, had been the feeling that it would be a terrible thing to be--to
+be "shown up" to Vivien. The sage adviser, the firm preceptress, the
+model of the virtues of self-control--how would she have looked in the
+eyes of Vivien, even had the open, the triumphant victory come to pass?
+Really that hardly bore thinking of, if she had still any self-respect
+to lose.
+
+She walked alone in the drive after lunch--where she had been wont to
+meet him. Let it all go! At least it had done one thing for her--it had
+saved her from Wellgood. It had taught her love, and made the pretence
+of love impossible--the suffering of unwelcome caresses a thing unholy.
+Then it was not all to the bad? It left her with a dream, a vision, a
+thing unrealized yet real; something to take with her into that new,
+cold, unknown world of strange people into which, for a livelihood's
+sake, she must soon plunge--must plunge as soon as she had seen Harry
+married to Vivien!
+
+The sun was on the lake that afternoon; the water looked peaceful,
+friendly, consoling. She sat down by the margin of it, and gave herself
+to memories. They came thick and fast, repeating themselves endlessly
+out of scant material--full of shame, full of woe; but also full of
+triumph, for she had been loved--at least for the time desired--by the
+man of her love and desire. Bought at a great cost? Yes. And never ought
+to have been bought? No. But now by no means to be forgotten.
+
+She was alone; everything was still, in the calm of a September
+afternoon. She bowed her head to her hands and wept.
+
+The Nun walked up the drive and saw the figure of a woman weeping.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS.
+
+
+The Nun stopped, walked on a few paces, came to a stand again. She was
+visiting Nutley in pursuance of her plan of doing, if not that
+undiscoverable obvious, yet the more sensible thing--of preventing the
+"row" and, incidentally thereto, of finding out "what the woman really
+wanted."
+
+Here was the woman. Whatever she might really want, apparently she was
+very far from having got it yet. She also looked very different from the
+adversary with whom Miss Flower had pictured herself as conducting a
+contest of wits--quite unlike the cool, wary, dexterous woman who had
+played her difficult game between the two men so finely, and who might
+be trusted to treat her opponent to a very pretty display of fencing.
+The position seemed so changed that the Nun had thoughts of going back.
+To discover a new, and what one has considered rather a hostile,
+acquaintance in tears is embarrassing; and the acquaintance may well
+share the embarrassment.
+
+Fortunately Isobel stopped crying. She dried her eyes and tucked away
+her handkerchief. The Nun advanced again. Isobel sat looking drearily
+over the lake.
+
+"Dropped your sixpence in the pond, Miss Vintry?" the Nun asked.
+
+Isobel turned round sharply.
+
+"Because--I mean--you're not looking very cheerful."
+
+Isobel's eyes hardened a little.
+
+"Have you been there long?"
+
+"I saw you were crying, if that's what you mean. I'm sorry. I couldn't
+help it. People should cry in their own rooms if they want to keep it
+quiet."
+
+"Oh, never mind; it doesn't matter whether you saw or not. Every woman
+is entitled to cry sometimes."
+
+"I don't cry myself," observed the Nun, "but of course a great many
+girls do."
+
+"I daresay I shouldn't cry if I were the great Miss Doris Flower."
+
+The Nun gurgled. That ebullition could usually be brought about by any
+reference to the greatness of her position, not precisely because the
+position was not great--rather because it was funny that it should be.
+She sat down beside Isobel.
+
+"Please don't tell Vivien what you saw. I don't want her to know I've
+been crying. She's remorseful enough as it is about her marriage costing
+me my 'place.'"
+
+"Was that what you were crying about?"
+
+"It seems silly, doesn't it? But I've been happy here, and--and they've
+got fond of me. And finding a new one--well, it seems like plunging into
+this lake on a cold day. So quite suddenly I got terribly dreary."
+
+"Well, you've had it out, haven't you?" suggested the Nun consolingly.
+
+"Yes; and much good it's done to the situation!" laughed Isobel
+ruefully. "Oh, well, I suppose my feelings are the situation--at any
+rate there's no other."
+
+"Then if you feel better, things are better too."
+
+The Nun did not feel that she was getting on much with the secret object
+of her visit; she even felt the impulse to get on with it weakened. She
+was more inclined just to have a friendly, a consoling chat. However
+business was business. To get on she must take a little risk. She dug
+the earth on the edge of the pond with the point of her sunshade and
+observed carelessly, "If you very particularly wanted to stay at Nutley,
+I should have thought you might have the chance."
+
+"Oh, are people gossiping about that? Poor Mr. Wellgood!"
+
+"It was the observation of my own eyes," said the Nun sedately. "Oh, of
+course you can deny it if you like, though I don't see why you
+should--and I shan't believe you."
+
+"If you've such confidence in your own eyes as that, Miss Flower, it
+would be wasting my breath to try to convince you. Have it your own way.
+But even that would be--a new place. And I've told you that I'm afraid
+of new places."
+
+"All plunges aren't into cold water," the Nun observed reflectively.
+
+"That one would be colder, I think, than a quite strange plunge--away
+from Nutley."
+
+"It's a great pity we're not built so as to fall in love conveniently.
+It would have been so nice for you to stay--in the new place."
+
+"I'm only letting you have it your own way, Miss Flower. I've admitted
+nothing."
+
+"All that appears at present is that you needn't go if you don't
+like--and yet you cry about going!"
+
+Isobel smiled.
+
+"I might cry at leaving all my friends, especially at leaving Vivien,
+without wanting to stop--with Mr. Wellgood, as you insist on having it.
+Is that comprehensible?"
+
+"Well, I expect I've asked enough questions," said the cunning Nun,
+wondering hard how she could contrive to ask another--and get an answer
+to it. "But in Meriton there's nothing to do but gossip to and about
+one's friends. That's what makes it so jolly. Why, this wedding is
+simply occupation for all of us! What shall we do when it's over? Oh,
+well, I shall be gone, I suppose."
+
+"And so shall I--so we needn't trouble about that."
+
+The Nun was baffled. A strange impassivity seemed to fall on her
+companion the moment that the talk was of Harry's wedding. She tried
+once again.
+
+"I do hope it'll turn out well."
+
+Isobel offered no comment whatever. In truth she was not sure of
+herself; her agitation was too recent and had been too violent--it might
+return.
+
+"I've known Harry for so long--and I like Miss Wellgood so much." She
+gave as interrogative a note as she could to her remarks--without asking
+direct questions. "I think he really is in love at last!" Surely, that
+ought to draw some question or remark--that "at last"? It drew nothing.
+"But--well, we used to say one never knew with poor Harry!" ("Further
+than that," thought the Nun, "without telling tales, I cannot go.")
+
+Isobel sat silent.
+
+The result was meagre. Isobel would talk about Wellgood, evasively but
+without embarrassment; references to Harry Belfield reduced her to
+silence. It was a little new light on the past; its bearing on the
+future, if any, was negative. She would not, it seemed, stay at Nutley
+with Wellgood. She would not talk of Harry. She had been crying. The
+crying was the satisfactory feature in the case.
+
+The Nun rose.
+
+"I must go in and see Miss Wellgood."
+
+"She's gone out with her father, I'm afraid. That's how I happen to be
+off duty."
+
+"And able to cry?"
+
+"Oh, I hope you'll forget that nonsense. I'm quite resigned to
+everything, really." She too rose, smiling at her companion. "Only I
+rather wish it was all over--and the plunge made!"
+
+The Nun reported the fact of her interview--and the results, such as
+they were--to Miss Dutton when she returned home.
+
+"Her crying shows that she doesn't think she's got much chance," said
+the Nun hopefully.
+
+"It shows she'd take a chance, if she got one," Miss Dutton opined
+acutely.
+
+"You mean it all depends on Harry, then?"
+
+"In my opinion it always has."
+
+That indeed seemed the net result. It all depended on Harry--not at
+first sight a very satisfactory conclusion for those who knew Harry.
+However, Andy, who came into the Lion later in the afternoon, was
+hopeful--nay, confident. He had mysterious reasons for this frame of
+mind--information which he declared himself unable to disclose; he could
+not even indicate the source from which it proceeded, but he might say
+that there were two sources. He really could not say more--which annoyed
+the Nun extremely.
+
+"But I think we may consider all the trouble over," he ended.
+
+For had not Harry, when he got his note, dealt quite frankly with
+Andy--well, with very considerable frankness as to the past, with
+complete as to the future? He admitted that he had "more or less made a
+fool of himself," but declared that it had been mere nonsense, and was
+altogether over. Absolutely done with! He gave Andy his hand on that,
+begged his pardon for having been sulky with him, and told him that
+henceforward all his thoughts would be where his heart had been all
+through--with Vivien. If Isobel had convinced Andy, Harry convinced him
+ten times more. Andy had such a habit of believing people. He was not,
+indeed, easily or stupidly deceived by a wilful liar; but he fell a
+victim to people who believed in themselves, who thought they were
+telling the truth. It was so hard for him to understand that people
+would not go on feeling and meaning what they were sincerely feeling and
+meaning at the moment. They could convince him, if only they were
+convinced themselves.
+
+"Let's think no more about it, and then we can all be happy," he said to
+the Nun. It really made a great difference to his happiness how Harry
+was behaving.
+
+After all, it was rather hard--and rather hard-hearted--not to believe
+in Harry, when Harry believed so thoroughly in himself. The strongest
+proof of his regained self-confidence was the visit he paid to the
+Nun--a visit long overdue in friendship and even in courtesy. Harry
+asked for no forgiveness; he seemed to assume that she would understand
+how, having been troubled in his mind of late, he had not been in the
+mood for visits. He was quite his old self when he came, so much his old
+self that he scarcely cared to disguise the fact that he had given some
+cause for anxiety--any more than he expected to be met with doubt when
+he implied that all cause for anxiety was past. He had quite got over
+that attack, and his constitution was really the stronger for it.
+Illnesses are nature's curative processes, so the doctors tell us. Harry
+was always more virtuous after a moral seizure. The seizure being the
+effective cause of his improvement, he could not be expected to regard
+it with unmixed regret. If, incidentally, it witnessed to his conquering
+charms, he could not help that. Of course he would not talk about the
+thing; he did not so much mind other people implying, assuming, or
+hinting at it.
+
+If the Nun obliged him at all in this way, she chose the difficult
+method of irony--in which not her greatest admirer could claim that she
+was very subtle.
+
+"My dear Harry, I quite understand your not calling. How could you think
+of me when you were quite wrapped up in Vivien Wellgood? I was really
+glad!"
+
+Now that Harry had come, he found himself delighted with his visit.
+
+"Country air's agreeing with you, Doris. You look splendid." His eyes
+spoke undisguised admiration.
+
+"Thank you, Harry. I know you thought me good-looking once." The Nun was
+meek and grateful.
+
+Harry laughed, by no means resenting the allusion. That had been an
+illness, a curative process, also--though her curative measures had been
+rather too summary for his taste.
+
+"Whose peace of mind are you destroying down here?"
+
+"I've a right to destroy peace of mind if I want to. It's not as if I
+were engaged to be married--as you are. I think Jack Rock's in most
+danger--or perhaps your father."
+
+"The pater inherits some of my weaknesses," said Harry. "Or shares my
+tastes, anyhow."
+
+"Yes, I know he's devoted to Vivien."
+
+"You never look prettier than when you're trying to say nasty things."
+
+"I'll stop, or in another moment you'll be offering to kiss me."
+
+"Should you object?"
+
+"Hardly worth while. It would mean nothing at all to either of us.
+Still--I'm not a poacher."
+
+"You don't seem to me to be able to take a joke either." Harry's voice
+sounded annoyed. "But we won't quarrel. I've been through one of my fits
+of the blues, Doris. Don't be hard on a fellow."
+
+"It would be so much better for you if people could be hard on you,
+Harry. Still you'll have to pay for it somehow. We all have to pay for
+being what we are--somehow. Perhaps you won't know you're paying--you'll
+call it by some other name; perhaps you won't care. But you'll have to
+pay somehow."
+
+The Nun made a queer figure of a moralist; she was really far too
+pretty. But her words got home to Harry--the new, the recovered, Harry.
+
+"I have paid," he said. "Oh yes, you don't believe it, but I have! The
+bill's paid, and receipted. I'm starting fair now. But you never did do
+me justice."
+
+"I've always done justice to what you care most about--Harry the
+Irresistible!"
+
+"Oh, stop that rot!" he implored. "I'm serious, you know, Doris."
+
+"I know all the symptoms of your seriousness. The first is wanting to
+flirt with somebody fresh."
+
+Harry's laugh was vexed--but not of bitter vexation. "Give a fellow a
+chance!"
+
+"The whole world's in league to do it--again and again!"
+
+"This time the world is going to find me appreciative. You don't know
+what a splendid girl Vivien is! If you did, you'd understand
+how--how--well, how things look different."
+
+The Nun relented. "I really think it may last you over the wedding--and
+perhaps the honeymoon," she said.
+
+The extraordinary thing to her--indeed to all his friends who did not
+share his most mercurial temperament--was that this change of mood was
+entirely sincere in Harry, and his satisfaction with it not less
+genuine. For two painful hours--from his receipt of Isobel's note to his
+dispatching of that sentence about being bored with politics--he had
+struggled, keeping Andy in an adjoining room solaced by newspapers and
+tobacco, in case counsel should be needed. Then the right had won--and
+all was over! When all was over, it was with Harry exactly as if nothing
+had ever begun; his belief in the virtue of penitence beggared theology
+itself. What he had been doing presented itself as not merely finished,
+not merely repented of, but as hardly real; at the most as an
+aberration, at the least as a delusion. Certainly he felt hardly
+responsible for it. An excellent comfortable doctrine--for Harry. It
+rather left out of account the other party to the transaction.
+
+What a right he had to be proud of his return to loyalty! Because Isobel
+Vintry was really a most attractive girl; it would be unjust and
+ungrateful to deny that, since she had--well, it was better not to go
+back to that! With which reflection he went back to it, recovering some
+of the emotions of that culminating evening in the drive; recovering
+them not to any dangerous extent--Isobel was not there, the thrill of
+her voice not in his ears, nor the light of her eyes visible through the
+darkness--but enough to make him pat his virtue on the back again, and
+again excuse the aberration. Oh, they had all made too much of it! A
+mere flirtation! Oh, very wrong! Yes, yes; or where lay the marvel of
+this repentance? But not so bad as all that! They had been prejudiced to
+think it so serious--prejudiced by Vivien's charms, her trust, her
+simplicity, her appeal. Yes, he certainly had been a villain even to
+flirt when engaged to a girl like that. However he thoroughly
+appreciated that aspect of the case now; it had needed this
+little--adventure--to make him appreciate it. Perhaps it had all been
+for the best. Well, that was going too far, because Isobel felt it
+deeply, as her words in the drive had shown. Yet perhaps--Harry achieved
+his climax in the thought that even for her it might have been for the
+best if it stopped her from marrying Wellgood. By how different a path,
+in how different a mood, had poor Isobel attained to laying the same
+unction to her smarting soul!
+
+Wellgood did not know at all how quickly matters had moved. He was still
+asking about the sin--the aberration; he was not up to date with
+Isobel's renunciation or Harry's comfortable penitence. Nor was he of
+the school that accepts such things without sound proof. "Lead us not
+into temptation" was all very well in church; in secular life, if you
+suspected a servant of dishonesty, you marked a florin and left it on
+the mantelpiece. Had Isobel been already his wife, he would have locked
+her up in the nearest approach to a tower of brass that modern
+conditions permit; if Vivien had been already Harry's wife, he would no
+doubt have been in favour of Harry's being kept out of the way of
+dangerous seductions. But now, whether as father or as lover--and the
+father continued to afford the lover most valuable aid, most specious
+cover--he had first to know, to test, and to try. He had to leave his
+marked florin on the mantelpiece.
+
+It must not, however, be supposed that Meriton lacked problems because
+Harry Belfield seemed, for the moment at all events, to cease to present
+one. For days past Billy Foot had been grappling with a most momentous
+one, and Mrs. Belfield's mind was occupied, and almost disturbed, by
+another of equal gravity. Curiously enough, the two related to the same
+person, and were to some degree of a kindred nature. Both involved the
+serious question of the social status--or perhaps the social
+desirability would be a better term--of Miss Doris Flower.
+
+In the leisure hours and the autumn sunshine of Meriton--an atmosphere
+remote from courts, whether of law or of royalty, and inimical to
+ambition--Billy was in danger of forgetting the paramount claims of his
+career and of remembering only the remarkable prettiness of Miss Flower.
+He was once more "on the brink"; the metaphor of a plunge found a place
+in his thoughts as well as in Isobel Vintry's; some metaphors are very
+maids-of-all-work. He was deplorably perturbed. Now that the great
+campaign was over he abandoned himself to the great question. He even
+went up to London to talk it over with Gilly, entertaining his brother
+to lunch--by no means a casual or haphazard hospitality, for Gilly's
+meals were serious business--in order to obtain his most inspired
+counsel. But Gilly had been abominably, nay, cruelly disappointing.
+
+"I shouldn't waste any more time thinking about that, old chap," said
+Gilly, delicately dissecting a young partridge.
+
+"You're not going out of your way to be flattering. It appears to me at
+least to be a matter of some importance whom I marry. I thought perhaps
+my brother might take that view too."
+
+"Oh, I do, old chap. I know it's devilish important to you. All I mean
+is that in this particular case you needn't go about weighing the
+question. Ask the Nun right off."
+
+"You really advise it?" Billy demanded, wrinkling his brow in judicial
+gravity, but inwardly rather delighted.
+
+"I do," Gilly rejoined. "Ask her right off--get it off your mind! It
+doesn't matter a hang, because she's sure to refuse you." He smiled at
+his brother across the table--a table spread by that brother's
+bounty--in a fat and comfortable fashion.
+
+Billy preserved his temper with some difficulty. "Purely for the sake of
+argument, assume that I am a person whom she might possibly accept."
+
+"Can't. There are limits to hypothesis, beyond which discussion is
+unprofitable. I merely ask you to note how much time and worry you'll be
+saved if you adopt my suggestion."
+
+"You'll look a particular fool if I do--and she says yes."
+
+"Are you quite sure they brought the claret you ordered, Billy?--What's
+that you said?"
+
+"I'm sure it's the claret, and I'm sure you're an idiot!" Billy crossly
+retorted.
+
+His journey to London, to say nothing of a decidedly expensive lunch,
+brought poor Billy no comfort and no enlightenment, since he refused his
+brother's plan without hesitation. His problem became no less harassing
+when brought into contact with Mrs. Belfield's problem at Halton. She
+also discussed it at lunch, Harry being an absentee, and Andy Hayes the
+only other guest. She had forgotten by now that a similar question had
+once arisen about Andy himself; his present position would have made the
+memory seem ridiculous; it had become indisputably equal to dinner at
+Halton, even in Mrs. Belfield's most conservative eyes.
+
+"I have written the note you wished me to, my dear," she remarked to her
+husband. "To Miss Flower, you know, for Wednesday night. And I
+apologized for my informality in not having called, and said that I
+hoped Miss--Miss--well, the friend, you know, would come too."
+
+"Thank you, my dear, thank you." Belfield sounded really grateful; the
+struggle had, in fact, been rather more severe than he had anticipated.
+
+"It's not that I'm a snob," the lady went on, now addressing herself to
+Billy Foot, "or prejudiced, or in any way illiberal. Nobody could say
+that of me. But it's just that I doubt how far it's wise to attempt to
+mix different sections of society. I mean whether there's not a certain
+danger in it. You see what I mean, Mr. Foot?"
+
+Belfield winked covertly at Andy; both had some suspicion of Billy's
+feelings, and were maliciously enjoying the situation.
+
+"Oh yes, Mrs. Belfield, I--er--see what you mean, of course. In ordinary
+cases there might be--yes--a sort of--well, a sort of danger
+to--to--well, to something we all value, Mrs. Belfield. But in this case
+I don't think--"
+
+"So Mr. Belfield says. But then he's always so adventurous."
+
+Belfield could not repress a snigger; Andy made an unusually prolonged
+use of his napkin; Billy was rather red in the face. Mrs. Belfield gazed
+at Billy, not at all understanding his feelings, but thinking that he
+was looking very warm.
+
+"Well, Harry's engaged!" she added with a sigh of thanksgiving. Billy
+grew redder still; the other two welcomed an opportunity for open
+laughter.
+
+"They may laugh, Mr. Foot, but I'm sure your mother would feel as I do."
+
+A bereavement several years old saved Billy from the suggested
+complication, but he glared fiercely across the table at Andy, who
+assumed, with difficulty, an apologetic gravity.
+
+"All my wife's fears will vanish as soon as she knows the lady," said
+Belfield, also anxious to make his peace with Billy.
+
+"I always yield to Mr. Belfield, but you can't deny that it's an
+experiment, Mr. Foot." She rose from the table, having defined the
+position with her usual serene and gentle self-satisfaction.
+
+Billy rose too, announcing that he would finish his cigar in the garden.
+His face was still red, and he was not well pleased with his host and
+Andy. Why will people make our own most reasonable thoughts ridiculous
+by their silly way of putting them? And why will other stupid people
+laugh at them when so presented? These reflections accompanied poor
+Billy as he walked and smoked.
+
+Belfield smiled. "More sentimental complications! I hope Billy Foot
+keeps his face better than that when he's in court. Do you think he'll
+rush on his fate? And what will it be?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, sir," Andy answered. "I really haven't thought about
+it. I don't think she cares for him in that sort of way, though they're
+awfully good friends."
+
+"You seem to manage to keep heart-whole, Andy?"
+
+"Oh, I've no time to do anything else," he laughed.
+
+"Take care; Cupid resents defiance. I've a notion you stand very well
+with the lady in question yourself."
+
+"I? Oh, the idea's never entered my head."
+
+"I don't say it's entered hers. The pretty rogue told me she never fell
+in love, and made me wish I was thirty years younger, and free to test
+her. But she's very fond of you, Andy."
+
+"I think what she told you about herself is true. She said something
+like it to me too. But I'm glad you think she likes me. I like her
+immensely. Outside this house, she's my best friend, I think, not
+counting old Jack Rock, of course."
+
+"I believe Vivien would dispute the title with her. She thinks the world
+of you."
+
+"I say, Mr. Belfield, you'll turn my head. Seriously, I should be
+awfully happy to think that true. There's nobody--well, nobody in the
+world I'd rather be liked by."
+
+"Yes, I think I know that," said Belfield. "And I'm glad to think she's
+got such a friend, if she ever needs one."
+
+A silence followed. Belfield was thinking of Vivien, thinking that she
+would have been in safer hands with Andy than with his son Harry; glad,
+as he had said, to know that she would have such a friend left to her
+after his own precarious lease of life was done. Andy was thinking too,
+but not of Vivien, not of sentimental complications--not even of
+Harry's. Yet the thought which he was pursuing in his mind was not
+altogether out of relation to Harry, though the relation was one that he
+did not consciously trace.
+
+"Back to work next week, sir!" he said. "Gilly's clamouring for me. I've
+had a splendid holiday."
+
+"You've put in some very good work in your holiday. Your speeches are
+thought good."
+
+"I somehow feel that I'm on my own legs now," said Andy slowly. "I hope
+I've not grown bumptious, but I'm not afraid now to think for myself and
+to say what I think. I often find people agree with me more or less."
+
+"Perhaps you persuade them," Belfield suggested; he was listening with
+interest, for he had watched from outside the growth of Andy's mind, and
+liked to hear Andy's own account of it.
+
+"Well, I never set out to do that. I just give them the facts, and what
+the facts seem to me to point to. If they've got facts pointing the
+other way, I like to listen. Of course lots of questions are very
+difficult, but by going at it like that, and taking time, and not being
+afraid to chuck up your first opinion, you can get forward--or so it
+seems to me at least."
+
+"Chucking up first opinions is hard work, both about things and about
+people."
+
+"Yes, but it's the way a man's mind grows, isn't it?" He spoke slowly
+and thoughtfully. "Unless you can do that, you're not really your own
+mental master, any more than you're your own physical master if you
+can't break off a bad habit."
+
+"You've got to be a bit ruthless with yourself in both cases, and with
+the opinions, and--with the people."
+
+"You've got to see," said Andy. "You must see--that's it. You mustn't
+shut your eyes, or turn your head away, or let anybody else look for
+you."
+
+"You've come into your kingdom," said Belfield with a nod.
+
+"Perhaps I may claim to have got my eyes open, to be grown up."
+
+He was grown up; he stood on his own legs; he sat no more at Harry's
+feet and leant no more on Harry's arm. Harry came into his life there,
+as he had in so many ways. Harry's weakness had thrown him back on his
+own strength, and forced him to rely on it. Relying on it in life, he
+had found it trustworthy, and now did not fear to rely on it in thought
+also. His chosen master and leader had forfeited his allegiance, though
+never his love. He would choose no other; he would think for himself.
+Looking at his capacious head, at his calm broad brow, and hearing him
+slowly hammer out his mental creed, Belfield fancied that his thinking
+might carry him far. The kingdom he had come into might prove a spacious
+realm.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+MARKED MONEY.
+
+
+So far as she could and dared, Isobel Vintry withdrew herself from the
+company of Harry Belfield. She relaxed her supervision of the lovers
+when they were together; she tried to avoid any risk of being alone with
+Harry. She knew that Wellgood was watching her, and was determined to
+give no new handle to his suspicion. Her own feelings agreed in
+dictating her line of action. In ordinary intercourse she was sure of
+herself; she was not anxious to seek extraordinary temptation. She had
+more resolution than Harry, but not the same power of self-delusion, not
+the same faculty of imagining that an enemy was finally conquered
+because he had been once defeated or defied. She was careful not to
+expose herself to danger, either from herself or from Wellgood. Harry
+had decided that all chance of danger was over; he laughed at it now,
+almost literally laughed. Yet while he derided the notion of peril, he
+liked the flavour of memory. He kept turning the thing over in a mood
+nicely compounded of remorse and self-esteem; of penitence for the
+folly, and self-congratulation over the end that had been put to it; of
+wonder at his aberration, and excuse of it in view of Isobel's
+attractions. Gone as it all was in fact, it was not banished from
+retrospect.
+
+Wellgood grew easier in his mind. He had marked some
+florins--opportunities for private meetings rather clumsily offered;
+they had not been taken. His suspicions of the past remained, but he
+thought that he had effectually frightened Isobel. He had good hopes for
+his own scheme again. If she did not come round before the wedding--now
+only a fortnight off--he believed that she would afterwards. Harry
+finally out of reach, his turn would come. He continued his smoothness,
+and did not relax his vigilance; but, as the days passed by, his hopes
+rose to confidence again.
+
+The dinner-party at Halton in the Nun's honour went off with great
+success; she comported herself with such decorum and ease that Mrs.
+Belfield felt her problem solved, while Billy Foot found his even more
+pressing. Vivien was the only representative of Nutley. Wellgood had
+gone to the county town to attend a meeting of the County Council; the
+trains ran awkwardly, and, unless the business proved very brief, he
+would have to dine at the hotel, and would not reach home till late at
+night. Isobel had excused herself, pursuant to her policy of seeing as
+little as possible of Harry. But the party was reinforced by Gilly Foot,
+who had come down for a couple of days' rest, and was staying at the
+Lion--the great publishing house being left to take care of itself for
+this short space.
+
+The party was pleasant--Belfield flirting with the Nun, Gilly
+discoursing in company with Mrs. Belfield, who thought him a most
+intelligent young man (as he was), Harry and Billy both in high spirits
+and full of sallies, for which Vivien and Andy, both ever choosing the
+modest _rôle_, made an applauding audience. Yet for most of the company
+dinner was but a prelude to the real business of the evening. The Nun
+had no opinion of evenings which ended at ten-thirty. For this reason,
+and in order to welcome Gilly and, if possible, please his palate, she
+had organized a supper at the Lion, and exhorted Mr. Dove, and Chinks,
+and the cook--in a word, everybody concerned--to a great effort. One
+thing only marred the anticipations of this feast; Vivien had failed to
+win leave to attend it.
+
+"What do you want with supper after a good dinner?" asked Wellgood
+brusquely. "Come home and go to bed, like a sensible girl."
+
+So Harry was to take Vivien home, and come back to supper with all
+reasonable speed. The Nun pressed Mr. Belfield to join her party after
+his own was over, but gained nothing thereby, save a disquisition on the
+pleasures appropriate to youth and age respectively. "Among the latter I
+rank going early to bed very high."
+
+"Going to bed early is a low calculating sort of thing to do," said
+Harry. "It always means that you intend to try to take advantage of
+somebody else the next morning."
+
+"In the hope that he'll have been up late," said Billy.
+
+"And eaten too much," added Gilly sadly.
+
+"Or even drunk too much?" suggested Belfield.
+
+"Anyhow, being sent to bed is horrid," lamented unhappy Vivien.
+
+"You've a life of suppers before you, if you choose," Billy assured her
+consolingly.
+
+"When I was a girl, we always had supper," said Mrs. Belfield.
+
+"Quite right, Mrs. Belfield," said Gilly, in high approval.
+
+"Instead of late dinner, I mean, Mr. Foot."
+
+Gilly could do no more than look at her, finding no adequate comment.
+
+"Supper should be a mere flirtation with one's food," said Billy.
+
+"A post-matrimonial flirtation?" asked Belfield. "Because dinner must be
+wedlock! We come back to its demoralizing character."
+
+"Having established that it's wrong, we've given it the final charm, and
+we'll go and do it," laughed Billy. Mrs. Belfield had already looked
+once at the clock.
+
+Amid much merriment Vivien and Harry were put into the Nutley brougham,
+and the rest started to walk to the Lion, no more than half a mile from
+the gates of Halton. Belfield turned back into the house, smiling and
+shaking his head. The old, old moralizing was upon him again, in its
+hoary antiquity, its eternal power of striking the mind afresh. How good
+it all is--and how short! Elderly he said good-night to his elderly
+wife, and in elderly fashion packed himself off to bed. He was "sent"
+there under a sanction stronger, more ruthless, less to be evaded, than
+that which poor Vivien reluctantly obeyed. He chid himself; nobody but a
+poet has a right to abandon his mind to universal inevitable regrets,
+since only a poet's hand can fashion a fresh garland for the tomb of
+youth.
+
+Half Harry's charm lay in--perhaps half his dangers sprang from--an
+instinctive adaptability; he was seldom out of tune with his company.
+With the bold he was bold; towards the timid he displayed a chivalrous
+reserve. This latter had always been his bearing towards Vivien, even in
+the early days of impulsive single-hearted devotion. It did not desert
+him even to-night, although there was a stirring in his blood, roused
+perhaps by the mimic reproduction of old-time gaieties with which the
+Nun proposed to enliven Meriton--a spirit of riot and revolt, of risk
+and adventure in the realm of feeling. He had little prospect of
+satisfying that impulse, but he might find some solace in merry revelry
+with his friends. Somehow, when more closely considered, the revelry did
+not satisfy. Good-fellowship was not what his mood was asking; for him
+at least the entertainment at the Lion offered no more, whatever tinge
+of romance might adorn it for Billy Foot.
+
+But he talked gaily to Vivien as they drove to Nutley--of the trip they
+were to make, of the house they were to hire for the winter and the
+ensuing season (he would in all likelihood be in Parliament by then), of
+their future life together. There was no woman save Vivien in his mind,
+neither Isobel nor another. He had no doubts of his recovered loyalty;
+but he was in some danger of recognizing it ruefully, as obligation and
+necessity, rather than as satisfaction or even as achievement.
+
+Vivien had grown knowing about him. She knew when she, or something, or
+things in general, did not satisfy his mood. "I'm glad you're going to
+have a merry evening to-night," she said. "And I'm almost glad I'm sent
+to bed! It'll do you good to forget all about me for a few hours."
+
+"You think I shall?" he protested gallantly.
+
+"Oh yes!" she answered, laughing. "But I shall expect you to be all the
+more glad to see me again to-morrow."
+
+He laughed rather absently. "I expect those fellows will rather wake up
+the old Lion."
+
+They had passed through Nutley gates and were in the drive. Harry was
+next to the water, and turned his head to look at it. Suddenly he gave
+the slightest start, then looked quickly round at his companion. She was
+leaning back, she had not looked out of the window. Harry frowned and
+smiled.
+
+When they stopped at the door, the coachman said, "Beg pardon, sir, but
+I've only just time to take you back, and then go on to the station to
+meet Mr. Wellgood. He didn't come by the eight-o'clock, so I must meet
+the eleven-thirty."
+
+For one moment Harry considered. "All right. I'll walk."
+
+"Very good, sir. I'll start directly and take the mare down quietly."
+The station lay on the other side of Meriton, two miles and a half from
+Nutley. The man drove off.
+
+"Oh, Harry, you might as well have driven, because I daren't ask you in!
+Father's not back, and Isobel is sure to have gone to bed." The rules
+were still strict at Nutley.
+
+For a moment again Harry seemed to consider. "I thought a walk would do
+me good. I may even be able to eat some supper!" he said with a laugh.
+"I shall get you into trouble if I come in, shall I? Then I won't.
+Good-night."
+
+"Father won't be here for an hour, nearly--but he might ask."
+
+"And you're incorrigibly truthful!"
+
+"Am I? Anyhow I rather think you want to go back to supper."
+
+She would have yielded him admission--risking her father's questions and
+perhaps her own answer to them--if he had pressed. Harry did not press;
+in his refraining she saw renewed evidence of his chivalry. She gave him
+her cheek to kiss; he kissed it lightly, saying, "Till to-morrow--what
+there's left of me after a night of dissipation!"
+
+She opened the door with her key, waved a last good-night to him, and
+disappeared into the dimly lighted hall.
+
+She was gone; the carriage was gone; Wellgood would not come for nearly
+an hour. Harry had not told what he had seen in the drive, nor disputed
+Vivien's assurance that Isobel Vintry would have gone to bed. Chance had
+put a marked florin on the mantelpiece for Wellgood; what were the
+chances of its being stolen, and of the theft being traced?
+
+To have moods is to be exposed to chances. Many moods come and go
+harmlessly--free, at least, from external consequences. Sometimes
+opportunity comes pat on the mood, and the mood is swift to lay all the
+blame on opportunity.
+
+"Well, it's not my fault this time," thought Harry. "And if I meet her,
+I can hardly walk by without saying good-night."
+
+The little adventure, with its sentimental background, had just the
+flavour that his spirit had been asking, just what the evening lacked. A
+brief scene of reserved feeling, more hinted than said, a becoming word
+of sorrow, and so farewell! No harm in that, and, under the
+circumstances, less from Harry would be hardly decent.
+
+Isobel did not seem minded even for so much. She came up to him with a
+quick resolute step. She wore a low-cut black gown, and a black lace
+scarf twisted round her neck. She bent her head slightly, saying,
+"Good-night, Mr. Harry."
+
+He stepped up to her, holding out his hand, but she made no motion to
+take it.
+
+"I've no key--I'll go in by the back door. It's sure to be open, because
+Fellowes is up, waiting for Mr. Wellgood."
+
+"He won't be here for ever so long. Won't you give me just three
+minutes?"
+
+The lamp over the hall door showed him her face; it was pale and tense,
+her lips were parted.
+
+"I think I'd sooner go in at once."
+
+"I want you to know that I didn't send that answer lightly. It--it
+wasn't easy to obey you."
+
+"Please don't let us say a single word more about it. If you have any
+feeling, any consideration for me, you'll let me go at once."
+
+The moment was a bad one for her too. She had spent an evening alone
+with bitter thoughts; she had strolled out in a miserable restlessness.
+Seeing the carriage pass, feeling sure that Harry was in it, she had
+first thought that she would hide herself till he had gone, then decided
+to try to reach the house before he had parted from Vivien. Her wavering
+landed her there at the one wrong minute.
+
+Harry glanced up at the house; every window was dark. Vivien's room
+looked over the lake, the servants' quarters to the back. There was
+danger, of course; somebody might come; but nobody was there to see now.
+The danger was enough to incite, not enough to deter. And what he had to
+say was very short.
+
+"I only want to tell you how deeply sorry I am, and to ask you to
+forgive me."
+
+"That's soon said--and soon answered. I forgive you, if I have anything
+to forgive."
+
+Her voice was very low, it broke and trembled on the last words of the
+sentence.
+
+"I had lost the right to love you, and I hadn't the courage to regain my
+freedom, with all that meant to--to poor Vivien and--others. But at
+least I was sincere. I didn't pretend--"
+
+"Please, please!" Her tones sank to a whisper; he strained forward to
+catch it. "Have some mercy on me, Harry!"
+
+The old exultation and the old recklessness seized on him. He suffered a
+very intoxication of the senses. Her strength made weakness, her
+stateliness turned to trembling for his sake--the spectacle swept away
+his good resolves as the wind blows the loose petals from a fading rose.
+Springing forward, he tried to grasp her hands. She put them behind her
+back, and stood thus, her face upturned to his, her eyes set on him
+intently. He spoke in a low hoarse voice.
+
+"I can't stand any more of it. I've tried and tried. I love Vivien in a
+way, and I hate to hurt her. And I hate all the fuss too. But I can't do
+it any more. You're the girl for me, Isobel! It comes home to me--right
+home--every time I see you. Let's face it--it'll soon be over! A minute
+with you is worth an hour with her. I tell you I love you, Isobel." He
+stooped suddenly and kissed the upturned lips.
+
+"You think that to-night. You won't to-morrow. The--the other side of it
+will come back."
+
+"Face the other side with me, and I can stand it. You love me--you know
+you do!"
+
+The trees swayed, murmured, and creaked under the wind; the water lapped
+on the edge of the lake. The footsteps of a man walking up the drive
+passed unheard by the engrossed lovers. The man came to where he could
+see their figures. A sudden stop; then he glided into the cover of the
+bushes which fringed the lake, and began to crawl cautiously and
+noiselessly towards the house. To save Wellgood from kicking his heels
+for an idle hour after dinner in the hotel, and again for an idle
+half-hour at the station where he had to change, Lord Meriton had
+performed, at the cost of a _détour_ of seven or eight miles, the
+friendly office of bringing his colleague home in his motor-car. It is
+to little accidents like this that impetuous lovers are exposed. So
+natural when they have happened--this thing had even happened once
+before--so unlikely to be thought of beforehand, they are indeed florins
+marked by the cunning hand of chance.
+
+Isobel made no effort to deny Harry's challenge.
+
+"Yes, I love you, and you know it. If I didn't, I should be the most
+treacherous creature on earth, and the worst! Even as it is, I've
+nothing to boast about. But I love you, and if there were no to-morrow
+I'd do anything you wish or ask."
+
+"There is no to-morrow now; it will always be like to-night." He bent
+again and softly kissed her.
+
+"I daren't think so, Harry! I daren't believe it." Unconsciously she
+raised her voice in a little wail. The words reached Wellgood, where he
+was now crouching behind a bush. He dared come no nearer, lest they
+should hear his movements.
+
+Harry had lost all hold on himself now. The pale image of Vivien was
+obliterated from his mind. He had no doubt about to-morrow--how had he
+ever doubted?--and he pleaded his cause with a passion eloquent and
+infectious. It was hard to meet passion like that with denial and doubt;
+sorely hard when belief would bring such joy and triumph!
+
+"If you do think so to-morrow--" She slowly put her hands out to him, a
+happy tremulous smile on her face.
+
+But before he could take her to his arms, a rapid change came into her
+eyes. She held up a hand in warning. The handle of the door had turned.
+Both faced round, the door opened, and Vivien looked out.
+
+"Oh, there you are, Isobel!" she exclaimed in a tone of relief. "I
+couldn't think what had become of you. I went into your room to tell you
+about the dinner."
+
+"I saw the carriage pass as I was strolling in the drive, but when I got
+to the door you'd gone in." Her voice shook a little, but her face was
+now composed.
+
+"It's my fault. I kept Miss Vintry talking on the doorstep."
+
+"I must go in now," said Isobel. "Good-night, Mr. Harry."
+
+Vivien looked at them in some curiosity, but without any suspicion. A
+thought struck her. "I believe I caught you talking about me," she said
+with a laugh. "And not much good about me either--because you both look
+a little flustered."
+
+Wellgood stepped out from behind his bush.
+
+"I think I can tell you what they've been talking about, Vivien, and I
+will. I've had the pleasure of listening to the last part of it."
+
+He stood there stern and threatening, struggling to keep within bounds
+the rage that nearly mastered him--the rage of the deceived lover trying
+still to masquerade as a father's indignation. The father should have
+sent his daughter away; the lover was minded at all costs to heap shame
+and humiliation on his favoured rival and on the woman who had deceived
+him.
+
+"Not before Vivien!" Harry cried impulsively.
+
+Vivien turned eyes of wonder on him for a moment, then the old look of
+remoteness settled on her face. She stood holding on to the door, for
+support perhaps, looking now at none of them, looking out into the
+night.
+
+"This man, your lover, was making love to this woman, whom I employed to
+look after you." He laughed scornfully. "Oh yes, a rare fool I look! But
+don't they look fools too? They're nicely caught at last. I daresay
+they've had a good run, a lot of 'I love you's,' a lot of kisses like
+the one I saw to-night. But they're caught at last."
+
+Vivien spoke in a low voice. "Is it true, Isobel?" For Harry she had
+neither words nor eyes.
+
+"It's true," said Isobel; now her voice was calm. "There's no use saying
+anything about it."
+
+"And you let him do it!" cried Wellgood, his voice rising in passion.
+"You her friend, you her guardian, you who--" His words seemed nearly to
+choke him. He turned his fury on to Harry. "You scoundrel, you shall pay
+for this! I'll make Meriton too hot to hold you! You try to swagger
+about this place as you've been doing, you try to open your mouth in
+public, and I'll be there with this pretty story! I'll make an end of
+your chances in Meriton! You shall find out what it is to make a fool of
+Mark Wellgood! Yes, you shall pay for it!"
+
+From the beginning Harry had found nothing to say; what was there? His
+face was sunk in a dull despair, his eyes set on the ground. He shrugged
+his shoulders now, murmuring hoarsely, "You must do as you like."
+
+Suddenly Isobel spoke out. "This is your doing. If you had let me go, as
+I wanted to, this wouldn't have happened. You suspected it, and yet you
+kept me here. I begged you to let me go. You wouldn't. I tried to do the
+honest thing--to end it all and go. You wouldn't let me--you know why."
+
+"You wanted to go, Isobel?" asked Vivien gently. "And father wouldn't
+let you?"
+
+"Yes. If he likes to tell you the reason, he can. But I say this is his
+doing--his! He's been waiting and watching for it. Well, he's got it
+now, and he must deal with it."
+
+Her taunts broke down the last of Wellgood's self-control. "Yes, I'll
+deal with it!" The lover forgot the father, the father forgot his
+daughter. "And I'll deal with him--the blackguard who's interfered
+between me and you!"
+
+Vivien turned her head towards her father with a quick motion. His eyes
+were set on Isobel in a furious jealousy. Vivien gave a sharp indrawing
+of her breath. Now she understood.
+
+"He shall pay for it!" cried Wellgood, and made a dart towards Harry,
+raising the stick which he had in his hand.
+
+In an instant Vivien was across his path, and caught his uplifted arm in
+both of hers. "Not that way, father!"
+
+"Go into the house, Vivien."
+
+"For my sake, father!"
+
+"Go into the house, I say. Let me alone."
+
+"Not till you promise me you won't do that."
+
+He looked down into her pleading face. His own softened a little. "Very
+well, my girl, I promise you I won't do that."
+
+Neither Isobel nor Harry had moved; they made no sign now. Vivien slowly
+loosed her grasp of her father's arm and turned back towards the door.
+Suddenly Harry spoke in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"I'm sorry, Vivien, awfully sorry."
+
+Then she looked at him for a moment; a smile of sad wistfulness came on
+her lips.
+
+"Yes, I'm sure you're awfully sorry, Harry."
+
+She passed into the house, leaving the door open behind her. Harry heard
+her slow steps crossing the hall.
+
+"There's no more to be said to-night," said Isobel, and moved towards
+the door. Wellgood was beforehand with her; he barred the way, standing
+in the entrance.
+
+"Yes, there's one more thing to be said." He was calmer now, but not a
+whit less angry or less vicious. "From to-night I've done with both of
+you--I and my house. If you want her, take her. If you can get him, take
+him--and keep him if you can. Let him remember what I've said. I keep my
+word. Let him remember! If he doesn't want this story told, let him make
+himself scarce in Meriton. If he doesn't, as God's above us, he shall
+hear it wherever he goes. It shall never leave him while I live." He
+turned back to Isobel. "And I've done with you--I and my house. Do what
+you like, go where you like. You've set your foot for the last time
+within my threshold."
+
+Harry looked up with a quick jerk of his head. "You don't mean
+to-night?"
+
+A grim smile of triumph came on Wellgood's face. "Ah, but I do mean
+to-night. You're in love with her--you can look after her. I'll leave
+you the privilege of lodging her to-night. Rather late to get quarters
+for a lady, but that's your lookout."
+
+"You won't do that, Mr. Wellgood?" said Isobel, the first touch of
+entreaty in her voice.
+
+With an oath he answered, "I will, and this very minute."
+
+He stood there, with his back to the door, a moment longer, his angry
+eyes travelling from one to the other, showing his teeth in his vicious
+smile. He had thought of a good revenge; humiliation, ignominy, ridicule
+should be the portion of the woman who had cheated him and of the man
+who took her from him. There was little thought of his daughter in his
+heart, or he might have shown mercy to this other girl.
+
+"I wish you both a pleasant night," he said with a sneering laugh, then
+turned, went in, and banged the door behind him. They heard the bolt run
+into its socket.
+
+Isobel came up to Harry. Stretching out her arms, she laid her hands on
+his shoulders. Her composure, so long maintained, gave way at last. She
+broke into hysterical sobbing as she stammered out, "O Harry, my dear,
+my dear, I'm so sorry! Do forgive!"
+
+Harry Belfield took her face between his two hands and kissed it; but
+under her embracing hands she felt his shoulders give a little shrug. It
+was his old protest against those emotions. They had played him another
+scurvy trick!
+
+The bolt was shot back again, the door opened. Fellowes, the butler,
+stood there. He held a hat and a long cloak in his hand.
+
+"Miss Vivien told me to give you these, miss, and to say that she wasn't
+allowed to bring them herself, and that she has done her best."
+
+Harry took the things from him, handed the hat to Isobel, and wrapped
+her in the cloak.
+
+Fellowes was an old family servant, who had known Harry from a boy.
+
+"I dare do nothing, sir," he said, and went in, and shut the door again.
+
+"It was good of Vivien," said Isobel, with a choking sob.
+
+Harry shrugged his shoulders again. "Well, we must go--somewhere," he
+said.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX.
+
+NO GOOD?
+
+
+At supper the fun waxed fast and harmlessly furious. The party had
+received an unexpected accession in the person of Jack Rock. He had been
+caught surveying the "spread" in company with Miss Dutton (she had
+declined the alarming hospitality of Halton), old Mr. Dove, and the
+Bird--a trio who had been working for its perfection most of the day and
+all the evening. Having caught Jack, the Nun would by no means let him
+go. She made him sit down by her in Harry's vacant place, declaring that
+room could be found for Harry somewhere when he turned up, and in this
+honourable position Jack was enjoying himself--honestly, simply, knowing
+that they were "up to their fun," neither spoilt nor embarrassed. Old
+Mr. Dove, the Bird, and Miss Miles (when the bar closed she condescended
+to help at table, because she too had been in the profession) humoured
+the joke, and served Jack with a slyly exaggerated deference. Billy Foot
+referred to him as "the eminent sportsman," and affected to believe that
+he belonged to the Jockey Club. Gilly, who knew not Jack, perceiving the
+sportsman but missing the butcher, had a success the origin of which he
+did not understand when he proceeded to explain to Jack what points were
+of really vital importance in a sweetbread.
+
+"You gentlemen from London seem to study everything!" exclaimed Jack
+admiringly.
+
+"This one does credit to the local butcher," said Gilly solemnly, and
+looked round amazed when all glasses were lifted in honour of Jack Rock.
+
+"Food is the only thing Gilly studies," remarked Miss Dutton. The supper
+proving satisfactory, she felt at liberty to indulge her one social gift
+of a sardonic humour.
+
+"Quite right, Sally," Billy agreed. "Food for his own body and for the
+minds of children. What he makes out of the latter he spends on the
+former. That both are good you may see at a glance."
+
+"I find myself with something like an appetite," Gilly announced.
+
+"That's how I likes to see folks at the Lion," said old Mr. Dove, easily
+interposing from behind his chair. "A trifle more, sir?--Miss Miles,
+your eye seems to have missed Mr. Gilbert Foot's glass."
+
+"La, now, I was looking at Miss Flower's frock!"
+
+"Why, you helped to put it on me! You ought to know it."
+
+"It sets that sweet on you, Miss Flower."
+
+All was merry and gay and easy--a pleasant ending to a pleasant holiday.
+They all hoped to come back for the wedding, to run down for that
+eventful day, but work claimed them on the morrow. London clamoured for
+the Nun--new songs to be rehearsed now and sung in ten days. Billy Foot
+had a heavy appeal at Quarter Sessions; Gilbert Foot and Co. demanded
+the attention of its constituent members.
+
+"Harry's a long time getting back," Andy remarked, looking at his watch.
+
+"He's dallying," said Billy. "I should dally myself if I had the
+chance."
+
+"Perhaps he found Wellgood back; I know he wanted to speak to
+him--something about the settlements."
+
+"And what might you be going to sing in London next, miss?" asked Jack,
+gratefully accepting a tankard of beer which Mr. Dove, in silent
+understanding of his secret wishes, had placed beside him.
+
+"I'm going to be Joan of Arc," said the Nun. "Know much about her, Mr.
+Rock?"
+
+"Surely, miss! Heard of her at school. The old gentleman used to talk
+about her too, Andy. Burnt to death for a witch, poor girl, wasn't she?"
+
+"It seems a most appropriate part for our hostess," remarked Billy Foot.
+
+"Silly!" Miss Dutton shot out contemptously.
+
+"It's rather daring, but the Management put perfect reliance in my good
+taste," the Nun pursued serenely. "In the first song I'm just the
+peasant girl at--at--well, I forget the name of the village, somewhere
+in France--it'll be on the programme. In the second I'm in
+armour--silver armour--exhorting the King of France. They wanted me to
+be on a horse, but I wouldn't."
+
+"The horse might be heard neighing?" Billy suggested. "Off, you know."
+
+"Then the horse would be where I was afraid of being," said the Nun, and
+suddenly gurgled.
+
+"Silver armour! My! Don't you want to take me up to see her?" This came,
+in a perfectly audible aside, from Miss Miles to the Bird. Old Mr. Dove
+coughed, yet benevolently.
+
+"Much armour?" asked Gilly, suddenly emerging from a deep attention to
+his plate. His hopes obviously running towards what may be styled a
+classical entertainment, the question was received with merriment.
+
+"Completely encased, Gilly. I shall look like a lobster. Still, Mr. Rock
+will come and see me, if the rest of you don't."
+
+"There are possibilities about Joan of Arc," Gilly pursued. "Not at all
+bad to lead off with Joan of Arc. Andy, you might make a note of Joan."
+
+"If a frontispiece is of any use to you, Gilly--?" the Nun suggested
+politely.
+
+"What can have become of Harry?" Again it was Andy Hayes who asked.
+
+The Nun turned to him and, under cover of Billy's imaginative
+description of the frontispiece, said softly, "Can't you be happy unless
+you know Harry Belfield's all right?"
+
+"He's a very long time," said Andy. "And they're early at Nutley, you
+know. Perhaps he's decided to go straight home to bed."
+
+She looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. The tide of merry
+empty talk--gone in the speaking, like the wine in the drinking, yet not
+less pleasant--flowed on; only now Miss Flower to some degree shared
+Andy's taciturnity. She was not apprehensive or gloomy; it seemed merely
+that some sense of the real, the ordinary, course of life had come back
+to her; the hour of careless gaiety was no longer, like Joan of Arc,
+"completely encased" in silver armour.
+
+Jack Rock turned to her, bashful, humble, yet sure of her kindness. "I
+must be goin', miss; I've to be up and about by seven. But--would you
+sing to us, miss, same as you did at that meetin'?"
+
+It was against etiquette to ask the Nun to sing on private occasions; if
+she chose, she volunteered. But Jack was, naturally, innocent of the
+etiquette.
+
+"Of course I'll sing for you. Any favourite song, Jack?"
+
+"What pleases you'll please me, miss," said old Jack.
+
+"I'll sing you an old Scotch one I happen to know."
+
+Silence obtained--from Billy Foot with some difficulty, since he had got
+into an argument with Sally Dutton--the Nun began to sing:--
+
+  "My Jeany and I have toiled
+    The livelong Summer's Day:
+  Till we were almost spoil'd
+    At making of the Hay.
+  Her Kerchy was of holland clear,
+    Tied to her bonny brow,
+  I whispered something in her ear;
+    But what is that to you?"
+
+The Bird, who had been dispatched to get Gilly Foot a whisky-and-soda,
+came in, set it down, and moved towards Andy. "Be still with you, Tom!"
+said Jack Rock imperiously.
+
+  "Her stockings were of Kersey green,
+    And tight as ony silk;
+  O, sic a leg was never seen!
+    Her skin was white as milk.
+  Her hair was black as ane could wish,
+    And sweet, sweet was her mou'!
+  Ah! Jeany daintily can kiss;
+    But what is that to you?"
+
+"She has a way of giving those two wretched last lines which is simply
+an outrage," Billy Foot complained to the now silent Sally Dutton.
+
+Again the Bird tried to edge towards Andy. Jack Rock forbade.
+
+"But I've a message," the Bird whispered protestingly.
+
+"Damn your message! She's singin' to us!"
+
+  "The Rose and Lily baith combine
+    To make my Jeany fair;
+  There is no Benison like mine,
+    I have a'maist no care,
+  But when another swain, my fair,
+    Shall say 'You're fair to view,'
+  Let Jeany whisper in his ear,
+    'Pray, what is that to you?'"
+
+There was loud applause.
+
+"I only sang it for Mr. Rock," said the Nun, relapsing into a demureness
+which had not consistently marked her rendering of the song.
+
+Released from Jack's imprisoning eye, the Bird darted to Andy and
+delivered his delayed message. "Mr. Harry--Andy, if you'd step into the
+street, sir--Andy, I mean--(the Bird was confused as to social
+distinctions)--he's waiting--and looking infernally put out!"
+
+"He wants me--outside? Why doesn't he come in? Well, I'll go." Andy rose
+to his feet.
+
+"You've fired his imagination!" remarked Gilly to the Nun. "He goes to
+seek adventures. Yet your song was that of a moralist."
+
+"A moralist somewhat too curious about a stocking," Billy opined.
+
+"Oh, well, I never think anything of a girl who lets her stockings get
+into wrinkles," the Nun observed, as she resumed her seat. "Do you,
+Jack?"
+
+Her eyes had followed Andy as he went out. To tell the truth, they had
+chanced to fall on him once or twice as she sang her song. But Andy had
+looked a little preoccupied; that fact had not made her sing worse--and
+at last Andy had gently drummed three fingers on the table.
+
+"You've a wonderful way of puttin' it, miss," said old Jack Rock.
+
+She laid her hand on his arm, saucily affectionate. "Pray what is that
+to you?" she asked.
+
+"I'm off, miss. Thank you kindly. It's been an evenin' for me!"
+
+She let him go, with the kindest of farewells. A salvo of applause from
+the company honoured his exit. She rested her chin in her hands, her
+elbows on the table. Jack Rock was to be heard saying his
+good-nights--merry chaff with old Dove, with the Bird, with Miss Miles.
+Why had Andy gone out--and Harry Belfield not come in?
+
+Billy Foot rose, moved round the table, and sat by her. "Where did you
+find it?"
+
+"In an old book a friend gave me."
+
+"I like it." Billy sounded quite convinced of the song's merit.
+
+"It has got a little bit of--of the feeling, hasn't it?"
+
+"The feeling which I've always understood you never felt?"
+
+She was securely evasive. "It's supposed to be a man who sings it,
+Billy."
+
+"That accounts for the foolishness of the sentiments?"
+
+"Makes them sound familiar, anyhow," said the Nun, preferring experience
+to theory.
+
+Andy came in. He went quickly to the Nun and bent down over her chair.
+
+"Harry's outside--with Miss Vintry. He wants to know if he may bring her
+in," he said, speaking very low.
+
+Surprise got the better of the Nun's discretion. Her voice was audible
+to them all, as she exclaimed:
+
+"Miss Vintry with him! At this time of night!"
+
+"I think perhaps--as we've finished supper--we'd better break up," said
+Andy, apologetically addressing the company.
+
+"Why? Has anything happened?" asked Billy Foot.
+
+"I think so." He bent down to the Nun again. "Miss Vintry has got to
+sleep here to-night." His voice was low, but they were all very still,
+and the voice carried.
+
+"There's no room for her--with Gilly here as well as us," the Nun
+protested rather fretfully.
+
+"You must make room somehow," he returned firmly. "I'm going to bring
+them in now." He looked significantly at Billy Foot. "We're rather a
+large party."
+
+Billy turned to his brother. "I'm off home. Will you stroll with me as
+far as Halton?"
+
+Gilly nodded in a bewildered fashion--he was not up in Meriton
+affairs--and slowly rose.
+
+"And when I come back I'll go straight to bed," he said, looking at Andy
+to see whether what he suggested met with acceptance.
+
+Andy nodded approval; Gilly would be best in bed.
+
+With the briefest farewell the brothers passed out. As they went, they
+saw Harry Belfield, with a woman on his arm, walking slowly up and down
+on the other side of the street.
+
+Sally Dutton rose. "I'll go to bed too." As she reached the door she
+turned round and said, "At least I'll wait in my room. She--she can come
+in with me, if she likes, Andy."
+
+"Thank you," said Andy gravely.
+
+"What is it, Andy?" the Nun asked.
+
+"A general break-up," he answered briefly, as he followed Sally Dutton
+out of the room.
+
+The Nun sat on amidst the relics of her feast--the fruit, the flowers,
+the empty bottles. Somehow they all looked rather ghastly. She gave a
+little shiver of disgust.
+
+Andy came in with Isobel Vintry clinging to his arm, Harry following and
+carefully closing the door.
+
+Andy made Isobel sit down at the table and offered her some wine from a
+half-emptied bottle. She refused with a gesture and laid her head
+between her hands on the table. Harry threw his hat on a chair and stood
+helplessly in the middle of the room. The Nun sat in a hostile silence.
+
+"She'd better go straight to bed," said Andy.
+
+"She can have my room. I'll go in with Sally."
+
+He looked at her. "She'd better have somebody with her, I think. Will
+you call Sally?"
+
+The Nun obeyed, and Sally came. As she passed Harry, she smiled in her
+queer derisive fashion, but her voice was kind as she took hold of
+Isobel's arm and raised her, saying, "Come, you're upset to-night. It
+won't look half so bad in the morning."
+
+Harry met Isobel and clasped her hands. Then she and Sally Dutton went
+out together.
+
+Harry sat down heavily in a chair by the table and poured out a glass of
+wine.
+
+"Do you two men want to be alone together?" the Nun asked.
+
+Harry shook his head. "I'm just off home."
+
+"It's all arranged," said Andy. "Harry goes to London by the early train
+to-morrow. I shall get her things from Nutley directly after breakfast
+and bring them here. You and Sally will look after her till twelve
+o'clock. Then I'll take her to the station. Harry will meet her at the
+other end, and--well, they've made their plans."
+
+Harry lit a cigarette and smoked it very quickly, between gulps of wine.
+Andy had begun to smoke too. His air was calm, though grave; he seemed
+to have taken charge of the whole affair.
+
+"Are you going to marry her?" the Nun suddenly inquired, with her usual
+directness.
+
+"You might have gathered that much from what Andy said," Harry grumbled
+in an injured tone.
+
+"Does Vivien know yet?"
+
+He dropped his cigarette-end into his emptied glass.
+
+"Yes," he answered, frowning. "For God's sake, don't put me through a
+catechism, Doris!" He rose from his chair, looking round for his hat.
+
+"Shall I walk back with you?" Andy asked.
+
+"No, thanks. I'd rather be alone." His tone was still very injured, as
+though the two were in league with one another, and with all the world,
+to persecute him. He came up to the Nun. "I shan't see you again for a
+bit, I expect. Good-bye, Doris." He held out his hand to her. The Nun
+interlaced her hands on the table in front of her.
+
+"I won't!" she said. "I won't shake hands with you to-night, Harry
+Belfield. You've broken the heart of the sweetest girl I ever met.
+You've brought shame and misery on her--you who aren't fit to black her
+shoes! You've brought shame on your people. I suppose you've pretty well
+done for yourself in Meriton. And all for what? Because you must
+philander, must have your conquests, must always be proving to yourself
+that nobody can resist you!"
+
+Harry looked morosely resentful at the indictment. "Oh, you can't
+understand. Nobody can understand who--who isn't made that way. You talk
+as if I'd meant to do it!"
+
+"I think I'd rather you had meant to do it. That'd be rather less
+contemptible, I think."
+
+"Gently, gently, Doris!" Andy interposed.
+
+She turned on him. "Oh yes, it's always 'Gently, gently!' with Harry
+Belfield. He's to be indulged, and excused, and forgiven, and all the
+rest of it. Let him hear the truth for once, Andy. Even if it doesn't do
+him any good to hear it, it does me good to say it--lots of good!"
+
+"You'd better go, Harry. You won't find her good company to-night. I'll
+be at the station to see you off to-morrow--before I see about the
+things at Nutley."
+
+"I'm going; and I'm much obliged to Doris for her abuse. She's always
+been the same about me--sneering and snarling!"
+
+"I've never made a fool of myself about you. That's what you can't
+forgive, Harry."
+
+"Go, my dear fellow, go," said Andy. "What's the use of this?"
+
+Harry moved off towards the door. As he went out, he said over his
+shoulder, "At any rate you can't say I'm not doing the square thing
+now!"
+
+They heard the "Boots" open the door of the inn for him; a moment later
+his step passed the window. Andy came and sat down by the Nun; she
+caught his big hand in hers.
+
+"I'm trying hard not to cry. I don't want to break my record. How did it
+all happen?"
+
+"Wellgood came back before they expected him. Harry met her--by chance,
+he says--after he'd left Vivien, and he was carried away, he says.
+Somehow or other--I don't quite understand how--Vivien came on the scene
+again. Then Wellgood was on to them, and had the whole thing out, before
+his daughter. It seems that he's in love with Miss Vintry himself--so I
+understood Harry. That, of course, didn't make him any kinder."
+
+"It's cruel, cruel, cruel!"
+
+"Yes, but do you remember a talk we had about it once?"
+
+"Yes. You thought this--this sort of thing would really be the best."
+
+"I was thinking of Miss Wellgood. Of course, for poor Harry--Wellgood's
+a dangerous enemy!" He paused a moment. "And the thing's so bad. He
+wasn't square with either of them, and they're both in love with him, I
+suppose!"
+
+"This woman here in love with him? Really? Not only for the match?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"I'm sorry for her then. She'd much better not be! Oh, I daresay he'll
+marry her. How much will that mean with Harry Belfield?"
+
+Feeling in less danger of breaking her record, she loosed her hold of
+Andy's hand. He rose.
+
+"I must be off. I've a lot to do to-morrow. Gilly'll have to look after
+the office. I've got to see Mr. Belfield among other things; and Harry
+wants me to see Vivien Wellgood--and, well, try to say something for
+him."
+
+"Just like him! He breaks the pitcher and leaves you to sweep up the
+pieces!"
+
+"Well, he can't see her himself, can he?"
+
+"He'd make love to her again if he did. You may be sure of that!"
+
+The door opened, and Sally Dutton came in in her dressing-gown, with her
+pretty hair all about her shoulders.
+
+"She's asleep--sound asleep. So I--may I stay a few minutes with you,
+Doris? I--I've got the blues awfully badly." She came to the Nun and
+knelt down beside her. Suddenly she broke into a torrent of sobs. Andy
+heard her say through them, "Oh, it reminds me--!"
+
+Doris looked at him and nodded. "I shall see you soon in London, Andy?"
+
+He pressed her hand and left the two girls together.
+
+Gilly Foot was smoking a reflective pipe outside the door; he had
+possessed himself of the key and sent the sleepy "Boots" to bed. Andy
+obtained leave of absence for the morrow.
+
+"Rather a disturbed evening, eh, Andy?" said Gilly, smoking
+thoughtfully. "Lucky it didn't happen till we'd done supper! Fact is one
+doesn't like to say it of an old friend--but Harry Belfield's no good."
+
+Andy had a whimsical idea that at such a sentiment the stones of Meriton
+High Street would cry out. The pet and the pride of the town, the man of
+all accomplishments, the man who was to have that wonderful career--here
+he was being cavalierly and curtly dismissed as "no good."
+
+"Come, we must give him another chance," Andy urged.
+
+Gilly knocked out his pipe with an air of decision.
+
+"Rotten--rotten at the core, old boy, that's it," he said, as with a nod
+of good-night he entered the precincts of the Lion.
+
+Andy Hayes was sore to the heart. He had thought that a catastrophe such
+as this, a "row," would be the best thing--the best for Vivien Wellgood.
+He was even surer of it now--even now, when to think of the pain she
+suffered sent a pang through his heart. But what a light that increased
+certainty of his threw on Harry Belfield! And, as he said to himself,
+trudging home from the Lion, Harry had always been a part of his
+life--in early days a very big part--and one of the most cherished.
+Harry's hand had been the source whence benefits flowed; Harry's example
+had been an inspiration. Whatever Harry had done now, or might do in the
+future--that future now suddenly become so much less assured, so much
+harder to foresee--the great debt remained. Andy did not grudge
+"sweeping up the pieces." Alas, that he could not mend the broken
+pitcher! Sore as his heart was for the blow that had fallen on
+Vivien--on her so frail that the lightest touch of adversity seemed
+cruel--yet his sorest pain was that the blow came from Harry Belfield's
+hand. That filled him with a shame almost personal. He had so identified
+himself with his friend and hero, he had so shared in and profited by
+the good in him--his kindness, his generosity, his championship--that he
+could not rid himself of a feeling of sharing also in the evil. In the
+sullying of Harry's honour he saw his own stained--even as by Harry's
+high achievements he would have felt his own friendship glorified.
+
+"Without Harry I should never have been where or what I am." That was
+the thought in his mind, and it was a sure verity. Harry had opened the
+doors, he had walked through. Whatever Harry had done or would do with
+his own life, he had done much for his friend's, and done it gaily and
+gladly. Doris Flower might chide and despair; Gilly Foot's contemptuous
+verdict might dismiss Harry to his fate. That could not be Andy's mood
+nor Andy's attitude. Gratitude forbade despair; it must be his part
+still to work, to aid, to shelter; always, above all, to forgive, and to
+try--at least to try--to comprehend.
+
+Love or friendship can set no higher or harder task than in demanding
+the comprehension of a temperament utterly diverse, alien, and
+incompatible. That was the task Andy's heart laid on his brain. "You
+must not give up," was its command. Others might take their pleasure in
+Harry's gifts, might enjoy his brilliance, or reap benefit from his
+ready kindness--and then, when trouble came, pass by on the other side.
+There was every excuse for them; in the common traffic of life no more
+is asked or expected; men, even brilliant men, must behave themselves at
+their peril. Andy did not stand so. It was his to try to assess Harry's
+weakness, and to see if anywhere there could be found a remedy, a
+buttress for the weak wall in that charming edifice. Such a pity if it
+fell down, with all its beauties, just because of that one weak wall!
+But, alas, poor Andy was ill-fitted for this exacting task of love's. He
+might tell himself where his duty lay; he might argue that he could and
+did understand how a man might have a weak spot, and yet be a good
+man--one capable of useful and high things. But his instinct, the native
+colour of his mind, was all against these arguments. The shame that such
+a man should do such things was stronger. The weak spot seemed to spread
+in ever-widening circles; the evil seemed more and more to invade and
+infect the system; the weak wall doomed the whole edifice. Reason,
+argue, and pray for his friend as he might, in his inmost mind a voice
+declared that this day had witnessed the beginning of the end of the
+Harry Belfield whom he had loved.
+
+"Harry Belfield's no good!" "How are the mighty fallen and the weapons
+of war perished!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+THE EMPTY PLACE.
+
+
+Belfield rubbed his hands against one another with a rueful smile. "Yes,
+yes, he's a hard fellow. He's hard on us; hard in taking a course that
+makes scandal inevitable. Meriton High Street will be breast-high in
+gossip about the midnight expulsion in a few hours. And hard in this--I
+suppose I'm not entitled to call it persecution--this punishment with
+which he threatens Harry. Still, if a man had treated my daughter in
+that way, and that daughter Vivien--" He spread out his hands, and
+added, "But then he's always been as hard as nails to the poor girl
+herself. You think there's that other motive? If you're right there, I
+put my foot in it once." He was thinking of certain hints he had given
+Wellgood at dinner one evening.
+
+"There's no doubt about it, I think, sir, but it doesn't help us much.
+It may show that Wellgood's motives aren't purely paternal, but it
+doesn't make matters better for Harry."
+
+"It's terribly awkward--with us at one end of the town and Nutley at the
+other. Most things blow over, but"--he screwed up his face
+wryly--"meeting's awkward! And there's the politics! Wellgood's chairman
+of his Association. Oh, Harry, Harry, you have made a mess of it! I
+think I'll go and talk it over with Meriton--make a clean breast of it
+and see what he says. He might be able to keep Wellgood quiet. You don't
+look as if you thought there was much chance of it."
+
+"I don't know whether Harry would come back and face it, even if
+Wellgood were managed. A tough morsel for his pride to swallow! And if
+he did, could he bring her--at all events so long as Miss Wellgood's at
+Nutley? Yet if they marry--and I suppose they will--"
+
+"I think we may take it that he'll marry her. The boy's ungoverned and
+untrustworthy, but he's not shabby, Andy." A note of pleading for his
+son crept into his voice.
+
+"It's the right thing for him to do, but it'll make it still more
+difficult to go on as if nothing had happened. However I hope you will
+see Lord Meriton and get his opinion."
+
+"I should like you to talk to Wellgood and find out what his terms
+really are. I can't ask favours of him, but I want to know exactly where
+we stand. And Vivien--no, I must write to her myself, poor dear girl.
+Not a pleasant letter to write." He paused a moment and asked, with an
+air of being rather ashamed of the question, "Is the sinner himself very
+desperate?"
+
+"Last night he was, I think; at any rate terribly angry with himself,
+and--I'm afraid I must add--with his bad luck. When I saw him off this
+morning he was in one of his defiant moods, saying he could get on
+without Meriton's approval, and wishing the whole place at the devil."
+
+"Yes, yes, that's Harry! Because he's made a fool--and worse--of
+himself, you and I and Meriton are to go to the devil! Well, I suppose
+it's not peculiar to poor Harry. And you saw him off? I can't thank you
+for all your kindness, Andy."
+
+"Well, sir, if a man can feel that way, I'd almost rather have done the
+thing myself! I've got to ask her to see me on his behalf."
+
+Belfield shook his head. "Not much to be said there. And I've got to
+tell my wife. Not much there either."
+
+"I'm afraid Mrs. Belfield will be terribly distressed."
+
+"Yes, yes; but mothers wear special spectacles, you know. She'll think
+it very deplorable, but it's quite likely that she'll find out it's
+somebody else's fault. Wellgood's, probably, because she never much
+liked him. If it helps her, let her think so."
+
+"It was partly his fault. Why didn't he own up about Miss Vintry?"
+
+"Not much excuse, even if you'd been the trespasser. With Harry engaged
+to Vivien, no excuse at all. How could it be in any legitimate way
+Harry's business what Wellgood wanted of Isobel Vintry? Still it may be
+that the argument'll be good enough for his mother."
+
+"Well, sir, I'll see Wellgood to-day, and let you know the result. And
+Miss Wellgood too, if she'll see me. I positively must go to London
+to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, yes. You go back to work, Andy. You've your own life. And that
+pretty girl, Miss Flower--does she go back too?"
+
+"She goes this afternoon. And Billy Foot with them, I think."
+
+"Yes, so he does. I forgot. Give her my love. I'd come and give her a
+nosegay at the station, only I don't feel like facing people to-day." He
+sighed wearily. "A man's pride is easily hit through his children. And I
+suppose we've cracked Harry up to the skies! Nemesis, Andy, Nemesis!
+There, good-bye. You're a thorough good fellow."
+
+Billy Foot waylaid Andy as he left Halton. Billy's view of the matter
+was not ideal or exalted, but it went to a practical point.
+
+"Did you ever know such a fool?" cried Billy. "What does he want to do
+it down here for? He's got all London to play the fool in, if he must
+play the fool! Nobody knows there, or if they do they don't care. Or if
+A cares B doesn't, and B's just as amusing to dine with--probably more
+so. But in this little hen-roost of a place! All the fowls'll cackle,
+and all to the same tune. I'll lay you six to four he's dished himself
+for good in Meriton. Where are you off to?"
+
+"I've got to see Miss Vintry off, then I'm going to Nutley. By-the-bye,
+how did you hear about it?"
+
+"It wasn't hard to guess, last night, was it? However, to inform my mind
+better, Andy, I took occasion to call at the Lion. I didn't see Miss
+Vintry, but I did see Miss Flower. Also I saw old Dove, and young Dove,
+and Miss Miles, all with faces as long as your arm--and enjoying
+themselves immensely! You can no more keep it dark in a place like this
+than you can hide the parish church under your pocket-handkerchief.
+They'll all know there was a row at Nutley; they'll all know Miss Vintry
+was turned out and slept at the Lion; they'll all know that Harry and
+she have gone to London, and, of course, they'll know the engagement's
+broken. They're not clever, I admit--I've made speeches to them--but I
+suppose they're not born idiots! They must have a rudimentary inductive
+faculty."
+
+The truth of these words was clearly shown to Andy's mind when he called
+at the Lion to pick up Isobel. She was alone in the Nun's sitting-room;
+the two girls had already said good-bye to her and gone out for a last
+walk in Meriton. When she came into the hall to meet him she was
+confronted by a phalanx of hostile eyes--Miss Miles', old Dove's, the
+Bird's, two chambermaids', the very "Boots" who had officiated at the
+door on the previous night. Nobody spoke to her. Her luggage, sent down
+from Nutley in answer to Andy's messenger, was already on the cab. Andy
+was left himself to open the door. Nobody even wanted a tip from her.
+Could unpopularity go further or take any form more glaring?
+
+Before the hostile eyes (she included Andy's among them) Isobel was
+herself again--calm, haughty, unabashed, her feelings under full
+control. There were no signs of the tempest she had passed through; she
+was again the Miss Vintry who had given lessons in courage and the other
+manly virtues. Andy was unfeignedly glad that this was her condition;
+his practical equipment included small aptitude for dealing with
+hysterics.
+
+For the better part of the way to the station she said nothing. At last
+she looked across at Andy, who sat opposite to her, and remarked, "Well,
+Mr. Hayes, you saw the beginning; now you see the end."
+
+"Since it has happened, I can only hope the end will be happy--for you
+and for him."
+
+"I'm getting what I wanted. If you want a thing and get it, you can
+hardly complain, whatever happens."
+
+"That sounds very reasonable, but--"
+
+"The best thing to hope about reason is to hope you won't need it? Yes!"
+
+It seemed that the news had not yet spread so far afield as to reach the
+station. The old stationmaster was friendly and loquacious.
+
+"Quite a break-up of you all to-day, sir," he said. "Mr. 'Arry gone by
+the first train, the stout gentleman by the next, now Miss Vintry, and a
+carriage engaged for Miss Flower's party and Mr. Foot this afternoon! A
+real break-up, I call it!"
+
+"That's about what it comes to, Mr. Parsons," said Andy, as he handed
+Isobel into the train.
+
+"Well, 'olidays must 'ave an end. A pleasant journey and a safe return,
+miss."
+
+Isobel smiled at Andy. "You'd stop at the first part of the wish, Mr.
+Hayes?"
+
+Andy put out his hand to her. With the slightest air of surprise she
+took it. "We must make the best of it. Do what you can for him."
+
+"I'll do all he'll let me." Her eyes met his; she smiled. "I know all
+that as well as you do. Surely I, if anybody, ought to know it?" It
+seemed to Andy as if that were what her eyes and her smile said. "I want
+you to deliver one message for me," she went on. "Don't be alarmed, I'm
+not daring to send a message to anybody who belongs to Meriton. But when
+you next see Miss Dutton, will you tell her I shan't forget her
+kindness? I've already thanked Miss Flower for the use of her
+sitting-room. Ah, we're moving! Good-bye!"
+
+She was smiling as she went. Andy was smiling too; the degree of her
+gratitude to Sally Dutton and to the Nun respectively had been admirably
+defined.
+
+The fire of Wellgood's wrath was still smouldering hotly, ready to break
+out at any moment if the slightest breath of passion fanned it. He
+received Andy civilly enough, but at the first hint that he came in some
+sort as an ambassador from Harry's father, his back stiffened.  His
+position was perfectly clear, and seemed unalterable. So far as it lay
+in his power he would banish Harry Belfield from Meriton and put an end
+to any career he might have there.  He repeated to Andy more calmly, but
+not less forcibly, what he had shouted in his fury the evening before.
+
+"Of course I want it kept as quiet as possible; but I don't want it kept
+quiet at the cost of that fellow's going unpunished--getting off
+scot-free! We've nothing to be ashamed of.  Publicity won't hurt us,
+little as we may like it. But it'll hurt him, and he shall have it in
+full measure--straight in the face. Is it a possible state of things
+that he should be here, living in the place, taking part in our public
+affairs, being our Member, while my daughter is at Nutley?  I say no,
+and I think Belfield--his father, I mean--ought to be able to see it for
+himself.  What then?  Are we to be driven out of our home?"
+
+"That would be absurd, of course," Andy had to admit.
+
+"It seems to me the only alternative." He rose from his chair, and
+walked up and down like an angry tiger. He faced round on Andy. "For a
+beginning, the first step he takes in regard to the seat, I shall resign
+from the committee of the Association, and state my reasons for my
+action in plain language--and I think you know I can speak plainly. I
+shall do the same about any other public work which involves meeting
+him.  I shall do the same about the hunt, the same about everything. And
+I'll ask my friends--I'll ask decent people--to choose between Harry
+Belfield and me. To please my daughter, I didn't break his head, as I
+should have liked to, but, by heaven, I'll spoil his game in Meriton!
+I'm afraid that's the only message I can give you to take to Halton."
+
+"In fact you'll do your best to get him boycotted?" Andy liked
+compendious statements.
+
+"That's exactly what I mean to do, Hayes.  A man going to be married to
+my daughter in a fortnight--parted from her the moment before on the
+footing of her lover--found making violent love to another inmate of my
+house, her companion, almost within my very house itself--sounds well,
+doesn't it?  Calculated to recommend him to his friends, and to the
+constituency?"
+
+Andy tried a last shot. "Is this action of yours really best for Miss
+Wellgood, or what she would wish?"
+
+Wellgood flushed in anger, conscious of his secret motives, by no means
+sure that he was not suspected of them. "I judge for my daughter. And
+it's not what she may wish, but what is proper in regard to her that I
+consider.  On the other hand, if he lets Meriton alone, he may do what
+he likes. That's not my affair. I'm not going to hunt him over the whole
+country."
+
+"Well, that's something," said Andy with a patient smile. "I'll
+communicate your terms to Mr. Belfield." He paused, glancing doubtfully
+at his most unconciliatory companion. "Do you think it would be painful
+to Miss Wellgood to see me?"
+
+He stopped suddenly in his prowling up and down the room. "That's funny!
+She was just saying she would like to see you."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that. I want to be quite frank. Harry has asked me to
+express to her his bitter regret."
+
+"Nothing more than that?"
+
+"Nothing more, on my honour."
+
+"She wants to say something to you." He frowned in hesitation. "If I
+thought there was the smallest chance of her being induced to enter into
+direct communication with him, I'd say no at once. But there's no chance
+of that. And she wants to see you. Yes, you can see her, if you like.
+She's in the garden, by the lake, I think. She's taken this well, Hayes;
+she's showing a thousand times more pluck than I ever thought she had."
+His voice grew gentle. "Poor little girl! Yes, go! She wants to see
+you."
+
+Andy had taken nothing by his first mission; he felt quite hopelessly
+unfit for his second. To offer the apologies of a faithless swain was no
+more in his line than to be a faithless swain himself; the fleeting
+relics of Harry's authority had imposed a last uncongenial task. Perhaps
+his very mum-chanceness was his saving. Glib protestations would have
+smacked too strongly of the principal to commend the agent. Vivien heard
+his stammering words in silence, seeming wrapped in an aloofness that
+she took for her sole remaining protection. She bowed her head gravely
+at the "bitter regret," at the "unguarded moment," at the "fatal
+irresolution"--Andy's memory held fast to the phrases, but refused to
+weld them into one of Harry's shapely periods. On "fatal irresolution"
+he came to a full stop. He dared not look at her--it would seem an
+intrusion, a brutality; he stared steadily over the lake.
+
+"I knew he had moods like that," she said after a long silence. "I never
+realized what they could do to a man. I daresay it would be hard for me
+to realize. I'm glad he wanted to--to say a word of regret. There's one
+thing I should like you to tell him; that's why I wanted to see you."
+
+Now Andy turned to her, for her voice commanded his attention.
+
+"How fagged-out you look, Miss Wellgood!" he exclaimed impulsively.
+
+"Things aren't easy," she said in a low steady voice. "If I could have
+silence! But I have to listen to denunciation. You'll understand. Did he
+tell you what--what passed?"
+
+"The gist of it, I think."
+
+"Then you'll understand that I mayn't have the power to stop the
+denunciations, or--or the other steps that may be threatened or taken. I
+should like him to know that they're not my doing. And I should like him
+to know too that I would a thousand times sooner this had happened than
+that other thing which I believe he meant to happen--honestly meant to
+happen--but for--this accident."
+
+"I'm with you in that, Miss Wellgood. It's far better."
+
+"I accept what he says--an unguarded moment. But I--I thought he had a
+guard." She sat silent again for a minute. "There's one other thing I
+should like to say to him, through you. But you'll know best whether to
+say it or not, I think. I should like to tell him that he can't make me
+forget--almost that he can't make me ungrateful. He gave me, in our
+early days together, the first real joy I'd ever had--I expect the only
+perfect joy I ever shall have. What he gave then, he can't wholly take
+away." She looked at Andy with a faint melancholy smile. "Shall you tell
+him that?"
+
+"If you leave it to me, I shan't tell him that."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"You want it all over, don't you?" he asked bluntly.
+
+"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"
+
+"Then don't tell Harry Belfield that. Think it, if you like. Don't tell
+him."
+
+A look of sheer wonder came into her eyes. "He's like that?" she
+murmured.
+
+"Yes, like that. That's the trouble. He'd better think
+you're--hopelessly disgusted."
+
+"I'm hopelessly at sea, anyhow," she said, turning her eyes to the lake
+again. But she turned back to him quickly, still with her faint smile.
+"Disgusted? Oh, you're thinking of the fastidiousness? Ah, that seems a
+long time ago! You were very kind then; you're very kind now." She laid
+her hand lightly on his arm; for the first time her voice shook. "You
+and I can sometimes talk about him as he used to be--just we two
+together!"
+
+"Or as we thought he was?" Andy's tones were blunt still, and now rather
+bitter.
+
+"Or as we thought he was--and, by thinking it, were so happy! Yes, we'd
+better not talk about him at all. I don't think I really could. You'll
+be seeing Mr. Belfield soon? Give him my dear love, and say I'll come
+and see him and Mrs. Belfield as soon as they want me. He sent me a note
+this morning. I can't answer it just yet."
+
+"I'll tell him." Andy rose to go.
+
+"Oh, but must you go just yet? I don't want you to." She glanced up at
+him, with a sad humour. "Curly's out, you know, and terribly big and
+rampageous!"
+
+"But you're not running away now, any more than you did then."
+
+"I'm trying to stand still, and--and look at it--at what it means about
+life."
+
+"You mustn't think all life's like that--or all men either."
+
+"That's the temptation--to think that."
+
+"Men are tempted to think it about women too, sometimes."
+
+She nodded. "Yes, of course, that's true. I'm glad you said that. You
+are good against Curly!"
+
+They had Wellgood in their minds. It was grievance against grievance at
+Nutley; the charge of inconstancy is eternally bandied to and fro
+between the sexes--_Varium et mutabile semper Femina_ against "Men were
+deceivers ever"--_Souvent femme varie_ against the sorrowfully
+ridiculous chronicles of breach of promise of marriage cases. Plenty of
+matter for both sides! Probably both sides would be wise to say as
+little as possible about it. If misogyny is bad, is misandry any better?
+At all events the knowledge of Wellgood's grievance might help to
+prevent Vivien's from warping her mind. Hers was the greater, but his
+was of the same order.
+
+The world incarnated itself to her in the image of the big retriever
+dog, being so alarming, meaning no harm consciously, meaning indeed
+affection--with its likelihood of paws soiling white raiment. Andy again
+stood dressed as the guardian, the policeman. He was to be "good against
+Curly."
+
+"And Isobel?" she asked.
+
+"I saw her off all right by the twelve-fifteen, Miss Wellgood--to
+London, you know."
+
+"Yes, to London." To both of them London might have been spelt "Harry."
+
+"She was never really unkind to me," said Vivien thoughtfully. "I expect
+it did me good."
+
+"Never a favourite of mine--even before this," Andy pronounced, rather
+ponderously.
+
+She shot a side glance at him. "I believe you thought she beat me!"
+
+"I think I thought that sometimes you'd sooner she had done that than
+stand there smiling."
+
+"Oh, you're prejudiced! She wasn't unkind; and in this thing, you see, I
+know her temptation. Surely that ought to bring sympathy? Tell me--you
+saw her off--well--how?" She spoke in jerks, now seeming agitated.
+
+"Very calm--quite her own mistress--seeming to know what her job was.
+Confound it, Miss Wellgood, I'd sooner not talk about her any more!"
+
+"Shall you see Harry?"
+
+"I don't want to till--till things have settled down a bit. I shall
+write about what you've said."
+
+"About part of what I've said," she reminded him. "You've convinced me
+about that."
+
+Andy rose again, and this time she did not seek to hinder him.
+
+"I'm off to town to-morrow; back to work." He paused a moment, then
+added, "If I get down for a week-end, may I come and see you?"
+
+"Do--always, if you can. And remember me to Miss Flower and to Billy
+Foot; and tell them that I am"--she seemed to seek a word, but ended
+lamely--"very well, please."
+
+Andy nodded. She wanted them to know that her courage was not broken.
+
+On his way out he met Wellgood again, moodily sauntering in the drive by
+the lake.
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?" Wellgood asked abruptly.
+
+"She's feels it terribly, but she's taking it splendidly."
+
+Wellgood nodded emphatically, saying again, "I never thought she had
+such pluck."
+
+"I should think, you know," said Andy, in his candid way, "that you
+could help her a bit, Mr. Wellgood. It does her no good to be taken over
+it again and again. Least said, soonest mended."
+
+Wellgood looked at him suspiciously. "I'm not going back on my terms."
+
+"Wait and see if they are accepted. Let him alone till then. She'd thank
+you for that."
+
+"I want to help her," said Wellgood. His tone was rather surly, rather
+ashamed, but it seemed to carry a confession that he had not helped his
+daughter much in the past. "You're right, Hayes. Let's be done with the
+fellow for good, if we can!"
+
+From all sides came the same sentiment: from Wellgood as a hope, from
+Vivien as a sorrowful but steadfast resolution, from Billy Foot as a
+considered verdict on the facts of the case. Andy's own reflections had
+even anticipated these other voices. An end of Harry Belfield, so far as
+regarded the circle of which he had been the centre and the ornament!
+Would Harry accept the conclusion? He might tell Meriton to "go to the
+devil" in a moment of irritated defiance; but to abandon Meriton would
+be a great rooting-up, a sore break with all his life past, and with his
+life in the future as he had planned it and his friends had pictured it
+for him. Must he accept it whether he would or not? Wellgood's pistol
+was at his head. Would he brave the shot, or what hand would turn away
+the threatening barrel?
+
+Not Lord Meriton's. When Belfield, possessed of Wellgood's terms, laid
+them before him, together with an adequate statement of the facts, the
+great man disclaimed the power. Though he softened his opinion for
+Harry's father, it was very doubtful if he had the wish.
+
+"I'm sorry, Belfield, uncommon sorry--well, you know that--both for you
+and for Mrs. Belfield. I hope she's not too much cut up?"
+
+"She's distressed; but she blames Wellgood and the other woman most. I'm
+glad she does."
+
+Meriton nodded. "But it's most infernally awkward; there's no disguising
+it. You may say that any man--at any rate, many a man--is liable to come
+a mucker like this. But happening just now--and with Wellgood's
+daughter! Wellgood's our right hand man, in this part of the Division at
+all events. And he's as stubborn a dog as lives! Said he'd resign from
+the hunt if your boy showed up, did he? By Jove, he'd do it, you know!
+That's the deuce of it! I suppose the question is how much opinion he'd
+carry with him. He's not popular--that's something; but a father
+fighting in his daughter's cause! They won't know the other side of it
+you've told me about; and if Harry marries the woman, he can't very well
+tell them. Then is she to come with him? Awkward again if Wellgood, or
+somebody put up by him, interrupts! If she doesn't come, that's at once
+admitting something fishy."
+
+"The woman's certainly a serious added difficulty. Meriton, we're old
+friends. Tell me your own opinion."
+
+"I don't give an opinion for all time. The affair will die down, as all
+affairs do. The girl'll marry somebody else in time, I suppose. Wellgood
+will get over his feelings. I'm not saying your son can't succeed you at
+Halton in due course. That would be making altogether too much of it.
+But now, if the moment comes anywhere, say, in the next twelve
+months--well, I question if a change of air--and another
+constituency--wouldn't be wiser."
+
+"I think so too--in his own interest. And I rather think that I, at
+least, owe it to Vivien to throw my weight on the side that will save
+her from annoyance."
+
+"That was in my mind too, Belfield; but I knew you'd think of it without
+my saying it."
+
+"I believe--I do really believe--that he will look at it in that light
+himself. Any gentleman would; and he's that, outside his plaguy love
+affairs."
+
+"I know he is; I know it. They bring such a lot of good fellows to
+grief--and pretty women too."
+
+"Well, I must write to him; and you must look out for another
+candidate."
+
+"By Jove, we must, and in quick time too! Apart from a General Election,
+I hear old Millington's sadly shaky. Well, good-bye, Belfield. My
+regards to your wife." He shook hands warmly. "This is hard luck on you;
+but he's got lots of time to pick up again. He'll end in the first
+flight yet. Cheer up. Better have a Prodigal than no son at all, like
+me!"
+
+"I imagine a good deal might be said on both sides in that debate."
+
+"Oh, stuff and nonsense! You wouldn't dare to say that to his mother!"
+
+"No; and I don't suppose I really think it myself. But this sort of
+thing does make a man a bit nervous, Meriton."
+
+"If the lady's attractions have led him astray, perhaps they'll be able
+now to keep him straight."
+
+"They won't be so great in one particular. They won't be forbidden
+fruit."
+
+"Aye, the best fox is always in the covert you mayn't draw. Human
+nature!"
+
+"At all events, my boy Harry's."
+
+And for that nature Harry had to pay. The present price was an end of
+his career in Meriton. One more voice joined the chorus, a powerful
+voice. Belfield bowed his head to the decision. It was final for the
+moment; in his depression of spirit he felt as though it were final for
+all time, as though his native town would know Harry no more. At any
+rate, now his place was vacant--the place from which he by transgression
+fell. It must be given to another. Only in Vivien's memory had he still
+his niche.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII.
+
+GRUBBING AWAY.
+
+
+Gilly Foot's mind was so inventive, and his demand for ministerial
+assistance in carrying out his inventions so urgent, during the next
+three weeks that Andy had little leisure for his own or anybody else's
+private affairs. The week-ends at Meriton had to be temporarily
+suspended, and Meriton news reached him now by a word from Billy, who
+seemed to be in touch with Belfield, now through Jack Rock. Thus he
+heard from Billy that Harry Belfield was married and had gone abroad;
+while Jack sent him a copy of the local paper, with a paragraph (heavily
+marked in blue pencil) to the effect that Mr. Harry Belfield, being
+advised by his doctor to take a prolonged rest, had resigned his
+position as prospective candidate for the Meriton Division. Decorous
+expressions of regret followed, and it was added that probably Mr. Mark
+Wellgood, Chairman of the Conservative Association, would be approached
+in the matter. Jack had emphasized his pencil-mark with a large note of
+exclamation, in which Andy felt himself at liberty to see crystallized
+the opinion of Harry's fellow-citizens.
+
+Still, though Meriton had for the time to be relegated mainly to memory,
+there it had a specially precious pigeon-hole. It had regained for him
+all its old status of home. When he thought of holidays, it was of
+holidays at Meriton. When his thoughts grew ambitious--the progress of
+Gilbert Foot and Co. began to justify modest ambitions--they pictured a
+small house for himself in or near Meriton, and a leisure devoted to
+that ancient town's local affairs. To himself he was a citizen of
+Meriton more than of London; for to Andy London was, foremost of all, a
+place of work. Its gaieties were for him occasional delights, rather
+than a habitual part of the life it offered. Talks with Jack Rock and
+other old friends, visits to Halton and Nutley, completed the picture of
+his future life at home. He was not a man much given to analysing his
+thoughts or feelings, and perhaps did not realize how very essential the
+setting was to the attractiveness of the picture, nor that one part of
+the setting gave the picture more charm than all the rest. Yet when
+Andy's fancy painted him as enjoying well-earned hours of repose at
+Meriton, the terrace by the lake at Nutley was usually to be seen in the
+foreground.
+
+Let Gilly clamour never so wildly for figures to be ready for him by the
+next morning, in order that he might know whether the latest child of
+his genius could be reared in this hard world or must be considered
+merely as an ideal laid up in the heavens, an evening had to be found to
+go and see the Nun as Joan of Arc--first as the rustic maid in that
+village in France (its name was on the programme), and then, in silver
+armour, exhorting the King of France (who was supposed to be on
+horseback in the wings). The question of the Nun's horse was solved by
+an elderly white animal being discovered on the stage when the curtain
+rose--the Nun was assumed to have just dismounted (voluntarily)--and
+being led off to the blare of trumpets. This was for the second song, of
+course, and it was the second song which brought Miss Doris Flower the
+greatest triumph that she had ever yet achieved. Its passing references
+to the favour of Heaven were unexceptionable in taste--so all the papers
+declared; its martial spirit stirred the house; its tune caught on
+immensely; and, by a happy inspiration, Joan of Arc had (as she was
+historically quite entitled to have) a prophetic vision of a time when
+the relations between her own country and England would be infinitely
+happier than they were in the days of Charles VII. and Henry VI. This
+vision having fortunately been verified, the public applauded Joan of
+Arc's sentiments to the echo, while the author and the management were
+very proud of their skill in imparting this touch of "actuality" to the
+proceedings. Finally, the Nun was in excellent voice, and the silver
+armour suited her figure prodigiously well.
+
+"Yes, it's a great go," said Miss Flower contentedly, when Andy went
+round to her room to see her. She draped a Japanese dressing-gown over
+the silver armour, laid her helmet on the table, and lit a cigarette.
+"It knocks the Quaker into a cocked hat, and makes even the Nun look
+silly. The booking's enormous; and it's something to draw them here,
+with that Venus-rising-from-the-foam girl across the Square. I'm told,
+too, that she appears to have chosen a beach where there are no by-laws
+in force, Andy."
+
+Andy explained that he had not much leisure for even the most attractive
+entertainments.
+
+"Do you know," she proceeded, "that something very funny--I shan't want
+you for ten minutes, Mrs. Milsom" (this to her dresser, who discreetly
+withdrew)--"has happened about Billy Foot? I don't mind telling you, in
+confidence, that at Meriton I thought he was going to break out. With
+half an opportunity he would have. Since we came back I've only seen him
+twice, and then he tried to avoid me. His usual haunts, Andy, know him
+only occasionally, and then in company which, to my mind, undoubtedly
+has its home in Kensington."
+
+"What's the matter with him, I wonder? Now you remind me, I've hardly
+seen him either."
+
+"He was here the other night, in a box, with Kensington; but he didn't
+come round. Took Kensington on to supper, I suppose."
+
+"What have you against Kensington?" Andy inquired curiously.
+
+"Nothing at all. Only I've observed, Andy, that taking Kensington out is
+a prelude to matrimony. I could tell you a dozen cases in my own
+knowledge. You hadn't thought of that? In certain fields my experience
+is still superior to yours."
+
+"Oh, very much so! Do you suspect any particular Kensingtonian?"
+
+"There was a tall dark girl, rather pretty; but I couldn't look much.
+Well, we shall miss Billy if it comes off, but I imagine we can rely
+implicitly on Gilly."
+
+"You've heard that Harry's married to Miss Vintry?"
+
+"Serve her right!" said the Nun severely. "I never had any pity for that
+woman."
+
+"And he's chucked the candidature. So our great campaign was all for
+nothing!"
+
+"Well, Billy must always be talking somewhere, anyhow. And I should
+think it did you good?"
+
+"Oh yes, it did. I was thinking of Harry."
+
+"In my opinion it's about time you got out of that habit. Now you must
+go, or you'll make me too late to get anything to eat. As you may guess,
+wearing this shell involves a fundamental reconstruction before I can
+present myself at supper."
+
+Andy took her hand and pressed it. "I'm so jolly glad you've got such a
+success, Doris. And the armour's ripping!"
+
+There followed three weeks of what Gilly Foot, over his lunch at the
+restaurant and his dinner at the Artemis, used to describe as
+"incredible grind for both of us." Then a day of triumph! The outcome of
+the latest brilliant idea, the new scientific primer, was accepted as
+the text-book in the County Council secondary schools. Gilly wore a
+_Nunc Dimittis_ air.
+
+"Eton and Harrow! Pooh!" said he. "A couple of hundred copies a year
+apiece, perhaps. Give me the County Council schools! The young masses
+being bred on Gilbert Foot and Co.--that's what I want. The proletariat
+is our game! If this spreads over the country, and I believe it will, we
+shall be rich men in no time, Andy."
+
+Andy was smiling broadly--not that he had any particular wish to be
+rich, but because successful labour is marvellously sweet.
+
+"Do you happen to remember that it was you who gave me the germ of that
+idea?"
+
+"No, surely I didn't? I don't remember. I can't have, Gilly."
+
+"Oh yes, you did. That arrangement of the tables of comparison?"
+
+"Oh, ah! Yes--well, I do remember something about that. But that's only
+a trifle. You did all the rest."
+
+"That's what's fetched them, though; I know it is." He gave a sigh.
+"Andy, I shall grudge you that all the rest of my life." He put his head
+on one side, and regarded his partner with a peaceful smile. "You're a
+remarkable chap, you know. Some day or other I believe you'll end by
+making me work! Sometimes I kind of feel the infection creeping over me.
+I distinctly hurried lunch to-day to come back and talk about this."
+
+"I believe we have got our foot in this time," said Andy.
+
+"I shan't, however, do anything more to-day," Gilly announced, rising
+and putting on his hat. "My nerves are somewhat over-stimulated. A walk
+in the park, a game of bridge, and a quiet little dinner are indicated.
+You'll attend to anything that turns up, won't you, old chap?"
+
+Slowly and gradually Andy Hayes was growing not only into his strength
+but also into the consciousness of it. He was measuring his
+powers--slowly, suspiciously, distrustfully. His common sense refused to
+ignore what he had done and was doing, but his modesty ever declined to
+go a step beyond the facts. All through his life this characteristic
+abode with him--a sort of surprise that the simple qualities he
+recognised in himself should stand him in such good stead, combined with
+an unwillingness rashly to pledge their efficacy in the greater labours
+of the future. Thus it came about that he was, so to say, a day behind
+the world's estimate in his estimate of himself. When the people about
+him were already sure, he was gradually reaching confidence--never the
+imperious self-confidence of commanding genius, which makes no question
+but that the future will be as obedient to its sway as the past, but a
+very sober trust in a proved ability, a trust based on no inner instinct
+of power, but solely on the plain experience that hitherto he had shown
+himself equal to the business which came his way--equal to it if he
+worked very hard at it, took it seriously, and gave all he had to give
+to it. The degree of self-confidence thus achieved was never sufficient
+to make him seek adventures; by slow growth it became enough to prevent
+him from turning his back on any task, however heavy, which the course
+of his life and the judgment of his fellows laid upon him. So step by
+step he moved on in his development and in his knowledge of it. He
+recognised now that it would have been a pity to pass his life as a
+butcher in Meriton--that it would have been waste of material. But he
+was still quite content to regard as a sufficient occupation, and
+triumph, of that life the building-up of Gilbert Foot and Co.'s
+educational publishing connection; and he was still surprised to be
+reminded that he had contributed anything more than hard work to that
+task, that it owed to him even the smallest scintilla of original
+suggestion. Still there it was. Perhaps he would never do a thing like
+that again. Very likely not. Still he had done it once. It passed from
+the impossibles to the possibles--a possible under strict and
+distrustful observation, but a possible that should be put to the proof.
+
+Nothing in the business line turned up after Gilly had departed to
+recruit his nerves. Having made one bold and successful leap, the
+educational publishing concern of Gilbert Foot and Co. seemed disposed
+to sit awhile on its haunches. Andy was the last man to quarrel with it
+for that; he had all the primitive man's fear of things looking too
+rosy. Things had looked too rosy with Harry. And "Nemesis! Nemesis!" old
+Belfield had cried. By all means let the educational publishing concern
+rest on its haunches for awhile; the new scientific primer, with the
+quite original arrangement of its comparative tables, supplied a
+comfortable cushion. It was five o'clock; Andy made bold to light his
+pipe.
+
+"Mr. Belfield!" announced the office-boy, twisting his head between the
+door and the jamb with a questioning air.
+
+What brought Belfield to town? "Oh, show him in!" said Andy, laying down
+his pipe.
+
+Not Harry's father, as Andy had concluded, but Harry himself was the
+visitor--Harry radiantly handsome, in a homespun suit of delicate gray
+with a blue stripe in it, a white felt hat, a light blue tie--a look of
+perfect health and happiness about him.
+
+"I was passing by--been in the City--and thought I must look you up, old
+chap," said Harry, clasping Andy's hand in unmistakably genuine
+affection. "Seems years since we met! Well, a lot's happened to me, you
+see. You didn't know I was in town, did you? Only passing through;
+Isobel and I have been in Paris--went there after the event, you
+know--and we're off to Scotland to-morrow for some golf. She's got all
+the makings of a player, Andy. And how are you? Grubbing away?"
+
+"Grubbing away" most decidedly failed to express Gilbert Foot and Co.'s
+idea of what had happened in their office that day, but Andy found no
+leisure to dwell on any wound to his firm's corporate vanity. Here was
+the old Harry! Harry as he had been in the early days of his engagement!
+The Harry of that brief spell of good resolution, after Andy had
+delivered to him a certain note! There was no trace at all--by way
+either of woe or of shame--of the Harry who had come to the Lion,
+seeking a place where Isobel Vintry might lay her head, craving for her
+the charity of a night's lodging, and no questions asked!
+
+Andy's intelligence was brought to a full stop--sheer up against the
+difficult question of whether it is worth while to worry about people
+who are not worrying about themselves. Theologically, socially,
+politically, it is correct to say yes; faced with an individual case,
+the affirmative answer seems sometimes almost ridiculous; rather like
+pressing an overcoat--or half your cloak, after the example of St.
+Martin of Tours--on a vagabond of exceptionally caloric temperament. He
+is naked, and neither ashamed nor cold. Must you shiver, or blush, for
+him?
+
+"I--er--ought to congratulate you, Harry."
+
+"Thanks, old chap! Yes, it's very much all right. Things one's sorry
+for, of course--oh, don't think I'm not sorry!--but the right road found
+at last, Andy! I suppose a fellow has to go through things like that.
+I'm not justifying myself, of course; I know I'm apt to--well, to put
+off doing the necessary thing if it's likely to cause pain to anybody.
+That's a mistake, though an amiable one perhaps. But all that's over--no
+use talking about it. When we get back to town, you must come and see
+us."
+
+Andy remembered an old-time conversation about Lethe water. Harry seemed
+disposed to stand treat for a bottle.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about--about the seat, Harry," he said.
+
+A faint frown of vexation marred Harry's comely contentment. "Yes, but I
+don't know that one isn't best out of it. A lot of grind, making
+yourself pleasant to a lot of fools! Oh, perhaps it's a duty; but it'll
+wait a bit."
+
+"You're not looking out elsewhere?" Andy asked.
+
+"Give a fellow time!" Harry expostulated. "I've only been married a
+fortnight! You must let me have a bit of a holiday. Oh, you needn't be
+afraid I shan't tackle it again soon--Isobel's awfully keen! And I hope
+to find a rather less dead-alive hole than Meriton." The faint frown
+persisted on his face; it seemed to hint that his mind harboured a
+grudge against Meriton--something unpleasant had happened there. A
+perceptible, though slight, movement of his shoulders dismissed the
+ungrateful subject. In a moment he had found a more pleasant one--a
+theme for his kindliness to play on, secure from perturbing
+recollections. His old friendly smile of encouragement and patronage
+beamed on Andy.
+
+"So you and Gilly are making it go? That's right! He's a lazy devil,
+Gilly, but not a fool. And you're a good plodder. You remember I always
+said you'd make your way? I thought you would, even if you'd taken on
+old Jack's shop. But I expect you've got a better game here. Gilly
+pleased with you?" He laughed in his pleasantly conscious impudence.
+
+"He hasn't given me the sack yet," said Andy.
+
+"You did a lot of work for me, old fellow," Harry pursued. "Sorry that,
+owing to circumstances, it's all wasted! Still it taught you a thing or
+two, I daresay?"
+
+"That's just what the Nun was saying the other night, when I went to see
+her show."
+
+Harry's faint frown showed again. His recollection of Miss Flower's
+behaviour at Meriton accused her of a want of real sympathy.
+
+"Ah yes! I don't know who they'll get; but I must have made the seat
+safe. Just the way one works for another fellow sometimes! It doesn't do
+to complain."
+
+The office-boy put his head in again--and his hand in front of his head.
+"Wire just come, sir," he said to Andy, delivered the yellow envelope,
+and disappeared.
+
+"Open it, old fellow," said Harry, putting an exquisitely shod foot on
+the table. "Yes, another fellow will take my place; I've done the work,
+he'll reap the reward. And he'll probably think he's done it all
+himself!"
+
+Andy fingered his telegram absently, not in impatience; nothing very
+urgent was to be expected, the great _coup_ had already been made. He
+laid it down and listened again to Harry Belfield.
+
+"Upon my soul," Harry went on, "I rather envy you your life. A good
+steady straight job--and only got to stick to it. Now I'm no sooner out
+of one thing--well out of it--than they begin to kick at me to start
+another. The pater and Isobel are in the same story about it."
+
+Harry's face was now seriously clouded and his voice peevish. He had
+been through a great deal of trouble lately; he seemed to himself to be
+entitled to a rest, to a reasonable interval of undisturbed enjoyment.
+And he was being bothered about that career of his!
+
+"Well, I suppose you oughtn't to miss the next election. The sooner you
+go in the better, isn't it?"
+
+"It's not so easy to find a safe seat." Harry assumed that the
+constituency which he honoured should be one certain properly to
+appreciate the compliment. "I sometimes think I'd like to chuck the
+whole thing, and enjoy my life in my own way. Oh, I'm only joking, of
+course; but when they nag, I jib, you know."
+
+Andy nodded, relit his pipe, and opened his telegram.
+
+"That's why I think you're rather lucky to have it all cut and dried for
+you. Saves a lot of thinking!"
+
+Andy had been reading his telegram, not listening to Harry for the
+moment. "I beg pardon, Harry?" he said.
+
+"Oh, read it. I'm only gassing," said Harry good-humouredly.
+
+Andy read again; he always liked to read important documents twice. He
+laid it down on the office table, looking very thoughtful. "That's
+funny!" he observed. "It's from your father."
+
+"Well, I don't see why the pater shouldn't send you a telegram, if he
+wants to," smiled Harry.
+
+"Asking me to go down to Meriton on Saturday and meet Lord Meriton,
+Wigram, and himself." He took up the telegram and read the rest of the
+message--"to discuss important suggestion of public nature affecting
+yourself. Personal discussion necessary."
+
+"To meet Meriton and Wigram?" Wigram was the Conservative agent in the
+Division. "What the devil can they want?"
+
+"I don't know," said Andy, "unless--unless it's about the candidature."
+
+"About what?" Harry sharply withdrew the shapely foot from the table and
+sat upright in his chair.
+
+"Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Still I don't see what else it can be
+about. What else can there be of a public nature affecting me?
+'Affecting yourself' doesn't sound as if they only wanted my advice.
+Besides, why should they want my advice?"
+
+"Let's see the thing." Harry took it, read it, and flung it down
+peevishly. "Why the deuce can't he say what he means?"
+
+"Well, a wire's not always absolute secrecy in small towns, is it? And I
+daresay they'd want the matter kept quiet till it was settled."
+
+Harry's mood of gay contentment, clouded once or twice before, seemed
+now eclipsed. He sat tapping his boot impatiently with his stick. His
+father's telegram--or Andy's interpretation of it--clearly did not
+please him. In the abstract, of course, he had known that he would have
+a successor in the place which he had given up, or from which he had
+fallen. It had never entered his head that anybody would suggest Andy
+Hayes, his old-time worshipper and humble follower. He was not an
+ungenerous man, but this idea demanded a radical readjustment of his
+estimate of the relative positions of Andy and himself. If Andy were to
+succeed to what he had lost, it brought what he had lost very sharply
+before his eyes.
+
+"Well, if that is the meaning of it, it certainly seems rather--rather a
+rum start, eh, Andy? New sort of game for you!" He tried to make his
+voice pleasant.
+
+"It is--it would be--awfully kind of them to think of it," said Andy,
+now smiling in candid gratification. "And Wigram, as well as your
+father, was highly complimentary about some of my speeches. But it would
+be quite out of the question. I've neither the time nor the money."
+
+"It's a deuced expensive game," Harry remarked. "And, of course, no end
+of work, especially in the next few months. And when you're in, it's not
+much good in these days, unless you can give all your time to it."
+
+"I know," said Andy, nodding grave appreciation of all these
+difficulties. "It seems to me quite out of the question. Still, if that
+is what they mean, I can hardly refuse to discuss it. You see, it's a
+considerable compliment, anyhow."
+
+He was thinking the idea over in his steady way, and had not paid heed
+to Harry's altered mood. The objections Harry put forward were so in
+tune with his own mind that it did not strike him as at all odd that his
+friend should urge them even zealously. "In any event," he added, "I
+should have to be guided entirely by what Gilly Foot thought."
+
+"What Gilly thought?"
+
+"I mean whether he thought it would be compatible with the claims of the
+business."
+
+"What, you'd really think of it?"
+
+There was such unmistakable vexation, even scorn, in his voice now that
+Andy could not altogether miss the significance of the tone. He looked
+across at Harry with an air of surprise. "There's no harm in thinking a
+thing over. I always like to do that."
+
+"Well, of all the men I thought of as likely to step into my shoes, I
+never thought of you."
+
+"It's the last thing I should ever have thought of either. You've
+something in your mind, haven't you? I hope you'll say anything you
+think quite candidly."
+
+"Oh well, since you ask me, old fellow, from the party point of view I
+think there are--er--certain objections. I mean, in a place like Meriton
+family connections and so on still count for a good deal--on our side,
+anyhow."
+
+Andy nodded, again comprehending and admitting. "Yes, I'm nobody; and my
+father was nobody, from that point of view." He smiled. "And then
+there's Jack Rock!"
+
+"Don't be hurt with me, but I call myself a Tory, and I am one. Such
+things do count, and I'm not ashamed to say I think they ought to. I've
+never let them count in personal relations."
+
+"I know that, Harry. You may be sure I recognise that. And you're right
+to mention them now. I suppose they must have reckoned with them,
+though, before they determined--if they have determined--to make me this
+offer."
+
+"Well, thank heaven I'm out of it, and I wish you joy of it," said
+Harry, rising and clapping on his hat.
+
+"Oh, it's not at all likely it'll come to anything. Must you go, Harry?"
+
+"Yes, I'm off." He paused for a moment. "If it is what you think, you'd
+better look at it carefully. Don't let them persuade you against your
+own judgment. I consider Wigram an ass, and old Meriton is quite out of
+touch with the Division." He forbore to comment on his own father, and
+with a curt "Good-bye" departed, shutting the door rather loudly behind
+him.
+
+This great day--the day which had both witnessed the triumph of the new
+text-book and brought the telegram from Meriton--was a Thursday. Andy
+sent his answer that he would be at Halton on Saturday afternoon. He
+could find no other possible interpretation of the summons, surprising
+as his first interpretation was. He was honestly pleased; it could not
+be said that he was much puzzled. His answer seemed pretty plain--the
+thing was impossible. What did surprise him rather was the instinctive
+regret with which he greeted this conclusion. Such an idea had never
+occurred to his mind; when it was presented to him, he could not turn
+away without regret--nay, not without a certain vague feeling of
+self-reproach. If he seemed to them a possible leader, ought he to turn
+his back on the battle? But of course they did not know his private
+circumstances or the business claims upon him. Harry had been quite
+right about those, just as he had been about the desirability of family
+connections--but not of family connections with Jack Rock.
+
+It was quite out of the question; but, Andy being human and no more
+business offering itself, he indulged in half an hour's reverie over it.
+He shook his head at himself with a reproving smile for this vanity. But
+it would be pleasant to have the offer, and pleasant if they let him
+mention it to one or two friends. Jack Rock would be proud of it, and he
+could not help thinking that perhaps Vivien Wellgood would be pleased.
+His brow knit when he remembered that Harry Belfield had not seemed
+pleased. Well, could he be expected to be pleased? "To step into my
+shoes" had been his phrase. Well, if men choose to take off fine new
+shoes and leave them lying about? Somebody will step into them. Why not
+a friend? So he argued. A friend in regard to whom Harry had never
+allowed anything to interfere with his personal relations. That was just
+it. If a friend, he had also been a _protégé_, the recipient of a kindly
+generous patronage, an equal by grace and not by right. Credit Harry
+Belfield with a generosity above the average, and yet he might feel a
+pang at the idea of his former humble friend stepping into his shoes,
+taking his place, becoming successor to what his folly had left vacant.
+Andy understood; and from that point of view he felt it was rather a
+relief that the thing was in itself an impossibility. There was a triple
+impossibility--the money, the time--and Gilly Foot!
+
+Still the text-book and the telegram had given him an interesting day.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+A STOP-GAP.
+
+
+Andy felt that he ought not to go to Meriton without having possessed
+himself of his partner's views. Any reluctance--even a reluctant
+assent--from Gilly would put an immediate end to the project. He was
+rather nervous about bringing the matter forward, fearing lest the mere
+idea of it, entertained by the junior partner, might seem treason in the
+eyes of his senior in the growing business of Gilbert Foot and Co.
+
+The interview held one or two surprises for him. In this affair Andy was
+to learn the worth of a band of resolute friends, and to begin to
+understand how much men will do for a man who has convinced them that he
+can do things for himself also. For such a man the way is cleared of all
+but inevitable difficulties. There is a conspiracy, partly
+self-interested, partly based on appreciation, to set him free to do the
+work for which he is fitted; the conspirators both want the work done
+and are glad to help a fine worker.
+
+The first surprise was that Gilly Foot was not at all surprised when
+Andy put before him a contingent case--in terms carefully hypothetical.
+Indeed his first words went far to abolish any contingent or
+hypothetical character in the discussion.
+
+"So they've done it, have they?" he drawled out. "I thought they would,
+from something Billy said."
+
+"What does Billy know about it?"
+
+"Oh yes, Billy knows. I expect they consulted him, in fact."
+
+"I want to be able to tell them that you agree with me; that's why I've
+spoken to you about it."
+
+"By all means tell them I agree with you," yawned Gilly; he seemed more
+than ordinarily lazy that morning--the reaction from the triumph of the
+text-book still on him, no doubt. Yet there was a lurking gleam of
+amusement in his eye.
+
+"Apart from the money--and I haven't got it--it would take far too much
+time. I'm pretty hard worked as it is, with the business opening up in
+this way. I'm quite clear that it wouldn't be fair to the business--and
+not fair to you either. I've slept on it, and I'm quite clear about it."
+
+"Oh, are you? Then by no means tell them I agree with you."
+
+Surprise the second! "You don't?" Andy ejaculated; there was a note of
+pleasure in his voice.
+
+"I'm a lazy hound, I know," Gilly pursued. "If there is another fellow
+to do the work, I let him do it. Perhaps some day, if we go on booming,
+we can take in another fellow. If so, I shall certainly incite him to do
+the work. Meanwhile I'm not such a lazy beast as to let you miss this
+chance on my account. My word, I should get it hot from Billy--and
+Doris!" He stretched himself luxuriously. "There's a perfectly plain way
+out of this; I must work." He looked up at his partner humorously.
+"Though you mayn't believe it, I can work, when I want a thing very
+much."
+
+"But what is there for you to want here?" asked Andy.
+
+"Well, in the first place, we believe in you--perhaps we're wrong, but
+we do. In the second--and there's no mistake about this--we think you're
+a good chap, and we want you to have your chance. I shouldn't forgive
+myself if I stood in your way here, Andy--and the others wouldn't
+forgive me either."
+
+Andy was standing by him; he laid his hand on his shoulder. "You're a
+good chap yourself, Gilly."
+
+"So, as far as Gilbert Foot and Co. are concerned, you may consider the
+matter settled. It's for you to tackle the other end of it--the Meriton
+end. And since you are here to-day, at all events, perhaps you won't
+take it ill if I linger a little longer than usual over lunch--for which
+meal it seems to me to be nearly time? I feel to-day a barely
+perceptible stirring of the brain which, properly treated, encouraged by
+adequate nourishment, might produce an idea. You wouldn't like to come
+too?"
+
+"No, no. I've really got more than enough to do here."
+
+Gilly strolled off, smiling serenely. He was ready to do himself
+violence in the way of work when the time came, but there was really no
+need to anticipate matters.
+
+Gilly's knowledge and assent--it was more than assent; it was
+advocacy--made the project real and present. Only the question of ways
+and means and of his own inclination remained. As to the latter Andy was
+no longer able to doubt. His pleasure at Gilly's attitude was indeed due
+in part to the affection for himself which it displayed, but it had been
+too eager to be accounted for wholly by that. His heart rejoiced because
+Gilly set him free, so far as the business was concerned, to follow his
+desire. Only that little book from the bank still held up its finger in
+its wonted gesture of cautious admonition. When it reckoned the figures
+involved, the little white book might be imagined to turn paler still.
+
+At Meriton--where Andy arranged to spend the Saturday night with Jack
+Rock--the conspiracy ruled, even as in London. Lord Meriton, Belfield,
+and Wigram met him with the air of men who had already considered and
+overcome all difficulties.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Hayes," said his lordship, "we were fools over this
+business, till Foot put us right. We tried the three or four possible
+men in the Division, and for one reason or another none of them could
+accept. So, much against my will--indeed against my vote; I hate a
+carpet-bagger--it was decided to approach headquarters and ask for a
+man. Luckily Belfield wrote first to Foot--"
+
+"And Billy Foot wrote back, asking what the dickens we wanted a man from
+London for, when we had the very man for the job under our noses down
+here!" He smiled rather sadly. "Meriton has more than one string to its
+bow, Andy."
+
+"I've taken every pains to sound opinion, Mr. Hayes," said Wigram. "It's
+most favourable. Your speeches made an excellent impression. There will
+be no difficulty in obtaining adoption by the Association, if you come
+forward under the proper auspices."
+
+"Oh, we'll look after the auspices," said Meriton. "That'll be all
+right."
+
+"But I've no influence, no connections, no standing--"
+
+"We haven't flattered you, Mr. Hayes," Meriton interrupted, smiling.
+"We've told you that we made efforts in other quarters."
+
+"If it pleases you, Andy, you shall regard yourself as Hobson's choice,"
+said Belfield, with a chuckle.
+
+"Better than an outsider, anyhow!" Mr. Wigram chimed in.
+
+Andy's modesty was again defeated. The Jack Rock difficulty, which had
+seemed so serious to Harry Belfield, was acknowledged--but acknowledged
+only to be brushed on one side by a determined zeal.
+
+"But I--I can't possibly afford it!" Andy was in his last ditch, but
+then it was a wide and formidable one. The conspirators, however,
+attacked it without the least dismay.
+
+"Ah, now we can get down to business!" said Belfield in a tone of
+relief. "This conversation is, of course, entirely confidential. We've
+looked at matters from that point of view, and--er--taken some advice.
+Wigram here says it can be done comfortably for twelve hundred--that's
+two hundred within the maximum. You needn't shake your head before I've
+finished! We think you ought to put up some of it, and to guarantee a
+certain sum annually towards Wigram's expenses. I'll tell you what we've
+decided to ask you for--two-fifty for the contest, and a hundred a
+year."
+
+"Now just think it over, Mr. Hayes, and tell us if you see your way to
+that."
+
+"But the rest?" asked Andy, half-bewildered; for the last great ditch
+looked as if it were being stormed and crossed. Because--yes, he might
+be able to--yes, with care, and prosperity at Gilbert Foot and Co.'s, he
+could manage that!
+
+Belfield wrote on a bit of paper: "Meriton, £250; Rock, £250; Belfield,
+£500." He pushed it across the table. "That leaves a little margin. We
+can easily raise the balance of the annual expenses."
+
+"Oh, but I couldn't possibly--!"
+
+"My dear Andy, it's constantly being done," Belfield expostulated.
+
+"Our friend Belfield, for reasons that you'll appreciate, feels that he
+would like to bear a share of the expenses of this fight, which
+under--well, other circumstances--would naturally have fallen entirely
+on him. My contribution is given for public reasons, Mr. Hayes, though
+I'm very glad that it should be of service to you personally." Meriton
+broke into a smile. "I expect I needn't tell you why old Jack Rock's
+name is there. We should have got into pretty hot water if we hadn't let
+him into it!"
+
+Belfield leant over to Andy, and said in a lowered voice, "Atonement's
+too strong a word, Andy, but I don't want the party to suffer through
+anything that's occurred. I don't want it left in the lurch. I think
+you'd like to help me there, wouldn't you?"
+
+Harry's father was against Harry. Harry's father urged him to step into
+Harry's shoes.
+
+"I think we've made you a practical proposition; it tides us over the
+next election anyhow, Mr. Hayes. By the time another Parliament has run
+its course, I hope you'll be in a position where ways and means will
+present no difficulty. Soon enough to think about that when the time
+comes, anyhow."
+
+"I think I can guarantee you success, Mr. Hayes," said Wigram.
+
+All the difficulties seemed to have vanished--if only he could take the
+offered help.
+
+"I feel rather overwhelmed," he said slowly.
+
+Meriton shrugged his shoulders. "We must hold the seat. If you don't let
+us do this for you we shall probably have to do it for some fellow we
+never saw, or else put up with some bounder who's got nothing to
+recommend him except his money. I don't want to press you unduly, Mr.
+Hayes, but in my opinion, if your private affairs don't make it
+impossible, it's your duty to accept. Would you like time to consider?"
+
+"Just five minutes, if you don't mind, Lord Meriton."
+
+Belfield winked at Meriton. If he had asked for a week! Five minutes
+meant a favourable answer.
+
+All the factors were before him; they could be judged in five minutes.
+It was a venture, but Meriton said it was his duty. Nobody could tell
+where it would lead, but it was honourable work, for which responsible
+men thought him fitted. It was Harry's shoes, but they were empty. That
+last thought made him speak.
+
+"If I accept, and win, I hold the seat at the disposal of those who've
+chosen me for it." Half-consciously he addressed himself especially to
+Belfield. "If at any time--"
+
+"I knew you'd feel that way about it; but at present, at all events,
+it's not a practical question, Andy."
+
+"I'm grateful for your confidence," Andy said, now turning to Meriton.
+"Since you think me fit for it, I'll take it and do my best with it,
+Lord Meriton."
+
+"Capital!" his lordship exclaimed. Wigram's face was wreathed in smiles.
+Belfield patted Andy on the shoulder affectionately.
+
+"I don't believe either party to the bargain will regret it."
+
+"I know Mr. Hayes will have an honourable, and I believe he will have a
+distinguished, career," Meriton said, and, rising from his chair, broke
+up the council.
+
+Andy lingered for a little while alone with Belfield, to thank him
+again, to make some arrangements for the future, to tell him that he had
+seen Harry, and that Harry was well and in good spirits.
+
+"You saw him on Thursday? After you got my wire? Did you say anything
+about it?"
+
+"It came while he was there, and I showed it to him. He was surprised."
+
+"You mean he wasn't pleased?"
+
+"I can understand how he must feel. I feel just the same thing
+myself--terribly strongly sometimes."
+
+Belfield pressed his arm. "You mustn't give way to that feeling. It's
+loyal, but it's not reasonable. Never let that weigh with you in
+anything."
+
+The feeling might not be reasonable; it seemed to Andy inevitable. It
+must weigh with him. Yet it could not outweigh his natural and
+legitimate satisfaction that day. His mind reached forth to the new
+work, fortified by the confidence that his friends gave him. The thought
+of Harry seemed now rather a sobering reminder that this thing had come
+to him, in part at least, by accident. He was the more bound to do well
+with it, that the evil effects of the accident might be minimized.
+
+He made for Jack Rock's house in High Street, where he was to lodge.
+Jack had just got off his horse at the door, and was standing facing his
+shop, apparently regarding his sign. Andy came up and clapped him on the
+back.
+
+"I know what you've been doing," he said. "At it again, Jack!"
+
+"You've not refused?"
+
+"No; I've accepted."
+
+Jack wrung his hand hard. "That takes a weight off my mind," he said
+with a sigh.
+
+"But it seems a low-down thing to take all that money--more of yours
+too!"
+
+Jack smiled triumphantly. "Well, I happen to be a bit flush o' cash just
+now--that's the truth, Andy--so you needn't mind. D'ye see that sign?"
+
+"Of course I do, Jack. What's the matter with it?"
+
+"Well, in a month that sign'll come down." He cocked his head on one
+side as he regarded it. "Yes, down in a month! Seems strange, don't it?
+Been there sixty year." His sigh was evenly compounded of sorrow and
+pride.
+
+"What, are you going to retire, Jack?"
+
+"No, I'm not pressin' it on you again! Don't be afraid. To think of my
+havin' done that! You as are goin' to Parliament! Lord, it's a great
+day, Andy! Come in and have a glass o' beer." He led the way to his back
+room, and the cask was called upon to do its duty. "I've sold out,
+Andy," Jack announced. "Sold out to a concern that calls itself the
+National, Colonial, and International Purveyors, Limited. That'll look
+well on the sign, won't it? Four thousand pound they're payin' me, down
+on the nail, besides pensionin' off old Simpson. Well, it's worth the
+money, if they can do as well with it as I've done. The house here is
+thrown in--they mean to enlarge the shop."
+
+"But where are you going to set up house, Jack?"
+
+Jack winked in great enjoyment. "Know of a certain house where a certain
+old gentleman used to live--him as kept the grammar school--Mr. Hayes,
+B.A. Oxon? The old house in Highcroft, Andy! It's on the market, and I'm
+goin' to buy it--to say nothin' of a nice range of stablin' opposite.
+And there, if you'll accept of 'em, Andy, you'll have your own pair o'
+rooms always ready for you, when you're down at Meriton over your
+politics. Parlour and bedroom, there they'll be, and I shan't disturb
+you. And when I'm gone, there's the old house for you. There's nobody
+poor Nancy would have been so glad to see in it."
+
+There was a lump in Andy's throat, and he was not ashamed of it. The
+regard and love of his friends seemed to have been very much with him in
+the last few days, and to have done great things for him. Old Jack
+Rock's affectionate cunning touched him closely.
+
+"I really think I'm the luckiest beggar alive!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Folks mostly make their luck," said Jack. "You've made yours. There was
+no call on any of us to fret ourselves about you. You could have gone
+back to Canada and made your way for yourself--if it hadn't been that we
+got to want to keep you, Andy." He paused, drank his beer, and added,
+"Aye, but I shall feel a bit strange the day that sign comes down, and
+I've no more to say to the meat--only the horses! I've lived with the
+meat, man and boy, nigh on sixty year."
+
+With a promise to return in good time for supper--for no risks must be
+run with what might be one of the last of Mr. Rock's own joints of beef
+that he would ever be privileged to eat--Andy left him and took the road
+to Nutley. He remembered Vivien's invitation; he looked forward to
+telling her his news, the great things that had been happening to him in
+the last three days. But he wanted yet more to meet her again; he had
+not seen her since the day after the catastrophe. Harry he had seen, and
+Harry had been happy, in high spirits, quite self-contented, until that
+untoward telegram eclipsed his gaiety. Would the interval of a few brief
+weeks have wrought a like change in her? It could not be looked for.
+Harry effected such transformations with a celerity peculiar to himself.
+Still there was room to hope for some lightening of her sorrow. Andy
+hoped to find it, and would approve of it. His mind was for the mean,
+for moderation, in all emotions. If he resented Harry's gaiety, unending
+unlifting woe was hardly more congenial to his temper, and certainly
+much more troublesome to deal with tactfully. Harry's implicit negation
+of responsibility had at least the merit of inviting other people not to
+make too much of his mischances.
+
+What his changing moods--his faculty of emotional oblivion--did in truth
+for Harry, pride effected in outward seeming for Vivien. Some credit,
+too, must be given to Wellgood's training and Isobel's able
+co-operation. The discipline of the stiff upper lip redeemed some of its
+harshness by coming to her rescue now. Never had she held her head so
+high in Meriton as in the days that followed the announcement of Harry
+Belfield's marriage with Isobel Vintry. A poor, maimed, stunted
+announcement, compared with the column and a half of description,
+guests, presents, and felicitations which would have chronicled her
+wedding! Five lines in the corner of the local paper--an item of news
+for such of the population as did not see the London papers--it was
+enough to make Vivien fence herself about against any show of pity. To
+do Meriton justice, it understood which of the pair had suffered the
+greater loss. That Miss Wellgood was "well out of it," but that Mr.
+Harry had "done for himself," was the prevailing verdict; somewhat
+affected, it is to be feared, by the adventitious circumstance that
+Isobel was "the companion"--a drop to obscurity for brilliant Mr. Harry!
+
+But the marriage dug deeper than to affect mere seeming. Besides
+erecting the useful barrier of impossibility, it raised the fence of an
+inward pride--or, rather, of that fastidiousness which Wellgood and
+Isobel had striven to eradicate. In that matter it was good for Vivien
+that they had failed. To allow herself to remember, to muse, to
+long--for whom? No more simply for Harry Belfield. In that name there
+were allurements for musing and for longing. But the bearer of it had
+contracted for himself now a new designation. It did him and his memory
+no good. Isobel Vintry's husband! The new character did much to strip
+him of his romantic habiliments. He was brought down to earth; he could
+no more float before the eyes, a dazzling though unprofitable figure,
+proceeding in a brilliant callousness to the wrecking of other hearts.
+There is always a touch of the ridiculous about Don Juan married, or Sir
+Gawain Light-of-Love bound in chains in whose forging the Church has
+lent a hand to Cupid. And married to Isobel Vintry, who had stolen
+kisses behind the door! In a moral regard perhaps it is sad to say, but
+we easier forgive our own romantic wrongs when they may be supposed to
+form but a link in a series. She would have found it harder to despise
+Harry, if he had served Isobel after the same fashion as he had served
+herself. She knew it not, but perhaps Harry was entitled to ask her to
+wait for just a little while! As the case stood--to weep for Isobel's
+husband! The stiff upper lip which had been inculcated joined forces
+with the fastidiousness that had never been uprooted. She chid herself
+for every memory of Harry; every pang of envy for Isobel demanded from
+herself a discipline more stern than Isobel's own had ever supplied to
+meet Wellgood's theories of a manly training.
+
+Wellgood was proud of his daughter and of his theories, readily claiming
+for his system of education the joint result of its success and of its
+failure--of the courage and of the fastidiousness alike. But the plague
+of it was that the thought of the training brought with it the memory of
+the preceptress who had so ably carried out his orders. Wellgood admired
+his daughter--and envied her. He burned still with a fierce jealousy;
+for him no appeasement lay in the marriage.
+
+Yet between Vivien and Andy Hayes silence about the past could be no
+more than silence--merely a refraining from words, no real
+forgetfulness, no true putting aside. For with that past would go their
+old relationship to one another; its roots had grown from that soil, and
+it flourished still by the strength of it. At the start their common
+memories could envisage no picture without Isobel's face finding a place
+on the canvas; later, Harry was inevitably the central figure of the
+composition. If Andy had pitied and sought to comfort, if Vivien had
+given confidence and accepted sympathy, it had always, in some sort or
+another, been in regard to one of these two figures--in the later days,
+to both of them. Still they met, as it were, encumbered by these
+memories, she to him Isobel's pupil, Harry's lover, he to her Harry's
+follower, even though her own partisan against Isobel. It was hard to
+get their relations on to an independent footing; to be interested in
+one another for one another's sake, without that outside reference,
+which had now become mere matter of memory--and best not remembered; to
+find in one another and not elsewhere the motive of their intercourse
+and the source of a new friendship. The old kindliness must be
+transplanted to a fresh soil if it were to blossom into a life
+self-sufficient and underived.
+
+The line of thought was hers rather than his, at least more explicit and
+realized for her than for him. When he thought of Harry--or of Isobel
+and Harry--it was with intent to avoid giving pain by an incautious
+reference; her mind demanded a direct assertion that the pair of them
+were done with, and that she and he met on the ground of a new and
+strictly mutual interest.
+
+She had no thought, no dream, of more than friendship. The past was too
+recent, her heart still too sore. Yet the sore heart instinctively seeks
+balm; the wounded flower of pride will raise its head in grateful answer
+to a gleam of sunshine or a drop of rain. Andy's shy surety that she
+would rejoice in his luck, because aforetime he had grieved for her
+tribulation, struck home to a heart hungry for comradeship.
+
+Thus by her pride, and by her will answering the call of her pride, she
+was different. She no longer merely suffered, was no longer passive to,
+kindness or cruelty. He knew the change as soon as she came to him, in
+that very room which had witnessed the first stolen kiss, and, holding
+her hand out to him, cried, "Mr. Andy, you've not refused? There's no
+welcome for you in this house if you've refused. Father and I are quite
+agreed about it!"
+
+Andy pressed her hand--Harry would have kissed it. "You know? I couldn't
+refuse their kindness. If I had, yours would have made me sorry."
+
+"It's good of you to spare time to come and tell us."
+
+Andy's answer had the compelling power of unconscious sincerity. "That
+seemed about the first thing to do," he said, with a simple
+unembarrassed laugh.
+
+The girl blushed, a faint yet vivid colour came on her cheeks. She drew
+back a little. Andy's words were, in their simplicity, bolder far than
+his thoughts. Yet in drawing back she smiled. But Andy had seen the
+blush. Successful man as he had now become--big with promise as he was,
+at all events--in this field he was a novice. His blush answered
+hers--and was of a deeper tint. "I'm afraid that's awfully
+presumptuous?" he stammered.
+
+"Why, we've all been waiting to hear the news! Father had the offer--you
+know that? But he couldn't stand London. Then they asked Mr. Foot's
+advice. He said it ought to be you. You do your best to prevent people
+thinking of you, but as soon as you're suggested--why, it's obvious."
+
+"You really think I shan't make a fool of myself?" asked Andy.
+
+The delicate flush was still on her cheeks. "You'll make me very much
+ashamed of myself if you do," she answered. "Is my opinion to be as
+wrong as all that? Haven't I always trusted you?"
+
+His surroundings suddenly laid hold on him. It was the very room--she
+stood on the very spot--where he had witnessed Harry's first defection,
+her earliest betrayal.
+
+"It seems--it seems"--he stammered--"it seems treason."
+
+She was silent for a minute. The colour glowed brighter on her cheeks.
+
+"I don't care to hear you say that," she told him, daintily haughty. "I
+was waiting here to congratulate you--yes, I hoped you'd come. I've
+nothing to do with anybody except the best candidate! They say you're
+that. I had my good wishes ready for you. Will you take them--without
+reserve?"
+
+"I--I say things wrong," pleaded poor Andy. "I'll take anything you'll
+give."
+
+Her face flashed into a smile. "Your wrong things are--well, one can
+forgive them. It's all settled then--and you're to be the M.P.?"
+
+Andy was still apologetic. "They know what to do, I suppose. It seems
+curious. Wigram says it's a certainty too. They've all joined in to
+help--Lord Meriton, Mr. Belfield, and old Jack. I'm much too poor by
+myself, you know."
+
+"The man who makes friends makes riches." She gave a light laugh. "May I
+be a little bit of your riches?"
+
+Andy's answer was his own. "Well, I always remember that morning--the
+hunt and Curly."
+
+"I'm still that to you?" she asked quickly, her colour rising yet.
+
+He looked at her. "No, of course not, but I had a sort of idea that then
+you liked me a bit."
+
+She looked across the room at him--Andy was a man who kept his distance.
+"You've been a refuge in time of trouble," she said. Her voice was soft,
+her eyes bright. "We won't talk of the old things any more, will we?"
+
+Wellgood stood in the window. "Well, is it all right?" he asked.
+
+"He's said yes, father!" she cried with a glad merriment.
+
+"I thought he would. It's a change for the better!"
+
+His blunt words--in truth they were brutal according to his
+brutality--brought silence. Andy flushed into a painful red--not for his
+own sake only.
+
+"I've got to try to be as good a stop-gap as I can," he said.
+
+"Something better than that!" Vivien murmured softly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!
+
+
+In the spring of the following year Miss Doris Flower returned from an
+extensive professional tour in America. She had enjoyed great success.
+The Nun and the Quaker proved thoroughly to the taste of transatlantic
+audiences; Joan of Arc did not at first create the same enthusiasm in
+the United States as she had in London, the allusion to the happier
+relations between France and England naturally not exciting quite equal
+interest. However an ingenious gentleman supplied the Maid with a vision
+of General Lafayette instead; though not quite so up-to-date, it more
+than answered expectations. Across the Canadian border-line the original
+vision was, of course, restored, and went immensely. It was all one to
+Miss Flower what visions she had, so that they were to the liking of the
+public. She came back much pleased with herself, distinctly affluent,
+and minded to enjoy for awhile a well-earned leisure. Miss Sally Dutton
+returned with her, charged with a wealth of comment on American ways and
+institutions, the great bulk of which sensible people could attribute
+only to the blackest prejudice.
+
+The lapse of six months is potent to smooth small causes of awkwardness
+and to make little changes of feeling or of attitude seem quite natural.
+Billy Foot had undoubtedly avoided the Nun for the last few weeks before
+her departure; he saw no reason now why he should not be among the
+earliest to call and welcome his old friend. It was rather with a
+humorous twinkle than with any embarrassment that, when they settled
+down to talk, he asked her if she happened to know the Macquart-Smiths.
+
+"Of Kensington?" asked the Nun in a tone of polite interest.
+
+"Yes, Kensington Palace Gardens," Billy replied, tranquilly unconscious
+of any other than the obvious bearing of the question. "I thought you
+must have heard of them." (The Nun never had, though she had seen at
+least one of them.) "The old man made a pile out in Mexico. They're very
+good sort of people."
+
+"You brought one of the girls to hear me one night, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes. Well, she's the only girl, in fact--Amaranth's her name. Rather
+silly, but that's not her fault, is it?" He seemed anxious to forestall
+criticism.
+
+"You can call her Amy--or even Aimée," suggested the Nun consolingly.
+
+Billy laughed. "Have you heard it, or did you guess, Doris?"
+
+"Guessed it. I can guess any conundrum, however baffling. I'm awfully
+glad, Billy. I'm sure you'll be tremendously happy. When did it
+happen--and when is it going to happen?"
+
+"About a month ago--and in about three months' time. Didn't you think
+her pretty?"
+
+"Very pretty," said the Nun, presuming on a somewhat cursory inspection
+of Miss Amaranth. "And I suppose that since the old man made his
+pile--?"
+
+"Oh, well, there are two sons. Still--yes, that's all right."
+
+"It all sounds splendid. I don't fall in love myself, as I've told
+you--"
+
+"Oh, I know that very well," said Billy. "Nobody knows it better."
+
+Her eyes danced as she shook her head at him demurely. "But I like to
+see young people settling down happily."
+
+"You are rather a queer girl in that way, Doris. Never feel that way?"
+
+The Nun considered. "I might go so far as to admit that I've an ideal."
+
+"Rather a silly thing to have in this world, isn't it?"
+
+"Happiness makes you unsympathetic, Billy. There's no harm in an ideal
+if you're careful to keep it as an ideal. Of course if you try to make
+it practical there are awful risks."
+
+"And what, or who, is your ideal?"
+
+"'Pray what is that to you?'" the Nun quoted, under the circumstances
+rather maliciously. "I find having an ideal a most comfortable
+arrangement. It doesn't worry either him or me--and Sally can't possibly
+object to it. How are things at Meriton? Andy wrote me his great news,
+and of course I never answered. But isn't it splendid?"
+
+"I haven't had time to go down lately."
+
+"Oh, of course not--now!"
+
+"But I hear he's doing magnificently. Sure to get in. But Gilly's the
+best fun. When Andy is off electioneering, Gilly works like a horse.
+Sandwiches in the office for lunch, with a glass of sherry from the pub
+round the corner! I caught him at it once; he was awfully disgusted."
+
+"Gilly lunching on sandwiches and a glass of sherry from the pub!" Her
+voice was full of wondering amazement.
+
+"Yes, he won't hear the last of that in a hurry! When he did come to
+lunch the other day, we all went early and had a nice little pile of ham
+sandwiches and a liqueur glass of Marsala ready for him when he came in.
+You should have seen his face--and not heard his language!" The
+unnatural brother laughed. "You see, Andy didn't want to stand because
+of neglecting the business, and Gilly backed himself to take on the work
+so as not to stand in Andy's way. And he's doing it."
+
+"But that's awfully fine of Gilly, I think."
+
+"So it is, of course. That's why he gets so riled when anybody says
+anything about it."
+
+The Nun nodded in understanding. "And Harry?" she asked.
+
+"They were abroad or in Scotland all the winter; came back to town about
+a month ago. They've taken a flat in Clarges Street for the season, I
+believe."
+
+"Have you been to call on Mrs. Harry Belfield?"
+
+"Well, no, I haven't. I don't know what he wants. I think I'll leave him
+to begin. It seems to be the same old game with him. One sees him
+everywhere."
+
+"With her?"
+
+"Sometimes with her. I don't think he's doing anything about another
+constituency; seems to have chucked it for the present. But he does
+appear to be having a very good time in London."
+
+"Is he friendly when you meet?"
+
+"Yes, he's friendly and jolly enough." Billy smiled. "It's true that
+he's generally in a hurry. When I met him with her once, he was in too
+much of a hurry to stop!"
+
+"It's very sad, but I'm afraid his memories of us are not those of
+unmixed pleasure."
+
+"I'm afraid not. Andy says he never goes down to Meriton."
+
+"Well, really I don't very well see how he could--with her!"
+
+"I suppose he and his people have some understanding about it. One's
+sorry for them, you know."
+
+"I think I shall go down to Meriton again this autumn. Any chance of
+your being there--as a family man?"
+
+"I've promised to speak for Andy, so we may put in a few days there.
+Most of the time I shall have to be preaching to my own flock. I say,
+will you come and meet Amaranth?"
+
+"Of course I will. But really I think I should make it 'Amy'!"
+
+"It's worth considering; but I don't know how she'll feel about it,"
+said Billy cautiously.
+
+"Oh, said in the way you'll say it, it'll sound sweet," remarked the Nun
+flippantly.
+
+Billy still looked doubtful; perhaps "Amaranth" already sounded sweet.
+
+When left alone, Miss Flower indulged herself for awhile in a reverie of
+a pensive, hardly melancholy, character--not unpleasant, rather
+philosophical. Billy Foot's new state was the peg from which it hung,
+its theme the balance of advantage between the single and the married
+state. It was in some degree a drawback to the former that other people
+would embrace the latter. Old coteries were thus broken up; old
+friendships, if not severed, yet rendered less intimate. New comrades
+had to be found, not always an easy task. There was a danger of
+loneliness. On the other hand, there were worse things than loneliness;
+enforced companionship, where companionship had become distasteful,
+seemed to her distinctly one of them. Being so very much in another
+person's hands also was a formidable thing; it involved such a liability
+to be hurt. The balance thus inclined in favour of the single life, in
+spite of its liability to loneliness. The Nun gave her adhesion to it,
+with a mental reservation as to the case of an ideal. And even then--the
+attempt to make it practical? She shook her head with a little sigh,
+then smiled. "I wonder if Billy had any idea whom I had in my head!" she
+thought.
+
+Sally Dutton came in and found her friend in this ruminative mood. Doris
+roused herself to communicate the news of Billy Foot's engagement. It
+was received in Sally's usual caustic manner. "Came to tell you about
+it, did he? I wonder how much he's told her about you!"
+
+"I can't complain if my want of responsiveness hasn't been emphasised,
+Sally. You couldn't expect him to."
+
+"I've been having a talk with Mrs. Harry Belfield," said Sally, taking
+off her hat.
+
+This announcement came rather pat on the Nun's reflections. She was
+interested.
+
+"Well, how is she? What happened?"
+
+"In my opinion it's just another of them," Sally pronounced.
+
+Being engaged in shopping at certain "stores" which she frequented, she
+had gone into the tea-room to refresh her jaded energies, and had found
+herself at the next table to Isobel. Friendly greetings had passed; the
+two had drunk their tea together--with other company, as presently
+appeared.
+
+"What made you think that?" There was no need to inquire what it was
+that Sally thought when she spoke of "another of them;" she did not
+refer to ideally successful unions.
+
+Sally wrinkled her brow. "She said they'd had a delightful winter,
+travelling and so on, and that she was having a very gay time in London,
+going everywhere and making a heap of friends. She said they liked their
+flat, but were looking out for a house. She said Harry was very well and
+jolly."
+
+"Well, that sounds all right. What's the matter, Sally? Not that I
+pretend to be particularly anxious for her unruffled happiness. I don't
+want anything really bad, of course, but--"
+
+"Set your mind at ease; she won't be too happy to please you--and she
+knows it." Miss Dutton considered. "At least she's a fool if she doesn't
+know it. Who do you think came in while we were at tea?"
+
+"Harry?" suggested the Nun, in an obviously insincere shot at the
+answer.
+
+"Harry at Harrod's! Mrs. Freere! You remember Mrs. Freere?--Mrs. Freere,
+and a woman Mrs. Freere called 'Dear Lady Lucy.'" Sally's sarcastic
+emphasis on the latter lady's title--surely a harmless social
+distinction?--was absolutely savage.
+
+"Did they join you?" asked the Nun, by now much interested.
+
+"Join us? They swallowed us! Of course they didn't take much notice of
+me. They'd never heard of 'Miss Dutton,' and I didn't suppose I should
+make a much better impression if I told them that I lived with you."
+
+"No, of course not, Sally," said the Nun, and drew up on the edge of an
+ill-timed gurgle. "Mrs. Freere's an old story. Who's Lady Lucy? One of
+the heap of friends Mrs. Harry is making?"
+
+"Lady Lucy's young--younger than Isobel. Mrs. Freere isn't young--not so
+young as Isobel. Mrs. Freere's the old friend, Lady Lucy's the new one."
+
+"Did you gather whether Lady Lucy was a married woman?"
+
+"Oh yes. She referred to 'our money troubles,' and 'my motor-car.' She's
+married all right! But nobody bothered to tell me her name. Well, as I
+say, Mrs. Freere's the old friend, and she's the new friend. They're
+fighting which of them shall run the Belfields--I don't know what else
+they may be fighting about! But they unite in sitting on Isobel. Harry's
+given her away, I gathered--told them what she was before he married
+her. So, of course, she hasn't got a chance! The only good thing is that
+they obviously hate one another like poison. In fact I don't think I
+ever sat at a table with three women who hated one another more--though
+I've had some experience in that line."
+
+"She hates them both, you think? Well, I shouldn't have thought she was
+the kind of woman to like being sat upon by anybody."
+
+"Oh, she's fighting; she's putting up a good fight for him."
+
+"Well, we know she can do that!" observed the Nun with a rather acid
+demureness.
+
+"I'm not asking you to sympathise. I'm just telling you how it is.
+'Harry likes this,' says Mrs. Freere. 'He always did.' 'Did he, dear? He
+tells me he likes the other now,' says Lady Lucy. 'I don't think he's
+really fond of either of them,' says Isobel. 'Oh yes, my dear. Besides,
+you must, if you want to do the right thing,' say both of them. I
+suppose that, when they once get her out of the way, they'll fight it
+out between themselves."
+
+"Will they get her out of the way? It's rather soon to talk about that."
+
+"They'll probably both of them be bowled over by some newcomer in a few
+months, and Isobel go with them--if she hasn't gone already."
+
+"Your views are always uncompromising, Sally."
+
+"I only wish you'd heard those two women this afternoon. And, in the
+end, off they all three went together in the motor-car. Going to pick up
+Harry somewhere!"
+
+"Rather too much of a good thing for most men. And it might have been
+Vivien!"
+
+"It's a woman, and one of God's creatures, anyhow," said Sally with some
+temper.
+
+"Yes," the Nun agreed serenely. "And Mrs. Freere's a woman--and so, I
+presume from your description, is Lady Lucy. And I gather that they have
+husbands? God's creatures too, we may suppose!"
+
+Sally declined the implied challenge to weigh, in the scales of an
+impartial judgment, the iniquities of the two sexes. Her sympathies,
+born on the night when she had given shelter to Isobel at the Lion, were
+with the woman who was fighting for her husband, who had a plain right
+to him now, though she had used questionable means to get him. If Doris
+asked her to discern a Nemesis in Isobel's plight--as Belfield had in
+the fall of his too well admired son--to see Vivien avenged by Mrs.
+Freere and Lady Lucy, Sally retorted on the philosophic counsel by
+declaring that Doris, a partisan of Vivien's, lacked human pity for
+Vivien's successful rival, whose real success seemed now so dubious.
+
+Whatever the relative merit of these views, and whatever the truth as to
+the wider question of the iniquities of the sexes, Sally's encounter at
+least provided for her friend's contemplation an excellent little
+picture of the man whose name had been so bandied about among the three
+women at the tea-table. Her dislike of Isobel enabled the Nun to
+contemplate it rather with a scornful amusement than with the hot
+indignation with which she had lashed Vivien's treacherous lover. Her
+feelings not being engaged in this case, she was able to regain her
+favourite attitude of a tolerant, yet open-eyed, onlooker, and to ask
+what, after all, was the use of expecting anything else from Harry
+Belfield. What Mrs. Freere--nay, what prehistoric Rosa Hinde--had found
+out, what Vivien had found out, what Isobel was finding out, that, in
+due time, Lady Lucy would find out also. Perhaps some women did not much
+mind finding out. Vivien had renounced him utterly, but here was Mrs.
+Freere back again! And no doubt Lady Lucy had her own ideas about Mrs.
+Freere--besides the knowledge, shared by the world in general, of the
+brief engagement to Vivien and the hurried marriage with Isobel. Some of
+them did not mind, or at least thought that the game was worth the
+candle. That was the only possible conclusion. In some cases, perhaps,
+they were the same sort of people themselves; in others, Harry's appeal
+was too potent to be resisted, even though they knew that sorrow would
+be the ultimate issue.
+
+That was intelligible enough. For the moment, to the woman of the
+moment, his charm was well-nigh irresistible. His power to conquer lay
+in the completeness with which he was conquered. He had the name of
+being a great flirt; in the exact sense of words, he did not flirt save
+as a mere introduction of the subject; he always made love--to the woman
+of the moment. He did not pay attentions; he was swept into a
+passion--for the woman of the moment. It was afterwards, when that
+particular moment and that particular woman had gone by, that Harry's
+feelings passed a retrospective Act by which the love-making and passion
+became, and were to be deemed always to have been, flirtation and
+attention. Amply accepting this legislation for himself, and quite
+convinced of its justice, he seemed to have power to impose it--for the
+moment--on others also. And he would go on like that indefinitely? There
+seemed no particular reason why he should stop. He would go on loving
+for a while, being loved for a while; deserting and being despaired of;
+sometimes, perhaps, coming back and beginning the process over again;
+living the life of the emotions so long as it would last, making it
+last, perhaps, longer than it ought or really could, because he had no
+other life adequate to fill its place. The Nun's remorseless fancy
+skipped the years, and pictured him, Harry the Irresistible, Harry the
+Incorrigible, still pursuing the old round, still on his way from the
+woman of the last moment to the woman of the next; getting perhaps
+rather gray, rather fat, a trifle inclined to coarseness, but preserving
+all his ardour and all his art in wooing, like a great singer grown old,
+whose voice is feeble and spent, but whose skill is still triumphant
+over his audiences--still convinced that each affair was "bigger" than
+any of the others, still persuading his partner of the same thing, still
+suffering pangs of pity for himself when he fell away, still responding
+to the stimulus of a new pursuit.
+
+A few days later chance threw him in her way; in truth it could scarcely
+be called chance, since both, returned from their wanderings, had
+resumed their habit of frequenting that famous restaurant, and had been
+received with enthusiasm by the presiding officials. Waiting for her
+party in the outer room, suddenly she found him standing beside her,
+looking very handsome and gay, with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.
+
+"May I speak to you--or am I no better than one of the wicked?" he said,
+sitting down beside her.
+
+"You're looking very well, Harry. I hope Mrs. Belfield is all right?"
+
+"Oh yes, Isobel's first-rate, thank you. So am I. How London agrees with
+a man! I was out of sorts half the time down at Meriton. A country life
+doesn't agree with me. I shall chuck it."
+
+"You seemed very well down there--physically," the Nun observed.
+
+"Sleepy, wasn't it? Sleepy beyond anything. Now here a man feels alive,
+and awake!"
+
+It was not in the least what he had thought about Meriton, it was what
+he was feeling about Meriton now. He had passed a retrospective Act
+about Meriton; it was to be deemed to have been always sleepy and dull.
+
+"No," he pursued, "when I come into Halton--I hope it won't be for a
+long while--I think I shall sell it. I can't settle down as a country
+squire. It's not my line. Too stodgy!"
+
+"What about Parliament? Going to find another place?"
+
+"If I do, it'll be a town constituency. When I think of those beastly
+villages! Really couldn't go through with it again! The fact is, I'm
+rather doubtful about the whole of that game, Doris. No end of a
+grind--and what do you get out of it? More kicks than ha'pence, as a
+rule. Your own side doesn't thank you, and the other abuses you like a
+pickpocket."
+
+She nodded. "I think you're quite right. Let it alone."
+
+He turned to her quite eagerly. "Do you really think so? Well, I'm more
+than half inclined to believe you're right. Isobel's always worrying me
+about it--talks about letting chances slip away, and time slip away, and
+I don't know what the devil else slip away--till, hang it, my only
+desire is to imitate time and chances, and slip away myself!" He laughed
+merrily.
+
+The old charm was still there, the power to make his companion take his
+point of view and sympathise with him, even when the merits were all
+against him.
+
+"You see now what it is to give a woman the right to lecture you,
+Harry!"
+
+"Oh, it's kind of her to be ambitious for me," said Harry
+good-naturedly. "I quite appreciate that. But--" His eyes twinkled
+again, and his voice fell to a confidential whisper. "Well, you've been
+behind the scenes, haven't you? My last shot in that direction has put
+me a bit off."
+
+It was his first reference to the catastrophe; she was curious to see
+whether he would develop it. This Harry proceeded to do.
+
+"You were precious hard on me about that business, Doris," he said in a
+gentle reproach. "Of course I don't justify what happened. But my dear
+old pater and Wellgood pressed matters a bit too quick--oh, not Vivien,
+I don't mean that for a moment. There's such a thing as making the game
+too easy for a fellow. I didn't see it at the time, but I see it now.
+They had their plan. Well, I fell in with it too readily. It looked
+pleasant enough. The result was that I mistook the strength of my
+feelings. That was the beginning of all the trouble."
+
+Vastly amused, the Nun nodded gravely. "I ought to have thought of that
+before I was so down on you."
+
+He looked at her in a merry suspicion. "I'm not sure you're not pulling
+my leg, Doris; but all the same that's the truth about it. And at any
+rate I suppose you'll admit I did the right thing when--when the trouble
+came?"
+
+"Yes, you did the right thing then."
+
+"I'm glad you admit that much! I say--I suppose you--you haven't heard
+anything of Vivien Wellgood?"
+
+"I hear she's in excellent health and spirits."
+
+"I've never been so cut up about anything. Still, of course, she was a
+mere girl, and--well, things pass!"
+
+"Luckily things pass. I've no doubt she'll soon console herself."
+
+"He'll be a very lucky fellow," said Harry handsomely. After all, he
+himself had admired Vivien, and his taste was good.
+
+"He will. In fact I think I know only one man good enough for her--and
+that's Andy Hayes."
+
+Harry's face was suddenly transformed to a peevish amazement.
+
+"My dear girl, are you out of your mind? Don't say such silly things!
+Old Andy's a good chap, but the idea that Vivien would look at him! He's
+not her class; and she's the most fastidious little creature alive--as
+dainty and fastidious as can be!" He smiled again--probably at some
+reminiscence.
+
+"I don't see why her being fastidious should prevent her liking Andy."
+
+Harry broke into open impatience. "I like old Andy--well, I think I've
+done something to prove that--but, upon my soul, you all seem to have
+gone mad about him. You all ram him down a man's throat. It's possible
+to have too much of him, good fellow as he is. He and Vivien Wellgood!
+Well, it's simply damned ridiculous!" He took out his watch and, as he
+looked at it, exclaimed with great irritation, "Why the devil doesn't
+this woman come?"
+
+"I thought Mrs. Belfield was always so punctual?"
+
+"It's not Mrs. Belfield," Harry snapped out.
+
+"Well, don't be disagreeable to the poor woman simply because I said
+something you didn't like."
+
+"Something I didn't like? That's an absurd way of putting it. It's only
+that to be for ever hearing of nobody but--"
+
+"That tall young woman over there seems to be staring rather hard at you
+and me, Harry."
+
+"By gad, it is her! I must run." His smiles broke out again. "I say,
+Doris, I shall get into trouble over this! You're looking your best, my
+dear, and she's as jealous as--I must run! Au revoir!"
+
+"It's not Mrs. Freere--so I suppose it's Lady Lucy," thought the Nun.
+She was in high good temper at the result of her casual allusion to Andy
+Hayes. The shoe pinched there, did it? She was not vicious towards
+Harry; she wished him no harm--indeed she wished him more good than he
+would be likely to welcome--but the extreme complacency of his manner in
+the earlier part of their talk stirred her resentment. Her suggestion
+about Andy Hayes put a quick end to that.
+
+Lady Lucy had an impudent little face, with an impudent little turned-up
+nose. She settled herself cosily into her chair on the balcony and
+peeled off her gloves.
+
+"I'm so glad we're just by ourselves--I mean, since poor Mrs. Belfield
+wasn't well enough to come. I was afraid of finding Lily Freere!"
+
+"What made you afraid of that?" asked Harry, smiling.
+
+"Well, she is about with you a good deal, isn't she? Does your wife like
+being managed so much? Or is it your choice?"
+
+"Mrs. Freere's an old friend."
+
+"So I've always understood!"
+
+"You mustn't listen to ill-natured gossip. Just an old friend! But it's
+not very likely I should have asked her to come to-day."
+
+The Nun and her party entered, and sat down at the other end of the
+balcony.
+
+"There's that girl you were talking to. Look round; she's sitting facing
+me."
+
+"Oh yes, Doris Flower!"
+
+"An old friend too? You seemed to be having a very confidential
+conversation at least."
+
+"On the most strictly unsentimental footing. Really there you may
+believe me!" Harry's voice fell to an artistic whisper. "Did you come
+only to tease me?"
+
+"I don't think you care much whether I tease you or not," said Lady
+Lucy.
+
+He was helping her to wine; he held the bottle, she held the glass.
+Somehow it chanced that their hands touched. Lady Lucy blushed a little
+and glanced at Harry. "How shall I persuade you that I care?" asked
+Harry.
+
+The Nun's host--at the other end of the balcony--turned to her. "You're
+not very talkative to-day, Miss Doris!"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry: There's always so much to look at at the other tables,
+isn't there?"
+
+"Pretty much the same old lot!" remarked the host--an experienced youth.
+
+"Pretty much!" agreed the Nun serenely.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+THE LAST FIGHT.
+
+
+On a fine Sunday evening in the following autumn Belfield and Andy Hayes
+sat over their wine, the ladies having, as usual, adjourned to the
+garden. Among their number were included the Nun and Sally Dutton; a
+second stay at Meriton had broken down Sally's shyness. Belfield and his
+wife were just back from London, whither they had gone to see their
+grandchild, Harry's first-born son. All had gone well, and Belfield was
+full of impressions of his visit. His natural pleasure in the birth of
+the child was damped by Harry's refusal to promise to take up his
+residence at Halton when his turn came.
+
+"But I did get him to promise not to sell--only to let; so his son may
+live here, though mine won't." He looked older and more frail; his mind
+moved in a near future which, near as it was, he would not see.
+
+"I sometimes think," he went on, "that the professional moralists, all
+or most of our preachers of one sort and another--and who doesn't preach
+nowadays?--take too narrow a view. Their table of virtues isn't
+comprehensive enough. Now my boy Harry, with all his faults, is never
+disagreeable. What an enormous virtue! Negative, if you like, but
+enormous! What a lot of pain and discomfort he doesn't give! All through
+this domestic business his behaviour has been admirable--so kind, so
+attentive, so genuinely concerned, so properly gratified. Upon my word,
+seeing him in his own home, you'd think he was a model! That's a good
+deal. His weakness comes in to save him there; he must be popular--even
+in his own house!"
+
+"Oh, this event'll do them no end of good, sir," said Andy, ever ready
+to clutch again at the elusive skirts of optimism.
+
+"Some, no doubt," Belfield cautiously agreed. "And she's a brave
+woman--I'll say that for her. She understands him, and she loves him.
+When I saw her, we had a reconciliation on that basis. We let the past
+alone--I wasn't anxious to meet her on that ground--and made up our
+minds to the future. Her work is to keep things going, to prevent a
+smash. She must shut her eyes sometimes--pretty often, I'm afraid. He'll
+always be very pleasant to her, if she'll do that. In fact, the worse
+he's behaving the pleasanter the rogue will be. I know him of old in
+that."
+
+"Has he any plans?" asked Andy.
+
+Belfield smiled. "Oh yes. He's got a plan for wintering in Algeria;
+they'll go as soon as she's well enough, stopping in Paris _en route_.
+Yes, he's really full of plans--for enjoying himself and meeting friends
+he likes. There's a Lady Lucy Somebody who's got the finest motor-car on
+earth. She's going to be in Paris. Oh, well, there it is! Plans of any
+other sort are dropped. He's dropped them; she's had to drop them--after
+a good deal of fighting, so she told me. He makes no definite refusals;
+he puts her off, laughs it off, shunts it, you know, and goes on his own
+way. One didn't understand how strong that had grown in him--the dislike
+of any responsibilities or limits. Being answerable to anybody seems to
+vex him. I think he even resents our great expectations, though we go
+out of our way to let him see that we've honestly abandoned them! A
+pleasant drifting over summer seas, with agreeable company, and plenty
+of variety in it! That's the programme. We shall probably be wise to add
+a few storms and a good many minor squalls to get a true idea of it."
+
+"It doesn't seem to lead to much."
+
+"Oh, the mistake's ours! For many men I say nothing against the life.
+I'm not one of the preachers, and there's something to be said for it
+for some people. We made our own idol, Andy; it's our fault. We saw the
+capacities, we didn't appreciate the weakness. I can't be hard on poor
+old Harry, can you? We parted capital friends, I'm glad to say--though
+he was distinctly in a hurry to keep an appointment at a tea-shop.
+Somebody passing through London, he said--and through his fancy too, I
+imagine." He looked across at Andy. "I suppose it all seems uncommon
+queer to you, Andy?"
+
+"It's a bit of a waste, isn't it?"
+
+"So we think, we at Meriton. That's our old idea, and we shan't get over
+it. Yes, a bit of a waste! But it's nature's way, I suppose. A fine
+fabric with one unsound patch! It does seem a waste, but she's lavish;
+and the fabric may be very pleasing to the eye all the same, and serve
+all right--so long as you don't strain it!"
+
+In the garden Mrs. Belfield discoursed placidly to Miss Doris Flower; it
+was perhaps fortunate that the veil of night rendered that young lady's
+face hard to read.
+
+"Yes, my dear, we must let bygones be bygones. I took a very strong
+view, a stronger view than I generally take, of her conduct down
+here--though I can't acquit Mr. Wellgood of a large part of the blame.
+But now she's trying to be a good wife to him, I'm sure she is. So I
+made up my mind to forgive her; it's a very fine boy, and like my
+family, I think. As for the politics and all that, I'm sure Harry is
+right, and his father is wrong to regret his withdrawal. Harry is not
+fit for that rough work; both his mind and his feelings are too fine and
+sensitive. I hope he will be firm and keep out of it all. Mr. Hayes is
+much more fit for it, much coarser in fibre, you know, dear Miss Flower;
+and though, of course, we can't expect from him what we did from
+Harry--if only his health had stood it--Mr. Wigram tells me he is doing
+really very well. The common people like him, I understand. Oh, not in
+the way they thought of Harry! That was admiration, almost worship, my
+dear. But they think he understands them, and naturally they feel on
+easy terms with him. His stepmother was an excellent woman, and I'm sure
+we all respect Mr. Rock. Of course in my young days he'd never have done
+for a county member; but we must move with the times, and I'm really
+glad that he's got this chance."
+
+The Nun listened to the kindly patronizing old dame in respectful
+silence. It was really a good thing that she could look at the matter
+like that--evidently aided by the fine boy and the fine boy's likeness
+to her family. It was hard to grudge Harry his last worshipper; yet Miss
+Flower's smile had not been very sympathetic under the veil of night.
+
+"Of course there's poor Vivien--such a sweet girl, and so nice to us!
+She's never let it make any difference as far as we're concerned. I am
+sorry for her, and her father's very wrong in keeping her all alone
+there at Nutley to brood over it. He ought to have given her a season in
+London or taken her abroad--somewhere where she could forget about it,
+and have her chance. What chance has she of forgetting Harry here at
+Meriton?"
+
+"You can never tell about that, can you, Mrs. Belfield? These things
+happen so oddly."
+
+"Oh, but, my dear, the poor child never sees anybody! Now you see quite
+a number of young men, I daresay?"
+
+"Yes, quite a number, Mrs. Belfield," the Nun admitted demurely.
+
+"She sees absolutely nobody, except Mr. Hayes and Mr. Gilly Foot. I
+don't think she's very likely to be taken with Mr. Gilly Foot! Oh no, my
+dear, it's a sad case."
+
+"You ought to talk to Mr. Wellgood about it."
+
+"I never talk to Mr. Wellgood at all now, my dear, if I can help it. I
+don't like him, and I think his attitude has been very hard--quite
+unlike dear Vivien's own! Well, Harry did no more than hint at it, and
+Isobel, of course, said nothing; but we may have our own opinions as to
+whether it's all for Vivien's sake!" Mrs. Belfield almost achieved
+viciousness in this remark. "And--it may seem selfish of me to say
+it--if she married and went away, Harry might be more inclined to come
+down here. As it is, he feels it would be awkward. He's so sensitive!"
+
+Belfield and Andy came out--the old man muffled in shawls and, even so,
+fearing his wife's rebuke, Andy drawing the fresh air eagerly into his
+lungs. He had dined for the first time since the Sunday before; the
+miles he had covered, the speeches he had made, defied calculation. He
+had hardly any voice left. His work was nearly done; the polling was on
+the morrow. But he was due in a neighbouring constituency the day after
+that--for one more week. Then back to Gilbert Foot and Co., to make up
+arrears. Surveying the work he had done and was about to do, he rejoiced
+in his strength, as formerly he had rejoiced to follow Lord Meriton's
+hounds on his legs and to anticipate the fox's wiles.
+
+He sat down by Mrs. Belfield. Vivien and Sally, who had been strolling,
+joined the group, of which he made the centre.
+
+"Yes, it looks all right," he said, continuing his talk with Belfield.
+"Wigram promises me a thousand. A strong candidate would get that. I
+hope for about six hundred."
+
+"You think it's safe, though, anyhow?" asked Vivien.
+
+"Yes, I think it's safe." He broke into a laugh. "If anybody had told me
+this!"
+
+They discussed the fight in all its aspects, especially the last great
+meeting in the Town Hall the night before. The Nun mimicked Andy's
+croaking notes with much success, and Miss Dutton commented on popular
+institutions with some severity. They were full of excitement as to the
+morrow, when the three girls meant to follow Andy's progress through the
+Division. Mrs. Belfield gave tokens of an inclination to doze. Belfield
+sat listening to the girls' voices, to their eager excited talk, and
+their constant appeals to the hero of the day.
+
+The hero of the day! It was Andy Hayes, son of old Mr. Hayes of the
+Grammar School, _protégé_, for his stepmother's sake, of Jack Rock the
+butcher. He had nearly gone back abroad in failure; he had nearly taken
+on the shop. He stood now the winner in the fight, triumphant in a
+contest which he had never sought, from the idea of which he would have
+shrunk as from rank folly and rank treason. Into that fight he had been
+drawn unconsciously, insensibly, irresistibly, by another man's doings
+and by his own, by another man's character and by the character that was
+his. His conscious part had always been to help his adversary; his
+adversary unconsciously worked all the while for him. What his adversary
+had bestowed in ready kindness stood as nothing beside what he had given
+unwittingly, by accident, never thinking that the results of what he did
+would transcend the limits of his own fortunes, and powerfully mould and
+shape another's life. Whom Andy loved he had conquered; whom he followed
+he had supplanted. The cheers and applause which had rung out for him
+last night had, a short year ago, been the property of another. His
+place was his by conquest.
+
+So mused Belfield, father of the vanquished, as he sat silent while the
+merry voices sounded in his ears. A notable example of how each man
+finds his place, in spite of all the starts, or weights, or handicaps
+with which he enters on the race! These things tell, but not enough to
+land an unsound horse at the post before a sound one. The unsound
+falters; slowly and surely the sound lessens the gap between them. At
+last he takes the lead. Then the cry of the crowd is changed, and he
+gallops on to victory amidst its plaudits. Jack Rock had made no mistake
+when he entered his horse and put up the stakes.
+
+The hero of that day, the victor in that fight, yes! Against his wishes,
+without premeditation, so he stood. There was another day of strife,
+another fight to be waged, one that could not be unmeant or unconscious.
+Here the antagonism must come into the open, must be revealed to the
+mind and heart of the fighter. Here he must not only follow, he must
+himself drive out; he must not only supplant, he must strive to banish,
+nay, to annihilate. There was a last citadel which, faithful to
+faithlessness and true against desertion, still flew the flag of that
+loved antagonist. Would the flag dip and the gates open at his summons?
+Or would the response to his parley be that, though the faithless might
+be faithless, yet the faithful must be faithful still? Before that
+answer his arm would be paralyzed.
+
+"Well, I'm sure you'll deserve your success, Mr. Hayes," said Mrs.
+Belfield, rising and preparing to retreat indoors. "I hear you've worked
+very hard and made an extremely good impression."
+
+A quiet smile ran round the circle. The speech, with its delicate, yet
+serenely sure, patronage would have sounded so natural a year before. In
+the darkness Andy found himself smiling too. A sense of strength stirred
+in him. The day for encouragement was past; he did not need it. Save for
+that last citadel! There still he feared and shrank. With his plain
+mind, in his strenuous days, he had done little idealising. Only two
+people had he ever treated in that flattering exacting fashion. His
+idealising stood in his path now. The weak spot of his sturdy
+common-sense had always been about Harry; it was so still, and he had an
+obstinate sense of trying to kick his old idol, now that it was
+overthrown. And for her--how if his approach seemed a rude intrusion,
+the invasion of a desolate yet still holy spot, sacrilege committed on a
+ruined shrine? On the one side was Harry, or the memory of Harry,
+stronger perhaps than Harry himself. On the other he himself stood,
+acutely conscious of his associations for her, remembering ever the
+butcher's shop, recollecting that what favour he had won had been in the
+capacity of a buffer against the attack of others. How if the buffer,
+forsaking its protective function, encroached on its own account?
+
+Yet in the course of the months past they had grown into so close a
+friendship, so firm an alliance. On his part there had been no wooing,
+on hers neither coquetry nor sentiment displayed. To Harry Belfield
+their relations to each other would have appeared extremely dull,
+unpermissibly stagnant, reflecting no credit on the dash of the man or
+the sensibility of the lady. Sally Dutton, suspecting Andy's hopes, had
+a caustic word of praise for his patience--the sort of remark which,
+repeated to Harry about himself, would have sent him straight off to a
+declaration (the like had happened once by the lake at Nutley). But
+through these long days, as Andy came and went on his twofold work, from
+Division to business, from business to Division, they had become
+wonderfully necessary to one another. For her not to expect him, for him
+not to find her, would have taken as it were half the heart out of life.
+Who else was there? Vivien had drawn a little nearer to that dour father
+of hers, but nearness to him carried the command for self-repression,
+for reticence. Andy seemed to have no other with whom to talk of himself
+and his life, as even the strongest feel a craving to talk sometimes.
+Perhaps there was one other ready to serve. He did not know it; she
+ranked for him among the cherished friends of his lighter hours. He
+craved an intimate companionship for the deeper moments, and seemed to
+find it only in one place.
+
+At his own game, his speciality, Harry Belfield could give away all the
+odds, and still be a formidable opponent. The incomparable love-maker
+could almost overcome his own treasons; he left such a memory, such a
+pattern. Isobel loved still; Mrs. Freere was ready to come back; Lady
+Lucy owned to herself that she was in danger of being very silly. Even
+the Nun was in the habit of congratulating herself on a certain escape,
+with the implication that the escape was an achievement. To resist him
+an achievement! To forget him--what could that be? To Andy it seemed
+that for any woman it must be an impossibility. In the veiled distance
+of Vivien's eyes, when the talk veered towards her unfaithful lover, he
+could find no dissent. Was oblivion a necessity? Here he was--in Harry's
+place. Did he forget?
+
+They let him rest--with his thoughts; they saw that the big fellow was
+weary. The old Belfields conducted one another into the house; Vivien
+took Sally off again with her. Only Doris Flower sat on by him, silent
+too, revolving in her mind the chronicles of Meriton, the little town
+with which her whim had brought her into such close touch, from which
+she was not now minded wholly to separate herself. It seemed like an
+anchorage in the wandering sea of her life. It offered some things very
+good--a few firm friends, a sense of home, a place where she was Doris
+Flower, not merely the Nun, the Quaker, or Joan of Arc. Did she wish
+that it offered yet more? Ah, there she paused! She was a worker born,
+as Andy himself was. No work for her lay in Meriton. Perhaps she desired
+incompatibles, like many of us; being clear-eyed, she saw the
+incompatibility. And she was not subjected to temptation. She was taken
+at the valuation which she so carefully put on herself--the good comrade
+of the lighter hours. No cause of complaint then? None! She did not cry,
+she did not fall in love. She did not break her records. There is small
+merit in records unless they are hard to make, and sometimes hard to
+keep.
+
+She stretched out her hand and laid it on his arm. He turned to her with
+a start, roused from his weariness and his reverie.
+
+"Dear Andy, have you learnt what we have, I wonder? Not yet, I expect!"
+
+"What do you mean, Doris?"
+
+"Trust in you. A certainty that you'll bring it off!" She laughed--a
+little nervously. "I've a professional eye for a situation. Try for a
+double victory to-morrow! Make a really fine day for yourself--one to
+remember always!" She drew her hand away with another nervous laugh; her
+clear soft voice had trembled.
+
+Andy's inward feelings leapt to utterance. "Have you any notion of what
+I feel? I--I'm up against him in everything! It's almost uncanny. And I
+think he'll beat me in this. At least I suppose you mean--?"
+
+"Yes, I mean that." Her voice was calm again, a little mocking. "But I
+shall say no more about it."
+
+Andy pressed her hand. "I like to have your good wishes more than
+anybody's in the world," he said, "unless, perhaps, it were his, Doris.
+Don't say I told you, but he grudges me the seat. He'd grudge me the
+other thing worse, much worse."
+
+"Oh, but that's quite morbid. It's all his own fault."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. But he's never been to you what he has to me." He
+smiled. "We at Meriton still have to please Harry, and to have him
+pleased with us. The old habit's very strong."
+
+"Heavens, Andy, you wouldn't think of sacrificing yourself--and perhaps
+her--to an idea like that?"
+
+"No, that would be foolish, and wrong--as you say, morbid. But it can't
+be--whatever she says to me--it can't be as if he had never existed--as
+if it all hadn't happened."
+
+"Some people feel things too little, some feel them too much," the Nun
+observed. "Both bad habits!"
+
+"I daresay the thing's a bit more than usual on my mind
+to-night--because of to-morrow, you know." He was silent for a moment;
+then he broke into one of his simple hearty laughs. "And I am such an
+awful duffer at making love!"
+
+"You certainly have no great natural talent for it and, as you've told
+me, very little practice. Oh, I wonder how big your majority will be,
+Andy!"
+
+Andy readily turned back to the election. Yet even here the attitude she
+had reproved in him seemed to persist. "I expect, as I said, about six
+hundred. Harry would have got a thousand easily."
+
+Andy escorted Vivien back to Nutley. He had it in mind to speak his
+heart--at least to sound her feeling for him; but she forestalled his
+opening.
+
+"Mr. Belfield's been talking to me about Harry to-night, for the first
+time. He wrote me a letter once, but he has never spoken of him before.
+He was rather pathetic. Oh, Andy, why can't people think what they are
+doing to other people? And poor Isobel--I'm afraid she won't be happy. I
+used to feel very hard about her. I can't any more, now that the little
+child has come. That seems to make it all right somehow, whatever has
+happened before. At any rate she's got the best right now, hasn't she?"
+She was silent a moment. "It was like this that I came home with him
+that last evening. He was so gay and so kind. Then--in a flash--it
+happened!"
+
+"I've been thinking about him too to-night. It seemed natural to do
+it--over this election."
+
+They had reached Nutley, but Andy pleaded for a walk on the terrace by
+the lake before she bade him good-night.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I know what you must feel, because you loved him. I
+loved him, and I feel it too. But we must neither of us think about it
+too much. Because it's no use. What Mr. Belfield told me makes it quite
+clear that it's no use." She spoke very sadly. They had not to do with
+an accident or an episode; they had to recognise and reckon with the
+nature of a man. "When once we see that it's no use, it seems to me that
+there's something--well, almost something unworthy in giving way to it."
+She turned round to Andy. "At least I don't want you to go on doing it.
+You've made your own success. Take it whole-heartedly, Andy; don't have
+any regrets, any searchings of heart."
+
+"There may be other things besides the seat at Meriton that I should
+like to take. When I search my heart, Vivien, I find you there."
+
+Through the darkness he saw her eyes steadily fixed on his.
+
+"I wonder, Andy, I wonder! Or is it only pity, only chivalry? Is it the
+policeman again?"
+
+"Why shouldn't it be the policeman?" he asked. "Is it nothing if you
+think you could feel safe with me?"
+
+"So much, so much!" she murmured. "Andy, I'm still angry when I
+remember--still sore--and angry again with myself for being sore. I
+oughtn't still to feel that."
+
+"You'd guessed my feelings, Vivien? You're not surprised or--or
+shocked?"
+
+"I think I've known everything that has been in your heart--both about
+him and about me. No, I'm not surprised or shocked. But--I wonder!" She
+laughed sadly. "How perverse our hearts are--poor Harry's, and poor
+mine! And how unlucky we two should have hit on one another! That for
+him it should be so easy, and for me so sadly difficult!"
+
+"I won't ask you my question to-night," said Andy.
+
+"No, don't to-night." She laid her hand on his arm. "But you won't go
+away altogether, will you, Andy? You won't be sensible and firm, and
+tell me that you can't be at my beck and call, and that you won't be
+kept dangling about, and that if I'm a silly girl who doesn't know her
+own luck I must take the consequences? You'll go on being the old Andy
+we all know, who never makes any claims, who puts up with everybody's
+whims, who always expects to come last?" Her voice trembled as she
+laughed. "You won't upset all my notions of you, because you've become a
+great man now, will you, Andy?"
+
+"I don't quite recognise myself in the picture," said Andy with a laugh.
+"I thought I generally stood up for myself pretty well. But, anyhow,
+I've no intention of going away. I shall be there when--I mean if--you
+want me."
+
+She gave him her hand; he gripped it warmly. "You're--you're not very
+disappointed, Andy? Oh, I hate to cloud your day of triumph to-morrow!"
+Her voice rose a little, a note almost of despair in it. "But I can't
+help it! The old thing isn't gone yet, and, till it is, I can do
+nothing."
+
+Andy raised the hand he held to his lips and kissed it lightly. "I see
+that I'm asking for an even bigger thing than I thought," he said
+gently. "Don't worry, and don't hurry, my dear. I can wait. Perhaps it's
+too big for me to get at all. You'll tell me about that at your own
+time."
+
+They began to walk back towards the house, and presently came under the
+light of the lamp over the hall door. Her face now wore a troubled
+smile, amused yet sad. How obstinate that memory was! It was here that
+Harry had given her his last kiss--here that, only a few minutes later,
+she had seen him for the last time, and Isobel Vintry with him! Their
+phantoms rose before her eyes--and the angry shape of her father was
+there too, denouncing their crime, pronouncing by the same words
+sentence of death on the young happiness of her heart.
+
+"Good-night, Andy," she said softly. "And a great triumph to-morrow.
+Over a thousand!"
+
+A great triumph to-morrow, maybe. There was no great triumph to-night,
+only a long hard-fought battle--the last fight in that strangely-fated
+antagonism. Verily the enemy was on his own ground here. With everything
+against him, he was still dangerous, he was not yet put to the rout. The
+flag of the citadel was not yet dipped, the gates not opened, allegiance
+not transferred.
+
+Andy Hayes squared his shoulders for this last fight--with good courage
+and with a single mind. The revelation she had made of her heart moved
+him to the battle. It was a great love which Harry had so lightly taken
+and so lightly flung away. It was worth a long and a great struggle. And
+he could now enter on it with no searchings of his own heart. As he
+mused over her words, the appeal of memory--of old loyalty and
+friendship grew fainter. Harry had won all that, and thrown all that
+away--had been so insensible to what it really was, to what it meant,
+and what it offered. New and cogent proof indeed that he was "no good."
+The depths of Vivien's love made mean the shallows of his nature. He
+must go his ways; Andy would go his--from to-morrow. With sorrow, but
+now with clear conviction, he turned away from his broken idol. From the
+lips of the girl who could not forget his love had come Harry's final
+condemnation. The spell was broken for Andy Hayes; he was resolute that
+he would break it from the heart of Vivien. Loyalty should no more be
+for the disloyal, or faith for the faithless. There too Andy would come
+by his own--and now with no remorse. At last the spell was broken.
+
+But no double victory to-morrow! The loved antagonist retreated slowly,
+showing fight. The next day gave Andy a victory indeed, but did not
+yield the situation which the Nun's professional eye had craved for its
+satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+TALES OUT OF SCHOOL FOR ONCE.
+
+
+The inner circle of Andy Hayes' friends, who were gradually accustoming
+themselves to see him described as Mr. Andrew Hayes, M.P., included some
+of a sportive, or even malicious, turn of wit. It cannot be denied that
+to these the spectacle of Andy's wooing--it never occurred to him to
+conceal his suit--presented some material for amusement. All through his
+career, even after he had mounted to eminences great and imposing, it
+was his fate to bring smiles to the lips even of those who admired,
+supported, and followed him. To the comic papers, in those later days
+when the Press took account of him, he was always a slow man, almost a
+stupid man, inclined to charge a brick wall when he might walk round it,
+yet, when he charged, knocking a hole big enough to get through. For the
+cartoonists--when greatness bred cartoons, as by one of the world's
+kindly counterbalances it does--he was always stouter in body and more
+stolid in countenance than a faithful photograph would have recorded
+him. The idea of him thus presented did him no harm in the public mind.
+That a career is open to talent is a fact consolatory only to a
+minority; flatter mere common-sense with the same prospect, and every
+man feels himself fit for the Bench--of Judges, Bishops, or Ministers.
+
+But as a lover--a wooer? Passion, impetuosity, a total absorption, great
+eloquence in few words, the eyes beating the words in persuasion--such
+seemed, roughly, the requisites, as learnt by those who had sat at Harry
+Belfield's feet and marked his practical expositions of the subject.
+Andy was neither passionate nor eloquent, not even in glances. Nor was
+he absorbed. Gilbert Foot and Co. from nine-thirty to two-thirty: the
+House from two-thirty to eleven, with what Gilly contemptuously termed
+"stoking" slipped in anywhere: there was hardly time for real
+absorption. He was as hard-worked as Mr. Freere himself, and, had he
+married Mrs. Freere, would probably have made little better success of
+it. He was not trying to marry Mrs. Freere; but he was trying to win a
+girl who had listened to wonderful words from Harry Belfield's lips and
+suffered the persuasion of Harry Belfield's eyes.
+
+In varying fashion his friends made their jesting comments, with
+affection always at the back of the joke; nay more, with a confidence
+that the efforts they derided would succeed in face of their
+derision--like the comic papers of future days.
+
+"He wants to marry, so he must make love; but I believe he hates it all
+the time," said the Nun compassionately.
+
+"That shows his sense," remarked Sally Dutton.
+
+"He's a natural monogamist," opined Billy Foot, "and no natural
+monogamist knows anything about making love."
+
+"He ought to have been born married," Gilly yawned, "just as I ought to
+have been born retired from business."
+
+Mrs. Billy (_née_ Amaranth Macquart-Smith) was also of the party. Among
+these sallies she spread the new-fledged wings of her wit rather
+timidly. To say the truth, she was not witty, but felt bound to try--a
+case somewhat parallel to his at whom her shaft was aimed. She was liked
+well enough in the circle, yet would hardly have entered it without
+Billy's passport.
+
+"He waits to be accepted," she complained, "as a girl waits to be
+asked."
+
+"Used to!" briefly corrected Miss Dutton.
+
+Billy Foot cut deeper into the case. "He's never imagined before that he
+could have a chance against Harry. He's got the idea now, but it takes
+time to sink in."
+
+"Harry's out of it anyhow," drawled Gilly.
+
+"Out of what?" asked the Nun.
+
+Billy's nod acknowledged the import of the question. Out of reason, out
+of possibility, out of bounds! Not out of memory, of echo, of the mirror
+of things not to be forgotten.
+
+"He still thinks he can't compete with Harry," she went on, "and he's
+right as far as this game is concerned. But he'll win just by not
+competing. To be utterly different is his chance." With a glance round
+the table, she appealed to their experience. "Nobody ever begins by
+choosing Andy--well, except Jack Rock perhaps, and that was to be a
+butcher! But he ends by being indispensable."
+
+"You all like him," said Amaranth. "And yet you all give the impression
+that he's terribly dull!" Her voice complained of an enigma.
+
+"Well, don't you know, what would a fellow do without him?" asked Gilly,
+looking up from his _paté_.
+
+"Gilly has an enormous respect for him. He's shamed him into working,"
+Billy explained to his wife.
+
+"That's it, by Jove!" Gilly acknowledged sadly. "And the worst of it is,
+work pays! Pays horribly well! We're getting rich. I've got to go on
+with it." He winked a leisurely moving eyelid at the Nun. "I wish the
+deuce I'd never met the fellow!"
+
+"I must admit he points the moral a bit too well," Billy confessed. "But
+I'm glad to say we have Harry to fall back upon. I met Harry in the
+street the other day, and he was absolutely radiant."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Sally Dutton.
+
+"Not a bit, Sally! He's just given up Lady Lucy. Going straight again,
+don't you know? Off to the seaside with his wife and kid."
+
+"How long has Lady Lucy lasted?" asked Gilly.
+
+The Nun gurgled. "I should like to have that set to music," she
+explained. "The alliteration is effective, Gilly, and I would give it a
+pleasing lilt."
+
+"I don't wish to hear you sing it," said Billy, in a voice none too
+loud. Amaranth was looking about the room, and an implied reference to
+bygones was harmlessly agreeable.
+
+"With his wife and his kid, to the Bedford at Brighton," Billy
+continued, after his aside. "From something he let fall, I gathered that
+the Freeres were going to be at the Norfolk."
+
+Amaranth did not see the point. "I don't know the Freeres," she
+remarked.
+
+"We do," said Gilly. "In fact we're in the habit of turning them to the
+uses of allegory, Amaranth. I may say that we are coming to regard Mrs.
+Freere as a comparative reformation--as the irreducible minimum. If only
+Harry wouldn't wander from Freere's wife!"
+
+"But the man's got a wife of his own!" cried Amaranth.
+
+"Yes, but we're dealing with practical possibilities," Gilly insisted.
+"And, from that point of view, his own wife really doesn't count."
+
+"And yet Vivien Wellgood--!" The Nun relapsed into a silence which was
+meant to express bewilderment, though she was not bewildered, having too
+keen a memory of her own achievement.
+
+"Oh, you really understand it better than that, Doris," said Billy.
+"Harry can make it seem a tremendous thing--while it lasts. Andy's fault
+is that he never makes things seem tremendous. He just makes them seem
+natural. His way is safer; it takes longer, but it lasts longer too.
+Neither of them is the ideal man, you know. Andy wants an occasional
+hour of Harry--"
+
+"Dangerously long!" the Nun opined.
+
+"And Harry ought to have seven years' penal servitude of Andy. Then you
+might achieve the perfectly balanced individual."
+
+"I think you're perfectly balanced, dear," said Amaranth, and thereby
+threw her husband into sorest confusion, and the rest of the company
+into uncontrolled mirth. Moreover the Nun must needs add, with her most
+innocent expression, "Just what I've always found him, Amaranth!"
+
+"Oh, hang it--when I was trying to talk sense!" poor Billy expostulated.
+
+His bride's remark--admirably bridal in character--choked Billy's
+philosophising in its hour of birth. The trend of the conversation was
+diverted, the picture of the perfectly balanced man never painted. Else
+there might have emerged the interesting and agreeable paradox that the
+perfectly balanced man was he who knew when to lose his balance, when to
+kick the scales away for an hour, when to stop thinking of anybody
+except himself, when to sink consideration in urgency, pity in desire,
+affection in love. All this, of course, only for an hour--and in the
+right company. It must be allowed that the perfect balance is a rare
+phenomenon.
+
+Isobel Vintry had not sought it; it is to her credit that she refrained
+from accusing fate because she had not found what she did not seek.
+Forgiving Harry over the Lady Lucy episode--his penitence was
+irresistibly sincere--and accepting Mrs. Freere as an orderly and
+ordinary background to married life, almost a friend, certainly an ally
+(for Mrs. Freere was now, as ever, a prudent woman), she recalled the
+courage that had made her a fit preceptress for Vivien, and Wellgood's
+ideal woman. She saw the trick her heart had played her, and knew--with
+Harry himself--that hearts would always be playing tricks. The poacher
+was made keeper, but the poaching did not stop. The thief was robbed,
+the raider raided. All a very pretty piece of poetical justice--with the
+unusual characteristic of being quite commonplace, an everyday affair,
+no matter of melodrama, but just what constantly happens.
+
+She and Wellgood had so often agreed that Vivien must be trained to face
+the rubs of life, its ups and downs, its rough and smooth; timidity and
+fastidiousness were out of place in a world like this. The two had
+taught the lesson to an unwilling pupil; they themselves had now to
+aspire to a greater aptitude in learning it. Wellgood conned his lesson
+ill. The gospel of anti-sentimentality fits other people's woes better
+than a man's own; his seem so real as to defeat the application of the
+doctrine. The first and loudest to proclaim that no man or woman is to
+be trusted, that he who does not suspect invites deception and has
+himself to thank if he is duped--that is the man who nurses bitterest
+wrath over the proving of his own theories. Aghast at having yourself
+the honour of proving your own theories! The world does funny things
+with us. To be taken at your word like that; really to find people about
+you as bad as you have declared humanity at large to be; to stumble and
+break your knees over a justification of your cynicism--it would seem a
+thing that should meet with acquiescence, perhaps even with a sombre
+satisfaction. Yet it does not happen so. The optimist fares better; he
+falls from a higher chair but on to a thicker carpet; and he himself is
+far more elastic. "With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to
+you again." Hard measure for hard people seems to fulfil the saying, and
+is not a just occasion for grumbling--even for internal grumbling, which
+is the hard man's only resource, since he has accustomed sympathy and
+confidence to hide their faces from his ridicule, and their tender hands
+to shrink from the grip of his contempt.
+
+Isobel Belfield possessed just what Isobel Vintry had stolen. Neither
+Church nor State, no, nor the more primitive sanction of the birth of a
+son, availed to give a higher validity to her title. In rebuking
+inconstancy she was out of court; she was estopped, as the lawyers call
+it. How could she refuse to forgive the thing which alone gave her the
+right to be aggrieved? Her possession was tainted in its origin. Or was
+she to arrogate to herself the privilege of being the only thief? Harry
+Belfield confessed new crimes to an old accomplice; severity would have
+merited a smile. Stolen kisses acknowledged recalled stolen kisses that
+had been a secret. Condemned by the tribunal of the present, Harry's
+offences appealed to the past. "See yourself as Vivien--see her (Lady
+Lucy, Mrs. Freere, or another) as yourself!" Harry's deprecatory smile
+seemed to threaten some such disarming suggestion. Church and State and
+the little boy might say, "There's all the difference!" Neither State
+nor Church nor little boy could deafen the echo of Wellgood's
+denunciation or blur the image of Vivien's stricken face. They were a
+pair of thieves; the court of conscience would not listen to her plea if
+she complained of an unfair division of the plunder. Hands held up in
+petition for justice must be clean--an old doctrine of equity; an
+account will not be taken between two highwaymen on Hounslow Heath.
+
+Origins are obstinate, leaving marks whatever variations time may bring.
+She had begun as one of two--and not the legitimate one. She was to be
+one of two always, so it appeared, through all the years until the Nun's
+pitiless vision worked itself out, and even Harry Belfield ceased to
+suffer new passions--or, at least, to inspire them; perhaps the latter
+ending of the matter was the more likely.
+
+He did nothing else than suffer passions and inspire them; that was the
+hardest rub. Where was the brilliant career? Where the great success of
+which Vivien had been wont to talk shyly? Isobel was a woman of hard
+mettle, of high ambition. She could have endured to be official queen,
+though queens unofficial came and went. But there was to be no kingdom!
+There was abdication of all realms save Harry's own. He grew more and
+more contented to specialise there. Irregularity in private conduct is
+partially condoned in useful men; as a discreetly hidden diversion, it
+is left to another jurisdiction--_deorum injuriae dis curae_--but as the
+occupation of a life? The widest stretch of philosophic contemplation of
+the whole is demanded to excuse or to justify.
+
+He made a strange thing of her life--a restless, unpeaceful,
+interesting, and unhappy thing. The old idea of reigning at Nutley, of
+skilfully managing stubborn Wellgood, of the seeming submission that was
+really rule (perhaps woman's commonest conception of triumph), did not
+serve the turn of this life. It was stranger work--living with Harry!
+Being so well treated--and so well deceived! So courted and so flouted!
+The change was violent from the days when Vivien's companion stole
+kisses that belonged to her unsuspecting charge. A pretty irony to find
+herself on the defensive! A prettier, perhaps, to see her best resource
+in an alliance with Mrs. Freere! But it came to that. Never in words, of
+course--tacitly, in lifted brows and shoulders shrugged. So long as
+there was nobody except Mrs. Freere--so long as there was nobody besides
+his wife--things were not very wrong for the allies. A sense of security
+regained, precariously regained--a current of silent but mutual
+congratulations--ran between the Bedford and the Norfolk hotels at
+Brighton when Lady Lucy had received her _congé_. Harry's degrees of
+penitence and of confession at the two houses of entertainment must
+remain uncertain; at both he was no doubt possessed by the determination
+to lead a new life; he had been possessed by that when first he heard
+the potent voice calling him to Meriton.
+
+Harry Belfield--the admired Harry of so many hopes--was in process of
+becoming a joke! It was the worst fate of all; yet what other refuge had
+the despair of his friends? Even to condemn with gravity was difficult;
+gravity seemed to accuse its wearer of making too much of the
+ridiculous--which was to be ridiculous himself. In old days they had
+laughed at Harry's love affairs as at his foible; he seemed all foible
+now--there was nothing else. His life and its possibilities had narrowed
+and dwindled down to that. Billy Foot had tried to be serious on the
+subject. What was the use, when there was only one question to be asked
+about him--who was the latest woman? An atmosphere of ridicule, kindly,
+tender, infinitely regretful, yet still ridicule, enveloped the figure
+of him who once had been a hero. This was a different quality of jest
+from that which found its occasion in Andy Hayes' patient wooing. Andy
+could afford to be patient; once again his opponent was doing his work
+for him.
+
+Spring saw the Nun installed in a hired house of her own at Meriton,
+Seymour being kept busy conveying her to and fro between her new home
+and London, as and when the claims of her profession called her. But
+Sunday was always marked by a gathering of friends--the Foots if they
+were at Halton, Andy, Vivien Wellgood from Nutley; often Belfield would
+drop in to see the younger folk. Jack Rock had his audiences to himself,
+for he sturdily refused to intrude on his "betters"--aye, even though
+his sign was down, though the National, Colonial, and International
+Purveyors reigned in his stead, though the Member for the Division
+occupied rooms in his house. To Jack life seemed to have done two
+wonderful things for him--one was the rise and triumph of Andy; the
+other was his friendship with Miss Doris Flower. He was, in fact,
+hopelessly in love with that young lady; the Nun was quite aware of it
+and returned his affection heartily. Jack delighted to sit with her, to
+look and listen, and sometimes to talk of Andy--of all that he had done,
+of all that he was going to do. Jack's hard-working, honest, and, it may
+be added, astute life was crowned by a very gracious evening.
+
+The Nun's new home stood in High Street, with a pretty little front
+garden, where she loved to sit and survey the doings of the town, even
+as had been her wont from her window at the Lion. Here she was one
+morning, and Jack Rock with her. She lay stretched on a long chair, with
+her tiny feet protruding from her white frock, her hair gleaming in the
+sun, her eyes looking at Jack with a merry affection.
+
+"You do make a picture, miss; you fair do make a picture!" said Jack.
+
+"Don't flirt, Jack," said the Nun in grave rebuke. "You ought to know by
+now that I don't go in for flirtation, and I can't let even you break
+the rules. Though I confess at once that you tempt me very much, because
+you do it so nicely. It's funny, Jack, that both you and I should have
+chosen the single life, isn't it?"
+
+Jack shook his head reproachfully. "Ah, miss, that's where you're wrong!
+I'm not sayin' anythin' against Miss Vivien--she's a sweet young lady."
+
+"What has Vivien got to do with single lives?"
+
+"Well, miss, no offence, I hope? But if it had been so as you'd laid
+yourself out--so to speak--for Andy."
+
+The Nun blushed just a little, and laughed just a little also. "Oh,
+that's your idea, Jack? You are a schemer!"
+
+"I've got nothin' to say against Miss Vivien. But I wish it had been
+you, miss," Jack persisted.
+
+"Oh, Jack, wouldn't you have been jealous? Do say you'd have been
+jealous!"
+
+"Keepin' him waitin' too the way she does!" Jack's voice grew rather
+indignant. "It don't look to me as if she put a proper value on him,
+miss."
+
+"Perhaps you're just a little bit partial to Andy?" the Nun suggested.
+
+"And not a proper value on herself either, if she's still hankerin'
+after Mr. Harry. Him as is after half the women in London, if you can
+trust all you hear."
+
+The Nun's face was towards the street, Jack's back towards it. The
+garden gate was open.
+
+"Hush!" said the Nun softly. "Here comes Vivien!"
+
+Poor old Jack was no diplomatist. He sprang to his feet, red as a turkey
+cock, and turned round to find Vivien at his elbow.
+
+"I--I beg your pardon, miss," he stammered, rushing at the conclusion
+that she had overheard.
+
+Vivien looked at him in amused surprise. "But what's the matter, Mr.
+Rock? Why, I believe you must have been talking about me!" She looked at
+the Nun. "Was he?" she asked merrily.
+
+"I don't know that it's much good trying to deny it, is it, Jack?"
+
+Jack was terribly ashamed of himself. "It wasn't my place to do it. I
+beg your pardon, miss." He stooped and picked up his hat, which he had
+taken off and laid on the ground by him. "Miss Flower's too kind to me,
+miss. She makes me forget my place--and my manners."
+
+Vivien held out her hand to him; she was grave now. "But we're all so
+fond of you, Mr. Rock. And I'm sure you weren't saying anything unkind
+about me. Was he, Doris?"
+
+Jack took her hand. "It wasn't my place to do it. I ask your pardon."
+Then he turned to the Nun. "You'll excuse me, miss?"
+
+The Nun smiled radiantly at him. "I hate your going, Jack. Perhaps you'd
+better, though. Only don't be unhappy. There's no harm done, you know."
+
+Jack shook his head again sadly, then put his hat on it with a rueful
+air. He regarded Vivien for a moment with a ponderous sorrow, lifted his
+hat again, shook his head again, and walked out of the garden. The Nun
+gave a short gurgle, and then regained a serene and silent composure. It
+was most certainly a case for allowing the other side to take first
+innings! Vivien sat down in the seat that Jack had vacated in such sad
+confusion.
+
+"It was about--Harry?" she asked slowly. "You all hear and know! I hear
+nothing, I know nothing. Nobody mentions him to me. Not Andy, not my
+father any more. Mr. Belfield said a word or two once--not happy words.
+Except for that--well, he might be dead! I don't see the use of treating
+me like that. I think I've a right to know."
+
+"What Jack said was more about you really. There's no fresh news about
+Harry."
+
+While saying these words, the Nun allowed her look at Vivien to be very
+direct. "You must accept that as final," the look seemed to say.
+
+"Lots of men, good men, make a mistake, one mistake, about things like
+that. He'll be all right now--with his boy."
+
+"He's had a love affair, repented of it--and probably started another
+since that event. The child, if I remember, is about five months old."
+Still with her gaze direct, the Nun laughed. Vivien flushed. "There's no
+other way to take it," the Nun assured her.
+
+Vivien spoke low; her cheeks red, her eyes dim. "I gave him all my
+heart, oh, so readily--and such trust! Doris, did he ever make love to
+you?"
+
+"As a general rule I don't tell tales. In this case I feel free to say
+that he did."
+
+Vivien's smile was woeful. "What, he wanted to marry you too once?"
+
+"Oh no, he never wanted to marry me, Vivien."
+
+It was drastic treatment--and the doctor paid for it as well as the
+patient.
+
+"But you went on being friends with him!"
+
+"I became friends with him again--presently," the Nun corrected. "I
+suppose I don't come well out of it, according to your views. I know the
+difference there is between us in that way. Look at your life and mine!
+That's bound to make a difference. Besides, it would have been taking
+him much too seriously."
+
+"I think you're rather hard, Doris."
+
+"Thank God, I am, my dear! I need it."
+
+"It's a terrible thing to make the mistake I did."
+
+"It's worse to go on with it."
+
+"I should have liked to go on with it. I feel as people must who've lost
+their religion."
+
+"Is that so sad, if the religion is proved not to be true?"
+
+"Yes, terribly sad." Vivien's back was to the street. She wept silently;
+none saw her tears save Doris. "I thought I had lost everything. It's
+worse to find that you never had anything, and have lost nothing."
+
+"It's good to find that out, when it's true," Doris persisted stoutly.
+"But I hope he won't happen on any more girls like you. With the proper
+people--his Mrs. Freeres and Lady Lucies--the thing's a farce. That's
+all right!"
+
+Her bitter ridicule pierced the armour of Vivien's recollection. With
+the proper people it was all a farce. She had taken it as a tragedy. Her
+tears ceased to flow, but her colour came hot again.
+
+"I don't know anything about those women--I never heard their names--but
+he seems to have insulted me almost as much as he insulted you."
+
+The Nun was relentless. "In both cases he considered, and still
+considers, that he paid a very high compliment. And he'll find lots of
+women to agree with him."
+
+"Doris, be kind to me. I've nobody else!"
+
+"The Lord forgive you for saying so! You've the luck of one girl in ten
+thousand." Now the Nun's colour grew a little hot; she raised herself on
+her elbow. "Here are your two men. One's going to lead a big life, while
+the other's chasing petticoats!"
+
+"You think the world of Andy, don't you, Doris?"
+
+"I'd think the universe of him if he'd give you a shaking."
+
+Vivien smiled, rose, came to the Nun, and kissed her. The Nun's lips
+quivered. "He's coming down at the end of the week," said Vivien. Her
+voice fell to a whisper. "He's not quite so patient as you think." With
+another kiss she was swiftly gone.
+
+The Nun sat on, gazing at Meriton High Street. Sally Dutton came out of
+the house and regarded the same prospect with an air of criticism or
+even of disfavour.
+
+"I think it's all coming right about Vivien and Andy," the Nun remarked.
+
+Sally turned her critical eyes on her friend. "Have you been helping?"
+
+"Just a little bit perhaps, Sally." She paused a moment. "I shall be
+rather glad to have it settled."
+
+The motor-car drew up at the door.
+
+"You'll not have more than enough time for lunch before your matinée,
+Miss Flower," Seymour observed, with his usual indifferent air. Not his
+business whether she were in time, but he might as well mention the
+matter!
+
+"My hat and cloak!" cried the Nun, springing up. She took Sally's arm
+and ran her into the house with her. "Hurrah for work, Sally!"
+
+Suddenly Sally threw her arms round her friend's neck and exclaimed,
+with something very like a sob, "Oh, my darling, if only you could have
+everything you want!"
+
+The Nun's lips quivered again; her bright eyes were a little dim. "But,
+Sally dear, I never fall in love!"
+
+Miss Dutton relapsed, with equal abruptness, into her habitual
+demeanour.
+
+"Well, he's a man--and a fool like all the rest of them!" she remarked.
+
+The Nun gurgled. A record was saved--at the last moment. Because she did
+not cry--any more than she fell in love.
+
+The Nun came out, equipped for the journey. She was smiling still. "Do I
+look all right, Seymour?"
+
+"At the best of your looks, if I may say so, Miss Flower."
+
+"Thank you very much, Seymour. Get in with you, Sally! You are a slow
+girl, always!"
+
+She pressed Sally's hand as the car started. "Much better like this,
+really. I have always Seymour's admiration."
+
+His name caught Seymour's ear. "I beg your pardon, Miss Flower?"
+
+"I only said you were an admirable driver, Seymour."
+
+"Naturally I drive carefully when you're in the car, Miss Flower."
+
+"There!" said the Nun triumphantly. "I told you so, Sally!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+NOT OF HIS SEEKING.
+
+
+Andy Hayes' _début_ in the House of Commons was not, of course,
+sensational; very few members witnessed it, and nobody outside took the
+smallest heed of it. Moreover, like other beginnings of his, it was
+unpremeditated, in a manner forced upon him. He had not intended to
+speak that afternoon, or indeed at all in his first session, but in
+Committee one day an honourable gentleman opposite went so glaringly
+astray as to the prices ruling for bacon in Wiltshire in the year
+nineteen hundred and something--which Andy considered a salient epoch in
+the chequered history of his pet commodity--that he was on his feet
+before he knew what he was doing, and set the matter right, adding
+illustrative figures for the year before and the year after, with a
+modestly worded forecast of the run of prices for the current year.
+Engrossed in the subject, he remembered that the House was a formidable
+place only after he had sat down; then he hurried home to his books,
+found that his figures were correct, and heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
+It was no small thing to get his maiden speech made without meaning to
+make it--and to find the figures correct! He attempted nothing more that
+session. He only listened. But how he listened! A man might talk the
+greatest nonsense, yet Andy's steady eyes would be on him, and Andy's
+big head untiringly poised at attention. What was the use of listening
+to so much nonsense? Well, first you had to be sure it was nonsense;
+then to see why it was nonsense; thirdly, to see how, being nonsense, it
+was received; fourthly, to revolve how it should be exposed. There were
+even other things that Andy found to ponder over in all the nonsense to
+which he listened--and many more, of course, in the sense.
+
+But even Andy took a holiday from public affairs sometimes, nay more,
+sometimes from the fortunes of Gilbert Foot and Co. He was in the office
+this morning--the Saturday before Whitsunday--finishing up some odd jobs
+which his partner had left to him (Gilly had still a trick of doing
+that), but his thoughts were on Meriton, whither he was to repair in the
+afternoon. As he mused on Meriton, he slowly shook the big head, thereby
+indicating not despair or even despondency, but a recognition that he
+was engaged on rather a difficult job, perhaps on a game that he was not
+very good at, but which had to be won all the same. This particular game
+certainly had to be won; his whole heart was in it. Yet now he was
+accusing himself of a mistake; he had been impatient--impatient that
+Vivien should still be less than happy, that she should still dwell in
+gloom with gloomy Wellgood, that she would not yet come into the
+sunshine. Well, he would put the mistake right that very day, for Vivien
+was to lunch with him, attended by the Nun, with whom she had been
+spending a night or two in town; and then the three of them were to go
+to Meriton in the motor-car together. The Nun was not singing at this
+time.
+
+"I must go slow," concluded Andy, whose friends were already smiling at
+the deliberate gait with which he trod the path of love. "Hullo, there's
+an hour before lunch! I may as well finish some of these accounts for
+Gilly."
+
+This satisfaction he was not destined to enjoy. He was interrupted by a
+visitor.
+
+Harry Belfield came in, really a vision to gladden an artist's eyes, in
+a summer suit of palest homespun--he affected that material--with his
+usual blue tie unusually bright--shirt and socks to match; a dazzlingly
+white panama hat crowned his wavy dark locks. He looked immensely
+handsome, and he was gay, happy, and affectionate.
+
+"Thought I might just find you, old chap, because you're always mugging
+when everybody else is having a holiday. Look here, I want you to do
+something for me, or rather for Isobel. I'm off yachting for three or
+four months--rather a jolly party--and Isobel's going to take a house in
+the country for herself and the boy. She doesn't know much about that
+sort of business, and I wanted to ask you to let her consult you about
+the terms, and so on, to see she's not done, you know. That'll be all
+right, won't it? Because I really haven't time to look after it."
+
+"Of course. Anything I can do--please tell her. She's not going with
+you?"
+
+"No," said Harry, putting his foot on the table and regarding it fondly,
+as he had at a previous interview in Andy's office. "No, not this trip,
+Andy. She doesn't care much for the sea." The slightest smile flickered
+on his lips. "Besides, it's 'Men only' on board." The smile broadened a
+little. "At least we're going to start that way, and they're taking
+me--a respectable married man--along with them to help them to keep
+their good resolutions. Well, old boy, how do you like it in the House?
+I haven't observed many orations put down to you!"
+
+"I've only spoken once--hardly a speech. But I'm working pretty well at
+it."
+
+"I'll bet you are! And at it here too, I suppose? Lazy beggar, Gilly
+Foot!"
+
+"Gilly's woken up wonderfully. You'd hardly know him."
+
+Harry yawned. "Well, I'm wanting a rest," he said. "I've had one or two
+worries lately. Oh, it's all over now, but I shall be glad to get away
+for a bit. By Jove, Andy, the great thing in life is to be able to go
+where you like, and when you like"--his smile flashed out again--"and
+with whom you like, isn't it? Are you off anywhere for Whitsuntide?"
+
+"Only down to Meriton."
+
+"Quiet!" But Harry had not always found it so; it was the quieter for
+his absence.
+
+"I like being there better than anywhere else," was Andy's simple
+explanation of his movements.
+
+A clerk came in and handed him a card. "I told the lady you had somebody
+with you, and asked her to take a seat in the outer room for a moment."
+
+Andy read the card. "I'll ring," he said absently, and looked across at
+Harry.
+
+"Lady? Eminent authoress? Or is this not business? Have her in--don't
+hide her, Andy!"
+
+"It's Vivien Wellgood."
+
+Harry turned his head sharply. "What brings her here?"
+
+"I don't know. I was to meet her and Doris Flower for lunch, and go down
+with them to Meriton afterwards. Perhaps something's happened to stop
+it, and she's come to tell me."
+
+A curious smile adorned Harry's handsome features. He looked doubtful,
+yet decidedly interested.
+
+"I'd better go out and see her," said Andy. "I mustn't keep her
+waiting."
+
+Harry broke into a laugh, half of amusement, half of impatience. "You
+needn't look so infernally solemn over it! It won't kill her to bow to
+me--or even to shake hands."
+
+Andy came to a sudden resolution. Since chance willed it this way, this
+way it should be.
+
+"As you please!" he said, and rang the bell.
+
+Harry rose to his feet, and took off the panama hat, which he had kept
+on during his talk with Andy. His eyes were bright; the smile flickered
+again on his lips. He had not seen Vivien since that night--and that
+night seemed a very long way off to Harry Belfield.
+
+In the brief space before the door reopened, a vision danced before
+Andy's eyes--a vision of Curly the retriever, and of a girl standing
+motionless in fear, and yet, because he was there, not so much afraid.
+In his mind was the idea which had suddenly taken shape under the
+impulsion of chance--that she had better face the present than dream of
+the past, better see the man who was nothing to her, than pore over the
+memory of him who had been everything. She might--nay, probably
+would--resent an encounter thus sprung upon her. Andy knew it; in this
+moment, with the choice suddenly presented, he chose to act for himself.
+Perhaps, for once in his life, he yielded to a sort of superstition, a
+feeling that the chance was not for nothing, that they three would not
+meet together again without result. Mingled with this was anger that
+Harry should take the encounter with his airy lightness, that his eyes
+should be bright and his lips bent in a smile. Andy was ready for the
+last round of the fight--and ready to take his chance. Suddenly under
+the pressure of his thoughts--perforce, as it were--he spoke out to
+Harry.
+
+"None of this has been of my seeking," he said.
+
+"None of what? What do you mean, old fellow?"
+
+There was no time for answer. Vivien was in the room, and the clerk
+closed the door after she had entered.
+
+She stood for a moment on the threshold and then moved quickly to Andy's
+side.
+
+"I knew," she said. "I heard your voices."
+
+"I'm just going," said Harry. "I won't interrupt you. I had a hope that
+you wouldn't mind just shaking hands with an old friend. I should like
+it--awfully!" His smile now was pleading, propitiatory, yet with the
+lurking hint that there was sentimental interest in the situation;
+possibly, though he could not be convicted of this idea--it was too
+elusively suggested--that there was, after all, a dash of the amusing.
+
+She paused long on her answer. At last she spoke quietly, in a friendly
+voice. "Yes, I'll shake hands with you, Harry. Because it's all over."
+She smiled faintly. "I'll shake hands with you if Andy will let me."
+
+"If Andy--?"
+
+"Yes; because my hand belongs to him now. I came here to tell him so
+this morning." She passed her left arm through Andy's and held out her
+right hand towards Harry. Her lips quivered as she looked up for a
+moment at Andy's face. He patted her hand gently, but his eyes were set
+on Harry Belfield.
+
+The hand she offered Harry did not take. He stretched out his for his
+hat, and picked it up from the table in a shaking grip. The smile had
+gone from his lips; his eyes were heavy and resentful; he found no more
+eloquent, appropriate words.
+
+"Oh, so that's it?" he said with a sullen sneer.
+
+"It's none of it been of my seeking," Andy protested again. In this last
+moment of the fight the old feeling came strong upon him. He pleaded
+that he had been loyal to Harry, that he was no usurper; it had never
+been in his mind.
+
+Harry stood in silence, fingering his hat. He cast a glance across at
+them--where they stood opposite to him, side by side, her arm in Andy's.
+Very fresh across his memory struck the look on her face--the trustful
+happiness which had followed on the tremulous joy evoked by his
+wonderful words. It was not his nor for him any more, that look. He
+hated that it should be Andy's. He gave the old impatient protesting
+shrug of his shoulders. What other comment was there to make? He was
+what he was--and these things happened! The Restless Master plays these
+disconcerting tricks on his devoted servants.
+
+"Well, good-bye," he mumbled.
+
+"Good-bye, Harry," said both, she in her clear soft voice, Andy in his
+weightier note, both with a grave pity which recognised, even as did his
+shrug of the shoulders, that there was no more to be said. It was just
+good-bye, just a parting of the ways, a severing of lives. Even good
+wishes would have seemed a mockery; from neither side were they offered.
+
+With one more look, another slightest shrug, Harry Belfield turned his
+back on them. They stood without moving till the door closed behind him.
+
+He was gone. Andy gave a deep sigh and dropped into the arm-chair by his
+office desk. Vivien bent over him, her hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Why did you let me meet him, Andy?"
+
+Andy was long in answering. He was revolving the processes of his own
+mind, the impulse under which he had acted, why he had exposed her to
+such an ordeal as had once been in the day's work at Nutley.
+
+"It was a chance, your coming while he was here, we three being here
+together. But since it happened like that"--he raised his eyes to
+hers--"well, I just thought that neither of us ought to funk him." The
+utterance seemed a simple result of so much cogitation.
+
+But Vivien laughed softly as she daintily and daringly laid her hand on
+Andy's big head.
+
+"If I 'funked him' still, I shouldn't have come at all," she said. "I
+think I'm just getting to know something about you, Andy. You're like
+some big thing in a dim light; one only sees you very gradually. I used
+to think of you as fetching and carrying, you know."
+
+Andy chuckled contentedly. "You thought about right," he said. "That's
+what I'm always doing, just what I'm fit for. I shall go on doing it all
+my life, fetching and carrying for you."
+
+"Not only for me, I think. For everybody; perhaps even for the
+nation--for the world, Andy!"
+
+He caught the little hand that was playing over his broad brow. "For you
+first. As for the rest of it--!" He broke into a laugh. "I say, Vivien,
+the first time I saw you I was following the hounds on foot! That's all
+I can do. The hunt gets out of sight, but sometimes you can tell where
+it's going. That's about my form. Now if I was a clever chap like
+Harry!"
+
+With a laugh that was half a sob she kissed his upturned face. "Keep me
+safe, keep me safe, Andy!" she whispered.
+
+Andy slowly rose to his feet, and, turning, faced her. He took her hands
+in his. "By Jove, you kissed me! You kissed me, Vivien!"
+
+She laughed merrily. "Well, of course I did! Isn't it--usual?"
+
+Andy smiled. "If things like that are going to be usual--well, life's
+looking a bit different!" he said.
+
+Suddenly there were wild sounds in the outer office--a door slammed, a
+furious sweet voice, a swish of skirts. The door of the inner office
+flew open.
+
+"What about lunch?" demanded the Nun accusingly.
+
+"I'd forgotten it!" Vivien exclaimed.
+
+"So had I, but I'm awfully hungry, now I come to think of it," said
+Andy. "The usual place?"
+
+"No," said the Nun. "Somewhere else. Harry's there--lunching alone! The
+first time I ever saw him do that!" She looked at the pair of them. Her
+remark seemed not to make the least impression. It did not matter where
+or how Harry Belfield lunched. She looked again from Vivien to Andy,
+from Andy to Vivien.
+
+"Oh!" she said.
+
+"Yes, Doris," said Vivien meekly.
+
+The Nun addressed Andy severely. "Mrs. Belfield will consider that
+you're marrying above your station, Andy."
+
+Andy scratched his big head. "Yes, Doris, and she'll be quite right," he
+said apologetically. "Of course she will! But a fellow can only--well,
+take things as they come." He broke into his hearty laugh. "What'll old
+Jack say?"
+
+The Nun knew what old Jack would say--very privately. "I wish it had
+been you, miss!" But she had no envy in her heart.
+
+"For people who do fall in love, it must be rather pleasant," she
+observed.
+
+"The worst of it is, I've got so little time," said Andy.
+
+The two girls laughed. "I only want you to have time to be in love with
+one girl," Vivien explained reassuringly.
+
+"And, perhaps, just friends with another," the Nun added.
+
+Andy joined in the laughter. "I shall fit those two things in all
+right!" he declared.
+
+The afternoon saw them back at Meriton; it was there that Andy Hayes
+truly tasted the flavour of his good fortune. There the winning of
+Vivien seemed no isolated achievement, not a bit of luck standing by
+itself, but the master-knot among the many ties that now bound him to
+his home. The old bonds held; the new came. In the greetings of friends
+of every degree--from Chinks, the Bird, and Miss Miles, up to the great
+Lord Meriton himself--in Wellgood's hard and curt, yet ready and in
+truth triumphant, endorsement of an arrangement that banned the very
+thought of the man he hated, in old Jack's satisfaction in the vision of
+Andy in due time reigning at Nutley itself (his bit of sentiment about
+the Nun was almost swallowed up in this)--most of all perhaps in
+Belfield's cordial yet sad acceptance of his son's supplanter--he found
+the completion of the first stage of his life's journey and the
+definition of its future course and of its goal. His face was set
+towards his destination; the love and confidence of the friends of a
+lifetime accompanied, cheered, and aided his steady progress. No high
+thoughts were in his mind. To find time for the work of the day, his own
+and what other people were always so ready to leave to him, and to move
+on a little--that was his task, that bounded his ambition. Anything else
+that came was, as he had said to Harry Belfield, not of his seeking--and
+never ceased rather to surprise him, to be received by him with the
+touch of simple wonder, which made men smile at him even while they
+admired and followed, which made women laugh, and in a sense pity, while
+they trusted and loved. He saw the smiles and laughter, and thought them
+natural. Slowly he came to rely on the love and trust, and in the
+strength of them found his own strength growing, his confidence
+gradually maturing.
+
+"With you beside me, and all the dear old set round me, and Meriton
+behind me, I ought to be able to get through," he said to Vivien as they
+walked together in the wood at Nutley before dinner.
+
+She stopped by a bench, rudely fashioned out of a tree trunk. "Lend me
+your knife, Andy, please."
+
+He gave it to her, and stood watching while she stooped and scratched
+with the knife on the side of the bench. Certain initials were scratched
+out.
+
+"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the spot where they had been.
+
+"Only a memorandum of something I don't want to remember any more," she
+answered. She came back to him, blushing a little, smiling, yet with
+tears in her eyes. "Yes, Meriton, and the old friends, and I--we're all
+with you now--all of us with all our hearts now, dear Andy!"
+
+Andy made his last protest. "I'd have been loyal to him all my life, if
+he'd have let me!"
+
+"I know it. And so would I. But he wouldn't let us." She took his arm as
+they turned away from the bench. "The sorrow must be in our hearts
+always, I think. But now it's sorrow for him, not for ourselves, Andy."
+
+In the hour of his own triumph, because of the greatness of his own joy,
+tenderness for his friend revived.
+
+"Dear old chap! How handsome he looked to-day!"
+
+Vivien pressed his arm. "You can say that as often as you like! There's
+no danger from him now!"
+
+The shadow passed from Andy Hayes' face as he turned to his own great
+joy.
+
+
+                               THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                               Notes on
+                         Nelson's New Novels.
+
+
+                 _No work of unwholesome character or
+                    of second-rate quality will be
+                       included in this Series._
+
+
+The novel is to-day _the_ popular form of literary art. This is proved
+by the number of novels published, and by the enormous sales of fiction
+at popular prices.
+
+While _Reprints_ of fiction may be purchased for a few pence, _New
+Fiction_ is still a luxury.
+
+The author of a New Novel loses his larger audience, the public are
+denied the privilege of enjoying his latest work, because of the
+prohibitive price of 4s. 6d. demanded for the ordinary "six shilling"
+novel.
+
+In another way both author and public are badly served under the present
+publishing system. At certain seasons a flood of new novels pours from
+the press. Selection becomes almost impossible. The good novels are lost
+among the indifferent and the bad. Good service can be done to
+literature not only by reducing the price of fiction, but by sifting its
+quality.
+
+The number of publishers issuing new fiction is so great, that the
+entrance of another firm into the field demands almost an apology--at
+least, a word of explanation.
+
+Messrs. Nelson have been pioneers in the issue of reprints of fiction in
+Library Edition at Sevenpence. The success of _Nelson's Library_ has
+been due to the careful selection of books, regular publication
+throughout the whole year, and excellence of manufacture at a low cost,
+due to perfection of machinery.
+
+Nelson's Sevenpenny Library represents the best that can be given to the
+public in the way of _Reprints_ under present manufacturing conditions.
+
+Nelson's New Novels (of which this book is one of the first volumes)
+represents the same standard of careful selection, excellence of
+production, and lowest possible price applied to _New Fiction_.
+
+The list of authors of Nelson's New Novels for 1910 includes Anthony
+Hope, E. F. Benson, H. A. Vachell, H. G. Wells, "Q," G. A. Birmingham,
+John Masefield, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, J. C. Snaith, John Buchan, and
+Agnes and Egerton Castle. Arrangements for subsequent volumes have been
+made with other authors of equally high standing.
+
+Nelson's New Novels are of the ordinary "six shilling" size, but are
+produced with greater care than most of their competitors. They are
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+
+A new volume is issued regularly every month.
+
+The price is the very lowest at which a large New Novel with good
+material and workmanship, and with an adequate return to author,
+bookseller, and publisher, can be offered to the public at the present
+time.
+
+
+
+
+                       _Descriptive Notes
+                      on the Volumes for 1910_:--
+
+
+  FORTUNE.                                       _J. C. Snaith._
+
+Mr. J. C. Snaith is already known to fame by his historical novels, his
+admirable cricketing story, his essay in Meredithan subtlety "Brooke of
+Covenden," and his most successful Victorian comedy "Araminta." In his
+new novel he breaks ground which has never before been touched by an
+English novelist. He follows no less a leader than Cervantes. His
+hero, Sir Richard Pendragon, is Sir John Falstaff grown athletic and
+courageous, with his imagination fired by much adventure in far
+countries and some converse with the knight of La Mancha. The doings
+of this monstrous Englishman are narrated by a young and scandalized
+Spanish squire, full of all the pedantry of chivalry. Sir Richard is a
+new type in literature--the Rabelaisian Paladin, whose foes flee not
+only from his sword but from his Gargantuan laughter. In Mr. Snaith's
+romance there are many delightful characters--a Spanish lady who
+dictates to armies, a French prince of the blood who has forsaken his
+birthright for the highroad. But all are dominated by the immense Sir
+Richard, who rights wrongs like an unruly Providence, and then rides
+away.
+
+
+  THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY.                       _H. G. Wells._
+
+If the true aim of romance is to find beauty and laughter and heroism in
+odd places, then Mr. Wells is a great romantic. His heroes are not
+knights and adventurers, not even members of the quasi-romantic
+professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom the world has
+hitherto neglected. The hero of the new book, Mr. Alfred Polly, is of
+the same school, but he is nearer Hoopdriver than Kipps. He is in the
+last resort the master of his fate, and squares himself defiantly
+against the Destinies. Unlike the others, he has a literary sense, and
+has a strange fantastic culture of his own. Mr. Wells has never written
+anything more human or more truly humorous than the adventures of Mr.
+Polly as haberdasher's apprentice, haberdasher, incendiary, and tramp.
+Mr. Polly discovers the great truth that, however black things may be,
+there is always a way out for a man if he is bold enough to take it,
+even though that way leads through fire and revolution. The last part of
+the book, where the hero discovers his courage, is a kind of saga. We
+leave him in the end at peace with his own soul, wondering dimly about
+the hereafter, having proved his manhood, and found his niche in life.
+
+
+  DAISY'S AUNT.                                  _E. F. Benson._
+
+It is Mr. Benson's chief merit that, without losing the lightness of
+touch which makes good comedy, he keeps a firm hold upon the graver
+matters which make good fiction. The present book is a tale of
+conspiracy--the plot of a beautiful woman to save her young niece from a
+man whom she regards as a blackguard. None of Mr. Benson's women are
+more attractive than these two, who fight for long at cross-purposes,
+and end, as all honest natures must, with a truer understanding.
+
+
+  THE OTHER SIDE.                               _H. A. Vachell._
+
+In this remarkable book Mr. Vachell leaves the beaten highway of
+romance, and grapples with the deepest problems of human personality and
+the unseen. It is a story of a musical genius, in whose soul worldliness
+conquers spirituality. When he is at the height of his apparent success,
+there comes an accident, and for a little soul and body seem to
+separate. On his return to ordinary life he sees the world with other
+eyes, but his clearness of vision has come too late to save his art. He
+pays for his earlier folly in artistic impotence. The book is a profound
+moral allegory, and none the less a brilliant romance.
+
+
+  SIR GEORGE'S OBJECTION.                 _Mrs. W. K. Clifford._
+
+Mrs. Clifford raises the old problem of heredity, and gives it a very
+modern and scientific answer. It is the story of a woman who, after her
+husband's disgrace and death, settles with her only daughter upon the
+shore of one of the Italian lakes. The girl grows up in ignorance of her
+family history, but when the inevitable young man appears complications
+begin. As it happens, Sir George, the father of the lover, holds the
+old-fashioned cast-iron doctrine of heredity, and the story shows the
+conflict between his pedantry and the compulsion of fact. It is a book
+full of serious interest for all readers, and gives us in addition a
+charming love story. Mrs. Clifford has drawn many delightful women, but
+Kitty and her mother must stand first in her gallery.
+
+
+  PRESTER JOHN.                                   _John Buchan._
+
+This is a story which, in opposition to all accepted canons of romance,
+possesses no kind of heroine. There is no woman from beginning to end in
+the book, unless we include a little Kaffir serving-girl. The hero is a
+Scottish lad, who goes as assistant to a store in the far north of the
+Transvaal. By a series of accidents he discovers a plot for a great
+Kaffir rising, and by a combination of luck and courage manages to
+frustrate it. From the beginning to end it is a book of stark adventure.
+The leader of the rising is a black missionary, who believes himself the
+incarnation of the mediæval Abyssinian emperor Prester John. By means of
+a perverted Christianity, and the possession of the ruby collar which
+for centuries has been the Kaffir fetish, he organizes the natives of
+Southern Africa into a great army. But a revolution depends upon small
+things, and by frustrating the leader in these small things, the young
+storekeeper wins his way to fame and fortune. It is a book for all who
+are young enough in heart to enjoy a record of straightforward
+adventure.
+
+
+  LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.                                  "_Q._"
+
+Sir Oliver Vyell, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, is the British
+Collector of Customs at the port of Boston in the days before the
+American Revolution. While there he runs his head against New England
+Puritanism, rescues a poor girl who has been put in the stocks for
+Sabbath-breaking, carries her off, and has her educated. The story deals
+with the development of Ruth Josselin from a half-starved castaway to a
+beautiful and subtle woman. Sir Oliver falls in love with his ward, and
+she becomes my Lady and the mistress of a great house; but to the New
+Englanders she remains a Sabbath-breaker and "Lady-Good-for-Nothing."
+The scene moves to Lisbon, whither Sir Oliver goes on Government
+service, and there is a wonderful picture of the famous earthquake. The
+book is a story of an act of folly, and its heavy penalties, and also
+the record of the growth of two characters--one from atheism to
+reverence, and the other from a bitter revolt against the world to a
+wiser philosophy. The tale is original in scheme and setting, and the
+atmosphere and thought of another age are brilliantly reproduced. No
+better historical romance has been written in our times.
+
+
+  PANTHER'S CUB.                     _Agnes and Egerton Castle._
+
+This is the story of a world-famed prima donna, whose only daughter has
+been brought up in a very different world from that in which her mother
+lives. When the child grows to womanhood she joins her mother, and the
+problem of the book is the conflict of the two temperaments--the one
+sophisticated and undisciplined, and the other simple and sincere. The
+scenes are laid in Vienna and London, amid all types of society--smart,
+artistic, and diplomatic. Against the Bohemian background the authors
+have worked out a very beautiful love story of a young diplomatist and
+the singer's daughter. The book is full of brilliant character-sketches
+and dramatic moments.
+
+
+  TREPANNED.                                   _John Masefield._
+
+Mr. Masefield has already won high reputation as poet and dramatist, and
+his novel "Captain Margaret" showed him to be a romancer of a higher
+order. "Trepanned" is a story of adventure in Virginia and the Spanish
+Main. A Kentish boy is trepanned and carried off to sea, and finds his
+fill of adventure among Indians and buccaneers. The central episode of
+the book is a quest for the sacred Aztec temple. The swift drama of the
+narrative, and the poetry and imagination of the style, make the book in
+the highest sense literature. It should appeal not only to all lovers of
+good writing, but to all who care for the record of stirring deeds.
+
+
+  THE SIMPKINS PLOT.                     _George A. Birmingham._
+
+"Spanish Gold" has been the most mirth-provoking of Irish novels
+published in the last few years, and Mr. Birmingham's new book is a
+worthy successor. Once more the admirable red-haired curate, "J. J.,"
+appears, and his wild energy turns a peaceful neighbourhood into a
+hotbed of intrigue and suspicion. The story tells how he discovers in a
+harmless lady novelist, seeking quiet for her work, a murderess whose
+trial had been a _cause célèbre_. He forms a scheme of marrying the lady
+to the local bore, in the hope that she may end his career. Once started
+on the wrong tack, he works out his evidence with convincing logic, and
+ties up the whole neighbourhood in the toils of his misconception. The
+book is full of the wittiest dialogue and the most farcical situations.
+It will be as certain to please all lovers of Irish humour as the
+immortal "Experiences of an Irish R. M."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                     THOMAS NELSON AND SONS,
+             London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Second String, by Anthony Hope
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND STRING ***
+
+***** This file should be named 38796-8.txt or 38796-8.zip *****
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