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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40583 ***
+
+                           THE GOD IN THE CAR
+
+                               _A NOVEL_
+
+
+                                   BY
+                              ANTHONY HOPE
+                  AUTHOR OF THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, ETC.
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+                                  1894
+
+
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1894.
+
+                      BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                     PAGE
+
+       I.--AN INSOLENT MEMORY                                      1
+
+      II.--THE COINING OF A NICKNAME                              14
+
+     III.--MRS. DENNISON'S ORDERS                                 26
+
+      IV.--TWO YOUNG GENTLEMEN                                    39
+
+       V.--A TELEGRAM TO FRANKFORT                                52
+
+      VI.--WHOSE SHALL IT BE?                                     66
+
+     VII.--AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE WHEELS                          81
+
+    VIII.--CONVERTS AND HERETICS                                  96
+
+      IX.--AN OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE                              108
+
+       X.--A LADY'S BIT OF WORK                                  120
+
+      XI.--AGAINST HIS COMING                                    134
+
+     XII.--IT CAN WAIT                                           148
+
+    XIII.--A SPASM OF PENITENCE                                  160
+
+     XIV.--THE THING OR THE MAN                                  173
+
+      XV.--THE WORK OF A WEEK                                    185
+
+     XVI.--THE LAST BARRIERS                                     200
+
+    XVII.--A SOUND IN THE NIGHT                                  217
+
+   XVIII.--ON THE MATTER OF A RAILWAY                            231
+
+     XIX.--PAST PRAYING FOR                                      248
+
+      XX.--THE BARON'S CONTRIBUTION                              258
+
+     XXI.--A JOINT IN HIS ARMOUR                                 271
+
+    XXII.--A TOAST IN CHAMPAGNE                                  287
+
+   XXIII.--THE CUTTING OF THE KNOT                               304
+
+    XXIV.--THE RETURN OF A FRIEND                                317
+
+     XXV.--THE MOVING CAR                                        332
+
+
+
+
+                          THE GOD IN THE CAR.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                          AN INSOLENT MEMORY.
+
+
+"I'm so blind," said Miss Ferrars plaintively. "Where are my glasses?"
+
+"What do you want to see?" asked Lord Semingham.
+
+"The man in the corner, talking to Mr. Loring."
+
+"Oh, you won't know him even with the glasses. He's the sort of man you
+must be introduced to three times before there's any chance of a
+permanent impression."
+
+"You seem to recognise him."
+
+"I know him in business. We are, or rather are going to be,
+fellow-directors of a company."
+
+"Oh, then I shall see you in the dock together some day."
+
+"What touching faith in the public prosecutor! Does nothing shake your
+optimism?"
+
+"Perhaps your witticisms."
+
+"Peace, peace!"
+
+"Well, who is he?"
+
+"He was once," observed Lord Semingham, as though stating a curious
+fact, "in a Government. His name is Foster Belford, and he is still
+asked to the State Concerts."
+
+"I knew I knew him! Why, Harry Dennison thinks great things of him!"
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"And he, not to be behindhand in politeness, thinks greater of Maggie
+Dennison."
+
+"His task is the easier."
+
+"And you and he are going to have the effrontery to ask shareholders to
+trust their money to you?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't us; it's Ruston."
+
+"Mr. Ruston? I've heard of him."
+
+"You very rarely admit that about anybody."
+
+"Moreover, I've met him."
+
+"He's quite coming to the front, of late, I know."
+
+"Is there any positive harm in being in the fashion? I like now and then
+to talk to the people one is obliged to talk about."
+
+"Go on," said Lord Semingham, urbanely.
+
+"But, my dear Lord Semingham----"
+
+"Hush! Keep the truth from me, like a kind woman. Ah! here comes Tom
+Loring----How are you, Loring? Where's Dennison?"
+
+"At the House. I ought to be there, too."
+
+"Why, of course. The place of a private secretary is by the side of----"
+
+"His chief's wife. We all know that," interposed Adela Ferrars.
+
+"When you grow old, you'll be sorry for all the wicked things you've
+said," observed Loring.
+
+"Well, there'll be nothing else to do. Where are you going, Lord
+Semingham?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I've done my duty. Oh, but here's Dennison, and I want a word
+with him."
+
+Lord Semingham passed on, leaving the other two together.
+
+"Has Harry Dennison been speaking to-day?" asked Miss Ferrars.
+
+"Well, he had something prepared."
+
+"He had something! You know you write them."
+
+Mr. Loring frowned.
+
+"Yes, and I know we aren't allowed to say so," pursued Adela.
+
+"It's neither just nor kind to Dennison."
+
+Miss Ferrars looked at him, her brows slightly raised.
+
+"And you are both just and kind, really," he added.
+
+"And you, Mr. Loring, are a wonderful man. You're not ashamed to be
+serious! Oh, yes, I've annoyed--you're quite right. I was--whatever I
+was--on the ninth of last March, and I think I'm too old to be
+lectured."
+
+Tom Loring laughed, and, an instant later, Adela followed suit.
+
+"I suppose it was horrid of me," she said. "Can't we turn it round and
+consider it as a compliment to you?"
+
+Tom looked doubtful, but, before he could answer, Adela cried:
+
+"Oh, here's Evan Haselden, and--yes--it's Mr. Ruston with him?"
+
+As the two men entered, Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair. She was a
+tall woman; her years fell one or two short of thirty. She was not a
+beauty, but her broad brow and expressive features, joined to a certain
+subdued dignity of manner and much grace of movement, made her
+conspicuous among the women in her drawing-room. Young Evan Haselden
+seemed to appreciate her, for he bowed his glossy curly head, and shook
+hands in a way that almost turned the greeting into a deferentially
+distant caress. Mrs. Dennison acknowledged his hinted homage with a
+bright smile, and turned to Ruston.
+
+"At last!" she said, with another smile. "The first time after--how many
+years?"
+
+"Eight, I believe," he answered.
+
+"Oh, you're terribly definite. And what have you been doing with
+yourself?"
+
+He shrugged his square shoulders, and she did not press her question,
+but let her eyes wander over him.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Oh--improved. And I?"
+
+Suddenly Ruston laughed.
+
+"Last time we met," he said, "you swore you'd never speak to me again."
+
+"I'd quite forgotten my fearful threat."
+
+He looked straight in her face for a moment, as he asked--
+
+"And the cause of it?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison coloured.
+
+"Yes, quite," she answered; and conscious that her words carried no
+conviction to him, she added hastily, "Go and speak to Harry. There he
+is."
+
+Ruston obeyed her, and being left for a moment alone, she sat down on
+the chair placed ready near the door for her short intervals of rest.
+There was a slight pucker on her brow. The sight of Ruston and his
+question stirred in her thoughts, which were never long dormant, and
+which his coming woke into sudden activity. She had not anticipated that
+he would venture to recall to her that incident--at least, not at
+once--in the first instant of meeting, at such a time and such a place.
+But as he had, she found herself yielding to the reminiscence he
+induced. Forgotten the cause of her anger with him? For the first two or
+three years of her married life, she would have answered, "Yes, I have
+forgotten it." Then had come a period when now and again it recurred to
+her, not for his sake or its own, but as a summary of her stifled
+feeling; and during that period she had resolutely struggled not to
+remember it. Of late that struggle had ceased, and the thing lay a
+perpetual background to her thoughts: when there was nothing else to
+think about, when the stage of her mind was empty of moving figures, it
+snatched at the chance of prominence, and thus became a recurrent
+consciousness from which her interests and her occupations could not
+permanently rescue her. For example, here she was thinking of it in the
+very midst of her party. Yet this persistence of memory seemed
+impertinent, unreasonable, almost insolent. For, as she told herself,
+finding it necessary to tell herself more and more often, her husband
+was still all that he had been when he had won her heart--good-looking,
+good-tempered, infinitely kind and devoted. When she married she had
+triumphed confidently in these qualities; and the unanimous cry of
+surprised congratulations at the match she was making had confirmed her
+own joy and exultation in it. It had been a great match; and yet, beyond
+all question, also a love match.
+
+But now the chorus of wondering applause was forgotten, and there
+remained only the one voice which had been raised to break the harmony
+of approbation--a voice that nobody, herself least of all, had listened
+to then. How should it be listened to? It came from a nobody--a young
+man of no account, whose opinion none cared to ask; whose judgment, had
+it been worth anything in itself, lay under suspicion of being biassed
+by jealousy. Willie Ruston had never declared himself her suitor; yet
+(she clung hard to this) he would not have said what he did had not the
+chagrin of a defeated rival inspired him; and a defeated rival, as
+everybody knows, will say anything. Certainly she had been right not to
+listen, and was wrong to remember. To this she had often made up her
+mind, and to this she returned now as she sat watching her husband and
+Willie Ruston, forgetful of all the chattering crowd beside.
+
+As to what it was she resolved not to remember, and did remember, it was
+just one sentence--his only comment on the news of her engagement, his
+only hint of any opinion or feeling about it. It was short, sharp,
+decisive, and, as his judgments were, even in the days when he, alone of
+all the world, held them of any moment, absolutely confident; it was
+also, she had felt on hearing it, utterly untrue, unjust, and
+ungenerous. It had rung out like a pistol-shot, "Maggie, you're marrying
+a fool," and then a snap of tight-fitting lips, a glance of scornful
+eyes, and a quick, unhesitating stride away that hardly waited for a
+contemptuous smile at her angry cry, "I'll never speak to you again."
+She had been in a fury of wrath--she had a power of wrath--that a plain,
+awkward, penniless, and obscure youth--one whom she sometimes disliked
+for his arrogance, and sometimes derided for his self-confidence--should
+dare to say such a thing about her Harry, whom she was so proud to love,
+and so proud to have won. It was indeed an insolent memory that flung
+the thing again and again in her teeth.
+
+The party began to melt away. The first good-bye roused Mrs. Dennison
+from her enveloping reverie. Lady Valentine, from whom it came, lingered
+for a gush of voluble confidences about the charm of the house, and the
+people, and the smart little band that played softly in an alcove, and
+what not; her daughter stood by, learning, it is to be hoped, how it is
+meet to behave in society, and scanning Evan Haselden's trim figure with
+wary, critical glances, alert to turn aside if he should glance her way.
+Mrs. Dennison returned the ball of civility, and, released by several
+more departures, joined Adela Ferrars. Adela stood facing Haselden and
+Tom Loring, who were arm-in-arm. At the other end of the room Harry
+Dennison and Ruston were still in conversation.
+
+"These _men_, Maggie," began Adela--and it seemed a mere caprice of
+pronunciation, that the word did not shape itself into "monkeys"--"are
+the absurdest creatures. They say I'm not fit to take part in politics!
+And why?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison shook her head, and smiled.
+
+"Because, if you please, I'm too emotional. Emotional, indeed! And I
+can't generalise! Oh, couldn't I generalise about men!"
+
+"Women can never say 'No,'" observed Evan Haselden, not in the least as
+if he were repeating a commonplace.
+
+"You'll find you're wrong when you grow up," retorted Adela.
+
+"I doubt that," said Mrs. Dennison, with the kindest of smiles.
+
+"Maggie, you spoil the boy. Isn't it enough that he should have gone
+straight from the fourth form--where, I suppose, he learnt to
+generalise----"
+
+"At any rate, not to be emotional," murmured Loring.
+
+"Into Parliament, without having his head turned by----"
+
+"You'd better go, Evan," suggested Loring in a warning tone.
+
+"I shall go too," announced Adela.
+
+"I'm walking your way," said Evan, who seemed to bear no malice.
+
+"How delightful!"
+
+"You don't object?"
+
+"Not the least. I'm driving."
+
+"A mere schoolboy score!"
+
+"How stupid of me! You haven't had time to forget them."
+
+"Oh, take her away," said Mrs. Dennison, and they disappeared in a fire
+of retorts, happy, or happy enough for happy people, and probably Evan
+drove with the lady after all.
+
+Mrs. Dennison walked towards where her husband and Ruston sat on a sofa
+in talk.
+
+"What are you two conspiring about?" she asked.
+
+"Ruston had something to say to me about business."
+
+"What, already?"
+
+"Oh, we've met in the city, Mrs. Dennison," explained Ruston, with a
+confidential nod to Harry.
+
+"And that was the object of your appearance here to-day? I was
+flattering my party, it seems."
+
+"No. I didn't expect to find your husband. I thought he would be at the
+House."
+
+"Ah, Harry, how did the speech go?"
+
+"Oh, really pretty well, I think," answered Harry Dennison, with a
+contented air. "I got nearly half through before we were counted out."
+
+A very faint smile showed on his wife's face.
+
+"So you were counted out?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, or I shouldn't be here."
+
+"You see, I am acquitted, Mrs. Dennison. Only an accident brought him
+here."
+
+"An accident impossible to foresee," she acquiesced, with the slightest
+trace of bitterness--so slight that her husband did not notice it.
+
+Ruston rose.
+
+"Well, you'd better talk to Semingham about it," he remarked to Harry
+Dennison; "he's one of us, you know."
+
+"Yes, I will. And I'll just get you that pamphlet of mine; you can put
+it in your pocket."
+
+He ran out of the room to fetch what he promised. Mrs. Dennison, still
+faintly smiling, held out her hand to Ruston.
+
+"It's been very pleasant to see you again," she said graciously. "I hope
+it won't be eight years before our next meeting."
+
+"Oh, no; you see I'm floating now."
+
+"Floating?" she repeated, with a smile of enquiry.
+
+"Yes; on the surface. I've been in the depths till very lately, and
+there one meets no good society."
+
+"Ah! You've had a struggle?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, laughing; "you may call it a bit of a struggle."
+
+She looked at him with grave curious eyes.
+
+"And you are not married?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"No, I'm glad to say."
+
+"Why glad, Mr. Ruston? Some people like being married."
+
+"Oh, I don't claim to be above it, Mrs. Dennison," he answered with a
+laugh, "but a wife would have been a great hindrance to me all these
+years."
+
+There was a simple and _bona fide_ air about his statement; it was not
+raillery; and Mrs. Dennison laughed in her turn.
+
+"Oh, how like you!" she murmured.
+
+Mr. Ruston, with a passing gleam of surprise at her merriment, bade her
+a very unemotional farewell, and left her. She sat down and waited idly
+for her husband's return. Presently he came in. He had caught Ruston in
+the hall, delivered his pamphlet, and was whistling cheerfully. He took
+a chair near his wife.
+
+"Rum chap that!" he said. "But he's got a good deal of stuff in him;"
+and he resumed his lively tune.
+
+The tune annoyed Mrs. Dennison. To suffer whistling without visible
+offence was one of her daily trials. Harry's emotions and reflections
+were prone to express themselves through that medium.
+
+"I didn't do half-badly, to-day," said Harry, breaking off again. "Old
+Tom had got it all splendidly in shape for me--by Jove, I don't know
+what I should do without Tom--and I think I put it pretty well. But, of
+course, it's a subject that doesn't catch on with everybody."
+
+It was the dullest subject in the world; it was also, in all likelihood,
+one of the most unimportant; and dull subjects are so seldom unimportant
+that the perversity of the combination moved Maggie Dennison to a
+wondering pity. She rose and came behind the chair where her husband
+sat. Leaning over the back, she rested her elbows on his shoulders, and
+lightly clasped her hands round his neck. He stopped his whistle, which
+had grown soft and contented, laughed, and kissed one of the encircling
+hands, and she, bending lower, kissed him on the forehead as he turned
+his face up to look at her.
+
+"You poor dear old thing!" she said with a smile and a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+                       THE COINING OF A NICKNAME.
+
+
+When it was no later than the middle of June, Adela Ferrars, having her
+reputation to maintain, ventured to sum up the season. It was, she said,
+a Ruston-cum-Violetta season. Violetta's doings and unexampled triumphs
+have, perhaps luckily, no place here; her dancing was higher and her
+songs more surpassing in another dimension than those of any performer
+who had hitherto won the smiles of society; and young men who are
+getting on in life still talk about her. Ruston's fame was less
+widespread, but his appearance was an undeniable fact of the year. When
+a man, the first five years of whose adult life have been spent on a
+stool in a coal merchant's office, and the second five somewhere (an
+absolutely vague somewhere) in Southern or Central Africa, comes before
+the public, offering in one closed hand a new empire, or, to avoid all
+exaggeration, at least a province, asking with the other opened hand for
+three million pounds, the public is bound to afford him the tribute of
+some curiosity. When he enlists in his scheme men of eminence like Mr.
+Foster Belford, of rank like Lord Semingham, of great financial
+resources like Dennison Sons & Company, he becomes one whom it is
+expedient to bid to dinner and examine with scrutinising enquiry. He may
+have a bag of gold for you; or you may enjoy the pleasure of exploding
+his _prestige_; at least, you are timely and up-to-date, and none can
+say that your house is a den of fogies, or yourself, in the language
+made to express these things (for how otherwise should they get
+themselves expressed?) on other than "the inner rail."
+
+It chanced that Miss Ferrars arrived early at the Seminghams, and she
+talked with her host on the hearth-rug, while Lady Semingham was
+elaborately surveying her small but comely person in a mirror at the
+other end of the long room. Lord Semingham was rather short and
+rather stout; he hardly looked as if his ancestors had fought at
+Hastings--perhaps they had not, though the peerage said they had. He
+wore close-cut black whiskers, and the blue of his jowl witnessed a
+suppressed beard of great vitality. His single eye-glass reflected
+answering twinkles to Adela's _pince-nez_, and his mouth was puckered at
+the world's constant entertainment; men said that he found his wife
+alone a sufficient and inexhaustible amusement.
+
+"The Heathers are coming," he said, "and Lady Val and Marjory, and young
+Haselden, and Ruston."
+
+"_Toujours_ Ruston," murmured Adela.
+
+"And one or two more. What's wrong with Ruston? There is, my dear Adela,
+no attitude more offensive than that of indifference to what the common
+herd finds interesting."
+
+"He's a fright," said Adela. "You'd spike yourself on that bristly beard
+of his."
+
+"If you happened to be near enough, you mean?--a danger my sex and our
+national habits render remote. Bessie!"
+
+Lady Semingham came towards them, with one last craning look at her own
+back as she turned. She always left the neighbourhood of a mirror with
+regret.
+
+"Well?" she asked with a patient little sigh.
+
+"Adela is abusing your friend Ruston."
+
+"He's not my friend, Alfred. What's the matter, Adela?"
+
+"I don't think I like him. He's hard."
+
+"He's got a demon, you see," said Semingham. "For that matter we all
+have, but his is a whopper."
+
+"Oh, what's my demon?" cried Adela. Is not oneself always the most
+interesting subject?
+
+"Yours? Cleverness; He goads you into saying things one can't see the
+meaning of."
+
+"Thanks! And yours?"
+
+"Grinning--so I grin at your things, though I don't understand 'em."
+
+"And Bessie's?"
+
+"Oh, forgive me. Leave us a quiet home."
+
+"And now, Mr. Ruston's?"
+
+"His is----"
+
+But the door opened, and the guests, all arriving in a heap, just twenty
+minutes late, flooded the room and drowned the topic. Another five
+minutes passed, and people had begun furtively to count heads and wonder
+whom they were waiting for, when Evan Haselden was announced. Hot on his
+heels came Ruston, and the party was completed.
+
+Mr. Otto Heather took Adela Ferrars in to dinner. Her heart sank as he
+offered his arm. She had been heard to call him the silliest man in
+Europe; on the other hand, his wife, and some half-dozen people besides,
+thought him the cleverest in London.
+
+"That man," he said, swallowing his soup and nodding his head towards
+Ruston, "personifies all the hideous tendencies of the age--its
+brutality, its commercialism, its selfishness, its----"
+
+Miss Ferrars looked across the table. Ruston was seated at Lady
+Semingham's left hand, and she was prattling to him in her sweet
+indistinct little voice. Nothing in his appearance warranted Heather's
+outburst, unless it were a sort of alert and almost defiant readiness,
+smacking of a challenge to catch him napping.
+
+"I'm not a mediævalist myself," she observed, and prepared to endure the
+penalty of an _exposé_ of Heather's theories. During its progress, she
+peered--for her near sight was no affectation--now and again at the
+occasion of her sufferings. She had heard a good deal about
+him--something from her host, something from Harry Dennison, more from
+the paragraphists who had scented their prey, and gathered from the four
+quarters of heaven (or wherever they dwelt) upon him. She knew about the
+coal merchant's office, the impatient flight from it, and the rush over
+the seas; there were stories of real naked want, where a bed and shelter
+bounded for the moment all a life's aspirations. She summed him up as a
+buccaneer modernised; and one does not expect buccaneers to be amiable,
+while culture in them would be an incongruity. It was, on the whole, not
+very surprising, she thought, that few people liked William Roger
+Ruston--nor that many believed in him.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?" asked Heather.
+
+"Not in the least," said Adela at random.
+
+The odds that he had been saying something foolish were very large.
+
+"I thought you were such friends!" exclaimed Heather in surprise.
+
+"Well, to confess, I was thinking of something else. Who do you mean?"
+
+"Why, Mrs. Dennison. I was saying that her calm queenly manner----"
+
+"Good gracious, Mr. Heather, don't call women 'queenly.' You're
+like--what is it?--a 'dime novel.'"
+
+If this comparison were meant to relieve her from the genius'
+conversation for the rest of dinner, it was admirably conceived. He
+turned his shoulder on her in undisguised dudgeon.
+
+"And how's the great scheme?" asked somebody of Ruston.
+
+"We hope to get the money," he said, turning for a moment from his
+hostess. "And if we do that, we're all right."
+
+"Everything's going on very well," called Semingham from the foot of the
+table. "They've killed a missionary."
+
+"How dreadful!" lisped his wife.
+
+"Regrettable in itself, but the first step towards empire," explained
+Semingham with a smile.
+
+"It's to stop things of that kind that we are going there," Mr. Belford
+pronounced; the speech was evidently meant to be repeated, and to rank
+as authoritative.
+
+"Of course," chuckled Semingham.
+
+If he had been a shopman, he could not have resisted showing his
+customers how the adulteration was done.
+
+In spite of herself--for she strongly objected to being one of an
+admiring crowd, and liked a personal _cachet_ on her emotions--Adela
+felt pleasure when, after dinner, Ruston came straight to her and,
+displacing Evan Haselden, sat down by her side. He assumed the position
+with a business-like air, as though he meant to stay. She often, indeed
+habitually, had two or three men round her, but to-night none contested
+Ruston's exclusive possession; she fancied that the business-like air
+had something to do with it. She had been taken possession of, she said
+to herself, with a little impatience and yet a little pleasure also.
+
+"You know everybody here, I suppose?" he asked. His tone cast a doubt on
+the value of the knowledge.
+
+"It's my tenth season," said Adela, with a laugh. "I stopped counting
+them once, but there comes a time when one has to begin again."
+
+He looked at her--critically, she thought--as he said,
+
+"The ravages of time no longer to be ignored?"
+
+"Well, the exaggerations of friends to be checked. Yes, I suppose I know
+most of----"
+
+She paused for a word.
+
+"The gang," he suggested, leaning back and crossing his legs.
+
+"Yes, we are a gang, and all on one chain. You're a recent captive,
+though."
+
+"Yes," he assented, "it's pretty new to me. A year ago I hadn't a dress
+coat."
+
+"The gods are giving you a second youth then."
+
+"Well, I take it. I don't know that I have much to thank the gods for."
+
+"They've been mostly against you, haven't they? However, what does that
+matter, if you beat them?"
+
+He did not disdain her compliment, but neither did he accept it. He
+ignored it, and Adela, who paid very few compliments, was amused and
+vexed.
+
+"Perhaps," she added, "you think your victory still incomplete?"
+
+This gained no better attention. Mr. Ruston seemed to be following his
+own thoughts.
+
+"It must be a curious thing," he remarked, "to be born to a place like
+Semingham's."
+
+"And to use it--or not to use it--like Lord Semingham?"
+
+"Yes, I was thinking of that," he admitted.
+
+"To be eminent requires some self-deception, doesn't it? Without that,
+it would seem too absurd. I think Lord Semingham is overweighted with
+humour." She paused and then--to show that she was not in awe of
+him--she added,--"Now, I should say, you have very little."
+
+"Very little, indeed, I should think," he agreed composedly.
+
+"You're the only man I ever heard admit that of himself; we all say it
+of one another."
+
+"I know what I have and haven't got pretty well."
+
+Adela was beginning to be more sure that she disliked him, but the topic
+had its interest for her and she went on,
+
+"Now I like to think I've got everything."
+
+To her annoyance, the topic seemed to lose interest for him, just in
+proportion as it gained interest for her. In fact, Mr. Ruston did not
+apparently care to talk about what she liked or didn't like.
+
+"Who's that pretty girl over there," he asked, "talking to young
+Haselden?"
+
+"Marjory Valentine," said Adela curtly.
+
+"Oh! I think I should like to talk to her."
+
+"Pray, don't let me prevent you," said Adela in very distant tones.
+
+The man seemed to have no manners.
+
+Mr. Ruston said nothing, but gave a short laugh. Adela was not
+accustomed to be laughed at openly. Yet she felt defenceless; this
+pachydermatous animal would be impervious to the pricks of her rapier.
+
+"You're amused?" she asked sharply.
+
+"Why were you in such a hurry to take offence? I didn't say I wanted to
+go and talk to her now."
+
+"It sounded like it."
+
+"Oh, well, I'm very sorry," he conceded, still smiling, and obviously
+thinking her very absurd.
+
+She rose from her seat.
+
+"Please do, though. She'll be going soon, and you mayn't get another
+chance."
+
+"Well, I will then," he answered simply, accompanying the remark with a
+nod of approval for her sensible reminder. And he went at once.
+
+She saw him touch Haselden on the shoulder, and make the young man
+present him to Marjory. Ruston sat down and Haselden drifted, aimless
+and forlorn, on a solitary passage along the length of the room.
+
+Adela joined Lady Semingham.
+
+"That's a dreadful man, Bessie," she said; "he's a regular Juggernaut."
+
+She disturbed Lady Semingham in a moment of happiness; everybody had
+been provided with conversation, and the hostess could sit in peaceful
+silence, looking, and knowing that she looked, very dainty and pretty;
+she liked that much better than talking.
+
+"Who's what, dear?" she murmured.
+
+"That man--Mr. Ruston. I say he's a Juggernaut. If you're in the way, he
+just walks over you--and sometimes when you're not: for fun, I suppose."
+
+"Alfred says he's very clever," observed Lady Semingham, in a tone that
+evaded any personal responsibility for the truth of the statement.
+
+"Well, I dislike him very much," declared Adela.
+
+"We won't have him again when you're coming, dear," promised her friend
+soothingly.
+
+Adela looked at her, hesitated, opened her fan, shut it again, and
+smiled.
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that, Bessie," she said with half a laugh. "Do,
+please."
+
+"But if you dislike him----"
+
+"Why, my dear, doesn't one hate half the men one likes meeting--and all
+the women!"
+
+Lady Semingham smiled amiably. She did not care to think out what that
+meant; it was Adela's way, just as it was her husband's way to laugh at
+many things that seemed to her to afford no opening for mirth. But Adela
+was not to escape. Semingham himself appeared suddenly at her elbow, and
+observed,
+
+"That's either nonsense or a truism, you know."
+
+"Neither," said Adela with spirit; but her defence was interrupted by
+Evan Haselden.
+
+"I'm going," said he, and he looked out of temper. "I've got another
+place to go to. And anyhow----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'd like to be somewhere where that chap Ruston isn't for a little
+while."
+
+Adela glanced across. Ruston was still talking to Marjory Valentine.
+
+"What can he find to say to her?" thought Adela.
+
+"What the deuce she finds to talk about to that fellow, I can't think,"
+pursued Evan, and he flung off to bid Lady Semingham good-night.
+
+Adela caught her host's eye and laughed. Lord Semingham's eyes twinkled.
+
+"It's a big province," he observed, "so there may be room for him--out
+there."
+
+"I," said Adela, with an air of affected modesty, "have ventured,
+subject to your criticism, to dub him Juggernaut."
+
+"H'm," said Semingham, "it's a little obvious, but not so bad for you."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                         MRS. DENNISON'S ORDERS.
+
+
+Next door to Mrs. Dennison's large house in Curzon Street there lived,
+in a small house, a friend of hers, a certain Mrs. Cormack. She was a
+Frenchwoman, who had been married to an Englishman, and was now his most
+resigned widow. She did not pretend to herself, or to anybody else, that
+Mr. Cormack's death had been a pure misfortune, and by virtue of her
+past trials--perhaps, also, of her nationality--she was keenly awake to
+the seamy side of matrimony. She would rhapsodise on the joys of an
+ideal marriage, with a skilful hint of its rarity, and condemn
+transgressors with a charitable reservation for insupportable miseries.
+She was, she said, very romantic. Tom Loring, however (whose evidence
+was tainted by an intense dislike of her), declared that _affaires du
+coeur_ interested her only when one at least of the parties was lawfully
+bound to a third person; when both were thus trammelled, the situation
+was ideal. But the loves of those who were in a position to marry one
+another, and had no particular reason for not following that legitimate
+path to happiness, seemed to her (still according to Tom) dull,
+uninspiring--all, in fact, that there was possible of English and
+stupid. She hardly (Tom would go on, warming to his subject) believed in
+them at all, and she was in the habit of regarding wedlock merely as a
+condition precedent to its own violent dissolution. Whether this unhappy
+mode of looking at the matter were due to her own peculiarities, or to
+those of the late Mr. Cormack, or to those of her nation, Tom did not
+pretend to say; he confined himself to denouncing it freely, and to
+telling Mrs. Dennison that her next-door neighbour was in all respects a
+most undesirable acquaintance; at which outbursts Mrs. Dennison would
+smile.
+
+Mrs. Dennison, coming out on to the balcony to see if her carriage were
+in sight down the street, found her friend close to her elbow. Their
+balconies adjoined, and friendship had led to a little gate being
+substituted for the usual dwarf-wall of division. Tom Loring erected the
+gate into an allegory of direful portent. Mrs. Cormack passed through
+it, and laid an affectionate grasp on Maggie Dennison's arm.
+
+"You're starting early," she remarked.
+
+"I'm going a long way--right up to Hampstead. I've promised Harry to
+call on some people there."
+
+"Ah! Who?"
+
+"Their name's Carlin. He knows Mr. Carlin in business. Mr. Carlin's a
+friend of Mr. Ruston's."
+
+"Oh, of Ruston's? I like that Ruston. He is interesting--inspiring."
+
+"Is he?" said Mrs. Dennison, buttoning her glove. "You'd better marry
+him, Berthe."
+
+"Marry him? No, indeed. I think he would beat one."
+
+"Is that being inspiring? I'm glad Harry's not inspiring."
+
+"Oh, you know what I mean. He's a man who----"
+
+Mrs. Cormack threw up her arms as though praying for the inspired word.
+Mrs. Dennison did not wait for it.
+
+"There's the carriage. Good-bye, dear," she said.
+
+Mrs. Dennison started with a smile on her face. Berthe was so funny; she
+was like a page out of a French novel. She loved anything not quite
+respectable, and peopled the world with heroes of loose morals and
+overpowering wills. She adored a dominating mind and lived in the
+discovery of affinities. What nonsense it all was--so very remote from
+the satisfactory humdrum of real life. One kept house, and gave dinners,
+and made the children happy, and was fond of one's husband, and life
+passed most----Here Mrs. Dennison suddenly yawned, and fell to hoping
+that the Carlins would not be oppressively dull. She had been bored all
+day long; the children had been fretful, and poor Harry was hurt and in
+low spirits because of a cruel caricature in a comic paper, and Tom
+Loring had scolded her for laughing at the caricature (it hit Harry off
+so exactly), and nobody had come to see her, except a wretch who had
+once been her kitchenmaid, and had come to terrible grief, and wanted to
+be taken back, and of course couldn't be, and had to be sent away in
+tears with a sovereign, and the tears were no use and the sovereign not
+much.
+
+The Carlins fortunately proved tolerably interesting in their own way.
+Carlin was about fifty-five--an acute man of business, it seemed, and
+possessed by an unwavering confidence in the abilities of Willie Ruston.
+Mrs. Carlin was ten or fifteen years younger than her husband--a homely
+little woman, with a swarm of children. Mrs. Dennison wondered how they
+all fitted into the small house, but was told that it was larger by two
+good rooms than their old dwelling in the country town, whence Willie
+had summoned them to take a hand in his schemes. Willie had not insisted
+on the coal business being altogether abandoned--as Mrs. Carlin said,
+with a touch of timidity, it was well to have something to fall back
+upon--but he required most of Carlin's time now, and the added work made
+residence in London a necessity. In spite of Mr. Carlin's air of
+hard-headedness, and his wife's prudent recognition of the business
+aspect of life, they neither of them seemed to have a will of their own.
+Willie--as they both called him--was the Providence, and the mixture of
+reverence and familiarity presented her old acquaintance in a new light
+to Maggie Dennison. Even the children prattled about "Willie," and their
+mother's rebukes made "Mr. Ruston" no more than a strange and transitory
+effort. Mrs. Dennison wondered what there was in the man--consulting her
+own recollections of him in hope of enlightenment.
+
+"He takes such broad views," said Carlin, and seemed to find this
+characteristic the sufficient justification for his faith.
+
+"I used to know him very well, you know," remarked Mrs. Dennison,
+anxious to reach a more friendly footing, and realising that to connect
+herself with Ruston offered the best chance of it. "I daresay he's
+spoken of me--of Maggie Sherwood?"
+
+They thought not, though Willie had been in Carlin's employ at the time
+when he and Mrs. Dennison parted. She was even able, by comparison of
+dates, to identify the holiday in which that scene had occurred and that
+sentence been spoken; but he had never mentioned her name. She very much
+doubted whether he had even thought of her. The fool and the fool's wife
+had both been dismissed from his mind. She frowned impatiently. Why
+should it be anything to her if they had?
+
+There was a commotion among the children, starting from one who was
+perched on the window-sill. Ruston himself was walking up to the door,
+dressed in a light suit and a straw hat. After the greetings, while all
+were busy getting him tea, he turned to Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"This is very kind of you," he said in an undertone.
+
+"My husband wished me to come," she replied.
+
+He seemed in good spirits. He laughed, as he answered,
+
+"Well, I didn't suppose you came to please me."
+
+"You spoke as if you did," said she, still trying to resent his tone,
+which she thought a better guide to the truth than his easy disclaimer.
+
+"Why, you never did anything to please me!"
+
+"Did you ever ask me?" she retorted.
+
+He glanced at her for a moment, as he began to answer,
+
+"Well, now, I don't believe I ever did; but I----"
+
+Mrs. Carlin interposed with a proffered cup of tea, and he broke off.
+
+"Thanks, Mrs. Carlin. I say, Carlin, it's going first-rate. Your
+husband's help's simply invaluable, Mrs. Dennison."
+
+"Harry?" she said, in a tone that she regretted a moment later, for
+there was a passing gleam in Ruston's eye before he answered gravely,
+
+"His firm carries great weight. Well, we're all in it here, sink or
+swim; aren't we, Carlin?"
+
+Carlin nodded emphatically, and his wife gave an anxious little sigh.
+
+"And what's to be the end of it?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"Ten per cent," said Carlin, with conviction. He could not have spoken
+with more utter satisfaction of the millennium.
+
+"The end?" echoed Ruston. "Oh, I don't know."
+
+"At least he won't say," said Carlin admiringly.
+
+Mrs. Dennison rose to go, engaging the Carlins to dine with her--an
+invitation accepted with some nervousness, until the extension of it to
+Ruston gave them a wing to come under. Ruston, with that directness of
+his that shamed mere dexterity and superseded tact, bade Carlin stay
+where he was, and himself escorted the visitor to her carriage. Half-way
+down the garden walk she looked up at him and remarked,
+
+"I expect you're the end."
+
+His eyes had been wandering, but they came back sharply to hers.
+
+"Then don't tell anybody," said he lightly.
+
+She did not know whether what he said amounted to a confession or were
+merely a jest. The next moment he was off at a tangent.
+
+"I like your friend Miss Ferrars. She says a lot of sharp things, and
+now and then something sensible."
+
+"Now and then! Poor Adela!"
+
+"Well, she doesn't often try. Besides, she's handsome."
+
+"Oh, you've found time to notice that?"
+
+"I notice that first," said Mr. Ruston.
+
+They were at the carriage-door.
+
+"I'm not dressed properly, so I mustn't drive with you," he said.
+
+"Supposing that was the only reason," she replied, smiling, "would it
+stop you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because of other fools."
+
+"I'll take you as far as Regent's Park. The other fools are on the other
+side of that."
+
+"I'll chance so far," and, waving his hand vaguely towards the house, he
+got in. It did not seem to occur to him that there was any want of
+ceremony in his farewell to the Carlins.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you think most of us fools?"
+
+"I've been learning to think it less and to show it less still."
+
+"You're not much changed, though."
+
+"I've had some of my corners chipped off by collision with other hard
+substances."
+
+"Thank you for that 'other'!" cried Mrs. Dennison, with a little laugh.
+"They must have been very hard ones."
+
+"I didn't say that they weren't a little bit injured too."
+
+"Poor things! I should think so."
+
+"I have my human side."
+
+"Generally the other side, isn't it?" she asked with a merry glance. The
+talk had suddenly become very pleasant. He laughed, and stopped the
+carriage. A sigh escaped from Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"Next time," he said, "we'll talk about you, or Miss Ferrars, or that
+little Miss Marjory Valentine, not about me. Good-bye," and he was gone
+before she could say a word to him.
+
+But it was natural that she should think a little about him. She had
+not, she said to herself with a weary smile, too many interesting things
+to think about, and she began to find him decidedly interesting; in
+which fact again she found a certain strangeness and some material for
+reflection, because she recollected very well that as a girl she had not
+found him very attractive. Perhaps she demanded then more colouring of
+romance than he had infused into their intercourse; she had indeed
+suspected him of suppressed romance, but the suppression had been very
+thorough, betraying itself only doubtfully here and there, as in his
+judgment of her accepted suitor. Moreover, let his feelings then have
+been what they might, he was not, she felt sure, the man to cherish a
+fruitless love for eight or nine years, or to suffer any resurrection of
+expired emotions on a renewed encounter with an old flame. He buried his
+dead too deep for that; if they were in the way, she could fancy him
+sometimes shovelling the earth over them and stamping it down without
+looking too curiously whether life were actually extinct or only
+flickering towards its extinction; if it were not quite gone at the
+beginning of the gravedigger's work, it would be at the end, and the
+result was the same. Nor did she suppose that ghosts gibbered or clanked
+in the orderly trim mansions of his brain. In fact, she was to him a
+more or less pleasant acquaintance, sandwiched in his mind between Adela
+Ferrars and Marjory Valentine--with something attractive about her,
+though she might lack the sparkle of the one and had been robbed of the
+other's youthful freshness. This was the conclusion which she called
+upon herself to draw as she drove back from Hampstead--the plain and
+sensible conclusion. Yet, as she reached Curzon Street, there was a
+smile on her face; and the conclusion was hardly such as to make her
+smile--unless indeed she had added to it the reflection that it is ill
+judging of things till they are finished. Her acquaintance with Willie
+Ruston was not ended yet.
+
+"Maggie, Maggie!" cried her husband through the open door of his study
+as she passed up-stairs. "Great news! We're to go ahead. We settled it
+at the meeting this morning."
+
+Harry Dennison was in exuberant spirits. The great company was on the
+verge of actual existence. From the chrysalis of its syndicate stage it
+was to issue a bright butterfly.
+
+"And Ruston was most complimentary to our house. He said he could never
+have carried it through without us. He's in high feather."
+
+Mrs. Dennison listened to more details, thinking, as her husband talked,
+that Ruston's cheerful mood was fully explained, but wondering that he
+had not himself thought it worth while to explain to her the cause of it
+a little more fully. With that achievement fresh in his hand, he had
+been content to hold his peace. Did he think her not worth telling?
+
+With a cloud on her brow and her smile eclipsed, she passed on to the
+drawing-room. The window was open and she saw Tom Loring's back in the
+balcony. Then she heard her friend Mrs. Cormack's rather shrill voice.
+
+"Not say such things?" the voice cried, and Mrs. Dennison could picture
+the whirl of expostulatory hands that accompanied the question. "But why
+not?"
+
+Tom's voice answered in the careful tones of a man who is trying not to
+lose his temper, or, anyhow, to conceal the loss.
+
+"Well, apart from anything else, suppose Dennison heard you? It wouldn't
+be over-pleasant for him."
+
+Mrs. Dennison stood still, slowly peeling off her gloves.
+
+"Oh, the poor man! I would not like to hurt him. I will be silent. Oh,
+he does his very best! But you can't help it."
+
+Mrs. Dennison stepped a yard nearer the window.
+
+"Help what?" asked Tom in the deepest exasperation, no longer to be
+hidden.
+
+"Why, what must happen? It must be that the true man----"
+
+A smile flickered over Maggie Dennison's face. How like Berthe! But
+whence came this topic?
+
+"Nonsense, I tell you!" cried Tom with a stamp of his foot.
+
+And at the sound Mrs. Dennison smiled again, and drew yet nearer to the
+window.
+
+"Oh, it's always nonsense what I say! Well, we shall see, Mr. Loring,"
+and Mrs. Cormack tripped in through her window, and wrote in her
+diary--she kept a diary full of reflections--that Englishmen were all
+stupid. She had written that before, but the deep truth bore repetition.
+
+Tom went in too, and found himself face to face with Mrs. Dennison.
+Bright spots of colour glowed on her cheeks; had she answered the
+question of the origin of the topic? Tom blushed and looked furtively at
+her.
+
+"So the great scheme is launched," she remarked, "and Mr. Ruston
+triumphs!"
+
+Tom's manner betrayed intense relief, but he was still perturbed.
+
+"We're having a precious lot of Ruston," he observed, leaning against
+the mantelpiece and putting his hands in his pockets.
+
+"_I_ like him," said Maggie Dennison.
+
+"Those are the orders, are they?" asked Tom with a rather wry smile.
+
+"Yes," she answered, smiling at Tom's smile. It amused her when he put
+her manner into words.
+
+"Then we all like him," said Tom, and, feeling quite secure now, he
+added, "Mrs. Cormack said we should, which is rather against him."
+
+"Oh, Berthe's a silly woman. Never mind her. Harry likes him too."
+
+"Lucky for Ruston he does. Your husband's a useful friend. I fancy most
+of Ruston's friends are of the useful variety."
+
+"And why shouldn't we be useful to him?"
+
+"On the contrary, it seems our destiny," grumbled Tom, whose destiny
+appeared not to please him.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                          TWO YOUNG GENTLEMEN.
+
+
+Lady Valentine was the widow of a baronet of good family and respectable
+means; the one was to be continued and the other absorbed by her son,
+young Sir Walter, now an Oxford undergraduate and just turned twenty-one
+years of age. Lady Valentine had a jointure, and Marjory a pretty face.
+The remaining family assets were a country-house of moderate dimensions
+in the neighbourhood of Maidenhead, and a small flat in Cromwell Road.
+Lady Valentine deplored the rise of the plutocracy, and had sometimes
+secretly hoped that a plutocrat would marry her daughter. In other
+respects she was an honest and unaffected woman.
+
+Young Sir Walter, however, had his own views for his sister, and young
+Sir Walter, when he surveyed the position which the laws and customs of
+the realm gave him, was naturally led to suppose that his opinion had
+some importance. He was hardly responsible for the error, and very
+probably Mr. Ruston would have been better advised had his bearing
+towards the young man not indicated so very plainly that the error was
+an error. But in the course of the visits to Cromwell Road, which Ruston
+found time to pay in the intervals of floating the Omofaga Company--and
+he was a man who found time for many things--this impression of his made
+itself tolerably evident, and, consequently, Sir Walter entertained
+grave doubts whether Ruston were a gentleman. And, if a fellow is not a
+gentleman, what, he asked, do brains and all the rest of it go for?
+Moreover, how did the chap live? To which queries Marjory answered that
+"Oxford boys" were very silly--a remark which embittered, without in the
+least elucidating, the question.
+
+Almost everybody has one disciple who looks up to him as master and
+mentor, and, ill as he was suited to such a post, Evan Haselden filled
+it for Walter Valentine. Evan had been in his fourth year when Walter
+was a freshman, and the reverence engendered in those days had been
+intensified when Evan had become, first, secretary to a minister and
+then, as he showed diligence and aptitude, a member of Parliament. Evan
+was a strong Tory, but payment of members had an unholy attraction for
+him; this indication of his circumstances may suffice. Men thought him a
+promising youth, women called him a nice boy, and young Sir Walter held
+him for a statesman and a man of the world.
+
+Seeing that what Sir Walter wanted was an unfavourable opinion of
+Ruston, he could not have done better than consult his respected friend.
+Juggernaut--Adela Ferrars was pleased with the nickname, and it began to
+be repeated--had been crushing Evan in one or two little ways lately,
+and he did it with an unconsciousness that increased the brutality.
+Besides displacing him from the position he wished to occupy at more
+than one social gathering, Ruston, being in the Lobby of the House one
+day (perhaps on Omofaga business), had likened the pretty (it was his
+epithet) young member, as he sped with a glass of water to his party
+leader, to Ganymede in a frock coat--a description, Evan felt, injurious
+to a serious politician.
+
+"A gentleman?" he said, in reply to young Sir Walter's inquiry. "Well,
+everybody's a gentleman now, so I suppose Ruston is."
+
+"I call him an unmannerly brute," observed Walter, "and I can't think
+why mother and Marjory are so civil to him."
+
+Evan shook his head mournfully.
+
+"You meet the fellow everywhere," he sighed.
+
+"Such an ugly mug as he's got too," pursued young Sir Walter. "But
+Marjory says it's full of character."
+
+"Character! I should think so. Enough to hang him on sight," said Evan
+bitterly.
+
+"He's been a lot to our place. Marjory seems to like him. I say,
+Haselden, do you remember what you spoke of after dinner at the Savoy
+the other day?"
+
+Evan nodded, looking rather embarrassed; indeed he blushed, and little
+as he liked doing that, it became him very well.
+
+"Did you mean it? Because, you know, I should like it awfully."
+
+"Thanks, Val, old man. Oh, rather, I meant it."
+
+Young Sir Walter lowered his voice and looked cautiously round--they
+were in the club smoking-room.
+
+"Because I thought, you know, that you were rather--you know--Adela
+Ferrars?"
+
+"Nothing in that, only _pour passer le temps_," Evan assured him with
+that superb man-of-the-worldliness.
+
+It was a pity that Adela could not hear him. But there was more to
+follow.
+
+"The truth is," resumed Evan--"and, of course, I rely on your discretion,
+Val--I thought there might be a--an obstacle."
+
+Young Sir Walter looked knowing.
+
+"When you were good enough to suggest what you did--about your sister--I
+doubted for a moment how such a thing would be received by--well, at a
+certain house."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you could guess."
+
+"N--no, I don't think so."
+
+"Well, it doesn't matter where."
+
+"Oh, but I say, you might as well tell me. Hang it, I've learnt to hold
+my tongue."
+
+"You hadn't noticed it? That's all right. I'm glad to hear it," said
+Evan, whose satisfaction was not conspicuous in his tone.
+
+"I'm so little in town, you see," said Walter tactfully.
+
+"Well--for heaven's sake, don't let it go any farther--Curzon Street."
+
+"What! Of course! Mrs.----"
+
+"All right, yes. But I've made up my mind. I shall drop all that. Best,
+isn't it?"
+
+Walter nodded a sagacious assent.
+
+"There was never anything in it, really," said Evan, and he was not
+displeased with his friend's incredulous expression. It is a great
+luxury to speak the truth and yet not be believed.
+
+"Now, what you propose," continued Evan, "is most--but, I say, Val, what
+does she think?"
+
+"She likes you--and you'll have all my influence," said the Head of the
+Family in a tone of importance.
+
+"But how do you know she likes me?" insisted Evan, whose off-hand air
+gave place to a manner betraying some trepidation.
+
+"I don't know for certain, of course. And, I say, Haselden, I believe
+mother's got an idea in her head about that fellow Ruston."
+
+"The devil! That brute! Oh, hang it, Val, she can't--your sister, I
+mean--I tell you what, I shan't play the fool any longer."
+
+Sir Walter cordially approved of increased activity, and the two young
+gentlemen, having settled one lady's future and disposed of the claims
+of two others to their complete satisfaction, betook themselves to
+recreation.
+
+Evan was not, however, of opinion that anything in the conversation
+above recorded, imposed upon him the obligation of avoiding entirely
+Mrs. Dennison's society. On the contrary, he took an early opportunity
+of going to see her. His attitude towards her was one of considerably
+greater deference than Sir Walter understood it to be, and he had a high
+idea of the value of her assistance. And he did not propose to deny
+himself such savour of sentiment as the lady would allow; and she
+generally allowed a little. He intended to say nothing about Ruston, but
+as it happened that Mrs. Dennison's wishes set in an opposing direction,
+he had not been long in the drawing room at Curzon Street before he
+found himself again with the name of his enemy on his lips. He spoke
+with refreshing frankness and an engaging confidence in his hostess'
+sympathy. Mrs. Dennison had no difficulty in seeing that he had a
+special reason for his bitterness.
+
+"Is it only because he called you Ganymede? And it's a very good name
+for you, Mr. Haselden."
+
+To be compared to Ganymede in private by a lady and in public by a
+scoffer, are things very different. Evan smiled complacently.
+
+"There's more than that, isn't there?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
+
+Evan admitted that there was more, and, in obedience to some skilful
+guidance, he revealed what there was more--what beyond mere offended
+dignity--between himself and Mr. Ruston. He had to complain of no lack
+of interest on the part of his listener. Mrs. Dennison questioned him
+closely as to his grounds for anticipating Ruston's rivalry. The idea
+was evidently quite new to her; and Evan was glad to detect her
+reluctance to accept it--she must think as he did about Willie Ruston.
+The tangible evidence appeared on examination reassuringly small, and
+Evan, by a strange conversion, found himself driven to defend his
+apprehensions by insisting on just that power of attraction in his foe
+which he had begun by denying altogether. But that, Mrs. Dennison
+objected, only showed, even if it existed, that Marjory might like
+Ruston, not that Ruston would return her liking. On the whole Mrs.
+Dennison comforted him, and, dismissing Ruston from the discussion, said
+with a smile,
+
+"So you're thinking of settling down already, are you?"
+
+"I say, Mrs. Dennison, you've always been awfully good to me; I wonder
+if you'd help me in this?"
+
+"How could I help you?"
+
+"Oh, lots of ways. Well, for instance, old Lady Valentine doesn't ask me
+there often. You see, I haven't got any money."
+
+"Poor boy! Of course you haven't. Nice young men never have any money."
+
+"So I don't get many chances of seeing her."
+
+"And I might arrange meetings for you? That's how I could help? Now, why
+should I help?"
+
+Evan was encouraged by this last question, put in his friend's
+doubtfully-serious doubtfully-playful manner.
+
+"It needn't," he said, in a tone rather more timid than young Sir Walter
+would have expected, "make any difference to our friendship, need it? If
+it meant that----"
+
+The sentence was left in expressive incompleteness.
+
+Mrs. Dennison wanted to laugh; but why should she hurt his feelings? He
+was a pleasant boy, and, in spite of his vanity, really a clever one. He
+had been a little spoilt; that was all. She turned her laugh in another
+direction.
+
+"Berthe Cormack would tell you that it would be sure to intensify it,"
+she said. "Seriously, I shan't hate you for marrying, and I don't
+suppose Marjory will hate me."
+
+"Then" (Mrs. Dennison had to smile at that little word), "you'll help
+me?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Mrs. Dennison, allowing her smile to become manifest.
+
+"You won't be against me?"
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Good-bye," said Evan, pressing her hand.
+
+He had enjoyed himself very much, and Mrs. Dennison was glad that she
+had been good-natured, and had not laughed.
+
+"Good-bye, and I hope you'll be very happy, if you succeed.
+And--Evan--don't kill Mr. Ruston!"
+
+The laugh came at last, but he was out of the door in time, and Mrs.
+Dennison had no leisure to enjoy it fully, for, the moment her visitor
+was gone, Mr. Belford and Lord Semingham were announced. They came
+together, seeking Harry Dennison. There was a "little hitch" of some
+sort in the affairs of the Omofaga Company--nothing of consequence, said
+Mr. Belford reassuringly. Mrs. Dennison explained that Harry Dennison
+had gone off to call on Mr. Ruston.
+
+"Oh, then he knows by now," said Semingham in a tone of relief.
+
+"And it'll be all right," added Belford contentedly.
+
+"Mr. Belford," said Mrs. Dennison, "I'm living in an atmosphere of
+Omofaga. I eat it, and drink it, and wear it, and breathe it. And, what
+in the end, is it?"
+
+"Ask Ruston," interposed Semingham.
+
+"I did; but I don't think he told me."
+
+"But surely, my dear Mrs. Dennison, your husband takes you into his
+confidence?" suggested Mr. Belford.
+
+Mrs. Dennison smiled, as she replied,
+
+"Oh, yes, I know what you're doing. But I want to know why you're doing
+it. I don't believe you'll ever get anything out of it, you know."
+
+"Oh, directors always get something," protested Semingham. "Penal
+servitude sometimes, but always something."
+
+"I've never had such implicit faith in any undertaking in my life,"
+asserted Mr. Belford. "And I know that your husband shares my views.
+It's bound to be the greatest success of the day. Ah, here's Dennison!"
+
+Harry came in wiping his brow. Belford rushed to him, and drew him to
+the window, button-holing him with decision. Lord Semingham smiled
+lazily and pulled his whisker.
+
+"Don't you want to hear the news?" Mrs. Dennison asked.
+
+"No! He's been to Ruston."
+
+Mrs. Dennison looked at him for an instant with something rather like
+scorn in her eye. Lord Semingham laughed.
+
+"I'm not quite as bad as that, really," he said.
+
+"And the others?" she asked, leaning forward and taking care that her
+voice did not reach the other pair.
+
+"He turns Belford round his fingers."
+
+"And Mr. Carlin?"
+
+"In his pocket."
+
+Mrs. Dennison cast a glance towards the window.
+
+"Don't go on," implored Semingham, half-seriously.
+
+"And my husband?" she asked in a still lower voice.
+
+Lord Semingham protested with a gesture against such cross-examination.
+
+"Surely it's a good thing for me to know?" she said.
+
+"Well--a great influence."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+There was a pause for an instant. Then she rose with a laugh and rang
+the bell for tea.
+
+"I hope he won't ruin us all," she said.
+
+"I've got Bessie's settlement," observed Lord Semingham; and he added
+after a moment's pause, "What's the matter? I thought you were a
+thoroughgoing believer."
+
+"I'm a woman," she answered. "If I were a man----"
+
+"You'd be the prophet, not the disciple, eh?"
+
+She looked at him, and then across to the couple by the window.
+
+"To do Belford justice," remarked Semingham, reading her glance, "he
+never admits that he isn't a great man--though surely he must know it."
+
+"Is it better to know it, or not to know it?" she asked, restlessly
+fingering the teapot and cups which had been placed before her. "I
+sometimes think that if you resolutely refuse to know it, you can alter
+it."
+
+Belford's name had been the only name mentioned in the conversation; yet
+Semingham knew that she was not thinking of Belford nor of him.
+
+"I knew it about myself very soon," he said. "It makes a man better to
+know it, Mrs. Dennison."
+
+"Oh, yes--better," she answered impatiently.
+
+The two men came and joined them. Belford accepted a cup of tea, and, as
+he took it, he said to Harry, continuing their conversation,
+
+"Of course, I know his value; but, after all, we must judge for
+ourselves."
+
+"Of course," acquiesced Harry, handing him bread-and-butter.
+
+"We are the masters," pursued Belford.
+
+Mrs. Dennison glanced at him, and a smile so full of meaning--of meaning
+which it was as well Mr. Belford should not see--appeared on her face,
+that Lord Semingham deftly interposed his person between them, and said,
+with apparent seriousness,
+
+"Oh, he mustn't think he can do just what he likes with us."
+
+"I am entirely of your opinion," said Belford, with a weighty nod.
+
+After tea, Lord Semingham walked slowly back to his own house. He had a
+trick of stopping still, when he fell into thought, and he was
+motionless on the pavement of Piccadilly more than once on his way home.
+The last time he paused for nearly three minutes, till an acquaintance,
+passing by, clapped him on the back, and inquired what occupied his
+mind.
+
+"I was thinking," said Semingham, laying his forefinger on his friend's
+arm, "that if you take what a clever man really is, and add to it what a
+clever woman who is interested in him thinks he is, you get a most
+astonishing person."
+
+The friend stared. The speculation seemed hardly pressing enough to
+excuse a man for blocking the pavement of Piccadilly.
+
+"If, on the other hand," pursued Semingham, "you take what an ordinary
+man isn't, and add all that a clever woman thinks he isn't, you get----"
+
+"Hadn't we better go on, old fellow?" asked the friend.
+
+"No, I think we'd better not," said Semingham, starting to walk again.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                        A TELEGRAM TO FRANKFORT.
+
+
+The success of Lady Valentine's Saturday to Monday party at Maidenhead
+was spoilt by the unscrupulous, or (if the charitable view be possible)
+the muddle-headed conduct of certain eminent African chiefs--so small is
+the world, so strong the chain of gold (or shares) that binds it
+together. The party was marred by Willie Ruston's absence; and he was
+away because he had to go to Frankfort, and he had to go to Frankfort
+because of that little hitch in the affairs of the Omofaga. The hitch
+was, in truth, a somewhat grave one, and it occurred, most annoyingly,
+immediately after a gathering, marked by uncommon enthusiasm and
+composed of highly influential persons, had set the impress of approval
+on the scheme. On the following morning, it was asserted that the said
+African chiefs, from whom Ruston and his friends derived their title to
+Omofaga, had acted in a manner that belied the character for honesty and
+simplicity in commercial matters (existing side by side with intense
+savagery and cruelty in social and political life) that Mr. Foster
+Belford had attributed to them at the great meeting. They had, it was
+said, sold Omofaga several times over in small parcels, and twice, at
+least, _en bloc_--once to the Syndicate (from whom the Company was
+acquiring it) and once to an association of German capitalists. The
+writer of the article, who said that he knew the chiefs well, went so
+far as to maintain that any person provided with a few guns and a dozen
+or so bottles of ardent spirits could return from Omofaga with a
+portmanteau full of treaties, and this facility in obtaining the article
+could not, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, do other
+than gravely affect the value of it. Willie Ruston was inclined to make
+light of this disclosure; indeed, he attributed it to a desire--natural
+but unprincipled--on the part of certain persons to obtain Omofaga
+shares at less than their high intrinsic value; he called it a "bear
+dodge" and sundry other opprobrious names, and snapped his fingers at
+all possible treaties in the world except his own. Once let him set his
+foot in Omofaga, and short would be the shrift of rival claims,
+supposing them to exist at all! But the great house of Dennison, Sons &
+Company, could not go on in this happy-go-lucky fashion--so the senior
+partner emphatically told Harry Dennison--they were already, in his
+opinion, deep enough in this affair; if they were to go any deeper, this
+matter of the association of German capitalists must be inquired into.
+The house had not only its money, but its credit and reputation to look
+after; it could not touch any doubtful business, nor could it be left
+with a block of Omofagas on its hands. In effect they were trusting too
+much to this Mr. Ruston, for he, and he alone, was their security in the
+matter. Not another step would the house move till the German
+capitalists were dissolved into thin air. So Willie Ruston packed his
+portmanteau--likely enough the very one that had carried the treaties
+away from Omofaga--and went to Frankfort to track the German capitalists
+to their lair. Meanwhile, the issue of the Omofaga was postponed, and
+Mr. Carlin was set a-telegraphing to Africa.
+
+Thus it also happened that, contrary to her fixed intention, Lady
+Valentine was left with a bedroom to spare, and with no just or
+producible reason whatever for refusing her son's request that Evan
+Haselden might occupy it. This, perhaps, should, in the view of all true
+lovers, be regarded as an item on the credit side of the African chiefs'
+account, though in the hostess' eyes it aggravated their offence. Adela
+Ferrars, Mr. Foster Belford and Tom Loring, who positively blessed the
+African chiefs, were the remaining guests.
+
+All parties cannot be successful, and, if truth be told, this of Lady
+Valentine's was no conspicuous triumph. Belford and Loring quarrelled
+about Omofaga, for Loring feared (he used that word) that there might be
+a good deal in the German treaties, and Belford was loud-mouthed in
+declaring there could be nothing. Marjory and her brother had a "row"
+because Marjory, on the Saturday afternoon, would not go out in the
+Canadian canoe with Evan, but insisted on taking a walk with Mr. Belford
+and hearing all about Omofaga. Finally, Adela and Tom Loring had a
+rather serious dissension because--well, just because Tom was so
+intolerably stupid and narrow-minded and rude. That was Adela's own
+account of it, given in her own words, which seems pretty good
+authority.
+
+The unfortunate discussion began with an expression of opinion from Tom.
+They were lounging very comfortably down stream in a broad-bottomed
+boat. It was a fine still evening and a lovely sunset. It was then most
+wanton of Tom--even although he couched his remark in a speciously
+general form--to say,
+
+"I wonder at fellows who spend their life worming money out of other
+people for wild-cat schemes instead of taking to some honest trade."
+
+There was a pause. Then Adela fitted her glasses on her nose, and
+observed, with a careful imitation of Tom's forms of expression,
+
+"I wonder at fellows who drift through life in subordinate positions
+without the--the _spunk_--to try and do anything for themselves."
+
+"Women have no idea of honesty."
+
+"Men are such jealous creatures."
+
+"I'm not jealous of him," Tom blurted out.
+
+"Of who?" asked Adela.
+
+She was keeping the cooler of the pair.
+
+"Confound those beastly flies," said Tom, peevishly. There was a fly or
+two about, but Adela smiled in a superior way. "I suppose I've some
+right to express an opinion," continued Tom. "You know what I feel about
+the Dennisons, and--well, it's not only the Dennisons."
+
+"Oh! the Valentines?"
+
+"Blow the Valentines!" said Tom, very ungratefully, inasmuch as he sat
+in their boat and had eaten their bread.
+
+He bent over his sculls, and Adela looked at him with a doubtful little
+smile. She thought Tom Loring, on the whole, the best man she knew, the
+truest and loyalest; but, these qualities are not everything, and it
+seemed as if he meant to be secretary to Harry Dennison all his life. Of
+course he had no money, there was that excuse; but to some men want of
+money is a reason, not for doing nothing, but for attempting everything;
+it had struck Willie Ruston in that light. Therefore she was at times
+angry with Tom--and all the more angry the more she admired him.
+
+"You do me the honour to be anxious on my account?" she asked very
+stiffly.
+
+"He asked me how much money you had the other day."
+
+"Oh, you're insufferable; you really are. Do you always tell women that
+men care only for their money?"
+
+"It's not a bad thing to tell them when it's true."
+
+"I call this the very vulgarest dispute I was ever entrapped into."
+
+"It's not my fault. It's----Hullo!"
+
+His attention was arrested by Lady Valentine's footman, who stood on the
+bank, calling "Mr. Loring, sir," and holding up a telegram.
+
+"Thank goodness, we're interrupted," said Adela. "Row ashore, Mr.
+Loring."
+
+Loring obeyed, and took his despatch. It was from Harry Dennison, and he
+read it aloud.
+
+    "Can you come up? News from Frankfort."
+
+"I must go," said Tom.
+
+"Oh, yes. If you're not there, Mr. Ruston will do something dreadful,
+won't he? I should like to come too. News from Frankfort would be more
+interesting than views from Mr. Belford."
+
+They parted without any approach towards a reconciliation. Tom was
+hopelessly sulky, Adela persistently flippant. The shadow of Omofaga lay
+heavy on Lady Valentine's party, and still shrouded Tom Loring on his
+way to town.
+
+The important despatch from Frankfort had come in cipher, and when Tom
+arrived in Curzon Street, he found Mr. Carlin, who had been sent for to
+read it, just leaving the house. The men nodded to one another, and
+Carlin hastily exclaimed,
+
+"You must reassure Dennison! You can do it!" and leapt into a hansom.
+
+Tom smiled. If the progress of Omofaga depended on encouragement from
+him, Omofaga would remain in primitive barbarism, though missionaries
+fell thick as the leaves in autumn.
+
+Harry Dennison was walking up and down the library; his hair was
+roughened and his appearance indicative of much unrest; his wife sat in
+an armchair, looking at him and listening to Lord Semingham, who,
+poising a cigarette between his fingers, was putting, or trying to put,
+a meaning to Ruston's message.
+
+    "Position critical. Must act at once. Will you give me a free
+    hand? If not, wire how far I may go."
+
+That was how it ran when faithfully interpreted by Mr. Carlin.
+
+"You see," observed Lord Semingham, "it's clearly a matter of money."
+
+Tom nodded.
+
+"Of course it is," said he; "it's not likely to be a question of
+anything else."
+
+"Therefore the Germans have something worth paying for," continued
+Semingham.
+
+"Well," amended Tom, "something Ruston thinks it worth his while to pay
+for, anyhow."
+
+"That is to say they have treaties touching, or purporting to touch,
+Omofaga."
+
+"And," added Harry Dennison, who did not lack a certain business
+shrewdness, "probably their Government behind them to some extent."
+
+Tom flung himself into a chair.
+
+"The thing's monstrous," he pronounced. "Semingham and you, Dennison,
+are, besides himself--and he's got nothing--the only people responsible
+up to now. And he asks you to give him an unlimited credit without
+giving you a word of information! It's the coolest thing I ever heard of
+in all my life."
+
+"Of course he means the Company to pay in the end," Semingham reminded
+the hostile critic.
+
+"Time enough to talk of the Company when we see it," retorted Tom, with
+an aggressive scepticism.
+
+"Position critical! Hum. I suppose their treaties must be worth
+something," pursued Semingham. "Dennison, I can't be drained dry over
+this job."
+
+Harry Dennison shook his head in a puzzled fashion.
+
+"Carlin says it's all right," he remarked.
+
+"Of course he does!" exclaimed Tom impatiently. "Two and two make five
+for him if Ruston says they do."
+
+"Well, Tom, what's your advice?" asked Semingham.
+
+"You must tell him to do nothing till he's seen you, or at least sent
+you full details of the position."
+
+The two men nodded. Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair, walked to the
+window, and stood looking out.
+
+"Loring just confirms what I thought," said Semingham.
+
+"He says he must act at once," Harry reminded them; he was still
+wavering, and, as he spoke, he glanced uneasily at his wife; but there
+was nothing to show that she even heard the conversation.
+
+"Oh, he hates referring to anybody," said Tom. "He's to have a free
+hand, and you're to pay the bill. That's his programme, and a very
+pretty one it is--for him."
+
+Tom's _animus_ was apparent, and Lord Semingham laughed gently.
+
+"Still, you're right in substance," he conceded when the laugh was
+ended, and as he spoke he drew a sheet of notepaper towards him and took
+up a pen.
+
+"We'd better settle just what to say," he observed. "Carlin will be back
+in half an hour, and we promised to have it ready for him. What you
+suggest seems all right, Loring."
+
+Tom nodded. Harry Dennison stood stock still for an instant and then
+said, with a sigh,
+
+"I suppose so. He'll be furious--and I hope to God we shan't lose the
+whole thing."
+
+Lord Semingham's pen-point was in actual touch with the paper before
+him, when Mrs. Dennison suddenly turned round and faced them. She rested
+one hand on the window-sash, and held the other up in a gesture which
+demanded attention.
+
+"Are you really going to back out now?" she asked in a very quiet voice,
+but with an intonation of contempt that made all the three men raise
+their heads with the jerk of startled surprise. Lord Semingham checked
+the movement of his pen, and leant back in his chair, looking at her.
+Her face was a little flushed and she was breathing quickly.
+
+"My dear," said Harry Dennison very apologetically, "do you think you
+quite understand----?"
+
+But Tom Loring's patience was exhausted. His interview with Adela left
+him little reserve of toleration; and the discovery of another and even
+worse case of Rustomania utterly overpowered his discretion.
+
+"Mrs. Dennison," he said, "wants us to deliver ourselves, bound hand and
+foot, to this fellow."
+
+"Well, and if I do?" she demanded, turning on him. "Can't you even
+follow, when you've found a man who can lead?"
+
+And then, conscious perhaps of having been goaded to an excess of warmth
+by Tom's open scorn, she turned her face away.
+
+"Lead, yes! Lead us to ruin!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"You won't be ruined, anyhow," she retorted quickly, facing round on him
+again, reckless in her anger how she might wound him.
+
+"Tom's anxious for us, Maggie," her husband reminded her, and he laid
+his hand on Tom Loring's shoulder.
+
+Tom's excitement was not to be soothed.
+
+"Why are we all to be his instruments?" he demanded angrily.
+
+"I should be proud to be," she said haughtily.
+
+Her husband smiled in an uneasy effort after nonchalance, and Lord
+Semingham shot a quick glance at her out of his observant eyes.
+
+"I should be proud of a friend like you if I were Ruston," he said
+gently, hoping to smooth matters a little.
+
+Mrs. Dennison ignored his attempt.
+
+"Can't you see?" she asked. "Can't you see that he's a man to--to do
+things? It's enough for us if we can help him."
+
+She had forgotten her embarrassment; she spoke half in contempt, half in
+entreaty, wholly in an earnest urgency, that made her unconscious of any
+strangeness in her zeal. Harry looked uncomfortable. Semingham with a
+sigh blew a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.
+
+Tom Loring sat silent. He stretched out his legs to their full length,
+rested the nape of his neck on the chair-back, and stared up at the
+ceiling. His attitude eloquently and most rudely asserted folly--almost
+lunacy--in Mrs. Dennison. She noticed it and her eyes flashed, but she
+did not speak to him. She looked at Semingham and surprised an
+expression in his eyes that made her drop her own for an instant; she
+knew very well what he was thinking--what a man like him would think.
+But she recovered herself and met his glance boldly.
+
+Harry Dennison sat down and slowly rubbed his brow with his
+handkerchief. Lord Semingham took up the pen and balanced it between his
+fingers. There was silence in the room for full three minutes. Then came
+a loud knock at the hall door.
+
+"It's Carlin," said Harry Dennison.
+
+No one else spoke, and for another moment there was silence. The steps
+of the butler and the visitor were already audible in the hall when Lord
+Semingham, with his own shrug and his own smile, as though nothing in
+the world were worth so much dispute or so much bitterness, said to
+Dennison,
+
+"Hang it! Shall we chance it, Harry?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison made one swift step forward towards him, her face all
+alight; but she stopped before she reached the table and turned to her
+husband. At the moment Carlin was announced. He entered with a rush of
+eagerness. Tom Loring did not move. Semingham wrote on his paper,--
+
+    "Use your discretion, but make every effort to keep down
+    expenses. Wire progress."
+
+"Will that do?" he asked, handing the paper to Harry Dennison and
+leaning back with a smile on his face; and, though he handed the paper
+to Harry, he looked at Mrs. Dennison.
+
+Mrs. Dennison was standing by her husband now, her arm through his. As
+he read she read also. Then she took the paper from his yielding hand
+and came and bent over the table, shoulder to shoulder with Lord
+Semingham. Taking the pen from his fingers, she dipped it in the ink,
+and with a firm dash she erased all save the first three words of the
+message. This done, she looked round into Semingham's face with a smile
+of triumph.
+
+"Well, it'll be cheap to send, anyhow," said he.
+
+He got up and motioned Carlin to take his place.
+
+Mrs. Dennison walked back to the window, and he followed her there. They
+heard Carlin's cry of delight, and Harry Dennison beginning to make
+excuses and trying to find business reasons for what had been done.
+Suddenly Tom Loring leapt to his feet and strode swiftly out of the
+room, slamming the door behind him. Mrs. Dennison heard the sound with a
+smile of content. She seemed to have no misgivings and no regrets.
+
+"Really," said Lord Semingham, sticking his eye-glass in his eye and
+regarding her closely, "you ought to be the Queen of Omofaga."
+
+With her slim fingers she began to drum gently on the window-pane.
+
+"I think there's a king already," she said, looking out into the street.
+
+"Oh, yes, a king," he answered with a laugh.
+
+Mrs. Dennison looked round. He did not stop laughing, and presently she
+laughed just a little herself.
+
+"Oh, of course, it's always that in a woman, isn't it?" she asked
+sarcastically.
+
+"Generally," he answered, unashamed.
+
+She grew grave, and looked in his face almost--so it seemed to him--as
+though she sought there an answer to something that puzzled her. He gave
+her none. She sighed and drummed on the window again; then she turned to
+him with a sudden bright smile.
+
+"I don't care; I'm glad I did it," she said defiantly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                           WHOSE SHALL IT BE?
+
+
+Probably no one is always wrong; at any rate, Mr. Otto Heather was right
+now and then, and he had hit the mark when he accused Willie Ruston of
+"commercialism." But he went astray when he concluded, _per saltum_,
+that the object of his antipathy was a money-grubbing, profit-snatching,
+upper-hand-getting machine, and nothing else in the world. Probably,
+again, no one ever was. Ruston had not only feelings, but also what many
+people consider a later development--a conscience. And, whatever the
+springs on which his conscience moved, it acted as a restraint upon him.
+Both his feelings and his conscience would have told him that it would
+not do for him to delude his friends or the public with a scheme which
+was a fraud. He would have delivered this inner verdict in calm and
+temperate terms; it would have been accompanied by no disgust, no
+remorse, no revulsion at the idea having made its way into his mind; it
+was just that, on the whole, such a thing wouldn't do. The vagueness of
+the phrase faithfully embodied the spirit of the decision, for whether
+it wouldn't do, because it was in itself unseemly, or merely because, if
+found out, it would look unseemly, was precisely one of those curious
+points with which Mr. Ruston's practical intellect declined to trouble
+itself. If Omofaga had been a fraud, then Ruston would have whistled it
+down the wind. But Omofaga was no fraud--in his hands at least no fraud.
+For, while he believed in Omofaga to a certain extent, Willie Ruston
+believed in himself to an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, extent. He
+thought Omofaga a fair security for anyone's money, but himself a superb
+one. Omofaga without him--or other people's Omofagas--might be a
+promising speculation; add him, and Omofaga became a certainty. It will
+be seen, then, that Mr. Heather's inspiration had soon failed--unless,
+that is, machines can see visions and dream dreams, and melt down hard
+facts in crucibles heated to seven times in the fires of imagination.
+But a man may do all this, and yet not be the passive victim of his
+dreams and imaginings. The old buccaneers--and Adela Ferrars had thought
+Ruston a buccaneer modernised--dreamt, but they sailed and fought too;
+and they sailed and fought and won because they dreamt. And if many of
+their dreams were tinted with the gleam of gold, they were none the less
+powerful and alluring for that.
+
+Ruston had laid the whole position before Baron von Geltschmidt of
+Frankfort, with--as it seemed--the utmost candour. He and his friends
+were not deeply committed in the matter; there was, as yet, only a small
+syndicate; of course they had paid something for their rights, but, as
+the Baron knew (and Willie's tone emphasised the fact that he must know)
+the actual sums paid out of pocket in these cases were not of staggering
+magnitude; no company was formed yet; none would be, unless all went
+smoothly. If the Baron and his friends were sure of their ground, and
+preferred to go on--why, he and his friends were not eager to commit
+themselves to a long and arduous contest. There must, he supposed, be a
+give-and-take between them.
+
+"It looks," he said, "as far as I can judge, as if either we should have
+to buy you out, or you would have to buy us out."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested the Baron, blinking lazily behind his gold
+spectacles, "we could get rid of you without buying you out."
+
+"Oh, if you drove us to it, by refusing to treat, we should have a shot
+at that too, of course," laughed Willie Ruston, swallowing a glass of
+white wine. The Baron had asked him to discuss the matter over luncheon.
+
+"It seems to me," observed the Baron, lighting a cigar, "that people are
+rather cold about speculations just now."
+
+"I should think so; but this is not a speculation; it's a certainty."
+
+"Why do you tell me that, when you want to get rid of me?"
+
+"Because you won't believe it. Wasn't that Bismarck's way?"
+
+"You are not Bismarck--and a certainty is what the public thinks one."
+
+"Is that philosophy or finance?" asked Ruston, laughing again.
+
+The Baron, who had in his day loved both the subjects referred to, drank
+a glass of wine and chuckled as he delivered himself of the following
+doctrine:
+
+"What the public thinks a certainty, is a certainty for the public--that
+would be philosophy, eh?"
+
+"I believe so. I never read much, and your extract doesn't raise my idea
+of its value."
+
+"But what the public thinks a certainty, is a certainty--for the
+promotors--that is finance. You see the difference is simple."
+
+"And the distinction luminous. This, Baron, seems to be the age of
+finance."
+
+"Ah, well, there are still honest men," said the Baron, with the
+optimism of age.
+
+"Yes, I'm one--and you're another."
+
+"I'm much obliged. You've been in Omofaga?"
+
+"Oh, yes. And you haven't, Baron."
+
+"Friends of mine have."
+
+"Yes. They came just after I left."
+
+The Baron knew that this statement was true. As his study of Willie
+Ruston progressed, he became inclined to think that it might be
+important. Mere right (so far as such a thing could be given by prior
+treaties) was not of much moment; but right and Ruston together might be
+formidable. Now the Baron (and his friends were friends much in the way,
+_mutatis mutandis_, that Mr. Wagg and Mr. Wenham were friends of the
+Marquis of Steyne, and may therefore drop out of consideration) was old
+and rich, and, by consequence, at a great disadvantage with a man who
+was young and poor.
+
+"I don't see the bearing of that," he observed, having paused for a
+moment to consider all its bearings.
+
+"It means that you can't have Omofaga," said Willie Ruston. "You were
+too late, you see."
+
+The Baron smoked and drank and laughed.
+
+"You're a young fool, my boy--or something quite different," said he,
+laying a hand on his companion's arm. Then he asked suddenly, "What
+about Dennisons?"
+
+"They're behind me if----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you're not in front of me."
+
+"But if I am, my son?" asked the Baron, almost caressingly.
+
+"Then I leave for Omofaga by the next boat."
+
+"Eh! And for what?"
+
+"Never mind what. You'll find out when you come."
+
+The Baron sighed and tugged his beard.
+
+"You English!" said he. "Your Government won't help you."
+
+"Damn my Government."
+
+"You English!" said the Baron again, his tone struggling between
+admiration and a sort of oppression, while his face wore the look a man
+has who sees another push in front of him in a crowd, and wonders how
+the fellow works his way through.
+
+There was a long pause. Ruston lit his pipe, and, crossing his arms on
+his breast, blinked at the sun; the Baron puffed away, shooting a glance
+now and then at his young friend, then he asked,
+
+"Well, my boy, what do you offer?"
+
+"Shares," answered Ruston composedly.
+
+The Baron laughed. The impudence of the offer pleased him.
+
+"Yes, shares, of course. And besides?"
+
+Willie Ruston turned to him.
+
+"I shan't haggle," he announced. "I'll make you one offer, Baron, and
+it's an uncommon handsome offer for a trunk of waste paper."
+
+"What's the offer?" asked the Baron, smiling with rich subdued mirth.
+
+"Fifty thousand down, and the same in shares fully paid."
+
+"Not enough, my son."
+
+"All right," and Mr. Ruston rose. "Much obliged for your hospitality,
+Baron," he added, holding out his hand.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the Baron.
+
+"Omofaga--_viâ_ London."
+
+The Baron caught him by the arm, and whispered in his ear,
+
+"There's not so much in it, first and last."
+
+"Oh, isn't there? Then why don't you take the offer?"
+
+"Is it your money?"
+
+"It's good money. Come, Baron, you've always liked the safe side," and
+Willie smiled down upon his host.
+
+The Baron positively started. This young man stood over him and told him
+calmly, face-to-face, the secret of his life. It was true. How he had
+envied men of real nerve, of faith, of daring! But he had always liked
+the safe side. Hence he was very rich--and a rather weary old man.
+
+Two days later, Willie Ruston took a cab from Lord Semingham's, and
+drove to Curzon Street. He arrived at twelve o'clock in the morning.
+Harry Dennison had gone to a Committee at the House. The butler had just
+told him so, when a voice cried from within,
+
+"Is it you, Mr. Ruston?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison was standing in the hall. He went in, and followed her
+into the library.
+
+"Well?" she asked, standing by the table, and wasting no time in formal
+greetings.
+
+"Oh, it's all right," said he.
+
+"You got my telegram?"
+
+"Your telegram, Mrs. Dennison?" said he with a smile.
+
+"I mean--the telegram," she corrected herself, smiling in her turn.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Ruston, and he took a step towards her. "I've seen Lord
+Semingham," he added.
+
+"Yes? And these horrid Germans are out of the way?"
+
+"Yes; and Semingham is letting his shooting this year."
+
+She laughed, and glanced at him as she asked,
+
+"Then it cost a great deal?"
+
+"Fifty thousand!"
+
+"Oh, then we can't take Lord Semingham's shooting, or anybody else's.
+Poor Harry!"
+
+"He doesn't know yet?"
+
+"Aren't you almost afraid to tell him, Mr. Ruston?"
+
+"Aren't you, Mrs. Dennison?"
+
+He smiled as he asked, and Mrs. Dennison lifted her eyes to his, and let
+them dwell there.
+
+"Why did you do it?" he asked.
+
+"Will the money be lost?"
+
+"Oh, I hope not; but money's always uncertain."
+
+"The thing's not uncertain?"
+
+"No; the thing's certain now."
+
+She sat down with a sigh of satisfaction, and passed her hand over her
+broad brow.
+
+"Why did you do it?" Ruston repeated; and she laughed nervously.
+
+"I hate going back," she said, twisting her hands in her lap.
+
+He had asked her the question which she had been asking herself without
+response.
+
+He sat down opposite her, flinging his soft cloth hat--for he had not
+been home since his arrival in London--on the table.
+
+"What a bad hat!" said Mrs. Dennison, touching it with the end of a
+forefinger.
+
+"It's done a journey through Omofaga."
+
+"Ah!" she laughed gently. "Dear old hat!"
+
+"Thanks to you, it'll do another soon."
+
+Mrs. Dennison sat up straight in her chair.
+
+"You hope----?" she began.
+
+"To be on my way in six months," he answered in solid satisfaction.
+
+"And for long?"
+
+"It must take time."
+
+"What must?"
+
+"My work there."
+
+She rose and walked to the window, as she had when she was about to send
+the telegram. Now also she was breathing quickly, and the flush, once so
+rare on her cheeks, was there again.
+
+"And we," she said in a low voice, looking out of the window, "shall
+just hear of you once a year?"
+
+"We shall have regular mails in no time," said he. "Once a year, indeed!
+Once a month, Mrs. Dennison!"
+
+With a curious laugh, she dashed the blind-tassel against the window. It
+was not for the sake of hearing of her that he wanted the mails. With a
+sudden impulse she crossed the room and stood opposite him.
+
+"Do you care _that_," she asked, snapping her fingers, "for any soul
+alive? You're delighted to leave us all and go to Omofaga!"
+
+Willie Ruston seemed not to hear; he was mentally organizing the mail
+service from Omofaga.
+
+"I beg pardon?" he said, after a perceptible pause.
+
+"Oh!" cried Maggie Dennison, and at last her tone caught his attention.
+
+He looked up with a wrinkle of surprise on his brow.
+
+"Why," said he, "I believe you're angry about something. You look just
+as you did on--on the memorable occasion."
+
+"Uh, we aren't all Carlins!" she exclaimed, carried away by her
+feelings.
+
+The least she had expected from him was grateful thanks; a homage tinged
+with admiration was, in truth, no more than her due; if she had been an
+ugly dull woman, yet she had done him a great service, and she was not
+an ugly dull woman. But then neither was she Omofaga.
+
+"If everybody was as good a fellow as old Carlin----" began Willie
+Ruston.
+
+"If everybody was as useful and docile, you mean; as good a tool for
+you----"
+
+At last it was too plain to be missed.
+
+"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "What are you pitching into me for, Mrs.
+Dennison?"
+
+His words were ordinary enough, but at last he was looking at her, and
+the mails of Omofaga were for a moment forgotten.
+
+"I wish I'd never made them send the wretched telegram," she flashed out
+passionately. "Much thanks I get!"
+
+"You shall have a statue in the chief street of the chief town of----"
+
+"How dare you! I'm not a girl to be chaffed."
+
+The tears were standing in her eyes, as she threw herself back in a
+chair. Willie Ruston got up and stood by her.
+
+"You'll be proud of that telegram some day," he said, rather as though
+he felt bound to pay her a compliment.
+
+"Oh, you think that now?" she said, unconvinced of his sincerity.
+
+"Yes. Though was it very difficult?" he asked with a sudden change of
+tone most depreciatory of her exploit.
+
+She glanced at him and smiled joyfully. She liked the depreciation
+better than the compliment.
+
+"Not a bit," she whispered, "for me."
+
+He laughed slightly, and shut his lips close again. He began to
+understand Mrs. Dennison better.
+
+"Still, though it was easy for you, it was precious valuable to me," he
+observed.
+
+"And how you hate being obliged to me, don't you?"
+
+He perceived that she understood him a little, but he smiled again as he
+asked,
+
+"Oh, but what made you do it, you know?"
+
+"You mean you did? Mr. Ruston, I should like to see you at work in
+Omofaga."
+
+"Oh, a very humdrum business," said he, with a shrug.
+
+"You'll have soldiers?"
+
+"We shall call 'em police," he corrected, smiling.
+
+"Yes; but they keep everybody down, and--and do as you order?"
+
+"If not, I shall ask 'em why."
+
+"And the natives?"
+
+"Civilise 'em."
+
+"You--you'll be governor?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no. Local administrator."
+
+She laughed in his face; and a grim smile from him seemed to justify
+her.
+
+"I'm glad I sent the telegram," she half-whispered, lying back in the
+chair and looking up at him. "I shall have had something to do with all
+that, shan't I? Do you want any more money?"
+
+"Look here," said Willie Ruston, "Omofaga's mine. I'll find you another
+place, if you like, when I've put this job through."
+
+A luxury of pleasure rippled through her laugh. She darted out her hand
+and caught his.
+
+"No. I like Omofaga too!" she said, and as she said it, the door
+suddenly opened, and in walked Tom Loring--that is to say--in Tom Loring
+was about to walk; but when he saw what he did see, he stood still for a
+moment, and then, without a single word, either of greeting or apology,
+he turned his back, walked out again, and shut the door behind him. His
+entrance and exit were so quick and sudden, that Mrs. Dennison had
+hardly dropped Willie Ruston's hand before he was gone; she had
+certainly not dropped it before he came.
+
+Willie Ruston sat down squarely in a chair. Mrs. Dennison's hot mood had
+been suddenly cooled. She would not ask him to go, but she glanced at
+the hat that had been through Omofaga. He detected her.
+
+"I shall stay ten minutes," he observed.
+
+She understood and nodded assent. Very little was said during the ten
+minutes. Mrs. Dennison seemed tired; her eyes dropped towards the
+ground, and she reclined in her chair. Ruston was frowning and thrumming
+at intervals on the table. But presently his brow cleared and he smiled.
+Mrs. Dennison saw him from under her drooping lids.
+
+"Well?" she asked in a petulant tone.
+
+"I believe you were going to fight me for Omofaga."
+
+"I don't know what I was doing."
+
+"Is that fellow a fool?"
+
+"He's a much better man than you'll ever be, Mr. Ruston. Really you
+might go now."
+
+"All right, I will. I'm going down to the city to see your husband and
+Carlin."
+
+"I'm afraid I've wasted your time."
+
+She spoke with a bitterness which seemed impossible to miss. But he
+appeared to miss it.
+
+"Oh, not a bit, really," he assured her anxiously. "Good-bye," he added,
+holding out his hand.
+
+"Good-bye. I've shaken hands once."
+
+He waited a moment to see if she would speak again, but she said
+nothing. So he left her.
+
+As he called a hansom, Mrs. Cormack was leaning over her balcony. She
+took a little jewelled watch out of her pocket and looked at it.
+
+"An hour and a quarter!" she cried. "And I know the poor man isn't at
+home!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                     AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE WHEELS.
+
+
+Miss Adela Ferrars lived in Queen's Gate, in company with her aunt, Mrs.
+Topham. Mrs. Topham's husband had been the younger son of a peer of
+ancient descent; and a practised observer might almost have detected the
+fact in her manner, for she took her station in this life as seriously
+as her position in the next, and, in virtue of it, assumed a
+responsibility for the morals of her inferiors which betrayed a
+considerable confidence in her own. But she was a good woman, and a
+widow of the pattern most opposite to that of Mrs. Cormack. She dwelt
+more truly in the grave of her husband than in Queen's Gate, and
+permitted herself no recreations except such as may privily creep into
+religious exercises and the ministrations of favourite clergymen; and it
+is pleasant to think that she was very happy. As may be supposed,
+however, Adela (who was a good woman in quite another way, and therefore
+less congenial with her aunt than any mere sinner could have been) and
+Mrs. Topham saw very little of one another, and would not have thought
+of living together unless each had been able to supply what the other
+wanted. Adela found money for the house, and Mrs. Topham lent the
+shelter of her name to her niece's unprotected condition. There were
+separate sitting-rooms for the two ladies, and, if rumour were true
+(which, after all, it usually is not), a separate staircase for the
+clergy.
+
+Adela was in her drawing-room one afternoon when Lord Semingham was
+announced. He appeared to be very warm, and he carried a bundle of
+papers in his hand. Among the papers there was one of those little
+smooth white volumes which epitomise so much of the joy and sorrow of
+this transitory life. He gave himself a shake, as he sat down, and held
+up the book.
+
+"The car has begun to move," he observed.
+
+"Juggernaut's?"
+
+"Yes; and I have been to see my bankers. I take a trip to the seaside
+instead of a moor this year, and have let my own pheasant shooting."
+
+He paused and added,
+
+"Dennison has not taken my shooting. They go to the seaside too--with
+the children."
+
+He paused again and concluded,
+
+"The Omofaga prospectus will be out to-morrow."
+
+Adela laughed.
+
+"Bessie is really quite annoyed," remarked Lord Semingham. "I have
+seldom seen her so perturbed--but I've sent Ruston to talk to her."
+
+"And why did you do it?" asked Adela.
+
+"I should like to tell you a little history," said he.
+
+And he told her how Mrs. Dennison had sent a telegram to Frankfort. This
+history was long, for Lord Semingham told it dramatically, as though he
+enjoyed its quality. Yet Adela made no comment beyond asking,
+
+"And wasn't she right?"
+
+"Oh, for the Empire perhaps--for us, it means trips to the seaside."
+
+He drew his chair a little nearer hers, and dropped his affectation of
+comic plaintiveness.
+
+"A most disgusting thing has happened in Curzon Street," he said. "Have
+you heard?"
+
+"No; I've seen nothing of Maggie lately. You've all been buried in
+Omofaga."
+
+"Hush! No words of ill-omen, please! Well, it's annoyed me immensely I
+can't think what the foolish fellow means. Tom Loring's going."
+
+"Tom--Loring--going?" she exclaimed with a punctuated pause between
+every word. "What in the world for?"
+
+"What is the ultimate cause of everything that happens to us now?" he
+asked, sticking his glass in his eye.
+
+Adela felt as though she were playing at some absurd game of questions
+and answers, and must make her reply according to the rules.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Ruston!" she said, with a grimace.
+
+Her visitor nodded--as though he had been answered according to the
+rules.
+
+"Tom broke out in the most extraordinary manner. He said he couldn't
+stay with Dennison, if Dennison let Ruston lead him by the nose
+(_ipsissima verba_, my dear Adela), and told Ruston to his face that he
+came for no good."
+
+"Were you there?"
+
+"Yes. The man seemed to choose the most public opportunity. Did you ever
+hear such a thing?"
+
+"He's mad about Mr. Ruston. He talked just the same way to me. What did
+Harry Dennison say?"
+
+"Harry went up to him and took his hand, and shook it, and, you know old
+Harry's way, tried to smooth it all down, and get them to shake hands.
+Then Ruston got up and said he'd go and leave them to settle it between
+Tom and him. Oh, Ruston behaved very well. It was uncommonly awkward for
+him, you know."
+
+"Yes; and when he'd gone?"
+
+"Harry told Tom that he must keep his engagements; but that, sooner than
+lose him, he'd go no deeper. That was pretty handsome, I thought, but it
+didn't suit Tom. 'I can't stay in the house while that fellow comes,' he
+said."
+
+"While he comes to the house?" cried Adela.
+
+Lord Semingham nodded. "You've hit the point," he seemed to say, and he
+went on,
+
+"And then they both turned and looked at Maggie Dennison. She'd been
+sitting there without speaking a single word the whole time. I couldn't
+go--Harry wouldn't let me--so I got into a corner and looked at the
+photograph book. I felt rather an ass, between ourselves, you know."
+
+"And what did Maggie say?"
+
+"Harry was looking as puzzled as an owl, and Tom as obstinate as a toad,
+and both stared at her. She looked first at Harry, and then at Tom, and
+smiled in that quiet way of hers. By the way, I never feel that I quite
+understand----"
+
+"Oh, never mind! Of course you don't. Go on."
+
+"And then she said, 'What a fuss! I hope that after all this Omofaga
+business is over Mr. Loring will come back to us.' Pretty straight for
+Tom, eh? He turned crimson, and walked right out of the room, and she
+sat down at the piano and began to play some infernal tune, and that
+soft-hearted old baby, Harry, blew his nose, and damned the draught."
+
+"And he's going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But," she broke out, "how can he? He's got no money. What'll he live
+on?"
+
+"Harry offered him as much as he wanted; but he said he had some
+savings, and wouldn't take a farthing. He said he'd write for papers, or
+some such stuff."
+
+"He's been with the Dennisons ever since--oh, years and years! Can't you
+take him? He'd be awfully useful to you."
+
+"My dear girl, I can't offer charity to Tom Loring," said Semingham, and
+he added quickly, "No more can you, you know."
+
+"I quarrelled with him desperately a week ago," said she mournfully.
+
+"About Ruston?"
+
+"Oh, yes. About Mr. Ruston, of course."
+
+Lord Semingham whistled gently, and, after a pause, Adela leant forward
+and asked,
+
+"Do you feel quite comfortable about it?"
+
+"Hang it, no! But I'm too deep in. I hope to heaven the public will
+swallow it!"
+
+"I didn't mean your wretched Company."
+
+"Oh, you didn't?"
+
+"No; I meant Curzon Street."
+
+"It hardly lies in my mouth to blame Dennison, or his wife either. If
+they've been foolish, so have I." Adela looked at him as if she thought
+him profoundly unsatisfactory. He was vaguely conscious of her
+depreciation, and added, "Ruston's not a rogue, you know."
+
+"No. If I thought he was, I shouldn't be going to take shares in
+Omofaga."
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"Oh, but I am!"
+
+"Another spinster lady on my conscience! I shall certainly end in the
+dock!" Lord Semingham took his hat and shook hands. Just as he got to
+the door, he turned round, and, with an expression of deprecating
+helplessness, fired a last shot. "Ruston came to see Bessie the other
+day," he said. "The new mantle she's just invented is to be called--the
+Omofaga: That is unless she changes it because of the moor. I suggested
+the _Pis-aller_, but she didn't see it. She never does, you know.
+Good-bye."
+
+The moment he was gone, Adela put on her hat and drove to Curzon Street.
+She found Mrs. Dennison alone, and opened fire at once.
+
+"What have you done, Maggie?" she cried, flinging her gloves on the
+table and facing her friend with accusing countenance.
+
+Mrs. Dennison was smelling a rose; she smelt it a little longer, and
+then replied with another question.
+
+"Why can't men hate quietly? They must make a fuss. I can go on hating a
+woman for years and never show it."
+
+"We have the vices of servility," said Adela.
+
+"Harry is a melancholy sight," resumed Mrs. Dennison. "He spends his
+time looking for the blotting-paper; Tom Loring used to keep it, you
+know."
+
+Her tone deepened the expression of disapproval on Adela's face.
+
+"I've never been so distressed about anything in my life," said she.
+
+"Oh, my dear, he'll come back." As she spoke, a sudden mischievous smile
+spread over her face. "You should hear Berthe Cormack on it!" she said.
+
+"I don't want to hear Mrs. Cormack at all. I hate the woman--and I think
+that I--at any rate--show it."
+
+It surprised Adela to find her friend in such excellent spirits. The air
+of listlessness, which was apt to mar her manner, and even to some
+degree her appearance (for to look bored is not becoming), had entirely
+vanished.
+
+"You don't seem very sorry about poor Mr. Loring," Adela observed.
+
+"Oh, I am; but Mr. Loring can't stop the wheels of the world. And it's
+his own fault."
+
+Adela sighed. It did not seem of consequence whose fault it was.
+
+"I don't think I care much about the wheels of the world," she said.
+"How are the children, Maggie?"
+
+"Oh, splendid, and in great glee about the seaside"--and Mrs. Dennison
+laughed.
+
+"And about losing Tom Loring?"
+
+"They cried at first."
+
+"Does anyone ever do anything more than 'cry at first'?" exclaimed
+Adela.
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't be tragical, or cynical, or whatever you are being,"
+said Maggie pettishly. "Mr. Loring has chosen to be very silly, and
+there's an end of it. Have you seen the prospectus? Do you know Mr.
+Ruston brought it to show me before it was submitted to Mr. Belford and
+the others--the Board, I mean?"
+
+"I think you see quite enough of Mr. Ruston," said Adela, putting up her
+glass and examining Mrs. Dennison closely. She spoke coolly, but with a
+nervous knowledge of her presumption.
+
+Mrs. Dennison may have had a taste for diplomacy and the other arts of
+government, but she was no diplomatist. She thought herself gravely
+wronged by Adela's suggestion, and burst out angrily,
+
+"Oh, you've been listening to Tom Loring!" and her heightened colour
+seemed not to agree with the idea that, if Adela had listened, Tom had
+talked of nothing but Omofaga. "I don't mind it from Berthe," Mrs.
+Dennison continued, "but from you it's too bad. I suppose he told you
+the whole thing? I declare I wasn't dreaming of anything of the kind; I
+was just excited, and----"
+
+"I haven't seen Mr. Loring," put in Adela as soon as she could.
+
+"Then how do you know----?"
+
+"Lord Semingham told me you quarrelled with Mr. Loring about Omofaga."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes. Maggie, was there any more?"
+
+"Do you want to quarrel with me too?"
+
+"I believe Mr. Loring had good reasons."
+
+"You must believe what you like," said Mrs. Dennison, tearing her rose
+to pieces. "Yes, there was some more."
+
+"What?" asked Adela, expecting to be told to mind her own business.
+
+Mrs. Dennison flung away the rose and began to laugh.
+
+"He found me holding Willie Ruston's hand and telling him I--liked
+Omofaga! That's all."
+
+"Holding his hand!" exclaimed Adela, justifiably scandalised and
+hopelessly puzzled. "What did you do that for?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Dennison. "It happened somehow as we were
+talking. We got interested, you know."
+
+Adela's next question was also one at which it was possible to take
+offence; but she was careless now whether offence were taken or not.
+
+"Are you and the children going to the seaside soon?"
+
+"Oh, yes," rejoined her friend, still smiling. "We shall soon be deep in
+pails and spades and bathing, and buckets and paddling, and a final
+charming walk with Harry in the moonlight."
+
+As the sentence went on, the smile became more fixed and less pleasant.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed to talk like that," said Adela.
+
+Mrs. Dennison walked up the room and down again.
+
+"So I am," she said, pausing to look down on Adela, and then resuming
+her walk.
+
+"I wish to goodness this Omofaga affair--yes, and Mr. Ruston too--had
+never been invented. It seems to set us all wrong."
+
+"Wrong!" cried Mrs. Dennison. "Oh, yes, if it's wrong to have something
+one can take a little interest in!"
+
+"You're hopeless to-day, Maggie. I shall go away. What did you take his
+hand for?"
+
+"Nothing. I tell you I was excited."
+
+"Well, I think he's a man one ought to keep cool with."
+
+"Oh, he's cool enough. He'll keep you cool."
+
+"But he didn't----"
+
+"Oh, don't--pray don't!" cried Mrs. Dennison.
+
+Adela took her leave; and, as luck would have it, opened the door just
+as Tom Loring was walking downstairs with an enormous load of dusty
+papers in his hands. She pulled the door close behind her hastily,
+exclaiming,
+
+"Why, I thought you'd gone!"
+
+"So you've heard? I'm just putting things shipshape. I go this evening."
+
+"Well, I'm sorry--still, for your sake, I'm glad."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You may do something on your own account now."
+
+"I don't want to do anything," said Tom obstinately.
+
+"Come and see me some day. I've forgiven you, you know."
+
+"So I will."
+
+"Mr. Loring, are you going to say good-bye to Maggie?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose so." Then he added, detecting Adela's
+unexpressed hope, "Oh, it's not a bit of use, you know."
+
+Adela passed on, and, later, Loring, having finished his work and being
+about to go, sought out Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"You're determined to go, are you?" she asked, with the air of one who
+surrenders before an inexplicable whim.
+
+"Yes," said Tom. "You know I must go."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm not a saint--nor a rogue; if I were either, I might stay."
+
+"Or even if you were a sensible man," suggested Maggie Dennison.
+
+"Being merely an honest man, I think I'll go. I've tried to put all
+Harry's things right for him, and to make it as easy for him to get
+along as I can."
+
+"Can he find his papers and blue-books and things?"
+
+"Oh, yes; and I got abstracts ready on all the things he cares about."
+
+"He'll miss you horribly. Ah, well!"
+
+"I suppose a little; but, really, I think he'll learn to get along----"
+
+Mrs. Dennison interrupted with a laugh.
+
+"Do you know," she asked, "what we remind me of? Why, of a husband and
+wife separating, and wondering whether the children will miss poor
+papa--though poor papa insists in going, and mamma is sure he must."
+
+"I never mentioned the children," said Tom angrily.
+
+"I know you didn't."
+
+Tom looked at her for an instant.
+
+"For God's sake," said he, "don't let him see that!"
+
+"Oh, how you twist things!" she cried in impatient protest.
+
+Tom only shook his head. The charge was not sincere.
+
+"Good-bye, Tom," she went on after a pause. "I believe, some day or
+other, you'll come back--or, at any rate, come and live next
+door--instead of Berthe Cormack, you know. But I don't know in what
+state you'll find us."
+
+"I'd just like to tell you one thing, if I may," said Tom, resolutely
+refusing to meet the softened look in her eyes with any answering
+friendliness.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You've got one of the best fellows in the world for a husband."
+
+"Well, I know that, I suppose, at least, as well as you do."
+
+"That's all. Good-bye."
+
+Without more he left her. She drew the window-curtain aside and watched
+him get into his cab and be driven away. The house was very still. Her
+husband was in his place at Westminster, and the children had gone to a
+party. She went upstairs to the nursery, hoping to find something to
+criticise; then to Harry's dressing-room, where she filled his
+pin-cushion with pins and put fresh water to the flowers in the vase.
+She could find no other offices of wife or mother to do, and she
+presently found herself looking into Tom's room, which was very bare and
+desolate, stripped of the homelike growth of a five years' tenancy. Her
+excitement was over; she felt terribly like a child after a tantrum; she
+flung open the window of the room and stood listening to the noise of
+the town. It was the noise of happy people, who had plenty to do; or of
+happier still, who did not want to do anything, and thus found content.
+She turned away and walked downstairs with a step as heavy as physical
+weariness brings with it. It came as a curious aggravation--light
+itself, but gaining weight from its surroundings--that, for once in a
+way, she had no engagements that evening. All the tide seemed to be
+flowing by, leaving her behind high and dry on the shore. Even the
+children had their party, even Harry his toy at Westminster; and Willie
+Ruston was working might and main to give a good start to Omofaga. Only
+of her had the world no need--and no heed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                         CONVERTS AND HERETICS.
+
+
+Had Lord Semingham and Harry Dennison taken an opportunity which many
+persons would have thought that they had a right to take, they might
+have shifted the burden of the Baron's _douceur_ and of sundry other not
+trifling expenses on to the shoulders of the public, and enjoyed their
+moors that year after all; for at the beginning Omofaga obtained such a
+moderate and reasonable "boom" as would have enabled them to perform the
+operation known as "unloading" (and literary men must often admire the
+terse and condensed expressiveness of "City" metaphors) with much profit
+to themselves. But either they conceived this course of conduct to be
+beneath them, or they were so firm of faith in Mr. Ruston that they
+stood to their guns and their shares, and took their seats at the Board,
+over which Mr. Foster Belford magniloquently presided, still possessed
+of the strongest personal interest in the success of Omofaga. Lady
+Semingham, having been made aware that Omofaga shares were selling at
+forty shillings a piece, was quite unable to understand why Alfred and
+Mr. Dennison did not sell all they had, and thereby procure moors or
+whatever else they wanted. Willie Ruston had to be sent for again, and
+when he told her that the same shares would shortly be worth five pounds
+(which he did with the most perfect confidence), she was equally at a
+loss to see why they were on sale to anybody who chose to pay forty
+shillings. Ruston, who liked to make everybody a convert to his own
+point of view, spent the best part of an afternoon conversing with the
+little lady, but, when he came away, he left her placidly admiring the
+Omofaga mantle which had just arrived from the milliner's, and promised
+to create an immense sensation.
+
+"I believe she's all gown," said he despairingly, at the Valentines in
+the evening. "If you undressed her there'd be no one there."
+
+"Well, there oughtn't to be many people," said young Sir Walter, with a
+hearty laugh at his boyish joke.
+
+"Walter, how can you!" cried Marjory.
+
+This little conversation, trivial though it be, has its importance, as
+indicating the very remarkable change which had occurred in young Sir
+Walter. There at least Ruston had made a notable convert, and he had
+effected this result by the simple but audacious device of offering to
+take Sir Walter with him to Omofaga. Sir Walter was dazzled. Between
+spending another year or two at Oxford _in statu pupillari_, vexed by
+schools and disciplined by proctors--between being required to be in by
+twelve at night and unable to visit London without permission--between
+this unfledged state and the position of a man among the men who were in
+the vanguard of the empire there rolled a flood; and the flood was
+mighty enough to sweep away all young Sir Walter's doubts about Mr.
+Ruston being a gentleman, to obliterate Evan Haselden's sneers, to
+uproot his influence--in a word, to transform that youthful legislator
+from a paragon of wisdom and accomplishments into "a good chap, but
+rather a lot of side on, you know."
+
+Marjory, having learnt from literature that hers was supposed to be the
+fickle sex, might well open her eyes and begin to feel very sorry indeed
+for poor Evan Haselden. But she also was under the spell and hailed the
+sun of glory rising for her brother out of the mists of Omofaga; and if
+poor Lady Valentine shed some tears before Willie Ruston convinced her
+of the rare chance it was for her only boy--and a few more after he had
+so convinced her--why, it would be lucky if these were the only tears
+lost in the process of developing Omofaga; for it seems that great
+enterprises must always be watered by the tears of mothers and nourished
+on the blood of sons. _Sic fortis Etruria crevit._
+
+One or two other facts may here be chronicled about Omofaga. There were
+three great meetings: one at the Cannon Street Hotel, purely commercial;
+another at the Westminster Town Hall, commercial-political; a third at
+Exeter Hall, commercial-religious. They were all very successful, and,
+taken together, were considered to cover the ground pretty completely.
+The most unlike persons and the most disparate views found a point of
+union in Omofaga. Adela Ferrars put three thousand pounds into it, Lady
+Valentine a thousand. Mr. Carlin finally disposed of the coal business,
+and his wife dreamt of the workhouse all night and scolded herself for
+her lack of faith all the morning. Willie Ruston spoke of being off in
+five months, and Sir Walter immediately bought a complete up-country
+outfit.
+
+Suddenly there was a cloud. Omofaga began to be "written down," in the
+most determined and able manner. The anonymous detractor--in such terms
+did Mr. Foster Belford refer to the writer--used the columns of a
+business paper of high standing, and his letters, while preserving a
+judicial and temperate tone, were uncompromisingly hostile and
+exceedingly damaging. A large part of Omofaga (he said) had not been
+explored, indeed, nobody knew exactly what was and what was not Omofaga;
+let the shareholders get what comfort they could out of that; but, so
+far as Omofaga had been explored, it had been proved to be barren of all
+sources of wealth. The writer grudgingly admitted that it might feed a
+certain head of cattle, though he hastened to add that the flies were
+fatal all the hot months; but as for gold, or diamonds, or any such
+things as companies most love, there were none, and if there were, they
+could not be won, and if they could be won no European could live to win
+them. It was a timid time on the markets then, and people took fright
+easily. In a few days any temptation that might have assailed Lord
+Semingham and Harry Dennison lost its power. Omofagas were far below
+par, and Lady Semingham was entreating her husband to buy all he could
+against the hour when they should be worth five pounds a piece, because,
+as she said, Mr. Ruston was quite sure that they were going to be, and
+who knew more about it than Mr. Ruston?
+
+It was just about this time that Tom Loring, who had vanished completely
+for a week or two, after his departure from Curzon Street, came up out
+of the depths and called on Adela Ferrars in Queen's Gate; and her first
+remark showed that she was a person of some perspicacity.
+
+"Isn't this rather small of you?" she asked, putting on her eyeglasses
+and finding an article which she indicated. "You may not like him, but
+still----"
+
+"How like a woman!" said Tom Loring in the tone of a man who expects
+and, on the whole, welcomes ill-usage. "How did you know it was mine?"
+
+"It's so like that article of Harry Dennison's. I think you might put
+your name, anyhow."
+
+"Yes, and rob what I say of all weight. Who knows my name?"
+
+Adela felt an impulse to ask him angrily why nobody knew his name, but
+she inquired instead what he thought he knew about Omofaga. She put this
+question in a rather offensive tone.
+
+It appeared that Tom Loring knew a great deal about Omofaga, all, in
+fact, that there was to be learnt from blue-books, consular reports,
+gazetteers, travels, and other heavy works of a like kind.
+
+"You've been moling in the British Museum," cried Adela accusingly.
+
+Tom admitted it without the least shame.
+
+"I knew this thing was a fraud and the man a fraud, and I determined to
+show him up if I could," said he.
+
+"It's because you hate him."
+
+"Then it's lucky for the British investor that I do hate him."
+
+"It's not lucky for me," said Adela.
+
+"You don't mean to say you've been----"
+
+"Fool enough? Yes, I have. No, don't quarrel again. It won't ruin me,
+anyhow. Are the things you say really true?"
+
+Tom replied by another question.
+
+"Do you think I'd write 'em if I didn't believe they were?"
+
+"No, but you might believe they were because you hate him."
+
+Tom seemed put out at this idea. It is not one that generally suggests
+itself to a man when his own views are in question.
+
+"I admit I began because I hate him," he said, with remarkable candour,
+after a moment's consideration; "but, by Jove, as I went on I found
+plenty of justification. Look here, you mustn't tell anyone I'm writing
+them."
+
+Tom looked a little embarrassed as he made this request.
+
+Adela hesitated for a moment. She did not like the request, either.
+
+"No, I won't," she said at last; and she added, "I'm beginning to think
+I hate him, too. He's turning me into an hospital."
+
+"What?"
+
+"People he wounds come to me. Old Lady Valentine came and cried because
+Walter's going to Omofaga; and Evan came and--well, swore because Walter
+worships Mr. Ruston; and Harry Dennison came and looked bewildered,
+and--you know--because--oh, because of you, and so on."
+
+"And now I come, don't I?"
+
+"Yes, and now you."
+
+"And has Mrs. Dennison come?" asked Tom, with a look of disconcerting
+directness.
+
+"No," snapped Adela, and she looked at the floor, whereupon Tom diverted
+his eyes from her and stared at the ceiling.
+
+Presently he searched in his waistcoat pocket and brought out a little
+note.
+
+"Read that," he said, a world of disgust in his tone.
+
+"'I told you so.--B.C.'" read Adela. "Oh, it's that Cormack woman!" she
+cried.
+
+"You see what it means? She means I've been got rid of in order
+that----" Tom stopped, and brought his clenched fist down on his opened
+palm. "If I thought it, I'd shoot the fellow," he ended.
+
+He looked at her for the answer to his unexpressed question.
+
+Adela turned the pestilential note over and over in her fingers,
+handling it daintily as though it might stain.
+
+"I don't think he means it," she said at last, without trying to blink
+the truth of Tom's interpretation.
+
+Tom rose and began to walk about.
+
+"Women beat me," he broke out. "I don't understand 'em. How should I?
+I'm not one of these fellows who catch women's fancy--thank God!"
+
+"If you continue to dislike the idea, you'll probably manage to escape
+the reality," observed Adela, and her tone, for some reason or
+other--perhaps merely through natural championship of her sex--was
+rather cold and her manner stiff.
+
+"Oh, some women are all right;" and Adela acknowledged the concession
+with a satirical bow. "Look here, can't you help?" he burst out. "Tell
+her what a brute he is."
+
+"Oh, you do not understand women!"
+
+"Well, then, I shall tell Dennison. He won't stand nonsense of that
+kind."
+
+"You'll deserve horsewhipping if you do," remarked Adela.
+
+"Then what am I to do?"
+
+"Nothing. In fact, Mr. Loring, you have no genius for delicate
+operations."
+
+"Of course I'm a fool."
+
+Adela played with her _pince-nez_ for a minute or two, put it on, looked
+at him, and then said, with just a touch of unwonted timidity in her
+voice,
+
+"Anyhow, you happen to be a gentleman."
+
+Poor Tom had been a good deal buffeted of late, and a friendly stroking
+was a pleasant change. He looked up with a smile, but as he looked up
+Adela looked away.
+
+"I think I'll stop those articles," said he.
+
+"Yes, do," she cried, a bright smile on her face.
+
+"They've pretty well done their work, too."
+
+"Don't! Don't spoil it! But--but don't you get money for them?"
+
+Tom was in better humour now. He held out his hand with his old friendly
+smile.
+
+"Oh, wait till I am in the workhouse, and then you shall take me out."
+
+"I don't believe I did mean that," protested Adela.
+
+"You always mean everything that--that the best woman in the world could
+mean," and Tom wrung her hand and disappeared.
+
+Adela's hand was rather crushed and hurt, and for a moment she stood
+regarding it ruefully.
+
+"I thought he was going to kiss it," she said. "One of those fellows who
+take women's fancy, perhaps, would have! And--and it wouldn't have hurt
+so much. Ah, well, I'm very glad he's going to stop the articles."
+
+And the articles did stop; and perhaps things might have fallen out
+worse than that an honest man, driven hard by bitterness, should do a
+useful thing from a doubtful motive, and having done just enough of it,
+should repent and sin no more; for unquestionably the articles prevented
+a great many persons from paying an unduly high price for Omofaga
+shares. This line of thought seems defensible, but it was not Adela's.
+She rejoiced purely that Tom should turn away from the doubtful thing;
+and if Tom had been a man of greater acuteness, it would have struck him
+as worthy of note, perhaps even of gratification, that Miss Adela
+Ferrars should care so much whether he did or did not do doubtful
+things. But then Miss Ferrars--for it seems useless to keep her secret
+any longer, the above recorded interview having somewhat impaired its
+mystery--was an improbably romantic person--such are to be met even at
+an age beyond twenty-five--and was very naturally ashamed of her
+weakness. People often are ashamed of being better than their
+surroundings. Being better they feel better, and feeling better they
+feel priggish, and then they try not to be better, and happily fail. So
+Adela was very shamefaced over her ideal, and would as soon have thought
+of preaching on a platform--of which practice she harboured a most
+bigoted horror--as of proclaiming the part that love must play in her
+marriage. The romantic resolve lay snug in its hidden nest, sheltered
+from cold gusts of ridicule by a thick screen of worldly sayings, and,
+when she sent away a suitor, of worldly-wise excuses. Thus no one
+suspected it, not even Tom Loring, although he thought her "the best of
+women;" a form of praise, by the way, that gave the lady honoured by it
+less pleasure than less valuable commendation might have done. Why best?
+Why not most charming? Well, probably because he thought the one and
+didn't think the other. She was the best; but there was another whose
+doings and whose peril had robbed Tom Loring of his peace, and made him
+do the doubtful thing. Why had he done it? Or (and Adela smiled
+mockingly at this resurrection of the Old Woman), if he did do it, why
+did he do it for Maggie Dennison? She didn't believe he would ever do a
+doubtful thing for her. For that she loved him; but perhaps she would
+have loved him--well, not less--if he did; for how she would forgive
+him!
+
+After half-an-hour of this kind of thing--it was her own summary of her
+meditations--she dressed, went out to dinner, sat next Evan Haselden,
+and said cynical things all the evening; so that, at last Evan told her
+that she had no more feeling than a mummified Methodist. This was
+exactly what she wanted.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                        AN OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE.
+
+
+The Right Honourable Foster Belford, although not, like Mr. Pitt, famous
+for "ruining Great Britain gratis"--perhaps merely from want of the
+opportunity--had yet not made a fortune out of political life, and it
+had suggested a pleasant addition to his means, when Willie Ruston
+offered him the chairmanship of the Omofaga Company, with the promise of
+a very comfortable yearly honorarium. He accepted the post with
+alacrity, but without undue gratitude, for he considered himself well
+worth the price; and the surprising fact is that he was well worth it.
+He bulked large to the physical and mental view. His colleagues in the
+Cabinet had taken a year or two to find out his limits, and the public
+had not found them out yet. Therefore he was not exactly a fool. On the
+other hand, the limits were certainly there, and so there was no danger
+of his developing an inconvenient greatness. As has been previously
+hinted, he enjoyed Harry Dennison's entire confidence; and he could be
+relied upon not to understand Lord Semingham's irreverence. Thus his
+appointment did good to the Omofaga as well as to himself, and only the
+initiated winked when Willie Ruston hid himself behind this imposing
+figure and pulled the strings.
+
+"The best of it is," Ruston remarked to Semingham, "that you and Carlin
+will have the whole thing in your own hands when I've gone out. Belford
+won't give you any trouble."
+
+"But, my dear fellow, I don't want it all in my hands. I want to grow
+rich out of it without any trouble."
+
+Ruston twisted his cigar in his mouth. The prospect of immediate wealth
+flowing in from Omofaga was, as Lord Semingham knew very well, not
+assured.
+
+"Loring's stopped hammering us," said Ruston; "that's one thing."
+
+"Oh, you found out he wrote them?"
+
+"Yes; and uncommonly well he did it, confound him. I wish we could get
+that fellow. There's a good deal in him."
+
+"You see," observed Lord Semingham, "he doesn't like you. I don't know
+that you went the right way about to make him."
+
+The remark sounded blunt, but Semingham had learnt not to waste delicate
+phrases on Willie Ruston.
+
+"Well, I didn't know he was worth the trouble."
+
+"One path to greatness is said to be to make no enemies."
+
+"A very roundabout one, I should think. I'm going to make a good many
+enemies in Omofaga."
+
+Lord Semingham suddenly rose, put on his hat, and left the offices of
+the Company. Mrs. Dennison had, a little while ago, complained to him
+that she ate, drank, breathed and wore Omofaga. He had detected the
+insincerity of her complaint, but he was becoming inclined to echo it in
+all genuineness on his own account. There were moments when he wondered
+how and why he had allowed this young man to lead him so far and so
+deep; moments when a convulsion of Nature, redistributing Africa and
+blotting out Omofaga, would have left him some thousands of pounds
+poorer in purse, but appreciably more cheerful in spirit. Perhaps
+matters would mend when the Local Administrator had departed to his
+local administration, and only the mild shadow of him which bore the
+name of Carlin trod the boards of Queen Street, Cheapside. Ruston began
+to be oppressive. The restless energy and domineering mind of the man
+wearied Semingham's indolent and dilettante spirit, and he hailed the
+end of the season as an excellent excuse for putting himself beyond the
+reach of his colleague for a few weeks. Yet, the more he quailed, the
+more he trusted; and when a very great man, holding a very great office,
+met him in the House of Lords, and expressed the opinion that when the
+Company and Mr. Ruston went to Omofaga they would find themselves in a
+pretty hornets' nest, Lord Semingham only said that he should be sorry
+for the hornets.
+
+"Don't ask us to fetch your man out for you, that's all," said the very
+great man.
+
+And for an instant Lord Semingham, still feeling that load upon his
+shoulders, fancied that it would be far from his heart to prefer such a
+request. There might be things less just and fitting than that Willie
+Ruston and those savage tribes of Omofaga should be left to fight out
+the quarrel by themselves, the civilised world standing aloof. And the
+dividends--well, of course, there were the dividends, but Lord Semingham
+had in his haste forgotten them.
+
+"Ah, you don't know Ruston," said he, shaking a forefinger at the great
+man.
+
+"Don't I? He came every day to my office for a fortnight."
+
+"Wanted something?"
+
+"Yes, he wanted something certainly, or he wouldn't have come, you
+know."
+
+"Got it, I suppose?" asked Lord Semingham, in a tone curiously
+indicative of resignation rather than triumph.
+
+"Well, yes; I did, at last, not without hesitation, accede to his
+request."
+
+Then Lord Semingham, with no apparent excuse, laughed in the face of the
+great man, left the House (much in the same sudden way as he had left
+Queen Street, Cheapside), and passed rapidly through the lobbies till he
+reached Westminster Hall. Here he met a young man, clad to perfection,
+but looking sad. It was Evan Haselden. With a sigh of relief at meeting
+no one of heavier metal, Semingham stopped him and began to talk. Evan's
+melancholy air enveloped his answers in a mist of gloom. Moreover there
+was a large streak on his hat, where the nap had been rubbed the wrong
+way; evidently he was in trouble. Presently he seized his friend by the
+arm, and proposed a walk in the Park.
+
+"But are you paired?" asked Semingham; for an important division was to
+occur that day in the Commons.
+
+"No," said Evan fiercely. "Come along;" and Lord Semingham went,
+exclaiming inwardly, "A girl!"
+
+"I'm the most miserable devil alive," said Evan, as they left the Horse
+Guards on the right hand.
+
+Semingham put up his eyeglass.
+
+"I've always regarded you as the favourite of fortune," he said. "What's
+the matter?"
+
+The matter unfolded itself some half-hour after they had reached the Row
+and sat down. It came forth with difficulty; pride obstructed the
+passage, and something better than pride made the young man diffuse in
+the telling of his trouble. Lord Semingham grew very grave indeed. Let
+who would laugh at happy lovers, he had a groan for the unfortunate--a
+groan with reservations.
+
+"She said she liked me very much, but didn't feel--didn't, you know,
+look up to me enough, and so on," said poor Evan in puzzled pain. "I--I
+can't think what's come over her. She used to be quite different. I
+don't know what she means by talking like that."
+
+Lord Semingham played a tune on his knee with the fingers of one hand.
+He was waiting.
+
+"Young Val's gone back on me too," moaned Evan, who took the brother's
+deposal of him hardly more easily than the sister's rejection. Suddenly
+he brightened up; a smile, but a bitter one, gleamed across his face.
+
+"I think I've put one spoke in his wheel, though," he said.
+
+"Ruston's?" inquired Semingham, still playing his tune.
+
+"Yes. A fortnight ago, old Detchmore" (Lord Detchmore was the very great
+man before referred to) "asked me if I knew Loring. You know Ruston's
+been trying to get Detchmore to back him up in making a railway to
+Omofaga?"
+
+"I didn't know," said Lord Semingham, with an unmoved face.
+
+"You're a director, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. Go on, my dear boy."
+
+"And Detchmore had seen Loring's articles. Well, I took Tom to him, and
+we left him quite decided to have nothing to do with it. Oh, by Jove,
+though, I forgot; I suppose you'd be on the other side there, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I suppose I should, but it doesn't matter."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I fancy Ruston's got what he wanted;" and Lord Semingham
+related what he had heard from the Earl of Detchmore.
+
+Evan listened in silence, and, the tale ended, the two lay back in their
+chairs, and idly looked at the passing carriages. At last Lord Semingham
+spoke.
+
+"He's going to Omofaga in a few months," he observed. "And, Evan, you
+don't mean that he's your rival at the Valentines'?"
+
+"I'm not so sure, confound him. You know how pretty she is."
+
+Semingham knew that she was pretty; but he also knew that she was poor,
+and thought that she was, if not too insipid (for he recognised the
+unusual taste of his own mind), at least too immature to carry Willie
+Ruston off his feet, and into a love affair that promised no worldly
+gain.
+
+"I asked Mrs. Dennison what she thought," pursued Evan.
+
+"Oh, you did?"
+
+"But the idea seemed quite a new one to her. That's good, you know. I
+expect she'd have noticed if he'd shown any signs."
+
+Lord Semingham thought it very likely.
+
+"Anyhow," Evan continued, "Marjory's awfully keen about him."
+
+"He'll be in Omofaga in three or four months," Semingham repeated. It
+was all the consolation he could offer.
+
+Presently Evan got up and strode away. Lord Semingham sat on, musing on
+the strange turmoil the coming of the man had made in the little corner
+of the world he dwelt in. He was reminded of what was said concerning
+Lord Byron by another poet. They all felt Ruston. His intrusion into the
+circle had changed all the currents, so that sympathy ran no longer
+between old friends, and hearts answered to a new stimulus. Some he
+attracted, some he repelled; none did he leave alone. From great to
+small his influence ran; from the expulsion of Tom Loring to the
+christening of the Omofaga mantle. Semingham had an acute sense of the
+absurdity of it all, but he had seen absurd things happen too often to
+be much relieved by his intuition. And when absurd things happen, they
+have consequences just as other things have. And the most exasperating
+fact was the utter unconsciousness of the disturber. He had no
+mystery-airs, no graces, no seeming fascinations. He was relentlessly
+business-like, unsentimental, downright; he took it all as a matter of
+course. He did not pry for weak spots. He went right on--on and
+over--and seemed not to know when he was going over. A very Juggernaut
+indeed! Semingham thanked Adela for teaching him the word.
+
+He was suddenly roused by the merry laughter of children. Three or four
+little ones were scampering along the path in the height of glee. As
+they came up, he recognised them. He had seen them once before. They
+were Carlin's children. Five there were, he counted now; three ran
+ahead; two little girls held each a hand of Willie Ruston's, who was
+laughing as merrily as his companions. The whole group knew Semingham,
+and the eldest child was by his knees in a moment.
+
+"We've been to the Exhibition," she cried exultantly; "and now
+Willie--Mr. Ruston, I mean--is taking us to have ices in Bond Street."
+
+"A human devil!" said the astonished man to himself, as Willie Ruston
+plumped down beside him, imploring a brief halt, and earnestly
+asseverating that his request was in good faith, and concealed no
+lurking desire to evade the ices.
+
+"I met young Haselden as we came along," Ruston observed, wiping his
+brow.
+
+"Ah! Yes, he's been with me."
+
+The children had wandered a few yards off, and stood impatiently looking
+at their hero.
+
+"He's had a bit of a facer, I fancy," pursued Willie Ruston. "Heard
+about it?"
+
+"Something."
+
+"It'll come all right, I should think," said Ruston, in a comfortably
+careless tone. "He's not a bad fellow, you know, though he's not
+over-appreciative of me." Lord Semingham found no comment. "I hear
+you're going to Dieppe next week?" asked Ruston.
+
+"Yes. My wife and Mrs. Dennison have put their heads together, and fixed
+on that. You know we're economising."
+
+Ruston laughed.
+
+"I suppose you are," he said through his white teeth. The idea seemed to
+amuse him. "We may meet there. I've promised to run over for a few days
+if I can."
+
+"The deuce you have!" would have expressed his companion's feelings; but
+Lord Semingham only said, "Oh, really?"
+
+"All right, I'm coming directly," Ruston cried a moment later to his
+young friends, and, with a friendly nod, he rose and went on his way.
+Lord Semingham watched the party till it disappeared through the Park
+gates, hearing in turn the children's shrill laugh and Willie Ruston's
+deeper notes. The effect of the chance meeting was to make his fancies
+and his fancied feelings look still more absurd. That he perceived at
+once; the devil appeared so very human in such a mood and such
+surroundings. Yet that attribute--that most demoniac attribute--of
+ubiquity loomed larger and larger. For not even a foreign land--not even
+a watering-place of pronounced frivolity--was to be a refuge. The man
+was coming to Dieppe! And on whose bidding? Semingham had no doubt on
+whose bidding; and, out of the airy forms of those absurd fancies, there
+seemed to rise a more material shape, a reality, a fabric not compounded
+wholly of dreams, but mixed of stuff that had made human comedies and
+human tragedies since the world began. Mrs. Dennison had bidden Willie
+Ruston to Dieppe. That was Semingham's instant conclusion; she had
+bidden him, not merely by a formal invitation, or by a simple
+acquiescence, but by the will and determination which possessed her to
+be of his mind and in his schemes. And perhaps Evan Haselden's innocent
+asking of her views had carried its weight also. For nearly an hour
+Semingham sat and mused. For awhile he thought he would act; but how
+should he act? And why? And to what end? Since what must be must, and in
+vain do we meddle with fate. An easy, almost eager, recognition of the
+inevitable in the threatened, of the necessary in everything that
+demanded effort for its avoidance, had stamped his life and grown deep
+into his mind. Wherefore now, faced with possibilities that set his
+nerves on edge, and wrung his heart for good friends, he found nothing
+better to do than shrug his shoulders and thank God that his own wife's
+submission to the man went no deeper than the inside lining of that
+famous Omofaga mantle, nor his own than the bottom, or near the bottom,
+of his trousers' pocket.
+
+"Though that, in faith," he exclaimed ruefully, as at last he rose, "is,
+in this world of ours, pretty deep!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+                         A LADY'S BIT OF WORK.
+
+
+The Dennison children, after a two nights' banishment, had come down to
+dessert again. They had been in sore disgrace, caused (it was stated to
+Mrs. Cormack, who had been invited to dine _en famille_) by a grave
+breach of hospitality and good manners which Madge had led the younger
+ones--who tried to look plaintively innocent--into committing.
+
+The Carlin children had come to tea, and a great dissension had arisen
+between the two parties. The Carlins had belauded the generous donor of
+ices; Madge had taken up the cudgels fiercely on Tom Loring's behalf,
+and Dora and Alfred had backed her up. Each side proceeded from praise
+of its own favourite to sneers--by no means covert--at the other's man,
+and the feud had passed from the stage of words to that of deeds before
+it was discovered by the superior powers and crushed. On the hosts, of
+course, the blame had to fall; they were sent to bed, while the guests
+drove off in triumph, comforted by sweets and shillings. Madge did not
+think, or pretend to think, that this was justice, and her mother's
+recital of her crimes to Mrs. Cormack, so far from reducing her to
+penitence, brought back to her cheeks and eyes the glow they had worn
+when she slapped (there is no use in blinking facts) Jessie Carlin, and
+told her that she hated Mr. Ruston. Madge Dennison was like her mother
+in face and temper. That may have been the reason why Harry Dennison
+squeezed her hand under the table, and by his tacit aid broke the force
+of his wife's cold reproofs. But there was perhaps another reason also.
+
+Mrs. Cormack said that she was shocked, and looked very much amused. The
+little history made up for the bore of having the children brought in.
+That was a thing she objected to very much; it stopped all rational
+conversation. But now her curiosity was stirred.
+
+"Why don't you like Mr. Ruston, my child?" she asked Madge.
+
+"I don't dislike him," said Madge, rosy red, and speaking with elaborate
+slowness. She said it as though it were a lesson she had learnt.
+
+"But why, then," said Mrs. Cormack, whirling her hands, "beat the little
+Carlin?"
+
+"That was before mamma told me," answered Madge, the two younger ones
+sitting by, open-mouthed, to hear her explanation.
+
+"Oh, what an obedient child! How I should have liked a little girl like
+you, darling!"
+
+Madge hated sarcasm, and her feelings towards Mrs. Cormack reflected
+those of her idol, Tom Loring.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said curtly; and then she looked
+anxiously at her mother.
+
+But Mrs. Dennison was smiling.
+
+"Let her alone, Berthe," she said. "She's been punished. Give her some
+fruit, Harry."
+
+Harry Dennison piled up the plate eagerly held out to him.
+
+"Who'll give you fruit at Dieppe?" he asked, stroking his daughter's
+hair.
+
+Mrs. Cormack pricked up her ears.
+
+"Didn't we tell you?" asked Mrs. Dennison. "Harry can't come for a
+fortnight. That tiresome old Sir George" (Sir George was the senior
+partner in Dennison, Sons & Company) "is down with the gout, and Harry's
+got to stay in town. But I'll give Madge fruit--if she's good."
+
+"Papa gives it me anyhow," said Madge, who preferred unconditional
+benefits.
+
+Harry laughed dolefully. He had been looking forward to a holiday with
+his children. Their uninterrupted society would have easily consoled him
+for the loss of the moor.
+
+"It's an awful bore," he said; "but there's no help for it. Sir George
+can't put a foot to the ground."
+
+"Anyhow," suggested Mrs. Cormack, "you will be able to help Mr. Ruston
+with the Omofaga."
+
+"Papa," broke out Madge, her face bright with a really happy idea, which
+must, she thought, meet with general acceptance, "since you can't come,
+why shouldn't Tom?"
+
+Mrs. Cormack grew more amused. Oh, it was quite worth while to have the
+children! They were so good at saying things one couldn't say oneself;
+and then one could watch the effect. In an impulse of gratitude, she
+slid a banana on to Madge's plate.
+
+"Marjory Valentine's coming," said Mrs. Dennison. "You like her, don't
+you, Madge?"
+
+"She's a girl," said Madge scornfully; and Harry, with a laugh, stroked
+her hair again.
+
+"You're a little flirt," said he.
+
+"But why can't Tom?" persisted Madge, as she attacked the banana. It was
+Mrs. Cormack's gift, but--_non olet_.
+
+For a moment nobody answered. Then Harry Dennison said--not in the least
+as though he believed it, or expected anybody else to believe it--
+
+"Tom's got to stay and work."
+
+"Have all the gentlemen we know got to stay and work?"
+
+Harry nodded assent.
+
+Mrs. Cormack was leaning forward. A moment later she sank back, hiding a
+smile behind her napkin; for Madge observed, in a tone of utter
+contentment,
+
+"Oh, then, Mr Ruston won't come;" and she wagged her head reassuringly
+at the open-mouthed little ones. They were satisfied, and fell again to
+eating.
+
+After a few moments, Mrs. Dennison, who had made no comment on her
+daughter's inference, swept the flock off to bed, praying Berthe to
+excuse her temporary absence. It was her habit to go upstairs with them
+when possible, and Harry would see that coffee came.
+
+"Poor Madge!" said Harry, when the door was shut, "what'll she say when
+Ruston turns up?"
+
+"Then he does go?"
+
+"I think so. We'd asked him to stay with us, and though he can't do that
+now, he and young Walter Valentine talk of running over for a few days.
+I hope they will."
+
+Mrs. Cormack, playing with her teaspoon, glanced at her host out of the
+corner of her eye.
+
+"He can go all the better, as I shall be here," continued Harry. "I can
+look after Omofaga."
+
+Mrs. Cormack rapped the teaspoon sharply on her cup. The man was such a
+fool. Harry, dimly recognising her irritation, looked up inquiringly;
+but she hesitated before she spoke. Would it spoil sport or make sport
+if she stirred a suspicion in him? A thought threw its weight in the
+balance. Maggie Dennison's friendship had been a trifle condescending,
+and the grateful friend pictured her under the indignity of enforced
+explanations, of protests, even of orders to alter her conduct. But how
+would Harry take a hint? There were men silly enough to resent such
+hints. Caution was the word.
+
+"Well, I almost wish he wasn't going," she said at last. "For Maggie's
+sake, I mean. She wants a complete rest."
+
+"Oh, but she likes him. He amuses her. Why, she's tremendously
+interested in Omofaga, Mrs. Cormack."
+
+"Ah, but he excites her too. We poor women have nerves, Mr. Dennison. It
+would be much better for her to hear nothing of Omofaga for a few
+weeks."
+
+"Has she been talking to you much about it?" asked Harry, beginning to
+feel anxious at his guest's immensely solemn tone.
+
+Indeed, little Mrs. Cormack spoke for the nonce quite like a family
+physician.
+
+"Oh, yes, about it and him," she replied. "She's never off the subject.
+Mr. Loring was half right."
+
+"Tom's objections were based on quite other grounds."
+
+"Oh, were they really? I thought--well, anyhow, Mr. Ruston being there
+will do her no good. She'll like it immensely, of course."
+
+Harry Dennison rubbed his hand over his chin.
+
+"I see what you mean," he said. "Yes, she'd have been better away from
+everything. But I can't object to Ruston going. I asked him myself."
+
+"Yes, when you were going."
+
+"That makes no difference."
+
+Mrs. Cormack said nothing. She tapped her spoon against the cup once
+more.
+
+"Why, we should have talked all the more about it if I'd been there."
+
+His companion was still silent, her eyes turned down towards the table.
+Harry looked at her with perplexity, and when he next spoke, there was a
+curious appealing note in his voice.
+
+"Surely it doesn't make any difference?" he asked. "What difference can
+it make?"
+
+No answer came. Mrs. Cormack laid down the spoon and sat back in her
+chair.
+
+"You mean there'll be no one to make a change for her--to distract her
+thoughts?"
+
+Mrs. Cormack flung her hands out with an air of impatience.
+
+"Oh, I meant nothing," said she petulantly.
+
+The clock seemed to tick very loud in the silence that followed her
+words.
+
+"I wish I could go," said Harry at last, in a low tone.
+
+"Oh, I wish you could, Mr. Dennison;" and as she spoke she raised her
+eyes, and, for the first time, looked full in his face.
+
+Harry rose from his chair; at the same moment his wife re-entered the
+room. He started a little at the sight of her.
+
+She held a letter in her hand.
+
+"Mr. Ruston will be at Dieppe on the 15th with Walter Valentine," she
+said, referring to it. "Give me some coffee, Harry."
+
+He poured it out and gave it to her, saying,
+
+"A letter from Ruston? Let's see what he says."
+
+"Oh, there's nothing else," she answered, laying it beside her.
+
+Mrs. Cormack sat looking on.
+
+"May I see?" asked Harry Dennison.
+
+"If you like," she answered, a little surprised; and, turning to Mrs.
+Cormack, she added, "Mr. Ruston's a man of few words on paper."
+
+"Ah, he makes every word mean something, I expect," returned that lady,
+who was quite capable of the same achievement herself, and exhibited it
+in this very speech.
+
+"What does he mean by the postscript?--'Have you found another kingdom
+yet?'" asked Harry, with a puzzled frown.
+
+"It's a joke, dear."
+
+"But what does it mean?"
+
+"Oh, my dear Harry, I can't explain jokes."
+
+Harry laid the note down again.
+
+"It's a joke between ourselves," Mrs. Dennison went on. "I oughtn't to
+have shown you the letter. Come, Berthe, we'll go upstairs."
+
+And Mrs. Cormack had no alternative but to obey.
+
+Left alone, Harry Dennison drew his chair up to the hearthrug. There was
+no fire, but he acted as though there were, leaning forward with his
+elbows on his knees, and gazing into the grate. He felt hurt and
+disconsolate. His old grievance--that people left him out--was strong
+upon him. He had delighted in the Omofaga scheme, because he had been in
+the inside ring there--because he was of importance to it--because it
+showed him to his wife as a mover in great affairs. And now--somehow--he
+seemed to be being pushed outside there too. What was this joke between
+themselves? At Dieppe they would have all that out; he would not be in
+the way there. Then he did not understand what Berthe Cormack would be
+at. She had looked at him so curiously. He did not know what to make of
+it, and he wished that Tom Loring were on the other side of the
+fireplace. Then he could ask him all about it. Tom! Why, Tom had looked
+at him almost in the same way as Berthe Cormack had--just when he was
+wringing his hand in farewell. No, it was not the same way--and yet in
+part the same. Tom's look had pity in it, and no derision. Mrs.
+Cormack's derision was but touched with pity. Yet both seemed to ask,
+"Don't you see?" See what? Why had Tom gone away? He could rely on Tom.
+See what? There was nothing to see.
+
+He sat longer than he meant. It was past ten when he went upstairs. Mrs.
+Cormack had gone, and his wife was in an armchair by the open window. He
+came in softly and surprised her with her head thrown back on the
+cushions and a smile on her lips. And the letter was in her hands.
+Hearing his step when he was close by her, she sat up, letting the note
+fall to the ground.
+
+"What a time you've been! Berthe's gone. Were you asleep?"
+
+"No. I was thinking; Maggie, I wish I could come to Dieppe with you."
+
+"Ah, I wish you could," said she graciously. "But you're left in charge
+of Omofaga."
+
+She spoke as though in that charge lay consolation more than enough.
+
+"I believe you care--I mean you think more about Omofaga than about----"
+
+"Anything in the world?" she asked, in playful mockery.
+
+"Than about me," he went on stubbornly.
+
+"Than about your coming to Dieppe, you mean?"
+
+"I mean, than about me," he repeated.
+
+She looked at him wonderingly.
+
+"My dear man," said she, taking his hand, "what's the matter?"
+
+"You do wish I could come?"
+
+"Must I say?" smiled Mrs. Dennison. "For shame, Harry! You might be on
+your honeymoon."
+
+He moved away, and flung himself into a chair.
+
+"I don't think it's fair of Ruston," he broke out, "to run away and
+leave it all to me."
+
+"Why, you told him you could do it perfectly! I heard you say so."
+
+"How could I say anything else, when--when----"
+
+"And originally you were both to be away! After all, you're not stopping
+because of Omofaga, but because Sir George has got the gout."
+
+Harry Dennison, convicted of folly, had no answer, though he was hurt
+that he should be convicted out of his wife's mouth. He shuffled his
+feet about and began to whistle dolefully.
+
+Mrs. Dennison looked at him with smothered impatience. Their little boy
+behaved like that when he was in a naughty mood--when he wanted the
+moon, or something of that kind, and thought mother and nurse cruel
+because it didn't come. Mrs. Dennison forgot that mother and nurse were
+fate to her little boy, or she might have sympathised with his naughty
+moods a little better.
+
+She rose now and walked slowly over to her husband. She had a hand on
+his chair, and was about to speak, when he stopped his whistling and
+jerked out abruptly,
+
+"What did he mean about the kingdom?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison's hand slid away and fell by her side. Harry caught her
+look of cold anger. He leapt to his feet.
+
+"Maggie, I'm a fool," he cried. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Sit
+down here."
+
+He made her sit, and half-crouched, half-knelt beside her.
+
+"Maggie," he went on, "are you angry? Damn the joke! I don't want to
+know. Are you sorry I'm not coming?"
+
+"What a baby you are, Harry! Oh, yes, awfully sorry."
+
+He knew so well what he wanted to say: he wanted to tell her that she
+was everything to him, that to be out of her heart was death: that to
+feel her slipping away was a torture: he wanted to woo and win her over
+again--win her more truly than he had even in those triumphant days when
+she gave herself to him. He wanted to show her that he understood
+her--that he was not a fool--that he was man enough for her! Yes, that
+she need not turn to Ruston or anybody else. Oh, yes, he could
+understand her, really he could.
+
+Not a word of it would come. He dared not begin: he feared that he would
+look--that she would find him--more silly still, if he began to say that
+sort of thing. She was smiling satirically now--indulgently but
+satirically, and the emphasis of her purposely childish "awfully"
+betrayed her estimation of his question. She did not understand the
+mood. She was accustomed to his admiration--worship would hardly be too
+strong a word. But the implied demand for a response to it seemed
+strange to her. Her air bore in upon him the utter difference between
+his thoughts of her and the way she thought about him. Always dimly
+felt, it had never pressed on him like this before.
+
+"Really, I'm very sorry, dear," she said, just a little more seriously.
+"But it's only a fortnight. We're not separating for ever," and her
+smile broke out again.
+
+With a queer feeling of hopelessness, he rose to his feet. No, he
+couldn't make her feel it. He had suffered in the same way over his
+speeches; he couldn't make people feel them either. She didn't
+understand. It was no use. He began to whistle again, staring out of the
+open window.
+
+"I shall go to bed, Harry. I'm tired. I've been seeing that the maid's
+packed what I wanted, and it's harder work than packing oneself."
+
+"Give me a kiss, Meg," he said, turning round.
+
+She did not do that, but she accepted his kiss, and he, turning away
+abruptly, shaped his lips to resume his tune. But now the tune wouldn't
+come. His wife left him alone. The tune came when she was there. Now it
+wouldn't. Ah, but the words would. He muttered them inaudibly to himself
+as he stood looking out of the window. They sounded as though they must
+touch any woman's heart. With an oath he threw himself on to the sofa,
+trying now to banish the haunting words--the words that would not come
+at his call, and came, in belated uselessness, to mock him now. He lay
+still; and they ran through his head. At last they ceased; but, before
+he could thank God for that, a strange sense of desolation came over
+him. He looked round the empty, silent room, that seemed larger now than
+in its busy daylight hours. The house was all still; there might have
+been one lying dead in it. It might have been the house of a man who had
+lost his wife.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+                          AGAINST HIS COMING.
+
+
+"The great Napoleon once observed----"
+
+"Don't quote from 'Anecdotes, New and Old,'" interrupted Adela unkindly.
+
+"That when his death was announced," pursued Lord Semingham, who thought
+it good for Adela to take no notice of such interruptions, "everybody
+would say _Ouf_. I say '_Ouf_' now," and he stretched his arms
+luxuriously to their full length. "There's room here," he added,
+explaining the gesture.
+
+"Well, who's dead?" asked Adela, choosing to be exasperatingly literal.
+
+"Nobody's dead; but a lot of people--and things--are a long way off."
+
+"That's not so satisfactorily final," said Adela.
+
+"No, but it serves for the time. Did you see me on my bicycle this
+morning?"
+
+"What, going round here?" and Adela waved her hand circularly, as though
+embracing the broad path that runs round the grass by the sea at Dieppe.
+
+"Yes--just behind a charming _Parisienne_ in a pair of--behind a
+charming _Parisienne_ in an appropriate costume."
+
+"Bessie must get one," said Adela.
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"I mean a bicycle."
+
+"Oh, certainly, if she likes; but she'd as soon mount Salisbury Spire."
+
+"How did you learn?"
+
+"I really beg your pardon," said Semingham, "but the fact is--Ruston
+taught me."
+
+"Let's change the subject," said Adela, smiling.
+
+"A charming child, this Marjory Valentine," observed Semingham. "She's
+too good for young Evan. I'm very glad she wouldn't have him."
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"You're always sorry other girls don't marry. Heaven knows why."
+
+"Well, I'm sorry she didn't take Evan."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't tell you."
+
+"Not--not the forbidden topic?"
+
+"I half believe so."
+
+"But she's here with Maggie Dennison."
+
+"Well, everybody doesn't chatter as you do," said Adela incisively.
+
+"I don't believe it. She----Hallo! here she is!"
+
+Marjory Valentine came along, bending her slim figure a little, the
+better to resist a fresh breeze that blew her skirts out behind her, and
+threatened to carry off her broad-brimmed hat. She had been bathing; the
+water was warm, and her cheeks glowed with a fine colour. As she came
+up, both Adela and Lord Semingham put on their eyeglasses.
+
+"An uncommon pretty girl," observed the latter.
+
+"Isn't it glorious?" cried Marjory, yet several yards away. "Walter will
+enjoy the bathing tremendously."
+
+"When's he coming?"
+
+"Saturday," answered Marjory. "Where is Lady Semingham?"
+
+"Dressing," said Semingham solemnly. "Costume number one, off at 11.30.
+Costume number two, on at 12. Costume number two, off at 3.30.
+Costume----"
+
+"After all, she's your wife," said Adela, in tones of grave reproach.
+
+"But for that, I shouldn't have a word to say against it. Women are very
+queer reasoners."
+
+Marjory sat down next to Adela.
+
+"Women do waste a lot of time on dress, don't they?" she asked, in a
+meditative tone; "and a lot of thought, too!"
+
+"Hallo!" exclaimed Lord Semingham.
+
+"I mean, thought they might give to really important things. You can't
+imagine George Eliot----"
+
+"What about Queen Elizabeth?" interrupted Semingham.
+
+"She was a horrible woman," said Adela.
+
+"Phryne attached no importance to it," added Semingham.
+
+"Oh, I forgot! Tell me about her," cried Marjory.
+
+"A strong-minded woman, Miss Marjory."
+
+"He's talking nonsense, Marjory."
+
+"I supplied a historical instance in Miss Valentine's favour."
+
+"I shall look her up," said Marjory, at which Lord Semingham smiled in
+quiet amusement. He was a man who saw his joke a long way off, and could
+wait patiently for it.
+
+"Yes, do," he said, lighting a cigarette.
+
+Adela had grown grave, and was watching the girl's face. It was a pretty
+face, and not a silly one; and Marjory's blue eyes gazed out to sea, as
+though she were looking at something a great way off. Adela, with a
+frown of impatience, turned to her other neighbour. She would not be
+troubled with aspirations there. In fact, she was still annoyed with her
+young friend on Evan Haselden's account. But it was no use turning to
+Lord Semingham. His eyes were more than half-closed, and he was beating
+time gently to the Casino band, audible in the distance. Adela sighed.
+At last Marjory broke the silence.
+
+"When Mr. Ruston comes," she began, "I shall ask him whether----"
+
+The sentence was not finished.
+
+"When who comes?" cried Adela; and Semingham opened his eyes and stilled
+his foot-pats.
+
+"Mr. Ruston."
+
+"Is he coming after all? I thought, now that Dennison----"
+
+"Oh, yes--he's coming with Walter. Didn't you know?"
+
+"Is he coming to-day?"
+
+"I suppose so. Aren't you glad?"
+
+"Of course," from Adela, and "Oh, uncommonly," from Lord Semingham,
+seemed at first sight answers satisfactory enough; but Marjory's
+inquiring gaze rested on their faces.
+
+"Come for a stroll," said Adela abruptly, and passing her arm through
+Marjory's, she made her rise. Semingham, having gasped out his
+conventional reply, sat like a man of stone, but Adela, for all that it
+was needless, whispered imperatively, "Stay where you are."
+
+"Well, Marjory," she went on, as they began to walk, "I don't know that
+I am glad after all."
+
+"I believe you don't like him."
+
+"I believe I don't," said Adela slowly. It was a point she had not yet
+quite decided.
+
+"I didn't use to."
+
+"But you do now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Adela hated the pregnant brevity of this affirmative.
+
+"Mamma doesn't," laughed Marjory. "She's so angry with him carrying off
+Walter. As if it wasn't a grand thing for Walter! So she's quite turned
+round about him."
+
+"He's not staying in--with you, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, no. Though I don't see why he shouldn't. Conventions are so stupid,
+aren't they? Mrs. Dennison's there," and Marjory looked up with an
+appeal to calm reason as personified in Adela.
+
+At another time, nineteen's view of twenty-nine--Marjory's conception of
+Maggie Dennison as a sufficing chaperon--would have amused Adela. But
+she was past amusement. Her patience snapped, as it were, in two. She
+turned almost fiercely on her companion, forgetting all prudence in her
+irritation.
+
+"For heaven's sake, child, what do you mean? Do you think he's coming to
+see you?"
+
+Marjory drew her arm out from Adela's, and retreated a step from her.
+
+"Adela! I never thought----" She did not end, conscious, perhaps, that
+her flushed face gave her words the lie. Adela swept on.
+
+"You! He's not coming to see you. I don't believe he's coming to see
+anyone--no, not even Maggie--I mean no one, at all."
+
+The girl's look marked the fatal slip.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, just audibly.
+
+"I don't believe he cares _that_ for any of us--for anyone alive.
+Marjory, I didn't mean what I said about Maggie, I didn't indeed. Don't
+look like that. Oh, what a stupid girl you are!" and she ended with a
+half-hysterical laugh.
+
+For some moments they stood facing one another, saying nothing. The
+meaning of Adela's words was sinking into Marjory's mind.
+
+"Let's walk on. People will wonder," said she at last; and she enlaced
+Adela's arm again. After another long pause, during which her face
+expressed the turmoil of her thoughts, she whispered,
+
+"Adela, is that why Mr. Loring went away?"
+
+"I don't know why he went away."
+
+"You think me a child, so you say you don't mean it now. You do mean it,
+you know. You wouldn't say a thing like that for nothing. Tell me what
+you do mean, Adela." It was almost an order. Adela suddenly realised
+that she had struck down to a force and a character. "Tell me exactly
+what you mean," insisted Marjory; "you ought to tell me, Adela."
+
+Adela found herself obeying.
+
+"I don't know about him; but I'm afraid of her," she stammered, as if
+confessing a shameful deed of her own. A moment later she broke into
+entreaty. "Go away, dear. Don't get mixed up in it. Don't have anything
+to do with him."
+
+"Do you go away when your friends are in trouble or in danger?"
+
+Adela felt suddenly small--then wise--then small because her wisdom was
+of a small kind. Yet she gave it utterance.
+
+"But, Marjory, think of--think of yourself. If you----."
+
+"I know what you're going to say. If I care for him? I don't. I hardly
+know him. But, if I did, I might--I might be of some use. And are you
+going to leave her all alone? I thought you were her friend. Are you
+just going to look on? Though you think--what you think!"
+
+Adela caught hold of the girl's hands. There was a choking in her
+throat, and she could say nothing.
+
+"But if he sees?" she murmured, when she found speech.
+
+"He won't see. There's nothing to see. I shan't show it. Adela, I shall
+stay. Why do you think what--what you think?"
+
+People might wonder, if they would--perhaps they did--when Adela drew
+Marjory towards her, and kissed her lips.
+
+"I couldn't, my dear," she said, "but, if you can, for heaven's sake do.
+I may be wrong, but--I'm uneasy."
+
+Marjory's lips quivered, but she held her head proudly up; then she
+sobbed a short quick-stifled sob, and then smiled.
+
+"I daresay it's not a bit true," she said.
+
+Adela pressed her hand again, saying,
+
+"I'm an emotional old creature."
+
+"Why did Mr. Loring go away?" demanded Marjory.
+
+"I don't know. He thought it----"
+
+"Best? Well, he was wrong."
+
+Adela could not hear Tom attacked.
+
+"Maggie turned him out," she said--which account of the matter was,
+perhaps, just a little one-sided, though containing a part of the truth.
+Marjory meditated on it for a moment, Adela still covertly looking at
+her. The discovery was very strange. Half-an-hour ago she had smiled
+because the girl hinted a longing after something beyond frocks, and had
+laughed at her simple acceptance of Semingham's joke. Now she found
+herself turning to her, looking to her for help in the trouble that had
+puzzled her. In her admiration of the girl's courage, she forgot to
+wonder at her intuition, her grasp of evil possibilities, the knowledge
+of Maggie Dennison that her resolve implied. Adda watched her, as, their
+farewell said, she walked, first quickly, then very slowly, towards the
+villa which Mrs. Dennison had hired, on the cliff-side, near the old
+Castle. Then, with a last sigh, she put up her parasol and sauntered
+back to the Hôtel de Rome. Costume number two would be on by now, and
+Bessie Semingham ready for luncheon.
+
+Marjory, finally sunk into the slow gait that means either idleness or
+deep thought, made her way up to the villa. With every step she drew
+nearer, the burden she had taken up seemed heavier. It was not sorrow
+for the dawning dream that the storm-cloud had eclipsed that she really
+thought of. But the task loomed large in its true difficulty, as her
+first enthusiasm spent itself. If Adela were right, what could she do?
+If Adela were wrong, what unpardonable offence she might give. Ah, was
+Adela right? Strange and new as the idea was, there was an unquestioning
+conviction in her manner that Marjory could hardly resist. Save under
+the stress of a conviction, speech on such a matter would have been an
+impossible crime. And Marjory remembered, with a sinking heart, Maggie
+Dennison's smile of happy triumph when she read out the lines in which
+Ruston told of his coming. Yes, it was, or it might be, true. But where
+lay her power to help?
+
+Coming round the elbow of the rising path, she caught sight of Maggie
+Dennison sitting in the garden. Mrs. Dennison wore white; her pale,
+clear-cut profile was towards Marjory; she rested her chin on her hand,
+and her elbow on her knee, and she was looking on the ground. Softly
+Marjory drew near. An unopened letter from Harry lay on a little table;
+the children had begun their mid-day meal in the room, whose open window
+was but a few feet behind; Mrs. Dennison's thoughts were far away.
+Marjory stopped short. A stronger buffet of fear, a more overwhelming
+sense of helplessness, smote her. She understood better why Adela had
+been driven to do nothing--to look on. She smiled for an instant; the
+idea put itself so whimsically; but she thought that, had Mrs. Dennison
+been walking over a precipice, it would need all one's courage to
+interfere with her. She would think it such an impertinence. And Ruston?
+Marjory saw, all in a minute, his cheerful scorn, his unshaken
+determination, his rapid dismissal of one more obstacle. She drew in her
+breath in a long inspiration, and Mrs. Dennison raised her eyes and
+smiled.
+
+"I believe I felt you there," she said, smiling. "At least, I began to
+think of you."
+
+Marjory sat near her hostess.
+
+"Did you meet anyone?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"Adela Ferrars and Lord Semingham."
+
+"Well, had they anything to say?"
+
+"No--I don't think so," she answered slowly.
+
+"What should they have to say in this place? The children have begun.
+Aren't you hungry?"
+
+"Not very."
+
+"Well, I am," and Mrs. Dennison arose. "I forgot it, but I am."
+
+"They didn't know Mr. Ruston was coming."
+
+"Didn't they?" smiled Mrs. Dennison. "And has Adela forgiven you? Oh,
+you know, the poor boy is a friend of hers, as he is of mine."
+
+"We didn't talk about it."
+
+"And you don't want to? Very well, we won't. See, here's a long
+letter--it's very heavy, at least--from Harry. I must read it
+afterwards."
+
+"Perhaps it's to say he can come sooner."
+
+"I expect not," said Mrs. Dennison, and she opened the letter. "No; a
+fortnight hence at the soonest," she announced, after reading a few
+lines.
+
+Marjory was both looking and listening closely, but she detected neither
+disappointment nor relief.
+
+"He's seen Tom Loring! Oh, and Tom sends me his best remembrances. Poor
+Tom! Marjory, does Adela talk about Mr. Loring?"
+
+"She mentioned him once."
+
+"She thinks it was all my fault," laughed Mrs. Dennison. "A woman always
+thinks it's a woman's fault; at least, that's our natural tendency,
+though we're being taught to overcome it. Marjory, you look dull! It
+will be livelier for you when your brother and Mr. Ruston come."
+
+The hardest thing about great resolves and lofty moods is their
+intermixture with everyday life. The intervals, the "waits," the mass of
+irrelevant trivialities that life inartistically mingles with its drama,
+flinging down pell-mell a heap of great and small--these cool courage
+and make discernment distrust itself. Mrs. Dennison seemed so quiet, so
+placid, so completely the affectionate but not anxious wife, the kind
+hostess, and even the human gossip, that Marjory wanted to rub her eyes,
+wondering if all her heroics were nonsense--a girl's romance gone wrong.
+There was nothing to be done but eat and drink, and talk and lounge in
+the sun--there was no hint of a drama, no call for a rescue, no place
+for a sacrifice. And Marjory had been all aglow to begin. Her face grew
+dull and her eyelids half-dropped as she leant her head on the back of
+her chair.
+
+"_Déjeuner!_" cried Mrs. Dennison merrily. "And this afternoon we're all
+going to gamble at _petits chevaux_, and if we win we're going to buy
+more Omofagas. There's a picture of a speculator's family!"
+
+"Mr. Dennison's not a speculator, is he?"
+
+"Oh, it depends on what you mean. Anyhow, I am;" and Mrs. Dennison,
+waving her letter in the air and singing softly, almost danced in her
+merry walk to the house. Then, crying her last words, "Be quick!" from
+the door, she disappeared.
+
+A moment later she was laughing and chattering to her children. Marjory
+heard her burlesque complaints over the utter disappearance of an
+omelette she had set her heart upon.
+
+That afternoon they all played at _petits chevaux_, and the only one to
+win was Madge. But Madge utterly refused to invest her gains in
+Omofagas. She assigned no reasons, slating that her mother did not like
+her to declare the feeling which influenced her, and Mrs. Dennison
+laughed again. But Adela Ferrars would not look towards Marjory, but
+kept her eyes on an old gentleman who had been playing also, and playing
+with good fortune. He had looked round curiously when, in the course of
+the chaff, they had mentioned Omofaga, and Adela detected in him the
+wish to look again. She wondered who he was, scrutinising his faded blue
+eyes and the wrinkles of weariness on his brow. Willie Ruston could have
+told her. It was Baron von Geltschmidt of Frankfort.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+                              IT CAN WAIT.
+
+
+In all things evil and good, to the world, and--a thing quite rare--to
+himself, Willie Ruston was an unaffected man. Success, the evidence of
+power and the earnest of more power, gave him his greatest pleasure, and
+he received it with his greatest and most open satisfaction. It did not
+surprise him, but it elated him, and his habit was to conceal neither
+the presence of elation nor the absence of surprise. That irony in the
+old sense, which means the well-bred though hardly sincere depreciation
+of a man's own qualities and achievements, was not his. When he had done
+anything, he liked to dine with his friends and talk it over. He had
+been sharing the Carlins' unfashionable six o'clock meal at Hampstead
+this evening, and had taken the train to Baker Street, and was now
+sauntering home with a cigar. He had talked the whole thing over with
+them. Carlin had said that no one could have managed the affair so well
+as he had, and Mrs. Carlin had not once referred to that lost _tabula in
+naufragio_, the coal business. Yes, his attack on London had been a
+success. He had known nothing of London, save that its denizens were
+human beings, and that knowledge, whether in business or society, had
+been enough. His great scheme was floated; a few months more would see
+him in Omofaga; there was money to last for a long time to come; and he
+had been cordially received and even made a lion of in the
+drawing-rooms. They would look for his name in the papers ("and find it,
+by Jove," he interpolated). Men in high places would think of him when
+there was a job to be "put through;" and women, famous in regions
+inaccessible to the vulgar, would recollect their talks with Mr. Ruston.
+Decidedly they were human beings, and therefore, raw as he was (he just
+knew that he had come to them a little raw), he had succeeded.
+
+Yet they were, some of them, strange folk. There were complications in
+them which he found it necessary to reconnoitre. They said a great many
+things which they did not think, and, _en revanche_, would often only
+hint what they did. And----But here he yawned, and, finding his cigar
+out, relit it. He was not in the mood for analysing his acquaintance. He
+let his fancy play more lightly. It was evening, and work was done. He
+liked London evenings. He had liked bandying repartees with Adela
+Ferrars (though she had been too much for him if she could have kept her
+temper); he liked talking to Marjory Valentine and seeing her occupied
+with his ideas. Most of all, he liked trying to catch Maggie Dennison's
+thought as it flashed out for a moment, and fled to shelter again. He
+had laughed again and again over the talk that Tom Loring had
+interrupted--and not less because of the interruption. There was little
+malice in him, and he bore no grudge against Tom. Even his anger at the
+Omofaga articles had been chiefly for public purposes and public
+consumption. It was always somebody's "game" to spoil his game, and one
+must not quarrel with men for playing their own hands. Tom amused him,
+and had amused him, especially by his behaviour over that talk. No doubt
+the position had looked a strange one. Tom had been so shocked. Poor
+Tom, it must be very serious to be so easily shocked. Mr. Ruston was not
+easily shocked.
+
+Unaffected, free from self-consciousness, undividedly bent on his
+schemes, unheeding of everything but their accomplishment, he had spent
+little time in considering the considerable stir which he had, in fact,
+created in the circle of his more intimate associates. They had proved
+pliable and pleasant, and these were the qualities he liked in his
+neighbours. They said agreeable things to him, and they did what he
+wanted. He had stayed not (save once, and half in jest, with Maggie
+Dennison) to inquire why, and the quasi-real, quasi-burlesque
+apprehension of him--burlesqued perhaps lest it should seem too
+real--which had grown up among such close observers as Adela Ferrars and
+Semingham, would have struck him as absurd, the outcome of that idle
+business of brain which weaves webs of fine fancies round the obvious,
+and loses the power of action in the fascination of self-created
+puzzles. The _nuances_ of a woman's attraction towards a man, whether it
+be admiration, or interest, or pass beyond--whether it be liking and
+just not love--or interest running into love--or love masquerading as
+interest, or what-not, Willie Ruston recked little of. He was a man, and
+a young man. He liked women and clever women--yes, and handsome women.
+But to spend your time thinking of or about women, or, worse still, of
+or about what women thought of you, seemed poor economy of precious
+days--amusing to do, maybe, in spare hours, inevitable now and
+again--but to be driven or laughed away when there was work to be done.
+
+Such was the colour of his floating thoughts, and the loose-hung
+meditation brought him to his own dwelling, in a great building which
+overlooked Hyde Park. He lived high up in a small, irregular,
+many-cornered room, sparely-furnished, dull and pictureless. The only
+thing hanging on the walls was a large scale map of Omofaga and the
+neighbouring territories; in lieu of nicnacks there stood on the
+mantlepiece lumps of ore, specimens from the mines of Omofaga (would not
+these convince the most obstinate unbeliever?), and half-smothered by
+ill-dusted papers, a small photograph of Ruston and a potent Omofagan
+chief seated on the ground with a large piece of paper before them--a
+treaty no doubt. A well-worn sofa, second-hand and soft, and a deep
+arm-chair redeemed the place from utter comfortlessness, but it was
+plain that beauty in his daily surroundings was not essential to Willie
+Ruston. He did not notice furniture.
+
+He walked in briskly, but stopped short with his hand still on the knob
+of the door. Harry Dennison lay on the sofa, with his arm flung across
+his face. He sprang up on Ruston's entrance.
+
+"Hullo! Been here long? I've been dining with Carlin," said Ruston, and,
+going to a cupboard, he brought out whisky and soda water.
+
+Harry Dennison began to explain his presence. In the first place he had
+nothing to do; in the second he wanted someone to talk to; in the
+third--at last he blurted it out--the first, second, third and only
+reason for his presence.
+
+"I don't believe I can manage alone in town," he said.
+
+"Not manage? There's nothing to do. And Carlin's here."
+
+"You see I've got other work besides Omofaga," pleaded Harry.
+
+"Oh, I know Dennisons have lots of irons in the fire. But Omofaga won't
+trouble you. I've told Carlin to wire me if any news comes, and I can be
+back in a few hours."
+
+Harry had come to suggest that the expedition to Dieppe should be
+abandoned for a week or two. He got no chance and sat silent.
+
+"It's all done," continued Ruston. "The stores are all on their way.
+Jackson is waiting for them on the coast. Why, the train will start
+inland in a couple of months from now. They'll go very slow though. I
+shall catch them up all right."
+
+Harry brightened a little.
+
+"Belford said it was uncertain when you would start," he said.
+
+"It may be uncertain to Belford, it's not to me," observed Mr. Ruston,
+lighting his pipe.
+
+The speech sounded unkind; but Mr. Belford's mind dwelt in uncertainty
+contentedly.
+
+"Then you think of----?"
+
+"My dear Dennison, I don't 'think' at all. To-day's the 12th of August.
+Happen what may, I sail on the 10th of November. Nothing will keep me
+after that--nothing."
+
+"Belford started for the Engadine to-day."
+
+"Well, he won't worry you then. Let it alone, my dear fellow. It's all
+right."
+
+Clearly Mr. Ruston meant to go to Dieppe. That was now to Harry Dennison
+bad news; but he meant to go to Omofaga also, and to go soon; that was
+good. Harry, however, had still something that he wished to convey--a
+bit of diplomacy to carry out.
+
+"I hope you'll find Maggie better," he began. "She was rather knocked up
+when she went."
+
+"A few days will have put her all right," responded Ruston cheerfully.
+
+He was never ill and treated fatigue with a cheery incredulousness. But,
+at least, he spoke with an utter absence of undue anxiety on the score
+of another man's wife.
+
+Harry Dennison, primed by Mrs. Cormack's suggestions, went on,
+
+"I wish you'd talk to her as little as you can about Omofaga. She's very
+interested in it, you know, and--and very excitable--and all that. We
+want her mind to get a complete rest."
+
+"Hum. I expect, then, I mustn't talk to her at all."
+
+The manifest impossibility of making such a request did not prevent
+Harry yearning after it.
+
+"I don't ask that," he said, smiling weakly.
+
+"It won't hurt her," said Willie Ruston. "And she likes it."
+
+She liked it beyond question.
+
+"It tires her," Harry persisted. "It--it gets on her nerves. It absorbs
+her too much."
+
+His face was turned up to Ruston. As he spoke the last words, Ruston
+directed his eyes, suddenly and rapidly, upon him. Harry could not
+escape the encounter of eyes; hastily he averted his head, and his face
+flushed. Ruston continued to look at him, a slight smile on his lips.
+
+"Absorbs her?" he repeated slowly, fingering his beard.
+
+"Well, you know what I mean."
+
+Another long stare showed Ruston's meditative preoccupation. Harry sat
+uncomfortable under it, wishing he had not let fall the word.
+
+"Well, I'll be careful," said Ruston at last. "Anything else?"
+
+Harry rose. Ruston carried an atmosphere of business about with him, and
+the visit seemed naturally to end with the business of it. Taking his
+hat, Harry moved towards the door. Then, pausing, he smiled in an
+embarrassed way, and remarked,
+
+"You can talk to Marjory Valentine, you know."
+
+"So I can. She's a nice girl."
+
+Harry twirled his hat in his fingers. His brain had conceived more
+diplomacy.
+
+"It'll be a fine chance for you to win her heart," he suggested with a
+tentative laugh.
+
+"I might do worse," said Willie Ruston.
+
+"You might--much worse," said Harry eagerly.
+
+"Aren't you rather giving away your friend young Haselden?"
+
+"Who told you, Ruston?"
+
+"Lady Val. Who told you?"
+
+"Semingham."
+
+"Ah! Well, what would Haselden say to your idea?"
+
+"Well, she won't have him--he's got no chance anyhow."
+
+"All right. I'll think about it. Good-night."
+
+He watched his guest depart, but did not accompany him on his way, and,
+left alone, sat down in the deep arm-chair. His smile was still on his
+lips. Poor Harry Dennison was a transparent schemer--one of those whose
+clumsy efforts to avert what they fear effects naught save to suggest
+the doing of it. Yet Willie Ruston's smile had more pity than scorn in
+it. True, it had more of amusement than of either. He could have taken a
+slate and written down all Harry's thoughts during the interview. But
+whence had come the change? Why had Dennison himself bidden him to
+Dieppe, to come now, a fortnight later, and beg him not to go? Why did
+he now desire his wife to hear no more of Omofaga, whose chief delight
+in it had been that it caught her fancy and imparted to him some of the
+interest she found in it? Ruston saw in the transformation the working
+of another mind.
+
+"Somebody's been putting it into his head," he muttered, still
+half-amused, but now half-angry also.
+
+And, with his usual rapidity of judgment, he darted unhesitatingly to a
+conclusion. He identified the hand in the business; he recognised whose
+more subtle thoughts Harry Dennison had stumbled over and mauled in his
+painful devices. But to none is it given to be infallible, and want of
+doubt does not always mean absence of error. Forgetting this commonplace
+truth, Willie Ruston slapped his thigh, leapt up from his chair and,
+standing on the rug, exclaimed,
+
+"Loring--by Jove!"
+
+It was clear to him. Loring was his enemy; he had displaced Loring.
+Loring hated him and Omofaga. Loring had stirred a husband's jealousy to
+further his own grudge. The same temper of mind that made his anger fade
+away when he had arrived at this certainty, prevented any surprise at
+the discovery. It was natural in man to seek revenge, to use the nearest
+weapon, to counter stroke with stroke, not to throw away any advantages
+for the sake of foibles of generosity. So, then, it was Loring who bade
+him not go to Dieppe, who prayed him to not to "absorb" Mrs. Dennison in
+Omofaga, who was ready, notwithstanding his hatred and distrust, to see
+him the lover of Marjory Valentine sooner than the too engrossing friend
+of Mrs. Dennison! What a fool they must think him!--and, with this
+reflection, he put the whole matter out of his head. It could wait till
+he was at Dieppe, and, taking hold of the great map by the roller at the
+bottom, he drew it to him. Then he reached and lifted the lamp from the
+table, and set it high on the mantlepiece. Its light shone now on his
+path, and with his finger he traced the red line that ran, curving and
+winding, inwards from the coast, till it touched the blue letters of the
+"Omofaga" that sprawled across the map. The line ended in a cross of red
+paint. The cross was Fort Imperial--was to be Fort Imperial, at least;
+but Willie Ruston's mind overleapt all difference of tenses. He stood
+and looked, pulling hard and fast at his pipe. He was there--there in
+Fort Imperial already--far away from London and London folk--from weak
+husbands and their causes of anxiety--from the pleasing recreations of
+fascinating society, from the covert attacks of men whose noses he had
+put out of joint. He forgot them all; their feelings became naught to
+him. What mattered their graces, their assaults, their weal or woe? He
+was in Omofaga, carving out of its rock a stable seat, carving on the
+rock face, above the seat, a name that should live.
+
+At last he turned away, flinging his empty pipe on the table and
+dropping the map from his hand.
+
+"I shall go to bed," he said. "Three months more of it!"
+
+And to bed he went, never having thought once during the whole evening
+of a French lady, who liked to get amusement out of her neighbours, and
+had stayed in town on purpose to have some more talks with Harry
+Dennison. Had Willie Ruston not been quite so sure that he read Tom
+Loring's character aright, he might have spared a thought for Mrs.
+Cormack.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                       A SPASM OF PENITENCE.
+
+
+Tom Loring had arranged to spend the whole of the autumn in London. His
+Omofaga articles had gained such favourable notice that his editor had
+engaged him to contribute a series dealing with African questions and
+African companies (and the latter are in the habit of producing the
+former), while he was occupied, on his own account, at the British
+Museum, in making way with a treatise of a politico-philosophical
+description, which had been in his head for several years. He hailed
+with pleasure the prospect of getting on with it; the leisure afforded
+him by his departure from the Dennisons was, in its way, a consolation
+for the wrench involved in the parting. Could he have felt more at ease
+about the course of events in his absence, he would have endured his
+sojourn in town with equanimity.
+
+Of course, the place was fast becoming a desert, but, at this moment,
+chance, which always objects to our taking things for granted, brought a
+carriage exactly opposite the bench on which Tom was seated, and he
+heard his name called in a high-pitched voice that he recognised.
+Looking up, he saw Mrs. Cormack leaning over the side of her victoria,
+smiling effusively and beckoning to him. That everyone should go save
+Mrs. Cormack seemed to Tom the irony of circumstance. With a mutter to
+himself, he rose and walked up to the carriage. He then perceived, to
+his surprise, that it contained, hidden behind Mrs. Cormack's
+sleeves--sleeves were large that year--another inmate. It was Evan
+Haselden, and he greeted Tom with an off-hand nod.
+
+"The good God," cried Mrs. Cormack, "evidently kept me here to console
+young men! Are you left desolate like Mr. Haselden here?"
+
+"Well, it's not very lively," responded Tom, as amiably as he could.
+
+"No, it isn't," she agreed, with the slightest, quickest glance at Evan,
+who was staring moodily at the tops of the trees.
+
+Tom laughed. The woman amused him in spite of himself. And her failures
+to extract entertainment from poor heart-broken Evan struck him as
+humorous.
+
+"But I'm at work," he went on, "so I don't mind."
+
+"Ah! Are you still crushing----?"
+
+"No," interrupted Tom quickly. "That's done."
+
+"I should not have guessed it," said Mrs. Cormack, opening her eyes.
+
+"I mean, I've finished the articles on that point."
+
+"That is rather a different thing," laughed she.
+
+"I'm afraid so," said Tom.
+
+"I wish to heaven it wasn't!" ejaculated Evan suddenly, without shifting
+his gaze from the treetops.
+
+"Oh, he is very very bad," whispered Mrs. Cormack. "Poor young man! Are
+you bad too?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Oh, but I know."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't," said Tom.
+
+Suddenly Evan rose, opened the carriage door, got out, shut it, and
+lifted his hat.
+
+"Good-bye," said Mrs. Cormack, smiling merrily.
+
+"Good-bye. Thanks," said Evan, with unchanged melancholy, and, with
+another nod to Tom, he walked round to the path and strode quickly away.
+
+"How absurd!" said she.
+
+"Not at all. I like to see him honest about it. He's hard hit--and he's
+not ashamed of it."
+
+"Oh, well," said Mrs. Cormack, shrugging the subject away in weariness
+of it. "And how do you stand banishment? Will you get in?"
+
+"Yes, if you won't assume----"
+
+"Too great familiarity, Mr. Loring?"
+
+"Oh, I was only going to say--with my affairs. With me--I should be
+charmed," and Tom settled himself in the victoria.
+
+He had, now he came to think of it, been really very much bored; and the
+little woman was quite a resource.
+
+She rewarded his ironical gallantry with a look that told him she took
+it for what it was worth, but liked it all the same; and, after a pause,
+asked,
+
+"And you see Mr. Dennison often?"
+
+"Very seldom, on the contrary. I don't know what he does with himself."
+
+"The poor man! He walks up and down. I hear him walking up and down."
+
+"What does he do that for?"
+
+"Ah! what? Well, he cannot be happy, can he?"
+
+"Can't he?" said Tom, determined to understand nothing.
+
+"You are very discreet," she said, with a malicious smile.
+
+"I'm obliged to be. Somebody must be."
+
+"Mr. Loring," she said abruptly, "you don't like me, neither you nor
+Miss Ferrars."
+
+"I never answer for others. For myself----"
+
+"Oh, I know. What does it matter? Well, anyhow, I'm sorry for that poor
+man."
+
+"Your sympathy is very ready, Mrs. Cormack."
+
+"You mean it is too soon--premature?"
+
+"I mean it's altogether unnecessary, to my humble thinking."
+
+"But I'm not a fool," she protested.
+
+Tom could not help laughing. The laugh, however, rather spoilt his
+argument.
+
+"Have it your own way," he conceded, conscious of his error, and trying
+to cover it by a burlesque surrender. "He's miserable."
+
+"Well, he is."
+
+There was a placid certainty about her that disturbed Tom's attitude of
+incredulity.
+
+"Why is he?" he asked curiously.
+
+"I have talked to him. I know," she answered, with a nod full of
+meaning.
+
+"Oh, have you?"
+
+"Yes, and he--well, do you want to hear, or will you be angry and
+despise me as you used?"
+
+"I want to hear."
+
+"What did I use to say? That the man would come? Well, he has come.
+_Voilà tout!_"
+
+"Oh, so you say. But Harry doesn't think such--I beg pardon, I was about
+to say, nonsense."
+
+"Yes, he does. At least, he is afraid of it."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I tell you, we have talked. And I saw. He almost cried that he couldn't
+go to Dieppe, and that somebody else----"
+
+Tom suddenly turned upon her.
+
+"Who began the talk?" he demanded.
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"Who began?"
+
+"Oh, what nonsense! Who does begin to talk? How do I know? It came, Mr.
+Loring."
+
+Tom said nothing.
+
+"You look as if you didn't believe me," she remarked, pouting.
+
+"I don't. He's the most unsuspicious fellow alive."
+
+"Well, if you like, I began. I'm not ashamed. But I said very little.
+When he asked me if I thought it good that she and--the other--should be
+together out there and he here--well, was I to say yes?"
+
+"I think," observed Tom, in quiet and deliberate tones, "that it's a
+great pity that some women can't be gagged."
+
+"They can, but only with kisses," said Mrs. Cormack, not at all
+offended. "Oh, don't be frightened. I do not wish to be gagged at all.
+If I did--there is more than one man in the world."
+
+Tom despised and half-hated her; but he liked her good-nature, and, in
+his heart, admired her for not flinching. Her shamelessness was crossed
+with courage.
+
+"So you've made him miserable?"
+
+"Well, I might say, I, a wicked Frenchwoman, that it is better to be
+deceived than to be wretched. But you, an Englishman----! Oh, never, Mr.
+Loring!"
+
+Tom sat silent a little while.
+
+"I don't know what to do," he said, half in reverie.
+
+"Who thought you would?" asked Mrs. Cormack, unkindly.
+
+"I believe it's all a mare's nest."
+
+"That means a mistake, a delusion?"
+
+"It does."
+
+"Then I don't think you do believe it. And, if you do, you are wrong. It
+is not all a--a mare's nest."
+
+She pronounced the word with unfamiliar delicateness.
+
+Tom knew that he did not believe that it was all a mare's nest. He would
+have given everything in the world--save one thing--and that, he
+thought, he had not got--to believe it.
+
+"Then, if you believed it, why didn't you do something?" he asked rather
+fiercely.
+
+"What have you all done? I, at least, warned him. Yes, since you insist,
+I hinted it. But you--you ran away; and your Adela Ferrars, she looks
+prim and pained, oh! and shocked, and doesn't come so much."
+
+It was a queer source to learn lessons from, and Tom was no less
+surprised than Adela had been a day or two before at Dieppe.
+
+"What should you do?" he asked, in new-born humility.
+
+"I? Nothing. What is it to me?"
+
+"What should you do, if you were me?"
+
+"Make love to her myself," smiled Mrs. Cormack. She was having her
+revenge on Tom for many a scornful speech.
+
+"If you'd held your tongue, it would all have blown over!" he exclaimed
+in exasperation.
+
+"It will blow over still; but it will blow first," she said. "If that
+contents you, hold your tongue."
+
+Then she turned to Tom, and laid a small fore-finger on his arm.
+
+"Mark this," said she, "he does not care for her. He cares for himself;
+she is--what would you say? an incident--an accident--I do not know how
+to say it--to him."
+
+"Well, if you're right there----" began Tom in some relief.
+
+"If I'm right there, it will make no difference--at first. But, as you
+say, it will blow over--and sooner."
+
+Tom looked at her, and thought, and looked again.
+
+"By Jove, you're not a fool, Mrs. Cormack," said he, almost under his
+breath.
+
+Then he added, louder,
+
+"It's the wisdom of the devil."
+
+"Oh, you surpass yourself," she smiled. "Your compliments are
+magnificent."
+
+"You must have learnt it from him."
+
+"Oh, no. From my husband," said Mrs. Cormack.
+
+The carriage, which during their talk had moved slowly round the circle,
+stopped again.
+
+Mrs. Cormack turned to Tom. He was already looking at her.
+
+"I don't understand you," said he.
+
+"No? Well, you'll hardly believe it, but that does not surprise me."
+
+"I'm not sure you don't mean well, if you weren't ashamed to confess
+it," said Tom.
+
+For the first time since he had known her, she blushed and looked
+embarrassed. Then she began, in a quick tone,
+
+"Well, I talked. I wanted to see how he took it; and it amused me.
+And--well, our dear Maggie--she is so very magnificent at times. She
+looks down so calmly--oh! from such a height--on one. She had told me
+that day--well, never mind that; it was true, I daresay. I don't love
+truth. I don't see what right people have to say things to me, just
+because one may know they are true."
+
+"So you made a little mischief?"
+
+"Well, I hear that poor man walking up and down. I want to comfort him.
+I asked him to come in, and he refused. Then I offered to go in--he was
+very frightened. Oh, _mon Dieu_!" and she laughed almost hysterically.
+
+This very indirect confession proved in the end to be all that Mrs.
+Cormack's penitence could drive her to, and Tom left her, feeling a
+little softened towards her, but hardly better equipped for action.
+What, indeed, could be done? Tom's sense of futility expressed itself in
+a long letter to Adela Ferrars. As he had no suggestions for present
+action, he took refuge in future promises.
+
+"It will be very awkward for me to come, but if, as time goes on, you
+think I should be any good, I will come."
+
+And Adela, when she read it, was tempted to send for him on the spot; he
+would have been of no use, but he would have comforted her. But then his
+presence would unquestionably exasperate Maggie Dennison. Adela decided
+to wait.
+
+Now, by the time Tom Loring's letter reached Dieppe, young Sir Walter
+and Willie Ruston were on the boat, and they arrived hard on its heels.
+They took up their abode at a hotel a few doors from where the
+Seminghams were staying, and Walter at once went round to pay his
+respects.
+
+Ruston stayed in to write letters. So he said; but when he was alone he
+stood smoking at the window and looking at the people down below.
+Presently, to his surprise, he saw the same old gentleman whom Adela had
+noticed in the Casino.
+
+"The Baron, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "Now, what brings him here?"
+
+The Baron was sauntering slowly by, wrapped in a cloak, and leaning
+heavily on a malacca cane. In a moment Willie Ruston was down the stairs
+and after him.
+
+Hearing his name cried, the Baron stopped and turned round.
+
+"What chance brings you here?" asked Willie, holding out his hand.
+
+"Oh, hardly chance," said the Baron. "I always go to some seaside place,
+and I thought I might meet friends here," and he smiled significantly.
+
+"Yes," said Ruston, after a pause; "I believe I did mention it in
+Threadneedle Street. I went in there the other day."
+
+By the general term Threadneedle Street he meant to indicate the offices
+of the Baron's London correspondents, which were situate there.
+
+"They keep you informed, it seems?"
+
+"I live by being kept informed," said the Baron.
+
+Ruston was walking by him, accommodating his pace to the old man's
+feeble walk.
+
+"You mean you came to see me?" he asked.
+
+"Well, if you'll forgive the liberty--in part."
+
+"And why did you want me?"
+
+"Oh, I've not lost all interest in Omofaga."
+
+"No, you haven't," said Ruston. "On the contrary, you've been increasing
+your interest."
+
+The Baron stopped and looked at him.
+
+"Oh, you know that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+The Baron laughed.
+
+"Then you can tell me whether I shall lose my money," he said.
+
+"Do you ever lose your money, Baron?"
+
+"But am I to hear about Omofaga?" asked the Baron, countering question
+by question.
+
+"As much as you like," answered Ruston, with the indifference of perfect
+candour.
+
+"Ah, by the way, I have heard about it already. Who are the ladies here
+who talk about it?"
+
+Willie Ruston gave a careful catalogue of all the persons in Dieppe who
+were interested in the Omofaga Company. The Baron identified the
+Seminghams and Adela. Then he observed,
+
+"And the other lady is Mrs. Dennison, is she?"
+
+"She is. I'm going to her house to-morrow. Shall I take you?"
+
+"I should be charmed."
+
+"Very well. To-morrow afternoon."
+
+"And you'll dine with me to-night?"
+
+Ruston was about to refuse; but the Baron added, half seriously,
+
+"I've come a long way to see you."
+
+"All right, I'll come," he said. Then he paused a moment, and looked at
+the Baron curiously. "And perhaps you'll tell me then," he added.
+
+"Why I've come?"
+
+"Yes; and why you've been buying. You were bought out. What do you want
+to come in again for?"
+
+"I'll tell you all that now," said the Baron. "I've come because I
+thought I should like to see some more of you; and I've been buying
+because I fancy you'll make a success of it."
+
+Willie Ruston pulled his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"Don't you believe me?" asked the Baron.
+
+"Let's wait a bit," suggested Ruston. Then, with a sudden twinkle of his
+eye, his holiday mood seemed to come back again. Seizing the Baron's
+arm, he pressed it, and said with a laugh, "I say, Baron, if you want to
+get control over Omofaga----"
+
+"But, my dear friend----" protested the Baron.
+
+"If you do--I only say 'if'--I'm not the only man you've got to fight.
+Well, yes, I am the only _man_."
+
+"My dear young friend, I don't understand you," pleaded the Baron.
+
+"We'll go and see Mrs. Dennison to-morrow," said Willie Ruston.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                         THE THING OR THE MAN.
+
+
+"Well?"
+
+It was the morning of the next day, Mrs. Dennison sat in her place in
+the little garden on the cliff, and Willie Ruston stood just at the turn
+of the mounting path, where Marjory had paused to look at her friend.
+
+"Well, here I am," said he.
+
+She did not move, but held out her hand. He advanced and took it.
+
+"I met your children down below," he went on, "but they would hardly
+speak to me. Why don't they like me?"
+
+"Never mind the children."
+
+"But I do mind. Most children like me."
+
+"How is everything?"
+
+"In London? Oh, first-rate. I saw your husband the----"
+
+"I mean, how is Omofaga?"
+
+"Capital; and here?"
+
+"It has been atrociously dull. What could you expect?"
+
+"Well, I didn't expect that, or I shouldn't have come."
+
+"Are the stores started?"
+
+"I thought it was holiday time? Well, yes, they are."
+
+She had been looking at him ever since he came, and at last he noticed
+it.
+
+"Do I look well?" he asked in joke.
+
+"You know, it's rather a pleasure to look at you," she replied. "I've
+been feeling so shut in," and she pushed her hair back from her
+forehead, and glanced at him with a bright smile. "And it's really going
+well?"
+
+"So well," he nodded, "that everything's quiet, and the preparations
+well ahead. In three months" (and his enthusiasm began to get hold of
+him) "I shall be off; in two more I hope to be actually there, and
+then--why, forward!"
+
+She had listened at first with sparkling eyes; as he finished, her lips
+drooped, and she leant back in her chair. There was a moment's silence;
+then she said in a low voice,
+
+"Three months!"
+
+"It oughtn't to take more than two, if Jackson has arranged things
+properly for me."
+
+Evidently he was thinking of his march up country; but it was the first
+three mouths that were in her mind. She had longed to see the thing
+really started, hastened by all her efforts the hour that was to set him
+at work, and dreamt of the day when he should set foot in Omofaga. Now
+all this seemed assured, imminent, almost present; yet there was no
+exultation in her tone.
+
+"I meant, before you started," she said slowly.
+
+He looked up in surprise.
+
+"I can't manage sooner," he said, defending himself. "You know I don't
+waste time."
+
+He was still off the scent; and even she herself was only now, for the
+first time and as yet dimly, realising her own mind.
+
+"I have to do everything myself," he said. "Dear old Carlin can't walk a
+step alone, and the Board"--he paused, remembering that Harry Dennison
+was on the Board--"well, I find it hard to make them move as quick as I
+want. I had to fix a date, and I fixed the earliest I could be
+absolutely sure of."
+
+"Why don't they help you more?" she burst out indignantly.
+
+"Oh, I don't want help."
+
+"Yes, but I helped you!" she exclaimed, leaning forward, full again of
+animation.
+
+"I can't deny it," he laughed. "You did indeed."
+
+"Yes," she said, and became again silent.
+
+"_Apropos_," said he. "I want to bring someone to see you this
+afternoon--Baron von Geltschmidt."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"He was the German capitalist, you know."
+
+"What! Why, what's he doing here?"
+
+"He came to see me--so he says. May I bring him?"
+
+"Why, yes. He's a great--a great man, isn't he?"
+
+"Well, he's a great financier."
+
+"And he came to see you?"
+
+"So he says."
+
+"And don't you believe him?"
+
+"I don't know. I want your opinion," answered Ruston, with a smile.
+
+"Are you serious?" she asked quickly. "I mean, do you really want my
+opinion, or are you being polite?"
+
+"I don't think _you_ a fool, you know," said Willie Ruston.
+
+She flashed a glance of understanding, mingled with reproach, at him,
+and, leaning forward again, said,
+
+"Has he come about Omofaga?"
+
+"That you might tell me too--or will you want all Omofaga if you do so
+much?"
+
+For a moment she smiled in recollection. Then her face grew sad.
+
+"Much of Omofaga I shall have!" she said.
+
+"Oh, I'll write," he promised carelessly.
+
+"Write!" she repeated in low, scornful tones. "Would you like to be
+written to about it? It'll happen to you, and I'm to be written to!"
+
+"Well, then, I won't write."
+
+"Yes, do write."
+
+Willie Ruston smiled tolerantly, but his smile was suddenly cut short,
+for Mrs. Dennison, not looking at him but out to sea, asked herself in a
+whisper, which was plainly not meant for him though he heard it,
+
+"How shall I bear it?"
+
+He had been tilting his chair back; he brought the front legs suddenly
+on to the ground again and asked,
+
+"Bear what?"
+
+She started to find he had heard, but attempted no evasion.
+
+"When you've gone," she answered in simple directness.
+
+He looked at her with raised eyebrows. There was no embarrassment in her
+face, and no tremble in her voice; and no passion could he detect in
+either.
+
+"How flat it will all be," she added in a tone of utter weariness.
+
+He was half-pleased, half-piqued at the way she seemed to look at him.
+It not only failed to satisfy him, but stirred a new dissatisfaction. It
+hinted much, but only, it seemed to him, to negative it. It left Omofaga
+still all in all, and him of interest only because he would talk of and
+work for Omofaga, and keep the Omofaga atmosphere about her. Now this
+was wrong, for Omofaga existed for him, not he for Omofaga; that was the
+faith of true disciples.
+
+"You don't care about me," he said. "It's all the Company--and only the
+Company because it gives you something to do. Well, the Company'll go on
+(I hope), and you'll hear about our doings."
+
+She turned to him with a puzzled look.
+
+"I don't know what it is," she said with a shake of her head. Then, with
+a sudden air of understanding, as though she had caught the meaning that
+before eluded her, she cried, "I'm just like you, I believe. If I went
+to Omofaga, and you had to stay----"
+
+"Oh, it would be the deuce!" he laughed.
+
+"Yes, yes. Well, it is--the deuce," she answered, laughing in return.
+But in a moment she was grave again.
+
+Her attraction for him--the old special attraction of the unknown and
+unconquered--came strongly upon him, and mingled more now with pleasure
+in her. Her silence let him think; and he began to think how wasted she
+was on Harry Dennison. Another thought followed, and to that he gave
+utterance.
+
+"But you've lots of things you could do at home; you could have plenty
+to work at, and plenty of--of influence, and so on."
+
+"Yes, but--oh, it would come to Mr. Belford! Who wants to influence Mr.
+Belford? Besides, I've grown to love it now, haven't you?"
+
+"Omofaga?"
+
+"Yes! It's so far off--and most people don't believe in it."
+
+"No, confound them! I wish they did!"
+
+"Do you? I'm not sure I do."
+
+She was so absorbed that she had not heard an approaching step, and was
+surprised to see Ruston jump up while her last sentence was but half
+said.
+
+"My dear Miss Valentine," he cried, his face lighting up with a smile of
+pleasure, "how pleasant to meet you again!"
+
+There was no mistaking the sincerity of his greeting. Marjory blushed as
+she gave him her hand, and he fixed his eyes on her in undisguised
+approval.
+
+"You're looking splendid," he said. "Is it the air or the bathing or
+what?"
+
+Perhaps it was both in part, but, more than either, it was a change that
+worked outwards from within, and was giving to her face the expression
+without which mere beauty of form or colour is poor in allurement. The
+last traces of what Lord Semingham meant by "insipidity" had been chased
+away. Ruston felt the change though he could not track it.
+
+Marjory, a bad dissembler, greeted him nervously, almost coldly; she was
+afraid to let her gaze rest on him or on Mrs. Dennison for long, lest it
+should hint her secret. Her manner betrayed such uneasiness that Ruston
+noticed it. Mrs. Dennison did not, for something in Ruston's face had
+caught her attention. She had seen many expressions in his eyes as he
+looked at her--of sympathy, amusement, pleasure, even (what had pleased
+her most) puzzle, but never what she saw now. The look now was a man's
+homage to beauty--it differs from every other--a lover hardly seems to
+have it unless his love be beautiful--and she had never yet seen it when
+he looked at her. She turned away towards the sea, grasping the arm of
+her chair with a sudden grip that streaked her fingers red and white.
+Marjory also saw, and a wild hope leapt up in her that her task needed
+not the doing. But a moment later Ruston was back in Omofaga--young Sir
+Walter being his bridge for yet another transit.
+
+"How's Mr. Dennison?" asked Marjory, when he gave her an opportunity.
+
+"Oh, he's all right. You'd have heard, I suppose, if he hadn't been?"
+
+It was true. Marjory recognised the inappropriateness of her question,
+but Mrs. Dennison came to the rescue.
+
+"Marjory wants a personal impression," she said. "You know she and my
+husband are great allies!"
+
+"Well," laughed Ruston, "he was a little cross with me because I would
+come to Dieppe. I should have felt the same in his place; but he's well
+enough, I think."
+
+"I was going down to find Lady Semingham," said Marjory. "Are you coming
+down this morning, Maggie?"
+
+"Maggie" was something new--adopted at Mrs. Dennison's request.
+
+"I think not, dear."
+
+"I am," said Ruston, taking up his walking stick. "I shall be up with
+the Baron this afternoon, Mrs. Dennison. Come along, Miss Valentine.
+We've been having no end of palaver about Omofaga," and as they
+disappeared down the cliff Mrs. Dennison heard his voice talking eagerly
+to Marjory.
+
+She felt her heart beating quickly. She had to conquer a strange
+impulse to rise and hurry after them. She knew that she must be
+jealous--jealous, she said to herself, trying to laugh, that he should
+talk about Omofaga to other people. Nonsense! Why, he was always talking
+of it! There was a stronger feeling in her, less vague, of fuller force.
+It had come on her when he spoke of his going to Africa, but then it was
+hard to understand, for with all her heart she thought she was still
+bent on his going. It spoke more clearly now, stirred by the threat of
+opposition. At first it had been the thing--the scheme--the idea--that
+had caught her; she had taken the man for the thing's sake, because to
+do such a thing proved him a man after her pattern. But now, as she sat
+in the little garden, she dimly traced her change--she loved the scheme
+because it was his. She did not shrink from testing it. "Yes," she
+murmured, "if he gave it up now, I should go on with him to something
+else." Then came another step--why should he not give it up? Why should
+he go into banishment--he who might go near to rule England? Why should
+he empty her life by going? But if he went--and she could not persuade
+herself that she had power to stop his going--he must go from her side,
+it must be she who gave him the stirrup-cup, she towards whom he would
+look across the sea, she for whom he would store up his brief, grim
+tales of victory, in whose eyes he would see the reflection of his
+triumphs. Could she fill such a place in his life? She knew that she did
+not yet, but she believed in herself. "I feel large enough," she said
+with a smile.
+
+Yet there was something that she had not yet touched in him--the thing
+which had put that look in his eyes, a thing that for the moment at
+least Marjory Valentine had touched. Why had she not? She answered, with
+a strong clinging to self-approbation, that it was because she would
+not. She told herself that she had asked nothing from her intercourse
+with him save the play of mind on mind--it was her mind and nothing else
+that her own home failed to satisfy. She recalled the scornful disgust
+with which she had listened to Semingham when he hinted to her that
+there was only one way to rule a man. It seemed less disgusting to her
+now than when he spoke. For, in the light of that look in his eyes,
+there stood revealed a new possibility--always obvious, never hitherto
+thought of--that another would take and wield the lower mighty power
+that she had disdained to grasp, and by the might of the lower wrest
+from her the higher. Was not the lower solidly based in nature, the
+higher a fanciful structure resting in no sound foundation? The moment
+this spectre took form before her--the moment she grasped that the
+question might lie between her and another--that it might be not what
+she would take but what she could keep--her heart cried out, to ears
+that shrank from the tumultuous reckless cry, that less than all was
+nothing, that, if need be, all must be paid for all. And, swift on the
+horror of her discovery, came the inevitable joy in it--joy that will be
+silenced by no reproofs, not altogether abashed by any shame, that no
+pangs can rob utterly of its existence--a thing to smother, to hide, to
+rejoice in.
+
+Yet she would not face unflinchingly what her changing mind must mean.
+She tried to put it aside--to think of something, ah! of anything else,
+of anything that would give her foothold.
+
+"I love my husband," she found herself saying. "I love poor old Harry
+and the children." She repeated it again and again, praying the
+shibboleth to show its saving virtue. It was part of her creed, part of
+her life, to be a good wife and mother--part of her traditions that
+women who were not that were nothing at all, and that there was nothing
+a woman might take in exchange for this one splendid, all-comprehending
+virtue. To that she must stand--it was strange to be driven to argue
+with herself on such a point. She mused restlessly as she sat; she
+listened eagerly for her children's footsteps mounting the hill; she
+prayed an interruption to rescue her from her thoughts. Just now she
+would think no more about it; it was thinking about it that did all the
+harm. Yet while she was alone she could not choose but surrender to the
+thought of it--to the thought of what a price she must pay for her
+traditions and her creed. The payment, she cried, would leave life an
+empty thing. Yet it must be paid--if it must. Was it now come to that?
+Was this the parting of the roads?
+
+"I must, yet I cannot! I must not, yet I must." It was the old clash of
+powers, the old conflict of commands, the old ruthless will of nature
+that makes right too hard and yet fastens anguish upon sin--that makes
+us yearn for and hate the higher while we love and loathe the lower.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+                          THE WORK OF A WEEK.
+
+
+Much went to spoil the stay at Dieppe, but the only overt trouble was
+the feeble health of the Baron von Geltschmidt. The old man had rapidly
+made his way into the liking of his new acquaintances. Semingham found
+his dry, worldly-wise, perhaps world-weary, humour an admirable sauce to
+conversation; Adela Ferrars detected kindness in him; his gallant
+deference pleased Lady Semingham. They were all grieved when the cold
+winds laid hold of him, forced him to keep house often, and drove him to
+furs and a bath-chair, even when the sun shone most brightly. Although
+they liked him, they implored him to fly south. He would not move,
+finding pleasure in them, and held fast by an ever-increasing uneasy
+interest in Willie Ruston. Adela quarrelled with him heartily and
+energetically on this score. To risk health because anyone was
+interesting was absurd; to risk it on Ruston's account most
+preposterous. "I'd be ill to get away from him," she declared. The Baron
+was obstinate, fatalistic as to his health, infatuated in his folly;
+stay he would, while Ruston stayed. Yet what Ruston did, pleased him
+not; for the better part of the man--what led him to respond to kindness
+or affection, and abate something of his hardness where he met no
+resistance--seemed to be conspiring with his old domineering mood to
+lead him beyond all power of warning or recall.
+
+A week had passed since Ruston paid his first visit to Mrs. Dennison in
+the cottage on the cliff. It was a bright morning. The Baron was feeling
+stronger; he had left his chair and walked with Adela to a seat. There
+they sat side by side, in the occasional talk and easy silences of
+established friendship. The Baron smoked his cigar; Adela looked idly at
+the sea; but suddenly the Baron began to speak.
+
+"I had a talk with our friend, Lord Semingham, this morning," said he.
+
+"About anything in particular?"
+
+"I meant it to be, but he doesn't like talk that leads anywhere in
+particular."
+
+"No, he doesn't," said Adela, with a slight smile.
+
+The Baron sat silent for a moment, then he said,
+
+"May I talk to you, Miss Ferrars?" and he looked at her inquiringly.
+
+"Why, of course," she answered. "Is it about yourself, Baron? You're not
+worse, are you?"
+
+He took no notice of her question, but pointed towards the cliff.
+
+"What is happening up there?" he asked.
+
+Adela started. She had not realised that he meant to talk on that
+subject.
+
+He detected her shrinking and hastened to defend himself.
+
+"Or are we to say nothing?" he asked. "Nothing? When we all see! Don't
+you see? Doesn't Miss Valentine see? Is she so sad for nothing? Oh,
+don't shake your head. And the other--this Mrs. Dennison? Am I to go
+on?"
+
+"No," said Adela sharply; and added, a moment later, "I know."
+
+"And what does he mean?"
+
+"He?" cried Adela. "Oh, he's not human."
+
+"Nay, but he's terribly human," said the old Baron.
+
+Adela looked round at him, but then turned away.
+
+"I know what I would say, but I may not say it," pursued the Baron. "To
+you I may not say it. I know him. He will take, if he is offered."
+
+His voice sank to a whisper.
+
+"Then God help her," murmured Adela under her breath, while her cheeks
+flamed red.
+
+"Yes, he will take, and he will go. Ah, he is a man to follow and to
+believe in--to trust your money, your fortune, your plans, even your
+secrets to; but----"
+
+He paused, flinging away his extinct cigar.
+
+"Well?" asked Adela in a low tone, eager in spite of her hatred of the
+topic.
+
+"Never your love," said he; and added, "yet I believe I, who am old
+enough to know better, and too old to learn better, have almost given
+him mine. Well, I am not a woman."
+
+"He can't hurt you," said Adela.
+
+"Yes, he can," said the Baron with a dreary smile.
+
+Adela was not thinking of her companion.
+
+"Why do you talk of it?" she asked impatiently.
+
+"I know I was wrong."
+
+"No, no. I mean, why do you talk of it now?"
+
+"Because," said the Baron, "he will not. Have you seen no change in him
+this week? A week ago, he laughed when I talked to him. He did not mind
+me speaking--it was still a trifle--nonsense--a week ago; if you like,
+an amusement, a pastime!"
+
+"Well, and now?"
+
+"Now he tells me to hold my tongue. And yet I am glad for one thing.
+That girl will not have him for a husband."
+
+"Glad! Why, Baron, don't you see----"
+
+"Yes, I see. Still I am glad."
+
+"I can't go on talking about it; but is there no hope?"
+
+"Where is it? For the time--mind you for the time--he is under that
+other woman's power."
+
+"She's under his, you mean."
+
+"I mean both. She was a friend of yours. Yes. She is not altogether a
+bad woman; but she has had a bad fortune. Ah, there she is, and he with
+her."
+
+As he spoke, Mrs. Dennison and Ruston came by. Mrs. Dennison flung them
+a glance of recognition; it was hardly more, and even for so much she
+seemed to grudge the interruption. Ruston's greeting was more
+ceremonious; he smiled, but his brows contracted a little, and he said
+to his companion,
+
+"Miss Ferrars isn't pleased with me."
+
+"That hurts?" she asked lightly.
+
+"No," he answered, after a short pause, "I don't know that it does."
+
+But the frown dwelt a little longer on his face.
+
+"Sit down here," she said, and they sat down in full view of Adela and
+the Baron, about twenty yards off.
+
+"She's mad," murmured Adela, and the Baron muttered assent.
+
+It was the time of the morning when everybody was out. Presently Lord
+and Lady Semingham strolled by--Lady Semingham did not see Maggie
+Dennison, her husband did, and Adela caught the look in his eye. Then
+down from the hill and on to the grass came Marjory Valentine. She saw
+both couples, and, for a perceptible moment, stood wavering between
+them. She looked pale and weary. Mrs. Dennison indicated her with the
+slightest gesture.
+
+"You were asking for her. There she is," she said to Willie Ruston.
+
+"Well, I think I'll go and ask her."
+
+"What?"
+
+"To come for a walk."
+
+"Now?"
+
+"Why not?" he asked with a surprised smile.
+
+As he spoke, Marjory's hesitation ended; she joined Adela and the Baron.
+
+"How rude you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Dennison angrily, "you asked me to
+come out with you."
+
+"So I did. By Jove, so I did! But you don't walk, do you? And I feel
+rather like a walk now."
+
+"Oh, if you prefer her society----"
+
+"Her prattle," he said, smiling, "amuses me. You and I always discuss
+high matters, you see."
+
+"She doesn't prattle, and you know it."
+
+He looked at her for a moment. He had gone so far as to rise, but he
+resumed his seat.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked tolerantly.
+
+Maggie Dennison's lip quivered. The week that had passed had been a
+stormy one to her. There had been a breaking-down of barriers--barriers
+of honour, conscience, and pride. All she could do to gain or keep her
+mastery she had done. She had all but thrown herself at his feet. She
+hated to think of the things she had said or half-said; and she had seen
+Marjory's eyes look wondering horror and pitying contempt at her. Of her
+husband she would not think. And she had won in return--she knew not
+what. It hung still in the balance. Sometimes he would seem engrossed in
+her; but again he would turn to Marjory or another with a kind of
+relief, as though she wearied him. And of her struggles, of the great
+humiliations she suffered, of all she sacrificed to him, he seemed
+unconscious. Yet, cost what it might, she could not let him go now. The
+screen of Omofaga was dropped; she knew that it was the man whose life
+she was resolute to fill; whether she called it love for him or what
+else mattered little; it seemed rather a mere condition of existence,
+necessary yet not sweet, even revolting; but its alternative was death.
+
+She had closed her eyes for a moment under the stress of her pain. When
+she opened them, he was looking at her. And the look she knew was at
+last in his eyes. She put up her hand to ward it off; it woke her
+horror, but it woke her delight also. She could not choose whether to
+banish it, or to live in it all her life. She tried to speak, but her
+utterance was choked.
+
+"Why, I believe you're--jealous," said Willie Ruston. "But then they
+always say I'm a conceited chap."
+
+He spoke with a laugh, but he looked at her intently. The little scene
+was the climax of a week's gradual betrayal. Often in all the hours they
+had spent together, in all the engrossing talks they had had, something
+of the kind had appeared and disappeared; he had wondered at her
+changefulness, her moods of expansion and of coldness--a rapturous
+greeting of him to be followed by a cold dismissal--an eager sympathy
+alternating with wilful indifference. She had, too, fits of prudence,
+when she would not go with him--and then spasms of recklessness when her
+manner seemed to defy all restraint and mock at the disapproval of her
+friends. On these puzzles--to him, preoccupied as he was and little
+versed in such matters, they had seemed such--the present moment shed
+its light. He recalled, with understanding, things that had passed
+meaninglessly before his eyes, that he seemed to have forgotten
+altogether; the ambiguous things became plain; what had been, though
+plain, yet strange, fell into its ordered place and became natural. The
+new relation between them proclaimed itself the interpretation and the
+work of the bygone week.
+
+Her glove lay in her lap, and he touched it lightly; the gesture
+speaking of their sudden new familiarity.
+
+Her reproach was no less eloquent; she rebuked not the thing, but the
+rashness of it.
+
+"Don't do that. They're looking," she found voice to whisper.
+
+He withdrew his hand, and, taking off his hat, pushed the hair back from
+his forehead. Presently he looked at her with an almost comical air of
+perplexity; she was conscious of the glance, but she would not meet it.
+He pursed his lips to whistle.
+
+"Don't," she whispered sharply. "Don't whistle." A whistle brought her
+husband to her mind.
+
+The checked whistle rudely reflected his mingled feelings. He wished
+that he had been more on his guard--against her and against himself.
+There had been enough to put him on his guard; if he had been put on his
+guard, this thing need not have happened. He called the thing in his
+thoughts "inconvenient." He was marvellously awake to the inconvenience
+of it; it was that which came uppermost in his mind as he sat by Maggie
+Dennison. Yet, in spite of a phrase that sounded so cold and brutal, his
+reflections paid her no little compliment; for he called the revelation
+inconvenient all the more, and most of all, because he found it of
+immense interest, because it satisfied suddenly and to the full a sense
+of interest and expectation that had been upon him, because it seemed to
+make an immense change in his mind and to alter the conditions of his
+life. Had it not done all this, its inconvenience would have been much
+less--to him and save in so far as he grieved for her--nay, it would
+have been, in reality, nothing. It was inconvenient because it twisted
+his purposes, set him at jar with himself, and cut across the orderly
+lines he had laid down--and because, though it did all this, he was not
+grieved nor angry at it.
+
+He rose to his feet. Mrs. Dennison looked up quickly.
+
+"I shall go for my walk now," he said, and he added in answer to her
+silent question, "Oh, yes, alone. I've got a thing or two I want to
+think about."
+
+Her eyes dropped as he spoke. He had smiled, and she, in spite of
+herself, had smiled in answer; but she could not look at him while she
+smiled. He stood there for an instant, smiling still; then he grew
+grave, and turned to walk away. Her sigh witnessed the relaxation of the
+strain. But, after one step, he faced her again, and said, as though the
+idea had just struck him,
+
+"I say, when does Dennison come?"
+
+"In a week," she answered.
+
+For just a moment again, he stood still, thoughtfully looking at her.
+Then he lifted his hat, wheeled round, and walked briskly off towards
+the jetty at the far end of the expanse of grass. Adela Ferrars, twenty
+yards off, marked his going with a sigh of relief.
+
+Mrs. Dennison sat where she was a little while longer. Her agitation was
+quickly passing, and there followed on it a feeling of calm. She seemed
+to have resigned charge of herself, to have given her conduct into
+another's keeping. She did not know what he would do; he had uttered no
+word of pleasure or pain, praise or blame; and that question at the
+last--about her husband--was ambiguous. Did he ask it, fearing Harry's
+arrival, or did he think the arrival of her husband would end an awkward
+position and set him free? Really, she did not know. She had done what
+she could--and what she could not help. He must do what he liked--only,
+knowing him, she did not think that she had set an end to their
+acquaintance. And that for the moment was enough.
+
+"A woman, Bessie," she heard a voice behind her saying, "may be anything
+from a cosmic force to a clothes-peg."
+
+"I don't know what a cosmic force is," said Lady Semingham.
+
+"A cosmic force? Why----"
+
+"But I don't want to know, Alfred. Why, Maggie, that's a new shade of
+brown on your shoes. Where do you get them?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison gave her bootmaker's address, and Lady Semingham told her
+husband to remember it. She never remembered that he always forgot such
+things.
+
+The arrival of the Seminghams seemed to break the spell which had held
+Mrs. Dennison apart from the group over against her. Adela strolled
+across, followed by Marjory, and the Baron on Marjory's arm. The whole
+party gathered in a cluster; but Marjory hung loosely on the outskirts
+of the circle, and seemed scarcely to belong to it.
+
+The Baron seated himself in the place Willie Ruston had left empty. The
+rest stood talking for a minute or two, then Semingham put his hand in
+his pocket and drew out a folded sheet of tracing-paper.
+
+"We're all Omofagites here, aren't we?" he said; "even you, Baron, now.
+Here's a plan Carlin has just sent me. It shows our territory."
+
+Everybody crowded round to look as he unfolded it. Mrs. Dennison was
+first in undisguised eagerness; and Marjory came closer, slipping her
+arm through Adela Ferrars'.
+
+"What does the blue mean?" asked Adela.
+
+"Native settlements."
+
+"Oh! And all that brown?--it's mostly brown."
+
+"Brown," answered Semingham, with a slight smile, "means unexplored
+country."
+
+"I should have made it all brown," said Adela, and the Baron gave an
+appreciative chuckle.
+
+"And what are these little red crosses?" asked Mrs. Dennison, laying the
+tip of her finger on one.
+
+"Eh? What, those? Oh, let me see. Here, just hold it while I look at
+Carlin's letter. He explains it all," and Lord Semingham began to fumble
+in his breast-pocket.
+
+"Dear me," said Bessie Semingham, in a tone of delicate pleasure, "they
+look like tombstones."
+
+"Hush, hush, my dear lady," cried the old Baron; "what a bad omen!"
+
+"Tombstones," echoed Maggie Dennison thoughtfully. "So they do--just
+like tombstones."
+
+A pause fell on the group. Adela broke it.
+
+"Well, Director, have you found your directions?" she asked briskly.
+
+"It was a momentary lapse of memory," said Semingham with dignity.
+"Those--er--little----"
+
+"No, not tombstones," interrupted the Baron earnestly.
+
+"Little--er--signposts are, of course, the forts belonging to the
+Company. What else should they be?"
+
+"Oh, _forts_," murmured everybody.
+
+"They are," continued Lord Semingham apologetically, "in the nature of a
+prophecy at present, as I understand."
+
+"A very bad prophecy, according to Bessie," said Mrs. Dennison.
+
+"I hope," said the Baron, shaking his head, "that the official name is
+more correct than Lady Semingham's."
+
+"So do I," said Marjory; and added, before she could think not to add,
+and with unlucky haste, "my brother's going out, you know."
+
+Mrs. Dennison looked at her. Then she crossed over to her, saying to
+Adela,
+
+"You never let me have a word with my own guest, except at breakfast and
+bedtime. Come and walk up and down with me, Marjory."
+
+Marjory obeyed; the group began to scatter.
+
+"But didn't they look like tombstones, Baron?" said Bessie Semingham
+again, as she sat down and made room for the old man beside her. When
+she had an idea she liked it very much. He began to be voluble in his
+reproof of her gloomy fancies; but she merely laughed in glee at her
+ingenuity.
+
+Adela, by a gesture, brought Semingham to her side and walked a few
+paces off with him.
+
+"Will you go with me to the post-office?" she said abruptly.
+
+"By all means," he answered, feeling for his glass.
+
+"Oh, you needn't get your glass to spy at me with."
+
+"Dear, dear, you use one yourself!"
+
+"I'll tell you myself why I'm going. You're going to send a telegram."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"Yes; to invite someone to stay with you. Lord Semingham, when you find
+a woman relies on a man--on one man only--in trouble, what do you
+think?"
+
+She asked the question in a level voice, looking straight before her.
+
+"That she's fond of him."
+
+"And does he--the man--think the same?"
+
+"Generally. I think most men would. They're seldom backward to think it,
+you know."
+
+"Then," she said steadily, "you must think, and he must think, what you
+like. I can't help it. I want you to wire and ask a man to come and stay
+with you."
+
+He turned to her in surprise.
+
+"Tom Loring," she said, and the moment the name left her lips Semingham
+hastily turned his glance away.
+
+"Awkward--with the other fellow here," he ventured to suggest.
+
+"Mr. Ruston doesn't choose your guests."
+
+"But Mrs.----"
+
+"Oh, fancy talking of awkwardness now! He used to influence her once,
+you know. Perhaps he might still. Do let us try," and her voice trembled
+in earnestness.
+
+"We'll try. Will he come? He's very angry with her."
+
+And Adela answered, still looking straight in front of her,
+
+"I'm going to send him a wire, too."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said Lord Semingham.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                           THE LAST BARRIERS.
+
+
+Willie Ruston rested his elbows on the jetty-wall and gazed across the
+harbour entrance. He had come there to think; and deliberate thinking
+was a rare thing for him to set his head to. His brain dealt
+generally--even with great matters, as all brains deal with small--in
+rapid half-unconscious beats; the process coalescing so closely with the
+decision as to be merged before it could be recognised. But about this
+matter he meant to think; and the first result of his determination was
+(as it often is in such a case) that nothing at all relevant would stay
+by him. There was a man fishing near, and he watched the float; he
+looked long at the big hotel at Puys, which faced him a mile away, and
+idly wondered whether it were full; he followed the egress of a fishing
+boat with strict attention. Then, in impatience, he turned round and sat
+down on the stone bench and let his eyes see nothing but the flags of
+the pavement. Even then he hardly thought; but after a time he became
+vaguely occupied with Maggie Dennison, his mind playing to and fro over
+her voice, her tricks of manner, her very gait, and at last settling
+more or less resolutely on the strange revelation of herself which she
+had gradually made and had consummated that day. It changed his feelings
+towards her; but it did not change them to contempt. He had his ideas,
+but he did not make ideal figures out of humanity; and humanity could go
+very far wrong and sink very deep in its lower possibilities without
+shocking him. Nor did he understand her, nor realise how great a
+struggle had brought what he saw to birth. It seemed to him a thing not
+unnatural, even in her, who was in much unlike most other women. There
+are dominions that are not to be resisted, and we do not think people
+weak simply because they are under our own influence. His surprise was
+reserved for the counter-influence which he felt, and strove not to
+acknowledge; his contempt for the disturbance into which he himself was
+thrown. At that he was half-displeased, puzzled, and alarmed; yet that,
+too, had its delight.
+
+"What rot it is!" he muttered, in the rude dialect of self-communion,
+which sums up a bewildering conflict in a word of slang.
+
+He was afraid of himself--and his exclamation betrayed the fear. Men of
+strong will are not all will; the strong will has other strong things to
+fight, and the strong head has mighty rebels to hold down. That he felt;
+but his fear of himself had its limits. He was not the man--as he saw
+very well at this moment, and recognised with an odd mixture of pride
+and humiliation--to give up his life to a passion. Had that been the
+issue clearly and definitely set before him he would not have sat
+doubtful on the jetty. He understood what of nobility lay in such a
+temperament, and his humiliation was because it made no part of him; but
+the pride overmastered, and at last he was glad to say to himself that
+there was no danger of his losing all for love. Indeed, was he in love?
+In love in the grand sense people talked and wrote about so much? Well,
+there were other senses, and there were many degrees. The question he
+weighed, or rather the struggle which he was undergoing, was between
+resisting or yielding before a temptation to take into his life
+something which should not absorb it, but yet in a measure alter it,
+which allured him all the more enticingly because, judging as he best
+could, he could see no price which must be paid for it--well, except
+one. And, as the one came into his mind, it made him pause, and he mused
+on it, looking at it in all lights. Sometimes he put the price as an act
+of wrong which would stain him--for, apart from other, maybe greater,
+maybe more fanciful obstacles, Harry Dennison held him for a
+friend--sometimes as an act of weakness which would leave him
+vulnerable. And, after these attempted reasonings, he would fall again
+to thinking of Maggie Dennison, her voice, her manner, and the
+revelation of herself; and in these picturings the reasoning died away.
+
+There are a few deliberate sinners, a few by whom "Evil, be thou my
+Good" is calmly uttered as a dedication and a sacrament, but most men do
+not make up their minds to be sinners or determine in cool resolve to do
+acts of the sort that lurked behind Willie Ruston's picturings. They
+only fail to make up their minds not to do them. Ruston, in a fury of
+impatience, swept all his musings from him--it led to nothing. It left
+him where he was. He was vexing himself needlessly; he told himself that
+he could not decide what he ought to do. In truth, he did not choose to
+decide what it was that he chose to do. And with the thoughts that he
+drove away went the depression they had carried with them. He was
+confident again in himself, his destiny, his career; and in its fancied
+greatness, the turmoil he had suffered sank to its small proportions. He
+returned to his old standpoint, and to the old medley of pride and shame
+it gave him; he might be of supreme importance to Maggie Dennison, but
+she was only of some importance to him. He could live without her. But,
+at present, he regarded her loss as a thing not necessary to undergo.
+
+It was late in the day that he met young Sir Walter, who ran to him,
+open-mouthed with news. Walter was afraid that the news would be
+unpalatable, and could not understand such want of tact in Semingham. To
+ask Tom Loring while Ruston was there argued a bluntness of perception
+strange to young Sir Walter. But, be the news good or bad, he had only
+to report; and report it he did straightway to his chief. Willie Ruston
+smiled, and said that, if Loring did not mind meeting him, he did not
+mind meeting Loring; indeed, he would welcome the opportunity of proving
+to that unbeliever that there was water somewhere within a hundred miles
+of Fort Imperial (which Tom in one of those articles had sturdily
+denied). Then he flirted away a stone with his stick and asked if anyone
+had yet told Mrs. Dennison. And, Sir Walter thinking not, he said,
+
+"Oh, well, I'm going there. I'll tell her."
+
+"She'll know why he's coming," said Walter, nodding his head wisely.
+
+"Will she? Do you know?" asked Ruston with a smile--young Sir Walter's
+wisdom was always sure of that tribute from him.
+
+"If you'd seen Adela Ferrars, you'd know too. She tries to make believe
+it's nothing, but she's--oh, she's----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She's all of a flutter," laughed Walter.
+
+"You've got to the bottom of that," said Ruston in a tone of conviction.
+
+"Still, I think it's inconsiderate of Loring; he must know that Mrs.
+Dennison will find it rather awkward. But, of course, if a fellow's in
+love, he won't think of that."
+
+"I suppose not," said Willie Ruston, smiling again at this fine scorn.
+
+Then, with a sudden impulse, struck perhaps with an envy of what he
+laughed at, he put his arm through his young friend's, and exclaimed,
+with a friendly confidential pressure of the hand,
+
+"I say, Val, I wish the devil we were in Omofaga, don't you?"
+
+"Rather!" came full and rich from his companion's lips.
+
+"With a few thousand miles between us and everything--and everybody!"
+
+Young Sir Walter's eyes sparkled.
+
+"Off in three months now," he reminded his leader exultingly.
+
+It could not be. The Fates will not help in such a fashion, it is not
+their business to cut the noose a man ties round his neck--happy is he
+if they do not draw it tight. With a sigh, Willie Ruston dropped his
+companion's arm, and left him with no other farewell than a careless
+nod. Of Tom Loring's coming he thought little. It might be that Sir
+Walter had seen most of its meaning, and that Semingham was acting as a
+benevolent match-maker--a character strange for him, and amusing to see
+played--but, no doubt, there was a little more. Probably Tom had some
+idea of turning him from his path, of combating his influence, of
+disputing his power. Well, Tom had tried that once, and had failed; he
+would fail again. Maggie Dennison had not hesitated to resent such
+interference; she had at once (Ruston expressed it to himself) put Tom
+in his right place. Tom would be no more to her at Dieppe than in
+London--nay, he would be less, for any power unbroken friendship and
+habit might have had then would be gone by now. Thus, though he saw the
+other meaning, he made light of it, and it was as a bit of gossip
+concerning Adela Ferrars, not as tidings which might affect herself,
+that he told Mrs. Dennison of Tom's impending arrival.
+
+On her the announcement had a very different effect. For her the whole
+significance lay in what Ruston ignored, and none in what had caught his
+fancy. He was amazed to see the rush of colour to her cheeks.
+
+"Tom Loring coming here!" she cried in something like horror.
+
+Again, and with a laugh, Ruston pointed out the motive of his coming, as
+young Sir Walter had interpreted it; but he added, as though in
+concession, and with another laugh,
+
+"Perhaps he wants to keep his eye on me, too. He doesn't trust me
+further than he can see me, you know."
+
+Without looking at him or seeming to listen to his words, she asked, in
+low, indignant tones,
+
+"How dare he come?"
+
+Willie Ruston opened his eyes. He did not understand so much emotion
+spent on such a trifle. Say it was bad taste in Loring to come, or an
+impertinence! Well, it was not a tragedy at all events. He was almost
+angry with her for giving importance to it; and the importance she gave
+set him wondering. But before he could translate his feeling into words,
+she turned to him, leaning across the table that stood between them, and
+clasping her hands.
+
+"I can't bear to have him here now," she murmured.
+
+"What harm will he do? You needn't see anything of him," rejoined
+Ruston, more astonished at each new proof of disquietude in her.
+
+But Tom Loring was not to be so lightly dismissed from her mind; and she
+did not seem to heed when Ruston added, with a laugh,
+
+"You got rid of him once, didn't you? I should think you could again."
+
+"Ah, then! That was different."
+
+He looked at her curiously. She was agitated, but there seemed to be
+more than agitation. As he read it, it was fear; and discerning it, he
+spoke in growing surprise and rising irritation.
+
+"You look as if you were afraid of him."
+
+"Afraid of him?" she broke out. "Yes, I am afraid of him."
+
+"Of Loring?" he exclaimed in sheer wonder. "Why, in heaven's name?
+Loring's not----"
+
+He was going to say "your husband," but stopped himself.
+
+"I can't face him," she whispered. "Oh, you know! Why do you torment me?
+Or don't you know? Oh, how strange you are!"
+
+And now there was fear in her eyes when she looked at Ruston.
+
+He sat still a moment, and then in slow tones he said,
+
+"I don't see what concern your affairs are of Loring's, or mine either,
+by God!"
+
+At the last word his voice rose a little, and his lips shut tight as it
+left them.
+
+"Oh, it's easy for you," she said, half in anger at him, half in scorn
+of herself. "You don't know what he is--what he was--to me."
+
+"What was Loring to you?" he asked in sharp, imperious tones--tones that
+made her hurriedly cry,
+
+"No, no; not that, not that. How could you think that of me?"
+
+"What then?" came curt and crisp from him, her reproach falling
+unheeded.
+
+"Oh, I wish--I wish you could understand just a little! Do you think
+it's all nothing to me? Do you think I don't mind?"
+
+"I don't know what it is to you," he said doggedly. "I know it's nothing
+to Loring."
+
+"I don't believe," she went on, "that he's coming because of Adela at
+all."
+
+And as she spoke, she met his eyes for a moment, and then shrank from
+them.
+
+"Come, shall we speak plainly?" he asked with evident impatience.
+
+"Ah, you will, I know," she wailed, with a smile and a despairing
+gesture. She loved and dreaded him for it. "Not too plainly, Willie!"
+
+His mouth relaxed.
+
+"Why do you worry about the fellow?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I'll speak plainly, too," she cried. "He's not a fool; and he's
+an honest man. That's why I don't want him here;" and enduring only till
+she had flung out the truth, she buried her face in her hands.
+
+"I've had enough of him," said Willie Ruston, frowning. "He's always got
+in my way; first about the Company--and now----"
+
+He broke off, pushing his chair back, and rising to his feet. He walked
+to the window of the little sitting-room where they were; the sun was
+setting over the sea, and early dusk gathering. It was still, save for
+the sound of the waves.
+
+"Is there nobody at home?" he asked, with his back towards her.
+
+"No. Marjory and the children have gone down to the _Rome_ to have tea
+with Bessie Semingham."
+
+He waited a moment longer, looking out, then he came back and stood
+facing her. She was leaning her head on her hand. At last she spoke in a
+low voice.
+
+"He's Harry's friend," she said, "and he used to be mine; and he trusted
+me."
+
+Willie Ruston threw his head back with a little sharp jerk.
+
+"Oh, well, I didn't come to talk about Tom Loring," he said. "If you
+value his opinion so very much, why, you must keep it; that's all," and
+he moved towards where his hat was lying. "But I'm afraid I can't share
+my friends with him."
+
+"Oh, I know you won't share anything with anybody," said Maggie
+Dennison, her voice trembling between a sob and a laugh.
+
+He turned instantly. His face lighted up, and the sun, casting its last
+rays on her eyes, made them answer with borrowed brilliance.
+
+"I won't share you with Loring, anyhow," he cried, walking close up to
+her, and resting his hand on the table.
+
+She laid hers gently on it.
+
+"Don't go to Omofaga, Willie," she said.
+
+For a moment he sheerly stared at her; then he burst into a merry
+unrestrained peal of laughter. Next he lifted her hand and kissed it.
+
+"You are the most wonderful woman in the world," said he, his mouth
+quivering with amusement.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms wide for a moment.
+
+"Well, what's the matter? What have I done wrong now?"
+
+She rose and walked up and down the room.
+
+"I wish I'd never seen you," she said from the far end of it.
+
+"I wish I'd never seen--Tom Loring."
+
+"Ah, that's the only thing!" she cried. "I may live or I may die, or I
+may--do anything you like; but I mustn't have another friend! I mustn't
+give a thought to what anybody else thinks of me!"
+
+"You mustn't balance me against Tom Loring," he answered between his
+teeth, all signs of his merriment gone now.
+
+For a moment--not long, but seeming very long--there was silence in the
+room; and, while the brief stillness reigned, she fought a last battle
+against him, calling loyalty and friendship to her aid, praying their
+alliance against the overbearing demand he made on her--against his
+roughness, his blindness to all she suffered for him. But the strife was
+short. Lifting her hands above her head, and bringing them down through
+the air as with a blow, she cried,
+
+"My God, I balance nothing against you!"
+
+Her reward--her only reward--seemed on the instant to be hers. Willie
+Ruston was transformed; his sullenness was gone; his eyes were alight
+with triumph; the smile she loved was on his lips, and he had forgotten
+those troubled, useless, mazy musings on the jetty. He took a quick step
+towards her, holding out both his hands. She clasped them.
+
+"Nothing?" he asked in a low tone. "Nothing, Maggie?"
+
+She bowed her head for answer; it was the attitude of surrender, of
+helplessness, and of trust, and it appealed to the softer feeling in him
+which her resistance had smothered. He was strongly moved, and his face
+was pale as he drew her to him and kissed her lips; but all he said was,
+
+"Then the deuce take Tom Loring!"
+
+It seemed to her enough. The light devil-may-care words surely covered a
+pledge from him to her--something in return from him to her. At last,
+surely he was hers, and her wishes his law. It was her moment; she would
+ask of him now the uttermost wish of her heart--the wish that had
+displaced all else--the passionate wish not to lose him--not, as it
+were, to be emptied of him.
+
+"And Omofaga?" she whispered.
+
+His eyes looked past her, out into the dim twilight, into the broad
+world--the world that she seemed to ask him to give for her, as she was
+giving her world for him. He laughed again, but not as he had laughed
+before. There was a note of wonder in his laugh now--of wonder that the
+prayer seemed now not so utterly absurd--that he could imagine himself
+doing even that--spoiling his heart of its darling ambition--for her.
+Yet, even in that moment of her strongest sway, as her arms were about
+him, he was swearing to himself that he would not.
+
+She did not press for an answer. A glance into his distant eyes gave her
+one, perhaps, for she sighed as though in pain. Hearing her, he bent his
+look on her again. Though he might deny that last boon, he had given her
+much. So she read; and, drawing herself to her full height, she released
+one of her hands from his, and held it out to him. For a moment he
+hesitated; then a slow smile breaking on his face, he bent and kissed
+it, and she whispered over his bent head, half in triumph, half in
+apology for bidding him bend his head even in love,
+
+"I like pretending to be queen--even with you, Willie."
+
+Her flattery, so sweet to him, because it was wrung from her all against
+her will, and was for him alone of men, thrilled through him and he was
+drawing her to him again when the merry chatter of a child struck on
+their ears from the garden.
+
+She shrank back.
+
+"Hark!" she murmured. "They're coming."
+
+"Yes," he said, with a frown. "I shall come to-morrow, Maggie."
+
+"To-morrow? Every day?" said she.
+
+"Well, then, every day. But to-morrow all day."
+
+"Ah, yes, all day to-morrow."
+
+"But I must go now."
+
+"No, no, don't go," she said quickly. "Sit down; see, sit there. Don't
+look as if you'd thought of going."
+
+He did as she bade him, trying to assume an indifferent air.
+
+She, too, sat down, her eyes fixed on the door. A strange look of pain
+and shame spread over her face. She must bend to deceive her children,
+to dread detection, to play little tricks and weave little devices
+against the eyes of those for whom she had been an earthly
+providence--the highest, most powerful, and best they knew. Willie
+Ruston did not follow the thought that stamped its mark on her face
+then, nor understand why, with a sudden gasp, she dashed her hand across
+her eyes and turned to him with trembling lips, crying, in low tones,
+
+"Ah, but I have you, Willie!"
+
+Before he could answer her appeal, the voices were in the passage. Her
+face grew calm, save for a slight frown on her brow. She shaped her lips
+into a smile to meet the incomers. She shot a rapid glance of caution
+and warning at him. The door was flung open, and the three children
+rushed in, Madge at their head. Madge, seeing Willie Ruston, stopped
+short, and her laughter died away. She turned and said,
+
+"Marjory, here's Mr. Ruston."
+
+None could mistake her tone for one of welcome.
+
+Marjory Valentine came forward. She looked at neither of them, but sat
+down near the table.
+
+"Well, Madge," said Mrs. Dennison, "there's good news for you, isn't
+there? Your friend's coming."
+
+Madge, finding (as she thought) sympathy, came to her mother's knee.
+
+"Yes, I'm glad," she said. "Are you glad, mother?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," answered Mrs. Dennison, kissing her; but she could
+not help one glance at Willie Ruston. Bitterly she repented it, for she
+found Marjory Valentine following it with her open sorrowful eyes. She
+rose abruptly, and Ruston rose also, and with brief good-nights--Madge
+being kissed only on strong persuasion--took his leave. The children
+flocked away to take off their hats, and Marjory was left alone with her
+hostess.
+
+The girl looked pale, weary, and sad. Mrs. Dennison was stirred to an
+impulse of compassion. Walking up to where she sat, she bent down as
+though to kiss her. Marjory looked up. There was a question--it seemed
+to be a question--in her face. Mrs. Dennison flushed red from neck to
+forehead, and then grew paler than the pallor she had pitied. The girl's
+unspoken question seemed to echo hauntingly from every corner of the
+little room, "Are your lips--clean?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                         A SOUND IN THE NIGHT.
+
+
+Slow in forming, swift in acting; slow in the making, swift in the
+working; slow to the summit, swift down the other slope; it is the way
+of nature, and the way of the human mind. What seemed yesterday unborn
+and impossible, is to-day incipient and a great way off, to-morrow
+complete, present, and accomplished. After long labour a thing springs
+forth full grown; to deny it, or refuse it, or fight against it, seems
+now as vain as a few hours ago it was to hope for it, or to fear, or to
+imagine, or conceive it. In like manner, the slow, crawling, upward
+journey can be followed by every eye; its turns, its twists, its checks,
+its zigzags may be recorded on a chart. Then is the brief pause--on the
+summit--and the tottering incline towards the declivity. But how
+describe what comes after? The dazzling rush that beats the eye, that in
+its fury of advance, its paroxysm of speed, is void of halts or turns,
+and, darting from point to point, covers and blurs the landscape till
+there seems nothing but the moving thing; and that again, while the
+watcher still tries vainly to catch its whirl, has sprung, and reached,
+and ceased; and, save that there it was and here it is, he would not
+know that its fierce stir had been.
+
+Such a race runs passion to its goal, when the reins hang loose. Hours
+may do what years have not done, and minutes sum more changes than long
+days could stretch to hold. The world narrows till there would seem to
+be nothing else existent in it--nothing of all that once held out the
+promise (sure as it then claimed to be) of escape, of help, or warning.
+The very promise is forgotten, the craving for its fulfilment dies away.
+"Let me alone," is the only cry; and the appeal makes its own answer,
+the entreaty its own concession.
+
+Some thirty hours had passed since the last recorded scene, and Marjory
+Valentine was still under Mrs. Dennison's roof. It had been hard to
+stay, but the girl would not give up her self-imposed hopeless task.
+Helpless she had proved, and hopeless she had become. The day had passed
+with hardly a word spoken between her and her hostess. Mrs. Dennison had
+been out the greater part of the time, and, when out, she had been with
+Ruston. She had come in to dinner at half-past seven, and at nine had
+gone to her room, pleading fatigue and a headache. Marjory had sat up a
+little longer, with an unopened book on her knee. Then she also went to
+bed, and tried vainly to sleep. She had left her bed now, and, wrapped
+in a dressing-gown, sat in a low arm-chair near the window. It was a
+dark and still night; a thick fog hung over the little garden; nothing
+was to be heard save the gentle roll of a quiet sea, and the occasional
+blast of a steam whistle. Marjory's watch had stopped, but she guessed
+it to be somewhere in the small hours of the morning--one o'clock,
+perhaps, or nearing two. There was an infinite weary time, then, before
+the sun would shine again, and the oppression of the misty darkness be
+lifted off. She hated the night--this night--it savoured not of rest to
+her, but of death; for she was wrought to a nervous strain, and felt her
+imaginings taking half-bodily shapes about her, so that she was fearful
+of looking to the right hand or the left. Sleep was impossible; to try
+to sleep like a surrender to the mysterious enemies round her. Time
+seemed to stand still; she counted sixty once, to mark a minute's
+flight, and the counting took an eternity. The house was utterly
+noiseless, and she shivered at the silence. She would have given half
+her life, she felt, for a ray of the sun; but half a life stretched
+between her and the first break of morning. Sitting there, she heaped
+terrors round her; the superstitions that hide their heads before
+daytime mockery reared them now in victory and made a prey of her. The
+struggle she had in her weakness entered on seemed less now with human
+frailty than against the strong and evil purpose of some devil; in face
+of which she was naught. How should she be? She had not, she told
+herself in morbid upbraiding, even a pure motive in the fight; her
+hatred of the sin had been less keen had she not once desired the love
+of him that caused it, and when she arrested Maggie Dennison's kiss, she
+shamed a rival in rebuking an unfaithful wife. Then she cried
+rebelliously against her anguish. Why had this come on her, darkening
+bright youth? Why was she compassed about with trouble? And
+why--why--why did not the morning come?
+
+The mist was thick and grey against the window. A fog-horn roared, and
+the sea, regardless, repeated its even beat; behind the feeble
+interruptions there sounded infinite silence. She hid her face in her
+hands. Then she leapt up and flung the window open wide. The damp
+fog-folds settled on her face, but she heard the sea more plainly, and
+there were sounds in the air about her. It was not so terribly quiet.
+She peered eagerly through the mist, but saw nothing save vague
+tremulous shapes, vacant of identity. Still the world, the actual,
+earthly, healthy world, was there--a refuge from imagination.
+
+She stood looking; and, as she looked, one shape seemed to grow into a
+nearer likeness of something definite. It was motionless; it differed
+from the rest only in being darker and of rather sharper outline. It
+must be a tree, she thought, but remembered no tree there; the garden
+held only low-growing shrubs. A post? But the gate lay to the right, and
+this stood on her left hand, hard by the door of the house. What then?
+The terror came on her again, but she stood and looked, longing to find
+some explanation for it--some meaning on which her mind could rest, and,
+reassured, drive away its terrifying fancies. For the shape was large in
+the mist, and she could not tell what it might mean. Was it human? On
+her superstitious mood the thought flashed bright with sudden relief,
+and she cried beseechingly,
+
+"Who is it? Who is there?"
+
+A human voice in answer would have been heaven to her, but no answer
+came. With a stifled cry, she shut the window down, and stood a moment,
+listening--eager, yet fearful, to hear. Hark! Yes, there was a sound!
+What was it? It was a footstep on the gravel--a slow, uncertain,
+wavering, intermittent step, as though of someone groping with
+hesitating feet and doubtful resolution through the mist. She must know
+what it was--who it was--what it meant. She started up again, laying
+both hands on the window-sash. But then terror conquered curiosity;
+gasping as if breath failed her and something still pursued, she ran
+across the room and flung open the door. She must find someone--Maggie
+or someone.
+
+On the threshold she paused in amazement. The door of Mrs. Dennison's
+room was open, and Maggie stood in the doorway, holding a candle, behind
+which her face gleamed pale and her eyes shone. She was muffled in a
+long white wrapper, and her dark hair fell over her shoulders. The
+candle shook in her hand, but, on sight of Marjory, her lips smiled
+beneath her deep shining eyes. Marjory ran to her crying,
+
+"Is it you, Maggie?"
+
+"Who should it be?" asked Mrs. Dennison, still smiling, so well as her
+fast-beating breath allowed her. "Why aren't you in bed?"
+
+The girl grasped her hand, and pushed her back into the room.
+
+"Maggie, I----Hark! there it is again! There's something outside--there,
+in the garden! If you open the window----"
+
+As she spoke, Mrs. Dennison darted quick on silent naked feet to the
+window, and stood by it; but she seemed rather to intercept approach to
+it than to think of opening it. Indeed there was no need. The slow
+uncertain step sounded again; there were five or six seeming footfalls,
+and the women stood motionless, listening to them. Then there was
+stillness outside, matching the hush within; till Maggie Dennison,
+tearing the wrapper loose from her throat, said in low tones,
+
+"I hear nothing outside;" and she put the candle on the table by her.
+"You can see nothing for the fog," she added as she gazed through the
+glass. Her tone was strangely full of relief.
+
+"I opened the window," whispered Marjory, "and I saw--I thought I
+saw--something. And then I heard--that. You heard it, Maggie?"
+
+The girl was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes fixed on Mrs.
+Dennison, who leant against the window-sash with a strained, alert,
+watchful look on her face.
+
+"I heard you open the window and call out something," she said. "That's
+all I heard."
+
+"But just now--just now as we stood here?"
+
+Mrs. Dennison did not answer for a moment; her ear was almost against
+the panes, and her face was like a runner's as he waits for the
+starter's word. There was nothing but the gentle beat of the sea. Mrs.
+Dennison pushed her hair back over her shoulders and sighed; her tense
+frame relaxed, and the fixed smile on her lips seemed, in broadening, to
+lose something of its rigidity.
+
+"No, I didn't, you silly child," she said. "You're full of fancies,
+Marjory."
+
+The curl of her lip and the shrug of her shoulders won no attention.
+
+"It went across the garden from the door--across towards the gate," said
+Marjory, "towards the path down. I heard it. It came from near the door.
+I heard it."
+
+Mrs. Dennison shook her head. The girl sprang forward and again caught
+her by the arm.
+
+"You heard too?" she cried. "I know you heard!" and a challenge rang in
+her voice.
+
+"I didn't hear," she repeated impatiently, "but I daresay you did.
+Perhaps it was a man--a thief, or somebody lost in the fog. Would you
+like me to wake the footman? I can tell him to take a lantern and look
+if anyone's in the garden."
+
+Marjory took no notice of the offer.
+
+"But if it was anyone, he'll have gone now," continued Maggie Dennison,
+"your opening the window will have frightened him. You made such a
+noise--you woke me up."
+
+"Were you asleep?" came in quick question.
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Dennison steadily, "I was asleep. Couldn't you
+sleep?"
+
+"Sleep? No, I couldn't sleep. I was afraid."
+
+"You're as bad as the children," said Mrs. Dennison, laughing gently.
+"Come, go back to bed. Shall I come and sit by you till it's light?"
+
+The girl seemed not to hear; she drew nearer, searching Mrs. Dennison's
+face with suspicious eyes. Maggie could not face her; she dropped her
+glance to the floor and laughed nervously and fretfully. Suddenly
+Marjory threw herself on the floor at her friend's feet.
+
+"Maggie, come away from here," she beseeched. "Do come; do come away
+directly. Maggie, dear, I love you so, and--and I was unkind last night.
+Do come, darling! We'll go back together--back home," and she burst into
+sobbing.
+
+Maggie Dennison stood passive and motionless, her hands by her side. Her
+lips quivered and she looked down at the girl kneeling at her feet.
+
+"Won't you come?" moaned Marjory. "Oh, Maggie, there's still time!"
+
+Mrs. Dennison knew what she meant. A strange smile came over her face.
+Yes, there was time; in a sense there was time, for the uncertain
+footfalls had not reached their goal--arrested by that cry from the
+window, they had stopped--wavered--retreated--and were gone. Because a
+girl had not slept, there was time. Yet what difference did it make that
+there was still time--to-night? Since to-morrow was coming and must
+come.
+
+"Time!" she echoed in a whisper.
+
+"For God's sake, come, Maggie! Come to-morrow--you and the children.
+Come back with them to England! Maggie, I can't stay here!"
+
+Mrs. Dennison put out her hands and took Marjory's.
+
+"Get up," she said, almost roughly, and dragged the girl to her feet.
+"You can go, Marjory; I--I suppose you're not happy here. You can go."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I shan't go," said Maggie Dennison.
+
+Marjory, standing now, shrank back from her.
+
+"You won't go?" she whispered. "Why, what are you staying for?"
+
+"You forget," said Mrs. Dennison coldly. "I'm waiting for my husband."
+
+"Oh!" moaned Marjory, a world of misery and contempt in her voice.
+
+At the tone Mrs. Dennison's face grew rigid, and, if it could be, paler
+than before; she had been called "liar" to her face, and truly. It was
+lost to-night her madness mourned--hoped for to-morrow that held her in
+her place.
+
+The fog was lifting outside; the darkness grew less dense; a distant,
+dim, cold light began to reveal the day.
+
+"See, it's morning," said Mrs. Dennison. "You needn't be afraid any
+longer. Won't you go back to your own room, Marjory?"
+
+Marjory nodded. She wore a helpless bewildered look, and she did not
+speak. She started to cross the room, when Mrs. Dennison asked her,
+
+"Do you mean to go this morning? I suppose the Seminghams will take you,
+if you like. We can make some excuse if you like."
+
+Marjory stood still, then she sank on a chair near her, and began to sob
+quietly. Mrs. Dennison slowly walked to her, and stood by her. Then,
+gently and timidly, she laid her hand on the girl's head.
+
+"Don't cry," she said. "Why should you cry?"
+
+Marjory clutched her hand, crying,
+
+"Maggie, Maggie, don't, don't!"
+
+Mrs. Dennison's eyes filled with tears. She let her hand lie passive
+till the girl released it, and, looking up, said,
+
+"I'm not going, Maggie. I shall stay. Don't send me away! Let me stay
+till Mr. Dennison comes."
+
+"What's the use? You're unhappy here."
+
+"Can't I help you?" asked the girl, so low that it seemed as though she
+were afraid to hear her own voice.
+
+Mrs. Dennison's self-control suddenly gave way.
+
+"Help!" she cried recklessly. "No, you can't help. Nobody can help. It's
+too late for anyone to help now."
+
+The girl raised her head with a start.
+
+"Too late! Maggie, you mean----?"
+
+"No, no, no," cried Mrs. Dennison, and then her eager cry died swiftly
+away.
+
+Why protest in horror? By no grace of hers was it that it was not too
+late. The girl's eyes were on her, and she stammered,
+
+"I mean nothing--nothing. Yes, you must go. I hate--no, no! Marjory,
+don't push me away! Let me touch you! There's no reason I shouldn't
+touch you. I mean, I love you, but--I can't have you here."
+
+"Why not?" came from the girl in slow, strong tones.
+
+A moment later, she sprang to her feet, her eyes full of new horror, as
+the vague suspicion grew to a strange undoubting certainty.
+
+"Who was it in the garden? Who was out there? Maggie, if I hadn't----?"
+
+She could not end. On the last words her voice sank to a fearful
+whisper; when she had uttered them--with their unfinished, yet plain and
+naked, question--she hid her face in her hands, listening for the
+answer.
+
+A minute--two minutes--passed. There was no sound but Maggie Dennison's
+quick breathings; once she started forward with her lips parted as if to
+speak, and a look of defiance on her face; once too, entreaty, hope,
+tenderness dawned for a moment. In anger or in sorrow, the truth was
+hard on being uttered; but the impulse failed. She arrested the words on
+her lips, and with an angry jerk of her head, said petulantly,
+
+"Oh, you're a silly girl, and you make me silly too. There's nothing the
+matter. I don't know who it was or what it was. Very likely it was
+nothing. I heard nothing. It was all your imagination." Her voice grew
+harder, colder, more restrained as she went on. "Don't think about what
+I've said to-night--and don't chatter about it. You upset me with your
+fancies. Marjory, it means nothing."
+
+The last words were imperative in their insistence, but all the answer
+Marjory made was to raise her head and ask,
+
+"Am I to go?" while her eyes added, too plainly for Maggie Dennison not
+to read them, "You know the meaning of that."
+
+Under the entreaty and the challenge of her eyes, Mrs. Dennison could
+not give the answer which it was her purpose to give--the answer which
+would deny the mad hope that still filled her, the hope which still
+cried that, though to-night was gone, there was to-morrow. It was the
+answer she must make to all the world--which she must declare and study
+to confirm in all her acts and bearing. But there--alone with the
+girl--under the compelling influence of the reluctant confidence--that
+impossibility of open falsehood--which the time and occasion seemed
+strangely to build up between them--she could not give it plainly. She
+dared not bid the girl stay, with that hope at her heart; she dared not
+cast away the cloak by bidding her go.
+
+"You must do as you like," she said at last. "I can't help you about
+it."
+
+Marjory caught at the narrow chance the answer left her; with returning
+tenderness she stretched out her hands towards her friend, saying,
+
+"Maggie, do tell me! I shall believe what you tell me."
+
+Mrs. Dennison drew back from the contact of the outstretched hands.
+Marjory rose, and for an instant they stood looking at one another. Then
+Marjory turned, and walked slowly to the door. To her own room she went,
+to fear and to hope, if hope she could.
+
+Mrs. Dennison was left alone. The night was far gone, the morning coming
+apace. Her lips moved, as she gazed from the window. Was it in
+thanksgiving for the escape of the night, or in joy that the morrow was
+already to-day? She could not tell; yes, she was glad--surely she was
+glad? Yet, as at last she flung herself upon her bed, she murmured,
+"He'll come early to-day," and then she sobbed in shame.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                    ON THE MATTER OF A RAILWAY.
+
+
+Willie Ruston was half-dressed when the chamber-maid knocked at his
+door. He opened it and took from her three or four letters. Laying them
+on the table he finished his dressing--with him a quick process, devoid
+of the pleasant lounging by which many men cheat its daily tiresomeness.
+At last, when his coat was on, he walked two or three times up and down
+the room, frowning, smiling for an instant, frowning long again. Then he
+jerked his head impatiently as though he had had too much of his
+thoughts, and, going to the table, looked at the addresses on his
+letters. With a sudden access of eagerness he seized on one and tore it
+open. It bore Carlin's handwriting, and he groaned to see that the four
+sides were close-filled. Old Carlin was terribly verbose and roundabout
+in his communications, and a bored look settled on Willie Ruston's face
+as he read a wilderness of small details, skirmishes with unruly clerks,
+iniquities of office-boys, lamentations on the apathy of the public, and
+lastly, a conscientious account of the health of the writer's household.
+With a sigh he turned the second page.
+
+"By the way," wrote Carlin, "I have had a letter from Detchmore. He
+draws back about the railway, and says the Government won't sanction
+it."
+
+Willie Ruston raced through the rest, muttering to himself as he read,
+"Why the deuce didn't he wire? What an old fool it is!" and so forth.
+Then he flung down the letter, put his hands deep in his pockets and
+stood motionless for a few moments.
+
+"I must go at once," he said aloud.
+
+He stood thinking, and a rare expression stole over his face. It showed
+a doubt, a hesitation, a faltering--the work and the mark of the day and
+the night that were gone. He walked about again; he went to the window
+and stared out, jangling the money in his pockets. For nearly five
+minutes that expression was on his face. For nearly five minutes--and it
+seemed no short time--he was torn by conflicting forces. For nearly five
+minutes he wavered in his allegiance, and Omofaga had a rival that could
+dispute its throne. Then his brow cleared and his lips shut tight again.
+He had made up his mind; great as the thing was that held him where he
+was, yet he must go, and the thing must wait. Wheeling round, he took up
+the letter and, passing quickly through the door, went to young Sir
+Walter's room, with the face of a man who knows grief and vexation but
+has set wavering behind him.
+
+It was an hour later when Adela Ferrars and the Seminghams sat down to
+their coffee. A fourth plate was laid at the table, and Adela was in
+very good spirits. Tom Loring had arrived; they had greeted him, and he
+was upstairs making himself fit to be seen after a night-voyage; his
+boat had lain three hours outside the harbour waiting for the fog to
+lift. "I daresay," said Tom, "you heard our horn bellowing." But he was
+here at last, and Adela was merrier than she had been in all her stay at
+Dieppe. Semingham also was happy; it was a great relief to feel that
+there was someone to whom responsibility properly, or at least more
+properly, belonged, and an end, therefore, to all unjustifiable attempts
+to saddle mere onlookers with it. And Lady Semingham perceived that her
+companions were in more genial mood than lately had been their wont, and
+expanded in the warmer air. When Tom came down nothing could exceed the
+_empressement_ of his welcome.
+
+The sun had scattered the last remnants of fog, and, on Semingham's
+proposal, the party passed from the table to a seat in the hotel garden,
+whence they could look at the sea. Here they became rather more silent;
+for Adela began to feel that the hour of explanation was approaching,
+and grew surer and surer that to her would be left the task. She
+believed that Tom was tactful enough to spare her most of it, but
+something she must say--and to say anything was terribly difficult. Lord
+Semingham was treating the visit as though there were nothing behind;
+and his wife had no inkling that there was anything behind. The wife's
+genius for not observing was matched by the husband's wonderful power of
+ignoring; and if Adela had allowed herself to translate into words the
+exasperated promptings of her quick temper, she would have declared a
+desire to box the ears of both of them. It would have been vulgar, but
+entirely satisfactory.
+
+At last Tom, with carefully-prepared nonchalance, asked,
+
+"Oh, and how is Mrs. Dennison?"
+
+Bessie Semingham assumed the question to herself.
+
+"She's very well, thank you, Mr. Loring. Dieppe has done her a world of
+good."
+
+Adela pursed her lips together. Semingham, catching her eye, smothered a
+nascent smile. Tom frowned slightly, and, leaning forward, clasped his
+hands between his knees. He was guilty of wishing that Bessie Semingham
+had more pressing avocations that morning.
+
+"You see," she chirruped, "Marjory's with her, and the children dote on
+Marjory, and she's got Mr. Ruston and Walter to wait on her--you know
+Maggie always likes somebody in her train. Well, Alfred, why shouldn't I
+say that? I like to have someone myself."
+
+"I didn't speak," protested Semingham.
+
+"No, but you looked funny. I always say about Maggie, Mr. Loring,
+that----"
+
+All three were listening in some embarrassment; out of the mouths of
+babes come sometimes alarming things.
+
+"That without any apparent trouble she can make her clothes look better
+than anybody I know."
+
+Lord Semingham laughed; even Adela and Tom smiled.
+
+"What a blessed irrelevance you have, my dear," said Semingham, stroking
+his wife's small hand.
+
+Lady Semingham smiled delightedly and blushed prettily. She enjoyed
+Alfred's praise. He was so _difficile_ as a rule. The exact point of the
+word "irrelevance" she did not stay to consider; she had evidently said
+something that pleased him. A moment later she rose with a smile,
+crying,
+
+"Why, Mr. Ruston, how good of you to come round so early!"
+
+Willie Ruston shook hands with her in hasty politeness. A nod to
+Semingham, a lift of the hat to Adela, left him face to face with Tom
+Loring, who got up slowly.
+
+"Ah, Loring, how are you?" said Willie holding out his hand. "Young Val
+told me you were to arrive to-day. How did you get across? Uncommon
+foggy, wasn't it?"
+
+By this time he had taken Tom's hand and shaken it, Tom being purely
+passive.
+
+"By the way, you're all wrong about the water, you know," he continued,
+in sudden remembrance. "There's enough water to supply Manchester within
+ten miles of Fort Imperial. What? Why, man, I'll show you the report
+when we get back to town; good water, too. I had it analysed, and--well,
+it's all right; but I haven't time to talk about it now. The fact is,
+Semingham, I came round to tell you that I'm off."
+
+"Off?" exclaimed Semingham, desperately fumbling for his eyeglass.
+
+Adela clasped her hands, and her eyes sparkled. Tom scrutinised Willie
+Ruston with attentive eyes.
+
+"Yes; to-day--in an hour; boat goes at 11:30. I've had a letter from old
+Carlin. Things aren't going well. That ass Detch----By Jove, though, I
+forgot you, Loring! I don't want to give you materials for another of
+those articles."
+
+His rapidity, his bustle, his good humour were all amazing.
+
+Tom glanced in bewilderment at Adela. Adela coloured deeply. She felt
+that she had no adequate reason to give for having summoned Tom Loring
+to Dieppe, unless (she brightened as the thought struck her) Tom had
+frightened Ruston away.
+
+Willie seized Semingham's arm, and began to walk him (the activity
+seemed all on Willie's part) quickly up and down the garden. He held
+Carlin's letter in his hand, and he talked eagerly and fast, beating the
+letter with his fist now and again. Bessie Semingham sat down with an
+amiable smile. Adela and Tom were close together. Adela lifted her eyes
+to Tom's in question.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"Do you think it's true?" she whispered.
+
+"He's the finest actor alive if it isn't," said Tom, watching the beats
+of Ruston's fist.
+
+"Then thank heaven! But I feel so foolish."
+
+"Hush! here they come," said Tom.
+
+There was no time for more.
+
+"Tom, there's riches in it for you if we told you," laughed Semingham;
+"but Ruston's going to put it all right."
+
+Tom gave a not very easy laugh.
+
+"Fancy old Carlin not wiring!" exclaimed Willie Ruston.
+
+"Shall I sell?" asked Adela, trying to be frivolous.
+
+"Hold for your life, Miss Ferrars," said Willie; and going up to Bessie
+Semingham he held out his hand.
+
+"What, are you really off? It's too bad of you, Mr. Ruston! Not that
+I've seen much of you. Maggie has quite monopolised you."
+
+Adela and Tom looked at the ground. Semingham turned his back; his smile
+would not be smothered.
+
+"Of course you're going to say good-bye to her?" pursued Lady Semingham.
+
+Tom looked up, and Adela followed his example. They were rewarded--if it
+were a reward--by seeing a slight frown--the first shadow since he had
+been with them--on Ruston's brow. But he answered briskly, with a glance
+at his watch,
+
+"I can't manage it. I should miss the boat. I must write her a line."
+
+"Oh, she'll never forgive you," cried Lady Semingham.
+
+"Oh, yes, she will," he laughed. "It's for Omofaga, you know. Good-bye.
+Good-bye. I'm awfully sorry to go. Good-bye."
+
+He was gone. It was difficult to realise at first. His presence, the
+fact of him, had filled so large a space; it had been the feature of the
+place from the day he had joined them. It had been their interest and
+their incubus.
+
+For a moment the three stood staring at one another; then Semingham,
+with a curious laugh, turned on his heel and went into the house. His
+wife unfolded yesterday's _Morning Post_ and began to read.
+
+"Come for a stroll," said Tom Loring to Adela.
+
+She accompanied him in silence, and they walked a hundred yards or more
+before she spoke.
+
+"What a blessing!" she said then. "I wonder if your coming sent him
+away?"
+
+"No, it was genuine," declared Tom, with conviction.
+
+"Then I was very wrong, or he's a most extraordinary man. I can't talk
+to you about it, Mr. Loring, but you told me I might send. And I did
+think it--desirable--when I wrote. I did, indeed. I hope you're not very
+much annoyed?"
+
+"Annoyed! No; I was delighted to come. And I am still more delighted
+that it looks as if I wasn't wanted."
+
+"Oh, you're wanted, anyhow," said Adela.
+
+She was very happy in his coming, and could not help showing it a
+little. Fortunately, it was tolerably certain (as she felt sometimes,
+intolerably certain) that Tom Loring would not notice anything. He never
+seemed to consider it possible that people might be particularly glad to
+see him.
+
+"And you can stay, can't you?" she added.
+
+"Oh, yes; I can stay a bit. I should like to. What made you send?"
+
+"You know. I can't possibly describe it."
+
+"Did Semingham notice it too?"
+
+"Yes, he did, Mr. Loring. I distrust that man--Mr. Ruston I
+mean--utterly. And Maggie----"
+
+"She's wrapped up in him?"
+
+"Terribly. I tried to think it was his wretched Omofaga; but it's not;
+it's him."
+
+"Well, he's disposed of."
+
+"Yes, indeed," she sighed, in complacent ignorance.
+
+"I must go and see her, you know," said Tom, wrinkling his brow.
+
+Adela laughed.
+
+"What'll she say to me?" asked Tom anxiously.
+
+"Oh, she'll be very pleasant."
+
+"I shan't," said Tom with sudden decision.
+
+Adela looked at him curiously.
+
+"You mean to--to give her 'a bit of your mind?'"
+
+"Well, yes," he answered, smiling. "I think so; don't you?"
+
+"I should like to, if I dared."
+
+"Why, you dare anything!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"Oh, no, I don't. I splash about a good deal, but I am a coward,
+really."
+
+They relapsed into silence. Presently Tom began,
+
+"It's been awfully dull in town; nobody to speak to, except Mrs.
+Cormack."
+
+"Mrs. Cormack!" cried Adela. "I thought you hated her?"
+
+"Well, I've thought a little better of her lately."
+
+"To think of your making friends with Mrs. Cormack!"
+
+"I haven't made friends with her. She's not such a bad woman as you'd
+think, though."
+
+"I think she's horrible," said Adela.
+
+Tom gave it up.
+
+"There was no one else," he pleaded.
+
+"Well," retorted Adela, "when there is anyone else, you never come near
+them."
+
+The grammar was confused, but Adela could not improve it, without being
+landed in unbearable plainness of speech.
+
+"Don't I?" he asked. "Why, I come and see you."
+
+"Oh, for twenty minutes once a month; just to keep the acquaintance
+open, I suppose. It's like shutting all the gates on Ascension Day
+(isn't it Ascension Day?), only the other way round, you know."
+
+"You so often quarrel with me," said Tom.
+
+"What nonsense!" said Adela. "Anyhow, I won't quarrel here."
+
+Tom glanced at her. She was looking bright and happy and young. He liked
+her even better here in Dieppe than in a London drawing-room. Her
+conversation was not so elaborate, but it was more spontaneous and, to
+his mind, pleasanter. Moreover, the sea air had put colour in her cheeks
+and painted her complexion afresh. The thought strayed through Tom's
+mind that she was looking quite handsome. It was the one good thing that
+he did not always think about her. He went on studying her till she
+suddenly turned and caught him.
+
+"Well," she asked, with a laugh and a blush, "do I wear well?"
+
+"You always talk as if you were seventy," said Tom reprovingly.
+
+Adela laughed merrily. The going of Ruston and the coming of Tom were
+almost too much good-fortune for one day. And Tom had come in a pleasant
+mood.
+
+"You don't really like Mrs. Cormack, do you?" she asked. "She hates me,
+you know."
+
+"Oh, if I have to choose between you----" said Tom, and stopped.
+
+"You stop at the critical moment."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Cormack isn't here," said Tom.
+
+"So I shall do to pass the time?"
+
+"Yes," he laughed; and then they both laughed.
+
+But suddenly Adela's laugh ceased, and she jumped up.
+
+"There's Marjory Valentine!" she exclaimed.
+
+"What! Where?" asked Tom, rising.
+
+"No, stay where you are, I want to speak to her. I'll come back," and,
+leaving Tom, she sped after Marjory, calling her name.
+
+Marjory looked round and hastened to meet her. She was pale and her eyes
+heavy for trouble and want of sleep.
+
+"Oh, Adela, I'm so glad to find you! I was going to look for you at the
+hotel. I must talk to you."
+
+"You shall," said Adela, taking her arm and smiling again.
+
+She did not notice Marjory's looks; she was full of her own tidings.
+
+"I want to ask you whether you think Lady Semingham----" began Marjory,
+growing red, and in great embarrassment.
+
+"Oh, but hear my news first," cried Adela; "Marjory, he's gone!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, that man Mr. Ruston."
+
+"Gone?" echoed Marjory in amazement.
+
+To her it seemed incredible that he should be gone--strange perhaps to
+Adela, but to her incredible.
+
+"Yes, this morning. He got a letter--something about his Company--and he
+was off on the spot. And Tom--Mr. Loring (he's come, you know),
+thinks--that that really was his reason, you know."
+
+Marjory listened with wide-open eyes.
+
+"Oh, Adela!" she said at last with a sort of shudder.
+
+She could have believed it of no other man; she could hardly believe it
+of one who now seemed to her hardly a man.
+
+"Isn't it splendid? And he went off without seeing--without going up to
+the cliff at all. I never was so delighted in my life."
+
+Marjory was silent. No delight showed on her face; the time for that was
+gone. She did not understand, and she was thinking of the night's
+experience and wondering if Maggie Dennison had known that he was going.
+No, she could not have known.
+
+"But what did you want with me, or with Bessie?" asked Adela.
+
+Marjory hesitated. The departure of Willie Ruston made a difference. She
+prayed that it meant an utter difference. There was a chance; and while
+there was a chance her place was in the villa on the cliff. His going
+rekindled the spark of hope that almost had died in the last terrible
+night.
+
+"I think," she said slowly, "that I'll go straight back."
+
+"And tell Maggie?" asked Adela with excited eyes.
+
+"If she doesn't know."
+
+Adela said nothing; the subject was too perilous. She even regretted
+having said so much; but she pressed her friend's arm approvingly.
+
+"It doesn't matter about Lady Semingham just now," said Marjory in an
+absent sort of tone. "It will do later."
+
+"You're not looking well," remarked Adela, who had at last looked at
+her.
+
+"I had a bad night."
+
+"And how's Maggie?"
+
+The girl paused a moment.
+
+"I haven't seen her this morning. She sent word that she would breakfast
+in bed. I'll just run up now, Adela."
+
+She walked off rapidly. Adela watched her, feeling uneasy about her.
+There was a strange constraint about her manner--a hint of something
+suppressed--and it was easy to see that she was nervous and unhappy. But
+Adela, making lighter of her old fears in her new-won comfort, saw only
+in Marjory a grief that is very sad to bear, a sorrow that comes where
+love--or what is nearly love--meets with indifference.
+
+"She's still thinking about that creature!" said Adela to herself in
+scorn and in pity. She had quite made up her mind about Willie Ruston
+now. "I'm awfully sorry for her." Adela, in fact, felt very sympathetic.
+For the same thing might well happen with love that rested on a worthier
+object than "that creature, Willie Ruston!"
+
+Meanwhile the creature--could he himself at the moment have quarrelled
+with the word?--was carried over the waves, till the cliff and the house
+on it dipped and died away. The excitement of the message and the start
+was over; the duty that had been strong enough to take him away could
+not yet be done. A space lay bare--exposed to the thoughts that fastened
+on it. Who could have escaped their assault? Not even Willie Ruston was
+proof; and his fellow-voyagers wondered at the man with the frowning
+brows and fretful restless eyes. It had not been easy to do, or pleasant
+to see done, this last sacrifice to the god of his life. Yet it had been
+done, with hardly a hesitation. He paced the deck, saying to himself,
+"She'll understand." Would any woman? If any, then, without doubt, she
+was the woman. "Oh, she'll understand," he muttered petulantly, angry
+with himself because he would not be convinced. Once, in despair, he
+tried to tell himself that this end to it was what people would call
+ordered for the best--that it was an escape for him--still more for her.
+But his strong, self-penetrating sense pushed the plea aside--in him it
+was hypocrisy, the merest conventionality. He had not even the
+half-stifled thanksgiving for respite from a doom still longed for,
+which had struggled for utterance in Maggie's sobs. Yet he had something
+that might pass for it--a feeling that made even him start in the
+knowledge of its degradation. By fate, or accident, or mischance--call
+it what he might--there was nothing irrevocable yet. He could draw back
+still. Not thanksgiving for sin averted, but a shamefaced sense of an
+enforced safety made its way into his mind--till it was thrust aside by
+anger at the check that had baffled him, and by the longing that was
+still upon him.
+
+Well, anyhow--for good or evil--willing or unwilling--he was away. And
+she was alone in the little house on the cliff. His face softened; he
+ceased to think of himself for a moment; he thought of her, as she would
+look when he did not come--when he was false to a tryst never made in
+words, but surely the strongest that had ever bound a man. He clenched
+his fists as he stood looking from the stern of the boat, muttering
+again his old plea, "She'll understand!"
+
+Was there not the railway?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                           PAST PRAYING FOR.
+
+
+Mrs. Dennison needed not Marjory to tell her. She had received Willie
+Ruston's note just as she was about to leave her bedroom. It was
+scribbled in pencil on half a sheet of notepaper.
+
+    "Am called back to England--something wrong about our railway.
+    Very sorry I can't come and say good-bye. I shall run back if I
+    can, but I'm afraid I may be kept in England. Will you write?
+
+                                                      "W. R. R."
+
+She read it, and stood as if changed to stone. "Something wrong about
+our railway!" Surely an all-sufficient reason; the writer had no doubt
+of that. He might be kept in England; that meant he would be, and the
+writer seemed to see nothing strange in the fact that he could be. She
+did not doubt the truth of what the note said. A man lying would have
+piled Pelion on Ossa, reason on reason, excuse on excuse, protestation
+on protestation. Besides Willie Ruston did not lie. It was just the
+truth, the all-sufficient truth. There was something wrong with the
+railway, so he left her. He would lose a day if he missed the boat, so
+he left her without a word of farewell. The railway must not suffer for
+his taking holiday; her suffering was all his holiday should make.
+
+Slowly she tore the note into the smallest of fragments, and the
+fragments fell at her feet. And his passionate words were still in her
+ears, his kisses still burnt on her cheek. This was the man whom to sway
+had been her darling ambition, whom to love was her great sin, whom to
+know, as in this moment she seemed to know him, her bitter punishment.
+In her heart she cried to heaven, "Enough, enough!"
+
+The note was his--his to its last line, its last word, its last silence.
+The man stood there, self-epitomised, callous and careless, unmerciful,
+unbending, unturning; vowed to his quest, recking of naught else.
+But--she clung to this, the last plank in her shipwreck--great--one of
+the few for whom the general must make stepping-stones. She thought she
+had been one of the few; that torn note told her error. Still, she had
+held out her hands to ruin for no common clay's sake. But it was too
+hard--too hard--too hard.
+
+"Will you write?" Was he tender there? Her bitterness would not grant
+him even that. He did not want her to slip away. The smallest addition
+will make the greatest realm greater, and its loss sully the king's
+majesty. So she must write, as she must think and dream--and remember.
+
+Perhaps he might choose to come again--some day--and she was to be
+ready!
+
+She went downstairs. In the hall she met her children, and they said
+something to her; they talked and chattered to her, and, with the
+surface of her mind, she understood; and she listened and answered and
+smiled. And all that they had said and she had said went away; and she
+found them gone, and herself alone. Then she passed to the sitting-room,
+where was Marjory Valentine, breathless from mounting the path too
+quickly; and at sight of Marjory's face, she said,
+
+"I've heard from Mr. Ruston. He has been called away," forestalling
+Marjory's trembling words.
+
+Then she sat down, and there was a long silence. She was conscious of
+Marjory there, but the girl did not speak, and presently the impression
+of her, which was very faint, faded altogether away, and Maggie Dennison
+seemed to herself alone again--thinking, dreaming, and remembering, as
+she must now think, dream, and remember--remembering the day that was
+gone, thinking of what this day should have been.
+
+She sat for an hour, still and idle, looking out across the sea, and
+Marjory sat motionless behind, gazing at her with despair in her eyes.
+At last the girl could bear it no longer. It was unnatural, unearthly,
+to sit there like that; it was as though, by an impossibility, a dead
+soul were clothed with a living breathing body. Marjory rose and came
+close, and called,
+
+"Maggie, Maggie!"
+
+Her voice was clear and louder than her ordinary tones; she spoke as if
+trying to force some one to hear.
+
+Maggie Dennison started, looked round, and passed her hand rapidly
+across her brow.
+
+"Maggie, I--I've not done anything about going."
+
+"Going?" echoed Maggie Dennison. But her mind was clearing now; her
+brain had been stunned, not killed, and her will drove it to wakefulness
+and work again. "Going? Oh, I hope not."
+
+"You know, last night----" began Marjory, timidly, flushing, keeping
+behind Mrs. Dennison's chair. "Last night we--we talked about it, but I
+thought perhaps now----"
+
+"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Dennison, "never mind last night. For goodness'
+sake, forget last night. I think we were both mad last night."
+
+Marjory made no answer; and Mrs. Dennison, her hand having swept her
+brow once again, turned to her with awakened and alert eyes.
+
+"You upset me--and then I upset you. And we both behaved like hysterical
+creatures. If I told you to go, I was silly; and if you said you wanted
+to go, you were silly too, Marjory. Of course, you must stop; and do
+forget that--nonsense--last night."
+
+Her tone was eager and petulant, the colour was returning to her cheeks;
+she looked alive again.
+
+Marjory leant an arm on the back of the chair, looking down into Maggie
+Dennison's face.
+
+"I will stay," she said softly, ignoring everything else, and then she
+swiftly stooped and kissed Maggie's cheek.
+
+Mrs. Dennison shivered and smiled, and, detaining the girl's head, most
+graciously returned her caress. Mrs. Dennison was forgiving everything;
+by forgiveness it might be that she could buy of Marjory forgetfulness.
+
+There was a ring at the door. Marjory looked through the window.
+
+"It's Mr. Loring," she said in a whisper.
+
+Maggie Dennison smiled--graciously again.
+
+"It's very kind of him to come so soon," said she.
+
+"Shall I go?"
+
+"Go? No, child--unless you want to. You know him too. And we've no
+secrets, Tom Loring and I."
+
+Tom Loring had mounted the hill very slowly. The giving of that "piece
+of his mind" seemed not altogether easy. He might paint poor Harry's
+forlorn state; Mrs. Dennison would be politely concerned and politely
+sceptical about it. He might tell her again--as he had told her
+before--that Willie Ruston was a knave and a villain, and she might
+laugh or be angry, as her mood was; but she would not believe. Or he
+might upbraid her for folly or for worse; and this was what he wished to
+do. Would she listen? Probably--with a smile on her lips and mocking
+little compliments on his friendly zeal and fatherly anxiety. Or she
+might flash out on him, and call his charge an insult, and drive him
+away; and a word from her would turn poor old Harry into his enemy.
+Decidedly his task was no easy one.
+
+It was a coward's joy that he felt when he found a third person there;
+but he felt it from the bottom of his heart. Divine delay! Gracious
+impossibility! How often men adore them! Tom Loring gave thanks, praying
+silently that Marjory would not withdraw, shook hands as though his were
+the most ordinary morning call, and began to discuss the scenery of
+Dieppe, and--as became a newcomer--the incidents of his voyage.
+
+"And while you were all peacefully in your beds, we were groping about
+outside in that abominable fog," said he.
+
+"How you must have envied us!" smiled Mrs. Dennison, and Marjory found
+herself smiling in emulous hypocrisy. But her smile was very
+unsuccessful, and it was well that Tom Loring's eyes were on his
+hostess.
+
+Then Mrs. Dennison began to talk about Willie Ruston and her own great
+interest in him, and in the Omofaga Company. She was very good-humoured
+to Tom Loring, but she did not fail to remind him how unreasonable he
+had been--was still, wasn't he? The perfection of her manner frightened
+Marjory and repelled her. Yet it would have seemed an effort of bravery,
+had it been done with visible struggling. But it betrayed no effort, and
+therefore made no show of bravery.
+
+"So now," said Maggie Dennison, "since I haven't got Mr. Ruston to
+exchange sympathy with, I must exchange hostilities with you. It will
+still be about Omofaga--that's one thing."
+
+Tom had definitely decided to put off his lecture. The old manner he had
+known and mocked and admired--the "these-are-the-orders" manner--was too
+strong for him. He believed he was still fond of her. He knew that he
+wondered at her still. Could it be true what they told him--that she was
+as a child in the hands of Willie Ruston? He hated to think that,
+because it must mean that Willie Ruston was--well, not quite an ordinary
+person--a conclusion Tom loathed to accept.
+
+"And you're going to stay some time with the Seminghams? That'll be very
+pleasant. And Adela will like to have you so much. Oh, you can convert
+her! She's a shareholder. And you must have a talk to the old Baron.
+You've heard of him? But then he believes in Mr. Ruston, as I do, so
+you'll quarrel with him."
+
+"Perhaps I shall convert him," suggested Tom.
+
+"Oh, no, we thorough believers are past praying for; aren't we,
+Marjory?"
+
+Marjory started.
+
+"Past praying for?" she echoed.
+
+Her thoughts had strayed from the conversation--back to what she had
+been bidden to forget; and she spoke not as one who speaks a trivial
+phrase.
+
+For an instant a gleam of something--anger or fright--shot from Maggie
+Dennison's eyes. The next, she was playfully, distantly, delicately
+chaffing Tom about the meaning of his sudden arrival.
+
+"Of course _not_----" she began.
+
+And Tom, interrupting, stopped the "Adela."
+
+"And you stay here too?" he asked, to turn the conversation.
+
+"Why, of course," smiled Mrs. Dennison. "After being here all this time,
+it would look rather funny if I ran away just when Harry's coming. I
+think he really would have a right to be aggrieved then." She paused,
+and added more seriously, "Oh, yes, I shall wait here for Harry."
+
+Then Tom Loring rose and took his leave. Mrs. Dennison entrusted him
+with an invitation to the whole of the Seminghams' party to luncheon
+next day ("if they don't mind squeezing into our little room," she gaily
+added), and walked with him to the top of the path, waving her hand to
+him in friendly farewell as he began to descend. And, after he was gone,
+she stood for a while looking out to sea. Then she turned. Marjory was
+in the window and saw her face as she turned. In a moment Maggie
+Dennison saw her looking, and smiled brightly. But the one short instant
+had been enough. The feelings first numbed, then smothered, had in that
+second sprung to life, and Marjory shrank back with a little
+inarticulate cry of pain and horror. Almost as she uttered it, Mrs.
+Dennison was by her side.
+
+"We'll go out this afternoon," she said. "I think I shall lie down for
+an hour. We managed to rob ourselves of a good deal of sleep last night.
+You'd better do the same." She paused, and then she added, "You're a
+good child, Marjory. You're very kind to me."
+
+There was a quiver in her voice, but it was only that, and it was
+Marjory, not she, who burst into sobs.
+
+"Hush, hush," whispered Maggie Dennison. "Hush, dear. Don't do that. Why
+should you do that?" and she stroked the girl's hot cheek, wet with
+tears. "I'm very tired, Marjory," she went on. "Do you think you can dry
+your eyes--your silly eyes--and help me upstairs? I--I can hardly
+stand," and, as she spoke, she swayed and caught at the curtain by her,
+and held herself up by it. "No, I can go alone!" she exclaimed almost
+fiercely. "Leave me alone, Marjory, I can walk. I can walk perfectly;"
+and she walked steadily across the room, and Marjory heard her
+unwavering step mounting the stairs to her bedroom.
+
+But Marjory did not see her enter her room, stop for a moment over the
+scraps of torn paper, still lying on the floor, stoop and gather them
+one by one, then put them in an envelope, and the envelope in her purse,
+and then throw herself on the bed in an agony of dumb pain, with the
+look on her face that had come for a moment in the garden and came now,
+fearless of being driven away, lined strong and deep, as though graven
+with some sharp tool.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+                       THE BARON'S CONTRIBUTION.
+
+
+It may be that the Baron thought he had sucked the orange of life very
+dry--at least, when the cold winds and the fog had done their work, he
+accepted without passionate disinclination the hint that he must soon
+take his lips from the fruit. He went to bed and made a codicil to his
+will, having it executed and witnessed with every requisite formality.
+Then he announced to Lord Semingham, who came to see him, that,
+according to his doctor's opinion and his own, he might manage to
+breathe a week longer; and Semingham, looking upon him, fancied, without
+saying, that the opinion was a sanguine one. This happened five days
+before Harry Dennison's arrival at Dieppe.
+
+"I am very fortunate," said the Baron, "to have found such kind friends
+for the last stage;" and he looked from Lady Semingham's flowers to
+Adela's grapes. "I could have bought them, of course," he added. "I've
+always been able to buy--everything."
+
+The old man smiled as he spoke, and Semingham smiled also.
+
+"This," continued the Baron, "is the third time I have been laid up like
+this."
+
+"There's luck in odd numbers," observed Semingham.
+
+"But which would be luck?" asked the Baron.
+
+"Ah, there you gravel me," admitted Semingham.
+
+"I came here against orders, because I must needs poke my old nose into
+this concern of yours----"
+
+"Not of mine."
+
+"Of yours and others. Well, I poked it in--and the frost has caught the
+end of it."
+
+"I don't take any particular pleasure in the concern myself," said
+Semingham, "and I wish you'd kept your nose out, and yourself in a more
+balmy climate."
+
+"My dear Lord, the market is rising."
+
+"I know," smiled Semingham. "Tom Loring can't make out who the fools are
+who are buying. He said so this morning."
+
+The Baron began to laugh, but a cough choked his mirth.
+
+"He's an honest and an able man, your Loring; but he doesn't see clear
+in everything. I've been buying, myself."
+
+"Oh, you have?"
+
+"Yes, and someone has been selling--selling largely--or the price would
+have been driven higher. It is you, perhaps, my friend?"
+
+"Not a share. I have the vices of an aristocracy. I am stubborn."
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+"It might be--Dennison."
+
+The Baron nodded.
+
+"But what did you want with 'em, Baron? Will they pay?"
+
+"Oh, I doubt that. But I wanted them. Why should Dennison sell?"
+
+"I suppose he doubts, like you."
+
+"Perhaps it is that."
+
+"Perhaps," said Semingham.
+
+In the course of the next three days they had many conversations; the
+talks did the Baron no good nor, as his doctor significantly said, any
+harm; and when he could not talk, Semingham sat by him and told stories.
+He spoke too, frequently, of Willie Ruston, and of the Company--that
+interested the Baron. And at last, on the third day, they began to speak
+of Maggie Dennison; but neither of them connected the two names in talk.
+Indeed Semingham, according to his custom, had rushed at the possibility
+of ignoring such connection. Ruston's disappearance had shown him a way;
+and he embraced the happy chance. He was always ready to think that any
+"fuss" was a mistake; and, as he told the Baron, Mrs. Dennison had been
+in great spirits lately, cheered up, it seemed, by the prospect of her
+husband's immediate arrival. The Baron smiled to hear him; then he
+asked,
+
+"Do you think she would come to see me?"
+
+Semingham promised to ask her; and, although the Baron was fit to see
+nobody the next day--for he had moved swiftly towards his journey's end
+in those twenty-four hours--yet Mrs. Dennison came and was admitted;
+and, at sight of the Baron, who lay yellow and gasping, forgot both her
+acting and, for an instant, the reality which it hid.
+
+"Oh!" she cried before she could stop herself, "how ill you look! Let me
+make you comfortable!"
+
+The Baron did not deny her. He had something to say to her.
+
+"When does your husband come?" he asked.
+
+"To-morrow," said she briefly.
+
+She did all she could for his comfort, and then sat down by his bedside.
+He had an interval of some freedom from oppression and his mind was
+clear and concentrated.
+
+"I want to tell you," he began, "something that I have done." He paused,
+and added a question, "Ruston does not come back to Dieppe, I suppose?"
+
+"I think not. He is detained on business," she answered, "and he will be
+more tied when my husband leaves."
+
+"Your husband will not long be concerned in the Omofaga," said he.
+
+She started; the Baron told her what he had told Semingham.
+
+"He will soon resign his place on the Board, you will see," he ended.
+
+She sat silent.
+
+"He will have nothing more to do with it, you will see;" and, turning to
+her, he asked with a sudden spurt of vigour, "Do you know why?"
+
+"How should I?" she answered steadily.
+
+"And I--I have done my part too. I have left him some money (she knew
+that the Baron did not mean her husband) and all the shares I held."
+
+"You've done that?" she cried, with a sudden light in her eyes.
+
+"You do not want to know why?"
+
+"Oh, I know you admired him. You told me so."
+
+"Yes, that in part. I did admire him. He was what I have never been. I
+wish he was here now. I should like to look at that face of his before I
+die. But it was not for his sake that I left him the money. Why, he
+could get it without me if he needed it! You don't ask me why?"
+
+In his excitement he had painfully pulled himself higher up on his
+pillows, and his head was on the level with hers now. He looked right
+into her eyes. She was very pale, but calm and self-controlled.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "Why have you?"
+
+"It will make him independent of your husband," said the Baron.
+
+Mrs. Dennison dropped her eyes and raised them again in a swift,
+questioning glance.
+
+"Yes, and of you. He need not look to you now."
+
+He paused and added, slowly, punctuating every word,
+
+"You will not be necessary to him now."
+
+Mrs. Dennison met his gaze full and straight; the Baron stretched out
+his hand.
+
+"Ah, forgive me!" he exclaimed.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," said she.
+
+"I saw; I knew; I have felt it. Now he will go away; he will not lean on
+you now. I have set him where he can stand alone."
+
+A smile, half scornful and half sad, came on her face.
+
+"You hate me," said the Baron. "But I am right."
+
+"I was--we were never necessary to him," said she. "Ah, Baron, this is
+no news you give me. I know him better than that."
+
+He raised himself higher still, panting as he rested on his elbow. His
+head craned forward towards her as he whispered,
+
+"I'm a dying man. You can tell me."
+
+"If you were a dead man----" she burst out passionately. Then she
+suddenly recovered herself.
+
+"My dear Baron," she went on, "I'm very glad you've done this for Mr.
+Ruston."
+
+He sank down on his pillows with a weary sigh.
+
+"Let him alone, let him alone," he moaned. "You thought yourself
+strong."
+
+"I suppose you mean kindly," she said, speaking very coldly. "Indeed,
+that you should think of me at all just now shows it. But, Baron, you
+are disquieting yourself without cause."
+
+"I'm an old man, and a sick man," he pleaded, "and you, my dear----"
+
+"Ah, suppose I have been--whatever you like--indiscreet? Well----?"
+
+She paused, for he made a feebly impatient gesture. Mrs. Dennison kept
+silence for a moment; then in a low tone she said,
+
+"Baron, why do you speak to a woman about such things, unless you want
+her to lie to you?"
+
+The Baron, after a moment, gave his answer, that was no answer.
+
+"He is gone," he said.
+
+"Yes, he is gone--to look after his railway."
+
+"It is finished then?" he half asked, half implored, and just caught her
+low-toned reply.
+
+"Finished? Who for?" Then she suddenly raised her voice, crying, "What
+is it to you? Why can't I be let alone? How dare you make me talk about
+it?"
+
+"I have done," said he, and, laying his thin yellow hand in hers, he
+went on, "If you meet him again--and I think you will--tell him that I
+longed to see him, as a man who is dying longs for his son. He would be
+a breath of life to me in this room, where everything seems dead. He is
+full of life--full as a tiger. And you can tell him----" He stopped a
+moment and smiled. "You can tell him why I was a buyer of Omofagas. What
+will he say?"
+
+"What will he say?" she echoed, with wide-opened eyes, that watched the
+old man's slow-moving lips.
+
+"Will he weep?" asked the Baron.
+
+"In God's name, don't!" she stammered.
+
+"He will say, 'Behold, the Baron von Geltschmidt was a good man--he was
+of use in the world--may he sleep in peace!' And now--how goes the
+railway?"
+
+The old man lay silent, with a grim smile on his face. The woman sat by,
+with lips set tight in an agony of repression. At last she spoke.
+
+"If I'd known you were going to tell me this, I wouldn't have come."
+
+"It's hard, hard, hard, but----"
+
+"Oh, not that. But--I knew it."
+
+She rose to her feet.
+
+"Good-bye," said the Baron. "I shan't see you again. God make it light
+for you, my dear."
+
+She would not seem to hear him. She smoothed his pillows and his scanty
+straggling hair; then she kissed his forehead.
+
+"Good-bye," she said. "I will tell Willie when I see him. I shall see
+him soon."
+
+The old man moaned softly and miserably.
+
+"It would be better if you lay here," he said.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," she answered, almost listlessly. "Good-bye."
+
+Suddenly he detained her, catching her hand.
+
+"Do you believe in people meeting again anywhere?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I suppose so. No, I don't know, I'm sure."
+
+"They've been telling me to have a priest. I call myself a Catholic, you
+know. What can I say to a priest? I have done nothing but make money. If
+that is a sin, it's too simple to need confession, and I've done too
+much of it for absolution. How can I talk to a priest? I shall have no
+priest."
+
+She did not speak, but let him hold her hand.
+
+"If," he went on, with a little smile, "I'm asked anywhere what I've
+done, I must say, 'I've made money.' That's all I shall have to say."
+
+She stooped low over him and whispered,
+
+"You can say one more thing, Baron--one little thing. You once tried to
+save a woman," and she kissed him again and was gone.
+
+Outside the house, she found Semingham waiting for her.
+
+"Oh, I say, Mrs. Dennison," he cried, "Harry's come. He got away a day
+earlier than he expected. I met him driving up towards your house."
+
+For just a moment she stood aghast. It came upon her with a shock;
+between a respite of a day and the actual terrible now, there had seemed
+a gulf.
+
+"Is he there--at the house--now?" she asked.
+
+Semingham nodded.
+
+"Will you walk up with me?" she asked eagerly. "I must go directly, you
+know. He'll be so sorry not to find me there. Do you mind coming? I'm
+tired."
+
+He offered his arm, and she almost clutched at it, but she walked with
+nervous quickness.
+
+"He's looking very well," said Semingham. "A bit fagged, and so on, you
+know, of course, but he'll soon get all right here."
+
+"Yes, yes, very soon," she replied absently, quickening her pace till he
+had to force his to match it. But, half-way up the hill, she stopped
+suddenly, breathing rapidly.
+
+"Yes, take a rest, we've been bucketing," said he.
+
+"Did he ask after me?"
+
+"Yes; directly."
+
+"And you said----?"
+
+"Oh, that you were all right, Mrs. Dennison."
+
+"Thanks. Has he seen Mr. Loring?"
+
+"No; but he knew he had come here. He told me so."
+
+"Well, I needn't take you right up, need I?"
+
+Semingham thought of some jest about not intruding on the sacred scene,
+but the jest did not come. Somehow he shrank from it. Mrs. Dennison did
+not.
+
+"We shall want to fall on one another's necks," said she, smiling. "And
+you'd feel in the way. You hate honest emotions, you know."
+
+He nodded, lifted his hat, and turned. On his way down alone, he stopped
+once for a moment and exclaimed,
+
+"Good heavens! And I believe she'd rather meet the devil himself. She is
+a woman!"
+
+Mrs. Dennison pursued her way at a gentler pace. Before she came in
+sight, she heard her children's delighted chatterings, and, a moment
+later, Harry's hearty tones. His voice brought to her, in fullest force,
+the thing that was always with her--with her as the cloak that a man
+hath upon him, and as the girdle that he is always girded withal.
+
+When the children saw her, they ran to her, seizing her hands and
+dragging her towards Harry. A little way off stood Marjory Valentine,
+with a nervous smile on her lips. Harry himself stood waiting, and Mrs.
+Dennison walked up to him and kissed him. Not till that was done did she
+speak or look him in the face. He returned her kiss, and then, talking
+rapidly, she made him sit down, and sat herself, and took her little boy
+on her knee. And she called Marjory, telling her jokingly that she was
+one of the family.
+
+Harry began to talk of his journey, and they all joined in. Then he grew
+silent, and the children chattered more about the delights of Dieppe,
+and how all would be perfect now that father was come. And, under cover
+of their chatter, Maggie Dennison stole a long covert glance at her
+husband.
+
+"And Tom's here, father," cried the little boy on her lap exultingly.
+
+"Yes," chimed in Madge, "and Mr. Ruston's gone."
+
+There was a momentary pause; then Mrs. Dennison, in her calmest voice,
+began to tell her husband of the sickness of the Baron. And over Harry
+Dennison's face there rested a new look, and she felt it on her as she
+talked of the Baron. She had seen him before unsatisfied, puzzled, and
+bewildered by her, but never before with this look on his face. It
+seemed to her half entreaty and half suspicion. It was plain for
+everyone to see. He kept his eyes on her, and she knew that Marjory must
+be reading him as she read him. And under that look she went on talking
+about the Baron. The look did not frighten her. She did not fear his
+suspicions, for she believed he would still take her word against all
+the world--ay, against the plainest proof. But she almost broke under
+the burden of it; it made her heart sick with pity for him. She longed
+to cry out, then and there, "It isn't true, Harry, my poor dear, it
+isn't true." She could tell him that--it would not be all a lie. And
+when the children went away to prepare for lunch, she did much that very
+thing; for, with a laughing glance of apology at Marjory, she sat on her
+husband's knee and kissed him twice on either check, whispering,
+
+"I'm so glad you've come, Harry."
+
+And he caught her to him with sudden violence--unlike his usual manner,
+and looked into her eyes and kissed her. Then they rose, and he turned
+towards the house.
+
+For a moment Marjory and Mrs. Dennison were alone together. Mrs.
+Dennison spoke in a loud clear voice--a voice her husband must hear.
+
+"We're shamefully foolish, aren't we, Marjory?"
+
+The girl made no answer, but, as she looked at Maggie Dennison, she
+burst into a sudden convulsive sob.
+
+"Hush, hush," whispered Maggie eagerly. "My God! if I can, you can!"
+
+So they went in and joined the children at their merry noisy meal.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                         A JOINT IN HIS ARMOUR.
+
+
+Willie Ruston slept, on the night following his return to London, in the
+Carlins' house at Hampstead. The all-important question of the railway
+made a consultation necessary, and Ruston's indisposition to face his
+solitary rooms caused him to accept gladly the proffered hospitality.
+The little cramped place was always a refuge and a rest; there he could
+best rejoice over a victory or forget a temporary defeat. There he fled
+now, in the turmoil of his mind. The question of the railway had hurried
+him from Dieppe, but it could not carry away from him the memories of
+Dieppe. Yet that was the office he had already begun to ask of it--of it
+and of the quiet busy life at Hampstead, where he lingered till a week
+stretched to two and to three, spending his days at work in the City,
+and his evenings, after his romp with the children, in earnest and eager
+talk and speculation. He regretted bitterly his going to Dieppe. He had
+done what he condemned; he had raised up a perpetual reproach and a
+possible danger. He was not a man who could dismiss such a thing with a
+laugh or a sneer, with a pang of penitence and a swift reaction to the
+low levels of morality, with a regret for imprudence and a prayer
+against consequences. His nature was too deep, and the influence he had
+met too strong, for any of these to be enough. Yet he had suffered the
+question of the railway to drag him away at a moment's notice; and he
+was persuaded that he must take his leaving as setting an end to all
+that had passed. All that must be put behind; forgetfulness in thought
+might be a relief impossible to attain, a relief that he would be
+ashamed of striving to attain; but forgetfulness in act seemed a duty to
+be done. In his undeviating reference of everything to his own work in
+life and his neglect of any other touchstone, he erected into an
+obligation what to another would have been a shameless matter of course;
+or, again, to yet another, a source of shame-faced relief. His sins were
+sin first against himself, in the second degree only against the
+participant in them; his preoccupation with their first quality went far
+to blind him to the second.
+
+Yet he was very sorry for Maggie Dennison. Nay, those words were
+ludicrously feeble for the meaning he wanted from them. Acutely
+conscious of having done her a wrong, he was vaguely aware that he might
+underestimate the wrong, and remembered uneasily how she had told him
+that he did not understand, and despaired because he could not
+understand. He felt more for her now--much more, it seemed to him; but
+the consciousness of failure to put himself where she stood dogged him,
+making him afraid sometimes that he could not realise her sufferings,
+sometimes that he was imputing to her fictitious tortures and a sense of
+ignominy which was not her own. Searching light, he began to talk to
+Carlin in general terms, of course, and by way of chance discourse; and
+he ran up against a curious stratum of Puritanism imbedded amongst the
+man's elastic principles. The narrowest and harshest judgment of an
+erring woman accompanied the supple trader and witnessed the surviving
+barbarian in Mr. Carlin; an accidental distant allusion displayed an
+equally relentless attitude in his meek hard-working little wife. Willie
+Ruston drew in his feelers, and, aghast at the evil these opinions
+stamped as the product of his acts, declared for a moment that his life
+must be the only and insufficient atonement. The moment was a brief one.
+He dismissed the opinions with a curse, their authors with a smile, and
+did not scorn to take for comfort even Maggie Dennison's own enthusiasm
+for his work. That had drawn them together; that must rule and limit the
+connection which it had created. An end--a bound--a peremptory stop
+(there was still time to stop) was the thing. She would see that, as he
+saw it. God knew (he said to himself) what a wrench it was--for she
+meant more to him than he had ever conceived a woman could mean; but the
+wrench must be undergone. He would rather die than wreck his work; and
+she, he knew, rather die than prove a wrecking siren to him.
+
+Suddenly, across the desponding stubbornness of his resolves, flashed,
+with a bright white light, the news of the Baron's legacy, accompanying,
+but, after a hasty regretful thought and a kindly regretful smile,
+obliterating the fact of the Baron's death. Half the steps upward, he
+felt, which he had set himself painfully and with impatient labour to
+cut, were hewn deep and smooth for his feet; he had now but to tread,
+and lift his foot and tread again. From a paid servant of his Company,
+powerful only by a secret influence unbased on any substantial
+foundation, he leapt to the position of a shareholder with a larger
+stake than any man besides; no intrigue could shake him now, no sudden
+gust of petulant impatience at the tardiness of results displace him. He
+had never thought of this motive behind the Baron's large purchases of
+Omofaga shares; as he thought of it, he had not been himself had he not
+smiled. And his smile was of the same quality as had burst on his face
+when first Maggie Dennison dropped the veil and owned his sway.
+
+One day he did not go down to the city, but spent his time wandering on
+the heath, mapping out what he would do in the fast-approaching days in
+Omofaga. The prospects were clearing; he had had two interviews with
+Lord Detchmore, and the Minister had fallen back from his own objections
+on to the scruples of his colleagues. It was a promising sign, and
+Willie was pressing his advantage. The fall in the shares had been
+checked; Tom Loring wrote no more; and Mrs. Carlin had forgotten to
+mourn the extinct coal business. He came home, with a buoyant step, at
+four o'clock, to find Carlin awaiting him with dismayed face. There was
+the worst of news from Queen Street. Mr. Dennison had written announcing
+resignation of his place on the Board.
+
+"It's a staggering blow," said Carlin, thrusting his hands into his
+pockets. "Can't you bring him round? Why is he doing it?"
+
+"Well, what does he say?" asked Ruston, a frown on his brow.
+
+"Oh, some nonsense--pressure of other business or something of that
+kind. Can't you go and see him, Willie? He's back in town. He writes
+from Curzon Street."
+
+"I don't know why he does it," said Ruston slowly. "I knew he'd been
+selling out."
+
+"He hasn't made money at that."
+
+"No. I've made the profit there," said Ruston, with a sudden smile.
+
+"The Baron bought 'em, eh?" laughed Carlin. "You generally come out
+right side up, Willie. You'll go and see him, though, won't you?"
+
+Yes. He would go. That was the resolution which in a moment he reached.
+If there were danger, he must face it, if there were calamity, he must
+know it. He would go and see Harry Dennison.
+
+As he was, on the stroke of half-past four, he jumped into a hansom-cab,
+and bade the man drive to Curzon Street.
+
+Harry was not at home--nor Mrs. Dennison, added the servant. But both
+were expected soon.
+
+"I'll wait," said Willie, and he was shown up into the drawing-room.
+
+As the servant opened the door, he said in his low respectful tones,
+
+"Mrs. Cormack is here, sir, waiting for Mrs. Dennison."
+
+A moment later Willie Ruston was overwhelmed in a shrilly enthusiastic
+greeting. Mrs. Cormack had been in despair from _ennui_; Maggie's delay
+was endless, and Mr. Ruston was in verity a godsend. Indeed there was
+every appearance of sincerity in the lady's welcome. She stood and
+looked at him with an expression of most wicked and mischievous
+pleasure. The remorse detected by Tom Loring was not visible now; pure
+delight reigned supreme, and gave free scope to her frivolous
+fearlessness.
+
+"_Enfin!_" she said. "Behold the villain of the piece!"
+
+He opened his eyes in questioning.
+
+"Oh, you think to deceive me too? Why, I have prophesied it."
+
+"You are," said Willie, standing on the hearth-rug, and gazing at her
+nervous restless figure, so rich in half-expressed hints too subtle for
+language, "the most outrageous of women, Mrs. Cormack. Fortunately you
+have a fling at everybody, and the saints come off as badly as the
+sinners."
+
+A shrug asserted her opinion of his pretences. He answered,
+
+"I really am so unfortunate as not to have the least idea what you're
+driving at."
+
+An inarticulate scornful little sound greeted this protest.
+
+"Oh, well, I shall wait till you say something," remarked Willie, with a
+laugh. "I can't deny villainies wholesale, and I can't argue against
+Gallic ejaculations."
+
+"You still come here?" she asked, ignoring his rudeness, and coming to
+close quarters with native audacity.
+
+He looked at her for a moment, and then walked up to her chair, and
+stood over her. She leant back, gazing up at him with a smile.
+
+"Look here! Don't talk nonsense," he said brusquely; "even such talk as
+yours may do harm with fools."
+
+"Fools!" she echoed. "You mean----?"
+
+"More than half the world," he interrupted.
+
+"Including----?" she began again in mockery.
+
+"Some of our acquaintance," he answered, with the glimmer of a smile.
+
+"Ah, I thought you were angry!" she cried, pointing at the smile on his
+lips.
+
+"I shall be, if you don't hold your tongue."
+
+"You beg me to be silent, Mr. Ruston?"
+
+"I desire you not to chatter about me, Mrs. Cormack."
+
+"Ah, what politeness! I shall say what I please," and she rose and stood
+facing him defiantly.
+
+"I wish," he said, "that I could tell you what they do to gossiping
+women in Omofaga. It is so very disagreeable--and appropriate."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind hearing."
+
+"I can believe it, but I mind saying."
+
+She flushed, and her breath came more quickly.
+
+"No doubt you will enforce the treatment--in your own interest," she
+said.
+
+"You won't be there," replied he, with affected regret.
+
+"Well, here I shall say what I please."
+
+"And who will listen?"
+
+"One man, at least," she cried, in incautious anger. "Ah, you'd like to
+beat me, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Why suggest the impossible?" he asked, smiling. "I can't beat
+every----" he paused, and added with deliberateness, "every
+vulgar-minded woman in London;" and turning his back on her, he sat down
+and took up a newspaper that lay on the table.
+
+For full five or six minutes Mrs. Cormack sat silent. Willie Ruston
+glanced through the leading article, and turned the paper, folding it
+neatly. There was a letter from a correspondent on the subject of the
+watersheds of Central South Africa, and he was reading it with
+attention. He thought that he recognised Tom Loring's hand. The
+watersheds of Omofaga were not given their due. Ah, and here was that
+old falsehood about arid wastes round Fort Imperial!
+
+"By Jove, it's too bad!" he exclaimed aloud.
+
+Mrs. Cormack, who had for the last few moments been watching him, first
+with a frown, then with a half-incredulous, half-amazed smile, burst out
+into laughter.
+
+"Really, one might as well be offended with a grizzly bear!" she cried.
+
+He put down the paper, and met her gaze.
+
+"How in the world," she went on, "does she--there, I beg your pardon.
+How does anyone endure you, Mr. Ruston?"
+
+As she spoke, before he could answer, the door opened, and Harry
+Dennison came in. He entered with a hesitating step. After greeting Mrs.
+Cormack, he advanced towards Ruston. The latter held out his hand, and
+Harry took it. He did not look Ruston in the eyes.
+
+"How are you?" said he. "You want to see me?"
+
+"Well, for a moment, if you can spare the time--on business."
+
+"Is it about my letter to Carlin?"
+
+Ruston nodded. Mrs. Cormack kept a close watch.
+
+"I--I can't alter that," said Harry, in a confused way. "Sir George is
+so crippled now, so much of the work falls on me; I have really no
+time."
+
+"You might have left us your name."
+
+"I couldn't do that, could I? Suppose you came to grief?" and he laughed
+uncomfortably.
+
+Willie Ruston was afflicted by a sense of weakness--a vulnerability new
+in his experience--forbidding him to be urgent with the renegade. Had
+Carlin been present, he would have stood astounded at his chief's
+tonguetiedness. Mrs. Cormack smiled at it, and her smile, caught in a
+swift glance by Ruston, spurred him to a voluble appeal, that sounded to
+himself hollow and ineffective. It had no effect on Harry Dennison, who
+said little, but shook his head with unfailing resolution. Mrs. Cormack
+could not resist the temptation to offer matters an opportunity of
+development.
+
+"But what does Maggie say to your desertion?" she asked in an innocently
+playful way.
+
+Harry seemed nonplussed at the question, and Willie Ruston interposed.
+
+"We needn't bring Mrs. Dennison into it," he said, smiling. "It's a
+matter of business, and if Dennison has made up his mind----"
+
+He ended with a shrug, and took up his hat.
+
+"I--I think so, Ruston," stumbled Harry.
+
+"Where is Maggie?" asked Mrs. Cormack curiously. "They told me she would
+be in soon."
+
+"I don't know," said Harry. "She went out driving. She's sometimes late
+in coming back."
+
+Ruston was shaking hands with Mrs. Cormack, and, when he walked out,
+Harry followed him. The two men went downstairs in silence. Harry opened
+the front door. Willie Ruston held out his hand, but Harry did not this
+time take it. Holding the door-knob, he looked at his visitor with a
+puzzled entreaty in his eyes, and his visitor suddenly felt sorry for
+him.
+
+"I hope Mrs. Dennison is well?" said Ruston, after a pause.
+
+"No," answered Harry, with rough abruptness. "She's not well. I knew how
+it would be; I told you. You would go."
+
+"My dear fellow----"
+
+"You would talk to her about your miserable Company--our Company, if you
+like. I knew it would do her harm. I told you so."
+
+He was pouring out his incoherent charges and repetitions in a fretful
+petulance.
+
+"The doctor says her nerves are all wrong; she must be left alone. I see
+it. She's not herself."
+
+"Then that," said Ruston, "is the real reason why you're severing
+yourself from us?"
+
+"I don't want her to hear anything more about it; she got absorbed in
+it. I told you she would, but you wouldn't listen. Tom Loring thought
+just the same. But you would go."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know that she's ill. She's--she's not herself. She's
+strange."
+
+The note of distress in his voice grew more acute as he went on.
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Willie, baldly. "Give her my best----"
+
+"If you want to see me again about it, I--you'll always know where to
+find me in the City, won't you?" He shuffled his feet nervously, and
+twisted the door-knob as he spoke.
+
+"You mean," asked Ruston, slowly, "that I'd better not come here?"
+
+"Well, yes--just now," mumbled Harry; and he added apologetically,
+"She's seeing very few people just now, you know."
+
+"As you please, of course," said Ruston, shortly. "I daresay you're
+right. I should like to say, Dennison, that I did not intend----." He
+suddenly stopped short. There was no need to rush unbidden into more
+falseness. "Good-bye," he said.
+
+Harry took the offered hand in a limp grasp, but his eyes did not leave
+the ground. A moment later the door closed, and Ruston was alone
+outside--knowing that he had been turned out--in however ineffective
+blundering manner, yet, in fact, turned out--and by Harry Dennison. That
+Harry knew nothing, he hardly felt as a comfort; that perhaps he
+suspected hardly as a danger. He was angry and humiliated that such a
+thing should happen, and that he should be powerless to prevent, and
+without title to resent, the blow.
+
+Looking up he caught sight dimly in the dim light of a lithe figure and
+a mocking face. Mrs. Cormack had regained her own house by means of the
+little gate, and stood leaning over the balcony smiling at him like some
+disguised fiend in a ballet or opera-bouffe. He heard a tinkling laugh.
+Had she listened? She was capable of it, and if she had, it might well
+be that she had caught a word or two. But perhaps his air and attitude
+were enough to tell the tale. She craned her neck over the parapet, and
+called to him.
+
+"I hope we shall see you soon again. Of course, you'll be coming to see
+Maggie soon?"
+
+"Oh, soon, I hope," he answered sturdily, and the low tinkle of laughter
+rang out again in answer.
+
+Without more, he turned on his heel and walked down the street, a morose
+frown on his brow.
+
+He had been gone some half-hour when, just before eight o'clock, Mrs.
+Dennison's victoria drove quickly up to the door. The evening was chilly
+and she was wearing her furs. Her face rose pale and rigid above them;
+and as she walked to the house, her steps dragged as though in
+weariness. She did not go upstairs, but knocked, almost timidly, at the
+door of her husband's study. Entering in obedience to his call, she
+found him sitting in his deep leathern arm-chair by the fire. She leant
+her arm on the back and stared over his head into the fire.
+
+"Anyone been, Harry?" she asked.
+
+He lifted his eyes with a start.
+
+"Is it you, Maggie?" he cried, leaping up and seizing her hand. "Why,
+how cold you are, dear! Come and sit by the fire."
+
+She did as he bade her.
+
+"Any visitors?" she asked again.
+
+"Ruston," he answered, turning and poking the fire as he did so. "He
+came to see me about the Company, you know."
+
+"Is he long gone?"
+
+"Yes, some time."
+
+"He was angry, was he?"
+
+"Yes, Maggie. But I stuck to it. I won't have anything more to do with
+the thing."
+
+His petulance betrayed itself again in his voice. She said nothing, and,
+after a moment, he asked anxiously,
+
+"Do you mind much? You know the doctor----?"
+
+"Oh, the doctor! No, Harry, I don't mind. Do as you like. He can get on
+without us."
+
+"If you really mind, I'll try----"
+
+"No, no, no," she burst out. "You're quite right. Of course you're
+right. I don't want you to go on. I'm tired of it too."
+
+"Are you?" he asked, with a face suddenly brightening. "Are you really?
+Then I'm glad I told Ruston not to come bothering about it here."
+
+Had he been listening, he could have heard the sharp indrawing of her
+breath.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"Why, I told him not to come and see you till--till you were stronger."
+
+She shot a terrified glance at him. His expression was merely anxious
+and, according to its wont when he was in a difficulty, apologetic.
+
+"And he won't be here much longer now," he added, comfortingly.
+
+"No, not much," she forced herself to murmur.
+
+"Won't you go and dress for dinner?" he asked, after a moment. "It's
+ordered for a quarter-past, and it's more than that now."
+
+"Is it? I'll come directly. You go, and I'll follow you. I shan't be
+long."
+
+He came near to where she sat.
+
+"Are you feeling better?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, Harry, Harry, I'm well, perfectly well! You and your doctor!" and
+she broke into an impatient laugh. "You'll persuade me into the grave
+before you've done."
+
+He looked at her for a moment, and then, shaping his lips to whistle,
+sounded a few dreary notes and stole out of the room.
+
+She heard the door close, and, sitting up, stretched her arms over her
+head. Then she sighed for relief at his going. It was much to be alone.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                         A TOAST IN CHAMPAGNE.
+
+
+"A month to-day!" said Lady Valentine, pausing in her writing (she had
+just set "Octr. 10th" at the head of her paper) and gazing sorrowfully
+across the room at Marjory.
+
+Marjory knew well what she meant. The poor woman was counting the days
+that still lay between her and the departure of her son.
+
+"Now don't, mother," protested Marjory.
+
+"Oh, I know I'm silly. I met Mr. Ruston at the Seminghams' yesterday,
+and he told me that there wasn't the least danger, and that it was a
+glorious chance for Walter--just what you said from the first, dear--and
+that Walter could run over and see me in about eighteen months' time.
+Oh, but, Marjory, I know it's dangerous!"
+
+Marjory rose and crossed over to where her mother sat.
+
+"You must be a Spartan matron, dear," said she. "You can't keep Walter
+in leading strings all his life."
+
+"No; but he might have stayed here, and got on, and gone into
+Parliament, and so on." She paused and added, "Like Evan, you know."
+
+Marjory coloured--more from self-reproach than embarrassment. She had
+gone in these last weeks terribly near to forgetting poor Evan's
+existence.
+
+"Evan came in while I was at the Seminghams'. He looked so dull, poor
+fellow. I--I asked him to dinner, Marjory. He hasn't been here for a
+long while. We haven't seen nearly as much of him since we knew Mr.
+Ruston. I don't think they like one another."
+
+"You know why he hasn't come here," said Marjory softly.
+
+"He spent a week with me while you were at Dieppe. He seemed to like to
+hear about you."
+
+A smile of sad patience appeared on Marjory's face.
+
+"Oh, my dear, you are such a bad hinter," she half laughed, half moaned.
+
+"Poor Evan! I'm very sorry for him; but I can't help it, can I?"
+
+"It would have been so nice."
+
+"And you used to be such a mercenary creature!"
+
+"Ah, well, my dear, I want to keep one of my children with me. But, if
+it can't be, it can't."
+
+Marjory bent down and whispered in her mother's ear, "I'm not going to
+Omofaga, dear."
+
+"Well, I used to be half afraid of it," admitted Lady Valentine (she
+forgot that she had half hoped it also); "but you never seem to be
+interested in him now. Do you mind Evan coming to dinner?"
+
+"Oh, no," said Marjory.
+
+Since her return from Dieppe she had seemed to "mind" nothing.
+Relaxation of the strain under which her days passed there had left her
+numbed. She was conscious only of a passionate shrinking from the sight
+or company of the two people who had there filled her life. To meet them
+again forced her back in thought to that dreary mysterious night with
+its unsolved riddle, that she feared seeking to answer.
+
+Her mother had called on Maggie Dennison, and came back with a flow of
+kindly lamentations over Maggie's white cheeks and listless weary air.
+Her brother was constantly with Ruston, and tried to persuade her to
+join parties of which he was to be one. She fenced with both of them,
+escaping on one plea and another; and Maggie's acquiescence in her
+absence, no less than Ruston's failure to make a chance of meeting her,
+strengthened her resolve to remain aloof.
+
+Young Sir Walter also came to dinner that night; he was very gay and
+chatty, full of Omofaga and his fast-approaching expedition. He greeted
+Evan Haselden with a manner that claimed at least equality; nay, he
+lectured him a little on the ignorant interference of a stay-at-home
+House of Commons with the work of the men on the spot, in South Africa
+and elsewhere; people on this side would not give a man a free hand, he
+complained, and exhorted Evan to take no part in such ill-advised
+meddling.
+
+Hence he was led on to the topic he was never now far away from--Willie
+Ruston--and he reproached his mother and sister for their want of
+attention to the hero.
+
+This was the first gleam of light for poor Evan Haselden, for it told
+him that Willie Ruston was not, as he had feared, a successful rival. He
+rejoiced at Lady Valentine's hinted dislike of Ruston, and anxiously
+studied Marjory's face in hope of detecting a like disposition. But his
+vanity led him to return Walter's lecture, and he added an innuendo
+concerning the unscrupulousness of adventurers who cloaked money-making
+under specious pretences. Walter flared up in a moment, and the dinner
+ended in something like a dispute between the two young men.
+
+"Well, Dennison's found him out, anyhow," said Evan bitterly. "He's cut
+the whole concern."
+
+"We can do without Dennison," said young Sir Walter scornfully.
+
+When the meal was finished, young Sir Walter, treating his friend
+without ceremony, carelessly pleaded an engagement, and went out. Lady
+Valentine, interpreting Evan's glances, and hoping against hope, seized
+the chance of leaving him alone with her daughter. Marjory watched the
+manoeuvre without thwarting it. Her heart was more dead to Evan than it
+had ever been. Her experiences at Dieppe had aged her mind, and she
+found him less capable of stirring any feeling in her than even in the
+days when she had half made a hero out of Willie Ruston.
+
+She waited for his words in resignation; and he, acute enough to mark
+her moods, began as a man begins who rushes on anticipated defeat. What
+is unintelligible seems most irresistible, and he knew not at what point
+to attack her indifference. He saw the change in her; he could have
+dated its beginning. The cause he found somehow in Ruston, but yet it
+was clear to him that she did not think of Ruston as a suitor--almost
+clear that she heard his name and thought of him with repulsion--and
+that the attraction he had once exercised over her was gone.
+
+The weary talk wore to its close, ending with angry petulance on his
+side, and, at last, on hers with a grief that was half anger. He could
+not believe in her decision, unless there were one who had displaced
+him; and, seeing none save Ruston, in spite of his own convictions, he
+broke at last into a demand to be told whether she thought of him.
+Marjory started in horror, crying, "No, no," and, for all Evan's
+preoccupation, her vehemence amazed him.
+
+"Oh, you've found him out too, perhaps," he sneered. "You've found him
+out by now. All the same, it was his fault that you didn't care for me
+before."
+
+"Evan," she implored, "do, pray, not talk like that. There's not a man
+in the whole world that I would not have for my husband rather than
+him."
+
+"Now," he repeated; "but I'm speaking of before."
+
+Half angry again at that he should allow himself such an insinuation,
+she yet liked him too well, and felt too unhappy to be insincere.
+
+"Well," she said with a troubled smile, "if you like, I've found him
+out."
+
+"Then, Marjory," cried Evan, in a spasm of reviving hope, "if that
+fellow's out of the way----"
+
+But she would not hear him, and he flung himself out of the house with a
+rudeness that his love pardoned.
+
+She heard him go, in aching sorrow that he, who felt few things deeply,
+should feel this one so deeply. Then, following the calls of society,
+which are followed in spite of most troubles, she, pale-faced and sad,
+and her mother, almost weeping in motherly distress, dressed themselves
+to go to a party. Lady Semingham was at home that night.
+
+At the party all was gay and bright. Lady Semingham was chattering to
+Mr. Otto Heather. Semingham was trying to make Mr. Foster Belford
+understand the story of the Baron and Willie Ruston, Lord Detchmore, who
+had come in from a public dinner, was conspicuous in his blue riband,
+and was listening to Adela Ferrars with a smile on his face. Marjory sat
+down in a corner, hoping to escape introductions, and, when an old
+friend carried her mother off to eat an ice, she kept her place.
+Presently she heard cried, "Mrs. Dennison," and Maggie came in with her
+usual grace. It seemed as though the last few months were blotted out,
+and they were all again at that first party at Mrs. Dennison's where
+Willie Ruston had made his _entrée_. The illusion was not to lack
+confirmation, for, a moment later, Ruston himself was announced, and the
+sound of his name made Adela turn her head for one swift moment from her
+distinguished companion.
+
+"Ah!" said Lord Detchmore, "then I must go. If I talk to him any more
+I'm a lost man."
+
+"There's Mr. Loring in the corner--no, not that corner; that's Marjory
+Valentine. He will take your side."
+
+"Why are they all in corners?" asked Detchmore.
+
+"They don't want to be trodden on," said Adela, with a grimace. "You'd
+better take one too."
+
+"There's Mrs. Dennison in a third corner. Shall I take that one, or
+should I get trodden on there?"
+
+Adela looked up swiftly. His remark hinted at gossip afloat.
+
+"Take one for yourself," she began, with an uneasy laugh. But the laugh
+suddenly became genuine for the very absurdity of the thing. "We'll go
+and join Mr. Loring, shall we?" she proposed.
+
+Lord Detchmore acquiesced, and they walked over to where Tom stood. On
+their way, to their consternation, they encountered Willie Ruston.
+
+"Now we're in for it," breathed Detchmore in low tones. But Ruston, with
+a bow, passed on, going straight as an arrow towards where Maggie
+Dennison sat. Lord Detchmore raised his eyebrows, Adela shut her fan
+with a click, Tom Loring, when they reached him, was frowning. Away
+across the room sat Marjory alone.
+
+"Good heavens! he let me alone!" exclaimed Lord Detchmore.
+
+"Perhaps I was your shield," said Adela. "He doesn't like me."
+
+"Nor you, Loring, I expect?"
+
+Presently Lord Detchmore moved away, leaving Adela and Tom together.
+They had been together a good deal lately, and their tones showed the
+intimacy of friendship.
+
+"That man," said Adela quickly, "suspects something. He's a terrible old
+gossip, although he is a great statesman, of course. Can't you prevent
+them talking there together?"
+
+"No," said Tom composedly, "I can't; she'd send me away if I went."
+
+"Then I shall go. Why isn't Harry here?"
+
+"He wouldn't come. I've been dining with him at the club."
+
+"He ought to have come."
+
+"I don't believe it would have made any difference."
+
+Adela looked at him for a moment; then she walked swiftly across the
+room to Maggie Dennison, and held out her hand.
+
+"Maggie, I haven't had a talk with you for ever so long. How do you do,
+Mr. Ruston?"
+
+Ruston shook hands but did not move. He stood silently through two or
+three moments of Adela's forced chatter. Mrs. Dennison was sitting on a
+small couch, which would just hold two people; but she sat in the middle
+of it, and did not offer to make room for Adela. When Adela paused for
+want of anything to say, there was silence. She looked from the one to
+the other. Ruston smiled the smile that always exasperated her on his
+face--the smile of possession she called it in an attempt at definition.
+
+"Look at Marjory!" said Mrs. Dennison. "How solitary she looks! Poor
+girl! Do go and talk to her, Adela."
+
+"I came to talk to you," said Adela, in fiery temper.
+
+"Well, I'll come and talk to you both directly," said Maggie.
+
+"We're talking business," added Willie Ruston, still smiling.
+
+"Oh, if you don't want me!" cried Adela, and she turned away, declaring
+in her heart that she had made the last effort of friendship.
+
+With her going went Ruston's smile. He bent his head, and said in a low
+voice,
+
+"You are the only woman whom I could have left like that, and the only
+one whom I could have found it hard to leave. Was it very hard for you?"
+
+"It was just the truth for me," she answered.
+
+"Of course you were angry and hurt. I was afraid you would be," he said.
+
+She looked at him with a curious smile.
+
+"But then," he continued, "you saw how I was placed. Do you think I
+didn't suffer in going? I've never had such a wrench in my life. Won't
+you forgive me, Maggie?"
+
+"Forgive! What's the use of talking like that? What's the use of my
+'forgiving' you for being what you are?"
+
+"You talk as if you'd found me out in something."
+
+She turned to him, saying very low,
+
+"And haven't you found me out, too? We are face to face now, Willie."
+
+He did not fully understand her. Half in justification, half in apology,
+he said doggedly,
+
+"I simply had to go."
+
+"Yes, you simply had to go. There was the railway. Oh, what's the use of
+talking about it?"
+
+"I was afraid you meant to have nothing more to do with me."
+
+"Or you wished it?" she asked quickly.
+
+He started. She had discerned the thoughts that came into his mind in
+his solitary walks.
+
+"Don't be afraid. I've wished it," she added.
+
+There was a pause; then he, not denying her charge, whispered,
+
+"I can't wish it now--not when I'm with you."
+
+"To have nothing more to do with you! Ah, Willie, I have nothing to do
+with anything but you."
+
+A swift glance from him told her that her appeal touched him.
+
+"What else is left me? Can I live as I am living?"
+
+"What are we to do?" he asked. "We shall see one another sometimes now.
+I can't come to your house, you know. But sometimes----"
+
+"At a party--here and there! And the rest of the time I must live at--at
+home! Home!"
+
+He bent to her, whispering,
+
+"We must arrange----"
+
+"No, no," she replied, passionately. "Don't you see?"
+
+"What?" he asked, puzzled.
+
+"Oh, you don't understand! It's not that. It's not that I can't live
+without you."
+
+"I never said that," he interposed quickly.
+
+"And yet I suppose it is that. But it's something more. Willie, I can't
+live with him."
+
+"Does he suspect?" he asked in an eager whisper.
+
+"I don't know. I really don't know. It's worse if he doesn't. Oh, if you
+knew what I feel when he looks at me and asks----"
+
+"Asks what?"
+
+"Nothing--nothing in words; but, Willie, everything, everything. I shall
+go mad, if I stay. And then don't you see----?" She stopped, going on
+again a moment later. "I've borne it till I could see you. But I can't
+go on bearing it."
+
+He glanced at her.
+
+"We can't talk about it here," he said. "Everybody will see how agitated
+you are."
+
+For answer she schooled her face to rigidity, and her hands to
+motionlessness.
+
+"You must talk about it--here and now," she said. "It's the only time
+I've seen you since--Dieppe. What are you going to do, Willie?"
+
+He looked round. Then, with a smile, he offered his arm.
+
+"I must take you to have something," he said. "Come, we must walk
+through the room."
+
+She rose and took his arm. Bowing and smiling, she turned to greet her
+acquaintances. She stopped to speak to Lord Detchmore, and exchanged a
+word with her host.
+
+"Yes. What are you going to do?" she asked again, aloud.
+
+They had reached the room where the _buffet_ stood. Mrs. Dennison, after
+a few words to Lady Valentine, who was still there, sat down on a chair
+a little remote from the crowd. Ruston brought her a cup of coffee, and
+stood in front of her, with the half-conscious intention of shielding
+her from notice. She drank the coffee hastily; its heat brought a slight
+glow to her face.
+
+"You're going as you planned?" she asked.
+
+He answered in low, dry tones, emptied of all emotion.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I'm going."
+
+She stretched out her hand towards him imploringly.
+
+"Willie, you must take me with you," she said.
+
+He looked down with startled face.
+
+"My God, Maggie!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I can't stay here. I can't stay with him."
+
+Her lips quivered; he took her cup from her (he feared that she would
+let it fall), and set it on the table. Behind them he heard merry
+voices; Semingham's was loud among them. The voices were coming near
+them.
+
+"I must think," he whispered. "We can't talk now. I must see you again."
+
+"Where?" she asked helplessly.
+
+"Carlin's. Come up to-morrow. I can arrange it. For heaven's sake, begin
+to talk about something."
+
+She looked up in his face.
+
+"I could stand here and tell it to the room," she said, "sooner than
+live as I live now."
+
+He had no time to answer. Semingham's arm was on his shoulder. Lord
+Detchmore stood by his side.
+
+"I want," said Semingham, "to introduce Lord Detchmore to you, Mrs.
+Dennison. It's not at all disinterested of me. You must persuade
+him--you know what about."
+
+"No, no," laughed the Minister, "I mustn't be talked to; it's highly
+improper, and I distrust my virtue."
+
+"I'll be bound now that you were talking about Omofaga this very
+minute," pursued Semingham.
+
+"Of course we were," said Ruston.
+
+"You're a great enthusiast, Mrs. Dennison," smiled Detchmore. "You ought
+to go out, you know. Can't you persuade your husband to lend you to the
+expedition?"
+
+Ruston could have killed the man for his _malapropos_ jesting. Maggie
+Dennison seemed unable to answer it. Semingham broke in lightly,
+
+"It would be a fine chance for proving the quality--and the equality--of
+women," said he. "I always told Mrs. Dennison that she ought to be Queen
+of Omofaga."
+
+"And I hope," said Detchmore, with a significant smile, "that there'll
+soon be a railway to take you there."
+
+Even at that moment, the light of triumph came suddenly gleaming into
+Ruston's eyes. He looked at Detchmore, who laughed and nodded.
+
+"I think so. I think I shall be able to manage it," he said.
+
+"That's an end to all our troubles," said Semingham. "Come, we'll drink
+to it."
+
+He signed to a waiter, who brought champagne. Lord Detchmore gallantly
+pressed a glass on Mrs. Dennison. She shook her head, but took it.
+
+"Long life to Omofaga, and death to its enemies!" cried Semingham in
+burlesque heroics, and, with a laugh--that was, as his laughs so often
+were, as much at himself as at the rest of the world--he made a mock
+obeisance to Willie Ruston, adding, "_Moriamur pro rege nostro!_" and
+draining the glass.
+
+Maggie Dennison's eyes sparkled. Behind the mockery in Semingham's jest,
+behind the only half make-believe homage which Detchmore's humorous
+glance at Ruston showed, she saw the reality of deference, the
+acknowledgment of power in the man she loved. For a brief moment she
+tasted the troubled joy which she had paid so high to win. For a moment
+her eyes rested on Willie Ruston as a woman's eyes rest on a man who is
+the world's as well as hers, but also hers as he is not the world's. She
+sipped the champagne, echoing in her low rich voice, so that the men but
+just caught the words, "_Moriamur pro rege nostro_" and gave the glass
+into Ruston's hand.
+
+A sudden seriousness fell upon them. Detchmore glanced at Semingham, and
+thence, curiously, at Willie Ruston, whose face was pale and marked with
+a deep-lined frown. Mrs. Dennison had sunk back in her chair, and her
+heart rose and fell in agitated breathings. Then Willie Ruston spoke in
+cool deliberate tones.
+
+"The King there was a Queen," he said. "You've drunk to the wrong
+person, Semingham. I'll drink it right," and, bowing to Maggie Dennison,
+he drained his glass. Looking up, he found Detchmore's eyes on him in
+overpowering wonder.
+
+"If I tell you a story, Lord Detchmore," said he, "you'll understand,"
+and, yielding his place by Maggie Dennison, he took Detchmore with him,
+and they walked away in talk.
+
+It was an hour later when Lord Detchmore took leave of his host.
+
+"Well, did you hear the story?" asked Semingham.
+
+"Yes; I heard it," said Detchmore, "about the telegram, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, and of course, you see, it explains the toast."
+
+"That sounds like a question, Semingham."
+
+"Oh, no. The note of interrogation was--a printer's error."
+
+"It's a remarkable story."
+
+"It really is," said Semingham.
+
+"And--is it the whole story?"
+
+"Well, isn't it enough to justify the toast?"
+
+"It--and she--are enough," said Detchmore. "But, Semingham----"
+
+Lord Semingham, however, took him by the arm, walked him into the hall,
+got his hat and coat for him, helped him on with them, and wished him
+good-night. Detchmore submitted without resistance. Just at the last,
+however, as he fitted his hat on his head, he said,
+
+"You're unusually explicit, Semingham. He goes to Omofaga soon, don't
+he?"
+
+"Yes, thank God," said Semingham, almost cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                        THE CUTTING OF THE KNOT.
+
+
+"You can manage it for me?" asked Willie Ruston.
+
+"I suppose I can," answered Carlin; "but it's rather queer, isn't it,
+Willie?"
+
+"I don't know whether it's queer or not; but I must talk to her for
+half-an-hour."
+
+"Why not at Curzon Street?"
+
+Ruston laughed a short little laugh.
+
+"Do you really want the reason stated?" he inquired.
+
+Carlin shook his head gloomily, but he attempted no remonstrance. He
+confined himself to saying,
+
+"I hope the deuce you're not getting yourself into a mess!"
+
+"She'll be here about five. You must be here, you know, and you must
+leave me with her. Look here, Carlin, I only want a word with her."
+
+"But my wife----"
+
+"Send your wife somewhere--to the theatre with the children, or
+somewhere. Mind you're here to receive her."
+
+He issued his orders and walked away. He hated making arrangements of
+this sort, but there was (he told himself) no help for it. Anything was
+better than talking to Maggie Dennison before the world in a
+drawing-room. And it was for the last time. Removed from her presence,
+he felt clear about that. The knot must be cut; the thing must be
+finished. His approaching departure made a natural and inevitable end to
+it; and her mad suggestion of coming with him shewed in its real
+enormity as he mused on it in his solitary thoughts. For a moment she
+had carried him away. The picture of her pale eloquent face, and the
+gleam of her eager eyes had almost led him to self-betrayal; the idea of
+her in such a mood beside him in his work and his triumphs had seemed
+for the moment irresistible. She could double his strength and make joy
+of his toil. But it could not be so; and for it to be so, if it could
+be, he must stand revealed as a traitor to his friend, and be banned for
+an outlaw by his acquaintance. He had been a traitor, of course, but he
+need not persist. They--she and he--must not stereotype a passing
+madness, nor refuse the rescue chance had given them. There was time to
+draw back, to set matters right again--at least, to trammel up the
+consequence of wrong.
+
+When she came, and Carlin, frowning perplexedly, had, with awkward
+excuses, taken himself away, he said all this to her in stumbling
+speech. From the exaltation of the evening before they fell pitiably.
+They had soared then in vaulting imagination over the bristling
+barriers; to-day they could rise to no such height. Reality pressed hard
+upon them, crushing their romance into crime, their passion to the
+vulgarity of an everyday intrigue. This secret backstairs meeting seemed
+to stamp all that passed at it with its own degrading sign; their
+high-wrought defiance of the world and the right dwindled before their
+eyes to a mean and sly evasiveness. So felt Willie Ruston; and Maggie
+Dennison sat silent while he painted for her what he felt. She did not
+interrupt him; now and again a shiver or a quick motion shewed that she
+heard him. At last he had said his say, and stood, leaning against the
+mantelpiece, looking down on her. Then, without glancing up, she asked,
+
+"And what's to become of me, Willie?"
+
+The sudden simple question revealed him to himself. Put in plain
+English, his rigmarole meant, "Go your way and I'll go mine." What he
+had said might be right--might be best--might be duty--might be
+religion--might be anything you would. But a man may forfeit the right
+to do right.
+
+"Of you?" he stammered.
+
+"I can't live as I am," she said.
+
+He began to pace up and down the room. She sat almost listlessly in her
+chair. There was an air of helplessness about her. But she was slowly
+thinking over what he had said and realising its purport.
+
+"You mean we're never to meet again?" she asked.
+
+"Not that!" he cried, with a sudden heat that amazed himself. "Not that,
+Maggie. Why that?"
+
+"Why that?" she repeated in wondering tones. "What else do you mean? You
+don't mean we should go on like this?"
+
+He did not dare to answer either way. The one was now impossible--had
+swiftly, as he looked at her, come to seem impossible; the other was to
+treat her as not even he could treat her. She was not of the stuff to
+live a life like that.
+
+There was silence while he waged with himself that strange preposterous
+struggle, where evil seemed good, and good a treachery not to be
+committed; wherein his brain seemed to invite to meanness, and his
+passion, for once, to point the better way.
+
+"I wish to God we had never----" he began; but her despairing eyes
+stifled the feeble useless sentence on his lips.
+
+At last he came near to her; the lines were deep on his forehead, and
+his mouth quivered under a forced smile. He laid his hand on her
+shoulder. She looked up questioningly.
+
+"You know what you're asking?" he said.
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+"Then so be it," said he; and he went again and leant against the
+mantelpiece.
+
+He felt that he had paid a debt with his life, but knew not whether the
+payment were too high.
+
+It seemed to him long before she spoke--long enough for him to repeat
+again to himself what he had done--how that he, of all men, had made a
+burden that would break his shoulders, and had fettered his limbs for
+all his life's race--yet to be glad, too, that he had not shrunk from
+carrying what he had made, and had escaped coupling the craven with his
+other part.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked at last; and there was surprise in her
+tone.
+
+"It shall be as you wish," he answered. "We'll go through with it
+together."
+
+Though he was giving what she asked, she seemed hardly to understand.
+
+"I can't let you go," he said; "and I suppose you can't let me go."
+
+"But--but what'll happen?"
+
+"God knows," said he. "We shall be a long way off, anyhow."
+
+"In Omofaga, Willie?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+After a pause she rose and moved a step towards him.
+
+"Why are you doing it?" she asked, searching his eyes with hers. "Is it
+just because I ask? Because you're sorry for me?"
+
+She was standing near him, and he looked on her face. Then he sprang
+forward, catching her hands.
+
+"It's because you're more to me than I ever thought any woman could be."
+
+She let her hands lie in his.
+
+"But you came here," she said, "meaning to send me away."
+
+"I was a fool," he said, grimly, between his teeth.
+
+She drew her hands away, and then whispered,
+
+"And, Willie--Harry?"
+
+Again he had nothing to answer. She stood looking at him with a wistful
+longing for a word of comfort. He gave none. She passed her hand across
+her eyes, and burst into sudden sobs.
+
+"How miserable I am!" she sobbed. "I wish I was dead!"
+
+He made as though to take her hand again, but she shrank, and he fell
+back. With one hand over her eyes, she felt her way back to her chair.
+
+For five minutes or more she sat crying. Ruston did not move. He had
+nothing wherewith to console her, and he dared not touch her. Then she
+looked up.
+
+"If I were dead?" she said.
+
+"Hush! hush! You'd break my heart," he answered in low tones.
+
+In the midst of her weeping, for an instant she smiled.
+
+"Ah, Willie, Willie!" she said; and he knew that she read him through
+and through, so that he was ashamed to protest again.
+
+She did not believe in that from him.
+
+Presently her sobs ceased, and she crushed her handkerchief into a ball
+in her hand.
+
+"Well, Maggie?" said he in hard even tones.
+
+She rose again to her feet and came to him.
+
+"Kiss me, Willie," she said; "I'm going back home."
+
+He took her in his arms and kissed her. She released herself, and gazed
+long in his face.
+
+"Why?" he asked. "You can't bear it; you know you can't. Come with me,
+Maggie. I don't understand you."
+
+"No; I don't understand myself. I came here meaning to go with you. I
+came here thinking I could never bear to go back. Ah, you don't know
+what it is to live there now. But I must go back. Ah, how I hate it!"
+
+She laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"Think--if I came with you! Think, Willie!"
+
+"Yes," he said, as though it had been wrung from him, "I know. But come
+all the same, Maggie," and with a sudden gust of passion he began to
+beseech her, declaring that he could not live without her.
+
+"No, no," she cried; "it's not true, Willie, or you're not the man I
+loved. Go on, dear; go on. I shall hear about you. I shall watch you."
+
+"But you'll be here--with him," he muttered in grim anger.
+
+"Ah, Willie, are you still--still jealous? Even now?"
+
+A silence fell between them.
+
+"You shall come," he said at last. "What do I care for him or the rest
+of them? I care for nothing but you."
+
+"I will not come, Willie. I dare not come. Willie, in a week--in a
+day--Willie, my dear, in an hour you will be glad that I would not
+come."
+
+As she spoke, her voice grew louder. The words sounded like a sentence
+on him.
+
+"Is that why?" he asked, regarding her with moody eyes.
+
+She hesitated before she answered, in bewildered despair.
+
+"Yes. I don't know. In part it is. And I daren't think of Harry. Let me
+think, Willie, that it's a little bit because of Harry and the children.
+I know I can't expect you to believe it, but it is a little, though it's
+more because of you."
+
+"Of me?--for my sake, do you mean?"
+
+"No; not altogether for your sake; because of you."
+
+"And, Maggie, if he suspects?"
+
+"He won't suspect," she said. "He would take my word against the world."
+
+"They suspect--some of them--that woman Mrs. Cormack. And--does
+Marjory?"
+
+"It is nothing. He won't believe. Marjory will not say a word."
+
+"You'll persuade him that there was nothing----?"
+
+"Yes; I'll persuade him," she answered.
+
+She began to pull a glove on to her hand.
+
+"I must go," she said. "It's nearly an hour since I came."
+
+He took a step towards her.
+
+"You won't come, Maggie?" he urged, and there was still eagerness in his
+voice.
+
+"Not again, Willie. I can't stand it again. Good-bye. I've given you
+everything, Willie. And you'll think of me now and then?"
+
+He was unmanned. He could not answer her, but turned towards the wall
+and covered his face with his hand.
+
+"I shan't think of you like that," she said, a note of wondering
+reproach in her voice. "I shall think of you conquering. I like the hard
+look that they blame you for. Well, you'll have it soon again, Willie."
+
+She moved towards the door. He did not turn. She waited an instant
+looking at him. A smile was on her lips, and a tear trickled down her
+cheeks.
+
+"It's like shutting the door on life, Willie," she said.
+
+He sprang forward, but she raised her hand to stay him.
+
+"No. It is--settled," said she; and she opened the door of the room and
+walked out into the little entrance-hall.
+
+It was a wet evening, and the rain pattered on the roof of the
+projecting porch. They stood there a moment, till her cabman, who had
+taken refuge in the lee of the garden wall, brought his vehicle up to
+the door. They heard a step creak behind them in the hall, and then
+recede. Carlin was treading on tip-toe away.
+
+Maggie Dennison put out her hand and met Ruston's. She pressed his hand
+with strength more than her own, and she said, very low,
+
+"I am dying now--this way--for my king, Willie," and she stepped out
+into the rain, and climbed into the cab.
+
+"Back to where you brought me from," she called to the man, and leaning
+forward, where the cab lamps caught her face, so that it gleamed like
+the face of some marble statue, she looked on Willie Ruston. Her lips
+moved, but he heard no word. The wheels turned and the lamps flashed,
+and she was carried away.
+
+Willie started forward a step or two, then ran to the gate and, leaning
+on it, watched the red lights as they fled away; and long after they
+were gone, he stood there, bareheaded, in the drenching rain. He did not
+think; he still saw her, still heard her voice, and watched her broad
+low brow. She still stood before him, not the fairest of women, but the
+woman who was for him. And the rumble of retreating wheels sounded again
+in his ears. She was gone.
+
+How long he stood he did not know. Presently he felt an arm passed
+through his, and he was led back to the house.
+
+Old Carlin took him through the hall into his own little study, where a
+bright fire blazed, and gave him brandy, which he drank, and helped him
+off with his wet coat, and put a cricketing jacket on him, and pushed
+him into an arm-chair, and hunted for a pair of slippers for him.
+
+All this while neither spoke; and at last Carlin, his tasks done, stood
+and warmed himself at the fire, looking steadily in front of him, and
+never at his friend.
+
+"You dear old fool," said Willie Ruston.
+
+"Ah, well, well, you mustn't take cold. If you were laid up now, what
+the deuce would become of Omofaga?"
+
+His small, sharp, shrewd eyes blinked as he spoke, and he glanced at
+Willie Ruston as he named Omofaga.
+
+Willie sprang to his feet with an oath.
+
+"My God!" he cried, "why do you do this for me? Who'll do anything for
+her?"
+
+Carlin blinked again, keeping his gaze aloof. Then he held out his hand,
+and Willie seized it, saying,
+
+"I'm--I'm precious hard hit, old man."
+
+The other nodded and, as Willie sank back in his chair, stole quietly
+out of the room, shutting the door close behind him.
+
+Willie Ruston drew his chair nearer the fire, and spread out his hands
+to the blaze. And as the heat warmed his frame, the stupor of his mind
+passed, and he saw some of what was true--a glimpse of his naked self
+thrown up against the light of the love that others found for him. And
+he turned away his eyes, for it seemed to him that he could not look
+long and endure to live. And he groaned that he had won love and made
+for himself so mighty an accuser of debts that it lay not in him to pay.
+For even then, while he cursed himself, and cursed the nature that would
+not be changed in him; even while the words of his love were in his
+ears, and her presence near with him; even while life seemed naught for
+the emptiness her going made, and himself nothing but longing for her;
+even then, behind regret, behind remorse, behind agony, behind
+self-contempt and self-disgust, lay hidden, and deeper hidden as he
+thrust it down, the knowledge that he was glad--glad that his life was
+his own again, to lead and make and shape; wherein to take and hold, to
+play and win, to fasten on what was his, and to beat down his enemies
+before his face. That no man could rob him of, and the woman who could
+would not. So, as Maggie Dennison had said, in the passing of an hour he
+was glad; and in the passing of a week he had learnt to look in the face
+of the gladness which he had and loathed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                        THE RETURN OF A FRIEND.
+
+
+About a week later, Tom Loring sat at work in his rooms. The table was
+strewn with books of blue and of less alarming colours. Tom was smoking
+a short pipe, and when he paused for a fresh idea, the smoke welled out
+of his mouth, aye, and out of his nose, thick and fast. For a while he
+wrote busily; then a dash of his pen proclaimed a finished task, and he
+lay back in the luxury of accomplishment. Presently he pushed back his
+chair, knocked out his pipe, refilled it, and stretched himself on the
+sofa. After the day's work came the day's dream; and the day's dream
+dwelt on the coming of the evening hour, when Tom was to take tea with
+Adela Ferrars at half-past five. When he had an appointment like that,
+it coloured his whole day, and made his hard labour pass lightly. Also
+it helped him to forget what there was in his own life and his friends'
+to trouble him; and he nursed with quiet patience a love that did not
+expect, that hardly hoped for, any issue. As he had been content to be
+Harry Dennison's secretary, so he seemed satisfied to be an undeclared
+lover; finding enough for his modesty in what most men would have felt
+only a spur to urge them to press further.
+
+He was roused by a step on the stair. A moment later, Harry Dennison
+burst into the room. Tom had seen him a few days before, uneasy,
+troubled, apologetic, talking of Maggie's strange indisposition--she was
+terribly out of sorts, he had said, and appeared to find all company and
+all talk irksome. He had spoken with a meek compassion that exasperated
+Tom--an unconsciousness of any hardship laid on him. Tom sat up, glad to
+console him for an hour; glad, perhaps, of any company that would trick
+an hour into the past. But to-day Harry's step was light; there was a
+smile on his lips, a gleam of hope in his eyes; he rushed to Tom, seized
+his hand, and, before he sat down or took off his hat, blurted out,
+
+"Tom, old boy, she wants you to come back."
+
+Tom started.
+
+"What?" he cried, "Mrs. Dennison wants----"
+
+"Yes," Harry went on, "she sent for me to-day, and told me that she saw
+how I missed you, and that she was sorry that she had--well--sorry for
+all the trouble, you know. Then she said, 'I wonder if Tom (she called
+you Tom) bears malice. Tell him Omofaga is quite gone, and I want him to
+come back, and if he'll come here, I'll go on my knees to him.'"
+
+Harry stopped, smiling joyfully at his wonderful news. Tom wore a
+doubtful look.
+
+"I can't tell you," said Harry, "what it means to me. It's not only your
+coming, old chap, though, heaven knows, I'm gladder of that than I've
+been of anything for months--but you see what it means, Tom? It
+means--why, it means that we're to be as we were before that fellow
+came. Tom, she spoke to me more as she used to-day."
+
+His voice faltered; he spoke as an innocent loyal man might of a pardon
+from some loved capricious Sovereign. He had not understood the
+disfavour--he had dimly discerned inexplicable anger. Now it was past,
+and the sun shone again. Tom found himself saying,
+
+"I wish there were more fellows in the world like you, Harry."
+
+Harry's eyes opened in momentary astonishment at the irrelevance, but he
+was too full of his news and his request to stay for wonder.
+
+"You'll come, Tom?" he asked. "You won't refuse her?" "Could anyone
+refuse her anything?" was what his tone said. "We want you, Tom," he
+went on. "Hang it, I've had no one to speak to lately but that Cormack
+woman. I hate that woman. She's always hinting something--some lie or
+other, you know."
+
+"Don't be too hard on little Mrs. Cormack," said Tom.
+
+He remembered certain words which had shown a soft spot in Mrs.
+Cormack's heart. Harry did not know that she had grieved to hear him
+pacing up and down.
+
+"You'll come, Tom? I know, of course, that you've a right to be angry,
+and to say you won't, and all that. But I know you won't do it. She's
+not well, Tom; and I--I can't always understand her. You used to
+understand her, Tom. She used to like your chaff, you know."
+
+Tom would not enter on that. He pressed Harry's hand, answering,
+
+"Of course, I'll come."
+
+"Bring all this with you," cried Harry. "I shan't take up your time. You
+must stick to your own work as much as you like. When'll you come, Tom?"
+
+"Why, to-morrow," said Tom Loring.
+
+"Not now?"
+
+"I might, if you like," smiled Tom.
+
+"That's right, old chap. You can send round for your things. Bring a
+bag, and come to-night. Your room's there for you. I told them to keep
+it ready. Damn it, Tom, I thought things would come straight some day,
+and I kept it ready."
+
+Had things come straight? Tom did not know.
+
+"I say," pursued Harry, "I met Ruston to-day. He was very kind about my
+cutting the Omofaga. I wonder if I've been unjust to him!"
+
+Then Tom smiled.
+
+"I shouldn't bother about that, if I were you," said he.
+
+"Well, he's not a thin-skinned chap, is he?" asked Harry, with relief.
+
+"I should fancy not," said Tom.
+
+"You see, he's off in a fortnight, and I thought we ought to part
+friends. So I told him--well, I said, you know, that when he came back,
+we should be glad to see him."
+
+Tom began to laugh.
+
+"You're getting quite a diplomatist, Harry," he said.
+
+When Harry bustled away, his high spirits raised higher still by Tom's
+ready assent, Tom put on the garb of society, and took a cab to Adela
+Ferrars'.
+
+"She'll be very pleased about this," thought Tom, as he went along.
+"It's good news to take her."
+
+But whatever else Tom Loring knew, it is certain that he was not
+infallible on the subject of women and their feelings. He recognised the
+fact (having indeed suspected it many times before) when Adela, on the
+telling of his tidings, flashed out in petulance,
+
+"She's sent for you back?" she asked; and Tom nodded.
+
+"And you're going?" was the next quick question.
+
+"Well, I could hardly refuse, could I?"
+
+"No; I suppose not--at least not if you're Maggie Dennison's dog, for
+her to drive away with a stick and whistle back at her pleasure."
+
+Tom had been drinking tea. He set down the cup, and feebly stroked his
+thigh with his hand; and he glanced at Adela (who was rattling the tea
+things) with deprecatory surprise.
+
+"I hadn't thought of it like that," he ventured to remark.
+
+"Oh, of course, you hadn't. Maggie sends you away--you go. Maggie sends
+a footman (well, then, Harry) for you--and back you go. And I suppose
+you'll say you're very sorry, won't you? and you'll promise you won't do
+it again, won't you?"
+
+"I don't think I shall be asked to do that," said Tom, speaking
+seriously, but showing a slight offence in his manner.
+
+"But if she tells you to?" asked Adela scornfully.
+
+"I didn't think you'd take it like this. Why shouldn't I go back?"
+
+"Oh, go back! Go back and fetch and carry for Maggie, and write Harry's
+speeches till the end of the chapter. Oh, yes, go back."
+
+Tom was puzzled.
+
+"Has anything upset you to-day?" he asked.
+
+"Has anything upset me!" echoed Adela, throwing her eyes up to the
+ceiling.
+
+Tom finished his tea in a nervous gulp.
+
+"I don't see why I shouldn't go back," he said.
+
+"Well, I'm telling you to go back," said Adela. "Go back till she's had
+enough of you again--and then be turned out again."
+
+Tom's face grew crimson.
+
+"At least," he said slowly, "she has never spoken to me like that."
+
+Adela had left the table and taken an arm-chair near the fire. Her back
+was to the door and her face towards Tom; she held a fire-screen between
+her and him, letting the blaze burn her face. But Tom, being
+unobservant, paid no attention to the position of the fire-screen. With
+a look of pain on his face, he took up his hat and rose to his feet. The
+meeting had been very different from what he had hoped.
+
+"When do you go?" she asked brusquely.
+
+"To-night. I'm just going back to my rooms for a bag, and then I shall
+go. I'm sorry you should--I'm sorry you don't think I'm doing right."
+
+"It doesn't matter two straws what I think," said Adela behind the
+screen.
+
+"Aye, but it does to me," said Tom.
+
+She made no answer, and he stood for a moment, looking uneasily at the
+intruding fire-screen.
+
+"Well, good-bye," he said.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"I shall see you soon, I hope."
+
+"If Maggie will let you come."
+
+"I don't know," said Tom, "what pleasure you find in that. It seems to
+me that as a gentleman--to say nothing of my being their friend--I must
+go back."
+
+She made no retort to this, and he moved a step towards the door. Then
+he turned and glanced at her. She had dropped the screen and her eyes
+were fixed on the fire. He sighed, frowned, shrugged his shoulders,
+turned, and made for the door again. In another second he would have
+been gone, but Adela cried softly,
+
+"Mr. Loring."
+
+"Yes," he answered, coming to a halt.
+
+"Stay where you are a minute. Will you stay there a minute?"
+
+"An hour if you like," said Tom.
+
+"I just want to say that--that--You're coming nearer!--I want you to
+stay just where you are."
+
+Tom halted. He had, in fact, been coming slowly towards her.
+
+"I suppose," said Adela, in quite an indifferent tone, "that you'll
+settle down with the Dennisons again?"
+
+"I don't know. Yes; I suppose so."
+
+"Do you," said Adela, sinking far into the recesses of the arm-chair,
+and holding up the screen again, "like being there better than anywhere
+else? I suppose Maggie is very charming?"
+
+"You know just what she is."
+
+"I'm sure I don't. I'm a woman."
+
+There was a long pause. Tom felt absurd, standing there in the middle of
+the room. Suddenly Adela leapt to her feet.
+
+"Oh, go away! Yes, you're right to go back. Oh, yes, you're quite right.
+Good-bye, Mr. Loring."
+
+For a moment longer Tom stood still; then he moved, not towards the
+door, but towards Adela. When he spoke to her it was in a husky voice.
+There were no sweet seducing tones in his voice.
+
+"There's only one place in the world I really care to be," he said.
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"Harry and Mrs. Dennison are my friends," he said, "and as long as my
+time's my own, I'll give it to them. But you don't suppose I go there
+for happiness?"
+
+"I don't suppose you ever did anything for happiness," said Adela, as
+though she were advancing a heinous charge. "Really, nothing makes me so
+impatient as an unselfish man."
+
+Tom smiled, but his smile was still a nervous one. Nevertheless he felt
+less absurd. A distant presage of triumph stole into his mind.
+
+"Don't you want me to go?" he asked.
+
+"You may go wherever you like," said she.
+
+Tom came still nearer. Adela held out her hand and said "good-bye." Tom
+took the hand and held it.
+
+"You see," he said, "I didn't think I had anywhere else to go. I did
+know a charming lady who was very witty and--very rich----!"
+
+"I--I'll put some more in Omofaga and lose it. Oh, you are stupid, Tom!
+I really thought I should have to ask you myself, Tom. I'd have done it
+sooner than let you go."
+
+It was not, happily, in the end necessary, and Adela said with a sigh,
+
+"I believe that I've something to thank Mr. Ruston for, after all."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why, he made me resolved to marry the man who of all the world was most
+unlike him."
+
+"Then I've something to thank him for too."
+
+"Tom," she said, "I don't know what I said to you. I--I was jealous of
+Maggie Dennison."
+
+It was later by an hour when Tom Loring took his way, not to his rooms
+for a bag, but straight to Curzon Street. Adela had consented not to
+wait ("In one's eleventh season one does not want to wait," she said),
+and Tom considered that it was now hardly worth while to move. So he
+broke into Harry Dennison's study with a radiant face, crying,
+
+"Harry, I'm not coming to you after all, old fellow."
+
+Harry started up in dismay, but a short explanation turned his sorrow
+into rejoicing. Again and again he shook Tom's hand, telling him that
+the man who won a good wife won the greatest treasure earth could
+offer--and (he added) "by Jove, Tom, I believe the best chance of heaven
+too," and Tom gripped Harry's hand and cleared his own throat. Then they
+both felt very much ashamed, and, by way of forgetting this deplorable
+outburst of emotion (which Tom felt was quite un-English, and smacked
+indeed of Mrs. Cormack), agreed to go upstairs and announce the news to
+Maggie.
+
+"She'll be delighted," said Harry.
+
+Tom followed him upstairs to the drawing-room. Mrs. Dennison was sitting
+by the fire, doing nothing. But she sprang up when they came in, and
+advanced to meet Tom. He also felt like an ill-used subject as she gave
+him her hand and said,
+
+"How forgiving you are, Tom!"
+
+He looked in her face, and found her smiling under sad eyes. And he
+muttered some confused words about "all that" not mattering "tuppence."
+And indeed Mrs. Dennison seemed content to take the same view, for she
+smiled again and said,
+
+"Ah, well, there's an end of it, anyhow."
+
+Then Harry, who had been wondering why Tom delayed his tidings, burst
+out with them, and Tom added lamely,
+
+"Yes, it's true, Mrs. Dennison. So you see I can't come."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I must accept your excuse," she said, and added a few kind words. "As
+for Adela," she went on, "she's never been to see me lately, but for
+your sake I'll be humble and go and see her to-morrow."
+
+Harry, as though suddenly remembering, exclaimed that he must tell the
+children; in fact, he had an idea that a man liked to talk about his
+engagement to a woman alone, and plumed himself on getting out of the
+room with some dexterity. So Tom and Maggie Dennison were left for a
+little while together.
+
+At first they talked of Adela, but it was on Tom's mind to say something
+else, and at last he contrived to give it utterance.
+
+"I can't tell you," he said, looking away from her, "how glad I was to
+get your message. This--this trouble--has been horrible. I know I
+behaved like a sulky fool. I was quite wrong. It's awfully good of you
+to forget it."
+
+"Don't talk like that," she said in a low, slow voice. "How do you think
+Harry's looking?"
+
+"Oh, better than I have seen him for a long time. But you're not looking
+very blooming, Mrs. Dennison."
+
+She leant forward.
+
+"Do you think he's happy, or is he worrying? He talks to you, you know."
+
+"I think he's happier than he's been for months."
+
+She lay back with a sigh.
+
+"I hope so," she said.
+
+"And you?" he asked, timidly yet urgently.
+
+It seemed useless to pretend complete ignorance, yet impossible to
+assert any knowledge.
+
+"Oh, why talk about me? Talk about Adela."
+
+"I love Adela," he said gravely, "as I've never loved any other woman.
+But when I was a young man and came here, you were very kind to me. And
+I--no, I'll go on now--I looked up to you, and thought you the--the
+grandest woman I knew; and to us young men you were a sort of queen.
+Well, I haven't changed, Mrs. Dennison. I still think all that, and, if
+you ever want a friend to help you, or--or a servant to serve you, why,
+you can call on me."
+
+She sat silent while he spoke, gazing at the ground in front of her. Tom
+grew bolder.
+
+"There was one thing I came to Dieppe to do, but I hadn't the courage
+there. I wanted to tell you that Harry--that Harry was worthy of your
+love. I thought--well, I've gone further than I thought I could. You
+know; you must forgive me. If there's one thing in all the world that
+makes me feel all I ever felt for you, and more, it's to see him happy
+again, and you here trying to make him. Because I know that, in a way,
+it's difficult."
+
+"Do you know?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, I know. And, because I know, I tell you that you're a wife any man
+might thank God for."
+
+Mrs. Dennison laughed; and Tom started at the jarring sound. Yet it was
+not a sound of mirth.
+
+"You had temptations most of us haven't--yes, and a nature most of us
+haven't. And here you are. So,"--he rose from his chair and took her
+hand that drooped beside her, and bent his head and kissed it--"though I
+love Adela with all my heart, still I kiss your hand as your true and
+grateful servant, as I used to be in old days."
+
+Tom stopped; he had said his say, and his voice had grown tremulous in
+the saying. Yet he had done it; he had told her what he felt; and he
+prayed that it might comfort her in the trouble that had lined her
+forehead and made her eyes sad.
+
+Mrs. Dennison did not glance at him. For a moment she sat quite silent.
+Then she said,
+
+"Thanks, Tom," and pressed his hand.
+
+Then she suddenly sat up in her chair and held her hand out before her,
+and whispered to him words that he hardly heard.
+
+"If you knew," she said, "you wouldn't kiss it; you'd spit on it."
+
+Tom stood, silently, suddenly, wretchedly conscious that he did not know
+what he ought to do. Then he blurted out,
+
+"You'll stay with him?"
+
+"Yes, I shall stay with him," she said, glancing up; and Tom seemed to
+see in her eyes the picture of the long future that her words meant. And
+he went away with his joy eclipsed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                            THE MOVING CAR.
+
+
+In the month of June two years later, Lord Semingham sat on the terrace
+outside the drawing-room windows of his country house. By him sat Adela
+Loring, and Tom was to be seen a hundred yards away, smoking a pipe, and
+talking to Harry Dennison. Suddenly Semingham, who had been reading the
+newspaper, broke into a laugh.
+
+"Listen to this," said he. "It is true that the vote for the Omofaga
+railway was carried, but a majority of ten is not a glorious victory,
+and there can be little doubt that the prestige of the Government will
+suffer considerably by such a narrow escape from defeat, and by Lord
+Detchmore's ill-advised championship of Mr. Ruston's speculative
+schemes. Why is the British Government to pull the chestnuts out of the
+fire for Mr. Ruston? That is what we ask."
+
+Lord Semingham paused and added,
+
+"They may well ask. I don't know. Do you?"
+
+"Yesterday," observed Adela, "I received a communication from you in
+your official capacity. It was not a pleasant letter, Lord Semingham."
+
+"I daresay not, madam," said Semingham.
+
+"You told me that the Board regretted to say that, owing to unforeseen
+hindrances, the work in Omofaga had not advanced as rapidly as had been
+hoped, and that for the present it was considered advisable to devote
+all profits to the development of the Company's territory. You added
+however, that you had the utmost confidence in Mr. Ruston's zeal and
+ability, and in the ultimate success of the Company."
+
+"Yes; that was the circular," said Semingham. "That is, in fact, for
+some time likely to be the circular."
+
+They both laughed; then both grew grave, and sat silent side by side.
+
+The drawing-room window was thrown open, and Lady Semingham looked out.
+She held a letter in her hand.
+
+"Oh, fancy, Adela!" she cried. "Such a terrible thing has happened. I've
+had a letter from Marjory Valentine--she's in awful grief, poor child."
+
+"Why, what about?" cried Adela.
+
+"Poor young Walter Valentine has died of fever in Omofaga. He caught it
+at Fort Imperial, and he was dead in a week. Poor Lady Valentine! Isn't
+it sad?"
+
+Adela and Semingham looked at one another. A moment ago they had jested
+on the sacrifices demanded by Omofaga; Semingham had seen in the
+division on the vote for the railway a delightful extravagant burlesque
+on a larger stage of the fatefulness which he had whimsically read into
+Willie Ruston's darling scheme. Adela had fallen into his mood, adducing
+the circular as her evidence. They were taken at their word in grim
+earnest. Omofaga claimed real tears, as though in conscious malice it
+had set itself to outplay them at their sport.
+
+"You don't say anything, Alfred," complained little Lady Semingham from
+the window.
+
+"What is there to say?" asked he, spreading out his hands.
+
+"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow," whispered Adela,
+gazing away over the sunny meadows.
+
+Bessie Semingham looked at the pair for an instant, vaguely dissatisfied
+with their want of demonstrativeness. There seemed, as Alfred said, very
+little to say; it was so sad that there ought to have been more to say.
+But she could think of nothing herself, so, in her pretty little lisp,
+she repeated,
+
+"How sad for poor Lady Valentine!" and slowly shut the window.
+
+"He was a bright boy, with the makings of a man in him," said Semingham.
+
+Adela nodded, and for a long while neither spoke again. Then Semingham,
+with the air of a man who seeks relief from sad thoughts which cannot
+alter sadder facts, asked,
+
+"Where are the Dennisons?"
+
+"She went for a walk by herself, but I think she's come back and gone a
+stroll with Tom and Harry." As she spoke, she looked up and caught a
+puzzled look in Semingham's eye. "Yes," she went on in quick
+understanding. "I don't quite understand her either."
+
+"But what do you think?" he asked, in his insatiable curiosity that no
+other feeling could altogether master.
+
+"I don't want to think about it," said Adela. "But, yes, I'll tell you,
+if you like. She isn't happy."
+
+"No. I could tell you that," said he.
+
+"But Harry is happy. Lord Semingham, when I see her with him--her
+sweetness and kindness to him--I wonder."
+
+This time it was Semingham who nodded silent assent.
+
+"And," said Adela, with a glance of what seemed like defiance, "I pray."
+
+"You're a good woman, Adela," said he.
+
+"He sees no change in her, or he sees a change that makes him love her
+more. Surely, surely, some day, Lord Semingham----?"
+
+She broke off, leaving her hope unexpressed, but a faint smile on her
+face told of it.
+
+"It may be--some day," he said, as though he hardly hoped. Then, with
+one of his quick retreats, he took refuge in asking, "Are you happy with
+your husband, Adela? I hope to goodness you are."
+
+"Perfectly," she answered, with a bright passing smile.
+
+"But you get no dividends," he suggested, raising his brows.
+
+"No; no dividends," said she. "No more do you."
+
+"No; but we shall."
+
+"I suppose we shall."
+
+"He'll pull us through."
+
+"I wish he'd never been born," cried Adela.
+
+"Perhaps. Since he has, I shall keep my eye on him."
+
+From the shrubbery at the side of the lawn, Maggie Dennison came out.
+She was leaning on her husband's arm, and Tom Loring walked with them. A
+minute later they had heard from Adela the news of the ending of young
+Sir Walter's life and hopes.
+
+"Good God!" cried Harry Dennison in grief.
+
+They sat down and began to talk sadly of the lost boy. Only Maggie
+Dennison said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the sky, and she seemed
+hardly to hear. Yet Adela, stealing a glance at her, saw her clenched
+hand quiver.
+
+"Do you remember," asked Semingham, "how at Dieppe Bessie would have it
+that the little red crosses were tombstones? She was quite pleased with
+the idea."
+
+"Yes; and how horrified the old Baron was," said Adela.
+
+"Both he and Walter gone!" mused Harry Dennison.
+
+"Well, the omen is fulfilled now," said Tom Loring. "Ruston need not
+fear for himself."
+
+Harry Dennison turned a sudden uneasy glance upon his wife. She looked
+up and met it with a calm sad smile.
+
+"He was a brave boy," she said. "Mr. Ruston will be very sorry." She
+rose and laid her hand on her husband's arm. "Come, Harry," she said,
+"we'll walk again."
+
+He rose and gave her his arm. She paused, glancing from one to the other
+of the group.
+
+"You mustn't think he won't be sorry," she said pleadingly.
+
+Then she pressed her husband's arm and walked away with him. They passed
+again into the fringing shrubbery and were lost to view. Tom Loring did
+not go with them this time, but sat down by his wife's side. For a while
+no one spoke. Then Adela said softly,
+
+"She knows him better than we do. I suppose he will be sorry. Will he be
+sorry for Marjory too?"
+
+"If he thinks of her," said Semingham.
+
+"Yes--if he thinks of her."
+
+Semingham lit a cigarette and watched the smoke curl skywards.
+
+"Some of us are bruised," said he, "and some of us are broken."
+
+"Not beyond cure?" Adela beseeched, touching his arm.
+
+"God knows," said he with a shrug.
+
+"Not beyond cure?" she said again, insisting.
+
+"I hope not, my dear," said Tom Loring gently.
+
+"Bruised or broken--bruised or broken!" mused Semingham, watching his
+smoke-rings. "But the car moves on, eh, Adela?"
+
+"Yes, the car moves on," said she.
+
+"And I don't know," said Tom Loring, "that I'd care to be the god who
+sits in it."
+
+                                   * * * * *
+
+While Maggie Dennison walked with Harry in the shrubbery, and the group
+on the terrace talked of the god in the car, on the other side of the
+world a man sat looking out of a window under a new-risen sun. Presently
+his eyes dropped, and they fell on a wooden cross that stood below the
+window. A cheap wreath of artificial flowers decked it--a wreath one of
+Ruston's company had carried over seas from the grave of his dead wife,
+and had brought out of his treasures to honour young Sir Walter's grave;
+because he and they all had loved the boy. And, as Maggie Dennison had
+said, Ruston also was sorry. His eyes dwelt on the cross, while he
+seemed to hear again Walter's merry laugh and confident ringing tones,
+and to see his brave, lithe figure as he sprang on his horse and
+cantered ahead of the party, eager for the road, or the sport, aye, or
+the fight. For a moment Willie Ruston's head fell, then he got up--the
+cross had sent his thoughts back to the far-off land he had left. He
+walked across the little square room to an iron-bound box; unlocking it,
+he searched amid a pile of papers and found a woman's letter. He began
+to read it, but, when he had read but half, he laid it gently down again
+among the papers and closed and locked the box. His face was white and
+set, his eyes gleamed as if in anger. Suddenly he muttered to himself,
+
+"I loved that boy. I never thought of it killing him."
+
+And on thought of the boy came another, and for an instant the stern
+mouth quivered, and he half-turned towards the box again. Then he jerked
+his head, muttering again; yet his face was softer, till a heavy frown
+grew upon it, and he pressed his hand for the shortest moment to his
+eyes.
+
+It was over--over, though it was to come again. Treading heavily on the
+floor--there was no lightness left in his step--he reached the door, and
+found a dozen mounted men waiting for him, and a horse held for him. He
+looked round on the men; they were fine fellows, tall and stalwart,
+ready for anything. Slowly a smile broke on his face, an unmirthful
+smile, that lasted but till he had said,
+
+"Well, boys, we must teach these fellows a little lesson to-day."
+
+His followers laughed and joked, but none joined him where he rode at
+their head. The chief was a man to follow, not to ride with, they said,
+half in liking, half in dislike, wholly in trust and deference. Yet in
+old days he had been good to ride with too.
+
+The car was moving on. Maybe Tom Loring was not very wrong, when he said
+that he would not care to be the man who sat in it.
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                           Transcriber Notes:
+
+Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
+
+Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of
+the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted.
+
+On page 57, a period was added after "Mr".
+
+On page 67, "Omafaga" was replaced with "Omofaga".
+
+On page 109, "thats" was replaced with "that's".
+
+On page 238, "wathc" was replaced with "watch".
+
+On page 244, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double
+quotation mark.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The God in the Car, by Anthony Hope
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40583 ***