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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38796-8.txt b/38796-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cf2323 --- /dev/null +++ b/38796-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14703 @@ +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 +printed in large, clear type, on a fine white paper. They are strongly +bound in green cloth with a white and gold design. They are decorated +with a pretty end-paper and a coloured frontispiece. All the volumes are +issued in bright wrappers. The books are a happy combination of +substantial and artistic qualities. + +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 ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/9/38796/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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] +[Last updated: May 3, 2012] + +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.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="mynote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> +<p>Punctuation has been regularized.<br /> +The following typographical corrections were made:<br /> + <a href="#page_517">p. 517</a> "dumurely" changed to "demurely"<br /> + <a href="#page_536">p. 536</a> "that's he" changed to "that he's"<br /> + <a href="#page_539">p. 539</a> "thing" changed to "think"</p> +</div> + +<div style="width: 50%; margin: auto"> +<img src="images/frontis.png" width="100%" height="100%" alt="frontispiece" /> +</div> + +<h1>SECOND STRING<a class="pagenum" id="page_i" title="pg i"></a></h1> + +<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> ANTHONY HOPE</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div style="margin:auto; width:8%;"> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="100%" height="100%" alt="colophon" /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h3>THOMAS NELSON AND SONS</h3> +<h4>LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN,</h4> +<h4>LEEDS, AND NEW YORK</h4> +<h4>LEIPZIG: 35-37 Königstrasse. PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Pères.</h4> + +<p style="text-align: center">First Published 1910.<a class="pagenum" id="page_ii" title="pg ii"></a></p> + +<hr /> +<h2>CONTENTS.<a class="pagenum" id="page_iii" title="pg iii"></a></h2> + +<table class="toc"> +<tr> +<td>I.</td> +<td> <span class="smcap">Home Again</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_5">5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>II.</td> +<td> <span class="smcap">A Very Little Hunting</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_27">27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>III.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Potent Voice</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_45">45</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>IV.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Settled Programmes</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_66">66</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>V.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Broadening Life</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_87">87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>VI.</td> +<td> <span class="smcap">The Worlds of Meriton</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_106">106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>VII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Entering for the Race</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_128">128</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>VIII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Wonderful Words</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>IX.</td> +<td>"<span class="smcap">Interjection</span>"</td> +<td><a href="#page_169">169</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>X.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Friends in Need</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_190">190</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XI.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Shawl by the Window</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_212">212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Concerning a Stolen Kiss</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_235">235</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XIII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">A Lover Looks Pale</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_256">256</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XIV.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Saving the Nation</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_278">278</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XV.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Love and Fear</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_300">300</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XVI.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">A Choice of Evils</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_321">321</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XVII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_iv" title="pg iv"></a></td> +<td><span class="smcap">Reformation</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_342">342</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XVIII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Penitence and Problems</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_362">362</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XIX.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Marked Money</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_384">384</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XX.</td> +<td> <span class="smcap">No Good?</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_404">404</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXI.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Empty Place</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_424">424</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Grubbing Away</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_446">446</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXIII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">A Stop-Gap</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_468">468</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXIV.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Pretty Much the Same!</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_490">490</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXV.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">The Last Fight</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_512">512</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXVI.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Tales out of School for Once</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_533">533</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>XXVII.</td> +<td><span class="smcap">Not of his Seeking</span></td> +<td><a href="#page_555">555</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="wide" /> +<h1>SECOND STRING.<a class="pagenum" id="page_5" title="pg 5"></a></h1> +<hr class="wide" /> +<h2>Chapter I.</h2> + +<h2>HOME AGAIN.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_6" title="pg 6"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_7" title="pg 7"></a> +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. +<i>Mens Aequa!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_8" title="pg 8"></a> +"Come into the office. We must drink your +health. You too, Simpson. Come along."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_9" title="pg 9"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly remember what it was, but +you'd have had a good go for it, Andy."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Naturally, seein' he was B.A. Oxon, and a +gentleman himself," said Jack.</p> + +<p>He spoke in a tone of awe and admiration. +Andy looked at him with a smile. Among the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_10" title="pg 10"></a> +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 <i>mésalliance</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not a B.A.—Oxon. or otherwise," +laughed Andy. "I don't know whether I'm +<a class="pagenum" id="page_11" title="pg 11"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What's it worth to you?" asked Jack.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, lucky thing you got pals with that Canadian +fellow down in South Africa."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The old gentleman himself told me he thought +you'd done right."</p> + +<p>"It was an opening; and it had to be taken or +<a class="pagenum" id="page_12" title="pg 12"></a> +left, then and there. So here I am, and I'm going +to start an office in London."</p> + +<p>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 <i>mésalliance</i>—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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_13" title="pg 13"></a> +Andy was smitten with a sudden compunction. +"Why, I've never asked after Harry Belfield!" he +cried.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_14" title="pg 14"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Can I? How?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_15" title="pg 15"></a> +"Good! Which side is he?"</p> + +<p>"You've been a good while away to ask that!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I have. I say, Jack, let's go."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not going for the politics. I'm going +to hear Harry Belfield."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_16" title="pg 16"></a> +"Suppose we say to-morrow morning?" laughed +Andy.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Hard on it, I fancy—and I'm a fool on a horse +anyhow. But I shall go—on shanks' mare."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Wish you'd stay here, lad. I'm much alone +these days—with the old gentleman gone, and +poor Nancy gone!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I shall. Anyhow I might stay here +<a class="pagenum" id="page_17" title="pg 17"></a> +for the summer, and go up to town to the +office."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_18" title="pg 18"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>éclat</i>.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_19" title="pg 19"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_20" title="pg 20"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>Andy Hayes was not much of a politician. Up +to now he had been content with the politics of +his <i>métier</i>, 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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_21" title="pg 21"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_22" title="pg 22"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_23" title="pg 23"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_24" title="pg 24"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_25" title="pg 25"></a> +he ran down from the platform to him. His +greeting was all his worshipper could ask.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Andy, "I'm staying a day or two +with Jack Rock."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I expected you to make a good one."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_26" title="pg 26"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<h2>Chapter II.<a class="pagenum" id="page_27" title="pg 27"></a></h2> + +<h2>A VERY LITTLE HUNTING.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_28" title="pg 28"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_29" title="pg 29"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_30" title="pg 30"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>They swept into the Dip as Andy started to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_31" title="pg 31"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon; anything wrong?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>He had been interested in Vivien Wellgood +the evening before, but he was much more than +<a class="pagenum" id="page_32" title="pg 32"></a> +interested in the hunt. Still, she looked forlorn +and desolate.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind looking at my pony's right +front leg?" she asked. "I think he's gone lame."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"We shall never catch them, shall we? It's +not the least use going on, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if +you'd let me pilot you—"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go +home; I'll risk it."</p> + +<p>"Risk what?" he asked. There seemed no +risk in going home; and there was, by now, small +profit in going on.</p> + +<p>She did not answer his question. "I think +hunting's the most wretched amusement I've ever +<a class="pagenum" id="page_33" title="pg 33"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about three miles, I should think. You +could strike the road half a mile from here."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go +back."</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to come with you?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_34" title="pg 34"></a> +"I haven't the least chance of catching up with +them. I may as well come back with you."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It really would be very kind of you," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was silent till they reached the road. Then +she asked abruptly, "Are you ever afraid?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, you're big," she observed. "I'm afraid +of pretty nearly everything—horses, dogs, motor-cars—and +I'm passionately afraid of hunting."</p> + +<p>"You're not big, you see," said Andy consolingly. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_35" title="pg 35"></a> +Indeed her hand on the reins looked +almost ridiculously small.</p> + +<p>"I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. +My father's teaching me. You know who I am, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! +Is that why you're out hunting?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And why you think that the pony—?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And then I'm fastidious. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"I hope not!" said Andy, with an amused +chuckle. A great lump of a fellow like him +fastidious!</p> + +<p>"Father doesn't like that either, and I've got +to get over it."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_36" title="pg 36"></a> +"How does it—er—take you?" Andy made +bold to inquire.</p> + +<p>"Oh, lots of ways. I hate dirt, and dust, and +getting very hot, and going into butchers' shops, +and—"</p> + +<p>"Butchers' shops!" exclaimed Andy, rather hit +on the raw. "You eat meat, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Things don't look half as dead when they're +cooked. I couldn't touch a butcher!" Horror +rang in her tones.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I say, Jack Rock's a butcher, and +he's about the best fellow in Meriton. You know +him?"</p> + +<p>"I've seen him," she admitted reluctantly, the +subject being evidently distasteful.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'm related to him, you know. My stepmother +was his sister. And I'm staying in his house."</p> + +<p>She glanced at him, a slight flush rising to her +cheeks; he saw that her lips trembled a little.</p> + +<p>"It's no use trying to unsay things, is it?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should rather like to have you to stand +<a class="pagenum" id="page_37" title="pg 37"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"You don't mind my asking your father to let +me come and swim, if I'm here in the summer?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_38" title="pg 38"></a> +"I don't suppose I ought to mind that," she said +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Here comes Isobel! Now nothing about +swimming, and say the pony's lame!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_39" title="pg 39"></a> +at the end of it. She looked very efficient and +also very handsome.</p> + +<p>Vivien told her story: Andy, not claiming +expert knowledge, yet stoutly maintained that the +pony was—or anyhow had been—lame.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and +Andy made his bow.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_40" title="pg 40"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" +asked Isobel. "Down, Curly, down! Come +here!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_41" title="pg 41"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why I was so much less frightened." +She turned her eyes suddenly to Andy. "I know. +It was because you were there!"</p> + +<p>"You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being +here yesterday," Isobel reminded her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big—so splendidly +<a class="pagenum" id="page_42" title="pg 42"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come +again," laughed Isobel. "You see how useful +you'll be, Mr. Hayes!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, +Mr. Hayes," laughed Isobel.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_43" title="pg 43"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_44" title="pg 44"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter III.<a class="pagenum" id="page_45" title="pg 45"></a></h2> + +<h2>THE POTENT VOICE.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_46" title="pg 46"></a> +obvious and quite proper for the future owner of +Halton Park.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_47" title="pg 47"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_48" title="pg 48"></a> +positively loves bores—being bored gives him a +sense of serving his country—but I could if he'd +let me."</p> + +<p>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,</p> + +<p>"Would you drop me altogether if I did, +Lily?" He called her Lily when they were +alone.</p> + +<p>"I'm married; you haven't dropped me," said +Mrs. Freere with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's different. I shouldn't marry a +woman unless I was awfully in love with her."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_49" title="pg 49"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Seen somebody?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Harry blushed hotly. "You're an awfully good +sort, Lily," he said.</p> + +<p>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 class="pagenum" id="page_50" title="pg 50"></a> +a broken neck. Mrs. Freere took her bump +smiling, though it certainly hurt a little.</p> + +<p>"Is she very pretty?"</p> + +<p>He jumped up from the armchair. He was +highly serious about the matter, and that, perhaps, +may be counted a grace in him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I shall do it—if I can. But I'm +hanged if I can talk to you about it!"</p> + +<p>"That's rather nice of you. Thank you, +Harry."</p> + +<p>He bowed his comely head, with its waving hair, +over her hand and kissed it.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Harry," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_51" title="pg 51"></a> +"Just time, Wilson?"</p> + +<p>"I've a committee at five, my dear."</p> + +<p>She rang the bell. "Talk of road-hogs! You're +a committee-hog, you know."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said. She did know—and the +knowledge was one of the odd things in life.</p> + +<p>"Goodness, I forgot to telephone!" He +hurried out of the room again.</p> + +<p>"Serves me right, I suppose!" said Mrs. +Freere; to which of recent incidents she referred +must remain uncertain.</p> + +<p>Mr. Freere came back for his hasty cup of tea.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_52" title="pg 52"></a> +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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_53" title="pg 53"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>To Meriton to-morrow! Harry suffered a +sharp and totally unmistakable pang of envy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you come down too? It +would be awfully jolly if you did."</p> + +<p>"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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_54" title="pg 54"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"No; only I'd thought of dropping into the pit +somewhere. I haven't seen 'Hamlet' at the—"</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_55" title="pg 55"></a> +on to supper. I'll give you a little fling for your +last night in town. Will you come?"</p> + +<p>"Will I come? I should rather think I would!" +cried Andy.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_56" title="pg 56"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 class="pagenum" id="page_57" title="pg 57"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_58" title="pg 58"></a> +not go to supper there because one is hungry—that +is a vulgar reason for eating.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Been to hear her?" Miss Dutton asked Andy.</p> + +<p>Andy said that they had, and uttered words +of admiration.</p> + +<p>"Sort of thing they like, isn't it?" said Miss +Dutton. "You can't put in too much rot for +them."</p> + +<p>"But she sings it so—" Andy began to plead.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she can sing. It's a wonder she's succeeded. +How sick one gets of this place!"</p> + +<p>"Do you come often?"</p> + +<p>"Every night—with her generally."</p> + +<p>"I've never been here before in my life."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you like the look of us!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Miss Dutton smiled reluctantly, but evidently +<a class="pagenum" id="page_59" title="pg 59"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"Mercy, Sally, mercy! Don't show me up +before my friends!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_60" title="pg 60"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"Rather neat!" said Billy Foot. "And did +they chuck him?"</p> + +<p>"They'd agreed to, but Maud weakened on it. +Nellie did."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Tommy!" mused Harry Belfield.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was Nellie who was to have the +small cheque?" Billy Foot suggested.</p> + +<p>"No; it was Maud."</p> + +<p>"Then I drink to Maud as a true woman and a +forgiving creature!"</p> + +<p>Andy broke into a hearty enjoying laugh. +Nothing had passed which would stand a critical +examination in humour, much less in wit; but +<a class="pagenum" id="page_61" title="pg 61"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"They're laughing at you," said Miss Dutton +in her most sardonic tone.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind. Of course they are! I'm such +an outsider."</p> + +<p>"Worth a dozen of either of them," she remarked, +with a calmly impersonal air that reduced +her compliment to a mere statement of fact.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I heard!" cried Harry. "You don't +think much of us, do you, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"I come here every night," said Miss Dutton. +"Consequently I know."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"We must eat somewhere," observed the Nun +with placid resignation.</p> + +<p>"We must be as good as we can and hope for +mercy," said Billy Foot.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_62" title="pg 62"></a> +"You'll need it," commented Miss Dutton.</p> + +<p>"Let's hope the law of supply and demand will +hold good!" laughed Harry.</p> + +<p>"How awfully jolly all this is!" said Andy.</p> + +<p>He had just time to observe Miss Dutton's +witheringly patient smile before the lights went out. +"Hullo!" cried Andy; and the rest laughed.</p> + +<p>Up again the lights went, but the Nun rose +from her chair.</p> + +<p>"Had enough of it?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"This is good-bye for a bit, Doris," he said. +"I'm off to the country the day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"What have we done to you?" the Nun inquired +with sedate anxiety.</p> + +<p>"I've got to work, and I can't do it in London. +I've got a career to look after."</p> + +<p>The Nun gurgled again—for the second time +only in the course of the evening. "Oh yes," she +murmured with obvious scepticism. "Well, come +<a class="pagenum" id="page_63" title="pg 63"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Come alone—not with these men, or we shall +only talk nonsense," said the Nun, as she got into +her brougham. "Get in, Sally."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Where to now?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>Andy wondered what other place there was.</p> + +<p>"Bed for me," said Billy Foot. "I've a +consultation at half-past nine, and I haven't opened +the papers yet."</p> + +<p>"Bed is best," Harry agreed, though rather +reluctantly. "Going to take a cab, Billy?"</p> + +<p>"What else is there to take?"</p> + +<p>"Thought you might be walking."</p> + +<p>"Oh, walking be ——!" He climbed into a +hansom.</p> + +<p>"I'll walk with you, Harry. I haven't had +exercise enough."</p> + +<p>Harry suggested that they should go home by +<a class="pagenum" id="page_64" title="pg 64"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"You've given me a splendid evening," said +Andy. "And what a good sort those girls were!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It's all before you, if you do," said Andy in +unquestioning loyalty.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to work, and to pull up a bit all +<a class="pagenum" id="page_65" title="pg 65"></a> +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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter IV.<a class="pagenum" id="page_66" title="pg 66"></a></h2> + +<h2>SETTLED PROGRAMMES.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_67" title="pg 67"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_68" title="pg 68"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"That might be awkward for us," said Harry, +with a smile at Vivien opposite.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But isn't there a terrible lot of misery, father?" +asked Vivien.</p> + +<p>"You can't cure misery by quackery, my dear," +he answered concisely. "Half of it's their own +<a class="pagenum" id="page_69" title="pg 69"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"To him that hath shall be given, eh?" Harry +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Matter of Scripture, Harry, and you can't get +away from it!" said Wellgood with a laugh.</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_70" title="pg 70"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_71" title="pg 71"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The horse gets out of harness now and then!" +said Isobel.</p> + +<p>"You don't want him to kill himself with work, +Isobel?" asked Vivien reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_72" title="pg 72"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with +a smile and a nod.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the solid man."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. +He thought you behaved like a brick."</p> + +<p>"He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him +here, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"He's in town all day; I'll try and get him +here some Saturday."</p> + +<p>"Does he still stay with the—with Mr. Rock?" +asked Vivien.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_73" title="pg 73"></a> +"It does make his position seem—just rather +betwixt and between, doesn't it?" asked Isobel.</p> + +<p>"If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien.</p> + +<p>"O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing +against butchers," was one of the rules.</p> + +<p>"I know, but I would so much rather it had +been a draper, or a stationer, or something—something +clean of that sort."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, +Vivien!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_74" title="pg 74"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_75" title="pg 75"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Isobel turned to him with a start.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think I should be rather hard to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_76" title="pg 76"></a> +please if I found Nutley dull," he said gaily. +"But if you do, why do you stay?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The natural end?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled +with a good-humoured scorn at his homage to +pretence.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, +a confession without much trace of penitence.</p> + +<p>"Mine don't often; and they're never supposed +to—in my position."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, +Miss Vintry. Why, a girl like you, with such—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_77" title="pg 77"></a> +"Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry."</p> + +<p>"You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how +limited my powers are."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_78" title="pg 78"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_79" title="pg 79"></a> +it brought triumph—triumph and an oppressive +restlessness.</p> + +<p>Wellgood strolled out of the house and joined +her. "Where's Harry?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He went into the house to say good-bye to +Vivien; or perhaps he's gone altogether by now."</p> + +<p>Wellgood stood in thought, his hands in his +pockets.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, everybody must!" She smiled at him. +"Are you thinking of match-making, like a good +father?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If that's the programme, I must begin to think +of packing up my trunks," she said with a laugh.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_80" title="pg 80"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>She showed no sign of embarrassment under +his scrutiny; she stood handsome and apparently +serene in her composure.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You've done your work very well. People +who work well are well treated at Nutley; people +who work badly—"</p> + +<p>"Aren't exactly petted? No, they're not, Mr. +Wellgood, I know."</p> + +<p>"You'd always do your work, whatever it might +be, well, so you'd always be well treated."</p> + +<p>"At any rate you'll give me a good character?" +she asked mockingly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_81" title="pg 81"></a> +acceptance should follow on his daughter's engagement.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_82" title="pg 82"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_83" title="pg 83"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_84" title="pg 84"></a> +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 <i>rôle</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Sudden?" cried Harry. "Why, I've known +her all my life!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Harry; "but those were +only—well, passing sort of things, you know."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_85" title="pg 85"></a> +"And this isn't a passing sort of thing?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Harry laughed. "Well, I suppose that depends +on how one feels. I happen to feel rather in a +hurry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_86" title="pg 86"></a> +"Hurrah! That's very good of the mater."</p> + +<p>"—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."</p> + +<p>"Dear old Andy—he's getting quite the fashion! +I'm to take him to Nutley too."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The one man who had serious fears—or at least +doubts—about Harry Belfield's future was his own +father.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<h2>Chapter V.<a class="pagenum" id="page_87" title="pg 87"></a></h2> + +<h2>BROADENING LIFE.</h2> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I think Mr. Hayes'll win now," said Vivien.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_88" title="pg 88"></a> +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"!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Harry Belfield was the least bit vexed—amusedly +vexed. He remembered Andy's clumsy elephantine +<a class="pagenum" id="page_89" title="pg 89"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Lost your nerve, Harry?" said the umpire.</p> + +<p>"The beggar's such a sticker!" grumbled +Harry, laughing. "You think you've got him +licked—and you haven't!"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad Mr. Hayes won." This from Vivien.</p> + +<p>"Not only defeated, but forsaken!" Harry +cried. "Andy, I'll have your blood!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_90" title="pg 90"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"It was an awful fluke!" he protested apologetically.</p> + +<p>"You'd beat him three times out of five," +Wellgood asserted in that confident tone of his.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_91" title="pg 91"></a> +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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_92" title="pg 92"></a> +his absolute exclusive devotion a rare flower of +romance.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They did shine forth. "Very good of you, +ladies, but I think he holds me safe," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't if you'd only play steady," Andy +observed in his reflective way. "Taking chances—that's +your fault, Harry."</p> + +<p>"Taking chances—why, it's life!" cried Harry, +any shadow of vexation utterly gone and leaving +not the smallest memory.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Was life taking chances? To one only of the +party did that seem really true. Harry had said +<a class="pagenum" id="page_93" title="pg 93"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Mr. Harry! Hullo, Andy!" +<a class="pagenum" id="page_94" title="pg 94"></a> +said Chinks and the Bird. When they were past, +the Bird nudged Chinks with his elbow and winked +his eye.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's getting no end of a swell, isn't +he?" said Chinks. "Hand-and-glove with Harry +Belfield!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I don't. Well, we're all at work. +And when I do get a day off—"</p> + +<p>"You don't need to spend it at the Lion!" +laughed Harry. "As good drink and better company +in other places!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_95" title="pg 95"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"My husband thinks you're such a good companion +for Harry," she added, showing that her +pleasure was genuine, even if somewhat interested.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody" had been, in fact, Jack Rock, +but—again for obvious reasons—the authority was +not cited by name.</p> + +<p>"You may be sure I shall give him as much of +my company as he'll take, sir," said Andy, infinitely +pleased, enormously complimented.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_96" title="pg 96"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_97" title="pg 97"></a> +received another new impression and a rarely +attractive one.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No thought for himself, no thought of trying +to rival Harry, so much as crossed his mind. If +<a class="pagenum" id="page_98" title="pg 98"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"That's right. It's only his fun."</p> + +<p>"People's fun is sometimes the worst thing +about them."</p> + +<p>"Well now, that's true," Andy acknowledged, +rather surprised to hear the remark from her.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_99" title="pg 99"></a> +"Do you find it helps?" asked Andy, much +amused and rather pleased.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's like thinking of a policeman in the +middle of the night."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I do look rather like a policeman," +said Andy reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do! That's it, I think." The +vague "it" seemed to signify the explanation of +the confidence Andy inspired.</p> + +<p>"And how about dust and dirt, and getting very +hot?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Isobel says I'm a bit better about courage, but +not the least about fastidiousness."</p> + +<p>"Fastidiousness suits some people, Miss Wellgood."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't suit father, not in me," she murmured +with a woeful smile.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't thinking about me help you there? +On the same principle it ought to."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Her confidence had been very pleasant, but +there were other things to listen to at the table. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_100" title="pg 100"></a> +Andy was heart-whole and intellectually voracious.</p> + +<p>They, the rest of the company, had begun on +politics—imperial politics—and had discussed them +not without some friction. No Radical was +present—<i>Procul, O procul este, profani!</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_101" title="pg 101"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it?" Isobel Vintry was the questioner.</p> + +<p>"Heavens, no, my dear Miss Vintry! Something +much less, something much less fundamentally +impossible. A good temper and a bad +memory, that's all!"</p> + +<p>"Well done, pater!" cried Harry, readily +<a class="pagenum" id="page_102" title="pg 102"></a> +switched off from his heated enthusiasm. "Which +for the husband, which for the wife?"</p> + +<p>"Both for both, Harry. Toleration to-day, and +an unlimited power of oblivion to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense you're talking, dear," placidly +smiled Mrs. Belfield.</p> + +<p>"I'm exactly defining your own characteristics," +he replied. "If you do that to a woman, she +always says you're talking nonsense."</p> + +<p>"An unlimited supply of the water of Lethe, +pater? That does it?"</p> + +<p>"That's about it, Harry. If you mix it with +a little sound Scotch whisky before you go to +bed—"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But Wellgood was not content; he was baulked +of his argument, of his fight.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Could anything be more nicely exact to my +parallel?" asked Belfield, socratically smiling. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_103" title="pg 103"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"Pater, you always mix up different things," +Harry protested, laughing.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; +she looked sumptuous. "I shouldn't like it," she +answered.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Need of Lethe—whisky and Lethe-water!" +chuckled Harry. "In a large glass, eh, Andy?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_104" title="pg 104"></a> +Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've +lived in Canada. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>Andy had been far too much occupied in listening. +Besides, he was no politician. He thought +deeply for a moment.</p> + +<p>"A lot depends on whether you want to buy or +to sell." He delivered himself of this truth quite +solemnly.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Look here, pater, we're at dessert! Aren't +you starting rather big subjects?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The men were left alone. "The garden would +be jolly," said Harry.</p> + +<p>Mr. Belfield coughed, and suddenly wheezed. +"Intimations of mortality!" he said apologetically. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_105" title="pg 105"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"Everybody else was talking such a lot, sir," +said Andy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>ultima ratio</i>, the final argument."</p> + +<p>"The women say that's out of date."</p> + +<p>"The women!" exclaimed Wellgood contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"They'll be in the garden," Harry opined. +"Shall we move, pater?"</p> + +<p>"We might as well," said Belfield. "Are you +ready, Wellgood?"</p> + +<p>Wellgood was ready—in spite of his contempt.</p> + +<h2>Chapter VI.<a class="pagenum" id="page_106" title="pg 106"></a></h2> + +<h2>THE WORLDS OF MERITON.</h2> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Swine!" The note of exclamation was large. +"Our masters, Mr. Wellgood!"</p> + +<p>"A decent allowance of bran, and a ring through +their noses—that's the thing for them!"</p> + +<p>"Has anybody got a copy—well, another copy +<a class="pagenum" id="page_107" title="pg 107"></a> +of 'Coriolanus'?" Harry inquired in an affectation +of eagerness.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He's rather amusing," Vivien ventured, not +quite sure whether the adjective were respectful +enough.</p> + +<p>"Andy, pronounce!" cried Harry Belfield; for +his friend sat in his usual meditative absorbing +silence.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_108" title="pg 108"></a> +"Swine are swine," remarked Wellgood. "They +mustn't forget it. Neither must we."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But we'd all rather they were real," said Isobel +Vintry suddenly, the first of the women to intervene. +"Other women guess, you see."</p> + +<p>"Does it hurt so much if they do?" Belfield +asked.</p> + +<p>"The only thing that really does hurt," Isobel +assured him, smiling.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_109" title="pg 109"></a> +"Oh, my dear, how disproportionate!" sighed +Mrs. Belfield.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"We all know that the governor's a crypto-Radical," +said Harry.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"My dear! Oh, well, my dear!" murmured +Mrs. Belfield.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_110" title="pg 110"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"And if nobody had any spare cash, what would +become of them, either?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"Well, we could do with a good deal less +of them. I'll go so far as to admit that," said +Wellgood.</p> + +<p>Belfield laughed. "Even from Wellgood we've +extracted one plea for the redistribution of wealth. +A dialectical triumph! Let's leave it at that."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Do you think Harry Belfield a selfish man?"</p> + +<p>"Selfish! Harry? Heavens, no! He'd do +anything for his friends."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_111" title="pg 111"></a> +"Oh, well, a little bit," laughed Andy. "I'm +an old follower, you see!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he thinks it natural you should be," +she suggested quickly.</p> + +<p>"Well, if it is natural, why shouldn't he +think so?"</p> + +<p>"It seems natural to him that he should always +come first, and—and have the pick of things."</p> + +<p>"You mean he's spoilt? According to his +father, that makes him more attractive."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm not saying it doesn't do that. Only—do +you never mind it? Never mind playing +second fiddle?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"While Harry Belfield rides! Yes! Vivien +rides too—and doesn't like it!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I think I see," he announced, after an +interval fully perceptible. "You mean she doesn't +<a class="pagenum" id="page_112" title="pg 112"></a> +really appreciate her advantages? By riding you +mean—?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, really, Mr. Hayes!" She broke into vexed +amused laughter. "I mustn't try it any more +with you," she declared.</p> + +<p>"But I shall understand if you give me time to +think it over," Andy protested. "Don't rush me, +that's all, Miss Vintry."</p> + +<p>"As if I could rush any one or anything!" she +said, handsome still, now handsomely despairing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_113" title="pg 113"></a> +spoke. But he had been getting at Isobel's meaning—slowly +and surely.</p> + +<p>"Being able to ride—having the opportunity—and +not caring—that's pearls before—?"</p> + +<p>"I congratulate you, Mr. Hayes. I can imagine +you making a very good speech—after the election +is over!"</p> + +<p>Andy laughed heartily, leaning back in his +chair.</p> + +<p>"That's jolly good, Miss Vintry!" he said.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Give me time! I've never thought about +myself like that," cried Andy.</p> + +<p>No more sounds from the path behind the yew +hedge. She was impatient with Andy—would +Harry never come back from that path?</p> + +<p>He came back the next moment—he and Vivien. +Vivien's face was a confession, Harry's air a self-congratulation.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Miss Vintry's been pitching into me like +anything," said Andy, smiling broadly. "She says +<a class="pagenum" id="page_114" title="pg 114"></a> +I'm always a day after the fair. I'm going to think +it over—and try to get a move on."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"A lecture, was it, Miss Vintry?" Harry asked +in banter.</p> + +<p>"I could give you one too," said Isobel, colouring +a little.</p> + +<p>"She gives me plenty!" Vivien remarked, with +a solemnly comic shake of her head.</p> + +<p>"It's my business in life," said Isobel.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_115" title="pg 115"></a> +virtues which it was her own woeful task to learn? +But Harry could chaff her—Harry could do anything.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'm ready to learn my lesson," he assured her, +with a challenging gleam in his eye.</p> + +<p>She nodded rather scornfully, but accepting his +challenge. There was a last bit of by-play between +their eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's really time to go, if Mr. Wellgood has +finished his game," said Isobel, rising.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_116" title="pg 116"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_117" title="pg 117"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_118" title="pg 118"></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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_119" title="pg 119"></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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_120" title="pg 120"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Bit of truth in it, perhaps," Jack opined.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_121" title="pg 121"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"A drink doesn't taste any worse for being +'anded—handed—to you by a pretty girl," said +Chinks with a knowing chuckle.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Tom blushed—blushed very visibly. Miss +Miles was not a subject of indifference to the +Bird.</p> + +<p>"She's very civil-spoken," he mumbled shamefacedly.</p> + +<p>"That she is—and a fine figure of a girl too," +added Jack Rock. "Know her, Andy?"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_122" title="pg 122"></a> +be in the world of Meriton. The world of +Meriton? It came home to him that there was +more than one.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Jack accepted this ending to the discussion.</p> + +<p>"And what have you been doing with yourself, +Andy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Been at work all the week, Jack. Had a day-off +to-day."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_123" title="pg 123"></a> +Luckily Jack fastened on the first part of his +answer. He turned a keen glance on Andy. +"Business doin' well?"</p> + +<p>"Not particularly," Andy confessed. "It's a +bit hard for a new-comer to establish a connection."</p> + +<p>"You're right there, Andy," commented old +Mr. Dove, serenely happy in the knowledge of an +ancient and good connection attaching to the +Lion.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, weren't you?" +asked Chinks suddenly.</p> + +<p>All faces turned to Andy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was, Chinks," he said.</p> + +<p>"Half expected you to supper, Andy," said +Jack Rock.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Jack. I would have come if I'd been +free. But—"</p> + +<p>"Well, where were you?"</p> + +<p>There was no help for it.</p> + +<p>"I was dining out, Jack."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Harry Belfield asked me to Halton."</p> + +<p>A short silence followed. They were good +<a class="pagenum" id="page_124" title="pg 124"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"Dined at Halton, did you?" Old Jack Rock +beamed, then suddenly grew thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, I've always known Harry +Belfield, and—" He was apologizing.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_125" title="pg 125"></a> +sardonic Miss Dutton, Billy Foot, and London +at large—and at liberty.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy stayed willingly enough; he liked Jack, +and he was loth to end that day.</p> + +<p>Jack filled and pressed, lit, pressed, and lit again, +a fresh clay pipe.</p> + +<p>"You like all that sort of thing, Andy?" he +asked. "Oh, you know what I mean—what you've +been doin' to-day."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I like it, Jack." Andy saw that his dear +old friend—dear Nancy's brother—had something +of moment on his mind.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I've never considered it in the light of business, +Jack."</p> + +<p>"Don't let it turn you from business, Andy. +You said the timber was worth about two hundred +a year to you?"</p> + +<p>"About that; it'll be more—or less—before +I'm six months older. It's sink or swim, you +know."</p> + +<p>"You've no call to sink," said Jack Rock with +<a class="pagenum" id="page_126" title="pg 126"></a> +emphasis. "Your father's son ain't goin' to sink +while Jack Rock can throw a lifebelt to him."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>So he pleaded to have his great benefaction +accepted. He had meant to give in a manner +perhaps somewhat magnificent; what he gave was +<a class="pagenum" id="page_127" title="pg 127"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Andy caught his hand across the table. "Dear +old Jack, how splendid of you!"</p> + +<p>"Well, lad?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<h2>Chapter VII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_128" title="pg 128"></a></h2> + +<h2>ENTERING FOR THE RACE.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_129" title="pg 129"></a> +of what a fellow like himself could expect; the +two phrases may, perhaps, come to much the same +thing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yet, on the top of this, as he lay abed awhile +in the leisure of Sunday morning, with no train +<a class="pagenum" id="page_130" title="pg 130"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_131" title="pg 131"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>"I'll get up," said Andy, too sore beset by his +problem to lie abed any more.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_132" title="pg 132"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_133" title="pg 133"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_134" title="pg 134"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_135" title="pg 135"></a> +even for theories of equality, let alone for its +practice.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_136" title="pg 136"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Harry was smoking. He took his cigar out +of his mouth to greet Andy.</p> + +<p>"Treadmill again, old boy? Getting the fat +off?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_137" title="pg 137"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"Look sharp!" said Harry, smiling. "I've +an appointment. She'll be here any minute."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Gad, is it?" said Harry, and whistled softly.</p> + +<p>Vivien came in sight of him, and walked more +slowly, dallying with anticipation.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Of course it—well, it sort of defines matters—ties +you down, eh?" Harry's laugh broke out +<a class="pagenum" id="page_138" title="pg 138"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"Don't you, Harry?" Andy's tone was eager, +beseeching, full of hope.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What are you two talking about?" asked +Vivien suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there you are at last! Why, the funniest +thing! Old Andy here wants to be a butcher."</p> + +<p>"I don't want—" Andy began.</p> + +<p>"A butcher! What nonsense you do talk +sometimes, Harry!" She stood by Harry's side, +so happy in him, so friendly to Andy.</p> + +<p>"Fact!" said Harry, and acquainted her with +the situation.</p> + +<p>Vivien blushed red. "I—I'm very sorry I said +what—what I did to you. You remember?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I remember," said Andy.</p> + +<p>"Of course I—I never knew—I never thought—Of +course, somebody must—Oh, do forgive me, +Mr. Hayes!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_139" title="pg 139"></a> +Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. +"All this is a secret to me."</p> + +<p>"I—I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like—well—places +where they sold meat—raw meat, Harry."</p> + +<p>"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy +asked.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, +Miss Wellgood?" he asked, mustering a smile +with some difficulty.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_140" title="pg 140"></a> +with Harry, who was still looking decidedly +amused.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_141" title="pg 141"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and +his pipe already alight. When he saw Andy's +face he chuckled.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_142" title="pg 142"></a> +"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" +he exclaimed joyfully. "Not as you did when +you went away last night."</p> + +<p>"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed +at this greeting.</p> + +<p>"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; +and so you have, and better than that."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of +expression was bewildering.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry—I've never been so sorry in my +life—but I—I can't do it, Jack."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"O lord, Jack, I can't—I can't tell you about +it. I—"</p> + +<p>"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose +you've got to do it."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_143" title="pg 143"></a> +Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. +Jack took it and gave it a squeeze.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It seems so awfully—Lord, it seems everything +that's bad and rotten, Jack."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"If there was anything in the world I could do, +Jack! But there it is—there isn't."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_144" title="pg 144"></a> +"Well, if there's anything else in the world—"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. +There's my hand on it, Jack."</p> + +<p>"You'll come to me first—you won't go to any +one before me?" old Jack insisted jealously.</p> + +<p>"I'll come to you first—and last," said Andy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_145" title="pg 145"></a> +"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, +Jack. I'm not such a fool as that."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming +to supper with you if you'll have me. What +have you got?"</p> + +<p>"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a +Cheshire in good condition."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"We don't dress for supper—not o' Sundays," +Jack informed him gravely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the +door.</p> + +<p>"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," +<a class="pagenum" id="page_146" title="pg 146"></a> +Jack called after him, pursuing his joke to the +end with keen relish.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_147" title="pg 147"></a> +little apartment. How many doors would it +not have shut? All doors were open now.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>He stretched his arms and yawned; mind and +body both enjoyed a happy relaxation after effort.</p> + +<p>"What a week-end it's been!" he thought. +Indeed it had—a week-end that was the beginning +of many things.</p> + +<h2>Chapter VIII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_148" title="pg 148"></a></h2> + +<h2>WONDERFUL WORDS.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_149" title="pg 149"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_150" title="pg 150"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Miss Vintry? I say, I'm afraid +I'm late. Where's Vivien?"</p> + +<p>"You're nearly half an hour late."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_151" title="pg 151"></a> +"Well, I know. I couldn't help it. Where +is she?"</p> + +<p>"She got tired of waiting for you, and went for +a walk in the wood."</p> + +<p>"She might have waited."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Harry looked at her with a sudden alertness. +He looked at her hard. "Accustomed to waiting +for me?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Any hidden meanings, Miss Vintry?" For, as +a fact, Harry had generally been punctual, and +knew it.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but what's quite obvious," she retorted, +dexterously fencing.</p> + +<p>"Or ought to be, to a man not so slow as +I am?"</p> + +<p>"You slow, Mr. Harry! You're Meriton's +ideal of reckless dash!"</p> + +<p>"Meriton's?"</p> + +<p>"That's the name of the town, isn't it? Or did +you think I said London's?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_152" title="pg 152"></a> +Harry laughed, but he was stung; she put +him on his mettle. "Oh no, I understood your +emphasis."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I won't be late again, Miss Vintry," he said. +"It would be a pity to disappoint Meriton in its +ideal!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Still lingering?" she said, stifling a yawn. +"While poor Vivien waits!"</p> + +<p>There are unregenerate atavistic impulses; Harry +would dearly have liked to box her ears. "Meriton's +ideal" rankled horribly. What business was +<a class="pagenum" id="page_153" title="pg 153"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I can find her in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, if you look! Shall you be back to +tea?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we'll be back to tea, Miss Vintry. Both +of us—together!"</p> + +<p>Isobel smiled lazily again. "Come, you are +going to make an effort. Nothing of the laggard +now!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the word you've been thinking suits +me?"</p> + +<p>"It really will if you don't get to the west wood +soon."</p> + +<p>"I'll get there—and be back—in half an hour."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_154" title="pg 154"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_155" title="pg 155"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_156" title="pg 156"></a> +love—to-day. How could he have thought to +hold it in for an hour longer?</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"On purpose! O Harry! Didn't you want +to give me my lesson to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Not in bicycling," he answered, his eyes set +ardently on her face.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your hand shakes! What's the matter? +You're not afraid of me?"</p> + +<p>"Not of you—no, not of you, Harry."</p> + +<p>"Of something then? Is it of something I +might do—or say?" He raised her hand to his +lips and kissed it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Vivien, I love you more than all my life!"</p> + +<p>"You—you can't," he could just hear her +murmur, her lips scarcely parted.</p> + +<p>"More than everything in the world besides!"</p> + +<p>What wonderful words they were. "More +<a class="pagenum" id="page_157" title="pg 157"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"That makes you mine," said Harry, "and me +yours—yours only—for ever."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Not frightened now?" he asked softly. "You +need never be frightened again."</p> + +<p>She spoke at last just to say "No" very softly, +yet with a wealth of confident happiness.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_158" title="pg 158"></a> +"Oh no, Harry. Well, then, yes." She laughed +lightly, pressing his arm again. "But never that +it could be like this."</p> + +<p>"Is this—nice?" he asked in banter.</p> + +<p>"Is it—real?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's real and it's nice—real nice, in fact," +laughed Harry.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I'll do all the hard work," he promised +her, smiling.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"I promised Miss Vintry we'd be back to tea. +Do you think you can face her?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"Yes, with you. But you've got to tell. You +promised."</p> + +<p>"You'll have somebody to help you over all the +stiles—now and hereafter."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_159" title="pg 159"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," she protested with a merry little +laugh. "Keeping company! Harry!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll let you off the hearts, but I must +have the initials—very, very small. Do let me +have the initials!"</p> + +<p>"Somewhere where nobody will look, nobody +be likely to see them!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There you are—a beautiful monogram; 'H' +and 'V' intertwined. I'm proud of that!"</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_160" title="pg 160"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where's Vivien?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"In the west wood—with Mr. Harry. He said +they'd be back for tea."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" He finished his third cup and handed +the vessel over to her to be refilled. "Things +getting on?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so. Here's your tea."</p> + +<p>"Why do you think so? Give me another +lump of sugar."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_161" title="pg 161"></a> +"Sugar at that rate'll make you put on too much +weight. Well, I gave him a hint that the pear +was ripe."</p> + +<p>"You did? Well, I'm hanged!"</p> + +<p>"You think I'm very impudent?"</p> + +<p>"What did you say? But I daresay you said +nothing. You've a trick with those eyes of yours, +Isobel."</p> + +<p>"I've devoted them solely to supervising your +daughter's education, Mr. Wellgood."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You know a lot about it! What'll you +bet me?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>A light hand in flirtation could not be expected +from a man to whom the heavy hand—the strong +<a class="pagenum" id="page_162" title="pg 162"></a> +decisive grip—was gospel in matters public and +private. Besides, he had grown impatient; his +affair waited on Harry's.</p> + +<p>"From a quarter's salary downwards? Will you +bet me a kiss?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she smiled, "if losing means the kiss. +Because I know I shall win, Mr. Wellgood."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If winning meant the kiss?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't bet as high as that, except on a certainty," +smiled Isobel. "Another cup?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I tell you, Isobel—" He leant over +the table towards her.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me, and don't touch me! They're +just behind you, Mr. Wellgood."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_163" title="pg 163"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Look round!"</p> + +<p>He obeyed her.</p> + +<p>"Arm in arm!"</p> + +<p>He started, and glowered at the approaching +couple. Vivien hastily dropped Harry's arm.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_164" title="pg 164"></a> +"Oh, that's nothing—she's just afraid! It's +settled all the same. And within my ten minutes!"</p> + +<p>"Aye, you're a—!" He smiled in grim fierce +admiration.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Wellgood smiled sourly. "You know better +than to try that on me, Master Harry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Vivien had stolen up to her father and now laid +her hand lightly on his shoulder. He looked at +<a class="pagenum" id="page_165" title="pg 165"></a> +her with a kindly sneer, then patted her hand. +"You like the fellow, do you, Vivien?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father."</p> + +<p>"Then I daresay we can fix matters up. Shake +hands, Harry."</p> + +<p>Vivien kissed his forehead; the two men shook +hands.</p> + +<p>"I daresay you're not exactly taken by surprise," +said Harry, laughing. "I've been calling rather +often!"</p> + +<p>"It had struck me that something was up."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You haven't asked me for my congratulations, +Vivien," said Isobel.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Harry did not quite like her smile; there seemed +<a class="pagenum" id="page_166" title="pg 166"></a> +to be a touch of ridicule about it. It covertly +reminded him of their talk before tea, before he +went to the west wood.</p> + +<p>"I never had much hope of blinding your eyes, +so I didn't even try, Miss Vintry."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking it must come to a head soon," +she remarked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Poor Isobel!" said Vivien. "She's very nice +about it, isn't she? Because she can't really be +pleased."</p> + +<p>Both men looked rather surprised; each was +<a class="pagenum" id="page_167" title="pg 167"></a> +roused from his train of thought. Both had been +thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of neither +consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."</p> + +<p>"Of course! I never thought of that."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Lucky there's somebody ready to take her +place, then, isn't it?" laughed Harry.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_168" title="pg 168"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter IX.<a class="pagenum" id="page_169" title="pg 169"></a></h2> + +<h2>"INTERJECTION."</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Heard the news about Mr. Harry?" cried the +Bird across the street.</p> + +<p>Andy slowed down. "About Harry?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_170" title="pg 170"></a> +"Engaged to Miss Wellgood!" shouted the +Bird.</p> + +<p>"No, is he?" yelled Andy in reply. "Hurrah!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He loved Harry Belfield, and stored up untold +<a class="pagenum" id="page_171" title="pg 171"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Andy had to postpone reflection on Harry +Belfield's happiness and Vivien's emancipation. +Yet he had a passing appreciation of the end of +<a class="pagenum" id="page_172" title="pg 172"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Well, take it on," Jack, who had a cynical +turn of humour, advised. "He (the platelayer +<a class="pagenum" id="page_173" title="pg 173"></a> +he meant) couldn't very well lose more than you +do; and you'll never make more than he does. +Swap!"</p> + +<p>The first speaker retired behind the <i>Telegraph</i> +in some disgust. It is hard to meet a rival wit +as early as eight-thirty in the morning.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Incontestable—Incubation—Ineffective." So +ran the cable.</p> + +<p>Andy scratched his nose and reached for the +code.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_174" title="pg 174"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>The cable code is a masterly epitome of life.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The result was not encouraging.</p> + +<p>"Incontestable—Incubation—Ineffective."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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; +<a class="pagenum" id="page_175" title="pg 175"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>Andy did not often smoke in his office in +business hours, but he had a cigarette now.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Andy, flinging the end of +the cigarette into the grate, and taking up that +fateful code again.</p> + +<p>"Passionately" met his need: "Will act on +instructions received without delay and with all +possible saving of expense."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Andy, his stylograph moving in +mid-air. He turned over the pages again, +seeking another word, thinking very hard +<a class="pagenum" id="page_176" title="pg 176"></a> +whether he should send that other word when +he found it.</p> + +<p>The word was "Interjection." It meant: "My +personal movements uncertain. Will advise you +of them at the earliest moment possible."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Seltzer thirtieth" would have thrown—and +might still throw—Andy on the mercy of the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_177" title="pg 177"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The fog had apparently been very persistent in +the Irish Channel, for no mail came; the principals +<a class="pagenum" id="page_178" title="pg 178"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_179" title="pg 179"></a> +his mouth healthily hungry, with his eyes voracious +of what passed about him.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Hallo, is that you, Hayes? Come and have +your coffee with us. Where have you been all +this time?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Chair and coffee for Mr. Hayes," said Billy +Foot. "You remember him, girls? My brother, +Hayes—Gilly, Mr. Hayes. How did you leave +Harry?"</p> + +<p>"How awfully funny I should meet you!" +gasped Andy.</p> + +<p>"It's not funny if you ever come here," observed +<a class="pagenum" id="page_180" title="pg 180"></a> +Miss Dutton; "because we come here +nearly every day—with somebody." She was +more sardonic than ever.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'd quite forgotten you," she remarked, "but +I'm glad to see you again. Let's see, you're—?"</p> + +<p>"Harry Belfield's friend."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're Mr. Hayes. Oh, I remember +you quite well. Been away since?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've been here. I mean—at work, and +so on."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_181" title="pg 181"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"Harry's engaged," Andy volunteered to the +Nun, glad to possess a remark of such commanding +interest.</p> + +<p>"To a girl?" asked the Nun, absently and +without turning her face towards him.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course!" said Andy. What else +could one be engaged to?</p> + +<p>"Everybody comes to it," said Billy Foot. +"Take three, if you must, Gilly."</p> + +<p>"At a push," said his brother sadly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Rot, Doris," commented Miss Dutton. "It's +what they're wearing."</p> + +<p>"But they aren't all as fat as that," the Nun +objected.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_182" title="pg 182"></a> +"Flourishing, Hayes?" asked Billy Foot.</p> + +<p>"Well, I rather think I've just lost my job," +said Andy.</p> + +<p>"If you're looking out for a really sound way of +investing five thousand pounds—" Gilly began.</p> + +<p>"Four to a gentleman," said Billy.</p> + +<p>"Three to a friend," corrected the Nun.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"The public's no good," said Gilly gloomily.</p> + +<p>"He wants to drag in some unfortunate person +to be his partner. I understand, Gilly, that, if +<a class="pagenum" id="page_183" title="pg 183"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"You've a charming way of recommending the +project to Mr. Hayes' consideration," said Gilly, +in reproachful resignation.</p> + +<p>"To my consideration," Andy exclaimed, laughing. +"What's it got to do with me?"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Three!" whispered Billy.</p> + +<p>"—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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_184" title="pg 184"></a> +"Well, why not talk to Gilly?" the Nun +suggested.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But I haven't got the money, or anything like +it. I've got nothing."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind saying it," she observed, and to +Andy's astonishment she asked him, "What +about your old friend the butcher?"</p> + +<p>"How did you hear of that?"</p> + +<p>"Harry Belfield was up one day last week +lunching here, and—"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Jack Rock? Oh, I couldn't possibly ask him, +after refusing his offer!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_185" title="pg 185"></a> +"What did you say his name was?" the Nun +inquired.</p> + +<p>Andy repeated the name, and the Nun nodded, +smiling still. Andy became portentously thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Heavens, I must go too!" cried Andy, with a +horrified look at his watch.</p> + +<p>"All right, you go," said Miss Dutton. "We +promised to meet a man here at half-past three and +go motoring."</p> + +<p>"Did we? I don't believe we did," objected +the Nun. "I don't think I want to go."</p> + +<p>"Then don't," said Miss Dutton. "I shall +go anyhow."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_186" title="pg 186"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You'll get yourself into a row, meddling with +other people's business."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Arts and tricks!" said Sally scornfully.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Not going to take it down yourself, are you?" +asked Sally, pointing to the A B C.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_187" title="pg 187"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"It would have to be spread very thin before I +could pay it," smiled Andy ruefully. He gave +<a class="pagenum" id="page_188" title="pg 188"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Well, old chap, if we can help a pal!" said +Billy with a laugh. "Besides, it's good business +for Gilly too."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_189" title="pg 189"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"If they choose to take offence—well, I can +make a living somehow, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Andy's confidence in himself was slowly but +steadily ripening.</p> + +<h2>Chapter X.<a class="pagenum" id="page_190" title="pg 190"></a></h2> + +<h2>FRIENDS IN NEED.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"'Er? Why, they're all mad about 'er," the +boy told him. "She's out o' sight, she is!"</p> + +<p>"Writes a pretty letter too," said Jack, and +<a class="pagenum" id="page_191" title="pg 191"></a> +started to read it all afresh. It was, indeed, a +persuasive letter:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> <span class="smcap">"Dear Mr. Rock,</span>—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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_192" title="pg 192"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>"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, <i>do</i> 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!</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_193" title="pg 193"></a> +believe Andy would have told you himself. Mind, +when you come to town—don't forget!—I am, +dear Mr. Rock, yours very sincerely, +<br /></p> +<p><span class="smcap author">"Doris Flower.</span></p> +<p><br /></p> +<p><i>P.S.</i>—Some day soon, when I'm out motoring, +I may stop and see you—if you've been nice!"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>The novel picture of himself was altogether too +much for Jack.</p> + +<p>"As soon as you've done your tea, my lad, you +can take an answer."</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_194" title="pg 194"></a> +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,<span class="smcap author">John Rock."</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"You can take it," said Jack to the messenger +boy. "And here's half a crown for yourself."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_195" title="pg 195"></a> +letter was all right," Jack reflected, as he came +back, baulked of his prey. "May stop and see me, +may she! Bless her heart!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_196" title="pg 196"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"Unless our shutters are up, it will, Jack," Mr. +Croton jestingly replied.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_197" title="pg 197"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I know. I mean I can imagine."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_198" title="pg 198"></a> +the same now or a thousand years hence. It's +there—and that's all about it!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to be married?" he asked, +sticking to a matter-of-fact line of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Sounds all right," laughed Andy. "I expect I +shall have to send you my blessing from Montreal."</p> + +<p>"From Montreal? What—you're not going +back?"</p> + +<p>"The business is a frost in London, Harry; +and I've nothing else to look to."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not quite certain about going yet," said +Andy. He felt rather like being seen off by the +train—very kindly.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_199" title="pg 199"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"I know they did—I met them at lunch to-day."</p> + +<p>"Had they heard about me?" Harry asked +rather eagerly. "Or did you tell them? What +did they say?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I must give them all one more dinner," said +Harry, smiling, "before I settle down."</p> + +<p>"Foot's brother was there—Gilly Foot—and—"</p> + +<p>"Did they ask what she was like?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't quite remember—everybody was +talking. Gilly Foot—"</p> + +<p>"I expect they were a bit surprised, weren't +they?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, they seemed surprised." Andy was +really trying to remember. "Yes, they did."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry was not to be got off the engrossing subject +<a class="pagenum" id="page_200" title="pg 200"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I'll walk back with you as far as Halton gates," +he said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"There she is!" cried Harry, and ran out of +the house, Andy following.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Jack, how are you? Why, you're looking +like a two-year-old!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_201" title="pg 201"></a> +"I like to see young folks happy. I like to see +'em get what they want, Mr. Harry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Going for a walk, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"O Jack, you're always at it," Andy groaned +affectionately.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_202" title="pg 202"></a> +The old fellow's eyes twinkled as he drew out a +cheque and pushed it across the table.</p> + +<p>"Put that in your pocket, and go and talk to +Mr. Foot's brother," he said.</p> + +<p>Andy's start was almost a jump; old Jack's pent-up +mirth broke out explosively.</p> + +<p>"But this—this is supernatural!" cried Andy.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you'd have gone back—just like your +obstinate ways. But I found out. I've my +correspondents."</p> + +<p>"But there's been no time! Well, you are one +too many for me, Jack!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"But who was it told you?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_203" title="pg 203"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I give it up," said Andy. "You're a +wizard, Jack."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The Nun!" cried Andy, as his eye fell on the +signature. "Who'd have thought of that?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_204" title="pg 204"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"But I don't see—well, I don't see why you +should care."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, a lurking laugh in her eye.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_205" title="pg 205"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think I am."</p> + +<p>The Nun lay back on a long chair; she was certainly +wonderfully pretty as she smiled lazily at +Andy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_206" title="pg 206"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he'd have responded," Andy laughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's just it; he would have! When +did you say they were going to be married?"</p> + +<p>"October, I think Harry said."</p> + +<p>"Four months! And he dotes on her?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so. You should just hear +him!"</p> + +<p>"I daresay I shall. He always likes talking +to one girl about how much he's in love with +another."</p> + +<p>The Nun's matter-of-fact way of speaking may +<a class="pagenum" id="page_207" title="pg 207"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"You'd understand it better if you saw them +together," said Andy, eager, as always, to champion +his friend.</p> + +<p>"You're very enthusiastic about her, anyhow," +smiled the Nun. "It almost sounds as if you +were a little in love with her yourself."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, once," he confessed; "a long while ago, +just before I left South Africa."</p> + +<p>"Got over it?" she inquired anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course I have, long ago. It wasn't +very fatal."</p> + +<p>"Fickle creature!"</p> + +<p>Andy gave one of his bursts of hearty laughter +to hear himself thus described.</p> + + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_208" title="pg 208"></a>"I like you," she said; "and I'm glad you're +going in with Gilly, because we shall often see you +at lunch-time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I can't afford to lunch at that place +every day!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_209" title="pg 209"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Where do you come from?" asked Andy, in +a sudden impulse of great friendliness.</p> + +<p>She looked him straight in the face. "Nobody +knows. Nobody must ask."</p> + +<p>"I've got no people belonging to me either. +Even Jack Rock's no relation—or only a 'step.'"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_210" title="pg 210"></a> +him a kiss, and smiled again. "And because +we're both very attractive—aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You've stopped blushing, anyhow. That's +something. Good-bye. I shall see you at lunch, +I expect, to-morrow."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_211" title="pg 211"></a> +to him. He felt that he had gained a friend, as +well as an opening in Gilly Foot's publishing +house.</p> + +<p>"But I wish," he found himself reflecting as he +travelled back in the Underground, "that she +understood Harry better."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XI.<a class="pagenum" id="page_212" title="pg 212"></a></h2> + +<h2>THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW.</h2> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I shall bore them very much," Isobel suggested.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_213" title="pg 213"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_214" title="pg 214"></a> +to resist him would be a venial sin, even in +Vivien.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_215" title="pg 215"></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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_216" title="pg 216"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_217" title="pg 217"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_218" title="pg 218"></a> +Vivien rebuked him. "It's not poor Isobel's +fault, Harry. She's got to."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Please come, Vivien," Isobel said, flushing +a little. "It's not my fault, you know."</p> + +<p>"Do you never break rules, Miss Vintry? It's +what they're made for, you know."</p> + +<p>"We've not been taught to think that in this +house, have we, Vivien?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed," said Vivien with marked emphasis.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"You don't want to stay here alone, do you?" +asked Isobel.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_219" title="pg 219"></a> +kept rules just because they were rules. Vivien +again interceded. "Isobel can't help it, Harry. +It's father's orders."</p> + +<p>"Surely some discretion is left to the trusty +guardian?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Vivien rose directly.</p> + +<p>"You've hurt Isobel, I think," she whispered to +Harry. "Say something kind to her. Good-night, +dear Harry!"</p> + +<p>She ran off, ahead of Isobel, who was about to +follow, with no word to Harry.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She stood looking at him with a hostile air.</p> + +<p>"Why does it amuse you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_220" title="pg 220"></a> +For half a minute she stood, still looking at him. +The moonlight was amply bright enough to let +them see one another's faces.</p> + +<p>"Very well," she said. "Come along."</p> + +<p>Harry followed her with a pleasant feeling of +curiosity. It was some little while before she spoke +again. They had already reached the drive.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that it's incongruous, coming +from me?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I can't answer that without being +impertinent again," laughed Harry.</p> + +<p>She turned to him with a slight smile. "Risk +that!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you playing sheep-dog when you +ought to be—" He broke off, leaving his eyes to +finish for him.</p> + +<p>"So your teasing is to be considered as a +compliment?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go on with it, if you'll take it like that."</p> + +<p>"Does Vivien take it like that, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, if it's a compliment, I don't want any +<a class="pagenum" id="page_221" title="pg 221"></a> +more of it. I think you'd better, under the circumstances, +keep all your compliments for Vivien—till +you're married, at all events!"</p> + +<p>Harry lifted his brows.</p> + +<p>"Rules! Oh, those rules!" he said with mock +ruefulness.</p> + +<p>"Is there any good in breaking them—for +nothing?"</p> + +<p>He turned quickly towards her. She was smiling +at him. "For nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Here we are at the gate. Good-night, +Mr. Harry."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by—?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>The next evening he brought Vivien into the +drawing-room punctually at ten.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_222" title="pg 222"></a> +"There, Isobel, aren't we good?" cried Vivien, +with her good-night kiss to Isobel.</p> + +<p>"Any reward?" asked Harry, as the door closed +behind his <i>fiancée</i>.</p> + +<p>"What do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"A walk to the gate. And—perhaps—an explanation."</p> + +<p>"Certainly no explanation. I don't mind five +minutes' walk to the gate."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At last Harry spoke. "You've forgiven me—quite?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It won't be for long. It can't be." He laughed. +"But I must take care—compliments barred!"</p> + +<p>"From you to me—yes."</p> + +<p>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 <i>fiancée's</i> companion," but "from +<a class="pagenum" id="page_223" title="pg 223"></a> +you to me." Was the concrete—the personal—form +significant?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"She seems to be sensitive about her position."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_224" title="pg 224"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_225" title="pg 225"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_226" title="pg 226"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I'll take Miss Vintry off your hands. Don't +be afraid about that!" laughed Andy.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Andy was prepared for anything brilliant, but, +naturally, unable to suggest it.</p> + +<p>"She said, 'Drown myself in the lake, Harry—or +else send for Andy Hayes.'"</p> + +<p>"Did she say that?" cried Andy, hugely delighted, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_227" title="pg 227"></a> +blushing as red as he had when the Nun +told him that he was attractive.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"At any rate she's pretty free from the dangers +of competition down here." She looked at Andy +with a curious smile.</p> + +<p>He laughed heartily. "Yes, that's all right, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_228" title="pg 228"></a> +anyhow! Not that it would make any difference, +I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"For my part I don't think I want to walk at +all," said Harry. "It's rather chilly. Will you +<a class="pagenum" id="page_229" title="pg 229"></a> +keep me company indoors, and forgive my cigar, +Miss Vintry?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_230" title="pg 230"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do after we're—after +the break-up here?" he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He looked hard at her; she smiled steadily. +"Well, I know that Vivien won't be here," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that much too, Mr. Harry. But +I suppose her father will."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that too. Which leaves only one +of the party unaccounted for."</p> + +<p>"Yes, only one of us unaccounted for."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You think I ought to be looking out for +another situation? But supposing—merely supposing—Mr. +Wellgood didn't agree?"</p> + +<p>Harry flung his cigar into the grate. "Do you +mean—?" he said slowly. She gave a little laugh. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_231" title="pg 231"></a> +He laughed too, rather uneasily. "I say, you +can't mean—?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Should you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Beggars mustn't be choosers. We can't all be +as lucky as Vivien!"</p> + +<p>"Was I serious? No—I mean—are you? +Wellgood!"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I be? Or why shouldn't Mr. +Wellgood? It seems absurd?"</p> + +<p>"Not in Wellgood, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Beggars mustn't be choosers."</p> + +<p>"You a beggar! Why, you're—"</p> + +<p>"What am I?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I break the rules?"</p> + +<p>She gave him a long look before answering. +"No, don't." Her voice shook a little, her composure +was less perfect.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to say anything about this to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_232" title="pg 232"></a> +Vivien, because it's not definite yet. If the opportunity +were offered to me, don't you think I +should be wise to accept?"</p> + +<p>"Are you in love with him?" He looked in +her eyes. "No, you can't be!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Have you considered that this arrangement—"</p> + +<p>"Which we have supposed—"</p> + +<p>"Would make you my mother-in-law?"</p> + +<p>"Well, your stepmother-in-law. That doesn't +sound quite so oppressive, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"They both sound to me considerably absurd."</p> + +<p>"I really can't see why they should."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But relationship has its consolations, its privileges," +said Harry, leaning towards her, his face +alight with mischievous merriment. He offered +<a class="pagenum" id="page_233" title="pg 233"></a> +her his hand. "At all events, accept my congratulations."</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand. "You're premature, +both with congratulations and with relationship."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she came to a stand. She spoke +without looking round. "Vivien's shawl was on +that chair."</p> + +<p>The words hardly reached his preoccupied brain. +"What? Whose shawl?"</p> + +<p>She turned round slowly. "Vivien's shawl was +on that chair, and it's gone," she said.</p> + +<p>Harry darted past her to the window, and +looked out. He came back to her on tiptoe and +<a class="pagenum" id="page_234" title="pg 234"></a> +whispered, "Andy! He's about two-thirds of +the way across the terrace with the thing now."</p> + +<p>"He must have come in just a moment ago," +she whispered in return.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_235" title="pg 235"></a></h2> + +<h2>CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_236" title="pg 236"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_237" title="pg 237"></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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Till lunch to-morrow, Harry," said Vivien +gaily, when the time for good-night came. "You'll +come too, won't you, Mr. Hayes?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_238" title="pg 238"></a> +"Thanks awfully, but I'm off for a big tramp."</p> + +<p>"To dinner then?" asked Isobel very graciously.</p> + +<p>"Thanks awfully, but I—I really must sup with +old Jack."</p> + +<p>The quickest glance ran from Harry to Isobel.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So much for Andy! He was assessed—a +possible danger, a certain cause for vigilance, also, +it must be confessed, rather an uncomfortable +<a class="pagenum" id="page_239" title="pg 239"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_240" title="pg 240"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_241" title="pg 241"></a> +thus to minimise the effects of his indiscretion that +he felt almost more virtuous than if he had been +discreet.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_242" title="pg 242"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_243" title="pg 243"></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!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>That night—when Harry had gone—Vivien +<a class="pagenum" id="page_244" title="pg 244"></a> +came to Isobel and kissed her, saying, "It's +wonderful, but to-night I'm sure!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Isobel's paper slipped from her knees on to the +floor, but still she did not look at Vivien.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Now Isobel looked up at her as she leant over +her shoulder. "It makes you look very pretty."</p> + +<p>"It makes me feel prettier still," laughed +Vivien. She put her face close to her friend's and +<a class="pagenum" id="page_245" title="pg 245"></a> +whispered, blushing, "He kisses me differently +now."</p> + +<p>Isobel Vintry sharply drew her hand away. +Vivien's blush grew painfully bright.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to forgive, child. I meant +nothing when I took my hand away. I was going +to pick up the paper."</p> + +<p>"Then kiss me, Isobel."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You dear!" she whispered. "Some day you +must be very happy too." Her voice carolled in +song as she sped upstairs.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_246" title="pg 246"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_247" title="pg 247"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_248" title="pg 248"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>congé d'élire!</i>), 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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_249" title="pg 249"></a> +to-morrow and the day after, every day till he +went out of life with Vivien.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, have the lovers bored you to death with +their spooning since I've been away?"</p> + +<p>"There's been a good deal of it, and not much +relief. Only Andy Hayes now and then."</p> + +<p>"Rather tiresome to be the onlooker all the time. +Wouldn't you like a little on your own account?"</p> + +<p>"I'm in no hurry." She looked him straight in +the face, rather defiantly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should like more time to think it over."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_250" title="pg 250"></a> +"Oh, come, don't tell me you haven't been +thinking it over for weeks past. What's the +difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not in love with you—that's all."</p> + +<p>"I don't expect to inspire a romantic passion, +like young Harry."</p> + +<p>"Can't you leave Harry Belfield out of it?" she +asked irritably.</p> + +<p>"I see he has bored you," chuckled Wellgood. +"But you like me? We get on together?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I like you, and we get on together. But +I don't want to marry yet."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_251" title="pg 251"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I like the scheme very much, and I'm all for +keeping it quiet till Vivien is disposed of."</p> + +<p>He stood before her, smoking his pipe, his +hands in his pockets. "Shall we call it settled?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to call it settled yet."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Would the visit come into play after all, unless +she consented? Isobel sat in thought.</p> + +<p>"Just understood between ourselves—that's what +I mean. I shan't bother you with much love-making, +as I daresay you can guess."</p> + +<p>She had cried out for a fence, a protection. +Did not one offer itself now? It might prove +<a class="pagenum" id="page_252" title="pg 252"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_253" title="pg 253"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"In the way I've told you—yes."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, that's sentimental?" said Isobel. +"Mere sentiment!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_254" title="pg 254"></a> +"I rather pity everybody now you've come +back!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Was her department in good order? Her lips +twisted in a wry smile.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Are you never going to give me an opportunity?" +he asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"An opportunity for what?"</p> + +<p>Harry jumped at the chance of his confession +and absolution. "Why, of saying how awfully +sorry and—and ashamed I am that I yielded—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_255" title="pg 255"></a> +"What's the use of saying anything about it? +It's best forgotten."</p> + +<p>"Now Wellgood's back?" he whispered, with +a flash of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Certainly best forgotten, now that Vivien's +father is back."</p> + +<p>He shook his head at her with a smile, owning +her skilful parry. "You won't give me one chance?"</p> + +<p>"Does the dashing Mr. Harry Belfield need to +have chances given him? I thought he made +them for himself."</p> + +<p>Harry's eyes gleamed. "I'll take you at your +word in that!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry gave her a long look. She met it with +a steady smile. He held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. We'll forget. There's my hand +on it."</p> + +<p>She gave a little laugh, shook her head, and put +her hands behind her back.</p> + +<p>"I seem to remember it began that way before," +she said, and darted past him swiftly.</p> + +<p>That was how they set about forgetting the +stolen kiss.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XIII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_256" title="pg 256"></a></h2> + +<h2>A LOVER LOOKS PALE.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_257" title="pg 257"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_258" title="pg 258"></a> +every day. Lunch there might be good for ideas; +it was not good for figures.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_259" title="pg 259"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"And in your holiday you're going to help +Harry, I hear?"</p> + +<p>"Help him!" laughed Andy. "I'm going to +listen to him."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I could never do it. It never entered my +head. Why, I know nothing!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The—the idea's absolutely new to me."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_260" title="pg 260"></a> +"So have a lot of things been lately, haven't +they? And they're turning out well."</p> + +<p>A slow smile spread over Andy's face. "I +should look a fool," he reflected.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You were at Nutley two or three times when +we were away, Harry tells me. Everything seems +going on very pleasantly?"</p> + +<p>Andy recalled himself with a start from his +rumination over a possible speech.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—er—it looks like it, Mr. Belfield."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I think it's going on all right, sir," said +Andy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I daresay you've been too busy to pay much +attention to such frivolous affairs," he said; but +<a class="pagenum" id="page_261" title="pg 261"></a> +to Andy's ears his voice sounded the least bit +resentful.</p> + +<p>"No; I—I assure you I take the keenest interest +in it. I'd give anything to have it go all +right."</p> + +<p>Belfield's eyes were on him with a shrewd kindness. +"No reason to suppose it won't, is there?"</p> + +<p>"None that I know of." Now Andy was +frowning a little and smoking rather fast.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, there's only six weeks to wait for the +wedding!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_262" title="pg 262"></a> +have seen—possible, if unlikely. That might be +enough to make him a less desired guest.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid Harry's been overworking himself +over it, poor boy," said Mrs. Belfield. "Don't +you think he looks pale, Mr. Wellgood?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry burst into a laugh, and gulped down +his wine. He was drinking a good deal of +champagne.</p> + +<p>"I sigh as a lover, mother," he explained.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_263" title="pg 263"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you need have no other trouble, +dear," said Mrs. Belfield, with an affectionate glance +at Vivien.</p> + +<p>"He'll have much more trouble with me, won't +he?" Vivien laughed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, waiting for a wedding's tiresome work +<a class="pagenum" id="page_264" title="pg 264"></a> +for all concerned, isn't it?" he said to Isobel, who +sat next him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, even waiting for other people's. It's +such a provisional sort of time, Mr. Belfield."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to consider being engaged a +very joyful period?" she smiled.</p> + +<p>"On the whole, I don't, Miss Vintry, though +Vivien there looks pretty happy. But it's telling +on Harry, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"If there's anything up, she's a cool hand," +thought Belfield. "You must try to distract his +thoughts," he told her.</p> + +<p>"I try to let them see as little of me as possible."</p> + +<p>"Too complete a realization of matrimonial +solitude <i>à deux</i> before marriage—Is that advisable?"</p> + +<p>"You put too difficult questions for a poor +spinster to answer, Mr. Belfield."</p> + +<p>He got nothing out of her, but from the corner +of his eye he saw Harry watching him as he talked +<a class="pagenum" id="page_265" title="pg 265"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Wellgood stayed with him to-night after dinner, +the young men joining the ladies in the garden for +coffee.</p> + +<p>"Our friend Miss Vintry's in great good looks +to-night, Wellgood. Remarkably handsome girl!"</p> + +<p>"That dress suits her very well. I thought so +myself," Wellgood agreed, well-pleased to have his +secret choice thus endorsed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_266" title="pg 266"></a> +"'T'other dear charmer?' Of course you've +perfect confidence in her, or she wouldn't be where +she is."</p> + +<p>"No, nor where she's going to be," thought +Wellgood, enjoying his secret.</p> + +<p>"My licentious fancy has wronged my son. +I must have felt a touch of the old Adam myself, +Wellgood. Don't tell my wife."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't tell me, if you knew a bit +more," thought triumphant Wellgood.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"We proud parents put one another in our +places!" laughed Belfield.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_267" title="pg 267"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"And what," asked Belfield, with an air of turning +to less important matters, "about the life of +this Parliament?"</p> + +<p>Wellgood opined that it would prove much +what a certain philosopher declared the life of +man to be—nasty, short, and brutish.</p> + +<p>In the garden Mrs. Belfield, carefully enfolded +in rugs, dozed the doze of the placid. Isobel +<a class="pagenum" id="page_268" title="pg 268"></a> +and Harry whispered across her unconscious +form.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't drink so much champagne, +Harry."</p> + +<p>"Hang it, I want it! I said nothing wrong, +did I?"</p> + +<p>"You don't keep control of your eyes. I +think your father noticed. Why look at me?"</p> + +<p>"You know I can't help it. And I can't stand +it all much longer."</p> + +<p>"You can end it as soon as you like. Am I +preventing you?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss Vintry? I'm afraid +I'm drowsy."</p> + +<p>"I was just saying I hoped I wasn't preventing +Mr. Harry from strolling with Vivien, Mrs. Belfield."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, my dear, of course!" The placid lids +fell over the placid eyes again.</p> + +<p>"End it? How?"</p> + +<p>"By behaving as Vivien's <i>fiancé</i> ought."</p> + +<p>"Or by not being Vivien's <i>fiancé</i> any longer?"</p> + +<p>"What, Harry love? What's that about not +being Vivien's <i>fiancé</i> any longer?" Mrs. Belfield +was roused by words admitting of so startling an +interpretation.</p> + +<p>"Well, we shall be married soon, shan't we, +mother?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_269" title="pg 269"></a> +"How stupid of me, Harry dear!" Sleep again +descended. Harry swore softly; Isobel laughed low.</p> + +<p>"This is ridiculous!" she remarked. "Couldn't +you take just one turn with Vivien's companion? +Your mother might hear straight just once."</p> + +<p>"I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night," said +Harry. "I'll take Wellgood on at billiards."</p> + +<p>"Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may +bring back your colour, Harry."</p> + +<p>Harry looked at her in exasperation—and in +longing. "I wish there wasn't a woman in the +world!" he growled.</p> + +<p>"It's men like you who say that," she retorted, +smiling. "Go and forget us for an hour."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_270" title="pg 270"></a> +"How funny of Harry to say he sighed as a +lover!" Vivien remarked to Andy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"'I sighed as a lover. I obeyed as a son.' I +see! How funny! Do you think Gibbon was +right, Mr. Hayes?"</p> + +<p>"The oldest question since men had sons and +women had lovers, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't love come first—when once it has +come?"</p> + +<p>"After honour, the poet tells us, Miss Wellgood."</p> + +<p>Vivien knew that quotation, anyhow. "It's +beautiful, but isn't it—just a little priggish?"</p> + +<p>"I think we must admit that it's at least a very +graceful apology," laughed Andy.</p> + +<p>Their pleasant banter bred intimacy; she was +treating him as an old friend. He felt himself +hardly audacious in saying "How you've grown!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_271" title="pg 271"></a> +"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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The Force is always ready to do its duty," said +Andy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Please him, oh, yes! Help him, how?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"It seems as if a darkness swept over him +<a class="pagenum" id="page_272" title="pg 272"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Whether you're afraid or not, you won't run +away. Remember Curly!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_273" title="pg 273"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"No, but I thank you—and you seem to me +rather like the queen of the fairies."</p> + +<p>She smiled, and sighed lightly. "If I can make +the king think so always!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Having sat down before he discovered this state +<a class="pagenum" id="page_274" title="pg 274"></a> +of affairs, he found himself committed to a virtual +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with Isobel Vintry, quite the last thing he +desired. He did not find it easy to open the +conversation.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I did feel rather in the way now and then."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you were once or twice! When you +attached yourself to Vivien after dinner, and left +Mr. Harry no resource but poor me!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you entertained him very well. I +don't think he'd complain."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Certainly Isobel Vintry could never seem +<a class="pagenum" id="page_275" title="pg 275"></a> +hopelessly stupid, thought Andy. Rather she was +superbly plausible.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"That might be polite to you—in one sense; +it might sound rather unjust to Harry," he +answered.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy knew that he was no match for her. For +any advantage he could ever win from her, he must +thank chance or surprise.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>fiancée</i>?"</p> + +<p>Andy, always honest, considered. "Perhaps I +shouldn't—and a few pretty speeches hurt nobody."</p> + +<p>"Why, really you're becoming quite human! +<a class="pagenum" id="page_276" title="pg 276"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How far would you carry the doctrine?" he +asked dryly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You won't ask me to go any further, if I admit +that?" asked Andy.</p> + +<p>"No. I'll agree with you on that," she said.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_277" title="pg 277"></a> +Mrs. Belfield suddenly woke up. "Yes, I'm +sure Harry's looking pale," she remarked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<h2>Chapter XIV.<a class="pagenum" id="page_278" title="pg 278"></a></h2> + +<h2>SAVING THE NATION.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_279" title="pg 279"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Thus immensely gratified, Jack refused to own +that he was surprised. The autumn campaign had +now been in progress nearly three weeks, and, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_280" title="pg 280"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Belfield; the old gentleman would +have been proud, wouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"And you've a right to be proud, Jack. I know +what you've done for the lad."</p> + +<p>"He's a good lad, sir. He comes to supper +with me every Sunday, punctual, when he's in +Meriton."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_281" title="pg 281"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I didn't come all this way on purpose to kill +you, Mr. Rock!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_282" title="pg 282"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Why, it's never—?" The broadest smile spread +on Jack Rock's face.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"You're—you're Miss Flower?" gasped Jack.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_283" title="pg 283"></a> +called the Nun "Miss Flower," never merely +"Miss.")</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you do beat creation!" cried Jack. +"How do you—?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"You'll have tea with me, miss?" cried Jack.</p> + +<p>"At what hour will you require the car, Miss +Flower?" asked Seymour.</p> + +<p>"You're goin' to the meetin', miss? Tell the +young chap to be round at six, and mind he's +punctual."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Miss Flower was already a privileged person. +Jack had no rebuke for her profanity. She took +his arm, saying,</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_284" title="pg 284"></a> +"I want to see the shop. You wanted Andy to +have the shop, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I was an old fool. I—I meant it well, Miss +Flower."</p> + +<p>The Nun squeezed his arm.</p> + +<p>"Were these nice animals when they were alive, +Mr. Rock?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, but I've promised to take Billy Foot +back to town. Oh, but tea now, Mr. Rock!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_285" title="pg 285"></a> +meant—a view which some might have called both +inadequate and charitable.</p> + +<p>"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.)</p> + +<p>The Nun deliberately disposed of a piece of +plum cake and a sip of tea—the latter to wash the +former down.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You miss the best thing in life, miss," Jack +cried.</p> + +<p>"And most of the worst too," added the Nun +serenely.</p> + +<p>"Don't say it, miss. It don't come well from +your pretty lips."</p> + +<p>"Have I put you on your mettle? I meant to, +of course, Mr. Rock."</p> + +<p>Old Jack slapped his thigh, laughing immensely. +Now wasn't this good—that she should be here, +having tea, getting at him like that?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_286" title="pg 286"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I should like to take a walk along the street +before we go to the meeting, Jack."</p> + +<p>"Jack," casually dropped, with no more than a +distant twinkle, finished Mr. Rock.</p> + +<p>"Your letter was pretty good, but you, miss—!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_287" title="pg 287"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"I shall never hear the last of it, long as I +live!" Jack protested, half in delight, half in a real +shyness.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The fair one, miss—that's Miss Wellgood."</p> + +<p>"The other's quite good-looking too," the Nun +pronounced.</p> + +<p>The salient features of Mr. Foot's oratory have +<a class="pagenum" id="page_288" title="pg 288"></a> +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 <i>tête-à-tête</i> +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.)</p> + +<p>The Nun was smiling all over her face. "That +really was rather clever of Billy." She felt herself +shining with reflected glory.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_289" title="pg 289"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_290" title="pg 290"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"That's talking, that is!" said a man near the +car. "Mr. Harry's the one to give ye that."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_291" title="pg 291"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>fiancée</i>. Her eyes were so +friendly and gentle that the Nun could refuse her +nothing.</p> + +<p>"At one bound, Doris, you've become a personage +in Meriton," laughed Billy Foot.</p> + +<p>"She's a personage wherever she goes," said +Andy in frank and affectionate admiration.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'll never laugh at you about your speeches +again, Harry. But, poor old fellow, how done up +you look!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_292" title="pg 292"></a> +"Doing this sort of thing every night's pretty +tiring."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You're thinking of—of coming to Meriton?"</p> + +<p>"I had an idea of it, for a week or two. I'm +doing nothing, you know. Sally would come +with me."</p> + +<p>"I should think you'd find it awfully dull," +said Harry.</p> + +<p>The Nun could not make him out. Was he +ashamed of her? Did he not want her to know +Miss Wellgood, his <i>fiancée</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>"That'd make another of them, and she's infernally +sharp!" Harry said to Isobel Vintry, in +<a class="pagenum" id="page_293" title="pg 293"></a> +that low careful voice to which he was nowadays +so much addicted.</p> + +<p>"Oh well, we can't keep it up this way long +anyhow," she answered, and sauntered off to join +Vivien.</p> + +<p>With Billy, with Andy, as with old Jack, the +Nun found enthusiasm enough and to spare.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Her hurt feelings found expression. "Harry +didn't seem to want me when I spoke to him +about it."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"If I want to come, I shall. Only one doesn't +like the idea that one's friends are ashamed—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, rot, it can't be that! That's not a bit +like Harry."</p> + +<p>"He's engaged now, you know."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_294" title="pg 294"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>She lowered her voice. "Can it be because of +poor old Sally?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think so. He's always been +awfully kind about that wretched old business."</p> + +<p>"It's something," she persisted with a vexed +frown.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I hope so," said Vivien softly, +her eyes assuming their veiled look.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_295" title="pg 295"></a> +"Did you like the speeches, Seymour?" she +inquired.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was I in good voice?"</p> + +<p>"Very fair. But you had better not use it +much in the open air. Not good for the chords, +Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Thinking of enlisting me in your own service?" +she asked.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_296" title="pg 296"></a> +"Yes, Harry's off colour," said Billy, puffing +away with much enjoyment. "He can't take anything +right; didn't even like your story!"</p> + +<p>"Why, you brought it in so cleverly, Billy!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>The Nun turned to him suddenly. "That girl +isn't happy."</p> + +<p>"There's something up!" Billy concluded.</p> + +<p>"Do you know that Miss Vintry well?"</p> + +<p>Billy took his cigar out of his mouth and looked +at her. "You do jump to conclusions."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know Harry better than any of you."</p> + +<p>"Do you?" he asked, seeming just a little disturbed.</p> + +<p>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—"</p> + +<p>"I say, Doris, did Harry Belfield ever try +to—?"</p> + +<p>"Tales out of school? I thought you knew me, +Billy."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_297" title="pg 297"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What about the great cause I sang for?" she +asked, serenely evasive. Sentiment in a motor-car +at night really does not count.</p> + +<p>Billy laughed. "I do my best for my client."</p> + +<p>"But you believe it?"</p> + +<p>"Honestly, I believe we've got, say, seven points +out of ten. So we ought to get the verdict."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's honest enough. You leave +the other side to put their three points?"</p> + +<p>"That oughtn't to be over-straining them," +Billy opined.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_298" title="pg 298"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"You're really going to take rooms there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if Sally consents." She turned round to +him. "Do you know what it is to see somebody +asking for help?"</p> + +<p>"To me they always call it temporary assistance."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I look forward to our stay at Meriton with the +gravest apprehension," said Billy Foot.</p> + +<p>The Nun looked at him, smiled, looked away, +looked back once more.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall have nothing else to do—in the +way of recreation," she said.</p> + +<p>A long silence followed. Billy threw away the +stump of his cigar.</p> + +<p>"Hang it, he's got the style, that fellow has!"</p> + +<p>"Who's got what style?" asked the Nun. Her +voice sounded drowsy.</p> + +<p>"What the House likes—Andy."</p> + +<p>"What house?" drawled the Nun, terribly and +happily sleepy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're a lively girl to drive home with in +a motor at night!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_299" title="pg 299"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"Don't tickle my ear," said the Nun. "And +try if you can't be quiet!"</p> + +<h2>Chapter XV.<a class="pagenum" id="page_300" title="pg 300"></a></h2> + +<h2>LOVE AND FEAR.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_301" title="pg 301"></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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_302" title="pg 302"></a> +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 <i>modus vivendi</i> till it, transitory thing as +it was, should pass away? So the tempter tempted +with all his cunning.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_303" title="pg 303"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_304" title="pg 304"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_305" title="pg 305"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Isobel stole stealthily out; she had a quarter +<a class="pagenum" id="page_306" title="pg 306"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"That's impossible," he answered, very low.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_307" title="pg 307"></a> +Go back to—" She broke into tremulous laughter. +"Go back to duty, Harry—and forget this +nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Come to me, Isobel!"</p> + +<p>"No, I daren't. From to-morrow there is—nothing."</p> + +<p>He caught the arms that would have defended +her face. "You love me?"</p> + +<p>Her smile was piteous. "Not after to-night!"</p> + +<p>His triumph rose on the crest of passion. "Ah, +you do!" He kissed her.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What made you tell me you loved me to-night?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do you see Wellgood before you go to bed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, always."</p> + +<p>"What happens?"</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't, Harry! What does it matter?"</p> + +<p>"Are you going to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"You're going to marry Vivien! I must go—or +<a class="pagenum" id="page_308" title="pg 308"></a> +the door will be locked." A smile wavered at +him in the darkness. "It's back to the house or +into the lake!"</p> + +<p>"Swear you'll manage to see me to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, anything. And—good-bye."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Fellowes. Thanks. I must have dropped +it this afternoon. Good-night."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_309" title="pg 309"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_310" title="pg 310"></a> +broke down—because Harry had looked tired and +worried, because Wellgood's rough fondness had +grown so odious.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>The study door opened, and Wellgood looked +out. Isobel was behind her time; he was waiting +for his secret ten minutes, his stolen interview.</p> + +<p>"Isobel! What the deuce are you doing there? +Why didn't you come in?"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_311" title="pg 311"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I—I think I turned faint. I was coming in, +but I turned faint. My heart, I think."</p> + +<p>"I never heard of anything being the matter +with your heart." His voice sounded impatient +rather than solicitous.</p> + +<p>"Please let me go straight to bed to-night. +I'm really not well."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You look all right," he said with a sneer, yet +smiling at her handsomeness.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_312" title="pg 312"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel. With a smarting cheek +she fled down the passage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_313" title="pg 313"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Next day she kept her room. Courage failed. +Wellgood grumbled about women's vapours, but +<a class="pagenum" id="page_314" title="pg 314"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_315" title="pg 315"></a> +"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!"</p> + +<p>"Nor of my feelings either," said Harry, gallantly +kissing her hand.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind very much?" she asked shyly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Harry, are you quite—quite happy?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_316" title="pg 316"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"Who's put that idea in your head?" he asked +rather sharply. His mind was on those enemies, +that ring of watching eyes.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>The true affection rose in him. "Poor little +sweetheart!" he murmured. "I'm afraid you +haven't taken on an easy job."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_317" title="pg 317"></a> +him for a walk. But you're different, aren't you, +Harry?"</p> + +<p>"By Jove, I am! Andy's one of the best +fellows in the world."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I think—oh, it's only my view—that +you're more interesting, Harry. Only, when you +are bored, I want you—"</p> + +<p>"Now don't say you want me to tell you so! +Do let us be decently polite, even if I am your +husband."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Religiously strict? How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Have you called there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I went yesterday. I like her so much, +and I like that odd friend of hers too."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_318" title="pg 318"></a> +"Oh, Sally Dutton! I suppose she got her +knife into me, didn't she?"</p> + +<p>"She got her knife, as you call it, into everybody +who was mentioned. Oh yes, including +you!" Vivien laughed merrily.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She too rose and came to him, putting her hands +in his. Her laughing face grew grave and tender.</p> + +<p>"Dear, you really are happy?" she asked softly, +yet rather insistently.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And if I made you unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_319" title="pg 319"></a> +"All you've ever had? Poor child!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Is it as much to you as that?" he asked, a +note of fear, almost of distress, in his voice.</p> + +<p>She marked it, and answered gaily, "It wouldn't +be worth having if it wasn't, Harry!"</p> + +<p>He kissed her fondly and tenderly, praying in +his heart that he might not turn all her happiness +to grief.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_320" title="pg 320"></a> +themselves terrors, and the source of every danger +threatening from outside.</p> + +<p>"She gave me the chance of ending it last night. +If only I could take her at her word!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + + + + + + +<h2>Chapter XVI.<a class="pagenum" id="page_321" title="pg 321"></a></h2> + +<h2>A CHOICE OF EVILS.</h2> + + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_322" title="pg 322"></a> +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 <i>habitués</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_323" title="pg 323"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And then you'll all be getting busy about the +wedding. In three weeks now, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Just a few days over three weeks. Individually +I shall be glad when it's over."</p> + +<p>"Have they done well with their speeches?" +<a class="pagenum" id="page_324" title="pg 324"></a> +she asked. "After all my good intentions, I only +went once."</p> + +<p>"They think they've made the seat absolutely +safe for Harry. Parliament and marriage—the +boy's taking on responsibilities!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come!" He smiled. "Is that all you +claim to be—to any of those boys?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I was once about town myself," Belfield remarked +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"You do put it pretty squarely," said Belfield, +twisting his lips.</p> + +<p>"A glass of beer gives you the right to flirt with +<a class="pagenum" id="page_325" title="pg 325"></a> +poor Miss Miles. It's supposed to be champagne +with us. When you were about town—don't you +remember?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was. It's not a tradition to be +proud of."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"By the way, I'm afraid I drive your friend +away? Miss Dutton always disappears when I call."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Let's suppose it's one of those thousand things +that are going to change," he suggested, with his +sceptical smile.</p> + +<p>"Do things between men and women change +much, in spite of all the talk? You've read +history, I haven't."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_326" title="pg 326"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The delight of the eyes?" he suggested. +"What? That doesn't count? Only such as you +can afford to say so!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You draw that distinction? But the love-making +men marry?"</p> + +<p>"In the end perhaps—generally rather by +accident. They haven't the instinct."</p> + +<p>"You've thought about these things a good +deal, Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>"I live almost entirely among men, you see," +she answered simply. "And they show me more +<a class="pagenum" id="page_327" title="pg 327"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Sally Dutton came by, returning from a stroll +to which she had betaken herself on Belfield's +arrival.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sally, been amusing yourself?" the +Nun called.</p> + +<p>"The streets present their usual gay and +<a class="pagenum" id="page_328" title="pg 328"></a> +animated aspect," observed Miss Dutton, as she +entered the Lion.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, she's all right. That's only her way." +She smiled reflectively; Sally always amused her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>He laughed, and so let the question go. After +all, it would not do to be too sudden with his wife.</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid of Harry. But Wellgood's +rather a formidable character."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Vintry? Is she alarming?"</p> + +<p>He pursed up his lips. "I think she might be +called a little—alarming."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_329" title="pg 329"></a> +much more informing than the blank silence—though +even that had set him thinking.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>An outburst like this was most unusual with the +Nun. It produced on Andy's face such a look of +<a class="pagenum" id="page_330" title="pg 330"></a> +mild wonder as may be seen on a St. Bernard's +when a toy-terrier barks furiously.</p> + +<p>"What's happened?"</p> + +<p>"I've been at Nutley."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! Harry came on from there in the +car—got to the meeting rather late."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy considered long, smoking his pipe.</p> + +<p>"You do know something!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"I've ground for some uneasiness," he admitted.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't see what I saw."</p> + +<p>"Not that time anyhow!" she amended quickly.</p> + +<p>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—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_331" title="pg 331"></a> +"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!"</p> + +<p>"I've been there off and on," said Andy.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Why do you go on repeating 'Vivien's father'?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I'd never thought of that. Do you feel sure +of it?"</p> + +<p>"You have thought of the other thing—and +you're sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"You know Harry. I hoped it would all—all +come to nothing. How much do you think +Wellgood knows, or suspects?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_332" title="pg 332"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"But he'd never suspect his own daughter's—"</p> + +<p>"You do!"</p> + +<p>"I had the evidence of my eyes."</p> + +<p>"Jealousy's quicker than the eyes, Andy." She +leant forward again. "What did you see?"</p> + +<p>"It seems disloyal to tell—disloyal to Harry."</p> + +<p>"My loyalty's for Vivien!" she said. "What +about yours?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"'Come and spend a quiet afternoon in the +garden'—that was her invitation. Poor girl!"</p> + +<p>"That's what you called her the first time I told +you of their engagement."</p> + +<p>"A nice quiet afternoon—sitting on the top of +a volcano! With an eruption overdue!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_333" title="pg 333"></a> +"It isn't possible to feel quite comfortable about +it, is it?" said Andy.</p> + +<p>The Nun laughed a little scornfully. "Not +quite. Going to do anything about it?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"And he's never taken ten minutes' real trouble +about you in his life."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, by all means to blazes with Miss Vintry!" +the Nun agreed pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Miss Dutton put her head in at the door—her +hair about her shoulders. "Ever coming to bed?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. I'm talking to Andy. Don't you +see him, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"It's not respectable."</p> + +<p>"The window's open, there's a street lamp +opposite, and a policeman standing under it. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't come into my room and wake me +up jawing." Miss Dutton withdrew.</p> + +<p>The Nun looked at Andy. "I wonder if it's +quite fair to say 'To blazes with Miss Vintry!'"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_334" title="pg 334"></a> +"You said it with a good deal of conviction a +moment ago. What makes you—?" His eyes +met hers.</p> + +<p>"Who told you about Sally? I never did," the +Nun exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Harry, after our first supper."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy swung his legs over the window-sill. +"Are you going to try and put your oar in?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"Would you think me wrong if I did?"</p> + +<p>Andy sat quite a long while on the window-sill, +dangling his legs over the pavement of High Street.</p> + +<p>"I've thought about it a good deal," he answered. +"Especially lately."</p> + +<p>She knelt on the broad low bench just behind +him. "Yes, and the result—when you're ready?"</p> + +<p>"I think a row would be the best thing that +could happen." He turned his face round to her +as he spoke.</p> + +<p>The Nun gasped. "That's thorough," she +remarked. "So much for your opinion about +Harry!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, so much for that," Andy admitted.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_335" title="pg 335"></a> +"If there is a row, I hope you'll be there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't!" exclaimed Andy with a natural +and human sincerity.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>With a clasp of her hand and a doleful smile, +Andy let his legs drop on the pavement and +departed.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_336" title="pg 336"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The case was hard—and the conclusion. But +<a class="pagenum" id="page_337" title="pg 337"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_338" title="pg 338"></a> +her nature from his, and came wonderfully little +short of its mark.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_339" title="pg 339"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't you now and then feel like backing out +of it?" the Nun had asked with her usual directness.</p> + +<p>Vivien's answer came with a laugh, suddenly +scornful, suddenly merry, "Why, it's all my +life!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_340" title="pg 340"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_341" title="pg 341"></a> +do—well, girls did do all sorts of things sometimes, +holding that life had nothing left in it.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Something was to be done then. But what? +That seemed to the Nun a much easier question—a +welcome reappearance of the obvious thing.</p> + +<p>"I must find out what the woman really wants. +Until we know that, it's simply working in the +dark."</p> + +<p>So she concluded, and at last turned on her side +and went to sleep.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XVII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_342" title="pg 342"></a></h2> + +<h2>REFORMATION.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_343" title="pg 343"></a> +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 <i>trousseau</i> +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.</p> + +<p>Thus commanded in Vivien's presence, Isobel +was cleverly caught between the duty of obedience +and the abandonment of her ostensible position in +<a class="pagenum" id="page_344" title="pg 344"></a> +the house. Her barricade was being outflanked; +she was forced into the open.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Alone with her, he wasted no time on the artifice +which had secured him privacy.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I've been afraid—you'd better hear the truth—to +speak to you."</p> + +<p>"I should like the truth, certainly, if I can get +it. What have you been afraid to speak to me +about?"</p> + +<p>"Our engagement." She made the plunge, her +eyes fixed apprehensively on his face. "I—I can't +go on with it, Mr. Wellgood."</p> + +<p>He had schooled himself for this answer; he +<a class="pagenum" id="page_345" title="pg 345"></a> +made no outburst. His tone was mild; the +cunning of jealousy gave him an alien smoothness.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, my dear, and tell me why."</p> + +<p>She sat facing him, his writing-table between +them.</p> + +<p>"My feelings haven't—haven't developed as I +hoped they would."</p> + +<p>"Oh, your feelings haven't developed?" he +repeated slowly. "Towards me?"</p> + +<p>"I reserved the right to change my mind—you +remember?"</p> + +<p>"And I the right to be unpleasant about it." +He smiled under intent eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'll leave the house to-morrow, if you like," +she cried, eager now to accept a banishment she +had once dreaded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I'm not going to be unpleasant. +We needn't do things like that."</p> + +<p>"I—I think I should prefer it."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry you should feel that. There's no +need; you shan't be annoyed."</p> + +<p>"That's good of you. I thought you'd be +very, very hard to me."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_346" title="pg 346"></a> +think? And how are Vivien and I to get +through all this business of the wedding?"</p> + +<p>"I know it would be awkward, and look odd, +but it might be better. Your feelings—"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You shan't be troubled, you shan't be annoyed. +I'll give up my evening treat. We'll go back to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_347" title="pg 347"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If you go now—all of a sudden, at this +<a class="pagenum" id="page_348" title="pg 348"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Let me go now, please," she entreated, her +eyes unable to meet his any longer.</p> + +<p>He released her hand, and leant back in his +chair. He smiled at her again, as he said, "Yes, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_349" title="pg 349"></a> +go now. I'm afraid this interview has been rather +trying to you—perhaps to us both."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_350" title="pg 350"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_351" title="pg 351"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_352" title="pg 352"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>So he smoothed his face and watched.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Even had the post seemed safe, there was none +which could reach Harry before he was due at +<a class="pagenum" id="page_353" title="pg 353"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Andy, then, emerging from the shrubbery dressed +after his dip, found Miss Vintry strolling up and +down.</p> + +<p>"You're surprised to see me out so early, Mr. +Hayes? But I know your habits. My window +looks out this way."</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully careful to keep well hidden in the +bushes."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes!" she laughed. "I've not come to +warn you off. Are you likely to see Mr. Harry +this morning?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_354" title="pg 354"></a> +"I easily can; I shall be passing Halton."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Andy spoke slowly. "I'm not sure you'd +choose me to carry it if you knew—"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say anything about it then, did I?" +asked Andy.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_355" title="pg 355"></a> +It sounded well, but Andy was not quite convinced.</p> + +<p>"It's some time ago now. Mightn't you just +ignore it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The appeal to his chivalry—another wrong to +woman!—touched Andy. "That's infernally unfair!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_356" title="pg 356"></a> +"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—"</p> + +<p>"I shall say nothing whatever, if he doesn't," +said Andy, as he shook hands.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I've never been your enemy, Miss Vintry."</p> + +<p>"No; you've been kind, considerate"—her +voice dropped—"merciful. Thank you. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Certainly Isobel Vintry had cause to congratulate +<a class="pagenum" id="page_357" title="pg 357"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_358" title="pg 358"></a> +At lunch-time a note came for Vivien, brought +by a groom on a bicycle.</p> + +<p>"Oh, from Harry!" she exclaimed, tearing it +open.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Does he say anything else?" asked Isobel +carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Only that he's bored to death with politics." +She laughed. "What's worrying him, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Isobel sat with eyes lowered; +<a class="pagenum" id="page_359" title="pg 359"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>That trivial observation about politics was the +answer—the expected answer, not that unexpected +one. It meant, "I accept your decision."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Even of the retreat itself she was, for the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_360" title="pg 360"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_361" title="pg 361"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was alone; everything was still, in the calm +of a September afternoon. She bowed her head to +her hands and wept.</p> + +<p>The Nun walked up the drive and saw the figure +of a woman weeping.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XVIII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_362" title="pg 362"></a></h2> + +<h2>PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS.</h2> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_363" title="pg 363"></a> +in tears is embarrassing; and the acquaintance +may well share the embarrassment.</p> + +<p>Fortunately Isobel stopped crying. She dried +her eyes and tucked away her handkerchief. The +Nun advanced again. Isobel sat looking drearily +over the lake.</p> + +<p>"Dropped your sixpence in the pond, Miss +Vintry?" the Nun asked.</p> + +<p>Isobel turned round sharply.</p> + +<p>"Because—I mean—you're not looking very +cheerful."</p> + +<p>Isobel's eyes hardened a little.</p> + +<p>"Have you been there long?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind; it doesn't matter whether +you saw or not. Every woman is entitled to cry +sometimes."</p> + +<p>"I don't cry myself," observed the Nun, "but +of course a great many girls do."</p> + +<p>"I daresay I shouldn't cry if I were the great +Miss Doris Flower."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_364" title="pg 364"></a> +"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.'"</p> + +<p>"Was that what you were crying about?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've had it out, haven't you?" suggested +the Nun consolingly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Then if you feel better, things are better +too."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_365" title="pg 365"></a> +"Oh, are people gossiping about that? Poor +Mr. Wellgood!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"All plunges aren't into cold water," the Nun +observed reflectively.</p> + +<p>"That one would be colder, I think, than a +quite strange plunge—away from Nutley."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm only letting you have it your own way, +Miss Flower. I've admitted nothing."</p> + +<p>"All that appears at present is that you needn't +go if you don't like—and yet you cry about +going!"</p> + +<p>Isobel smiled.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_366" title="pg 366"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"And so shall I—so we needn't trouble about +that."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I do hope it'll turn out well."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.")</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_367" title="pg 367"></a> +Isobel sat silent.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Nun rose.</p> + +<p>"I must go in and see Miss Wellgood."</p> + +<p>"She's gone out with her father, I'm afraid. +That's how I happen to be off duty."</p> + +<p>"And able to cry?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>The Nun reported the fact of her interview—and +the results, such as they were—to Miss Dutton +when she returned home.</p> + +<p>"Her crying shows that she doesn't think she's +got much chance," said the Nun hopefully.</p> + +<p>"It shows she'd take a chance, if she got one," +Miss Dutton opined acutely.</p> + +<p>"You mean it all depends on Harry, then?"</p> + +<p>"In my opinion it always has."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_368" title="pg 368"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"But I think we may consider all the trouble +over," he ended.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_369" title="pg 369"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_370" title="pg 370"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Now that Harry had come, he found himself +delighted with his visit.</p> + +<p>"Country air's agreeing with you, Doris. You +look splendid." His eyes spoke undisguised admiration.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Harry. I know you thought me +good-looking once." The Nun was meek and +grateful.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_371" title="pg 371"></a> +"Whose peace of mind are you destroying down +here?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The pater inherits some of my weaknesses," +said Harry. "Or shares my tastes, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know he's devoted to Vivien."</p> + +<p>"You never look prettier than when you're +trying to say nasty things."</p> + +<p>"I'll stop, or in another moment you'll be +offering to kiss me."</p> + +<p>"Should you object?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly worth while. It would mean nothing +at all to either of us. Still—I'm not a poacher."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_372" title="pg 372"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I've always done justice to what you care most +about—Harry the Irresistible!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, stop that rot!" he implored. "I'm +serious, you know, Doris."</p> + +<p>"I know all the symptoms of your seriousness. +The first is wanting to flirt with somebody fresh."</p> + +<p>Harry's laugh was vexed—but not of bitter +vexation. "Give a fellow a chance!"</p> + +<p>"The whole world's in league to do it—again +and again!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Nun relented. "I really think it may last +you over the wedding—and perhaps the honeymoon," +she said.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_373" title="pg 373"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_374" title="pg 374"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_375" title="pg 375"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_376" title="pg 376"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't waste any more time thinking +about that, old chap," said Gilly, delicately dissecting +a young partridge.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You really advise it?" Billy demanded, wrinkling +his brow in judicial gravity, but inwardly +rather delighted.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_377" title="pg 377"></a> +"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.</p> + +<p>Billy preserved his temper with some difficulty. +"Purely for the sake of argument, assume that +I am a person whom she might possibly accept."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You'll look a particular fool if I do—and she +says yes."</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure they brought the claret +you ordered, Billy?—What's that you said?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure it's the claret, and I'm sure you're +an idiot!" Billy crossly retorted.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_378" title="pg 378"></a> +would have made the memory seem ridiculous; +it had become indisputably equal to dinner at +Halton, even in Mrs. Belfield's most conservative +eyes.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my dear, thank you." Belfield +sounded really grateful; the struggle had, in fact, +been rather more severe than he had anticipated.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Belfield winked covertly at Andy; both had +some suspicion of Billy's feelings, and were +maliciously enjoying the situation.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_379" title="pg 379"></a> +"So Mr. Belfield says. But then he's always so +adventurous."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, Harry's engaged!" she added with a +sigh of thanksgiving. Billy grew redder still; the +other two welcomed an opportunity for open +laughter.</p> + +<p>"They may laugh, Mr. Foot, but I'm sure +your mother would feel as I do."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"All my wife's fears will vanish as soon as she +knows the lady," said Belfield, also anxious to +make his peace with Billy.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_380" title="pg 380"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You seem to manage to keep heart-whole, +Andy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've no time to do anything else," he +laughed.</p> + +<p>"Take care; Cupid resents defiance. I've a +notion you stand very well with the lady in +question yourself."</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, the idea's never entered my head."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_381" title="pg 381"></a> +Outside this house, she's my best friend, I think, +not counting old Jack Rock, of course."</p> + +<p>"I believe Vivien would dispute the title with +her. She thinks the world of you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Back to work next week, sir!" he said. +"Gilly's clamouring for me. I've had a splendid +holiday."</p> + +<p>"You've put in some very good work in your +holiday. Your speeches are thought good."</p> + +<p>"I somehow feel that I'm on my own legs +<a class="pagenum" id="page_382" title="pg 382"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Chucking up first opinions is hard work, both +about things and about people."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You've got to be a bit ruthless with yourself +in both cases, and with the opinions, and—with +the people."</p> + +<p>"You've got to see," said Andy. "You must +see—that's it. You mustn't shut your eyes, or +<a class="pagenum" id="page_383" title="pg 383"></a> +turn your head away, or let anybody else look for +you."</p> + +<p>"You've come into your kingdom," said Belfield +with a nod.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I may claim to have got my eyes open, +to be grown up."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XIX.<a class="pagenum" id="page_384" title="pg 384"></a></h2> + +<h2>MARKED MONEY.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_385" title="pg 385"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_386" title="pg 386"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>rôle</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>"What do you want with supper after a good +<a class="pagenum" id="page_387" title="pg 387"></a> +dinner?" asked Wellgood brusquely. "Come +home and go to bed, like a sensible girl."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"In the hope that he'll have been up late," said +Billy.</p> + +<p>"And eaten too much," added Gilly sadly.</p> + +<p>"Or even drunk too much?" suggested Belfield.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, being sent to bed is horrid," +lamented unhappy Vivien.</p> + +<p>"You've a life of suppers before you, if you +choose," Billy assured her consolingly.</p> + +<p>"When I was a girl, we always had supper," +said Mrs. Belfield.</p> + +<p>"Quite right, Mrs. Belfield," said Gilly, in high +approval.</p> + +<p>"Instead of late dinner, I mean, Mr. Foot."</p> + +<p>Gilly could do no more than look at her, finding +no adequate comment.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_388" title="pg 388"></a> +"Supper should be a mere flirtation with one's +food," said Billy.</p> + +<p>"A post-matrimonial flirtation?" asked Belfield. +"Because dinner must be wedlock! We come +back to its demoralizing character."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Half Harry's charm lay in—perhaps half his dangers +sprang from—an instinctive adaptability; he +<a class="pagenum" id="page_389" title="pg 389"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_390" title="pg 390"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"You think I shall?" he protested gallantly.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes!" she answered, laughing. "But I +shall expect you to be all the more glad to see me +again to-morrow."</p> + +<p>He laughed rather absently. "I expect those +fellows will rather wake up the old Lion."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>For one moment Harry considered. "All right. +I'll walk."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir. I'll start directly and take the +mare down quietly." The station lay on the other +<a class="pagenum" id="page_391" title="pg 391"></a> +side of Meriton, two miles and a half from Nutley. +The man drove off.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Father won't be here for an hour, nearly—but +he might ask."</p> + +<p>"And you're incorrigibly truthful!"</p> + +<p>"Am I? Anyhow I rather think you want to +go back to supper."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>She opened the door with her key, waved a last +good-night to him, and disappeared into the dimly +lighted hall.</p> + +<p>She was gone; the carriage was gone; Wellgood +<a class="pagenum" id="page_392" title="pg 392"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's not my fault this time," thought +Harry. "And if I meet her, I can hardly walk +by without saying good-night."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_393" title="pg 393"></a> +He stepped up to her, holding out his hand, but +she made no motion to take it.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He won't be here for ever so long. Won't +you give me just three minutes?"</p> + +<p>The lamp over the hall door showed him her +face; it was pale and tense, her lips were parted.</p> + +<p>"I think I'd sooner go in at once."</p> + +<p>"I want you to know that I didn't send that +answer lightly. It—it wasn't easy to obey you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_394" title="pg 394"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I only want to tell you how deeply sorry I +am, and to ask you to forgive me."</p> + +<p>"That's soon said—and soon answered. I forgive +you, if I have anything to forgive."</p> + +<p>Her voice was very low, it broke and trembled +on the last words of the sentence.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Please, please!" Her tones sank to a whisper; +he strained forward to catch it. "Have some mercy +on me, Harry!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can't stand any more of it. I've tried and +tried. I love Vivien in a way, and I hate to hurt +<a class="pagenum" id="page_395" title="pg 395"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"You think that to-night. You won't to-morrow. +The—the other side of it will come +back."</p> + +<p>"Face the other side with me, and I can stand +it. You love me—you know you do!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>détour</i> 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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_396" title="pg 396"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>Isobel made no effort to deny Harry's challenge.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"There is no to-morrow now; it will always be +like to-night." He bent again and softly kissed +her.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"If you do think so to-morrow—" She slowly +<a class="pagenum" id="page_397" title="pg 397"></a> +put her hands out to him, a happy tremulous smile +on her face.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It's my fault. I kept Miss Vintry talking on +the doorstep."</p> + +<p>"I must go in now," said Isobel. "Good-night, +Mr. Harry."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Wellgood stepped out from behind his bush.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_398" title="pg 398"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"Not before Vivien!" Harry cried impulsively.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Vivien spoke in a low voice. "Is it true, +Isobel?" For Harry she had neither words +nor eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's true," said Isobel; now her voice was +calm. "There's no use saying anything about it."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_399" title="pg 399"></a> +"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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"You wanted to go, Isobel?" asked Vivien +gently. "And father wouldn't let you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. If he likes to tell you the reason, he +can. But I say this is his doing—his! He's +<a class="pagenum" id="page_400" title="pg 400"></a> +been waiting and watching for it. Well, he's got +it now, and he must deal with it."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"He shall pay for it!" cried Wellgood, and +made a dart towards Harry, raising the stick +which he had in his hand.</p> + +<p>In an instant Vivien was across his path, and +caught his uplifted arm in both of hers. "Not +that way, father!"</p> + +<p>"Go into the house, Vivien."</p> + +<p>"For my sake, father!"</p> + +<p>"Go into the house, I say. Let me alone."</p> + +<p>"Not till you promise me you won't do that."</p> + +<p>He looked down into her pleading face. His +own softened a little. "Very well, my girl, I +promise you I won't do that."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_401" title="pg 401"></a> +"I'm sorry, Vivien, awfully sorry."</p> + +<p>Then she looked at him for a moment; a smile +of sad wistfulness came on her lips.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm sure you're awfully sorry, Harry."</p> + +<p>She passed into the house, leaving the door +open behind her. Harry heard her slow steps +crossing the hall.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry looked up with a quick jerk of his head. +"You don't mean to-night?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_402" title="pg 402"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"You won't do that, Mr. Wellgood?" said +Isobel, the first touch of entreaty in her voice.</p> + +<p>With an oath he answered, "I will, and this +very minute."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_403" title="pg 403"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry took the things from him, handed the +hat to Isobel, and wrapped her in the cloak.</p> + +<p>Fellowes was an old family servant, who had +known Harry from a boy.</p> + +<p>"I dare do nothing, sir," he said, and went in, +and shut the door again.</p> + +<p>"It was good of Vivien," said Isobel, with +a choking sob.</p> + +<p>Harry shrugged his shoulders again. "Well, +we must go—somewhere," he said.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XX.<a class="pagenum" id="page_404" title="pg 404"></a></h2> + +<h2>NO GOOD?</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_405" title="pg 405"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"You gentlemen from London seem to study +everything!" exclaimed Jack admiringly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I find myself with something like an appetite," +Gilly announced.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_406" title="pg 406"></a> +"La, now, I was looking at Miss Flower's +frock!"</p> + +<p>"Why, you helped to put it on me! You +ought to know it."</p> + +<p>"It sets that sweet on you, Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Harry's a long time getting back," Andy +remarked, looking at his watch.</p> + +<p>"He's dallying," said Billy. "I should dally +myself if I had the chance."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he found Wellgood back; I know he +wanted to speak to him—something about the +settlements."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be Joan of Arc," said the Nun. +"Know much about her, Mr. Rock?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_407" title="pg 407"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"It seems a most appropriate part for our +hostess," remarked Billy Foot.</p> + +<p>"Silly!" Miss Dutton shot out contemptously.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The horse might be heard neighing?" Billy +suggested. "Off, you know."</p> + +<p>"Then the horse would be where I was afraid +of being," said the Nun, and suddenly gurgled.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Completely encased, Gilly. I shall look like +<a class="pagenum" id="page_408" title="pg 408"></a> +a lobster. Still, Mr. Rock will come and see me, +if the rest of you don't."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"If a frontispiece is of any use to you, Gilly—?" +the Nun suggested politely.</p> + +<p>"What can have become of Harry?" Again +it was Andy Hayes who asked.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jack Rock turned to her, bashful, humble, yet +<a class="pagenum" id="page_409" title="pg 409"></a> +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'?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll sing for you. Any favourite +song, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"What pleases you'll please me, miss," said old +Jack.</p> + +<p>"I'll sing you an old Scotch one I happen to +know."</p> + +<p>Silence obtained—from Billy Foot with some +difficulty, since he had got into an argument with +Sally Dutton—the Nun began to sing:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p>"My Jeany and I have toiled</p> +<p class="i2"> The livelong Summer's Day:</p> +<p>Till we were almost spoil'd</p> +<p class="i2"> At making of the Hay.</p> +<p>Her Kerchy was of holland clear,</p> +<p class="i2"> Tied to her bonny brow,</p> +<p>I whispered something in her ear;</p> +<p class="i2"> But what is that to you?"</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_410" title="pg 410"></a></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p>"Her stockings were of Kersey green,</p> +<p class="i2"> And tight as ony silk;</p> +<p>O, sic a leg was never seen!</p> +<p class="i2"> Her skin was white as milk.</p> +<p>Her hair was black as ane could wish,</p> +<p class="i2"> And sweet, sweet was her mou'!</p> +<p>Ah! Jeany daintily can kiss;</p> +<p class="i2"> But what is that to you?"</p> +</div> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Again the Bird tried to edge towards Andy. +Jack Rock forbade.</p> + +<p>"But I've a message," the Bird whispered +protestingly.</p> + +<p>"Damn your message! She's singin' to us!"</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p>"The Rose and Lily baith combine</p> +<p class="i2"> To make my Jeany fair;</p> +<p>There is no Benison like mine,</p> +<p class="i2"> I have a'maist no care,</p> +<p>But when another swain, my fair,</p> +<p class="i2"> Shall say 'You're fair to view,'</p> +<p>Let Jeany whisper in his ear,</p> +<p class="i2"> 'Pray, what is that to you?'"</p> +</div> + +<p>There was loud applause.</p> + +<p>"I only sang it for Mr. Rock," said the Nun, +relapsing into a demureness which had not consistently +marked her rendering of the song.</p> + +<p>Released from Jack's imprisoning eye, the Bird +<a class="pagenum" id="page_411" title="pg 411"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"He wants me—outside? Why doesn't he +come in? Well, I'll go." Andy rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"You've fired his imagination!" remarked +Gilly to the Nun. "He goes to seek adventures. +Yet your song was that of a moralist."</p> + +<p>"A moralist somewhat too curious about a +stocking," Billy opined.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You've a wonderful way of puttin' it, miss," +said old Jack Rock.</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on his arm, saucily affectionate. +"Pray what is that to you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm off, miss. Thank you kindly. It's been +an evenin' for me!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_412" title="pg 412"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>Billy Foot rose, moved round the table, and sat +by her. "Where did you find it?"</p> + +<p>"In an old book a friend gave me."</p> + +<p>"I like it." Billy sounded quite convinced of +the song's merit.</p> + +<p>"It has got a little bit of—of the feeling, hasn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"The feeling which I've always understood you +never felt?"</p> + +<p>She was securely evasive. "It's supposed to be +a man who sings it, Billy."</p> + +<p>"That accounts for the foolishness of the +sentiments?"</p> + +<p>"Makes them sound familiar, anyhow," said the +Nun, preferring experience to theory.</p> + +<p>Andy came in. He went quickly to the Nun +and bent down over her chair.</p> + +<p>"Harry's outside—with Miss Vintry. He +wants to know if he may bring her in," he said, +speaking very low.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_413" title="pg 413"></a> +Surprise got the better of the Nun's discretion. +Her voice was audible to them all, as she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Miss Vintry with him! At this time of night!"</p> + +<p>"I think perhaps—as we've finished supper—we'd +better break up," said Andy, apologetically +addressing the company.</p> + +<p>"Why? Has anything happened?" asked +Billy Foot.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"There's no room for her—with Gilly here as +well as us," the Nun protested rather fretfully.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Billy turned to his brother. "I'm off home. +Will you stroll with me as far as Halton?"</p> + +<p>Gilly nodded in a bewildered fashion—he was +not up in Meriton affairs—and slowly rose.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Andy nodded approval; Gilly would be best +in bed.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_414" title="pg 414"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Andy gravely.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Andy?" the Nun asked.</p> + +<p>"A general break-up," he answered briefly, as +he followed Sally Dutton out of the room.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Andy came in with Isobel Vintry clinging to his +arm, Harry following and carefully closing the +door.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"She'd better go straight to bed," said Andy.</p> + +<p>"She can have my room. I'll go in with +Sally."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_415" title="pg 415"></a> +He looked at her. "She'd better have somebody +with her, I think. Will you call Sally?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Harry met Isobel and clasped her hands. Then +she and Sally Dutton went out together.</p> + +<p>Harry sat down heavily in a chair by the table +and poured out a glass of wine.</p> + +<p>"Do you two men want to be alone together?" +the Nun asked.</p> + +<p>Harry shook his head. "I'm just off home."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to marry her?" the Nun +suddenly inquired, with her usual directness.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_416" title="pg 416"></a> +"You might have gathered that much from what +Andy said," Harry grumbled in an injured tone.</p> + +<p>"Does Vivien know yet?"</p> + +<p>He dropped his cigarette-end into his emptied +glass.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Shall I walk back with you?" Andy asked.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Harry looked morosely resentful at the indictment. +"Oh, you can't understand. Nobody can +<a class="pagenum" id="page_417" title="pg 417"></a> +understand who—who isn't made that way. You +talk as if I'd meant to do it!"</p> + +<p>"I think I'd rather you had meant to do it. +That'd be rather less contemptible, I think."</p> + +<p>"Gently, gently, Doris!" Andy interposed.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm going; and I'm much obliged to Doris +for her abuse. She's always been the same about +me—sneering and snarling!"</p> + +<p>"I've never made a fool of myself about you. +That's what you can't forgive, Harry."</p> + +<p>"Go, my dear fellow, go," said Andy. "What's +the use of this?"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>They heard the "Boots" open the door of the +inn for him; a moment later his step passed the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_418" title="pg 418"></a> +window. Andy came and sat down by the Nun; +she caught his big hand in hers.</p> + +<p>"I'm trying hard not to cry. I don't want to +break my record. How did it all happen?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It's cruel, cruel, cruel!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but do you remember a talk we had about +it once?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You thought this—this sort of thing +would really be the best."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"This woman here in love with him? Really? +Not only for the match?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry for her then. She'd much better +<a class="pagenum" id="page_419" title="pg 419"></a> +not be! Oh, I daresay he'll marry her. How +much will that mean with Harry Belfield?"</p> + +<p>Feeling in less danger of breaking her record, +she loosed her hold of Andy's hand. He rose.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Just like him! He breaks the pitcher and +leaves you to sweep up the pieces!"</p> + +<p>"Well, he can't see her himself, can he?"</p> + +<p>"He'd make love to her again if he did. You +may be sure of that!"</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Sally Dutton came in in +her dressing-gown, with her pretty hair all about +her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"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—!"</p> + +<p>Doris looked at him and nodded. "I shall see +you soon in London, Andy?"</p> + +<p>He pressed her hand and left the two girls +together.</p> + +<p>Gilly Foot was smoking a reflective pipe outside +<a class="pagenum" id="page_420" title="pg 420"></a> +the door; he had possessed himself of the key and +sent the sleepy "Boots" to bed. Andy obtained +leave of absence for the morrow.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Come, we must give him another chance," +Andy urged.</p> + +<p>Gilly knocked out his pipe with an air of +decision.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_421" title="pg 421"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_422" title="pg 422"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_423" title="pg 423"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"Harry Belfield's no good!" "How are the +mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished!"</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXI.<a class="pagenum" id="page_424" title="pg 424"></a></h2> + +<h2>THE EMPTY PLACE.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There's no doubt about it, I think, sir, but it +doesn't help us much. It may show that Wellgood's +<a class="pagenum" id="page_425" title="pg 425"></a> +motives aren't purely paternal, but it doesn't +make matters better for Harry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I should like you to talk to Wellgood and find +<a class="pagenum" id="page_426" title="pg 426"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Belfield shook his head. "Not much to be said +there. And I've got to tell my wife. Not much +there either."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid Mrs. Belfield will be terribly +distressed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; but mothers wear special spectacles, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_427" title="pg 427"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"It was partly his fault. Why didn't he own +up about Miss Vintry?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. You go back to work, Andy. +You've your own life. And that pretty girl, Miss +Flower—does she go back too?"</p> + +<p>"She goes this afternoon. And Billy Foot with +them, I think."</p> + +<p>"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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_428" title="pg 428"></a> +Nemesis! There, good-bye. You're a thorough +good fellow."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to see Miss Vintry off, then I'm +going to Nutley. By-the-bye, how did you hear +about it?"</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_429" title="pg 429"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_430" title="pg 430"></a> +virtues. Andy was unfeignedly glad that this was +her condition; his practical equipment included +small aptitude for dealing with hysterics.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Since it has happened, I can only hope the end +will be happy—for you and for him."</p> + +<p>"I'm getting what I wanted. If you want a +thing and get it, you can hardly complain, whatever +happens."</p> + +<p>"That sounds very reasonable, but—"</p> + +<p>"The best thing to hope about reason is to hope +you won't need it? Yes!"</p> + +<p>It seemed that the news had not yet spread so +far afield as to reach the station. The old stationmaster +was friendly and loquacious.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"That's about what it comes to, Mr. Parsons," +said Andy, as he handed Isobel into the +train.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_431" title="pg 431"></a> +"Well, 'olidays must 'ave an end. A pleasant +journey and a safe return, miss."</p> + +<p>Isobel smiled at Andy. "You'd stop at the +first part of the wish, Mr. Hayes?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_432" title="pg 432"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That would be absurd, of course," Andy had +to admit.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_433" title="pg 433"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"In fact you'll do your best to get him boycotted?" +Andy liked compendious statements.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Andy tried a last shot. "Is this action of yours +really best for Miss Wellgood, or what she would +wish?"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_434" title="pg 434"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly in his prowling up and +down the room. "That's funny! She was just +saying she would like to see you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear that. I want to be quite +frank. Harry has asked me to express to her his +bitter regret."</p> + +<p>"Nothing more than that?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing more, on my honour."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_435" title="pg 435"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Now Andy turned to her, for her voice commanded +his attention.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_436" title="pg 436"></a> +"How fagged-out you look, Miss Wellgood!" +he exclaimed impulsively.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"The gist of it, I think."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm with you in that, Miss Wellgood. It's far +better."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_437" title="pg 437"></a> +with a faint melancholy smile. "Shall you tell +him that?"</p> + +<p>"If you leave it to me, I shan't tell him that."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"You want it all over, don't you?" he asked +bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"</p> + +<p>"Then don't tell Harry Belfield that. Think +it, if you like. Don't tell him."</p> + +<p>A look of sheer wonder came into her eyes. +"He's like that?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Yes, like that. That's the trouble. He'd +better think you're—hopelessly disgusted."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Or as we thought he was?" Andy's tones were +blunt still, and now rather bitter.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_438" title="pg 438"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell him." Andy rose to go.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But you're not running away now, any more +than you did then."</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to stand still, and—and look at it—at +what it means about life."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't think all life's like that—or all +men either."</p> + +<p>"That's the temptation—to think that."</p> + +<p>"Men are tempted to think it about women +too, sometimes."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "Yes, of course, that's true. +I'm glad you said that. You are good against +Curly!"</p> + +<p>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—<i>Varium et mutabile semper +Femina</i> against "Men were deceivers ever"—<i>Souvent +femme varie</i> against the sorrowfully ridiculous +chronicles of breach of promise of marriage +<a class="pagenum" id="page_439" title="pg 439"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"And Isobel?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I saw her off all right by the twelve-fifteen, +Miss Wellgood—to London, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to London." To both of them London +might have been spelt "Harry."</p> + +<p>"She was never really unkind to me," said +Vivien thoughtfully. "I expect it did me good."</p> + +<p>"Never a favourite of mine—even before this," +Andy pronounced, rather ponderously.</p> + +<p>She shot a side glance at him. "I believe you +thought she beat me!"</p> + +<p>"I think I thought that sometimes you'd +sooner she had done that than stand there +smiling."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're prejudiced! She wasn't unkind; +<a class="pagenum" id="page_440" title="pg 440"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Shall you see Harry?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to till—till things have settled +down a bit. I shall write about what you've +said."</p> + +<p>"About part of what I've said," she reminded +him. "You've convinced me about that."</p> + +<p>Andy rose again, and this time she did not seek +to hinder him.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy nodded. She wanted them to know that +her courage was not broken.</p> + +<p>On his way out he met Wellgood again, moodily +sauntering in the drive by the lake.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_441" title="pg 441"></a> +"Well, what do you think of her?" Wellgood +asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"She's feels it terribly, but she's taking it +splendidly."</p> + +<p>Wellgood nodded emphatically, saying again, +"I never thought she had such pluck."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Wellgood looked at him suspiciously. "I'm +not going back on my terms."</p> + +<p>"Wait and see if they are accepted. Let him +alone till then. She'd thank you for that."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_442" title="pg 442"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"She's distressed; but she blames Wellgood +and the other woman most. I'm glad she does."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_443" title="pg 443"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"The woman's certainly a serious added difficulty. +Meriton, we're old friends. Tell me your +own opinion."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I think so too—in his own interest. And I +rather think that I, at least, owe it to Vivien to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_444" title="pg 444"></a> +throw my weight on the side that will save her +from annoyance."</p> + +<p>"That was in my mind too, Belfield; but I +knew you'd think of it without my saying it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I know he is; I know it. They bring such +a lot of good fellows to grief—and pretty women +too."</p> + +<p>"Well, I must write to him; and you must look +out for another candidate."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I imagine a good deal might be said on both +sides in that debate."</p> + +<p>"Oh, stuff and nonsense! You wouldn't dare +to say that to his mother!"</p> + +<p>"No; and I don't suppose I really think it +myself. But this sort of thing does make a man +a bit nervous, Meriton."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_445" title="pg 445"></a> +"If the lady's attractions have led him astray, +perhaps they'll be able now to keep him straight."</p> + +<p>"They won't be so great in one particular. +They won't be forbidden fruit."</p> + +<p>"Aye, the best fox is always in the covert you +mayn't draw. Human nature!"</p> + +<p>"At all events, my boy Harry's."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_446" title="pg 446"></a></h2> + +<h2>GRUBBING AWAY.</h2> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_447" title="pg 447"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_448" title="pg 448"></a> +Meriton, the terrace by the lake at Nutley was +usually to be seen in the foreground.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_449" title="pg 449"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy explained that he had not much leisure for +even the most attractive entertainments.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_450" title="pg 450"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with him, I wonder? +Now you remind me, I've hardly seen him +either."</p> + +<p>"He was here the other night, in a box, with +Kensington; but he didn't come round. Took +Kensington on to supper, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"What have you against Kensington?" Andy +inquired curiously.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, very much so! Do you suspect any +particular Kensingtonian?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You've heard that Harry's married to Miss +Vintry?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_451" title="pg 451"></a> +"Serve her right!" said the Nun severely. "I +never had any pity for that woman."</p> + +<p>"And he's chucked the candidature. So our +great campaign was all for nothing!"</p> + +<p>"Well, Billy must always be talking somewhere, +anyhow. And I should think it did you +good?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, it did. I was thinking of Harry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy took her hand and pressed it. "I'm so +jolly glad you've got such a success, Doris. And +the armour's ripping!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>Nunc +Dimittis</i> air.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_452" title="pg 452"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>Andy was smiling broadly—not that he had any +particular wish to be rich, but because successful +labour is marvellously sweet.</p> + +<p>"Do you happen to remember that it was you +who gave me the germ of that idea?"</p> + +<p>"No, surely I didn't? I don't remember. I +can't have, Gilly."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you did. That arrangement of the +tables of comparison?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ah! Yes—well, I do remember something +about that. But that's only a trifle. You did all +the rest."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I believe we have got our foot in this time," +said Andy.</p> + +<p>"I shan't, however, do anything more to-day," +Gilly announced, rising and putting on his hat. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_453" title="pg 453"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_454" title="pg 454"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_455" title="pg 455"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Belfield!" announced the office-boy, +twisting his head between the door and the jamb +with a questioning air.</p> + +<p>What brought Belfield to town? "Oh, show +him in!" said Andy, laying down his pipe.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_456" title="pg 456"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_457" title="pg 457"></a> +naked, and neither ashamed nor cold. Must you +shiver, or blush, for him?</p> + +<p>"I—er—ought to congratulate you, Harry."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy remembered an old-time conversation +about Lethe water. Harry seemed disposed to +stand treat for a bottle.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry about—about the seat, Harry," +he said.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"You're not looking out elsewhere?" Andy +asked.</p> + +<p>"Give a fellow time!" Harry expostulated. +"I've only been married a fortnight! You must +<a class="pagenum" id="page_458" title="pg 458"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't given me the sack yet," said Andy.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what the Nun was saying the +other night, when I went to see her show."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_459" title="pg 459"></a> +Harry's faint frown showed again. His recollection +of Miss Flower's behaviour at Meriton +accused her of a want of real sympathy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Andy fingered his telegram absently, not in +impatience; nothing very urgent was to be expected, +the great <i>coup</i> had already been made. +He laid it down and listened again to Harry +Belfield.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Harry's face was now seriously clouded and his +<a class="pagenum" id="page_460" title="pg 460"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose you oughtn't to miss the next +election. The sooner you go in the better, isn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy nodded, relit his pipe, and opened his +telegram.</p> + +<p>"That's why I think you're rather lucky to +have it all cut and dried for you. Saves a lot of +thinking!"</p> + +<p>Andy had been reading his telegram, not listening +to Harry for the moment. "I beg pardon, +Harry?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, read it. I'm only gassing," said Harry +good-humouredly.</p> + +<p>Andy read again; he always liked to read +important documents twice. He laid it down +on the office table, looking very thoughtful. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_461" title="pg 461"></a> +"That's funny!" he observed. "It's from your +father."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see why the pater shouldn't send +you a telegram, if he wants to," smiled Harry.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"To meet Meriton and Wigram?" Wigram +was the Conservative agent in the Division. +"What the devil can they want?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Andy, "unless—unless +it's about the candidature."</p> + +<p>"About what?" Harry sharply withdrew the +shapely foot from the table and sat upright in his +chair.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Well, a wire's not always absolute secrecy in +<a class="pagenum" id="page_462" title="pg 462"></a> +small towns, is it? And I daresay they'd want +the matter kept quiet till it was settled."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_463" title="pg 463"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"What Gilly thought?"</p> + +<p>"I mean whether he thought it would be compatible +with the claims of the business."</p> + +<p>"What, you'd really think of it?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_464" title="pg 464"></a> +"Well, of all the men I thought of as likely to +step into my shoes, I never thought of you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_465" title="pg 465"></a> +"Well, thank heaven I'm out of it, and I wish +you joy of it," said Harry, rising and clapping on +his hat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's not at all likely it'll come to anything. +Must you go, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_466" title="pg 466"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>protégé</i>, 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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_467" title="pg 467"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>Still the text-book and the telegram had given +him an interesting day.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXIII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_468" title="pg 468"></a></h2> + +<h2>A STOP-GAP.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_469" title="pg 469"></a> +the work done and are glad to help a fine +worker.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"So they've done it, have they?" he drawled +out. "I thought they would, from something +Billy said."</p> + +<p>"What does Billy know about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Billy knows. I expect they consulted +him, in fact."</p> + +<p>"I want to be able to tell them that you agree +with me; that's why I've spoken to you about it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you? Then by no means tell them +I agree with you."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_470" title="pg 470"></a> +Surprise the second! "You don't?" Andy +ejaculated; there was a note of pleasure in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But what is there for you to want here?" +asked Andy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy was standing by him; he laid his hand +on his shoulder. "You're a good chap yourself, +Gilly."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_471" title="pg 471"></a> +"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. I've really got more than enough +to do here."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_472" title="pg 472"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_473" title="pg 473"></a> +by the Association, if you come forward under +the proper auspices."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll look after the auspices," said Meriton. +"That'll be all right."</p> + +<p>"But I've no influence, no connections, no +standing—"</p> + +<p>"We haven't flattered you, Mr. Hayes," Meriton +interrupted, smiling. "We've told you that +we made efforts in other quarters."</p> + +<p>"If it pleases you, Andy, you shall regard yourself +as Hobson's choice," said Belfield, with a +chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Better than an outsider, anyhow!" Mr. Wigram +chimed in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_474" title="pg 474"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Now just think it over, Mr. Hayes, and tell +us if you see your way to that."</p> + +<p>"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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I couldn't possibly—!"</p> + +<p>"My dear Andy, it's constantly being done," +Belfield expostulated.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_475" title="pg 475"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>Harry's father was against Harry. Harry's +father urged him to step into Harry's shoes.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I think I can guarantee you success, Mr. +Hayes," said Wigram.</p> + +<p>All the difficulties seemed to have vanished—if +only he could take the offered help.</p> + +<p>"I feel rather overwhelmed," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_476" title="pg 476"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"Just five minutes, if you don't mind, Lord +Meriton."</p> + +<p>Belfield winked at Meriton. If he had asked for +a week! Five minutes meant a favourable answer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd feel that way about it; but at +present, at all events, it's not a practical question, +Andy."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_477" title="pg 477"></a> +"Capital!" his lordship exclaimed. Wigram's +face was wreathed in smiles. Belfield patted Andy +on the shoulder affectionately.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe either party to the bargain +will regret it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You saw him on Thursday? After you got +my wire? Did you say anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"It came while he was there, and I showed it +to him. He was surprised."</p> + +<p>"You mean he wasn't pleased?"</p> + +<p>"I can understand how he must feel. I feel +just the same thing myself—terribly strongly sometimes."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_478" title="pg 478"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I know what you've been doing," he said. +"At it again, Jack!"</p> + +<p>"You've not refused?"</p> + +<p>"No; I've accepted."</p> + +<p>Jack wrung his hand hard. "That takes a +weight off my mind," he said with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"But it seems a low-down thing to take all +that money—more of yours too!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do, Jack. What's the matter +with it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, in a month that sign'll come down." +He cocked his head on one side as he regarded +<a class="pagenum" id="page_479" title="pg 479"></a> +it. "Yes, down in a month! Seems strange, +don't it? Been there sixty year." His sigh +was evenly compounded of sorrow and pride.</p> + +<p>"What, are you going to retire, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But where are you going to set up house, +Jack?"</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_480" title="pg 480"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I really think I'm the luckiest beggar alive!" +he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>With a promise to return in good time for +supper—for no risks must be run with what might +<a class="pagenum" id="page_481" title="pg 481"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_482" title="pg 482"></a> +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!</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_483" title="pg 483"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_484" title="pg 484"></a> +stern than Isobel's own had ever supplied to meet +Wellgood's theories of a manly training.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_485" title="pg 485"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_486" title="pg 486"></a> +aforetime he had grieved for her tribulation, struck +home to a heart hungry for comradeship.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"It's good of you to spare time to come and +tell us."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_487" title="pg 487"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You really think I shan't make a fool of +myself?" asked Andy.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It seems—it seems"—he stammered—"it +seems treason."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a minute. The colour glowed +brighter on her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_488" title="pg 488"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"I—I say things wrong," pleaded poor Andy. +"I'll take anything you'll give."</p> + +<p>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.?"</p> + +<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."</p> + +<p>"The man who makes friends makes riches." +She gave a light laugh. "May I be a little bit of +your riches?"</p> + +<p>Andy's answer was his own. "Well, I always +remember that morning—the hunt and Curly."</p> + +<p>"I'm still that to you?" she asked quickly, her +colour rising yet.</p> + +<p>He looked at her. "No, of course not, but I +had a sort of idea that then you liked me a bit."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_489" title="pg 489"></a> +Wellgood stood in the window. "Well, is it +all right?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He's said yes, father!" she cried with a glad +merriment.</p> + +<p>"I thought he would. It's a change for the +better!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I've got to try to be as good a stop-gap as +I can," he said.</p> + +<p>"Something better than that!" Vivien murmured +softly.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXIV.<a class="pagenum" id="page_490" title="pg 490"></a></h2> + +<h2>PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!</h2> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_491" title="pg 491"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Of Kensington?" asked the Nun in a tone of +polite interest.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You brought one of the girls to hear me one +night, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, she's the only girl, in fact—Amaranth's +<a class="pagenum" id="page_492" title="pg 492"></a> +her name. Rather silly, but that's +not her fault, is it?" He seemed anxious to forestall +criticism.</p> + +<p>"You can call her Amy—or even Aimée," suggested +the Nun consolingly.</p> + +<p>Billy laughed. "Have you heard it, or did +you guess, Doris?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"About a month ago—and in about three +months' time. Didn't you think her pretty?"</p> + +<p>"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—?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, there are two sons. Still—yes, +that's all right."</p> + +<p>"It all sounds splendid. I don't fall in love +myself, as I've told you—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that very well," said Billy. "Nobody +knows it better."</p> + +<p>Her eyes danced as she shook her head at him +demurely. "But I like to see young people +settling down happily."</p> + +<p>"You are rather a queer girl in that way, Doris. +Never feel that way?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_493" title="pg 493"></a> +The Nun considered. "I might go so far as to +admit that I've an ideal."</p> + +<p>"Rather a silly thing to have in this world, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And what, or who, is your ideal?"</p> + +<p>"'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?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't had time to go down lately."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course not—now!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Gilly lunching on sandwiches and a glass of +sherry from the pub!" Her voice was full of +wondering amazement.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_494" title="pg 494"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"But that's awfully fine of Gilly, I think."</p> + +<p>"So it is, of course. That's why he gets so +riled when anybody says anything about it."</p> + +<p>The Nun nodded in understanding. "And +Harry?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Have you been to call on Mrs. Harry Belfield?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"With her?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes with her. I don't think he's doing +anything about another constituency; seems to +<a class="pagenum" id="page_495" title="pg 495"></a> +have chucked it for the present. But he does +appear to be having a very good time in +London."</p> + +<p>"Is he friendly when you meet?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"It's very sad, but I'm afraid his memories of +us are not those of unmixed pleasure."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not. Andy says he never goes +down to Meriton."</p> + +<p>"Well, really I don't very well see how he +could—with her!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he and his people have some understanding +about it. One's sorry for them, you +know."</p> + +<p>"I think I shall go down to Meriton again this +autumn. Any chance of your being there—as a +family man?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will. But really I think I should +make it 'Amy'!"</p> + +<p>"It's worth considering; but I don't know +how she'll feel about it," said Billy cautiously.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_496" title="pg 496"></a> +"Oh, said in the way you'll say it, it'll sound +sweet," remarked the Nun flippantly.</p> + +<p>Billy still looked doubtful; perhaps "Amaranth" +already sounded sweet.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_497" title="pg 497"></a> +if Billy had any idea whom I had in my head!" +she thought.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"I can't complain if my want of responsiveness +hasn't been emphasised, Sally. You couldn't +expect him to."</p> + +<p>"I've been having a talk with Mrs. Harry +Belfield," said Sally, taking off her hat.</p> + +<p>This announcement came rather pat on the +Nun's reflections. She was interested.</p> + +<p>"Well, how is she? What happened?"</p> + +<p>"In my opinion it's just another of them," Sally +pronounced.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_498" title="pg 498"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Harry?" suggested the Nun, in an obviously +insincere shot at the answer.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Did they join you?" asked the Nun, by now +much interested.</p> + +<p>"Join us? They swallowed us! Of course +they didn't take much notice of me. They'd never +<a class="pagenum" id="page_499" title="pg 499"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Did you gather whether Lady Lucy was a +married woman?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_500" title="pg 500"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's fighting; she's putting up a good +fight for him."</p> + +<p>"Well, we know she can do that!" observed +the Nun with a rather acid demureness.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Will they get her out of the way? It's rather +soon to talk about that."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Your views are always uncompromising, +Sally."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_501" title="pg 501"></a> +"Rather too much of a good thing for most +men. And it might have been Vivien!"</p> + +<p>"It's a woman, and one of God's creatures, anyhow," +said Sally with some temper.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_502" title="pg 502"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>That was intelligible enough. For the moment, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_503" title="pg 503"></a> +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_504" title="pg 504"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"May I speak to you—or am I no better than +one of the wicked?" he said, sitting down beside +her.</p> + +<p>"You're looking very well, Harry. I hope +Mrs. Belfield is all right?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Isobel's first-rate, thank you. So am +I. How London agrees with a man! I was out +<a class="pagenum" id="page_505" title="pg 505"></a> +of sorts half the time down at Meriton. A country +life doesn't agree with me. I shall chuck it."</p> + +<p>"You seemed very well down there—physically," +the Nun observed.</p> + +<p>"Sleepy, wasn't it? Sleepy beyond anything. +Now here a man feels alive, and awake!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What about Parliament? Going to find another +place?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "I think you're quite right. Let +it alone."</p> + +<p>He turned to her quite eagerly. "Do you +<a class="pagenum" id="page_506" title="pg 506"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You see now what it is to give a woman the +right to lecture you, Harry!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>It was his first reference to the catastrophe; +she was curious to see whether he would develop +it. This Harry proceeded to do.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_507" title="pg 507"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>Vastly amused, the Nun nodded gravely. "I +ought to have thought of that before I was so down +on you."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did the right thing then."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you admit that much! I say—I +suppose you—you haven't heard anything of Vivien +Wellgood?"</p> + +<p>"I hear she's in excellent health and spirits."</p> + +<p>"I've never been so cut up about anything. +Still, of course, she was a mere girl, and—well, +things pass!"</p> + +<p>"Luckily things pass. I've no doubt she'll soon +console herself."</p> + +<p>"He'll be a very lucky fellow," said Harry +handsomely. After all, he himself had admired +Vivien, and his taste was good.</p> + +<p>"He will. In fact I think I know only one +<a class="pagenum" id="page_508" title="pg 508"></a> +man good enough for her—and that's Andy +Hayes."</p> + +<p>Harry's face was suddenly transformed to a +peevish amazement.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why her being fastidious should +prevent her liking Andy."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"I thought Mrs. Belfield was always so +punctual?"</p> + +<p>"It's not Mrs. Belfield," Harry snapped out.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't be disagreeable to the poor woman +simply because I said something you didn't like."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_509" title="pg 509"></a> +"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—"</p> + +<p>"That tall young woman over there seems to be +staring rather hard at you and me, Harry."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_510" title="pg 510"></a> +"What made you afraid of that?" asked Harry, +smiling.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Freere's an old friend."</p> + +<p>"So I've always understood!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Nun and her party entered, and sat down at +the other end of the balcony.</p> + +<p>"There's that girl you were talking to. Look +round; she's sitting facing me."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Doris Flower!"</p> + +<p>"An old friend too? You seemed to be having +a very confidential conversation at least."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think you care much whether I tease +you or not," said Lady Lucy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_511" title="pg 511"></a> +The Nun's host—at the other end of the balcony—turned +to her. "You're not very talkative +to-day, Miss Doris!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry: There's always so much to +look at at the other tables, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty much the same old lot!" remarked the +host—an experienced youth.</p> + +<p>"Pretty much!" agreed the Nun serenely.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXV.<a class="pagenum" id="page_512" title="pg 512"></a></h2> + +<h2>THE LAST FIGHT.</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes think," he went on, "that the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_513" title="pg 513"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, this event'll do them no end of good, sir," +said Andy, ever ready to clutch again at the elusive +skirts of optimism.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_514" title="pg 514"></a> +worse he's behaving the pleasanter the rogue will +be. I know him of old in that."</p> + +<p>"Has he any plans?" asked Andy.</p> + +<p>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 <i>en route</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't seem to lead to much."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the mistake's ours! For many men I +say nothing against the life. I'm not one of the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_515" title="pg 515"></a> +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?"</p> + +<p>"It's a bit of a waste, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_516" title="pg 516"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_517" title="pg 517"></a> +smile had not been very sympathetic under the +veil of night.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"You can never tell about that, can you, Mrs. +Belfield? These things happen so oddly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but, my dear, the poor child never sees +anybody! Now you see quite a number of young +men, I daresay?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, quite a number, Mrs. Belfield," the Nun +admitted demurely.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You ought to talk to Mr. Wellgood about +it."</p> + +<p>"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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_518" title="pg 518"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He sat down by Mrs. Belfield. Vivien and +Sally, who had been strolling, joined the group, +of which he made the centre.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it looks all right," he said, continuing +his talk with Belfield. "Wigram promises me a +<a class="pagenum" id="page_519" title="pg 519"></a> +thousand. A strong candidate would get that. I +hope for about six hundred."</p> + +<p>"You think it's safe, though, anyhow?" asked +Vivien.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it's safe." He broke into a +laugh. "If anybody had told me this!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The hero of the day! It was Andy Hayes, son +of old Mr. Hayes of the Grammar School, <i>protégé</i>, +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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_520" title="pg 520"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_521" title="pg 521"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 + +<a class="pagenum" id="page_522" title="pg 522"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_523" title="pg 523"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_524" title="pg 524"></a> +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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_525" title="pg 525"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Dear Andy, have you learnt what we have, I +wonder? Not yet, I expect!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Doris?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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—?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I mean that." Her voice was calm again, a +little mocking. "But I shall say no more about it."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_526" title="pg 526"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but that's quite morbid. It's all his own +fault."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Heavens, Andy, you wouldn't think of sacrificing +yourself—and perhaps her—to an idea like +that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Some people feel things too little, some feel +them too much," the Nun observed. "Both bad +habits!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You certainly have no great natural talent +for it and, as you've told me, very little practice. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_527" title="pg 527"></a> +Oh, I wonder how big your majority will be, +Andy!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking about him too to-night. +It seemed natural to do it—over this election."</p> + +<p>They had reached Nutley, but Andy pleaded +<a class="pagenum" id="page_528" title="pg 528"></a> +for a walk on the terrace by the lake before she +bade him good-night.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Through the darkness he saw her eyes steadily +fixed on his.</p> + +<p>"I wonder, Andy, I wonder! Or is it only +pity, only chivalry? Is it the policeman again?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't it be the policeman?" he +asked. "Is it nothing if you think you could +feel safe with me?"</p> + +<p>"So much, so much!" she murmured. "Andy, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_529" title="pg 529"></a> +I'm still angry when I remember—still sore—and +angry again with myself for being sore. I oughtn't +still to feel that."</p> + +<p>"You'd guessed my feelings, Vivien? You're +not surprised or—or shocked?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I won't ask you my question to-night," said +Andy.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_530" title="pg 530"></a> +"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_531" title="pg 531"></a> +by the same words sentence of death on the young +happiness of her heart.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Andy," she said softly. "And +a great triumph to-morrow. Over a thousand!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_532" title="pg 532"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXVI.<a class="pagenum" id="page_533" title="pg 533"></a></h2> + +<h2>TALES OUT OF SCHOOL FOR ONCE.</h2> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_534" title="pg 534"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_535" title="pg 535"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"He wants to marry, so he must make love; +but I believe he hates it all the time," said the +Nun compassionately.</p> + +<p>"That shows his sense," remarked Sally Dutton.</p> + +<p>"He's a natural monogamist," opined Billy +Foot, "and no natural monogamist knows anything +about making love."</p> + +<p>"He ought to have been born married," Gilly +yawned, "just as I ought to have been born retired +from business."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Billy (<i>née</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"He waits to be accepted," she complained, "as +a girl waits to be asked."</p> + +<p>"Used to!" briefly corrected Miss Dutton.</p> + +<p>Billy Foot cut deeper into the case. "He's +<a class="pagenum" id="page_536" title="pg 536"></a> +never imagined before that he could have a chance +against Harry. He's got the idea now, but it takes +time to sink in."</p> + +<p>"Harry's out of it anyhow," drawled Gilly.</p> + +<p>"Out of what?" asked the Nun.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You all like him," said Amaranth. "And yet +you all give the impression that he's terribly +dull!" Her voice complained of an enigma.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you know, what would a fellow +do without him?" asked Gilly, looking up from +his <i>paté</i>.</p> + +<p>"Gilly has an enormous respect for him. He's +shamed him into working," Billy explained to his +wife.</p> + +<p>"That's it, by Jove!" Gilly acknowledged +<a class="pagenum" id="page_537" title="pg 537"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who is she?" asked Sally Dutton.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"How long has Lady Lucy lasted?" asked +Gilly.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_538" title="pg 538"></a> +Amaranth did not see the point. "I don't +know the Freeres," she remarked.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But the man's got a wife of his own!" cried +Amaranth.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but we're dealing with practical possibilities," +Gilly insisted. "And, from that point +of view, his own wife really doesn't count."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Dangerously long!" the Nun opined.</p> + +<p>"And Harry ought to have seven years' penal +<a class="pagenum" id="page_539" title="pg 539"></a> +servitude of Andy. Then you might achieve the +perfectly balanced individual."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, hang it—when I was trying to talk sense!" +poor Billy expostulated.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_540" title="pg 540"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_541" title="pg 541"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_542" title="pg 542"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_543" title="pg 543"></a> +new passions—or, at least, to inspire them; perhaps +the latter ending of the matter was the more likely.</p> + +<p>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—<i>deorum injuriae dis +curae</i>—but as the occupation of a life? The widest +stretch of philosophic contemplation of the whole +is demanded to excuse or to justify.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_544" title="pg 544"></a> +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 <i>congé</i>. +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_545" title="pg 545"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_546" title="pg 546"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You do make a picture, miss; you fair do +make a picture!" said Jack.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Jack shook his head reproachfully. "Ah, miss, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_547" title="pg 547"></a> +that's where you're wrong! I'm not sayin' anythin' +against Miss Vivien—she's a sweet young +lady."</p> + +<p>"What has Vivien got to do with single lives?"</p> + +<p>"Well, miss, no offence, I hope? But if it +had been so as you'd laid yourself out—so to +speak—for Andy."</p> + +<p>The Nun blushed just a little, and laughed just +a little also. "Oh, that's your idea, Jack? You +are a schemer!"</p> + +<p>"I've got nothin' to say against Miss Vivien. +But I wish it had been you, miss," Jack persisted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jack, wouldn't you have been jealous? +Do say you'd have been jealous!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're just a little bit partial to +Andy?" the Nun suggested.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Nun's face was towards the street, Jack's +back towards it. The garden gate was open.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said the Nun softly. "Here comes +Vivien!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_548" title="pg 548"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"I—I beg your pardon, miss," he stammered, +rushing at the conclusion that she had overheard.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that it's much good trying to +deny it, is it, Jack?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>The Nun smiled radiantly at him. "I hate +your going, Jack. Perhaps you'd better, though. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_549" title="pg 549"></a> +Only don't be unhappy. There's no harm done, +you know."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What Jack said was more about you really. +There's no fresh news about Harry."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Lots of men, good men, make a mistake, one +mistake, about things like that. He'll be all +right now—with his boy."</p> + +<p>"He's had a love affair, repented of it—and +<a class="pagenum" id="page_550" title="pg 550"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"As a general rule I don't tell tales. In this +case I feel free to say that he did."</p> + +<p>Vivien's smile was woeful. "What, he wanted +to marry you too once?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, he never wanted to marry me, Vivien."</p> + +<p>It was drastic treatment—and the doctor paid +for it as well as the patient.</p> + +<p>"But you went on being friends with him!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I think you're rather hard, Doris."</p> + +<p>"Thank God, I am, my dear! I need it."</p> + +<p>"It's a terrible thing to make the mistake I did."</p> + +<p>"It's worse to go on with it."</p> + + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_551" title="pg 551"></a>"I should have liked to go on with it. I feel +as people must who've lost their religion."</p> + +<p>"Is that so sad, if the religion is proved not to +be true?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Doris, be kind to me. I've nobody else!"</p> + +<p>"The Lord forgive you for saying so! You've +the luck of one girl in ten thousand." Now the +<a class="pagenum" id="page_552" title="pg 552"></a> +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!"</p> + +<p>"You think the world of Andy, don't you, +Doris?"</p> + +<p>"I'd think the universe of him if he'd give you +a shaking."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I think it's all coming right about Vivien and +Andy," the Nun remarked.</p> + +<p>Sally turned her critical eyes on her friend. +"Have you been helping?"</p> + +<p>"Just a little bit perhaps, Sally." She paused +a moment. "I shall be rather glad to have it +settled."</p> + +<p>The motor-car drew up at the door.</p> + +<p>"You'll not have more than enough time for +lunch before your matinée, Miss Flower," Seymour +<a class="pagenum" id="page_553" title="pg 553"></a> +observed, with his usual indifferent air. Not his +business whether she were in time, but he might +as well mention the matter!</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>The Nun's lips quivered again; her bright eyes +were a little dim. "But, Sally dear, I never fall +in love!"</p> + +<p>Miss Dutton relapsed, with equal abruptness, +into her habitual demeanour.</p> + +<p>"Well, he's a man—and a fool like all the rest +of them!" she remarked.</p> + +<p>The Nun gurgled. A record was saved—at the +last moment. Because she did not cry—any more +than she fell in love.</p> + +<p>The Nun came out, equipped for the journey. +She was smiling still. "Do I look all right, +Seymour?"</p> + +<p>"At the best of your looks, if I may say so, +Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Seymour. Get in with +you, Sally! You are a slow girl, always!"</p> + +<p>She pressed Sally's hand as the car started. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_554" title="pg 554"></a> +"Much better like this, really. I have always +Seymour's admiration."</p> + +<p>His name caught Seymour's ear. "I beg your +pardon, Miss Flower?"</p> + +<p>"I only said you were an admirable driver, +Seymour."</p> + +<p>"Naturally I drive carefully when you're in the +car, Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>"There!" said the Nun triumphantly. "I told +you so, Sally!"</p> + +<h2>Chapter XXVII.<a class="pagenum" id="page_555" title="pg 555"></a></h2> + +<h2>NOT OF HIS SEEKING.</h2> + +<p>Andy Hayes' <i>début</i> 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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_556" title="pg 556"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a class="pagenum" id="page_557" title="pg 557"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>This satisfaction he was not destined to enjoy. +He was interrupted by a visitor.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_558" title="pg 558"></a> +dark locks. He looked immensely handsome, +and he was gay, happy, and affectionate.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Of course. Anything I can do—please tell +her. She's not going with you?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_559" title="pg 559"></a> +"I've only spoken once—hardly a speech. But +I'm working pretty well at it."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet you are! And at it here too, I +suppose? Lazy beggar, Gilly Foot!"</p> + +<p>"Gilly's woken up wonderfully. You'd hardly +know him."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Only down to Meriton."</p> + +<p>"Quiet!" But Harry had not always found +it so; it was the quieter for his absence.</p> + +<p>"I like being there better than anywhere else," +was Andy's simple explanation of his movements.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Andy read the card. "I'll ring," he said +absently, and looked across at Harry.</p> + +<p>"Lady? Eminent authoress? Or is this not +business? Have her in—don't hide her, Andy!"</p> + +<p>"It's Vivien Wellgood."</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_560" title="pg 560"></a> +Harry turned his head sharply. "What brings +her here?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>A curious smile adorned Harry's handsome +features. He looked doubtful, yet decidedly +interested.</p> + +<p>"I'd better go out and see her," said Andy. +"I mustn't keep her waiting."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Andy came to a sudden resolution. Since chance +willed it this way, this way it should be.</p> + +<p>"As you please!" he said, and rang the bell.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_561" title="pg 561"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"None of this has been of my seeking," he said.</p> + +<p>"None of what? What do you mean, old +fellow?"</p> + +<p>There was no time for answer. Vivien was in +the room, and the clerk closed the door after she +had entered.</p> + +<p>She stood for a moment on the threshold and +then moved quickly to Andy's side.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_562" title="pg 562"></a> +"I knew," she said. "I heard your voices."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"If Andy—?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_563" title="pg 563"></a> +"Oh, so that's it?" he said with a sullen sneer.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_564" title="pg 564"></a> +With one more look, another slightest shrug, +Harry Belfield turned his back on them. They +stood without moving till the door closed behind +him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why did you let me meet him, Andy?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>But Vivien laughed softly as she daintily and +daringly laid her hand on Andy's big head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Andy chuckled contentedly. "You thought +<a class="pagenum" id="page_565" title="pg 565"></a> +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."</p> + +<p>"Not only for me, I think. For everybody; +perhaps even for the nation—for the world, +Andy!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>With a laugh that was half a sob she kissed his +upturned face. "Keep me safe, keep me safe, +Andy!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>She laughed merrily. "Well, of course I did! +Isn't it—usual?"</p> + +<p>Andy smiled. "If things like that are going to +be usual—well, life's looking a bit different!" he +said.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there were wild sounds in the outer +office—a door slammed, a furious sweet voice, a +<a class="pagenum" id="page_566" title="pg 566"></a> +swish of skirts. The door of the inner office flew +open.</p> + +<p>"What about lunch?" demanded the Nun +accusingly.</p> + +<p>"I'd forgotten it!" Vivien exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"So had I, but I'm awfully hungry, now I +come to think of it," said Andy. "The usual +place?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Doris," said Vivien meekly.</p> + +<p>The Nun addressed Andy severely. "Mrs. +Belfield will consider that you're marrying above +your station, Andy."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_567" title="pg 567"></a> +"For people who do fall in love, it must be +rather pleasant," she observed.</p> + +<p>"The worst of it is, I've got so little time," said +Andy.</p> + +<p>The two girls laughed. "I only want you to +have time to be in love with one girl," Vivien +explained reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"And, perhaps, just friends with another," the +Nun added.</p> + +<p>Andy joined in the laughter. "I shall fit those +two things in all right!" he declared.</p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_568" title="pg 568"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She stopped by a bench, rudely fashioned out of +a tree trunk. "Lend me your knife, Andy, please."</p> + +<p>He gave it to her, and stood watching while she +<a class="pagenum" id="page_569" title="pg 569"></a> +stooped and scratched with the knife on the side +of the bench. Certain initials were scratched out.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the spot +where they had been.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Andy made his last protest. "I'd have been +loyal to him all my life, if he'd have let me!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>In the hour of his own triumph, because of the +greatness of his own joy, tenderness for his friend +revived.</p> + +<p>"Dear old chap! How handsome he looked +to-day!"</p> + +<p>Vivien pressed his arm. "You can say that as often +as you like! There's no danger from him now!"</p> + +<p>The shadow passed from Andy Hayes' face as +he turned to his own great joy.</p> + +<h3>THE END.</h3> +<hr class="wide"/> + + + +<h2>Notes on Nelson's New Novels.<a class="pagenum" id="page_570" title="pg 570"></a></h2> + + +<p class="center"><i>No work of unwholesome character or<br /> +of second-rate quality will be<br /> +included in this Series.</i></p> + +<p>The novel is to-day <i>the</i> popular form of literary art. +This is proved by the number of novels published, +and by the enormous sales of fiction at popular prices.</p> + +<p>While <i>Reprints</i> of fiction may be purchased for a +few pence, <i>New Fiction</i> is still a luxury.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Messrs. Nelson have been pioneers in the issue of +reprints of fiction in Library Edition at Sevenpence. +<a class="pagenum" id="page_571" title="pg 571"></a> +The success of <i>Nelson's Library</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Nelson's Sevenpenny Library represents the best that +can be given to the public in the way of <i>Reprints</i> under +present manufacturing conditions.</p> + +<p>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 <i>New Fiction</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Nelson's New Novels are of the ordinary "six shilling" +size, but are produced with greater care than most of +their competitors. They are printed in large, clear +type, on a fine white paper. They are strongly bound +in green cloth with a white and gold design. They are +decorated with a pretty end-paper and a coloured +frontispiece. All the volumes are issued in bright +wrappers. The books are a happy combination of +substantial and artistic qualities.</p> + +<p>A new volume is issued regularly every month.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_572" title="pg 572"></a></p> +<h3><i>Descriptive Notes +on the Volumes for 1910:</i>—</h3> + +<h3><span style="float: left">FORTUNE.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>J. C. Snaith.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>H. G. Wells.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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 +<a class="pagenum" id="page_573" title="pg 573"></a> +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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">DAISY'S AUNT.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>E. F. Benson.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">THE OTHER SIDE.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>H. A. Vachell.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_574" title="pg 574"></a></p> +<h3><span style="float: left">SIR GEORGE'S OBJECTION.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>Mrs. W. K. Clifford.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">PRESTER JOHN.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>John Buchan.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_575" title="pg 575"></a></p> +<h3><span style="float: left">LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.</span> +<span style="float: right">"<i>Q.</i>"</span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">PANTHER'S CUB.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>Agnes and Egerton Castle.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="page_576" title="pg 576"></a></p> +<h3><span style="float: left">TREPANNED.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>John Masefield.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3><span style="float: left">THE SIMPKINS PLOT.</span> +<span style="float: right"><i>George A. Birmingham.</i></span></h3> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>"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 <i>cause célèbre</i>. 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."</p> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>THOMAS NELSON AND SONS,<br /> +London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York.</h3> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +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-h.htm or 38796-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/9/38796/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: ASCII + +*** 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 Koenigstrasse. PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Peres. + + + + + 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 _mesalliance_ 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 _mesalliance_--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 _eclat_. + +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 _metier_, 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 facade 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 Athenaeum +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 _role_. 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 maitre d'hotel, +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 _fiancee_. + +"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 +_fiancee'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 _conge d'elire!_), +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 _a 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 _fiance_ ought." + +"Or by not being Vivien's _fiance_ any longer?" + +"What, Harry love? What's that about not being Vivien's _fiance_ 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 _tete-a-tete_ 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 _fiancee_?" + +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 _tete-a-tete_ +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 _fiancee_. 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 _fiancee_? 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 +_habitues_ 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 minutiae 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 _role_, 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 _detour_ 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 _protege_, 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, L250; Rock, L250; Belfield, +L500." 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 Aimee," 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, _protege_, 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 (_nee_ 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 _pate_. + +"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 _conge_. 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 matinee, +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' _debut_ 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 +printed in large, clear type, on a fine white paper. They are strongly +bound in green cloth with a white and gold design. They are decorated +with a pretty end-paper and a coloured frontispiece. All the volumes are +issued in bright wrappers. The books are a happy combination of +substantial and artistic qualities. + +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 mediaeval 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 celebre_. 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.txt or 38796.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/9/38796/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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