diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60120-0.txt | 12925 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60120-0.zip | bin | 252934 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60120-h.zip | bin | 352361 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60120-h/60120-h.htm | 14454 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/60120-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 96374 -> 0 bytes |
8 files changed, 17 insertions, 27379 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..179e3b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60120 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60120) diff --git a/old/60120-0.txt b/old/60120-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 939b853..0000000 --- a/old/60120-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12925 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Baltazar, by William J. Locke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The House of Baltazar - -Author: William J. Locke - -Release Date: August 18, 2019 [EBook #60120] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR *** - - - - -Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Jen Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - - - - [Cover Illustration] - - - - - THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR - - - - - _=BY THE SAME AUTHOR=_ - -IDOLS -JAFFERY -VIVIETTE -SEPTIMUS -DERELICTS -THE USURPER -STELLA MARIS -WHERE LOVE IS -THE ROUGH ROAD -THE RED PLANET -THE WHITE DOVE -FAR-AWAY STORIES -SIMON THE JESTER -A STUDY IN SHADOWS -A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY -THE WONDERFUL YEAR -THE FORTUNATE YOUTH -THE BELOVÈD VAGABOND -AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA -THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA -THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE -THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE -THE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL - - - - - THE - HOUSE OF BALTAZAR - - BY - WILLIAM J. LOCKE - - AUTHOR OF “THE ROUGH ROAD,” “THE RED PLANET,” - “THE WONDERFUL YEAR,” “THE BELOVÈD VAGABOND,” ETC. - - NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY - LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD - TORONTO: THE RYERSON PRESS - MCMXX - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY - INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY - ———— - COPYRIGHT, 1920 - BY JOHN LANE COMPANY - - T H E • PLIMPTON • PRESS - NORWOOD • MASS • U•S•A - - - - - THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR - - - - - THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -THE early story of Baltazar is not the easiest one to tell. It is -episodic. It obeys not the Unities of Time, Place and Action. The only -unity to be found in it is the oneness of character in that absurd and -accomplished man. The fact of his being lustily alive at the present -moment does not matter. To get him in perspective, one must regard him -as belonging to the past. Now the past is a relative conception. Save to -the academic student of History, Charlemagne is as remote as Sesostris. -To the world emerging from the stupor of the great war, Mons is as -distant as Balaclava. Time is really reckoned by the heart-throbs of -individuals or nations. Yester-year is infinitely far away. . . . - -To get back to Baltazar and his story. In the first place it may be said -that he was a man of fits and starts; a description which does not imply -irresponsible mobility of purpose and spasmodic achievement. The phrase -must be taken in the literal significance of the two terms. A man of -fits—of mental, moral and emotional paroxysms; of starts—of swift -courses of action which these paroxysms irresistibly determined. Which -same causes of action, in each case, he doggedly and ruthlessly pursued. -One, an intimate teacher of Baltazar, one who, possessed of the -knowledge of the scholar and the wisdom of the man of the world, might -be qualified to judge, called him a Fool of Genius. Now the genius is -steadfast; the fool erratic. In this apparent irreconcilability of -attributes lies the difficulty of presenting the story of Baltazar. - -But for the war, the story would scarcely be worth the telling, however -interesting might be his sheer personality and his calculated -waywardness. It would have led no whither, save to a stage or two -further on his journey to the grave. But there is scarcely a human being -alive with whose apparently predestined lot the war has not played the -very devil. It knocked Baltazar’s world to bits—as soon as the -realization of it burst on his astonished senses; yet it seemed to bring -finality or continuity into his hitherto disconnected life. - -It was during the war that his name was mentioned and his character -discussed for the first time for many years, by two persons not without -interest in his fate. - - * * * * * - -Marcelle Baring, a professional nurse of long standing, arrived late one -night at Churton Towers, to take up the duties of sister in charge. The -place was the country seat of a great family who, like many others, had -given it over to the Government as a convalescent home for officers; a -place of stately lawns and terraces and fountains; of picture-hung -galleries guarded by grim emptinesses in armour; of noble halls -heterogeneously furnished—for generosity seldom goes so far as to leave -the edges of a priceless marquetry table at the mercy of a -feather-headed subaltern’s forgotten cigarette; of tapestried rooms, -once filled with the treasures of centuries, now empty save for the rows -of little standard War Office bedsteads and the little deal regulation -tables at their heads. - -Somewhat confused by the vastness of her new home, and by the contrast -of its gracious splendour with the utilitarian ugliness and mathematical -uniformity of the General Hospital which she had just left, Marcelle -Baring went downstairs the next morning to begin her new duties. Once in -the wards she felt at home; for a ward of sick men is the same all the -world over. The Matron went round with her, performing introductions; -but that first morning she only caught a third of the names. It would -take a few days to learn them, to learn also the history of the cases. -Besides, they were convalescents, dressings were few, and her work was -more administrative than personal. Her first impression was that of a -high spirited crowd of almost indistinguishable young men, some to all -intents and purposes sound of wind and limb, who in a short time would -be sent back to the tempest of shell whence they were driven; others -maimed and crippled, armless, legless, with drooping wrists, with -unserving ankles. In the daytime nearly all were out of the wards; most -in the open air playing tennis or lounging about the terraces, or -playing billiards in the open-sided pavilion that looked over the -Japanese garden. It was no easy matter to keep track of them all. - -It was only on the second day that the name of a young officer who had -lost his foot caught her eye: “Mr. G. Baltazar.” He was very young, -fair, blue-eyed, with a little blond moustache. His tunic, laid ready -with the rest of his clothes, bore the white and purple ribbon of the -Military Cross. The stump had practically healed, but it still needed -attention. - -“It’s rotten luck, isn’t it, Sister?” he said while she was tending him. -“I thought I had got through all right—the show at Ypres early in June. -I all but saw it out, but a bit of high explosive got me and here I am. -Anyhow, they say they’re going to wangle me an artificial foot, so that -I’ll never know the difference. One of those pukka things, you know, -that’ll pick up pins with the toes. I hope it’ll come soon, for I’m fed -up with crutches. I always feel as if I ought to hold out my hat for -pennies.” - -“Poor chap!” said Marcelle, absently. - -“That’s kind of you, but it’s just what I’m hating. I don’t want to go -through life as a ‘poor chap.’” He paused, then ran on: “I wonder how -you dear people can look at the beastly thing. Whenever I cock my leg -down and try to have a sight of it, it nearly makes me sick. I like to -be neat and tidy and not repulsive to my fellow-creatures, but that -crimpled-crumpled end of me is just slovenly and disgusting.” - -Marcelle Baring scarcely heeded his debonair talk. His name had awakened -far-off memories. She worked in silence, pinned the bandage and, -smiling, with a “You’ll do all right, Mr. Baltazar,” left him. - -The shock came the next afternoon. As she passed through the great -entrance hall, fitted up as a lounge with the heterogeneous furniture, -she came across him, the solitary occupant, sitting at a table, busy -with pencil and writing pad and a thick volume propped up in front of -him. Her eye caught arresting symbols on the paper, then the -page-heading of the book: “Rigid Dynamics.” - -She paused. He looked up with a laugh. - -“Hello, Sister!” - -She said, with a catch in her breath, “You’re a mathematician?” - -He laughed. “More or less. If they kick me out of the Army, I must go -back to Cambridge and begin again where I left off.” - -“You must have left off rather high, if you’re reading Rigid.” - -He started, for no one in this wide world but a mathematical student -could have used the phrase. - -“What the—what do you know about Rigid?” - -“I was at Newnham, in my young days,” she replied, “and I read -mathematics. And, oddly enough, my private tutor was”—she hesitated for -a second—“someone of your name.” - -He pushed his chair away from the table. - -“That must have been my father.” - -“John Baltazar.” - -“Yes, John Baltazar. One of the greatest mathematical geniuses Cambridge -has produced. Good Lord! did you know my father?” - -“He and I were great friends.” - -She looked him through and through with curiously burning eyes; of which -the boy was unconscious, for he said: - -“Fancy your reading with my father! It’s a funny old world.” Then -suddenly he reflected and glanced at her critically. “But how could you? -He disappeared nearly twenty years ago.” - -“I’m thirty-eight,” she said. - -“Lord! you don’t look it—nothing like it,” he cried boyishly. - -Nor did she. She carried a graceful air of youth, from the wave of brown -hair that escaped from beneath her Sister’s cap to the supple and -delicately curved figure. And her face, if you peered not too closely, -was young, very pure in feature, still with a bloom on the complexion in -spite of confinement in hospital wards. Her voice, too, was soft and -youthful. Perhaps her eyes were a little weary—they had seen many -terrible things. - -At the young man’s tribute she flushed slightly and smiled. But the -smile died away when he added: - -“What was he like? I’ve often wondered, and there has been no one to -tell me—no one I could have listened to. The dons of his generation are -too shy to refer to him and I’m too shy to ask ’em. Do you know, I’ve -never seen a picture of him even.” - -“He was not unlike you,” she replied, looking not at him, but wistfully -down the years. “Of heavier build. He was a man of tremendous -vitality—and swift brain. The most marvellous teacher I have ever met. -He seemed to hold your intellect in his hands like a physical thing, -sweep it clear of cobwebs and compel it to assimilate whatever he chose. -A born teacher and a wonderful man.” - -“But was he human? I know his work, though I haven’t read enough to -tackle it yet—most of it’s away and beyond Part II of the Tripos even. -I went up with an Open Mathematical Scholarship just before the war, and -only did my first year’s reading. I’m beginning this”—he tapped his -Treatise on Rigid Dynamics—“on my own. What I mean is,” he went on, -after a pause, “my father has been always an abstraction to me. I -shouldn’t have worried about him if he had just been a nonentity—it -wasn’t playing the game to vanish as he did into space and leave my -mother to fend for herself.” - -“But I heard,” said the Sister, “that your mother had her own private -fortune.” - -“I wasn’t alluding to that side of it,” he admitted. “But he did vanish, -didn’t he? Well, as I say, if he had been just a nobody, I shouldn’t -have been particularly interested; but he wasn’t. He was the most -brilliant man of his generation at Cambridge. For instance, he took up -Chinese as a sort of relaxation. They say his is the only really -scientific handbook on the study of the language. You see, Sister”—he -swerved impatiently on his chair and brought his hand down on the table, -whereat she drew a swift inward breath, for the gesture of the son was -that of the father—“I’ve always wanted to know whether I’m the son of -an inhuman intellect or of a man of flesh and blood. Was he human? -That’s what I want to know.” - -“He was human all right,” she replied quietly. “Too human. Of course he -was essentially the scholar—or savant—whatever you like to call it. -His work was always to him an intellectual orgy. But he loved the world -too. He was a fascinating companion. He seemed to want to get everything -possible out of life.” - -“Why didn’t he get it?” - -“He was a man,” she said, “of sensitive honour.” - -Captain Baltazar threw away the flaming match wherewith he was about to -light a cigarette. - -“That licks me,” said he. - -“How?” - -“His bolting. Did you know my father very well?” - -“I’ve told you we were great friends.” - -“Did you know my mother?” - -Her eyelids flickered for a moment; but she replied steadily: - -“No. I was only a student and your father was my private tutor. But I -heard—from other people—a great deal about your mother. I believe she -died many years ago, didn’t she?” - -“Yes. When I was five. I barely remember her. I was brought up by my -uncle and aunt—her people. They scarcely knew my father and haven’t a -good word to say about him. It was only when I grew up and developed a -sort of taste for mathematics, that I realized what a swell he was. And -I can’t help being fascinated by the mystery of it. There he was, as far -as I can gather, full of money, his own (which he walked off with) and -of mother’s, beginning to enjoy at thirty a world-wide reputation—and -suddenly he disappears off the face of the earth. It wasn’t a question -of suicide. For the man who buys a ticket for the next world doesn’t go -to peculiar trouble to take all his worldly estate with him. It isn’t -reasonable, is it?” - -“Your father was too much in love with life to go out of it -voluntarily,” said Sister Baring. - -“Then what the blazes did he do, and why did he do it?” - -“I don’t know,” she said. - -“Is he alive or dead?” - -“How should I know, Mr. Baltazar?” - -“He never wrote to you—after——?” - -“Why should he have written to me?” she interrupted. - -The rebuke in her voice and eyes sent the young man into confused -apologies. - -“Naturally not. You must forgive me, Sister; but, as I’ve told you, I’ve -never met a pal of that mysterious father of mine before. I want to get -all the information I can.” - -She drew a chair and sat by him. The great hall was very still and, in -contrast with the vivid sunshine perceived through the eastern windows, -very dark. Through the open door came the scents of the summer gardens. -The air was a little heavy. She felt her cap hot around her temples, and -lassitude enfeebling her limbs. The strain of the war years began to -tell. She had regarded this appointment as a rest from the intolerable -toil of the General Hospital in a large town which she had just quitted. -Before then she had served in France. And before that—for many -years—she had followed the selfless career of the nurse. Now, suddenly, -her splendid nerve showed signs of giving. If she had not sat down, her -legs would have crumpled up beneath her. So she thought. . . . - -She looked at the young man, so eager, so proven, so like his father in -gesture and glance, yet in speech and outlook—she was yet to get to -that—but she knew the revolutionary influences of the war, the real -war, on those who have faced its terrors and become saturated with its -abiding philosophies—so different from the fervid creature, John -Baltazar, of the late nineties, who had never dreamed of the possibility -of this world convulsion. He had much the same frank charm of manner, -the direct simplicity of utterance; but the mouth was weaker; the eyes -were blue, the eyes of a shrewish blonde—not the compelling, laughing, -steel-grey eyes with a queer sparkle in the iris of John Baltazar. All -in the young face that was not John Baltazar’s was the mother’s. She -hated the mother dead, as she had loathed her living. Only once had she -seen her, a blonde shrew-mouse of a woman. Just a passing by on the -Newnham road, when a companion had pointed her out as Mrs. Baltazar. The -little bitter mouth had bitten into her memory: the hard little blue -eyes had haunted her for eighteen years. The mouth and eyes were there, -before her, now. The rest, all that was noble in the boy, was John -Baltazar. - -“Who has told you the little you do know about him?” she asked. - -“My uncle. My mother’s brother. I don’t think I have any relations -living on my father’s side. At any rate, I’ve not heard of them. We’re -of old Huguenot stock—Revocation of Edict of Nantes refugees—God knows -what we were before. Long ago I happened upon a copy somewhere of the -_Annuaire Militaire de l’Armée Française_—and I found a Baltazar in the -list. I had an idea of writing him; but I didn’t, of course. Now I -suppose the poor devil’s killed. Anyhow, that’s nothing to do with your -question. My uncle—Sir Richard Woodcott—they knighted him for -manufacturing easily broken hardware round about Birmingham, or for -going to chapel, or something—you know the type——” - -Again she rebuked him: “I thought you said your uncle brought you up.” - -“On my mother’s fortune—he was my guardian and trustee. But he never -let me forget that I was the son of John Baltazar. There was no question -of affection from either of them—himself or his wife. Anything I did -wrong—it was my scoundrel of a father coming out in me. After passing -through a childish phase of looking on him as a kind of devil who had -blasted my young life, I began to have a sneaking regard for him. You -see, don’t you? If he was the antithesis of Uncle Richard, he must be -somebody I could sympathize with, perhaps rather somebody who could -sympathize with me. They drew me into the arms of his memory, so to -speak. Odd, isn’t it?” - -“What specifically did they accuse him of?” - -“Oh, everything,” he replied, with a careless laugh. “Every depravity -under the sun. Colossal egotism and heartlessness the mildest. And of -course he drank——” - -A sudden red spot flamed in the Sister’s cheek and her tired eyes -flashed. “That’s a lie! And so is the other. How dare they?” - -“Oh, a pacifist Knight who is making his fortune out of the war will -dare anything. Then, of course, there’s what they say about any man who -runs away from his wife——” - -“To be explicit——?” She leaned an elbow on the table, a cheek on hand, -and looked at him steadily. - -“Well——” he paused, somewhat embarrassed. “Immorality—you know—other -women.” - -“That’s not true either. At least, not in that sense. There was another -woman. Yes. But only one. And God knows that there could be nothing -purer and cleaner and sweeter on this earth than that which was between -them.” - -“I’m more than ready to believe it,” said John Baltazar’s son. “But—how -do you know?” - -“It’s the story of a dear friend of mine,” she replied. “Nothing was -hidden from me. The girl couldn’t help worshipping him. He was a man to -be worshipped. I don’t want to speak evil of your mother—there may have -been misunderstandings on both sides—but I knew—my friend and I -knew—through acquaintances in Cambridge—never from himself—that his -married life was very unhappy.” - -“Look here, Sister,” said young Baltazar, putting up an arresting hand. -“As we seem to be talking pretty intimately about my affairs, I’ll tell -you something I’ve never breathed to a human being. I’ve no childish -memories of being tucked up in bed and kissed to sleep by an angel in -woman’s form, like children in picture books. Now I come to think of it, -I used to envy them. The only vivid thing I remember is being nearly -beaten to death with a belt—it was one of those patent leather things -women used to wear round their waists—and then being stuffed away in -the coal hole.” - -“Oh, you poor mite!” Marcelle straightened herself in her chair, and the -tears sprang. “Before you were five! Oh, how damnable! What a childhood -you must have had! How did you manage to come through?” - -He laughed. “I suppose I’m tough. As soon as I went to school—they sent -me at eight years old—I was all right. But never mind about me. Go on -with your friend’s story. It’s getting interesting. I quite see now that -my father may have had a hell of a time.” - -“If you quite see,” she said, “there’s little more to tell.” - -She leaned forward again on her elbow and, staring across the great -hall, through the wide-open doorway to the lawns and trees drenched in -the afternoon sunshine, forgot him and lost herself in the sunshine, the -most wonderful that ever was, of the years ago. Godfrey Baltazar looked -at her keenly yet kindly, and his stern young lips softened into a -smile; and after a bit he stretched out a hand and touched her wrist -very gently. - -“Tell me,” he said in a low voice. “It’s good for me, and may be good -for you.” - -She came back to the present with a little sigh. - -“It’s such a very old story, you see. He was unhappy. His wife’s -ungovernable temper drove him from the house. He had to lead his -intellectual as well as his physical life. He lived most of his time in -college. Went home for week-ends—vainly seeking reconciliation. Then -the girl threw herself into his life. She worshipped him. She seemed to -give him something sweet and beautiful which he had been looking for. -And he fell in love with her. And when she knew it, she was taken up -into the Seventh Heaven and she didn’t care for God or woman—only for -him. It lasted just a month—the end of the summer term. Oh, it was very -innocent, as far as that goes—they only met alone in the open -air—stolen hours in the afternoon. Only one kiss ever passed between -them. And then he said: ‘I am a brute and a fool. This can’t go on.’ She -had given herself to him in spirit and was ready to go on and on -whithersoever he chose, so long as she was with him; but she was too shy -and tongue-bound to say so. And he stamped along the road, and she by -his side, all her heart and soul a-flutter, and he cried: ‘My God, I -never thought it would have come to this! My child, forgive me. If ever -I hurt a hair of your dear head, may God damn me to all eternity!’ And -they walked on in silence and she was frightened—till they came to the -turn of the road—this way to Newnham, that to Cambridge. And he gripped -her two hands and said: ‘If I withered this flower that has blossomed in -my path I should be a damnable villain.’ He turned and walked to -Cambridge. And the girl, not understanding anything save her love for -him, wept bitterly all the way to Newnham. She neither saw him nor heard -of him after that. And a week afterwards he disappeared, leaving no -trace behind. And whether he’s alive or dead she doesn’t know till this -day. And that is the real story of your father.” - -He had turned and put both elbows on the intervening table and, head in -hand, listened to her words. When she ended, he said: - -“Thank God. And thank you. So that is the word of the enigma.” - -“Yes. There is no other.” - -“And if he had been less—what shall we say—Quixotic—less scrupulous -on the point of a woman’s honour—you would have followed him to the end -of the world——” - -“I?” She started back from the table. “I? What do you mean?” - -“Why the friend, Sister? Why the camouflage?” He reached out his hand -and grasped hers. “Confess.” - -She returned his pressure, shrugged her shoulders, and said, without -looking at him: - -“I suppose it was rather thin. Yes. Of course I would have thrown -everything to the winds for him. It was on my account that he went -away—but, as God hears me, I never sent him.” - -A long silence stole on them. There was so much that struggled to be -said, so little that could be said. At last the young man gripped his -crutches and wriggled from his chair. She rose swiftly to aid him. - -“Let us have a turn in the sun. It will be good for us.” - -So they went out and she helped him, against his will—for he loved his -triumph over difficulties—down the majestic marble stairs, and they -passed the happy tennis courts and the chairs of the cheery invalids -looking on at the game, and on through the Japanese garden with its pond -of great water-lilies and fairy bridge across, and out of the gate into -the little beech wood that screened the house from the home farm. On a -rough seat amid the sun-flecked greenery they sat down. - -He said: “I may be a sentimental ass, but you seem to be nearer to me -than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.” - -She made a little helpless gesture. He laughed his pleasant laugh, which -robbed his lips of their hardness. - -“You supply a long-felt want, you know.” - -“That sounds rather nice, but I don’t quite understand, Mr. Baltazar.” - -“Oh, Mr. Baltazar be blowed!” he cried. “My name’s Godfrey. For God’s -sake let me hear somebody call me by it! You of all people. Why, you -knew me before I was born.” - -He said it unthinking—a boyish epigram. Her sudden flush brought -consciousness of blunder in elemental truth and taste. He sat stiff, -horrified; gasped out: - -“Forgive me. I didn’t realize what I was saying.” - -She glanced covertly at his young and consternation-stricken face, and -her heart went out to him who, after all, on so small a point of -delicacy found himself so grievously to blame. - -“Perhaps, my dear boy,” she said, “it is well that you have touched on -this. You and I are grown up and can speak of things frankly—and -certain things that people don’t usually discuss are often of supreme -importance in their own and other people’s lives. I didn’t know you -before you were born, nor did your father. It’s he that counts. If he -had known, he would never have left your mother to. . . . No, no! He -would have found some other way. He couldn’t have left her. It’s -incredible. I know it. I know all the strength and the beauty and the -wonder of him.” - -“My God,” said the young man, “how you must have loved him!” - -“Without loving him, any fool could have looked through his transparent -honesty. He was that kind of man.” - -“Tell me,” he said, “all the little silly things you can remember about -him.” - -He re-explained his eagerness. He had been such a lonely sort of fellow, -with no kith or kin with whom he could be in sympathy: an intellectual -Ishmaelite—if an inexplicable passion for mathematics and a general -sort of craving for the solution of all sorts of problems, human and -divine, could be called intellectual—banned by the material, dogmatic, -money-obsessed Woodcotts; referred back, as he had mentioned, for all -his darling idiosyncrasies to his unmentionable father. Small wonder -that he had built up a sort of cult of the only being who might have -taken for him a sympathetic responsibility. And now—this was the -greatest day of his life. All his dreams had come true. He was not a -sentimental ass, he reasserted. If there was one idiot fallacy that the -modern world was exploding, it was the fallacy of the debt due by -children for the privilege they owed their parents for bringing them -into this damned fool of a world. The only decent attitude of parents -towards their children was one of profound apology. It was up to the -children to accept it according to the measure of its fulfilment. But, -after all, an uncared-for human atom, with intelligence and emotions, -could not go through life without stretching out tentacles for some sort -of sympathy and understanding. He must owe something of Himself—himself -with a capital H—to those who begot and bore him. Mustn’t he? So when -they impressed on his young mind, by way almost of an hereditary curse, -the identity of his spiritual (or, to their way of thinking, -anti-spiritual) outlook with that of his father, he, naturally, -stretched out to his unknown father the aforesaid tentacles: especially -when he learned later what a great man his father was. Yes, really, he -considered it the most miraculous day of his life. He would have given -another foot to have it. - -“There’s another thing,” he said. “Once I found in an old book some odds -and ends of his manuscript. I fell to copying his writing, especially -his signature. The idiotic thing a boy would do. I got into the trick of -it, and I suppose I’ve never got out. Look.” - -He scrawled a few words with his signature on the pad. She started. It -was like a message from the dead. He laughed and went on with the -parable of his father. - -“You see,” he concluded, “it is gorgeous to know, for a certainty at -last, that the Family were vilely wrong, and my own instinct right, all -the time.” - -He had spoken with a touch of the vehemence she so well remembered. And -she had let him speak on, for the sake of the memories; also in the hope -that he might forget his demand for a revelation of them. But he -returned to it. - -“Another day,” she replied. “These things can’t all be dragged at once -out of the past. We’ll have many opportunities of talking—till your new -foot comes.” - -“You will have another talk—many others, won’t you?” he asked eagerly. - -“Why should you doubt it?” - -“I don’t know. Forgive me for saying it—I don’t want to be rude, but -women are funny sometimes.” - -She smiled from the wisdom of her superior age—his frankness had the -disarming quality of a child. “What do you know of women, Godfrey -Baltazar?” - -He wrinkled his brow whimsically and rubbed his hair. - -“Not much. What man does? Do you know,” he asked with the air of a -pioneer of thought, “you are all damnably perplexing?” - -At this she laughed outright. “Isn’t she kind?” - -“She—who—oh, yes. How did you guess?” - -“The way of Nature varies very little. What about her?” - -“She would be all right, if it weren’t for my brother——” - -“Your brother? Oh, of course——” She had to reach back into unimportant -memories. “Your mother was a widow when she married—with an only son.” - -“That’s it. Seven or eight years older than I am. Name of Doon. -Christened Leopold. We never hit it off. I’ve loathed the beggar all my -life; but he’s a damn fine soldier. Major. D.S.O. Doing splendid work. -But the brute has the whole of himself left and isn’t a dot and carry -one, like me.” - -“And the lady?” - -“I’ll tell you another time—in one of our many talks. At present it -doesn’t seem to amount to a row of pins compared with my meeting you. My -hat!” he exclaimed after a pause. “It’s a funny little world.” - -He thrust his hands into his pockets and stretched out his legs, the end -of the maimed one supported on the crutch. The afternoon peace of the -beech wood enfolded them in their contemplation of the funny little -world. She looked at him, young, strong, full of the delight of physical -and intellectual life, reckoning as of no account the sacrifice to his -country of much that made that physical existence full of precious -meaning; hiding deep in his English soul all the significance of his -familiar contempt for death; a son whom any mother might be proud to -have brought into the world. And tears were very near her eyes when she -thought of what might have been. And all her heart went out to him -suddenly in a great gush of emotion, as though she had found her own -son, and the tears started. She laid rather a timid hand on his -shoulder. - -“My dear,” she said, “let us be great friends for the sake of the bond -between us.” - -He started at her touch, and plucking both hands from his pockets, -imprisoned hers in them. - -“Friends! You’re a dear. The dearest thing in the world. You’re going to -be the only woman I’ve ever loved. Why, you’re crying!” - -Her wet eyes glistened. “We’re all hopelessly perplexing, aren’t we?” - -“You’re not. Not a little bit.” He kissed her hand and let it go. -“You’re straight and adorable. But what can I call you?” - -“Call me?” The question was a little shock. “You can call me by my name, -if you like—when we are alone—Marcelle.” - -“Splendid!” he cried. “The long-felt want. I’ve had as many Sisters as -my young life can stand.” - -She rose, helped him to rise. - -“I hope,” she said, “you will remain the boy that you are for a very -long time.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -AFTER this they had the many talks which they had promised themselves, -and she told him the little things about John Baltazar which he had -craved to learn. And the young man told her of his ambitions and his -hopes and his young despairs. The last mainly concerned one Dorothy -Mackworth, a Warwickshire divinity in a silk tennis sweater and -tam-o’-shanter, whose only imperfection, if the word could be applied to -tragic misfortune, was her domination by some diabolic sorcery which -made her look more kindly on the black Leopold, his brother, than on -himself. Her age? Seventeen. “You poor babies,” thought Marcelle. Once -she said: - -“Why worry? You can find a thousand little Dorothys in a week if you -look for them—all a-growing and a-blowing, with never a wicked spell on -them at all.” - -“You are wrong,” he replied. “One can find thousands of Susans and Janes -and Gertrudes—all very charming girls, I admit; but there’s only one -Dorothy. She’s very remarkable. She has an intellect. She has a -distracting quality, something uncanny, you know, in her perceptions and -intuitions. I’m dead serious, Marcelle, believe me——” - -She let him talk his heart out. Her soul, dry and athirst, drank in his -boy’s freshness—how greedily she scarcely realized. In her character of -nurse she had acted as Mother Confessor to many a poor lonely wretch; -but in every case she had felt it was to the nun-descended uniform she -wore, to its subconsciously recognized sanctity, and not to the mere -kindly woman beneath, that she owed the appeal or the revelation. But -now to young Godfrey Baltazar she was intensely, materially woman. -Foolishly woman in her unconfessed craving to learn the details of his -life and character and outlook on the world. - -Once he checked an egotistic exposition. - -“Look here,” he said, struck by a sudden qualm, “I’m always holding -forth about myself—what about you?” - -“There’s nothing about me. I’m just a nurse. A nurse is far too busy and -remote from outside things to be anything else than a nurse.” - -“But you started out as a mathematical swell at Newnham. Oh yes, you -did! Men like my father don’t coach rotters—least of all women. What -happened? You went in for the Tripos, of course?” - -She shook her head. “No, my dear. The magic had gone out of my life. I -tried Newnham for half the next term—facing the music—but it was too -much for me. I broke down. I had to earn my livelihood. My original idea -was teaching. I gave it up. Took to nursing instead. And now you know -the whole story of my life.” - -“I can’t understand anybody really bitten with mathematics giving it -up.” - -She smiled. “I don’t think I was really bitten. Not like you.” - -Then she led him from herself to his own ambitions, on this as on other -occasions. Gradually she established between them a relationship very -precious. It was the aftermath of her own romance. - -One day, business calling her to London, she changed into mufti, and -hurried down the front steps to the car that was to take her to the -station. She found Godfrey waiting by the car door. - -“My word! You look topping!” he cried in blatant admiration, and she -blushed with pleasure like a girl. - -He begged for a jaunt to the station and back. The air would do him -good. She assented, and they drove off. - -“You look younger than ever,” he went on. “It’s a sin to hide your -beautiful hair under that wretched Sister’s concern. Now I see really -the kind of woman you are——” - -“What have clothes got to do with it?” - -“Lots. The way you select them, the way you put them on, the way you -express yourself in them. No one can express themselves in a beastly -uniform. Now, all kinds of instincts, motives, feelings, went into that -hat. There’s a bit of defiance in it. As who should say: ‘Now that I’m -an ordinary woman again, demureness be damned!’” - -She said: “I’m glad I meet with your lordship’s approval,” and she felt -absurdly happy for the rest of the day. In her heart she thanked God -that he regarded her not merely as a kind old thing to whom, as a link -between himself and his father, he was benevolently disposed. Out of -sight, she would then be out of his mind. But she held her own as a -woman; unconsciously had held it all the time. Now the little accident -of the meeting in mufti secured her triumph. When he left the home he -would not drift away from her. - -He had said on the platform, waiting for her train: - -“As soon as we can fix it up, I’ll get hold of Dorothy, and you and I -and she’ll have a little beano at the Carlton. I do so want her to meet -you.” - -The wish, she reflected afterwards, signified much: Dorothy to meet her, -not she to meet Dorothy. The kind old thing, as a matter of boyish -courtesy, would be asked to meet Dorothy. But Dorothy was to meet -somebody in whom he took a certain pride. - -She remembered a story told her by a friend who had gone to see her boy -at a famous public school on the occasion of the Great Cricket Match. At -the expansive moment of parting he said: “Mother, I suppose you know -that the men feel it awfully awkward being seen with their people, but -as you were out and away the most beautiful woman in the crowd, I went -about not caring a hang.” - -She would have to get herself up very smart for Dorothy. In the train -coming back she fell a-dreaming. If John Baltazar and she had stuck it -out in all honour for a few years, Death, which was in God’s hands and -not theirs, would have solved all difficulties. They would have been -married. The five-year-old child would have called her “mother.” She -would be “mother” still to this gallant lad whose youth and charm had -suddenly swept through the barren chambers of her heart. And in the -night she asked again the question which in the agonized moments of past -years she had cried to the darkness: “Why?” - -Why had he left her? If he had been strong enough to keep love within -the bounds of perfect friendship, she, the unawakened girl, living in -passionate commune with intellectual and spiritual ideals, would have -found for some years, at least, all her cravings satisfied in such a -tender and innocent intercourse. And if he had claimed her body and her -soul, God knows they were his for the taking. - -So why? Why the breaking of so many lives? His own, so vivid, most of -all. - - * * * * * - -In the quivering splendour of her one girlish month of love, a -distracted Semele, she had scarcely seen her Jovian lover, as he was in -human form. She pictured him, Heaven knows how romantically. But always, -in her picturing, she took for granted the canon of chiaroscuro, of -light and shade. In judging him afterwards, she had no conception of a -being to whom compromise was damnation. A phrase—an instinctive cutter -of Gordian knots—might have brought illumination; but there was none to -utter it. - -She was amazed, dumbfounded, conscience-stricken, all but -soul-destroyed, when the astounding fact of John Baltazar’s -disappearance became known. The familiar houses and trees and hedges on -the Newnham Road pointed to her as accusing witnesses. Yet she kept her -own counsel, and, keeping it, suffered to breaking-point. Many months -passed before she could look life again squarely in the face—and then -it was the new life that had lasted for so many years. And still, with -all her experience of human weakness and human fortitude, she lay awake -asking herself the insoluble question. - - * * * * * - -So little occasion had been given for scandal, that her name was -associated in no man or woman’s mind with the extraordinary event. Clue -to John Baltazar’s disappearance, save the notorious shrewishness of his -wife, there was none. Common Rooms, heavy with the secular atmosphere of -casuistic argument, speculated in vain. A man of genius, destined to -bring the University once more into world-wide fame—watched, therefore, -by the University with sedulous care and affection; a man with the -prizes of the earth (from the academic point of view) dangling within -his grasp, does not, they contended, forsake all and go out into the -darkness because his wife happens to be a scold. Another woman? To -Common Rooms the idea was preposterous. Besides, if there had been one, -the married members would have picked up in their homes the gossip of -one of the most nervous gossip centres in the United Kingdom. Mad, -perhaps? But Mrs. Baltazar proclaimed loudly the sagacious method by -which he realized his private fortune, before setting out for the -Unknown. And Common Rooms, like Marcelle, asked the same perplexing -question: Why? - - * * * * * - -The next day, in the grounds of Churton Towers, the young man, returning -to his father’s fascinating mystery, propounded the dilemma that had -kept her from sleep the night before, and he, in his turn, asked: “Why?” - -“The only solution of it is,” said he, “that he burned the house down in -order to roast the pig.” - -She flashed a glance at him. “You seem to know him better than I.” - - * * * * * - -At that moment, John Baltazar, about whom there was all this coil, -leaning over the gate of a derelict and remote moorland farmstead, -perhaps asked himself the same question; for in moments of intellectual -and physical relaxation he was wont, like most solitaries, to look down -the vista of his years. - -A low granite wall, in which was set the wooden gate, encircled the few -acres of his domain. Behind him, a one-storied, granite-built, thatched -dwelling and the adjoining stable and byre and pigsties and dismantled -dairy. Surrounding the buildings, with little selection as to -appropriateness of site, were flower garden, mostly of herbaceous -plants, vegetable garden, wire-enclosed poultry runs variegated with -White Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds, and half an acre of rough grass -on which some goats were tethered. - -John Baltazar leaned over the gate and, smoking his cherry-wood pipe, -gazed with the outer eye on the familiar scene of desolate beauty. -Within his horizon he was the only visible human being, his the only -human habitation. All around him spread the rolling landscape of granite -and heather and wind-torn shrub. The granite hills, some surmounted by -gigantic and shapeless masses of rock left freakishly behind in glacial -movements of unknown times, glowed amethyst and pale coral; the heather -slopes in the sunlight blazed in the riot of royal purple, and the -shadowed plains lay in a sullen majesty of gloom. Heather and granite, -granite and heather, moorland and mountain, beauty and barrenness. God -and granite and heather. No place for man. No more a place for man than -the Sahara. For man, to his infinite despair, had tried it; had built -the rude farmstead, had, Heaven knows why—perhaps through pathetic -pride of ownership—with infinite sweating, piled up the three-foot ring -of stones, had sought to cultivate the illusory covering of earth, had -dug till his sinews cracked and turned up the eternal granite instead of -clods, and had sickened and starved and died; and had abandoned the -stricken place to the unhelpful sun and the piercing winds and the -snows—and to John Baltazar, who now, smoking his pipe, formed part of -this tableland of desolation. - -Fifty, he looked ten years younger. A short, uncombed thatch of coarse -brown hair showed no streak of grey; nor did a closely clipped moustache -of a lighter shade. His broad forehead was singularly serene, save for -an accusing deep vertical line between the brows. And a faint -criss-cross network, too, appeared beneath the strong grey eyes when -they were dimmed by relaxation of effort, but vanished almost magically -when they were illuminated by thought. A grey sweater, somewhat tightly -fitting, revealed a powerful frame. Knicker-bockers and woollen -stockings and heavy shoes completed his attire. His hands, glazed and -coarsened, at first sight betrayed the labourer rather than the scholar. -But the fingers were sensitively long, and the deep filbert nails showed -signs of personal fastidiousness, as did his closely shaven cheek. - -A wiry-coated Airedale came to him and sought his notice. He turned and -caressed the dog’s rough head. - -“Well, old son, finished the day’s work? You’re a rotten old fraud, you -know, pretending to be bossing around, and never doing a hand’s turn for -anybody.” - -The dog, as though to justify his existence, barked, darted a yard away, -ran up, barked again and once more started. - -“Dinner time already?” - -The sound of the word signified to the dog the achievement of his -mission. He barked and leaped joyously as his master slowly strolled -towards the house. On the threshold appeared a young Chinaman, of -smiling but dignified demeanour, wearing Chinese dress. - -“Dinner is served, sir,” he said, making way respectfully for Baltazar -to pass. - -“So Brutus has just informed me, Quong Ho.” - -“I sent him to tell you, sir. He is possessed of almost human -understanding.” - -“It is always good,” said Baltazar, “to associate with intelligent -beings.” - -He entered the house-piece, the one large living room of the building, -and took his place at a small table by a western window, simply but -elegantly set with clean cloth and napkin, shining silver and glass, and -a little bowl of roses placed on a strip of blue-and-gold Chinese -embroidery. It was a room, at the first glance, of characterless muddle; -at the second, of studied order. A long, narrow room, built north and -south, with two windows on the west side and two on the east. An -old-fashioned cooking range stretched beneath the great chimney-piece -that took up most of the northern end, for the room was rudely planned -as kitchen and dining-room and parlour and boudoir, all combined, and -hams in the brief days of its prosperity had hung from its rafters. The -spaces on the distempered walls not occupied by unpainted deal -bookshelves were filled with long silken rolls of Chinese paintings. -Turkey carpets covered the stone floor. Nearly the whole length of the -eastern wall ran a long deal table, piled with manuscripts and -pamphlets, but with a clear writing space by the north-east window, at -which stood a comfortably cushioned writing chair. A settee and an -arm-chair by the chimney corner, an old oak chest of drawers that seemed -to wonder what it did in that galley, a bamboo occasional table and the -little dining table by the south-western window completed the furniture. -But the room was spotlessly clean. Everything that could shine shone. -Every pile of papers on the long deal table was squared with -mathematical precision. - -The young Chinaman served the dinner which he had prepared—curried -eggs, roast chicken, goat’s milk cheese—with the deftness of long -training. He paused, expectant, with an unstoppered decanter. - -“Burgundy, sir?” - -“No, thank you.” - -Quong Ho filled a tumbler with water. - -“How long has that half-bottle of wine been opened?” - -“If I remember accurately, sir, this is the fifteenth day.” - -“It’s not fit to drink, Quong Ho. To-morrow you will throw it away and -open another half-bottle.” - -“It shall be done as you wish, sir,” said Quong Ho. “Except, sir, that I -do not propose to waste the wine, for though it is too stale for -drinking purposes, it is an invaluable adjunctive in cookery for soups -and sauces.” - -Baltazar drank a draught of water and, wiping his lips, looked over his -shoulder at the Chinaman. - -“Adjunctive? That’s a new word. Where did you get hold of it?” - -“Possibly from you, sir, who have been my master in the English language -for the last ten years.” - -“You didn’t get it from me. It’s a beast of a word.” - -“Then possibly, sir, I have met it in my independent reading. Perhaps in -The Rambler of your celebrated philosopher, Johnson, which I have been -perusing lately with great interest.” - -Baltazar leaned back in his chair. - -“Quong Ho,” said he, “you’re a gem. A gem of purest ray serene——” - -“The words I recognize as those of Poet Gray,” said Quong Ho. - -“That is true,” said Baltazar. “But destiny, as far as I have the -handling of things, won’t condemn you to a vast unfathomed cave of -ocean. What I tried to imply was, that you’re a wonderful fellow—what -the Americans in their fruity idiom which I haven’t yet taught you, call -a peach.” - -“I will make a mental note of it, sir,” said Quong Ho. - -Baltazar grinned over his plate and went on with his dinner, the dog -Brutus by his side watching the process with well-bred yearning and -accepting an occasional mouthful with a gluttony politely concealed. -Towards the close of the meal Quong Ho brought in lamps and -candles—Baltazar loved vivid illumination—and drew the curtains. In -the house Quong Ho wore Chinese slippers and walked like a ghost. He -began to clear away as soon as Baltazar rose from the table. The latter -filled and lit his pipe and consulted his watch. - -“You can come for your lesson in an hour’s time.” - -“In an hour precisely,” said Quong Ho. - -“Have you prepared the work I set you?” - -“With thorough perfection, sir.” - -“You’ll be President of the Chinese Republic yet,” said Baltazar. - -“It is no mean ambition,” said Quong Ho. - -Baltazar took a book from his shelves devoted to general reading—an -amazing medley of dingy volumes such as one sees only in an ill-arranged -second-hand bookseller’s stock. It was a second-hand bookseller’s stock -in literal truth, for Baltazar had bought a catalogue _en bloc_. It -saved infinite trouble. The collection provided him with years of -miscellaneous feeding. It contained little that was modern, nothing that -was of contemporary moment; on the other hand, it gave him many works -which he had ear-marked for perusal, hitherto in vain, from his boyhood. -There were the works of Robertson—the Histories of Scotland, Charles V -and America; Davila’s Wars in France; the Aldine Edition of the British -Poets in many volumes; an incomplete Dodsley’s Old Plays; the works of -one Surtees—he who wrote of the immortal Jorrocks and Soapey Sponge and -Facey Romford; Elzevir editions of Saint Augustine and Tertullian; The -Architectural Beauties of England and Wales; Livingstone’s Travels; and -Queechy, by the author of The Wide, Wide World. A haggis of a library. -No one but John Baltazar could have bought it at one impulsive swoop. - -He took down the volume, almost haphazard, for it was his luxurious -custom to devote after dinner a digestive hour to haphazard reading; a -bound volume of pamphlets, which had once entertained him with the -_Times_ reprint of the Obituary of The Duke of Wellington. He sat down -in his arm-chair, turned over some dreary pages, tried to interest -himself in “What is it all About? or an Enquiry into the Statements of -the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon that the Church of England Teaches Salvation by -Baptism, instead of Salvation by the Blood of our Blessed Master Jesus -Christ, and that Many of the Clergy are guilty of Dishonesty and -Perjury, by the Rev. Joseph Bardsley, M.A.,” sadly shook his head, and, -turning over more gloomy pages, came upon an oasis in the desert: “The -Fight at Dame Europa’s School, showing how the German Boy thrashed the -French Boy, and how the English Boy looked on.” He read the mordant -sarcasm of eighteen hundred and seventy-one with great enjoyment, and -had just finished it when Quong Ho, notebook under arm, entered the -room. - -“Quong Ho,” said he, “I’ve just been reading a famous satirical pamphlet -on the part which England played in the Franco-Prussian War. When you -have time you might read it. The English is impeccable. You won’t find -any ‘adjunctives’ in it. It lashes England for not having gone to the -help of France in 1870.” - -“Why should one nation undertake another’s quarrel?” asked Quong Ho, -with a curious flash in his eyes. “Why should China shed her blood for -the sake, by way of illustration, of Denmark?” - -“There is an answer, Quong Ho,” replied Baltazar, “to your astute -question. In ancient times China and Denmark were as far apart as -Neptune and Mercury. But wireless telegraphy has brought them to each -other’s frontiers. Nowadays nations act and react on one another in a -very subtle way. You must read a little more of modern European History, -for Europe is the nerve centre of a system of nervous telepathy which -forms a network round the earth. Nothing can happen in Europe nowadays -without its sensitive reaction in China. You must remember that, at -every instant of your life, if you wish to model a new China. For the -old China has gone. I loved it, as you know, Quong Ho. But it’s as dead -as Assyria. Another struggle between France and Germany would implicate -the civilized world. Great Britain would not look on as in 1870, but -would be on the side of France, and Japan would be on the side of Great -Britain, and China——” - -“Would throw her lot into the same scale as Japan,” said Quong Ho, -demurely. - -“Let us hope it never will happen,” said Baltazar. “In the meantime -there’s something of greater importance.” He rose, went to his writing -chair by the long deal table. “Let us see. What is it to-night? Elliptic -Functions, isn’t it?” - -And while John Baltazar, serene in his reading of political philosophy, -was guiding Quong Ho through mazes of mathematical abstraction, German -aircraft were dropping bombs about England. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -THE renting of Spendale Farm, derelict for many years, caused some -excitement on the moorland. It had achieved notoriety by concentrating -in its small acreage every disadvantage that a farm could have. A soil -so barren and granitic that scarcely grass would grow on it; a situation -of bleakness unique in that bleak and unsheltered region; an -inaccessibility almost beyond the powers of transport. The last was the -final factor in the bankruptcy and despair of former tenants. Three -miles of foot-and-wagon-worn track—and this now indistinguishable—must -be traversed before striking a road, and along five miles of the road -must one go before reaching the tiny town of Water-End, which contained -the nearest railway station, shop, post office and church. Excitement -grew in Water-End when motor lorries and materials and workmen from the -cathedral town, thirty miles off, all made their daily way to Spendale -Farm, and later, when packing-cases marked “Books, with the greatest -care” were dumped on the station platform. All bore the name of John -Baltazar—an outlandish name, if ever there was one, to eyes and ears of -remotely rural England. And when the demented foreigner—for so they -conceived him to be—was due to arrive in order to take up his -residence, a fact proclaimed by the presence outside the station of -Farmer Benstead’s old grey mare and springless cart which Ellis and -Dean, the local estate agents, were known to have bought for the -new-comer, the population of Water-End turned out to see what manner of -being he was. The hefty, quickly moving Englishman, obviously the -master, disappointed their anticipations; but the Chinaman, his coiled -pigtail unconcealed beneath the brim of a bowler hat too small for him, -made their eyes bulge with wonder. They did not even know he was a -Chinaman until the vicar’s son, a lad of sixteen, unavowed emissary of a -curious vicarage, gave them the information. Master and man drove off -alone in the cart with their luggage, in the midst of gaping silence. - -A Chinaman. What was a Chinaman doing in those parts? Men speculated in -the bar parlour of “The Three Feathers.” Gossips of the more timorous -sex discussed the possibility of a yellow peril—children kidnapped, -throats cut, horrors perpetrated in lonely places. Mrs. Trevenna had -seen murder in his eye; and Mrs. Trevenna, who had buried three -husbands, was a woman whose opinion was respected. Mrs. Bates said his -yellow hands were like the claws of a turkey-cock. Her daughter, -Gwinnie, giggling, remarked that she wouldn’t like to have them round -her neck. - -“That’s what I’ve heard they do,” said old Mrs. Sopwith. “I remember my -grandfather, him that was in the Indian Mutiny, telling me, when I was a -little girl, that they thought nothing of strangling you. It was their -religion.” - -Thus the amiable Quong Ho leapt at once into a pretty repute—of which -an addiction to Thuggee was a venial aspect. - -But when, a few days afterwards, Quong Ho drove into Water-End on a -shopping expedition, and in the presence of palpitating Water-Enders -carried on his business and passed remarks on the weather, polite and -smiling, in the easy English of the vicar and the motoring gentlefolk, -with no perceptible trace of a foreign accent, they gaped once more in -amazement. Language is a marvellous solvent of prejudice. No one who -talked English like the Vicar could strangle English necks. But Quong -Ho, unfortunately, complicated this favourable impression by overdoing -the perfect Briton. - -At the butcher’s door, freshly coloured as the carcasses hanging at each -side, stood Gwinnie Bates, the leader of the staring crowd, blocking the -way. Quong Ho, trained theoretically by Baltazar in European ceremonial, -swept her a bow with his billycock hat—a bow composite of the court of -Charles the Second and Ratcliffe Highway, and addressed her: - -“Beauteous Madam, will you allow your devoted servant the privilege of a -passage?” - -She melted hysterically from the doorway. Her friends, like a grinning -Red Sea, divided into an avenue through which passed Quong Ho, with -gestures courteously expressive of thanks, followed by the butcher’s -assistant carrying to the cart the leg of mutton and the joint of beef -which Quong Ho had purchased. Quong Ho drove off amid unceremonial -guffaws and gigglings. - -“Beauteous Madam! Oh, Hell!” roared the butcher’s assistant. - -Gwinnie Bates checked her mirth and advanced with flushed cheeks and -defiant eyes. - -“What’s wrong about it, Johnnie Evans? If you want to insult me, say it -out. If you can’t be a gentleman, at least be a man.” - -“Pretty fine gentleman,” sneered Johnnie Evans, jerking a thumb towards -the receding Chinaman. - -“He can teach manners to the likes of you, at any rate,” cried Gwinnie -Bates, and went off triumphant with her head in the air. - -Thus, through the courteous demeanour of Quong Ho on this and subsequent -occasions, Water-End became divided into two camps—Sinophile and -Sinophobe. The latter party asserted that such heathen smiled most when -their designs were most criminal, and carried out their activities to -the accompaniment of unholy mirth. Was he ever seen at church or chapel? -His admirers confessed this abstention from the means of grace. Did he -ever speak of the doings of his master with the outlandish name, and -himself, in the middle of the moor? Quong Ho was admitted to be a -museum-piece of discretion. And as time went on, although his ways were -marked by the same perfect courtesy, he lost favour amongst his party, -through a bland taciturnity and a polite rejection of conversational -advantage. - -Now for this taciturnity there were excellent reasons: none other than -the commands of John Baltazar. When Quong Ho returned the first time to -the farm with the jeering laughter ringing in his ears, he bewailed the -impoliteness of the inhabitants of Water-End. Said Baltazar in Chinese: - -“Dost thou not know the proverb, Quong Ho, ‘_A man must insult himself -before others will?_’ And again, what saith the Master? ‘_Rotten wood -cannot be carved, and walls made of dirt and mud cannot be plastered._’ -By acting against my orders and striving to plaster the muddy walls of -these rustics with ceremonial politeness, you have insulted yourself and -therefore exposed yourself to rudeness.” - -“Master,” said Quong Ho, “it appears that I have erred grievously.” - -“Listen again,” said Baltazar, with a twinkle in his eyes unperceived by -the downcast Quong Ho, “to what the Master saith: ‘_The failure to -cultivate virtue, the failure to examine and analyse what I have learnt, -the inability to move towards righteousness after being shown the way, -the inability to correct my faults—these are the causes of my grief._’” - -Quong Ho replied that although his deviation from the path of virtue was -glaring to the most myopic vision, he nevertheless was in a dilemma, -inasmuch as he had followed the precepts of Western courteous -observance, the ceremonial, for instance, of the hat-salutation, laid -down for him by his illustrious teacher. - -Baltazar, always in Chinese, replied kindly: “O youth of indifferent -understanding, is it not written in the Shû King in the Charge to Yüeh: -‘_In learning there should be a humble mind and the maintenance of a -constant earnestness: in such a case improvement will surely come. When -a man’s thoughts from first to last are constantly fixed on learning, -his virtuous cultivation comes unperceived_’?” - -“With those truths am I acquainted,” replied Quong Ho. - -“Then, my good fellow,” retorted Baltazar in English, “why the devil -don’t you apply them? I’ve absolutely forbidden you to have any -intercourse whatever with the people round about. You’re not to talk to -them about my concerns or your concerns. You’re not to listen to any of -their talk or to bring back to me scraps of their rotten gossip. You’re -to go to Water-End on necessary business—unfortunately we can’t live on -air or warm ourselves in the winter with bottled sunbeams—but that’s -the limit. Outside of that you’re a man deaf and dumb. You’re to go one -better than the three Sacred Apes of Japan, who, holding hands -respectively before eyes, ears and mouth, signify ‘I see no evil; I hear -no evil; and I speak no evil.’ In your case, it’s to be: ‘I see nothing; -I hear nothing; I speak nothing.’” - -“In future,” said Quong Ho, “my eyes shall be blinded, my ears sealed -and my mouth locked.” - -“If there are any more animated discussions of last week’s -thunderstorms, or further Beauteous-Madamizing of young females, I’ll -regretfully have to send you straight back to China.” - -The unblinking stare in Baltazar’s great grey eyes and the obstinate set -of his lips—signs of purpose which Quong Ho for eight years had learned -to gauge with infallible precision—caused him to quake excessively. Not -only was his servitude to Baltazar a matter of oath, but a return before -the completion of the special education which would enable him to take -immediate rank in New China, would be the death-blow to his ambitions. -So Quong Ho took to heart the precepts of the Humble Mind and swore to -outdo the Sacred Apes of Japan, even as his master had ordained. - -After this, in the first days of their Thebaïd, master and man held -frequent conversations on the relations with the outside world which the -former had prescribed. The three years, said Baltazar, which lay before -them in the solitude of the wilderness, were for the maceration of the -flesh, the pursuit of virtue and the cultivation of the intellect. He -illustrated his argument with countless quotations from the Chinese -classics. - -“In this fashion, Quong Ho,” said he, “you are drinking of the _Five -Sources of Happiness_. To wit: _Long Life_: for here, in this unpolluted -atmosphere, you are acquiring physical health. _Riches_: they will be -yours in no matter what University of Modern China you go as Professor -of Mathematics. _Soundness of Body and Serenity of Mind_: the Latins put -the idea into epigrammatic form—Mens sano in corpore sano; what can be -more conducive to serenity of mind than this studious solitude, -undisturbed by material cares? _The Love of Virtue_: we have every hour -of all our days to acquire it. _Fulfilling to the end the_ WILL; is it -not the WILL that has set us here?” - -“Indubitably,” said Quong Ho. - -“Hearken again,” said Baltazar, “to the _Six Extreme Evils. Misfortune -shortening the Life_: from that no man is exempt—but from it no men are -more than we protected. _Sickness_: likewise—but I have a box of simple -remedies, and if the worst comes, there is a man learned in physic at -Water-End. _Distress of Mind_: if our minds in these ideal surroundings -are so unstable as to be distressed, we are unworthy of the name of -philosophers. _Poverty_: I have an ample fortune. _Wickedness_: we, who -are Seekers after Truth, have deliberately set ourselves beyond the -reach of Temptation. _Weakness_: that, O Quong Ho, is the only danger. -You must be on your guard against it night and day, especially on the -days when necessity exposes you to the manifold temptations of that -microcosm of Babylon, Pekin and San Francisco which goes by the name of -Water-End.” - -So it came to pass that when astounding tidings, the most pregnant in -the world’s history, came to Water-End and the little townlet blazed -with the wildfire of gossip, Quong Ho, scrupulous obeyer of Law, heard -without listening and, forbearing to question, always returned to -Spendale Farm with a mind rendered, with Oriental deliberation, so -profoundly blank as to preclude the possibility of retailing to his -master the idle news of the outer world. And gradually, such is the -contempt bred by familiarity, Quong Ho lost prestige in Water-End. His -weekly appearance in the town, with old grey mare and cart, grew to be -one of the commonplace recurrent phenomena such as the Vicar’s Sunday -sermon and the Saturday evening orgy and home-convoying of old Jack -Bonnithorne, the champion alcoholist of the moorland. - -But around Baltazar of the one brief glimpse arose many a legend. He was -mad. He was a magician. He was an unspeakable voluptuary; though whence -and how arrived the houris who ministered to his voluptuousness, was an -insoluble problem. He was a missionary with one convert. The theory, put -forward by the farmers, that he was the champion fool on the Moor, -gained the most general acceptance. Then someone whispered that he was a -German spy. The valiant of the town planned an expedition at dead of -night to surprise him at his nefarious practices; but the sarcasms of -Police-Sergeant Doubleday, who asked what information useful to the -enemy, save the crop of heather per square acre, could be given by a man -inhabiting the most desolate spot in the United Kingdom, checked their -enterprise. Their ardour, too, was damped by a spell of torrential rain, -which robbed of its pleasantness the prospect of a sixteen-mile walk. -When the sun came out, the suspicion had faded from their minds, and -shortly afterwards most of them found themselves in the King’s uniform -in regions far distant from Water-End. - -One morning Police-Sergeant Doubleday lay in wait for Quong Ho outside -the Bank, and informed him that he must register himself as an alien, -under the Defence of the Realm Act. Quong Ho blandly accompanied the -Sergeant to the Police Station and complied with the formalities. Full -name: Li Quong Ho. Nationality: Chinese. Occupation: Student. - -“Eh?” cried Sergeant Doubleday, a vast, red-faced man with a scrubby -black moustache. “That won’t do. Aren’t you Mr. Whats-his-name’s -man-servant?” - -“That sphere of my activities is purely incidental,” said Quong Ho. -“Kindly put down ‘student.’” - -“What do you study?” - -“Specialized branches of Western Philosophy,” replied Quong Ho. - -“Well, I’m damned!” said the mystified Doubleday. “Anyhow, it’s none of -my business.” - -So down went Quong Ho as “student”—the only alien on the register. - -“That’s very interesting,” said the Vicar, during his next chat with -Doubleday. “The Chinese are a remarkable race. Their progress should be -watched.” - -“I’m afraid it can’t be done, sir. What with being short-handed and -overworked as it is——” - -At the Vicar’s explanation the Sergeant mopped his forehead in relief. - -“I’ve a man’s job to keep Christians in order, without shadowing the -heathen,” said he. - -“I’m convinced that his master and himself are a pair of harmless -eccentrics,” said the Vicar. - -And the Vicar’s word went the round of the district, and eccentrics, or -the nearest approach to it that local tongues could manage, the -inhabitants of Spendale Farm were finally designated—though what were -“eccentrics” remained a matter of pleasant and fruitful conjecture. - -When Quong Ho returned to the farmhouse after his encounter with -Sergeant Doubleday, he said nothing about his registration as an alien. -Nor did it occur to him to show the paper money which he had received in -lieu of the usual gold in exchange for the cheque which he had cashed at -the bank; for the disposal of petty cash did not concern John Baltazar, -who rightly trusted in the Chinaman’s scrupulous honesty. That, in spite -of the most definite orders, he should leave Baltazar uninformed of the -various signs and tokens of national unrest which he had observed at -Water-End, caused Quong Ho occasional twinges of conscience. He -remembered the saying: “_To shirk your duty when you see it before you, -shows want of moral courage._” But what was his duty? On the other hand, -there was the dictum: “_To sacrifice to a spirit with which you have -nothing to do is mere servility._” What had he to do with this purely -English war-spirit that he should servilely sacrifice to it his almost -filial obligations? Obviously nothing. Quong Ho therefore continued to -purvey no idle gossip, and went about his varied avocations with a -serene mind. - -Now, as John Baltazar, who had been dead to the English-speaking world -for nearly twenty years, held correspondence with no one save a few -necessary tradesmen, mostly booksellers, as he took in no periodical, -daily, weekly, monthly or annual of any kind whatever, and as he -conversed with no human being except Quong Ho, whose lips he had sealed, -he had created for himself an almost perfect barrage through which the -news of contemporary happenings could not penetrate. - -“Quong Ho,” he had said, one Spring day, soon after his return from -China, when he had come to one of those revolutionary decisions that -marked the crises of his life, “I have sworn by the spirits of my -ancestors to live the life of a recluse for the space of three years, -holding communication with no man or woman and cutting myself off like -one that is dead from the interests of the contemporaneous world. My -reasons for this determination I will eventually unfold to you, provided -you carry out faithfully the contract I am about to propose. If you -decline to bind yourself, which as a free man you are at liberty to do, -I will pay your passage back to China and give you a sum of money -adequate to start you on an honest career. If you accept it, I will -honourably perform my part. You have been my servant and my pupil for -the last eight years——” - -“You saved this miserable orphan from death at the hands of a tyrannic -governor,” interposed Quong Ho—they were speaking his native -tongue,—“you have taught him the language of England and the -philosophies both of East and West, and you are to me as a father to -whom I owe filial fidelity and devotion.” - -“That is well said, Quong Ho,” replied Baltazar. “This person -appreciates your professions of loyalty.” The scene of this memorable -conversation, by the way, was a small bedroom at the top of the Savoy -Hotel; Baltazar, with bloodshot eyes, a splitting headache and tousled -raiment, sitting on the bed, and Quong Ho, impeccably vested in Chinese -attire, standing before him. “He has not been honourably blessed with -sons, and therefore will receive from you the devotedness that is due to -a parent. But for the space of three years only. There may come a time -when exaggerated filial zeal may become embarrassing.” - -And he set forth the contract. In return for the absolute obedience of -Quong Ho and his acceptance of the life of a recluse for three years, he -undertook to send him back to China as the most accomplished native -mathematician in existence—for he had already gauged the young man’s -peculiar genius—with a Master of Arts degree, if possible, from some -British University, and thus assure him a distinguished position in that -New China whose marvellous future had been the subject of so many of -their dreams and discussions. And Quong Ho had taken solemn oaths of -fealty and with the Chinaman’s singleness of purpose, accepted, a few -weeks later, the deadly and enduring solitude of the moorland as an -unquestionable condition of existence. - -Secure in the unswerving fidelity of Quong Ho, and in the impregnable -seclusion of this God-disclosed hermitage, John Baltazar lived a life -according to his ideals. No outer ripple of the maëlstrom in which the -world was engulfed lapped, however faintly, against the low granite wall -encircling the low-built granite farmhouse. His retirement was absolute, -his retreat off the track of the most casual wanderer. - -Six months passed before his eyes rested on a human being other than -Quong Ho. It is true that the rate-collector, savagely cursing his luck -and the bicycle-destroying track that led from the road to the -farmhouse, had appeared one day with a paper showing certain -indebtedness; but Quong Ho had received it and, gravely promising a -cheque in payment, had dismissed the intruder. No other official came -near the place. Quong Ho called weekly at the Post office and railway -station, to the great relief of postman and van-driver. - -“Thought and money acutely applied,” remarked Baltazar, “together with -freedom from the entanglement of family relationships, are the -determining factors of human happiness. A man with these factors at his -disposal is a fool if he cannot, fashion for himself whatever kind of -existence he pleases.” - -But one day, a cloudless winter morning, when the sunshine kissing the -frost-bound earth transmuted the myriad frondage of the heather into a -valley of diamonds, Baltazar, on his way from the stable to the front -door, came across a stranger leaning over the gate. He was a heavy man -with a fat, clean-shaven face, loose lips and little furtive eyes. He -wore a new golfing suit exaggerated in cut and aggressive in colour. - -He said with easy familiarity: “Good morning, Mr. Baltazar.” - -“Since you know my name,” replied Baltazar, with an air of courtesy, “it -has doubtless struck you that this is my gate.” - -“Of course——” - -“You are leaning on it,” said Baltazar. - -The visitor, perplexed, straightened himself. - -“I’m a sort of neighbour of yours, you know. I live about seven miles -off—the big property this side of Water-End: Cedar Chase—and I’ve -often thought I’d run over in the Rolls-Royce as far as I could, and -walk the rest, and see how you were getting along.” - -“That is most amiable of you,” said Baltazar, advancing to the gate and -resting his arm on it with an easy suggestion of proprietorship. “You -have run over, you have walked—and now you see.” - -Before Baltazar’s ironical gaze the stranger’s eyelids fluttered in -disconcertment. - -“I fancied you might be lonely and might like to look in and have a game -of bridge one of these days. My name’s Pillivant.” - -“Pillivant,” said Baltazar. “I don’t much like it, but there are -doubtless worse.” - -“You may have heard it. Pillivant and Co., Timber Merchants. We’ve -rather come to the front lately.” - -“Your personal initiative, I should imagine,” said Baltazar. - -“I don’t say as it isn’t,” replied Mr. Pillivant. “When whacking -Government contracts are going, why not get ’em?” - -“Why not? Why waste time in doing anything else, all day long, but -getting ’em?” - -Mr. Pillivant drew from his inner breast pocket a vast gold casket of a -cigar-case, opened it and held it out towards his inhospitable host. - -“Have a cigar? You needn’t be afraid. They stand me in two hundred and -fifty shillings a hundred and I get ’em wholesale. No?” Baltazar -declined politely. “You’re missing a good thing.” He bit off the end of -the one he had chosen, lit it with a fat wax vesta extracted from a -minor gold casket and drew a few puffs. “Funny sort of life you seem to -be leading here, Mr. Baltazar. Dam’ funny!” - -“I perceive you have a keen sense of humour,” said Baltazar. - -Again the mocking stare of his cold, grey eyes abashed the unwelcome -visitor, who filled in the ensuing silence by re-biting and re-lighting -his half-crown cigar. The operation over: - -“Lovely day, isn’t it?” said he. - -“So lovely, Mr. Pillivant,” replied Baltazar, “that it would be selfish -of me to do otherwise than leave you to the undisturbed enjoyment of -it.” - -And, with a polite bow, he left Mr. Pillivant and walked, in a dignified -way, into the house. Mr. Pillivant, conscious at last of the rejection -of his friendly overtures, stared for a while, and then, sticking his -cigar at a truculent angle in his mouth, swaggered away across the moor. - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “when next you go to Water-End, it will be -your duty to find a powerful and exceedingly nasty-tempered dog.” - -A fortnight afterwards Brutus was added to the establishment. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -THE life ordained by John Baltazar for Quong Ho and himself was one of -unremitting toil, mental and physical. From the time of his uprising at -six in the morning, when Quong Ho awakened him with tea (some chests of -which he had brought with him from China), until midnight, there were -few moments, save the after dinner hour of literary indulgence, that he -wasted in idle relaxation. The work of the house, that of steward, -butler, valet, cook, parlourmaid, charwoman and laundress, together with -the outdoor functions of groom, dairyman and bailiff, Quong Ho executed -with the remarkable ease and despatch of the Chinaman accustomed from -childhood to menial tasks. The cultivation of the barren land, the -painful wheeling of barrow-loads of superficial soil from the moorland, -the digging and the planting and the draining and the watering, were all -done by John Baltazar himself. The hard exercise, some three or four -hours a day, maintained him in the superb health that enabled him to -carry out his studious programme. Of his eighteen waking hours he -allotted roughly seven to physical things, eleven to intellectual -pursuits. For Quong Ho this apportionment of time was inverted. That was -the theoretic schedule. As a matter of fact, Quong Ho found more than -seven hours a day for mathematical study and other intellectual -development. - -There was much that Baltazar had set himself to do during his three -years. First he must make up in mathematical output the loss of his -wander-time in China. Now all the world understands the irresistible -force that compels the poet, at last, to give form to long haunting -dreams; the need, also, of the astronomer to crystallize the results of -his discoveries and formulate his epoch-making theories; but the passion -of the mathematician to do the same is not so easily comprehensible. For -years Baltazar had dreamed of an exhaustive and monumental treatise on -the Theory of Groups which would revolutionize the study of the higher -mathematics, a gorgeous vision the mere statement of which must leave -the ordinary being cold and the first attempt at explanation petrify him -with its icy unintelligibility. The dream was now in process of -accomplishment. He had also to put into form fascinating adventures into -the analytical geometry of the ghostly and unrealizable space of Four -Dimensions. There, he was wont to assert, you entered the true Fairyland -of mathematics. To all these labours he brought the enthusiasm of the -poet or the astronomer. Another and a totally different sphere of -activities absorbed much of his energy. In China he had assimilated a -vast store of philosophical learning, with which equipment he prepared -to re-edit many European versions of the Chinese classics misconceived -through faulty erudition. He had brought from China stacks of rare -manuscripts, piles of notes, materials for the life-work of any scholar. -And, last, he had thrown himself with impetuous zeal into the -intellectual training of Quong Ho. - -The mutual attitude of the solitary pair was one of curious delicacy. As -master and man they were league-sundered by the gulf of convention. As -teacher and pupil they were drawn together into close intellectual -intimacy. It was the Chinaman’s exquisite tact that simplified the -situation for the direct and masterful Englishman. As a servant he -scrupulously observed the decorum of the attendant—there never existed -head butler in ducal mansion who could surpass his perfection of manner; -but as disciple he subtly raised himself to the plane of social -equality, and gauged to a hair’s breadth the shade of familiar address -warranted by the position. - - * * * * * - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar one day at dinner, when the Chinaman had gone -through the usual solemn farce of offering him Burgundy, “your -discretion is beyond the value of rubies. Never once have you remarked -on the apparent vanity of this daily proceeding. Yet in your own mind -you must have wondered at it.” - -“It is not for me to speculate on the reason for your honourable -customs,” said Quong Ho. - -“Yet why do you think I cause myself to be offered wine every day only -to refuse it?” - -“I suppose you desire to maintain, in the wilderness, the ceremonial -etiquette of the English dinner-table. The wine in the bottle is but an -adornment, like the flowers in the bowl.” - -“It pleases me that you should have come to such a conclusion,” said -Baltazar. - -For the ceremony of the wine was linked with the causes that determined -his sudden flight into solitude. He had promised Quong Ho to inform him -of these causes; but the fulfilment of the promise was hard to make. -Sitting dishevelled on the bed in the little room at the top of the -Savoy Hotel, he had thought disclosure to his servant to be a fitting -part of the punishment he had meted out to himself. Later he repented; -especially when he perceived Quong Ho’s blank indifference. Still, a -promise was a promise, and Baltazar not the man to shirk his -obligations. On this particular occasion he thought it best to get the -matter over. - -“The conclusion is an honourable one on your part, Quong Ho,” he -continued, “but it is incorrect.” - -“I own, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “that it is drawn from conjectural -premises.” - -“It was over-indulgence in wine that made me set to myself this penalty -of studious solitude,” said Baltazar in Chinese. “By telling you this I -redeem a promise. As to our daily custom, a weak man flies from -temptation, a strong man keeps temptation at his elbow in order to defy -it.” - -“In that way, honourable master, is merit acquired.” - -Quong Ho took away his empty plate and retired into the kitchen to fetch -the next course. Baltazar leaned back in his chair and, his brow full of -perplexity, yet breathed a sigh of relief. - -“I’ve got it off my chest at last,” he said half aloud. “But I wonder -whether I’ve been a damned fool.” - -Quong Ho’s subsequent demeanour could not enlighten him. Never again -between them, save once, and that under the stress of a peculiar -situation, was made the most veiled allusion to the subject, and day -after day Quong Ho imperturbably performed with the Burgundy decanter -the ceremonial etiquette of the English dinner-table. - - * * * * * - -It was only by glimpses like this that the man had ever revealed himself -to his fellow-creatures. Glimpses like this one, fine and deliberate, to -Quong Ho, and that one of long ago, passionate and self-destroying, to -Marcelle Baring. To neither did he accord more than a glimpse. To -neither did he show himself on a razor-edged ledge with the abyss on one -side and salvation on the other. Another touch of the girl’s lips would -have sent them both into what the sensitive and honourable gentleman -would have called the abyss. Perhaps, if she had been older, a woman, -one tuned to the pulsating responsibilities of life, he might have faced -things with her. Who knows? To his direct mind the casuistical point did -not occur. Actualities alone concerned him. She was so delicate and -fragrant a flower of girlhood. His for the plucking. . . . When he -regained his college rooms, that far-off summer afternoon, he was as a -man torn by devils. Love her? He would be torn in pieces rather than -that her exquisite foot should be bruised against a stone. Love her? -With her soft voice, her maddening Madonna face, her kind eyes, her -tremulous mouth? Love her? The wonder of wonders possessed of the power -to divine his inmost thoughts, to touch with magically healing fingers -all the aching wounds in his soul, to envelop him body and mind and -spirit in a network of a myriad fairy tendrils? Love her? God knows he -did. - -But she was a child—and a child can forget—at the worst retain a not -ungracious memory. But he was a man, on the verge of hideous villainy. -And he stood in his college room, surrounded by all that symbolized the -intellectual life that up to then had been the meaning of his existence, -and he looked around. - -“The whole lot will have to go to blazes,” said he. - -And at that moment he cut the Gordian knot. - -His wife? She hated him: why, he could not tell; but she missed few -opportunities of showing her rancour. He had striven desperately to win -her esteem, at the cost of much swallowed pride. Some months had passed -since the last pitiable reconciliation. . . . Why had he married her? It -had not been for lack of warning. Perhaps the very traducing of her had -spurred him on. She was so fair and fragile, so pathetic in her -widowhood. A clamour of the senses, a prompting of chivalry, and the -thing was done. And she, widow of a phlegmatic don of Trinity, living in -Cambridge, was perhaps carried away by the glamour surrounding the -coming man in that tiny, academic world. - -“I wish you were dead,” were the last words he had heard her utter. He -snapped his fingers. She could have her desire. - -Baltazar packed his bag with necessaries, told his gyp that business -called him to London for some days, and left Cambridge forever. A month -afterwards he was on his way, under an assumed name, to China. - -The act of a fool perhaps. But has not one who knew called him the Fool -of Genius? Anyhow he had the courage and the wit to cut his life off -clean. The life of John Baltazar of Cambridge and that of James Burden -who, having landed at Shanghai, spent so many adventurous years in the -heart of China, might have been lived by two individuals who had never -heard of each other. That disappearance from England was the first -start, the consequence of the first violent fit. The first that -mattered. - -But there had been others. To one, his mind went back even as he asked -himself whether his confession to Quong Ho had been the proceeding of an -idiot. It had to do with the selfsame subject of that confession. The -period went back to his last undergraduate term, when he was as certain -of being Senior Wrangler as a Cardinal of being the best theologian in a -scratch company of parish priests. Carrying on to the beginning of term -an end of vacation revel, Baltazar took to evil courses. The slander -which, reported to young Godfrey Baltazar, Marcelle Baring had so -vehemently denied, had its basis in truth. He had discovered alcohol, -and for a time plunged, with his whole-souled fervour, into his -discovery. Then, one Spooner, the next in the Tripos running, a man -living entirely on his scholarships, a mild and pallid man of no -physical value whom the lusty Baltazar, after the way of vivid and -immature young men, despised, had the grand audacity to call on him and -expostulate with him on his excesses. Baltazar listened breathless. The -fellow ought to be going round with a show of freaks. He told him so. -Spooner waved aside the proposition and went on with his main argument. - -“You have every right to be Senior. There’s not one of us in it with -you. But if you go on playing the fool like this, anything may happen.” - -“That’s all to your personal advantage, my dear good missionary,” said -Baltazar. - -“You don’t seem to understand why I’ve come here,” replied Spooner. “I -don’t want to be Senior just because a man who’s infinitely better than -I is a drunken sot.” - -And they talked and bandied words a little, and then Baltazar saw -himself face to face with an exquisite soul. He gripped the lean -shoulders of the undeveloped, spectacled young man with his big hands. - -“I swear to God,” said he, “that I’ll not touch a drop of alcohol for -the next five years.” - -But he also swore to himself an oath of which Spooner was ignorant. He -swore that Spooner should be Senior. And he kept both vows. In the last -day’s Problem Paper he deliberately sacrificed himself. As a matter of -fact he just overdid it, for, to the mystification of all concerned in -the Tripos, he was placed third. But Spooner had the coveted -distinction. The Tripos over, everything fell before Baltazar, and he -was acknowledged the supreme mathematician of his year, and, in the -course of time, the greatest of his generation. - - * * * * * - -The difficulty, owing to its episodical character, of presenting the -early career of Baltazar, thus finds illustration. One might go back to -schoolboy days and point to lapses from grace, followed by similar swift -and ruthless decisions. To catalogue them all would require the patient -tediousness of formal biography. Apart from such a process, his life up -to his flight into the moorland wilderness can best be pictured by a -series of flashes. - -A sudden disgust with China and an overwhelming nostalgia for the -sweeter political life of England drove him home after eighteen years. -The greater part of the time he had spent in the impenetrable heart of -the vast country, speaking many dialects as well as the classical Wen-Li -of the learned, an encyclopædia of erudition, saturated with intimate -knowledge of Chinese custom and observance, a Chinaman in all but -physical appearance, dressing, living, acting and accepted universally -as a Chinaman, prospering as a Chinaman too in financial undertakings. -It was old China that he entered, a land stable in its peculiar -civilization which, in spite of many traditional oppressions and -time-sanctioned cruelties, had its fascination and grace—the gift to a -Mandarin of a precious and much-coveted ancient manuscript had purchased -the life of a boy, Li Quong Ho, condemned to elaborate death for a -venial offence, the transaction being carried out in an atmosphere of -high refinement, and scented tea served and drunk with exquisite -punctilio. It was old China that he had learned to love, with its sense -of beauty, its reverence for learning, its profound ethical philosophy. -But it was a new China, convulsed with new ideas, bloodthirsty, -treacherous, unstable to maddening point, that he had quitted in his -sudden and determined way. - -For eighteen years, in the interior of China, he had lived remote from -European politics. He had sunk himself in the lore, and identified -himself with the interests, of that ancient land. With no -correspondence, beyond the reach of newspapers, he all but forgot the -existence of Europe. Meeting his fellow-countrymen on the homeward -voyage, he shunned them, partly through shyness, partly through distaste -for the brusqueness of their manners, the high pitch of their voices, -their colossal ignorance of the country with which they boasted such -contemptuous familiarity, the narrowness of their outlook, the petty -materialism of their conversation. He held himself aloof, longing for -the real England at the end of the voyage. - -In London, the loneliest soul in the great city, he set himself to pick -up the threads of the life around him. He walked the familiar and -unwelcoming streets, at first dazed by the motor traction, then -bewildered by evidences of the luxury which eighteen years of decadence -had engendered. He visited new palaces of entertainment and came away -wondering. In fashionable supper-rooms he saw the flower of the land -dancing to what, as a scholar, he knew to be West African sexual -rhythms. He could not understand. What were they doing, or trying to do? -He would sit lonely at a table, a formally ordered drink before him, at -one of these great public haunts, and try to get the key to the mystery. -The decay of manners offended him. He discounted the fact that he had -lived so many intense years in the land of sacred ceremonial; he wiped -that out of his mind, and recalled the standard of his own youth. The -exiguity of feminine apparel shocked his unaccustomed eyes; in many -cases nothing from waist up but a sort of low palisade, scarcely -concealing the bust. Was he not mistaken? Was this not rather the scum -than the flower of modern England? But at neighbouring tables he had -overheard attention being directed to bearers of proud and historic -names. Then he asked himself the question: had he frequented such places -eighteen years ago? Had they not been outside the sphere of his narrow -academic life? He desired to judge justly. When did he leave England? In -1896. And his bachelor days, with their joyous London jaunts, had ended -in 1894. There was no such social life then: if there had been, he would -have heard of it. In the afternoons, too, these young men and maidens -danced their weird dances. - -Outside, the land was a-clamour with the doings of a sterner sisterhood. -Processions, mass meetings, virago riotings, picture slashings, -incendiarism, bombs, formed the features of their astounding crusade. -The newspapers, beyond the recounting of facts, with vivid descriptions -of sensational scenes, gave him little information as to the philosophy -of the movement. Politically the country seemed to be in a state of -chaotic turmoil. Persons holding high office were publicly accused of -corrupt financial practices. Parliament wrangled fiercely with the Army -over an _opéra bouffe_ condition of Irish affairs. Beneath all this -Labour uttered volcanic threatenings. Subversive ideas, new to him, such -as syndicalism, were in the air. Unintelligible criticisms of picture -exhibitions urged his curious steps to the indicated galleries, where he -came upon canvases that made his brain reel. A new Rip Van Winkle, he -had awakened to a mad world, a world even more perilously unstable than -the China which he had left. - -The solitary scholar found himself disastrously out of sympathy with it -all. He had planned to give himself a month’s holiday in London before -settling down, in some quiet and comfortable suburb, to the many years’ -work that lay before him on the materials he had brought from China. He -had formed no intention whatever of cutting himself off from communion -with his fellow-men. Indeed, he meant, as soon as he could rid himself -of the complications of his assumed name, to proclaim himself -unobtrusively to the world as John Baltazar. Before coming finally to -this decision, however, he must learn what had become of his wife, as he -had no desire to play the disconcerting part of a tactless Enoch Arden. -His first step on arriving at London had been to institute, through a -firm of solicitors, discreet enquiries. He learned that his wife had -been dead for thirteen years. He was at liberty to become John Baltazar -again as soon as he liked. But in London, as James Burden, he stayed at -the Savoy Hotel, a bewildered and disillusioned spectator of the modern -world. - -How did the catastrophe happen? Thinking over it, as he often thought -with shivers of disgust, in his moorland retreat, he could scarcely give -an answer. Only once, since his interview with the audacious Spooner, -had he given way to an overmastering impulse—and that was on his -journey out to Shanghai. Anti-climax, in the shape of sudden storm and -sea-sickness, cured him, and he vowed total abstinence all the time he -should be in China; and he kept his vow. Perhaps, here in London, -unaccustomed idleness and his disgust-filled loneliness drove him -gradually and insensibly to the consolation of alcohol. The odd drinks -during the day increased in number. He viewed a rosier London after a -quart of old Burgundy at dinner. To sit in a crowded cosmopolitan café -became his evening amusement, and the continuous consumption of brandies -and soda aided indulgent observation. He had given himself his month’s -holiday, and he meant to have it, no matter how joyless and -unsympathetic was the holiday atmosphere. Now and then, in these popular -resorts he picked casual acquaintanceship with a neighbour. He had the -gift of making his companion’s conversation intelligent and interesting. -On these occasions he drank less. - -But one solitary night intoxication for the first time overcame him. He -realized it with a feeling of anger. The lights were just being lowered. -He ordered a double liqueur brandy, in the crazy assurance that it would -pull him together. Of what happened afterwards he had little memory. In -the crowded street someone laid hold of him and, resentful of attack, he -turned and smote his supporter. To complete the outrage, a policeman -handled him roughly, a proceeding which he also violently resented. Then -a whirl of lights and darkness and lights again, and strange faces and -once more darkness absolute and final, until he awoke and found himself -sober and shivering in a police cell. A few hours afterwards, James -Burden, of no occupation, living at the Savoy Hotel, was fined forty -shillings or a month for being drunk and disorderly in Leicester Square. - -If it had been a magnificent folly, a royal debauch, a voluptuous orgy -of roses and wine and laughter and song and the pulsating lustiness of -life, the _dulce periculum_ of the follower of the Lenæan one brow-bound -with green vine-leaves, he might have held himself in some measure -excused. He had made no vow, he had no reason, to spurn the joyousness -of existence. He was a man of racing blood, with claim and right to the -gladness of physical things. But this sordid, solitary bout with its end -of vulgarity and degradation, filled him with a horror almost maddening -in its fierceness. His soul shrivelled at the ghastly humiliation. That -it should come upon him; him, John Baltazar, with half a century of -clean life behind him; him, John Baltazar, the man who had compelled -high honour for intellect and character from his childhood days, at a -Public School, at the University, as an unknown and prejudice-surrounded -foreigner in the strangest of alien lands; that it should come upon him -seemed like a phantasma or a hideous dream. - -And then it fell that he once more cut the Gordian knot. He would fly -from a world in which he had proved himself not fit to live cleanly, -with all the less reluctance because he had found it incomprehensible -and unattractive. And sitting dishevelled on the bed, he informed Quong -Ho of his decision. As soon as he had cleansed himself from the soil of -the awful night, he left the Savoy and the dishonoured name of James -Burden for ever, and took rooms at another hotel for the night as John -Baltazar. The next day he threw himself vehemently into the quest of a -hermitage. He remembered a desolate waste of moorland through which on a -walking tour he had rambled in his undergraduate days. - -“It may be, Quong Ho,” said he, “that it is built over with picture -palaces and swarming with tango-dancers. Any conceivable happening to -England during the last twenty years is possible. But we’ll go and see.” - -“I am unacquainted, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “with the dancers you -mention; but I have visited picture palaces during the fortnight we have -spent in your wonderful country, and, rightly exercised, the -cinematograph strikes me as being the most marvellous vehicle for the -propaganda of civilization that the world has seen.” - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “it is not in our contract to care one little -tuppenny damn for the propaganda of civilization. You’re not going to -waste your time at one of those futile and ill-conceived, although -ingenious, entertainments for the next three years. If the particular -region I have in view is not satisfactory, we shall find another.” - -Presently he added, in a tone of compunction—he was dressing while -Quong Ho packed: - -“I’m sorry I’ve had to cut short the time I intended you to have in -London. I badly wanted you to have some general idea of it.” - -“Sir,” replied Quong Ho, “without wishing to boast, I have grasped -London. I could find my way blindfolded from here to the Tower, the -House of Parliaments, the North End Road, Fulham, and that imperishable -objective record of your honourable nation’s history, the museum of -Madame Tussaud.” - -“All the points you have mentioned, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “are of -undoubted value—except the North End Road, Fulham. What the devil could -you find of interest in that drab region of nowhere?” - -Quong Ho’s usually smiling and mobile face became an expressionless -mask. - -“It marked the end of my peregrination in that direction,” he replied. - -“It strikes me,” said Baltazar, “that it’s time you peregrinated to a -more God-swept and intellectual atmosphere.” - -Three weeks afterwards they took up their residence at Spendale Farm. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -BALTAZAR had lived on the moor in peace and comfort for nearly a year -when he received his first unsolicited communication from the outside -world, in the shape of a long, cheap envelope, headed “On His Majesty’s -Service,” and containing Income Tax assessment forms. For a moment he -wondered how the representatives of His Majesty had managed to ferret -him out in his retreat. - -“It’s a vile country,” said he to Quong Ho, who had handed him the -letter on returning from his weekly visit to the town. “It’s a -pettifogging, police-ridden land, where a man, if he so chooses, can’t -bury himself decently. I’m sure the King is not aware of this -unwarranted interference with the liberty of one of the most -self-effacing of his subjects.” - -“My mind was in half,” replied Quong Ho, “to destroy the missive which I -conjectured would cause you annoyance.” - -“It’s a good thing you didn’t. The King is an amiable gentleman, but the -High Mandarins from whom this proceeds are not to be trifled with.” He -glanced through the papers. “It is well,” said he, with a sigh of -relief. “The High Mandarins around the Throne are as yet ignorant of my -whereabouts; but if I refused to obey this invitation, they would soon -learn it. It is a pestilential minor official in the vicinity who for -the sake of money—it’s his disgusting mode of livelihood—has violated -my solitude.” - -“In the New China,” said Quong Ho, “we hope to do away with the -bureaucracy, which is a parasite on civilization.” - -“You won’t do it,” said Baltazar. “In the New Jerusalem—by which we -mean the Kingdom of Heaven—there is a Recording Angel, and you may bet -your boots he has got his staff of officials who write minutes and fill -up forms all Eternity long.” - -“Perfection,” remarked Quong Ho, “is to be found neither in this world -nor the next, but only in that harmonious principle of the soul which is -termed _li_ in the Confucian philosophy.” - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar in Chinese, “your wisdom befits rather the -honourable white beard of the teacher than the smooth-shaven chin of the -pupil of five-and-twenty.” - -Quong Ho bowed respectfully at the compliment and withdrew. - -“Confound the Income Tax!” said Baltazar, looking through the papers. He -had completely forgotten his liability. The sudden reminder vexed him. -Of course he must pay; but his income being exclusively derived from -investments, all of which were taxed at the source before the dividend -warrants were paid automatically into his account at his bankers’, why -should he be worried? He resented the intrusion on his privacy. - -A week later Quong Ho posted the form in the ironically provided, -penny-saving official envelope, and Baltazar dismissed the incident from -his mind. - -When some time afterwards his assessment paper arrived, it caused him -some astonishment. He cast his memory back twenty years. In 1896 the -Income Tax, if he remembered rightly, was inconsiderable, some sixpence -in the pound. Now it was half a crown. He filled up the form, an easy -task, thinking less than ever of the social condition of Modern England; -such high direct taxation could only mean the desperate financial -straits of a decadent country. Well, as far as he was concerned, the -loss of one-eighth of his income did not matter. The initial expenses of -his installation at Spendale Farm over, he scarcely spent a third of it. - -The next disturbing document that found its way to Spendale Farm -contained a searching series of questions, headed “National -Registration.” - -“I am ceasing to regard England as a fit place to live in,” said he, -with some petulance. “This is Mandarinism run riot.” - -A few weeks afterwards he received a neat little card folded in two, on -the outside of which was printed a vile semblance of the Royal Coat of -Arms and “National Registration Act, 1915,” and inside a certificate of -the Registration of (_a_) John Baltazar, (_b_) Philosophical -Investigator—for as such had he irritably described himself—(_c_) of -Spendale Farm, Water-End. There was a space for the signature of Holder, -and below it in great capitals “God Save the King.” On the back were -directions as to change of address. - -“God knows what’s coming over the country,” said he. “It appears that a -free-born Englishman has got to carry about his police papers, as people -have to do in disgusting countries like Germany and Russia. What about -you, Quong Ho? Have you got a pretty little document like this?” - -“I am registered as an alien,” replied Quong Ho. - -“It seems to me,” said Baltazar, “that when I used to gas to you about -our free British institutions I was nothing but an ignorant liar.” - -“By no means, sir,” replied Quong Ho politely. “The keynote of the -modern world is change. What was true of material things yesterday is a -lie to-day.” - -“How did you discover that?” - -“I assume the little town of Water-End to be but a microcosm of Great -Britain.” - -“Why,” laughed Baltazar, “what signs of change do you see there?” - -Quong Ho remained for a moment silent, and his face assumed its Oriental -impassivity. If he reported to his master the astounding events that -were taking place, even at Water-End, whose quiet High Street was -a-bustle with newly fledged soldiery from the moorland camp three miles -on the further side, he would not only risk the dissolution of the -establishment, but would be guilty of filial disobedience, which was -impiety. And the European War, after all, how could it concern him, Li -Quong Ho? Perhaps, too, his master, foreseeing the tempest, particularly -desired to take shelter and hear nothing at all about it. He was -fortunate enough, however, to find a perfectly true reply to Baltazar’s -question. He smiled in some relief; for an intellectual Chinaman, -trained in the lofty morality of the Chinese classics, does not -willingly lie. - -“It is a woman and not a man who now delivers the letters in Water-End.” - -Baltazar continued to laugh: “They’ll be driving the motor-cars soon.” - -“I’ve seen them doing it,” said Quong Ho. - -“I’m not surprised,” said his master. “They were tending that way a year -ago. These new women are out for the devirilization of man. Perhaps by -this time they’re in Parliament, passing firework legislation and -playing the devil with all our laws and customs. You haven’t yet heard, -by any chance, whether the occupation of monthly nursing is confined -exclusively to the male sex?” - -“The enactment, if such there be,” replied Quong Ho solemnly, “is not, -to my knowledge, in force in this remote locality.” - -“Let us thank the gods, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “that we’re out of -this feminist hurly-burly. The little I saw of the movement was -antipathetic to my philosophy of life. A society in which women regard -the bearing of children as a physical accident of no account, and deny -the responsibilities which such an event entails, must be doomed to -decay, or, at the best, to bitter disillusionment. The more I hear of -contemporary England the less I like it. It seems to be woman-ridden; -curiously enough by two camps in apparent opposition, but in reality -waging joint warfare on man. The world has never yet beheld such a sex -campaign. One section demands luxury beyond the dreams of Byzantium at -its rottenest, and the other claims supreme political power.” - -“It is well, sir,” said Quong Ho, “that you repudiated the imbecile -suggestion of the House Agent to the effect that you should employ a -woman housekeeper of mature age to superintend this establishment.” - -“It is lucky for you, Quong Ho, that I did,” grinned Baltazar. “She -would have made you sit up.” - -Quong Ho, with clasped hands and lowered head, respectfully asserted -himself. “If I do not sit up sufficiently for your satisfaction, sir, it -is for you to reprimand me.” - -“I only spoke in jest, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar. “Our Western humour is -rather subtle.” - -“I will make a note of it,” replied Quong Ho. - -“By such notation and accumulation of detail one gathers knowledge,” -said Baltazar. “By co-ordination one acquires wisdom. Continue on this, -the only path of philosophy, and your old age will be blessed. In the -meantime, please keep your observations of changes at Water-End to -yourself.” - -“Obedience to your honourable commands, my master,” replied Quong Ho, in -Chinese, “is the sacred duty of this entirely inconsiderable person. But -may one so inferior as myself humbly remind your illustrious greatness -that it was you who originally propounded to me a question which I was -bound to answer.” - -“The fact that I did so,” replied Baltazar, “you may note as an instance -of the human fallibility of the sublimest minds. Fear not but that I -will profit by your lesson.” - -He waved a dismissing hand. Quong Ho bowed with the perfect ceremonial -of pupil taking leave of master and retired. Baltazar threw himself into -his arm-chair and laughed aloud. - -“You’re a joy, Quong Ho. A perfect joy. A museum specimen of a joy.” - -So while Baltazar delighted in the unhumorous literalness of the -Chinaman, it never occurred to him that he was the dupe of the -unhumorous literalness of the Chinaman’s fidelity; that while he was -inveighing against speculative phenomena of an ill-understood movement, -the trumpet of war had transformed that movement into an apotheosis of -feminine effort of which Quong Ho, keenly intellectual, was perfectly -well aware; and that it was only by the pious grace of his pupil and -servant that he lived a day in his fool’s paradise. - -When Quong Ho, a week afterwards, brought him his meagre mail, he -angrily crushed in his fist and threw aside the enclosure of the first -envelope which he had opened. - -“I’m hanged if this isn’t a begging circular! It’s infernal impudence! -It’s an intolerable outrage on one’s personal liberty. Here, Quong -Ho!”—he swept the remainder of the mail into the Chinaman’s hand. -“Don’t let me be worried with any more letters. I’ve come down here to -be quiet and not to be badgered. If there are bills to pay, make out the -cheques and I’ll sign them. If there are circulars, throw them away. -About anything else use your discretion.” - -“I will exactly execute your orders,” replied Quong Ho. - -Thus Baltazar finally severed relations between himself and the outside -world. Quong Ho acted the perfect Private Secretary. The only letters -presented to his master for perusal were rare business communications -from booksellers instructed to purchase some out-of-the-way and possibly -expensive book. Circular letters, containing appeals for subscriptions, -which poured in, as soon as Baltazar’s name eventually found its way on -the address-lists of the neighbourhood, Quong Ho conscientiously -destroyed. Using his discretion, he withheld letters from the Bank -inviting investments in War Loans. Such, in his opinion, were further -intrusions on the sacred privacy of his master. And thus the weeks and -months passed by; and Quong Ho, in touch with even such an outpost of -civilization as the tiny moorland town and bringing to that contact the -most highly trained incuriosity, could not avoid gathering the current -tidings of the vast world conflict; but, faithful to his commands, he -said never a word to Baltazar, gave never a hint of the stupendous -convulsion in which the world was involved. And while his master, serene -doctrinaire, discoursed on the political science of the nineties, now -being blown to smithereens by German guns, he maintained the reverential -attitude of the disciple, drinking in as gospel truth the wisdom of his -inspired teacher. - -One evening, when Baltazar had praised the clear solution of certain -problems which he had set in Differential Equations, and prophesied a -glorious career for the most brilliant mathematician China had ever -produced, Quong Ho, after gratefully acknowledging the encomium, said: - -“If you will forgive my indiscretion, I should like to ask a question. -Why is it, sir, that you, who take such great interest in the -future—for example, my inconsiderable and negligible prospects, and the -benefits that will accrue to humanity on the publication of the -thought-shaking results of your own profound researches,—should be so -indifferent to the present condition of the world?” - -“For the simple reason, my good fellow,” replied Baltazar, “that, from -what I have observed, the present condition of mankind—from China to -Peru, as your newly found friend Dr. Johnson says—is putrescent. The -best way in which we can serve mankind is to do what we’re doing now—to -provide for the intellectual development of the future generation.” - -“The proposition is unanswerable,” said Quong Ho. “But suppose, sir, for -the sake of argument, that a philosophic observation of the civilized -world as it is should result in the conclusion that, in the English -idiom, it is proceeding fast to the devils—what is the duty of the man -of high morality?” - -“To let it go slap-dash,” said Baltazar. “The faster and surer, the -better. For then the sooner will the eternal rhythm, the eternal -principle of balance, assert itself. When a society is rushing down to -Gadarene suicide——” - -“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted the alert Quong Ho. “Gad—I do not -understand the word.” - -“Read the Gospel according to St. Mark to-morrow. You’ve heard of St. -Mark?” - -“You might as well ask me, sir, if I had heard of Confucius or Homer, or -the immortal Todhunter of my childhood.” - -Baltazar rubbed his brown thatch and turned his luminous grey eyes on -his disciple. - -“The immensity of your purview, Quong Ho, is only equalled by your -lightning perception of landmarks. Anyhow, read St. Mark over again, and -tell me your opinion of the swine of Gadara. For the moment, I’d have -you know that you’ve interrupted my argument. I was saying that if -everything’s going to the devil—that’s the correct idiom—not -proceeding to devils——” - -“May I make a note of it?” said Quong Ho, scribbling the phrase across -his mathematical manuscript. - -Baltazar rose from his chair by the long deal table and relit his pipe -over the chimney of a lamp. - -“You’ve put me out. What the blazes were we talking about?” - -“The present world condition,” replied Quong Ho. - -“Then I assert,” said Baltazar, “that the present state of the world is -rotten. It’s no place for intellectual reformers like you and me. What -are the words of Confucius known to every schoolboy? ‘_With sincerity -and truth unite a desire for self-culture. Lay down your life rather -than quit the path of virtue. Enter not a state which is tottering to -its fall. When Law obtains in the Empire let yourself be seen: when -lawlessness reigns, retire into obscurity._’” - -“But supposing,” persisted Quong Ho, “the state of the devil-driven -world is of vital interest?” - -“It can be of vital interest only to those hurtling down to destruction. -To us, who have retired into the obscure aloofness recommended by the -great philosopher, it can be of no possible concern.” - -“It is well,” said Quong Ho. - -“I know it is,” remarked Baltazar, with a yawn. “Another night let us -have a slightly more intelligent conversation.” - -Quong Ho retired, his conscience finally set at rest. After all, was not -his master right? What could he do of any use in the world rudely at -war? Was he not serving the truest interests of humanity by retiring at -this juncture and devoting the harvest of his great learning to a future -generation? - -“Soldiers,” said Quong Ho the next day, looking into the unspeculative -topaz eyes of the goat which he had been milking, “are as numerous as -the sands of the desert, and politicians as the mosquitoes in a swamp; -they are swept away and the world misses them not; but philosophers are -rare, and the loss of one of them is a supreme world calamity.” - -“Baa-a-a!” said the goat. - -“I perceive that you too have wisdom,” said Quong Ho. “You appreciate -the privilege of living under the same roof as the illustrious -Baltazar.” - -He burst into an unaccustomed laugh. Conversation with a goat appealed -to his prim sense of humour. But all the same, he expressed his own -deeply-rooted conviction. To the keen-brained young Chinaman, Baltazar -appeared as a man of stupendous intellectual force. His knowledge of the -abstract sciences of the Western world would have commanded his respect; -but his vast Chinese erudition, acknowledged with admiration by -Mandarins and scholars and other Great Ones of China, gave Quong Ho -cause for a veneration reaching almost to idolatry. - -Also Baltazar, for all his patriarchal years, earned his pupil’s respect -as a man of marvellous muscle and endurance. During the winter, when the -inclemency of the weather forbade agricultural pursuits—and on that -moorland waste the weather abandoned itself to every capricious devildom -within meteorological possibilities—Baltazar, having ordered a set of -gloves from London, gave boxing lessons to his disciple. At first Quong -Ho was shocked. How could so contemptible a person as he ever make a -pretence of smiting the highly honourable face of his master? Baltazar -bade him try. He would give him an hour’s extra private tuition for -every hit. And Quong Ho, encouraged by so splendid a prize, tried, at -first diffidently, then earnestly, then zealously, then desperately, -then bald-headedly, but never a wild blow could pass the easy guard of -his smiling master. - -“You see, Quong Ho, it’s a science,” said Baltazar. “Now I’m going to -hit you.” And he feinted and struck out with his left and sent his -disciple swinging across the room. “It is also a game,” he added, -holding up his hand, “because what I have just done did not hurt you in -the least.” - -Quong Ho rubbed his jaw. “It was like the kiss of a butterfly,” said he. - -“Here endeth the First Lesson,” said Baltazar. “The English etiquette -now requires that we should shake hands.” - -When they had gone through the formality Baltazar continued: - -“You of all non-English people oughtn’t to be astonished. Did not the -same ceremony exist in your country over two thousand years ago? Is it -not referred to in the Analects?” - -“Sir,” said the breathless and perspiring Quong Ho, “I have unworthily -forgotten.” - -“Did not the Master say: ‘_The true gentleman is never contentious. If a -spirit of rivalry is anywhere unavoidable, it is at a shooting-match. -Yet even here he courteously salutes his opponents before taking up his -position_’—we ought to have shaken hands before starting, but we’ll do -it next time—‘_and again when, having lost, he retires to drink the -forfeit-cup_’—your forfeit-cup being the loss of the extra hours of -tuition. ‘_So that even when competing, he remains a true gentleman._’” - -“I remember now,” said Quong Ho. - -“I’m glad you do,” replied Baltazar. “That is the lofty spirit in which -we shall continue this exceedingly health-giving science and pastime.” - -And they continued. The young Chinaman, lithe, hard, physically perfect, -little more than half the age of his tutor, devoted himself, with his -Chinese assiduity, to the mastery of the fascinating art, and succeeded -eventually in giving Baltazar most interesting encounters; he realized -that fierce blows planted on venerable features were taken, nay -applauded, in the spirit of the Confucian gentleman; he also accepted in -the same gentlemanly way the hammering that he invariably received. It -was after some months of this training, when he was able to discount -merely superior science, that he bowed down before Baltazar not only as -before an intellect, but as before a marvellous physical man. - -There came a truce, however—the following winter—when Baltazar, wise -in his elderly generation, foresaw the inevitable supremacy of youth, -and ordered new toys from London—foils, masks and fencing jackets. The -gloves mouldered in a broken-down potting-shed, and Quong Ho again -started, as a tyro, to learn a new athletic accomplishment. Thus in his -disciple’s sound body Baltazar contrived to maintain a sound and humble -mind. He knew that he was held in deep respect by Quong Ho. But it never -occurred to his careless mind that Quong Ho regarded him as a kind of -god. He accepted the homage as a matter of course. - -In these idyllic conditions John Baltazar accounted himself serenely -happy. His scholarly solitude was undisturbed by the windy ways of men -or the windy ways of moorland nature. The former spent themselves before -reaching him; at the latter he snapped his fingers. What to him was the -seasons’ difference? So absorbed was he in his work, so circumscribed in -his walled enclosure beyond which he seldom set foot, that he barely -even noticed the hourly change on the sensitive face of the moor. And -season followed season, and the piles of manuscript, exquisitely -corrected for the printer, grew in height, and Quong Ho assimilated -Higher Mathematics as though it were rice; and everything was for the -best in the best of all possible little intellectual worlds. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -SUCH, as far as a few strokes can picture him, was John Baltazar, at the -time when his unsuspected son lay footless in the convalescent home and -discussed with Marcelle Baring the mystery of his existence. A man of -many failings, many intolerances, of some ruthlessness. A man both -sensitive and hard; both bold and shrinking; with the traditional habits -of the ostrich and the heart of a lion. A man apparently given to -extravagances of caprice; and yet remaining always constant to himself, -preserving also throughout his strange career a perfect unity of -character. Perhaps, regarding him from another point of view, his -detractors may say that he loved to play to himself as audience and, -further, put that audience in the gallery. Why not? It is in the essence -of human consciousness that a man must, in some measure, be an actor to -himself. The degree depends on the human equation. Dumas _fils_ once -said of his immortal semi-mulatto father: “He is quite capable of -getting up behind his own carriage, in order to persuade people that he -keeps a black footman.” A savage epigram. But it would have been a -deeper truth if he had said that the wonder of a man who was his father, -was capable of doing it, in order to persuade himself that he kept a -black footman. The more we limit the audience to the man himself, the -more we love him. The more human does the vivid creature appear to us. -If Baltazar played to that audience of one, he had many illustrious -colleagues. If again his method was melodramatic, it at least had -breadth. It dealt with big issues in a broad and simple way. . . . - -“That’s what I love about the three great systems of Chinese ethics,” he -would declare. “There’s no damned subtlety about them. You accept the -various propositions or you, don’t. There are no _homoousian_ and -_homoiousian_ conflicts, and suchlike rubbish, that have torn Western -thought to ribbons for over a thousand years. In China you go straight -to the heart of truth. All the subtlety lies, Quong Ho, in the correct -interpretation of your appalling but fascinating script.” - -This was a rough profession of faith, almost an analysis of character. -The intellect of the mathematician delighted in the process of arriving -at exactness of statement, but at the same time that statement’s -philosophic simplicity appealed to a nature fundamentally simple. - -He abhorred complications. That was his weakness. He claimed, -unphilosophically, the absolute. Hence the abandonment of his academical -career, involving at the same time the merciless abandonment of his -wife. Hence the clean cut of his career in China, where a little supple -coquetting with political corruption would have brought him great wealth -and power. Hence the impenetrable wall he had now contrived between -himself and the rest of mankind. He had no power of compromise. - -Thus an attempt has been made to answer the question which Marcelle -Baring vainly put to herself that sleepless night on her return from -London, when a boy’s artless admiration had opened springs of sentiment -which she had thought deliberately sealed forever; the question asked by -Godfrey Baltazar; the same question which almost simultaneously John -Baltazar put to himself, while leaning over the gate in the glory of the -moorland sunset; which, in a wistful, speculative way, he continued to -put to himself after Quong Ho, with new lights on Elliptic Functions and -the philosophy of Lao-Tze and the Ethics of Love—for the severe lesson -in mathematics was always followed by an hour’s improving conversation -on general matters—had retired for the night, leaving him to his last -pipe and his last spell of work. But the discussion on the Ethics of -Love disturbed his more studious thought and brought back the question -which a few hours before had idly flitted across his brain. - -Quong Ho had said, somewhat diffidently, in his own language: “Master, -may this inconsiderable person seek the solution of an intimate problem -from one who is a supreme authority on all things concerning human -conduct?” - -“Fire away,” said Baltazar in English. - -“Thank you, sir; I will proceed to fire. When I left China I was a young -man of no account, the son of peasants long since defunct, your -body-servant, almost your slave, because you purchased my life.” - -“We can stow all that,” said Baltazar. - -“With your honourable permission, by no means. I was reckoned in -Chen-Chow only as a hopper of clods——” - -“Eh? Oh yes. Go on,” smiled Baltazar. - -“I saw the daughter of Fung Yu, the gardener of the palace——” - -“I remember the old villain. He had a daughter?” - -“There were negotiations in progress,” Quong Ho went on. “The young -woman was eminently desirable. She was virtuous and obedient, and not -devoid of physical attractiveness. When I followed you, sir, from China, -I left the affair between myself and Fung Yu in a state of suspended -animation.” - -“You mean Fung Yu’s daughter? In our more brutal idiom it comes to -this—that you’re in love with a little girl in China—and she possibly -with you—and you’ve run away and don’t know what the devil to do.” - -“Her feelings,” replied Quong Ho calmly, “do not concern me. I doubt -whether she has any of sentimental importance. It is with my own -honourable conduct that I am preoccupied. I left China a person to whom -Fung Yu would condescend: I return as a personage of high intellectual -repute. I shall be able to seek a bride of a far higher social position -than the daughter of Fung Yu. That is not all. My study of English -literature has given me new conceptions of the intellectual -companionship of married life. In the New China there are certainly -young girls of high educational standard, among whom I might find one -who could understand what I was talking about when I spoke of such -philosophical topics as interested me. The point that, as a very young -and humble man, I wish to submit to your infallible wisdom, for my -guidance, is this: am I bound, as an honourable fellow, to marry, in Old -China, the flower-like but cabbage-ignorant daughter of Fung Yu, the -gardener, or am I justified in cutting the Rubicon and seeking in the -New China for a real helpmate?” - -“Before proceeding,” replied Baltazar, with the bantering light in his -grey eyes that Quong Ho could never interpret, “will you make a note for -a conversation to-morrow on Mixture of Metaphors?” Quong Ho produced his -notebook. “Yes, just that entry. Mixture of Metaphors. Good,” said he, -when the methodical young Chinaman had obeyed. “Side issues, like that, -have their great importance; but they must be followed after the main -course has been traversed. The whole point of the matter is: how far -have you committed yourself with the girl?” - -Quong Ho started back in his straight-backed wooden chair—they were -still side by side at the lamplit centre of the long deal table—and -held up his hands. - -“Committed myself? Oh no. The only time I ever addressed her was on one -occasion when I relieved her of the burden of a vessel of water from the -well to her house. But I have spoken very seriously to Fung Yu.” - -“Fung Yu can go to blazes,” said Baltazar. - -Quong Ho smiled. “I alone could give evidence that would condemn him to -a perpetuity of punishment.” - -“So could I,” cried Baltazar. “Graft! If Tammany Hall really wanted to -know how to do things, it ought to sit like a little child at the feet -of a high-class Mandarin’s head-gardener. Fung Yu’s the real thing.” - -“He is a corrupt personality,” said Quong Ho. - -“Therefore,” replied Baltazar, “he is not the kind of person with whom -an honourable man should seek alliance. As to the lady, her young -affections are obviously unblighted, and very possibly by this time she -is married and the mother of twins. My advice is to dismiss Fung Yu and -his flower-like yet cabbage-ignorant daughter forever from your mind.” - -“I shall follow your gracious counsel,” replied Quong Ho. And the -intimate conversation ended. - -But it hung around the thoughts of Baltazar for the rest of the night. -Quong Ho was young. Quong Ho had looked upon a daughter of men and found -her fair. In his Chinese self-repressing way he had had his romance. Now -it was over. He pitied Quong Ho. Yet, after a year or so of probation, -the young man, lusty in his youth and confident in his future, would -return to his native land heart-whole, with all the romance of life -still before him—whilst he, Baltazar, would re-enter a world from which -all such things were blotted out for ever. For what of romance could lie -before a man of fifty—one who had lost all touch with women and women’s -ways? For the first time a fear of loneliness sent a shiver through him. -It was not natural for a man to have neither wife nor child. It was but -half an existence; a deliberate spurning of duties and glories and -fulfilled achievement. And his own one romance? Had he been justified in -destroying its gossamer web? It was all very long ago; but the beauty of -it lingered exquisite in his heart. Had he been a mere fool? Were the -results to him and to her worth the sacrifice? And, after all, was he -sure that the results to her had been beneficial rather than disastrous? -He sighed, consoled himself with the reflections that she must now have -around her a family of sons and daughters, and that if ever she gave him -a thought, it was to bless Heaven for her narrow escape; and, so -fortified, he went on with his work. - -When he awoke the next morning, the chastened retrospective mood had -passed. After his tea and cold tub, he sat down to the table by the -eastern window through which the morning sun was streaming, setting the -gorse ablaze and the heather blood-red, and attacked the final chapter -of his epoch-making Treatise on the Theory of Groups. The thrill of a -great thing accomplished held him as he wrote. Such moments were worth -living. He breakfasted with the appetite of a man who had earned a right -to the material blessings of life. He went out, groomed the old grey -mare and cleaned out the stable and dug up a patch of ground, rejoicing, -like a young man, in his strength and in the fresh beauty of the day. On -his return to his study he reviewed affectionately the monuments of two -years’ labour. The Treatise of the Theory of Groups, all but complete, -lay in one neat pile of manuscript. Another represented further serious -adventures into the Analytical Geometry of a Four-Dimensional Space than -mortal man had ever undertaken. Who could tell whither those adventures -could lead? Pure mathematics had demonstrated the existence of the -planet Neptune in space of three dimensions. Pure mathematics applied to -four dimensions might prove and explain many transcendental phenomena. -The next world might be four-dimensional and the spirits of the dead who -inhabit it could easily enter confined three-dimensional space. That was -Cayley’s ingenious theory of Ghosts. You could carry it further to space -of five, six, _n_ dimensions; when you could treat the geometry of space -of infinite dimensions as Euclid did the geometry of plane surfaces, you -would have solved the riddle of the universe; you would have come direct -to the Godhead. He turned lovingly over the leaves of the completed -portion of this fascinating essay; also the neighbouring piles of rough -notes, the results of laborious years in China. Another section of the -long deal table was devoted to his translations and editions of the -Chinese classics and to ancient Chinese MSS. and books, his originals -and authorities. The final scholarly translation into English of the -great book of the Tao-tze—The Book of Rewards and Punishments—so full -of deep wisdom, artlessness and charm, rose in three-part completion. It -would knock dear old Stanislas Julien’s French version of 1835 into a -cocked hat. He had collated libraries undreamed of by Julien or by any -subsequent scholar. It would make all the missionaries and consuls and -other amateur sinologists wish they had never been born. . . . Then -again were the Shih-King—the Psalms of ancient China, resonant with -music, bewildering with imagery, vibrating with emotion, hitherto done -into English—_done in_ into English—he chuckled as the mild jest -occurred to him—by a worthy, prosaic and very learned missionary, much -out of sympathy with ancient China because it had never heard of Jesus -Christ before He was born—there were the Shih-King in process of -reverent and, as far as his power lay, of poetic translation. He took -down from his shelves the volume containing the solemnly authoritative -English text published by the Oxford University Press, and opened it at -random. He read: - -“_The angry terrors of compassionate Heaven extend through this lower -world._ (_The King’s_) _counsels and plans are crooked and bad; when -will he stop_ (_in his course_)_? Counsels that are good he will not -follow. And those that are not good he employs. When I look at his -counsels and plans, I am greatly pained._” - -He laughed out loud, shut the book and returned it to the shelf. - -“‘I am greatly pained’! Oh, my Lord!” - -He searched his manuscript for his own version, and read it through with -a satisfaction not devoid of smugness. A professional poet might have -found, like the Chinese writer, the inevitable word, the sacred flash; -but, after all, he had made the thing deadened by the learned Oxford -professor live again; he had suggested some of the music and the grace -of the original—enough to attract and not to repel the ordinary English -reader. And with all that, he would like to see any man, Chinese or -European, pick a hole in his scholarship. - -He lit his pipe, and before settling down to work again surveyed the -great mass of his achievement. Life was truly worth living, when, during -its brief span, such great things could be done. With a short interval -for luncheon, he worked steadily on through the day, sacrificing his -accustomed spell of outdoor exercise, and when Quong Ho, who had changed -his nondescript European working kit for the cool, immaculate Chinese -dress, announced that dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, he -had all but written Finis to his Treatise on the Theory of Groups. - -“Lord!” said he, “I must wash and get a mouthful of fresh air.” He -whistled to the dog, Brutus, who had lain at his feet most of the -afternoon, and went off. When he got outside, he discovered, to his -surprise, for he had sat in front of a window all the time, that a white -mist had gathered on the moorland and that his horizon as he stood on -his doorstep was scarcely bounded by his rude granite wall. The fog -covered him in like a cupola. He patted the Airedale’s head and smiled, -well content in this increased security of his isolation. - -“We might, be the last living beings on the face of the globe,” said he -to Quong Ho, who came to announce dinner. - -“Yes, sir,” said Quong Ho. - -Baltazar shot a humorous glance at him: “The idea doesn’t seem to -provoke you to radiant enthusiasm.” - -“I fail to see, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “who, in that hypothetical case, -would benefit by your illuminating editions of the Chinese classics, and -what advantage it would be to me to continue the severe study of -Elliptic Functions.” - -“I’m afraid you’re a dismal utilitarian,” said his master, passing by -him into the house. “Yet I suppose you’re right,” he added a few moments -afterwards, as he sat down to table and unfolded his napkin. “If we were -the only two people left in the world, we’d very soon chuck our -intellectual pursuits. I don’t think I care a damn for the things -themselves. As far as I am solely and personally concerned, this -excellent bit of grilled salmon is infinitely more vital than the -discovery of any mathematical truth. The latter has only value as it -relates to the progress of humanity. If there is no humanity, it is -valueless. It won’t help me on worth a cent. But the salmon, a typical -edible, is essential to the physical existence of ME. So I should let -Chinese philosophy and the Higher Mathematics go hang, and confine -myself to the chase of salmon or rabbits or roots or acorns—and so -would you—and in a very few years we should be hairy, long-nailed -savages, flying at each other’s throats for the last succulent bit of -Brutus.” - -The dog, hearing his name, rested his long chin against his master’s -knee and regarded him with wistful eyes. - -“No, old son,” laughed Baltazar, giving him a morsel of salmon, “we’re -not at that point yet. Make your mind easy. You and I and Quong Ho will -take our work out into the hurrying markets of the earth and find -justification for all these lonely days. Although we’re temporary -recluses, we’re valuable citizens of the world. We deserve more salmon.” - -Quong Ho presented the dish, and Baltazar and Brutus got their deserts. - -Presently Quong Ho brought in lamb cutlets with fresh peas from the -garden, which Baltazar attacked with relish. - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “you’re a wonder. Is there anything you can’t -do?” - -The young man smiled bland recognition of the compliment, but said -nothing. As Baltazar’s body-servant he refrained from familiar -conversation. But Baltazar was in an expansive mood. He went on: - -“You cook for me enchantingly. You serve me perfectly. Your attitude, -Quong Ho, is one of the most exquisite tact. But if we were the last two -persons on the earth, you would see me damned before you would devote -yourself to my personal comfort in this unrestricted manner.” - -“I think not,” replied Quong Ho. “The truths of religion would not be -affected by the annihilation of the human race. To you, who are to me -_in loco parenti_——” - -“_Parentis_, my dear fellow. It’s Latin. Make a note of it.” - -“I do so, mentally,” said Quong Ho. “To you, sir, who are to me in the -place of a parent, I owe filial obligation, and therefore I should not -see you damned before I administered to your wants.” - -“Rubbish!” said Baltazar, with a wave of his hand. - -“I speak the truth,” said Quong Ho gravely. - -Baltazar did not reply, but devoted himself to the cutlets and peas. - -Quong Ho performed the sacred rite of the offering of wine. The meal was -concluded in its nice formality of conventional life, and after coffee -Baltazar lit his pipe and sat down to his usual hour’s mental -relaxation. But his mind wandered from _The Caxtons_, which he had taken -down from the shelves, to Quong Ho’s quiet profession of loyalty. For -all his intimate knowledge of the Chinese character, this perhaps was -the first time that he realized the depth of the young man’s real -affection. And suddenly it occurred to him that he also was greatly -attached to Quong Ho; not only through habit, or implicit trust, or -gratitude for essential co-operation in carrying out his eccentric -scheme of life; but by ties very simple and homely. Bacon, speaking of -man, says: “If he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.” Baltazar -glowed with the thought that he could still act his part as a human -being. He had his friend. Indeed, he had had one for all these months, -and even years, without knowing it. The loneliness of soul which he had -accepted as his portion from the time of his flight from Cambridge, and -for the last day or two he had begun to dread, was filled by the -incongruous sympathy of the young Chinaman. Hitherto he had accepted his -fidelity as a matter of course; he had rewarded it by scrupulous -observance of his obligations. But it had been his good pleasure to -regard his disciple as a human and intellectual toy, all the more -delectable for his lack of the humorous sense. To pull well-known -strings and elicit platitudes expressed in the solemnity of his -classically learned English had been his mischievous delight. But—“I -speak the truth,” Quong Ho had said; and the accent in which he had said -it was one of grave conviction, even of rebuke. - -He took up his book again and almost immediately let it drop. - -“If I lost Quong Ho, what the devil would become of me?” He threw the -book on to the floor and leaned back in his arm-chair, pipe in mouth, -his hands clasped behind his head. In the whole wide world of hundreds -of millions of people, he had not a single friend, save Quong Ho. He had -been very dense not to realize before the elementary truth that -individual life is not supportable by itself. Newton’s Third Law of -Motion—_to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction_—was -a law of life. The incessant reaction on the individual would be death. -One other nature at least was needed for the distribution and -application of vital forces, and in their mutual action and reaction -could alone be found the compensation that was safety, sanity, normal -human existence. And the more attuned were the part of the reciprocal -human machine, the greater the compensation; this human adjustment had -its degrees: understanding, friendship, affection, culminating in -love—the perfect state. - -When Quong Ho appeared, books and papers as usual under his arm, -Baltazar waved an inviting arm. - -“Take a chair, Quong Ho, and let us talk. Elliptic Functions are too -inhuman for me to-night.” - -Quong Ho put his burden down on the table and brought up a -straight-backed, rush-bottomed chair, and sat down stiffly, facing his -master, who took up his parable. - -“I’ve been thinking of what you said at dinner. You touched on a -spiritual aspect of the hypothetical emotion we were discussing which -did not occur to me. What made you do it?” - -“Sir,” replied Quong Ho, “if you will permit me to speak my thoughts, I -cannot separate life into two watertight departments——” - -“_Com_partments,” murmured Baltazar, through force of habit. - -Quong Ho bowed. “I recollect. To resume. I cannot separate life into two -watertight compartments—the material and the spiritual. It appears to -me to be the subtle interfusion, the solemnization of holy matrimony, -between the two.” - -“One of the charms, my son, of your conversation,” laughed Baltazar, “is -its unexpected allusiveness.” - -Quong Ho rose and made a deep bow. “You have called me, sir, by a term -which overwhelms me with filial gratitude.” - -Baltazar, who had used the word deliberately, held out his hand. - -“I believe,” said he in Chinese, “in your profession of a son’s -affection, and therefore I admit you to the position. After a year or so -our lives will materially be separated, but spiritually they will run -the same course.” - -“This is the happiest and most fortunate day of my life,” said Quong Ho. - -“Without going into superlatives,” replied Baltazar in English, “I may -reciprocate the sentiment.” - -They talked on, developing the idea of wedding of the material and the -spiritual, branching off into fascinating side-tracks, as men of alert -intelligence delight to do in conversation, and coming back now and then -with the flash of unexpectedness to the main issue. They touched on the -hermits of Thebaïd. - -“Their outlook,” said Baltazar, “was exclusively spiritual, -fundamentally selfish. They were out to save their own silly, -unimportant souls from hell-fire, and nothing else mattered. Egotism -raised to infinity. Our retirement has nothing at all in common with -theirs.” - -“Sir,” said Quong Ho, “since we are speaking very seriously, may I, -without indiscretion, ask you whether you too are not out to save your -soul?” - -Baltazar rose from his chair and strode up and down the long room, -casting at Quong Ho a swift glance from beneath frowning brows every -time he passed him. At last he halted and said: - -“That’s so. The history of my inner life has been an attempt to save my -soul. But there’s a hell of a lot of difference between me and St. -Simeon Stylites. That was a kind of ass who sat for years on the top of -a pillar and never did a hand’s turn for anybody. All he thought of was -his escape from hell. Now I, as far as my soul is concerned, don’t care -a damn whether it’s going to hell or heaven. My object in saving it is -to be of use to my fellow-creatures.” - -Quong Ho, who had risen when his master rose, said: - -“All that is clear to me. I too am here for the same purpose.” - -“You?” cried Baltazar. “What’s wrong with you?” - -“I want to eradicate from my mind the soul-destroying associations of -the daughter of the gardener Fung Yu.” - -Then Baltazar laughed aloud and clapped the young Chinaman on the -shoulder, an unprecedented act of hearty familiarity. - -“My son,” said he, “this is a discipline that will bring us both, me -old, you young, to the greater wisdom. In the meanwhile, it’s a happy -discipline, isn’t it? We’ve got all that mortal man—under discipline, -mark you—all that mortal man can want. Spiritually, we have the sacred -relations of father and son. Intellectually, we are equals and”—he -threw an arm around the room—“we have the learning of the world at our -command. Materially—what more can we desire?” - -He looked fondly around the long, low-ceilinged room, brilliantly -illuminated by four petroleum lamps and half a dozen candles, and dwelt -upon its homely, scholarly comfort; the Turkey carpets; the easeful -chairs and sofa; the exquisite and priceless rolls of Chinese paintings -between the bookcases; the bookcases filled, some with the old-world -books of Europe, others with the literature of China, printed volumes, -manuscripts beyond money value; the long table piled with the -inestimable results of human intellect; the warm bronze curtains, before -each of the four windows; the dear and familiar form of the very dog, -Brutus, stretched out asleep in front of the great chimney-piece. And -the silence was that of the most exclusive and the most untroubled -corner of Paradise. - -“What a Heaven-sent thing is Peace,” said Baltazar. - -At that moment the silence was disturbed by a strange and unknown sound. -Baltazar and Quong Ho started and looked questioningly at each other. It -seemed like the distant beating of almighty wings. They held their -breath. No, it was like the sweeping thunder of an express train. But -what should express trains be doing on the moorland? With common impulse -they rose and went out of doors into the thick mist. Then the -thundering, clattering rush broke vibrant on their ears. It was in the -air around, above them. John Baltazar put his hand to a bewildered head. -What unheard-of convulsion of nature was this? Then suddenly he had a -second’s consciousness of bursting flame and overwhelming crash, and the -blackness of death submerged his senses. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -WHEN he recovered consciousness it was but to awake to an -incomprehensible dream condition. Of his whereabouts he had no notion. -An attempt to move caused him such hideous pain in his head as almost to -render him again unconscious. His limbs, too, seemed under the control -of dream paralysis. He lay for a while co-ordinating his faculties, -until he arrived at the definite conviction that he was awake. His eyes -rested on ashlars of granite which, as he lay on his left side, -continued in a long line; also, cast downwards, they rested on rough -grass. Gradually he realized that he was in the open air, that the -stones were part of his wall. What he was doing there he could not tell. -He felt sick and faint. By an effort of will he moved a leg. The -movement revealed unaccustomed stiffness of limb: it also reawakened the -torture of his head. Again he stayed motionless. Yes, it was daylight. -It was sunlight; some twenty feet further down the wall cast a shadow. -Presently over his recovering senses stole an abominable stench. He -sniffed, jerking his head to its intolerable agony. Cautiously he lifted -his right hand to the seat of pain. His fingers dabbled in something -like thick glue. Bringing them down before his eyes, he saw they were -covered with coagulated blood. He felt again, and realized, in stupid -amazement, that his hair was stuck to a stone. The first thing to be -done was to liberate himself. He remembered afterwards that he said: -“Let us concentrate on this: nothing else for the moment matters.” He -concentrated, and at last, after infinite suffering that made him cry -aloud, he freed his hair from its glutinous imprisonment and, spent with -the effort, rolled over on the flat of his back and gazed upwards into -the blue sky. A faint breeze swept over him. But the breeze was laden -with the same abominable stench. - -As soon as he could gather sufficient physical energy he rose to a -sitting posture, supporting himself on his hands, and gazed spellbound -and stupefied on a scene of unimaginable disaster. Where once stretched -the familiar long-lying homestead, there was nothing but an inchoate -mass of stones, from the midst of which eddied and swirled columns of -black smoke. And the wind blew the smoke towards him. Looking down, he -found himself begrimed by it. He sat forward, staring, and, secure of -balance, withdrew his hands and put them up to his brow, seeking a clue -to the mystery. Memory, stage after stage, returned. He had been sitting -at night with Quong Ho. They had heard a strange noise. They had gone -out to discover what it was. Then——? What had happened then? Just a -terror of Hell opening—and nothingness. Yes, he remembered. It was -dense mist when they went out. Now it was clear, beautifully clear. The -sun was shining; but it was low on the horizon; so it must be early -morning. - -What could have happened? A thunderstorm? The place struck by lightning? -He gripped his temples. He had never heard of a thunderstorm in a dense -fog. Besides, thunder never occurred in the long, continuous, rhythmical -acceleration of volume of sound. Yet what else but thunder and lightning -could account for the blasted homestead that reeked before his eyes? - -He looked around. The stone enclosure was strewn with unspeakable -wreckage; great blocks of masonry, unrecognizable shafts of timber, bits -of twisted iron railing, ashes, charred wood. . . . He rose dizzily to -his feet. His head was one agony. He felt something wet on his neck, and -realized that the wound evidently caused by the concussion of his head -against a stone, had begun to bleed afresh. Before he could tie around -his brows the handkerchief which he mechanically drew out, he saw, close -by, the dead body of the dog Brutus, and he returned the handkerchief to -his pocket. The dog seemed to have been killed outright by a great piece -of granite that had been hurled upon him. Then for the first time his -mind grew quite clear. The unknown convulsion had dealt not only -destruction but death. Where was Quong Ho? - -He started forthwith on an agonized search. They had been standing -together a few paces away from the front door. Thither he went, but -could find no trace of him among the wreckage. From the roofless -enclosure of granite and through the windows poured black volumes of -smoke. It was useless, even impossible, to look inside. Baltazar called -out loudly the Chinaman’s name, as he made a circuit of the devastated -house, only to find fresh evidences of complete catastrophe. Here and -there lay fragments of iron, unfamiliar to him, which in his anxiety for -Quong Ho’s safety he did not speculate on or examine. He nearly tripped -over something by the burned-down stable. Looking down, to his sickening -horror, he found it to be the head of the old grey mare. He went on. No -sign of Quong Ho. In the little enclosed grass patch, now foul with -rubbish, the very goats lay dead, mostly dismembered. He stared at them -stupidly. A sudden shrill noise caused him to jump aside in terror. A -second later he realized that it came from a solitary cockerel, -strutting about in the sunshine, the sole survivor of the poultry-run, -cynically proclaiming his lust of life. - -Wherever he turned was ruin utter and final. But where was Quong Ho? Had -he not, after all, remained outside, but re-entered the house? If so—he -shuddered. Creeping back, he peered through the windows on the windward -side, as long as the smart in his eyes would allow him. There was -nothing there but fragments of stone and smouldering, indistinguishable -ash that mounted nearly to the sill. Whatever had been the cause, the -dry thatch had been set alight—the roof had fallen in, and nothing of -the interior remained save a few charred books on the upper shelves of -blackened and crazily precarious sections of bookcase. He strode away, -came to the front of the house again, and continued his search there, -with horror in his soul. The front door had been blown out. On his first -inspection he had passed it by. Now he stood wondering at the -supernatural explosion that could have burst it from its hinges and -thrown its great oaken weight bodily forth; and, looking at it, suddenly -became conscious of a foot, shod in a Chinese shoe, protruding from -beneath it. He bent down swiftly and touched the foot. Shouted “Quong -Ho!” But there was no reply. He rose, remained for a moment with the -horror of the old mare’s head, and other things he had seen in the -goats’ enclosure, racking his nerves. Then he braced himself, bent and -lifted the door, and under it lay the body of Quong Ho. To lever the -heavy mass and set it upright without treading on the motionless man, -taxed all his strength. At last he got a footing on the further side of -Quong Ho, which enabled him to set the door on edge, and a push sent it -clattering clear. Then he saw that the corner had rested on a stone by -Quong Ho’s head and so had not crushed his face. - -He bent down, made a rapid examination; then sank back on his heels, and -thanked God that Quong Ho was still alive. There was a wound on his -head, somewhat like his own, which until then he had all but forgotten. -As far as he could make out the leg was broken in one or two places. -Possibly ribs. He did not know. He took off his grey flannel jacket, the -back of which was drenched in blood, and, rolling it up, put it beneath -Quong Ho’s head. The obvious thing to do next was to fetch water, -bandages, stimulant—there was a medicine-chest and brandy in the house. -After a few impulsive strides he stopped short. There were no bandages, -no brandy. What remained of them lay in the burning filth within the -house walls. But water? He prayed God there might be some in the -scullery. He found the pump that worked the well broken, but the blessed -stream ran from the tap, showing that there was still some reserve in -the fortunately undamaged cistern. As best he might he cleaned out and -filled a pail; found an unbroken yellow bowl, and took them out to where -Quong Ho lay. He went back to search for linen or rag; but in that -welter of destruction he could find nothing. His own handkerchief was -absurdly inadequate. Luckily, the day before being warm, he had changed -before lunch into a thin undervest and a linen shirt. The latter he -removed and tore into strips, and so he bathed and bandaged Quong Ho’s -head. He also ripped up the man’s trousers and cut shoes and socks from -the swollen feet, and with the remainder of the shirt made compresses. -And all the time Quong Ho showed no sign of returning consciousness. -Evidently he was suffering from severe concussion. - -It was only when he had finished his rough dressings that the -ghastliness of his isolation smote him. He must leave Quong Ho there -alone, uncared for, and go across the moor in search of help. Suppose -his own leg had been broken. The sweat stood on his forehead. They would -have lain there and starved to death, like stricken animals in a -wilderness. Meanwhile the sun was rising higher in the sky and was -beating down upon Quong Ho. With a mighty effort he raised him in his -arms and staggered with him to the other side of the house, where there -would be shade for some hours: where, too, the evil smoke could not eddy -over him. Placing the jacket again beneath his head and the bowl filled -with fresh water by his side, on the off chance of his recovering -consciousness, he left the scene of desolation and horror. - -About a mile away he realized that he had not tended his own wounded -head, which, without any covering from the sun, was throbbing in -exquisite agony. His handkerchief he had left with the remainder of the -shirt. He also realized that he was bare-armed, clad only in the summer -undervest and flannel trousers and the light gym shoes in which he used -to fence. He reeked all over, hands and arms and body, with soot and -blood. All this soon passed from his mind. Things whirred in his brain, -so that he feared lest he were growing lightheaded. Also, although he -had drunk a little water before starting, he began to be tormented with -a burning thirst. He lost sense of the vastness of the calamity that had -befallen him, lost the power, too, of speculating on its cause. All his -mind was concentrated on battling against tortured nerves and reeling -brain, in order to achieve one object. He kept on repeating to himself -what he should say to the first human being he should meet; fortified -himself with the reflection: “Three miles to the road; three-quarters of -an hour.” But only having traversed the barely distinguishable track -thrice before, once when he made the return journey from Water-End to -view the hermitage, and on the other occasion when he drove thither to -take up residence, he missed it and strayed diagonally across the moor. -At last, after a couple of hours wandering, he reached a ditch beyond -which stretched the dazzling white ribbon of road. He fell into the -ditch like a drunken man, managed to clamber out and, on the further -side, stumbled and lay exhausted, unable to move. After a few minutes he -staggered to his feet, and swayed down the road, which was as lonely as -the moorland. - -Suddenly he became aware of a difference; of trees and laurels and -verdure on his left; and in the midst of them stood a couple of tall -granite pillars with a gateway between. It was a house. He had won -through. Inside was human aid. He made his way to the gate and clutched -the top bar to steady himself and looked down a well-ordered drive. As -he looked a man appeared from a side path, who, after regarding the -haggard apparition grotesquely clad, covered with grime and blood, for a -few gasping seconds, rushed up. - -“Hello! Hello! What’s the matter? Why—I’m jiggered! It’s Mr. Baltazar!” - -Baltazar swept a hand towards the moor, and said hoarsely: - -“My Chinese friend is over there, dying. There’s been an accident. -Explosion or something. He’s dying. You must send men and doctors at -once.” - -“Good Lord!” cried the man. “Of course I will. Come inside and tell me -all about it. You don’t mean to say those bombs got you? You look in a -damn fine old mess too.” - -He opened the gate, clasped Baltazar round the waist, and supported him -down the drive. Soon an old gardener came up and lent a hand, and -between them they carried the half-fainting Baltazar into the house and -laid him on a couch in the dining-room. The host poured out a stiff -brandy and soda. - -“Here, drink this.” - -The cool bubbling liquid was a draught of Paradise to Baltazar’s parched -throat. The unaccustomed stimulant, after a few moments, had its bracing -effect. - -“Now, what’s it all about? You remember me, don’t you? Pillivant’s my -name. Came to call about eighteen months ago, and you turned me down. -Anyhow that’s forgotten. I don’t bear malice, especially when a chap -seems down and out. What can I do for you?” - -Baltazar said: “There was an explosion last night. It knocked me out. I -woke up this morning to find my house burned to the ground. My Chinese -friend is there unconscious, with concussion of the brain and broken -legs. I had to come for assistance. You must send at once.” - -“All right,” said Pillivant. “You stay there. I’ll do some telephoning. -Meanwhile I’ll send the wife to look after you. You want a wash and a -change, and a doctor and bed.” - -“Bed!” cried Baltazar. “I must go back to Quong Ho.” - -He rose to his feet, as Pillivant left the room, and tottered after him. -But he found himself foolishly lying on the floor. He said to himself: -“He has given me brandy. He’s sending his wife. She’ll think I’m drunk.” -And with a great effort he re-established himself on the couch. - -In a few minutes Mrs. Pillivant entered. She was a faded, fair woman in -the late thirties, wearing a cloth skirt and tartan silk low-cut blouse, -and a string of pearls around a bony neck. - -“So you’ve been Zepped, I hear,” she said. “No, don’t get up. Stay where -you are. If you haven’t heard it already, you’ll be glad to know it came -down in flames on the moor about twenty miles away, and all the brutes -were burned alive.” - -Baltazar set his teeth, monstrously striving to get his brain to work. - -“Brutes? What brutes? What are you talking about? I don’t understand.” - -“Why, the crew of the Zeppelin. Where it came from or what it was doing -about here, we don’t know—we’ll have to wait until news comes from -London. It must have been badly damaged, and lost its way in the mist. -They must have got rid of their bombs before trying to land, so my -husband says—but before they had time to land the Zeppelin came to -grief. We heard the bombs, but thought they had dropped on the moor. -We’d no idea they had got anybody.” - -“Zeppelin! Zeppelin!” murmured Baltazar. “I seem to have heard the -name——” - -“It’s pretty familiar, I should think,” said Mrs. Pillivant. “Don’t you -think the best thing to do is to let us put you to bed, until the doctor -comes?” - -“The doctor must go to Quong Ho, at once. He’s dying,” said Baltazar. - -“Then I’m sure I don’t know what to do,” said Mrs. Pillivant. - -Baltazar closed his eyes. “I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s the knock -on the head, and the long walk on an empty stomach.” - -“Oh, I’ll get you something to, eat. What would you like?” - -“Nothing,” said Baltazar. “Nothing. A bit of a rest and I must go back -to Quong Ho. He’s the only creature I care about in the world. He was -just alive when I left him.” - -She said in a helpless sort of way: “I hope you’re not seriously hurt?” - -He opened his eyes. “No, no. My head’s pretty thick. But I’m not as -young as I was. By the way, you were talking of a Zeppelin. That’s a -German airship, isn’t it?” - -“Why—of course——” - -He raised himself on his elbow, and his eyes flashed beneath his knit -brows. - -“Why should German airships be dropping bombs on the moor?” - -Mrs. Pillivant regarded him uncomprehendingly. - -“I’ve told you. They had to get rid of their bombs before they landed.” - -“But what were they carrying bombs for?” - -“I wouldn’t worry about that now,” she replied rather nervously. “I -don’t think you realize how very ill you are.” - -“I’m not ill—not out of my mind, at any rate. I want to know. Why -should they carry bombs? Wait a bit. I’m all right now. My mind’s clear. -You said the airship came down in flames and the brutes were killed. -Tell me what it means.” - -“Surely you’ve heard of the air raids? Read about them in the papers?” - -“I see no newspapers,” said Baltazar. “Air raids? For God’s sake tell me -what you mean?” - -She glanced round to see that access to the door was clear. His -aspect—his shaggy hair clotted with blood and dirt—his eyes gleaming -from a haggard, grimed and bloody face—the filth of his -half-nakedness—alone would have frightened a timorous woman. And his -words were those of a madman. She giggled hysterically. - -“I suppose you’ve heard there’s a European war on?” - -He sat up. “War! What war?” - -Mrs. Pillivant fled from the room. Baltazar rose to his feet. - -War? War with Germany? Naturally Germany, because Zeppelins were German -airships. A European war, the woman had said. His glance for the first -time fell upon a newspaper on the dining-room table, open at the middle -page. Forgetful of pain and exhaustion, he strode and seized it—and the -headlines held him spellbound by their bewildering revelation. - -Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria . . . -all Europe at war. The basic facts stood out in great capital letters. - -He was staring at the print, absorbed as never had he been in his life -before, when a heavy hand on his shoulder aroused him. He turned to meet -the fat and smiling face of Pillivant. - -“I’ve fixed it all up—doctor, police, ambulance. I’ll take some in the -Rolls-Royce, the doctor the others in his car. We’ll have the Chink back -in no time.” - -“The what?” asked Baltazar, with a swift glance. - -“The Chink—the Chinaman——” - -“Oh, yes. My friend, Mr. Quong Ho. If you don’t mind, I’ll come with -you.” - -“My dear fellow, that’s impossible. You must go to bed. It’s no trouble. -There are fifteen bedrooms in the house. You can take your choice. -Hasn’t Mrs. Pillivant been in to see you?” - -“She did me that honour.” - -“Then why the dickens didn’t she have you attended to? I’ll see about -it.” - -He was already at the door when Baltazar checked him. - -“Stop. Don’t worry about me. Tell me one thing.” He smote the open -newspaper with the palm of his hand. “How long has this been going on?” - -“How long has what been going on?” asked Pillivant, returning. - -“This war.” - -“I don’t quite see what you’re driving at,” said Pillivant, puzzled. - -“I want to know how long this war I’m reading about in the newspaper has -been going on.” - -Pillivant regarded him askance out of his little furtive eyes. He -entertained the same suspicion as his wife. - -“Look here, old man,” he said, taking him by the arm, “that knock on the -head’s more serious than you think.” At the noise of a halting car he -glanced out of window. “Ah! there’s Dr. Rewsby.” - -“Never mind the doctor or my head,” cried Baltazar desperately. “Answer -my question. How long have we been at war with Germany?” - -“Why, since August, 1914.” - -“For the last two years?” - -“Do you mean to say you’ve been living eight or ten miles off and never -heard of the war?” Pillivant stood bewildered. - -“I never heard of it,” Baltazar answered mechanically, staring past -Pillivant at terrifying things. - -“Well, I’m damned!” said Pillivant, recovering his breath. “I’m just -damned. Here, Doctor”—as a spare, grey-headed man was shown into the -room—“here is a chap who has never heard of the war.” - -Baltazar stepped forward. “That’s beside the question, Doctor. All that -matters for the moment is my Chinese friend. I had to leave him at the -farm unconscious, with, I should think, concussion. And his legs are -fractured. We must go at once.” - -“Excuse me,” said the doctor, “but that wound in your own head wants -seeing to. Just a matter of cleaning and strapping. Only five minutes. -Please let me have a look at it.” - -“You can do that afterwards,” said Baltazar. “For God’s sake let us go.” - -“You’re not fit to go. I won’t allow you to,” replied Dr. Rewsby with -suave firmness. - -Said Baltazar, with the hard gleam in his eyes, “I’m going. It’s my -responsibility, not yours. I don’t care what happens to me. But I swear -to God I neither wash nor eat nor drink until my friend Quong Ho is -brought back, alive or dead. And it’s much better I should go with you -than remain here and frighten your excellent wife, Mr. Pillivant, out of -her wits.” - -There was a moment’s silence. The grey-haired doctor glanced at Baltazar -out of the corner of a shrewd eye and diagnosed an adamantine obstinacy. - -“If you refuse to take me with you,” Baltazar added, “I’ll follow you on -foot.” - -The doctor shrugged his shoulders. - -“As you will. But if anything happens—tetanus, blood-poisoning, -collapse—I wash my hands of responsibility. Mr. Pillivant will bear me -out. Let us go.” - -In the hall Pillivant took down from the pegs of an alcove a cap and -light overcoat. - -“You don’t mind sticking on these, do you?” he said to Baltazar. “You’ll -need them motoring, and besides, I don’t mind telling you, you’re not -looking exactly like a candidate for a beauty show.” - -“I thank you,” said Baltazar, accepting the proffered raiment. - -They started. The doctor, Sergeant Doubleday and a constable, with a -stretcher, in one car; Pillivant, Baltazar, and a chauffeur at the -wheel, in the great Rolls-Royce. - -“To carry through this,” said Pillivant, hauling out a thick gold watch, -“in twenty minutes, shows what we English can do when we set our minds -to it.” - -“Twenty minutes?” said Baltazar. “It has seemed like three hours.” - -“Twenty minutes since I went to the telephone,” Pillivant asserted -triumphantly. - -The cars raced on. For some moments Baltazar, huddled together in the -comfort of the back seat, maintained a brooding silence, which -Pillivant, glaring at him from time to time, did not care to disturb. -There was something uncanny about this man who had to be bombed nearly -to death in order to hear of the war. - -They turned off the road on to the rough track across the moor along -which Quong Ho had so often bumped his way in the old cart. The weather -had been dry and the track was at its best. But the cars jolted -alarmingly and at every quivering descent from a larger hummock than -usual, Pillivant cried out in fear for the springs of his Rolls-Royce. - -“If it busts up, there’s no earthly chance of getting another.” - -“Why?” asked Baltazar. - -“Because there’s a war on, old man. You don’t seem to understand.” - -“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Baltazar. “You must grant me your kind -indulgence. I can’t immediately realize what is happening.” - -They climbed the rise that brought them into view of the Farm. Pillivant -pointed to the smoking ruins. - -“That’ll help you to realize it. That’s what Belgium and the northern -part of France look like.” - -“When I have found my friend Quong Ho alive,” said Baltazar, “I may be -able to think of things.” - -They worked their way, Dr. Rewsby’s lighter car following, almost to the -low enclosing wall, and drew to a halt. Viewed on the approach, the -havoc loomed before Baltazar’s eyes even more appalling than when he had -stood dazed and sick in the midst of it. The battered granite shell of -the house stood absurdly low, and the rough gaping apertures of door and -windows stared like maimed features hideously human. The wall of the -scullery had been thrown down by the explosion, and the pump and cistern -and a shelf or two of broken crockery were grimly exposed. He wondered -why he had not noticed this when he went to fetch water for Quong Ho. -The byre by the wrecked stable no longer existed. The white Wyandotte -cockerel, the sole living thing visible, pecked about the ground in -jaunty unconcern. - -As soon as they dismounted the party followed Baltazar, who strode ahead -with the air of a man about to denounce a ghost. At the turn of the -ruined house they came in sight of Quong Ho, lying as Baltazar had left -him, the bowl of water untouched. The sun had gradually encroached upon -him, and now the shadow of the wall cut his body in a long vertical -line. His yellow face looked pinched and ghastly beneath the pink and -white cotton of his bandaged head. - -Baltazar’s face was almost as ghastly, and horrible fear dwelt in his -eyes. He pointed. - -“There!” he said, and drew the doctor forward and motioned to the others -to remain. - -Together they bent down over Quong Ho. “If he’s dead,” Baltazar -whispered in a hoarse voice, “it’s I who have murdered him.” - -“He’s not dead yet,” replied the doctor. - -“Thank God!” said Baltazar. - -Sergeant Doubleday, surveying the scene of ruin with the eye of the -policeman and the Briton, turned to Mr. Pillivant. - -“This sort of thing oughtn’t to be allowed,” said he. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -BALTAZAR awoke a couple of mornings afterwards to find that certain -vague happenings which he had regarded as dreams were true. He really -lay in a comfortable bed, in a pleasant room; the soft-voiced woman in -grey, whose ministrations he had been unable to divine, stood smiling at -the foot of his bed, an unmistakable nurse. Conscious of discomfort, he -raised his hand and felt his head swathed in a close-fitting, scientific -bandage. He remembered now that he had lain there for a considerable -time. What he had taken for outrageous assaults on his brain for the -purpose of extracting the secrets of his mathematical researches, had -been the doctor dressing his wounds. - -“How are you this morning?” asked the nurse. - -“Perfectly well, thank you,” said Baltazar. “I should feel better if you -would tell me where I am.” - -“This is Mr. Pillivant’s house.” - -“Pillivant—Pillivant? Oh yes. I’ve got it. It seems as if I had been -off my head for a bit.” The nurse nodded. “I’m all right now. Let me put -things together.” Suddenly he sat up. “My God! How is Quong Ho?” - -“He is getting on as well as can be expected,” replied the nurse. - -“He’s alive? Quite sure?” - -“Quite sure.” - -Baltazar fell back on the pillow. “The last thing I remember clearly was -their taking him into the Cottage Hospital, after that infernal jolting -across the moor. What happened then?” - -“You collapsed, and they brought you here.” - -“What day is it?” - -“Friday.” - -“Good Lord,” said Baltazar, “I’ve been here since midday Wednesday.” - -“Would you like a little breakfast?” - -“I should like a lot,” declared Baltazar. - -The nurse laughed. The patient was better. She turned to leave the room, -but Baltazar checked her. - -“Before you go just tell me if I’ve got the situation clear. The -European war has been going on for two years. In the course of a -new-fangled kind of warfare the Germans drop bombs from Zeppelins over -England. A Zeppelin dropped bombs on my house on Tuesday night—to get -rid of them—so Mrs. Pillivant said. You see, everything’s coming back -to me. Afterwards it came down in flames, and all the crew were burned. -Is that right?” - -“Perfectly,” said the nurse. - -“Now I know more or less where I am,” said Baltazar. - -The nurse fetched his breakfast, which he ate with appetite. He had -barely finished when Dr. Rewsby entered. - -“This is capital. Capital,” said he. “Sitting up and taking nourishment. -How’s the pulse?” - -“Never mind about me,” said Baltazar, as the doctor took hold of his -wrist. “What about Quong Ho?” - -The doctor gave a serious report. Fractured skull, severe concussion. -Broken legs. Semi-consciousness, however, had returned—the hopeful -sign. But it would be a ticklish and tedious business. - -“If you want another opinion, a man from Harley Street, special nurses, -don’t hesitate a second,” said Baltazar. “Money’s no object.” - -“I’ll bear in mind what you say,” replied the doctor; “but if his -constitution is as sound as yours, he’ll do all right. By all the rules -of the game you ought to be as helpless as he is.” - -“What’s wrong with me?” - -“You’ve had half your scalp tom away. How you manage to be sitting up -now, eating eggs, after your lunatic performances on Wednesday, is more -than I can understand.” - -Baltazar smiled grimly. “I can’t afford the time to fool about in a -state of unconsciousness, when I have two years’ arrears of European -history to make up.” - -“Never mind European history,” said the doctor. “Let us see how this -head of yours is getting on.” - -The dressing completed, he said to Baltazar: - -“Now you’ll lie quiet and not worry about the war, Quong Ho, or -anything.” - -“And grow wings and order a halo and work out the quadrature of the -circle and discover the formula for the Deity in terms of the Ultimate -Function of Energy. . . . Man alive!” he cried impetuously, raising -himself on his elbow. “Don’t you understand? I’ve been dead for -years—my own silly, selfish doing—and now I’ve come to life and found -the world in an incomprehensible mess. If I don’t go out and try to -understand it, I shall go stark, staring mad!” - -“I can only order you to stay in bed till I give you permission to get -up,” said the doctor. “Good-bye. I’ll come in this evening.” - -As soon as he had gone Baltazar threw off the bedclothes and sprang to -his feet. - -“Doctors be hanged!” said he. “I’ve not given in to illness all my life -long, and I’m not going to begin now. Besides, I’m as fit as ever I was. -I’m going to dress.” - -“I’m afraid you can’t,” said the nurse. - -“Why?” - -“You haven’t any clothes.” - -He glanced for a second or two at the unfamiliar green and purple -striped silk pyjamas in which he was clad, and remembered the undervest -and flannel trousers, foul with blood and grime, in which he had arrived -at Water-End. - -“The devil!” said he, and he stood gasping as a new conception of -himself flashed across his mind. “Except for these borrowed things, I am -even more naked than when I came into the world.” - -“You’d better go back to bed,” said the nurse. - -“I’ve got to go back to the world,” retorted Baltazar. “As quick as -possible.” - -“You can’t do it in pyjamas,” said the nurse. - -“I must ask my host to lend me some clothes.” - -“I’ll go down and see him about it,” said the nurse. - -She went out, leaving Baltazar sitting on the edge of the bed. Presently -entered Pillivant, who burst into heartiness of greeting. Delighted he -was to see him looking so well. At one time he half expected there was -going to be a funeral in the house. Heard that he wanted some togs. Only -too happy to rig him out. Would pick out all the necessary kit -to-morrow. - -“But I want clothes now,” said Baltazar. - -Pillivant shook his head. “Must obey doctor’s orders. By disobeying in -the first place I nearly had a cold corpse on my hands, and if there’s -one thing Mrs. Pillivant dislikes more than another, it’s a corpse. When -her old aunt died here, she went half off her chump. No, no, old man,” -he continued, in soothing tones which exasperated Baltazar, “you be good -and lie doggo to-day, as the doctor says, and to-morrow we’ll see about -getting up.” - -“You’ve got the whip-hand of me,” said Baltazar, glowering. - -“That’s about it,” grinned Pillivant. “And you’re not used to not having -your own way.” - -“I suppose I’m not,” said Baltazar, looking at his host more kindly. “I -don’t know but what you’re right. A little discipline might be -beneficial for me.” He slipped back into the bed and nodded to the -nurse, who settled him comfortably. “A little contact with other people -might restore my manners. As I’m beholden to you for everything, Mr. -Pillivant, I may at least be civil. As a matter of fact, I’m infinitely -grateful, and I place myself in your hands unreservedly.” - -“Oh, that’s all right, old man,” said Pillivant. - -“It isn’t all right,” cried Baltazar, realizing, in his -self-condemnatory way, the ungracious attitude he had adopted from the -first towards his host. “I’ve been merely rude. I’m sorry. I’ve lived in -China long enough to know that no personal catastrophe can excuse lack -of courtesy. By obeying your medical man I see that I shall give least -trouble to your household.” - -“You needn’t talk like a book about it,” said Pillivant. - -“I’ve lived with books so long,” replied Baltazar, “that perhaps I have -lost the ways of contemporary Englishmen.” - -Pillivant threw him a furtive and suspicious glance. - -“Most books are all damn rot,” he declared. - -“You’re not the first philosopher that has enunciated that opinion,” -said Baltazar, with a laugh. “Didn’t a character in one of the old -dramatists—I think—say ‘To mind the inside of a book is to entertain -oneself with the forced product of another man’s brain’? No. It’s the -practical men who do things, isn’t it?” - -“I’m a practical man myself,” said Pillivant, “and seeing as how I -started as an office-boy at eight shillings a week, I’ve done a blooming -lot of things. Look”—he swung a chair, and sat down near the bed, and -bent confidentially towards Baltazar—“in July fourteen I was only a -little builder and contractor up at Holloway. When Kitchener in -September called for his million men——” - -“Wait!” cried Baltazar, putting his hand up to his forehead. “In -September nineteen fourteen Kitchener called for a _million men_?” - -“Yes, yes, that’s all ancient history. I was telling you—when the cry -went out, I said to myself: a million men will want accommodation. -Temporary buildings. Huts. No end of timber. I hadn’t a penny in the -world. But I did a big bluff and sold the Government timber which I -hadn’t got for twice the price I knew I could buy it at. In six months I -was a rich man, and I’ve been growing richer and richer ever since. I’ve -got a flat in Park Lane and this house in the country, and I’m on -Munitions, and I have my cars and as much petrol to burn as I want, and -I’m a useful man to the Government, and doing my bit for the war. And -none of your blooming books about it. Just plain common sense. If I had -been worrying my head about books, I should have lost my chance. Just -what you’ve done. You’ve been burying yourself in books and haven’t even -heard of the war, let alone doing anything for your country. Books make -me tired. To hell with them!” - -Baltazar looked at the puffy, small-eyed man in his clear way. He -disliked him exceedingly. Even with the most limited knowledge of war -conditions, it was evident he had been exploiting them to his own -advantage. But when you haven’t a rag of your own to your back and are -dressed in another man’s pyjamas, lying in his bed and eating his food, -you must observe the decencies of life. - -“I suppose lots of fortunes are being made out of this war.” - -“I should think so. Those honestly made, well, the chaps with brains -deserve them. But, at the same time, there’s a lot of profiteering going -on”—Pillivant shook an unctuous head—“which is a perfect disgrace.” - -“Profiteering—that’s a new word.” - -“You’ll find lots of new words and lots of all sorts of new things now -you’ve waked up.” - -“I’m sure I shall,” said Baltazar. “And now, if you’ve half an hour to -spare, I wonder if you would mind telling me something about the war.” - - * * * * * - -That day and the next, Baltazar listened to Pillivant, the nurse and the -doctor’s story of the world conflict, and read everything bearing on the -subject with which they could supply him. Dr. Rewsby, who did not share -Pillivant’s disdain for books, ransacked the little town for war -literature. He bought him white books, pamphlets, back numbers of -magazines and newspapers, maps. . . . What he heard, what he read, was -the common knowledge of every intelligent child, but to this man of vast -intellectual achievement it was staggeringly new. For those two days he -lost sense of time, desire to move from the bewildering mass of lambent -history that grew in piles by his bedside. The lies, the treacheries, -the horrors that had accumulated on the consciousness of all other men -one by one, burst upon him in one thundering concentration of hell. The -martyrdom of Belgium, the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral, the sinking -of the _Lusitania_, the use of poison gas, the bombing of open towns, -the unmasking of the German Beast in all its lust and -shamelessness—stunned him, so that at times he would put his hands to -his head and cry: “It’s impossible! I can’t believe it.” And whoever was -with him would answer: “It is true. What you read is but the outside of -the devilry the civilized world is out to fight.” And his scholar’s mind -would revolt. What of intellectual Germany? The mathematicians, the -Orientalists, whose names were to him like household words, to say -nothing of those eminent in sciences outside the sphere of his own -studies? They were worse, the doctor declared, than the brutish peasant -or the brutal operative. A monstrous intellectualism developed to the -disregard of ethical sanction. The doctor brought him one of the great -cartoons of the war, which he had cut out from some paper and kept, by -Norman Lindsay, the great Australian black and white artist—the “Jekyll -and Hyde” cartoon, representing a typical benevolent elderly German -professor regarding himself in a mirror; and the reflection was a -gorilla in Prussian spiked helmet and uniform, dripping with blood. And -then Baltazar’s blood curdled in his veins as he realized the truth of -the picture. All the mighty intellectualism of Germany was but an -instrument of its gorilla animalism. It was an overwhelming revelation: -the almost mesmeric dominance of Prussia over the other Teutonic States -of Germany and Austria, reducing them to Prussia’s own atrophied -civilization; that atrophied civilization itself, till now unanalysed, -but now a byword of history, the development, on abnormal intellectual -lines, of the ruthless barbarism of a non-European race. Strange that he -had not thought of it before. Had anything good, any poem, picture, -song, music, statue, dream building, sweet philosophy, ever come out of -Prussia? Never. Not one. Her children were “fire and sword, red ruin and -the breaking-up of laws.” And now the rest of the Germanic Empire had -lost its soul. Prussia extended from the Baltic to the Danube. The whole -of Central Europe was one vast cesspool, in which all things good were -cast to deliquesce in putrefaction, while over it floated supreme the -livid miasma of Prussianism. - -In some sort of figurative conception as this did his brain realize the -psychological meaning of the forces against which the civilized world -was struggling. But there was the other side of the world’s embattled -hosts, whose tremendous energies baffled his mental grasp. England’s -Navy—yes. He had been born and bred in the belief of its invincibility. -But the British Army? A glorious army, of course; a blaze of honour from -Cressy upwards; a sure shield and buckler in the far-flung posts of -Empire; but a thing necessarily apart from the vast military systems of -the Continent of Europe. And now he learned, to his stupefaction, that -the British Empire, calling up all her sons from within those same -far-flung posts, had made itself, within two years, one of the three -greatest military powers in the world. The casualties alone exceeded the -total strength of the original British Army serving with the colours. -The Army now was an organization of millions. Where had they come from? -His three interpreters of the outer world gave him information according -to their respective lights. All the early gathering of the hosts had -been voluntary enlistments. The armies springing up at Lord Kitchener’s -call had been labelled numerically by his magic name. Only recently had -we been driven to conscription. And Kitchener himself—the only great -soldier of whom he had ever heard? Drowned in the _Hampshire_ last -June. . . . - -Then again the revolution in national life—the paper currency, the -darkened streets of towns, the licensing laws—further excited his -throbbing curiosity. He remembered with a spasm almost of remorse the -few signs and tokens of war which had reached him and passed unheeded; -the National Registration, which he had resented as a bureaucratic -impertinence; the mad taxation of income which he had regarded as -evidence of England’s decay. . . . - -“Has ever man been such a fool as I, since the world began?” - -The hard-headed doctor to whom this rhetorical question was addressed, -replied: - -“I can’t recall an instance.” - -When driven to contemplation of his own isolation, he reflected that all -the time there had been a living link between himself and this upheaved -world. Every week, rain or fine, through snow or dust, Quong Ho had -visited the little town. - -“When did the news of the war become general in Water-End?” he asked. - -He had to put the question in two or three different forms before his -puzzled informants could perceive its drift, for they could not conceive -it being the question of an intelligent man. He could not yet realize -the electric shock that convulsed the land from end to end on the -declaration of war. He could not gauge the immediate disruption of -social life throughout the country. The calling up of reservists, the -mobilization of the Territorial forces alone affected instantly every -community, no matter how remote from centres of industry. The queer -straits to which every community was reduced, owing to the closing of -the banks during that fateful August week, had also brought the reality -of the war home to every individual. Then the issue of Treasury notes. -The recruiting. From the very first day of the war, Water-End, they told -him, was as much agog with it all as London itself. From the beginning -the town had been plastered with patriotic posters. The mayor for the -first months had exhibited the latest telegrams outside the town hall. -There had been a camp of Territorials some few miles away and the High -Street had reeked of war. Government war notices met the least observant -eye in post office, bank and railway station. - -“If what you say is true,” said Baltazar, “how could Quong Ho have come -here every week and failed to understand what was going on? Not only is -he a master of English, but he’s a man of acute intellect.” - -“That,” replied the doctor, “you must ask Quong Ho when his intellect -has recovered from its present eclipse.” - -“But the fellow must have known all along,” Baltazar persisted. “Come -now,”—he sat up in bed impulsively—“he must, mustn’t he?” - -“I should have thought that a negro from Central Africa, who only spoke -Central African, would have guessed,” replied the doctor. - -“Then why the devil didn’t he tell me?” - -“I’m afraid I must refer you to my previous answer,” said the doctor. - -“It strikes me that I’m a bigger fool than ever,” said Baltazar. - -A smile flitted over the grey-haired doctor’s shrewd thin face. He did -not controvert the proposition. - -“It’s also borne in upon me,” continued Baltazar, “that I’ll have to -scrap everything I’ve ever learned—and I’ve learned a hell of a -lot—I’m an original mathematician, and I think I know more about -Chinese language and literature than any man living. Oh! I’m not modest. -I know exactly what my attainments are. As I say, I’ve learned a hell of -a lot, and I’ll have to scrap it all and just sit down and begin to -learn the elementary things of existence, from the very beginning, all -over again, like a schoolboy.” - -“Hear, hear!” said Pillivant, blatantly golf-accoutred, who had entered -by the open door at the opening of Baltazar’s avowal. “Now you’re -talking sense. I’m glad to see you realize how sinfully you’ve been -wasting your time. Chinese! What’s the good of Chinese? They’ve got to -learn our language, not we theirs. I know. I went out to Hong Kong as a -young man for five months on a building job. Every man-Jack talks -pidgin-English. That’s good enough to get along with. Do you mean to say -you’ve been spending your life learning Chinese? Of all the rotten -things——” - -“I’m aware, Mr. Pillivant,” said Baltazar, with a grimace intended, for -a smile, which on his haggard face and beneath his bandaged head had a -somewhat sinister aspect, “I’m aware that in your eyes I must appear -rather a contemptible personage.” - -“Oh, not at all, old man,” cried Pillivant. “Everyone to his hobby. -After all it’s a free country. Have a cigar.” - -He produced the portable gold casket. The doctor caught a swift glance -from his patient and checked the generous offer. - -“Not yet, Pillivant. A cigarette or two is all I can allow him.” - -Pillivant selected and lit a cigar. There was a span of silence. He -looked out of the window. Presently he began to praise the local -golf-course, some mile or so distant. A natural course, with natural -bunkers. The greens artificial—every sod brought from miles. Now the -infernal Government had taken away their men. Not a soul in the place -who understood anything about turf. Consequently the greens were going -to the devil. It was an infernal shame to let golf-greens go to the -devil. Goff was a national institution, necessary to maintain tired -war-workers, like himself, in a state of national efficiency. But what -could one expect from the rotten lot who constituted the so-called -Government? Anyhow, you could still get some sort of a game. Baltazar -must come round with him as soon as he could get about. - -“I’ve never played golf in my life,” said Baltazar. - -“Never played——? Why, you seem to be out of everything.” - -Presently he swaggered out at the end of his monstrous cigar. Baltazar -turned a weary head. - -“Doctor,” said he, “would they hang me very high if I slew my -benefactor?” - - * * * * * - -As soon as sticking-plaster replaced the head bandage, the most -impatient of men insisted on rising and going out into the world, clad -in a borrowed suit of the detested Pillivant. His first care was to -visit the Cottage Hospital, where Quong Ho, semi-conscious, still hung -between life and death. Yielding to Baltazar’s insistence, Dr. Rewsby -had summoned in consultation the leading surgeon of the nearest town, -the great cathedral city. From the point of view of the Faculty nothing -could be simpler than Quong Ho’s injuries. To bring a specialist from -London would be a wicked waste of invaluable lime. All that science -could do was being done. The rest must be left to Nature. Baltazar was -disappointed. Having an exile’s faith in the wonders of modern surgery, -he had thought that a few hundreds of pounds would have brought down a -magician of a fellow from Harley Street with gleaming steel instruments, -who could have mended Quong Ho’s head in a few miraculous seconds. The -ironical smile on the lips of Rewsby, for whom he had conceived respect -and liking, convinced him of extravagant imaginings. He professed -satisfaction, although sorely troubled by his queerly working -conscience. Outside the ward, he grabbed Dr. Rewsby by the arm. - -“Look here, Doctor,” said he. “I want you to understand my position. I -must pay some penalty for my egotistical folly in bringing Quong Ho to -this infernal place. Oh, I know,” he added quickly, checking with a -gesture the doctor’s obvious remonstrance; “I know it might have -happened anywhere. But nowhere else than in that desert island of a farm -would I have had to leave him alone for hours on the bare ground, -without medical assistance. It’s my fault. I must pay for it.” - -“You’ve paid for it, my good friend,” said Dr. Rewsby, “by your anxiety, -by your—apparently—by your remorse. You’ve done everything that a -human being could do in the circumstances.” - -“But don’t you see, I brought the poor fellow to this through my selfish -folly. You must let me pay for it in some way.” - -Said the doctor, a practical man, with the interests of his little -struggling hospital at heart: “It’s open to you to give a donation to -the Cottage Hospital.” - -“All right,” said Baltazar, flinging out an arm. “If he gets through -there’s a thousand pounds for the hospital.” - -“Good. And if he doesn’t?” - -Baltazar drew a short breath, glanced down and askance beneath his -shaggy brown eyebrows, and set a heavy, obstinate jaw. Then suddenly he -flashed upon the doctor: - -“If he dies you won’t get a penny from me. But I’ll give every cent I -have in the world to the General Fund of the hospitals of the United -Kingdom.” - -“Do you really mean that, Mr. Baltazar?” - -“Mean it? Of course I mean it. I’ve done all kinds of rotten things in -my life, but I’ve never broken my word. By George! I haven’t. If Quong -Ho dies, the world will be the poorer, not only by a loyal soul, but by -one of the most powerful mathematical intellects it has ever seen. And -it’s I”—he thumped his chest—“I, who have robbed the world of him. And -it’s I who must pay the penalty.” - -“Pardon my impertinence,” said Dr. Rewsby, drawing on his motoring -gloves, as a sign of ending the interview; “but have you generally -conducted your life on these extravagant principles?” - -“I don’t quite understand——” replied Baltazar, stiffening. - -“If Mr. Quong Ho dies—and I’m glad to say the probability is against -his doing so—but if he does, you vow, as an act of penance, that you’ll -reduce yourself to a state of poverty and walk out into the world -without one penny. Is that right?” - -“Perfectly,” said Baltazar. - -“Well, as a medical man, with a hobby, a special interest in—let us -say—psychology, I’ve been indiscreet enough to wonder whether this is -the first time you’ve made such a Quixotic vow. In fact, now I come to -think of it, you made a similar one within two minutes of my first -meeting you.” - -Baltazar met his eyes. “In fact, you want to know whether I’m not a bit -mad.” - -“Not at all,” laughed the doctor. “But I have a shrewd suspicion that -the folly you bewail—the eccentric hermit life on the moor—was the -result of some such rashly taken obligation.” - -“Suppose it was,” said Baltazar; “what then?” - -“I should say you were cultivating a very bad habit, and I should advise -you to give it up.” - -He smiled, waved a friendly hand, and ran down the steps to his car. -Baltazar watched him crank-up, slip to the wheel, and depart, without -saying a word in self-defence. So far from offending him, the doctor had -risen higher in his estimation. A man with brains, and the faculty of -using them; a fellow of remarkable penetration; also of courage. He -differentiated his outspokenness from Pillivant’s blatancy. The former -was one man of intellect speaking frankly to another; the latter. . . . -He remembered the lecture, illustrated by quotations from the Chinese -classics, which he had read to Quong Ho when his disciple, on his first -visit to Water-End, had complained of the lack of manners of the local -inhabitants. Why should he worry about Pillivant? As he had said to -Quong Ho: “_Rotten wood cannot be carved, and walls made of dirt and mud -cannot be plastered._” Never mind Pillivant. It was Rewsby, and Rewsby’s -quick summing-up of his psychological tendencies that mattered. Not a -human being had ever before presented him to himself in any just and -intelligible way. Of course he had heard truths, pseudo-truths, dictated -by violent prejudice, in his brief and disastrous married life. But they -had all been superficial; never gone to bed-rock. Since then he had been -free as a god from criticism. And now came this shrewd, sagacious -country doctor, who in the lightest, friendliest way in the world, put -an unerring finger on the real unsound spot in his character. - -“. . . A very bad habit, and I should advise you to give it up.” - -Behind those commonplace words he knew lay a wise man’s condemnation of -his habitual dealing with life. He walked through the tiny town on his -way to “The Cedars,” unconscious of the curious interest of the -inhabitants, to whom the sight of the mystery-enveloped and now bombed -and head-bandaged tenant of Spendale Farm was a matter of eager, -instantaneous mental photography, so that the picture could be produced -as a subject for many weeks’ future gossip, and he pondered deeply over -Dr. Rewsby’s criticism. - -“Have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant -principles?” - -He had. There was no denying it. A childish memory emerged from the mist -of years. He must have been eight or nine. All about a dog. A puppy had -destroyed a new paint-box, priceless possession, and in a fit of passion -he had nearly beaten the puppy to death. And when his anger was spent -and he grew terribly afraid, and sprawled down by the puppy, the puppy -licked his hand. And he swore to God, as a child, that if the puppy -lived and did not tell his father, he would never beat a dog again. The -puppy lived, and, with splendid loyalty, never breathed a word to a -human soul, and loved him with a love passing the love of women. And one -day a neighbour’s bad-tempered dog got into the kitchen-garden and -attacked him, and though he had a stick by chance in his hand, he -remembered his vow, and stood with folded arms and set teeth and let the -dog bite his legs, until he was rescued by the gardener and carried -indoors. - -He remembered this, and a train of similar fantastic incidents -culminating in his vow of solitude, and reviewed them all, in the light -of Dr. Rewsby’s criticism. What good, in the name of sanity, had his -wild, Quixotic resolves accomplished? How had they benefited Spooner, -for instance, to whom he had surrendered the Senior Wranglership? During -his brief stay in London he had had the curiosity to look up Spooner in -reference books; found him an Assistant Secretary in a Government -office, Sir William Spooner, K.C.B.; an honourable position, but a -position which he would have attained—originally through the Civil -Service examination—whether he had been second, fourth, tenth Wrangler -in the Tripos. His, Baltazar’s, idiot sacrifice had advanced Spooner’s -career not one millimetre: just as his self-denying ordinance in the -realm of dogs had not benefited one jot the canine race—for the mongrel -retriever who had bitten him heroically arm-folded, had been shot the -next day by the remorseful neighbour, who had been longing for an -opportunity of getting conscientiously rid of an ill-conditioned cur. - -And then there was his flight from Cambridge and Marcelle. - -“Damn that doctor!” said he, striding along the road. - -It was all very well to damn the doctor; but he had entered into a fresh -engagement, which in spite of its newly revealed folly, he would break -for nothing in the world. Yet what practical good would his little -fortune accomplish scattered among the hundreds of hospitals of the -United Kingdom? A pittance to each. And he himself, with all his gifts, -thrown penniless upon a strange world at war, of what use would he be? -His first necessarily animal impulse would be to prey upon society for -the means of subsistence. Whereas, a free man, with his assured income, -he could throw himself into the national struggle without thought of his -own material needs. - -Quong Ho’s life acquired a new preciousness. He must live, if only to -save him from this new absurdity to which he was pledged. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -ONCE more Baltazar stood within his granite enclosure and surveyed the -scene of ruin and horror. He had hired a cart and driven over with three -nondescript elderly labouring men, who were now wandering aimlessly -about the wreckage. Nothing seemed changed since he had last left it in -the wake of the stretcher-borne body of Quong Ho, although the Water-End -Fire Brigade, learning that the place was still on fire, and inspired by -zeal and curiosity, had meanwhile come down with helmets, hatchets and -hoses, and had drenched the interior of the house with water pumped from -the well. There had been no attempt at salvage. The administrators of -the derelict property had long since given up paying insurance premiums -on the building, and Baltazar, so long alien to European life, and -desirous of coming into as slight contact as possible with the outside -world, had not troubled to insure the contents. - -A foul, sickly smell tainted the still air. Mingled with the sour odour -of the charred and sodden mess inside the dwelling, rose the miasma of -corruption. Baltazar made a grimace of disgust. Before any salvage could -be done the latter causes of offence must be removed. He summoned the -men and gave his directions. They found the old mare’s head and the dog -and fragments of the goats, alive with the infinite horror of flies and -other abominable life. There was a cesspool handy. Throw them all in and -clamp down the cast-iron lid. It did not matter. Nevermore would -Spendale Farm be a human habitation. The men conveyed with their shovels -the nameless things to the unhallowed resting-place. Baltazar would have -liked to give the faithful Brutus, who had obviously rushed out of the -house at the heels of Quong Ho and himself, decent burial. But not only -had Brutus ceased to be Brutus, but Baltazar knew from experience the -toil of digging in that granite-bound earth. - -He left the men to their task, which they performed without -compunction—had he not offered them the amazing sum of a pound each for -their day’s work?—and plunged through the front door into the black -chaos which was once his home. The sun streamed down upon unimaginable -filth. He was wearing the clothes he had borrowed from Pillivant and at -first he stepped warily. But every step landed him deeper in the damp -carbonized welter, and at last he slipped and came down sprawling in the -midst of it, so that when he rose he found himself fouled and begrimed -from head to foot. He picked his way out again and stood on the front -steps looking hopelessly in at the piled mass of nothingness. - -He had listened to the report of the fire brigade’s captain, and his -doubtless correct theory that the desperate marauder had dropped his -bombs almost simultaneously, one explosive and the other incendiary. The -latter had caught the homestead fair and had caused the instant and -terrific conflagration. Yet he had hoped. . . . He tried to hope still. -The men would soon return from the cesspool and begin to shovel away the -debris from the writing-table by the wall. - -To get his brain into complete working order had been a matter of time. -The shock of the explosion, his wound, his enormous physical and mental -effort on the memorable Wednesday, his puzzled amazement, the -cataclysmic revelation of the war, his anxiety for Quong Ho, had knocked -him out for a couple of days. When he recovered and regained mental grip -of things, the only things he could grip at first were the staggering -history of the war and the progress of Quong Ho. The two absorbing -interests battened down fears that vaguely began to rise from deep -recesses of his mind. But strength regained, Quong Ho out of immediate -peril of death and the war a thing envisaged, practically understood, -accepted, the fears burst their hatches and crowded round him, haunting -and tormenting. And now he stared through the doorway of his house, with -sinking heart, scarcely daring to hope that those fears should prove -unrealized. - -He glanced round. The men were spending inordinate time in the disposal -of the carrion. Again he entered and stood in the midst of the rubbish. -Only one section of bookcase remained, crazily askew. He had noted it on -the Wednesday. He clambered gingerly towards it. The first slanting, -half-charred, half-drenched book, whose title he made out was _Queechy_. -By the author of _The Wide, Wide World_. Next to it was _Flowering -Shrubs of Great Britain_, the date of which he knew to be -eighteen-fifty-four. His heart sank. Only the refuse of his famous deal -with the second-hand bookseller remained. Just that little bit of -section. The rest of his library was there—down there in the molten -quagmire. - -At last the men came, shovels on shoulder. He pointed out the place -where his long table used to stand and bade them dig. He had brought, -too, a shovel for himself, and he dug with them, violently, pantingly, -distractedly, heaving the shovelfuls over his shoulders, wallowing in -the filth regardless of Pillivant’s expensive clothes; soon an object of -dripping sweat and squalor, distinguishable only from his co-workers by -his begrimed and bandaged head. The men began to pant and relax. He -overheard as in a dream one of them saying, in a grumbling tone, -something about beer. The sun beat fiercely down on the roofless site. -He said: - -“Dig like hell. Dig all day. I’ll stand you a couple of gallons apiece -when you get home. If you’re thirsty now, there’s heaps of water.” - -The results of severe arithmetical calculation gleamed in each man’s -eye. The command over sixteen free pints of ale transcended the dreams -of desire. They fell to again, working with renewed vigour. - -The incendiary bomb had apparently fallen square on the northern end of -the long north to south building and had scattered the original wall in -which the great chimney-piece had been built and flung the granite -outwards, obliterating the less solidly constructed kitchen and Quong -Ho’s quarters, and tearing down the side of the scullery. The lower -courses of the rest of the main walls stood more or less secure. But the -roof of dried tinder-thatch had fallen in ablaze, and every thing -beneath it had been consumed by fire. Nothing remained to distinguish -Baltazar’s bedroom at the southern end, once separated from the -house-piece by a wooden partition reaching to the rafters, from the -remainder of the awful parallelogram of disaster. The rigid mathematical -lines of the low granite boundaries, with one end a heap of stony ruin, -oppressed him as he dug with a sense of the ghastly futility of human -self-imprisonment between walls. The position of the shapeless ragged -gaps that had once been windows alone guided him in his search. The -precious long deal table ran along the eastern wall. His writing-seat, -surrounded by the most precious possessions of all, was situated in -front of the north-east window—the long room had two windows, east and -west, on each side. And it was just there where he used to sit, the -happiest of men, in the midst of objective proof of dreams coming true, -that chaos seemed to reign supreme. - -“Go on, go on. Dig like hell. Every scrap of unburnt paper is a treasure -to me. Look at every shovelful.” - -After hours of toil, they found a little heap of clotted fragments, the -useless cores of burnt clumps of writing. Now and then a man would come -with a few filaments, having shaken the charred edges free, and, looking -wonderingly at the unintelligible outer leaf, would ask: “Is this any -good to you, sir?” And Baltazar, his heart cold and heavy as a stone, -would bid him cast away the mocking remnants of an all but unique copy -of a Chinese classic. - - * * * * * - -It was over. The three men, having loyally earned their twenty shillings -and the promised two gallons of beer, stood spent and drenched, like -Baltazar himself, with grime and sweat. - -“Anything more, sir?” - -“Nothing,” said Baltazar. - -They shouldered their shovels and he his, and they marched away from the -devastated place and drove back across the moor. Baltazar sat next the -man who drove, in the front of the empty and futile cart, and said never -a word. For the first time in his eager existence, defeat overwhelmed -him. The work of a laborious lifetime had been destroyed in a few hours. -With infinite toil, perhaps, he might recapture the main lines of his -thought-revolutionizing treatise on the Theory of Groups: his studies in -the Analytical Geometry of Four Dimensional Space. Perhaps. He had -relied for his data on the innumerable notes and solutions of intricate -problems which had cost the labour of many years. And these had gone. -The world had hitherto wondered at two such scholar tragedies—Newton’s -_Principia_ destroyed by the dog Diamond, the first volume of Carlyle’s -_French Revolution_ burned by Mill’s stupid housemaid. But in both cases -only the finished product had perished. The data remained. The rewriting -was but a painful business of recompilation. But with him, not only the -more or less finished product, but the fundamental material was lost -forever. He shrank with dismay, almost with terror, at the thought of -going through that infinite maze of accurate calculation and reasoning -once more. Still, as far as the mathematics went, the palimpsest of the -brain existed. Reconstitution was humanly possible. But with the Chinese -editions—for most of it the material could only be found in remote -libraries in China; for much of it, the material no longer survived in -the explored world. - -He had come hoping against hope, arguing that great masses of manuscript -on thick paper were practically indestructible by fire. The outsides, -the edges might be burnt, but the vast bulk of inside sheets could be -preserved. But he had not counted on the disruption and devouring effect -of an incendiary bomb falling at the most precious end of the long deal -working-table. Probably the whole room had been instantaneously carpeted -thick with loose sheets, and the great stacks of manuscript had, as it -were, been burnt in detail. Then, for a while, on his hateful ride, he -strove with conjecture. But what was the use of vain imaginings? That -which was done was done. The harvest of his life had been annihilated. -If he died to-morrow, the world would be no richer by his existence than -by that of any dead goat whose body had just been cast into the -cesspool. To recover the harvest would cost him many years of uninspired -drudgery. It would be a horrible re-living, an impossible attempt to -recapture the ardour of the pioneer, the thrills of discovery. For the -first time he really felt the meaning of his age, the non-resilience of -fifty. For the black present the very meaning of his life had been wiped -out. - -The men, wearied, befouled and thirsty, sat silent in the cart, each -dreaming of the two gallons of beer that awaited him at the end of the -journey. They knew they had been searching for papers; but to them -valuable papers had only one signification; something perhaps to do with -a bank; something which constituted a claim to money: they had discussed -it during the half-hour midday interval for food. Wills, mortgages, -title-deeds, they had heard of. The daughter of one of them, a -parlourmaid in the house of a leading solicitor in the neighbouring -cathedral city, ranking next to legendary London in majesty in the eyes -of the untravelled Water-Enders, had told him that she had heard her -master say, at dinner, that the contents of the tin-boxes ranged around -his office represented half a million of money. His announcement vastly -impressed his colleagues, one of whom explained that all real wealth -nowadays was a matter of bits of paper. He himself had fifteen pounds in -the Savings Bank, but nothing to show for it but his Post Office book. -Then the nature of their employer’s frenzied quest became obvious to -them all. They had found nothing. Their employer sat like a ruined man. -They pitied him and, in the delicacy of their English souls, refrained -from intruding by speech upon his despair. In the meantime, there was no -harm in surrendering their imaginations to the prospect of the incessant -flow of delectable liquid down their parched throttles. - -When they halted at the gate of The Cedars, Baltazar pulled out a sheaf -of Treasury notes and gave each man thirty shillings. The extra ten -shillings represented to their simple minds, not the promised two -gallons of beer, but beer in perpetuity. This generosity on the part of -one evidently ruined bewildered them. Baltazar strode down the drive -leaving men impressed with the idea that he was a gentleman of the old -school to whose service they were privileged to be devoted. They -retired, singing his praises, being elderly men of a simple and -tradition-bred generation. - -His golf clubs on the lawn beside him, Pillivant, attired in imaginative -golfing raiment, was taking the air in front of the house. He lay in an -elaborate cane chair and smoked a great cigar. At the sight of Baltazar -he started up. - -“Holy Moses! You are in a devil of a mess.” - -“I’m afraid I’ve ruined your suit,” said Baltazar. “If you would only -let me know what your tailor charged for it——” - -“The Sackville Street robber bled me eight guineas,” said Pillivant, -rather greedily. - -“Here are eight pounds ten,” said Baltazar, counting out his notes. - -“Two shillings change,” laughed Pillivant, handling him a florin. - -“It’s kind of you to relieve me from this particular embarrassment. The -rest of my obligations I don’t quite see how to meet.” - -“We won’t charge you for board and lodging, old man, if that’s what you -mean. Take it and welcome. With regard to Rewsby and the nurse, you can -do what you like. Meanwhile, you’ll be glad to know that the ready-made -kit you ordered from Brady & Co. have turned up this afternoon.” - -“I’d better clean myself up and put some of it on,” said Baltazar. - -“You had indeed,” said Pillivant. “You look as if you had fallen into a -sewer.” - -The previous day, obeying telephone instructions, a representative of a -firm of ready-made clothiers in the cathedral city had called to take -measurements and orders. This evening Baltazar was able to array himself -once more in clothes of his own. By getting rid of borrowed garments he -felt relieved of an immense burden. - -“Well, how did you get on?” asked Pillivant heartily as they sat down to -dinner. “Find anything?” - -“Nothing but an appetite,” replied Baltazar with a smile. - -He could not tell this man of alien ideals and limited intellectual -horizon of his irreparable loss, or hint his intolerable despair. The -coarse husband and the common, over-bejewelled wife laughed at his -sally, hoped the menu would furnish sufficiency of food. He was but to -say the word, and they would kill the goose they were fattening up for -Michaelmas. The jest lasted off and on through the meal. They pressed -him to second and third helpings, joking, though genuinely hospitable. -At first he strove to entertain them. Spoke picturesquely of his queer -life in remotest China, where he lived the Chinese life and almost came -to think Chinese thoughts. Mrs. Pillivant yawned behind bediamonded -fingers. Pillivant said: “Dam funny,” with complete lack of enthusiasm -in the expletive, and as soon as he found a point of departure, set -forth on the story of a discreditable grievance against the War Office. -He couldn’t personally examine every plank of timber supplied. It had -all been passed by their own inspector. If they sent down a young idiot -of a subaltern who didn’t know the difference between green pine and -green cheese, it was their affair, not his. He had got his contract, and -there it was. Their talk about an enquiry was all nonsense. The War -Office ought to employ business men on business affairs. He had just -gone in, with another firm, on a big contract for a aerodrome in the -North of England. Some political Paul Pry had discovered—so he -said—that it could be built for half the money. Rot. Patriotism was one -thing, but running your business at a loss was another. The patriotic -contractor must earn his living, like anybody else. Why should his wife -and family starve? In righteous indignation he poured himself a bumper -of 1904 Bollinger, which he drained before finishing the whole grouse -which as a fifth course had been set before him. The entire system was -one vast entanglement of red tape, he continued. We were out to beat -Germany. How could we, when every effort was strangled by the red tape -aforesaid? Germany had to be beaten. How? By British pluck and British -enterprise. Pluck, by God! were we not showing it now on the Somme? And -enterprise? He poured out more Bollinger. If the fool Government would -let business men do business things in a business way, we would get the -Germans beaten and fawning for peace in a fortnight. There was nothing -wrong with England. He was English, through and through. - -“Although I won’t deny,” said he, with an incipient hiccough, “that my -mother spoke Yiddish. No, no my dear”—he turned with a protesting wave -to his wife—“I want to make things perfectly clear and above board to -our old friend Baltazar. I’ve got a coat-of-arms—look up Pillivant in -any book on Heraldry and you’ll see it—that goes back to Edward the -Something—not the Seventh. I’m English, I tell you. But I’m not -responsible for my mother, who came from Posen. Now, what do you do to -prevent typhoid? You inoculate. I’m inoculated. That’s my fortunate -position. I’m inoculated against Prussianism and all it stands for. -Could I be a pacifist or a conscientious objector? No. I’m immune from -the disease of pro-Germanism. As I’ve been telling you, I’m English -through and through, and I’m spending my life and my fortune in seeing -that Old England comes out on top.” - -To prove the expenditure of fortune he seized a fresh bottle of -Bollinger which the butler had just opened and filled Baltazar’s glass -and his own. - -“If you don’t drink, you’re a pro-German. To hell with the Kaiser.” - -Baltazar drank the toast politely and patriotically; the merest sip of -champagne; for beyond the first brandy and soda which had been poured -down his parched and exhausted throat, he had kept his vow of -abstinence, in spite of his host’s continued pressure. He felt sure of -himself now; wondered how he could ever have brought himself to the -present Pillivant condition. He liked Pillivant less than ever; yet he -began to be fascinated by the truth concerning Pillivant which rose -unashamed to the surface of the wine-cup. - -When the cigars were put on the table, Mrs. Pillivant rose. Baltazar -opened the door for her to pass out. On the first occasion of his doing -so, the first time he had come down to dinner, she had been puzzled, and -asked him whether he was not going to smoke with her husband. She still -did not seem to understand the conventional courtesy. When the door was -closed behind her, Pillivant drew a great breath of relief. - -“Pity you won’t drink,” said he, refilling his glass. “We might have -made a night of it. And this is such good stuff, too. About the most -expensive I could buy.” - -After that, impelled by the craving for self-revelation, he took up his -parable again, and entertained his guest with many details of opinions, -habits and actions, that had not been fit for wifely ears. When the -stream of confidence at last grew maudlin, Baltazar, pleading an -invalid’s fatigue after a heavy day, bade him good night. - -“I’ve been so long out of touch with English life,” said he, “that it is -most interesting to me to meet a typical Englishman.” - -Pillivant clapped him heavily on the shoulder. - -“You’re right, my boy,” he asserted thickly. “A downright, patriotic -John Bull Englishman. The sort of stuff that’s winning the war for you, -and don’t you make no mistake about it.” - -Baltazar went to bed pondering over his host. The annihilation of his -own life’s work did not bear thinking about. That way lay madness. -Pillivant brought a new interest. For all his adventurous journeyings he -had not met the Pillivant type—or if he had fortuitously encountered -it, he had passed it by in academic scorn. Had his ironical remark any -basis of truth? Was Pillivant after all typical of the forces behind the -war in this unknown modern England? Vulgarity, bluster, self-seeking, -corruption, hypocrisy? The old aristocratic order changing into -something loathsomely new? Pillivant posed as the successful man, -engaged in vast affairs, working night and day for his country—he was -only snatching, he had explained, a three weeks’ rest at this little -country shanty which he had not seen for nearly a year. The luxury of -the “shanty” proved his success; proved the magnitude of his dealings -with the Government. So far there was no brag. But how came it that the -Government put itself into the hands of such a man, openly boastful of -his exploitation of official ineptitude? He could not be unique. There -must be hundreds, thousands like him. Was he, in sober earnest, a -typical modern Englishman? If so, thought Baltazar, God help England. - -And yet England must have still the qualities that made Cressy, -Poitiers, Agincourt ring in English ears through the centuries: the -qualities of the men who followed Drake and Marlborough and Nelson and -Raglan. . . . That very morning he had read of British heroism on the -Somme battlefield, and had been thrilled at realizing himself merged -into the unconquerable soul of his race. - -He threw off his bedclothes—rose—flung the curtains wide apart, and -thrust out all the room’s casement windows not already opened, and -looked out into the starlit summer night. - -No. It was impossible for England to be peopled with Pillivants. They -were the fishers in troubled waters, the blood-suckers, the parasites, -the excrescences on an abnormal social condition. But why were they -allowed to live? What was wrong? Who were the rulers? Their very names -were but vaguely familiar to him. And he had read of strikes; of men -earning—for the proletariat—fabulous wages, striking for more pay, -selfishly, criminally (so it seemed to his unversed and aghast mind), -refusing to provide the munitions of war for lack of which their own -flesh and blood, earning a shilling a day, might be slaughtered in -hecatombs. He threw himself into a chair. - -“My God!” said he, “I must get out of this and see what it all means.” - -After a few moments he suddenly realized that he had pulled on his -socks, as though he were going, there and then, at midnight, to plunge -into the midst of the bewildering world at war. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -QUONG HO sitting up, taking plentiful nourishment and definitely -pronounced out of danger, Baltazar presented his cheque for a thousand -pounds to Dr. Rewsby, and thanked God for the preservation of Quong Ho’s -life and his own fortune. He also listened with much interest to Quong -Ho’s apologetics for leaving him in ignorance of the war. For such exact -obedience and perfect fidelity reproaches would have been unjust, even -had remorse for his own folly not have precluded them. - -“And now, my dear fellow,” said he—he was sitting by the bed in the -airy, sun-filled ward of the Cottage Hospital—“tell me what you would -like to do.” - -“I don’t care what he would like to do,” said Dr. Rewsby. “What he has -got to do is to stay here quiet and recover from the shock and mend up, -and not worry his mind with the war, or mathematics, or the condition of -your underclothes.” - -“Quong Ho shall never wash a shirt of mine again,” declared Baltazar. -“Henceforth he is the master of his destiny. I’m talking not of now, but -of the future. So far as I can manage it, he can do what he jolly well -likes. That’s why I put the question to him. So, Quong Ho, never mind -this excellent medicine man, who can’t see beyond his nose and doesn’t -want to, because all he’s concerned with is getting you well—never mind -him, but tell me what most in the world you would like to do.” - -“Sir,” said Quong Ho, “if you desire to dispense with my personal -services, which I have always regarded it as a privilege to render to my -benefactor, may I dare to formulate an ambition which has hitherto been -but an idle dream?” - -Dr. Rewsby knitted his grizzled brows and dragged Baltazar away from the -bed. - -“Does he always talk like that?” he whispered. - -“Did you think he would express himself with ‘Muchee likee topside,’ and -that sort of thing?” - -“No; but he talks like an archbishop.” - -“Then perhaps,” grinned Baltazar, “you’ll understand why I’ve insisted -on his being treated as my closest friend.” - -He returned to the bed. “I’m sorry, Quong Ho. What’s this famous -ambition of yours?” - -Quong Ho looked up at him unsmiling, with a dog-like yearning in his -slanting eyes. - -“If I could obtain the mathematical degree of the University of -Cambridge——” - -“If you went in for the Tripos now, you would wipe the floor with -everybody.—Cambridge! That’s a wonderful idea.” He stuck his hands -behind him in the waistband of his trousers and strode about for a -moment or two, his eyes illuminated. “A splendid notion! You can begin -where I leave off. I’ll work up all the stuff that’s gone, and put it -into your hands, and you’ll continue my life’s work. By God! you’ll -consummate it. Cambridge! The very thing! Damn China! Any fool can teach -young China the Binomial Theorem and Trigonometry. But there’s only one -Quong Ho, the pupil and intellectual heir of John Baltazar, in the -world. Yes. You’ll go to Cambridge, and by the Lord Harry! won’t there -be fluttering of dovecotes!” - -He stopped suddenly in his enthusiastic outburst and his brow darkened. -“Wait a bit. Perhaps you don’t realize that Cambridge is a matter of at -least three years?” - -“If it were twenty years it would matter little,” said Quong Ho. - -“There’s Latin and Greek—compulsory. I was forgetting.” - -“Greek,” replied Quong Ho, “I presume I could readily acquire. As for -Latin I think I am acquainted with the grammar and I have already read -the interesting Commentaries of Julius Cæsar on the Gallic War.” - -Baltazar sank into a chair. - -“Latin! You’ve learned Latin? When? How?” - -Quong Ho explained apologetically that the simultaneous excitation of -mind over the quotation at the head of the papers of _The Rambler_, and -the discovery in the lowest rubbish shelf in the library of an old Latin -grammar and a copy of the _De Bello Gallico_, had inaugurated his study -of the Latin tongue. He had procured, not without difficulty, owing to -the limited intelligence of the young lady in charge, a Latin -dictionary, through the miniature bookshop in Water-End. - -“Well, I’m damned!” said Baltazar. “I’m just damned. And now, do you -mind telling me why you never mentioned a word of it to me?” - -He looked fierce and angry. Quong Ho replied in his own tongue. How -could the inconsiderable worm that was his illustrious lordship’s -servant, presume to importune him with his inferior and unauthorized -pursuits? - -“I could have taught you twice as much in half the time,” said Baltazar. - -Quong Ho professed regret. He had also bought, he said, the works of the -poets Virgil and Horace, but had found peculiar difficulty in -translating them. - -The new conception of Quong Ho as an independent purchaser of -commodities set Baltazar’s mind on a different track. He had paid Quong -Ho wages—or rather Quong Ho had paid himself. He started up from his -chair. - -“Good Lord! I’ve only just thought of it. All the money you must have -had on the Farm is lost. How much was it?” - -“A trifling sum—a pound or two. It does not matter,” replied Quong Ho. - -“But you’ve been drawing a salary all the time. What’s become of it? You -couldn’t possibly have spent it all.” - -“I have invested it in British War Loan,” said Quong Ho. - -“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, standing over him, with hands thrust deep -into his trouser-pockets, “you are immense.” - -He went away, his head full of Quong Ho. - -“Doctor,” said he, “I thought that if there ever was a Westerner who had -got to the soul of the Chinaman, that man was I. Yet the more I see of -Quong Ho the less do I know what queer mental workings and strange -secrecies those soft, faithful eyes conceal. He kept me in absolute -ignorance of the war, he learned Latin in the next room to me, without -my having the faintest idea of it, and he has invested his money in War -Loan. Of course, the philosophy of it all is perfectly lucid to him. In -a way, I can get at the logic of it. But one wants to be wise not after -but before the event. What surprise is he going to spring on me next?” - -“Perhaps you’ve been nurturing an Oriental Caruso in your bosom,” the -doctor suggested. - -“That—no!” laughed Baltazar. “Chinese vocal chords aren’t built that -way. But, for all I know, he may have a complete critical knowledge of -the strategy of the war. The confounded fellow learning Latin! That’s -what I can’t get over. And calmly investing in War Loan!” - -“You don’t think he may cut everything and slip away to China?” - -“No,” said Baltazar seriously. “That at least I’m sure of. The -tremendous quality of the Chinaman is his loyalty. The scrupulousness of -his obedience is a thing beyond your conception. That’s why he allowed -no whisper of the war to reach me. Quong Ho would never be guilty of -ingratitude. That you, Dr. Rewsby, should pick my pocket is far more -possible. In fact, Quong Ho would cheerfully die this moment in order to -save my life. That I know. But within those limits of utter devotion, -God alone knows the weird workings of his celestial mind.” He pulled out -his pipe and filled it. “I thought I knew a lot. Now I’m being knocked -flat and beginning to realize that I know nothing at all, and that -everything I’ve ever learned isn’t worth a tinker’s curse.” - -“Perhaps,” said the doctor, after a hesitating glance, “you have put -your foot on the first rung of the ladder of wisdom.” - -Baltazar broke into a great laugh. - -“I wish,” said he, “I had met more men like you. They would have done me -good. You have the most comforting way in the world of telling me that -I’m the Great Ass of the Universe.” - -His head mended, his fears concerning Quong Ho at rest, his decision -taken to send Quong Ho to Cambridge, nothing more kept him in the -backwater of the little moorland town. He was for London, for the full -stream of national thought and energy. What he would do there he did not -know. He would learn. He would at least set his heart throbbing in -unison with the heart of the Empire. He packed his newly purchased -suit-case with his scanty wardrobe, bade farewell to the detested though -embarrassingly hospitable Pillivants, and took train to London with the -high hopes of a boy. - -His first taste of the metropolis was exhilarating. Here was a new -world. Every porter at the railway-station, every news-vendor, every -street urchin, was the possessor of accumulated knowledge and experience -of which he, John Baltazar, was denied a share. He read strange wisdom -in the eyes of working girls and slatternly women. He bought all the -evening papers, reeking, as they seemed, with the pregnant moment’s -actuality. He went to a bookseller’s and bought every book and pamphlet -bearing on the war. He would have an orgy of information. He would pluck -the heart of the world’s mystery of blood and sacrifice. - -But where to begin? If he had but one solitary acquaintance in London, -who could put him into the way of understanding, his course would be -simple. But he found himself absolutely alone in an infinite mass of -units, knit together by complexities of common ties. - -What he saw and felt, in his first eager search, reduced to dwindling -point the petty tragedy of his own life. For greater issues were at -stake than the revolution of mathematical thought by a new Theory of -Groups. In the wholesale destruction of what were thought to be the -immortal works of man, the loss of a few Chinese manuscripts counted as -little as that of paper-bags for buns. For excursions into the geometry -of Four Dimensional Space, or scholarly translation of the mild and -benign Chinese classic, _The Book of Rewards and Punishments_, the world -would have no use for another half-century. In face of the realities -with which London confronted him, he felt that he had devoted his life -to the pursuit of shadows. - -If only he could grasp these realities. If only he could merge himself -into them, become part and parcel of them, bring his intellect and his -bodily strength into the stupendous machine which he saw at work. - -Then he saw himself, by his own actions, condemned to sit and watch, an -inactive spectator of the great drama. His loneliness fell upon him like -a doom. He realized the uselessness of his age. He had as much place in -modern London as any chance inhabitant of Mars. He who had dared the -untrodden recesses of the Far Eastern world, haughtily asserting his -sympathetic right of citizenship, felt, after a day or two, a terror of -modern London. It was too vast, too unknown, too strange: a city at war, -unlike any city he had ever seen. Youth, in civilian attire, had -disappeared from its face. The unfamiliar dirty brown uniform filled the -streets. He had read of khaki, was vaguely aware of it as the service -uniform of the British Army; he had come across the tropical drill -material which had clothed the troops in Hong Kong, but his mind -preoccupied with interests remote from military affairs had barely -registered the impression. His traditional and therefore instinctive -conception of the soldier in the London streets was a thing in -swaggering scarlet. He missed the scarlet. It took him some time to -accommodate his mental vision to the military reality of the -dun-coloured hordes of men that thronged the Strand, Whitehall, and -Piccadilly. Soldiers, too, slopped about in an extraordinary kit of blue -jean and red ties. He did not grasp the fact that these were wounded men -wearing hospital uniform, until he passed the Westminster Hospital and -saw some of them taking the air on the terrace. After the first day’s -wanderings he dined at his crowded hotel, a bewildered man. In London -itself he had beheld an army. Scarcely a table in the vast restaurant -showed no man in uniform among its occupants. He contrasted the place -with his last pre-war impression. Then every man, young or old, had been -impeccably attired in the white tie and white waistcoat of high -convention. Not a woman then who was not gowned as for some royal -festival. Now the outward and visible signs of gilded youth had -vanished. Even elderly bucks wore plain dinner-jackets and black -ties—his own sloppily fitting, ready made dress suit seemed ultra -ceremonious. Here and there were exquisitely dressed women; but here and -there, too, were dowdy ladies unblushing under obviously cheap hats. And -men with bandaged heads came in, and legless men on crutches; and at the -next table a one-armed man depended for the cutting up of his food on -the ministrations of a girl. And away over the other side of the room he -saw a man, his breast covered with ribbons, carried pick-a-back by a -brother officer to his appointed place. No one seemed to take notice of -the unusual. Scarcely a casual glance lingered on the pair. At no table -visible was there a break in the talk and the laughter. Baltazar leaned -back in his chair and gasped at the realization that the incident was a -commonplace of modern life. - -His heart throbbed with pity for these maimed men, some of them boys -fresh from school; then with pride in their English courage and gaiety. -He looked round the room curiously and, in his fancy, identified several -Pillivants. They generally sat two or three at a table and drank -champagne and leaned over, heads together, as they talked. But the -impression they made was effaced by that of youth: youth pervaded the -place; youth whole and gloriously insolent; youth maimed and defiant; -youth predominating, too, among the women, with its eyes alight and -cheeks aglow; youth nerved to war, taking it as the daily round, the -common task. It was some new planet in which Baltazar found himself, -peopled with beings of dimly conjectured interests and habits of -thought. - -After dinner, the loneliest soul in London, he took his hat and thought -to go for a stroll. He emerged from the brightly lit vestibule into -Tartarean darkness and forbidding silence. Instead of the once glad -stream of life, a few vague forms flitted by on the pavement. Now and -then a moving light and a whir denoted the passing of a taxi-cab on the -roadway. At first he stood outside the hotel door, baffled, until he -remembered that he had heard of the darkened thoroughfares. The sky -being overclouded, London was denied that night the kindly help of -stars. Baltazar saw it in all its blackness, and shrank involuntarily as -from the supernatural. He laughed and started. Soon, when his sight grew -accustomed to the blackness, his senses were arrested and fascinated by -the wonder of this veiled heart of the Empire, by its infinite tones of -gloom, by its looming masses of building melting upwards into black -nothingness, by the vista of narrow streets, where at the end a dim lamp -gave them a note of sinister mystery. But his walk did not last long. As -he was crossing a street, an unseen and unheard taxi-cab just swerved in -time to miss him by a hair’s-breadth. He felt the wind of it on the back -of his neck and caught the curse of the driver. After that he lost his -nerve. The re-crossing of Trafalgar Square became a perilous and -breathless adventure. He was glad to find himself again in the light and -the safe normality of the hotel. - -No. London was not for him. He found himself even more a stranger than -during his last disastrous sojourn. There seemed to be no chance for him -to be anything else than a stray number in an hotel. He felt like a bit -of waste cog-wheel seeking a place in a perfect machine. - -“A few days more of this and I’ll go mad,” said he. - - * * * * * - -He did not go mad, but at last, with the instinct of the homing pigeon, -fled to Cambridge. There at least would he be able to pick up some -threads of life left straggling twenty years ago. Only when he had gone -half-way did he remember that it was the Long Vacation, so long had he -lived indifferent to times and seasons. Doubtless, however, the Long -Vacation Term was in progress as usual and the official dons in -residence. But who would there be, after twenty years, in spite of the -proverbial longevity of dons? Who now was master of his college? When he -left, Fordyce was getting a bit elderly. Why, of course, by now, if -alive, he would be over ninety. Fordyce must have been gathered long ago -to his fathers. Who could have succeeded him? Why hadn’t he looked it up -in a book of reference? It seemed stupid to return to his own college -without knowing the name of the master. Who were the prominent people? -Westgrove, the senior tutor; Barrett, senior dean; Withington, junior -dean; Raymond, bursar; Smith, Hartwell, Grayson, Mostyn—men more or -less of his own standing; Sheepshanks, the famous mathematical coach -upon whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of the immortal Routh (maker -of senior wranglers), and his own private tutor and friend. There would -be somebody there out of all that lot, at any rate. He felt more -hopeful. - -A grizzled porter threw his suit-case into a hansom cab, a welcome -survival of his youth, and in answer to his query whether the “Blue -Boar” was still in existence, stared at him as though he had questioned -the stability of the great court of Trinity or Matthews, the Grocers. - -“The ‘Blue Boar,’ sir? Why, of course, sir.” - -So to that ancient hostelry Baltazar drove down Trumpington Street. It -seemed all new and perky until he came to the great landmark, the -Fitzwilliam Museum. Then in a flash he recaptured his Cambridge: -Peterhouse on his left; Pembroke on his right; the three-sided, low, -bricked court of St. Catherine’s facing the dignified stone front and -gateway of Corpus; then the amazing grandeur of King’s College -Chapel—he craned his head out and drank in its calm loveliness; then -the Senate House; on the right the shops of the King’s Parade, just as -they used to be; then Caius, and the cab drew up at the “Blue Boar.” - -He secured a room and went out again to fill his lungs with the -atmosphere of the beloved place, his soul with its beauty and its -meaning. He wandered, at first like a man distraught, his eyes far above -the pavement, wrapt in the familiar glories of stone and brick; the -majesty of Trinity, the twin-towered, blazoned gateway of St. John’s, -the venerable round church of the Holy Sepulchre. . . . He walked on -past Sidney, Christ’s, Emmanuel; turned up Downing Street. At the sight -of the vast piles of modern science buildings, he came down to earthly -things. Thenceforward he became aware of something new and strange and -alien to the academic spirit that once spread its brooding wings over -the town. The quiet streets were filled with soldiery. Khaki, khaki, on -roads and pavements; khaki, khaki, in college courts. There seemed to be -regiments of rank and file. Officers, gaitered and spurred, clanked -along as in a garrison city. Much youth, whose status he could not -determine, wearing a white band round its cap, laughed and jested, -undergraduate-like, on its way. He wandered through the river-nest of -colleges, Queen’s, Clare, Trinity Hall, through courts and gateways, and -it was the same story of military occupation. A bevy of nurses flitted -about the courts of King’s. A group of men in hospital blue lounged over -the balustrade of Clare Bridge. - -It was a wondrous metamorphosis. Almost the only young men in civilian -attire were a few Indian students. He came across them carrying -notebooks under their arms, on their return from morning lecture. -Lectures, then, were still going on. College authorities were still in -residence; he had, in fact, passed many unmistakable dons. But dons and -Indians seemed but the relics of a past civilization. In a spasm of -amazement he realized that the University, as he had conceived it, a -seat of learning, no longer existed. The three thousand young men, the -average undergraduate population, who afforded the University its reason -of being, were fighting for their country or being trained in the arts -of war. Yet the colleges through which he passed seemed to be alive. No -sign anywhere of desolation or decay. Pembroke and Emmanuel had the -appearance of barracks. He strode hither and thither, in his impetuous -way, his mind exercised with the wonder of it all; saw Midsummer Common -filled with troops at drill, found himself on the river. The tow-path -was overgrown with grass. War everywhere. The very boat-houses were -incorporated into the military system. On the familiar front of his own -college boat-house was nailed an inscription. Such and such a regiment. -Officers’ mess. - -The University was at war. Not for the first time in its glorious -history. Troops had garrisoned his college in the Civil Wars. It had -melted down its plate for Charles the First. If it had possessed a -boat-house it would have given it loyally to the King. Yet that was -between two and three hundred years ago. Baltazar had the modern and not -the archæological instinct. Conditions were different in those days. But -now, in the second decade of the twentieth century, to be confronted -with his remote, innocent college boat-house thus drawn, a vital though -tiny unit, into the war, spurred his imagination to a newer -comprehension of the world-convulsion to which he had been but recently -awakened. If the war could reach and grip a pretty balconied shed on the -River Cam, in what other infinite ramifications through the whole of the -national life did its tentacles not extend? As he retraced his steps to -the town, the bombing of Spendale Farm and the commandeering of his -college boat-house appealed to him as the two most significant facts of -the war. - - * * * * * - -He stood in the gateway under the groined roof by the porter’s lodge of -his own college. The porter on duty, a young, consumptive-looking man, -appeared at the door. Baltazar said: - -“I am an old member of the college, and I’ve been abroad for many years. -I wonder if there’s anybody in residence whom I used to know.” - -“It depends upon who you want to see, sir.” - -Baltazar searched the young man’s face. “First”—he snapped finger and -thumb—“yes, first, where’s Westmacott?” - -“My father, sir? He’s feeling his age, and having a bit of a holiday. -Did you know him, sir?” - -“Of course I did. He was senior porter when I was an undergraduate. He -must be about a hundred and ten.” - -“No, sir, only seventy-five,” smiled the young man. - -“Who’s master now?” - -“Dr. Barrett, sir.” - -“Is he up?” - -“Not for the moment, sir.” - -“What about Mr. Westgrove?” - -“Westgrove? Oh yes, sir. He died a long time ago. When I was a boy, -sir.” - -“Well, who is there in residence?” - -The younger Westmacott rattled off a string of unfamiliar names. - -“I’m talking of twenty years ago,” said Baltazar. “What about Mr. -Raymond?” - -“He’s Professor of Economics at—at one of those new sort of -universities, sir.” - -The Cambridge-trained servitor’s tone expressed both regret at Mr. -Raymond’s decline and scorn of the new sort of universities. - -“Mr. Sheepshanks——?” - -“Dr. Sheepshanks now, sir. _Honoris causa._ Just before the war.” - -“Well, Dr. Sheepshanks then,” said Baltazar, rather impatiently. - -“Oh, he’s always here, sir. He’s senior tutor.” - -“Is he in?” - -“I haven’t seen him go out to-day. I’m pretty sure he’s in, sir. Letter -E, New Court.” - -“Thanks,” said Baltazar, and went in search of Sheepshanks, through the -familiar courts. - -When he stood at the doorway of Letter E and read the name, -white-lettered on black, “Dr. Sheepshanks,” he remembered that here -Sheepshanks had lived thirty years ago. Probably the same rooms. On the -second floor. He mounted the winding wooden stairs. Yes: above the -unsported oak (the infallible porter was right) the name of Dr. -Sheepshanks was inscribed. He paused for an instant before knocking at -the inner door, because all his youth came surging back on him. He saw -himself a freshman, tapping with nervous knuckles at the almost sacred -portal of the famous coach, the fount of all mathematical science, the -legendary being who had the power to make senior wranglers at will. He -saw himself the third year man, rapping confidently, secure in the -knowledge that Sheepshanks had staked his reputation on his triumph. He -saw himself smiting the door defiantly, after the lists had been -published . . . “Spooner, Jenkins, Baltazar . . .” Spooner had read with -Roberts of Trinity; but Jenkins had been a Sheepshanks man. . . . He saw -himself, many and many a time afterwards, when he had stepped into his -universally acknowledged own, thumping it with friendly familiarity. -That heavy, black oak door, invitingly open, held the secrets of his -vivid youth. - -At last he knocked, but the knock—so it seemed—was devoid of -character. A voice—the same sharp, nasal voice—it sent him back again -to freshman’s days—cried: - -“Come in.” - -He opened the door, stood on the threshold. The back of Sheepshanks, -working at his desk by the great window looking over the master’s -garden, met his eyes, across the large library table that occupied the -centre of the room. It was the same old table—the table at which he had -sat with the superior first batch of pupils, during his undergraduate -days. How often then and in after days he had entered on that cracked -“Come in,” and seen that lean back and bowed head, and waited the few -seconds, as he was doing now, for the owner to finish his sentence and -swing round in his chair—the same old swivel-chair. After the same -second or two, Sheepshanks turned round and, as in one movement, rose to -his feet. He was a small, brown, wrinkled, clean-shaven man in the early -sixties, with eyes masked by thick myopic lenses, spectacles set in gold -rims. His hair short, but curly, gleamed a dazzling white. It was a -shock of memory to Baltazar to realize that when he had last seen it, it -was raven black. - -“Yes?” said Sheepshanks, enquiringly. - -Baltazar strode past the library table with outstretched hand. - -“Don’t pretend you’ve never seen me before, Sheepshanks.” - -Sheepshanks made a step forward, peered through his glasses, then -recoiled and gasped: - -“Baltazar!” - -“You’ve hit it, my dear old friend. I’m not a ghost. I’m live flesh and -blood. I’m John Baltazar right enough.” - -“God bless my soul!” said Sheepshanks. “We thought you must be dead. Do -sit down.” - -Baltazar laughed as he turned to deposit hat and stick on a side-table; -then he came and clapped both his hands on the elderly don’s lean -shoulders. - -“You apostle of primness! Aren’t you glad to see me?” - -“Of course I’m glad, my dear fellow. Exceedingly glad. But your sudden -resurrection rather takes one’s breath away.” He smiled. “Let us both -sit down, and you can tell me all about it.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -IF I don’t smoke, I’m afraid I can’t talk,” said Baltazar. - -Sheepshanks smiled politely. “You remember my little weakness? But pray -smoke. I’ve got used to it of late years. Times change, and we with -them.” - -Baltazar filled and lit his pipe. - -“A couple of weeks ago,” said he, “I had all but complete two -epoch-marking mathematical treatises. I had got systems and results you -good people here had never dreamed of. I had also stuff in the way of -Chinese scholarship that would have been a revelation to the Western -world. Then German aircraft dropped bombs on my house, a hermitage in -the middle of a moorland, and wiped out the labour of a lifetime. They -also nearly killed a young Chinaman whom I regard as an extraordinary -mathematical genius and about whom I want to consult you. They also, -thereby, revealed to me a fact of which I was entirely unaware, namely, -that the war had been going on for a couple of years.” - -He leaned back in his chair and drew a few contented puffs. His host -passed a hand over perplexed brows and leaned forward. - -“I’m very sorry,” said he, in his precise, nasal voice, “to appear -stupid. But you have put forward half a dozen such amazing propositions -in one breath that I can’t quite follow you.” - -A smile gleamed in Baltazar’s eyes. “I thought that would get you,” he -remarked placidly. “But it’s an accurate presentment of my present -position.” - -“No doubt, no doubt,” said Sheepshanks. “But you surely haven’t been -living a recluse on a moor for the last twenty years?” - -“Oh no,” replied Baltazar. “Eighteen of them I spent in China. I went -out straight from here.” - -“To China? Dear me,” said Sheepshanks. “What an extraordinary place to -go to from Cambridge.” - -“Didn’t anybody guess where I had vanished to?” - -“Not a soul, I assure you. Your disappearance created a sensation. Quite -a sensation. A painful one, because you were a man we could ill afford -to lose.” - -“It’s good of you to say so. But it’s odd that no one seemed to be -interested enough in me to reason out China. You all knew I was keen on -Chinese.” He cast a swift glance around the bookshelves that lined the -room, and shot out an arm. “I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s my little -handbook—_Introduction to the Language, on a Scientific Basis_.” - -Sheepshanks’ myopic vision followed Baltazar’s pointing finger. - -“Yes. It’s somewhere there. You haven’t changed much from the creature -of flashes that you used to be.” - -“It happens to be the only yellow-backed book on the shelf. To say -nothing of the purple dragon, which is grossly incorrect and unmeaning. -It jumps to the eyes. Just as my going to China ought to have jumped to -the eyes of everybody.” - -“I’m afraid it didn’t. Perhaps we were too much paralysed with dismay.” - -“I often tried to guess what you all thought about it,” said Baltazar. -“A human being can’t escape his little vanities. It was like being dead -and wondering what the dickens people were saying about one.” - -“We didn’t know what to say,” replied Sheepshanks. “We had no precedents -on which to base any conclusions. We looked for motives for flight and -we could find none. We sought for possible imperative objectives, and -one so apparently uncompelling as China never occurred to us. Here -to-day, gone to-morrow. You vanished, ‘like a snowflake on a river.’ To -see you now, after all these years, looking scarcely a day older, is an -experience which I must confess is bewildering.” - -“I suppose you thought me mad or a fugitive from justice, or one driven -by the Furies.” - -“We didn’t know what to think, and that’s the truth of it,” replied -Sheepshanks. - -“Well, call it the last. I wasn’t very old and hardened. Perhaps I -mistook Mrs. Grundy with an upraised umbrella for one of the ladies who -played the devil with Orestes and Company. I had quite decent reasons -then for clearing out. Whether I was wise or not is another matter. -Anyhow I cleared, sank my identity and went out to China. After eighteen -years I came back. The rest I’ve told you in a sort of pemmican form.” - -“I don’t deny,” said Sheepshanks, “that I am still somewhat confused.” - -“All right,” said Baltazar. “You sit there, and I’ll tell you what I -can. Anyhow, I’ll try to explain why I’m here. I’ll begin from the day I -sailed for China.” - -The primness of Edgar Sheepshanks,D.SC., relaxed, to some extent, during -Baltazar’s story. Like Dominie Sampson’s “Prodigious!” his “Wonderful! -wonderful!” punctuated the intervals. To him who had stuck limpet-like -to the same academic walls, Baltazar appeared a veritable modern -Ulysses. He sighed, wishing that he too had performed the scholarly -travels through that far land of Mystery, the Cathay of ancient times, -which was now the little better known interior of modern China; he -sighed, as he did when gallant youth returned from high adventure in -that land of equal mystery, the Front. Baltazar was half through his -tale when there entered a venerable man-servant, Sheepshanks’s gyp for -innumerable years. At the sight of the guest he started back with the -dropped jaw of one who sees a ghost. “Mr. Baltazar!” - -“Lord, it’s Punter!” - -It was odd how names came back from the moss-grown recesses of memory. -He shook hands with the old man. - -“Yes, it’s me. And you’re looking just as young as ever. I recognized -you at once. And look here, Punter, if you want to do me a service, just -spread the news about Cambridge. If I’ve got to go through an Ancient -Mariner or Wandering Jew explanation every time I meet anyone, it’ll -eventually get on my nerves.” - -“I’m sure every one will rejoice to have you back, sir,” said the gyp. - -“Punter’s bringing my lunch. I hope you’ll stay and share it with me,” -said Sheepshanks politely. - -“Delighted,” said Baltazar, and the old man having retired, he went on -with his tale. - -He continued it over lunch in the next room, a homelier chamber, where -Sheepshanks kept his choice books and his two or three good Italian -pictures and a few ivories and photographs of nephews and nieces. It was -during the meal that he noticed for the first time a lack of -effusiveness on the part of his host. Not that he had expected the prim -Sheepshanks to throw his arms about him and dance with joy; but he had -hoped for more genial signs of welcome. After all, he reflected, he had -let the college down very badly; possibly he was still unforgiven. Well, -if that was so, he would have to earn forgiveness. - -In his tale he had reached the first visit to London. - -“I was out of my element, as you perceive,” said he, “and then something -happened which made me decide suddenly to go into seclusion for two or -three years. Real seclusion. I don’t do things by halves. In some remote -spot where not a whisper of the outer world could ever reach me.” - -“But what kind of thing could have happened to cause you to take such an -extraordinary step?” asked Sheepshanks. - -Thought Baltazar: “If I tell him the real reason, he’ll turn into a -pillar of frozen don.” Besides, he had not the faintest intention of -opening his soul to Sheepshanks, even though the latter should have -enacted the part of the father of the Prodigal Son. He waved the -question aside. - -“Nothing of any importance. Just one of the idiot trifles that always -seem to arise and deflect my course through life. The main point is that -I found the place I wanted, and went there with Quong Ho.” - -Luncheon had been cleared away and he had finished a couple of pipes -before he came to the end of his narrative. - -“So now you see my position,” said he. - -“I think I do,” replied Sheepshanks. - -“My whole life-work has gone—except that part of it which exists in the -cultivated brain of my remarkable young Chinaman. There seems to be no -place for me in London, where everybody’s fitted into the war, where I’m -simply dazed and unwanted. So I’ve come here—if only to find something -left of my old life to attach myself to.” - -“I’m afraid there’s not very much to be done in Cambridge,” said -Sheepshanks. “It’s no longer a university, but a military camp.” - -“But at any rate,” said Baltazar, “I can find here a few human beings I -know who might put me in the way of actual things—help me on my -course.” - -“That’s quite possible,” said Sheepshanks. - -“I also have to see what can be done for Quong Ho. I want him to come up -next term. Has the college ever had an undergraduate who has come up -with a knowledge of Elliptic Functions?” - -“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Sheepshanks, in interested astonishment. - -“He’s a wonder,” laughed Baltazar. “I ought to know, because I’ve taught -him daily for ten years. Well, he’ll be on your list, if you’ll have -him. He’s a dear creature. Manners like a Hidalgo. Mind cultivated in -the best of Chinese and English literature. And speaks English like his -favourite author, Dr. Johnson.” - -Sheepshanks smiled, a very pleasant smile, in which every wrinkle of his -dry brown face seemed to have a part. - -“How you keep your enthusiasms, Baltazar!” - -“Quong Ho is worth them. You’ll see. As soon as he’s fit for it, I’ll -send him to you. You set him last June’s Tripos Papers—Part II, if you -like. I’ll bet you anything he’ll floor them. Of course I’m -enthusiastic,” he said, after re-lighting his pipe, which had gone out. -“I’ve no kith or kin in the world. I’ve adopted Quong Ho as my -intellectual son and heir.” - -Sheepshanks rose, walked to the open window deliberately and looked out. -Presently he turned. - -“It seems strange,” said he, “that you should adopt a Chinaman, when -your English son is giving great promise of following in your -footsteps.” - -Baltazar regarded him in a puzzled way. Then he laughed. - -“My stepson. I’m afraid, my dear Sheepshanks, when I left the mother I -left her son. One of the defects of my qualities is honesty. I may be -brutal, but I can’t take a sentimental interest in the son of old Doon.” - -“The man I’m talking about,” said Sheepshanks, in the precise clipped, -nasal manner under which Baltazar remembered many a delinquent and -uppish pupil to have wilted in the old days, “isn’t called Doon. His -name is Baltazar. He came up with a Minor Scholarship over the way”—he -waved a hand, indicating the grey wing of the neighbouring college -visible through the window—“and he was the most promising freshman of -his year.” - -Baltazar rose too. - -“I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about. I don’t suppose I’m -the only Baltazar left in England. He can be no son of mine. It’s -idiotic. You ought to know.” - -“I do know,” said Sheepshanks. - -Baltazar’s eyes flashed in amazement and he made a stride towards him. -“What do you know? What are you suggesting?” - -“A child was born here in Cambridge, three months after you left us.” - -Something almost physical seemed to hit Baltazar between the eyes, -partially stunning him. He felt his way to the nearest chair and sat -down. - -“My God!” said he. “Oh, my God!” - -He remained for some time, his head on his hands, overwhelmed by the -significance of the revelation. At last he sprang suddenly to his feet. - -“No wonder you haven’t forgiven me,” he cried, with characteristic -directness. “To run away from a woman in such circumstances would be the -unforgivable sin. But I swear to God I never knew. She gave no hint, and -I saw her only a few days before I left. Such a possibility never -entered my mind. Has never entered it. I may be any kind of a sinner, -but not such a scoundrel as that. I left her because we were miserable -together.—I did my best—now and then a brief reconciliation.—I -suppose she tried too, in her way.—After the last, things were worse -than ever. And then there was the life of someone else I couldn’t -sacrifice—a flower of a thing. I felt my wife would be glad to see the -last of me. So I fled like Christian from the Burning City. If I had -known that—well, that I was leaving this responsibility behind me, I -should have faced things out. My God! man, you must believe me,” he -ended passionately. - -Sheepshanks through his thick gold spectacles met Baltazar’s fierce gaze -for a few moments. Then he held out his hand: “I believe you, J. B., and -doing so takes a great load off my mind.” - -“I’ve noticed your avoidance of the old name,” said Baltazar. “It must -have been in pretty evil odour for the past twenty years or so.” - -“You’re such an incalculable fellow,” said Sheepshanks, with a kind -smile. “The romance you so delicately suggest never occurred to any of -us.” - -“Well, well,” said Baltazar, “all that is done and over long ago. -Anyhow, I wasn’t the heartless wretch Cambridge must have taken me for. -I leave my rehabilitation in your hands. To me now the main, staring, -extraordinary fact is that I have a son. A son. I, who thought I was -wandering lonely as What’s-his-name’s cloud. I’ve got a son. A -mathematician. The same lunatic quirk of brain. If he were the village -idiot—it would be different.—You remember the ghastly story of Guy de -Maupassant? But not only my own flesh and blood, but my own flesh, blood -and intellect.” He paced about the room. “What kind of a fellow is he? -Is he like me? Have you seen him?” - -“Yes; once. Crosby—you remember Crosby?” He waved a hand towards the -college visible through the window. - -“Yes, yes,” said Baltazar, impatiently. - -“Crosby asked me to breakfast, one day, to meet him. The son of John -Baltazar, senior mathematical scholar of his year, was a curiosity. We -didn’t tell the young man so. Indeed, I suppose he wondered why such an -old fossil like myself was there.” - -“Never mind what he thought of old fossils, my dear Sheepshanks. What -was he like?” - -“Like you. Quite recognizable. But fairer, and though sensible and -manly, less—if you will allow me to say so—less of a firebrand.” - -“Anyhow, a good straight chap. Not merely low mathematical cunning -enveloped in any kind of smug exterior?” - -“He’s a son any father would be proud of,” said Sheepshanks. - -“And where is he now?” - -Sheepshanks made a vague gesture. “Where is all the gallant youth of -England? Over there, fighting.” - -“Are you sure?” - -“It would be small compliment to you, J. B., if I wasn’t sure,” replied -Sheepshanks with a smile. “The only undergraduates left in the -University are a few unhappy youngsters rejected from the army for -physical reasons. The maimed, halt and blind; also medical students -hurrying through their course, and the usual contingent of Indian -students who, not belonging to the fighting races of India, can find no -place in the armies of Great Britain.” - -“I don’t care about paralytics or doctors or Indians,” said Baltazar. “I -want to know about this son of mine.” - -“Crosby would tell you. He’s up. I saw him yesterday. Of course, you -know he’s master now.” - -“Crosby?” cried Baltazar, incredulously. “Crosby—that pragmatical owl, -master of——?” - -“Even as you are master of intolerance,” Sheepshanks interrupted. -“Crosby has developed into a very great man, and there’s not a head of -house in the University who is more beloved by his college. You’ll find -him in intimate touch with half a dozen generations of undergraduates.” - -“I’m learning things every minute,” said Baltazar. “So much for Crosby. -I’ll go along and see him. But the boy—I suppose he has got a Christian -name. What is it?” - -“I forget—but I can easily find out.” Sheepshanks took _The Cambridge -University Calendar_ from a shelf. “But perhaps you’d like to look -through it yourself.” - -Baltazar turned rapidly over the pages, found the college he sought and -the name of Godfrey Baltazar in its list of scholars. - -“Godfrey!” he exclaimed. “That was my father’s name.” Then after a -pause, as though speaking to himself: “It was good of her. Damned good -of her.” - -He walked to the casement window which Sheepshanks had vacated and -leaned his elbows on the sill, looking out for a long time into a blur -of things. Sheepshanks glanced at his broad shoulders which seemed bowed -beneath an intolerable burden, and after a moment or two of hesitation -slipped noiselessly from the room. Presently Baltazar turned, started to -find himself alone, frowned, then recognizing a delicate instinct on the -part of his host, went back to the window and his whirl of thoughts and -emotions. - -What a mess he had made of his life! What folly had been each one of -those flaming decisions that had marked his career! Was he a coward? The -word stung. There was a difference between flying from temptation and -resisting it. He remembered the comparison he had just made between -himself and Christian flying from the Burning City, and suddenly saw the -meanness and selfishness of Bunyan’s Hero—egotism as colossal as that -of St. Simeon Stylites on whom he had once airily lectured to Quong Ho. -What mattered anything human, wife, children born and the child within -the womb, so long as he saved his own wretchedly unimportant soul? For -aught Christian cared, all his family and his friends could go literally -to Hell, so long as he himself escaped. A sorry figure. And just such a -sorry figure had cut John Baltazar. And, life being real and implacable, -he had not even succeeded in saving his paltry soul. He had lost it at -every step. His fine phrases to Quong Ho; his boast of altruistic -service to mankind? Sheer juggling with sacred things. Sheer egotism. -Sheer vanity. - -What a mess he had made of his life! What folly had been his cowardly -flight! If he had known, he would have remained. Yes. A salve to -conscience. But the consciences of brave men need no salve. - -He had fooled away his life in a country that had no need of him, from -which he had derived no measure of spiritual profit. Strip the glamour -of sheer scholarship from his interest in Chinese philosophy, and what -remained? Scarcely anything that the heir of Western thought had not -picked up in his child’s copybook. And whilst he was wasting his brain -and his moral energies and his physical strength in pursuit of the -shadows, the son of his loins, a human thing for whose moulding and -development he was, by the laws of nature and civilization, responsible, -had grown up, haphazard, fatherless, motherless, under alien guidance. -He threw his memory back to his wife’s family, the Woodcotts, -narrow-minded, bigoted, vulgar—Lord! how he had detested them. Had he -abandoned his son to their untender mercies? No matter who had trained -the boy, he himself had failed in the most elementary duty of mankind. - -Suddenly he raised both clenched fists and cried aloud: - -“By God! I swear——” - -Then suddenly he saw the ironical face of the village doctor of -Water-End and heard his sarcastic words: “A bad habit. I should give it -up”—and his arms dropped helpless by his sides. No. What was this oath -but one more irretrievable plunge into the morass in which he -floundered? - -He began again to wonder concerning this newly discovered son, strove to -visualize him. A broad, upstanding fellow, like himself. Fairer—he got -that from his mother. A fine, soldierly figure in khaki. But only a -boy—just twenty. And he had thrown everything to the winds on the -outbreak of war and had been fighting in France—that child—for two -years. He drew a sharp breath, as a sudden thought smote him. The boy -might have been killed. Apparently he was still alive. Otherwise -Sheepshanks would surely have heard. But supposing—supposing. . . . He -shivered at the thought of it. - -Half an hour, an hour—he was unconscious of time—passed. Then the door -opened and Sheepshanks appeared, followed by a short-bearded man in -clerical tweeds. - -“A bit of luck. I found Crosby in. I’ve told him everything, and he has -been kind enough to come along.” - -Said Dr. Crosby a while later: “I have brought with me the boy’s last -letter—only a week old. Perhaps you would like to see it.” - -Baltazar stretched out an impatient hand. This thing so essentially -personal, the first objective token of his son’s existence, affected him -deeply. The words swam before his eyes. He turned to the end to see the -signature. His thumb against it, he held out the paper to Sheepshanks, -and said in a shaking voice: - -“That’s my handwriting. He has the same trick of the ‘B’ and the ‘z.’” - -The letter informed the master that he was still at Churton Towers, near -Godalming; that the stump obstinately refused to heal completely, owing -perhaps to the original gangrene; that he hoped they would not chuck him -out of the Army, because, with a brand new foot, he could be useful in -hundreds of ways; but that, if they did, he would come up and continue -to read for his degree. - -“May I keep this, Crosby?” asked Baltazar; and, permission given, he -folded it up and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to Sheepshanks. -“Why didn’t you tell me at first what had happened?” - -“My dear fellow,” said Sheepshanks, “I only heard he had been wounded. I -was unaware of details. That’s why I went at once to Crosby. In these -days one must be discreet.” - -“Yes, no doubt,” said Baltazar, absently. He paced the room for a few -moments. Then halting: “I must see this son of mine. But I must see him -in my own way. Will you do me a favour not to let him know of my -reappearance until I send you word?” - -“Certainly,” said Dr. Crosby. - -“Thanks,” said he. - -He walked to and fro, his head full of the tragedy of this maimed young -life. He looked from one unemotional face to the other. Their attitude -was incomprehensible. Crosby, before showing him the letter, had spoken -of wound and amputation in the most matter-of-fact, unfeeling way. -Suddenly he burst out indignantly: - -“I wonder if you two people have any idea of what I’m feeling. To-day I -learnt the wonderful news that I’ve got a son—a splendid fellow, a man -and a scholar. An hour afterwards you tell me that he’s a one-legged -cripple. Neither of you seem to care a hang. I haven’t heard a word of -sympathy, of pity——” - -The white-headed, gold-spectacled senior tutor rushed towards him, in -some agitation, with outspread hands. - -“My dear J. B., we must observe a sense of proportion. You really ought -to go on your knees and thank God that your son is preserved to you. -He’s out of that hell for ever.” - -“My boy—my only son—was killed last December,” said Dr. Crosby. - -Baltazar stared for a moment at the short, bearded man and sought for -words, even the most conventional words; but they would not come. Then, -memory flashing on him, he stretched out his open hand about three feet -from the ground, and said, in a voice which sounded queer in his own -ears: - -“That little chap?” - -“Yes. That little chap,” said Dr. Crosby. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -A DAY or two afterwards Godfrey Baltazar, still tied by his maimed leg -to Churton Towers, received a letter which caused him to frown and rub -his head. It was type-written save for the signature, and was addressed, -care of a firm of solicitors in Bedford Row. As soon as Marcelle came to -do his morning dressing he handed it to her. - -“What do you make of this?” - -Before replying, she read it through without remark. It ran: - - Dear Sir, - - _I have just been visiting Cambridge after many years’ absence - abroad, and have learned that the son of my old college friend, - John Baltazar, is lying wounded at Churton Towers Convalescent - Home. I am writing to you, therefore, to enquire whether one who - was very intimately connected with your father in the old days - might venture to run down to Godalming and see you, with the - double purpose of making the acquaintance of John Baltazar’s - son, of whose brilliant academic beginnings the University - authorities have informed me, and of paying a stranger - Englishman’s tribute to a gallant fellow who has shed his blood - for his country. My time being, at your disposal, I shall be - happy to keep any appointment you may care to make._ - - _Yours very faithfully_, - James Burden - -“Seems rather nice of him,” said Marcelle. - -“I suppose it is. But who is the old fossil?” - -Marcelle smiled. “Probably what he claims to be. An old college friend -of your father.” - -“He must have been a don of sorts. Not merely an undergraduate friend. -Otherwise how could he have got straight to the people who knew all -about me? You ever heard of James Burden?” - -“No,” replied Marcelle, shaking her head. “How could I know all the -fellows of your father’s college? Newnham students in my day were kept -far from the madding crowd of dons.” - -“Well, what about seeing the sentimental blighter? Oh, of course he’s -sentimental. His ‘double purpose’ reeks of it. Rather what before the -war we used to call ‘colonial.’ What shall I do? Shall I tell him to -come along?” - -“Why not? It can do no harm.” - -Godfrey reflected for a few moments. Then he said: - -“You see, before I met you I would have jumped at the idea of seeing an -old friend of my father. But you knew more of him than the whole lot of -the others put together. I’ve got my intimate picture of him through -you. I’m not so keen to get sidelights, possibly distorting lights, from -anybody else. You see what I mean, don’t you?” - -“I see,” said Marcelle. “Let us have a look at the foot.” - -She plied her nurse’s craft; set him up for the day’s mild activities. -When he hobbled an hour later into the hall to attend to his -correspondence and resume his study of the late Dr. Routh’s _Treatise on -Rigid Dynamics_, he wrote a polite note to Mr. Burden suggesting an -appointment. After all, even in such luxurious quarters as Churton -Towers, life was a bit monotonous, and stragglers from the outer world -not unwelcome. It was all very well for most of his comrades, who had -mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, girl friends attached and unattached -to visit them; but he, Godfrey, had found himself singularly alone. Here -and there a representative of the Woodcott crowd had paid him a -perfunctory visit. He professed courteous appreciation. But they were -not his people. Memories of his pariah boyhood discounted their gush -over the one-footed hero with the Military Cross. He was cynical enough -to recognize that they took a vast lot of the credit to themselves, to -the Family. They went away puffed with pride and promises. He said to -Marcelle: - -“I’m not taking any.” - -A few men friends, chiefly men on leave, wandered down from time to -time. But they had the same old tales to tell; of conditions in the -sector, of changes in the battalion, of such and such a scrap, of -promotions and deaths, a depressing devil of a lot of deaths; the -battalion wasn’t what it was when Godfrey left it; he could not imagine -the weird creatures in Sam Browne belts that blew in from nowhere, to -take command of platoons, things with their mother’s milk wet on their -lips, and garters from the Burlington Arcade, their idea of devilry, in -their pockets. And the N.C.O.s! My God! Oh, for the good old days -of—six months ago! - -Godfrey, wise in his generation, laughed at the jeremiads of these -callow _laudatores temporis acti_, and on probing further, satisfied -himself that everything was still for the best in the best of all -possible armies. He also found that ginger was still hot in the mouths -of these friends of his, and that he had not lived until he had seen -Betty or Kitty or Elsie So-and-So, or such and such a Revue. - -Frankly and boyishly, his appreciated his friends’ entertaining chatter. -But they came and went, with the superficial _bonhomie_ of the modern -soldier. They touched no depths. If he had died of his gangrened foot, -they would have said “Poor old chap!” and thought no more about him. He -did not condemn them, for he himself had said and thought the same of -many a comrade who had gone West. It was part of the game which he -played as scrupulously and as callously as the others. He craved, -however, solicitude deeper and more permanent. - -Of course there was Dorothy Mackworth. She did not come to Churton -Towers; but she had dutifully attended the Carlton when he had summoned -her thither to meet Sister Baring, and put on for his benefit her most -adorable clothing and behaviour. The lunch had been a meal of delight. -The young man glowed over his guests—the two prettiest women, so he -declared, in the room. Marcelle in the much-admired hat, her cheeks -slightly flushed and her eyes bright, looked absurdly young. The girl, -conscious of angelic dealing, carried off her own absurd youth with a -conquering air that bewitched him more than ever. She dropped golden -words: - -“Oh, let us cut out Leopold! I’ve no use for him.” - -She had no use for Leopold Doon, his half-brother and rival. He was to -be cut out of their happy thoughts. Also: - -“I’m not going to have you creep back into civil life and bury yourself -at Cambridge. You’d get a hump there you’d never recover from. There’s -lots of jobs on the staff for a brainy fellow like him, aren’t there, -Miss Baring? I’ll press father’s button and he’ll do the rest.” - -Now Dorothy’s father was a Major-General doing things at Whitehall, -whose nature was indicated by mystic capital letters after his name. - -“You’ll look splendid in red tabs,” she added. - -This profession of interest and this air of proprietorship enraptured -him. Under the ban of her displeasure Cambridge faded into a dreary, -tumbledown desolation. She had but to touch him with her fairy wand and -he would break out all over in red tabs. She spoke with assurance in the -future tense. - -And again, in a low voice, on their winding way out through the tables -of the restaurant, Marcelle preceding them by a yard or two: - -“Miss Baring’s a real dear. But don’t fall in love with her, for I swear -I’m not going to play gooseberry.” - -He had protested in a whisper: “Fall in love with anyone but you?” - -And she had replied: “I think I’m nice enough,” and had laughed at him -over her shoulder and looked exceedingly desirable. - -He had never dared till that inspired moment speak to her of love in -plain, bald terms; now he had done it and not only remained unfrozen, -but basked in the warmth of her approval. - -“I think that’s the most beautiful beano I’ve ever had,” he said to -Marcelle, on their journey back to Godalming. - -Yes. There was Dorothy. She had promised to participate in a similar -beano any time he liked. But such bright occurrences must be rare. He -longed to plunge into fervid correspondence. Caution restrained him. -Elusive and perplexing, Heaven knew what she might say to a violent -declaration of passion. It might ruin a state of things both delicate -and delicious. Far better carry on his wooing by word of mouth. - -In the meanwhile, the days at Churton Towers were long and life lacked -variety. So he looked forward to the visit of Mr. James Burden, compound -of fossil and sentimental blighter though he might be. - - * * * * * - -Punctually at three o’clock, the appointed hour, one afternoon, the maid -who attended the door came up to Godfrey Baltazar waiting lonely in the -great hall, and announced the visitor. With the aid of the now familiar -crutch he rose nimbly. He saw advancing towards him in a brisk, brusque -way, a still young-looking man in grey tweeds, rather above medium -height, thickset, giving an immediate impression of physical strength. - -“Are you Mr. Godfrey Baltazar?” - -“Yes, sir,” said the boy courteously. - -“My name is Burden. It’s good of you to let me come to see you.” - -He grasped Godfrey’s hand in a close grip and looked at him keenly out -of bright grey eyes. Not much fossil there, thought the young man. On -the contrary, a singularly live personality. There was strength in the -heavy though clean-cut face, marked by the deep vertical furrow between -the brows; strength in the coarse, though well-trimmed, thatch of brown -hair unstreaked by grey; strength in his voice. - -“Do sit down,” said Godfrey. - -Baltazar sat down and, looking at his son, clutched the arm of his -chair. Crosby and Sheepshanks were right. A splendid fellow, the ideal -of a soldier, clean run, clear eyes; a touch of distinction and breed -about him, manifestation of the indomitable old Huguenot strain. By God! -A boy to be proud of; and he saw bits of himself in the boy’s features, -expression and gesture. A thrill ran through him as he drank in the new -joy of parenthood. Yet through the joy pain stabbed him—fierce -resentment against Fate, which had cheated him of the wonderful years of -the boy’s growth and development. For the first time in his decisive -life he felt tongue-tied and embarrassed. He cursed the craftiness that -brought him hither under an assumed name. Yet, had he written as John -Baltazar, he would have risked a rebuff. What sentimental regard or -respect could this young man have for his unknown and unnatural father? -At any rate his primary object had been attained. Here he was in his -son’s presence, a courteously welcomed guest. He looked at him with -yearning eyes; Godfrey met his gaze with cool politeness. Baltazar wiped -a perspiring brow. After a few moments Godfrey broke an awkward -situation by offering his cigarette case. The cigarettes lit, Baltazar -said suddenly: - -“It’s an infernal shame!” - -“What?” asked Godfrey, startled. - -Baltazar pointed downwards. “That,” said he. - -“Oh!” Godfrey laughed. “I’m one of the lucky ones. Far better to have -stopped it with my foot than my head.” - -“But to limp about on crutches all your life—a fellow like you in the -pride of youth and strength. It makes one angry.” - -“That’s kind of you, sir,” said Godfrey. “But it doesn’t worry me much. -They’re wangling a new foot for me, and as soon as I can stick it on, -I’ll throw away my crutches, and no one but myself will be a bit the -wiser.” - -“You take it bravely,” said Baltazar. - -“It’s all in the day’s work. What’s the good of grousing? What’s the -point of a real foot, anyway, when a faked one will do as well?” - -But though Baltazar admired the young fellow’s careless courage, he -still glowered at the maimed leg. He resented fiercely the lost foot. He -had been robbed of a bit of this wonderful son. - -“How did you come to get hit?” he asked abruptly. - -There are many ways of asking a wounded man such a question. Many he -loathes. Hence the savagely facetious answers that have been put on -record. But there are ways that compel reply. Baltazar’s was one. -Godfrey felt strangely affected by the elder man’s earnestness; yet his -instinct forbade him to yield at once. - -“Getting hit’s as simple as being bowled out at cricket. A jolly sight -simpler. Like going out in the rain and getting wet. You just go out -without an umbrella and something hits you, and that’s the end of it.” - -“But when was it? How was it?” asked Baltazar. - -Godfrey, after the way of British subalterns, gave a bald account of his -personal adventures in his last fight near Ypres. It might have been a -description of a football match. Baltazar wondered. For all his -wanderings and experience of life, he had never heard a first-hand -account of modern warfare. The psychology of it perplexed and fascinated -him. He plied the young man with questions; shrewd, direct questions -piercing to the heart of things; and gradually Godfrey’s English reserve -melted, and he laid aside his defensive armour and told his intent -visitor what he wanted to know. And Baltazar’s swift brain seized the -vivid pictures and co-ordinated them until he grew aware of the hells -through which this young and debonair gentleman had passed. - -“And what did you get that for?” - -He pointed to the ribbon of the Military Cross. - -“I managed to get away with some machine guns out of a tight corner. It -was only when we were scooting back that I discovered we had been left -in the air. I thought the battalion was quite up close. If I hadn’t, I -should probably have bolted. These things are all flukes.” - -“What a proud man your father would have been,” said Baltazar. - -“By the way, yes,” said Godfrey. “I was forgetting. You were a friend of -my father’s.” - -“It’s a great misfortune that he never met you,” said Baltazar. - -“He disappeared before I was born,” Godfrey remarked drily. - -“I know. That’s why I wrote to you in some diffidence. I had no idea how -you regarded your father’s memory. I hope you appreciate my feeling that -I might be treading on delicate ground.” - -Godfrey waved an indulgent hand. “Oh, that’s all right, sir. My father -was a distinguished and romantic person, and I’m rather interested in -him than otherwise.” - -Baltazar drew a great breath of relief. At any rate he was not execrated -by the paragon of sons. “I see,” said he, his features relaxing, for the -first time, into a smile. “Like any other ancestor, he’s part of your -family history.” - -“Something of the sort. Only perhaps a bit nearer.” - -“How nearer?” - -“People live who knew him in the flesh. You, for instance.” - -“Yes,” said Baltazar. “I knew him intimately. We were undergraduates and -dons together. I left Cambridge about the same time as he did—when my -fellowship lapsed. I went away to the Far East, where I’ve spent my -life. I’m just back, you know. Instinct took me to Cambridge, a sort of -Rip van Winkle, to see if there were any remains of old friends—and my -visit to you is the result of my enquiries.” - -“When you wrote to me, I wondered whether you could tell me if my father -was alive or dead.” - -Baltazar made a little gesture. - -“_Quien sabe?_ From what I remember of John Baltazar he was not a man to -let himself die easily. He was the most obstinate mule I ever came -across. Death would have had a trying time with him. Besides, he was as -tough as a rhinoceros.” - -“So he still may be in the land of the living?” - -“As far as I know.” Baltazar leaned forward on his chair. “You have no -feeling of resentment against him?” - -“One can’t feel resentment against a shadow,” replied Godfrey. - -“Suppose he reappeared, what would be your attitude towards him?” - -Godfrey frowned at the touch of impertinence in the question which -probed too deeply. He glanced distrustfully at his visitor. - -“I’m afraid I’ve never considered the point,” he replied frostily. “Have -you any special reason for putting it to me?” - -Baltazar winced. “Only as a student of psychology. But I see you would -rather continue to regard him as a legendary character?” - -“Quite,” said Godfrey. - -“You must forgive me, Mr. Baltazar,” said the father, with a smile. “I’m -half orientalized and only beginning to attune myself to Western habits -of thought. I lived for so many years in the interior of China that I -almost lost the Western point of view. Well, there the basis of all -religious and philosophic systems is filial piety. The whole moral and -political system of the Empire has been reared on it for thousands of -years. If you were a Chinaman, you would venerate your father, no matter -what grievances you might have against him or how shadowy and legendary -he might be.” - -“But I’m not a Chinaman,” said Godfrey. - -“Precisely. That’s where your typically Western point of view is of -great interest to me. I hope, therefore, you see that the question I put -to you, although it may be one of curiosity, is of philosophical and not -idle curiosity.” - -“I see,” replied Godfrey, smiling and mollified. “May I ask you which of -the two attitudes you consider the most workable in practical life?” - -“I told you just now,” said Baltazar, “that my mind was in process of -adjustment.” - -There came a slight pause. Godfrey broke it by suggesting politely that -Mr. Burden must have found Cambridge greatly changed. Baltazar launched -into vivid description of the toga giving way to arms. Eventually came -to personalities. The death of Dr. Crosby’s only son. - -“Yes. I heard,” said Godfrey. “Fine soldier. Done in by high explosive -shell. Not a trace of him or six others left. Not even the heel of a -boot.” - -“How lightly you all take death nowadays,” Baltazar remarked -wonderingly. - -“That oughtn’t to surprise you,” said Godfrey. “I’ve been led to believe -they don’t worry their heads much about it in China.” - -“I thought it one of the points at which East and West could never -touch.” He laughed. “More readjustment, you see.” - -“In the Army we’ve got either to be fatalists or lunatics. If your -number’s up it’s up, and that’s all there is to it. _You_ can’t do -anything. You can’t even run away.” - -“But surely you cling to life—young men like you—with all sorts of -golden promises in front of you?” - -“We don’t do silly ass things,” said Godfrey. “We don’t stand about like -Ajaxes defying the lightning. When shells come we scurry like rabbits -into the nearest funk-hole. We’re not a bit brave unless there’s no help -for it. But when you see so many people killed around you, you say ‘My -turn next,’ and it doesn’t seem to matter. You think ‘Who the blazes are -you that you should be so precious?’ . . . No. Going out all in the -fraction of a second like Crosby doesn’t matter. Why should it? What -does give you a horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach is the fear -lest you may be utterly messed up and go on living. But death itself is -too damned ordinary. At any rate, that’s the way I size it up. Of course -it’s pretty cheap and easy for a lucky beggar like me, who’s out of it -for ever, to talk hot philosophic air—but all the same, looking back, I -think I’ve told you in a vague sort of way what I felt when I was out in -France. Sometimes the whole thing seems a nightmare. At others, I want -to kick myself for sitting here in luxury when there’s so much to be -done out there. I had got my platoon—I was acting first -lieutenant—like a high-class orchestra—just the last two months, you -know. It was the weirdest feeling. I just had to wave my baton and they -did everything I wanted. Once or twice I nearly cried with sheer -amazement. And then just when the band was playing its damndest, I got -knocked out and fainted like a silly fool, and woke up miles away. When -one has sweated one’s guts out over a thing, it’s annoying not to reap -the fruit of it. It’s rough luck. It’s—well——” - -Suddenly self-consciousness returned. He flushed deeply. - -“I’m awfully sorry, sir. I never meant to bore you like this about -myself.” - -“Bore me!” cried Baltazar. “My dear fellow, you could go on like this -for ever and command my most amazed interest. Do go on.” - -“It’s very kind of you,” stammered the young man, “but—really——” - -He stopped, confused, embarrassed, ashamed of his boasting. Never had he -spoken like that to human being of his incomparable platoon. Never had -he unveiled to profane eyes his soldier’s Holy of Holies. Certainly not -to his comrades. Not to Dorothy. Not even to Marcelle. What on earth -must this stranger, whom he didn’t know from Adam, be thinking of him? -He lit a cigarette, before, remembering manners, he offered his case to -his visitor. The sense of sentimental braggadocio overwhelmed him, -burning him red-hot. He longed with sudden fury to get rid of this -uncanny guest with his clear, compelling eyes, which even now steadily -regarded him with an inscrutable smile and continued the impossible -invitation: “Do go on.” He could no more go on than smite him over the -head with his crutch (which he was far more inclined to do) for plucking -out the heart of his mystery. If only the man would go! But he sat -there, strong, urbane, maddeningly kind. He hated him. Yet he felt -himself under his influence. From the man seemed to emanate a suggestion -of friendship, interest, control, which his sensitive English spirit -vehemently repudiated. He heard him say: - -“The old French blood in your veins has suddenly come up against the -English.” - -He started. “What do you know about my French ancestry?” - -“Your father was very proud of his Huguenot descent.” - -“My father!” cried Godfrey, his nerves on edge. “I’m rather fed up with -my father. I wish he had never been born.” - -Baltazar rose. “I’m sorry,” said he courteously, “to have distressed -you. Believe me, it was far from my intention.” - -Godfrey stared at him for a second, and passed his hand across his eyes. - -“It’s for me to apologize. I’m afraid I’ve been rude. Please don’t go.” - -But Baltazar stood smiling, holding out his hand. Now that the man was -going Godfrey realized the enormity of his own discourtesy. He looked -around as if seeking some outlet for the situation. And then, as if in -answer to a prayer, at the end of the hall appeared the passing, -grey-clad figure of a guardian angel. - -“Sister!” he cried. - -Marcelle halted, smiled, and advanced towards him. - -“Sister,” said he, “this is Mr. James Burden. You ought to know each -other. You both knew my father.” - -Baltazar turned. And for a few speechless seconds he and Marcelle stared -into each other’s eyes. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -GODFREY half rose from his chair, more than puzzled by the mutual -recognition. - -“You said you didn’t know Mr. Burden,” he cried. - -But neither heeded him. Baltazar made a stride forward and with one hand -gripped Marcelle by the arm and with the other motioned in his imperious -way to the open door. Still looking at him in wonderment, she allowed -him to lead her quickly to the terrace at the head of the steps. -Godfrey’s astonished gaze followed them till they disappeared. Outside, -Baltazar released her. - -“Marcelle! What in thunder are you doing here?” - -She was too greatly overwhelmed to reply. She could only gasp a few -broken and foolish words. - -“You? John Baltazar? Alive?” - -“Never been less dead. But you! You of all people. My God! although I -lost you, I could never lose your face. It has been with me all the -time. And there it is, the same as ever. But what are you doing here?” - -She made a vague gesture over her costume. - -“I’m a professional nurse. Sister-in-charge. I’ve been nursing all my -life.” - -“Not when I knew you,” said Baltazar. - -“My life began after that.” - -“Married?” - -The colour came back into her white cheeks. “No,” she said. - -“Neither am I.” - -He put both hands on her shrinking shoulders and bent on her eyes which -she could not meet. - -“You at last, after all these years! Just the same. Just as beautiful. -Much more.” - -“This is rather public,” she managed to say, releasing herself. “There -are lots of patients——” - -He laughed and, indicating the parapet, invited her to sit. - -“You must forgive me,” he said, seating himself by her side. “The sight -of you blotted out the world. Don’t be frightened. I’m quite tame now. -Look at me.” - -She obeyed him as she had done in her early girlhood, dominated for the -moment by his tone. - -“How do you think I’m looking? Battered by time? A crock to be wrapped -up in flannel and set in the chimney-corner to wheeze the rest of his -life away?” - -“You look very little older,” she said with a wan smile. “And you -haven’t a grey hair in your head.” - -“That’s good. I’m as young as ever I was. I can sweep away twenty years -and begin where I left off.” - -“You’re more fortunate than I am,” said Marcelle. - -“Rubbish!” said Baltazar. - -She glanced at him wistfully and then out over the trees. - -“Nursing isn’t the road to perpetual youth,” she said. Then lest he -should catch up her words, she continued swiftly: “But you must tell me -where you have been, how you’ve come back to life. You disappeared -utterly. You never wrote. If we all thought you dead, was it our fault? -When Godfrey showed me your letter, I never dreamed who James Burden -might be.” - -“Godfrey?” Baltazar pounced on the name. “Do you call him Godfrey? Then -you must be old friends. Hence the miracle of finding you together. Have -you been mothering him all his life?” - -She shook her head. “How you jump at conclusions! No. I met him for the -first time when I came here—a month ago.” - -“So it’s just Chance, Fate, Destiny, the three of us meeting like this? -The hand of God? . . . Wait, though. I can’t see quite clearly. You -learned he was my son?” - -She smiled again: - -“Do you think we call all young officers here by their Christian names?” - -“Does he know that you knew me?” - -“If he didn’t,” she replied, “he wouldn’t have consulted me about Mr. -Burden’s letter. I wish I had been mothering him all his life,” she -added after a pause; “but I’ve been doing my best for the last month. I -can’t help loving him.” - -“What does he know about you and me?” - -“I’ve told him everything,” said Marcelle. - -Baltazar started to his feet. - -“Then when he saw us gaping at each other just now, he must have -guessed, or he can’t have any Baltazar brains in his head.” He moved -away a pace; then turned on her. “You gave me a good character?” - -Her head was bowed. She did not see the rare laughter in his eyes, but -took his question seriously. - -“Can you doubt it?” She beckoned him nearer, and said in a low voice: “I -may have been wrong, but I have given him to understand that it was -entirely on my account—you know what I mean——” - -“What other reason, in the name of God could I have had?” he exclaimed -with a large gesture. - -If there had lingered a doubt in her mind, the note of sincerity in the -man’s cry would have driven it away for ever. It awoke a harmonic chord -of gladness in her heart and her whole being vibrated. Although John -Baltazar’s subsequent career was as yet dark and mysterious, her faith, -at least, was justified. She said without looking at him: - -“You’ll find that I’ve been loyal.” - -He strode towards her and, disregarding the perils of publicity, again -took her by the shoulders. - -“What kind of a cynical beast do you think I’ve turned into?” - -He swept away, leaving her physically conscious of the impress of his -fingers in her flesh and her brain reeling. - - * * * * * - -Baltazar marched into the great hall to Godfrey, still sitting in his -arm-chair, his maimed leg, as usual, supported on the outstretched -crutch. - -“No, don’t get up.” - -He swung the chair which he had previously occupied dose to Godfrey’s -and sat down. - -“By this time you must have guessed who I am,” he said in his direct -fashion. - -“I suppose you’re my father,” said the young man. - -“I am,” replied Baltazar. “My extraordinary meeting with Miss Baring -gave me away. Didn’t it?” - -“I suppose it did. Perhaps I ought to have suspected something when you -mentioned China. But I didn’t.” - -“The assumed name was the one I was known by for eighteen years—ever -since I left England. I thought I’d take it up again for the sake of a -reconnaissance, like the rich old uncle in the play, to see what kind of -a man you were and how you looked upon your unknown father. Hence the -questions you may have thought impertinent.” - -“I quite see,” said Godfrey, pulling at his short-cropped moustache. - -Baltazar threw himself back in his chair. “Well, there it is. We’re -father and son. Miss Baring has told you, from her point of view, why I -threw over everything and disappeared. Her conjecture is absolutely -correct. I must, however, say one thing to you, once and for all. I -hadn’t the remotest idea that you were coming into the world. If I had, -I should have remained and done my duty. I only heard of your existence -a week ago—at Cambridge.” - -“Yes?” said Godfrey. - -“Let us come straight to the point then. You either believe me or -disbelieve me. If you don’t believe me, nothing I can ever say or do -will make you. If you do believe me, we can go ahead. It’s the vital -point in our future relations. Speak out straight. Which is it?” - -Godfrey looked for a few seconds into the luminous grey eyes—his own -were somewhat hard—and then he said very deliberately: - -“I certainly believe you. My conversations with Sister Baring made me -take that particular point for granted.” - -Baltazar drew a long breath. - -“That’s all right, then. I think I also ought to assure you that beyond -giving Cambridge a nine days’ wonder, I have done nothing to discredit -the name of Baltazar. In China I had a position which no European to my -knowledge has attained since Marco Polo. I left on account of the -warring between two ideals—the Old China and the New. I belonged to the -Old. I found I couldn’t find orientation unless I came West for it. I -returned to England two years ago.” - -“And you only went up to Cambridge last week?” - -“Precisely. The intervening time I spent in a remarkable manner, which -I’ll tell you about on another occasion. In the meanwhile we’re face to -face with the overwhelming fact that I’ve discovered an unsuspected son, -and you a legendary father. I’m fairly well off. So, I presume, are you. -If you’re not, my means are yours. It’s well to clear the air, from the -very beginning of any possible sordid bogies.” - -“I never dreamed of such a thing,” said Godfrey. - -“All right. That’s settled. We come now to the main point. We’re father -and son. What are we going to do about it?” - -“It’s a peculiar situation, sir,” said Godfrey. - -Baltazar, who in the impatient interval between Sheepshanks’s staggering -news and the present interview, had pictured many a _dénouement_ of the -inevitable drama, had never pictured one so cold and unemotional as -this. The Chinese filial ideal he knew to be non-existent in the West; -but in his uncompromising way he had imagined extremes. Either scornful -enmity and repudiation, or a gush of human sentiment. A scene in a silly -old French melodrama, a memory of boyhood, had haunted him. “_Mon -fils!_”—“_Mon père!_” And the twain had thrown themselves into each -other’s arms. But neither of these dramatic situations had arisen. The -situation, indeed, was characterized by the cool and thoughtful young -man merely as “peculiar.” Well, it was an intelligent view. The boy had -heard the arguments of the advocates of the devil and the advocates of -the angels, and he had formed a sound and favourable judgment. On the -angels’ advocacy he had never reckoned. So much was there to the good. -He was not condemned. On the other hand, he saw no signs of filial -emotion. He himself, with his expansive temperament, would have rejoiced -at being able to cry “_Mon fils!_” and clasp to his breast this son of -his loins, this splendid continuance of his blood and his brain. But in -the calm, collected young soldier he could discover no germ of -reciprocated sentiment. He felt disappointed, almost rebuffed. All the -pent-up emotion of the lonely man was ready to burst the lock-gates; it -had to surge back on itself. - -After a long silence, he said: “Yes, you’re right. It is a peculiar -situation. Perhaps circumstances make me take it more—what shall we -say—more emotionally than you. After all, I’m a perfect stranger. I’ve -never done a hand’s turn for you. I may be a complication in your -life—to put it brutally—a damned nuisance. I don’t want to be one, I -assure you.” - -“Of course not,” Godfrey answered, with wrinkled forehead. “I quite -understand. You must forgive me, sir, if I don’t say much; but you’ll -agree that this revelation, or whatever we like to call it, is a bit -sudden. If your mind, as you said just now, is in process of adjustment, -what do you think mine must be?” - -“All right,” said Baltazar. “Let us leave it at that for the present.” - -He rose and marched to the door in search of Marcelle. But she had -disappeared from the terrace and was nowhere visible to his eye scanning -the garden. When he returned to the hall, Godfrey was standing. - -“I suppose I must give the two of you time to recover from the shock of -me. I can quite understand that bouncing in from the dead like this is -disconcerting to one’s friends.” He looked at his watch. “I must be -catching my train. I shall see you soon again, I hope.” - -“I was wondering, sir, whether you would lunch with me in town -to-morrow,” said Godfrey. - -“Can you travel about like that?” - -“Oh, Lord! yes. I’m going up to London in any case.” - -“Then we’ll fix it. Only you’ll lunch with me. It seems more fitting. -When? Where? I have no club. My membership of the Athenæum lapsed twenty -years ago. And, even if it hadn’t, the Megatherium—Thackeray’s name for -it—is no good for hospitable purposes. Shall we say the Savoy at -one-thirty?” - -“That will suit me admirably,” said the young man. - -“Good-bye.” - -They shook hands. Godfrey accompanied him to the terrace. - -“Have you a taxi or cab waiting?” - -“I came on the feet which I unworthily possess,” replied Baltazar with a -smile. “Tell Sister Baring I looked for her and she was gone.” - -“I’ll send an orderly to find her, if you like.” - -Baltazar hesitated for a moment. A quick tenderness checked impetuous -impulse. - -“No, no!” he answered with a smile. “I’ve worried her sufficiently for -to-day. She’ll hear from me soon enough.” - -They shook hands again and he ran down the marble stairs, and, waving a -farewell, strode away with the elastic tread of youth. After a while -Godfrey hobbled down, and, passing by the tennis courts and through the -Japanese garden, arrived at the beech-wood, scene of their first and so -many subsequent intimate talks, where he felt sure he should find -Marcelle. He saw her, before she realized his approach, sitting on a -bench; staring in front of her, her hands listless by her side. On the -palm of one of them lay a crumpled ball of a handkerchief. She had been -crying. As soon as she heard him she started and, looking round, greeted -him with a smile. - -“I knew I’d get you here,” he said, sitting down by her side. “The -long-lost parent has gone. He sent you a message.” - -He gave its substance. She nodded. - -“He’s quite right. I need a little time to get used to it.” - -Godfrey said: “Shall I clear out and leave you alone? Do tell me.” - -“No, no!” she said quickly. “I want you. I was just feeling dreadfully -alone.” - -“Defenceless?” - -“What makes you say that?” she asked, alarm in her eyes. For she had -been frightened, absurdly frightened, by the swift, sudden force that -had impinged on her well-ordered way of life. It had set her wits -wandering, her nerves jangling, her emotions dancing a grotesque and -unintelligible saraband. Her shoulders still felt the clutch of -irresistible fingers. She was sure they would bear black and blue marks -for days. The virginal in her shrank from the possible contemplation of -them in her mirror. Defenceless was the very word. What uncanny insight -had suggested it to Godfrey? - -In reply, he shrugged his shoulders. Then he said: - -“That’s how I feel, anyway. And if you want me, I want you. That’s why -I’ve ferreted you out. It strikes me we’re more or less in the same -boat. What are we going to do?” - -“I don’t know,” she replied absently. - -The beech foliage was just beginning to turn faint golden. Here and -there a leaf fell. A brown squirrel scampering up a branch of a tree -close in front of them, suddenly halted and watched them, as though -wondering why the two humans sat so still and depressed on that mellow -autumn afternoon. The sun was slanting warmly through the leaves. The -beech-mast, young and tender, provided infinity of food beyond the -dreams of gluttony. Never an enemy menaced the exquisite demesne. God -was in His heaven, and all was right with the world. What in the name of -Nature was there to worry these two humans? Well, it was no business of -his, and he had enough business of his own to attend to. He glanced -aside, and his quick eyes spotting a field-mouse at the base of a -neighbouring tree, he darted off, a streak of brown lightning, in -pursuit. - -Presently Godfrey spoke, digging in front of him with his rubber-shod -crutch. - -“To be interested in a legendary sort of father is one thing. There’s -imagination and romance and atmosphere about it. But it’s another thing -to have this same father burst on one in flesh and blood—and such a lot -of flesh and blood! Now a venerable, white-haired old sinner, with a -pathetic, intellectual face, might appeal to one’s sentiment. But this -new father of mine doesn’t. I may be unnatural, Marcelle, but he -doesn’t. Mind you, I’ve no grouch against him. Not a bit. I’m convinced -he thought he was doing right to everybody. When he learned that I -existed, he was struck all of a heap. He lost no time in tracking me -down. He’s actuated by the best motives. . . . All the same, I can’t -rise to it. The more he tried to make an appeal, the more antagonistic I -grew. It’s beyond explanation.” - -“You’ll learn to love him,” said Marcelle loyally, yet without -conviction. “He’s a splendid man.” - -“He’ll want to run me. Now I’ve run myself all my life. So I’ll not -stand for it. He’ll want to run you too. You know it, Marcelle. That’s -why you’ve been sitting here feeling lonely and defenceless.” - -She laughed ruefully. “I suppose it is.” - -“The way he clawed hold of you and dragged you out——” - -“That’s the way he clawed hold of himself and dragged himself out, -remember,” replied Marcelle. - -“A queer devil!” said Godfrey. “Do you know what he suggests to me? A -disconnected dynamo.” He laughed. “He ought to be hitched on to the war. -He’d buck it up.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -CAMBRIDGE put Baltazar on the track of old acquaintances, so that on his -return to London he found himself in contact with people of his own -standing who could explain to him the contemporary attitude of mind. -There was Burtingshaw, K.C., for instance, a member of the Inventions -Committee, and Weatherley, a professor of Modern History, whom the war -had developed into an indefatigable publicist, and Jackman, a curious -blend of classical scholar and man of business, who had allowed his -family mustard-making firm to look after itself while he spent laborious -days at the Admiralty in uncomfortable naval uniform. All welcomed the -elderly prodigal, though in return for fatted calves—these were happy -days before rationing—they demanded an account of his adventures. A man -can’t make a sensational disappearance from a small social unit and turn -up twenty years afterwards, without encountering natural human -curiosity. This, over and over again, he had to satisfy, until he began -to regard his absurd history with loathing, especially that of the past -two years. He went through it, however, grimly, as part of the penalty -he must pay for folly. After his first meeting with them at offices and -clubs, he received invitations to dinner at their respective homes. - -The night before he went to Godalming he dined with the Jackmans. The -family consisted of Mrs. Jackman, a homely woman, who spent most of her -time at a Y.M.C.A. canteen on the south side of the river, two young -girls and a boy home on leave from France. A few guests had been invited -to meet John Baltazar; a colonel of artillery on sick leave, a -notoriously question-asking Conservative member of Parliament, a judge, -the wives of the two last, and a woman just back from eighteen months’ -Red Cross work on the Russian front. A typical war gathering. - -As soon as chance enabled him to speak to his host after his entrance -into this galaxy of civilization, he said: - -“Man alive! you shouldn’t have asked all these people. I’ve not been in -a European drawing-room for twenty years. My instinct is to wander -about, growling, like a bear.” - -Jackman, a florid, good-natured, clean-shaven man, laughed. - -“It’s for your good. The sooner you get into the ways of the world the -better.” - -“But what the devil shall I talk about?” - -“Let the other people talk. You listen. I thought that was what you -wanted.” - -Baltazar sat between Mrs. Jackman and the lady from Russia. At first he -felt somewhat embarrassed, even dazed. He had not conversed with -intelligent women since his flight from England. Even in his brave -University days, his scholarly habits had precluded him from mingling -much in the general society of Cambridge. Now the broad feminine outlook -somewhat mystified him. The vital question which once was referred to in -bated breath as the Social Evil, cropped up, he knew not how. His two -neighbours talked across him with a calm frankness that rendered him -speechless. He looked around the table, apprehensive lest the two young -girls might be overhearing the conversation. Their mother did not seem -to care in the least. She quoted statistics in a loud, clear voice. The -Red Cross lady sketched conditions in Russia. The question was suddenly -put to him: What about China? The fifty-year-old child of a forgotten -day caught at the opening and talked hurriedly. He had lived in the -heart of old China, mainly an agricultural population, a more or less -moral, ancestor-fearing and tradition-bound welter of humanity. There -was much to be said for old China, in spite of the absence of elementary -ideas of sanitation and the ignorance of the new-fangled Western science -of eugenics. Even now girl children’s feet were being bound. The ladies -followed his desperate red herring and began a less alarming argument on -infant welfare. When pressed for his opinion, he said: - -“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby at close quarters. I don’t remember -ever having touched one. I have it on hearsay that the proper thing to -do is to prod a baby’s cheek with the tip of your finger, which you wipe -surreptitiously on your trousers. But I haven’t done it. I know nothing -at all about ’em. In fact, your proposition that babies are an important -part of the body politic has never occurred to me. In prolific China -babies spring up like weeds, unregarded. Some of them die, some of them -live. And the living are for the most part weeds too. One gets used -there to an almost animal conception of the phenomena of life and death. -I’m learning all sorts of things, getting all sorts of new points of -view. Just see if I’m right. Modern Europe isn’t China. Even before the -war, the birth-rate was a matter of anxiety. Now Europe, de-populated of -her male youth, is in a desperate quandary. Every baby is a priceless -asset to the race. Lord!” said he, pushing spoon and fork abruptly -together on his plate, “I never thought of it. I must appear to you like -a fellow on a great Cunarder, proclaiming his discovery of America. But -the discovery is there all the same. The idea never entered my head till -this minute. Everybody’s got to produce babies as fast as they can, and -everybody’s sacred duty is to see that they live and thrive and become -potential parents of more healthy babies. That’s the proposition, isn’t -it?” - -Comfortable Mrs. Jackman smilingly agreed. Without doubt that was the -proposition. The flower of the world cut off by the war. . . . Oh! it -staggered imagination to speculate on the number of bright young lives -sacrificed! There was So-and-So, and Somebody Else’s son. Too tragic! -The talk turned at once to the terrible intimacy of the war. Baltazar -listened and learned many things. - -When the men were left alone, Baltazar learned more things about the -war; the blunders, the half-heartednesses, the mysterious influences -that petrified action. The soldier spoke of the fierce fight of a -devoted little set of enthusiasts for an adequate supply of machine -guns; the judge of hidden German ramifications against which he, as a -mere administrator of written law, was powerless; the Conservative -member of Parliament—his revelations made every particular hair of -Baltazar’s brown thatch stand on end. Jackman talked of labour troubles, -mentioned a recent case in which thousands of men making essential -munitions of war had downed tools because a drunken pacifist, a workman, -had been dismissed from a factory. Baltazar, only a month awakened to -the fact of war, held the same bewildered view of strikes as had nearly -driven him forth at midnight from Pillivant’s house. He burst out: - -“Why don’t they take the traitors and blow them from the cannon’s -mouth?” - -The Member of Parliament laughed aloud: - -“There’s nothing like a fresh mind on things.” - -“Well, why don’t they?” - -“Don’t you think,” said the judge, “that such a course might tend to -dishearten the working classes?” - -“It wouldn’t dishearten the Army,” declared the literal-minded Colonel. -“The men would be all for it. If any fellows tried to go on strike in -the Army they’d be shot on sight.” - -He was the only one of the company who advocated violent measures. The -others seemed to regard strikes as phenomena of nature impeding the war -like artillery-arresting mud, or as inevitable accidents like explosions -in powder factories. Baltazar went away full of undigested knowledge. - -On his return from Godalming he dined with Weatherley, a bachelor, and a -small gathering of fellow publicists. Here the conversation ran on more -intellectual lines. The war was considered from the international -standpoint, discussions turned on the subject-races of Austria, the -inner history of the Roumanian campaign, the sinister situation in -Greece, the failure of Allied diplomacy all through Eastern Europe. -Baltazar listened eagerly to the good keen talk, and went back to his -hotel braced and exhilarated. Even if they had all been talking through -their hats, it would not matter. Premises granted, the logic of it all -had been faultless, an intellectual joy. And they had not been talking -through their hats. They were men who knew, men who had access to vital -information apparently despised by the Foreign Office. - -He had fallen into a universe which seemed to be more and more -inextricably jumbled as his outlook widened. But how splendidly -interesting! Take just the little fraction of it given up to the -Czecho-Slovacs and the Jugo-Slavs . . . Serbs, Croats, Slovenes. . . . -He had hitherto paid as little attention to them as to Lepidoptera and -Coleoptera, and other families of bugs with Latin names, to whose -history and habits, not being an entomologist, he was perfectly -indifferent. He had never thought of them as possible factors in the -future of Europe. Now that he was in touch with his kind again, London -ceased to be a city of dreadful night. In his enthusiastic eyes it had -almost become a _ville lumière_. - -A week had wrought miraculous changes—that day the most miraculous of -all. At the back of his delight, through the evening’s rare -entertainment ran a thrill of amazed happiness. A week ago he had -floundered here derelict, lost, unwanted, a sick Chinaman his only link -with humanity. Now he was safe on sunny seas, bound once more to life by -friends, by a new-found son, in itself an adamantine tie, and, wonder of -wonders, by the woman for whose sake he had revolutionized his existence -and whose fragrant girlish memory had sanctified his after years. - -He might have married well in China. Polygamy being recognized, the fact -of his having a wife alive in England would not have rendered such a -marriage illegal according to Chinese law. He had many opportunities, -for he held a position there unique for a European; and a delicately -nurtured Chinese lady can be an exquisite thing in womanhood, more than -alluring to a lonely, full-blooded man. But ever between him and a not -dishonourable temptation had floated the flower-shape of the English -girl with her pink and white face and her light brown hair and her hazel -eyes, through which shone her English wit and her English understanding -and her English love and her English soul. Not that he had eaten out his -heart for twenty years for Marcelle. He had wiped her as a disturbing -element clean out of his existence. His loyalty had been passive rather -than active. He had made no attempt to throw open gates and go in search -of her. But at hostile approach the gates had been uncompromisingly -shut. - -The wonder of wonders had happened. In one respect, the wonder of all -possible wonders had happened. - -There had been no disillusion. - -In the gap of twenty years between girl and woman, what devastating life -forces might have been at work, wiping bloom from cheek, dulling gleam -from eyes, distorting lips, smiting haggard lines on face, hardening or -unshapening sweet and beloved contours; hardening, too, the mind, drying -up the heart, arresting the development of the soul? As he had never -thought to see her in this world again, he had not speculated on such a -natural life-change. It was only now, when he had met her in the -gracious fullness of her woman’s beauty, that he shivered at the thought -of that which might have been and exulted in the knowledge of that which -was. He remembered a woman, a friend of his wife, though much older, a -lovely dream of a woman of the fair, frail type, who had disappeared -from Cambridge for two or three years and then returned—suddenly old, -as though a withering hand had passed over her face. No such hand had -touched Marcelle. Then he pulled himself up and thought. How old is she? -Thirty-eight—thirty-nine. Twelve years younger than himself. He laughed -out loud. A mere child! What could she yet have to do with withering -hands? Fifty—thirty-eight! The heyday of life. What is fifty when a man -feels as young as at twenty-five? Novelists and dramatists were -responsible for the conventional idea of the decrepitude of man after -forty. The brilliant and compelling works of fiction are generally the -inspirations of young men who think the thirties are an age of incipient -decay. “An old dangling bachelor who was single at fifty!” cries the -abusive Lady Teazle. An old bachelor of fifty! Sheridan, of -six-and-twenty, thought of Sir Peter as the lean and slippered -pantaloon; and so has dramatic tradition always represented him. - -“Damn it!” cried Baltazar, feeling his muscles as he strode about his -bedroom, “I’m as hard as iron.” - -Satisfied with his youth, he sat down and wrote impulsive pages to -Marcelle, which he posted in the hotel post-box before going to bed. - -He ordered lunch the next day in the great room of the Savoy. - -“I’m having my son,” he said to the _maître-d’hotel_, with a thrill at -the new and unfamiliar word. “He has been wounded. I want the very best -you can do for us.” The _maître-d’hotel_, pencil and pad in hand, made -profuse suggestions. But Baltazar had forgotten the terms and indeed the -items of European gastronomy. “I leave it in your hands. The best the -Savoy can do. It’s the first meal I’ve had with my son—since—— And -wine. Champagne. What do you recommend?” - -The _maître-d’hotel_ pointed to a 1904 vintage on the list. There was -nothing better, said he. Baltazar agreed, suddenly aware that he knew no -more of vintage wines than of artillery drill. His ignorance irritated -him. - -“Do you mind if I look at that for a little?” - -The _maître-d’hotel_ handed him the wine list, and for half an hour he -sat by a table in the great empty restaurant studying the names of the -various wines and their vintages. Then, having mastered the information, -he began long before the appointed hour to pace up and down the -vestibule with an eye on every taxi-cab that swung round the -rubber-paved courtyard and deposited its fares at the door, as impatient -as any young subaltern waiting for his inamorata. - -Very proudly he conducted Godfrey to the reserved table in the middle of -the room. He would have liked to proclaim to each group of lunchers as -he passed: “This is my son, you know. Wounded and decorated for valour.” -To those who regarded them with any attention, they were obviously -father and son. But this Baltazar did not realize. - -“My boy,” said he, when the waiter had filled the two glasses, “I hope -you like champagne. For myself I am a confirmed teetotaller. But I come -from a land of strict ceremonial—and ceremonial ideas have got into my -bones. Our first meal together—we must drink in wine to what the future -has in store for us.” - -He smiled and held out his glass across the table. They touched rims. -Baltazar took a sip, then put his champagne aside and filled a tumbler -with mineral water. Godfrey was struck by the courtesy and suavity of -manner with which his father conducted the little ceremony; also, as the -lunch progressed, by his perfect hostship and by his charming -conversation. The disconnected dynamo could be, when he chose, a very -pleasant gentleman. By his tone and attitude he conveyed a man of the -world’s suggestion that this might be the beginning of an agreeable -acquaintance. Godfrey began to revise his first impression of his -father. Confidence increasing, he yielded to subtle pressure and spoke -in his English objective way about himself; about his schooldays, his -ambitions, his entrance scholarship, his brief University career. He -explained how his intimacy with Sister Baring sprang from the unfruitful -pages of _Routh’s Rigid Dynamics_. - -“Oh! that’s how she spotted you——?” - -“That’s how, sir. And then she told me she had read with you—and -eventually all the rest came.” - -“Life is very simple,” said Baltazar, “if we would only let it take its -own course. It’s when we begin to mess about with it ourselves that the -tangles come.” - -When the meal was ended and coffee and cigars were brought round, the -young man threw off further garments of reserve. - -“I wonder whether I may ask you a question, sir?” - -“A million,” replied Baltazar, “and I’ll do my best to answer every -one.” - -“It’s only this. You were such a great mathematician when you left -Cambridge. I’ve been wondering all the time since yesterday what has -happened—whether you’ve chucked mathematics or what——” - -“My boy,” said Baltazar, “you’ve touched on tragedy.” - -“I’m sorry,” said Godfrey. - -“Oh, you haven’t been indiscreet. By no means. You’re bound to hear it -sooner or later. So why not now? But it will take a little time. What -are your engagements?” - -“My afternoon is at your disposal, sir.” - -“Very good,” said Baltazar. “I shall now proceed to tell you the amazing -story of Spendale Farm, Quong Ho, and the Zeppelin.” - -Godfrey laughed. Youth that has drunk most of a bottle of perfect -champagne can afford to be indulgent. - -“That has quite an Oriental flavour,” said he. - -“A blend,” smiled Baltazar. - -The waiter, previously summoned, brought the bill. Godfrey, shrewd -observer, noted with gratification that his father merely glanced at the -total, and waved away the waiter with payment and tip all in the -fraction of a second. But a little while ago he had lunched, grudgingly -dutiful, with his uncle, Sir Richard Woodcott, who, when the bill was -presented, had ticked off the items with a gold pencil, comparing the -prices with the bill of fare, and had sent for the manager to protest a -charge for two portions of potatoes when only one was consumed, he being -forbidden potatoes by his medical man. He had raised his voice and made -a clatter, and neighbouring parties had smiled derisively and Godfrey -had reddened and glowered and wished either that the earth would swallow -him up or that hell-fire would engulf his millionaire uncle and trustee. - -“I see now, sir,” said he, “why I’m always broke to the world.” - -Baltazar flashed on him. “What do you mean?” - -“I don’t look at my bills either,” said he. - -Baltazar bent his keen gaze on his son. The remark had some -significance. At first he was puzzled. Then the solution flashed on him. - -“You’re thinking of that damned Woodcott crowd.” - -Godfrey gasped. “How on earth do you know that?” - -“I’ve lived in a country where unless you guess what the other fellow is -thinking of, you may be led astray by what he says. It’s a sort of -game.” He let the long ash of his cigar fall into his coffee-cup, and, -remembering Quong Ho, added, with his queer honesty: “I don’t pretend to -be an adept, as you will gather from the tale which I propose to relate. -Perhaps arm-chairs in a corner of the lounge might be more comfortable.” - -They rose. The heavily tipped waiter sprang to aid Godfrey with his -crutches. The boy paused. Baltazar waved him courteously on. - -“Go ahead.” - -On their way out they passed by a round table at which a large party -were assembled. Suddenly a young officer sprang up and laid a hand on -Godfrey’s shoulder. - -“Hallo! Hallo, dear old chap! It’s years since I’ve seen you.” - -“Not since we’ve been in uniform.” - -“By Jove, that’s true!” He pointed to the M.C. ribbon. “Splendid, old -chap, glorious!” - -“Glory all right,” laughed Godfrey, “but,” pointing downwards, “_sic -transit_——” - -“Oh, hell!” said the other. - -“Kinnaird,” said Godfrey, “let me introduce you to my father.” - -Baltazar beamed. His quick eyes gathered curious glances from the -luncheon party. It was a proud moment, inaugurating a definite parental -position. He wrung the young man’s hand cordially. Godfrey explained: -“Kinnaird and I were at Winchester and Cambridge together. He’s a -classical swell. When the war came it swallowed us up with different -mouths.” He turned to his friend. “Where have you been all the time?” - -“Gallipoli. Then a soft turn in Egypt. And you?” - -“Flanders and France.” - -“I’m off to France next week.” - -“Let us meet before you go. Where are you to be found?” - -They exchanged addresses. On leave-taking: - -“I’m proud to have met you, sir,” said Kinnaird. He turned and sat down -at his table. Father and son continued their way to the lounge. - -“Was that last remark of your friend,” asked Baltazar, “unusual -politeness, or did it mean anything?” - -“Most of my University friends, sir,” replied Godfrey, “know who my -father was.” - -“Oh!” said Baltazar, with knit brows. “Oh, indeed! Anyhow it was very -polite. Look here, my boy,” he went on, as they halted by a secluded and -inviting little table, “I’ve been struck lately by an outward and -visible sign of what seems to me to be an inward, invisible grace. When -I was your age, having left school and masters behind me, I would have -seen anybody damned first before I called them ‘sir’—except royalty, of -course. Now I come back into the world as an elderly codger, and both of -you young chaps ‘sir’ me punctiliously.” - -“I suppose the Army is teaching us manners,” said Godfrey. - -“Then the war is of some good, after all,” commented Baltazar. “And this -reversion to an ancient code provides you with a mode of address which -saves you, my young friend, from considerable embarrassment.” - -Godfrey, quick and sensitive, glanced for an instant at the firm lips -drawn down in a humorous smile and at the kindly indulgence in the keen -eyes, and then broke into a laugh. - -“Let us be grateful, sir, to the _Chinoiserie_ of the eighteenth -century.” - -Baltazar folded his arms and contemplated his son admiringly. - -“Do you know, I couldn’t have got out of it like that if I had thought -for a thousand years. Let us sit down.” And when they had settled -themselves by the wall on the fringe of the crowded lounge, he went on: -“You young men are not the least problem which a Cyrano dropped from the -peaceful moon like myself has to solve.” - -“I’m afraid we don’t quite know what we’re playing at ourselves,” said -Godfrey. - -Again Baltazar felt pleased with the boy’s reply. An understanding -fellow; one who could get to the thought behind a few words. - -“I wish to God I had known you all your life,” said he. - -At the appeal to sentiment, Godfrey shied like a horse. - -“It wouldn’t have affected what the war has made of me. I should have -joined up just the same, and, just the same, I should have had a hell of -a time in a perpetual blue funk which I had to hide, and should have -come out minus a foot; and just the same too I should have wondered how -on earth I’m going to stick the University—if I do go back—with its -childish little rules and restrictions—to say nothing of its limited -outlook.” - -“Two or three years ago,” said Baltazar, following his son’s lead, “if I -heard a fellow of twenty talk about the limited outlook of the -University of Cambridge, I should have said that his proper sphere was -the deepest inferno of insufferable young prigs provided by another -ancient seat of learning situated also on the banks of a river. As your -tutor, I should have had even nastier and more sarcastic things than -that to say to you. But now, in this new and incomprehensible world, I’m -perfectly ready to agree with you. What is there of the conduct or -meaning of life that our dear old pragmatical drake of a Crosby and his -train of ducks can teach men like your friend Kinnaird and yourself? -It’s like a bunch of hares sitting down before an old tortoise and being -taught how to run. Isn’t that the way of it?” - -“I suppose it is,” replied Godfrey, laughing. “I don’t want to crab men -like the master. Nothing can take away their scholarship, which, after -all, is vital to human progress—and, of course, as far as that goes, -I’m perfectly willing to sit at their feet—but—well—I know you see -what I mean, sir. It’s very jolly of you, as one of the elder crowd, and -very unusual, to be so sympathetic.” - -“I’ll go further than that,” said Baltazar. “As one of the elder crowd, -I should like to have the benefit of your concentrated experience of -modern life, and that is why I propose to tell you my story of Spendale -Farm, Quong Ho, and the Zeppelin. It’s my Ancient Mariner’s tale, and -you cannot choose but hear. But for the Lord’s sake tell what you can -remember of it to Sister Baring, for I’m sick to death of it.” - - * * * * * - -It was nearly five o’clock when he had finished. Finding Godfrey a -sensitive listener, he had expounded with many picturesque and intimate -details the story which he had roughly told so often. The reason for his -sudden self-condemnation to exile he had glossed over, as he had done -when first he had accounted for himself to Sheepshanks. Oddly enough, no -one, not even this son of his, with the quick insight forced to maturity -by the hot-house of war, boggled at the reason. All accepted his -maniacal proceeding as in keeping with the impulsive eccentricity of his -career. Besides, the mere fact of a man being able so to eliminate from -his surroundings every whisper of the outside world as to live in -England and remain in absolute ignorance of the war for a couple of -years, staggered credulity and eclipsed minor considerations. - -“Well,” said Baltazar, with a big gesture of both arms, “that’s how it -is. To sum up. Eighteen years’ blank ignorance of, and indifference to, -European history—political, social, moral, artistic, scientific. A -week’s dismay and disgust. Two years’ seclusion devoted to the -consolidation of my life’s work. The whole thing wiped out in a night. -Awakening to find the world had been at war for two years. Myself adrift -in a sort of typhoon, with not a human straw to cling to but my adopted -son, this extraordinary mathematical genius of a Quong Ho. I fly to -Cambridge to try to get some sort of sane attachment to life. I discover -your existence. No sooner do I meet you than I’m thrown against the very -woman for whose sake, as a young man, I chucked the whole of my career. -And here am I, as strong as a horse. Feel that”—he tendered his arm and -braced his muscle, and Godfrey gripping it proclaimed, with wonder, that -it was like an iron bar—“and with a first-class working brain, and the -country is crying out both for brains and muscle, and I’ll go mad if I -don’t give the country my best. But at the same time, I’m just a -month-old child. I’m dazed by everything. And I’ve got you and Marcelle -and Quong Ho to look after. You’re all inextricably woven into the -tapestry of my life. Mathematics and Chinese scholarship can go to the -devil. Only the four of you matter——” - -“Four?” Godfrey queried. - -“Yes. Four. You, Marcelle, Quong Ho, and England.” - -“That’s a tall order, sir,” smiled Godfrey. “But as for me, I’m all -right. I can fend for myself. You can cut me out.” - -Baltazar brought down his hand with a great thump on the little table. - -“I’m damned if I do!” And to the waiter who ran up in some alarm: “Yes, -tea. China tea. Gallons of it.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -BALTAZAR had asked his friend Burtingshaw, K.C., to suggest some sphere -in which his gifts might be usefully employed by the nation. -Burtingshaw, an unimaginative fellow, a professional exploiter of -formulas, bade him become a special constable and join the National -Volunteers. The man all agog to save his country, scoffed at the advice. -If there was marching to be done and blows to be struck, he had far -better enlist. Just like a Chancery lawyer to try to damp enthusiasm. He -decided to bide his time, to adopt the unusual course of looking before -he leaped. To judge by what he could gather from the press and from -conversation, it had been the crying fault of the Government from the -beginning of the war to use razors to cut butter and wooden blades to -perform delicate operations. There must be waiting in the vast war -machine one particular lever which he of all men was qualified to pull. -To find it would take time. But what was it? Godfrey’s suggestions ran -from vague to gloomy. Possibly he could find a billet in one of the new -ministries springing up like mushrooms every day, or he might de -Y.M.C.A. work, or drive a motor ambulance in France. All of which was as -satisfactory to the perfervid patriot as the idea of joining the Special -Constabulary or the National Volunteer Force. He rebelled at -half-measures. - -Meanwhile, his own house had first to be set in order. He began -operations by removing his worldly goods (easily contained in one -suit-case and a large brown-paper package) to a comfortable hotel at -Godalming, so as to be near Godfrey and Marcelle. The quiet, too, of a -private sitting-room in a country inn conduced to the prosecution of -certain studies which Professor Weatherley, admirable guide in the -world-welter, had recommended. He took up his quarters the most -contented and sanguine of men. He had received a letter from Quong Ho, -in faultless, Ciceronian English, conveying the news that he was well -forward on the road to complete recovery, and in a few days would be in -a fit condition to pursue whatever course of action his most venerated -master might choose to prescribe. When he had disposed the books and -pamphlets, contents of the brown-paper package, about his room, he sat -down and wrote to Quong Ho. A room in the Godalming hotel was at Quong -Ho’s disposal as soon as he was fit to travel. It would be an admirable -opportunity for him to meet Godfrey. They were to be brothers, mutually -helpful: Godfrey, a past-master in the science of modern life but a -neophyte in mathematics, seeing that he was struggling with such -childish puzzles as the elements of Rigid Dynamics; Quong Ho, on the -other hand, a neophyte in the science of modern life, but a past-master -in elementary mathematics. It was important, he wrote, that Quong Ho’s -appearance should, as far as possible, be thoroughly European and his -dress impeccable. - -“Good Lord!” he cried aloud, throwing down his pen. “I clean forgot. The -poor beggar hasn’t a rag to his back!” - -He drafted a telegram to the tailoring firm in the cathedral city, -instructing them to supply Mr. Ho with essential raiment, and then, -continuing his epistle to his pupil, gave him safe counsel and his -blessing, and enclosed a cheque to meet necessary expenses. - -After which he lunched in the coffee-room with the appetite of the -healthy man, lounged for a while with a pipe on the tranquil pavement -outside the inn, and then went upstairs again, threw himself contentedly -into an arm-chair with a German war publication lent him by Weatherley, -and waited for Marcelle. - - * * * * * - -It was her afternoon of freedom. She had looked forward to the interview -with mingled longing and apprehension. He had been the only man in her -life, and it was all such a long time ago. The jealous grip of her -nurse’s work had fastened upon neck and shoulders, and bent the -concentration of her being within a succession of little horizons. Men -she had met and known intimately, men in thousands; but they were all -suffering men, men whose sole appeal to her womanhood was their -helplessness, their dependence. If there crossed her path a man with -strong protective arm and compelling eyes, he was whisked away sound and -whole beyond her horizon’s misty rim. Now and then, but rarely, in -haggard faces shone eyes of desire. Her sex revolted until experience -taught her the nurse’s cynical indifference. Of course there are the -romances of nursing. In her long career she had known of many; of many, -too, in which the resultant marriages had been all that is adumbrated by -the ends of the fairy tales. But no ghost of such a romance had ever -come her way. And no romance had come her way in her restricted social -life. Her holidays had been too rare and fleeting. Here and there, -perhaps, a man had been attracted by her good looks and her -graciousness, but before these had had time to consolidate a first -effect, she was miles away, back again in uniform between the eternal -rows of beds. She had worked hard and seriously, the perfect nurse, -accepting, without question, the hospital ward as the sphere ordained -for her by destiny. Yet to soften the rigid life, she had fostered in -her heart the memory of the brief and throbbing love of long ago. - -During her drive from Churton Towers in the motor-cab, foolish -trepidations beset her. Although her woman of the world’s sound sense -made mock of timidities, yet old-maidish instincts questioned the -propriety of her proceeding. She was going to meet her former lover in a -private room of an hotel. What about professional decorum? Matron, who -kept a hard and unsympathetic eye on flirtatious tendencies in the -junior staff, would regard her visit, should she come to know of it, as -a horrifying escapade. She had seen her as she ran down the steps, -hatted, gloved, prinked to her best, with a betraying flush (lobster -colour, she thought) on her cheek; and being within earshot of the -Gorgon, she had thrown the mere word “Godalming” at the chauffeur as she -entered the car. When she gathered up courage to look at herself in the -strip of mirror that faced her, her prejudiced eyes saw herself pale and -haggard, smitten with lines which she had not noticed when she put on -her hat. And all the time she knew that these feminine preoccupations -were but iridescences on the surface of deep, black waters filled with -fear, and that she was letting her mind play on them so as not to think -of the depths. - -Baltazar was waiting for her outside the hotel. Thus one little fear was -sent packing. As a nurse she would have gone to Hell Gates to enquire -for a man. She had done it many a time in France. As Marcelle Baring she -was restrained by futile hesitancies. As Marcelle Baring, a woman with -her own life to lead, she was unfamiliar to herself. She had shrunk from -entering the inn alone and asking for Mr. Baltazar. But there he was -awaiting her on the pavement, and no sooner had the car stopped than he -had opened the door and helped her to alight. And following him through -the passage and up the narrow staircase, while he talked loud and cheery -and confident, as though he defied gossiping tongues, and every minute -turned to smile upon her, she remembered with a little pang of remorse -for unjust fears, that as now so it had been in the beginning; that -there never had been a tryst hard or venturesome for her to keep, never -one on which he was not there before her, big, responsible, inspiring -confidence. He was singularly unchanged. - -Obeying a breezy wave of the hand, she sank into an arm-chair. He shut -the door and crossed the room, his face lit with happiness. - -“For the first time in our lives we’re together alone within four walls. -You and I. Isn’t it strange? We have to talk. Not only now, but often. -As often as we can. It would have been monstrous of me to expect you to -run up and down to London. Besides, there would have been no privacy. -The lounges of the great hotels—I loathe them! A man and woman sit -whispering in a corner and at once surround themselves with an -atmosphere of intrigue. Horrible! And I couldn’t come every day to -Churton Towers—even ostensibly to see Godfrey. There would have been -the devil to pay. All sorts of scandal. So I’ve made this my -headquarters, in order to be near you.” - -The weather had turned raw and cold, and as she had driven in an open -car, clad in light coat and skirt, with nothing to warm her but a fur -stole, she felt chilly, and welcomed the bright fire in the grate. She -smiled, and said it was very cosy. He searched the room for a hassock, -and finding one set it beneath her feet. - -“We’ll have tea soon, which will make it cosier,” he said. He threw -himself into an arm-chair on the other side of the fire. “It’s like a -fairy-tale, isn’t it?” - -She admitted the strangeness of the circumstances in which they had met, -and with instinct of self-defence began to speak of Godfrey, of their -suddenly formed friendship, of his manifold excellences. Baltazar let -her run on for a while, content merely to let his eyes rest on her and -to listen to her voice. At last he rose, irrelevantly, and, striding -across to her, held out both his hands. She could not choose but -surrender hers. - -“Can’t you realize what you’ve been to me? ‘All a wonder and a wild -desire!’” - -She fluttered a frightened glance at him and withdrew her hands. He -stood looking down on her, one elbow resting on the mantelpiece. - -“Do you remember? That Browning line—it was one of the last things I -said to you. Then we lost our heads and broke off a delightful -conversation. Why not continue it, starting from where we left off?” - -“How can we go back twenty years?” - -“By wiping out two hundred and forty unimportant months from our -memories.” - -She glanced up at him and shook her head. It was the grey and barren -waste of those two hundred and forty months that formed the impassable -barrier. In order to pick up the thread of that last talk it would be -necessary to recapture the grace of those brief and exquisite moments. - -“If we are to be friends,” she said, “we must start afresh. All -that—that foolishness has been dead and buried long ago.” - -“Buried, perhaps—or, rather, hidden away in a Sleeping Beauty sort of -trance. But dead? Not a bit of it. It has been healthily alive all the -time, and now—a magic touch—and it has reawakened strong and beautiful -as ever.” - -“It’s very easy to play with words and metaphors and analogies. You can -make them appear to prove anything. As a matter of fact, we’ve both been -subjected to the organic changes of twenty years. I can no more become -the girl of eighteen than I can become the child of eight or the baby -eight months old.” - -Baltazar put his hands in his pockets, laughed, turned away, and sat -down again in his chair. - -“We seem to have got on to the basis of a nice and interminable -discussion. Let us get off it for the present. We have plenty of time. -If I’m anything at all, I’m a man of illimitable patience.” - -She laughed out loud. She could not help it. A typhoon proclaiming its -Zephyrdom! And proclaiming it not jestingly, but with the accent of -deeply rooted conviction. - -“You? You patient? Oh, my dear——” - -“There,” he cried, jumping up from his chair. “You have called me ‘my -dear’!” - -Quickly she retorted: “I didn’t. At least, I didn’t mean to. You caught -me up in your patient way. I was going to call you my dear something—my -dear sir—my dear man——” - -“My name happens to be John,” said Baltazar. - -“‘My dear John’? No. I wasn’t going to say that.” - -“Why?” - -“It sounds as if we had been married for twenty years.” - -With feminine instinct she had put her foot on his man’s vanity and had -used it, like a rock climber, as a projection to mount to safety. She -saw him uncertain, unhumorous, and felt pleasurably conscious of -advantage gained. - -“You said it twenty years ago, at any rate.” - -She sat up victoriously in her chair. “I didn’t. Never. I don’t think I -had the courage to call you anything. Certainly not John. I never even -thought of you as John. As a label you were John Baltazar. But not -John—_tout court_—like that. Oh no!” - -“I suppose you’re right,” said Baltazar. “It’s a damned name. It’s -everything that’s dull and prosaic in the English genius concentrated -into one uninspiring vocable. Unlike other idiot names, it has no -pleasing diminutive. ‘Johnnie’ is insulting. ‘Jack’ is Adelphi -melodrama. Thank God I’ve been spared both. Now I burst upon you, after -twenty years, as ‘John,’ and you naturally receive the idea with -derision.” - -“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she cried. “Look at the great men of your -name. John of Gaunt, John Knox, John Bunyan, John Locke, John Stuart -Mill——” - -“A merry crew of troubadours, aren’t they?” said Baltazar. - -Whereat they both laughed, and the situation, as far as it affected her, -was relieved. They talked freely of the twenty years of their -separation. She of her work, her family; her mother, still alive, looked -after by an elder sister, her brothers, both younger than herself, in -the Navy. He, of China and his lamentable adventure on the moorland. He -found that Godfrey, carrying out his request, had saved him from the -abhorred recital of his story. Quong Ho aroused her curiosity and amused -interest. She longed to see Quong Ho. Tea was set out in old-fashioned -style and she presided at the table. She laughed at the wry face he made -over the first sip of the good, strong Ceylon blend. Not the least -dismal aspect of the tragedy of Spendale Farm, he explained, was the -destruction of the chests of priceless tea which he had brought from -China—stuff that yielded liquid and fragrant gold, lingering on the -palate like exquisite wine. - -“Damn the Huns for robbing me of my tea!” he cried, “besides damning -them for a million other devilries. And yet the just man must give even -Huns their due. They’ve done one good thing.” - -Marcelle flashed a protest. “They haven’t. They’re incapable of it. I’ve -been in France, in the thick of it, close up to the Front—and I’ve seen -things. I know. They haven’t done one good thing.” - -“They have,” said Baltazar. “They’ve brought you and me together.” - -“Oh!” said Marcelle rather foolishly. “I thought you were referring to -something serious.” - -He fastened on the word. “Serious? Do you suppose that your presence -here at this minute, with that little bitten-into piece of buttered -toast between your finger and thumb, isn’t the most serious fact in my -life since I parted from you on the Newnham Road twenty years ago?” - -She dropped the bit of toast into her saucer and regarded him with -dismayed renewal of her earlier fears. - -“Why spoil everything? We were beginning to get along so nicely.” - -He became aware of her piteous attitude. “What have I said?” he asked -solicitously. - -In distress, she replied: “What you mustn’t say again. If you do, it’s -the end. It makes things impossible.” - -“I don’t see why it should. If I weren’t honest about it, it would be a -different matter. But I am honest. I can’t tell you that I’ve waited for -you all these years, for the simple reason that I never dreamed I should -see your face again. But I’ve been true to your memory. It has knocked -out the possibility of any other woman. That’s plain fact.” - -Womanlike, she said: “I suppose I’ve wrecked your life. God knows I -never meant to.” - -Then he rose and flung his arms out. His essential integrity spoke -through his egotism. He tapped his broad chest. - -“Wrecked my life? If a man’s a man, do you suppose his life can be -wrecked by anybody but himself? Do I look like a wreck? I’ve lived every -minute of these twenty years to the full power of body and brain. If I -made any appeal, on that score, to your pity or suchlike sentiments, I -should be a contemptible liar. If there’s any question of playing the -devil with lives, I did it with yours.” - -“Oh, no, no!” Her voice quivered and she sank back in her chair, with -averted head. “Of course not. That’s absurd.” - -“Well then,” he asked, “what’s all the fuss about? We loved each other -when we parted. Pretty passionately and desperately, too. Why we -shouldn’t love each other now, when fate throws us together again, I -can’t understand.” - -She answered wearily: “I’ve told you. The years that the locust hath -eaten.” - -“What locust?” - -“Ah!” she sighed. - -He took a pace or two towards the door, halted, turned and looked at her -as she sat by the tea-table, and the pain in her eyes and the piteous -twist of her lips smote him with remorse. A remarkable idea entered his -head. He clinched the entrance by smiting his left palm with his right -fist. Naturally any idea coming into Baltazar’s head could not fail to -be correct. He went behind her chair and laid his finger-tips on her -shoulder. - -“My dear,” said he tenderly, “forgive me. I ought to have thought of it -before. A beautiful and accomplished woman——” - -She swerved round. “Oh, don’t! You mean that there may have been someone -else—since——? Well, there hasn’t. I’ve been far too busy.” And seeing -him incredulous of the fallibility of his idea, she added with a touch -of petulance: “If there had been anybody, I should have told you so at -once.” - -For the moment she wished there had been an intervening lover whose -memory she could use as a rampart, for again she felt defenceless. If -only Godfrey would come! He had promised to call for her on his way back -from London, whither he had been summoned by a Medical Board. She -glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Godfrey’s train would not -arrive for another hour. With some apprehension she watched Baltazar, -who was moving about the room in a restless, puzzled way. - -“Don’t you see you’re spoiling it all?” she said. “And I haven’t even -finished my tea.” - -Laughter like quick sunshine lit his face. “A thousand pardons, -Marcelle. I of all people to outrage the etiquette of tea-drinking!” He -sat down. “Another cup, please. I shall get used to it soon. The Ceylon -tea, I mean—not being with you.” - -She breathed again, rather wondering at the power of a light word. Of -course she had learned the way of tactful dealing with querulous or -obstinate patients. Had she instinctively applied the method to -Baltazar? A flush crept into her cheek. Perhaps those were right who -proclaimed that man sick or man sound was the same overgrown child. -Hitherto she had regarded man sick with maternal indulgence. Was she to -regard man sound, in the person of John Baltazar, from the same maternal -point of view? It would be a change from the old one. For twenty years -she had looked on the John Baltazar of thirty with the eyes of the girl -of eighteen; and she had beheld him as a god. Now she looked upon the -man of fifty with the eyes of the woman of thirty-eight. It was not that -either of them had grown wondrously old. On the contrary, he appeared to -have changed absurdly little, for his face had ever been eager and -marked with the lines of thought which time had but accentuated; his -figure had retained its athletic suggestion of strength and activity; -and his manner had the fire and vehemence of youth. And she herself had -received assurance from an anxiously consulted mirror, of beauty that -endured, and physically she rejoiced in the consciousness of splendid -health, enabling her to work untiringly at tasks that had all but -prostrated her fifteen years ago; in which respect she was younger than -ever. No, it was not that he was an old man and she an old woman between -whom the revival of romance would have been pathetically ludicrous. It -wasn’t that at all. . . . After she had handed him the cup of tea, she -took up the long abandoned bit of toast which she had dropped into the -saucer. Laughing, he leaned forward and whipped from her fingers the -cold and forlorn morsel, which he threw into the fire, and sprang to -hand her the covered china dish from the warming hob. - -“Not that unsacramental bit of bread,” he cried. - -It was not done rudely or bearishly; it was done in the most charming -way in the world; done with a cavalier, conquering lightness, what the -French call “_panache_,” characteristic of the bright creature who had -overpowered and overmastered her in her impressionable girlhood. She -helped herself from the hot pile of toast, and her smile of thanks was -not without a curl of ironic indulgence. The masterfulness of the -proceeding in no way offended her, its manner being so perfect, but it -did not strike the old romantic chord. Its symbolism flashed -illuminatingly upon her. The god of the girl of eighteen to the woman of -thirty-eight appeared merely as a self-willed, erratic and vehement man. -The glamour that had invested him faded like the colours of dawn, and -the sunshine beat on him in a hard, mistless air. He stood before her in -the full light. While she listened to his pleasant talk, her feminine -subconsciousness observed him in clear definition. It admitted his many -virile and admirable qualities; he was a man out of the common mould; he -was ruthless in the prosecution of the lines of conduct which he laid -down for himself—and these same lines had been inspired by high moral -or spiritual ideals; in his egotism he might unthinkingly trample over -your body in order to reach his ends, but at your cry of pain he would -be back in a flash, tearing himself to bits with remorse, overwhelming -you with tenderness; a man, too, of great intellect—in his own sphere, -of genius; a contradictory being, a hectoring giant, a wayward child, a -helpless sentimentalist; possibly, with all that, the overgrown baby of -the nurses’ tradition; a man, possessing all the defects of his -masculine qualities. Not a god. Nothing like a god. Just a man. Just an -interesting, forceful, even fascinating man whom she was meeting for the -first time. A brilliant stranger. She gasped at a swift realization, -even while she smiled at his description of what passed for a hospital -at Chen Chow, the scene of Quong Ho’s prim and passionless amours. A -stranger. Yet memory had made familiar every gesture, every intonation. -He had not changed. It was she who had changed. The fault lay in -herself, baffling attempts at explanation. She began to accuse herself -of callousness, deadness of soul, and at last conscience impelled her to -make some sort of amends. - -There remained but a quarter of an hour before Godfrey was due. She lit -a cigarette from the match which Baltazar held out. - -“I wonder,” she said, with a little air of deliberation, “whether you -would let me say something—and remain quite quiet?” - -He replied happily: “I swear I’ll sit in this chair until you give me -leave to get up. But why say it? You’ve never let me finish what I want -to tell you. It has to be told now, or a month or six months or a year -hence. It’s silly to waste time, so why not now? I’ve awakened from a -long sleep to find myself in a world of marvels, in a new, throbbing -England, and for the first time in my life every pulse in me throbs with -my country. I must play my part in the big drama. I’ve also awakened to -find even deeper and more passionate things gripping at my heart: My -son, whom I never knew of. And you. You, Marcelle. No, no!” he laughed, -“I’m not going to get up. I’ll put the point in the most phlegmatic way -possible. I love you now as much as ever I did. I want to marry you at -once. I’ve been pursuing shadows for half a century. I want to get into -the substance of life at last. A man can’t do it by himself. He needs a -woman, just as—to advance an abstract proposition—a woman needs a man. -You’re the only woman in the world for me. Together, you and I, we can -go forth strong into this wonderful conflict. You can help me, I can -help you. If you’re tired and want rest, by God, you shall have it. You -shan’t do a hand’s turn. But a smile and a whisper from you will fill me -with strength for both of us. That’s the proposition.” - -She looked for a long time into the fire, her head aslant, her lips and -fingers accompanying her thoughts in nervous movements. Presently she -said, in a low voice: - -“A man like you would want the Sun, Moon and Stars.” - -“And would see that he got them,” said Baltazar. “They’re there right -enough.” - -She shook her head despairingly. - -“That’s where you make the mistake. You would want what I couldn’t -give—what isn’t in me to give. Don’t you see it’s no good? The whole -thing is dead. I thought it was alive, but it isn’t. It’s dead. I’m -dead. I suppose a nurse’s work eventually unsexes a woman. That’s frank -enough, isn’t it?” - -“It’s a frank statement of a conclusion arrived at through fallacious -reasoning,” replied Baltazar. - -She shivered. “These things have nothing to do with reason. In all these -years haven’t you learned that?” - -“No,” said he. “Schopenhauer and his lot were idiots. Love is the -apotheosis of reason. My dear,” he added, rising, “this is profitless -argument. I’m getting up without your permission, but I’ll be as -unobstreperous as thistledown. If you feel you can’t marry me, well, you -can’t. The reasons you will find are perfectly logical—but throw away -the rotten fallacy in your premise of sexlessness. You are woman all -through, my dear, from your lips to your heart. Perhaps I’ve been rather -like a bull at a gate—the gate of heaven. I suppose I was built like -that. But if you’ll let us be friends, dear friends, I won’t worry you -any more. I promise.” - -She broke down. Tears came. - -“I’m so sorry—so sorry. But you do understand, don’t you?” - -“I don’t say I understand, my dear,” he replied very tenderly. “But I -accept the phenomenon.” - -He turned and looked out of the window at the quiet road. Presently a -taxi-cab drew up outside. - -“Here’s Godfrey,” he said. - -She rose. “I’ll go down and meet him. It’s no use his climbing all these -difficult stairs.” - -“You’ll come again, won’t you?” And seeing a flicker of hesitation pass -over her face, he added: “If only to let me show you Quong Ho.” - -“Yes, I’ll come again,” she replied, “if only to show you——” - -“What?” - -“That I’m sorry.” - -She moved quickly to the door, which he opened, and he followed her -downstairs. In the vestibule they met Godfrey. Gloom overspread the -young man’s candid face and dejection marked his behaviour, neither of -which could be accounted for by the fact of the Medical Board having -given him, as he announced, a further two months. Baltazar’s proposal to -run over soon to Churton Towers for a talk, he welcomed with polite lack -of enthusiasm. He took leave with the solemnity of a medical man -departing from a house with a corpse in it. - -“It doesn’t seem to be one of the House of Baltazar’s lucky days,” said -Baltazar to himself, as he went up to his room. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -IT was not till long afterwards that Baltazar learned the cause of his -son’s discomfiture. Marcelle learned it at once. The boy exploded with -pent-up indignation. Dorothy had turned him down, callously turned him -down. Could Marcelle imagine such heartlessness? He had gone to her -after his Board. Seeing that she had undertaken to keep him in the army, -it was only civil to report progress. Besides, the house had been open -to him since childhood. Well, there she was alone in the drawing-room. -Looked bewitching. Jolly as possible. Everything right as rain. Then, he -didn’t know how it happened—perhaps because she hadn’t discouraged him -at the Carlton—anyhow there it was; he lost his head; told her he loved -her, worshipped her and all the rest of it, and asked her to marry him. -She broke into peals of laughter and recommended him not to be an idiot. -She had the infernal impudence to laugh at him! If she had been a man he -would have wrung her neck. - -“And that isn’t all,” he cried. “What do you think she had the colossal -nerve to tell me? That she was engaged to my brother Leopold. Leopold! -‘Why,’ I said, ‘only the other day you informed me you were fed up with -Leopold.’ ‘Oh! that,’ she said airily, ‘was before the engagement.’ -Apparently the brute’s just home on leave and has stolen a march on me. -Easy enough with two feet,” he added bitterly. - -Marcelle tried to console. After all, he was very young, not yet -one-and-twenty. It would be years before he could marry. He flared up at -the suggestion. That was what Dorothy, a month older than he, had the -cool cheek to say. What did age matter? He was as old as Hell. He had -all his life behind him. In the trenches alone he had spent twenty -years. As for marrying, he was perfectly able to support a wife, not -being, through God’s grace, one of those unhappy devils of new army -officers who were wondering what the deuce they would do to earn their -living when the war was over. . . . She had treated him damnably. A -decent girl would have been kind and sorry and let him down easily. But -she! - -“She treated me as though I were a lout of a schoolboy, and she a woman -of thirty. Only the woman of thirty would at least have had manners. -Well, she’s going to marry Leopold. I wish her joy of him. She’ll have a -hell of a time.” - -Decidedly it had not been a lucky day for the House of Baltazar. -Marcelle was oppressed by a sense of guilt for her share in the family -disaster, and felt tragically unable to administer comfort. Yesterday -she would have poured healing sympathy over the hurts of the evilly -entreated youth, and her wrath would have flamed out upon the heartless -minx who had spurned the love of a gallant gentleman. But to-day how -could she? Had not some horrible freak of chance put her in the same -dock as Dorothy, worthless criminals both? - -“I suppose you were very angry with her,” she said timidly. - -He flung out a hand. Oh, that inherited gesture! Angry? Who wouldn’t -have been angry? He would never see her, speak to her, think of her -again. He had told her so. As for receiving favours from General -Mackworth, she was not to dare insult him by dreaming of it. Marcelle -pictured a very pretty rumpus. Godfrey was not John Baltazar’s son for -nothing. - -And she, in the modern idiom, had turned down John Baltazar; with less -ostensible reason, for, after all, she had not engaged herself to -another man. Was he, too, like his son, hurling anathema at the head of -a faithless woman? Outwardly he had been very courteous, astonishingly -gentle; but he was older and had learned self-restraint. How was he -taking it now? She was very glad when they reached Churton Towers and -when she stripped from herself the unfamiliar trappings of Marcelle -Baring and put on the comforting impersonal uniform of the nurse. - - * * * * * - -Baltazar, however, carried out none of Marcelle’s forebodings. He -neither upbraided her nor smashed furniture, nor made one of his -volcanic decisions. He merely lit a pipe and sat down and tried to think -out his unqualified rejection. It was a second Zeppelin bomb, -annihilating the castle in the air which that morning had appeared -utterly solid and assured, as effectively as the first had wiped out -Spendale Farm and all that it signified. He couldn’t make head or tail -of it. He sat a mystified man. For him the glamour of the old days had -not faded. In her ripe woman’s beauty she was more desirable than ever. -Flashes had shown the continuance of her old wit and gaiety. Thank God -she wasn’t eighteen still. What would he do with a child of eighteen? -The association was unthinkable. But the woman into which she had -developed was the ideal mate and companion. As for her being dead, that -was rubbish. Never was woman more splendidly alive. . . . Now let him -try to get her point of view. He clenched his teeth on his pipe. At -eighteen she loved him. She made some sort of hero of him. She kept up -her idealization until she met him an elderly, unromantic savage of -fifty. Then her romance fell tumbling about her ears, and she said to -herself, “Oh, my God! I can’t marry _this_!” - -It was the “_that_” which he had thought himself that the second bomb -had sent into eternity. It took a lot of confused and blinking wonder -for him to realize Marcelle’s “_this_.” Having realized, he accepted it -grimly. - -He had a little passage of arms with her some days afterwards. She had -invited it, anxious to know how deeply she had wounded. - -“I’m wretched because I feel I’ve again brought you unhappiness,” she -confessed. - -“That you should be leading the life you wish to lead is my happiness,” -he replied, not insincerely. - -“I feel so selfish,” she said. - -“Which means that if I pestered and blustered and raved and stormed and -made your days a nightmare of remorse, you would end by marrying me out -of desperation?” - -She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I suppose I should.” - -“Then I’m damned if I do it. You’d be merely a scared sort of slave of -duty, suffering all the time from acute inflammation of the conscience. -I being a product of human civilization, and not a German or a gorilla, -or even a Hottentot, should be soon aware of the fact, and our lives -would be the most exquisite misery the mind could conceive.” - -“I can’t see why you don’t hate me,” she said. - -“I think I’ve arrived at an understanding of the phenomenon,” he replied -with a wry smile. “You might just as well try to recreate a vanished -rainbow as a lost illusion.” He smiled. “Go in peace,” said he. - -To himself he said: “I wonder what will be the next knock-down blow.” - -Not being able to take charge of Marcelle and Godfrey, who both seemed -bent on going their respective independent ways, and Quong Ho still -lingering at Water End, Baltazar applied himself seriously to England. -First he must learn, learn more fully the endless ramifications of -national and international life that formed the nervous ganglion of that -manifestation of activity known as the war. In pursuit of knowledge he -not only read books, but eagerly availed himself of every opportunity of -social intercourse. His circle of acquaintances grew rapidly. His three -friends, loyal sponsors, had started him with the reputation of an -authority on Far Eastern problems. He became a little lion and delighted -in it like a child. - -A great monthly review published an article on China written by a -well-known diplomatist. It was so deplorably wrong in its failure to -reach any possible Chinese point of view, that Baltazar shut himself up -for a couple of days in his inn sitting-room and wrote a scathing -refutation of the eminent sciolist’s propositions. This, the ink on the -last sheets scarcely dry, he put into an envelope and sent off to the -editor. A week later the article was returned with the stereotyped form -of rejection. In a fury Baltazar sought Weatherley and consulted him as -to the quickest means of wading in that editor’s blood. Here was this -monstrous ass, he shouted, who, on the strength of having passed a few -months at the Embassy in Pekin, with his owl’s eyes full of the dust -politely thrown in them by bland Chinese officials, not knowing a word -of any Chinese language written or spoken, without the vaguest idea of -the thoughts or aspirations of the educated man in the interior of the -kingdom, was granted the authority of a great review to spread abroad in -this country the miasma of his pestilential ignorance. That stupendous -and pernicious asses of his kidney should be allowed to mould British -public opinion was a scandal of scandals. And when he, who knew, wrote -to expose the solemn red-tape and sealing-wax dummy’s imbecility, an -equally colossal ass of an editor sent back his article as if it were an -essay on Longfellow written by a schoolgirl. - -“When you’ve finished foaming at the mouth, my dear J. B.,” said -Weatherley, “let me look at the manuscript. Ah!” he remarked, turning -over the pages, “untyped, difficult to read, owing to _saeva indignatio_ -playing the devil with a neat though not very legible handwriting, and -signed by a name calamitously unknown to the young and essentially -Oxford Pennyfeather.” - -“Your serene equanimity does me a lot of good,” growled Baltazar. - -“You must advance with the times, my dear J. B.,” laughed Weatherley. -“Why on earth didn’t you ring the man up, telling him who you were, and -then have the thing typed?” - -“Telephones and typewriters!” cried Baltazar. “This new world’s too -complicated for me.” - -“Never mind,” said Weatherley. “Leave things in my hands. I’ll fix up -Pennyfeather. If he persists in his obscurantism, owing to a desire to -save his face, I’ll send the article to Jesson of _The Imperial Review_, -who’ll jump at it.” - -“I accept your help gratefully,” replied Baltazar. “But all you’ve said -confirms me in my opinion that your friend Pennyfeather is a lazy, -incompetent hound. He and his jejune magazine can starve to death.” - -He laughed after a while at his own vehemence. They talked of the points -at issue. Presently Weatherley said: - -“After all, you’re two years behindhand in Chinese affairs. Chinese -adherence to the Allied Cause is of vast importance. Why don’t you go -out again on behalf of the Government and pick up the threads?” - -Baltazar burst out: - -“I go back to China? That God-forgotten country of dead formulas, in -which I’ve wasted the prime of my life? No, my dear friend, never again. -I’m here at last, among my own people, in the most enthralling moments -in the history of the civilized world. For years I looked upon myself as -a damned Chinaman, and now I’ve woke up to find myself English. And -English I’m going to remain.” - -“But,” objected Weatherley, “by undertaking a Government mission in -China, you can remain as English as you please.” - -Baltazar refused to consider the suggestion. England, his rediscovered -country, was his appointed sphere of action. No more China for him as -long as he lived. He went away almost angry with Weatherley for putting -such an idea into his head. No doubt he might be useful out there: much -more useful than a diplomatist like the arid ass who had written the -article; but to bury himself there again and leave Godfrey and Marcelle -and the throbbing wonders of his resurrection, was preposterous. As he -descended Weatherley’s staircase a shiver of dismay ran down his spine. -A walk through the streets restored his equanimity. Those crowds which -once had seemed so alien, were now his brothers, all fired by the same -noble aspirations. He would have liked to shake hands with the soldiers -from far oversea, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South -Africans, and thank them for their inspiring presence. The day was fine, -the exhilaration of the Somme victories was in the air. The new mystery -of the tanks exercised all London, which still showed the afterglow of -the laughter caused by continued humoristic descriptions in the morning -papers. A tank waddled up to a house filled with Germans, leaned against -it in a comfortable way, and there was no more house and no more Huns. -He heard scraps of conversation about them as he walked. Yes, Tennyson -was right—a bit of a seer after all that Incarnation of -Victorianism—when he remarked that fifty years in Europe were -preferable to a cycle in Cathay. He went in gayer mood to lunch with -Jackman at a club in the West End, for membership of which his host had -proposed him. The club, like many London clubs, being hard hit by the -war, had taken the unprecedented step of holding an autumn election for -all candidates duly proposed and seconded. Baltazar found invited to -meet him a little party of influential members. He went back to -Godalming forgetful of Weatherley’s idiocy. - -A few days afterwards he met Weatherley by appointment at his chambers -in the Temple. A group of publicists outside professional journalism, of -which Baltazar guessed his friend to be one of the initiative forces, -were about to bring out a new weekly review, devoted to the -international phases of the war; to all racial questions from Greenland -to New Guinea. Its international outlook would be unlimited, but, of -course, it would pursue a relentless anti-German policy. Would Baltazar -care to join the band? If so, would he attend a meeting of the founders -of the Review that afternoon? - -“My dear fellow,” cried Baltazar, holding out both his hands, “it’s meat -and drink to me.” - -“You’ll take up the Far Eastern end of the thing,” said Weatherley. - -“I’ll write about China till I’m dead, if you like,” said Baltazar, “so -long as I don’t have to go back to the infernal country.” - -Again, after the meeting, Baltazar returned to Godalming in a glow. -Thanks to Weatherley, he had at last got a footing in the Great -Struggle. - -In a telephone talk with Marcelle he told her all about it. He heard a -ripple of laughter. - -“Where does the fun come in?” he asked. - -Her voice said: “You’re so young and enthusiastic. You ought to be the -son and Godfrey the father.” - -“By the way,” said he, “what’s the matter with Godfrey? He’s about as -cheerful as a police-court in a fog.” - -Marcelle, who could not betray Godfrey’s confidence, attributed his -depression to the tediousness of his recovery and the uncertainty of the -future. - -“Of course, of course!” replied Baltazar penitently. “I’m a selfish -beast, never entering into other people’s feelings. I must brighten -things up for him.” - - * * * * * - -The opportunity came very much sooner than Baltazar had any reason to -anticipate, in their meeting with Lady Edna Donnithorpe in the lounge of -the Carlton. - -Young, beautiful, royally assured, she advanced laughing to Baltazar. - -“What about your promise, Mr. Baltazar? Pie-crust?” - -He had sat next her at dinner a week before and she had invited him to -come to tea one afternoon; to have a quiet, interesting talk, she said, -away from crowds of disturbing people. She was the wife of the -Parliamentary Secretary of one of the new ministries, the daughter of -the Earl of Dunstable, and in other ways a woman of considerable -importance. Her radiant photographs recurred week after week in the -illustrated papers. Gossip whispered that she had turned the Prime -Minister round her little finger and that when he had recovered from -dizziness, he found he had given her elderly and uninspiring husband a -place in the Government. Certainly no one was more surprised than Edgar -Donnithorpe himself. That he owed his advancement to his wife was common -knowledge; but alone of mortals he was unaware of the fact. When asked -by a friend why she had gone to so much pains, she replied: “To get -Edgar out of the way and give him something to play with.” She was -twenty-five, pulling a hundred strings of fascinating intrigue, a -flashing member of scores of war committees, and contrived for herself -illimitable freedom. - -Baltazar made his apologies. He meant to keep his promise, but it -required courage on the part of such a back number as himself. - -“Back number?” she cried. “Why, on your own showing you’ve only been in -existence a few weeks. You are the newest thing in numbers in London.” - -“It is gracious of you to say so,” replied Baltazar. Then, as she gave -no sign of withdrawal: “Lady Edna, may I introduce my son—Lady Edna -Donnithorpe.” - -“I thought it must be. How do you do?” There were dovenotes in her voice -which, to the young man’s fancy, invested the commonplace formula with -caressive significance; her liquid dark blue eyes regarded him -understandingly and pityingly; her hand lingered in a firm clasp for -just an appreciable fraction of a second. - -“Don’t you agree with me about your father? You and I are old, wise, -battered people compared with him?” - -Youth spoke to youth, making gentle mock of middle age—and youth -instantly responded. - -“My father,” replied Godfrey, drinking in her laughing beauty and her -sympathetic charm, “has brought back from China all sorts of quaint -notions of filial piety—so, until I know whether my opinions of him are -pious or not, I rather shy at expressing them.” - -She beamed appreciation. “I have a father, too, and although he has -never been to China, I sympathize with you. One of these days we’ll have -a little heart to heart talk about fathers.” - -“I should love to,” replied Godfrey. - -“Would you really? Are you sure faithlessness is not hereditary in your -family?” - -“Lady Edna,” said Baltazar, holding out the signet ring on his little -finger. “If you saw this motto of our ancient Huguenot family in a -looking-glass, you would read ‘_Jusqu’à la mort_.’ The word _fidèle_, of -course, being understood.” - -“Death is a long way off, let us hope,” she laughed. “But if the family -faithfulness will last out—_jusqu’à jeudi_—no—I can’t manage -Thursday—I’ll give it one day more—say Friday—may I expect you both -to lunch with me? You have my address—160 Belgrave Square.” - -Receiving their acceptance of the invitation, she shook hands and went -across the lounge to her waiting friends. - -“A most interesting type,” said Baltazar. “A woman of the moment.” - -“She’s wonderful!” said Godfrey. And as her head was turned away, he -looked long and lingeringly at her. “Wonderful!” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -WHEN he hobbled into her drawing-room and saw her without her hat, -crowned with the glory of her hair, thick, of silky texture and of -baffling colour, now almost black, now gleaming with sombre gold, and -her slender figure clad in a blue dress which deepened the magical blue -in her eyes, Godfrey thought she was more wonderful still. The clasp of -her bare hand with its long, capable fingers, thrilled him. Her voice -had the added caress of welcome to her house. When, later, she reminded -him of their promised heart to heart talk about fathers, it was in his -heart to say, “The pedantic old bat calls you a type—you, unique among -women!” The criticism had buzzed in his head all the week and on -occasions he had laughed out loud at its ineptitude. It buzzed in his -head while he was being introduced to Lady Northby, the wife of a -distinguished General, and it was with an effort that he cleared his -mind enough to say: - -“I had the honour of serving under the General in France. Oh, a long, -long way under, all the time I was out.” - -“Then you’re friends at once,” cried Lady Edna. “You’ll join Lady -Northby’s collection.” - -“Of what, pray?” asked Baltazar. - -“Of Sir Edward’s officers.” - -“I don’t know whether Mr. Baltazar would like to be collected,” said -Lady Northby. She was a tiny, dark-faced, kind-eyed woman of fifty. Her -smile of invitation was very pleasant. - -“Can you doubt it?” replied the young man. “It must be a glorious -company. I’m only afraid I’m a poor specimen.” - -“Won’t you sit down?” She indicated a place on the sofa by her side. And -when Godfrey had obeyed her, she said in a low voice: “That and -that”—with the faintest motion of her hand she indicated decoration and -footless leg—“entitle you to a place of honour.” Then as if she had -touched sensitive ground, she added hastily, almost apologetically: -“Lady Edna always teases me about my collection, as she calls it; but -there’s a little truth in it. My husband is very proud of his Division, -and so am I, and the only way I can try to realize it as a living thing, -is to get to know some of his officers.” - -“By Jove!” cried Godfrey, his eyes suddenly sparkling. “That accounts -for it.” - -“For what?” - -“For the Division being the most splendid Division, bar none, at the -Front. For the magical influence the General has over it. I’ve only seen -him once or twice and then I shook in my boots as he passed by. But -there isn’t an officer or man who doesn’t feel that he’s under the tips -of his fingers. I never could account for it. Now I can.” - -She smiled again. “I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Baltazar.” - -Suddenly he became aware of his audacity. Subalterns in social relations -with the wives of their Divisional Generals were supposed to be the -meekest things on earth. He was not sure whether their demeanour was not -prescribed in paragraph something or the other of Army Orders. His fair -face blushed ingenuous scarlet. In the meanwhile in her eyes shone -amused and kindly enquiry; and, to render confusion worse confounded, -Lady Edna and his father appeared to have suspended their casual talk in -order to listen to his reply. There was no help for it. He summoned up -his courage, and with an invisible snap of the fingers said: - -“It was you behind the Division all the time.” - -The modest lady blushed too. The boy’s sincerity was manifest. Lady Edna -rose with a laugh, as a servant entered the room. - -“The hand that rocks the subaltern rules the Division. Let us see if we -can find something to eat.” - -There were only the four of them. At first Lady Edna Donnithorpe had -thought of inviting a numerous company to meet Baltazar. Her young -consciousness of power delighted in the homage of the fine flower of -London around her table. Baltazar’s story (heard before she met him) had -fascinated her, he himself had impressed her with a sense of his -vitality and vast erudition, and after the dinner party she had been -haunted by his personality. Here was a great force at a loose end. How -could she apply it? People were beginning to talk about him. The new Rip -Van Winkle. The Freak of the War. It would be a triumph to manœuvre him -into the position of a National Asset. She had already drawn up a list -of the all-important people whom it was essential for him to know—her -husband did not count—and was ticking off the guests for the proposed -luncheon party when suddenly she tore it up, she scarcely knew why. -Better perhaps gauge her protégé more accurately before opening her -campaign. The son added a complication. A fine pathetic figure of a boy. -Perhaps she might be able to do something for him, too, if she knew what -he wanted. She liked his eyes and the set of his head. Besides, the -stuffy lot who would be useful to the father would bore the young man to -death. She regarded the boredom of a guest in her house as an -unimaginable calamity. Edgar, her husband, was the only person ever -bored in it, and that was his own doing. He had reduced self-boredom in -private life to a fine art. She decided that young Baltazar should not -run the risk of boredom. Having tom up her list, she ran across Lady -Northby, dearest of women, the ideal fourth. - -At the beginning of lunch, while Baltazar happened to be engaged in -eager argument with Lady Northby, she devoted herself to Godfrey. In her -sympathetic contralto she questioned him, and, under the spell of it, he -answered. He would have revealed the inmost secrets of his soul, had she -demanded them. As it was, he told her an astonishing lot of things about -himself. - -Presently the talk became general. Lady Northby, in her gentle way, shed -light, from the point of view of a divisional commander’s wife, on many -obscure phases of the war. Lady Edna held a flaming torch over black and -abysmal corners of diplomacy. Godfrey sat awed by her knowledge of facts -and her swift deductions from them. He had never met a woman like her, -scarcely dreamed that such a woman existed. She had been in personal -touch with all the great ones of the earth, from the Kaiser upwards, and -she judged them shrewdly and with a neat taste in epigram. - -“If the Kaiser and the Crown Prince had been ordinary middle-class -folk,” she said, “they would have been in gaol long ago. The father for -swindling the public on a grand scale; the son for stealing milk-cans.” - -She had met King Constantine, then a thorn in the Allied flesh, whose -sufferance for so long on the Greek throne is still a mystery to the -plain Briton. - -“What a degradation of a name for Constantine the Great,” said Baltazar. - -“That’s just it,” she flashed. “His awful wife says ‘_In hoc signo -vinces_,’ and dangles before his eyes the Iron Cross.” - -No. Godfrey had never met a woman remotely like her. She was -incomparable. - -The talk developed quickly from the name of Constantine to names in -general. The degradation of names. Uriah, for instance, that of the most -tragic victim of dastardly treachery in history, now brought low by its -association with Heep. - -“I love the old Saxon names,” said Lady Northby, with some irrelevance. -“Yours, dear, for instance.” - -“It’s a beautiful name,” said Baltazar, “but it’s not Saxon. It’s far -older.” - -“Surely it’s Saxon,” said Lady Edna. - -“Edna was the wife of Raguel and the mother-in-law of Tobias, the son of -Tobit, the delightful young gentleman carrying a fish and accompanied by -the Angel Raphael, whom you see in the Italian pictures.” - -Lady Edna was impressed. “I wonder if there’s anything you don’t know?” - -He laughed. “I only remember what I’ve read. My early wrestling with -Chinese, I suppose, has trained my memory for detail. I’m also very fond -of the Apocrypha. The Book of Esdras, for instance, is a well of -wonderful names. I love Hieremoth and Carabasion.” - -Presently she said to Godfrey: “Your father always makes me feel so -humble and ignorant. Have you ever read the Apocrypha?” - -“I’m afraid not.” - -“Neither have I. If you said you had, I should want to sink under the -table. The pair of you would be too much for me.” - -Her confession of ignorance delighted him as much as her display of -knowledge filled him with wonder. It made her deliciously human. - -When lunch was over and they went up to the drawing-room she left the -elders together and sat for a while apart with him. - -“You’ll go and see Lady Northby, of course,” she said. - -“I should just think so,” he replied boyishly. “You see, I’m New Army -and have never had a chance of meeting a General’s wife. If they’re all -like that, no wonder the Army’s what it is.” - -Lady Edna smiled indulgently. “She’s a dear. I thought you would fall in -love with her.” - -“But you couldn’t have known I was in General Northby’s Division, -unless——” - -“Unless what?” - -“Unless you’re a witch.” - -With a quick glance she read the tribute in his young eyes. It almost -persuaded her that she possessed uncanny powers. She looked charmingly -mysterious. - -“Let us leave it at that,” she said. “Anyhow,” she added, “Lady Northby -can be very useful indeed to a young officer.” - -“Useful?” His cheek flushed. “But I couldn’t go to see any -lady—socially—with the idea of getting things out of her. It would be -awful.” - -“Why?” - -He met her eyes. “It’s obvious.” - -She broke into pleasant laughter. “I’m so glad you said that. If you -hadn’t, I should have been dreadfully disappointed.” - -“But how could you have thought me capable of such a thing?” - -His real concern touched her. Inured to her world of intrigue which had -little in it that was so sensitive on the point of honour, she had taken -for granted his appreciation of Lady Northby’s potential influence. She -was too crafty a diplomatist, however, to let him guess her surprise; -still less suspect her little pang of realization that his standards -might be just a little higher than her own; or her lightning glance back -to her girlhood when her standards were just the same. She gave him -smilingly to understand that it was a playful trap she had set for him, -so that resentment at an implied accusation was instantaneously -submerged beneath a wave of wonder at the gracious beauty of her soul. -This boy of twenty, instinctive soldier, half-conscious thereof when he -came to exercise his power, could play on fifty rough and violent men as -on an instrument, and make them do his bidding lovingly in the ease of -camp and follow him in battle into the jaws of hell, as they had done, -but he was outclassed in his unwitting struggle with the girl of -five-and-twenty, instinctive schemer after power, her clear brain as yet -undisturbed by any clamourings of the heart. - -Baltazar, desiring to bring brightness into the boy’s life, had brought -it with a vengeance. He had not heard of Dorothy. He had no idea of the -state of mind of the Rosaline-rejected young Romeo of a son of his. -Unconscious of peril, he cast him into the furnace. “An interesting -type. A woman of the moment,” commented placid and philosophic Fifty. -“Oh! she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” sang Twenty. Et cetera, -et cetera, et cetera. See the part of Romeo _passim_. Away with -Rosaline! His “love did read by rote and could not spell.” -Rosaline-Dorothy was blotted out of his Book of Existence for ever. - -“What are your plans?” asked Lady Edna, as soon as the little cloud had -melted beneath the very eager sunshine. - -“As soon as I get a new foot I’ll spend every day at the War Office -until they give me something to do.” - -“You oughtn’t to have any difficulty. There are lots of billets going, I -know.” - -“Yes. But what kind? I’m not going to sit in an office all day filling -up forms. I want to get a man’s job. Active service again.” - -“How splendid of you!” - -Her commendation was something to live for. After the British way, -however, he deprecated claims to splendour. - -“Not a bit. It’s only that one feels rather rotten doing nothing while -other fellows are fighting. They may take me in the Flying Corps. But -I’d sooner go where I belong—to the job I know. Perhaps I’m rather an -ass to think of it.” - -“Not at all. Where there’s a will there’s a way.” - -“I’m going to have a try for it, anyhow,” said he. - -He thought vindictively of Dorothy’s light patronage, which would have -resulted in a soft job. No soft jobs for him. He had had a lucky escape. -Dorothy and her inconsequence and flapperish immaturity, and the -paralysing work that General Mackworth would doubtless have found for -him—recording issues of bully-beef or keeping stock of dead men’s kits! -Never in life! In those bright eyes raining influence—no, they were not -bright—they were muffled stars—that was the fascination of them—he -would make himself something to be considered, respected, admired. He -would be the one one-footed man in the British Army to arrive at -greatness. The splendid end compelled the means. Until that moment he -had never contemplated an heroic continuance of his military career. - -Lady Edna, pathetically young, in spite of myriad ageing worldlinesses, -including a half-humorous, half-repellant marriage of calculation, was -caught by his enthusiasm. - -“I should love to see you back again!” - -“That alone is enough,” said he, “to make me move heaven and earth to -get there.” - -She flushed beneath his downright eyes and hid a moment’s embarrassment -by a laugh. - -“That’s a very pretty speech,” she said lightly. “I’m glad to find the -Army is going back to its old tradition of manners.” - -“I perfectly agree with you,” exclaimed Baltazar, for her tone had been -purposely pitched higher than that of the preceding conversation. “I’ve -been greatly struck by it.” - -The little intimate talk was over; but enough had been said before -father and son took their leave, to make Godfrey treasure every one of -her beautiful words and repeat them over and over again. Especially her -last words, spoken in a low voice for him alone: “I don’t want to lose -track of you. One so often does in London. If ever you’re at a loose -end, come and report progress. Ring me up beforehand.” She gave him her -number. Victoria 9857. A Golden Number. The figures had a magical -significance. - -It was not long before he ventured to obey her, and rang up the Golden -Number. He spent with her an enchanted hour, the precursor of many hours -which Lady Edna stole from her manifold activities in order to devote -them to the young man’s further enchantment. - - * * * * * - -In the meanwhile Quong Ho arrived at Godalming. Quong Ho delighted with -himself, in his ready-made suit and soft felt hat, in spite of the loss -of his pigtail, which the treatment of his cracked skull had -necessitated. Baltazar, too, cast an eye of approbation on his European -appearance, regarding him somewhat as a creation of his own. His pride, -however, was dashed by Godfrey, who on being asked, eagerly, after the -first interview, what he thought of Quong Ho, cried: - -“For Heaven’s sake, sir, get the poor devil a new kit!” - -“Why—Why?” asked Baltazar, in his impatient way, “what’s the matter -with his clothes?” - -“They fit like a flag at the end of a pole in a dead calm,” said -Godfrey. “Or like sails round a mast. You’d have to get a pack of hounds -in order to find his arms and legs. And that red and purple tie! It’s -awful. Ask Marcelle.” - -Baltazar had walked Quong Ho over to Churton Towers, and after they had -said good-bye at the gates, he had rushed back to put his question, -leaving Quong Ho in the road. - -Marcelle smiled at his disconcerted face. “It would be scarcely well -received at Cambridge.” - -“Give the chap a chance, sir,” said Godfrey. - -“I want to give him every chance,” exclaimed Baltazar. “I want to -overwhelm him with chances. If his clothes won’t do, get him some -others.” - -At his summons the Chinaman came up. Baltazar caught him by his loose -sleeve. - -“Godfrey doesn’t approve of garments not made to the precise -measurements of the individual human figure. He’ll take you to his -tailor and hosier and hatter and rig you out properly. He knows what’s -right and I don’t. When can you do it? The sooner the better.” - -“I’ll see what my engagements are,” said Godfrey stiffly. - -“That’s right,” cried Baltazar. “Telephone me this evening. His time’s -yours. Get him all he wants. Brushes, combs, shirts, pyjamas, boots. You -know.” - -He wrung his hand, waved his hat to Marcelle and marched off with Quong -Ho. - -Godfrey regarded the retreating figures speechless. Then he turned to -Marcelle. - -“Of all the cool cheek! Without by your leave or with your leave! I’m to -cart this infernal Chinee about Bond Street. My God! My tailor will have -a fit.” - -“So long as Quong Ho gets one, it doesn’t matter,” laughed Marcelle. - -But he was in no humour for pleasantry. He dug his crutch viciously in -the ground as he walked. - -“He takes it for granted that I’d love to be saddled with this scarecrow -of a Chinaman. Don’t you see? It’s preposterous. My God! I’ve a jolly -good mind to set him up regardless, like a pre-war nut—with solid -silver boot-trees and the rest to correspond. It would serve J. B. -right.” - -Said Marcelle with a sidelong glance—in her Sister’s uniform she looked -very demure— - -“Why didn’t you refuse?” - -He fumed. “How could I? I couldn’t hurt the poor chap’s feelings. -Besides——” - -“Besides what?” - -“This father of mine—his big gestures, his ugly mouth—and his infernal -dancing eyes—and behind them something so pathetic and appealing—I -don’t know. Sometimes I think I loathe the sight of him, and, at others, -I feel that I’d be a beast if I shut my heart against him. And always I -feel just like a rabbit before a boa-constrictor. I’m not a little boy. -I’ve seen life naked. I’m on my own. I object to being bossed. In the -Army it’s different—it’s part of the game; but outside—no!” - -He limped along to the house full of his grievance. It was not so much -the clothing of Quong Ho that annoyed him, though he could well have -spared himself the irritating embarrassment, as the sense of his gradual -subordination to a dominating personality. The disconnected dynamo was -hitching itself on to him, and he resented the process. - -“How you’ve escaped being married out of hand, I don’t know,” said he. - -Marcelle flushed. “The moment he realizes other people’s feelings,” she -replied, “he becomes the gentlest creature on earth.” - -“I wish to goodness he’d begin to realize mine,” growled the young man. - -When they reached the front steps of Churton Towers, Marcelle said: - -“I wonder whether I could be of any help to you in your shopping?” - -“You? Why——” He beamed suddenly on her. - -“I’m free on Friday. I could go up to town with you.” - -“You’re an angel!” he declared. “A winged angel from heaven.” The boy in -him broke out sunnily. “That’ll make all the difference. What a dear you -are. Won’t we have a time! I’ll love to see you choosing the beast’s -pyjamas.” - -“They shall be stout and sober flannel,” said Marcelle. - -“No. Silk. Green, red, yellow and violet. The sort of thing the -chameleon committed suicide on.” - -“Who’s going to run the show—you or I?” - -“Oh you. You all the time.” - -He laughed and hobbled up the steps in high good humour. - -Marcelle went off to her duties smiling pensively. What a happy woman -would be the right woman for Godfrey. Wax in her hands—but wax of the -purest. She was astonished at the transformation from cloud to sunshine -which she, elderly spinster nearly double his age, had effected, and her -nerves tingled with a sense of feminine power. Her thoughts switched off -from son to father. They were so much alike—from the feminine point of -view, basically children. Were not her fears groundless? Could she not -play upon the man as she played upon the boy? Recent experience answered -yes. - -But then she faced the root difference. To the boy she surrendered -nothing. To the man she would have to pay for any measure of domination -the price of an indurated habit of existence, the change of which was -fraught with intolerable fear. No. She could take, take all that she -wanted. But she could not give. There was nothing in her to give. Better -this beautiful autumn friendship than a false recrudescence of spring, -in which lay disaster and misery and disillusion. - -As for the boy, God was good to have brought him into her life. - -Meanwhile, Baltazar walked home to Godalming with Quong Ho in gay -spirits. It was just like the modern young Englishman to shy at the -depths and attack the surface. And, after all, as a more alert glance -assured him, the surface of Quong Ho deserved the censure of any -reasonable being. One could almost hear his garments flap in the autumn -wind. - -“I fear,” said Quong Ho apologetically, “that my care in selecting this -costume was not sufficiently meticulous.” - -“Godfrey’ll soon put that right,” laughed Baltazar. “Anyhow, it’s the -man inside the clothes that matters.” - -And when he came to think of it, he perceived that the man inside had -had little opportunity of revealing himself, he, Baltazar, having done -the talking for the two of them. Quong Ho had comported himself very -ceremoniously. His manners, though somewhat florid in English eyes, had -been unexceptionable, devoid of self-consciousness and awkward attempts -at imitation. He had responded politely to the conventional questions of -Marcelle and Godfrey, but there his conversation had stopped. Of the -rare gem presented to them they had no notion. Never mind. Once let -Quong Ho give them a taste of his quality, and they could not choose but -take him to their bosoms. - -Which, by the end of the Friday shopping excursion, was an accomplished -fact. - -Now that Marcelle had assumed responsibility, Godfrey, after the way of -man, regarded the attiring of Quong Ho as a glorious jest. His bright -influence melted Quong Ho’s Oriental reserve. Encouraged to talk, he -gave them sidelights on the life at Spendale Farm which neither had -suspected. His description, in his formal, unhumorous English, of the -boxing lessons, delighted Godfrey. - -“The old man must be a good sport,” he remarked to Marcelle. - -“Ah!” said Quong Ho, bending forward—they were in the train—“A ‘sport’ -is a term of which I have long desired to know the significance. Will -you have the gracious kindness to expound it?” - -“Lord! That’s rather a teaser,” said Godfrey. “I suppose a sport is a -chap that can do everything and says nothing, and doesn’t care a damn -for anything.” - -Quong Ho nodded sagely. “That is most illuminating. I regret that I have -not my notebook with me. But I shall remember. Incidentally, you have -summed up exactly the character of your honourable father and my most -venerated patron.” - -“He’s a joy,” Godfrey whispered to Marcelle as they left the train. “I -could listen to him all day long. He talks like the books my grandmother -used to read when she was a kid. Mr. Ho,” said he, as they proceeded up -the platform to the gates, “you have now a unique opportunity of -studying the Western woman. Miss Baring is going shopping. You see in -her eye the sign that she is going to have the time of her life.” - -“Madam,” said Quong Ho, taking off his hat, to the surprise not only of -Godfrey but of the scurrying passengers, “that is also the superlative -achievement of the ladies of my country.” - -They shopped, they lunched merrily in a select little restaurant off -Shaftesbury Avenue, they shopped again. Godfrey stood aloof and gave -advice; sketched the programme in broad outlines; Marcelle filled in the -details and became responsible for the selection of the various -articles; Quong Ho smiled politely and submitted the various parts of -his body, to be measured. Only once did he venture to interfere, and -that was when Marcelle was matching ties and socks in the Bond Street -hosier’s. - -“I beg most humbly your pardon,” said he, picking out a tie other than -the one selected, “but this shade is the more exact.” - -“Surely it’s the same,” exclaimed Marcelle, putting the ties together. - -“The gentleman is right, madam,” said the shopman. “But not one person -out of ten thousand could tell the difference. I couldn’t, myself, if I -hadn’t been trained at Lyons. I wonder, madam, whether you would allow -me to try a little experiment?” - -He disappeared into a back room and returned with a pinkish mass of silk -threads. - -“This is a colour test. There are twenty different shades. Can you sort -them?” - -Godfrey, amused, took half the mass, and for several minutes he and -Marcelle laboriously sorted the threads. Presently the shopman turned to -Quong Ho. - -“Now you, sir.” - -Quong Ho, without hesitation, made havoc of the piles and swiftly -arranged the twenty groups in an ascending scale of red. - -“There’s not another man in London who could have done that under an -hour,” said the shopman admiringly. - -“When did you learn it?” asked Godfrey. - -“Vain boasting, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “is far from my habits, but to -me these differences are as obvious as black from white. It is only a -matter of informative astonishment that they are not perceptible both to -you and”—he took off his hat again—“to the most accomplished madam.” - -“Look here, old chap,” said Godfrey, “what I want to know is this. How -could you, with your exquisite colour sense, go about in that awful red -and purple tie?” - -“To assume the perfection of English pink,” replied Quong Ho, “I would -make any sacrifice. At the same time, it gives me infinite satisfaction -to discover that the taste of Water End is not that of the metropolis. -_Non omnes arbusta juvant humilesque myricae._” - -“I beg your pardon?” cried Godfrey, with a start, almost, upsetting the -high counter chair on which he was sitting. - -Quong Ho, perched between Godfrey and Marcelle, turned with a smile. - -“It is the Latin poet Virgilius.” - -“Yes, I know that.” - -“He says that shrubs and other bucolic appurtenances do not please -everybody—by which he means the sophisticated inhabitants of capital -cities, who prefer such delectable harmonies of colour”—he waved a hand -to the pile of shirts, socks, ties and pyjamas on the counter—“to the -red and purple atrocities which form the delight of the rural -population.” - -Godfrey, elbow on counter and head on hand, regarded him wonderingly. - -“Mr. Ho,” said he, “you’re immense. Do tell me. I don’t mean to be -impertinent. But for a Chinaman to quote Virgil—pat—How do you manage -to do it?” - -“During my convalescence,” replied Quong Ho, with his engaging smile, “I -read through the works of the poet with considerable interest. Dr. -Rewsby was kind enough to obtain for me the edition in the series of the -Oxford Pocket Classics, _P. Virgilii Maronis Opera Omnia. Oxonii. -MDCCCCXIII_, from which date I concluded that I was reading the most -authoritative text known to English scholarship.” - -“In the meanwhile,” said Marcelle, “Mr. Ho is in need of winter -underclothing.” - -Not the least noteworthy of the day’s incidents was the meeting between -Quong Ho and Lady Edna, who, proceeding on foot to a War Committee in -Grosvenor Street, and wearing the blue serge coat and skirt of serious -affairs, ran into them as they waited for a taxi on the Bond Street -kerb. She stopped, with outstretched hand. - -“Why, Godfrey, I didn’t know you were in town to-day.” - -Then, suddenly catching Marcelle’s curious glance, she became conscious -of his companions and her cheek flushed. He hastened to explain. - -“We’re on outfit duty—indenting for clothing for Mr. Ho, who was badly -bombed, if you remember, with my father.” - -He performed the introductions. - -“I have heard about you, Mr. Ho,” she said graciously. “You’re a great -mathematician.” - -Godfrey wondered at her royal memory. Quong Ho, bare-headed, said: - -“I but follow painfully in the footsteps of my illustrious master.” - -She laughed. “You must let Mr. Godfrey bring you round to see me one of -these days.” - -“Madam,” replied Quong Ho, with a low bow. “As the Italians say, it will -be a thousand years until I have the honour to avail myself of so -precious a privilege.” - -“We must fix something up soon, then—one day next week.” - -She shook hands with Marcelle, nodded to the others, and went away -wreathed in smiles. Quong Ho followed her with his eyes; then to -Godfrey: - -“I have never seen a more beauteous and worshipful lady. One might say -she was one of the goddesses so vividly described by Publius Virgilius -Maro.” - -“Your taste seems to be impeccable, sir,” replied Godfrey. - -In the train, on the homeward journey, Marcelle, who was sitting by -Godfrey’s side—Quong Ho sat opposite reading an evening paper—said to -him: - -“You seem to be great friends with Lady Edna Donnithorpe.” - -“The best,” said he. - -“Do you usually let her know when you’re coming up to town?” - -Godfrey reflected for the fraction of a second. Lady Edna had certainly -committed the unprecedented act of giving herself away. Frankness was -therefore the best policy. - -“Sometimes I do,” he replied innocently. “On the off chance of her being -able to give me a cup of tea. It’s only once in a blue moon that she -can, for she’s always all over the place.” - -“She’s a very beautiful woman, my dear.” - -“Your taste is as perfect as Quong Ho’s.” - -Quong Ho, hearing his name, looked with enquiring politeness over the -top of his newspaper. - -“Miss Baring and I were talking of Lady Edna.” - -“Ah!” said Quong Ho, with a very large smile. - -Before they parted, on reaching Churton Towers, Marcelle put her hand on -Godfrey’s shoulder. - -“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have asked you that question in the train—I had -no right——” - -He interrupted her with his boyish laugh. - -“You dear old thing! You have every right to cross-question me on my -wicked doings. Haven’t I adopted you as a sort of young mother? -Iolanthe. Or the Paphian one which Quong Ho was gassing about. Now, look -here. You just come to me in a rosy cloud whenever you like, and I’ll -tell you everything.” - -“Swear it?” - -“I swear it.” - -He kissed her finger-tips, and she went away half-reassured. But she was -sufficiently in the confidence of the Baltazars, father and son, to know -that, for both of them, Lady Edna Donnithorpe was but a recent -acquaintance. And to her the boy was “Godfrey,” and his presence in -London without her knowledge a matter of surprise. - -A few days later came the order for Godfrey to be transferred to an -orthopædic hospital, where he should learn the new art of walking with -an artificial foot. He parted from her with reiterated vows of undying -affection. From his Iolanthe mother the secrets of his heart would never -be hidden. If she wanted a real good time, she would chuck the -nursing—Heaven knew she had done her bit in the war—and come and be a -real mother and keep house for him. She smiled through her tears. -“Preposterous child!” she called him. - -“You seem to forget,” said he, “that you’re the only female thing -associated with my family I’ve ever cared a hang about. I’ve adopted -you, and don’t you forget it. When I’ve got my foot, I’ll march in like -a regimental sergeant-major and take you by the scruff of your Sister’s -cap, and off you come.” - -She laughed, trying to attune herself to his gay spirits; but when she -lost the last faint sound on the gravel-path of the motor-cab that took -him away, she went up to her room and cried foolishly, as she had not -cried for years. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -ON Godfrey’s transference from Godalming, Baltazar, with characteristic -suddenness, moved into a furnished house in London. The reasons for his -sojourn at the inn existed no longer. Besides, books and other -belongings were quickly usurping the cubic space at his disposal. -Marcelle, urgently invited to a consultation, advised, according to her -practical mind, a flat or a small house which he could furnish for -himself; and she offered such aid as her duties would allow. He ruled -out her suggestion. There must be rooms for Godfrey and Quong Ho -whenever they should be in town; rooms for servants; decent living -rooms, so that the inhabitants should not have to herd higgledy-piggledy -together; also ample accommodation for Marcelle, should she care to -change her mind. Nothing but a large house would suit him. As for -waiting until painters, decorators, paper-hangers, curtain-makers, -carpet-layers, electric-light fitters and suchlike war-attenuated tribes -had completed their business, it was out of the question. It would take -months. He wanted to establish himself in a ready-made home right now, -and get on with the war. Such a home his friend Mrs. Jackman had -suggested. The owner, poor fellow, killed in the war; the wife and a boy -of thirteen left ill-provided for. As she could not afford to live in -the house, and yet shrank from selling it and its precious contents, the -boy’s heritage, she would be content to let it furnished for an -indefinite period. There it was—Sussex Gardens—near the -Park—admirable in every way. He was accustomed to spacious habitations. -His house in Chen-Chow covered nearly an acre. In his exile at Spendale -Farm he had room to breathe. The Godalming inn was charming in its way, -but now and then he had mad impulses to attack the walls of his -sitting-room with his nails and tear them down. What was wrong with -Sussex Gardens? - -“It’s extravagant, trouble-shirking, and generally manlike.” - -“Marry me,” said he, “and you shall have a house economical, -trouble-inviting and generally woman-like. Any kind of old house you -consider ideal.” - -“You’ll want four or five servants to run it,” she objected, ignoring -his proposition. “Where are you going to get them from in these war -times?” - -“They’re already there. A cook who’ll act as housekeeper——” - -“You’ll be robbed right and left.” - -“Come and save me,” said Baltazar. - -She laughed. “I’m tempted to do so, just out of pity for you.” - -“Pity won’t do, my dear,” said he. - -“Then you must go your own way.” - -“I’m going it,” said Baltazar. “Perhaps you’ll come to Sussex Gardens -now and then to see Godfrey. Possibly Quong Ho?” - -“I might even come to see John Baltazar,” said Marcelle. - -So Baltazar settled down in the big house and gave himself up to the -infinite interests of war-racked London. The weeks and the months -passed. Quong Ho at Cambridge, under the benign tutelage of Dr. -Sheepshanks, began the study of Greek for his Little Go, and wrote to -his patron curious impressions of the University. “I have the option,” -said he, “of taking up for this examination either an infant’s primer on -Logic compiled by an illustrious thinker of a bygone age, called Jevons, -or a humorous work on the Evidence of Christianity, by the divine Paley, -who seems to have been one of the patriarchs of the Anglican Church. As -the latter seems the more entertaining, seeing that it tends to destroy -in the mind of the reasoning believer all faith in the historical truth -of the Christian religion, I am studying it with a deep interest based -on the analogy between English and Chinese academic conservatism. On the -other hand, dear sir and most venerated master, if you could suggest a -course in Theology more in consonance with modern philosophical thought, -I should derive from it much instruction and recreation.” Baltazar bade -him get on with his Greek, so that if he wanted light reading, he could -soothe his leisure hours with Aristotle and Thucydides. “I am working at -Greek, like stags,” wrote Quong Ho later; “with all the more zeal -because I find I have completed already the mathematical course required -for my Tripos.” Some time afterwards he wrote again: “If you, most -honoured sir, would permit me, I should esteem it a privilege to read -for the Science Tripos as well as the Mathematical. I should enjoy the -possibility of the application of my sound mathematical equipment to the -higher branches of physics.” “Do what you like, my dear fellow,” replied -Baltazar. “Suck the old place dry.” Quong Ho delighted him. Sheepshanks -wrote enthusiastically of the rare bird. “He will be a monument,” said -he, “to your sound and masterly teaching. I wish you would come back to -us.” But Baltazar had other things to do. Having set his house in order, -established Quong Ho at Cambridge, seen Godfrey accept his filial -position and cemented relations, such as they were, with Marcelle, he -plunged head foremost into the war. Others floundered about in it, tired -after two strenuous years of buffeting. He came to it fresh, with new -zeal and unimpaired strength of mind and body. With a new, keen -judgment, too, being in the unique position of one with historical -perspective. Others had lived through the fateful years and could not -clear their brains of the myraid cross-currents that had swirled through -them day by day, almost hour by hour, and had systematized themselves -into their mental being, so that, with all their passionate patriotism, -they could not see the main course. Baltazar brought an untroubled and -vigorous intellect to bear on an accurately studied situation. - -“We’re all at sixes and sevens,” cried Weatherley one day in despair, -when they were discussing the new weekly review of the Far Eastern -policy which he had asked Baltazar to control. “Unless we’re careful, -the project will drop to pieces. Russell now declines to edit it unless -we give him an autocratic hand. But Russell’s mad on Slovenes and -Ruthenes and Croats. Clever as he is, he has no sense of proportion. I -don’t know what the devil we’re going to do. There’s no one else can -give the time. For the review to be any good, a man must throw his whole -soul into it.” - -Baltazar had one of his flashes. “If you like, I’ll edit the damned -thing. You’ve all been fiddling about for a title. I’ve got one. ‘The -New Universe.’ I’ll undertake to make a living thing of it, wipe out all -the dreary, weary old weekly and monthly respectabilities. We won’t have -a second-rater writing for it. We’ll appeal to ‘Longleat’s towers’ and -‘Mendip’s sunless caves.’ We’ll make it the one thing that matters in -this quill-driven country. We’ll have it translated into all known -languages and circulate it over the civilized earth. It’ll be the only -publication that’ll give everybody the truth about everything.” - -He went on in his vehement way. When Weatherley asked him where the -money for so gigantic a scheme was to come from, he quoted the Tichborne -claimant. - -“Some has money and no brains and some has brains and no money. If those -with no money can’t get money from those with no brains, God help them.” - -And it came to pass, a few days afterwards, at a meeting of the -committee of the new review, that Baltazar had his way. As he looked -with even vision on Ruthenes, Slovenes, Belgians, Hereros, Jugo-Slavs, -British miners, Samoans, the staff of the Foreign Office, Indian -princes, Mrs. Annie Besant, the denizens of Arkansas, the Southern -Chinese, the gilded adorners of Newport, the Women’s Emergency League, -the Wilhelmstrasse, Armenians, and the Young Men’s Christian -Association, a fact elicited by lengthy discussion of the multitudinous -phases of world politics, and as he succeeded in convincing all the -several zealots of particular interests, that their impassioned aims -were an integral part of his far-reaching scheme, they came unanimously -to the conclusion that no one but he had the universality to edit The -New Universe, and passed a resolution promising him their loyal -co-operation. - -“I’m going to make this darned thing hum,” said Baltazar to Weatherley. - -Money was the first object. Brains he could command in plenty. He -envisaged London as his El Dorado. The history of his exploitation of -the capitalist and landowner would, if it were published, become a -text-book on the science and remain forever a classic. He forced -wealth-guarding doors of whose existence he had been ignorant six months -before; by a stroke of the genius which had brought him his position in -China, he secured the support, financial and moral, without the control -of an important group of newspapers; he enlisted the aid of every -possible unit in his rapidly increasing circle of acquaintance. The -scope of the Weekly had extended far beyond the modest bounds of its -conception. Originally it was to be an appeal to the thinkers of all -nations. “Damn thinkers,” said Baltazar. “They’re as scarce as angels -and about as useful. We want to put thoughts into the heads of those -that don’t think. It’s the Doers we want to get hold of. A thing -academic is a thing dead. This is going to live.” Some of the superior -smiled at his enthusiasm; but Baltazar damned them and went his way. -This was going to be the Great Teaching Crusade of the War, the most -far-sweeping instrument of propaganda known to journalism. He pulled all -strings, brought in all parties. A high dignitary of the Labour World -and a Tory Duke of unimpeachable integrity found themselves appointed as -Trustees of The New Universe Publication Fund. Money flowed in. - -One day he ran across Pillivant, in St. James’s Street, Pillivant mainly -individualized by a sable fur coat and a lustrous silk hat and a -monstrous cigar cutting his red face like a fifteen-inch gun cutting the -deck of a battleship. Baltazar greeted him as a long-lost brother and -haled him off to lunch at his club. Mellowed by the club’s famous -Chambertin and 1870 port, he took a rosy view of all kinds of worlds -including The New Universe, as presented by his host. It was a great -scheme, he agreed. He was sick of all newspapers, no matter of what -shades of opinion. They were all the same. Honesty was not in them. Nor -was there honesty in any Government. Men with not a quarter of what he -had done for the country to their credit, were being rewarded with -peerages and baronetcies. In the New Year’s Honours List he had not been -mentioned. Not even offered a beastly knighthood. But it didn’t matter. -He was a patriot. And it was very fine old brandy, and he didn’t mind if -he did have another glass. Still, if a man put down a thousand pounds -for a thing, it was only business prudence to know where he stood. - -“You’ll stand here,” cried Baltazar, spreading before his eyes a printed -list of the General Committee, a galaxy of dazzling names. “You’ll take -rank in the forefront of the biggest patriotic crusade that ever was. -Your light will no longer be under a bushel. It will shine before men. -What’s the good of your name being lost in a close-printed subscription -list? This is a totally different thing. Your appearance here will give -you position. Look at the people. Have you ever stood in with a crowd -like this before?” - -Baltazar held the mellowed profiteer with his compelling eyes. - -“I can’t say that I have,” replied Pillivant. “But all the same——” - -“But all the same,” Baltazar interrupted, “you’ve been at loggerheads -with the War Office. There was that question asked in the House over the -Aerodrome contract. You told me about it yourself. Now listen to me -carefully”—Baltazar played a gambler’s card—“your coming in with us -will be a guarantee of integrity. It’s obvious that no one on this list -could do otherwise than run straight. The worry it would save you!” He -looked at his watch and jumped up. “By George! I’ve got an appointment -with our Treasurer, Lord Beldon. Would you like to come along and hear -more about the scheme? Waiter! Ask them to get me a taxi. We’ll find our -hats and coats round here.” - -He drove a gratified Pillivant to Chesterfield Gardens and introduced -him to Lord Beldon (with whom he had no appointment whatever) as an -enthusiastic believer in The New Universe, ready to finance it to the -extent of two or three thousand pounds. “Three thousand, wasn’t it?” - -“I said between two and three thousand,” replied Pillivant, flattered at -his reception by the powerful old peer, and not daring to fall back on -the original one thousand that had been vaguely suggested. A bluff, of -course, for which he admired Baltazar, although he cursed him in his -heart; but was it worth while calling it? He could buy up this old -blighter of a lord twice over. He would show him that he had the money. -“I was thinking of two thousand five hundred,” he continued. “But what’s -a miserable five hundred? Yes. You can put me down for three thousand. -In fact”—with a flourish he drew a cheque-book from his pocket—“I’ll -write you the cheque now, payable, I presume, to the Right Honourable -the Earl of Beldon.” - -“Or _The New Universe_. As you please.” - -“Better be personal,” said Pillivant, enjoying the inscription of the -rolling title and the prospect of the elevated eyebrows of the bank -clerk who should debit the sum to his account. - -“That’s exceedingly generous of you, Mr. Pillivant,” said Lord Beldon, -putting the cheque into a drawer of his writing-table. - -“Just patriotic, your lordship,” replied Pillivant, with a profiteering -wave of the hand. - -“I think,” said Baltazar, “that the contributor of such an important sum -ought to be offered some practical interest in the scheme. Mr. -Pillivant’s name will appear on the General Committee. But that’s more -or less honorary. The sub-committees will do the real business. We’re -going to deal with every phase of the war, Pillivant, and the various -sub-committees—their names will be published large as life and twice as -natural—will supply the editorial department with indisputable facts. -Now,” he turned to Lord Beldon, “if Mr. Pillivant will serve on the -Purity of Contracts Sub-Committee, he’ll be bringing us a tremendous and -invaluable business experience.” - -“That’s a most happy suggestion,” smiled Lord Beldon. - -“I think so, too. I’ll get a run for my money,” said Pillivant. - -When he had gone, Lord Beldon turned a puzzled brow on Baltazar. - -“Isn’t that the chap about whom some nasty things were said a few months -ago?” - -Baltazar grinned. “It is,” said he. “We’ve made him disgorge some of his -ill-gotten gains, and, by putting him on the sub-committee we’ll make -him pretty careful about getting them ill in the future.” - -Thus, with ruthless pertinacity he gathered in a great sum of money, and -finally in a splendour of publicity the first number of _The New -Universe_ appeared, and from the first day of its appearance Baltazar -felt himself to be a power in the land. - -Another reputation in certain circles had meanwhile been made by his -trenchant article on Chinese affairs in the _Imperial Review_. It led to -an interview with the Chinese Ambassador, who professed agreeable -astonishment at finding the famous but somewhat mysterious -Anglo-Chinaman of Chen-Chow and the writer of the article one and the -same person. After which he spent many pleasant hours at the Embassy, -discussing Chinese art and philosophy and the prospects of the career of -his prodigious pupil, Quong Ho. In course of time, the Foreign Office -discreetly beckoned to him. It had heard from authoritative sources—it -smiled—that Mr. Baltazar’s knowledge of China was unique, for though -many other men were intimately acquainted with the country from the -point of view of the official, the missionary, the merchant and the -traveller, it had never heard of a man of his attainments who had -divorced himself from all European influence and had attained a high -position in the social and political life of non-cosmopolitan China. If -Mr. Baltazar would from time to time put his esoteric knowledge at the -service of the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office would be grateful. At -last, after various interviews with various high personages, for all -this was not conveyed to him in a quarter of an hour, it not being the -way of the Foreign Office to fall on a stranger’s neck and open its -heart to him, he received a proposal practically identical with -Weatherley’s suggestion which he had so furiously flouted. The Secret -Service—the Intelligence Department—had been crying out for years for -a man like him, who should go among the Chinese as a Chinaman, -thoroughly in their confidence. “A spy?” asked Baltazar bluntly. The -Foreign Office smiled a bland smile and held out deprecating fingers. Of -course not. An agent, acting for the Allies, counteracting German -influence, working in his own way, responsible to no one but the Powers -at Whitehall, but yet, with necessary secrecy, towards China’s -longed-for Declaration of War against Germany. - -“China will come in on our side before the year’s out,” said Baltazar. - -How did he know it? Why, it was obvious to any student of the science of -political forces. It was as supererogatory for a man to go out to China -to persuade her to join the Allies as to stir up a bomb whose fuse was -alight, in order to make it explode. The Foreign Office protested -against argument by analogy. The forthcoming entry of China into the war -was naturally not hidden from its omniscience. But that did not lessen -the vital need of secret and skilful propaganda before, during and after -the period that China might be at war. There were the eternal German -ramifications to be watched; the possible Japanese influences—it spoke -under the seal of the most absolute confidence—which, without any -thought of disloyalty on the part of Japan, might, not accord with -Western interests; there were also the bewildering cross-currents of -internal Chinese politics. There were thousands of phases of invaluable -information which could not be viewed by the Embassy; thousands of -strings to be pulled which could not be pulled from Pekin. “We could -not, like Germany and Austria in America, outrage those international -principles upon which the ambassadorial system had been based for -centuries. At the same time——” - -“You’re not above using a spy,” said Baltazar. - -Again the Foreign Office deprecated the suggestion. It wouldn’t dream of -asking Mr. Baltazar to take such a position. - -“Then,” said Baltazar, “what are you driving at?” - -The Foreign Office looked at him rather puzzled. As a matter of fact, it -did not quite know. Having Baltazar’s _dossier_ pretty completely before -it, it had gradually been compelled to the recognition of Baltazar as a -man of supreme importance in Chinese affairs. He must be used somehow, -but on the way to use him it was characteristically vague and -hesitating. It knew a lot about the Ming Dynasty being a connoisseur in -porcelain—but the Ming Dynasty, and all that it connoted, had come to -an end a devil of a long time ago; which was a pity, for it only knew -the little about Modern China which it gleaned from the epigrammatic and -uninspired _précis_ of official reports. To attach Baltazar in any way -to the Embassy was out of the question. The idea would have sent a -shiver down its spine to the very last vertebra of the most ancient -messenger whose father had run on devious errands for Lord Palmerston. -On the other hand, Baltazar was not of the type which could be sent out -on a secret errand. That fact he had made almost brutally obvious. So, -after looking at him for a puzzled second or two, it smiled invitingly. -Really, it waited for him to make a proposition. - -This he did. - -“Offer me a square and above-board mission as the duly accredited agent -of the British Government—to perform whatever duties you prescribe for -me, and I’ll consider it. At any rate, I’ll regard the offer as an -honour. But to go back to my friends as Chi Wu Ting——” - -“Ah!” interrupted the Foreign Office, turning over a page or two of -type-script. “That’s interesting. We wanted to ask you. How did you get -that name in China? You started there, after your abandonment of your -brilliant Cambridge career—you see we know all about you, Mr. -Baltazar—as James Burden.” - -“Phonetic,” said Baltazar, impatiently. “It’s as impossible for an -ordinary Chinaman to say James Burden, as for you to pronounce a word -with the Zulu click in it. It’s the nearest they could get. It’s good -Chinese. So I adopted it. I’m known by it all through Southern China. -Let me get on with what I was saying. To go back to my friends as Chi Wu -Ting and pretend I was acting in their interests, while all the time I -was acting in the interests of the British Government—well, I’m damned -if I would entertain the idea for a second.” - -The Foreign Office winced at the oath, although it damned lustily in -private. - -“But if Chi Wu Ting goes back, as you say, accredited——?” - -“That’s a different matter altogether.” - -“There’s still the question of—of remuneration,” said the Foreign -Office. - -“I’m by way of being a rich man,” said Baltazar. “I didn’t spend the -eighteen golden years of my life in the interior of China for my -health.” - -The Foreign Office beamed. “That simplifies things enormously.” - -“It generally does,” replied Baltazar. - -A month later the Foreign Office made him the offer which his sense of -personal dignity demanded from them; and, honour being satisfied, he -declined it. He could do better work for his country in London, said he, -than in again burying himself alive for an indefinite number of years in -China. The Foreign Office regretted his decision; but it gave him to -understand that the offer would always remain open. They parted on terms -of the most cordial politeness; but if the Foreign Office had heard the -things Baltazar said of it, its upstanding hair would have raised its -own roof off. - -“Three months,” he cried to Marcelle, “playing the fool, wasting their -time and mine, when the whole thing could have been done in five -minutes.” - -“But I can’t quite see,” she objected, “why you went on when you had -made up your mind from the start not to go back to China.” - -“Can’t you?” said he. “I’ll explain. I’ve sworn that there’ll be no more -idiocy on the part of John Baltazar to prevent him coming into his own. -He is coming into it. That the F.O. should recognize his position was an -essential factor of his own. When a man can dictate terms, he has -established himself. See? I suppose,” said he, halting in his abrupt -way, and thrusting his hands deep in his trousers pockets, “you think -this is just childish vanity. Come, say it.” - -She met his bright eyes and smiled up at him. “If I do, you won’t bite -my head off?” - -“No. I’ll convince you that it isn’t. Vanity, as its name implies, is -emptiness. Negative. This isn’t vanity, it’s Pride. Something positive. -My pet Deadly Sin. If you’ve got that strong, you can tell the six -others to go back to hell. If I hadn’t got it, the others would have -torn me to bits long ago. If I were a mongrel and thought myself a prize -bull-pup—that would be vanity. But I know, hang it all, that I’m a -prize bull-pup, and when I take leave to remind myself, and people like -the F.O. of the fact, that’s Pride. And when I say I’ve sworn to fulfil -the Destiny of the prize pup, John Baltazar, and be one of the -intellectual forces that’ll carry the Empire along to Victory—that’s -not vanity. Where’s the emptiness? It’s Pride—reckoned first of the -Seven Deadly Sins. If I glory in it—well—according to the Theologians, -it’s my damnation: according to me, it’s the other way about. Look. -There’s another way of putting it——” - -Suddenly she was smitten with the memory of Godfrey’s words five or six -months ago, when he fumed at the bear-leading of Quong Ho—“Those -infernal dancing eyes of his—and behind them something so pathetic and -appealing.” The boy was right. She met just that pathetic appeal. He was -so anxious to put himself right with her. He went on: - -“If I were in the habit of vowing to perform impossible extravagances, -that would be the sign of a vain man. But—apart from the Acts of -God—and I suppose technically we must classify the wiping out of my -life’s work under that heading—I have carried out every wild-cat scheme -I’ve deliberately set my mind to. So when I say I’m coming into John -Baltazar’s own, I know what I’m talking about, and that’s the sign of a -proud man. And, my dear,” said he after a pause, occupied in filling and -lighting his pipe, “I think this jolly old sin of mine keeps me from -making an ass of myself in all sorts of other ways.” - -Swiftly she applied these last words to the relations between them and -confessed their truth. A vain man would have pestered the life out of -her, confident in attaining his ends—ends as beautiful and spiritual as -you please—until through sheer weariness she yielded. Such a one would -enunciate and firmly believe in the proposition—she had not spent -twenty years among men in angelic ignorance of their -idiosyncrasies—that just hammer, hammer hard enough, and a woman will -be bound to love you in the end. But there were others, with a deadly, -sinful pride like Baltazar, who, scorning the vain, maintained the -dignified attitude of the late lamented King Canute. He would not claim -the impossible. - -But this was a far cry from the Imperial Government Mission to the Far -East. She asked, by way of escape from personal argument: - -“After all, this Chinese proposition is a first-rate thing. Is it so -very repugnant to you to go back?” - -He stood over her with his clenched fists in the air. - -“My dear,” said he, “you talked last year some silly rot about a locust. -I know the beast better than you do. It ate all those precious years I -spent in that infernal country. The best years of my life. I’m starting -now at fifty-one where I ought to have started at thirty. That damned -Chinese locust has robbed me of everything. You, Godfrey, the vital life -of England, and a brilliant career with Heaven knows what kind of power -for good. I hold the country in the most deadly detestation. Nothing in -this wide world would induce me to go back—not even if they wanted to -make me an Emperor. I’ve finished with it for ever and ever. I swear -it.” - -“You needn’t look as if I were urging you to it,” she laughed. “I’m sure -I don’t want to lose you.” - -“All right then,” said Baltazar. “Let us talk of something else.” - - * * * * * - -In these early months of struggle to enter his kingdom, Baltazar came -nearer happiness than he had ever done before. A man younger, or more -habitually dependent on women, would have counted the one thing wanting -as the one prime essential and would have regarded everything else as -naught. But Baltazar, although wistfully recognizing the one missing -element, was far too full of the lust of others to sit down and make -moan. Marcelle gave him all she could, a devoted friendship, a tender -intimacy, a sympathetic understanding. He wanted infinitely more, his -man’s nature clamoured for the whole of her. But what she gave was of -enormous comfort. It was a question of taking it or leaving it. Perhaps -had his love been less, he would have left it. Love me all in all or not -at all, and be hanged to you! That might have been his attitude. -Besides, he knew that by the high-handed proceeding of the primitive man -he could at any moment carry her off to the cave in Sussex Gardens. In a -way, it was his own choice to live celibate. Sooner accept the -graciousness she could give freely than take by force what she would -yield grudgingly. Let him be happy with what he had. - -For he had much. - -Godfrey, learning to walk on his artificial foot, a miracle of running -contrivance, and allowed, as it seemed, almost indefinite leave until he -should reach perfection of movement, took up his quarters in his house, -at first almost angrily, compelled against his will by the infernal -dancing eyes and the pathetic appeal behind them, and after a short -while very contentedly, appreciating his strange father’s almost womanly -solicitude for his comfort, his facilities for leading his own young -man’s life. Far more attractive the well-appointed house, with a -snuggery of his own made over for him to have and to hold in perpetuity, -with a table always spread for any friends he cared to ask to lunch or -dine, with an alert intellect for companion ever ready to give of its -best, with opportunities of meeting the odd, fascinating personalities -whom the editor of _The New Universe_ had gathered round him, with an -atmosphere of home all the more pleasant because of its unfamiliarity, -than the bleak room at an over-crowded hotel, or the cramped Half Moon -Street lodgings which in his boyish experience were the inevitable -condition of a lonely young man’s existence in London. Once he said: - -“I know it’s a delicate point, sir, but I should be awfully glad if -you’d let me contribute—pay my way, you know. It’s really embarrassing -for me to accept all this—I can’t explain—it’s horrid. But I do wish -you would let me, sir.” - -This was just after breakfast one morning. Baltazar paused in the act of -filling his pipe. - -“If you like, my boy,” said he, “we can discuss the matter with our -housekeeper, Mrs. Simmons, and agree upon a weekly sum for your board -and lodging. I know that you have independent means and can pay anything -in reason. Rather than not have you here, I should agree to such an -arrangement.” - -“It would make me feel easier in my mind, sir,” said Godfrey. “Shall we -have her in now and get the thing over?” - -“Not yet,” said Baltazar. “There’s another side of the question. By -accepting your father’s house as your natural home, you are giving a -very human, though faulty being, the very greatest happiness he has ever -known in his life. By refusing, you would destroy something that there -is no power in the wide world to replace. I don’t deserve any gratitude -for being your father; but, after all, you’re my son—and I’m very proud -of it. And all I have, not only in my house but in my heart, is yours.” -He lit a match. “Just yours,” said he, and the breath of the words blew -the match out. - -When Godfrey next met Marcelle, he told her of this. - -“What the devil could a fellow do,” said he, “but feel a worm and -grovel?” - -Another thing that added greatly to Baltazar’s happiness was Godfrey’s -attitude towards Quong Ho during the vacations, when the young Chinaman -was also a member of the household. - -“I like the beggar,” said Godfrey. “He’s so tactful; always on tap when -one wants him, and never in the way when one doesn’t. And his learning -would sink a ship.” - -Quong Ho, for his part, sat at the feet of the young English officer and -with pathetic earnestness studied him as a model of English vernacular -and deportment, and at the same time sucked in from him the whole theory -of the art of modern warfare. He had a genius for assimilating -knowledge. With the amused aid of Lady Edna Donnithorpe and Burke, he -acquired prodigious familiarity with the inter-relationships of the -great English families. At Baltazar’s dinner-table he absorbed modern -political thought like a sponge. It was during the Easter vacation that -he more especially determined to assume the perfect Englishman. Dr. -Sheepshanks, towards the end of term, had made him an astonishing -proposition. A mathematician of his calibre, said he, would be wasted in -China. Why should Mr. Ho not contemplate, as Fellow and Professor, -identification of himself with Cambridge? The war had swept away all -possible contemporary rivals. It was in his power to attain in a few -years not only a brilliant position in the University, but in the -European world of pure science. Sheepshanks had also written in the same -strain to Baltazar. And when Quong Ho modestly sought his master’s -advice, Baltazar vehemently supported Sheepshanks. - -“Of course you’ll stay. Weren’t those my very words at the hospital at -Water End? Another time perhaps you’ll believe me.” - -“For many years have I been convinced of the infallibility of your -judgment,” said Quong Ho. “I shall also never forget,” he added, “that I -am merely the clay which you have moulded.” - -“I’m beginning to think,” cried Baltazar, “that I’m not your friend Dr. -Rewsby’s colossal ass after all.” - -Baltazar was happy. He went about shouldering his way through the -amazing war-world, secure in his grip on all that mattered to him in -life. His was a name that, once heard, stuck in men’s memory. Gradually -it became vaguely familiar to the general public, well known to an -expanding circle. His romantic story, at first to his furious -indignation, was paragraphed far and wide. The Athenæum, under special -rule, reinstated him in his membership. The intransigent policy of _The -New Universe_ brought him into personal contact with the High and Mighty -at the heads of Ministries. Invitations to speak by all manners of -organizations poured in. As a speaker his dominating personality found -its supreme expression. He exalted in his newly found strength. The -essential man of action had been trammelled for half a century by the -robe of the scholar. The Zeppelin bomb had set him naked. - -Said Pillivant, meeting him in the offices of _The New Universe_: “A -year ago you didn’t know there was a war on. I took you for the ruddiest -freak I had ever come across. Now you’ve blossomed out into a ruddy -swell, bossing everything. I can’t open a newspaper without seeing your -name. How the hell have you managed to do it?” - -“Profiteering,” said Baltazar. - -“Profiteering?” asked Pillivant, puckering up his fat face in -perplexity. “What’s your line?” - -“Brains,” said Baltazar. - -He turned away delighted. Well, it came to that. There was no arrogance -about it. He was giving everything in his power to the country. -Oppressed, at one time, by the sense of physical fitness, and fired by -the sudden, urgent demand for man-power, he had, in one of his -Gordian-knot cutting moods, marched into a recruiting office and vaunted -his brawn and muscle. “I’m fifty,” said he, “but I defy anybody to say -I’m not physically equal to any boy of twenty-five.” But they had -politely laughed at him and sent him away raging furiously. It was then -that he followed the despised counsel of the unimaginative Burtenshaw, -K.C., and joined the Special Constabulary and the National Volunteers. - -“What’s the next thing you’re going to take on?” asked Marcelle. - -“First, my dear,” said he, “the whole running of this war. Then the -administration of the Kingdom of God on Earth.” - -“What a boy you are!” she laughed. - -“A damned fine boy,” said Baltazar. - - * * * * * - -One fine Sunday in May she came up to town to lunch with him alone, -Godfrey being away somewhere or other for the week-end. - -“My dear,” he cried, excitedly, as soon as she arrived, “I’ve been dying -to see you. It’s going to happen.” - -“What?” - -She smiled into his eager face. There was nothing so extravagant that it -could not happen to Baltazar. - -“There’s talk of a new Ministry—a Ministry of Propaganda.” - -“Well?” - -“Can’t you guess?” - -Her eyes glistened suddenly. - -“You—Minister?” - -He nodded. “It’s all in the clouds at present. At least these whifflers -of Cloud-Cuckoo-City think it is. But I don’t. They don’t see the Star -of John Baltazar in the ascendant. I do. My dear, there’s not an adverse -influence in all the bag of planetary tricks!” - -If he could have seen and appreciated what was happening some forty -miles off he might have observed in a certain conjunction of planets, to -wit, Venus and Mars, something that would have modified his optimistic -prognostication. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -THERE they were in a punt on one of the silent upper reaches of the -Thames above Moulsford; Venus in white serge, with a blue veil around -hat and throat, reclining gracefully on the cushions, and Mars in white -flannels standing, punt-pole in hand. It was one of those days when -Spring, in exuberant mood, throws off her shyness and masquerades in the -gorgeousness of Summer. The noontide vapours quivered over the sun-baked -meadow beyond the tow-path, and the shadows beneath the willows on the -opposite bank loomed black and cool. The punt was proceeding up a patch -of blazing river, and the drops from the pole sparkled like diamonds. -Just ahead there was a bend lapped in the violent shade of overhanging -elms. - -“This is the nearest thing to Heaven,” said Lady Edna. - -“Wait till we tie up under the trees and it’ll be Heaven itself,” said -Godfrey. - -Even in the boating times of peace this stretch was rarely frequented, -being too far both for the London crowd whose general limit was Goring, -and for the Oxford town excursionist who seldom pushed below -Wallingford. Also the _cognoscenti_ declared it an uninteresting bit of -river, dull and flat, devoid of the unspeakable charm of Clevedon and -Pangbourne, and therefore unworthy of especial consideration. Still, the -River is the River. Talk to an Englishman of the River, and he will not -think of the Severn or the Wye, or the historic highway between London -Bridge and the sea, but of those few miles of England’s fairy-stream, -the beloved haunts of beauty and gentleness and love and laughter, where -all the cares of the world are soothed into dreamful ease and the vague -passions and aspirations of youth are transformed into magical -definition. To the Londoner, at any rate, it is as sacred as Westminster -Abbey. So the stretches of loveliness pronounced dull by the superior, -were never neglected, and even this remote section, on Sundays -especially, had its sparse devotees. But now, in war-time, not a blade -or oar or paddle, not a glistening punt-pole disturbed the sweet -stillness of the waters. Only once, since they had left the boat-house, -had a barge passed them; a barge gay as to its poop with yellow and red, -a thin spiral of smoke from its cabin funnel proclaiming the cooking of -the Sunday dinner, while the barge-folk lounged on deck, their eyes and -attitudes suggestive of those who were already overfed on lotus, and one -small, freckled sunwraith of a child flitted along the tow-path beside -the mild old horse. - -But half an hour had passed since then. The very meadows no longer -showed the once familiar pairs of Sunday lovers. Were it not for the -pleasant cows, it would have been a scene of lovely desolation. - -“There,” said Godfrey, shipping the pole, and guiding the punt by the -aid of the branches to a mooring. “Allow me to introduce you to Heaven.” - -She kissed her hand to the greenery and the dark water and laughed -lightly. “How d’ye do, Heaven?” - -Godfrey turned from the rope which he had made fast and stumbled to the -floor of the punt. She started up in alarm. - -“Your foot, dear!” - -He laughed. “It’s all right this time. Sometimes I forget it’s a fake.” - -He sat beside her on the cushions and pointed to a basket in front of -them. “Shall we start on the nectar and ambrosia, or is it too early?” - -“Let us wait a bit and take in Heaven first. What on earth are you -doing?” she asked, a moment afterwards, as he established himself elbows -on knees and chin in hands, and stared close into her blue eyes. - -“I’m taking in all the Heaven that matters to me,” said Godfrey. - -“Do I matter so much?” - -“You do.” - -“Light me a cigarette,” said Lady Edna. - -He obeyed, handed her one alight and she put it between her lips. - -“I love doing that,” said he. “I’ve never done it for any other woman in -my life.” - -She arched her eyebrows. “Does his Sultanship think he’s conferring an -unprecedented honour on a poor woman?” - -“Oh, Edna!” His boyish face flushed suddenly. “You know what I mean. I -never dreamed that a wonderful woman would ever dream of taking anything -from my lips to hers. Look.” He lit another cigarette and held it out to -her. “Let me have yours.” - -“Baby!” she said, making the exchange. - -All of which imbecility was very bad and sad and mad, but to the united -youth in the punt it was peculiarly agreeable. - -“What a difference from last week-end,” she said, contentedly, after a -while. - -“What happened then?” - -“I had all the stuff-boxes in London down, Edgar included.” - -“And my venerable sire. I remember. I was at the War Office all Sunday. -And it poured with rain. What did you do with them?” - -“I stroked them and fed them and put them through their little tricks,” -she laughed. Then she added more seriously, “It happened to be a very -important day for your father. The Government has gone crazy on finding -out new forceful men—and clearing out the incompetent political hacks. -Edgar’s just hanging on by the skin of his teeth, you know. Well, -they’ve discovered your remarkable father, and last week-end they -practically fixed it up with him. A new Ministry of Propaganda. Oh!” she -laughed again. “I didn’t have such a bad time after all. But”—she -sighed—“this is better. Don’t let us think of wars or politics or -Edgars and such horrible things.” She threw her cigarette into the -water, and bent down to the basket. “Let us lunch.” - -It had been indeed an important day for Baltazar. The house near -Moulsford, Lady Edna’s personal possession, a vast square, red-brick, -late Georgian building, standing in grounds that reached down to the -river, had been filled with anxiously chosen High and Mightinesses, -among whom her husband, minister though he was, shone like an inferior -satellite. It was the last move in the game on behalf of John Baltazar -which she had played for many weeks. - -“What are you asking that damned fellow for?” Edgar Donnithorpe had -asked, looking at the list of guests. - -“Because he amuses me.” - -“He doesn’t amuse me,” snapped her husband. - -He was a little thin man, with thin grey hair and a thin moustache and a -thin voice. Up to a few months ago she had treated him with contemptuous -tolerance. Now she had begun to dislike him exceedingly. - -“If you don’t want to meet Mr. Baltazar,” she replied, “you can stay in -London.” - -They sparred in the unedifying manner of ill-assorted husband and wife. - -“I’m sick of seeing this overbearing adventurer in my house,” he said. - -“What do you mean?” - -“You know what I mean. I’m not going to let you make a fool of -yourself.” - -“My dear man,” she replied cuttingly, “if I were looking out for a -lover, this time I should take a young one.” - -She laughed scornfully and swept away. Long smouldering resentment had -been suddenly fanned into the flame of open hostility. She raged in her -heart against him. Never before had he dared to insinuate such a taint -in her political interest in any man. She, Lady Edna Donnithorpe, to -carry on an intrigue with John Baltazar—the insult of it! - -The next day brought a short but fierce encounter. - -“You pretend to be jealous. You’re not. You’re envious. You’re envious -of a bigger man than yourself. You’re afraid of him. You little minnows -hate Tritons. I quite understand.” - -In the wrath of a weak and foolish man he sputtered unforgettable words -which no woman ever forgives. She faced him with lips as thin as his -own, and her languorous eyes hardened into little dots of jade. - -“You had better see to it that I don’t break you,” she said. - -“Break me? How? Politically?” He laughed a thin laugh of derision. “In -the first place you couldn’t. In the second you wouldn’t. What would -become of your position if I were out of the Government?” - -“I can very well look after myself,” she replied. - -On Saturday morning he made some apology for loss of temper which she -coldly accepted on condition of his courteous treatment of John -Baltazar. And so it fell that, when the subject of all this to-do -arrived at Moulsford, he found himself almost effusively welcomed by the -negative Edgar, and thrust into the inner circle of the High and -Mightinesses assembled. As the latter took Baltazar very seriously as a -coming power in the country, and as Lady Edna’s attitude towards him was -marked by no especial characteristic, Edgar Donnithorpe came to the -unhappy conclusion that he had made a fool of himself, and during the -informal discussion on the creation of the new Ministry, for which -purpose the week-end party had gathered together, he had dared do little -more than “just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike” when Baltazar’s name -was mentioned. Which pusillanimity coming to his wife’s ears, deepened -her resentment against him; and only Baltazar’s triumphal exit on the -Monday morning restrained her from giving it practical expression. -Sufficient for the day was the success thereof. - -In the lazy punt, that gracious Spring morning, she strove to drive the -last week-end from her thoughts. She revelled in the unusual and the -audacious. Edgar had gone to Paris on an international conference. Only -an ancient and faded Aunt, Lady Lætitia Vardon, a sort of permanent -aristocratic caretaker, was in the house; Godfrey the sole guest. And -Aunt Lætitia had caught a God-sent cold and was staying in bed. They two -had the whole bright day before them, and the scented evening, with -never a soul to obtrude on their idyllic communion. She had always -snapped her fingers at convention. But, Lady Edna Donnithorpe, chartered -libertine, had always observed the terms of her charter, her heart never -having tempted her to break them. This delicious breach was a different -matter altogether. She had even dared to put off two or three previously -invited friends. . . . - -She told him this while he helped her to chicken and ham. He proclaimed -her the most wonderful thing in the world. - -“Don’t you think I deserve one little day’s holiday in the year? Just a -holiday from the talk, talk, talk, the smiling, the wheedling, the -scheming, with my brain ever on the alert and seeming to grow bigger and -bigger as the night goes on, until it almost bursts my head when I lie -down to sleep?” - -“Why do you do it?” he asked. - -She shrugged her graceful shoulders. “I don’t know. I used to love it. -Now I’m beginning to hate it. I was at a wedding a day or two -ago—Charlie Haughton and Minnie Lavering—you know whom I mean, don’t -you? They haven’t a sixpence between them—and they looked so happy—oh! -so damned happy”—her voice broke adorably—“that I nearly wept.” - -He neglected his own plateful of chicken and ham and bent forward over -the basket between them. - -“I’d do anything in the wide world to make you happy, Edna.” - -“I know you would,” she smiled. “You’re doing your best now. It’s an -excellent best. But it might be better if you fished out the salt.” - -While she helped herself daintily from the paper packet which he held -out, he laughed, adoring her ever ready trick of switching off the -sentimental current. - -“Now you are really just a little bit happy, aren’t you?” - -She nodded intimately, which emboldened him to say: - -“For the life of me I can’t see what induced you to take up with a -rotten sort of cripple like me.” - -“Neither can I,” she replied composedly. “Except perhaps that the rotten -cripple is a very brave and distinguished soldier.” - -“Rubbish!” said Godfrey. “There are hundreds of thousands like me all -over the place, as indistinguishable from one another as peas in a -peck.” - -“Won’t you allow a poor woman just a nice sense of discrimination?” - -“I’ll allow the one woman in the universe,” said Godfrey, “to have -everything she pleases.” - -“Then that’s that,” said Lady Edna. - -They finished their meal happily, drank hot coffee from a thermos flask -and smoked and talked. As on the first day he had sat beside her, so -now, under the spell of her keen sympathy, he told her of all his -doings. For the past two or three months they had been of absorbing -interest. He had besieged the War Office, as he had gloriously -threatened, until one day he received an appointment on the staff of the -Director-General of Military Operations. That it was due to any other -influence than his own furious and persistent attacks, he had not the -remotest suspicion. He had dashed away from the amazing interview in a -taxi to Lady Edna, whom by good chance he found at home, and vaunted his -generalship. His father’s blood sang in his veins. The lady to whom, in -close conspiracy with Lady Northby, he owed the billet coveted by -thousands of men, wounded and whole, welcomed his news with the smiling -surprise of a mother who listens to her offspring’s tale of the wondrous -gifts of Santa Claus. - -It was one of the characteristics of Lady Edna Donnithorpe to love the -secret meed of secret services, a far more subtle joy than the facile -gratitude poured on a Lady Bountiful. Besides, such a reputation would -in itself destroy her power. Many women of her acquaintance who had -enjoyed it for a brief season during the war, had seen the sacred -shoulders of Authority turned frozenly upon them. She was not one of -those women acting from thoughtless impulse or vanity. The game of -intrigue fascinated her; she knew her winnings and hoarded them; but -they were the concern of no one in the wide world. Perhaps the time -might come when she could say to Godfrey: “All that you are you owe to -me. I have made you, and I have made your father. I can show you proofs. -What are you going to do?” Blackmail of a kind, certainly. A woman -driven up against a wall is justified in using any weapons of defence. -But all this lay hidden in the self-protective instinct. No thought of -it marred her triumph. - -She listened to his fairy-tales of the Allies’ war organization with a -twofold pride. First, in this vicarious entrance into the jealously -guarded Ark of the Covenant, whereby she gained exact knowledge of -mighty happenings to come, denied even to the self-important Edgar. -Secondly, in her unerring judgment of men. For Baltazar had told her a -week before of his meeting with one of Godfrey’s chiefs, who had given -the boy unreserved praise. Whereupon she herself had made it her week’s -business to track the social doings of the great man until she ran him -down a day or two ago at a friend’s house, and, in reply to her tactful -questionings, he had replied: - -“Baltazar? Lots of brains. A brilliant fellow, with wonderful power of -detail. Son of that astonishing chap John Baltazar, who has just come to -life again, and everybody’s talking about. Oh, you needn’t be afraid. We -have spotted him right enough.” - -She was sufficiently versed in affairs to know that a major-general does -not speak of a third-grade staff officer, and at the very tail of the -grade at that, in eulogistic terms, even to Lady Edna Donnithorpe, -without good reason. She hugged the word “brilliant” to her heart. - -And while Godfrey talked that May afternoon, she felt that she was -justified in all that she had done, was doing, and was going to do. Yet, -though what she had done gave her perfect satisfaction, and what she was -doing was blatantly obvious, what she was going to do lay dimly hidden -behind a rosy veil. For the moment this handsome, clean run boy to whom -she had given her heart, much to her own amazement, was contented with -platonic adoration in a punt. How long, she wondered, would his -contentment last? How long, indeed, would her own? Well, well, _Vogue la -galère_. Pole the spring-tide punt. Let her drain to its full the -unprecedented glory of the day. - -The cares of her crowded, youth-consuming life fell from her, and she -became young again, younger than she had been before her loveless -marriage. As she responded laughing to his eager, boyish foolishness, -she felt that she had never known till then what it was to be young. She -felt an infinite craving for all she had missed. . . . And Godfrey, -standing there in careless grace, punt-pole in hand, alert, confident, -radiant in promise, was the incarnation of it all: of all the youth and -laughter and love that she had passed by, scornfully unheeding. She -feasted her hungry eyes on him. Not only was he good to look at, in his -physical perfection. He was good to think upon. He had faced death a -thousand times, no doubt as debonairly as he faced the current of the -mild river. He, that boy whom a whisper could compel to her bidding, had -led men through mazes of unimagined blood and slaughter. If he had one -worm gnawing at his heart, it was the desire to get back again to this -defiant comradeship with death. She had looked up the record of the -achievement that had won for him the Military Cross. What a man he was! -And as she watched him, there floated across her vision the figure of a -thin, dry, self-seeking politician, and she shivered in the sunshine. -And, as there chanced to be a pause in the boyish talk, she let her -thoughts wander on. No one had ever called her thin, dry husband a -brilliant man, not even the most sycophantic place hunter who had -intrigued for a seat at her table. But in such terms had the first -Authority to whom she had spoken characterized Godfrey. Not only was he -the ordinary heroic young officer; he was a brilliant man, who would -make his mark as part of the brain that controlled the destinies of the -British Army. And all the sex in her humbled itself deliciously in the -knowledge that this paragon of all Bayards, or this Bayard of all -paragons, loved her with all his youth and manhood. - -Presently she noticed a change in his happy face. A spasm of pain seemed -to pass across it. He drew out the pole, stood with it poised. He drove -it in again, his jaws set in an ugly way. She waited till the end of the -stroke; then she rose to her feet. - -“Stop, dear, stop. You’re overdoing it.” - -“Overdoing what?” - -“Your foot.” - -“Nonsense! Do sit down.” - -He gathered up the dripping pole preparatory for the thrust; but she -caught his arm. - -“I’m sure your foot’s hurting you.” - -“It isn’t,” he declared, bending his weight on it. “Not a little bit.” - -But even as he spoke he made an unconscious grimace. - -“Do you love me?” - -He drew a sharp breath at the categorical question. In a thousand -indirect ways he had told her of his devotion; but he had never spoken -the explicit words. He said quietly and half wonderingly: - -“You know I love you.” - -“Then don’t hurt me by hurting yourself.” - -“Do you really care what happens to me?” he asked. - -“I love you better than anything in the world,” she said. - -They paddled home somewhat sobered by the mutual declaration, about -which they said nothing more. He admitted overstrain of the still -sensitive tissues of the base of the stump, and railed at his -misfortune. It was so humiliating to confess defeat. She smiled. There -might, she said, be compensation. When they landed, she insisted on his -leaning on her for support, during the walk up to the house, and, -although he suffered damnable torture whenever he set the artificial -foot on the ground, for his pressure on her adorable shoulder was of the -slightest, his progress was one of deliciously compensating joy. - -They dined decorously under the inscrutable eyes of butler and -parlourmaid, and after dinner they called for coat and wrap and went out -to sit on the moonlit terrace. As he put the fur-lined cloak round her, -his hand touched her cheek. She put up a hand caressingly and held his -there while she looked up at him in the dimness. He bent down, greatly -daring, and touched her lips. Then suddenly she clasped his head and -held his kiss long and passionately. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -THEY arranged it all between them in the comfortingly short-sighted way -of thousands of reprehensible couples before them. They spoke vaguely of -a divorce as though the wretched Edgar were the conjugal offender, and -pictured a time in the future, after the war, when they should marry and -live the bright and perfect life. In the meanwhile they proposed to find -much happiness and consolation together. He gave her, she declared, what -she had vainly been hungering for since early childhood—love and -sympathy and understanding. Into his sensitive ears she poured the story -of her disastrous marriage; of the far separated lives of her husband -and herself; of his envies and trivial basenesses. Godfrey had thought -her courted and flattered, a woman passing rich in love and friendship. -Really she had moved the loneliest thing on earth. Didn’t he see now -what he meant to her? She had been starving and he gave her food. If he -withdrew it now, she would die. - -This self-abasement from high estate established her martyrdom in the -eyes of chivalrous youth. He swore eternal devotion, his soul -registering the vow. They wrote frequently to each other, and met as -often as they could. Three mornings a week, at an astonishingly early -hour, she left her house soberly clad, for the purpose of working at a -mythical canteen. On those mornings Godfrey waited for her at a discreet -distance round the corner of the square, in a two-seater car for which, -as a crippled staff officer, he had contrived to obtain a petrol permit. -An hour’s run—Richmond Park, Barnes Common: it mattered little -where—and Lady Edna went demurely home to breakfast and Godfrey to his -day’s work at the War Office. - -Of the canteen Edgar Donnithorpe knew nothing, for she had merely tossed -the invention to her maid, until one morning, coming down earlier than -usual, he met her ascending the stairs. - -“Good lord!” said he. “What have you been doing at this unearthly hour?” - -Irritated at having to lie to him, she replied: “I’ve been doing an -hour’s shift at a canteen. Have you any objection?” - -He shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I? If it pleases you and doesn’t -hurt the Tommies—poor devils.” - -His sneer jarred on her guilty sensitiveness. Her eyes hardened. “Why -poor devils?” - -“Like the rest of the country,” he replied, “at the mercy of the -amateur.” - -He turned with his thin laugh and left her speechless with futile anger. -She wondered how she had ever regarded him otherwise than with -unmitigated hatred. - -She told the incident to Godfrey, having reached the point of confiding -to him such domestic bickerings. He set his teeth and damned the fellow. -How could this incomparable angel dwell in the same house with him? She -sighed. If it were not for the war. . . . But during the war the house -was the centre of her manifold activities on behalf of the country. As -for the social side of it, she would throw that up to-morrow only too -gladly. Heavens, how weary she was of it all! - -“I wish to God I could take you away with me!” said the young man -fiercely. - -“I wish you could, dear,” she said in her caressing tone. “But in the -meantime we have these happy little hours. We mustn’t ask too much of -fate.” - -“I only ask what fate gives to any man—that bus driver and that -policeman—the woman he loves.” - -“I’m afraid,” she laughed, “if you heard the history of their _vie -amoureuse_, you would be dreadfully disillusioned. It seems to me that -everybody marries the wrong person in this muddle-pairing world. We must -make the best of it.” - -At this period, infatuated though she was, she had no idea of breaking -away from convention, even to the extent of setting up a household -separate from her husband’s. Social life was dear to her, for all her -asseverations to the contrary, and dearer still the influence that she -could command. Yet, as the days went on she noticed signs of restiveness -in Godfrey. An hour thrice a week in an open car, when half his -attention had to be devoted to the preservation of their own and other -people’s lives, scarcely satisfied his young ardour. The times when he -could lounge free in her boudoir from four to six were over. As an -officer on the staff of the Director-General of Operations, he knew no -hours. The intricate arrangements for the mobility of the British Army -did not depend on the convenience of young gentlemen at the War Office. -Such had to scorn delight and live laborious days, which on the -occasions of especial military activity were apt to run into the nights. -Now and then, of course, Godfrey could assure himself an hour or so for -lunch, but never could he foretell it on the day before. Only once, by -hasty telephoning, did they manage to meet for lunch at the Carlton. In -the evenings they were a little more successful. Now and again a theatre -together. But Godfrey, suddenly become sensitive on the point of honour, -refused opportunities of dining at Belgrave Square. - -“If I love a man’s wife, I can’t sit at his table and drink his wine and -smile at him,” he proclaimed bluntly. - -“It seems,” she said, at last, “there’s nothing left but for me to run -away with you.” - -“Why not?” he asked, laughing, for her tone was light. - -“What about the British Army?” - -He reflected. If she had said what about morality, or Christianity, or -his immortal soul, he would have damned any item of them off-hand. But -he couldn’t damn the British Army. He temporized. - -“I don’t quite see.” - -“If you ran away with me, you’d have to run an awful long way, and leave -the Army in the lurch.” - -“That would never do,” said Godfrey. - -“So we’ll have to sacrifice ourselves for our country till the war’s -over,” said Lady Edna. - -Then, in spite of philosophic and patriotic resolve, the relations -between them grew to be uncertain and dangerous. Aware of this, she -sought to play rather the part of Egeria than that of the unhappy wife -claiming consolation from her lover. - -Now about this time arose rumours of political dissatisfaction in -certain quarters; of differences of opinion between the civil and the -military high authorities. Wild gossip animated political circles, and -the wilder it became, the more it was fostered, here malignantly, then -honestly, by political factions opposed to the Government or to the -conjectured strategical conduct of the war. Lady Edna Donnithorpe, in -the thick of everything that darkened counsel, found the situation -obscure. What were the real facts from the military point of view? She -discussed matters with Godfrey, who, regarding her as his second self, -the purest well of discretion, told her artlessly what he knew. As a -matter of fact, she loyally kept her inner information to herself; but -her eyes were opened to vast schemes of which the little political folk -about her were ignorant. And one of the most ignorant and most blatantly -cocksure about everything was Edgar Donnithorpe, her husband, whose -attitude, in view of her knowledge, began to fill her with vague -disquietude. - - * * * * * - -To all this political unrest, Baltazar was loftily indifferent. - -“The scum of the world’s hell-broth,” said he. “Skim it off and chuck it -away, and let us get on with the cooking.” - -He was cooking with all his might, preparing the ingredients of the -contemplated new Ministry. Everything must be organized before the final -step was token. No fiasco like the jerry-built Ministry of National -Service should be possible. Brains, policy, a far-spread scheme complete -in detail first; then the building and the simple machinery of clerks -and typists. He worked from morning to night, as indeed he had done all -his life long. _The Universal Review_ sped full-sail on a course of -fantastic prosperity. The man had the touch of genius that makes -success. He spared himself neither mentally nor physically. He found -time for enthusiastic work with the National Volunteers and the Special -Constabulary, which formerly he had scorned. As a Special Constable he -quickly gained promotion, of which he was inordinately proud. Said -Marcelle: - -“I believe that running about in an air raid is the greatest joy of your -life.” - -To which, in his honest egotistical way, he replied: - -“I’m not quite so sure that it isn’t.” - -And Godfrey to Marcelle, discussing him: - -“The dear old dynamo has hitched himself on to the war with a -vengeance!” - -He had. It absorbed him from the moment of waking to the moment of -falling asleep. Since Godfrey’s appointment at the War Office, father -and son, living in the same house, met so seldom that they grew each to -set an exaggerated value on the other. The boy, conscious not only -himself of the force of the man, but of the tribute paid to it by the -gods and demi-gods of the land, withdrew his original suspicious -antagonism and surrendered loyally. - -“I’m proud of him. My God, I am!” he said to Marcelle. “My childish -faith is justified. I take back all I’ve said this last year. He’s a -marvel, and I’m glad I’m his son.” - -He saw perhaps, at this stage, more of Marcelle than of Edna. For -Marcelle, shortly after her lunch with Baltazar on the day of Godfrey’s -river idyll, had broken down in health and left Churton Towers. The -strain of three years’ incessant work had ended in collapse. She was -ordered three months’ rest. After a weary fortnight alone in the Cornish -country, she had come to London, in spite of medical advice, and shared -the Bayswater flat of a friend, a working woman, engaged at the -Admiralty. Chance, perhaps a little bit of design, for the motives that -determine a woman’s decision are often sadly confused; had thus brought -her within easy walking distance of Sussex Gardens and of what the -strange man to whose fortunes destiny seemed to link her, and whom -uncontrollable fears and forces restrained her from marrying, loved to -call the House of Baltazar. Of course, in his headstrong way, he had -vehemently put the house at her disposal. He would fix up a suite of -apartments for her where she could live, her own mistress, just as she -chose. Godfrey, Quong Ho and servants could go to the devil. They could -pig it anywhere about the house they liked. They would all agree on the -paramount question of her comfort and happiness. - -“In God’s name, why not?” he cried with a large gesture. “What are you -afraid of? Me? Mrs. Grundy? What?” - -But Marcelle shook her head, smiling and stubborn, and would have none -of it. As a concession she agreed to run round whenever she heard -through the telephone that she was wanted. Baltazar grinned and foretold -a life of peripatetic discomfort. - -“I’ll risk that,” she said. - -Thus it happened that Marcelle was in and out of the house at all -seasons, Godfrey clamouring for her as much as his father. Under vow of -secrecy he confided to her his love affair. At first she professed deep -disapprobation. He should remember her first suspicions and grave -warnings. A married woman! No good could come of such an entanglement, -no matter how guiltless and romantic. As delicately as he could he -reminded her that she herself had cherished a romantic attachment to a -married man. She had, further, avowed her readiness to run off with him. -Edna and he were no whit worse than the impeccable Marcelle and his -revered father. Whereupon, doting rather foolishly on the young man, she -yielded, listened to the varied developments of his adventure, and gave -sympathy or moral advice, according to the exigencies of the occasion. - -Her position of confidante, however, caused her many qualms of -conscience. Her common sense told her that he was treading the path to -an all too commonplace bonfire. The woman was some years older than he. -Marcelle admitted her beauty and superficial charm; but her feminine -instinct pounced on insincerities, affectations and hardnesses undreamed -of by the guileless worshipper. She divined, to her great dismay, a -sudden sex upheaval in this young and self-thwarted woman rather than a -pure passion of love. What ought she to do? The question kept her awake -of nights. She could not, without breaking the most solemn specific -promise, ask counsel of Baltazar. Nor could she refuse to listen further -to the boy. He would go his own way and leave her in the misery of -incertitude. To go pleading to Lady Edna, like the heavy mother in a -French play, was unimaginable. What then remained for her but to -continue to receive his confidences? And even then, if she met them with -copybook maxims, he would turn on her with his original _tu quoque_, -and, if she persisted, it would be equivalent to the withdrawal of her -sympathetic attention. The only course, therefore, that remained open -was to let things go on as they were, and, as far as it lay in her -power, to keep his feet from pitfalls. His strange mixture, precipitated -by the war, of child and man, appealed to all the woman within her. In -his dealings with men—she saw him with pride at his father’s table—he -had the air and the experience of five-and-thirty. In dealing with -women, even with her own motherly self, he was the romantic, -unsophisticated boy of eighteen. His real age now was twenty-one. And at -the back of her clean mind lay the conviction that Lady Edna, however -indiscreet she might be, could not make the complete and criminal fool -of herself. - -This conviction deepened when she had an opportunity of seeing them -again together, at a little dinner party of six to which Baltazar had -invited Lady Edna and the Jackmans. Between them it was “Godfrey” and -“Edna” frank and undisguised. Their friendship was obvious; obvious, -too, her charming assumption of proprietorship. But she carried it off -with the air of a beautiful woman accustomed to such domination over the -men she admitted to her intimacy. Beyond this, Marcelle could espy -nothing; not a soft word, not a covert glance that betrayed a deeper -sentiment. It is all play to her, she concluded, and grew happier in her -mind. - -Toward the end of the evening after the Jackmans had gone, Lady Edna -said lightly to Baltazar: - -“This boy has told me all sorts of wonderful things about his den here, -and I’ve never seen it.” - -Baltazar waved one hand and put the other on Godfrey’s shoulder. - -“He shall do the honours.” - -“Would you really like to see it?” Godfrey asked innocently. - -“Of course I should. Your souvenirs——” - -Baltazar beamed on them till they left the drawing-room. - -“It’s the best day’s work I ever did for Godfrey,” said he. - -“What?” - -“Getting him in with Lady Edna. A young fellow wants a clever woman to -shepherd him. Does him no end of good. Broadens his mind.” - -“Mayn’t it be a bit dangerous?” Marcelle hazarded. - -“Dangerous? Suppose he does think himself in love with her? All the -better. Keeps him out of mischief.” - -“But she might possibly fall in love with him too.” - -Wise in the hermit’s theoretic wisdom, he dismissed such an absurdity -with a scornful laugh. - -“That type of woman can’t fall in love. She’s of the earth earthly, of -the world worldly. Otherwise she couldn’t have married that rat of a -Donnithorpe.” - -“I suppose it’s all right,” said Marcelle. - -“You belovedest mid-Victorian survival!” he laughed. “I do believe the -young woman’s proposal shocked you!” - -They both would have been, if not shocked, at least brought to a sense -of actual things, had they seen the transports to which the lovers -surrendered themselves as soon as the door of the den closed behind -them. Many hundreds of millions of youthful pairs have done exactly the -same after long separation. She threw herself into his arms, in which he -enfolded her. They kissed and sighed. They had thought they would never -be alone again. He had been thirsting for her lips all the tantalizing -evening. That wonderful brain of hers—to suggest this visit to his -room. Even if the idea had occurred to his dull masculine mind, he -wouldn’t have had the daring to tender the invitation. Her ever new -adorableness! And more kisses and raptures, until, side by side in the -corner of the couch, they began to talk of rational matters. - -“There are great things brewing,” she said, after a while. “Just a -whisper has reached me—enough to make it dangerous.” - -“What things do you refer to?” he asked, with a quick knitting of the -brow. - -She told him of a wild distortion of the plans of the High Command -current in political dining-rooms. - -“It’s damnable!” he cried angrily. “One tiny grain of fact to a mountain -of imagination. For God’s sake, make it your business to go about -crabbing the lie for all you’re worth!” - -“I will. When you really _know_, you can speak with such moral authority -that you’re believed, although you don’t give away a bit of your -knowledge. At least, anyone with a little experience can do it.” - -“And you’re an adept,” he said admiringly. - -She drew him nearer, for he had started away on his proclamation of the -damnability of rumours. - -“What is the grain of fact?” - -“Why, the great scale offensive.” - -“And where’s the rest of the rumour incorrect?” - -“I don’t think I ought to tell you.” - -“But don’t you see how important it is that a woman in my position, and -a woman of my character, should know exactly? Half the calamities of the -war are due to women giving away half secrets of which they’re not -allowed to realize the consequences. Give a woman full confidence, and -she’ll be on the side of the angels.” - -He kissed her and laughed. Was she not one of the angelic band herself? - -She pleaded subtly, her head on his shoulder, her deep-blue eyes looking -up into his, her breath on his cheek. Surely he and she were one. One -heart, one mind, one soul. Individually each was the other’s complement. -He could work out vast schemes—the most junior of Third Grade Staff -Officers glowed at the flattery—and she could see, not that they were -put into execution, but that wicked and irresponsible gossip should not -bring them to naught. In her woman’s wheedling she had no ulterior -purpose in view. She was not the political adventuress unscrupulously -seducing enamoured youth to the betrayal of his country. It was all -insatiable curiosity and lust for secret power. And, as far as lay in -her nature, she loved the boy; she loved him with a sense of possession; -she craved him wholly, his devotion, his mind, his knowledge. His -physical self was hers, at a moment’s call. She played with that -certainty in delicious trepidation. It invested their relationship in a -glamour unknown, mysterious, in spite of her married estate. But the -long-atrophied romantic in her sprang to sudden life and prevailed. - -So subtly did she plead that he was unaware of her overmastering desire. -Secure in her love and her loyalty, and confident in the twin hearts and -souls, he told her what he knew; but the numerical and topographical -details, proving too confusing for her, he laughed and went over to his -desk and, with her sitting over him on the arm of his writing-chair, -sketched a map annotated with facts and figures on a sheet of notepaper. -When he had done, she returned to the sofa and read the notes. - -“Now I understand everything. It’s tremendously exciting, isn’t it?” - -“If it comes off.” - -She folded up the paper and put it in her bosom. - -“Of course it’ll come off.” - -“I say, sweetheart,” he cried, watching the disappearing paper. “For -Heaven’s sake don’t go leaving that about! Better stick it in the fire.” - -“I’ll do it as soon as I get home.” - -She took his hand in delightful intimacy and glanced at his wrist watch. -Then she started up. They must get back at once, lest the others should -subject their absence to undesirable conjecture. - -“Oh, the elderly birds”—he laughed gracelessly—“they love to have a -little billing and cooing now and then. They’ll be grateful to us.” - -But she would not be detained. They went up to the drawing-room. - -“He has got a perfect Hun museum downstairs,” she said. “Each piece with -a breathless history.” - -“What interested you most?” asked Marcelle. - -“Me in a gas mask,” said Godfrey, lying readily, for never a glance had -Lady Edna given to the trophies and spoils which she had set forth to -see. - -Later, after putting her into her taxi, he said through the window: - -“You’ll destroy that scrap of paper, won’t you?” - -“If you doubt me, I’ll give it you back now,” she replied rather -sharply, thrusting her hand beneath her cloak. - -What could ardent lover do but repudiate the charge of want of faith? -She laughed, and answered in her most caressing tones: - -“I’m glad, for where it is now it would be awfully awkward to get at.” - -The taxi drove off. Godfrey re-entered the house, his young head full of -the thought of the paper on which he had written lying warm, deep down, -in her bare and sacred bosom. - -Lady Edna drove home to her solitary house, and, without asking whether -her husband was in or out, went straight to her bedroom. As soon as she -could she dismissed her maid and sat in her dressing-gown for a long, -long time, thinking as a woman thinks, when for the first time in her -life she is not sure of herself, when she is all but at the parting of -the ways and when each way seems to lead to catastrophe. As a cold, -ambitious girl she had sent the Natural packing; now it had come -galloping back. At last she rose and went to her dressing-table. On it -lay the crumpled scrap of paper. She glanced at it. The figures and -lines conveyed no meaning to her tired brain. What was the warfare in -the world to the warfare in her soul? She couldn’t concern herself with -the higher strategy to-night. To-morrow, when she was fresh, she would -tackle the intricate scheme. She put the paper into a little secret -drawer of her writing-table of which even her maid did not know the -spring. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -SHE would read the paper to-morrow, she had said. But on the morrow she -awoke with a violent headache and stayed abed, and had only time to -scramble into her clothes and attend a twelve o’clock committee meeting -in Westminster. And for the remainder of the day, until she went to bed -exhausted at midnight, she had not a minute to spare. The next morning -she had her early appointment with Godfrey. She went forth into a raw -air with a threat of autumn in it, and a slight drizzle from an overcast -sky. The two-seater, with damp hood up, was waiting round the corner of -the Square. She opened the door and jumped in, almost before he was -aware of her approach, and rather hysterically flung her arms about him. - -“Oh darling, be good to me! I’m feeling so tired and miserable.” - -He proclaimed himself a brute for dragging her out on such a filthy -morning. It was super-angelic of her to come, but he had scarcely -expected her. Wouldn’t it be better to go back home and rest? - -“No, no, dear,” she murmured. “This is my rest. Beside you. Storm or -sunshine, what does it matter, so long as we’re together?” - -“It doesn’t matter to me,” said he, driving off. “Hell and damnation -would be Paradise if I always had you with me.” - -And in the same emotional key they talked all the time during their -drive through a dank and dismal world. They felt like Paolo and -Francesca in Watts’s picture, clinging together alone in comfortless -space, remote from War Office and wars and other affairs of men. She -wailed: - -“Oh, darling, if only I had met you before I made my wretched marriage!” - -“Yes, by God!” said Godfrey, setting his teeth and feeling very fierce. - -It did not occur to either of them, in their unhumorous mood, that when -she married he was a gawky boy of sixteen. - -Gradually they came to vital things. - -“If I were little Mrs. Tomkins, whom nobody knows, we could get a hidden -nest somewhere, you and I. It would be happiness, and it would be -hurting or betraying nobody. But I’m Lady Edna Donnithorpe, related to -half the peerage, and known by sight to everybody who looks at an -illustrated paper.” - -“Why not cut everything and make a bolt of it?” asked Godfrey, glaring -straight in front of him at the cheerless, almost empty road, his young -face set very stem. - -“Your career——” - -He cursed his career. - -“Your soldier’s post. How can you leave it? You’re doing a man’s work -for your country.” - -“Hell take it!” said he. - -“Take what?” - -“The whole infernal universe,” he growled, and swerved viciously so as -to avoid imminent collision with an indignant motor-bus. Again they came -to the bed-rock fact of his soldier’s duty. - -On their return journey it rained in torrents. - -“You’ll get wet through if you walk,” said he, when they arrived at -their trysting spot. “I’ll drive you up to the house and chance it.” - -He chanced it, helped her out of the car and stood on the pavement, -watching her until she had let herself in with her latchkey. She ran -upstairs, to be confronted with her husband at the door of his room -which was on the same landing. He was in his dressing-gown, and one side -of his face was shaven, the other lathered. - -“I thought you went to a canteen in the mornings?” - -“So I do,” she replied calmly. - -“Does young Baltazar work there too?” - -“Young Baltazar very often calls for me, when it rains, on his way to -the War Office, and gives me a lift home.” - -“You’re seeing far too much of that young man.” - -“The last time we discussed the Baltazar family,” she said with a -scornful laugh, “you accused me of an intrigue with his father. My dear -Edgar, go on with your shaving and don’t be idiotic.” She flung into her -room angry and humiliated. After all, Edgar had the right to consider -his good name, even though his jealousy could not proceed from betrayed -affection. This was the first time he had referred to Godfrey in any -way. Uneasiness beset her; so did the eternal question of the deceitful -wife: “How much did he know?” They did not meet that day till -dinner-time—it was one of the rare occasions on which they dined alone -together—when he seemed to be making amends for the morning’s attack by -more than usual courteous conversation on current events. They parted -amicably. - -The next afternoon, arriving home very late, she was surprised at seeing -him coming, half dressed for dinner, from her room. He smiled in a -friendly way and held up a button-hook. - -“Mine’s nowhere to be seen—that confounded new parlourmaid—I hope you -don’t mind.” - -“We’re getting quite domestic,” she said ironically. - -“It’s pleasanter,” said he. - -She wondered much at his graciousness for the next few days. He became -attentive, manifested dry solicitude as to her health and her social and -political interests. She dreaded a recrudescence of the thin sentiment -that, on his part, had sanctioned their marriage. The fear tainted the -joy of her visits to the mythical canteen. Sooner open hostility than -this semblance of conjugal affection. - -“I’m sorry, darling, to have been so mouldy,” she said, taking leave of -Godfrey one morning, “but the situation is getting on my nerves. I’m fed -up.” - -A day or two later Edgar Donnithorpe entered her sitting-room, where she -was writing letters. - -“Sorry to interrupt you, Edna,” said he, “but have you definitely -decided to go to Moulsford this next week-end?” - -“Certainly. I told you. The Barringtons and Susie Delamere and one or -two others are coming.” - -“Do you mind if I don’t turn up till Sunday?” - -“Of course not,” she replied. He was exceedingly polite. - -“Thanks,” said he. “The fact is, I want to ask a dozen men or so to -dinner here. Only men, you know.” - -She glanced at him rather puzzled, for his proposal was an unprecedented -departure from the custom of the house. Hitherto he had given his men’s -political dinner parties at his club. There had been no arrangement or -understanding between them as to this mode of entertainment, but so had -it chanced to be; and he was a creature of routine. - -“Of course. Just as you like. But what’s wrong with the only place fit -to dine at in London?” - -“It’s war time, my dear,” said he, eyeing her shiftily. “War time. All -the clubs have gone to the devil.” - -“All right. If you’ll tell me how many are coming, I’ll see to it.” - -“No, please don’t. Please don’t worry your head about it.” He made a -step forward and held up his thin hand in a deprecatory sort of way. -“I’ll fix it up. I don’t want it to be the slightest bit of a concern to -you. Thanks so much.” - -He hurried out. Lady Edna frowned at her half-written letter. A devious -man, Edgar. What was in the wind? The cook the next day, however, -submitted to her a menu which, with a housewifely modification or so, -she passed, and thought no more of the material banquet. - -During the week the hint of a rumour reached her, when, at a public -meeting, she ran up against the Rt. Hon. Sir Berkeley Prynne, a Member -of the Government who had been hostile to her husband for many years and -had only given the hatchet superficial burial during the party truce. - -“I suppose you know a lot of us are quaking in our shoes?” he said, half -banteringly. - -“I don’t,” she said. “But I’ve no doubt it’s good for you. What’s the -matter?” - -“Signs of underground rumblings. Your quick ears have detected nothing?” - -“No. Really. Honour bright. Do tell me.” - -He shook his head and laughed. “It’ll be a wash-out,” said he, moving -away. - -Gibe or warning, Sir Berkeley’s words were not devoid of significance. -They were aimed at her husband. Underground rumblings meant intrigue. -She had long suspected Edgar of half-hearted support of the Government; -but passionate devotion to anything was so foreign to his crafty, -opportunist nature, that she had not greatly troubled her mind about his -loyalty. Here, however, was cause for deeper consideration. The old -hacks, as she had said to Godfrey, were being squeezed out as decently -as might be, so as to give place to fresher and honester men, and -Edgar’s position was daily growing more insecure. But she had thought he -was sticking to it desperately. Was the worm about to turn? And had the -projected dinner-party anything to do with the turning? - -She asked him casually who were coming. - -“Men connected with the business of the Ministry,” he replied. “People I -must be civil to and who don’t expect us to worry about their -women-folk.” - -And she had to be contented with the answer. - -On the Saturday afternoon, at Moulsford, she was surprised to see -Rolliter, the old butler, who she thought was staying the night at -Belgrave Square to superintend the dinner party. Why was he here? - -“Mr. Donnithorpe’s orders, my lady. He said he could get on quite well -without me this evening. I couldn’t insist, my lady, but I didn’t like -leaving at all, especially as Lord Trevanion was coming.” - -“Lord who?” she cried, for he had mentioned a name that was anathema -maranatha in Government circles. - -“I think it’s Trevanion, my lady,” said the butler, rather taken aback -by her expression of incredulity. He fished a paper from his pocket and -consulted it. “Yes, my lady. I saw the list on Mr. Donnithorpe’s table, -so I copied it out so as to write the name-cards before I left.” - -An idea struck her. “You did this without Mr. Donnithorpe’s orders?” - -“Why, yes, my lady. Mr. Donnithorpe being so busy, I thought it might -slip his memory.” - -“Did you write the cards?” - -“No, my lady. When Mr. Donnithorpe told me to come down here, I asked -him about the name-cards, and he said he didn’t want them.” - -“Let me see the list,” she said, recovering her languid manner. - -“Certainly, my lady.” He handed her the paper. “The only reason I -mentioned Lord Trevanion,” he continued, “was because I happen to know -his lordship is one of the most particular men in England, and I -couldn’t bear to have things done anyhow when he was dining at the -house.” - -She laughed in her charming way. “The blood’s on Mr. Donnithorpe’s head, -not yours, Rolliter.” - -Rolliter had been in her father’s service before she was born and had -followed her, as butler, when she married. - -“Thank you, my lady,” said he, retiring and leaving her with the list of -guests. - -It was an instructive and at the same time bewildering document. It -contained the names of representatives of all the disgruntled and -pacifist factions in England. No wonder Edgar dared not face the -publicity of a club or restaurant dinner! No wonder he had lied to her -about his guests. No wonder he had sent Rolliter to the country without -writing out the cards. He wanted to hide the identity of his guests even -from his butler! At each name a new shiver went down her back. Lord -Trevanion, blatant millionaire Little Englander whom even the Radical -Government of 1906 had joyfully allowed to purchase a peerage, so as to -get him out of the House of Commons. There were Benskin and Pottinger -and Atwater, members of a small Parliamentary gang who lost no -opportunity of impeding the prosecution of the war. Lady Edna gasped. -Finch of the Independent Labour Party. Was Edgar going mad? Samways, -M.P. and Professor of History, pessimistic apostle of German efficiency -and preacher of the hopelessness of the Allies’ struggle. Editors of -pacifist organs—Featherstone, the most brilliant, whose cranky brain -had made him the partisan of England’s enemies all through his -journalistic career; Fordyce, snaky in his intellectual conceit; -Riordan, dark and suspect. . . . There were others, politicians and -publicists, self-proclaimed patriots and war-winners, but openly hostile -to the Government. Altogether the most amazing crew that ever Minister -of the Crown delighted to honour. - -That the ultimate object of this gathering was the overthrowal of the -Government there could be no doubt. How they were going to manage it was -another matter. A rabble like that, thought Lady Edna scornfully, could -not upset a nervous old lady. It looked rather like a preliminary -meeting, held in secrecy, to start the network in which greater -personalities should be enmeshed and involved. At any rate, on the part -of Edgar Donnithorpe it was black treachery. The more she scanned the -list the more did her soul sicken within her. It seemed intolerable that -this pro-German orgy should take place in the house of which she was the -mistress, while she remained here, fooled, with her little week-end -party. She burned with vengeance against her husband. - -It was half-past four. She stood in the drawing-room, which she had -entered a few minutes before, leaving her guests on the lawn, in order -to give some trivial order, and twisted the accusing paper in her hands, -her lips thin, deep in thought. Presently into her eyes crept a smile of -malice, and she went out of the French window and crossed the grass and -joined her friends. There were only three, Colonel and Mrs. Barrington -and Miss Delamere. A couple of men who were to have come down had -providentially been detained in London. - -“My dear people,” she said, smiling. “The war has spread to Moulsford. -There’s nothing in the house for dinner. There’ll be heaps to-morrow, -but none to-night.” - -“I’ll go down to the river and angle for a roach,” said Colonel -Barrington. - -“Or else come with me to town and dine at the Carlton. I’ll take you all -in the Rolls-Royce. It will be a lovely run back.” - -“But, my dear, it’ll be joy-riding!” cried Mrs. Barrington. - -“It will be indeed,” said Lady Edna. - -“But suppose we’re held up?” - -“I’ll say I have to see my husband on important political business.” - -“And I’m a soldier on active service,” said Colonel Barrington, “and -must be fed.” - -“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Lady Edna. - -Mind? Not they. What could be pleasanter on a perfect summer night? -Besides, they had not tasted the guilty sweets of joy-riding for many -months. It would be an adventure. - -They started merrily about six o’clock. Lady Edna was in gay spirits, as -though enjoying a schoolgirl’s freak. Through the perfumed leafiness of -Streatley, Basildon, Pangbourne, they flew at the high speed of the -great car, through Reading and Maidenhead and Slough, through Hounslow -and Brentford. What was fifty miles? As they approached London Lady Edna -said: - -“Will you think me funny if I look in at Belgrave Square for a minute?” - -She spoke a word to the chauffeur. A while later the car swerved to the -right from the direct route to Piccadilly, and at eight o’clock pulled -up at the Donnithorpes’ house in Belgrave Square. Lady Edna sprang from -the car and tripped up the steps. - -“I’ll let myself in with my latchkey,” she cried to the chauffeur who -was about to ring the bell. - -In the hall she threw off her wraps, gave an instinctive tidying touch -to her hair before a mirror, and walked smiling on her errand. She waved -aside the hired stranger men-servants busy with plates outside the -dining-room door and boldly entered. - -For a second or two no one observed her, then one or two guests caught -sight of the slender figure stately in her evening gown, and half rose -from their chairs. So the attention of all was called to her. Edgar -Donnithorpe, sitting at the head of the table with his back to the door, -turned and sprang to his feet with a gasp. To stay polite commotion she -laughed and held up her hand. - -“Please don’t anyone get up.” - -Her husband, in white anger, said: - -“I thought you were at Moulsford, Edna. Is anything the matter?” - -“Only your dinner party,” she replied with derisive graciousness. “I -happened to be dining in town, and it occurred to me to look in and see -that your guests had everything they wanted—especially”—she scanned -the faces deliberately—“as they are all new to the house.” - -She bowed and withdrew. Her husband threw down his napkin and followed -her. Neither spoke till they reached the hall, when they faced each -other. - -“I couldn’t make a scene before all those men,” he began. - -“Of course you couldn’t. I knew that,” she interrupted. - -“But I’ll make one now. By God I will! What do you mean by this -outrageous behaviour?” - -“To queer your game, my friend. I thought it would be amusing to show -all your pretty conspirators that the gaff was blown.” - -“I’m free to ask anyone to my own house. I’m master here, and the sooner -you learn it the better. Are you aware that you’ve insulted the whole of -my guests?” - -“I flattered myself I behaved with peculiar courtesy,” said Lady Edna. -“It’s you who are being rude to them. You had better go back. Are you -coming down to Moulsford to-morrow?” - -“No, I’m damned if I am!” - -He flung away from her, then turned. - -“By God! you shall pay for this.” - -“Willingly. It’s worth a lot.” - -He glowered at her impotently. What scene could he make other than one -of vulgar recrimination? She had caught him in a domestic lie and a -public act of treachery. For the moment his wife had all the weapons. So -they stood there in the rosy light of the hall, deadly enemies; she -triumphant, radiant in her scornful beauty; he small, thin, foxy and -malignant. Presently, with a laugh she moved to the front door. - -“I never thought you particularly clever, Edgar,” she said. “But in -diplomatic crudity you could give lessons to the Wilhelmstrasse.” - -With which Parthian shot she opened the door and rejoined her friends in -the car. - -“Forgive me, dear people,” she said, settling in her place. “I’ve been -having the time of my life.” - - * * * * * - -She returned to town with her guests on Monday morning, but did not see -her husband until late in the afternoon, when, on his return from the -Ministry, he found her alone in her sitting-room. - -“My dear Edna,” said he, in a conciliatory tone, “we owe each other a -little mutual understanding. It’s so undignified to quarrel.” - -She put the book she was reading pages downward on her knee. - -“Most undignified,” she assented. - -“You were rather under a misapprehension as to Saturday night.” - -“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, “for I was going to ask you a -question.” - -“What was that?” - -“Have you sent in your resignation to the Prime Minister?” - -“No, no. Of course not. That’s where your error in judgment, if I may be -allowed to say so, comes in. I’m aware I couldn’t be seen publicly with -that crowd. I had to manage a secret meeting. But it was in order to get -them on our side. I thought a frank discussion with them might produce -good results.” - -“Has it?” - -“I think so,” said he. “Oh yes, I think so. I’m speaking at Bristol -to-night. You’ll see from my speech what my position is. I mean to -define it unmistakably.” - -“I’m glad to hear it.” - -She turned away, hating him and despising him more than ever. She passed -a hideous day, overwhelmed with fears of treason and disaster. - -They were justified the following morning when, looking through the -newspapers brought to her bedside, she first glanced at and then pored -over the leading article in the important daily edited by Fordyce, one -of the guests at the amazing dinner-party. It was an attack on the -Government’s conduct of the war, based, ostensibly, on the rumours whose -inaccuracy Godfrey had begged her to contradict, but, to those with -inner knowledge, on the real facts of the plan of the High Command. It -was done with diabolical craft. Challenged as to the source of his -information, Fordyce could point to the article and defy anyone to prove -that he was possessed of any esoteric information at all. It was mere -logical deduction from the general trend of the war policy of the Allied -Military Authorities. And yet the shivering woman knew that the scheme -had been divulged to Fordyce. How? In terror she sprang from her bed and -opened the secret drawer of her desk. The sheet of notepaper was there -just as she had left it. For a moment or two she stood, her hand on her -breast, laughing in a silly way. Edgar was capable of many things; but -not of rifling her private papers. He was capable of betraying the -Government to Fordyce, but as a Minister, she reflected, he would -possibly be aware of the scheme. As the Saturday evening host he had -communicated it to Fordyce. Possibly to others. But no. That would have -been madness. A man does not blacken himself to a dozen men at once. The -others he had assembled so as to prepare them, in his underhand, -insinuating way, for this master-stroke. . . . She closed the secret -drawer with an impatient snap, and went about the room clenching her -hands and uttering futile words. - -“The villain! The infernal villain!” - -No. Life with him henceforth was impossible. She would break away. . . . -She had her house at Moulsford, her own income. As for her London life, -she could take a suite at Claridge’s. In the indignant moment she almost -forgot Godfrey. Loathing of Edgar overspread all other thoughts. -Suddenly she remembered his Bristol speech, and ran through the _Times_ -to find the report. Condensed, it contained nothing but the facile, -uninspired claptrap that had characterized his public utterances since -the beginning of his career. He was lying to the country which he had -set out to betray. . . . Meanwhile—so her excited fancy told her—he -was a peril running loose about the world. What could she do? Drive off -then and there and denounce him to the Prime Minister? He would -certainly ask her why she connected the leader in _The Morning Gazette_ -with the dinner-party given to her husband’s political opponents. Whence -did she derive her knowledge that anything more than conjecture underlay -the criticism in Fordyce’s paper? And she would not have a word to say. -Once again she opened the drawer and took out Godfrey’s notes. Better -destroy them. Her fingers met in the middle of the sheet prepared to -tear. Then she paused. No. She thought of Sir Berkeley Prynne—a man of -unstained honour in private and public life. She would go to him, this -in her hand, tell the whole story and ask his advice. She thrust the -paper back into the drawer, rang for her maid and dressed. - -A busy woman’s correspondence kept her occupied all the morning. At -half-past twelve came a telephone call from Godfrey: - -“When and where can I see you? Something most important.” - -“Oh, darling, what is it?” Her voice shook. “Where are you?” - -“War Office. I can’t tell you anything over the phone. Besides, I -haven’t a minute. I’ll be free in about half an hour.” - -“Come round here. I shall be alone.” - -“Right.” - -He switched off, leaving her in throbbing suspense. Naturally he was -coming to her about _The Morning Gazette_ article. To her excited fancy -the whole War Office was in a state of blind ferment like an ant-heap -bombed with a drop of kerosene. His tone, too, had been brusque, -imperious, that of a man dealing with crisis. She wished she had gone at -once in search of Sir Berkeley Prynne, instead of wasting her morning -over correspondence. Still, when one is Chairman and Treasurer of -practical concerns, their business has to be attended to. She went on -with her work, her eyes on the little agate clock in front of her. - -The rattle of a car. A moment of horrible waiting. Rolliter at the door. - -“Captain Baltazar, my lady.” - -They stood for a breathless second until the butler had closed the door -behind him. Then he strode up and caught her in his arms. When she could -collect herself she looked into dancing, triumphant eyes. A wave of -relief swept through her. Suddenly she caught the echo, as it were, of -Rolliter’s announcement. - -“Captain——?” - -“Yes. And more than that. I’m going to France.” - -She felt herself grow pale. “My dear——” - -“It’s a great stunt,” he said exultantly. “Northby has got an Army -Corps. He wants me on his staff. I’m going out as the Brainy One, with a -step in rank. Old man Widdowes talked to me as if I were an infant Haig. -You could have knocked me down with a bunch of straw.” - -“I’m so glad, dear. I’m so glad you’ve got what you want.” - -“My God, yes!” said he, all aglow. “It’s the best thing a one-footed -cripple has done up to now. The W.O. isn’t the real thing. Out there it -is. As soon as I met you, I swore I’d make good. To be worthy of you, if -such a thing is possible.” - -“I’m a proud woman,” said Lady Edna. “But I don’t understand—General -Northby—I never heard——” - -“Of course you didn’t. Neither did I. It was all secrecy and -suddenness.” - -He explained roughly the circumstances. - -“And when do you go out?” - -“In three days’ time. I’m on leave till then.” - -“Three days?” She looked at him aghast. “And then you go away -indefinitely?” - -She paused, drew a long breath or two, and sank limply into a chair. He -looked at her rather wonderingly. - -“What about me, Godfrey?” - -In the gratification of his wildest boyish ambitions he had forgotten -her woman’s point of view. He had expected her to share his elation. -Remorseful, he bent quickly over her, reddening and stammering. He was a -selfish brute. Did he really matter so much to her? If she would but say -the word, he would go straight back and refuse the appointment. - -“Don’t talk like a child,” she said. “If you did such a thing, we should -despise each other for the rest of our lives. But three days—only three -days! And I’m at my wits’ end with unhappiness.” - -He sank lover-like by her side and took her hand. What was wrong? - -“Have you seen _The Morning Gazette?_” - -He laughed. “Oh yes! There’s a hell of a hullabaloo! But the beauty of -it is, that the whole thing went fut three or four days ago. I can’t -tell you why. We’re working out quite a different plan. All the same, -there’s loud cursing in the camp.” He looked at her with one of his -swift man’s glances. “Of course, dearest—I’m bound to ask—you never -breathed a word to anybody of what I told you?” - -“Not a word.” - -“And you destroyed that paper at once?” - -“Of course.” - -The lie was out before she realized it. Well, it didn’t matter. The -thing was obsolete. She would tear it up. No. She wouldn’t. She still -had to wage her war against her husband, with the aid of Sir Berkeley -Prynne, and the document would be of great value. - -“It was he who gave it away to the editor of _The Morning Gazette_,” she -said, vindictively. - -“But how the deuce could he have known?” asked Godfrey. “These things -are dead secrets. They never go beyond the Army Council.” - -“He did know, anyhow. I’ve not seen you since. I’ve a lot to tell you.” - -She told him. He scrambled to his feet. - -“My God! what a swine! You must leave him.” - -“I’m going to. I’m going to hound him out of public life.” - -“And then?” - -“It’s for you to say.” - -An hour later Godfrey ran down the steps of the house in Belgrave -Square, his head in a whirl. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -BALTAZAR and Quong Ho were finishing lunch when Godfrey, flushed and -excited, burst in with his news. An enthusiastically sympathetic parent -failed to detect an unusual note, almost one of vainglory, in the boy’s -speech and manner. He vaunted his success, proclaimed his entry on a -brilliant career. He talked wildly. This to be a war to end war? A -maudlin visionary’s dream. We might crush the Hun this time and have a -sort of peace—a rotten politician’s peace, but the Hun would apply -himself to the intensive cultivation of Hate, and in twenty years at the -latest would have another go at Frightfulness. And that’s where the -modern scientific soldier would come in. That was his career. He saw it -all before him. And Baltazar, led away by the boy’s bright promise, -clapped both his hands on his shoulders in a powerful grip, and cried: - -“I’m proud of you! My God, I’m proud of you! You and I will make our -name famous again, as it was in the days of Admiral de Coligny. We’ll do -things. We’ll make this rocking old Europe hum.” He laughed, and fire -leaped into his eyes. “It’s good to be alive these days!” - -“It is. It’s glorious!” replied Godfrey. - -Quong Ho, smiling, urbane, approached with outstretched hand. - -“I hope I may be allowed to offer you my sincere congratulations,” said -he. “Although I do not see eye to eye with you in your prognostication -of a recrudescence of warfare after the pacification of this present -upheaval, yet——” - -But Godfrey slapped him on the back, interrupting his eloquence. - -“That’s all right, you dear old image. When you get your Fellowship, -I’ll say the same to you.” - -He cut a hunk from a cake on the table and poured out a whisky and soda. - -“My dear boy,” cried Baltazar, darting to the bell, “haven’t you -lunched? You must have a proper meal.” - -Godfrey restrained him. No. He hadn’t time. He must leave London that -afternoon, for a day or two, and the next two or three hours would be a -mad rush. A shade of disappointment passed over Baltazar’s face. - -“I was hoping we might have a little dinner to-night to celebrate your -appointment—just ourselves, with Marcelle—and Lady Edna, if she could -come.” - -A smile flickered round Godfrey’s lips. - -“Dreadfully sorry, sir,” said he. “I’m not my own master. Anyhow, I know -Lady Edna’s engaged. But my last night—yes, if you will. I’d love it.” - -As soon as he had bolted food and drink, he rushed out. He must throw -some things into a bag, said he. Presently he returned and took hurried -leave. Baltazar gripped him by the hand and God-blessed him. At the door -Godfrey nodded to Quong Ho. - -“Just a word, old chap.” - -Quong Ho followed him into the hall. - -Baltazar went to the open dining-room window, and presently saw Godfrey -clamber into his little two-seater. He waved a hand. - -“Good luck!” - -“See you on Friday, sir.” - -The car drove off. Quong Ho returned to the dining-room. - -“I think, sir,” said he, “that we have just parted from a happy young -man.” - -“If a man’s not happy when he gets his heart’s desire at twenty-one,” -said Baltazar, “he had better apply for transference to another planet. -I threw mine away,” he added in a tone of reminiscence. “Wilfully. I -ought to have been Senior Wrangler. But I was a fool. I was always -taking false steps. That’s the wonderful thing about Godfrey, Quong Ho, -as doubtless you’ve noticed—he always takes the right steps. A -marvellously well-balanced mind.” He smiled in a meditative way, -thanking Heaven for sparing Godfrey those storms of temperament in which -he had so often suffered shipwreck. A steady chap, disciplined, not to -be turned out of his course. “Well, well,” said he, “now from -refreshment to labour. Come upstairs and let us get on with the work.” - -It was the long vacation, and Quong Ho, tireless and devoted, was -replacing Baltazar’s secretary absent on a much-needed holiday. A busy -afternoon lay before them. That evening the week’s number of _The New -Universe_ must go to press; the final proofs be passed, modifying -footnotes added to bring statements and arguments up to the hour’s date, -so swift were the kaleidoscopic variations in the confused -world-condition; and Baltazar’s own editional summary, the dynamo of the -powerful periodical, had to be finished. - -They sat in Baltazar’s library, at the orderly piled writing-table, very -much as they had sat, a year ago, in the scholarly room at Spendale -Farm. But now no longer as master and humorously treated pupil. The -years of training had borne excellent fruit, and Quong Ho proved himself -to be an invaluable colleague; so much so that Baltazar, at times, -cursed the University of Cambridge for depriving him, for the greater -part of the year, of one of the most subtle brains in the kingdom. Quong -Ho could point unerringly to a fallacy in an argument; he seemed to be -infallible on questions of fact in war politics; and such a meticulously -accurate proof-corrector had never been born. In such a light at least -did his _rara avis_ appear to Baltazar. They worked in silence. Baltazar -furiously inditing his article, Quong Ho, pen in hand, intent on the -proofs. The open window admitted the London sounds of the warm summer -afternoon. Presently Baltazar rose and cast off coat and waistcoat, and -with a sigh of relief at the coolness of shirt-sleeves, sat down again. - -“Why don’t you do the same?” - -Quong Ho, impeccably attired in a dark suit and a high stiff collar, -replied that he did not feel the heat. - -“I believe it would hurt you not to be prim and precise,” said Baltazar. -“I wonder what would happen if you really ever let yourself go?” - -Quong Ho smiled blandly. “I have been taught, sir, that self-discipline -is the foundation of all virtue.” - -Baltazar laughed. “You’re young. Stick to it. I’ve had as much as is -good for me at my time of life. I’m going to end my days, thank God, in -delightful lack of restraint. I’m going to let myself go, my friend, -over this new job, like a runaway horse. At last I’ve bullied them into -giving me a free hand. It’s a change from a year ago, isn’t it?” - -“I agree that the change has been most beneficent,” said Quong Ho. - -“Yes, by Jove!” cried Baltazar. “Then we were just a couple of grubby -bookworms doing nothing for ourselves or our fellow-creatures. Now—here -you are dealing with thoughts that shake the world; and I—by Jove!—one -of the leading men in England. I should like to see the bomb that would -knock us out this time.” - -He hitched up his shirt-cuffs and plunged again into his article. He had -scarcely written a sentence, when the door opened and Marcelle appeared -on the threshold. He pushed back his chair and rose, and advanced to her -with both hands outstretched. - -“Hello! Hello! What has blown you in at this time of day?” - -She looked up at him as she took his hand, and he saw there was trouble -in her eyes. - -“I know I’m disturbing you, but I can’t help it,” she said quickly. “I -must speak to you.” - -“Perhaps you would like to speak with Mr. Baltazar in private,” said -Quong Ho. - -“Indeed I should, Mr. Ho. Please forgive me.” - -Quong Ho bowed and retired. Baltazar drew a chair for her. “Now what’s -wrong, my dear?” - -“Godfrey.” - -“My God!” he cried. “Not an accident? He’s not hurt?” - -“Oh no, no! Nothing of that sort.” She smiled in wan reassurance. - -Baltazar breathed relief. “I believe if anything happened to him now, it -would break me,” he said. - -“He came round to see me an hour or so ago.” - -“After he left here. To tell you of his appointment. Aren’t you glad?” - -“Of course I am. But I should be more glad if that had been all.” - -“What’s up?” he asked, frowning. “Tell me straight.” - -“Ought I to tell you?” she asked rather piteously. “It’s betraying his -confidence shamefully. I know I’m to blame. I ought never to have given -him my promise. But I can’t see him go and ruin everything without -making some sacrifice.” - -“My dearest Marcelle, you’re talking in riddles. For Heaven’s sake give -me the word of the enigma.” - -“It’s Lady Edna Donnithorpe.” - -“Well. What about her?” - -“I wish he had never set eyes on the woman,” she cried passionately. - -“If he’s in love with her, he’ll have to get over it,” said Baltazar. -“France will cure him. And, as I told you the other evening, the lady’s -perfectly callous. So my dear, go along and don’t worry.” - -“You don’t seem to understand me, John dear,” she said urgently. “The -woman is in love with him. It has been going on for months. He has told -me all about it. She gets up and goes out driving with him in the car at -eight o’clock in the morning.” - -“Silly woman!” growled Baltazar. - -“Silly or not, she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t care for him. Not Lady -Edna Donnithorpe. They meet whenever they can. He comes to me and pours -out everything. I ought to have told you. But I couldn’t break my word. -They’re lovers——” - -“Lovers? What do you mean?” he asked, bending his heavy brows. - -“Not yet. Not in that sense, I’m sure. But they soon will be.” She -looked at him anxiously. “I know I’m going to forfeit Godfrey’s -affection, and perhaps your respect—but I can’t do otherwise.” She -paused, then burst out desperately: “She’s going to run away with him -this afternoon.” - -“The devil she is!” cried Baltazar. He strode about the room and threw -up his hands. “Oh, the damned young fool!” He wheeled round on Marcelle. -“Why on earth didn’t you stop it?” - -She pleaded helplessness. How could she? Naturally she had used every -argument, moral and worldly. As it was, he had dashed off in a fume, -calling her unsympathetic and narrow-minded, regretting that he had ever -given her his confidence. He had promised long ago to let her know -everything. Now that he had kept his word she turned against him. She -had been powerless. - -“He’s old enough to look after his own morals,” said Baltazar, “and I’m -not the silly hypocrite to hold up my hands in horror. But to go and run -away with the most notorious society woman in London and play the devil -with his career is another matter. Oh, the damned young fool!—That rat -Edgar Donnithorpe will get on to it at once. He’s just the man to stick -at nothing.—A filthy divorce case.—The boy’ll have to resign, if he -doesn’t get chucked—then marry the woman five years older than himself. -Where’s the happiness going to be?” - -He resumed his striding about the room, in his impetuous way, and -Marcelle followed him timidly with her eyes. “Oh, damnation!” said he. -He had just been lecturing Quong Ho on Godfrey’s steadiness and balance. -Why, he himself had never done such a scatter-brained thing. - -“Where are the precious pair going?” - -A remote week-end cottage, she said, belonging to a complaisant friend -of Lady Edna’s. Five miles from station, post office or shop. A lonely -Eden in the wilderness. Whether it was north, east, south or west of -London she did not know. An old woman in charge would look after them. - -“I suppose they’re well on their way by now,” said he. - -“I don’t know. Possibly not. He said he had to rush about town to order -his kit. Besides,” she added hopelessly, “what does it matter when they -start?” - -Baltazar cursed in futile freedom. - -“There’s nothing I wouldn’t give for it not to have happened,” he -exclaimed. “I suppose I was a fool. You warned me. And it was I who, -like an ass, encouraged them. I could kick myself!” - -“It’s like you, John, dear, not to blame me,” she said humbly. - -“Of course I don’t blame you. You thought it boyish folly. . . . What’s -the good of talking about it?” - -They did talk, however, in a helpless way. - -“They had no intention of doing anything desperate,” she said, “until -this morning. If he had remained in London, they might have gone on -indefinitely. The prospect of endless months in France set the whole -thing ablaze. . . . When I put the moral side before him, he retorted -with a _tu quoque_.” - -“What did he mean?” - -“That I was ready, at his age, to run away with a married man.” - -“Were you?” he asked. - -“I suppose so,” she replied with a weary little smile. - -“That was an entirely different affair.” - -“Not from the moral point of view.” - -“Oh, damn morals,” said he. - -She laughed in spite of her distress. It was so characteristic of the -man. If anything got in his way, he just damned it, and regarded it as -non-existent. - -He moved restlessly about; then, catching sight of his discarded coat -and waistcoat, plunged savagely into them, as though he were going in -pursuit of the erring pair. - -“What are you going to do?” she asked. - -“I don’t know,” he said, abandoning half-way the furious buttoning of -his waistcoat. “That’s the devil of it, there’s nothing to be done.” - -At that moment Quong Ho discreetly appeared at the door. - -“Will you have particular need of my services for the next hour?” - -“Yes, of course I shall. Look there!” Baltazar flung a hand towards the -paper-strewn table. “We go to press this evening.” - -Quong Ho consulted his watch. “I am sorry then, for I don’t know how I -shall proceed. I promised Captain Godfrey to take his bag to the railway -station at five o’clock.” - -Smiles wreathed Baltazar’s face of annoyance, and he exchanged a quick -glance with Marcelle. “What railway station?” - -“Waterloo.” - -“I thought he had taken his kit with him in the car.” - -“He explained, sir, when he called me into the hall before he left, that -he couldn’t garage the car at Waterloo station.” - -“I see,” said Baltazar. - -“Therefore I am to seek it in his bedroom and convey it by taxi to -Waterloo.” - -Baltazar nodded approvingly, and the humorous light appeared in his eyes -which Quong Ho could never interpret. - -“It’s very lucky you’ve told me, Quong Ho. I want particularly to say a -word or two to Godfrey before he leaves London. I’ll take his bag. You -get on with the work. Perhaps you’ll send somebody out for a taxi.” - -“I’ll fetch one myself,” said Quong Ho, and bowing as usual politely to -Marcelle, left the room. - -Baltazar clutched her arms with both hands and lifted her from her seat -and, laughing exultantly, kissed her a hearty, unintelligible kiss—the -first for twenty years—leaving her utterly bewildered. - -“The Lord has delivered them into my hands!” he cried. “The stars in -their courses fight for the House of Baltazar.” - -“What in the world are you going to do?” she asked. - -“Play hell,” said he. - -Ten minutes afterwards Baltazar was speeding eastwards, grimly smiling. -By skilful contrivance he had despatched the helpful Quong Ho upstairs -to Marcelle at the last moment, and had pitched Godfrey’s kit into the -dining-room and had driven off without it. If the infatuated youth would -not listen to reason or the lady to the plainest of speech, he should go -off to his love in a cottage unromantically destitute of toothbrush and -pyjamas. Ridicule kills. The boy would hate him for the moment; but -would assuredly live to bless him. Once in France, he would have no time -for folly. The imperious man’s thoughts flew fast. The lady herself -should cure the boy. He would see to that. If he couldn’t break an Edna -Donnithorpe, bring her to heel, he was not John Baltazar. In his -jealousy for the boy’s honourable career he swept the woman’s possible -emotions into the limbo of inconsiderable things. What kind of a woman -was she, anyhow, to have married a rat like Donnithorpe? He read her in -rough intolerance. Just a freak of thwarted sex. That was it. If nothing -was discovered, she would return to her normal life and, sizing up the -episode in her cold intellectual way, would discover that the game was -not worth the candles supplied by the old woman in the remote cottage, -and would send Godfrey packing to any kind of Byronic despair. If the -intrigue came out and there was a divorce and subsequent marriage, there -would be the devil to pay. - -The taxi clattered through the gloomy archway approaches at Waterloo and -drew up at the end of the long line of cabs at the entrance to the -station. The summer exodus from London was just beginning, and the -outside platform was a-bustle with porters, trucks, passengers and -luggage. Baltazar, after paying his fare, lingered for a moment at the -great door of the Booking Hall, and then entered and passed through it -into the hurrying station. A queue stood at the suburban ticket office. -He scanned it, but no Godfrey. He walked the length of the platform -entrances, through the crowds of passengers and their dumps of luggage -and knots of soldiers, some about to entrain, sitting on the ground with -their packs around them, others, newly arrived on leave: Australians -with their soft hats, wiry Cockneys still encased in the clay of the -trenches, officers of all grades and of all arms. Presently at the -central bookstall, turning away, his arms full of periodicals, Godfrey -came into view. Baltazar approached smiling. His son’s face darkened. “I -didn’t expect to see you here, sir.” - -“If you want to study the ways of a country, there’s nothing like its -great railway stations. They’re a favourite haunt of mine.” - -“It’s rather stuffy under this glass roof, don’t you think?” said -Godfrey. - -“I don’t mind it, my boy,” replied Baltazar cheerfully. “But it’s lucky -I hit upon Waterloo. I shall be able to see you off. By the way, where -are you going?” - -“Somewhere Southampton way, sir,” said Godfrey stiffly. - -“Lot of light literature,” remarked Baltazar, motioning to the -periodicals. - -“Quite a debauch,” said Godfrey. - -Baltazar’s quick eyes picked out the board by the Southampton platform. - -“Your train, I see, goes at 5.45. You’re a bit early.” - -“Yes, sir. It’s such a long time till the train starts that I couldn’t -think of asking you to wait.” - -“That doesn’t matter a bit, my dear boy. Time is no object.” - -“I’m very sorry to be rude, sir—but as a matter of fact I have an -appointment,” said Godfrey desperately. “An important appointment.” - -“Oh!” said Baltazar. - -“And, if you don’t mind, I must wait outside the station. Quong Ho is -bringing my suit-case. I shouldn’t like to miss him.” - -He made a step forward, but an ironic glitter in his father’s searching -eyes arrested the movement. - -“Quong Ho isn’t bringing your suit-case. I’ve come instead.” - -Godfrey drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t understand. Have you been -kind enough to bring my luggage?” - -“No,” replied Baltazar calmly. “It’s on the floor of the dining-room.” - -“Your interference with my arrangements, sir, is unwarrantable,” said -the boy, pale with anger. - -“Possibly. Unless we adopt the Jesuitical principle of the end -justifying the means.” - -“And what is the end, might I ask?” - -“To prevent you from making an infernal fool of yourself.” - -The young man regarded him inimically. Baltazar felt a throb of pride in -his attitude. A lad of spirit. - -“I suppose Marcelle came straight to you with my confidence. In giving -it to her I made a fool of myself, I admit. As for what I propose to do, -I fail to see that it’s any concern of yours.” - -Baltazar’s heart yearned over the boy. He said in a softened tone: “It -is ruin to your career and a mess up of your whole life. And your future -means so much to me that I’d sacrifice anything—honour, decency, even -your affection which I thought I had gained—to see you off at any rate -to France with a clean sheet.” - -But Godfrey in cold wrath did not heed the pleading note. He had been -betrayed and tricked. Only his soldier’s training kept him outwardly -calm. To the casual glances of the preoccupied crowd passing by them -nothing in the demeanour of either man gave occasion for special -interest. They stood, too, in a little islet of space apart from the -general stream of traffic. Baltazar went on with his parable. He had not -the heart to hint his projected gibe at the unromantic lack of -tooth-brushes. Things ran too deep. - -“I admit none of your arguments,” said Godfrey at last. “Besides, I am -my own master. I owe you a debt for many kindnesses; your affection—I -don’t undervalue it. But there things end. After all, we met a year ago -as strangers. I’ve run my life as I chose, and I mean to run it as I -choose. I expect Lady Edna to arrive at any minute. In common delicacy I -must ask you to let me go my own ways.” - -“All right, go,” said Baltazar. “But I’ll go with you.” - -Godfrey’s eyes flamed. - -“You wouldn’t dare!” - -“My dear fellow,” said Baltazar, “I don’t think there’s a damned thing -in the world that I wouldn’t dare. Haven’t you found that out?” - -So they stood there for a while longer, talking in their islet beneath -the glass roof of the busy station, and the boy’s heart was filled with -anger and wild hatred of the thick-shouldered, smiling man, with the -powerful face and infernal dancing eyes. - -Then suddenly Baltazar strode away at a great pace, and Godfrey, -turning, saw that he was cutting off Lady Edna, who had entered, -preceded by a porter wheeling her luggage. Before he had time to -overtake him, Baltazar was already taking off his hat to an amazed lady -and had imperiously checked the porter. - -“Lady Edna,” said he, “I’m here to prevent Godfrey and yourself from -committing the insanity of your lives.” - -She said, mistress of herself, “I don’t understand you, Mr. Baltazar. -You seem to be taking an outrageous liberty. I am going to stay at the -house of a friend who has asked Godfrey to be my fellow-guest.” - -Before Baltazar could reply, Godfrey came hurrying up with his slight -limp and plunged into angry explanations. She looked at the clock. - -“If you telephone home now,” she said coolly, “a servant will have ample -time to bring your things.” - -“By God, yes!” said Godfrey, angrily depositing the sheaf of periodicals -on her luggage. - -“Have you got the tickets?” - -“Of course.” - -He marched away across the station. - -“Porter——” said Lady Edna. - -But no porter was there, for, unperceived by either of the lovers, -Baltazar had slipped five shillings into the man’s hand and told him to -come back later. - -“There’s heaps of time,” said Baltazar. “Now, my dearest lady, what is -the good of make-believe? Cards on the table. You’re going to make a -bolt with Godfrey and throw your cap over the windmills. There’s a nice -little cottage in a wood—in the depths of the New Forest, I presume, -lent you by a friend who is represented by one solitary old woman.” - -“How do you know that?” she asked, her soft eyes hardening in their -characteristic way. “Godfrey has surely not been such a——“—she paused -for a word—“well—such an imbecile as to tell you?” - -“Godfrey has told me nothing. You may be certain of that. His fury -against me is sufficiently obvious.” - -“Then how do you know?” - -“That’s my affair,” smiled Baltazar. “Lady Edna,” said he, “don’t you -think that my coming the heavy father like this puts you into rather an -absurd position?” - -She replied, white-lipped: “I’ll never forgive you till I’m dead!” - -“I’ve naturally counted on the consequences of your resentment,” said -Baltazar. - -“What do you propose to do?” - -“If you persist, to thrust upon you the displeasure of my company, -without luggage—just like Godfrey.” - -“You——” she began indignantly. And then suddenly: “Oh, my God!” and -clutched him by the arm. - -He followed her stare across the station, and there, in the archway of -the Booking Hall, peering from right to left in his rat-like way, stood -Edgar Donnithorpe. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -“YOU seem to have managed your little affair rather clumsily,” said -Baltazar. - -“What’s he doing here?” she asked wildly. - -“Probably catching you and Godfrey.” - -“He mustn’t see Godfrey here.” - -“That’s easily managed,” said Baltazar. “I’ll send him flying out of the -telephone box. But what on earth could have put your husband on the -track? What indiscretion have you been committing?” - -“I left a letter for him telling him I wouldn’t stay any longer in his -house. He’s a traitor to his country.” - -Baltazar threw up his hands. “Oh, Lord! The usual idiocy. For a clever -woman—well! Anyhow, I’ll head off Godfrey. When your husband spots you, -use your brains. Don’t say a word to give yourself away.” - -“You’ll come back?” she cried, losing her head. - -“I’ll see,” said he. - -He left her, and fetched a compass round the station, mingling as much -as possible with the never-ceasing throng of soldiers and civilians and -women and luggage, until he arrived at the row of telephone boxes. There -he found Godfrey, waiting his turn and fuming at the delay. - -“My boy,” said he, “here are all the elements of a first-class farce. -The injured husband, Edgar Donnithorpe, has turned up. You had better -make tracks as quick as you can.” - -“I suppose you gave him the hint,” snarled the young man, with set -teeth. - -“You’re insulting your own blood to make such a damfool remark,” said -Baltazar. “Go home, and stay there till I come.” - -Godfrey met the infernal eyes and, for all his anger and humiliation, -knew that he had accused basely. - -“I apologize, sir,” said he, in his most haughty and military manner, -and marched off. - -Baltazar hesitated. Should he or should he not return to Lady Edna? If -he had escaped the eye of Edgar Donnithorpe, it were better to leave -Lady Edna, injured innocent, to tell her tale of solitary retirement to -sylvan depths where she could be remote from the consequences of his -political turpitude. On the other hand, if he had been observed, or if -Lady Edna had avowed his presence, his abandonment of her might be -idiotically interpreted. He decided to return. - -He saw them at once through the moving traffic: the husband, his back -towards him, gripping a handle of the truck on which the luggage was -piled; the wife facing him, an ironical smile on her lips. A devilish -handsome woman, thought Baltazar. The boy had taste. There she stood, -slim, distinguished in her simple fawn coat and skirt and little hat to -match, beneath which waved her dark brown hair, very cool, aristocratic -and defiant. Baltazar came up to them. - -“Ah, Donnithorpe!” - -The thin, grey man wheeled round, and then Baltazar realized that he had -made the wrong decision, for he was the last man the other expected to -see. - -“You? What are you doing here?” he shouted. - -“Hush!” said Lady Edna, with a touch on his arm. “You’re not at home or -in the House of Commons. You’re in a public place, and you’ll get a -crowd round us in no time. Let us pretend we’re a merry party going on a -holiday.” - -Edgar Donnithorpe threw an anxious glance round to see if they had -attracted undesired attention. But people passed them by or stood in -knots near them, unheeding, intent on their own affairs. - -“I ask you,” he said in a low voice, “what you are doing at this railway -station with my wife?” - -Baltazar, his felt hat at the back of his head and his hands thrust into -his trousers’ pockets beneath the skirts of his buttoned-up, -double-breasted jacket, eyed him in exasperating amusement. - -“I am seeing Lady Edna off on a railway journey. Was it necessary to ask -your permission?” - -Lady Edna laughed mockingly. “As far as I can make out, my husband -expected to find me eloping with your son Godfrey.” - -Donnithorpe shifted his eyes from one to the other, looking at them -evilly. - -“He was with you for nearly a couple of hours to-day. I had my own very -good reasons for suspicion. I went round to your house, Mr. Baltazar, -and asked for your son. I saw your Chinese secretary——” He caught -Baltazar’s involuntary sudden frown and angry flush. “In justice,” he -continued in his thin, sneering manner, “I must absolve him from -indiscretion. He knows my position in the Government, and when I -informed him that it was imperative I should see your son on important -political business, he told me I should find him at Waterloo station.” - -“You overreached yourself,” said Baltazar with a bantering grin. -“Godfrey knows no more about politics than a tom-cat. Quong Ho naturally -thought you meant me. You came. Here I am, seeing your wife off. She -telephoned me that she was leaving your house—going to stay with -friends—wanted a man of the world’s advice on the serious step she was -taking—woman-like, of course, she took the step first, and asked for -advice afterwards—and I naturally put myself at her ladyship’s -disposal. Don’t you think you had better let Lady Edna get on with her -journey? Here’s her porter. Come with me and see her safe into her -carriage.” - -He was enjoying himself amazingly. Donnithorpe, baffled, tugged at his -thin grey moustache. The porter came up, touching his cap. - -“Time’s getting on, ma’am. I’ve reserved the two seats——” - -“One seat,” said Lady Edna swiftly. - -“Beg your pardon, ma’am. I thought you said the gentleman was going with -you.” - -“One seat. I said I was meeting a gentleman.” - -The porter wheeled off the luggage. Lady Edna turned to follow, but her -husband gripped her viciously by the wrist. - -“Not yet.” - -“Drop that,” growled Baltazar. - -Donnithorpe released her, plunged his hand into his breast pocket and -drew out a couple of sheets of paper. - -“You did say two seats. You meant to go off with him. There’s some -damned trickery about it. But I’ve got the whip hand, my lady. Just look -at this before you go.” - -Lady Edna turned ghastly white and clutched Baltazar’s arm to steady -herself from the sickening shock. In the desperate rush, after Godfrey’s -departure, the scheming, the packing, the telephoning, the temporary -straightening of affairs, the chase over London for the complaisant -friend whose connivance was essential, the eagerness to get free of the -house before her husband should return, she had forgotten the scrap of -paper in her secret drawer, with its obsolete information. Now the -horror flashed on her. Her husband had gone to the drawer before. Hence -the article in Fordyce’s paper. Her first instinct had been right. He -had gone to the drawer again. Her swaying brain wondered how he had -discovered the secret of the spring. But he had found the paper which in -her folly she had not destroyed—and what else besides? She heard, as in -a dream, her husband saying: - -“If he isn’t your lover, what about these? Here’s proof. Here’s a matter -of court-martial and gaol.” - -She regained her self-control with a great effort, still holding to -Baltazar. “You hound!” she whispered. - -Baltazar, smitten with the realization that comedy had vanished—the -comedy in which he had played so debonair and masterly a part—vanished -in the flash of a cinematographic film, and that something very near -tragedy was staring him in the face, stretched out his hand for the -papers. - -“Let me see.” - -But Donnithorpe smiled his thin, derisive smile. “No. They’re too -precious. I’ll hold them for you to look at. Keep away.” - -And there, in the airless glass-roofed railway station, on that hot -summer afternoon, in the midst of the reverberating noises of trains -letting off steam, of a thousand human voices, of scurrying feet, of -grating luggage trunks, in the midst of a small town’s moving and -lounging population, surging now, at that hour’s height of the suburban -traffic with home-going streams; there, with hundreds of eyes to watch -them, hundreds of ears to hear them, hundreds of successive ears of -people darting bee-like around the busy bookstall not ten yards away, -there three quietly talking human beings stood at grips with destiny. - -“This is written on your notepaper. It is a War Office secret. It -reveals the whole strategy of the High Command.” - -Baltazar’s lips grew grim and his eyes bent on the little man burned -like fires. In Donnithorpe’s hands the document was Godfrey’s death -warrant. - -Then Baltazar remembered the shock he had received in Sheepshanks’s room -at Cambridge when first he saw a letter of Godfrey’s, and Godfrey’s -after explanation of the identity of their handwriting. - -“Don’t you see? It gives the whole thing away,” Donnithorpe continued. - -“I’m quite aware of it,” said Baltazar. “I drew it up for your wife.” - -“You?” exclaimed Donnithorpe in incredulous amazement, while Lady Edna -caught a sharp breath and clung more fiercely to Baltazar’s arm. “Where -did you get your information from?” - -“I am to be Minister of the new department in a day or two,” said -Baltazar, “and I’m in the inner confidence of the War Cabinet.” - -“But it’s in your son’s handwriting!” - -“It’s my handwriting,” said Baltazar calmly. - -He drew from his pocket a sheaf of notes for a speech and handed them to -Donnithorpe. “Compare, if you like.” - -Donnithorpe returned them with a curious thin snarl and held out the -other paper. - -“Then you wrote this too?” - -Baltazar glanced at it. It was the first sheet of a letter from which -the other sheet had been torn. Lady Edna saw it and again swayed, half -fainting with sickening humiliation. The only one of Godfrey’s -letters—and only part of one—which she had kept: two pages breathing -such a passionate love as she had never dreamed that a man in real life -could express to woman. She had forgotten that she had left that, too, -in the secret drawer. She stared haggardly into Baltazar s face. His -lips twisted into a smile. - -“Yes. I wrote that too,” said he. - -“Then you’re a damned villain!” cried Donnithorpe. - -“Very possibly,” said Baltazar. - -Donnithorpe turned in his rat-like way to his wife. - -“What have you to say about it?” - -Suddenly recovered from her fit of terror and shame, she withdrew her -grip from Baltazar’s arm and held herself up with the scornful poise of -her head. - -“Nothing,” she said. “You can flatter yourself now you know everything.” - -He did not heed her words, but once more looked from one to the other -with a thin, chuckling laugh. - -“You’re a pretty pair. You, my lady. And you, Mr. Minister of Publicity. -It strikes me you’ll have to postpone your elopement.” - -“You’ve got elopement on the brain, my good fellow,” said Baltazar. “A -Minister of Publicity doesn’t elope with a lady with nothing but what he -stands up in. Where’s my luggage?” - -“There,” replied Donnithorpe, pointing to the barriers to the platform. -“Didn’t the porter say she had ordered two seats—one for a gentleman?” - -“This is getting wearisome,” said Lady Edna. “I’ve already told you how -the mistake arose.” - -The solicitous porter, already rewarded with five shillings, and -belonging to a race as richly endowed with human failings as any other -in the world, hurried up. - -“I’ve found a corner seat, ma’am. Put everything into the carriage. -You’ve not much time left.” - -Suddenly she became aware of the awful desolation that awaited her in -the remote cottage in the New Forest with one horrible old servant woman -for company. Within her feminine unreason clamoured. No, no! She -revolted against the grotesque absurdity of such comfortless living -burial. She would go mad, cut off from every opportunity of hearing -instant developments of this nerve-racking situation. She couldn’t stick -it. - -“I’ve changed my mind, porter. I’m not going. Get my things out and -bring them back.” - -“Certainly, ma’am.” - -The porter ran off. Baltazar thrust his hands again into his trousers’ -pockets. His face was a grim mask. - -“Why don’t you get your luggage out too?” sneered Donnithorpe. - -“Don’t be a brainless fool,” said Baltazar. - -The fingers in his pockets twitched, and Lady Edna caught a malevolent -flash in his eyes that made her shiver. He would have liked to wring her -neck. Why the devil didn’t she play the game and go to the cottage and -the old woman? He read her through and through. And mingled with his -contempt ran a thrill of gladness. Godfrey was well rid of her. - -Donnithorpe cackled at his abjuration. He turned to Lady Edna. - -“You haven’t condescended to tell me where you were going.” - -“I was going, if you want to know, to stay with Sybil Manning at her -little place in the New Forest.” - -“Indeed?” said her husband, in his rasping voice, and a gleam of triumph -sparkled in his crafty eyes. “Now it happens that I, not being quite the -fool you and Mr. Baltazar have thought me, rang up Lady Manning. It was -the first thing I did when I read your letter. I knew you would bolt, -straight to her. I’ve often thought of bringing in a Bill in Parliament -to deprive her of existence. She answered me herself. She had heard -nothing of you, knew nothing of you.” - -“Naturally,” she said jeeringly. “But,” she added, carrying the war into -enemy’s quarters, “she knows everything about you. Everything, my -friend. So will the Prime Minister.” - -“I was with the Prime Minister this morning,” said Donnithorpe. “I told -him all about my Saturday evening’s effort in the cause of solidarity. -We parted the best of friends, and my position is secure.” - -“What about Fordyce’s article this morning?” - -“This morning I couldn’t conceive how the fellow had got the -information. This evening or to-morrow morning”—he tapped his breast -pocket—“if I am asked, I can point to a dual source of leakage.” - -He folded his arms, the crafty political intriguer, thin and triumphant. - -“Of us two,” said Baltazar, “it strikes me that you are the damnder -scoundrel.” - -“What you think is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” retorted -Donnithorpe. “What does interest me is the fact that my wife was going -to stay with Lady Manning in the New Forest while Lady Manning is in -London, and that when I find her here with you, she decides not to go to -the New Forest after all.” - -Lady Edna flushed angrily. She was out-manœuvred, outclassed, beaten on -all sides by the thin grey man whom she despised. She had acted like a -brainless, immoral schoolgirl. - -“Where do you propose to go now?” asked Donnithorpe. - -She spat her venom at him. “Anywhere to get out of the sight of you. -Yes, I was going alone to Sybil Manning’s cottage. I had just left her -when you telephoned. I wanted to get as far away from you as I could and -from the disgusting impressions of the last few days. Now the whole -thing would be spoiled by this abominable insult. I shall stay with my -mother to-night and go down to Moulsford to-morrow.” - -“I’m glad,” replied Donnithorpe acidly, “you’re not thinking of -returning to my house. I’m not going to have any plea of condonation.” - -Lady Edna moved away haughtily toward the barriers. - -“I see my porter. Mr. Baltazar, will you kindly put me into a taxi?” - -“No, he shan’t. You shall go in my car.” - -Baltazar, in a cold fury, stood over him threateningly. - -“You stay here,” said he, “or by the living God I’ll half kill you!” - -He caught up Lady Edna and followed with her in the wake of the porter. - -She said: “I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can’t ever repay.” - -He felt merciless towards her, murderous. “You let that boy alone, do -you hear? You’ve come within a hair’s-breadth of blasting his life. It -remains yet to be seen whether that hair’s-breadth will save him——” - -“I’d do anything in my power——” she began. - -“For God’s sake stop doing things. Hold your tongue. You’ve been -criminal in your piling folly on folly. You’ve done enough.” - -“But you——?” - -“I can take care of myself—and the boy, if you keep quiet. You’ve got -to remember the position. I’m your lover. Avowed before your husband by -both of us—you implicitly. You’re not to lose sight of that fact. -Understand? If you hold any communication with Godfrey, you’ll get him -court-martialled. Disgraced, probably imprisoned. And then, by God! I -won’t have any pity on you.” - -Talking thus they reached the outer platform of the station and waited -while the porter secured a taxi. She whispered, for they were brushed by -the throng of passengers arriving and departing: - -“If Edgar brings a divorce action——? He’s vindictive——” - -“He’ll bring no action, if you stop playing the fool. I’d advise you not -to interfere with my game.” - -The porter swung from the step of the taxi bringing a new arrival, and -as soon as the latter, a young officer with a suit-case, had alighted -and paid his fare, he piled in Lady Edna’s belongings. She entered the -cab very white and scared. Godfrey had told her enough about his father -for her to realize the unyielding nature of the man. She was terrified, -cowed. He blazed before her irresistibly elemental. . . . She carried -away with her a blurred impression of his thatch of brown hair coarse -and strong like the crown of some relentless beast as he lifted his hat -when the taxi drove off. She shuddered, and hated him. - - * * * * * - -Baltazar let himself into the house in Sussex Gardens, and went straight -to Godfrey’s room. He found him writing hard. When the young man sprang -up, his quiet eye noted the desk strewn with many sheets of notepaper. - -“Writing to her, I suppose.” - -“It’s not altogether unnatural,” Godfrey replied in stiff hostility. - -“Where are you going to address it?” - -Godfrey, looking into the infernal eyes, saw that it was not an idle and -impertinent question. Besides, he had spent a very agitated hour, gnawed -by bitter disappointment and impotent anger and torturing his brain with -conjecture as to what had happened. - -“Where is Lady Edna, sir?” he asked. - -“She has gone to stay with Lady Ralston.” - -“Her mother?” - -“The Dowager Countess of Ralston is, I believe, her mother,” said -Baltazar. - -He threw himself into a chair and mopped his forehead. - -“Why the devil don’t you open a window?” - -“I didn’t notice,” said Godfrey, and went and threw up the sash. - -It was a cosy room at the back of the house, the smoking den of the late -dead owner, furnished with green leather arm-chairs drawn up at each end -of a green leather-covered fender-seat, with a great green -leather-cushioned Chesterfield, with solid comfortable mahogany tables, -writing-desk and bookcases. On the walls hung well-framed old engravings -of solid worth, and Godfrey had added a little armoury of war trophies, -Hun helmets, rifles, flare pistols, gas-masks, bayonets, gleaming shell -cases of all sizes, a framed blood-stained letter or two in German -script. . . . A cosy room more suitable for a winter’s evening than a -close summer afternoon. Baltazar filled his lungs with the fresher air. - -“That’s better,” said he. - -Godfrey stood by the fireplace, his face set and unyielding. - -“Perhaps you might tell me, sir, what has happened. What brought -Donnithorpe to the station?” - -“The hope of catching you, my son, _in flagrante delicto_ of elopement.” - -“Quong Ho was sure that he wanted you.” - -“Quong Ho made a mistake. Donnithorpe was exceedingly surprised to find -me.” - -There was a long pause, during which Baltazar bent his disconcerting and -luminous gaze on the young man. - -“Godfrey,” he said at last, “what made you such an infatuated fool as to -give away War Office secrets in writing to that woman?” - -A look of horror dawned in the young man’s eyes and he took a step -forward. He gasped: - -“What do you mean?” - -And then, when Baltazar described the disastrous paper, he cried -passionately: - -“It can’t be! It can’t possibly be! Only this morning she told me she -had destroyed it.” - -“She lied, my son,” said Baltazar. - -“But she knew it was my honour, my everything——” - -“Of course she did. Do you suppose that matters to her?” - -Godfrey repeated in a dazed way: “There must be some mistake. She told -me she had destroyed it.” - -“Well, she didn’t,” said Baltazar. “She kept it—to gratify some vanity -or ambition. I don’t know. Our talk was too concentrated to divagate -into motives. Anyway, care for your honour didn’t affect her. She left -it about, and Edgar Donnithorpe has got it and means to use it.” - -The distracted young man sat down, his head in his hands, and groaned. -“My God! That’s the end of me.” - -Baltazar deliberately filled and lit a pipe, and said nothing. Better -let the consequences of the lady’s betrayal soak in. . . . Presently -Godfrey rose to his feet and his face was haggard. - -“I’ll go to Donnithorpe and get it back. He daren’t show it. It’ll be -accusing himself of giving away the information to _The Morning -Gazette_.” - -But Baltazar held him with his inscrutable eyes. - -“You’re a brilliant soldier, my son, but you’re no match for a foxy old -politician—a past master of dirty craft. He put himself right with the -Prime Minister this morning. Besides, there’s the lady to be -considered—not that I think she deserves much consideration. Still, -it’s a convention of honour.” - -Godfrey flashed: “I’m not going to bring her name into it!” - -“He will. He’ll get the whole story out of you.” - -“What the devil am I to do?” asked Godfrey with a helpless gesture. - -Baltazar rose. “My boy,” said he, “in two or three days’ time they’re -going to make me, a man suddenly sprung from nowhere, a Minister of the -Crown. That shows I’m not altogether a silly fool.” - -In spite of the welter of disillusion and catastrophe in which the boy -foundered, he detected in his father’s voice the pathetic, apologetic -note which he had never been able to resist, the note conveying his -father’s yearning desire to make good in his eyes. - -“You know I’m proud of you, sir,” he said. “Which is a lot more,” he -added with a break in his voice, “than you can say of me.” - -Baltazar put his arm round his son’s shoulders very tenderly. - -“My boy,” said he, “I’d give my life for you.” And the young man hung -his head. “The only thing is, will you trust me?” - -Ten minutes afterwards Baltazar, cheery and confident, stood at the door -preparing to depart from a chastened though more hopeful Godfrey. Love -had conquered. What had passed between his father and the Donnithorpes -the boy did not know. Of his father’s assumption of the part of -indiscreet lover he had no suspicion. But his father had fascinated him, -dominated his will, evoked in him a blind, unquestioning confidence, -compelled from him a promise of implicit obedience. Of course there were -conditions. He was to petition the War Office to be allowed to sacrifice -his leave and start for France, at the earliest opportunity, the next -day if possible. He was not to communicate with Lady Edna until his -return to England, whenever that might be. He gave the latter -undertaking readily, her lie rankling in his heart, her callous -disregard of his honour monstrous in its incomprehensibility. Whatever -might be his revulsion of feeling afterwards—and his clear young brain -grappled with the possibility—whatever might be his unregenerate -torment of longing, he accepted the condition as his punishment. She, so -his father said, was bound by the same condition. . . . Baltazar stood -by the door. - -“It’s all damned hard, old man, I know. But you’ll worry through. It’s -the English way.” - -He walked out, humming “Tipperary” out of tune, the only modern air he -knew, and ascended the stairs and thrust his head into the drawing-room. -There, as he expected, he found a desolate Marcelle, who, throwing down -the book which she was trying to read, jumped up and ran to the door. -What had happened? Quong Ho had told her of Edgar Donnithorpe’s call. -Godfrey was in black anger against her. - -“Go down,” said he, “and make your peace with him. You’ll stay and dine. -I must go now and finish my work before dinner.” - -He left her and, still humming “Tipperary,” entered his library, where -Quong Ho was patiently and efficiently working at the proofs. - -“Miss Baring and Captain Godfrey have upbraided me for indiscretion in -that I informed Mr. Donnithorpe of your whereabouts,” said Quong Ho. - -“The best day’s work you ever did in your life,” said Baltazar, seating -himself at the table and taking up his pen. - - * * * * * - -The dinner was not quite the success for which Baltazar had hoped, in -spite of his efforts to set a tone of light-hearted gaiety. His best -champagne flowed to little purpose. Godfrey acknowledged the toast to -his promotion and appointment with irreproachable politeness and -lamentable lack of fervour. Marcelle confessed afterwards that she had -never sat through so unjoyous a meal. To make her peace with Godfrey had -been no easy matter. It was but an armistice that she had patched up. -Twice that day had he been betrayed by women, and he felt sore against -an untrustworthy sex. He had admitted her not an inch further into his -confidence. Of the incriminating scrap of paper he told her nothing. She -sat at the table puzzled and unhappy. Quong Ho ate philosophically when -he was not drinking in the words of wisdom that came from the master’s -lips. - -They broke up early. Godfrey retired to his room. Quong Ho departed to -the printers to correct the proof of the editorial. Baltazar walked home -with Marcelle: a somewhat silent and miserable little journey. In vain -he assured her that she had been Godfrey’s salvation. She only realized -that the boy’s faith in her had gone. Of the extent of the salvation he, -like Godfrey, said nothing. The position for the moment was too delicate -and grotesque to be told to another person—even to Marcelle, and his -forthrightness scorned half confidences. He walked back disappointed, -ever so little depressed. Hadn’t he told everybody to put their trust in -him and worry their heads no more about the matter? And they were -worrying considerably. - -At the end of the passage beyond the hall he saw a streak of light -signifying that Godfrey’s door was ajar. He went down, opened the door -and looked in. There was Godfrey, huddled up on the Chesterfield, his -head in his hands, his fingers clutching his crisp fair hair. As he -seemed unaware of intrusion, Baltazar closed the door quietly and -tiptoed away. No one knew better than he that every man must go through -his little Gethsemane alone. But the pity of it! He crept upstairs with -an aching heart. Papers by the last post in connection with the new -ministry lay on his desk. He sat down and tried to deal with them; but -at last abandoned them and sucked a gloomy pipe. Had he saved the boy -after all? Would the woman hold her tongue? Was Donnithorpe such a fool -as to believe his story? Meanwhile he was the avowed lover of the -detested woman and the betrayer of official secrets. And the vindictive -little rat held the proofs. What use was he going to make of them? - -Yet the situation had a grimly humorous aspect. If he had not seen the -boy huddled up in grief and shame downstairs he would have envisaged it -with one of his great laughs. . . . - -The next day passed quietly. Godfrey was absent till the evening. He had -been to the War Office and arranged to leave for France on the morrow by -the staff train. An agreeable evening was marred by no reference to Lady -Edna or the scrap of paper. They spoke of books and mathematics and the -war and the probable scope of Godfrey’s duties. - -Only when they shook hands for the night did Godfrey say: - -“I think, sir, you’re the best father that ever a man had.” - -And Baltazar, with gladness leaping into his eyes and a grin on his -face, replied: - -“God knows I try to be.” - -On the following morning the post brought him a letter from -Donnithorpe’s solicitors. Would Mr. Baltazar make an appointment to meet -Mr. Donnithorpe and themselves, at his earliest convenience, on a matter -of very serious importance? He bade Quong Ho ring up and fix the -appointment for three o’clock that afternoon. - -“Will you not,” hazarded Quong Ho, “be also accompanied by your -solicitor?” - -“No,” said Baltazar in his grand self-confidence. “Damn lawyers.” - -When the long train moved out of Charing Cross station amid the waving -of handkerchiefs and hats, he drew a breath of unutterable relief. As -far as God would allow, the boy was safe. Safe, at any rate, from the -woman with whom he had pledged his honour not to communicate while he -was in France. And the boy would keep his word. He had been disentangled -from the imbroglio. It was all that mattered. He made his powerful, -almost ruthless way through the sobered crowd of lately cheerful friends -seeing off those dear to them, almost heedless of the streaming eyes of -women who but a moment ago had been so brave and smiling. He was unique -among them. His son was not seeking, but escaping death. - -Jubilant he walked across the station yard, up Cockspur Street and Pall -Mall. He felt strong—nay, more—all-powerful. A force before which all -the rats of Donnithorpes and lawyers in the world must crumble. He had -no plan; no idea how he should counter Donnithorpe’s machinations. He -had been accustomed all his life long to wait for the perilous moment -and then get in his grip. He had glorious faith in his destiny. His and -Godfrey’s. The destiny of the House of Baltazar. The war over, Godfrey -would find some sweet English girl and marry her; and there would be a -son to carry on the torch and hand it, in his turn, to the next -generation. Striding up St. James’s Street, he saw the babe; made -calculations of dates. He would last at least till seventy-five. The -grandson then would be on the verge of manhood. . . . He laughed. Odd -that he should have lived for fifty years before dreaming of the -continuance of his race. Those infernal years in China! He cursed them. -Never mind. If he had gone on in the humdrum certainty of the -perpetuation of his name he would have missed the present glory of the -conception. It was a wonderful world. - -He lunched at his club with Weatherley and Burtenshaw, optimistic to -gasconade, prophesying the speedy end of the war; then the millennium; -the world ruled by Anglo-Saxon fibre of brain and body inspired by Latin -nervous force—the combination towards which civilization had been -groping for centuries. At ten minutes to three he waved them farewell -and drove in a taxi to his appointment in Bedford Row. - -He was shown into a room where Edgar Donnithorpe and an impassive -elderly man with a face like a horse awaited him. He felt that he -entered like an irresistible force. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -HE stood, an hour later, on the pavement of that noiseless and forlorn -thoroughfare, and stared at the latest catastrophe which, like all the -others in his impulsive life, he had of his own deliberate act -contrived. As yet he failed fully to understand his defeat—for defeat -it was, surrender absolute and unconditional. He thrust his hat to the -back of his head and mopped his forehead, and moved slowly up the street -in amazed reaction from the glow of conquest which warmed him as he had -entered the office. He had gone without any plan of campaign, confident -in his intellectual resource to meet emergency. Merciless craft and -cunning vindictiveness met him. Under the fierce sunshine, angry shame -made him hotter, and the sweat poured down his face. He had been able -only to bluster and threaten in vain retaliation. The grey rat of a man -had laughed at him with rasping thinness. The horse-faced lawyer had -smiled professional deprecation of heroics. “I shall do this and that,” -he declared. “Then our action will be so and so,” they countered. Like -the Duke of Wellington, he cried: “Publish and be damned.” They pointed -out with icy logic that not they but he and his would suffer inevitable -condemnation. - -“You and yours.” That was the lawyer’s phrase. On the last word two -pairs of eyes were bent on him narrowly and significantly. The -unmistakable hint—the only one during the interview—of Godfrey’s -complicity, he had repudiated with indignation. The consequences -concerned himself alone. They smiled again. “Let it be so, then,” said -they, “for the sake of argument. . . .” As he walked along the burning -street he wondered how much they knew, how much they guessed. Save for -that significant glance, both the grey politician and the longlipped -lawyer had been as inscrutable as Buddhist idols. And he, John Baltazar, -had been hopelessly outmatched. - -Yet, after all, at a cost, he had won the game. Godfrey was saved. -Mechanically he put his hand to the breast pocket of his thin summer -jacket and felt the incriminating document crackle beneath his touch. -That and the sheet of clotted passion of which he had confessed himself -the author. . . . He continued his way westwards, down the mean and -noisy Theobald’s Road, half conscious of his surroundings. The drab men -and women who jostled him on the pavement and passed him in the roadway -traffic seemed the happy creatures of a dream—happy in the inalienable -possession of their London heritage. . . . Fragments of the recent -interview passed through his mind. His adversaries had threatened not to -stand alone on the written disclosure of War Office secrets. They could -bring evidence of leakage through Lady Edna, for some time past, of -important military information. He could quite believe it. The written -paper could scarcely be the boy’s sole infatuated indiscretion; and as -for the lady—revealed as she was yesterday, he counted her capable of -any betrayal. Bluff or not, he had yielded to the threat. While the -paper remained in Donnithorpe’s possession, Godfrey was in grave -peril. . . . “You and yours.” The phrase haunted him. If he defied them, -they would strike through him at Godfrey. - -Were they aware of farce? If so, why, save for this veiled allusion, did -Godfrey, the real lover, seem to matter so little? During the interview -their attitude puzzled him, until he became aware of Donnithorpe’s -implacable enmity towards him, John Baltazar. And now he wondered -whether the pose of the injured husband were not a blind for revenge -rooted in deeper motives. Only a fortnight or so ago Godfrey had said: - -“The little beast hates you like poison.” - -He had asked why. Parrot-like, Godfrey had quoted from Lady Edna’s -report of the conversation before his father’s visit to Moulsford. - -“A Triton like you gives these political minnows the jumps.” - -He had laughed at the affectionate exaggeration. But was the boy right -after all? Certainly he had paid scant courtesy to Donnithorpe, whom he -had lustily despised as one of the brood of little folk still -parasitically feeding on the Empire which they had done their best to -bring to ruin. Was this the abominable little insect’s vengeance? - -He halted at the hurrying estuary of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, took off -his hat, and again mopped his forehead and the short thatch of thick -brown hair. The words of Dr. Rewsby of Water-End flashed across his -mind—“Have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant -principles?” . . . and . . . “I should say you were cultivating a very -bad habit, and I should advise you to give it up.” And he remembered his -confession, a year ago, to the sagacious doctor: “You have the most -comforting way in the world of telling me that I’m the Great Ass of the -Universe.” - -“That man’s diagnosis,” said Baltazar to himself, putting on his hat, -“was perfectly correct. I am.” - -He marched in his unconsciously hectoring way down Holborn and Oxford -Street, deep in his thoughts. Yes, once again his episodical life -history had repeated itself. The same old extravagant principles had -once again prevailed. They were part and parcel of his being, resistless -as destiny. Once again, without thought of the future, he had cast the -glowing present to the winds. Once again he had proved himself the Great -Ass of the Universe. But what did it matter? Godfrey was saved. Again he -made the papers crackle in his pocket. He had told him he would give his -life for him. He strode along fiercely. By God! Stupendous Ass that he -might be, he had never in his life broken a vow or a promise. . . . -Apart from the passionate love he had conceived for the boy, there was -no reparation adequate for his twenty years’ unconscious neglect. He -swung his stick to the peril of the King’s lieges on the pavement. It -was a young man’s world—this new world that was to follow the war. Old -men like himself were of brief account. Godfrey should have his chance, -unstained, unfettered in the new world which his generation, throwing -mildewed tradition on a universal bonfire, would have to mould. - -He drew nearer to the brighter life of West End London, Oxford Circus, -with its proud sweep of great shops and its plentiful harbours from the -streams of the four great thoroughfares. Reluctant to confine himself -yet awhile within the four walls of his library, he abandoned the -straight course home and went down Regent Street, and at last stood -uncertain at Piccadilly Circus, the centre of London, more than any -other one spot perhaps, the true heart of the Empire. Though it was the -broad day of a summer afternoon, his memory sped swiftly back over -twenty years to the night when he saw it alive with light and flashing -movement and the great city’s joy of life, for the last time before he -sailed for China; when, in spite of decorous and scholarly living, his -heart had sunk within him at the realization that he was giving up all -that, and all that it symbolized—the familiar and pulsating life of -England. And now he stood in the same glamour-haunted precincts, and -again his heart sank like a stone. He turned, crept for a few steps down -Piccadilly and, catching a taxi putting down a fare at the Piccadilly -Hotel, engaged it and drove home to Sussex Gardens. - -The house appeared bleak and desolate. Quong Ho had gone some whither. -Godfrey—he thanked God—was on his way to France. Foolishly he had -hoped that Marcelle might be awaiting him, to hear the latest tidings of -the boy; but she was not there. For all its carpeting and pleasant -luxury of furniture the house seemed to be full of echoes, as though it -were an empty shell. For the first time in his life he shrank almost -afraid, from the intolerable loneliness of the lot to which he had -condemned himself. For the last year he had given way to his -long-pent-up craving for human affection. He had cast his soul into the -orgy of love that he had compelled from the only three dear to him in -the world. It had been more than his daily bread. It had been a kind of -daily debauch. It had lifted him above himself. Marcelle loved him, -Godfrey loved him, Quong Ho loved him, each in their separate ways. They -were always there, ready at hand, to appease the hunger of the moment. -And now, in a flash, he had cut himself adrift from the beloved three. -The love would remain. That he knew. But from the precious food of its -daily manifestations he would be many thousands of leagues sundered by -oceans and continents. At thirty he could forsake love and face solitude -with the brave fool’s confidence. At fifty he gazed terrified at the -prospect. He had embraced loneliness as a bride, three years ago, in -order to save himself from perdition. But then his heart had been stone -cold, unwarmed by any human touch. He had felt himself to be an unwanted -wanderer in an alien planet. Spendale Farm had been a haven of comfort, -an Eden of refuge. But the German bomb had revolutionized his world. It -had magically brought him into indissoluble bondage to human things of -unutterable dearness. And now once more—_finis_ to the episode which he -had thought to be the story ending only in death. - -He sat mechanically at the writing-table in his library and began to -open the letters that had come during his absence. A leathern Government -despatch case containing the day’s papers from the office which he had -only hurriedly visited that morning, awaited his attention. The deathly -sensation that they no longer concerned him held him in a cold grip. -There was a flaming article from a Croatian statesman which had reached -_The New Universe_ through devious channels, fraught with pregnant -information. He glanced through it in impotent detachment, like that of -a dead man brought back to the conduct of his affairs. He was no longer -the dynamo of _The New Universe_. Other forces, who and what he knew -not, would in a day or two take his place. _The New Universe_ would have -to get on, as best it could, without him. He was dead. He had no more to -do with _The New Universe_ than with the internal affairs of Mars. - -He opened an envelope addressed in a well-known handwriting and franked -with distinguished initials. It had been delivered by messenger. Like a -dead man he read the achievement of his ambition: He was a Minister of -the Crown. The public announcement awaited only his formal acceptance. -He stared dully at the idle words. And then suddenly mad rage against -the derisive irony of his destiny shook him and he sprang from his -chair, and, in the unsympathetic privacy of the room which he had not -furnished, he stormed in foolish fury and vain agony of soul. . . . - -It was the end of John Baltazar—the John Baltazar in whom he had always -believed, at the moment of proof positive of the justification of his -faith. To Godfrey he had not boasted unduly. A year ago he had awakened, -a new Rip Van Winkle, to a world for two years at war. In a few months, -God knows how, save through his resistless energy, his new-born and -flaming patriotism and his keen brain, he had established himself in -England as a driving force compelling recognition and application to the -country’s needs. He had won his position by sheer strength of -personality. Transcendental mathematics and Chinese scholarship he had -thrown into the dust-heap of broken toys. He had emerged from -philosophic childhood into the active life of a man, with his strong -hands fingering the strings of the world’s war. Now the strings were in -his grasp. . . . He had looked far ahead. This Ministry, though of vast -importance, was yet subordinate to the Greater Powers of the State. He -was young. What was fifty-one? The infancy stage of statesmanship. Why -should not he, John Baltazar, rise to higher power and guide the -civilized world to victory and to triumphant peace? - -The man had dreamed many dreams. What great man does not? Never yet has -the human being whose day’s vision is blackened by the curtain of the -night reached the shadow of achievement. Then again: was it of England -or of John Baltazar that he dreamed? Who can tell? Can any man of noble -ambitions, of deep conviction of his own powers, strip himself naked -before his God and tell? - -And now the dreams were but dreams. Blankness confronted him. Raving -against fate brought no consolation or relief. In utter dejection he -threw himself into an arm-chair and once more gazed hopelessly at -catastrophe. - -There was no longer a John Baltazar. As far as England was concerned he -had ceased to exist. In that lawyer’s office he had signed his -abdication. There was the letter written and addressed, formally -declining the almost hourly expected offer of the ministerial -appointment. The offer had now come. He had pledged his honour to give -immediate signal for the posting of the answer. That was part of the -price demanded for the surrender of the disastrous documents. He went to -the telephone and curtly carried out those terms of his contract. - -There remained the other condition to be fulfilled, for which they had -no other guarantee than his word. There at least—and a gleam of pride -irradiated his gloom—he had triumphed. He had compelled them to trust -his word without a scrap of written obligation. He would sail for China -within a month. - -He sat there alone in the silent house, wondering again whether he had -not set the final seal on himself as the Great Ass of the Universe. He -had been driven, it is true, into a corner by the malignity and craft of -his opponents; but it was he himself who had dictated the terms of -surrender. Acting on one of the wild impulses that had deflected from -childhood the currents of his life, he had made the amazing proposal. - -It was the end of John Baltazar. He rose, went over to his table and -filled his pipe. Anyhow, the House of Baltazar stood firm in honour. He -would yet dandle the grandson on his knee. _La course du flambeau_ was -the beginning and end of human endeavour. The torch was in Godfrey’s -hands now. . . . Feeling for his match-box, his wrist met the hidden -papers in his jacket pocket which he had almost forgotten. He drew them -out, folded the one fraught with court-martial and disgrace to Godfrey -into a long strip and set fire to it, a torch not to be handed on. He -lit his pipe with it instead and watched it burn till the flame touched -his finger-tips. Then he went over to the grate and burned the -love-letter. - -He sat down and wrote to Godfrey. - - “My dear Boy: - - I think you ought to know that I have been as good as my word. - Three hours after parting from you, I recovered possession of - the document, and this time you may be certain that it no longer - exists, for I have myself destroyed it. Your sheet now is clean - in this respect, and also in others, if the barrage of silence - is maintained. - - I cannot possibly tell you how I shall miss you. - Your ever affectionate father, - John Baltazar.” - -That was all. Time enough to tell him about China when he had made -definite arrangements for the voyage. He prayed anxiously that he might -make the announcement in such a way that Godfrey should never -self-reproachfully suspect the cause of his exile. - -Quong Ho, returning a short while afterwards, found him deeply engaged -with the contents of the despatch-case. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - -AS he had expected, the Foreign Office beamed on him. It was immensely -gratified that a man of his statesmanlike qualities should have -differentiated so acutely between the values of the two spheres of his -suggested activities. In bureaucratic satisfaction it rubbed its hands -at a departmental score. Mr. Baltazar had only to name his terms and -conditions. With the Foreign Office it was all plain sailing. Nay, more. -If it could have prevailed with an ultra-conservative Admiralty, it -would have sent him out to China in the newest, fastest and most -mysterious battle-cruiser. But in Government circles outside the Foreign -Office there was the devil to pay. Consternation also reigned in the -office of _The New Universe_. For two or three weeks Baltazar had a grim -time. - -The first announcement in an evening newspaper of his retirement from -the projected Ministry smote the eyes of an incredulous and bewildered -Marcelle. She caught him on the telephone. - -“Is it true?” - -“Yes. Quite true.” - -“But I don’t understand.” - -“I’ll come round this evening and explain.” - -“No. I’ll come to you. I shan’t be alone here.” - -“Come to dinner.” - -“Miss Graham and I are just sitting down to ours. I’ll run round after.” - -“All right. I’m free all the evening.” - -Baltazar dined alone with Quong Ho, and talked cheerfully of matters far -remote from the war. No reference was made to his retirement from -English politics, about which Quong Ho knew everything, or to the -Chinese Mission, of which Quong Ho as yet had no official knowledge. -Apart from the expressed desire of the Foreign Office to keep the -appointment from the press, it was characteristic of Baltazar to -maintain silence, even to those dear to him, as to his especially -meteoric doings. Besides, of the two, Marcelle must have the privilege -of being the first to learn from his own lips. - -She arrived about half-past eight, and he received her in the -drawing-room. She wore a simple, semi-evening old black dress into which -she had changed before her quiet dinner with her friend, a long pre-war -confection, a favourite of Godfrey’s, moulding her, as he said, in -soldierly daring, like Juno. Her thick brown hair crowned her -gloriously. Rest had restored her to health, and in spite of the anxiety -in her eyes, she appeared to Baltazar in the ripe fullness of her -beauty. He strode to meet her, with his usual gesture of outstretched -hands, strong, confident, admiring, smiling. Yet never did she appear -more desirable, or more remote from his desires. - -“What is the meaning of it—your resignation? I thought it was the one -thing in life you were working for.” - -“I find,” said he, “I can serve my country better in other ways.” - -She put a hand to a puzzled forehead. - -“How?” - -He looked steadily into her eyes. What was the use of beating the air -with idle words? She would have to know the truth sooner or later. - -“By going to China.” - -She stared at him open-mouthed. - -“China?” - -“Why not?” - -He stood, his hands deep in his dinner-jacket pockets, balancing himself -alternately on toes and heels, with the air of a conqueror. - -“I know more about inner China, I suppose, than any man living. I go out -with a free hand to pull two or three million people together and -establish a wise government and exterminate the German. Hundreds of men -can do my job in England. But those who can do it in China may be -counted on the fingers of a mutilated hand.” - -“It’s all so sudden.” - -“I’m a sudden sort of fellow, as you ought to know,” he laughed. - -“But you always said you hated the place—would rather die than go -back.” - -“In these days you’ve got to do things you hate—for the good of your -country.” - -She sat down, feeling stupefied by his news. She asked: - -“How long will you be away?” - -He shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly years. Who knows?” - -“And when do you start?” - -“As soon as I can wind up here. Say in a fortnight’s time.” She shook -her head and looked at the floor, making little hopeless gestures with -her fingers. “You see, my dear,” said he, “except my own personal -ambitions, which I have scrapped for the time, there’s nothing very much -to keep me here. I’ve done my duty by Quong Ho. He’s on the road to fame -at Cambridge. Godfrey’s settled in France till the end of the war. And -you—well, my dear,” he smiled, “we won’t lose touch with each other for -another twenty years.” - -“No, of course not,” she said in a queer voice. “We’ll—we’ll write to -each other.” She raised her eyes to his timidly. “Won’t you be rather -lonely out there, without us?” - -He turned swiftly aside so that she should not see his face. “Naturally -I’ll miss you. Miss the three of you. I’m human. But, on the other hand, -I’m used to being alone. I’m a solitary by temperament.” Then he flashed -round on her. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll have my hands too full to -be lonely. I’ll have a real man’s job to get through.” - -In his vehement way he sketched the kind of work that lay before him, -went off into picturesque reminiscence, unfolded some of the plans he -had already made for the conquest of those in power in disaffected -districts. Anyone but Marcelle he would have convinced of the -whole-hearted and enthusiastic anticipation of his mission. But a woman -whom a man loves is apt to know him even better than the woman who loves -him. A suspicion, vague but insistent, began to haunt her. Presently she -gave words to it. - -“Have Godfrey’s affairs anything to do with this sudden decision of -yours?” - -He assumed a puzzled look. “Godfrey’s affairs?” - -“Yes. The Donnithorpe business.” - -He laughed. “My dear, we’re dealing in high international politics. What -on earth can a boy’s calf love have to do with it?” - -“You’ve never told me what happened at Waterloo. Nor did Godfrey.” - -“I simply pulled them apart. Sent Lady Edna home, and despatched Godfrey -to France a day before his time. That’s all over.” - -“But you met Mr. Donnithorpe. Quong Ho——” - -“Oh yes, I met Donnithorpe. That’s what saved the situation. He expected -to find Godfrey. Found me instead.” He grinned in the most disarming -manner. “A comedy situation. And off he went defeated.” He took her -hand, apparently in the gayest of moods. “It’s only a woman,” said he, -“that could throw a bridge between Waterloo station and the interior of -China.” - -She let the question drop; but the suspicion remained, and every minute -that passed, until the ormolu clock on the drawing-room mantelpiece gave -her the signal for conventional retirement, converted it into certainty. - -He walked with her as usual to the door of her block of flats. On -parting she found tremulous utterance for the sense of utter forlornness -which she had been trying all the evening to formulate: - -“What’s to become of me when you’re gone?” - -She fled upstairs, not waiting for the lift, and went straight to her -room, with the words echoing in her ears. No. They did not at all convey -her heart’s meaning. They sounded heartless, selfish. Yet they were -true. What would become of her? For a year she had been enwrapped soul -and mind and thought in the dynamic man. Dynamic, yet so tender, so -chivalrous, so childlike. Without him existence was a blank full of -shuddering fears. And then a coldness as of death fell upon her. Never -once, on this night of the parting of the ways, had he hinted at his -love for her. Had she, by her selfish folly, her now incomprehensible -sex shrinkings, killed at last the love that once was hers for the -taking? Slowly she undressed and crept into bed; but sleep mocked her. -Agonizingly awake, she stared at her life. . . . And she stared too, -almost in rhythmic alternation, at the life of John Baltazar. Nothing -but some supreme emotional crisis could have caused this characteristic -revolution, this sudden surrender of the prize of his ambition, this -gorgeous acceptance of exile. For all his contemptuous dismissal of the -suggestion, she knew, with a woman’s unerring logic, that Baltazar had -bought Godfrey’s release from entanglement at the price of his own -career. And never a hint of regret, never a murmur against fate. Never -the faintest appeal to pity. . . . And she arraigned her own narrow -nurse’s self, and condemned it mercilessly. And the lower she sank in -her own esteem, the higher rose Baltazar until he loomed gigantic as a -god above her puny mortality. - -Her throat was dry. She got out of bed and drank a glass of water. On -her way back across the room her glance fell on the little brass Yale -latchkey, lying on her dressing-table, which he, in his big, careless -way, had insisted on her having, so that she could gain entrance, as of -right, to the house, whenever she chose. She took it up, gazing at it -stupidly. The key to his home, the key to his heart, the key to his -soul—all in her keeping. And she had despised it. Now she had lost it. -The home would pass into alien hands. His heart was barred. For the -first time, for a whole year, they had met without his uttering one -little word, playful or wistful or tyrannic, to prove that his nature -was open hungrily for her. To-night she had been but his dear friend. He -had accepted her gift of friendship. She remembered the old French -adage: _L’amitié, c’est le tombeau de l’amour_. She sat on the edge of -the bed and mourned hopelessly the death of his love. - -And the brass Yale latchkey lay mockingly within her range of vision. - - * * * * * - -Baltazar walked home, her last words echoing in his ears. His absence in -China would naturally make a difference to her. She had become part of -his household. Godfrey, to whom she had given a mother’s heart, was -indefinitely in France and alienated from her by his resentment of her -breach of confidence. She had identified herself so unreservedly with -the fortunes of the House of Baltazar that now, cut adrift, she would be -on the high seas, derelict. What could he do to mitigate her loneliness? -If he died, she would be well provided for. He had made his will some -months ago. But he had every hope of living for many robust years. What -indeed would become of the beloved woman now that their new attachments -to life were broken? The nurse’s career, in which she had spent the -splendid energies of her young womanhood? If Godfrey were in London, he -could commend her, with authority, to his care. But Godfrey’s vanishing -to France was the essence of the whole business. There remained only -Quong Ho. His appreciation of the comic put Quong Ho out of court. - -He entered his house in Sussex Gardens remorseful for lack of -consideration for Marcelle. But, hang it all, one couldn’t think of -everything at once. If she had cared enough for him to marry him, -well—there would have been the Light that never was on Sea or Land. He -would have snapped his fingers at the doings of the little planet Earth. -He would have been Master of the Universe. But that was not to be. -Either all in all as a wife or not at all. An irrevocable decision. It -was not Marcelle’s fault that she did not love him in that way. . . . No -use thinking of it. It was all over. They had drifted, however, into an -exquisite companionship, as exquisite to her—he had no false modesty -about it—as to him. And now that was over. What was to become of -Marcelle? - -He was filling his pipe when Quong Ho entered the library with his -little deferential bow. - -“Sir,” said he, “may I be allowed to commit an indiscretion?” - -“You’ll do it so discreetly,” said Baltazar, “that it won’t matter. Fire -ahead.” - -“In the event of your leaving this country on a mission to the Far -East——” - -“What the devil do you know about it?” asked Baltazar. - -“In high Chinese circles in London it is common knowledge,” replied -Quong Ho. - -“Together with lots of other things concerning me, I suppose.” - -“You have many times observed,” said Quong Ho, “that my countrymen are -afflicted with an abnormal thirst for unessential information.” - -In spite of his heavy-heartedness, Baltazar smiled grimly. - -“Well, suppose I am going to China. What of it?” - -“May I postpone Cambridge degree and Fellowship for several years and -accompany you?” - -Baltazar’s brow grew black. “Isn’t England good enough for you?” - -Quong Ho broke into florid Chinese, the only vehicle for his emotion. -England was the land of his dreams. But why should he lie beneath the -passion-flower of luxury while his master ate the bread of exile? Surely -his degraded unworthiness might be useful to his illustrious Excellency -as confidential secretary not unversed, thanks to his honoured master -and patron, in the language and scholarship of the Mandarins. Or, if -that was deemed too honourable a position, his filial piety ordained -that he should offer himself as slave or any debased instrument for -which use could be found. - -“Oh, for God’s sake talk English!” cried Baltazar, his nerves on edge, -foreseeing such endless verbiage in similar perfect phrasing that -awaited him in China. - -Quong Ho spread out his hands and his face grew impassive. “I have -spoken,” he replied simply. - -“I don’t want any more careers upset,” said Baltazar, irritably. “You’re -fixed. You’ve to get your Fellowship. You’ll stay in England. Besides, I -need you here to look after Miss Baring’s interests.” - -“I confess,” said Quong Ho, gravely, “to being oblivious of that side of -the question.” - -Baltazar, lying deep in his arm-chair, pipe in mouth, gazed intently -into the oblique steadfast eyes of the son of his quaint adoption. The -idea of leaving Marcelle under his protection did not seem in the least -comic. He passed an impatient hand over his brow. Was he losing his -sense of values? - -Apart from his intellectual gifts, Quong Ho was a man of shrewd common -sense and of infinite trustworthiness. Marcelle knew this. Unlike so -many untravelled Englishwomen, she did not regard a Chinaman as a sort -of dangerous toy dog. She shared his faith in Quong Ho. - -“I thank you for your offer, my dear fellow,” he said at last, repenting -his ungraciousness. “I know you made it out of affection for me. I -deeply appreciate it. If it weren’t for Miss Baring, I wouldn’t -hesitate. As it is, I leave you here as my agent.” - -Quong Ho bowed. “So long as I can be of service to you, sir, your word -is law,” said he, and retired. - -Baltazar, left alone, resumed his uninspired reflections. He felt -physically and morally weary, a beaten man. He shrank from his Chinese -exile with pathetic dread; shrank from the toilsome journeys, the -eternal compliments of convention that delayed serious discussion, the -perpetual ceremonial, the futile tea-drinking, the mass of tradition and -prejudice and ignorance, the smiling craft that used it as a buffer -against enlightenment. He looked with dismay on his exclusion from the -keen intellectual talk in which he had revelled for the past year, from -the brain-thrilling battle of Western Thought. It was a man’s work, his -mission; a picked man’s work. Hundreds would have regarded it as a -climax of their diplomatic ambition. But to him, who had thrown himself -into vast schemes for the reconstruction of the war-torn world, it was -exile, defeat. It was not in his nature to regret his sacrifice. What -was done was done. The stars in their courses had fought against him -individually, even though, in their inscrutable wisdom they fought, as -he believed, for his House. No man who has saturated himself for years -with Chinese thought can escape the spiritual influence of fatalism. He -was a fatalist. It was written that he should fail in every one of his -great adventures. Yet the fact of it being written made his lot none the -less damnable for the very human and vivid man, once more involved in -predestined shipwreck. - -He smoked many pipes thinking disconnectedly, without method, and -feeling old and lonely and broken, and very, very tired. At last his -pipe dropped to the floor and he fell asleep. - -Suddenly the subconsciousness of a presence in the room caused him to -awake with a start. He looked up and, bewildered, saw Marcelle standing -by his chair. She was crying. He sprang to his feet, passing his hands -over his eyes. - -“You here?” His glance instinctively sought the clock on the -mantelpiece. “Why, it’s half-past two in the morning!” - -She said: “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t rest. I had to come.” - -He did not understand. - -“What is the matter, my dearest? What can I do for you?” - -“Only go on loving me, and forgive me,” she said desperately. - -“But I do,” he cried, puzzled. “It’s just hell for me to leave you. But -I can’t help it, my dear. My hand has been forced. It’s even harder to -leave you than it was twenty years ago. I love you and want you more -than ever I did in my life.” - -“So do I,” she said, in a shaking voice. “That’s why I’m here, at -half-past two in the morning.” - -Baltazar uttered a great triumphant cry and clasped her in his arms. - -“My God,” said he, “I’ve won after all!” - -He held her at arm’s length and looked at her exultantly. Thank Heaven -she had no suspicion of his sense of downfall. Not Pity, but Love at -last awakened, had brought her to him. - -“Yes,” he repeated. “I’ve won after all.” - -After a while, when he had almost forgotten his words, she asked him: - -“What did you think you had lost?” - -“My faith in my destiny. The star of Baltazar. Once upon a time the -original bearer of my name, with the others, had faith in a star, and he -followed it and found God.” - -She smiled. “Dear, aren’t you talking a bit wildly?” - -“What’s the good of speech if one can’t use it wildly in wild moments?” -He laughed. “Oh, you belovedest woman,” said he, and kissed her. - -Presently: “You’ll come out to China with me? You’ll progress like a -queen. I’ll see to that.” - -“It doesn’t matter how I progress,” she said, “so long as I’m with you. -I’m yours body and soul to the end of time.” - -“To the end of Eternity,” he cried. “I prefer that. It’s bigger. The -biggest there is is good enough for me.” - -His dancing eyes burned like flames of pride and happiness. Twenty years -seemed to have fallen from him, and she saw before her the young man -whom as a girl she had loved. - -“You and I are going over to the greatest work ever attempted by man. -The regeneration of half the continent of Asia. I couldn’t have done it -alone. The prospect frightened me. Yes, it did. I hadn’t the heart. But -with you—I stake my faith in the Star—it’ll be one of the great -accomplishments of the war. Quong Ho will come with us. He’ll have his -chance. I’ll make him one of the great men of the New China.” - -He went on, expounding his vision of the new order of Oriental things. -She marvelled at him, for it seemed as if he had but lived for that -moment. - -And divining his Great Sacrifice, she forgot the selfless years that had -all but moulded her into a mere machine of tender service to maimed and -diseased humanity, and felt a thing of small account before this man -whose unconquerable faith and indomitable courage transformed his -colossal vanities into virtues, and who, for all his egotism, was -endowed with the supreme gift of love. - -“Godfrey will be astonished at all this,” she hazarded. - -“Astonishment,” said he, “is an emotion salutary for the very young. It -stimulates thought.” - - THE END - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - -Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. - -Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. - -Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors -occur. - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The House of Baltazar, by William J. Locke - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR *** - -***** This file should be named 60120-0.txt or 60120-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/2/60120/ - -Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Jen Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/60120-0.zip b/old/60120-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 4b83487..0000000 --- a/old/60120-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/60120-h.zip b/old/60120-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 51e039d..0000000 --- a/old/60120-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/60120-h/60120-h.htm b/old/60120-h/60120-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 384c5bf..0000000 --- a/old/60120-h/60120-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14454 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of Baltazar by William J Locke</title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg"/> - <meta name="cover" content="images/cover.jpg" /> - <meta name="DC.Title" content="The House of Baltazar"/> - <meta name="DC.Creator" content="William J Locke"/> - <meta name="DC.Language" content="en"/> - <meta name="DC.Created" content="1920"/> - <meta name="DC.Subject" content="fiction"/> - <meta name="DC.date.issued" content="1920"/> - <meta name="Tags" content="fiction"/> - <meta name="DC.Publisher" content="Project Gutenberg"/> - <meta name="generator" content="fpgen 4.55a"/> - <style type="text/css"> - body { margin-left:8%;margin-right:10%; } - .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; - text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; - border:1px solid silver; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal; - font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration:none; } - .pageno:after { color: gray; content: attr(title); } - .it { font-style:italic; } - .bold { font-weight:bold; } - .sc { font-variant:small-caps; } - .ul { text-decoration:underline; } - .gesp { letter-spacing:0.2em; } - p { text-indent:0; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; - text-align: justify; } - div.lgc { } - div.lgl { } - div.lgc p { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; } - div.lgl p { text-indent: -17px; margin-left:17px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; } - h1 { - text-align:center; - font-weight:normal; - page-break-before: always; - font-size:1.2em; margin:2em auto 1em auto - } - - - .dropcap { - float:left; - clear: left; - margin:0 0.1em 0 0; - padding:0; - line-height: 1.0em; - font-size: 200%; - } - - hr.tbk { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:30%; margin-left:35%; margin-right:35%; } - hr.pbk { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em } - .figcenter { - text-align:center; - margin:1em auto; - page-break-inside: avoid; - } - - div.blockquote { margin:1em 2em; text-align:justify; } - p.line { text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; } - .pindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:1.5em; } - .noindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:0; } - .hang { padding-left:1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em; } - </style> - <style type="text/css"> - - h1 {font-size:1.25em; text-align:center; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em } - .dropcap {font-size: 350%; margin:-0.15em 0em -0.1em 0; } - .pindent {margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0em;} - hr.tbk { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid white; - width:30%; margin-left:35%; margin-right:35%; - margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; } - .bbox { - border-style: solid; - border-width: medium; - width: 60%; - max-width:20em; - margin-right: auto; - margin-left: auto; - padding: 1em;} - </style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Baltazar, by William J. Locke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The House of Baltazar - -Author: William J. Locke - -Release Date: August 18, 2019 [EBook #60120] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR *** - - - - -Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Jen Haines & the -online Project Gutenberg team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;margin-bottom:10em;font-size:1.5em;'>THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class="bbox"> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;'><span class='it'><span class='ul'>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</span></span></p> - -<div class='lgl' style=''> <!-- rend=';fs:1.1em;sc;' --> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>idols</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>jaffery</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>viviette</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>septimus</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>derelicts</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>the <span class='gesp'>usurper</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>stella maris</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>where love is</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>the <span class='gesp'>rough road</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the red planet</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the white dove</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>far-away stories</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>simon the jester</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>a study in shadows</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>a christmas mystery</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the wonderful year</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the fortunate youth</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the belovèd vagabond</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>at the gate of samaria</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'><span class='gesp'>the glory of clementina</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>the <span class='gesp'>morals</span> of marcus ordeyne</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>the <span class='gesp'>demagogue</span> and lady <span class='gesp'>phayre</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>the joyous adventures of aristide pujol</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-bottom:15em;'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line' style='font-size:2em;'>THE</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:3em;'>HOUSE OF BALTAZAR</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'>BY</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1.5em;'>WILLIAM J. LOCKE</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'>AUTHOR OF “THE ROUGH ROAD,” “THE RED PLANET,”</span></p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'>“THE WONDERFUL YEAR,” “THE BELOVÈD VAGABOND,” ETC.</span></p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:5em;'> <!-- rend=';fs:1em;' --> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1em;'>NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1em;'><span style='font-size:smaller'>LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD</span></p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1em;'>TORONTO: THE RYERSON PRESS</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:1em;'>MCMXX</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-bottom:15em;'> <!-- rend=';fs:0.8em;' --> -<p class='line' style='font-size:0.8em;'>COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:0.8em;'>INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:0.8em;'>————</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:0.8em;'>COPYRIGHT, 1920</p> -<p class='line' style='font-size:0.8em;'>BY JOHN LANE COMPANY</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='gesp'>THE</span> • PLIMPTON • PRESS</span></p> -<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'>NORWOOD • MASS • U•S•A</span></p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;margin-bottom:10em;font-size:1.5em;'>THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:1em;font-size:2.5em;'>THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='9' id='Page_9'></span><h1>CHAPTER I</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span><span class='sc'>HE</span> early story of Baltazar is not the easiest one to -tell. It is episodic. It obeys not the Unities of Time, -Place and Action. The only unity to be found in it -is the oneness of character in that absurd and accomplished -man. The fact of his being lustily alive at the present moment -does not matter. To get him in perspective, one must -regard him as belonging to the past. Now the past is a relative -conception. Save to the academic student of History, -Charlemagne is as remote as Sesostris. To the world emerging -from the stupor of the great war, Mons is as distant -as Balaclava. Time is really reckoned by the heart-throbs of -individuals or nations. Yester-year is infinitely far away. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To get back to Baltazar and his story. In the first place it -may be said that he was a man of fits and starts; a description -which does not imply irresponsible mobility of purpose -and spasmodic achievement. The phrase must be taken in -the literal significance of the two terms. A man of fits—of -mental, moral and emotional paroxysms; of starts—of swift -courses of action which these paroxysms irresistibly determined. -Which same causes of action, in each case, he doggedly -and ruthlessly pursued. One, an intimate teacher of Baltazar, -one who, possessed of the knowledge of the scholar and the -wisdom of the man of the world, might be qualified to judge, -called him a Fool of Genius. Now the genius is steadfast; -the fool erratic. In this apparent irreconcilability of attributes -lies the difficulty of presenting the story of Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But for the war, the story would scarcely be worth the -telling, however interesting might be his sheer personality and -his calculated waywardness. It would have led no whither, -save to a stage or two further on his journey to the grave. -But there is scarcely a human being alive with whose apparently -predestined lot the war has not played the very devil. -It knocked Baltazar’s world to bits—as soon as the realization -of it burst on his astonished senses; yet it seemed to -bring finality or continuity into his hitherto disconnected -life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was during the war that his name was mentioned and -his character discussed for the first time for many years, by -two persons not without interest in his fate.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle Baring, a professional nurse of long standing, -arrived late one night at Churton Towers, to take up the -duties of sister in charge. The place was the country seat of -a great family who, like many others, had given it over to -the Government as a convalescent home for officers; a place -of stately lawns and terraces and fountains; of picture-hung -galleries guarded by grim emptinesses in armour; of noble -halls heterogeneously furnished—for generosity seldom goes -so far as to leave the edges of a priceless marquetry table at -the mercy of a feather-headed subaltern’s forgotten cigarette; -of tapestried rooms, once filled with the treasures of centuries, -now empty save for the rows of little standard War Office -bedsteads and the little deal regulation tables at their heads.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Somewhat confused by the vastness of her new home, and -by the contrast of its gracious splendour with the utilitarian -ugliness and mathematical uniformity of the General Hospital -which she had just left, Marcelle Baring went downstairs the -next morning to begin her new duties. Once in the wards she -felt at home; for a ward of sick men is the same all the world -over. The Matron went round with her, performing introductions; -but that first morning she only caught a third of -the names. It would take a few days to learn them, to learn -also the history of the cases. Besides, they were convalescents, -dressings were few, and her work was more administrative -than personal. Her first impression was that of a high spirited -crowd of almost indistinguishable young men, some to all -intents and purposes sound of wind and limb, who in a short -time would be sent back to the tempest of shell whence they -were driven; others maimed and crippled, armless, legless, -with drooping wrists, with unserving ankles. In the daytime -nearly all were out of the wards; most in the open air playing -tennis or lounging about the terraces, or playing billiards in -the open-sided pavilion that looked over the Japanese garden. -It was no easy matter to keep track of them all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was only on the second day that the name of a young -officer who had lost his foot caught her eye: “Mr. G. Baltazar.” -He was very young, fair, blue-eyed, with a little blond moustache. -His tunic, laid ready with the rest of his clothes, bore -the white and purple ribbon of the Military Cross. The stump -had practically healed, but it still needed attention.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s rotten luck, isn’t it, Sister?” he said while she was -tending him. “I thought I had got through all right—the -show at Ypres early in June. I all but saw it out, but a bit of -high explosive got me and here I am. Anyhow, they say they’re -going to wangle me an artificial foot, so that I’ll never know the -difference. One of those pukka things, you know, that’ll pick -up pins with the toes. I hope it’ll come soon, for I’m fed up -with crutches. I always feel as if I ought to hold out my hat -for pennies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor chap!” said Marcelle, absently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s kind of you, but it’s just what I’m hating. I don’t -want to go through life as a ‘poor chap.’ ” He paused, then -ran on: “I wonder how you dear people can look at the beastly -thing. Whenever I cock my leg down and try to have a sight -of it, it nearly makes me sick. I like to be neat and tidy and -not repulsive to my fellow-creatures, but that crimpled-crumpled -end of me is just slovenly and disgusting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle Baring scarcely heeded his debonair talk. His -name had awakened far-off memories. She worked in silence, -pinned the bandage and, smiling, with a “You’ll do all right, -Mr. Baltazar,” left him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The shock came the next afternoon. As she passed through -the great entrance hall, fitted up as a lounge with the heterogeneous -furniture, she came across him, the solitary occupant, -sitting at a table, busy with pencil and writing pad and a thick -volume propped up in front of him. Her eye caught arresting -symbols on the paper, then the page-heading of the book: -“Rigid Dynamics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She paused. He looked up with a laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hello, Sister!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said, with a catch in her breath, “You’re a mathematician?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “More or less. If they kick me out of the -Army, I must go back to Cambridge and begin again where -I left off.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You must have left off rather high, if you’re reading Rigid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He started, for no one in this wide world but a mathematical -student could have used the phrase.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What the—what do you know about Rigid?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was at Newnham, in my young days,” she replied, “and -I read mathematics. And, oddly enough, my private tutor -was”—she hesitated for a second—“someone of your name.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He pushed his chair away from the table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That must have been my father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“John Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, John Baltazar. One of the greatest mathematical -geniuses Cambridge has produced. Good Lord! did you know -my father?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He and I were great friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked him through and through with curiously burning -eyes; of which the boy was unconscious, for he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fancy your reading with my father! It’s a funny old -world.” Then suddenly he reflected and glanced at her critically. -“But how could you? He disappeared nearly twenty -years ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m thirty-eight,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lord! you don’t look it—nothing like it,” he cried boyishly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor did she. She carried a graceful air of youth, from the -wave of brown hair that escaped from beneath her Sister’s cap -to the supple and delicately curved figure. And her face, if you -peered not too closely, was young, very pure in feature, still -with a bloom on the complexion in spite of confinement in -hospital wards. Her voice, too, was soft and youthful. Perhaps -her eyes were a little weary—they had seen many terrible -things.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the young man’s tribute she flushed slightly and smiled. -But the smile died away when he added:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What was he like? I’ve often wondered, and there has -been no one to tell me—no one I could have listened to. The -dons of his generation are too shy to refer to him and I’m too -shy to ask ’em. Do you know, I’ve never seen a picture of -him even.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was not unlike you,” she replied, looking not at him, -but wistfully down the years. “Of heavier build. He was a -man of tremendous vitality—and swift brain. The most -marvellous teacher I have ever met. He seemed to hold your -intellect in his hands like a physical thing, sweep it clear of -cobwebs and compel it to assimilate whatever he chose. A born -teacher and a wonderful man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But was he human? I know his work, though I haven’t -read enough to tackle it yet—most of it’s away and beyond -Part II of the Tripos even. I went up with an Open Mathematical -Scholarship just before the war, and only did my first -year’s reading. I’m beginning this”—he tapped his Treatise -on Rigid Dynamics—“on my own. What I mean is,” he -went on, after a pause, “my father has been always an abstraction -to me. I shouldn’t have worried about him if he -had just been a nonentity—it wasn’t playing the game to -vanish as he did into space and leave my mother to fend for -herself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I heard,” said the Sister, “that your mother had her -own private fortune.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wasn’t alluding to that side of it,” he admitted. “But -he did vanish, didn’t he? Well, as I say, if he had been just -a nobody, I shouldn’t have been particularly interested; but he -wasn’t. He was the most brilliant man of his generation at -Cambridge. For instance, he took up Chinese as a sort of relaxation. -They say his is the only really scientific handbook -on the study of the language. You see, Sister”—he swerved -impatiently on his chair and brought his hand down on the -table, whereat she drew a swift inward breath, for the gesture -of the son was that of the father—“I’ve always wanted to -know whether I’m the son of an inhuman intellect or of a -man of flesh and blood. Was he human? That’s what I want -to know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was human all right,” she replied quietly. “Too -human. Of course he was essentially the scholar—or savant—whatever -you like to call it. His work was always to him -an intellectual orgy. But he loved the world too. He was a -fascinating companion. He seemed to want to get everything -possible out of life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why didn’t he get it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was a man,” she said, “of sensitive honour.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Captain Baltazar threw away the flaming match wherewith -he was about to light a cigarette.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That licks me,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His bolting. Did you know my father very well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve told you we were great friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did you know my mother?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her eyelids flickered for a moment; but she replied steadily:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. I was only a student and your father was my private -tutor. But I heard—from other people—a great deal about -your mother. I believe she died many years ago, didn’t she?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. When I was five. I barely remember her. I was -brought up by my uncle and aunt—her people. They scarcely -knew my father and haven’t a good word to say about him. -It was only when I grew up and developed a sort of taste for -mathematics, that I realized what a swell he was. And I can’t -help being fascinated by the mystery of it. There he was, as -far as I can gather, full of money, his own (which he walked -off with) and of mother’s, beginning to enjoy at thirty a world-wide -reputation—and suddenly he disappears off the face of -the earth. It wasn’t a question of suicide. For the man who -buys a ticket for the next world doesn’t go to peculiar trouble -to take all his worldly estate with him. It isn’t reasonable, -is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your father was too much in love with life to go out of it -voluntarily,” said Sister Baring.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then what the blazes did he do, and why did he do it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is he alive or dead?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should I know, Mr. Baltazar?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He never wrote to you—after——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should he have written to me?” she interrupted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The rebuke in her voice and eyes sent the young man into -confused apologies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naturally not. You must forgive me, Sister; but, as I’ve -told you, I’ve never met a pal of that mysterious father of -mine before. I want to get all the information I can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She drew a chair and sat by him. The great hall was very -still and, in contrast with the vivid sunshine perceived through -the eastern windows, very dark. Through the open door came -the scents of the summer gardens. The air was a little heavy. -She felt her cap hot around her temples, and lassitude enfeebling -her limbs. The strain of the war years began to tell. She -had regarded this appointment as a rest from the intolerable -toil of the General Hospital in a large town which she had just -quitted. Before then she had served in France. And before -that—for many years—she had followed the selfless career -of the nurse. Now, suddenly, her splendid nerve showed signs -of giving. If she had not sat down, her legs would have -crumpled up beneath her. So she thought. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked at the young man, so eager, so proven, so like -his father in gesture and glance, yet in speech and outlook—she -was yet to get to that—but she knew the revolutionary -influences of the war, the real war, on those who have faced its -terrors and become saturated with its abiding philosophies—so -different from the fervid creature, John Baltazar, of the late -nineties, who had never dreamed of the possibility of this world -convulsion. He had much the same frank charm of manner, -the direct simplicity of utterance; but the mouth was weaker; -the eyes were blue, the eyes of a shrewish blonde—not the -compelling, laughing, steel-grey eyes with a queer sparkle in -the iris of John Baltazar. All in the young face that was -not John Baltazar’s was the mother’s. She hated the mother -dead, as she had loathed her living. Only once had she seen -her, a blonde shrew-mouse of a woman. Just a passing by -on the Newnham road, when a companion had pointed her -out as Mrs. Baltazar. The little bitter mouth had bitten -into her memory: the hard little blue eyes had haunted her -for eighteen years. The mouth and eyes were there, before -her, now. The rest, all that was noble in the boy, was John -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who has told you the little you do know about him?” -she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My uncle. My mother’s brother. I don’t think I have -any relations living on my father’s side. At any rate, I’ve not -heard of them. We’re of old Huguenot stock—Revocation -of Edict of Nantes refugees—God knows what we were before. -Long ago I happened upon a copy somewhere of the <span class='it'>Annuaire -Militaire de l’Armée Française</span>—and I found a Baltazar in -the list. I had an idea of writing him; but I didn’t, of course. -Now I suppose the poor devil’s killed. Anyhow, that’s nothing -to do with your question. My uncle—Sir Richard Woodcott—they -knighted him for manufacturing easily broken -hardware round about Birmingham, or for going to chapel, -or something—you know the type——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she rebuked him: “I thought you said your uncle -brought you up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“On my mother’s fortune—he was my guardian and trustee. -But he never let me forget that I was the son of John -Baltazar. There was no question of affection from either of -them—himself or his wife. Anything I did wrong—it was -my scoundrel of a father coming out in me. After passing -through a childish phase of looking on him as a kind of devil -who had blasted my young life, I began to have a sneaking -regard for him. You see, don’t you? If he was the antithesis -of Uncle Richard, he must be somebody I could sympathize -with, perhaps rather somebody who could sympathize with -me. They drew me into the arms of his memory, so to speak. -Odd, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What specifically did they accuse him of?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, everything,” he replied, with a careless laugh. “Every -depravity under the sun. Colossal egotism and heartlessness -the mildest. And of course he drank——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A sudden red spot flamed in the Sister’s cheek and her tired -eyes flashed. “That’s a lie! And so is the other. How dare they?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, a pacifist Knight who is making his fortune out of the -war will dare anything. Then, of course, there’s what they say -about any man who runs away from his wife——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To be explicit——?” She leaned an elbow on the table, -a cheek on hand, and looked at him steadily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well——” he paused, somewhat embarrassed. “Immorality—you -know—other women.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s not true either. At least, not in that sense. There -was another woman. Yes. But only one. And God knows -that there could be nothing purer and cleaner and sweeter on -this earth than that which was between them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m more than ready to believe it,” said John Baltazar’s -son. “But—how do you know?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s the story of a dear friend of mine,” she replied. “Nothing -was hidden from me. The girl couldn’t help worshipping -him. He was a man to be worshipped. I don’t want to speak -evil of your mother—there may have been misunderstandings -on both sides—but I knew—my friend and I knew—through -acquaintances in Cambridge—never from himself—that -his married life was very unhappy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look here, Sister,” said young Baltazar, putting up an -arresting hand. “As we seem to be talking pretty intimately -about my affairs, I’ll tell you something I’ve never breathed -to a human being. I’ve no childish memories of being tucked -up in bed and kissed to sleep by an angel in woman’s form, -like children in picture books. Now I come to think of it, I -used to envy them. The only vivid thing I remember is being -nearly beaten to death with a belt—it was one of those patent -leather things women used to wear round their waists—and -then being stuffed away in the coal hole.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, you poor mite!” Marcelle straightened herself in her -chair, and the tears sprang. “Before you were five! Oh, how -damnable! What a childhood you must have had! How did -you manage to come through?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “I suppose I’m tough. As soon as I went to -school—they sent me at eight years old—I was all right. -But never mind about me. Go on with your friend’s story. -It’s getting interesting. I quite see now that my father may -have had a hell of a time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you quite see,” she said, “there’s little more to tell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She leaned forward again on her elbow and, staring across -the great hall, through the wide-open doorway to the lawns -and trees drenched in the afternoon sunshine, forgot him and -lost herself in the sunshine, the most wonderful that ever was, -of the years ago. Godfrey Baltazar looked at her keenly yet -kindly, and his stern young lips softened into a smile; and -after a bit he stretched out a hand and touched her wrist very -gently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell me,” he said in a low voice. “It’s good for me, and -may be good for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She came back to the present with a little sigh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s such a very old story, you see. He was unhappy. His -wife’s ungovernable temper drove him from the house. He -had to lead his intellectual as well as his physical life. He -lived most of his time in college. Went home for week-ends—vainly -seeking reconciliation. Then the girl threw herself -into his life. She worshipped him. She seemed to give him -something sweet and beautiful which he had been looking for. -And he fell in love with her. And when she knew it, she was -taken up into the Seventh Heaven and she didn’t care for God -or woman—only for him. It lasted just a month—the -end of the summer term. Oh, it was very innocent, as far as -that goes—they only met alone in the open air—stolen -hours in the afternoon. Only one kiss ever passed between -them. And then he said: ‘I am a brute and a fool. This can’t -go on.’ She had given herself to him in spirit and was ready -to go on and on whithersoever he chose, so long as she was with -him; but she was too shy and tongue-bound to say so. And -he stamped along the road, and she by his side, all her heart -and soul a-flutter, and he cried: ‘My God, I never thought it -would have come to this! My child, forgive me. If ever I -hurt a hair of your dear head, may God damn me to all eternity!’ -And they walked on in silence and she was frightened—till -they came to the turn of the road—this way to Newnham, -that to Cambridge. And he gripped her two hands and -said: ‘If I withered this flower that has blossomed in my path -I should be a damnable villain.’ He turned and walked to -Cambridge. And the girl, not understanding anything save -her love for him, wept bitterly all the way to Newnham. She -neither saw him nor heard of him after that. And a week -afterwards he disappeared, leaving no trace behind. And -whether he’s alive or dead she doesn’t know till this day. -And that is the real story of your father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had turned and put both elbows on the intervening -table and, head in hand, listened to her words. When she -ended, he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank God. And thank you. So that is the word of the -enigma.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. There is no other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And if he had been less—what shall we say—Quixotic—less -scrupulous on the point of a woman’s honour—you -would have followed him to the end of the world——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I?” She started back from the table. “I? What do you -mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why the friend, Sister? Why the camouflage?” He -reached out his hand and grasped hers. “Confess.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She returned his pressure, shrugged her shoulders, and said, -without looking at him:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose it was rather thin. Yes. Of course I would have -thrown everything to the winds for him. It was on my account -that he went away—but, as God hears me, I never sent him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A long silence stole on them. There was so much that -struggled to be said, so little that could be said. At last the -young man gripped his crutches and wriggled from his chair. -She rose swiftly to aid him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us have a turn in the sun. It will be good for us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they went out and she helped him, against his will—for -he loved his triumph over difficulties—down the majestic -marble stairs, and they passed the happy tennis courts and -the chairs of the cheery invalids looking on at the game, and -on through the Japanese garden with its pond of great water-lilies -and fairy bridge across, and out of the gate into the little -beech wood that screened the house from the home farm. On -a rough seat amid the sun-flecked greenery they sat down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He said: “I may be a sentimental ass, but you seem to be -nearer to me than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She made a little helpless gesture. He laughed his pleasant -laugh, which robbed his lips of their hardness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You supply a long-felt want, you know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That sounds rather nice, but I don’t quite understand, -Mr. Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Mr. Baltazar be blowed!” he cried. “My name’s -Godfrey. For God’s sake let me hear somebody call me by -it! You of all people. Why, you knew me before I was -born.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He said it unthinking—a boyish epigram. Her sudden -flush brought consciousness of blunder in elemental truth and -taste. He sat stiff, horrified; gasped out:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Forgive me. I didn’t realize what I was saying.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced covertly at his young and consternation-stricken -face, and her heart went out to him who, after all, on so small -a point of delicacy found himself so grievously to blame.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps, my dear boy,” she said, “it is well that you have -touched on this. You and I are grown up and can speak of -things frankly—and certain things that people don’t usually -discuss are often of supreme importance in their own and other -people’s lives. I didn’t know you before you were born, nor -did your father. It’s he that counts. If he had known, he -would never have left your mother to. . . . No, no! He -would have found some other way. He couldn’t have left her. -It’s incredible. I know it. I know all the strength and the -beauty and the wonder of him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God,” said the young man, “how you must have -loved him!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Without loving him, any fool could have looked through -his transparent honesty. He was that kind of man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell me,” he said, “all the little silly things you can remember -about him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He re-explained his eagerness. He had been such a lonely -sort of fellow, with no kith or kin with whom he could be in -sympathy: an intellectual Ishmaelite—if an inexplicable passion -for mathematics and a general sort of craving for the -solution of all sorts of problems, human and divine, could be -called intellectual—banned by the material, dogmatic, money-obsessed -Woodcotts; referred back, as he had mentioned, for -all his darling idiosyncrasies to his unmentionable father. -Small wonder that he had built up a sort of cult of the only -being who might have taken for him a sympathetic responsibility. -And now—this was the greatest day of his life. All -his dreams had come true. He was not a sentimental ass, he -reasserted. If there was one idiot fallacy that the modern -world was exploding, it was the fallacy of the debt due by -children for the privilege they owed their parents for bringing -them into this damned fool of a world. The only decent attitude -of parents towards their children was one of profound -apology. It was up to the children to accept it according to -the measure of its fulfilment. But, after all, an uncared-for -human atom, with intelligence and emotions, could not go -through life without stretching out tentacles for some sort of -sympathy and understanding. He must owe something of -Himself—himself with a capital H—to those who begot -and bore him. Mustn’t he? So when they impressed on his -young mind, by way almost of an hereditary curse, the identity -of his spiritual (or, to their way of thinking, anti-spiritual) -outlook with that of his father, he, naturally, stretched out to -his unknown father the aforesaid tentacles: especially when -he learned later what a great man his father was. Yes, really, -he considered it the most miraculous day of his life. He would -have given another foot to have it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s another thing,” he said. “Once I found in an old -book some odds and ends of his manuscript. I fell to copying -his writing, especially his signature. The idiotic thing a boy -would do. I got into the trick of it, and I suppose I’ve never -got out. Look.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He scrawled a few words with his signature on the pad. She -started. It was like a message from the dead. He laughed -and went on with the parable of his father.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You see,” he concluded, “it is gorgeous to know, for a -certainty at last, that the Family were vilely wrong, and my -own instinct right, all the time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had spoken with a touch of the vehemence she so well -remembered. And she had let him speak on, for the sake of -the memories; also in the hope that he might forget his demand -for a revelation of them. But he returned to it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Another day,” she replied. “These things can’t all be -dragged at once out of the past. We’ll have many opportunities -of talking—till your new foot comes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will have another talk—many others, won’t you?” -he asked eagerly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should you doubt it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know. Forgive me for saying it—I don’t want -to be rude, but women are funny sometimes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled from the wisdom of her superior age—his frankness -had the disarming quality of a child. “What do you know -of women, Godfrey Baltazar?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He wrinkled his brow whimsically and rubbed his hair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not much. What man does? Do you know,” he asked -with the air of a pioneer of thought, “you are all damnably -perplexing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At this she laughed outright. “Isn’t she kind?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She—who—oh, yes. How did you guess?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The way of Nature varies very little. What about her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She would be all right, if it weren’t for my brother——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your brother? Oh, of course——” She had to reach -back into unimportant memories. “Your mother was a widow -when she married—with an only son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s it. Seven or eight years older than I am. Name -of Doon. Christened Leopold. We never hit it off. I’ve -loathed the beggar all my life; but he’s a damn fine soldier. -Major. D.S.O. Doing splendid work. But the brute has the -whole of himself left and isn’t a dot and carry one, like me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And the lady?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll tell you another time—in one of our many talks. At -present it doesn’t seem to amount to a row of pins compared -with my meeting you. My hat!” he exclaimed after a pause. -“It’s a funny little world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He thrust his hands into his pockets and stretched out his -legs, the end of the maimed one supported on the crutch. -The afternoon peace of the beech wood enfolded them in -their contemplation of the funny little world. She looked at -him, young, strong, full of the delight of physical and intellectual -life, reckoning as of no account the sacrifice to his country -of much that made that physical existence full of precious -meaning; hiding deep in his English soul all the significance -of his familiar contempt for death; a son whom any mother -might be proud to have brought into the world. And tears -were very near her eyes when she thought of what might have -been. And all her heart went out to him suddenly in a great -gush of emotion, as though she had found her own son, and -the tears started. She laid rather a timid hand on his -shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear,” she said, “let us be great friends for the sake of -the bond between us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He started at her touch, and plucking both hands from his -pockets, imprisoned hers in them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Friends! You’re a dear. The dearest thing in the world. -You’re going to be the only woman I’ve ever loved. Why, -you’re crying!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her wet eyes glistened. “We’re all hopelessly perplexing, -aren’t we?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not. Not a little bit.” He kissed her hand and let -it go. “You’re straight and adorable. But what can I call -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Call me?” The question was a little shock. “You can -call me by my name, if you like—when we are alone—Marcelle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Splendid!” he cried. “The long-felt want. I’ve had as -many Sisters as my young life can stand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She rose, helped him to rise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I hope,” she said, “you will remain the boy that you are -for a very long time.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='24' id='Page_24'></span><h1>CHAPTER II</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>A</span><span class='sc'>FTER</span> this they had the many talks which they had -promised themselves, and she told him the little -things about John Baltazar which he had craved to -learn. And the young man told her of his ambitions and his -hopes and his young despairs. The last mainly concerned one -Dorothy Mackworth, a Warwickshire divinity in a silk tennis -sweater and tam-o’-shanter, whose only imperfection, if the -word could be applied to tragic misfortune, was her domination -by some diabolic sorcery which made her look more kindly -on the black Leopold, his brother, than on himself. Her age? -Seventeen. “You poor babies,” thought Marcelle. Once she -said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why worry? You can find a thousand little Dorothys -in a week if you look for them—all a-growing and a-blowing, -with never a wicked spell on them at all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are wrong,” he replied. “One can find thousands of -Susans and Janes and Gertrudes—all very charming girls, I -admit; but there’s only one Dorothy. She’s very remarkable. -She has an intellect. She has a distracting quality, something -uncanny, you know, in her perceptions and intuitions. I’m -dead serious, Marcelle, believe me——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She let him talk his heart out. Her soul, dry and athirst, -drank in his boy’s freshness—how greedily she scarcely realized. -In her character of nurse she had acted as Mother -Confessor to many a poor lonely wretch; but in every case -she had felt it was to the nun-descended uniform she wore, to -its subconsciously recognized sanctity, and not to the mere -kindly woman beneath, that she owed the appeal or the revelation. -But now to young Godfrey Baltazar she was intensely, -materially woman. Foolishly woman in her unconfessed -craving to learn the details of his life and character and outlook -on the world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once he checked an egotistic exposition.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look here,” he said, struck by a sudden qualm, “I’m -always holding forth about myself—what about you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s nothing about me. I’m just a nurse. A nurse is -far too busy and remote from outside things to be anything -else than a nurse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you started out as a mathematical swell at Newnham. -Oh yes, you did! Men like my father don’t coach rotters—least -of all women. What happened? You went in for the -Tripos, of course?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shook her head. “No, my dear. The magic had gone -out of my life. I tried Newnham for half the next term—facing -the music—but it was too much for me. I broke -down. I had to earn my livelihood. My original idea was -teaching. I gave it up. Took to nursing instead. And now -you know the whole story of my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can’t understand anybody really bitten with mathematics -giving it up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled. “I don’t think I was really bitten. Not like -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she led him from herself to his own ambitions, on this -as on other occasions. Gradually she established between them -a relationship very precious. It was the aftermath of her own -romance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One day, business calling her to London, she changed into -mufti, and hurried down the front steps to the car that was -to take her to the station. She found Godfrey waiting by the -car door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My word! You look topping!” he cried in blatant admiration, -and she blushed with pleasure like a girl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He begged for a jaunt to the station and back. The air -would do him good. She assented, and they drove off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You look younger than ever,” he went on. “It’s a sin to -hide your beautiful hair under that wretched Sister’s concern. -Now I see really the kind of woman you are——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have clothes got to do with it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lots. The way you select them, the way you put them on, -the way you express yourself in them. No one can express -themselves in a beastly uniform. Now, all kinds of instincts, -motives, feelings, went into that hat. There’s a bit of defiance -in it. As who should say: ‘Now that I’m an ordinary woman -again, demureness be damned!’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said: “I’m glad I meet with your lordship’s approval,” -and she felt absurdly happy for the rest of the day. In her -heart she thanked God that he regarded her not merely as a -kind old thing to whom, as a link between himself and his -father, he was benevolently disposed. Out of sight, she would -then be out of his mind. But she held her own as a woman; -unconsciously had held it all the time. Now the little accident -of the meeting in mufti secured her triumph. When he left -the home he would not drift away from her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had said on the platform, waiting for her train:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As soon as we can fix it up, I’ll get hold of Dorothy, and -you and I and she’ll have a little beano at the Carlton. I do -so want her to meet you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The wish, she reflected afterwards, signified much: Dorothy -to meet her, not she to meet Dorothy. The kind old thing, as -a matter of boyish courtesy, would be asked to meet Dorothy. -But Dorothy was to meet somebody in whom he took a certain -pride.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She remembered a story told her by a friend who had gone -to see her boy at a famous public school on the occasion of the -Great Cricket Match. At the expansive moment of parting -he said: “Mother, I suppose you know that the men feel it -awfully awkward being seen with their people, but as you were -out and away the most beautiful woman in the crowd, I went -about not caring a hang.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She would have to get herself up very smart for Dorothy. -In the train coming back she fell a-dreaming. If John Baltazar -and she had stuck it out in all honour for a few years, -Death, which was in God’s hands and not theirs, would have -solved all difficulties. They would have been married. The -five-year-old child would have called her “mother.” She -would be “mother” still to this gallant lad whose youth and -charm had suddenly swept through the barren chambers of -her heart. And in the night she asked again the question -which in the agonized moments of past years she had cried to -the darkness: “Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Why had he left her? If he had been strong enough to keep -love within the bounds of perfect friendship, she, the unawakened -girl, living in passionate commune with intellectual and -spiritual ideals, would have found for some years, at least, all -her cravings satisfied in such a tender and innocent intercourse. -And if he had claimed her body and her soul, God knows they -were his for the taking.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So why? Why the breaking of so many lives? His own, so -vivid, most of all.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>In the quivering splendour of her one girlish month of love, -a distracted Semele, she had scarcely seen her Jovian lover, as -he was in human form. She pictured him, Heaven knows how -romantically. But always, in her picturing, she took for -granted the canon of chiaroscuro, of light and shade. In judging -him afterwards, she had no conception of a being to whom -compromise was damnation. A phrase—an instinctive cutter -of Gordian knots—might have brought illumination; but -there was none to utter it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was amazed, dumbfounded, conscience-stricken, all but -soul-destroyed, when the astounding fact of John Baltazar’s -disappearance became known. The familiar houses and trees -and hedges on the Newnham Road pointed to her as accusing -witnesses. Yet she kept her own counsel, and, keeping it, -suffered to breaking-point. Many months passed before she -could look life again squarely in the face—and then it was -the new life that had lasted for so many years. And still, -with all her experience of human weakness and human fortitude, -she lay awake asking herself the insoluble question.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>So little occasion had been given for scandal, that her name -was associated in no man or woman’s mind with the extraordinary -event. Clue to John Baltazar’s disappearance, save -the notorious shrewishness of his wife, there was none. Common -Rooms, heavy with the secular atmosphere of casuistic -argument, speculated in vain. A man of genius, destined to -bring the University once more into world-wide fame—watched, -therefore, by the University with sedulous care and -affection; a man with the prizes of the earth (from the academic -point of view) dangling within his grasp, does not, they -contended, forsake all and go out into the darkness because -his wife happens to be a scold. Another woman? To Common -Rooms the idea was preposterous. Besides, if there had been -one, the married members would have picked up in their homes -the gossip of one of the most nervous gossip centres in the -United Kingdom. Mad, perhaps? But Mrs. Baltazar proclaimed -loudly the sagacious method by which he realized his -private fortune, before setting out for the Unknown. And -Common Rooms, like Marcelle, asked the same perplexing -question: Why?</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>The next day, in the grounds of Churton Towers, the young -man, returning to his father’s fascinating mystery, propounded -the dilemma that had kept her from sleep the night before, -and he, in his turn, asked: “Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The only solution of it is,” said he, “that he burned the -house down in order to roast the pig.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She flashed a glance at him. “You seem to know him better -than I.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>At that moment, John Baltazar, about whom there was all -this coil, leaning over the gate of a derelict and remote moorland -farmstead, perhaps asked himself the same question; for -in moments of intellectual and physical relaxation he was -wont, like most solitaries, to look down the vista of his years.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A low granite wall, in which was set the wooden gate, encircled -the few acres of his domain. Behind him, a one-storied, -granite-built, thatched dwelling and the adjoining stable and -byre and pigsties and dismantled dairy. Surrounding the -buildings, with little selection as to appropriateness of site, -were flower garden, mostly of herbaceous plants, vegetable -garden, wire-enclosed poultry runs variegated with White -Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds, and half an acre of rough -grass on which some goats were tethered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>John Baltazar leaned over the gate and, smoking his cherry-wood -pipe, gazed with the outer eye on the familiar scene of -desolate beauty. Within his horizon he was the only visible -human being, his the only human habitation. All around him -spread the rolling landscape of granite and heather and wind-torn -shrub. The granite hills, some surmounted by gigantic -and shapeless masses of rock left freakishly behind in glacial -movements of unknown times, glowed amethyst and pale coral; -the heather slopes in the sunlight blazed in the riot of royal -purple, and the shadowed plains lay in a sullen majesty of -gloom. Heather and granite, granite and heather, moorland -and mountain, beauty and barrenness. God and granite and -heather. No place for man. No more a place for man than -the Sahara. For man, to his infinite despair, had tried it; had -built the rude farmstead, had, Heaven knows why—perhaps -through pathetic pride of ownership—with infinite sweating, -piled up the three-foot ring of stones, had sought to cultivate -the illusory covering of earth, had dug till his sinews cracked -and turned up the eternal granite instead of clods, and had -sickened and starved and died; and had abandoned the stricken -place to the unhelpful sun and the piercing winds and the -snows—and to John Baltazar, who now, smoking his pipe, -formed part of this tableland of desolation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fifty, he looked ten years younger. A short, uncombed -thatch of coarse brown hair showed no streak of grey; nor did -a closely clipped moustache of a lighter shade. His broad -forehead was singularly serene, save for an accusing deep vertical -line between the brows. And a faint criss-cross network, -too, appeared beneath the strong grey eyes when they were -dimmed by relaxation of effort, but vanished almost magically -when they were illuminated by thought. A grey sweater, -somewhat tightly fitting, revealed a powerful frame. Knicker-bockers -and woollen stockings and heavy shoes completed his -attire. His hands, glazed and coarsened, at first sight betrayed -the labourer rather than the scholar. But the fingers were -sensitively long, and the deep filbert nails showed signs of -personal fastidiousness, as did his closely shaven cheek.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A wiry-coated Airedale came to him and sought his notice. -He turned and caressed the dog’s rough head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, old son, finished the day’s work? You’re a rotten -old fraud, you know, pretending to be bossing around, and -never doing a hand’s turn for anybody.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dog, as though to justify his existence, barked, darted a -yard away, ran up, barked again and once more started.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dinner time already?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sound of the word signified to the dog the achievement -of his mission. He barked and leaped joyously as his master -slowly strolled towards the house. On the threshold appeared -a young Chinaman, of smiling but dignified demeanour, wearing -Chinese dress.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dinner is served, sir,” he said, making way respectfully for -Baltazar to pass.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So Brutus has just informed me, Quong Ho.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I sent him to tell you, sir. He is possessed of almost human -understanding.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is always good,” said Baltazar, “to associate with intelligent -beings.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He entered the house-piece, the one large living room of the -building, and took his place at a small table by a western window, -simply but elegantly set with clean cloth and napkin, -shining silver and glass, and a little bowl of roses placed on a -strip of blue-and-gold Chinese embroidery. It was a room, at -the first glance, of characterless muddle; at the second, of -studied order. A long, narrow room, built north and south, -with two windows on the west side and two on the east. An -old-fashioned cooking range stretched beneath the great -chimney-piece that took up most of the northern end, for the -room was rudely planned as kitchen and dining-room and -parlour and boudoir, all combined, and hams in the brief days -of its prosperity had hung from its rafters. The spaces on the -distempered walls not occupied by unpainted deal bookshelves -were filled with long silken rolls of Chinese paintings. Turkey -carpets covered the stone floor. Nearly the whole length of -the eastern wall ran a long deal table, piled with manuscripts -and pamphlets, but with a clear writing space by the north-east -window, at which stood a comfortably cushioned writing -chair. A settee and an arm-chair by the chimney corner, an -old oak chest of drawers that seemed to wonder what it did -in that galley, a bamboo occasional table and the little dining -table by the south-western window completed the furniture. -But the room was spotlessly clean. Everything that could -shine shone. Every pile of papers on the long deal table was -squared with mathematical precision.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The young Chinaman served the dinner which he had prepared—curried -eggs, roast chicken, goat’s milk cheese—with -the deftness of long training. He paused, expectant, -with an unstoppered decanter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Burgundy, sir?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, thank you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho filled a tumbler with water.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How long has that half-bottle of wine been opened?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I remember accurately, sir, this is the fifteenth day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not fit to drink, Quong Ho. To-morrow you will throw -it away and open another half-bottle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It shall be done as you wish, sir,” said Quong Ho. “Except, -sir, that I do not propose to waste the wine, for though it is too -stale for drinking purposes, it is an invaluable adjunctive in -cookery for soups and sauces.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar drank a draught of water and, wiping his lips, -looked over his shoulder at the Chinaman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Adjunctive? That’s a new word. Where did you get hold -of it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Possibly from you, sir, who have been my master in the -English language for the last ten years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You didn’t get it from me. It’s a beast of a word.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then possibly, sir, I have met it in my independent reading. -Perhaps in The Rambler of your celebrated philosopher, -Johnson, which I have been perusing lately with great interest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar leaned back in his chair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said he, “you’re a gem. A gem of purest ray -serene——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The words I recognize as those of Poet Gray,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is true,” said Baltazar. “But destiny, as far as I have -the handling of things, won’t condemn you to a vast unfathomed -cave of ocean. What I tried to imply was, that you’re a -wonderful fellow—what the Americans in their fruity idiom -which I haven’t yet taught you, call a peach.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will make a mental note of it, sir,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar grinned over his plate and went on with his dinner, -the dog Brutus by his side watching the process with well-bred -yearning and accepting an occasional mouthful with a gluttony -politely concealed. Towards the close of the meal Quong Ho -brought in lamps and candles—Baltazar loved vivid illumination—and -drew the curtains. In the house Quong Ho wore -Chinese slippers and walked like a ghost. He began to clear -away as soon as Baltazar rose from the table. The latter filled -and lit his pipe and consulted his watch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can come for your lesson in an hour’s time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In an hour precisely,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you prepared the work I set you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With thorough perfection, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll be President of the Chinese Republic yet,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is no mean ambition,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar took a book from his shelves devoted to general -reading—an amazing medley of dingy volumes such as one -sees only in an ill-arranged second-hand bookseller’s stock. It -was a second-hand bookseller’s stock in literal truth, for Baltazar -had bought a catalogue <span class='it'>en bloc</span>. It saved infinite trouble. -The collection provided him with years of miscellaneous feeding. -It contained little that was modern, nothing that was of -contemporary moment; on the other hand, it gave him many -works which he had ear-marked for perusal, hitherto in vain, -from his boyhood. There were the works of Robertson—the -Histories of Scotland, Charles V and America; Davila’s Wars -in France; the Aldine Edition of the British Poets in many -volumes; an incomplete Dodsley’s Old Plays; the works of -one Surtees—he who wrote of the immortal Jorrocks and -Soapey Sponge and Facey Romford; Elzevir editions of Saint -Augustine and Tertullian; The Architectural Beauties of England -and Wales; Livingstone’s Travels; and Queechy, by the -author of The Wide, Wide World. A haggis of a library. No -one but John Baltazar could have bought it at one impulsive -swoop.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took down the volume, almost haphazard, for it was his -luxurious custom to devote after dinner a digestive hour to -haphazard reading; a bound volume of pamphlets, which had -once entertained him with the <span class='it'>Times</span> reprint of the Obituary -of The Duke of Wellington. He sat down in his arm-chair, -turned over some dreary pages, tried to interest himself in -“What is it all About? or an Enquiry into the Statements of -the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon that the Church of England Teaches -Salvation by Baptism, instead of Salvation by the Blood of -our Blessed Master Jesus Christ, and that Many of the Clergy -are guilty of Dishonesty and Perjury, by the Rev. Joseph -Bardsley, <span class='sc'>M.A.</span>,” sadly shook his head, and, turning over more -gloomy pages, came upon an oasis in the desert: “The Fight -at Dame Europa’s School, showing how the German Boy -thrashed the French Boy, and how the English Boy looked on.” -He read the mordant sarcasm of eighteen hundred and seventy-one -with great enjoyment, and had just finished it when Quong -Ho, notebook under arm, entered the room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said he, “I’ve just been reading a famous -satirical pamphlet on the part which England played in the -Franco-Prussian War. When you have time you might read -it. The English is impeccable. You won’t find any ‘adjunctives’ -in it. It lashes England for not having gone to the help -of France in 1870.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should one nation undertake another’s quarrel?” -asked Quong Ho, with a curious flash in his eyes. “Why should -China shed her blood for the sake, by way of illustration, of -Denmark?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is an answer, Quong Ho,” replied Baltazar, “to your -astute question. In ancient times China and Denmark were -as far apart as Neptune and Mercury. But wireless telegraphy -has brought them to each other’s frontiers. Nowadays nations -act and react on one another in a very subtle way. You must -read a little more of modern European History, for Europe is -the nerve centre of a system of nervous telepathy which forms -a network round the earth. Nothing can happen in Europe -nowadays without its sensitive reaction in China. You must -remember that, at every instant of your life, if you wish to -model a new China. For the old China has gone. I loved it, -as you know, Quong Ho. But it’s as dead as Assyria. Another -struggle between France and Germany would implicate the -civilized world. Great Britain would not look on as in 1870, -but would be on the side of France, and Japan would be on the -side of Great Britain, and China——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would throw her lot into the same scale as Japan,” said -Quong Ho, demurely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us hope it never will happen,” said Baltazar. “In the -meantime there’s something of greater importance.” He rose, -went to his writing chair by the long deal table. “Let us see. -What is it to-night? Elliptic Functions, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And while John Baltazar, serene in his reading of political -philosophy, was guiding Quong Ho through mazes of mathematical -abstraction, German aircraft were dropping bombs -about England.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='35' id='Page_35'></span><h1>CHAPTER III</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span><span class='sc'>HE</span> renting of Spendale Farm, derelict for many years, -caused some excitement on the moorland. It had -achieved notoriety by concentrating in its small acreage -every disadvantage that a farm could have. A soil so -barren and granitic that scarcely grass would grow on it; a -situation of bleakness unique in that bleak and unsheltered -region; an inaccessibility almost beyond the powers of transport. -The last was the final factor in the bankruptcy and -despair of former tenants. Three miles of foot-and-wagon-worn -track—and this now indistinguishable—must be -traversed before striking a road, and along five miles of the -road must one go before reaching the tiny town of Water-End, -which contained the nearest railway station, shop, post office -and church. Excitement grew in Water-End when motor -lorries and materials and workmen from the cathedral town, -thirty miles off, all made their daily way to Spendale Farm, -and later, when packing-cases marked “Books, with the greatest -care” were dumped on the station platform. All bore the -name of John Baltazar—an outlandish name, if ever there -was one, to eyes and ears of remotely rural England. And -when the demented foreigner—for so they conceived him to -be—was due to arrive in order to take up his residence, a -fact proclaimed by the presence outside the station of Farmer -Benstead’s old grey mare and springless cart which Ellis and -Dean, the local estate agents, were known to have bought for -the new-comer, the population of Water-End turned out to -see what manner of being he was. The hefty, quickly moving -Englishman, obviously the master, disappointed their anticipations; -but the Chinaman, his coiled pigtail unconcealed beneath -the brim of a bowler hat too small for him, made their -eyes bulge with wonder. They did not even know he was a -Chinaman until the vicar’s son, a lad of sixteen, unavowed -emissary of a curious vicarage, gave them the information. -Master and man drove off alone in the cart with their luggage, -in the midst of gaping silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A Chinaman. What was a Chinaman doing in those parts? -Men speculated in the bar parlour of “The Three Feathers.” -Gossips of the more timorous sex discussed the possibility of a -yellow peril—children kidnapped, throats cut, horrors perpetrated -in lonely places. Mrs. Trevenna had seen murder in -his eye; and Mrs. Trevenna, who had buried three husbands, -was a woman whose opinion was respected. Mrs. Bates said -his yellow hands were like the claws of a turkey-cock. Her -daughter, Gwinnie, giggling, remarked that she wouldn’t like -to have them round her neck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s what I’ve heard they do,” said old Mrs. Sopwith. -“I remember my grandfather, him that was in the Indian -Mutiny, telling me, when I was a little girl, that they thought -nothing of strangling you. It was their religion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus the amiable Quong Ho leapt at once into a pretty -repute—of which an addiction to Thuggee was a venial aspect.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when, a few days afterwards, Quong Ho drove into -Water-End on a shopping expedition, and in the presence of -palpitating Water-Enders carried on his business and passed -remarks on the weather, polite and smiling, in the easy English -of the vicar and the motoring gentlefolk, with no perceptible -trace of a foreign accent, they gaped once more in amazement. -Language is a marvellous solvent of prejudice. No one who -talked English like the Vicar could strangle English necks. -But Quong Ho, unfortunately, complicated this favourable -impression by overdoing the perfect Briton.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the butcher’s door, freshly coloured as the carcasses hanging -at each side, stood Gwinnie Bates, the leader of the staring -crowd, blocking the way. Quong Ho, trained theoretically by -Baltazar in European ceremonial, swept her a bow with his -billycock hat—a bow composite of the court of Charles the -Second and Ratcliffe Highway, and addressed her:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Beauteous Madam, will you allow your devoted servant -the privilege of a passage?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She melted hysterically from the doorway. Her friends, like -a grinning Red Sea, divided into an avenue through which -passed Quong Ho, with gestures courteously expressive of -thanks, followed by the butcher’s assistant carrying to the -cart the leg of mutton and the joint of beef which Quong -Ho had purchased. Quong Ho drove off amid unceremonial -guffaws and gigglings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Beauteous Madam! Oh, Hell!” roared the butcher’s -assistant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gwinnie Bates checked her mirth and advanced with flushed -cheeks and defiant eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s wrong about it, Johnnie Evans? If you want to -insult me, say it out. If you can’t be a gentleman, at least -be a man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pretty fine gentleman,” sneered Johnnie Evans, jerking a -thumb towards the receding Chinaman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He can teach manners to the likes of you, at any rate,” -cried Gwinnie Bates, and went off triumphant with her head -in the air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus, through the courteous demeanour of Quong Ho on this -and subsequent occasions, Water-End became divided into -two camps—Sinophile and Sinophobe. The latter party -asserted that such heathen smiled most when their designs -were most criminal, and carried out their activities to the -accompaniment of unholy mirth. Was he ever seen at church -or chapel? His admirers confessed this abstention from the -means of grace. Did he ever speak of the doings of his master -with the outlandish name, and himself, in the middle of the -moor? Quong Ho was admitted to be a museum-piece of discretion. -And as time went on, although his ways were marked -by the same perfect courtesy, he lost favour amongst his party, -through a bland taciturnity and a polite rejection of conversational -advantage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now for this taciturnity there were excellent reasons: none -other than the commands of John Baltazar. When Quong -Ho returned the first time to the farm with the jeering laughter -ringing in his ears, he bewailed the impoliteness of the inhabitants -of Water-End. Said Baltazar in Chinese:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dost thou not know the proverb, Quong Ho, ‘<span class='it'>A man must -insult himself before others will?</span>’ And again, what saith the -Master? ‘<span class='it'>Rotten wood cannot be carved, and walls made of dirt -and mud cannot be plastered.</span>’ By acting against my orders and -striving to plaster the muddy walls of these rustics with ceremonial -politeness, you have insulted yourself and therefore -exposed yourself to rudeness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Master,” said Quong Ho, “it appears that I have erred -grievously.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Listen again,” said Baltazar, with a twinkle in his eyes -unperceived by the downcast Quong Ho, “to what the Master -saith: ‘<span class='it'>The failure to cultivate virtue, the failure to examine and -analyse what I have learnt, the inability to move towards righteousness -after being shown the way, the inability to correct my -faults—these are the causes of my grief.</span>’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho replied that although his deviation from the path -of virtue was glaring to the most myopic vision, he nevertheless -was in a dilemma, inasmuch as he had followed the precepts -of Western courteous observance, the ceremonial, for instance, -of the hat-salutation, laid down for him by his illustrious -teacher.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, always in Chinese, replied kindly: “O youth of -indifferent understanding, is it not written in the Shû King in -the Charge to Yüeh: ‘<span class='it'>In learning there should be a humble mind -and the maintenance of a constant earnestness: in such a case improvement -will surely come. When a man’s thoughts from first to -last are constantly fixed on learning, his virtuous cultivation -comes unperceived</span>’?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With those truths am I acquainted,” replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then, my good fellow,” retorted Baltazar in English, “why -the devil don’t you apply them? I’ve absolutely forbidden -you to have any intercourse whatever with the people round -about. You’re not to talk to them about my concerns or your -concerns. You’re not to listen to any of their talk or to bring -back to me scraps of their rotten gossip. You’re to go to Water-End -on necessary business—unfortunately we can’t live on -air or warm ourselves in the winter with bottled sunbeams—but -that’s the limit. Outside of that you’re a man deaf and -dumb. You’re to go one better than the three Sacred Apes of -Japan, who, holding hands respectively before eyes, ears and -mouth, signify ‘I see no evil; I hear no evil; and I speak no -evil.’ In your case, it’s to be: ‘I see nothing; I hear nothing; -I speak nothing.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In future,” said Quong Ho, “my eyes shall be blinded, my -ears sealed and my mouth locked.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If there are any more animated discussions of last week’s -thunderstorms, or further Beauteous-Madamizing of young -females, I’ll regretfully have to send you straight back to -China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The unblinking stare in Baltazar’s great grey eyes and the -obstinate set of his lips—signs of purpose which Quong Ho -for eight years had learned to gauge with infallible precision—caused -him to quake excessively. Not only was his servitude -to Baltazar a matter of oath, but a return before the -completion of the special education which would enable him -to take immediate rank in New China, would be the death-blow -to his ambitions. So Quong Ho took to heart the precepts -of the Humble Mind and swore to outdo the Sacred -Apes of Japan, even as his master had ordained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After this, in the first days of their Thebaïd, master and -man held frequent conversations on the relations with the -outside world which the former had prescribed. The three -years, said Baltazar, which lay before them in the solitude of -the wilderness, were for the maceration of the flesh, the pursuit -of virtue and the cultivation of the intellect. He illustrated -his argument with countless quotations from the Chinese -classics.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In this fashion, Quong Ho,” said he, “you are drinking of -the <span class='it'>Five Sources of Happiness</span>. To wit: <span class='it'>Long Life</span>: for here, -in this unpolluted atmosphere, you are acquiring physical -health. <span class='it'>Riches</span>: they will be yours in no matter what University -of Modern China you go as Professor of Mathematics. -<span class='it'>Soundness of Body and Serenity of Mind</span>: the Latins put the -idea into epigrammatic form—Mens sano in corpore sano; -what can be more conducive to serenity of mind than this -studious solitude, undisturbed by material cares? <span class='it'>The Love -of Virtue</span>: we have every hour of all our days to acquire it. -<span class='it'>Fulfilling to the end the</span> <span class='sc'>WILL</span>; is it not the <span class='sc'>WILL</span> that has set -us here?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Indubitably,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hearken again,” said Baltazar, “to the <span class='it'>Six Extreme Evils. -Misfortune shortening the Life</span>: from that no man is exempt—but -from it no men are more than we protected. <span class='it'>Sickness</span>: -likewise—but I have a box of simple remedies, and if the -worst comes, there is a man learned in physic at Water-End. -<span class='it'>Distress of Mind</span>: if our minds in these ideal surroundings are -so unstable as to be distressed, we are unworthy of the name -of philosophers. <span class='it'>Poverty</span>: I have an ample fortune. <span class='it'>Wickedness</span>: -we, who are Seekers after Truth, have deliberately set -ourselves beyond the reach of Temptation. <span class='it'>Weakness</span>: that, -O Quong Ho, is the only danger. You must be on your guard -against it night and day, especially on the days when necessity -exposes you to the manifold temptations of that microcosm of -Babylon, Pekin and San Francisco which goes by the name -of Water-End.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So it came to pass that when astounding tidings, the most -pregnant in the world’s history, came to Water-End and the -little townlet blazed with the wildfire of gossip, Quong Ho, -scrupulous obeyer of Law, heard without listening and, forbearing -to question, always returned to Spendale Farm with -a mind rendered, with Oriental deliberation, so profoundly -blank as to preclude the possibility of retailing to his master -the idle news of the outer world. And gradually, such is the -contempt bred by familiarity, Quong Ho lost prestige in Water-End. -His weekly appearance in the town, with old grey mare -and cart, grew to be one of the commonplace recurrent phenomena -such as the Vicar’s Sunday sermon and the Saturday -evening orgy and home-convoying of old Jack Bonnithorne, -the champion alcoholist of the moorland.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But around Baltazar of the one brief glimpse arose many a -legend. He was mad. He was a magician. He was an unspeakable -voluptuary; though whence and how arrived the -houris who ministered to his voluptuousness, was an insoluble -problem. He was a missionary with one convert. The theory, -put forward by the farmers, that he was the champion fool -on the Moor, gained the most general acceptance. Then someone -whispered that he was a German spy. The valiant of the -town planned an expedition at dead of night to surprise him -at his nefarious practices; but the sarcasms of Police-Sergeant -Doubleday, who asked what information useful to the enemy, -save the crop of heather per square acre, could be given by a -man inhabiting the most desolate spot in the United Kingdom, -checked their enterprise. Their ardour, too, was damped by -a spell of torrential rain, which robbed of its pleasantness the -prospect of a sixteen-mile walk. When the sun came out, the -suspicion had faded from their minds, and shortly afterwards -most of them found themselves in the King’s uniform in regions -far distant from Water-End.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One morning Police-Sergeant Doubleday lay in wait for -Quong Ho outside the Bank, and informed him that he must -register himself as an alien, under the Defence of the Realm -Act. Quong Ho blandly accompanied the Sergeant to the -Police Station and complied with the formalities. Full name: -Li Quong Ho. Nationality: Chinese. Occupation: Student.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Eh?” cried Sergeant Doubleday, a vast, red-faced man -with a scrubby black moustache. “That won’t do. Aren’t -you Mr. Whats-his-name’s man-servant?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That sphere of my activities is purely incidental,” said -Quong Ho. “Kindly put down ‘student.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you study?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Specialized branches of Western Philosophy,” replied -Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I’m damned!” said the mystified Doubleday. “Anyhow, -it’s none of my business.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So down went Quong Ho as “student”—the only alien on -the register.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s very interesting,” said the Vicar, during his next -chat with Doubleday. “The Chinese are a remarkable race. -Their progress should be watched.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid it can’t be done, sir. What with being short-handed -and overworked as it is——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the Vicar’s explanation the Sergeant mopped his forehead -in relief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve a man’s job to keep Christians in order, without shadowing -the heathen,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m convinced that his master and himself are a pair of -harmless eccentrics,” said the Vicar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the Vicar’s word went the round of the district, and -eccentrics, or the nearest approach to it that local tongues -could manage, the inhabitants of Spendale Farm were finally -designated—though what were “eccentrics” remained a -matter of pleasant and fruitful conjecture.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Quong Ho returned to the farmhouse after his encounter -with Sergeant Doubleday, he said nothing about his -registration as an alien. Nor did it occur to him to show the -paper money which he had received in lieu of the usual gold -in exchange for the cheque which he had cashed at the bank; -for the disposal of petty cash did not concern John Baltazar, -who rightly trusted in the Chinaman’s scrupulous honesty. -That, in spite of the most definite orders, he should leave -Baltazar uninformed of the various signs and tokens of national -unrest which he had observed at Water-End, caused Quong -Ho occasional twinges of conscience. He remembered the -saying: “<span class='it'>To shirk your duty when you see it before you, shows -want of moral courage.</span>” But what was his duty? On the other -hand, there was the dictum: “<span class='it'>To sacrifice to a spirit with which -you have nothing to do is mere servility.</span>” What had he to do -with this purely English war-spirit that he should servilely -sacrifice to it his almost filial obligations? Obviously nothing. -Quong Ho therefore continued to purvey no idle gossip, and -went about his varied avocations with a serene mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now, as John Baltazar, who had been dead to the English-speaking -world for nearly twenty years, held correspondence -with no one save a few necessary tradesmen, mostly booksellers, -as he took in no periodical, daily, weekly, monthly or -annual of any kind whatever, and as he conversed with no -human being except Quong Ho, whose lips he had sealed, he -had created for himself an almost perfect barrage through -which the news of contemporary happenings could not penetrate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” he had said, one Spring day, soon after his -return from China, when he had come to one of those revolutionary -decisions that marked the crises of his life, “I have -sworn by the spirits of my ancestors to live the life of a recluse -for the space of three years, holding communication with no -man or woman and cutting myself off like one that is dead -from the interests of the contemporaneous world. My reasons -for this determination I will eventually unfold to you, provided -you carry out faithfully the contract I am about to -propose. If you decline to bind yourself, which as a free man -you are at liberty to do, I will pay your passage back to China -and give you a sum of money adequate to start you on an -honest career. If you accept it, I will honourably perform -my part. You have been my servant and my pupil for the -last eight years——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You saved this miserable orphan from death at the hands -of a tyrannic governor,” interposed Quong Ho—they were -speaking his native tongue,—“you have taught him the language -of England and the philosophies both of East and West, -and you are to me as a father to whom I owe filial fidelity and -devotion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is well said, Quong Ho,” replied Baltazar. “This -person appreciates your professions of loyalty.” The scene of -this memorable conversation, by the way, was a small bedroom -at the top of the Savoy Hotel; Baltazar, with bloodshot -eyes, a splitting headache and tousled raiment, sitting on the -bed, and Quong Ho, impeccably vested in Chinese attire, -standing before him. “He has not been honourably blessed -with sons, and therefore will receive from you the devotedness -that is due to a parent. But for the space of three years only. -There may come a time when exaggerated filial zeal may become -embarrassing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he set forth the contract. In return for the absolute -obedience of Quong Ho and his acceptance of the life of a -recluse for three years, he undertook to send him back to -China as the most accomplished native mathematician in -existence—for he had already gauged the young man’s peculiar -genius—with a Master of Arts degree, if possible, from -some British University, and thus assure him a distinguished -position in that New China whose marvellous future had been -the subject of so many of their dreams and discussions. And -Quong Ho had taken solemn oaths of fealty and with the -Chinaman’s singleness of purpose, accepted, a few weeks later, -the deadly and enduring solitude of the moorland as an unquestionable -condition of existence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Secure in the unswerving fidelity of Quong Ho, and in the -impregnable seclusion of this God-disclosed hermitage, John -Baltazar lived a life according to his ideals. No outer ripple -of the maëlstrom in which the world was engulfed lapped, -however faintly, against the low granite wall encircling the -low-built granite farmhouse. His retirement was absolute, -his retreat off the track of the most casual wanderer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Six months passed before his eyes rested on a human being -other than Quong Ho. It is true that the rate-collector, savagely -cursing his luck and the bicycle-destroying track that -led from the road to the farmhouse, had appeared one day -with a paper showing certain indebtedness; but Quong Ho -had received it and, gravely promising a cheque in payment, -had dismissed the intruder. No other official came near the -place. Quong Ho called weekly at the Post office and railway -station, to the great relief of postman and van-driver.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thought and money acutely applied,” remarked Baltazar, -“together with freedom from the entanglement of family relationships, -are the determining factors of human happiness. -A man with these factors at his disposal is a fool if he cannot, -fashion for himself whatever kind of existence he pleases.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But one day, a cloudless winter morning, when the sunshine -kissing the frost-bound earth transmuted the myriad frondage -of the heather into a valley of diamonds, Baltazar, on his way -from the stable to the front door, came across a stranger leaning -over the gate. He was a heavy man with a fat, clean-shaven -face, loose lips and little furtive eyes. He wore a new -golfing suit exaggerated in cut and aggressive in colour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He said with easy familiarity: “Good morning, Mr. -Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Since you know my name,” replied Baltazar, with an air -of courtesy, “it has doubtless struck you that this is my gate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are leaning on it,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The visitor, perplexed, straightened himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m a sort of neighbour of yours, you know. I live about -seven miles off—the big property this side of Water-End: -Cedar Chase—and I’ve often thought I’d run over in the -Rolls-Royce as far as I could, and walk the rest, and see how -you were getting along.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is most amiable of you,” said Baltazar, advancing to -the gate and resting his arm on it with an easy suggestion of -proprietorship. “You have run over, you have walked—and -now you see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before Baltazar’s ironical gaze the stranger’s eyelids fluttered -in disconcertment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I fancied you might be lonely and might like to look in -and have a game of bridge one of these days. My name’s -Pillivant.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pillivant,” said Baltazar. “I don’t much like it, but -there are doubtless worse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You may have heard it. Pillivant and Co., Timber Merchants. -We’ve rather come to the front lately.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your personal initiative, I should imagine,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t say as it isn’t,” replied Mr. Pillivant. “When -whacking Government contracts are going, why not get ’em?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not? Why waste time in doing anything else, all -day long, but getting ’em?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Pillivant drew from his inner breast pocket a vast gold -casket of a cigar-case, opened it and held it out towards his -inhospitable host.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have a cigar? You needn’t be afraid. They stand me in -two hundred and fifty shillings a hundred and I get ’em wholesale. -No?” Baltazar declined politely. “You’re missing a -good thing.” He bit off the end of the one he had chosen, lit -it with a fat wax vesta extracted from a minor gold casket and -drew a few puffs. “Funny sort of life you seem to be leading -here, Mr. Baltazar. Dam’ funny!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I perceive you have a keen sense of humour,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again the mocking stare of his cold, grey eyes abashed the -unwelcome visitor, who filled in the ensuing silence by re-biting -and re-lighting his half-crown cigar. The operation over:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lovely day, isn’t it?” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So lovely, Mr. Pillivant,” replied Baltazar, “that it would -be selfish of me to do otherwise than leave you to the undisturbed -enjoyment of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And, with a polite bow, he left Mr. Pillivant and walked, in -a dignified way, into the house. Mr. Pillivant, conscious at -last of the rejection of his friendly overtures, stared for a while, -and then, sticking his cigar at a truculent angle in his mouth, -swaggered away across the moor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “when next you go to Water-End, -it will be your duty to find a powerful and exceedingly -nasty-tempered dog.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A fortnight afterwards Brutus was added to the establishment.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='47' id='Page_47'></span><h1>CHAPTER IV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span><span class='sc'>HE</span> life ordained by John Baltazar for Quong Ho and -himself was one of unremitting toil, mental and physical. -From the time of his uprising at six in the morning, -when Quong Ho awakened him with tea (some chests of -which he had brought with him from China), until midnight, -there were few moments, save the after dinner hour of literary -indulgence, that he wasted in idle relaxation. The work of -the house, that of steward, butler, valet, cook, parlourmaid, -charwoman and laundress, together with the outdoor functions -of groom, dairyman and bailiff, Quong Ho executed with -the remarkable ease and despatch of the Chinaman accustomed -from childhood to menial tasks. The cultivation of -the barren land, the painful wheeling of barrow-loads of superficial -soil from the moorland, the digging and the planting and -the draining and the watering, were all done by John Baltazar -himself. The hard exercise, some three or four hours a day, -maintained him in the superb health that enabled him to carry -out his studious programme. Of his eighteen waking hours -he allotted roughly seven to physical things, eleven to intellectual -pursuits. For Quong Ho this apportionment of time -was inverted. That was the theoretic schedule. As a matter -of fact, Quong Ho found more than seven hours a day for -mathematical study and other intellectual development.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was much that Baltazar had set himself to do during -his three years. First he must make up in mathematical -output the loss of his wander-time in China. Now all the -world understands the irresistible force that compels the poet, -at last, to give form to long haunting dreams; the need, also, -of the astronomer to crystallize the results of his discoveries -and formulate his epoch-making theories; but the passion of -the mathematician to do the same is not so easily comprehensible. -For years Baltazar had dreamed of an exhaustive and -monumental treatise on the Theory of Groups which would -revolutionize the study of the higher mathematics, a gorgeous -vision the mere statement of which must leave the ordinary -being cold and the first attempt at explanation petrify him -with its icy unintelligibility. The dream was now in process -of accomplishment. He had also to put into form fascinating -adventures into the analytical geometry of the ghostly and -unrealizable space of Four Dimensions. There, he was wont -to assert, you entered the true Fairyland of mathematics. To -all these labours he brought the enthusiasm of the poet or the -astronomer. Another and a totally different sphere of activities -absorbed much of his energy. In China he had assimilated -a vast store of philosophical learning, with which equipment -he prepared to re-edit many European versions of the Chinese -classics misconceived through faulty erudition. He had -brought from China stacks of rare manuscripts, piles of notes, -materials for the life-work of any scholar. And, last, he had -thrown himself with impetuous zeal into the intellectual training -of Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The mutual attitude of the solitary pair was one of curious -delicacy. As master and man they were league-sundered by -the gulf of convention. As teacher and pupil they were drawn -together into close intellectual intimacy. It was the Chinaman’s -exquisite tact that simplified the situation for the direct -and masterful Englishman. As a servant he scrupulously observed -the decorum of the attendant—there never existed -head butler in ducal mansion who could surpass his perfection -of manner; but as disciple he subtly raised himself to the -plane of social equality, and gauged to a hair’s breadth the -shade of familiar address warranted by the position.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar one day at dinner, when the -Chinaman had gone through the usual solemn farce of offering -him Burgundy, “your discretion is beyond the value of -rubies. Never once have you remarked on the apparent vanity -of this daily proceeding. Yet in your own mind you must -have wondered at it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is not for me to speculate on the reason for your honourable -customs,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet why do you think I cause myself to be offered wine -every day only to refuse it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you desire to maintain, in the wilderness, the -ceremonial etiquette of the English dinner-table. The wine -in the bottle is but an adornment, like the flowers in the bowl.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It pleases me that you should have come to such a conclusion,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the ceremony of the wine was linked with the -causes that determined his sudden flight into solitude. He had -promised Quong Ho to inform him of these causes; but -the fulfilment of the promise was hard to make. Sitting -dishevelled on the bed in the little room at the top of the -Savoy Hotel, he had thought disclosure to his servant to -be a fitting part of the punishment he had meted out to -himself. Later he repented; especially when he perceived -Quong Ho’s blank indifference. Still, a promise was a promise, -and Baltazar not the man to shirk his obligations. On -this particular occasion he thought it best to get the matter -over.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The conclusion is an honourable one on your part, Quong -Ho,” he continued, “but it is incorrect.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I own, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “that it is drawn from conjectural -premises.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was over-indulgence in wine that made me set to myself -this penalty of studious solitude,” said Baltazar in Chinese. -“By telling you this I redeem a promise. As to our daily custom, -a weak man flies from temptation, a strong man keeps -temptation at his elbow in order to defy it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In that way, honourable master, is merit acquired.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho took away his empty plate and retired into the -kitchen to fetch the next course. Baltazar leaned back in -his chair and, his brow full of perplexity, yet breathed a sigh -of relief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve got it off my chest at last,” he said half aloud. “But -I wonder whether I’ve been a damned fool.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho’s subsequent demeanour could not enlighten him. -Never again between them, save once, and that under the -stress of a peculiar situation, was made the most veiled allusion -to the subject, and day after day Quong Ho imperturbably -performed with the Burgundy decanter the ceremonial etiquette -of the English dinner-table.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>It was only by glimpses like this that the man had ever -revealed himself to his fellow-creatures. Glimpses like this -one, fine and deliberate, to Quong Ho, and that one of long ago, -passionate and self-destroying, to Marcelle Baring. To neither -did he accord more than a glimpse. To neither did he show -himself on a razor-edged ledge with the abyss on one side and -salvation on the other. Another touch of the girl’s lips would -have sent them both into what the sensitive and honourable -gentleman would have called the abyss. Perhaps, if she had -been older, a woman, one tuned to the pulsating responsibilities -of life, he might have faced things with her. Who knows? -To his direct mind the casuistical point did not occur. Actualities -alone concerned him. She was so delicate and fragrant a -flower of girlhood. His for the plucking. . . . When he regained -his college rooms, that far-off summer afternoon, he -was as a man torn by devils. Love her? He would be torn -in pieces rather than that her exquisite foot should be bruised -against a stone. Love her? With her soft voice, her maddening -Madonna face, her kind eyes, her tremulous mouth? Love -her? The wonder of wonders possessed of the power to divine -his inmost thoughts, to touch with magically healing fingers -all the aching wounds in his soul, to envelop him body and -mind and spirit in a network of a myriad fairy tendrils? Love -her? God knows he did.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But she was a child—and a child can forget—at the worst -retain a not ungracious memory. But he was a man, on the -verge of hideous villainy. And he stood in his college room, -surrounded by all that symbolized the intellectual life that -up to then had been the meaning of his existence, and he looked -around.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The whole lot will have to go to blazes,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And at that moment he cut the Gordian knot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His wife? She hated him: why, he could not tell; but she -missed few opportunities of showing her rancour. He had -striven desperately to win her esteem, at the cost of much -swallowed pride. Some months had passed since the last -pitiable reconciliation. . . . Why had he married her? It had -not been for lack of warning. Perhaps the very traducing of -her had spurred him on. She was so fair and fragile, so pathetic -in her widowhood. A clamour of the senses, a prompting of -chivalry, and the thing was done. And she, widow of a phlegmatic -don of Trinity, living in Cambridge, was perhaps carried -away by the glamour surrounding the coming man in that -tiny, academic world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish you were dead,” were the last words he had heard -her utter. He snapped his fingers. She could have her desire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar packed his bag with necessaries, told his gyp that -business called him to London for some days, and left Cambridge -forever. A month afterwards he was on his way, -under an assumed name, to China.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The act of a fool perhaps. But has not one who knew called -him the Fool of Genius? Anyhow he had the courage and the -wit to cut his life off clean. The life of John Baltazar of Cambridge -and that of James Burden who, having landed at Shanghai, -spent so many adventurous years in the heart of China, -might have been lived by two individuals who had never heard -of each other. That disappearance from England was the -first start, the consequence of the first violent fit. The first -that mattered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But there had been others. To one, his mind went back -even as he asked himself whether his confession to Quong Ho -had been the proceeding of an idiot. It had to do with the -selfsame subject of that confession. The period went back to -his last undergraduate term, when he was as certain of being -Senior Wrangler as a Cardinal of being the best theologian in -a scratch company of parish priests. Carrying on to the beginning -of term an end of vacation revel, Baltazar took to evil -courses. The slander which, reported to young Godfrey -Baltazar, Marcelle Baring had so vehemently denied, had its -basis in truth. He had discovered alcohol, and for a time -plunged, with his whole-souled fervour, into his discovery. -Then, one Spooner, the next in the Tripos running, a man -living entirely on his scholarships, a mild and pallid man of no -physical value whom the lusty Baltazar, after the way of vivid -and immature young men, despised, had the grand audacity -to call on him and expostulate with him on his excesses. Baltazar -listened breathless. The fellow ought to be going round -with a show of freaks. He told him so. Spooner waved aside -the proposition and went on with his main argument.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You have every right to be Senior. There’s not one of -us in it with you. But if you go on playing the fool like this, -anything may happen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s all to your personal advantage, my dear good missionary,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t seem to understand why I’ve come here,” replied -Spooner. “I don’t want to be Senior just because a man who’s -infinitely better than I is a drunken sot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And they talked and bandied words a little, and then Baltazar -saw himself face to face with an exquisite soul. He gripped -the lean shoulders of the undeveloped, spectacled young man -with his big hands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I swear to God,” said he, “that I’ll not touch a drop of -alcohol for the next five years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he also swore to himself an oath of which Spooner was -ignorant. He swore that Spooner should be Senior. And he -kept both vows. In the last day’s Problem Paper he deliberately -sacrificed himself. As a matter of fact he just overdid -it, for, to the mystification of all concerned in the Tripos, he -was placed third. But Spooner had the coveted distinction. -The Tripos over, everything fell before Baltazar, and he was -acknowledged the supreme mathematician of his year, and, in -the course of time, the greatest of his generation.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>The difficulty, owing to its episodical character, of presenting -the early career of Baltazar, thus finds illustration. One -might go back to schoolboy days and point to lapses from -grace, followed by similar swift and ruthless decisions. To -catalogue them all would require the patient tediousness of -formal biography. Apart from such a process, his life up to -his flight into the moorland wilderness can best be pictured by -a series of flashes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A sudden disgust with China and an overwhelming nostalgia -for the sweeter political life of England drove him home after -eighteen years. The greater part of the time he had spent in -the impenetrable heart of the vast country, speaking many -dialects as well as the classical Wen-Li of the learned, an encyclopædia -of erudition, saturated with intimate knowledge of -Chinese custom and observance, a Chinaman in all but physical -appearance, dressing, living, acting and accepted universally -as a Chinaman, prospering as a Chinaman too in financial -undertakings. It was old China that he entered, a land stable -in its peculiar civilization which, in spite of many traditional -oppressions and time-sanctioned cruelties, had its fascination -and grace—the gift to a Mandarin of a precious and much-coveted -ancient manuscript had purchased the life of a boy, -Li Quong Ho, condemned to elaborate death for a venial -offence, the transaction being carried out in an atmosphere -of high refinement, and scented tea served and drunk with -exquisite punctilio. It was old China that he had learned to -love, with its sense of beauty, its reverence for learning, its -profound ethical philosophy. But it was a new China, convulsed -with new ideas, bloodthirsty, treacherous, unstable to -maddening point, that he had quitted in his sudden and determined -way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For eighteen years, in the interior of China, he had lived -remote from European politics. He had sunk himself in the -lore, and identified himself with the interests, of that ancient -land. With no correspondence, beyond the reach of newspapers, -he all but forgot the existence of Europe. Meeting his -fellow-countrymen on the homeward voyage, he shunned -them, partly through shyness, partly through distaste for the -brusqueness of their manners, the high pitch of their voices, -their colossal ignorance of the country with which they boasted -such contemptuous familiarity, the narrowness of their outlook, -the petty materialism of their conversation. He held -himself aloof, longing for the real England at the end of the -voyage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In London, the loneliest soul in the great city, he set himself -to pick up the threads of the life around him. He walked -the familiar and unwelcoming streets, at first dazed by the -motor traction, then bewildered by evidences of the luxury -which eighteen years of decadence had engendered. He visited -new palaces of entertainment and came away wondering. In -fashionable supper-rooms he saw the flower of the land dancing -to what, as a scholar, he knew to be West African sexual -rhythms. He could not understand. What were they doing, -or trying to do? He would sit lonely at a table, a formally -ordered drink before him, at one of these great public haunts, -and try to get the key to the mystery. The decay of manners -offended him. He discounted the fact that he had lived -so many intense years in the land of sacred ceremonial; he -wiped that out of his mind, and recalled the standard of his -own youth. The exiguity of feminine apparel shocked his -unaccustomed eyes; in many cases nothing from waist up but -a sort of low palisade, scarcely concealing the bust. Was he -not mistaken? Was this not rather the scum than the flower -of modern England? But at neighbouring tables he had overheard -attention being directed to bearers of proud and historic -names. Then he asked himself the question: had he frequented -such places eighteen years ago? Had they not been -outside the sphere of his narrow academic life? He desired -to judge justly. When did he leave England? In 1896. And -his bachelor days, with their joyous London jaunts, had ended -in 1894. There was no such social life then: if there had been, -he would have heard of it. In the afternoons, too, these young -men and maidens danced their weird dances.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Outside, the land was a-clamour with the doings of a sterner -sisterhood. Processions, mass meetings, virago riotings, picture -slashings, incendiarism, bombs, formed the features of -their astounding crusade. The newspapers, beyond the recounting -of facts, with vivid descriptions of sensational scenes, -gave him little information as to the philosophy of the movement. -Politically the country seemed to be in a state of chaotic -turmoil. Persons holding high office were publicly accused of -corrupt financial practices. Parliament wrangled fiercely with -the Army over an <span class='it'>opéra bouffe</span> condition of Irish affairs. Beneath -all this Labour uttered volcanic threatenings. Subversive -ideas, new to him, such as syndicalism, were in the air. -Unintelligible criticisms of picture exhibitions urged his curious -steps to the indicated galleries, where he came upon canvases -that made his brain reel. A new Rip Van Winkle, he -had awakened to a mad world, a world even more perilously -unstable than the China which he had left.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The solitary scholar found himself disastrously out of sympathy -with it all. He had planned to give himself a month’s -holiday in London before settling down, in some quiet and -comfortable suburb, to the many years’ work that lay before -him on the materials he had brought from China. He had -formed no intention whatever of cutting himself off from -communion with his fellow-men. Indeed, he meant, as soon -as he could rid himself of the complications of his assumed -name, to proclaim himself unobtrusively to the world as John -Baltazar. Before coming finally to this decision, however, he -must learn what had become of his wife, as he had no desire -to play the disconcerting part of a tactless Enoch Arden. His -first step on arriving at London had been to institute, through -a firm of solicitors, discreet enquiries. He learned that his -wife had been dead for thirteen years. He was at liberty to -become John Baltazar again as soon as he liked. But in London, -as James Burden, he stayed at the Savoy Hotel, a bewildered -and disillusioned spectator of the modern world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>How did the catastrophe happen? Thinking over it, as he -often thought with shivers of disgust, in his moorland retreat, -he could scarcely give an answer. Only once, since his interview -with the audacious Spooner, had he given way to an -overmastering impulse—and that was on his journey out to -Shanghai. Anti-climax, in the shape of sudden storm and -sea-sickness, cured him, and he vowed total abstinence all the -time he should be in China; and he kept his vow. Perhaps, -here in London, unaccustomed idleness and his disgust-filled -loneliness drove him gradually and insensibly to the consolation -of alcohol. The odd drinks during the day increased in -number. He viewed a rosier London after a quart of old Burgundy -at dinner. To sit in a crowded cosmopolitan café became -his evening amusement, and the continuous consumption -of brandies and soda aided indulgent observation. He -had given himself his month’s holiday, and he meant to have -it, no matter how joyless and unsympathetic was the holiday -atmosphere. Now and then, in these popular resorts he picked -casual acquaintanceship with a neighbour. He had the gift -of making his companion’s conversation intelligent and interesting. -On these occasions he drank less.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But one solitary night intoxication for the first time overcame -him. He realized it with a feeling of anger. The lights -were just being lowered. He ordered a double liqueur brandy, -in the crazy assurance that it would pull him together. Of -what happened afterwards he had little memory. In the -crowded street someone laid hold of him and, resentful of -attack, he turned and smote his supporter. To complete the -outrage, a policeman handled him roughly, a proceeding which -he also violently resented. Then a whirl of lights and darkness -and lights again, and strange faces and once more darkness -absolute and final, until he awoke and found himself sober -and shivering in a police cell. A few hours afterwards, James -Burden, of no occupation, living at the Savoy Hotel, was -fined forty shillings or a month for being drunk and disorderly -in Leicester Square.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If it had been a magnificent folly, a royal debauch, a voluptuous -orgy of roses and wine and laughter and song and the -pulsating lustiness of life, the <span class='it'>dulce periculum</span> of the follower of -the Lenæan one brow-bound with green vine-leaves, he might -have held himself in some measure excused. He had made -no vow, he had no reason, to spurn the joyousness of existence. -He was a man of racing blood, with claim and right to the -gladness of physical things. But this sordid, solitary bout -with its end of vulgarity and degradation, filled him with a -horror almost maddening in its fierceness. His soul shrivelled -at the ghastly humiliation. That it should come upon him; -him, John Baltazar, with half a century of clean life behind -him; him, John Baltazar, the man who had compelled high -honour for intellect and character from his childhood days, -at a Public School, at the University, as an unknown and -prejudice-surrounded foreigner in the strangest of alien lands; -that it should come upon him seemed like a phantasma or a -hideous dream.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then it fell that he once more cut the Gordian knot. -He would fly from a world in which he had proved himself -not fit to live cleanly, with all the less reluctance because he -had found it incomprehensible and unattractive. And sitting -dishevelled on the bed, he informed Quong Ho of his decision. -As soon as he had cleansed himself from the soil of the awful -night, he left the Savoy and the dishonoured name of James -Burden for ever, and took rooms at another hotel for the night -as John Baltazar. The next day he threw himself vehemently -into the quest of a hermitage. He remembered a desolate -waste of moorland through which on a walking tour he had -rambled in his undergraduate days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It may be, Quong Ho,” said he, “that it is built over with -picture palaces and swarming with tango-dancers. Any conceivable -happening to England during the last twenty years -is possible. But we’ll go and see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am unacquainted, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “with the -dancers you mention; but I have visited picture palaces during -the fortnight we have spent in your wonderful country, -and, rightly exercised, the cinematograph strikes me as being -the most marvellous vehicle for the propaganda of civilization -that the world has seen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “it is not in our contract to -care one little tuppenny damn for the propaganda of civilization. -You’re not going to waste your time at one of those -futile and ill-conceived, although ingenious, entertainments -for the next three years. If the particular region I have in -view is not satisfactory, we shall find another.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently he added, in a tone of compunction—he was -dressing while Quong Ho packed:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sorry I’ve had to cut short the time I intended you -to have in London. I badly wanted you to have some general -idea of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” replied Quong Ho, “without wishing to boast, I -have grasped London. I could find my way blindfolded -from here to the Tower, the House of Parliaments, the North -End Road, Fulham, and that imperishable objective record of -your honourable nation’s history, the museum of Madame -Tussaud.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All the points you have mentioned, Quong Ho,” said -Baltazar, “are of undoubted value—except the North End -Road, Fulham. What the devil could you find of interest in -that drab region of nowhere?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho’s usually smiling and mobile face became an -expressionless mask.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It marked the end of my peregrination in that direction,” -he replied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It strikes me,” said Baltazar, “that it’s time you peregrinated -to a more God-swept and intellectual atmosphere.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Three weeks afterwards they took up their residence at -Spendale Farm.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='59' id='Page_59'></span><h1>CHAPTER V</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>B</span><span class='sc'>ALTAZAR</span> had lived on the moor in peace and comfort -for nearly a year when he received his first unsolicited -communication from the outside world, in the shape of -a long, cheap envelope, headed “On His Majesty’s Service,” -and containing Income Tax assessment forms. For a moment -he wondered how the representatives of His Majesty had managed -to ferret him out in his retreat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a vile country,” said he to Quong Ho, who had handed -him the letter on returning from his weekly visit to the town. -“It’s a pettifogging, police-ridden land, where a man, if he so -chooses, can’t bury himself decently. I’m sure the King is -not aware of this unwarranted interference with the liberty -of one of the most self-effacing of his subjects.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My mind was in half,” replied Quong Ho, “to destroy the -missive which I conjectured would cause you annoyance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a good thing you didn’t. The King is an amiable -gentleman, but the High Mandarins from whom this proceeds -are not to be trifled with.” He glanced through the papers. -“It is well,” said he, with a sigh of relief. “The High Mandarins -around the Throne are as yet ignorant of my whereabouts; -but if I refused to obey this invitation, they would -soon learn it. It is a pestilential minor official in the vicinity -who for the sake of money—it’s his disgusting mode of livelihood—has -violated my solitude.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the New China,” said Quong Ho, “we hope to do away -with the bureaucracy, which is a parasite on civilization.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You won’t do it,” said Baltazar. “In the New Jerusalem—by -which we mean the Kingdom of Heaven—there is a -Recording Angel, and you may bet your boots he has got his -staff of officials who write minutes and fill up forms all Eternity -long.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perfection,” remarked Quong Ho, “is to be found neither -in this world nor the next, but only in that harmonious principle -of the soul which is termed <span class='it'>li</span> in the Confucian philosophy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar in Chinese, “your wisdom befits -rather the honourable white beard of the teacher than the -smooth-shaven chin of the pupil of five-and-twenty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho bowed respectfully at the compliment and withdrew.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Confound the Income Tax!” said Baltazar, looking through -the papers. He had completely forgotten his liability. The -sudden reminder vexed him. Of course he must pay; but his -income being exclusively derived from investments, all of -which were taxed at the source before the dividend warrants -were paid automatically into his account at his bankers’, why -should he be worried? He resented the intrusion on his privacy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A week later Quong Ho posted the form in the ironically -provided, penny-saving official envelope, and Baltazar dismissed -the incident from his mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When some time afterwards his assessment paper arrived, -it caused him some astonishment. He cast his memory back -twenty years. In 1896 the Income Tax, if he remembered -rightly, was inconsiderable, some sixpence in the pound. Now -it was half a crown. He filled up the form, an easy task, thinking -less than ever of the social condition of Modern England; -such high direct taxation could only mean the desperate financial -straits of a decadent country. Well, as far as he was concerned, -the loss of one-eighth of his income did not matter. -The initial expenses of his installation at Spendale Farm over, -he scarcely spent a third of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next disturbing document that found its way to Spendale -Farm contained a searching series of questions, headed -“National Registration.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am ceasing to regard England as a fit place to live in,” -said he, with some petulance. “This is Mandarinism run -riot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few weeks afterwards he received a neat little card folded -in two, on the outside of which was printed a vile semblance -of the Royal Coat of Arms and “National Registration Act, -1915,” and inside a certificate of the Registration of (<span class='it'>a</span>) John -Baltazar, (<span class='it'>b</span>) Philosophical Investigator—for as such had he -irritably described himself—(<span class='it'>c</span>) of Spendale Farm, Water-End. -There was a space for the signature of Holder, and -below it in great capitals “God Save the King.” On the back -were directions as to change of address.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God knows what’s coming over the country,” said he. -“It appears that a free-born Englishman has got to carry -about his police papers, as people have to do in disgusting -countries like Germany and Russia. What about you, Quong -Ho? Have you got a pretty little document like this?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am registered as an alien,” replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It seems to me,” said Baltazar, “that when I used to gas -to you about our free British institutions I was nothing but an -ignorant liar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By no means, sir,” replied Quong Ho politely. “The keynote -of the modern world is change. What was true of material -things yesterday is a lie to-day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How did you discover that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I assume the little town of Water-End to be but a microcosm -of Great Britain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why,” laughed Baltazar, “what signs of change do you -see there?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho remained for a moment silent, and his face assumed -its Oriental impassivity. If he reported to his master -the astounding events that were taking place, even at Water-End, -whose quiet High Street was a-bustle with newly fledged -soldiery from the moorland camp three miles on the further -side, he would not only risk the dissolution of the establishment, -but would be guilty of filial disobedience, which was -impiety. And the European War, after all, how could it concern -him, Li Quong Ho? Perhaps, too, his master, foreseeing -the tempest, particularly desired to take shelter and hear -nothing at all about it. He was fortunate enough, however, -to find a perfectly true reply to Baltazar’s question. He smiled -in some relief; for an intellectual Chinaman, trained in the -lofty morality of the Chinese classics, does not willingly lie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a woman and not a man who now delivers the letters -in Water-End.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar continued to laugh: “They’ll be driving the motor-cars -soon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve seen them doing it,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not surprised,” said his master. “They were tending -that way a year ago. These new women are out for the devirilization -of man. Perhaps by this time they’re in Parliament, -passing firework legislation and playing the devil with all our -laws and customs. You haven’t yet heard, by any chance, -whether the occupation of monthly nursing is confined exclusively -to the male sex?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The enactment, if such there be,” replied Quong Ho -solemnly, “is not, to my knowledge, in force in this remote -locality.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us thank the gods, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “that -we’re out of this feminist hurly-burly. The little I saw of the -movement was antipathetic to my philosophy of life. A -society in which women regard the bearing of children as a -physical accident of no account, and deny the responsibilities -which such an event entails, must be doomed to decay, or, at -the best, to bitter disillusionment. The more I hear of contemporary -England the less I like it. It seems to be woman-ridden; -curiously enough by two camps in apparent opposition, -but in reality waging joint warfare on man. The world -has never yet beheld such a sex campaign. One section demands -luxury beyond the dreams of Byzantium at its rottenest, -and the other claims supreme political power.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is well, sir,” said Quong Ho, “that you repudiated the -imbecile suggestion of the House Agent to the effect that you -should employ a woman housekeeper of mature age to superintend -this establishment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is lucky for you, Quong Ho, that I did,” grinned Baltazar. -“She would have made you sit up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, with clasped hands and lowered head, respectfully -asserted himself. “If I do not sit up sufficiently for your -satisfaction, sir, it is for you to reprimand me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I only spoke in jest, Quong Ho,” said Baltazar. “Our -Western humour is rather subtle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will make a note of it,” replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By such notation and accumulation of detail one gathers -knowledge,” said Baltazar. “By co-ordination one acquires -wisdom. Continue on this, the only path of philosophy, and -your old age will be blessed. In the meantime, please keep -your observations of changes at Water-End to yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Obedience to your honourable commands, my master,” -replied Quong Ho, in Chinese, “is the sacred duty of this entirely -inconsiderable person. But may one so inferior as myself -humbly remind your illustrious greatness that it was you -who originally propounded to me a question which I was bound -to answer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The fact that I did so,” replied Baltazar, “you may note -as an instance of the human fallibility of the sublimest minds. -Fear not but that I will profit by your lesson.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He waved a dismissing hand. Quong Ho bowed with the -perfect ceremonial of pupil taking leave of master and retired. -Baltazar threw himself into his arm-chair and laughed aloud.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re a joy, Quong Ho. A perfect joy. A museum -specimen of a joy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So while Baltazar delighted in the unhumorous literalness -of the Chinaman, it never occurred to him that he was the -dupe of the unhumorous literalness of the Chinaman’s fidelity; -that while he was inveighing against speculative phenomena of -an ill-understood movement, the trumpet of war had transformed -that movement into an apotheosis of feminine effort -of which Quong Ho, keenly intellectual, was perfectly well -aware; and that it was only by the pious grace of his pupil -and servant that he lived a day in his fool’s paradise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Quong Ho, a week afterwards, brought him his meagre -mail, he angrily crushed in his fist and threw aside the enclosure -of the first envelope which he had opened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m hanged if this isn’t a begging circular! It’s infernal -impudence! It’s an intolerable outrage on one’s personal -liberty. Here, Quong Ho!”—he swept the remainder of the -mail into the Chinaman’s hand. “Don’t let me be worried -with any more letters. I’ve come down here to be quiet and -not to be badgered. If there are bills to pay, make out the -cheques and I’ll sign them. If there are circulars, throw them -away. About anything else use your discretion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will exactly execute your orders,” replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus Baltazar finally severed relations between himself and -the outside world. Quong Ho acted the perfect Private Secretary. -The only letters presented to his master for perusal -were rare business communications from booksellers instructed -to purchase some out-of-the-way and possibly expensive book. -Circular letters, containing appeals for subscriptions, which -poured in, as soon as Baltazar’s name eventually found its -way on the address-lists of the neighbourhood, Quong Ho -conscientiously destroyed. Using his discretion, he withheld -letters from the Bank inviting investments in War Loans. -Such, in his opinion, were further intrusions on the sacred -privacy of his master. And thus the weeks and months passed -by; and Quong Ho, in touch with even such an outpost of -civilization as the tiny moorland town and bringing to that -contact the most highly trained incuriosity, could not avoid -gathering the current tidings of the vast world conflict; but, -faithful to his commands, he said never a word to Baltazar, -gave never a hint of the stupendous convulsion in which the -world was involved. And while his master, serene doctrinaire, -discoursed on the political science of the nineties, now being -blown to smithereens by German guns, he maintained the -reverential attitude of the disciple, drinking in as gospel truth -the wisdom of his inspired teacher.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One evening, when Baltazar had praised the clear solution -of certain problems which he had set in Differential Equations, -and prophesied a glorious career for the most brilliant mathematician -China had ever produced, Quong Ho, after gratefully -acknowledging the encomium, said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you will forgive my indiscretion, I should like to ask a -question. Why is it, sir, that you, who take such great interest -in the future—for example, my inconsiderable and negligible -prospects, and the benefits that will accrue to humanity on -the publication of the thought-shaking results of your own -profound researches,—should be so indifferent to the present -condition of the world?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the simple reason, my good fellow,” replied Baltazar, -“that, from what I have observed, the present condition of -mankind—from China to Peru, as your newly found friend -Dr. Johnson says—is putrescent. The best way in which -we can serve mankind is to do what we’re doing now—to provide -for the intellectual development of the future generation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The proposition is unanswerable,” said Quong Ho. “But -suppose, sir, for the sake of argument, that a philosophic -observation of the civilized world as it is should result in the -conclusion that, in the English idiom, it is proceeding fast to -the devils—what is the duty of the man of high morality?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To let it go slap-dash,” said Baltazar. “The faster and -surer, the better. For then the sooner will the eternal rhythm, -the eternal principle of balance, assert itself. When a society -is rushing down to Gadarene suicide——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted the alert Quong Ho. -“Gad—I do not understand the word.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Read the Gospel according to St. Mark to-morrow. You’ve -heard of St. Mark?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You might as well ask me, sir, if I had heard of Confucius -or Homer, or the immortal Todhunter of my childhood.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rubbed his brown thatch and turned his luminous -grey eyes on his disciple.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The immensity of your purview, Quong Ho, is only equalled -by your lightning perception of landmarks. Anyhow, read -St. Mark over again, and tell me your opinion of the swine of -Gadara. For the moment, I’d have you know that you’ve -interrupted my argument. I was saying that if everything’s -going to the devil—that’s the correct idiom—not proceeding -to devils——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“May I make a note of it?” said Quong Ho, scribbling the -phrase across his mathematical manuscript.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rose from his chair by the long deal table and relit -his pipe over the chimney of a lamp.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve put me out. What the blazes were we talking -about?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The present world condition,” replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I assert,” said Baltazar, “that the present state of -the world is rotten. It’s no place for intellectual reformers -like you and me. What are the words of Confucius known to -every schoolboy? ‘<span class='it'>With sincerity and truth unite a desire for -self-culture. Lay down your life rather than quit the path of -virtue. Enter not a state which is tottering to its fall. When -Law obtains in the Empire let yourself be seen: when lawlessness -reigns, retire into obscurity.</span>’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But supposing,” persisted Quong Ho, “the state of the -devil-driven world is of vital interest?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It can be of vital interest only to those hurtling down to -destruction. To us, who have retired into the obscure aloofness -recommended by the great philosopher, it can be of no -possible concern.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is well,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know it is,” remarked Baltazar, with a yawn. “Another -night let us have a slightly more intelligent conversation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho retired, his conscience finally set at rest. After -all, was not his master right? What could he do of any use -in the world rudely at war? Was he not serving the truest -interests of humanity by retiring at this juncture and devoting -the harvest of his great learning to a future generation?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Soldiers,” said Quong Ho the next day, looking into the -unspeculative topaz eyes of the goat which he had been milking, -“are as numerous as the sands of the desert, and politicians -as the mosquitoes in a swamp; they are swept away and the -world misses them not; but philosophers are rare, and the -loss of one of them is a supreme world calamity.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Baa-a-a!” said the goat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I perceive that you too have wisdom,” said Quong Ho. -“You appreciate the privilege of living under the same roof -as the illustrious Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He burst into an unaccustomed laugh. Conversation with -a goat appealed to his prim sense of humour. But all the -same, he expressed his own deeply-rooted conviction. To the -keen-brained young Chinaman, Baltazar appeared as a man -of stupendous intellectual force. His knowledge of the abstract -sciences of the Western world would have commanded -his respect; but his vast Chinese erudition, acknowledged -with admiration by Mandarins and scholars and other Great -Ones of China, gave Quong Ho cause for a veneration reaching -almost to idolatry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Also Baltazar, for all his patriarchal years, earned his pupil’s -respect as a man of marvellous muscle and endurance. During -the winter, when the inclemency of the weather forbade -agricultural pursuits—and on that moorland waste the -weather abandoned itself to every capricious devildom within -meteorological possibilities—Baltazar, having ordered a set -of gloves from London, gave boxing lessons to his disciple. -At first Quong Ho was shocked. How could so contemptible -a person as he ever make a pretence of smiting the highly -honourable face of his master? Baltazar bade him try. He -would give him an hour’s extra private tuition for every hit. -And Quong Ho, encouraged by so splendid a prize, tried, at -first diffidently, then earnestly, then zealously, then desperately, -then bald-headedly, but never a wild blow could pass -the easy guard of his smiling master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You see, Quong Ho, it’s a science,” said Baltazar. “Now -I’m going to hit you.” And he feinted and struck out with -his left and sent his disciple swinging across the room. “It is -also a game,” he added, holding up his hand, “because what -I have just done did not hurt you in the least.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho rubbed his jaw. “It was like the kiss of a butterfly,” -said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here endeth the First Lesson,” said Baltazar. “The -English etiquette now requires that we should shake hands.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When they had gone through the formality Baltazar continued:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You of all non-English people oughtn’t to be astonished. -Did not the same ceremony exist in your country over two -thousand years ago? Is it not referred to in the Analects?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” said the breathless and perspiring Quong Ho, “I -have unworthily forgotten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did not the Master say: ‘<span class='it'>The true gentleman is never contentious. -If a spirit of rivalry is anywhere unavoidable, it is at -a shooting-match. Yet even here he courteously salutes his opponents -before taking up his position</span>’—we ought to have shaken -hands before starting, but we’ll do it next time—‘<span class='it'>and again -when, having lost, he retires to drink the forfeit-cup</span>’—your -forfeit-cup being the loss of the extra hours of tuition. ‘<span class='it'>So -that even when competing, he remains a true gentleman.</span>’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I remember now,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad you do,” replied Baltazar. “That is the lofty -spirit in which we shall continue this exceedingly health-giving -science and pastime.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And they continued. The young Chinaman, lithe, hard, -physically perfect, little more than half the age of his tutor, -devoted himself, with his Chinese assiduity, to the mastery of -the fascinating art, and succeeded eventually in giving Baltazar -most interesting encounters; he realized that fierce blows -planted on venerable features were taken, nay applauded, in -the spirit of the Confucian gentleman; he also accepted in -the same gentlemanly way the hammering that he invariably -received. It was after some months of this training, when he -was able to discount merely superior science, that he bowed -down before Baltazar not only as before an intellect, but as -before a marvellous physical man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There came a truce, however—the following winter—when -Baltazar, wise in his elderly generation, foresaw the -inevitable supremacy of youth, and ordered new toys from -London—foils, masks and fencing jackets. The gloves -mouldered in a broken-down potting-shed, and Quong Ho -again started, as a tyro, to learn a new athletic accomplishment. -Thus in his disciple’s sound body Baltazar contrived -to maintain a sound and humble mind. He knew that he was -held in deep respect by Quong Ho. But it never occurred to -his careless mind that Quong Ho regarded him as a kind of -god. He accepted the homage as a matter of course.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In these idyllic conditions John Baltazar accounted himself -serenely happy. His scholarly solitude was undisturbed by -the windy ways of men or the windy ways of moorland nature. -The former spent themselves before reaching him; at the -latter he snapped his fingers. What to him was the seasons’ -difference? So absorbed was he in his work, so circumscribed -in his walled enclosure beyond which he seldom set foot, that -he barely even noticed the hourly change on the sensitive face -of the moor. And season followed season, and the piles of -manuscript, exquisitely corrected for the printer, grew in -height, and Quong Ho assimilated Higher Mathematics as -though it were rice; and everything was for the best in the -best of all possible little intellectual worlds.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='69' id='Page_69'></span><h1>CHAPTER VI</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>S</span><span class='sc'>UCH</span>, as far as a few strokes can picture him, was John -Baltazar, at the time when his unsuspected son lay -footless in the convalescent home and discussed with -Marcelle Baring the mystery of his existence. A man of many -failings, many intolerances, of some ruthlessness. A man both -sensitive and hard; both bold and shrinking; with the traditional -habits of the ostrich and the heart of a lion. A man -apparently given to extravagances of caprice; and yet remaining -always constant to himself, preserving also throughout his -strange career a perfect unity of character. Perhaps, regarding -him from another point of view, his detractors may say -that he loved to play to himself as audience and, further, put -that audience in the gallery. Why not? It is in the essence -of human consciousness that a man must, in some measure, -be an actor to himself. The degree depends on the human -equation. Dumas <span class='it'>fils</span> once said of his immortal semi-mulatto -father: “He is quite capable of getting up behind his own -carriage, in order to persuade people that he keeps a black -footman.” A savage epigram. But it would have been a -deeper truth if he had said that the wonder of a man who was -his father, was capable of doing it, in order to persuade himself -that he kept a black footman. The more we limit the -audience to the man himself, the more we love him. The -more human does the vivid creature appear to us. If Baltazar -played to that audience of one, he had many illustrious -colleagues. If again his method was melodramatic, it at least -had breadth. It dealt with big issues in a broad and simple -way. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s what I love about the three great systems of Chinese -ethics,” he would declare. “There’s no damned subtlety -about them. You accept the various propositions or you, -don’t. There are no <span class='it'>homoousian</span> and <span class='it'>homoiousian</span> conflicts, -and suchlike rubbish, that have torn Western thought to -ribbons for over a thousand years. In China you go straight -to the heart of truth. All the subtlety lies, Quong Ho, in the -correct interpretation of your appalling but fascinating script.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was a rough profession of faith, almost an analysis of -character. The intellect of the mathematician delighted in -the process of arriving at exactness of statement, but at the -same time that statement’s philosophic simplicity appealed to -a nature fundamentally simple.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He abhorred complications. That was his weakness. He -claimed, unphilosophically, the absolute. Hence the abandonment -of his academical career, involving at the same time -the merciless abandonment of his wife. Hence the clean cut -of his career in China, where a little supple coquetting with -political corruption would have brought him great wealth and -power. Hence the impenetrable wall he had now contrived -between himself and the rest of mankind. He had no power -of compromise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus an attempt has been made to answer the question -which Marcelle Baring vainly put to herself that sleepless -night on her return from London, when a boy’s artless admiration -had opened springs of sentiment which she had thought -deliberately sealed forever; the question asked by Godfrey -Baltazar; the same question which almost simultaneously John -Baltazar put to himself, while leaning over the gate in the -glory of the moorland sunset; which, in a wistful, speculative -way, he continued to put to himself after Quong Ho, with -new lights on Elliptic Functions and the philosophy of Lao-Tze -and the Ethics of Love—for the severe lesson in mathematics -was always followed by an hour’s improving conversation -on general matters—had retired for the night, leaving -him to his last pipe and his last spell of work. But the discussion -on the Ethics of Love disturbed his more studious thought -and brought back the question which a few hours before had -idly flitted across his brain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho had said, somewhat diffidently, in his own language: -“Master, may this inconsiderable person seek the solution -of an intimate problem from one who is a supreme authority -on all things concerning human conduct?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fire away,” said Baltazar in English.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank you, sir; I will proceed to fire. When I left China -I was a young man of no account, the son of peasants long -since defunct, your body-servant, almost your slave, because -you purchased my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We can stow all that,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With your honourable permission, by no means. I was -reckoned in Chen-Chow only as a hopper of clods——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Eh? Oh yes. Go on,” smiled Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I saw the daughter of Fung Yu, the gardener of the -palace——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I remember the old villain. He had a daughter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There were negotiations in progress,” Quong Ho went on. -“The young woman was eminently desirable. She was virtuous -and obedient, and not devoid of physical attractiveness. -When I followed you, sir, from China, I left the affair between -myself and Fung Yu in a state of suspended animation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You mean Fung Yu’s daughter? In our more brutal idiom -it comes to this—that you’re in love with a little girl in China—and -she possibly with you—and you’ve run away and -don’t know what the devil to do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Her feelings,” replied Quong Ho calmly, “do not concern -me. I doubt whether she has any of sentimental importance. -It is with my own honourable conduct that I am preoccupied. -I left China a person to whom Fung Yu would condescend: I -return as a personage of high intellectual repute. I shall -be able to seek a bride of a far higher social position than the -daughter of Fung Yu. That is not all. My study of English -literature has given me new conceptions of the intellectual -companionship of married life. In the New China there are -certainly young girls of high educational standard, among -whom I might find one who could understand what I was -talking about when I spoke of such philosophical topics as -interested me. The point that, as a very young and humble -man, I wish to submit to your infallible wisdom, for my guidance, -is this: am I bound, as an honourable fellow, to marry, -in Old China, the flower-like but cabbage-ignorant daughter -of Fung Yu, the gardener, or am I justified in cutting the Rubicon -and seeking in the New China for a real helpmate?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Before proceeding,” replied Baltazar, with the bantering -light in his grey eyes that Quong Ho could never interpret, -“will you make a note for a conversation to-morrow on Mixture -of Metaphors?” Quong Ho produced his notebook. -“Yes, just that entry. Mixture of Metaphors. Good,” said -he, when the methodical young Chinaman had obeyed. “Side -issues, like that, have their great importance; but they must -be followed after the main course has been traversed. The -whole point of the matter is: how far have you committed -yourself with the girl?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho started back in his straight-backed wooden chair—they -were still side by side at the lamplit centre of the long -deal table—and held up his hands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Committed myself? Oh no. The only time I ever addressed -her was on one occasion when I relieved her of the -burden of a vessel of water from the well to her house. But -I have spoken very seriously to Fung Yu.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fung Yu can go to blazes,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho smiled. “I alone could give evidence that would -condemn him to a perpetuity of punishment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So could I,” cried Baltazar. “Graft! If Tammany Hall -really wanted to know how to do things, it ought to sit like -a little child at the feet of a high-class Mandarin’s head-gardener. -Fung Yu’s the real thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He is a corrupt personality,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Therefore,” replied Baltazar, “he is not the kind of person -with whom an honourable man should seek alliance. As to -the lady, her young affections are obviously unblighted, and -very possibly by this time she is married and the mother of -twins. My advice is to dismiss Fung Yu and his flower-like -yet cabbage-ignorant daughter forever from your mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall follow your gracious counsel,” replied Quong Ho. -And the intimate conversation ended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But it hung around the thoughts of Baltazar for the rest of -the night. Quong Ho was young. Quong Ho had looked -upon a daughter of men and found her fair. In his Chinese -self-repressing way he had had his romance. Now it was over. -He pitied Quong Ho. Yet, after a year or so of probation, the -young man, lusty in his youth and confident in his future, -would return to his native land heart-whole, with all the -romance of life still before him—whilst he, Baltazar, would -re-enter a world from which all such things were blotted out -for ever. For what of romance could lie before a man of fifty—one -who had lost all touch with women and women’s ways? -For the first time a fear of loneliness sent a shiver through him. -It was not natural for a man to have neither wife nor child. -It was but half an existence; a deliberate spurning of duties -and glories and fulfilled achievement. And his own one romance? -Had he been justified in destroying its gossamer web? -It was all very long ago; but the beauty of it lingered exquisite -in his heart. Had he been a mere fool? Were the results to -him and to her worth the sacrifice? And, after all, was he -sure that the results to her had been beneficial rather than -disastrous? He sighed, consoled himself with the reflections -that she must now have around her a family of sons and daughters, -and that if ever she gave him a thought, it was to bless -Heaven for her narrow escape; and, so fortified, he went on -with his work.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he awoke the next morning, the chastened retrospective -mood had passed. After his tea and cold tub, he sat -down to the table by the eastern window through which the -morning sun was streaming, setting the gorse ablaze and the -heather blood-red, and attacked the final chapter of his epoch-making -Treatise on the Theory of Groups. The thrill of a -great thing accomplished held him as he wrote. Such moments -were worth living. He breakfasted with the appetite -of a man who had earned a right to the material blessings of -life. He went out, groomed the old grey mare and cleaned -out the stable and dug up a patch of ground, rejoicing, like a -young man, in his strength and in the fresh beauty of the day. -On his return to his study he reviewed affectionately the -monuments of two years’ labour. The Treatise of the Theory -of Groups, all but complete, lay in one neat pile of manuscript. -Another represented further serious adventures into the Analytical -Geometry of a Four-Dimensional Space than mortal man -had ever undertaken. Who could tell whither those adventures -could lead? Pure mathematics had demonstrated the -existence of the planet Neptune in space of three dimensions. -Pure mathematics applied to four dimensions might prove and -explain many transcendental phenomena. The next world -might be four-dimensional and the spirits of the dead who -inhabit it could easily enter confined three-dimensional space. -That was Cayley’s ingenious theory of Ghosts. You could -carry it further to space of five, six, <span class='it'>n</span> dimensions; when you -could treat the geometry of space of infinite dimensions as -Euclid did the geometry of plane surfaces, you would have -solved the riddle of the universe; you would have come direct -to the Godhead. He turned lovingly over the leaves of the -completed portion of this fascinating essay; also the neighbouring -piles of rough notes, the results of laborious years in China. -Another section of the long deal table was devoted to his translations -and editions of the Chinese classics and to ancient -Chinese MSS. and books, his originals and authorities. The -final scholarly translation into English of the great book of -the Tao-tze—The Book of Rewards and Punishments—so -full of deep wisdom, artlessness and charm, rose in three-part -completion. It would knock dear old Stanislas Julien’s -French version of 1835 into a cocked hat. He had collated -libraries undreamed of by Julien or by any subsequent scholar. -It would make all the missionaries and consuls and other -amateur sinologists wish they had never been born. . . . -Then again were the Shih-King—the Psalms of ancient China, -resonant with music, bewildering with imagery, vibrating -with emotion, hitherto done into English—<span class='it'>done in</span> into -English—he chuckled as the mild jest occurred to him—by -a worthy, prosaic and very learned missionary, much out of -sympathy with ancient China because it had never heard of -Jesus Christ before He was born—there were the Shih-King -in process of reverent and, as far as his power lay, of poetic -translation. He took down from his shelves the volume containing -the solemnly authoritative English text published by the -Oxford University Press, and opened it at random. He read:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>The angry terrors of compassionate Heaven extend through -this lower world.</span> (<span class='it'>The King’s</span>) <span class='it'>counsels and plans are crooked -and bad; when will he stop</span> (<span class='it'>in his course</span>)<span class='it'>? Counsels that are -good he will not follow. And those that are not good he employs. -When I look at his counsels and plans, I am greatly pained.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed out loud, shut the book and returned it to the -shelf.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“ ‘I am greatly pained’! Oh, my Lord!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He searched his manuscript for his own version, and read -it through with a satisfaction not devoid of smugness. A -professional poet might have found, like the Chinese writer, -the inevitable word, the sacred flash; but, after all, he had -made the thing deadened by the learned Oxford professor live -again; he had suggested some of the music and the grace of -the original—enough to attract and not to repel the ordinary -English reader. And with all that, he would like to -see any man, Chinese or European, pick a hole in his scholarship.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He lit his pipe, and before settling down to work again surveyed -the great mass of his achievement. Life was truly -worth living, when, during its brief span, such great things -could be done. With a short interval for luncheon, he worked -steadily on through the day, sacrificing his accustomed spell -of outdoor exercise, and when Quong Ho, who had changed -his nondescript European working kit for the cool, immaculate -Chinese dress, announced that dinner would be ready in a -quarter of an hour, he had all but written Finis to his Treatise -on the Theory of Groups.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lord!” said he, “I must wash and get a mouthful of fresh -air.” He whistled to the dog, Brutus, who had lain at his -feet most of the afternoon, and went off. When he got outside, -he discovered, to his surprise, for he had sat in front of -a window all the time, that a white mist had gathered on the -moorland and that his horizon as he stood on his doorstep was -scarcely bounded by his rude granite wall. The fog covered -him in like a cupola. He patted the Airedale’s head and -smiled, well content in this increased security of his isolation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We might, be the last living beings on the face of the globe,” -said he to Quong Ho, who came to announce dinner.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, sir,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar shot a humorous glance at him: “The idea doesn’t -seem to provoke you to radiant enthusiasm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I fail to see, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “who, in that hypothetical -case, would benefit by your illuminating editions of -the Chinese classics, and what advantage it would be to me -to continue the severe study of Elliptic Functions.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid you’re a dismal utilitarian,” said his master, -passing by him into the house. “Yet I suppose you’re right,” -he added a few moments afterwards, as he sat down to table -and unfolded his napkin. “If we were the only two people -left in the world, we’d very soon chuck our intellectual pursuits. -I don’t think I care a damn for the things themselves. As -far as I am solely and personally concerned, this excellent bit -of grilled salmon is infinitely more vital than the discovery of -any mathematical truth. The latter has only value as it -relates to the progress of humanity. If there is no humanity, -it is valueless. It won’t help me on worth a cent. But the -salmon, a typical edible, is essential to the physical existence -of ME. So I should let Chinese philosophy and the Higher -Mathematics go hang, and confine myself to the chase of -salmon or rabbits or roots or acorns—and so would you—and -in a very few years we should be hairy, long-nailed savages, -flying at each other’s throats for the last succulent bit of -Brutus.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dog, hearing his name, rested his long chin against his -master’s knee and regarded him with wistful eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, old son,” laughed Baltazar, giving him a morsel of -salmon, “we’re not at that point yet. Make your mind easy. -You and I and Quong Ho will take our work out into the -hurrying markets of the earth and find justification for all -these lonely days. Although we’re temporary recluses, we’re -valuable citizens of the world. We deserve more salmon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho presented the dish, and Baltazar and Brutus got -their deserts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently Quong Ho brought in lamb cutlets with fresh peas -from the garden, which Baltazar attacked with relish.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, “you’re a wonder. Is there -anything you can’t do?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The young man smiled bland recognition of the compliment, -but said nothing. As Baltazar’s body-servant he refrained -from familiar conversation. But Baltazar was in an expansive -mood. He went on:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You cook for me enchantingly. You serve me perfectly. -Your attitude, Quong Ho, is one of the most exquisite tact. -But if we were the last two persons on the earth, you would -see me damned before you would devote yourself to my personal -comfort in this unrestricted manner.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think not,” replied Quong Ho. “The truths of religion -would not be affected by the annihilation of the human race. -To you, who are to me <span class='it'>in loco parenti</span>——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Parentis</span>, my dear fellow. It’s Latin. Make a note of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do so, mentally,” said Quong Ho. “To you, sir, who are -to me in the place of a parent, I owe filial obligation, and -therefore I should not see you damned before I administered -to your wants.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rubbish!” said Baltazar, with a wave of his hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I speak the truth,” said Quong Ho gravely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar did not reply, but devoted himself to the cutlets -and peas.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho performed the sacred rite of the offering of wine. -The meal was concluded in its nice formality of conventional -life, and after coffee Baltazar lit his pipe and sat down to his -usual hour’s mental relaxation. But his mind wandered from -<span class='it'>The Caxtons</span>, which he had taken down from the shelves, to -Quong Ho’s quiet profession of loyalty. For all his intimate -knowledge of the Chinese character, this perhaps was the first -time that he realized the depth of the young man’s real affection. -And suddenly it occurred to him that he also was greatly -attached to Quong Ho; not only through habit, or implicit -trust, or gratitude for essential co-operation in carrying out -his eccentric scheme of life; but by ties very simple and homely. -Bacon, speaking of man, says: “If he have not a friend, he -may quit the stage.” Baltazar glowed with the thought that -he could still act his part as a human being. He had his friend. -Indeed, he had had one for all these months, and even years, -without knowing it. The loneliness of soul which he had -accepted as his portion from the time of his flight from Cambridge, -and for the last day or two he had begun to dread, was -filled by the incongruous sympathy of the young Chinaman. -Hitherto he had accepted his fidelity as a matter of course; -he had rewarded it by scrupulous observance of his obligations. -But it had been his good pleasure to regard his disciple as a -human and intellectual toy, all the more delectable for his -lack of the humorous sense. To pull well-known strings and -elicit platitudes expressed in the solemnity of his classically -learned English had been his mischievous delight. But—“I -speak the truth,” Quong Ho had said; and the accent in which -he had said it was one of grave conviction, even of rebuke.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took up his book again and almost immediately let it -drop.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I lost Quong Ho, what the devil would become of me?” -He threw the book on to the floor and leaned back in his arm-chair, -pipe in mouth, his hands clasped behind his head. In -the whole wide world of hundreds of millions of people, he had -not a single friend, save Quong Ho. He had been very dense -not to realize before the elementary truth that individual life -is not supportable by itself. Newton’s Third Law of Motion—<span class='it'>to -every action there is always opposed an equal reaction</span>—was -a law of life. The incessant reaction on the individual -would be death. One other nature at least was needed for -the distribution and application of vital forces, and in their -mutual action and reaction could alone be found the compensation -that was safety, sanity, normal human existence. And -the more attuned were the part of the reciprocal human machine, -the greater the compensation; this human adjustment -had its degrees: understanding, friendship, affection, culminating -in love—the perfect state.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Quong Ho appeared, books and papers as usual under -his arm, Baltazar waved an inviting arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Take a chair, Quong Ho, and let us talk. Elliptic Functions -are too inhuman for me to-night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho put his burden down on the table and brought -up a straight-backed, rush-bottomed chair, and sat down -stiffly, facing his master, who took up his parable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve been thinking of what you said at dinner. You -touched on a spiritual aspect of the hypothetical emotion we -were discussing which did not occur to me. What made you -do it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” replied Quong Ho, “if you will permit me to speak -my thoughts, I cannot separate life into two watertight departments——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Com</span>partments,” murmured Baltazar, through force of -habit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho bowed. “I recollect. To resume. I cannot -separate life into two watertight compartments—the material -and the spiritual. It appears to me to be the subtle interfusion, -the solemnization of holy matrimony, between the -two.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One of the charms, my son, of your conversation,” laughed -Baltazar, “is its unexpected allusiveness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho rose and made a deep bow. “You have called me, -sir, by a term which overwhelms me with filial gratitude.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, who had used the word deliberately, held out -his hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I believe,” said he in Chinese, “in your profession of a -son’s affection, and therefore I admit you to the position. -After a year or so our lives will materially be separated, but -spiritually they will run the same course.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is the happiest and most fortunate day of my life,” -said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Without going into superlatives,” replied Baltazar in English, -“I may reciprocate the sentiment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They talked on, developing the idea of wedding of the -material and the spiritual, branching off into fascinating -side-tracks, as men of alert intelligence delight to do in conversation, -and coming back now and then with the flash of -unexpectedness to the main issue. They touched on the -hermits of Thebaïd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Their outlook,” said Baltazar, “was exclusively spiritual, -fundamentally selfish. They were out to save their own silly, -unimportant souls from hell-fire, and nothing else mattered. -Egotism raised to infinity. Our retirement has nothing at all -in common with theirs.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” said Quong Ho, “since we are speaking very seriously, -may I, without indiscretion, ask you whether you too -are not out to save your soul?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rose from his chair and strode up and down the -long room, casting at Quong Ho a swift glance from beneath -frowning brows every time he passed him. At last he halted -and said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s so. The history of my inner life has been an attempt -to save my soul. But there’s a hell of a lot of difference between -me and St. Simeon Stylites. That was a kind of ass who -sat for years on the top of a pillar and never did a hand’s turn -for anybody. All he thought of was his escape from hell. -Now I, as far as my soul is concerned, don’t care a damn -whether it’s going to hell or heaven. My object in saving it -is to be of use to my fellow-creatures.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, who had risen when his master rose, said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All that is clear to me. I too am here for the same purpose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You?” cried Baltazar. “What’s wrong with you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want to eradicate from my mind the soul-destroying associations -of the daughter of the gardener Fung Yu.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Baltazar laughed aloud and clapped the young Chinaman -on the shoulder, an unprecedented act of hearty familiarity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My son,” said he, “this is a discipline that will bring us -both, me old, you young, to the greater wisdom. In the meanwhile, -it’s a happy discipline, isn’t it? We’ve got all that -mortal man—under discipline, mark you—all that mortal man -can want. Spiritually, we have the sacred relations of father -and son. Intellectually, we are equals and”—he threw an -arm around the room—“we have the learning of the world -at our command. Materially—what more can we desire?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked fondly around the long, low-ceilinged room, -brilliantly illuminated by four petroleum lamps and half a -dozen candles, and dwelt upon its homely, scholarly comfort; -the Turkey carpets; the easeful chairs and sofa; the exquisite -and priceless rolls of Chinese paintings between the bookcases; -the bookcases filled, some with the old-world books of Europe, -others with the literature of China, printed volumes, manuscripts -beyond money value; the long table piled with the -inestimable results of human intellect; the warm bronze curtains, -before each of the four windows; the dear and familiar -form of the very dog, Brutus, stretched out asleep in front of -the great chimney-piece. And the silence was that of the -most exclusive and the most untroubled corner of Paradise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a Heaven-sent thing is Peace,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that moment the silence was disturbed by a strange and -unknown sound. Baltazar and Quong Ho started and looked -questioningly at each other. It seemed like the distant beating -of almighty wings. They held their breath. No, it was like -the sweeping thunder of an express train. But what should -express trains be doing on the moorland? With common -impulse they rose and went out of doors into the thick mist. -Then the thundering, clattering rush broke vibrant on their -ears. It was in the air around, above them. John Baltazar -put his hand to a bewildered head. What unheard-of convulsion -of nature was this? Then suddenly he had a second’s -consciousness of bursting flame and overwhelming crash, and -the blackness of death submerged his senses.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='82' id='Page_82'></span><h1>CHAPTER VII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>W</span><span class='sc'>HEN</span> he recovered consciousness it was but to awake -to an incomprehensible dream condition. Of his -whereabouts he had no notion. An attempt to move -caused him such hideous pain in his head as almost to render -him again unconscious. His limbs, too, seemed under the -control of dream paralysis. He lay for a while co-ordinating -his faculties, until he arrived at the definite conviction that he -was awake. His eyes rested on ashlars of granite which, as he -lay on his left side, continued in a long line; also, cast downwards, -they rested on rough grass. Gradually he realized that -he was in the open air, that the stones were part of his wall. -What he was doing there he could not tell. He felt sick and -faint. By an effort of will he moved a leg. The movement -revealed unaccustomed stiffness of limb: it also reawakened -the torture of his head. Again he stayed motionless. Yes, it -was daylight. It was sunlight; some twenty feet further down -the wall cast a shadow. Presently over his recovering senses -stole an abominable stench. He sniffed, jerking his head to -its intolerable agony. Cautiously he lifted his right hand to -the seat of pain. His fingers dabbled in something like thick -glue. Bringing them down before his eyes, he saw they were -covered with coagulated blood. He felt again, and realized, -in stupid amazement, that his hair was stuck to a stone. The -first thing to be done was to liberate himself. He remembered -afterwards that he said: “Let us concentrate on this: nothing -else for the moment matters.” He concentrated, and at -last, after infinite suffering that made him cry aloud, he freed -his hair from its glutinous imprisonment and, spent with the -effort, rolled over on the flat of his back and gazed upwards -into the blue sky. A faint breeze swept over him. But the -breeze was laden with the same abominable stench.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as he could gather sufficient physical energy he rose -to a sitting posture, supporting himself on his hands, and -gazed spellbound and stupefied on a scene of unimaginable -disaster. Where once stretched the familiar long-lying homestead, -there was nothing but an inchoate mass of stones, from -the midst of which eddied and swirled columns of black smoke. -And the wind blew the smoke towards him. Looking down, -he found himself begrimed by it. He sat forward, staring, and, -secure of balance, withdrew his hands and put them up to his -brow, seeking a clue to the mystery. Memory, stage after -stage, returned. He had been sitting at night with Quong Ho. -They had heard a strange noise. They had gone out to discover -what it was. Then——? What had happened then? -Just a terror of Hell opening—and nothingness. Yes, he -remembered. It was dense mist when they went out. Now -it was clear, beautifully clear. The sun was shining; but it -was low on the horizon; so it must be early morning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What could have happened? A thunderstorm? The place -struck by lightning? He gripped his temples. He had never -heard of a thunderstorm in a dense fog. Besides, thunder -never occurred in the long, continuous, rhythmical acceleration -of volume of sound. Yet what else but thunder and -lightning could account for the blasted homestead that reeked -before his eyes?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked around. The stone enclosure was strewn with -unspeakable wreckage; great blocks of masonry, unrecognizable -shafts of timber, bits of twisted iron railing, ashes, charred -wood. . . . He rose dizzily to his feet. His head was one -agony. He felt something wet on his neck, and realized that -the wound evidently caused by the concussion of his head -against a stone, had begun to bleed afresh. Before he could -tie around his brows the handkerchief which he mechanically -drew out, he saw, close by, the dead body of the dog Brutus, -and he returned the handkerchief to his pocket. The dog -seemed to have been killed outright by a great piece of granite -that had been hurled upon him. Then for the first time his -mind grew quite clear. The unknown convulsion had dealt -not only destruction but death. Where was Quong Ho?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He started forthwith on an agonized search. They had been -standing together a few paces away from the front door. -Thither he went, but could find no trace of him among the -wreckage. From the roofless enclosure of granite and through -the windows poured black volumes of smoke. It was useless, -even impossible, to look inside. Baltazar called out loudly -the Chinaman’s name, as he made a circuit of the devastated -house, only to find fresh evidences of complete catastrophe. -Here and there lay fragments of iron, unfamiliar to him, which -in his anxiety for Quong Ho’s safety he did not speculate on -or examine. He nearly tripped over something by the burned-down -stable. Looking down, to his sickening horror, he found -it to be the head of the old grey mare. He went on. No sign -of Quong Ho. In the little enclosed grass patch, now foul with -rubbish, the very goats lay dead, mostly dismembered. He -stared at them stupidly. A sudden shrill noise caused him to -jump aside in terror. A second later he realized that it came -from a solitary cockerel, strutting about in the sunshine, the -sole survivor of the poultry-run, cynically proclaiming his -lust of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wherever he turned was ruin utter and final. But where -was Quong Ho? Had he not, after all, remained outside, but -re-entered the house? If so—he shuddered. Creeping back, -he peered through the windows on the windward side, as long -as the smart in his eyes would allow him. There was nothing -there but fragments of stone and smouldering, indistinguishable -ash that mounted nearly to the sill. Whatever had been -the cause, the dry thatch had been set alight—the roof had -fallen in, and nothing of the interior remained save a few -charred books on the upper shelves of blackened and crazily -precarious sections of bookcase. He strode away, came to -the front of the house again, and continued his search there, -with horror in his soul. The front door had been blown out. -On his first inspection he had passed it by. Now he stood -wondering at the supernatural explosion that could have burst -it from its hinges and thrown its great oaken weight bodily -forth; and, looking at it, suddenly became conscious of a foot, -shod in a Chinese shoe, protruding from beneath it. He bent -down swiftly and touched the foot. Shouted “Quong Ho!” -But there was no reply. He rose, remained for a moment with -the horror of the old mare’s head, and other things he had -seen in the goats’ enclosure, racking his nerves. Then he -braced himself, bent and lifted the door, and under it lay the -body of Quong Ho. To lever the heavy mass and set it upright -without treading on the motionless man, taxed all his strength. -At last he got a footing on the further side of Quong Ho, which -enabled him to set the door on edge, and a push sent it clattering -clear. Then he saw that the corner had rested on a stone -by Quong Ho’s head and so had not crushed his face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He bent down, made a rapid examination; then sank back -on his heels, and thanked God that Quong Ho was still alive. -There was a wound on his head, somewhat like his own, which -until then he had all but forgotten. As far as he could make -out the leg was broken in one or two places. Possibly ribs. -He did not know. He took off his grey flannel jacket, the -back of which was drenched in blood, and, rolling it up, put it -beneath Quong Ho’s head. The obvious thing to do next was -to fetch water, bandages, stimulant—there was a medicine-chest -and brandy in the house. After a few impulsive strides -he stopped short. There were no bandages, no brandy. What -remained of them lay in the burning filth within the house -walls. But water? He prayed God there might be some in -the scullery. He found the pump that worked the well broken, -but the blessed stream ran from the tap, showing that there -was still some reserve in the fortunately undamaged cistern. -As best he might he cleaned out and filled a pail; found an -unbroken yellow bowl, and took them out to where Quong Ho -lay. He went back to search for linen or rag; but in that welter -of destruction he could find nothing. His own handkerchief -was absurdly inadequate. Luckily, the day before being warm, -he had changed before lunch into a thin undervest and a linen -shirt. The latter he removed and tore into strips, and so he -bathed and bandaged Quong Ho’s head. He also ripped up -the man’s trousers and cut shoes and socks from the swollen -feet, and with the remainder of the shirt made compresses. -And all the time Quong Ho showed no sign of returning consciousness. -Evidently he was suffering from severe concussion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was only when he had finished his rough dressings that -the ghastliness of his isolation smote him. He must leave -Quong Ho there alone, uncared for, and go across the moor in -search of help. Suppose his own leg had been broken. The -sweat stood on his forehead. They would have lain there and -starved to death, like stricken animals in a wilderness. Meanwhile -the sun was rising higher in the sky and was beating -down upon Quong Ho. With a mighty effort he raised him in -his arms and staggered with him to the other side of the house, -where there would be shade for some hours: where, too, the -evil smoke could not eddy over him. Placing the jacket again -beneath his head and the bowl filled with fresh water by his -side, on the off chance of his recovering consciousness, he left -the scene of desolation and horror.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>About a mile away he realized that he had not tended his -own wounded head, which, without any covering from the sun, -was throbbing in exquisite agony. His handkerchief he had -left with the remainder of the shirt. He also realized that he -was bare-armed, clad only in the summer undervest and flannel -trousers and the light gym shoes in which he used to fence. -He reeked all over, hands and arms and body, with soot and -blood. All this soon passed from his mind. Things whirred -in his brain, so that he feared lest he were growing lightheaded. -Also, although he had drunk a little water before starting, he -began to be tormented with a burning thirst. He lost sense of -the vastness of the calamity that had befallen him, lost the -power, too, of speculating on its cause. All his mind was concentrated -on battling against tortured nerves and reeling brain, -in order to achieve one object. He kept on repeating to himself -what he should say to the first human being he should -meet; fortified himself with the reflection: “Three miles to -the road; three-quarters of an hour.” But only having traversed -the barely distinguishable track thrice before, once when -he made the return journey from Water-End to view the hermitage, -and on the other occasion when he drove thither to -take up residence, he missed it and strayed diagonally across -the moor. At last, after a couple of hours wandering, he -reached a ditch beyond which stretched the dazzling white -ribbon of road. He fell into the ditch like a drunken man, -managed to clamber out and, on the further side, stumbled -and lay exhausted, unable to move. After a few minutes he -staggered to his feet, and swayed down the road, which was -as lonely as the moorland.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly he became aware of a difference; of trees and -laurels and verdure on his left; and in the midst of them stood -a couple of tall granite pillars with a gateway between. It was -a house. He had won through. Inside was human aid. He -made his way to the gate and clutched the top bar to steady -himself and looked down a well-ordered drive. As he looked -a man appeared from a side path, who, after regarding the -haggard apparition grotesquely clad, covered with grime and -blood, for a few gasping seconds, rushed up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hello! Hello! What’s the matter? Why—I’m jiggered! -It’s Mr. Baltazar!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar swept a hand towards the moor, and said hoarsely:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My Chinese friend is over there, dying. There’s been an -accident. Explosion or something. He’s dying. You must -send men and doctors at once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good Lord!” cried the man. “Of course I will. Come -inside and tell me all about it. You don’t mean to say those -bombs got you? You look in a damn fine old mess too.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened the gate, clasped Baltazar round the waist, and -supported him down the drive. Soon an old gardener came -up and lent a hand, and between them they carried the half-fainting -Baltazar into the house and laid him on a couch in -the dining-room. The host poured out a stiff brandy and soda.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here, drink this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cool bubbling liquid was a draught of Paradise to Baltazar’s -parched throat. The unaccustomed stimulant, after -a few moments, had its bracing effect.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, what’s it all about? You remember me, don’t you? -Pillivant’s my name. Came to call about eighteen months -ago, and you turned me down. Anyhow that’s forgotten. I -don’t bear malice, especially when a chap seems down and -out. What can I do for you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar said: “There was an explosion last night. It -knocked me out. I woke up this morning to find my house -burned to the ground. My Chinese friend is there unconscious, -with concussion of the brain and broken legs. I had to come -for assistance. You must send at once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right,” said Pillivant. “You stay there. I’ll do some -telephoning. Meanwhile I’ll send the wife to look after you. -You want a wash and a change, and a doctor and bed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bed!” cried Baltazar. “I must go back to Quong Ho.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He rose to his feet, as Pillivant left the room, and tottered -after him. But he found himself foolishly lying on the floor. -He said to himself: “He has given me brandy. He’s sending -his wife. She’ll think I’m drunk.” And with a great effort -he re-established himself on the couch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a few minutes Mrs. Pillivant entered. She was a faded, -fair woman in the late thirties, wearing a cloth skirt and tartan -silk low-cut blouse, and a string of pearls around a bony neck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So you’ve been Zepped, I hear,” she said. “No, don’t -get up. Stay where you are. If you haven’t heard it already, -you’ll be glad to know it came down in flames on the moor -about twenty miles away, and all the brutes were burned -alive.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar set his teeth, monstrously striving to get his brain -to work.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brutes? What brutes? What are you talking about? I -don’t understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, the crew of the Zeppelin. Where it came from or -what it was doing about here, we don’t know—we’ll have -to wait until news comes from London. It must have been -badly damaged, and lost its way in the mist. They must have -got rid of their bombs before trying to land, so my husband -says—but before they had time to land the Zeppelin came to -grief. We heard the bombs, but thought they had dropped -on the moor. We’d no idea they had got anybody.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Zeppelin! Zeppelin!” murmured Baltazar. “I seem to -have heard the name——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s pretty familiar, I should think,” said Mrs. Pillivant. -“Don’t you think the best thing to do is to let us put you to -bed, until the doctor comes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The doctor must go to Quong Ho, at once. He’s dying,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I’m sure I don’t know what to do,” said Mrs. Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar closed his eyes. “I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s -the knock on the head, and the long walk on an empty stomach.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’ll get you something to, eat. What would you like?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing,” said Baltazar. “Nothing. A bit of a rest and I -must go back to Quong Ho. He’s the only creature I care -about in the world. He was just alive when I left him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said in a helpless sort of way: “I hope you’re not -seriously hurt?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened his eyes. “No, no. My head’s pretty thick. -But I’m not as young as I was. By the way, you were talking -of a Zeppelin. That’s a German airship, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why—of course——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He raised himself on his elbow, and his eyes flashed beneath -his knit brows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should German airships be dropping bombs on the -moor?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Pillivant regarded him uncomprehendingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve told you. They had to get rid of their bombs before -they landed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what were they carrying bombs for?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wouldn’t worry about that now,” she replied rather -nervously. “I don’t think you realize how very ill you are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not ill—not out of my mind, at any rate. I want to -know. Why should they carry bombs? Wait a bit. I’m all -right now. My mind’s clear. You said the airship came down -in flames and the brutes were killed. Tell me what it means.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Surely you’ve heard of the air raids? Read about them -in the papers?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see no newspapers,” said Baltazar. “Air raids? For -God’s sake tell me what you mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced round to see that access to the door was clear. -His aspect—his shaggy hair clotted with blood and dirt—his -eyes gleaming from a haggard, grimed and bloody face—the -filth of his half-nakedness—alone would have frightened -a timorous woman. And his words were those of a madman. -She giggled hysterically.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you’ve heard there’s a European war on?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat up. “War! What war?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Pillivant fled from the room. Baltazar rose to his -feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>War? War with Germany? Naturally Germany, because -Zeppelins were German airships. A European war, the woman -had said. His glance for the first time fell upon a newspaper -on the dining-room table, open at the middle page. Forgetful -of pain and exhaustion, he strode and seized it—and -the headlines held him spellbound by their bewildering -revelation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Austria, -Bulgaria . . . all Europe at war. The basic facts stood out -in great capital letters.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was staring at the print, absorbed as never had he -been in his life before, when a heavy hand on his shoulder -aroused him. He turned to meet the fat and smiling face of -Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve fixed it all up—doctor, police, ambulance. I’ll take -some in the Rolls-Royce, the doctor the others in his car. We’ll -have the Chink back in no time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The what?” asked Baltazar, with a swift glance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Chink—the Chinaman——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes. My friend, Mr. Quong Ho. If you don’t mind, -I’ll come with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow, that’s impossible. You must go to bed. -It’s no trouble. There are fifteen bedrooms in the house. You -can take your choice. Hasn’t Mrs. Pillivant been in to see -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She did me that honour.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then why the dickens didn’t she have you attended to? -I’ll see about it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was already at the door when Baltazar checked him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Stop. Don’t worry about me. Tell me one thing.” He -smote the open newspaper with the palm of his hand. “How -long has this been going on?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How long has what been going on?” asked Pillivant, -returning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This war.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t quite see what you’re driving at,” said Pillivant, -puzzled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want to know how long this war I’m reading about in the -newspaper has been going on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pillivant regarded him askance out of his little furtive eyes. -He entertained the same suspicion as his wife.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look here, old man,” he said, taking him by the arm, -“that knock on the head’s more serious than you think.” At -the noise of a halting car he glanced out of window. “Ah! -there’s Dr. Rewsby.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never mind the doctor or my head,” cried Baltazar desperately. -“Answer my question. How long have we been at -war with Germany?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, since August, 1914.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the last two years?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you mean to say you’ve been living eight or ten miles -off and never heard of the war?” Pillivant stood bewildered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never heard of it,” Baltazar answered mechanically, -staring past Pillivant at terrifying things.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I’m damned!” said Pillivant, recovering his breath. -“I’m just damned. Here, Doctor”—as a spare, grey-headed -man was shown into the room—“here is a chap who has -never heard of the war.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar stepped forward. “That’s beside the question, -Doctor. All that matters for the moment is my Chinese friend. -I had to leave him at the farm unconscious, with, I should -think, concussion. And his legs are fractured. We must go -at once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Excuse me,” said the doctor, “but that wound in your own -head wants seeing to. Just a matter of cleaning and strapping. -Only five minutes. Please let me have a look at it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can do that afterwards,” said Baltazar. “For God’s -sake let us go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not fit to go. I won’t allow you to,” replied Dr. -Rewsby with suave firmness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said Baltazar, with the hard gleam in his eyes, “I’m going. -It’s my responsibility, not yours. I don’t care what happens -to me. But I swear to God I neither wash nor eat nor drink -until my friend Quong Ho is brought back, alive or dead. -And it’s much better I should go with you than remain here -and frighten your excellent wife, Mr. Pillivant, out of her -wits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a moment’s silence. The grey-haired doctor -glanced at Baltazar out of the corner of a shrewd eye and -diagnosed an adamantine obstinacy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you refuse to take me with you,” Baltazar added, “I’ll -follow you on foot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As you will. But if anything happens—tetanus, blood-poisoning, -collapse—I wash my hands of responsibility. -Mr. Pillivant will bear me out. Let us go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the hall Pillivant took down from the pegs of an alcove -a cap and light overcoat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t mind sticking on these, do you?” he said to -Baltazar. “You’ll need them motoring, and besides, I don’t -mind telling you, you’re not looking exactly like a candidate -for a beauty show.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thank you,” said Baltazar, accepting the proffered raiment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They started. The doctor, Sergeant Doubleday and a -constable, with a stretcher, in one car; Pillivant, Baltazar, -and a chauffeur at the wheel, in the great Rolls-Royce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To carry through this,” said Pillivant, hauling out a thick -gold watch, “in twenty minutes, shows what we English can -do when we set our minds to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Twenty minutes?” said Baltazar. “It has seemed like -three hours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Twenty minutes since I went to the telephone,” Pillivant -asserted triumphantly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cars raced on. For some moments Baltazar, huddled -together in the comfort of the back seat, maintained a brooding -silence, which Pillivant, glaring at him from time to time, -did not care to disturb. There was something uncanny about -this man who had to be bombed nearly to death in order to -hear of the war.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They turned off the road on to the rough track across the -moor along which Quong Ho had so often bumped his way in -the old cart. The weather had been dry and the track was at -its best. But the cars jolted alarmingly and at every quivering -descent from a larger hummock than usual, Pillivant cried -out in fear for the springs of his Rolls-Royce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If it busts up, there’s no earthly chance of getting another.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?” asked Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because there’s a war on, old man. You don’t seem to -understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Baltazar. “You must grant me -your kind indulgence. I can’t immediately realize what is -happening.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They climbed the rise that brought them into view of the -Farm. Pillivant pointed to the smoking ruins.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’ll help you to realize it. That’s what Belgium and -the northern part of France look like.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I have found my friend Quong Ho alive,” said -Baltazar, “I may be able to think of things.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They worked their way, Dr. Rewsby’s lighter car following, -almost to the low enclosing wall, and drew to a halt. Viewed -on the approach, the havoc loomed before Baltazar’s eyes -even more appalling than when he had stood dazed and sick -in the midst of it. The battered granite shell of the house -stood absurdly low, and the rough gaping apertures of door -and windows stared like maimed features hideously human. -The wall of the scullery had been thrown down by the explosion, -and the pump and cistern and a shelf or two of broken -crockery were grimly exposed. He wondered why he had not -noticed this when he went to fetch water for Quong Ho. The -byre by the wrecked stable no longer existed. The white -Wyandotte cockerel, the sole living thing visible, pecked about -the ground in jaunty unconcern.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as they dismounted the party followed Baltazar, -who strode ahead with the air of a man about to denounce a -ghost. At the turn of the ruined house they came in sight -of Quong Ho, lying as Baltazar had left him, the bowl of water -untouched. The sun had gradually encroached upon him, and -now the shadow of the wall cut his body in a long vertical line. -His yellow face looked pinched and ghastly beneath the pink -and white cotton of his bandaged head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s face was almost as ghastly, and horrible fear -dwelt in his eyes. He pointed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There!” he said, and drew the doctor forward and motioned -to the others to remain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Together they bent down over Quong Ho. “If he’s dead,” -Baltazar whispered in a hoarse voice, “it’s I who have murdered -him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s not dead yet,” replied the doctor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank God!” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sergeant Doubleday, surveying the scene of ruin with the -eye of the policeman and the Briton, turned to Mr. Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This sort of thing oughtn’t to be allowed,” said he.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='95' id='Page_95'></span><h1>CHAPTER VIII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>B</span><span class='sc'>ALTAZAR</span> awoke a couple of mornings afterwards to -find that certain vague happenings which he had regarded -as dreams were true. He really lay in a comfortable -bed, in a pleasant room; the soft-voiced woman in -grey, whose ministrations he had been unable to divine, stood -smiling at the foot of his bed, an unmistakable nurse. Conscious -of discomfort, he raised his hand and felt his head swathed -in a close-fitting, scientific bandage. He remembered now that -he had lain there for a considerable time. What he had taken -for outrageous assaults on his brain for the purpose of extracting -the secrets of his mathematical researches, had been the -doctor dressing his wounds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How are you this morning?” asked the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perfectly well, thank you,” said Baltazar. “I should feel -better if you would tell me where I am.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is Mr. Pillivant’s house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pillivant—Pillivant? Oh yes. I’ve got it. It seems as -if I had been off my head for a bit.” The nurse nodded. “I’m -all right now. Let me put things together.” Suddenly he sat -up. “My God! How is Quong Ho?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He is getting on as well as can be expected,” replied the -nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s alive? Quite sure?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite sure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar fell back on the pillow. “The last thing I remember -clearly was their taking him into the Cottage Hospital, -after that infernal jolting across the moor. What happened -then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You collapsed, and they brought you here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What day is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Friday.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good Lord,” said Baltazar, “I’ve been here since midday -Wednesday.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you like a little breakfast?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should like a lot,” declared Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The nurse laughed. The patient was better. She turned to -leave the room, but Baltazar checked her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Before you go just tell me if I’ve got the situation clear. -The European war has been going on for two years. In the -course of a new-fangled kind of warfare the Germans drop -bombs from Zeppelins over England. A Zeppelin dropped -bombs on my house on Tuesday night—to get rid of them—so -Mrs. Pillivant said. You see, everything’s coming back to -me. Afterwards it came down in flames, and all the crew were -burned. Is that right?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perfectly,” said the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now I know more or less where I am,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The nurse fetched his breakfast, which he ate with appetite. -He had barely finished when Dr. Rewsby entered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is capital. Capital,” said he. “Sitting up and taking -nourishment. How’s the pulse?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never mind about me,” said Baltazar, as the doctor took -hold of his wrist. “What about Quong Ho?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor gave a serious report. Fractured skull, severe -concussion. Broken legs. Semi-consciousness, however, had -returned—the hopeful sign. But it would be a ticklish and -tedious business.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you want another opinion, a man from Harley Street, -special nurses, don’t hesitate a second,” said Baltazar. -“Money’s no object.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll bear in mind what you say,” replied the doctor; “but -if his constitution is as sound as yours, he’ll do all right. By all -the rules of the game you ought to be as helpless as he is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s wrong with me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve had half your scalp tom away. How you manage -to be sitting up now, eating eggs, after your lunatic performances -on Wednesday, is more than I can understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar smiled grimly. “I can’t afford the time to fool -about in a state of unconsciousness, when I have two years’ -arrears of European history to make up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never mind European history,” said the doctor. “Let us -see how this head of yours is getting on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dressing completed, he said to Baltazar:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now you’ll lie quiet and not worry about the war, Quong -Ho, or anything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And grow wings and order a halo and work out the quadrature -of the circle and discover the formula for the Deity in -terms of the Ultimate Function of Energy. . . . Man alive!” -he cried impetuously, raising himself on his elbow. “Don’t -you understand? I’ve been dead for years—my own silly, -selfish doing—and now I’ve come to life and found the world -in an incomprehensible mess. If I don’t go out and try to -understand it, I shall go stark, staring mad!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can only order you to stay in bed till I give you permission -to get up,” said the doctor. “Good-bye. I’ll come in -this evening.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as he had gone Baltazar threw off the bedclothes -and sprang to his feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Doctors be hanged!” said he. “I’ve not given in to illness -all my life long, and I’m not going to begin now. Besides, I’m -as fit as ever I was. I’m going to dress.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid you can’t,” said the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You haven’t any clothes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced for a second or two at the unfamiliar green and -purple striped silk pyjamas in which he was clad, and remembered -the undervest and flannel trousers, foul with blood and -grime, in which he had arrived at Water-End.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The devil!” said he, and he stood gasping as a new conception -of himself flashed across his mind. “Except for these -borrowed things, I am even more naked than when I came -into the world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d better go back to bed,” said the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve got to go back to the world,” retorted Baltazar. “As -quick as possible.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can’t do it in pyjamas,” said the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I must ask my host to lend me some clothes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll go down and see him about it,” said the nurse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She went out, leaving Baltazar sitting on the edge of the -bed. Presently entered Pillivant, who burst into heartiness -of greeting. Delighted he was to see him looking so well. -At one time he half expected there was going to be a funeral -in the house. Heard that he wanted some togs. Only too -happy to rig him out. Would pick out all the necessary kit -to-morrow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I want clothes now,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pillivant shook his head. “Must obey doctor’s orders. By -disobeying in the first place I nearly had a cold corpse on my -hands, and if there’s one thing Mrs. Pillivant dislikes more -than another, it’s a corpse. When her old aunt died here, she -went half off her chump. No, no, old man,” he continued, in -soothing tones which exasperated Baltazar, “you be good and -lie doggo to-day, as the doctor says, and to-morrow we’ll see -about getting up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve got the whip-hand of me,” said Baltazar, glowering.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s about it,” grinned Pillivant. “And you’re not -used to not having your own way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose I’m not,” said Baltazar, looking at his host more -kindly. “I don’t know but what you’re right. A little discipline -might be beneficial for me.” He slipped back into the -bed and nodded to the nurse, who settled him comfortably. -“A little contact with other people might restore my manners. -As I’m beholden to you for everything, Mr. Pillivant, I may at -least be civil. As a matter of fact, I’m infinitely grateful, and -I place myself in your hands unreservedly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, that’s all right, old man,” said Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It isn’t all right,” cried Baltazar, realizing, in his self-condemnatory -way, the ungracious attitude he had adopted -from the first towards his host. “I’ve been merely rude. I’m -sorry. I’ve lived in China long enough to know that no personal -catastrophe can excuse lack of courtesy. By obeying -your medical man I see that I shall give least trouble to your -household.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You needn’t talk like a book about it,” said Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve lived with books so long,” replied Baltazar, “that -perhaps I have lost the ways of contemporary Englishmen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pillivant threw him a furtive and suspicious glance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Most books are all damn rot,” he declared.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not the first philosopher that has enunciated that -opinion,” said Baltazar, with a laugh. “Didn’t a character -in one of the old dramatists—I think—say ‘To mind the -inside of a book is to entertain oneself with the forced product -of another man’s brain’? No. It’s the practical men who do -things, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m a practical man myself,” said Pillivant, “and seeing -as how I started as an office-boy at eight shillings a week, I’ve -done a blooming lot of things. Look”—he swung a chair, -and sat down near the bed, and bent confidentially towards -Baltazar—“in July fourteen I was only a little builder and -contractor up at Holloway. When Kitchener in September -called for his million men——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wait!” cried Baltazar, putting his hand up to his forehead. -“In September nineteen fourteen Kitchener called for -a <span class='it'>million men</span>?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, yes, that’s all ancient history. I was telling you—when -the cry went out, I said to myself: a million men will -want accommodation. Temporary buildings. Huts. No end -of timber. I hadn’t a penny in the world. But I did a big bluff -and sold the Government timber which I hadn’t got for twice -the price I knew I could buy it at. In six months I was a rich -man, and I’ve been growing richer and richer ever since. I’ve -got a flat in Park Lane and this house in the country, and I’m -on Munitions, and I have my cars and as much petrol to burn -as I want, and I’m a useful man to the Government, and doing -my bit for the war. And none of your blooming books about -it. Just plain common sense. If I had been worrying my -head about books, I should have lost my chance. Just what -you’ve done. You’ve been burying yourself in books and -haven’t even heard of the war, let alone doing anything for -your country. Books make me tired. To hell with them!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar looked at the puffy, small-eyed man in his clear -way. He disliked him exceedingly. Even with the most -limited knowledge of war conditions, it was evident he had -been exploiting them to his own advantage. But when you -haven’t a rag of your own to your back and are dressed in -another man’s pyjamas, lying in his bed and eating his food, -you must observe the decencies of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose lots of fortunes are being made out of this war.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should think so. Those honestly made, well, the chaps -with brains deserve them. But, at the same time, there’s a lot -of profiteering going on”—Pillivant shook an unctuous head—“which -is a perfect disgrace.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Profiteering—that’s a new word.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll find lots of new words and lots of all sorts of new -things now you’ve waked up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sure I shall,” said Baltazar. “And now, if you’ve half -an hour to spare, I wonder if you would mind telling me something -about the war.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>That day and the next, Baltazar listened to Pillivant, the -nurse and the doctor’s story of the world conflict, and read -everything bearing on the subject with which they could -supply him. Dr. Rewsby, who did not share Pillivant’s disdain -for books, ransacked the little town for war literature. -He bought him white books, pamphlets, back numbers of -magazines and newspapers, maps. . . . What he heard, what -he read, was the common knowledge of every intelligent child, -but to this man of vast intellectual achievement it was staggeringly -new. For those two days he lost sense of time, desire to -move from the bewildering mass of lambent history that grew -in piles by his bedside. The lies, the treacheries, the horrors -that had accumulated on the consciousness of all other men -one by one, burst upon him in one thundering concentration -of hell. The martyrdom of Belgium, the bombardment of -Rheims Cathedral, the sinking of the <span class='it'>Lusitania</span>, the use of -poison gas, the bombing of open towns, the unmasking of the -German Beast in all its lust and shamelessness—stunned -him, so that at times he would put his hands to his head and -cry: “It’s impossible! I can’t believe it.” And whoever was -with him would answer: “It is true. What you read is but -the outside of the devilry the civilized world is out to fight.” -And his scholar’s mind would revolt. What of intellectual -Germany? The mathematicians, the Orientalists, whose names -were to him like household words, to say nothing of those -eminent in sciences outside the sphere of his own studies? -They were worse, the doctor declared, than the brutish peasant -or the brutal operative. A monstrous intellectualism developed -to the disregard of ethical sanction. The doctor -brought him one of the great cartoons of the war, which he -had cut out from some paper and kept, by Norman Lindsay, -the great Australian black and white artist—the “Jekyll and -Hyde” cartoon, representing a typical benevolent elderly -German professor regarding himself in a mirror; and the reflection -was a gorilla in Prussian spiked helmet and uniform, -dripping with blood. And then Baltazar’s blood curdled in -his veins as he realized the truth of the picture. All the mighty -intellectualism of Germany was but an instrument of its gorilla -animalism. It was an overwhelming revelation: the almost -mesmeric dominance of Prussia over the other Teutonic States -of Germany and Austria, reducing them to Prussia’s own -atrophied civilization; that atrophied civilization itself, till -now unanalysed, but now a byword of history, the development, -on abnormal intellectual lines, of the ruthless barbarism -of a non-European race. Strange that he had not thought of -it before. Had anything good, any poem, picture, song, music, -statue, dream building, sweet philosophy, ever come out of -Prussia? Never. Not one. Her children were “fire and sword, -red ruin and the breaking-up of laws.” And now the rest of -the Germanic Empire had lost its soul. Prussia extended from -the Baltic to the Danube. The whole of Central Europe was -one vast cesspool, in which all things good were cast to deliquesce -in putrefaction, while over it floated supreme the livid -miasma of Prussianism.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In some sort of figurative conception as this did his brain -realize the psychological meaning of the forces against which -the civilized world was struggling. But there was the other -side of the world’s embattled hosts, whose tremendous energies -baffled his mental grasp. England’s Navy—yes. He had -been born and bred in the belief of its invincibility. But the -British Army? A glorious army, of course; a blaze of honour -from Cressy upwards; a sure shield and buckler in the far-flung -posts of Empire; but a thing necessarily apart from the -vast military systems of the Continent of Europe. And now -he learned, to his stupefaction, that the British Empire, calling -up all her sons from within those same far-flung posts, had -made itself, within two years, one of the three greatest military -powers in the world. The casualties alone exceeded the -total strength of the original British Army serving with the -colours. The Army now was an organization of millions. -Where had they come from? His three interpreters of the -outer world gave him information according to their respective -lights. All the early gathering of the hosts had been voluntary -enlistments. The armies springing up at Lord Kitchener’s -call had been labelled numerically by his magic name. Only -recently had we been driven to conscription. And Kitchener -himself—the only great soldier of whom he had ever heard? -Drowned in the <span class='it'>Hampshire</span> last June. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then again the revolution in national life—the paper -currency, the darkened streets of towns, the licensing laws—further -excited his throbbing curiosity. He remembered -with a spasm almost of remorse the few signs and tokens of -war which had reached him and passed unheeded; the National -Registration, which he had resented as a bureaucratic impertinence; -the mad taxation of income which he had regarded -as evidence of England’s decay. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Has ever man been such a fool as I, since the world began?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The hard-headed doctor to whom this rhetorical question -was addressed, replied:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can’t recall an instance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When driven to contemplation of his own isolation, he reflected -that all the time there had been a living link between -himself and this upheaved world. Every week, rain or fine, -through snow or dust, Quong Ho had visited the little town.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When did the news of the war become general in Water-End?” -he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had to put the question in two or three different forms -before his puzzled informants could perceive its drift, for they -could not conceive it being the question of an intelligent man. -He could not yet realize the electric shock that convulsed the -land from end to end on the declaration of war. He could not -gauge the immediate disruption of social life throughout the -country. The calling up of reservists, the mobilization of the -Territorial forces alone affected instantly every community, -no matter how remote from centres of industry. The queer -straits to which every community was reduced, owing to the -closing of the banks during that fateful August week, had -also brought the reality of the war home to every individual. -Then the issue of Treasury notes. The recruiting. From the -very first day of the war, Water-End, they told him, was as -much agog with it all as London itself. From the beginning -the town had been plastered with patriotic posters. The -mayor for the first months had exhibited the latest telegrams -outside the town hall. There had been a camp of Territorials -some few miles away and the High Street had reeked of war. -Government war notices met the least observant eye in post -office, bank and railway station.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If what you say is true,” said Baltazar, “how could Quong -Ho have come here every week and failed to understand what -was going on? Not only is he a master of English, but he’s a -man of acute intellect.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That,” replied the doctor, “you must ask Quong Ho when -his intellect has recovered from its present eclipse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But the fellow must have known all along,” Baltazar persisted. -“Come now,”—he sat up in bed impulsively—“he -must, mustn’t he?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should have thought that a negro from Central Africa, -who only spoke Central African, would have guessed,” replied -the doctor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then why the devil didn’t he tell me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid I must refer you to my previous answer,” said -the doctor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It strikes me that I’m a bigger fool than ever,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A smile flitted over the grey-haired doctor’s shrewd thin -face. He did not controvert the proposition.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s also borne in upon me,” continued Baltazar, “that -I’ll have to scrap everything I’ve ever learned—and I’ve -learned a hell of a lot—I’m an original mathematician, and -I think I know more about Chinese language and literature -than any man living. Oh! I’m not modest. I know exactly -what my attainments are. As I say, I’ve learned a hell of a -lot, and I’ll have to scrap it all and just sit down and begin -to learn the elementary things of existence, from the very -beginning, all over again, like a schoolboy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hear, hear!” said Pillivant, blatantly golf-accoutred, who -had entered by the open door at the opening of Baltazar’s -avowal. “Now you’re talking sense. I’m glad to see you -realize how sinfully you’ve been wasting your time. Chinese! -What’s the good of Chinese? They’ve got to learn our language, -not we theirs. I know. I went out to Hong Kong as -a young man for five months on a building job. Every man-Jack -talks pidgin-English. That’s good enough to get along -with. Do you mean to say you’ve been spending your life -learning Chinese? Of all the rotten things——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m aware, Mr. Pillivant,” said Baltazar, with a grimace -intended, for a smile, which on his haggard face and beneath -his bandaged head had a somewhat sinister aspect, “I’m -aware that in your eyes I must appear rather a contemptible -personage.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, not at all, old man,” cried Pillivant. “Everyone to his -hobby. After all it’s a free country. Have a cigar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He produced the portable gold casket. The doctor caught -a swift glance from his patient and checked the generous offer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet, Pillivant. A cigarette or two is all I can allow -him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pillivant selected and lit a cigar. There was a span of -silence. He looked out of the window. Presently he began to -praise the local golf-course, some mile or so distant. A natural -course, with natural bunkers. The greens artificial—every -sod brought from miles. Now the infernal Government had -taken away their men. Not a soul in the place who understood -anything about turf. Consequently the greens were going -to the devil. It was an infernal shame to let golf-greens go to -the devil. Goff was a national institution, necessary to maintain -tired war-workers, like himself, in a state of national -efficiency. But what could one expect from the rotten lot -who constituted the so-called Government? Anyhow, you -could still get some sort of a game. Baltazar must come round -with him as soon as he could get about.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve never played golf in my life,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never played——? Why, you seem to be out of everything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently he swaggered out at the end of his monstrous -cigar. Baltazar turned a weary head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Doctor,” said he, “would they hang me very high if I -slew my benefactor?”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as sticking-plaster replaced the head bandage, the -most impatient of men insisted on rising and going out into -the world, clad in a borrowed suit of the detested Pillivant. -His first care was to visit the Cottage Hospital, where Quong -Ho, semi-conscious, still hung between life and death. Yielding -to Baltazar’s insistence, Dr. Rewsby had summoned in -consultation the leading surgeon of the nearest town, the great -cathedral city. From the point of view of the Faculty nothing -could be simpler than Quong Ho’s injuries. To bring a -specialist from London would be a wicked waste of invaluable -lime. All that science could do was being done. The rest -must be left to Nature. Baltazar was disappointed. Having -an exile’s faith in the wonders of modern surgery, he had -thought that a few hundreds of pounds would have brought -down a magician of a fellow from Harley Street with gleaming -steel instruments, who could have mended Quong Ho’s head -in a few miraculous seconds. The ironical smile on the lips -of Rewsby, for whom he had conceived respect and liking, -convinced him of extravagant imaginings. He professed -satisfaction, although sorely troubled by his queerly working -conscience. Outside the ward, he grabbed Dr. Rewsby by the -arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look here, Doctor,” said he. “I want you to understand -my position. I must pay some penalty for my egotistical folly -in bringing Quong Ho to this infernal place. Oh, I know,” -he added quickly, checking with a gesture the doctor’s obvious -remonstrance; “I know it might have happened anywhere. -But nowhere else than in that desert island of a farm would I -have had to leave him alone for hours on the bare ground, -without medical assistance. It’s my fault. I must pay for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve paid for it, my good friend,” said Dr. Rewsby, -“by your anxiety, by your—apparently—by your remorse. -You’ve done everything that a human being could do in the -circumstances.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But don’t you see, I brought the poor fellow to this through -my selfish folly. You must let me pay for it in some way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said the doctor, a practical man, with the interests of his -little struggling hospital at heart: “It’s open to you to give a -donation to the Cottage Hospital.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right,” said Baltazar, flinging out an arm. “If he gets -through there’s a thousand pounds for the hospital.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good. And if he doesn’t?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar drew a short breath, glanced down and askance -beneath his shaggy brown eyebrows, and set a heavy, obstinate -jaw. Then suddenly he flashed upon the doctor:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If he dies you won’t get a penny from me. But I’ll give -every cent I have in the world to the General Fund of the -hospitals of the United Kingdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you really mean that, Mr. Baltazar?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mean it? Of course I mean it. I’ve done all kinds of -rotten things in my life, but I’ve never broken my word. By -George! I haven’t. If Quong Ho dies, the world will be the -poorer, not only by a loyal soul, but by one of the most powerful -mathematical intellects it has ever seen. And it’s I”—he -thumped his chest—“I, who have robbed the world of him. -And it’s I who must pay the penalty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pardon my impertinence,” said Dr. Rewsby, drawing on -his motoring gloves, as a sign of ending the interview; “but -have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant -principles?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t quite understand——” replied Baltazar, stiffening.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If Mr. Quong Ho dies—and I’m glad to say the probability -is against his doing so—but if he does, you vow, as an -act of penance, that you’ll reduce yourself to a state of poverty -and walk out into the world without one penny. Is that right?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perfectly,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, as a medical man, with a hobby, a special interest -in—let us say—psychology, I’ve been indiscreet enough to -wonder whether this is the first time you’ve made such a Quixotic -vow. In fact, now I come to think of it, you made a similar -one within two minutes of my first meeting you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar met his eyes. “In fact, you want to know whether -I’m not a bit mad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not at all,” laughed the doctor. “But I have a shrewd -suspicion that the folly you bewail—the eccentric hermit life -on the moor—was the result of some such rashly taken -obligation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Suppose it was,” said Baltazar; “what then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should say you were cultivating a very bad habit, and -I should advise you to give it up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He smiled, waved a friendly hand, and ran down the steps -to his car. Baltazar watched him crank-up, slip to the wheel, -and depart, without saying a word in self-defence. So far -from offending him, the doctor had risen higher in his estimation. -A man with brains, and the faculty of using them; -a fellow of remarkable penetration; also of courage. He differentiated -his outspokenness from Pillivant’s blatancy. The -former was one man of intellect speaking frankly to another; -the latter. . . . He remembered the lecture, illustrated by -quotations from the Chinese classics, which he had read to -Quong Ho when his disciple, on his first visit to Water-End, -had complained of the lack of manners of the local inhabitants. -Why should he worry about Pillivant? As he had said to Quong -Ho: “<span class='it'>Rotten wood cannot be carved, and walls made of dirt and -mud cannot be plastered.</span>” Never mind Pillivant. It was -Rewsby, and Rewsby’s quick summing-up of his psychological -tendencies that mattered. Not a human being had ever before -presented him to himself in any just and intelligible way. Of -course he had heard truths, pseudo-truths, dictated by violent -prejudice, in his brief and disastrous married life. But they -had all been superficial; never gone to bed-rock. Since then -he had been free as a god from criticism. And now came this -shrewd, sagacious country doctor, who in the lightest, friendliest -way in the world, put an unerring finger on the real unsound -spot in his character.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“. . . A very bad habit, and I should advise you to give it -up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Behind those commonplace words he knew lay a wise man’s -condemnation of his habitual dealing with life. He walked -through the tiny town on his way to “The Cedars,” unconscious -of the curious interest of the inhabitants, to whom the -sight of the mystery-enveloped and now bombed and head-bandaged -tenant of Spendale Farm was a matter of eager, -instantaneous mental photography, so that the picture could -be produced as a subject for many weeks’ future gossip, and -he pondered deeply over Dr. Rewsby’s criticism.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant -principles?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had. There was no denying it. A childish memory -emerged from the mist of years. He must have been eight or -nine. All about a dog. A puppy had destroyed a new paint-box, -priceless possession, and in a fit of passion he had nearly -beaten the puppy to death. And when his anger was spent -and he grew terribly afraid, and sprawled down by the puppy, -the puppy licked his hand. And he swore to God, as a child, -that if the puppy lived and did not tell his father, he would -never beat a dog again. The puppy lived, and, with splendid -loyalty, never breathed a word to a human soul, and loved -him with a love passing the love of women. And one day a -neighbour’s bad-tempered dog got into the kitchen-garden -and attacked him, and though he had a stick by chance in his -hand, he remembered his vow, and stood with folded arms -and set teeth and let the dog bite his legs, until he was rescued -by the gardener and carried indoors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He remembered this, and a train of similar fantastic incidents -culminating in his vow of solitude, and reviewed them -all, in the light of Dr. Rewsby’s criticism. What good, in the -name of sanity, had his wild, Quixotic resolves accomplished? -How had they benefited Spooner, for instance, to whom he -had surrendered the Senior Wranglership? During his brief -stay in London he had had the curiosity to look up Spooner -in reference books; found him an Assistant Secretary in a -Government office, Sir William Spooner, <span class='sc'>K.C.B.</span>; an honourable -position, but a position which he would have attained—originally -through the Civil Service examination—whether -he had been second, fourth, tenth Wrangler in the Tripos. -His, Baltazar’s, idiot sacrifice had advanced Spooner’s career -not one millimetre: just as his self-denying ordinance in the -realm of dogs had not benefited one jot the canine race—for -the mongrel retriever who had bitten him heroically arm-folded, -had been shot the next day by the remorseful neighbour, -who had been longing for an opportunity of getting -conscientiously rid of an ill-conditioned cur.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then there was his flight from Cambridge and Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn that doctor!” said he, striding along the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was all very well to damn the doctor; but he had entered -into a fresh engagement, which in spite of its newly revealed -folly, he would break for nothing in the world. Yet what -practical good would his little fortune accomplish scattered -among the hundreds of hospitals of the United Kingdom? A -pittance to each. And he himself, with all his gifts, thrown -penniless upon a strange world at war, of what use would he -be? His first necessarily animal impulse would be to prey -upon society for the means of subsistence. Whereas, a free -man, with his assured income, he could throw himself into -the national struggle without thought of his own material -needs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho’s life acquired a new preciousness. He must live, -if only to save him from this new absurdity to which he was -pledged.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='110' id='Page_110'></span><h1>CHAPTER IX</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>O</span><span class='sc'>NCE</span> more Baltazar stood within his granite enclosure -and surveyed the scene of ruin and horror. He had -hired a cart and driven over with three nondescript -elderly labouring men, who were now wandering aimlessly -about the wreckage. Nothing seemed changed since he had -last left it in the wake of the stretcher-borne body of Quong -Ho, although the Water-End Fire Brigade, learning that the -place was still on fire, and inspired by zeal and curiosity, had -meanwhile come down with helmets, hatchets and hoses, and -had drenched the interior of the house with water pumped -from the well. There had been no attempt at salvage. The -administrators of the derelict property had long since given -up paying insurance premiums on the building, and Baltazar, -so long alien to European life, and desirous of coming into as -slight contact as possible with the outside world, had not -troubled to insure the contents.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A foul, sickly smell tainted the still air. Mingled with the -sour odour of the charred and sodden mess inside the dwelling, -rose the miasma of corruption. Baltazar made a grimace of -disgust. Before any salvage could be done the latter causes -of offence must be removed. He summoned the men and -gave his directions. They found the old mare’s head and the -dog and fragments of the goats, alive with the infinite horror -of flies and other abominable life. There was a cesspool handy. -Throw them all in and clamp down the cast-iron lid. It did -not matter. Nevermore would Spendale Farm be a human -habitation. The men conveyed with their shovels the nameless -things to the unhallowed resting-place. Baltazar would -have liked to give the faithful Brutus, who had obviously -rushed out of the house at the heels of Quong Ho and himself, -decent burial. But not only had Brutus ceased to be Brutus, -but Baltazar knew from experience the toil of digging in that -granite-bound earth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He left the men to their task, which they performed without -compunction—had he not offered them the amazing sum of -a pound each for their day’s work?—and plunged through -the front door into the black chaos which was once his home. -The sun streamed down upon unimaginable filth. He was -wearing the clothes he had borrowed from Pillivant and at -first he stepped warily. But every step landed him deeper in -the damp carbonized welter, and at last he slipped and came -down sprawling in the midst of it, so that when he rose he -found himself fouled and begrimed from head to foot. He -picked his way out again and stood on the front steps looking -hopelessly in at the piled mass of nothingness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had listened to the report of the fire brigade’s captain, -and his doubtless correct theory that the desperate marauder -had dropped his bombs almost simultaneously, one explosive -and the other incendiary. The latter had caught the homestead -fair and had caused the instant and terrific conflagration. -Yet he had hoped. . . . He tried to hope still. The -men would soon return from the cesspool and begin to shovel -away the debris from the writing-table by the wall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To get his brain into complete working order had been -a matter of time. The shock of the explosion, his wound, -his enormous physical and mental effort on the memorable -Wednesday, his puzzled amazement, the cataclysmic revelation -of the war, his anxiety for Quong Ho, had knocked him out -for a couple of days. When he recovered and regained mental -grip of things, the only things he could grip at first were the -staggering history of the war and the progress of Quong Ho. -The two absorbing interests battened down fears that vaguely -began to rise from deep recesses of his mind. But strength -regained, Quong Ho out of immediate peril of death and the -war a thing envisaged, practically understood, accepted, the -fears burst their hatches and crowded round him, haunting -and tormenting. And now he stared through the doorway of -his house, with sinking heart, scarcely daring to hope that -those fears should prove unrealized.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced round. The men were spending inordinate time -in the disposal of the carrion. Again he entered and stood in -the midst of the rubbish. Only one section of bookcase remained, -crazily askew. He had noted it on the Wednesday. -He clambered gingerly towards it. The first slanting, half-charred, -half-drenched book, whose title he made out was -<span class='it'>Queechy</span>. By the author of <span class='it'>The Wide, Wide World</span>. Next to -it was <span class='it'>Flowering Shrubs of Great Britain</span>, the date of which he -knew to be eighteen-fifty-four. His heart sank. Only the -refuse of his famous deal with the second-hand bookseller -remained. Just that little bit of section. The rest of his -library was there—down there in the molten quagmire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At last the men came, shovels on shoulder. He pointed out -the place where his long table used to stand and bade them dig. -He had brought, too, a shovel for himself, and he dug with -them, violently, pantingly, distractedly, heaving the shovelfuls -over his shoulders, wallowing in the filth regardless of Pillivant’s -expensive clothes; soon an object of dripping sweat and -squalor, distinguishable only from his co-workers by his begrimed -and bandaged head. The men began to pant and relax. -He overheard as in a dream one of them saying, in a grumbling -tone, something about beer. The sun beat fiercely down on -the roofless site. He said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dig like hell. Dig all day. I’ll stand you a couple of -gallons apiece when you get home. If you’re thirsty now, -there’s heaps of water.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The results of severe arithmetical calculation gleamed in -each man’s eye. The command over sixteen free pints of ale -transcended the dreams of desire. They fell to again, working -with renewed vigour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The incendiary bomb had apparently fallen square on the -northern end of the long north to south building and had -scattered the original wall in which the great chimney-piece -had been built and flung the granite outwards, obliterating -the less solidly constructed kitchen and Quong Ho’s quarters, -and tearing down the side of the scullery. The lower courses -of the rest of the main walls stood more or less secure. But -the roof of dried tinder-thatch had fallen in ablaze, and every -thing beneath it had been consumed by fire. Nothing remained -to distinguish Baltazar’s bedroom at the southern end, -once separated from the house-piece by a wooden partition -reaching to the rafters, from the remainder of the awful parallelogram -of disaster. The rigid mathematical lines of the low -granite boundaries, with one end a heap of stony ruin, oppressed -him as he dug with a sense of the ghastly futility of -human self-imprisonment between walls. The position of the -shapeless ragged gaps that had once been windows alone -guided him in his search. The precious long deal table ran -along the eastern wall. His writing-seat, surrounded by the -most precious possessions of all, was situated in front of the -north-east window—the long room had two windows, east -and west, on each side. And it was just there where he used -to sit, the happiest of men, in the midst of objective proof of -dreams coming true, that chaos seemed to reign supreme.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go on, go on. Dig like hell. Every scrap of unburnt -paper is a treasure to me. Look at every shovelful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After hours of toil, they found a little heap of clotted fragments, -the useless cores of burnt clumps of writing. Now and -then a man would come with a few filaments, having shaken -the charred edges free, and, looking wonderingly at the unintelligible -outer leaf, would ask: “Is this any good to you, sir?” -And Baltazar, his heart cold and heavy as a stone, would bid -him cast away the mocking remnants of an all but unique copy -of a Chinese classic.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>It was over. The three men, having loyally earned their -twenty shillings and the promised two gallons of beer, stood -spent and drenched, like Baltazar himself, with grime and -sweat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Anything more, sir?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They shouldered their shovels and he his, and they marched -away from the devastated place and drove back across the -moor. Baltazar sat next the man who drove, in the front of -the empty and futile cart, and said never a word. For the -first time in his eager existence, defeat overwhelmed him. -The work of a laborious lifetime had been destroyed in a few -hours. With infinite toil, perhaps, he might recapture the -main lines of his thought-revolutionizing treatise on the Theory -of Groups: his studies in the Analytical Geometry of Four -Dimensional Space. Perhaps. He had relied for his data on -the innumerable notes and solutions of intricate problems which -had cost the labour of many years. And these had gone. The -world had hitherto wondered at two such scholar tragedies—Newton’s -<span class='it'>Principia</span> destroyed by the dog Diamond, the -first volume of Carlyle’s <span class='it'>French Revolution</span> burned by Mill’s -stupid housemaid. But in both cases only the finished product -had perished. The data remained. The rewriting was but a -painful business of recompilation. But with him, not only the -more or less finished product, but the fundamental material -was lost forever. He shrank with dismay, almost with terror, -at the thought of going through that infinite maze of accurate -calculation and reasoning once more. Still, as far as the -mathematics went, the palimpsest of the brain existed. Reconstitution -was humanly possible. But with the Chinese -editions—for most of it the material could only be found in -remote libraries in China; for much of it, the material no -longer survived in the explored world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had come hoping against hope, arguing that great masses -of manuscript on thick paper were practically indestructible -by fire. The outsides, the edges might be burnt, but the vast -bulk of inside sheets could be preserved. But he had not -counted on the disruption and devouring effect of an incendiary -bomb falling at the most precious end of the long deal -working-table. Probably the whole room had been instantaneously -carpeted thick with loose sheets, and the great stacks -of manuscript had, as it were, been burnt in detail. Then, for -a while, on his hateful ride, he strove with conjecture. But -what was the use of vain imaginings? That which was done -was done. The harvest of his life had been annihilated. If he -died to-morrow, the world would be no richer by his existence -than by that of any dead goat whose body had just been cast -into the cesspool. To recover the harvest would cost him -many years of uninspired drudgery. It would be a horrible -re-living, an impossible attempt to recapture the ardour of -the pioneer, the thrills of discovery. For the first time he -really felt the meaning of his age, the non-resilience of fifty. -For the black present the very meaning of his life had been -wiped out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The men, wearied, befouled and thirsty, sat silent in the -cart, each dreaming of the two gallons of beer that awaited -him at the end of the journey. They knew they had been -searching for papers; but to them valuable papers had only -one signification; something perhaps to do with a bank; something -which constituted a claim to money: they had discussed -it during the half-hour midday interval for food. Wills, -mortgages, title-deeds, they had heard of. The daughter of -one of them, a parlourmaid in the house of a leading solicitor -in the neighbouring cathedral city, ranking next to legendary -London in majesty in the eyes of the untravelled Water-Enders, -had told him that she had heard her master say, at dinner, -that the contents of the tin-boxes ranged around his office -represented half a million of money. His announcement vastly -impressed his colleagues, one of whom explained that all real -wealth nowadays was a matter of bits of paper. He himself -had fifteen pounds in the Savings Bank, but nothing to show -for it but his Post Office book. Then the nature of their employer’s -frenzied quest became obvious to them all. They -had found nothing. Their employer sat like a ruined man. -They pitied him and, in the delicacy of their English souls, -refrained from intruding by speech upon his despair. In the -meantime, there was no harm in surrendering their imaginations -to the prospect of the incessant flow of delectable liquid -down their parched throttles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When they halted at the gate of The Cedars, Baltazar pulled -out a sheaf of Treasury notes and gave each man thirty shillings. -The extra ten shillings represented to their simple minds, -not the promised two gallons of beer, but beer in perpetuity. -This generosity on the part of one evidently ruined bewildered -them. Baltazar strode down the drive leaving men impressed -with the idea that he was a gentleman of the old school to whose -service they were privileged to be devoted. They retired, -singing his praises, being elderly men of a simple and tradition-bred -generation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His golf clubs on the lawn beside him, Pillivant, attired in -imaginative golfing raiment, was taking the air in front of -the house. He lay in an elaborate cane chair and smoked a -great cigar. At the sight of Baltazar he started up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Holy Moses! You are in a devil of a mess.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid I’ve ruined your suit,” said Baltazar. “If you -would only let me know what your tailor charged for it——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Sackville Street robber bled me eight guineas,” said -Pillivant, rather greedily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here are eight pounds ten,” said Baltazar, counting out -his notes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Two shillings change,” laughed Pillivant, handling him a -florin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s kind of you to relieve me from this particular embarrassment. -The rest of my obligations I don’t quite see how -to meet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We won’t charge you for board and lodging, old man, if -that’s what you mean. Take it and welcome. With regard -to Rewsby and the nurse, you can do what you like. Meanwhile, -you’ll be glad to know that the ready-made kit you -ordered from Brady & Co. have turned up this afternoon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d better clean myself up and put some of it on,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You had indeed,” said Pillivant. “You look as if you -had fallen into a sewer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The previous day, obeying telephone instructions, a representative -of a firm of ready-made clothiers in the cathedral -city had called to take measurements and orders. This evening -Baltazar was able to array himself once more in clothes -of his own. By getting rid of borrowed garments he felt relieved -of an immense burden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, how did you get on?” asked Pillivant heartily as -they sat down to dinner. “Find anything?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing but an appetite,” replied Baltazar with a smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He could not tell this man of alien ideals and limited intellectual -horizon of his irreparable loss, or hint his intolerable -despair. The coarse husband and the common, over-bejewelled -wife laughed at his sally, hoped the menu would furnish sufficiency -of food. He was but to say the word, and they would -kill the goose they were fattening up for Michaelmas. The -jest lasted off and on through the meal. They pressed him to -second and third helpings, joking, though genuinely hospitable. -At first he strove to entertain them. Spoke picturesquely -of his queer life in remotest China, where he lived the -Chinese life and almost came to think Chinese thoughts. Mrs. -Pillivant yawned behind bediamonded fingers. Pillivant said: -“Dam funny,” with complete lack of enthusiasm in the expletive, -and as soon as he found a point of departure, set forth -on the story of a discreditable grievance against the War -Office. He couldn’t personally examine every plank of timber -supplied. It had all been passed by their own inspector. -If they sent down a young idiot of a subaltern who didn’t know -the difference between green pine and green cheese, it was -their affair, not his. He had got his contract, and there it -was. Their talk about an enquiry was all nonsense. The War -Office ought to employ business men on business affairs. He -had just gone in, with another firm, on a big contract for a -aerodrome in the North of England. Some political Paul Pry -had discovered—so he said—that it could be built for half -the money. Rot. Patriotism was one thing, but running your -business at a loss was another. The patriotic contractor must -earn his living, like anybody else. Why should his wife and -family starve? In righteous indignation he poured himself a -bumper of 1904 Bollinger, which he drained before finishing -the whole grouse which as a fifth course had been set before -him. The entire system was one vast entanglement of red -tape, he continued. We were out to beat Germany. How -could we, when every effort was strangled by the red tape -aforesaid? Germany had to be beaten. How? By British -pluck and British enterprise. Pluck, by God! were we not -showing it now on the Somme? And enterprise? He poured -out more Bollinger. If the fool Government would let business -men do business things in a business way, we would get -the Germans beaten and fawning for peace in a fortnight. -There was nothing wrong with England. He was English, -through and through.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Although I won’t deny,” said he, with an incipient hiccough, -“that my mother spoke Yiddish. No, no my dear”—he -turned with a protesting wave to his wife—“I want to -make things perfectly clear and above board to our old friend -Baltazar. I’ve got a coat-of-arms—look up Pillivant in any -book on Heraldry and you’ll see it—that goes back to Edward -the Something—not the Seventh. I’m English, I tell you. -But I’m not responsible for my mother, who came from Posen. -Now, what do you do to prevent typhoid? You inoculate. -I’m inoculated. That’s my fortunate position. I’m inoculated -against Prussianism and all it stands for. Could I be a pacifist -or a conscientious objector? No. I’m immune from the -disease of pro-Germanism. As I’ve been telling you, I’m English -through and through, and I’m spending my life and my -fortune in seeing that Old England comes out on top.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To prove the expenditure of fortune he seized a fresh bottle -of Bollinger which the butler had just opened and filled Baltazar’s -glass and his own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you don’t drink, you’re a pro-German. To hell with -the Kaiser.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar drank the toast politely and patriotically; the -merest sip of champagne; for beyond the first brandy and soda -which had been poured down his parched and exhausted -throat, he had kept his vow of abstinence, in spite of his host’s -continued pressure. He felt sure of himself now; wondered -how he could ever have brought himself to the present Pillivant -condition. He liked Pillivant less than ever; yet he began to -be fascinated by the truth concerning Pillivant which rose -unashamed to the surface of the wine-cup.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the cigars were put on the table, Mrs. Pillivant rose. -Baltazar opened the door for her to pass out. On the first -occasion of his doing so, the first time he had come down to -dinner, she had been puzzled, and asked him whether he was -not going to smoke with her husband. She still did not seem -to understand the conventional courtesy. When the door was -closed behind her, Pillivant drew a great breath of relief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pity you won’t drink,” said he, refilling his glass. “We -might have made a night of it. And this is such good stuff, -too. About the most expensive I could buy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that, impelled by the craving for self-revelation, he -took up his parable again, and entertained his guest with -many details of opinions, habits and actions, that had not been -fit for wifely ears. When the stream of confidence at last -grew maudlin, Baltazar, pleading an invalid’s fatigue after a -heavy day, bade him good night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve been so long out of touch with English life,” said he, -“that it is most interesting to me to meet a typical Englishman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pillivant clapped him heavily on the shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re right, my boy,” he asserted thickly. “A downright, -patriotic John Bull Englishman. The sort of stuff that’s winning -the war for you, and don’t you make no mistake about it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar went to bed pondering over his host. The annihilation -of his own life’s work did not bear thinking about. -That way lay madness. Pillivant brought a new interest. -For all his adventurous journeyings he had not met the Pillivant -type—or if he had fortuitously encountered it, he had -passed it by in academic scorn. Had his ironical remark any -basis of truth? Was Pillivant after all typical of the forces -behind the war in this unknown modern England? Vulgarity, -bluster, self-seeking, corruption, hypocrisy? The old aristocratic -order changing into something loathsomely new? -Pillivant posed as the successful man, engaged in vast affairs, -working night and day for his country—he was only snatching, -he had explained, a three weeks’ rest at this little country -shanty which he had not seen for nearly a year. The luxury -of the “shanty” proved his success; proved the magnitude of -his dealings with the Government. So far there was no brag. -But how came it that the Government put itself into the hands -of such a man, openly boastful of his exploitation of official -ineptitude? He could not be unique. There must be hundreds, -thousands like him. Was he, in sober earnest, a typical -modern Englishman? If so, thought Baltazar, God help -England.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And yet England must have still the qualities that made -Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt ring in English ears through the -centuries: the qualities of the men who followed Drake and -Marlborough and Nelson and Raglan. . . . That very morning -he had read of British heroism on the Somme battlefield, -and had been thrilled at realizing himself merged into the unconquerable -soul of his race.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He threw off his bedclothes—rose—flung the curtains -wide apart, and thrust out all the room’s casement windows -not already opened, and looked out into the starlit summer -night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No. It was impossible for England to be peopled with Pillivants. -They were the fishers in troubled waters, the blood-suckers, -the parasites, the excrescences on an abnormal social -condition. But why were they allowed to live? What was -wrong? Who were the rulers? Their very names were but -vaguely familiar to him. And he had read of strikes; of men -earning—for the proletariat—fabulous wages, striking for -more pay, selfishly, criminally (so it seemed to his unversed -and aghast mind), refusing to provide the munitions of war -for lack of which their own flesh and blood, earning a shilling -a day, might be slaughtered in hecatombs. He threw himself -into a chair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God!” said he, “I must get out of this and see what it -all means.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After a few moments he suddenly realized that he had pulled -on his socks, as though he were going, there and then, at midnight, -to plunge into the midst of the bewildering world at war.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='121' id='Page_121'></span><h1>CHAPTER X</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>Q</span><span class='sc'>UONG HO</span> sitting up, taking plentiful nourishment -and definitely pronounced out of danger, Baltazar -presented his cheque for a thousand pounds to Dr. -Rewsby, and thanked God for the preservation of Quong Ho’s -life and his own fortune. He also listened with much interest -to Quong Ho’s apologetics for leaving him in ignorance of the -war. For such exact obedience and perfect fidelity reproaches -would have been unjust, even had remorse for his own folly -not have precluded them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And now, my dear fellow,” said he—he was sitting by the -bed in the airy, sun-filled ward of the Cottage Hospital—“tell -me what you would like to do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t care what he would like to do,” said Dr. Rewsby. -“What he has got to do is to stay here quiet and recover from -the shock and mend up, and not worry his mind with the war, -or mathematics, or the condition of your underclothes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho shall never wash a shirt of mine again,” declared -Baltazar. “Henceforth he is the master of his destiny. -I’m talking not of now, but of the future. So far as I can -manage it, he can do what he jolly well likes. That’s why I -put the question to him. So, Quong Ho, never mind this excellent -medicine man, who can’t see beyond his nose and doesn’t -want to, because all he’s concerned with is getting you well—never -mind him, but tell me what most in the world you -would like to do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” said Quong Ho, “if you desire to dispense with my -personal services, which I have always regarded it as a privilege -to render to my benefactor, may I dare to formulate an -ambition which has hitherto been but an idle dream?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Rewsby knitted his grizzled brows and dragged Baltazar -away from the bed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Does he always talk like that?” he whispered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did you think he would express himself with ‘Muchee -likee topside,’ and that sort of thing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No; but he talks like an archbishop.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then perhaps,” grinned Baltazar, “you’ll understand why -I’ve insisted on his being treated as my closest friend.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He returned to the bed. “I’m sorry, Quong Ho. What’s -this famous ambition of yours?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho looked up at him unsmiling, with a dog-like yearning -in his slanting eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I could obtain the mathematical degree of the University -of Cambridge——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you went in for the Tripos now, you would wipe the -floor with everybody.—Cambridge! That’s a wonderful idea.” -He stuck his hands behind him in the waistband of his trousers -and strode about for a moment or two, his eyes illuminated. -“A splendid notion! You can begin where I leave off. I’ll -work up all the stuff that’s gone, and put it into your hands, -and you’ll continue my life’s work. By God! you’ll consummate -it. Cambridge! The very thing! Damn China! Any -fool can teach young China the Binomial Theorem and Trigonometry. -But there’s only one Quong Ho, the pupil and intellectual -heir of John Baltazar, in the world. Yes. You’ll -go to Cambridge, and by the Lord Harry! won’t there be -fluttering of dovecotes!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He stopped suddenly in his enthusiastic outburst and his -brow darkened. “Wait a bit. Perhaps you don’t realize that -Cambridge is a matter of at least three years?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If it were twenty years it would matter little,” said Quong -Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s Latin and Greek—compulsory. I was forgetting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Greek,” replied Quong Ho, “I presume I could readily -acquire. As for Latin I think I am acquainted with the grammar -and I have already read the interesting Commentaries of -Julius Cæsar on the Gallic War.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar sank into a chair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Latin! You’ve learned Latin? When? How?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho explained apologetically that the simultaneous -excitation of mind over the quotation at the head of the papers -of <span class='it'>The Rambler</span>, and the discovery in the lowest rubbish shelf -in the library of an old Latin grammar and a copy of the <span class='it'>De -Bello Gallico</span>, had inaugurated his study of the Latin tongue. -He had procured, not without difficulty, owing to the limited -intelligence of the young lady in charge, a Latin dictionary, -through the miniature bookshop in Water-End.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I’m damned!” said Baltazar. “I’m just damned. -And now, do you mind telling me why you never mentioned -a word of it to me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked fierce and angry. Quong Ho replied in his own -tongue. How could the inconsiderable worm that was his -illustrious lordship’s servant, presume to importune him with -his inferior and unauthorized pursuits?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I could have taught you twice as much in half the time,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho professed regret. He had also bought, he said, -the works of the poets Virgil and Horace, but had found peculiar -difficulty in translating them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The new conception of Quong Ho as an independent purchaser -of commodities set Baltazar’s mind on a different track. -He had paid Quong Ho wages—or rather Quong Ho had paid -himself. He started up from his chair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good Lord! I’ve only just thought of it. All the money -you must have had on the Farm is lost. How much was it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A trifling sum—a pound or two. It does not matter,” -replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you’ve been drawing a salary all the time. What’s -become of it? You couldn’t possibly have spent it all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have invested it in British War Loan,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho,” said Baltazar, standing over him, with hands -thrust deep into his trouser-pockets, “you are immense.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went away, his head full of Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Doctor,” said he, “I thought that if there ever was a -Westerner who had got to the soul of the Chinaman, that man -was I. Yet the more I see of Quong Ho the less do I know -what queer mental workings and strange secrecies those soft, -faithful eyes conceal. He kept me in absolute ignorance of -the war, he learned Latin in the next room to me, without my -having the faintest idea of it, and he has invested his money -in War Loan. Of course, the philosophy of it all is perfectly -lucid to him. In a way, I can get at the logic of it. But one -wants to be wise not after but before the event. What surprise -is he going to spring on me next?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps you’ve been nurturing an Oriental Caruso in your -bosom,” the doctor suggested.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That—no!” laughed Baltazar. “Chinese vocal chords -aren’t built that way. But, for all I know, he may have a -complete critical knowledge of the strategy of the war. The -confounded fellow learning Latin! That’s what I can’t get -over. And calmly investing in War Loan!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t think he may cut everything and slip away to -China?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Baltazar seriously. “That at least I’m sure of. -The tremendous quality of the Chinaman is his loyalty. The -scrupulousness of his obedience is a thing beyond your conception. -That’s why he allowed no whisper of the war to -reach me. Quong Ho would never be guilty of ingratitude. -That you, Dr. Rewsby, should pick my pocket is far more -possible. In fact, Quong Ho would cheerfully die this moment -in order to save my life. That I know. But within -those limits of utter devotion, God alone knows the weird -workings of his celestial mind.” He pulled out his pipe and -filled it. “I thought I knew a lot. Now I’m being knocked -flat and beginning to realize that I know nothing at all, and -that everything I’ve ever learned isn’t worth a tinker’s curse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps,” said the doctor, after a hesitating glance, “you -have put your foot on the first rung of the ladder of wisdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar broke into a great laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish,” said he, “I had met more men like you. They -would have done me good. You have the most comforting -way in the world of telling me that I’m the Great Ass of the -Universe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His head mended, his fears concerning Quong Ho at rest, -his decision taken to send Quong Ho to Cambridge, nothing -more kept him in the backwater of the little moorland town. -He was for London, for the full stream of national thought -and energy. What he would do there he did not know. He -would learn. He would at least set his heart throbbing in unison -with the heart of the Empire. He packed his newly purchased -suit-case with his scanty wardrobe, bade farewell to -the detested though embarrassingly hospitable Pillivants, and -took train to London with the high hopes of a boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His first taste of the metropolis was exhilarating. Here was -a new world. Every porter at the railway-station, every -news-vendor, every street urchin, was the possessor of accumulated -knowledge and experience of which he, John Baltazar, -was denied a share. He read strange wisdom in the eyes of -working girls and slatternly women. He bought all the evening -papers, reeking, as they seemed, with the pregnant moment’s -actuality. He went to a bookseller’s and bought every -book and pamphlet bearing on the war. He would have an -orgy of information. He would pluck the heart of the world’s -mystery of blood and sacrifice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But where to begin? If he had but one solitary acquaintance -in London, who could put him into the way of understanding, -his course would be simple. But he found himself absolutely -alone in an infinite mass of units, knit together by complexities -of common ties.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What he saw and felt, in his first eager search, reduced to -dwindling point the petty tragedy of his own life. For greater -issues were at stake than the revolution of mathematical -thought by a new Theory of Groups. In the wholesale destruction -of what were thought to be the immortal works of man, -the loss of a few Chinese manuscripts counted as little as that -of paper-bags for buns. For excursions into the geometry of -Four Dimensional Space, or scholarly translation of the mild -and benign Chinese classic, <span class='it'>The Book of Rewards and Punishments</span>, -the world would have no use for another half-century. -In face of the realities with which London confronted him, he -felt that he had devoted his life to the pursuit of shadows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If only he could grasp these realities. If only he could merge -himself into them, become part and parcel of them, bring his -intellect and his bodily strength into the stupendous machine -which he saw at work.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he saw himself, by his own actions, condemned to sit -and watch, an inactive spectator of the great drama. His -loneliness fell upon him like a doom. He realized the uselessness -of his age. He had as much place in modern London as -any chance inhabitant of Mars. He who had dared the untrodden -recesses of the Far Eastern world, haughtily asserting -his sympathetic right of citizenship, felt, after a day or two, -a terror of modern London. It was too vast, too unknown, -too strange: a city at war, unlike any city he had ever seen. -Youth, in civilian attire, had disappeared from its face. The -unfamiliar dirty brown uniform filled the streets. He had -read of khaki, was vaguely aware of it as the service uniform -of the British Army; he had come across the tropical drill -material which had clothed the troops in Hong Kong, but his -mind preoccupied with interests remote from military affairs -had barely registered the impression. His traditional and -therefore instinctive conception of the soldier in the London -streets was a thing in swaggering scarlet. He missed the -scarlet. It took him some time to accommodate his mental -vision to the military reality of the dun-coloured hordes of men -that thronged the Strand, Whitehall, and Piccadilly. Soldiers, -too, slopped about in an extraordinary kit of blue jean and red -ties. He did not grasp the fact that these were wounded men -wearing hospital uniform, until he passed the Westminster -Hospital and saw some of them taking the air on the terrace. -After the first day’s wanderings he dined at his crowded hotel, -a bewildered man. In London itself he had beheld an army. -Scarcely a table in the vast restaurant showed no man in uniform -among its occupants. He contrasted the place with his -last pre-war impression. Then every man, young or old, had -been impeccably attired in the white tie and white waistcoat -of high convention. Not a woman then who was not gowned -as for some royal festival. Now the outward and visible signs -of gilded youth had vanished. Even elderly bucks wore plain -dinner-jackets and black ties—his own sloppily fitting, ready -made dress suit seemed ultra ceremonious. Here and there -were exquisitely dressed women; but here and there, too, were -dowdy ladies unblushing under obviously cheap hats. And -men with bandaged heads came in, and legless men on crutches; -and at the next table a one-armed man depended for the cutting -up of his food on the ministrations of a girl. And away -over the other side of the room he saw a man, his breast covered -with ribbons, carried pick-a-back by a brother officer to his -appointed place. No one seemed to take notice of the unusual. -Scarcely a casual glance lingered on the pair. At no table -visible was there a break in the talk and the laughter. Baltazar -leaned back in his chair and gasped at the realization that -the incident was a commonplace of modern life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His heart throbbed with pity for these maimed men, some -of them boys fresh from school; then with pride in their English -courage and gaiety. He looked round the room curiously -and, in his fancy, identified several Pillivants. They generally -sat two or three at a table and drank champagne and leaned -over, heads together, as they talked. But the impression they -made was effaced by that of youth: youth pervaded the -place; youth whole and gloriously insolent; youth maimed -and defiant; youth predominating, too, among the women, -with its eyes alight and cheeks aglow; youth nerved to war, -taking it as the daily round, the common task. It was some -new planet in which Baltazar found himself, peopled with -beings of dimly conjectured interests and habits of thought.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After dinner, the loneliest soul in London, he took his hat -and thought to go for a stroll. He emerged from the brightly -lit vestibule into Tartarean darkness and forbidding silence. -Instead of the once glad stream of life, a few vague forms -flitted by on the pavement. Now and then a moving light -and a whir denoted the passing of a taxi-cab on the roadway. -At first he stood outside the hotel door, baffled, until he remembered -that he had heard of the darkened thoroughfares. -The sky being overclouded, London was denied that night the -kindly help of stars. Baltazar saw it in all its blackness, and -shrank involuntarily as from the supernatural. He laughed -and started. Soon, when his sight grew accustomed to the -blackness, his senses were arrested and fascinated by the -wonder of this veiled heart of the Empire, by its infinite tones -of gloom, by its looming masses of building melting upwards -into black nothingness, by the vista of narrow streets, where -at the end a dim lamp gave them a note of sinister mystery. -But his walk did not last long. As he was crossing a street, -an unseen and unheard taxi-cab just swerved in time to miss -him by a hair’s-breadth. He felt the wind of it on the back -of his neck and caught the curse of the driver. After that he -lost his nerve. The re-crossing of Trafalgar Square became a -perilous and breathless adventure. He was glad to find himself -again in the light and the safe normality of the hotel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No. London was not for him. He found himself even more -a stranger than during his last disastrous sojourn. There -seemed to be no chance for him to be anything else than a -stray number in an hotel. He felt like a bit of waste cog-wheel -seeking a place in a perfect machine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A few days more of this and I’ll go mad,” said he.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>He did not go mad, but at last, with the instinct of the homing -pigeon, fled to Cambridge. There at least would he be -able to pick up some threads of life left straggling twenty years -ago. Only when he had gone half-way did he remember that -it was the Long Vacation, so long had he lived indifferent to -times and seasons. Doubtless, however, the Long Vacation -Term was in progress as usual and the official dons in residence. -But who would there be, after twenty years, in spite -of the proverbial longevity of dons? Who now was master of -his college? When he left, Fordyce was getting a bit elderly. -Why, of course, by now, if alive, he would be over ninety. -Fordyce must have been gathered long ago to his fathers. Who -could have succeeded him? Why hadn’t he looked it up in a -book of reference? It seemed stupid to return to his own -college without knowing the name of the master. Who were -the prominent people? Westgrove, the senior tutor; Barrett, -senior dean; Withington, junior dean; Raymond, bursar; -Smith, Hartwell, Grayson, Mostyn—men more or less of his -own standing; Sheepshanks, the famous mathematical coach -upon whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of the immortal -Routh (maker of senior wranglers), and his own private tutor -and friend. There would be somebody there out of all that -lot, at any rate. He felt more hopeful.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A grizzled porter threw his suit-case into a hansom cab, -a welcome survival of his youth, and in answer to his query -whether the “Blue Boar” was still in existence, stared at -him as though he had questioned the stability of the great -court of Trinity or Matthews, the Grocers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The ‘Blue Boar,’ sir? Why, of course, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So to that ancient hostelry Baltazar drove down Trumpington -Street. It seemed all new and perky until he came to the -great landmark, the Fitzwilliam Museum. Then in a flash he -recaptured his Cambridge: Peterhouse on his left; Pembroke -on his right; the three-sided, low, bricked court of St. Catherine’s -facing the dignified stone front and gateway of Corpus; -then the amazing grandeur of King’s College Chapel—he -craned his head out and drank in its calm loveliness; then -the Senate House; on the right the shops of the King’s Parade, -just as they used to be; then Caius, and the cab drew up at -the “Blue Boar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He secured a room and went out again to fill his lungs with -the atmosphere of the beloved place, his soul with its beauty -and its meaning. He wandered, at first like a man distraught, -his eyes far above the pavement, wrapt in the familiar glories -of stone and brick; the majesty of Trinity, the twin-towered, -blazoned gateway of St. John’s, the venerable round church -of the Holy Sepulchre. . . . He walked on past Sidney, Christ’s, -Emmanuel; turned up Downing Street. At the sight of the -vast piles of modern science buildings, he came down to earthly -things. Thenceforward he became aware of something new -and strange and alien to the academic spirit that once spread -its brooding wings over the town. The quiet streets were -filled with soldiery. Khaki, khaki, on roads and pavements; -khaki, khaki, in college courts. There seemed to be regiments -of rank and file. Officers, gaitered and spurred, clanked along -as in a garrison city. Much youth, whose status he could not -determine, wearing a white band round its cap, laughed and -jested, undergraduate-like, on its way. He wandered through -the river-nest of colleges, Queen’s, Clare, Trinity Hall, through -courts and gateways, and it was the same story of military -occupation. A bevy of nurses flitted about the courts of -King’s. A group of men in hospital blue lounged over the -balustrade of Clare Bridge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was a wondrous metamorphosis. Almost the only young -men in civilian attire were a few Indian students. He came -across them carrying notebooks under their arms, on their -return from morning lecture. Lectures, then, were still going -on. College authorities were still in residence; he had, in fact, -passed many unmistakable dons. But dons and Indians -seemed but the relics of a past civilization. In a spasm of -amazement he realized that the University, as he had conceived -it, a seat of learning, no longer existed. The three -thousand young men, the average undergraduate population, -who afforded the University its reason of being, were fighting -for their country or being trained in the arts of war. Yet the -colleges through which he passed seemed to be alive. No sign -anywhere of desolation or decay. Pembroke and Emmanuel -had the appearance of barracks. He strode hither and thither, -in his impetuous way, his mind exercised with the wonder of -it all; saw Midsummer Common filled with troops at drill, -found himself on the river. The tow-path was overgrown with -grass. War everywhere. The very boat-houses were incorporated -into the military system. On the familiar front of -his own college boat-house was nailed an inscription. Such -and such a regiment. Officers’ mess.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The University was at war. Not for the first time in its -glorious history. Troops had garrisoned his college in the -Civil Wars. It had melted down its plate for Charles the -First. If it had possessed a boat-house it would have given -it loyally to the King. Yet that was between two and three -hundred years ago. Baltazar had the modern and not the -archæological instinct. Conditions were different in those -days. But now, in the second decade of the twentieth century, -to be confronted with his remote, innocent college boat-house -thus drawn, a vital though tiny unit, into the war, spurred his -imagination to a newer comprehension of the world-convulsion -to which he had been but recently awakened. If the war -could reach and grip a pretty balconied shed on the River -Cam, in what other infinite ramifications through the whole of -the national life did its tentacles not extend? As he retraced -his steps to the town, the bombing of Spendale Farm and the -commandeering of his college boat-house appealed to him as -the two most significant facts of the war.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>He stood in the gateway under the groined roof by the porter’s -lodge of his own college. The porter on duty, a young, consumptive-looking -man, appeared at the door. Baltazar said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am an old member of the college, and I’ve been abroad -for many years. I wonder if there’s anybody in residence -whom I used to know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It depends upon who you want to see, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar searched the young man’s face. “First”—he -snapped finger and thumb—“yes, first, where’s Westmacott?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father, sir? He’s feeling his age, and having a bit of -a holiday. Did you know him, sir?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course I did. He was senior porter when I was an -undergraduate. He must be about a hundred and ten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, sir, only seventy-five,” smiled the young man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who’s master now?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dr. Barrett, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is he up?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not for the moment, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about Mr. Westgrove?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Westgrove? Oh yes, sir. He died a long time ago. When -I was a boy, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, who is there in residence?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The younger Westmacott rattled off a string of unfamiliar -names.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m talking of twenty years ago,” said Baltazar. “What -about Mr. Raymond?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s Professor of Economics at—at one of those new sort -of universities, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Cambridge-trained servitor’s tone expressed both regret -at Mr. Raymond’s decline and scorn of the new sort of universities.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mr. Sheepshanks——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dr. Sheepshanks now, sir. <span class='it'>Honoris causa.</span> Just before the -war.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, Dr. Sheepshanks then,” said Baltazar, rather impatiently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, he’s always here, sir. He’s senior tutor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is he in?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I haven’t seen him go out to-day. I’m pretty sure he’s in, -sir. Letter E, New Court.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks,” said Baltazar, and went in search of Sheepshanks, -through the familiar courts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he stood at the doorway of Letter E and read the -name, white-lettered on black, “Dr. Sheepshanks,” he remembered -that here Sheepshanks had lived thirty years ago. Probably -the same rooms. On the second floor. He mounted the -winding wooden stairs. Yes: above the unsported oak (the -infallible porter was right) the name of Dr. Sheepshanks was -inscribed. He paused for an instant before knocking at the -inner door, because all his youth came surging back on him. -He saw himself a freshman, tapping with nervous knuckles -at the almost sacred portal of the famous coach, the fount of -all mathematical science, the legendary being who had the -power to make senior wranglers at will. He saw himself the -third year man, rapping confidently, secure in the knowledge -that Sheepshanks had staked his reputation on his triumph. -He saw himself smiting the door defiantly, after the lists -had been published . . . “Spooner, Jenkins, Baltazar . . .” -Spooner had read with Roberts of Trinity; but Jenkins had -been a Sheepshanks man. . . . He saw himself, many and -many a time afterwards, when he had stepped into his universally -acknowledged own, thumping it with friendly familiarity. -That heavy, black oak door, invitingly open, held the -secrets of his vivid youth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At last he knocked, but the knock—so it seemed—was -devoid of character. A voice—the same sharp, nasal voice—it -sent him back again to freshman’s days—cried:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened the door, stood on the threshold. The back of -Sheepshanks, working at his desk by the great window looking -over the master’s garden, met his eyes, across the large library -table that occupied the centre of the room. It was the same -old table—the table at which he had sat with the superior -first batch of pupils, during his undergraduate days. How -often then and in after days he had entered on that cracked -“Come in,” and seen that lean back and bowed head, and -waited the few seconds, as he was doing now, for the owner to -finish his sentence and swing round in his chair—the same -old swivel-chair. After the same second or two, Sheepshanks -turned round and, as in one movement, rose to his feet. He -was a small, brown, wrinkled, clean-shaven man in the early -sixties, with eyes masked by thick myopic lenses, spectacles -set in gold rims. His hair short, but curly, gleamed a dazzling -white. It was a shock of memory to Baltazar to realize that -when he had last seen it, it was raven black.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes?” said Sheepshanks, enquiringly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar strode past the library table with outstretched -hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t pretend you’ve never seen me before, Sheepshanks.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks made a step forward, peered through his glasses, -then recoiled and gasped:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Baltazar!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve hit it, my dear old friend. I’m not a ghost. I’m -live flesh and blood. I’m John Baltazar right enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God bless my soul!” said Sheepshanks. “We thought you -must be dead. Do sit down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar laughed as he turned to deposit hat and stick on -a side-table; then he came and clapped both his hands on -the elderly don’s lean shoulders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You apostle of primness! Aren’t you glad to see me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course I’m glad, my dear fellow. Exceedingly glad. -But your sudden resurrection rather takes one’s breath away.” -He smiled. “Let us both sit down, and you can tell me all -about it.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='134' id='Page_134'></span><h1>CHAPTER XI</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>I</span><span class='sc'>F</span> I don’t smoke, I’m afraid I can’t talk,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks smiled politely. “You remember my -little weakness? But pray smoke. I’ve got used to it -of late years. Times change, and we with them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar filled and lit his pipe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A couple of weeks ago,” said he, “I had all but complete -two epoch-marking mathematical treatises. I had got systems -and results you good people here had never dreamed of. I -had also stuff in the way of Chinese scholarship that would -have been a revelation to the Western world. Then German -aircraft dropped bombs on my house, a hermitage in the -middle of a moorland, and wiped out the labour of a lifetime. -They also nearly killed a young Chinaman whom I regard -as an extraordinary mathematical genius and about whom -I want to consult you. They also, thereby, revealed to me -a fact of which I was entirely unaware, namely, that the war -had been going on for a couple of years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He leaned back in his chair and drew a few contented puffs. -His host passed a hand over perplexed brows and leaned -forward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m very sorry,” said he, in his precise, nasal voice, “to -appear stupid. But you have put forward half a dozen such -amazing propositions in one breath that I can’t quite follow -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A smile gleamed in Baltazar’s eyes. “I thought that would -get you,” he remarked placidly. “But it’s an accurate presentment -of my present position.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No doubt, no doubt,” said Sheepshanks. “But you surely -haven’t been living a recluse on a moor for the last twenty -years?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh no,” replied Baltazar. “Eighteen of them I spent in -China. I went out straight from here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To China? Dear me,” said Sheepshanks. “What an -extraordinary place to go to from Cambridge.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Didn’t anybody guess where I had vanished to?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not a soul, I assure you. Your disappearance created a -sensation. Quite a sensation. A painful one, because you -were a man we could ill afford to lose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s good of you to say so. But it’s odd that no one seemed -to be interested enough in me to reason out China. You all -knew I was keen on Chinese.” He cast a swift glance around -the bookshelves that lined the room, and shot out an arm. -“I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s my little handbook—<span class='it'>Introduction -to the Language, on a Scientific Basis</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks’ myopic vision followed Baltazar’s pointing -finger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. It’s somewhere there. You haven’t changed much -from the creature of flashes that you used to be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It happens to be the only yellow-backed book on the shelf. -To say nothing of the purple dragon, which is grossly incorrect -and unmeaning. It jumps to the eyes. Just as my going -to China ought to have jumped to the eyes of everybody.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid it didn’t. Perhaps we were too much paralysed -with dismay.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I often tried to guess what you all thought about it,” said -Baltazar. “A human being can’t escape his little vanities. -It was like being dead and wondering what the dickens people -were saying about one.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We didn’t know what to say,” replied Sheepshanks. -“We had no precedents on which to base any conclusions. We -looked for motives for flight and we could find none. We -sought for possible imperative objectives, and one so apparently -uncompelling as China never occurred to us. Here to-day, -gone to-morrow. You vanished, ‘like a snowflake on a river.’ -To see you now, after all these years, looking scarcely a day -older, is an experience which I must confess is bewildering.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you thought me mad or a fugitive from justice, -or one driven by the Furies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We didn’t know what to think, and that’s the truth of it,” -replied Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, call it the last. I wasn’t very old and hardened. -Perhaps I mistook Mrs. Grundy with an upraised umbrella -for one of the ladies who played the devil with Orestes and -Company. I had quite decent reasons then for clearing out. -Whether I was wise or not is another matter. Anyhow I -cleared, sank my identity and went out to China. After -eighteen years I came back. The rest I’ve told you in a sort -of pemmican form.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t deny,” said Sheepshanks, “that I am still somewhat -confused.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right,” said Baltazar. “You sit there, and I’ll tell you -what I can. Anyhow, I’ll try to explain why I’m here. I’ll -begin from the day I sailed for China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The primness of Edgar Sheepshanks,<span class='sc'>D.SC</span>., relaxed, to some -extent, during Baltazar’s story. Like Dominie Sampson’s -“Prodigious!” his “Wonderful! wonderful!” punctuated the -intervals. To him who had stuck limpet-like to the same -academic walls, Baltazar appeared a veritable modern Ulysses. -He sighed, wishing that he too had performed the scholarly -travels through that far land of Mystery, the Cathay of ancient -times, which was now the little better known interior of modern -China; he sighed, as he did when gallant youth returned from -high adventure in that land of equal mystery, the Front. -Baltazar was half through his tale when there entered a venerable -man-servant, Sheepshanks’s gyp for innumerable years. -At the sight of the guest he started back with the dropped -jaw of one who sees a ghost. “Mr. Baltazar!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lord, it’s Punter!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was odd how names came back from the moss-grown -recesses of memory. He shook hands with the old man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, it’s me. And you’re looking just as young as ever. -I recognized you at once. And look here, Punter, if you want -to do me a service, just spread the news about Cambridge. If -I’ve got to go through an Ancient Mariner or Wandering Jew -explanation every time I meet anyone, it’ll eventually get on -my nerves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sure every one will rejoice to have you back, sir,” said -the gyp.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Punter’s bringing my lunch. I hope you’ll stay and share -it with me,” said Sheepshanks politely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Delighted,” said Baltazar, and the old man having retired, -he went on with his tale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He continued it over lunch in the next room, a homelier -chamber, where Sheepshanks kept his choice books and his -two or three good Italian pictures and a few ivories and photographs -of nephews and nieces. It was during the meal that -he noticed for the first time a lack of effusiveness on the part -of his host. Not that he had expected the prim Sheepshanks -to throw his arms about him and dance with joy; but he had -hoped for more genial signs of welcome. After all, he reflected, -he had let the college down very badly; possibly he was still -unforgiven. Well, if that was so, he would have to earn forgiveness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In his tale he had reached the first visit to London.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was out of my element, as you perceive,” said he, “and -then something happened which made me decide suddenly to -go into seclusion for two or three years. Real seclusion. I -don’t do things by halves. In some remote spot where not a -whisper of the outer world could ever reach me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what kind of thing could have happened to cause you -to take such an extraordinary step?” asked Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thought Baltazar: “If I tell him the real reason, he’ll turn -into a pillar of frozen don.” Besides, he had not the faintest -intention of opening his soul to Sheepshanks, even though the -latter should have enacted the part of the father of the Prodigal -Son. He waved the question aside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing of any importance. Just one of the idiot trifles -that always seem to arise and deflect my course through life. -The main point is that I found the place I wanted, and went -there with Quong Ho.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Luncheon had been cleared away and he had finished a -couple of pipes before he came to the end of his narrative.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So now you see my position,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think I do,” replied Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My whole life-work has gone—except that part of it -which exists in the cultivated brain of my remarkable young -Chinaman. There seems to be no place for me in London, -where everybody’s fitted into the war, where I’m simply dazed -and unwanted. So I’ve come here—if only to find something -left of my old life to attach myself to.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid there’s not very much to be done in Cambridge,” -said Sheepshanks. “It’s no longer a university, but a military -camp.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But at any rate,” said Baltazar, “I can find here a few -human beings I know who might put me in the way of actual -things—help me on my course.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s quite possible,” said Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I also have to see what can be done for Quong Ho. I want -him to come up next term. Has the college ever had an undergraduate -who has come up with a knowledge of Elliptic Functions?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Sheepshanks, in interested -astonishment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s a wonder,” laughed Baltazar. “I ought to know, -because I’ve taught him daily for ten years. Well, he’ll be on -your list, if you’ll have him. He’s a dear creature. Manners -like a Hidalgo. Mind cultivated in the best of Chinese and -English literature. And speaks English like his favourite -author, Dr. Johnson.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks smiled, a very pleasant smile, in which every -wrinkle of his dry brown face seemed to have a part.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How you keep your enthusiasms, Baltazar!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho is worth them. You’ll see. As soon as he’s fit -for it, I’ll send him to you. You set him last June’s Tripos -Papers—Part II, if you like. I’ll bet you anything he’ll floor -them. Of course I’m enthusiastic,” he said, after re-lighting -his pipe, which had gone out. “I’ve no kith or kin in the world. -I’ve adopted Quong Ho as my intellectual son and heir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks rose, walked to the open window deliberately -and looked out. Presently he turned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It seems strange,” said he, “that you should adopt a -Chinaman, when your English son is giving great promise of -following in your footsteps.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar regarded him in a puzzled way. Then he laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My stepson. I’m afraid, my dear Sheepshanks, when I -left the mother I left her son. One of the defects of my qualities -is honesty. I may be brutal, but I can’t take a sentimental -interest in the son of old Doon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The man I’m talking about,” said Sheepshanks, in the -precise clipped, nasal manner under which Baltazar remembered -many a delinquent and uppish pupil to have wilted in -the old days, “isn’t called Doon. His name is Baltazar. He -came up with a Minor Scholarship over the way”—he waved -a hand, indicating the grey wing of the neighbouring college -visible through the window—“and he was the most promising -freshman of his year.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rose too.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about. I don’t -suppose I’m the only Baltazar left in England. He can be no -son of mine. It’s idiotic. You ought to know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do know,” said Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s eyes flashed in amazement and he made a stride -towards him. “What do you know? What are you suggesting?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A child was born here in Cambridge, three months after -you left us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Something almost physical seemed to hit Baltazar between -the eyes, partially stunning him. He felt his way to the nearest -chair and sat down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God!” said he. “Oh, my God!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He remained for some time, his head on his hands, overwhelmed -by the significance of the revelation. At last he -sprang suddenly to his feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No wonder you haven’t forgiven me,” he cried, with characteristic -directness. “To run away from a woman in such -circumstances would be the unforgivable sin. But I swear to -God I never knew. She gave no hint, and I saw her only a -few days before I left. Such a possibility never entered my -mind. Has never entered it. I may be any kind of a sinner, -but not such a scoundrel as that. I left her because we were -miserable together.—I did my best—now and then a brief -reconciliation.—I suppose she tried too, in her way.—After -the last, things were worse than ever. And then there was the -life of someone else I couldn’t sacrifice—a flower of a thing. -I felt my wife would be glad to see the last of me. So I fled -like Christian from the Burning City. If I had known that—well, -that I was leaving this responsibility behind me, I should -have faced things out. My God! man, you must believe me,” -he ended passionately.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks through his thick gold spectacles met Baltazar’s -fierce gaze for a few moments. Then he held out his hand: -“I believe you, J. B., and doing so takes a great load off my -mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve noticed your avoidance of the old name,” said Baltazar. -“It must have been in pretty evil odour for the past -twenty years or so.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re such an incalculable fellow,” said Sheepshanks, -with a kind smile. “The romance you so delicately suggest -never occurred to any of us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, well,” said Baltazar, “all that is done and over long -ago. Anyhow, I wasn’t the heartless wretch Cambridge must -have taken me for. I leave my rehabilitation in your hands. -To me now the main, staring, extraordinary fact is that I have -a son. A son. I, who thought I was wandering lonely as -What’s-his-name’s cloud. I’ve got a son. A mathematician. -The same lunatic quirk of brain. If he were the village idiot—it -would be different.—You remember the ghastly story -of Guy de Maupassant? But not only my own flesh and blood, -but my own flesh, blood and intellect.” He paced about the -room. “What kind of a fellow is he? Is he like me? Have you -seen him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes; once. Crosby—you remember Crosby?” He -waved a hand towards the college visible through the window.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, yes,” said Baltazar, impatiently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Crosby asked me to breakfast, one day, to meet him. The -son of John Baltazar, senior mathematical scholar of his year, -was a curiosity. We didn’t tell the young man so. Indeed, I -suppose he wondered why such an old fossil like myself was -there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never mind what he thought of old fossils, my dear Sheepshanks. -What was he like?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like you. Quite recognizable. But fairer, and though -sensible and manly, less—if you will allow me to say so—less -of a firebrand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Anyhow, a good straight chap. Not merely low mathematical -cunning enveloped in any kind of smug exterior?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s a son any father would be proud of,” said Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And where is he now?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sheepshanks made a vague gesture. “Where is all the gallant -youth of England? Over there, fighting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you sure?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It would be small compliment to you, J. B., if I wasn’t -sure,” replied Sheepshanks with a smile. “The only undergraduates -left in the University are a few unhappy youngsters -rejected from the army for physical reasons. The maimed, -halt and blind; also medical students hurrying through their -course, and the usual contingent of Indian students who, not -belonging to the fighting races of India, can find no place in -the armies of Great Britain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t care about paralytics or doctors or Indians,” said -Baltazar. “I want to know about this son of mine.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Crosby would tell you. He’s up. I saw him yesterday. -Of course, you know he’s master now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Crosby?” cried Baltazar, incredulously. “Crosby—that -pragmatical owl, master of——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even as you are master of intolerance,” Sheepshanks interrupted. -“Crosby has developed into a very great man, -and there’s not a head of house in the University who is more -beloved by his college. You’ll find him in intimate touch -with half a dozen generations of undergraduates.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m learning things every minute,” said Baltazar. “So -much for Crosby. I’ll go along and see him. But the boy—I -suppose he has got a Christian name. What is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I forget—but I can easily find out.” Sheepshanks took -<span class='it'>The Cambridge University Calendar</span> from a shelf. “But perhaps -you’d like to look through it yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar turned rapidly over the pages, found the college -he sought and the name of Godfrey Baltazar in its list of -scholars.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey!” he exclaimed. “That was my father’s name.” -Then after a pause, as though speaking to himself: “It was -good of her. Damned good of her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He walked to the casement window which Sheepshanks had -vacated and leaned his elbows on the sill, looking out for a -long time into a blur of things. Sheepshanks glanced at his -broad shoulders which seemed bowed beneath an intolerable -burden, and after a moment or two of hesitation slipped noiselessly -from the room. Presently Baltazar turned, started to -find himself alone, frowned, then recognizing a delicate instinct -on the part of his host, went back to the window and -his whirl of thoughts and emotions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What a mess he had made of his life! What folly had been -each one of those flaming decisions that had marked his career! -Was he a coward? The word stung. There was a difference -between flying from temptation and resisting it. He remembered -the comparison he had just made between himself and -Christian flying from the Burning City, and suddenly saw the -meanness and selfishness of Bunyan’s Hero—egotism as -colossal as that of St. Simeon Stylites on whom he had once -airily lectured to Quong Ho. What mattered anything human, -wife, children born and the child within the womb, so long as -he saved his own wretchedly unimportant soul? For aught -Christian cared, all his family and his friends could go literally -to Hell, so long as he himself escaped. A sorry figure. And -just such a sorry figure had cut John Baltazar. And, life -being real and implacable, he had not even succeeded in saving -his paltry soul. He had lost it at every step. His fine -phrases to Quong Ho; his boast of altruistic service to mankind? -Sheer juggling with sacred things. Sheer egotism. -Sheer vanity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What a mess he had made of his life! What folly had been -his cowardly flight! If he had known, he would have remained. -Yes. A salve to conscience. But the consciences -of brave men need no salve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had fooled away his life in a country that had no need -of him, from which he had derived no measure of spiritual -profit. Strip the glamour of sheer scholarship from his interest -in Chinese philosophy, and what remained? Scarcely -anything that the heir of Western thought had not picked up -in his child’s copybook. And whilst he was wasting his brain -and his moral energies and his physical strength in pursuit of -the shadows, the son of his loins, a human thing for whose -moulding and development he was, by the laws of nature and -civilization, responsible, had grown up, haphazard, fatherless, -motherless, under alien guidance. He threw his memory back -to his wife’s family, the Woodcotts, narrow-minded, bigoted, -vulgar—Lord! how he had detested them. Had he abandoned -his son to their untender mercies? No matter who had -trained the boy, he himself had failed in the most elementary -duty of mankind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly he raised both clenched fists and cried aloud:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By God! I swear——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly he saw the ironical face of the village doctor -of Water-End and heard his sarcastic words: “A bad habit. -I should give it up”—and his arms dropped helpless by his -sides. No. What was this oath but one more irretrievable -plunge into the morass in which he floundered?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He began again to wonder concerning this newly discovered -son, strove to visualize him. A broad, upstanding fellow, like -himself. Fairer—he got that from his mother. A fine, -soldierly figure in khaki. But only a boy—just twenty. -And he had thrown everything to the winds on the outbreak -of war and had been fighting in France—that child—for two -years. He drew a sharp breath, as a sudden thought smote -him. The boy might have been killed. Apparently he was still -alive. Otherwise Sheepshanks would surely have heard. But -supposing—supposing. . . . He shivered at the thought of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Half an hour, an hour—he was unconscious of time—passed. -Then the door opened and Sheepshanks appeared, -followed by a short-bearded man in clerical tweeds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A bit of luck. I found Crosby in. I’ve told him everything, -and he has been kind enough to come along.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said Dr. Crosby a while later: “I have brought with me -the boy’s last letter—only a week old. Perhaps you would -like to see it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar stretched out an impatient hand. This thing so -essentially personal, the first objective token of his son’s existence, -affected him deeply. The words swam before his -eyes. He turned to the end to see the signature. His thumb -against it, he held out the paper to Sheepshanks, and said in -a shaking voice:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s my handwriting. He has the same trick of the ‘B’ -and the ‘z.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The letter informed the master that he was still at Churton -Towers, near Godalming; that the stump obstinately refused -to heal completely, owing perhaps to the original gangrene; -that he hoped they would not chuck him out of the Army, -because, with a brand new foot, he could be useful in hundreds -of ways; but that, if they did, he would come up and continue -to read for his degree.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“May I keep this, Crosby?” asked Baltazar; and, permission -given, he folded it up and put it in his pocket. Then he -turned to Sheepshanks. “Why didn’t you tell me at first what -had happened?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow,” said Sheepshanks, “I only heard he had -been wounded. I was unaware of details. That’s why I went -at once to Crosby. In these days one must be discreet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, no doubt,” said Baltazar, absently. He paced the -room for a few moments. Then halting: “I must see this son -of mine. But I must see him in my own way. Will you do -me a favour not to let him know of my reappearance until I -send you word?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Certainly,” said Dr. Crosby.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He walked to and fro, his head full of the tragedy of this -maimed young life. He looked from one unemotional face to -the other. Their attitude was incomprehensible. Crosby, -before showing him the letter, had spoken of wound and amputation -in the most matter-of-fact, unfeeling way. Suddenly -he burst out indignantly:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wonder if you two people have any idea of what I’m -feeling. To-day I learnt the wonderful news that I’ve got a -son—a splendid fellow, a man and a scholar. An hour afterwards -you tell me that he’s a one-legged cripple. Neither of -you seem to care a hang. I haven’t heard a word of sympathy, -of pity——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The white-headed, gold-spectacled senior tutor rushed towards -him, in some agitation, with outspread hands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear J. B., we must observe a sense of proportion. -You really ought to go on your knees and thank God that -your son is preserved to you. He’s out of that hell for ever.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My boy—my only son—was killed last December,” -said Dr. Crosby.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar stared for a moment at the short, bearded man -and sought for words, even the most conventional words; but -they would not come. Then, memory flashing on him, he -stretched out his open hand about three feet from the ground, -and said, in a voice which sounded queer in his own ears:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That little chap?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. That little chap,” said Dr. Crosby.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='146' id='Page_146'></span><h1>CHAPTER XII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>A</span><span class='sc'> DAY</span> or two afterwards Godfrey Baltazar, still tied by -his maimed leg to Churton Towers, received a letter -which caused him to frown and rub his head. It was -type-written save for the signature, and was addressed, care -of a firm of solicitors in Bedford Row. As soon as Marcelle -came to do his morning dressing he handed it to her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you make of this?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before replying, she read it through without remark. It ran:</p> - -<div class='blockquote'> - -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:left;margin-left:2.5em;'><span class='sc'>Dear Sir</span>,</p> - -<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>I have just been visiting Cambridge after many years’ absence -abroad, and have learned that the son of my old college -friend, John Baltazar, is lying wounded at Churton Towers -Convalescent Home. I am writing to you, therefore, to enquire -whether one who was very intimately connected with your father -in the old days might venture to run down to Godalming and see -you, with the double purpose of making the acquaintance of John -Baltazar’s son, of whose brilliant academic beginnings the University -authorities have informed me, and of paying a stranger -Englishman’s tribute to a gallant fellow who has shed his blood -for his country. My time being, at your disposal, I shall be happy -to keep any appointment you may care to make.</span></p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:6em;'><span class='it'>Yours very faithfully</span>,</p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:1em;'><span class='sc'>James Burden</span></p> - -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>“Seems rather nice of him,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose it is. But who is the old fossil?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle smiled. “Probably what he claims to be. An old -college friend of your father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He must have been a don of sorts. Not merely an undergraduate -friend. Otherwise how could he have got straight to -the people who knew all about me? You ever heard of James -Burden?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” replied Marcelle, shaking her head. “How could I -know all the fellows of your father’s college? Newnham students -in my day were kept far from the madding crowd of -dons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, what about seeing the sentimental blighter? Oh, of -course he’s sentimental. His ‘double purpose’ reeks of it. -Rather what before the war we used to call ‘colonial.’ What -shall I do? Shall I tell him to come along?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not? It can do no harm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey reflected for a few moments. Then he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You see, before I met you I would have jumped at the -idea of seeing an old friend of my father. But you knew more -of him than the whole lot of the others put together. I’ve got -my intimate picture of him through you. I’m not so keen to -get sidelights, possibly distorting lights, from anybody else. -You see what I mean, don’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see,” said Marcelle. “Let us have a look at the foot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She plied her nurse’s craft; set him up for the day’s mild -activities. When he hobbled an hour later into the hall to -attend to his correspondence and resume his study of the -late Dr. Routh’s <span class='it'>Treatise on Rigid Dynamics</span>, he wrote a polite -note to Mr. Burden suggesting an appointment. After all, -even in such luxurious quarters as Churton Towers, life was -a bit monotonous, and stragglers from the outer world not -unwelcome. It was all very well for most of his comrades, who -had mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, girl friends attached and -unattached to visit them; but he, Godfrey, had found himself -singularly alone. Here and there a representative of the -Woodcott crowd had paid him a perfunctory visit. He professed -courteous appreciation. But they were not his people. -Memories of his pariah boyhood discounted their gush over -the one-footed hero with the Military Cross. He was cynical -enough to recognize that they took a vast lot of the credit to -themselves, to the Family. They went away puffed with -pride and promises. He said to Marcelle:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not taking any.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few men friends, chiefly men on leave, wandered down -from time to time. But they had the same old tales to tell; -of conditions in the sector, of changes in the battalion, of such -and such a scrap, of promotions and deaths, a depressing devil -of a lot of deaths; the battalion wasn’t what it was when -Godfrey left it; he could not imagine the weird creatures in -Sam Browne belts that blew in from nowhere, to take command -of platoons, things with their mother’s milk wet on their -lips, and garters from the Burlington Arcade, their idea of -devilry, in their pockets. And the N.C.O.s! My God! Oh, for -the good old days of—six months ago!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, wise in his generation, laughed at the jeremiads of -these callow <span class='it'>laudatores temporis acti</span>, and on probing further, -satisfied himself that everything was still for the best in the -best of all possible armies. He also found that ginger was still -hot in the mouths of these friends of his, and that he had not -lived until he had seen Betty or Kitty or Elsie So-and-So, or -such and such a Revue.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Frankly and boyishly, his appreciated his friends’ entertaining -chatter. But they came and went, with the superficial -<span class='it'>bonhomie</span> of the modern soldier. They touched no depths. -If he had died of his gangrened foot, they would have said -“Poor old chap!” and thought no more about him. He did -not condemn them, for he himself had said and thought the -same of many a comrade who had gone West. It was part of -the game which he played as scrupulously and as callously as -the others. He craved, however, solicitude deeper and more -permanent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of course there was Dorothy Mackworth. She did not -come to Churton Towers; but she had dutifully attended the -Carlton when he had summoned her thither to meet Sister -Baring, and put on for his benefit her most adorable clothing -and behaviour. The lunch had been a meal of delight. The -young man glowed over his guests—the two prettiest women, -so he declared, in the room. Marcelle in the much-admired -hat, her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes bright, looked -absurdly young. The girl, conscious of angelic dealing, carried -off her own absurd youth with a conquering air that bewitched -him more than ever. She dropped golden words:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, let us cut out Leopold! I’ve no use for him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had no use for Leopold Doon, his half-brother and rival. -He was to be cut out of their happy thoughts. Also:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not going to have you creep back into civil life and -bury yourself at Cambridge. You’d get a hump there you’d -never recover from. There’s lots of jobs on the staff for a -brainy fellow like him, aren’t there, Miss Baring? I’ll press -father’s button and he’ll do the rest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now Dorothy’s father was a Major-General doing things at -Whitehall, whose nature was indicated by mystic capital -letters after his name.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll look splendid in red tabs,” she added.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This profession of interest and this air of proprietorship -enraptured him. Under the ban of her displeasure Cambridge -faded into a dreary, tumbledown desolation. She had -but to touch him with her fairy wand and he would break out -all over in red tabs. She spoke with assurance in the future -tense.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And again, in a low voice, on their winding way out through -the tables of the restaurant, Marcelle preceding them by a -yard or two:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miss Baring’s a real dear. But don’t fall in love with her, -for I swear I’m not going to play gooseberry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had protested in a whisper: “Fall in love with anyone -but you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And she had replied: “I think I’m nice enough,” and had -laughed at him over her shoulder and looked exceedingly -desirable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had never dared till that inspired moment speak to her -of love in plain, bald terms; now he had done it and not only -remained unfrozen, but basked in the warmth of her approval.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think that’s the most beautiful beano I’ve ever had,” -he said to Marcelle, on their journey back to Godalming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yes. There was Dorothy. She had promised to participate -in a similar beano any time he liked. But such bright occurrences -must be rare. He longed to plunge into fervid correspondence. -Caution restrained him. Elusive and perplexing, -Heaven knew what she might say to a violent declaration -of passion. It might ruin a state of things both delicate and -delicious. Far better carry on his wooing by word of mouth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the meanwhile, the days at Churton Towers were long -and life lacked variety. So he looked forward to the visit of -Mr. James Burden, compound of fossil and sentimental blighter -though he might be.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Punctually at three o’clock, the appointed hour, one afternoon, -the maid who attended the door came up to Godfrey -Baltazar waiting lonely in the great hall, and announced the -visitor. With the aid of the now familiar crutch he rose nimbly. -He saw advancing towards him in a brisk, brusque way, a still -young-looking man in grey tweeds, rather above medium -height, thickset, giving an immediate impression of physical -strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you Mr. Godfrey Baltazar?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, sir,” said the boy courteously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My name is Burden. It’s good of you to let me come to -see you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He grasped Godfrey’s hand in a close grip and looked at -him keenly out of bright grey eyes. Not much fossil there, -thought the young man. On the contrary, a singularly live -personality. There was strength in the heavy though clean-cut -face, marked by the deep vertical furrow between the -brows; strength in the coarse, though well-trimmed, thatch -of brown hair unstreaked by grey; strength in his voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do sit down,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar sat down and, looking at his son, clutched the arm -of his chair. Crosby and Sheepshanks were right. A splendid -fellow, the ideal of a soldier, clean run, clear eyes; a touch of -distinction and breed about him, manifestation of the indomitable -old Huguenot strain. By God! A boy to be proud of; -and he saw bits of himself in the boy’s features, expression and -gesture. A thrill ran through him as he drank in the new joy -of parenthood. Yet through the joy pain stabbed him—fierce -resentment against Fate, which had cheated him of the -wonderful years of the boy’s growth and development. For -the first time in his decisive life he felt tongue-tied and embarrassed. -He cursed the craftiness that brought him hither -under an assumed name. Yet, had he written as John Baltazar, -he would have risked a rebuff. What sentimental regard -or respect could this young man have for his unknown and -unnatural father? At any rate his primary object had been -attained. Here he was in his son’s presence, a courteously -welcomed guest. He looked at him with yearning eyes; Godfrey -met his gaze with cool politeness. Baltazar wiped a -perspiring brow. After a few moments Godfrey broke an -awkward situation by offering his cigarette case. The cigarettes -lit, Baltazar said suddenly:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s an infernal shame!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What?” asked Godfrey, startled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar pointed downwards. “That,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” Godfrey laughed. “I’m one of the lucky ones. Far -better to have stopped it with my foot than my head.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But to limp about on crutches all your life—a fellow like -you in the pride of youth and strength. It makes one angry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s kind of you, sir,” said Godfrey. “But it doesn’t -worry me much. They’re wangling a new foot for me, and -as soon as I can stick it on, I’ll throw away my crutches, and -no one but myself will be a bit the wiser.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You take it bravely,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s all in the day’s work. What’s the good of grousing? -What’s the point of a real foot, anyway, when a faked one -will do as well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But though Baltazar admired the young fellow’s careless -courage, he still glowered at the maimed leg. He resented -fiercely the lost foot. He had been robbed of a bit of this -wonderful son.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How did you come to get hit?” he asked abruptly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There are many ways of asking a wounded man such a -question. Many he loathes. Hence the savagely facetious -answers that have been put on record. But there are ways -that compel reply. Baltazar’s was one. Godfrey felt strangely -affected by the elder man’s earnestness; yet his instinct forbade -him to yield at once.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Getting hit’s as simple as being bowled out at cricket. A -jolly sight simpler. Like going out in the rain and getting wet. -You just go out without an umbrella and something hits you, -and that’s the end of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But when was it? How was it?” asked Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, after the way of British subalterns, gave a bald -account of his personal adventures in his last fight near Ypres. -It might have been a description of a football match. Baltazar -wondered. For all his wanderings and experience of life, -he had never heard a first-hand account of modern warfare. -The psychology of it perplexed and fascinated him. He plied -the young man with questions; shrewd, direct questions piercing -to the heart of things; and gradually Godfrey’s English -reserve melted, and he laid aside his defensive armour and -told his intent visitor what he wanted to know. And Baltazar’s -swift brain seized the vivid pictures and co-ordinated them -until he grew aware of the hells through which this young and -debonair gentleman had passed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what did you get that for?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He pointed to the ribbon of the Military Cross.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I managed to get away with some machine guns out of a -tight corner. It was only when we were scooting back that I -discovered we had been left in the air. I thought the battalion -was quite up close. If I hadn’t, I should probably have bolted. -These things are all flukes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a proud man your father would have been,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By the way, yes,” said Godfrey. “I was forgetting. You -were a friend of my father’s.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a great misfortune that he never met you,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He disappeared before I was born,” Godfrey remarked -drily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know. That’s why I wrote to you in some diffidence. I -had no idea how you regarded your father’s memory. I hope -you appreciate my feeling that I might be treading on delicate -ground.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey waved an indulgent hand. “Oh, that’s all right, -sir. My father was a distinguished and romantic person, and -I’m rather interested in him than otherwise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar drew a great breath of relief. At any rate he was -not execrated by the paragon of sons. “I see,” said he, his -features relaxing, for the first time, into a smile. “Like any -other ancestor, he’s part of your family history.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Something of the sort. Only perhaps a bit nearer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How nearer?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“People live who knew him in the flesh. You, for instance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said Baltazar. “I knew him intimately. We were -undergraduates and dons together. I left Cambridge about -the same time as he did—when my fellowship lapsed. I went -away to the Far East, where I’ve spent my life. I’m just -back, you know. Instinct took me to Cambridge, a sort of -Rip van Winkle, to see if there were any remains of old friends—and -my visit to you is the result of my enquiries.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When you wrote to me, I wondered whether you could -tell me if my father was alive or dead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar made a little gesture.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Quien sabe?</span> From what I remember of John Baltazar he -was not a man to let himself die easily. He was the most -obstinate mule I ever came across. Death would have had a -trying time with him. Besides, he was as tough as a rhinoceros.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So he still may be in the land of the living?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As far as I know.” Baltazar leaned forward on his chair. -“You have no feeling of resentment against him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One can’t feel resentment against a shadow,” replied -Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Suppose he reappeared, what would be your attitude -towards him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey frowned at the touch of impertinence in the question -which probed too deeply. He glanced distrustfully at -his visitor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid I’ve never considered the point,” he replied -frostily. “Have you any special reason for putting it to me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar winced. “Only as a student of psychology. But -I see you would rather continue to regard him as a legendary -character?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You must forgive me, Mr. Baltazar,” said the father, with -a smile. “I’m half orientalized and only beginning to attune -myself to Western habits of thought. I lived for so many years -in the interior of China that I almost lost the Western point -of view. Well, there the basis of all religious and philosophic -systems is filial piety. The whole moral and political system -of the Empire has been reared on it for thousands of years. -If you were a Chinaman, you would venerate your father, no -matter what grievances you might have against him or how -shadowy and legendary he might be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I’m not a Chinaman,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Precisely. That’s where your typically Western point of -view is of great interest to me. I hope, therefore, you see that -the question I put to you, although it may be one of curiosity, -is of philosophical and not idle curiosity.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see,” replied Godfrey, smiling and mollified. “May I -ask you which of the two attitudes you consider the most -workable in practical life?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I told you just now,” said Baltazar, “that my mind was in -process of adjustment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There came a slight pause. Godfrey broke it by suggesting -politely that Mr. Burden must have found Cambridge greatly -changed. Baltazar launched into vivid description of the toga -giving way to arms. Eventually came to personalities. The -death of Dr. Crosby’s only son.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I heard,” said Godfrey. “Fine soldier. Done in by -high explosive shell. Not a trace of him or six others left. -Not even the heel of a boot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How lightly you all take death nowadays,” Baltazar remarked -wonderingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That oughtn’t to surprise you,” said Godfrey. “I’ve been -led to believe they don’t worry their heads much about it in -China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thought it one of the points at which East and West -could never touch.” He laughed. “More readjustment, you -see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the Army we’ve got either to be fatalists or lunatics. If -your number’s up it’s up, and that’s all there is to it. <span class='it'>You</span> -can’t do anything. You can’t even run away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But surely you cling to life—young men like you—with -all sorts of golden promises in front of you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We don’t do silly ass things,” said Godfrey. “We don’t -stand about like Ajaxes defying the lightning. When shells -come we scurry like rabbits into the nearest funk-hole. We’re -not a bit brave unless there’s no help for it. But when you -see so many people killed around you, you say ‘My turn next,’ -and it doesn’t seem to matter. You think ‘Who the blazes -are you that you should be so precious?’ . . . No. Going out -all in the fraction of a second like Crosby doesn’t matter. -Why should it? What does give you a horrible feeling in the -pit of your stomach is the fear lest you may be utterly messed -up and go on living. But death itself is too damned ordinary. -At any rate, that’s the way I size it up. Of course it’s pretty -cheap and easy for a lucky beggar like me, who’s out of it for -ever, to talk hot philosophic air—but all the same, looking -back, I think I’ve told you in a vague sort of way what I felt -when I was out in France. Sometimes the whole thing seems -a nightmare. At others, I want to kick myself for sitting here -in luxury when there’s so much to be done out there. I had got -my platoon—I was acting first lieutenant—like a high-class -orchestra—just the last two months, you know. It was the -weirdest feeling. I just had to wave my baton and they did -everything I wanted. Once or twice I nearly cried with sheer -amazement. And then just when the band was playing its -damndest, I got knocked out and fainted like a silly fool, and -woke up miles away. When one has sweated one’s guts out -over a thing, it’s annoying not to reap the fruit of it. It’s -rough luck. It’s—well——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly self-consciousness returned. He flushed deeply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m awfully sorry, sir. I never meant to bore you like this -about myself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bore me!” cried Baltazar. “My dear fellow, you could -go on like this for ever and command my most amazed interest. -Do go on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s very kind of you,” stammered the young man, “but—really——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He stopped, confused, embarrassed, ashamed of his boasting. -Never had he spoken like that to human being of his -incomparable platoon. Never had he unveiled to profane -eyes his soldier’s Holy of Holies. Certainly not to his comrades. -Not to Dorothy. Not even to Marcelle. What on -earth must this stranger, whom he didn’t know from Adam, -be thinking of him? He lit a cigarette, before, remembering -manners, he offered his case to his visitor. The sense of sentimental -braggadocio overwhelmed him, burning him red-hot. -He longed with sudden fury to get rid of this uncanny guest -with his clear, compelling eyes, which even now steadily regarded -him with an inscrutable smile and continued the impossible -invitation: “Do go on.” He could no more go on -than smite him over the head with his crutch (which he was -far more inclined to do) for plucking out the heart of his mystery. -If only the man would go! But he sat there, strong, -urbane, maddeningly kind. He hated him. Yet he felt himself -under his influence. From the man seemed to emanate -a suggestion of friendship, interest, control, which his sensitive -English spirit vehemently repudiated. He heard him say:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The old French blood in your veins has suddenly come up -against the English.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He started. “What do you know about my French ancestry?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your father was very proud of his Huguenot descent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father!” cried Godfrey, his nerves on edge. “I’m -rather fed up with my father. I wish he had never been born.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rose. “I’m sorry,” said he courteously, “to have -distressed you. Believe me, it was far from my intention.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey stared at him for a second, and passed his hand -across his eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s for me to apologize. I’m afraid I’ve been rude. Please -don’t go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Baltazar stood smiling, holding out his hand. Now that -the man was going Godfrey realized the enormity of his own -discourtesy. He looked around as if seeking some outlet for -the situation. And then, as if in answer to a prayer, at the -end of the hall appeared the passing, grey-clad figure of a -guardian angel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sister!” he cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle halted, smiled, and advanced towards him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sister,” said he, “this is Mr. James Burden. You ought to -know each other. You both knew my father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar turned. And for a few speechless seconds he and -Marcelle stared into each other’s eyes.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='157' id='Page_157'></span><h1>CHAPTER XIII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>G</span><span class='sc'>ODFREY</span> half rose from his chair, more than puzzled -by the mutual recognition.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You said you didn’t know Mr. Burden,” he cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But neither heeded him. Baltazar made a stride forward -and with one hand gripped Marcelle by the arm and with the -other motioned in his imperious way to the open door. Still -looking at him in wonderment, she allowed him to lead her -quickly to the terrace at the head of the steps. Godfrey’s -astonished gaze followed them till they disappeared. Outside, -Baltazar released her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Marcelle! What in thunder are you doing here?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was too greatly overwhelmed to reply. She could only -gasp a few broken and foolish words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You? John Baltazar? Alive?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never been less dead. But you! You of all people. My -God! although I lost you, I could never lose your face. It has -been with me all the time. And there it is, the same as ever. -But what are you doing here?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She made a vague gesture over her costume.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m a professional nurse. Sister-in-charge. I’ve been -nursing all my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not when I knew you,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My life began after that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Married?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The colour came back into her white cheeks. “No,” she -said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Neither am I.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He put both hands on her shrinking shoulders and bent on -her eyes which she could not meet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You at last, after all these years! Just the same. Just as -beautiful. Much more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is rather public,” she managed to say, releasing herself. -“There are lots of patients——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed and, indicating the parapet, invited her to sit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You must forgive me,” he said, seating himself by her side. -“The sight of you blotted out the world. Don’t be frightened. -I’m quite tame now. Look at me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She obeyed him as she had done in her early girlhood, dominated -for the moment by his tone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How do you think I’m looking? Battered by time? A -crock to be wrapped up in flannel and set in the chimney-corner -to wheeze the rest of his life away?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You look very little older,” she said with a wan smile. -“And you haven’t a grey hair in your head.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s good. I’m as young as ever I was. I can sweep -away twenty years and begin where I left off.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re more fortunate than I am,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rubbish!” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced at him wistfully and then out over the trees.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nursing isn’t the road to perpetual youth,” she said. -Then lest he should catch up her words, she continued swiftly: -“But you must tell me where you have been, how you’ve come -back to life. You disappeared utterly. You never wrote. If -we all thought you dead, was it our fault? When Godfrey -showed me your letter, I never dreamed who James Burden -might be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey?” Baltazar pounced on the name. “Do you call -him Godfrey? Then you must be old friends. Hence the -miracle of finding you together. Have you been mothering -him all his life?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shook her head. “How you jump at conclusions! No. -I met him for the first time when I came here—a month -ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So it’s just Chance, Fate, Destiny, the three of us meeting -like this? The hand of God? . . . Wait, though. I can’t see -quite clearly. You learned he was my son?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled again:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you think we call all young officers here by their Christian -names?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Does he know that you knew me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If he didn’t,” she replied, “he wouldn’t have consulted -me about Mr. Burden’s letter. I wish I had been mothering -him all his life,” she added after a pause; “but I’ve been doing -my best for the last month. I can’t help loving him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What does he know about you and me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve told him everything,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar started to his feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then when he saw us gaping at each other just now, he -must have guessed, or he can’t have any Baltazar brains in -his head.” He moved away a pace; then turned on her. -“You gave me a good character?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her head was bowed. She did not see the rare laughter in -his eyes, but took his question seriously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can you doubt it?” She beckoned him nearer, and said in -a low voice: “I may have been wrong, but I have given him -to understand that it was entirely on my account—you know -what I mean——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What other reason, in the name of God could I have had?” -he exclaimed with a large gesture.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If there had lingered a doubt in her mind, the note of sincerity -in the man’s cry would have driven it away for ever. -It awoke a harmonic chord of gladness in her heart and her -whole being vibrated. Although John Baltazar’s subsequent -career was as yet dark and mysterious, her faith, at least, was -justified. She said without looking at him:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll find that I’ve been loyal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He strode towards her and, disregarding the perils of publicity, -again took her by the shoulders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What kind of a cynical beast do you think I’ve turned -into?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He swept away, leaving her physically conscious of the -impress of his fingers in her flesh and her brain reeling.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar marched into the great hall to Godfrey, still sitting -in his arm-chair, his maimed leg, as usual, supported on the -outstretched crutch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, don’t get up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He swung the chair which he had previously occupied dose -to Godfrey’s and sat down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By this time you must have guessed who I am,” he said in -his direct fashion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you’re my father,” said the young man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am,” replied Baltazar. “My extraordinary meeting with -Miss Baring gave me away. Didn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose it did. Perhaps I ought to have suspected something -when you mentioned China. But I didn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The assumed name was the one I was known by for eighteen -years—ever since I left England. I thought I’d take it -up again for the sake of a reconnaissance, like the rich old -uncle in the play, to see what kind of a man you were and how -you looked upon your unknown father. Hence the questions -you may have thought impertinent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I quite see,” said Godfrey, pulling at his short-cropped -moustache.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar threw himself back in his chair. “Well, there it is. -We’re father and son. Miss Baring has told you, from her -point of view, why I threw over everything and disappeared. -Her conjecture is absolutely correct. I must, however, say -one thing to you, once and for all. I hadn’t the remotest idea -that you were coming into the world. If I had, I should have -remained and done my duty. I only heard of your existence -a week ago—at Cambridge.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes?” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us come straight to the point then. You either believe -me or disbelieve me. If you don’t believe me, nothing I can -ever say or do will make you. If you do believe me, we can -go ahead. It’s the vital point in our future relations. Speak -out straight. Which is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey looked for a few seconds into the luminous grey -eyes—his own were somewhat hard—and then he said very -deliberately:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I certainly believe you. My conversations with Sister -Baring made me take that particular point for granted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar drew a long breath.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s all right, then. I think I also ought to assure you -that beyond giving Cambridge a nine days’ wonder, I have done -nothing to discredit the name of Baltazar. In China I had a -position which no European to my knowledge has attained -since Marco Polo. I left on account of the warring between -two ideals—the Old China and the New. I belonged to the -Old. I found I couldn’t find orientation unless I came West -for it. I returned to England two years ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you only went up to Cambridge last week?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Precisely. The intervening time I spent in a remarkable -manner, which I’ll tell you about on another occasion. In the -meanwhile we’re face to face with the overwhelming fact that -I’ve discovered an unsuspected son, and you a legendary -father. I’m fairly well off. So, I presume, are you. If you’re -not, my means are yours. It’s well to clear the air, from the -very beginning of any possible sordid bogies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never dreamed of such a thing,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right. That’s settled. We come now to the main -point. We’re father and son. What are we going to do about -it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a peculiar situation, sir,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, who in the impatient interval between Sheepshanks’s -staggering news and the present interview, had pictured -many a <span class='it'>dénouement</span> of the inevitable drama, had never -pictured one so cold and unemotional as this. The Chinese -filial ideal he knew to be non-existent in the West; but in his -uncompromising way he had imagined extremes. Either scornful -enmity and repudiation, or a gush of human sentiment. A -scene in a silly old French melodrama, a memory of boyhood, -had haunted him. “<span class='it'>Mon fils!</span>”—“<span class='it'>Mon père!</span>” And the -twain had thrown themselves into each other’s arms. But -neither of these dramatic situations had arisen. The situation, -indeed, was characterized by the cool and thoughtful -young man merely as “peculiar.” Well, it was an intelligent -view. The boy had heard the arguments of the advocates of -the devil and the advocates of the angels, and he had formed -a sound and favourable judgment. On the angels’ advocacy -he had never reckoned. So much was there to the good. He -was not condemned. On the other hand, he saw no signs of -filial emotion. He himself, with his expansive temperament, -would have rejoiced at being able to cry “<span class='it'>Mon fils!</span>” and clasp -to his breast this son of his loins, this splendid continuance of -his blood and his brain. But in the calm, collected young -soldier he could discover no germ of reciprocated sentiment. -He felt disappointed, almost rebuffed. All the pent-up emotion -of the lonely man was ready to burst the lock-gates; it -had to surge back on itself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After a long silence, he said: “Yes, you’re right. It is a -peculiar situation. Perhaps circumstances make me take it -more—what shall we say—more emotionally than you. -After all, I’m a perfect stranger. I’ve never done a hand’s turn -for you. I may be a complication in your life—to put it -brutally—a damned nuisance. I don’t want to be one, I -assure you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course not,” Godfrey answered, with wrinkled forehead. -“I quite understand. You must forgive me, sir, if I -don’t say much; but you’ll agree that this revelation, or whatever -we like to call it, is a bit sudden. If your mind, as you -said just now, is in process of adjustment, what do you think -mine must be?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right,” said Baltazar. “Let us leave it at that for the -present.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He rose and marched to the door in search of Marcelle. But -she had disappeared from the terrace and was nowhere visible -to his eye scanning the garden. When he returned to the hall, -Godfrey was standing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose I must give the two of you time to recover from -the shock of me. I can quite understand that bouncing in -from the dead like this is disconcerting to one’s friends.” He -looked at his watch. “I must be catching my train. I shall -see you soon again, I hope.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was wondering, sir, whether you would lunch with me -in town to-morrow,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can you travel about like that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Lord! yes. I’m going up to London in any case.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then we’ll fix it. Only you’ll lunch with me. It seems -more fitting. When? Where? I have no club. My membership -of the Athenæum lapsed twenty years ago. And, even -if it hadn’t, the Megatherium—Thackeray’s name for it—is -no good for hospitable purposes. Shall we say the Savoy -at one-thirty?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That will suit me admirably,” said the young man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good-bye.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They shook hands. Godfrey accompanied him to the terrace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you a taxi or cab waiting?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I came on the feet which I unworthily possess,” replied -Baltazar with a smile. “Tell Sister Baring I looked for her -and she was gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll send an orderly to find her, if you like.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar hesitated for a moment. A quick tenderness -checked impetuous impulse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, no!” he answered with a smile. “I’ve worried her -sufficiently for to-day. She’ll hear from me soon enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They shook hands again and he ran down the marble stairs, -and, waving a farewell, strode away with the elastic tread of -youth. After a while Godfrey hobbled down, and, passing by -the tennis courts and through the Japanese garden, arrived -at the beech-wood, scene of their first and so many subsequent -intimate talks, where he felt sure he should find Marcelle. He -saw her, before she realized his approach, sitting on a bench; -staring in front of her, her hands listless by her side. On the -palm of one of them lay a crumpled ball of a handkerchief. -She had been crying. As soon as she heard him she started -and, looking round, greeted him with a smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I knew I’d get you here,” he said, sitting down by her -side. “The long-lost parent has gone. He sent you a message.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He gave its substance. She nodded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s quite right. I need a little time to get used to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey said: “Shall I clear out and leave you alone? Do -tell me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, no!” she said quickly. “I want you. I was just feeling -dreadfully alone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Defenceless?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What makes you say that?” she asked, alarm in her eyes. -For she had been frightened, absurdly frightened, by the swift, -sudden force that had impinged on her well-ordered way of -life. It had set her wits wandering, her nerves jangling, her -emotions dancing a grotesque and unintelligible saraband. Her -shoulders still felt the clutch of irresistible fingers. She was -sure they would bear black and blue marks for days. The -virginal in her shrank from the possible contemplation of them -in her mirror. Defenceless was the very word. What uncanny -insight had suggested it to Godfrey?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In reply, he shrugged his shoulders. Then he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s how I feel, anyway. And if you want me, I want -you. That’s why I’ve ferreted you out. It strikes me we’re -more or less in the same boat. What are we going to do?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know,” she replied absently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The beech foliage was just beginning to turn faint golden. -Here and there a leaf fell. A brown squirrel scampering up -a branch of a tree close in front of them, suddenly halted and -watched them, as though wondering why the two humans -sat so still and depressed on that mellow autumn afternoon. -The sun was slanting warmly through the leaves. The beech-mast, -young and tender, provided infinity of food beyond the -dreams of gluttony. Never an enemy menaced the exquisite -demesne. God was in His heaven, and all was right with the -world. What in the name of Nature was there to worry these -two humans? Well, it was no business of his, and he had -enough business of his own to attend to. He glanced aside, -and his quick eyes spotting a field-mouse at the base of a -neighbouring tree, he darted off, a streak of brown lightning, -in pursuit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently Godfrey spoke, digging in front of him with his -rubber-shod crutch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To be interested in a legendary sort of father is one thing. -There’s imagination and romance and atmosphere about it. -But it’s another thing to have this same father burst on one -in flesh and blood—and such a lot of flesh and blood! Now -a venerable, white-haired old sinner, with a pathetic, intellectual -face, might appeal to one’s sentiment. But this new -father of mine doesn’t. I may be unnatural, Marcelle, but he -doesn’t. Mind you, I’ve no grouch against him. Not a bit. -I’m convinced he thought he was doing right to everybody. -When he learned that I existed, he was struck all of a heap. -He lost no time in tracking me down. He’s actuated by the -best motives. . . . All the same, I can’t rise to it. The more -he tried to make an appeal, the more antagonistic I grew. It’s -beyond explanation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll learn to love him,” said Marcelle loyally, yet without -conviction. “He’s a splendid man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll want to run me. Now I’ve run myself all my life. -So I’ll not stand for it. He’ll want to run you too. You know -it, Marcelle. That’s why you’ve been sitting here feeling lonely -and defenceless.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed ruefully. “I suppose it is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The way he clawed hold of you and dragged you out——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s the way he clawed hold of himself and dragged -himself out, remember,” replied Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A queer devil!” said Godfrey. “Do you know what he -suggests to me? A disconnected dynamo.” He laughed. -“He ought to be hitched on to the war. He’d buck it up.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='166' id='Page_166'></span><h1>CHAPTER XIV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>C</span><span class='sc'>AMBRIDGE</span> put Baltazar on the track of old acquaintances, -so that on his return to London he found himself -in contact with people of his own standing who could -explain to him the contemporary attitude of mind. There was -Burtingshaw, <span class='sc'>K.C.</span>, for instance, a member of the Inventions -Committee, and Weatherley, a professor of Modern History, -whom the war had developed into an indefatigable publicist, -and Jackman, a curious blend of classical scholar and man of -business, who had allowed his family mustard-making firm to -look after itself while he spent laborious days at the Admiralty -in uncomfortable naval uniform. All welcomed the elderly -prodigal, though in return for fatted calves—these were -happy days before rationing—they demanded an account -of his adventures. A man can’t make a sensational disappearance -from a small social unit and turn up twenty years afterwards, -without encountering natural human curiosity. This, -over and over again, he had to satisfy, until he began to regard -his absurd history with loathing, especially that of the past -two years. He went through it, however, grimly, as part of -the penalty he must pay for folly. After his first meeting with -them at offices and clubs, he received invitations to dinner at -their respective homes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The night before he went to Godalming he dined with the -Jackmans. The family consisted of Mrs. Jackman, a homely -woman, who spent most of her time at a Y.M.C.A. canteen on -the south side of the river, two young girls and a boy home on -leave from France. A few guests had been invited to meet -John Baltazar; a colonel of artillery on sick leave, a notoriously -question-asking Conservative member of Parliament, a judge, -the wives of the two last, and a woman just back from eighteen -months’ Red Cross work on the Russian front. A typical war -gathering.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as chance enabled him to speak to his host after -his entrance into this galaxy of civilization, he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Man alive! you shouldn’t have asked all these people. I’ve -not been in a European drawing-room for twenty years. My -instinct is to wander about, growling, like a bear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jackman, a florid, good-natured, clean-shaven man, laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s for your good. The sooner you get into the ways of -the world the better.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what the devil shall I talk about?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let the other people talk. You listen. I thought that was -what you wanted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar sat between Mrs. Jackman and the lady from -Russia. At first he felt somewhat embarrassed, even dazed. -He had not conversed with intelligent women since his flight -from England. Even in his brave University days, his scholarly -habits had precluded him from mingling much in the -general society of Cambridge. Now the broad feminine outlook -somewhat mystified him. The vital question which once -was referred to in bated breath as the Social Evil, cropped up, -he knew not how. His two neighbours talked across him with -a calm frankness that rendered him speechless. He looked -around the table, apprehensive lest the two young girls might -be overhearing the conversation. Their mother did not seem -to care in the least. She quoted statistics in a loud, clear voice. -The Red Cross lady sketched conditions in Russia. The question -was suddenly put to him: What about China? The fifty-year-old -child of a forgotten day caught at the opening and -talked hurriedly. He had lived in the heart of old China, -mainly an agricultural population, a more or less moral, ancestor-fearing -and tradition-bound welter of humanity. There -was much to be said for old China, in spite of the absence of -elementary ideas of sanitation and the ignorance of the new-fangled -Western science of eugenics. Even now girl children’s -feet were being bound. The ladies followed his desperate red -herring and began a less alarming argument on infant welfare. -When pressed for his opinion, he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby at close quarters. I -don’t remember ever having touched one. I have it on hearsay -that the proper thing to do is to prod a baby’s cheek with -the tip of your finger, which you wipe surreptitiously on your -trousers. But I haven’t done it. I know nothing at all about -’em. In fact, your proposition that babies are an important -part of the body politic has never occurred to me. In prolific -China babies spring up like weeds, unregarded. Some of them -die, some of them live. And the living are for the most part -weeds too. One gets used there to an almost animal conception -of the phenomena of life and death. I’m learning all sorts -of things, getting all sorts of new points of view. Just see if -I’m right. Modern Europe isn’t China. Even before the war, -the birth-rate was a matter of anxiety. Now Europe, de-populated -of her male youth, is in a desperate quandary. -Every baby is a priceless asset to the race. Lord!” said he, -pushing spoon and fork abruptly together on his plate, “I -never thought of it. I must appear to you like a fellow on a -great Cunarder, proclaiming his discovery of America. But -the discovery is there all the same. The idea never entered -my head till this minute. Everybody’s got to produce babies -as fast as they can, and everybody’s sacred duty is to see that -they live and thrive and become potential parents of more -healthy babies. That’s the proposition, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Comfortable Mrs. Jackman smilingly agreed. Without -doubt that was the proposition. The flower of the world cut -off by the war. . . . Oh! it staggered imagination to speculate -on the number of bright young lives sacrificed! There was -So-and-So, and Somebody Else’s son. Too tragic! The talk -turned at once to the terrible intimacy of the war. Baltazar -listened and learned many things.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the men were left alone, Baltazar learned more things -about the war; the blunders, the half-heartednesses, the -mysterious influences that petrified action. The soldier spoke -of the fierce fight of a devoted little set of enthusiasts for an -adequate supply of machine guns; the judge of hidden German -ramifications against which he, as a mere administrator -of written law, was powerless; the Conservative member -of Parliament—his revelations made every particular hair of -Baltazar’s brown thatch stand on end. Jackman talked of -labour troubles, mentioned a recent case in which thousands -of men making essential munitions of war had downed tools -because a drunken pacifist, a workman, had been dismissed -from a factory. Baltazar, only a month awakened to the -fact of war, held the same bewildered view of strikes as had -nearly driven him forth at midnight from Pillivant’s house. -He burst out:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why don’t they take the traitors and blow them from the -cannon’s mouth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Member of Parliament laughed aloud:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s nothing like a fresh mind on things.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, why don’t they?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you think,” said the judge, “that such a course -might tend to dishearten the working classes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It wouldn’t dishearten the Army,” declared the literal-minded -Colonel. “The men would be all for it. If any fellows -tried to go on strike in the Army they’d be shot on sight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was the only one of the company who advocated violent -measures. The others seemed to regard strikes as phenomena -of nature impeding the war like artillery-arresting mud, or -as inevitable accidents like explosions in powder factories. -Baltazar went away full of undigested knowledge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On his return from Godalming he dined with Weatherley, a -bachelor, and a small gathering of fellow publicists. Here the -conversation ran on more intellectual lines. The war was considered -from the international standpoint, discussions turned -on the subject-races of Austria, the inner history of the Roumanian -campaign, the sinister situation in Greece, the failure -of Allied diplomacy all through Eastern Europe. Baltazar -listened eagerly to the good keen talk, and went back to his -hotel braced and exhilarated. Even if they had all been talking -through their hats, it would not matter. Premises granted, -the logic of it all had been faultless, an intellectual joy. And -they had not been talking through their hats. They were men -who knew, men who had access to vital information apparently -despised by the Foreign Office.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had fallen into a universe which seemed to be more and -more inextricably jumbled as his outlook widened. But how -splendidly interesting! Take just the little fraction of it given -up to the Czecho-Slovacs and the Jugo-Slavs . . . Serbs, -Croats, Slovenes. . . . He had hitherto paid as little attention -to them as to Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, and other families -of bugs with Latin names, to whose history and habits, not -being an entomologist, he was perfectly indifferent. He had -never thought of them as possible factors in the future of -Europe. Now that he was in touch with his kind again, London -ceased to be a city of dreadful night. In his enthusiastic -eyes it had almost become a <span class='it'>ville lumière</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A week had wrought miraculous changes—that day the -most miraculous of all. At the back of his delight, through -the evening’s rare entertainment ran a thrill of amazed happiness. -A week ago he had floundered here derelict, lost, unwanted, -a sick Chinaman his only link with humanity. Now -he was safe on sunny seas, bound once more to life by friends, -by a new-found son, in itself an adamantine tie, and, wonder -of wonders, by the woman for whose sake he had revolutionized -his existence and whose fragrant girlish memory had sanctified -his after years.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He might have married well in China. Polygamy being -recognized, the fact of his having a wife alive in England would -not have rendered such a marriage illegal according to Chinese -law. He had many opportunities, for he held a position there -unique for a European; and a delicately nurtured Chinese -lady can be an exquisite thing in womanhood, more than alluring -to a lonely, full-blooded man. But ever between him and -a not dishonourable temptation had floated the flower-shape -of the English girl with her pink and white face and her light -brown hair and her hazel eyes, through which shone her English -wit and her English understanding and her English love -and her English soul. Not that he had eaten out his heart -for twenty years for Marcelle. He had wiped her as a disturbing -element clean out of his existence. His loyalty had been -passive rather than active. He had made no attempt to throw -open gates and go in search of her. But at hostile approach -the gates had been uncompromisingly shut.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The wonder of wonders had happened. In one respect, the -wonder of all possible wonders had happened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There had been no disillusion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the gap of twenty years between girl and woman, what -devastating life forces might have been at work, wiping bloom -from cheek, dulling gleam from eyes, distorting lips, smiting -haggard lines on face, hardening or unshapening sweet and -beloved contours; hardening, too, the mind, drying up the -heart, arresting the development of the soul? As he had -never thought to see her in this world again, he had not speculated -on such a natural life-change. It was only now, when -he had met her in the gracious fullness of her woman’s beauty, -that he shivered at the thought of that which might have -been and exulted in the knowledge of that which was. He -remembered a woman, a friend of his wife, though much older, -a lovely dream of a woman of the fair, frail type, who had disappeared -from Cambridge for two or three years and then -returned—suddenly old, as though a withering hand had -passed over her face. No such hand had touched Marcelle. -Then he pulled himself up and thought. How old is she? -Thirty-eight—thirty-nine. Twelve years younger than himself. -He laughed out loud. A mere child! What could she -yet have to do with withering hands? Fifty—thirty-eight! -The heyday of life. What is fifty when a man feels as young -as at twenty-five? Novelists and dramatists were responsible -for the conventional idea of the decrepitude of man after forty. -The brilliant and compelling works of fiction are generally the -inspirations of young men who think the thirties are an age -of incipient decay. “An old dangling bachelor who was single -at fifty!” cries the abusive Lady Teazle. An old bachelor of -fifty! Sheridan, of six-and-twenty, thought of Sir Peter as the -lean and slippered pantaloon; and so has dramatic tradition -always represented him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn it!” cried Baltazar, feeling his muscles as he strode -about his bedroom, “I’m as hard as iron.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Satisfied with his youth, he sat down and wrote impulsive -pages to Marcelle, which he posted in the hotel post-box before -going to bed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He ordered lunch the next day in the great room of the -Savoy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m having my son,” he said to the <span class='it'>maître-d’hotel</span>, with a -thrill at the new and unfamiliar word. “He has been wounded. -I want the very best you can do for us.” The <span class='it'>maître-d’hotel</span>, -pencil and pad in hand, made profuse suggestions. But Baltazar -had forgotten the terms and indeed the items of European -gastronomy. “I leave it in your hands. The best the -Savoy can do. It’s the first meal I’ve had with my son—since—— And -wine. Champagne. What do you recommend?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>maître-d’hotel</span> pointed to a 1904 vintage on the list. -There was nothing better, said he. Baltazar agreed, suddenly -aware that he knew no more of vintage wines than of artillery -drill. His ignorance irritated him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you mind if I look at that for a little?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The <span class='it'>maître-d’hotel</span> handed him the wine list, and for half an -hour he sat by a table in the great empty restaurant studying -the names of the various wines and their vintages. Then, having -mastered the information, he began long before the appointed -hour to pace up and down the vestibule with an eye -on every taxi-cab that swung round the rubber-paved courtyard -and deposited its fares at the door, as impatient as any -young subaltern waiting for his inamorata.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Very proudly he conducted Godfrey to the reserved table -in the middle of the room. He would have liked to proclaim -to each group of lunchers as he passed: “This is my son, you -know. Wounded and decorated for valour.” To those who -regarded them with any attention, they were obviously father -and son. But this Baltazar did not realize.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My boy,” said he, when the waiter had filled the two -glasses, “I hope you like champagne. For myself I am a confirmed -teetotaller. But I come from a land of strict ceremonial—and -ceremonial ideas have got into my bones. Our -first meal together—we must drink in wine to what the -future has in store for us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He smiled and held out his glass across the table. They -touched rims. Baltazar took a sip, then put his champagne -aside and filled a tumbler with mineral water. Godfrey was -struck by the courtesy and suavity of manner with which his -father conducted the little ceremony; also, as the lunch progressed, -by his perfect hostship and by his charming conversation. -The disconnected dynamo could be, when he chose, a -very pleasant gentleman. By his tone and attitude he conveyed -a man of the world’s suggestion that this might be the -beginning of an agreeable acquaintance. Godfrey began to -revise his first impression of his father. Confidence increasing, -he yielded to subtle pressure and spoke in his English objective -way about himself; about his schooldays, his ambitions, -his entrance scholarship, his brief University career. He explained -how his intimacy with Sister Baring sprang from the -unfruitful pages of <span class='it'>Routh’s Rigid Dynamics</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh! that’s how she spotted you——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s how, sir. And then she told me she had read with -you—and eventually all the rest came.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Life is very simple,” said Baltazar, “if we would only let -it take its own course. It’s when we begin to mess about with -it ourselves that the tangles come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the meal was ended and coffee and cigars were brought -round, the young man threw off further garments of reserve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wonder whether I may ask you a question, sir?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A million,” replied Baltazar, “and I’ll do my best to -answer every one.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s only this. You were such a great mathematician -when you left Cambridge. I’ve been wondering all the time -since yesterday what has happened—whether you’ve chucked -mathematics or what——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My boy,” said Baltazar, “you’ve touched on tragedy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sorry,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, you haven’t been indiscreet. By no means. You’re -bound to hear it sooner or later. So why not now? But it -will take a little time. What are your engagements?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My afternoon is at your disposal, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Very good,” said Baltazar. “I shall now proceed to tell -you the amazing story of Spendale Farm, Quong Ho, and the -Zeppelin.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey laughed. Youth that has drunk most of a bottle -of perfect champagne can afford to be indulgent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That has quite an Oriental flavour,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A blend,” smiled Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The waiter, previously summoned, brought the bill. Godfrey, -shrewd observer, noted with gratification that his father -merely glanced at the total, and waved away the waiter with -payment and tip all in the fraction of a second. But a little -while ago he had lunched, grudgingly dutiful, with his uncle, -Sir Richard Woodcott, who, when the bill was presented, had -ticked off the items with a gold pencil, comparing the prices -with the bill of fare, and had sent for the manager to protest -a charge for two portions of potatoes when only one was consumed, -he being forbidden potatoes by his medical man. He -had raised his voice and made a clatter, and neighbouring -parties had smiled derisively and Godfrey had reddened and -glowered and wished either that the earth would swallow him -up or that hell-fire would engulf his millionaire uncle and -trustee.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see now, sir,” said he, “why I’m always broke to the -world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar flashed on him. “What do you mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t look at my bills either,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar bent his keen gaze on his son. The remark had -some significance. At first he was puzzled. Then the solution -flashed on him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re thinking of that damned Woodcott crowd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey gasped. “How on earth do you know that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve lived in a country where unless you guess what the -other fellow is thinking of, you may be led astray by what he -says. It’s a sort of game.” He let the long ash of his cigar -fall into his coffee-cup, and, remembering Quong Ho, added, -with his queer honesty: “I don’t pretend to be an adept, as -you will gather from the tale which I propose to relate. Perhaps -arm-chairs in a corner of the lounge might be more -comfortable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They rose. The heavily tipped waiter sprang to aid Godfrey -with his crutches. The boy paused. Baltazar waved him -courteously on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go ahead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On their way out they passed by a round table at which a -large party were assembled. Suddenly a young officer sprang -up and laid a hand on Godfrey’s shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hallo! Hallo, dear old chap! It’s years since I’ve seen -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not since we’ve been in uniform.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By Jove, that’s true!” He pointed to the M.C. ribbon. -“Splendid, old chap, glorious!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Glory all right,” laughed Godfrey, “but,” pointing downwards, -“<span class='it'>sic transit</span>——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, hell!” said the other.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Kinnaird,” said Godfrey, “let me introduce you to my -father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar beamed. His quick eyes gathered curious glances -from the luncheon party. It was a proud moment, inaugurating -a definite parental position. He wrung the young man’s -hand cordially. Godfrey explained: “Kinnaird and I were at -Winchester and Cambridge together. He’s a classical swell. -When the war came it swallowed us up with different mouths.” -He turned to his friend. “Where have you been all the time?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gallipoli. Then a soft turn in Egypt. And you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Flanders and France.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m off to France next week.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us meet before you go. Where are you to be found?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They exchanged addresses. On leave-taking:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m proud to have met you, sir,” said Kinnaird. He turned -and sat down at his table. Father and son continued their -way to the lounge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was that last remark of your friend,” asked Baltazar, -“unusual politeness, or did it mean anything?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Most of my University friends, sir,” replied Godfrey, -“know who my father was.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” said Baltazar, with knit brows. “Oh, indeed! Anyhow -it was very polite. Look here, my boy,” he went on, as -they halted by a secluded and inviting little table, “I’ve been -struck lately by an outward and visible sign of what seems -to me to be an inward, invisible grace. When I was your age, -having left school and masters behind me, I would have seen -anybody damned first before I called them ‘sir’—except -royalty, of course. Now I come back into the world as an -elderly codger, and both of you young chaps ‘sir’ me punctiliously.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose the Army is teaching us manners,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then the war is of some good, after all,” commented -Baltazar. “And this reversion to an ancient code provides -you with a mode of address which saves you, my young friend, -from considerable embarrassment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, quick and sensitive, glanced for an instant at the -firm lips drawn down in a humorous smile and at the kindly -indulgence in the keen eyes, and then broke into a laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us be grateful, sir, to the <span class='it'>Chinoiserie</span> of the eighteenth -century.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar folded his arms and contemplated his son admiringly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you know, I couldn’t have got out of it like that if I -had thought for a thousand years. Let us sit down.” And -when they had settled themselves by the wall on the fringe of -the crowded lounge, he went on: “You young men are not -the least problem which a Cyrano dropped from the peaceful -moon like myself has to solve.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid we don’t quite know what we’re playing at ourselves,” -said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Baltazar felt pleased with the boy’s reply. An understanding -fellow; one who could get to the thought behind a -few words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish to God I had known you all your life,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the appeal to sentiment, Godfrey shied like a horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It wouldn’t have affected what the war has made of me. -I should have joined up just the same, and, just the same, I -should have had a hell of a time in a perpetual blue funk which -I had to hide, and should have come out minus a foot; and just -the same too I should have wondered how on earth I’m going -to stick the University—if I do go back—with its childish -little rules and restrictions—to say nothing of its limited -outlook.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Two or three years ago,” said Baltazar, following his son’s -lead, “if I heard a fellow of twenty talk about the limited outlook -of the University of Cambridge, I should have said that -his proper sphere was the deepest inferno of insufferable -young prigs provided by another ancient seat of learning -situated also on the banks of a river. As your tutor, I should -have had even nastier and more sarcastic things than that to -say to you. But now, in this new and incomprehensible world, -I’m perfectly ready to agree with you. What is there of the -conduct or meaning of life that our dear old pragmatical drake -of a Crosby and his train of ducks can teach men like your -friend Kinnaird and yourself? It’s like a bunch of hares sitting -down before an old tortoise and being taught how to run. -Isn’t that the way of it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose it is,” replied Godfrey, laughing. “I don’t want -to crab men like the master. Nothing can take away their -scholarship, which, after all, is vital to human progress—and, -of course, as far as that goes, I’m perfectly willing to sit at -their feet—but—well—I know you see what I mean, sir. -It’s very jolly of you, as one of the elder crowd, and very -unusual, to be so sympathetic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll go further than that,” said Baltazar. “As one of the -elder crowd, I should like to have the benefit of your concentrated -experience of modern life, and that is why I propose to -tell you my story of Spendale Farm, Quong Ho, and the Zeppelin. -It’s my Ancient Mariner’s tale, and you cannot choose -but hear. But for the Lord’s sake tell what you can remember -of it to Sister Baring, for I’m sick to death of it.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>It was nearly five o’clock when he had finished. Finding -Godfrey a sensitive listener, he had expounded with many -picturesque and intimate details the story which he had roughly -told so often. The reason for his sudden self-condemnation to -exile he had glossed over, as he had done when first he had -accounted for himself to Sheepshanks. Oddly enough, no -one, not even this son of his, with the quick insight forced to -maturity by the hot-house of war, boggled at the reason. All -accepted his maniacal proceeding as in keeping with the impulsive -eccentricity of his career. Besides, the mere fact of a -man being able so to eliminate from his surroundings every -whisper of the outside world as to live in England and remain -in absolute ignorance of the war for a couple of years, staggered -credulity and eclipsed minor considerations.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well,” said Baltazar, with a big gesture of both arms, -“that’s how it is. To sum up. Eighteen years’ blank ignorance -of, and indifference to, European history—political, -social, moral, artistic, scientific. A week’s dismay and disgust. -Two years’ seclusion devoted to the consolidation of my life’s -work. The whole thing wiped out in a night. Awakening to -find the world had been at war for two years. Myself adrift -in a sort of typhoon, with not a human straw to cling to but my -adopted son, this extraordinary mathematical genius of a -Quong Ho. I fly to Cambridge to try to get some sort of sane -attachment to life. I discover your existence. No sooner do -I meet you than I’m thrown against the very woman for whose -sake, as a young man, I chucked the whole of my career. And -here am I, as strong as a horse. Feel that”—he tendered his -arm and braced his muscle, and Godfrey gripping it proclaimed, -with wonder, that it was like an iron bar—“and with -a first-class working brain, and the country is crying out both -for brains and muscle, and I’ll go mad if I don’t give the country -my best. But at the same time, I’m just a month-old child. -I’m dazed by everything. And I’ve got you and Marcelle and -Quong Ho to look after. You’re all inextricably woven into -the tapestry of my life. Mathematics and Chinese scholarship -can go to the devil. Only the four of you matter——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Four?” Godfrey queried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. Four. You, Marcelle, Quong Ho, and England.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s a tall order, sir,” smiled Godfrey. “But as for me, -I’m all right. I can fend for myself. You can cut me out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar brought down his hand with a great thump on the -little table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m damned if I do!” And to the waiter who ran up in -some alarm: “Yes, tea. China tea. Gallons of it.”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='179' id='Page_179'></span><h1>CHAPTER XV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>B</span><span class='sc'>ALTAZAR</span> had asked his friend Burtingshaw, <span class='sc'>K.C.</span>, to -suggest some sphere in which his gifts might be usefully -employed by the nation. Burtingshaw, an unimaginative -fellow, a professional exploiter of formulas, bade -him become a special constable and join the National Volunteers. -The man all agog to save his country, scoffed at the -advice. If there was marching to be done and blows to be -struck, he had far better enlist. Just like a Chancery lawyer -to try to damp enthusiasm. He decided to bide his time, to -adopt the unusual course of looking before he leaped. To judge -by what he could gather from the press and from conversation, -it had been the crying fault of the Government from the beginning -of the war to use razors to cut butter and wooden -blades to perform delicate operations. There must be waiting -in the vast war machine one particular lever which he of all -men was qualified to pull. To find it would take time. But -what was it? Godfrey’s suggestions ran from vague to gloomy. -Possibly he could find a billet in one of the new ministries -springing up like mushrooms every day, or he might de -Y.M.C.A. work, or drive a motor ambulance in France. All of -which was as satisfactory to the perfervid patriot as the idea -of joining the Special Constabulary or the National Volunteer -Force. He rebelled at half-measures.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile, his own house had first to be set in order. He -began operations by removing his worldly goods (easily contained -in one suit-case and a large brown-paper package) to -a comfortable hotel at Godalming, so as to be near Godfrey -and Marcelle. The quiet, too, of a private sitting-room in a -country inn conduced to the prosecution of certain studies -which Professor Weatherley, admirable guide in the world-welter, -had recommended. He took up his quarters the most -contented and sanguine of men. He had received a letter from -Quong Ho, in faultless, Ciceronian English, conveying the -news that he was well forward on the road to complete recovery, -and in a few days would be in a fit condition to pursue whatever -course of action his most venerated master might choose -to prescribe. When he had disposed the books and pamphlets, -contents of the brown-paper package, about his room, -he sat down and wrote to Quong Ho. A room in the Godalming -hotel was at Quong Ho’s disposal as soon as he was fit to -travel. It would be an admirable opportunity for him to -meet Godfrey. They were to be brothers, mutually helpful: -Godfrey, a past-master in the science of modern life but a -neophyte in mathematics, seeing that he was struggling with -such childish puzzles as the elements of Rigid Dynamics; -Quong Ho, on the other hand, a neophyte in the science of -modern life, but a past-master in elementary mathematics. -It was important, he wrote, that Quong Ho’s appearance -should, as far as possible, be thoroughly European and his -dress impeccable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good Lord!” he cried aloud, throwing down his pen. “I -clean forgot. The poor beggar hasn’t a rag to his back!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drafted a telegram to the tailoring firm in the cathedral -city, instructing them to supply Mr. Ho with essential raiment, -and then, continuing his epistle to his pupil, gave him safe -counsel and his blessing, and enclosed a cheque to meet necessary -expenses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After which he lunched in the coffee-room with the appetite -of the healthy man, lounged for a while with a pipe on the -tranquil pavement outside the inn, and then went upstairs -again, threw himself contentedly into an arm-chair with a -German war publication lent him by Weatherley, and waited -for Marcelle.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>It was her afternoon of freedom. She had looked forward to -the interview with mingled longing and apprehension. He had -been the only man in her life, and it was all such a long time -ago. The jealous grip of her nurse’s work had fastened upon -neck and shoulders, and bent the concentration of her being -within a succession of little horizons. Men she had met and -known intimately, men in thousands; but they were all suffering -men, men whose sole appeal to her womanhood was their -helplessness, their dependence. If there crossed her path a -man with strong protective arm and compelling eyes, he was -whisked away sound and whole beyond her horizon’s misty -rim. Now and then, but rarely, in haggard faces shone eyes -of desire. Her sex revolted until experience taught her the -nurse’s cynical indifference. Of course there are the romances -of nursing. In her long career she had known of many; of -many, too, in which the resultant marriages had been all that -is adumbrated by the ends of the fairy tales. But no ghost of -such a romance had ever come her way. And no romance had -come her way in her restricted social life. Her holidays had -been too rare and fleeting. Here and there, perhaps, a man -had been attracted by her good looks and her graciousness, -but before these had had time to consolidate a first effect, she -was miles away, back again in uniform between the eternal -rows of beds. She had worked hard and seriously, the perfect -nurse, accepting, without question, the hospital ward as the -sphere ordained for her by destiny. Yet to soften the rigid -life, she had fostered in her heart the memory of the brief and -throbbing love of long ago.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During her drive from Churton Towers in the motor-cab, -foolish trepidations beset her. Although her woman of the -world’s sound sense made mock of timidities, yet old-maidish -instincts questioned the propriety of her proceeding. She was -going to meet her former lover in a private room of an hotel. -What about professional decorum? Matron, who kept a hard -and unsympathetic eye on flirtatious tendencies in the junior -staff, would regard her visit, should she come to know of it, -as a horrifying escapade. She had seen her as she ran down -the steps, hatted, gloved, prinked to her best, with a betraying -flush (lobster colour, she thought) on her cheek; and being -within earshot of the Gorgon, she had thrown the mere word -“Godalming” at the chauffeur as she entered the car. When -she gathered up courage to look at herself in the strip of mirror -that faced her, her prejudiced eyes saw herself pale and haggard, -smitten with lines which she had not noticed when she -put on her hat. And all the time she knew that these feminine -preoccupations were but iridescences on the surface of -deep, black waters filled with fear, and that she was letting -her mind play on them so as not to think of the depths.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar was waiting for her outside the hotel. Thus one -little fear was sent packing. As a nurse she would have gone -to Hell Gates to enquire for a man. She had done it many a -time in France. As Marcelle Baring she was restrained by -futile hesitancies. As Marcelle Baring, a woman with her own -life to lead, she was unfamiliar to herself. She had shrunk -from entering the inn alone and asking for Mr. Baltazar. But -there he was awaiting her on the pavement, and no sooner had -the car stopped than he had opened the door and helped her -to alight. And following him through the passage and up the -narrow staircase, while he talked loud and cheery and confident, -as though he defied gossiping tongues, and every minute -turned to smile upon her, she remembered with a little pang -of remorse for unjust fears, that as now so it had been in the -beginning; that there never had been a tryst hard or venturesome -for her to keep, never one on which he was not there -before her, big, responsible, inspiring confidence. He was -singularly unchanged.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Obeying a breezy wave of the hand, she sank into an arm-chair. -He shut the door and crossed the room, his face lit with -happiness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the first time in our lives we’re together alone within -four walls. You and I. Isn’t it strange? We have to talk. -Not only now, but often. As often as we can. It would have -been monstrous of me to expect you to run up and down to -London. Besides, there would have been no privacy. The -lounges of the great hotels—I loathe them! A man and woman -sit whispering in a corner and at once surround themselves -with an atmosphere of intrigue. Horrible! And I couldn’t -come every day to Churton Towers—even ostensibly to see -Godfrey. There would have been the devil to pay. All sorts -of scandal. So I’ve made this my headquarters, in order to be -near you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The weather had turned raw and cold, and as she had driven -in an open car, clad in light coat and skirt, with nothing to -warm her but a fur stole, she felt chilly, and welcomed the -bright fire in the grate. She smiled, and said it was very cosy. -He searched the room for a hassock, and finding one set it -beneath her feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ll have tea soon, which will make it cosier,” he said. -He threw himself into an arm-chair on the other side of the fire. -“It’s like a fairy-tale, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She admitted the strangeness of the circumstances in which -they had met, and with instinct of self-defence began to speak -of Godfrey, of their suddenly formed friendship, of his manifold -excellences. Baltazar let her run on for a while, content -merely to let his eyes rest on her and to listen to her voice. -At last he rose, irrelevantly, and, striding across to her, held -out both his hands. She could not choose but surrender hers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can’t you realize what you’ve been to me? ‘All a wonder -and a wild desire!’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She fluttered a frightened glance at him and withdrew her -hands. He stood looking down on her, one elbow resting on -the mantelpiece.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you remember? That Browning line—it was one of -the last things I said to you. Then we lost our heads and -broke off a delightful conversation. Why not continue it, -starting from where we left off?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How can we go back twenty years?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By wiping out two hundred and forty unimportant months -from our memories.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced up at him and shook her head. It was the grey -and barren waste of those two hundred and forty months that -formed the impassable barrier. In order to pick up the thread -of that last talk it would be necessary to recapture the grace -of those brief and exquisite moments.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If we are to be friends,” she said, “we must start afresh. -All that—that foolishness has been dead and buried long ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Buried, perhaps—or, rather, hidden away in a Sleeping -Beauty sort of trance. But dead? Not a bit of it. It has -been healthily alive all the time, and now—a magic touch—and -it has reawakened strong and beautiful as ever.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s very easy to play with words and metaphors and -analogies. You can make them appear to prove anything. As -a matter of fact, we’ve both been subjected to the organic -changes of twenty years. I can no more become the girl of -eighteen than I can become the child of eight or the baby eight -months old.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar put his hands in his pockets, laughed, turned -away, and sat down again in his chair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We seem to have got on to the basis of a nice and interminable -discussion. Let us get off it for the present. We -have plenty of time. If I’m anything at all, I’m a man of -illimitable patience.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed out loud. She could not help it. A typhoon -proclaiming its Zephyrdom! And proclaiming it not jestingly, -but with the accent of deeply rooted conviction.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You? You patient? Oh, my dear——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There,” he cried, jumping up from his chair. “You have -called me ‘my dear’!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quickly she retorted: “I didn’t. At least, I didn’t mean to. -You caught me up in your patient way. I was going to call -you my dear something—my dear sir—my dear man——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My name happens to be John,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“ ‘My dear John’? No. I wasn’t going to say that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It sounds as if we had been married for twenty years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With feminine instinct she had put her foot on his man’s -vanity and had used it, like a rock climber, as a projection to -mount to safety. She saw him uncertain, unhumorous, and -felt pleasurably conscious of advantage gained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You said it twenty years ago, at any rate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She sat up victoriously in her chair. “I didn’t. Never. I -don’t think I had the courage to call you anything. Certainly -not John. I never even thought of you as John. As a label -you were John Baltazar. But not John—<span class='it'>tout court</span>—like -that. Oh no!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you’re right,” said Baltazar. “It’s a damned -name. It’s everything that’s dull and prosaic in the -English genius concentrated into one uninspiring vocable. -Unlike other idiot names, it has no pleasing diminutive. -‘Johnnie’ is insulting. ‘Jack’ is Adelphi melodrama. Thank -God I’ve been spared both. Now I burst upon you, after -twenty years, as ‘John,’ and you naturally receive the idea -with derision.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she cried. “Look at the great -men of your name. John of Gaunt, John Knox, John Bunyan, -John Locke, John Stuart Mill——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A merry crew of troubadours, aren’t they?” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whereat they both laughed, and the situation, as far as it -affected her, was relieved. They talked freely of the twenty -years of their separation. She of her work, her family; her -mother, still alive, looked after by an elder sister, her brothers, -both younger than herself, in the Navy. He, of China and -his lamentable adventure on the moorland. He found that -Godfrey, carrying out his request, had saved him from the -abhorred recital of his story. Quong Ho aroused her curiosity -and amused interest. She longed to see Quong Ho. Tea was -set out in old-fashioned style and she presided at the table. -She laughed at the wry face he made over the first sip of the -good, strong Ceylon blend. Not the least dismal aspect of -the tragedy of Spendale Farm, he explained, was the destruction -of the chests of priceless tea which he had brought from -China—stuff that yielded liquid and fragrant gold, lingering -on the palate like exquisite wine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn the Huns for robbing me of my tea!” he cried, -“besides damning them for a million other devilries. And yet -the just man must give even Huns their due. They’ve done -one good thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle flashed a protest. “They haven’t. They’re incapable -of it. I’ve been in France, in the thick of it, close up -to the Front—and I’ve seen things. I know. They haven’t -done one good thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They have,” said Baltazar. “They’ve brought you and -me together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” said Marcelle rather foolishly. “I thought you were -referring to something serious.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He fastened on the word. “Serious? Do you suppose that -your presence here at this minute, with that little bitten-into -piece of buttered toast between your finger and thumb, isn’t -the most serious fact in my life since I parted from you on -the Newnham Road twenty years ago?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She dropped the bit of toast into her saucer and regarded -him with dismayed renewal of her earlier fears.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why spoil everything? We were beginning to get along -so nicely.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He became aware of her piteous attitude. “What have I -said?” he asked solicitously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In distress, she replied: “What you mustn’t say again. If -you do, it’s the end. It makes things impossible.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t see why it should. If I weren’t honest about it, -it would be a different matter. But I am honest. I can’t tell -you that I’ve waited for you all these years, for the simple -reason that I never dreamed I should see your face again. -But I’ve been true to your memory. It has knocked out the -possibility of any other woman. That’s plain fact.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Womanlike, she said: “I suppose I’ve wrecked your life. -God knows I never meant to.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he rose and flung his arms out. His essential integrity -spoke through his egotism. He tapped his broad chest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wrecked my life? If a man’s a man, do you suppose his -life can be wrecked by anybody but himself? Do I look like -a wreck? I’ve lived every minute of these twenty years to the -full power of body and brain. If I made any appeal, on that -score, to your pity or suchlike sentiments, I should be a contemptible -liar. If there’s any question of playing the devil -with lives, I did it with yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, no, no!” Her voice quivered and she sank back in -her chair, with averted head. “Of course not. That’s absurd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well then,” he asked, “what’s all the fuss about? We -loved each other when we parted. Pretty passionately and -desperately, too. Why we shouldn’t love each other now, when -fate throws us together again, I can’t understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She answered wearily: “I’ve told you. The years that -the locust hath eaten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What locust?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah!” she sighed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took a pace or two towards the door, halted, turned and -looked at her as she sat by the tea-table, and the pain in her -eyes and the piteous twist of her lips smote him with remorse. -A remarkable idea entered his head. He clinched the entrance -by smiting his left palm with his right fist. Naturally any idea -coming into Baltazar’s head could not fail to be correct. -He went behind her chair and laid his finger-tips on her -shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear,” said he tenderly, “forgive me. I ought to -have thought of it before. A beautiful and accomplished -woman——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She swerved round. “Oh, don’t! You mean that there -may have been someone else—since——? Well, there hasn’t. -I’ve been far too busy.” And seeing him incredulous of -the fallibility of his idea, she added with a touch of petulance: -“If there had been anybody, I should have told you -so at once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the moment she wished there had been an intervening -lover whose memory she could use as a rampart, for again -she felt defenceless. If only Godfrey would come! He had -promised to call for her on his way back from London, whither -he had been summoned by a Medical Board. She glanced at -the clock on the mantelpiece. Godfrey’s train would not -arrive for another hour. With some apprehension she watched -Baltazar, who was moving about the room in a restless, puzzled -way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you see you’re spoiling it all?” she said. “And I -haven’t even finished my tea.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Laughter like quick sunshine lit his face. “A thousand -pardons, Marcelle. I of all people to outrage the etiquette of -tea-drinking!” He sat down. “Another cup, please. I shall -get used to it soon. The Ceylon tea, I mean—not being -with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She breathed again, rather wondering at the power of a light -word. Of course she had learned the way of tactful dealing -with querulous or obstinate patients. Had she instinctively -applied the method to Baltazar? A flush crept into her cheek. -Perhaps those were right who proclaimed that man sick or -man sound was the same overgrown child. Hitherto she had -regarded man sick with maternal indulgence. Was she to -regard man sound, in the person of John Baltazar, from the -same maternal point of view? It would be a change from the -old one. For twenty years she had looked on the John Baltazar -of thirty with the eyes of the girl of eighteen; and she had -beheld him as a god. Now she looked upon the man of fifty -with the eyes of the woman of thirty-eight. It was not that -either of them had grown wondrously old. On the contrary, -he appeared to have changed absurdly little, for his face had -ever been eager and marked with the lines of thought which -time had but accentuated; his figure had retained its athletic -suggestion of strength and activity; and his manner had the -fire and vehemence of youth. And she herself had received -assurance from an anxiously consulted mirror, of beauty that -endured, and physically she rejoiced in the consciousness of -splendid health, enabling her to work untiringly at tasks that -had all but prostrated her fifteen years ago; in which respect -she was younger than ever. No, it was not that he was an -old man and she an old woman between whom the revival of -romance would have been pathetically ludicrous. It wasn’t -that at all. . . . After she had handed him the cup of tea, -she took up the long abandoned bit of toast which she had -dropped into the saucer. Laughing, he leaned forward and -whipped from her fingers the cold and forlorn morsel, which -he threw into the fire, and sprang to hand her the covered china -dish from the warming hob.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not that unsacramental bit of bread,” he cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was not done rudely or bearishly; it was done in the most -charming way in the world; done with a cavalier, conquering -lightness, what the French call “<span class='it'>panache</span>,” characteristic of -the bright creature who had overpowered and overmastered -her in her impressionable girlhood. She helped herself from -the hot pile of toast, and her smile of thanks was not without -a curl of ironic indulgence. The masterfulness of the proceeding -in no way offended her, its manner being so perfect, but it -did not strike the old romantic chord. Its symbolism flashed -illuminatingly upon her. The god of the girl of eighteen to the -woman of thirty-eight appeared merely as a self-willed, erratic -and vehement man. The glamour that had invested him -faded like the colours of dawn, and the sunshine beat on him -in a hard, mistless air. He stood before her in the full light. -While she listened to his pleasant talk, her feminine subconsciousness -observed him in clear definition. It admitted his -many virile and admirable qualities; he was a man out of the -common mould; he was ruthless in the prosecution of the -lines of conduct which he laid down for himself—and these -same lines had been inspired by high moral or spiritual ideals; -in his egotism he might unthinkingly trample over your body -in order to reach his ends, but at your cry of pain he would -be back in a flash, tearing himself to bits with remorse, overwhelming -you with tenderness; a man, too, of great intellect—in -his own sphere, of genius; a contradictory being, a hectoring -giant, a wayward child, a helpless sentimentalist; possibly, -with all that, the overgrown baby of the nurses’ tradition; a -man, possessing all the defects of his masculine qualities. Not -a god. Nothing like a god. Just a man. Just an interesting, -forceful, even fascinating man whom she was meeting for the -first time. A brilliant stranger. She gasped at a swift realization, -even while she smiled at his description of what passed -for a hospital at Chen Chow, the scene of Quong Ho’s prim -and passionless amours. A stranger. Yet memory had made -familiar every gesture, every intonation. He had not changed. -It was she who had changed. The fault lay in herself, baffling -attempts at explanation. She began to accuse herself of callousness, -deadness of soul, and at last conscience impelled her -to make some sort of amends.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There remained but a quarter of an hour before Godfrey -was due. She lit a cigarette from the match which Baltazar -held out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wonder,” she said, with a little air of deliberation, -“whether you would let me say something—and remain -quite quiet?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He replied happily: “I swear I’ll sit in this chair until you -give me leave to get up. But why say it? You’ve never let -me finish what I want to tell you. It has to be told now, or a -month or six months or a year hence. It’s silly to waste time, -so why not now? I’ve awakened from a long sleep to find -myself in a world of marvels, in a new, throbbing England, -and for the first time in my life every pulse in me throbs with -my country. I must play my part in the big drama. I’ve -also awakened to find even deeper and more passionate things -gripping at my heart: My son, whom I never knew of. And -you. You, Marcelle. No, no!” he laughed, “I’m not going -to get up. I’ll put the point in the most phlegmatic way -possible. I love you now as much as ever I did. I want to -marry you at once. I’ve been pursuing shadows for half a -century. I want to get into the substance of life at last. A -man can’t do it by himself. He needs a woman, just as—to -advance an abstract proposition—a woman needs a man. -You’re the only woman in the world for me. Together, you -and I, we can go forth strong into this wonderful conflict. -You can help me, I can help you. If you’re tired and want -rest, by God, you shall have it. You shan’t do a hand’s turn. -But a smile and a whisper from you will fill me with strength -for both of us. That’s the proposition.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked for a long time into the fire, her head aslant, -her lips and fingers accompanying her thoughts in nervous -movements. Presently she said, in a low voice:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A man like you would want the Sun, Moon and Stars.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And would see that he got them,” said Baltazar. “They’re -there right enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shook her head despairingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s where you make the mistake. You would want -what I couldn’t give—what isn’t in me to give. Don’t you -see it’s no good? The whole thing is dead. I thought it was -alive, but it isn’t. It’s dead. I’m dead. I suppose a nurse’s -work eventually unsexes a woman. That’s frank enough, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a frank statement of a conclusion arrived at through -fallacious reasoning,” replied Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shivered. “These things have nothing to do with -reason. In all these years haven’t you learned that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said he. “Schopenhauer and his lot were idiots. -Love is the apotheosis of reason. My dear,” he added, rising, -“this is profitless argument. I’m getting up without your -permission, but I’ll be as unobstreperous as thistledown. If -you feel you can’t marry me, well, you can’t. The reasons -you will find are perfectly logical—but throw away the rotten -fallacy in your premise of sexlessness. You are woman all -through, my dear, from your lips to your heart. Perhaps I’ve -been rather like a bull at a gate—the gate of heaven. I -suppose I was built like that. But if you’ll let us be friends, -dear friends, I won’t worry you any more. I promise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She broke down. Tears came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m so sorry—so sorry. But you do understand, don’t -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t say I understand, my dear,” he replied very tenderly. -“But I accept the phenomenon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He turned and looked out of the window at the quiet road. -Presently a taxi-cab drew up outside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here’s Godfrey,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She rose. “I’ll go down and meet him. It’s no use his -climbing all these difficult stairs.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll come again, won’t you?” And seeing a flicker of -hesitation pass over her face, he added: “If only to let me -show you Quong Ho.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, I’ll come again,” she replied, “if only to show you——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She moved quickly to the door, which he opened, and he -followed her downstairs. In the vestibule they met Godfrey. -Gloom overspread the young man’s candid face and dejection -marked his behaviour, neither of which could be accounted -for by the fact of the Medical Board having given him, as he -announced, a further two months. Baltazar’s proposal to -run over soon to Churton Towers for a talk, he welcomed with -polite lack of enthusiasm. He took leave with the solemnity -of a medical man departing from a house with a corpse in it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It doesn’t seem to be one of the House of Baltazar’s lucky -days,” said Baltazar to himself, as he went up to his room.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='192' id='Page_192'></span><h1>CHAPTER XVI</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>I</span><span class='sc'>T</span> was not till long afterwards that Baltazar learned the -cause of his son’s discomfiture. Marcelle learned it at -once. The boy exploded with pent-up indignation. Dorothy -had turned him down, callously turned him down. Could -Marcelle imagine such heartlessness? He had gone to her -after his Board. Seeing that she had undertaken to keep him -in the army, it was only civil to report progress. Besides, -the house had been open to him since childhood. Well, there -she was alone in the drawing-room. Looked bewitching. Jolly -as possible. Everything right as rain. Then, he didn’t know -how it happened—perhaps because she hadn’t discouraged -him at the Carlton—anyhow there it was; he lost his head; -told her he loved her, worshipped her and all the rest of it, -and asked her to marry him. She broke into peals of laughter -and recommended him not to be an idiot. She had the infernal -impudence to laugh at him! If she had been a man he would -have wrung her neck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And that isn’t all,” he cried. “What do you think she -had the colossal nerve to tell me? That she was engaged to -my brother Leopold. Leopold! ‘Why,’ I said, ‘only the -other day you informed me you were fed up with Leopold.’ -‘Oh! that,’ she said airily, ‘was before the engagement.’ Apparently -the brute’s just home on leave and has stolen a march -on me. Easy enough with two feet,” he added bitterly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle tried to console. After all, he was very young, -not yet one-and-twenty. It would be years before he could -marry. He flared up at the suggestion. That was what -Dorothy, a month older than he, had the cool cheek to say. -What did age matter? He was as old as Hell. He had all his -life behind him. In the trenches alone he had spent twenty -years. As for marrying, he was perfectly able to support a -wife, not being, through God’s grace, one of those unhappy -devils of new army officers who were wondering what the deuce -they would do to earn their living when the war was over. . . . -She had treated him damnably. A decent girl would have -been kind and sorry and let him down easily. But she!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She treated me as though I were a lout of a schoolboy, -and she a woman of thirty. Only the woman of thirty would -at least have had manners. Well, she’s going to marry Leopold. -I wish her joy of him. She’ll have a hell of a time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Decidedly it had not been a lucky day for the House of -Baltazar. Marcelle was oppressed by a sense of guilt for her -share in the family disaster, and felt tragically unable to -administer comfort. Yesterday she would have poured healing -sympathy over the hurts of the evilly entreated youth, and -her wrath would have flamed out upon the heartless minx who -had spurned the love of a gallant gentleman. But to-day how -could she? Had not some horrible freak of chance put her -in the same dock as Dorothy, worthless criminals both?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you were very angry with her,” she said timidly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He flung out a hand. Oh, that inherited gesture! Angry? -Who wouldn’t have been angry? He would never see her, -speak to her, think of her again. He had told her so. As for -receiving favours from General Mackworth, she was not to -dare insult him by dreaming of it. Marcelle pictured a very -pretty rumpus. Godfrey was not John Baltazar’s son for -nothing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And she, in the modern idiom, had turned down John Baltazar; -with less ostensible reason, for, after all, she had not -engaged herself to another man. Was he, too, like his son, -hurling anathema at the head of a faithless woman? Outwardly -he had been very courteous, astonishingly gentle; but -he was older and had learned self-restraint. How was he -taking it now? She was very glad when they reached Churton -Towers and when she stripped from herself the unfamiliar -trappings of Marcelle Baring and put on the comforting impersonal -uniform of the nurse.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, however, carried out none of Marcelle’s forebodings. -He neither upbraided her nor smashed furniture, nor made one -of his volcanic decisions. He merely lit a pipe and sat down -and tried to think out his unqualified rejection. It was a -second Zeppelin bomb, annihilating the castle in the air which -that morning had appeared utterly solid and assured, as effectively -as the first had wiped out Spendale Farm and all that -it signified. He couldn’t make head or tail of it. He sat a -mystified man. For him the glamour of the old days had not -faded. In her ripe woman’s beauty she was more desirable -than ever. Flashes had shown the continuance of her old wit -and gaiety. Thank God she wasn’t eighteen still. What -would he do with a child of eighteen? The association was -unthinkable. But the woman into which she had developed -was the ideal mate and companion. As for her being dead, -that was rubbish. Never was woman more splendidly alive. -. . . Now let him try to get her point of view. He clenched -his teeth on his pipe. At eighteen she loved him. She made -some sort of hero of him. She kept up her idealization until -she met him an elderly, unromantic savage of fifty. Then her -romance fell tumbling about her ears, and she said to herself, -“Oh, my God! I can’t marry <span class='it'>this</span>!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was the “<span class='it'>that</span>” which he had thought himself that the -second bomb had sent into eternity. It took a lot of confused -and blinking wonder for him to realize Marcelle’s “<span class='it'>this</span>.” -Having realized, he accepted it grimly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had a little passage of arms with her some days afterwards. -She had invited it, anxious to know how deeply she -had wounded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m wretched because I feel I’ve again brought you unhappiness,” -she confessed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That you should be leading the life you wish to lead is -my happiness,” he replied, not insincerely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I feel so selfish,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Which means that if I pestered and blustered and raved -and stormed and made your days a nightmare of remorse, -you would end by marrying me out of desperation?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I suppose I should.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I’m damned if I do it. You’d be merely a scared -sort of slave of duty, suffering all the time from acute inflammation -of the conscience. I being a product of human civilization, -and not a German or a gorilla, or even a Hottentot, should -be soon aware of the fact, and our lives would be the most -exquisite misery the mind could conceive.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can’t see why you don’t hate me,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think I’ve arrived at an understanding of the phenomenon,” -he replied with a wry smile. “You might just as -well try to recreate a vanished rainbow as a lost illusion.” -He smiled. “Go in peace,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To himself he said: “I wonder what will be the next knock-down -blow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Not being able to take charge of Marcelle and Godfrey, -who both seemed bent on going their respective independent -ways, and Quong Ho still lingering at Water End, Baltazar -applied himself seriously to England. First he must learn, -learn more fully the endless ramifications of national and international -life that formed the nervous ganglion of that manifestation -of activity known as the war. In pursuit of knowledge -he not only read books, but eagerly availed himself of -every opportunity of social intercourse. His circle of acquaintances -grew rapidly. His three friends, loyal sponsors, had -started him with the reputation of an authority on Far Eastern -problems. He became a little lion and delighted in it like a -child.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great monthly review published an article on China -written by a well-known diplomatist. It was so deplorably -wrong in its failure to reach any possible Chinese point of view, -that Baltazar shut himself up for a couple of days in his inn -sitting-room and wrote a scathing refutation of the eminent -sciolist’s propositions. This, the ink on the last sheets scarcely -dry, he put into an envelope and sent off to the editor. A week -later the article was returned with the stereotyped form of -rejection. In a fury Baltazar sought Weatherley and consulted -him as to the quickest means of wading in that editor’s -blood. Here was this monstrous ass, he shouted, who, on the -strength of having passed a few months at the Embassy in -Pekin, with his owl’s eyes full of the dust politely thrown in -them by bland Chinese officials, not knowing a word of any -Chinese language written or spoken, without the vaguest idea -of the thoughts or aspirations of the educated man in the -interior of the kingdom, was granted the authority of a great -review to spread abroad in this country the miasma of his -pestilential ignorance. That stupendous and pernicious asses -of his kidney should be allowed to mould British public opinion -was a scandal of scandals. And when he, who knew, wrote to -expose the solemn red-tape and sealing-wax dummy’s imbecility, -an equally colossal ass of an editor sent back his article -as if it were an essay on Longfellow written by a schoolgirl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When you’ve finished foaming at the mouth, my dear -J. B.,” said Weatherley, “let me look at the manuscript. Ah!” -he remarked, turning over the pages, “untyped, difficult to -read, owing to <span class='it'>saeva indignatio</span> playing the devil with a neat -though not very legible handwriting, and signed by a name -calamitously unknown to the young and essentially Oxford -Pennyfeather.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your serene equanimity does me a lot of good,” growled -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You must advance with the times, my dear J. B.,” laughed -Weatherley. “Why on earth didn’t you ring the man up, -telling him who you were, and then have the thing typed?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Telephones and typewriters!” cried Baltazar. “This new -world’s too complicated for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never mind,” said Weatherley. “Leave things in my -hands. I’ll fix up Pennyfeather. If he persists in his obscurantism, -owing to a desire to save his face, I’ll send the article to -Jesson of <span class='it'>The Imperial Review</span>, who’ll jump at it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I accept your help gratefully,” replied Baltazar. “But all -you’ve said confirms me in my opinion that your friend Pennyfeather -is a lazy, incompetent hound. He and his jejune magazine -can starve to death.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed after a while at his own vehemence. They talked -of the points at issue. Presently Weatherley said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“After all, you’re two years behindhand in Chinese affairs. -Chinese adherence to the Allied Cause is of vast importance. -Why don’t you go out again on behalf of the Government and -pick up the threads?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar burst out:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I go back to China? That God-forgotten country of dead -formulas, in which I’ve wasted the prime of my life? No, my -dear friend, never again. I’m here at last, among my own -people, in the most enthralling moments in the history of the -civilized world. For years I looked upon myself as a damned -Chinaman, and now I’ve woke up to find myself English. And -English I’m going to remain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But,” objected Weatherley, “by undertaking a Government -mission in China, you can remain as English as you please.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar refused to consider the suggestion. England, his -rediscovered country, was his appointed sphere of action. -No more China for him as long as he lived. He went away -almost angry with Weatherley for putting such an idea into -his head. No doubt he might be useful out there: much more -useful than a diplomatist like the arid ass who had written -the article; but to bury himself there again and leave Godfrey -and Marcelle and the throbbing wonders of his resurrection, -was preposterous. As he descended Weatherley’s staircase a -shiver of dismay ran down his spine. A walk through the -streets restored his equanimity. Those crowds which once -had seemed so alien, were now his brothers, all fired by the -same noble aspirations. He would have liked to shake hands -with the soldiers from far oversea, Canadians, Australians, -New Zealanders, South Africans, and thank them for their -inspiring presence. The day was fine, the exhilaration of the -Somme victories was in the air. The new mystery of the tanks -exercised all London, which still showed the afterglow of the -laughter caused by continued humoristic descriptions in the -morning papers. A tank waddled up to a house filled with -Germans, leaned against it in a comfortable way, and there -was no more house and no more Huns. He heard scraps of -conversation about them as he walked. Yes, Tennyson was -right—a bit of a seer after all that Incarnation of Victorianism—when -he remarked that fifty years in Europe were preferable -to a cycle in Cathay. He went in gayer mood to lunch -with Jackman at a club in the West End, for membership of -which his host had proposed him. The club, like many London -clubs, being hard hit by the war, had taken the unprecedented -step of holding an autumn election for all candidates duly -proposed and seconded. Baltazar found invited to meet him -a little party of influential members. He went back to Godalming -forgetful of Weatherley’s idiocy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few days afterwards he met Weatherley by appointment -at his chambers in the Temple. A group of publicists outside -professional journalism, of which Baltazar guessed his friend -to be one of the initiative forces, were about to bring out a -new weekly review, devoted to the international phases of -the war; to all racial questions from Greenland to New Guinea. -Its international outlook would be unlimited, but, of course, it -would pursue a relentless anti-German policy. Would Baltazar -care to join the band? If so, would he attend a meeting -of the founders of the Review that afternoon?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow,” cried Baltazar, holding out both his -hands, “it’s meat and drink to me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll take up the Far Eastern end of the thing,” said -Weatherley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll write about China till I’m dead, if you like,” said -Baltazar, “so long as I don’t have to go back to the infernal -country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again, after the meeting, Baltazar returned to Godalming -in a glow. Thanks to Weatherley, he had at last got a footing -in the Great Struggle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a telephone talk with Marcelle he told her all about it. -He heard a ripple of laughter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where does the fun come in?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her voice said: “You’re so young and enthusiastic. You -ought to be the son and Godfrey the father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By the way,” said he, “what’s the matter with Godfrey? -He’s about as cheerful as a police-court in a fog.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle, who could not betray Godfrey’s confidence, attributed -his depression to the tediousness of his recovery and -the uncertainty of the future.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course, of course!” replied Baltazar penitently. “I’m -a selfish beast, never entering into other people’s feelings. I -must brighten things up for him.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>The opportunity came very much sooner than Baltazar had -any reason to anticipate, in their meeting with Lady Edna -Donnithorpe in the lounge of the Carlton.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Young, beautiful, royally assured, she advanced laughing to -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about your promise, Mr. Baltazar? Pie-crust?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had sat next her at dinner a week before and she had -invited him to come to tea one afternoon; to have a quiet, -interesting talk, she said, away from crowds of disturbing -people. She was the wife of the Parliamentary Secretary of one -of the new ministries, the daughter of the Earl of Dunstable, -and in other ways a woman of considerable importance. Her -radiant photographs recurred week after week in the illustrated -papers. Gossip whispered that she had turned the Prime -Minister round her little finger and that when he had recovered -from dizziness, he found he had given her elderly and -uninspiring husband a place in the Government. Certainly -no one was more surprised than Edgar Donnithorpe himself. -That he owed his advancement to his wife was common knowledge; -but alone of mortals he was unaware of the fact. When -asked by a friend why she had gone to so much pains, she -replied: “To get Edgar out of the way and give him something -to play with.” She was twenty-five, pulling a hundred -strings of fascinating intrigue, a flashing member of scores of -war committees, and contrived for herself illimitable freedom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar made his apologies. He meant to keep his promise, -but it required courage on the part of such a back number -as himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Back number?” she cried. “Why, on your own showing -you’ve only been in existence a few weeks. You are the newest -thing in numbers in London.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is gracious of you to say so,” replied Baltazar. Then, -as she gave no sign of withdrawal: “Lady Edna, may I introduce -my son—Lady Edna Donnithorpe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thought it must be. How do you do?” There were -dovenotes in her voice which, to the young man’s fancy, invested -the commonplace formula with caressive significance; -her liquid dark blue eyes regarded him understandingly and -pityingly; her hand lingered in a firm clasp for just an appreciable -fraction of a second.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you agree with me about your father? You and I -are old, wise, battered people compared with him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Youth spoke to youth, making gentle mock of middle age—and -youth instantly responded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father,” replied Godfrey, drinking in her laughing -beauty and her sympathetic charm, “has brought back from -China all sorts of quaint notions of filial piety—so, until I -know whether my opinions of him are pious or not, I rather -shy at expressing them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She beamed appreciation. “I have a father, too, and although -he has never been to China, I sympathize with you. -One of these days we’ll have a little heart to heart talk about -fathers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should love to,” replied Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you really? Are you sure faithlessness is not hereditary -in your family?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lady Edna,” said Baltazar, holding out the signet ring on -his little finger. “If you saw this motto of our ancient Huguenot -family in a looking-glass, you would read ‘<span class='it'>Jusqu’à la mort</span>.’ -The word <span class='it'>fidèle</span>, of course, being understood.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Death is a long way off, let us hope,” she laughed. “But -if the family faithfulness will last out—<span class='it'>jusqu’à jeudi</span>—no—I -can’t manage Thursday—I’ll give it one day more—say -Friday—may I expect you both to lunch with me? You have -my address—160 Belgrave Square.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Receiving their acceptance of the invitation, she shook -hands and went across the lounge to her waiting friends.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A most interesting type,” said Baltazar. “A woman of -the moment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s wonderful!” said Godfrey. And as her head was -turned away, he looked long and lingeringly at her. “Wonderful!”</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='201' id='Page_201'></span><h1>CHAPTER XVII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>W</span><span class='sc'>HEN</span> he hobbled into her drawing-room and saw her -without her hat, crowned with the glory of her hair, -thick, of silky texture and of baffling colour, now -almost black, now gleaming with sombre gold, and her slender -figure clad in a blue dress which deepened the magical blue -in her eyes, Godfrey thought she was more wonderful still. -The clasp of her bare hand with its long, capable fingers, thrilled -him. Her voice had the added caress of welcome to her house. -When, later, she reminded him of their promised heart to heart -talk about fathers, it was in his heart to say, “The pedantic -old bat calls you a type—you, unique among women!” The -criticism had buzzed in his head all the week and on occasions -he had laughed out loud at its ineptitude. It buzzed in his -head while he was being introduced to Lady Northby, the wife -of a distinguished General, and it was with an effort that he -cleared his mind enough to say:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had the honour of serving under the General in France. -Oh, a long, long way under, all the time I was out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then you’re friends at once,” cried Lady Edna. “You’ll -join Lady Northby’s collection.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of what, pray?” asked Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of Sir Edward’s officers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know whether Mr. Baltazar would like to be collected,” -said Lady Northby. She was a tiny, dark-faced, -kind-eyed woman of fifty. Her smile of invitation was very -pleasant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can you doubt it?” replied the young man. “It must be -a glorious company. I’m only afraid I’m a poor specimen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Won’t you sit down?” She indicated a place on the sofa -by her side. And when Godfrey had obeyed her, she said in a -low voice: “That and that”—with the faintest motion of -her hand she indicated decoration and footless leg—“entitle -you to a place of honour.” Then as if she had touched sensitive -ground, she added hastily, almost apologetically: “Lady -Edna always teases me about my collection, as she calls it; -but there’s a little truth in it. My husband is very proud of -his Division, and so am I, and the only way I can try to realize -it as a living thing, is to get to know some of his officers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By Jove!” cried Godfrey, his eyes suddenly sparkling. -“That accounts for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the Division being the most splendid Division, bar -none, at the Front. For the magical influence the General has -over it. I’ve only seen him once or twice and then I shook -in my boots as he passed by. But there isn’t an officer or man -who doesn’t feel that he’s under the tips of his fingers. I -never could account for it. Now I can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled again. “I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly he became aware of his audacity. Subalterns -in social relations with the wives of their Divisional Generals -were supposed to be the meekest things on earth. He was not -sure whether their demeanour was not prescribed in paragraph -something or the other of Army Orders. His fair face blushed -ingenuous scarlet. In the meanwhile in her eyes shone amused -and kindly enquiry; and, to render confusion worse confounded, -Lady Edna and his father appeared to have suspended -their casual talk in order to listen to his reply. There was no -help for it. He summoned up his courage, and with an invisible -snap of the fingers said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was you behind the Division all the time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The modest lady blushed too. The boy’s sincerity was -manifest. Lady Edna rose with a laugh, as a servant entered -the room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The hand that rocks the subaltern rules the Division. Let -us see if we can find something to eat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There were only the four of them. At first Lady Edna Donnithorpe -had thought of inviting a numerous company to meet -Baltazar. Her young consciousness of power delighted in the -homage of the fine flower of London around her table. Baltazar’s -story (heard before she met him) had fascinated her, he -himself had impressed her with a sense of his vitality and vast -erudition, and after the dinner party she had been haunted -by his personality. Here was a great force at a loose end. How -could she apply it? People were beginning to talk about him. -The new Rip Van Winkle. The Freak of the War. It would -be a triumph to manœuvre him into the position of a National -Asset. She had already drawn up a list of the all-important -people whom it was essential for him to know—her husband -did not count—and was ticking off the guests for the proposed -luncheon party when suddenly she tore it up, she scarcely -knew why. Better perhaps gauge her protégé more accurately -before opening her campaign. The son added a complication. -A fine pathetic figure of a boy. Perhaps she might be able to -do something for him, too, if she knew what he wanted. She -liked his eyes and the set of his head. Besides, the stuffy lot -who would be useful to the father would bore the young man -to death. She regarded the boredom of a guest in her house -as an unimaginable calamity. Edgar, her husband, was the -only person ever bored in it, and that was his own doing. -He had reduced self-boredom in private life to a fine art. -She decided that young Baltazar should not run the risk -of boredom. Having tom up her list, she ran across Lady -Northby, dearest of women, the ideal fourth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the beginning of lunch, while Baltazar happened to be -engaged in eager argument with Lady Northby, she devoted -herself to Godfrey. In her sympathetic contralto she questioned -him, and, under the spell of it, he answered. He would -have revealed the inmost secrets of his soul, had she demanded -them. As it was, he told her an astonishing lot of things about -himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently the talk became general. Lady Northby, in her -gentle way, shed light, from the point of view of a divisional -commander’s wife, on many obscure phases of the war. Lady -Edna held a flaming torch over black and abysmal corners of -diplomacy. Godfrey sat awed by her knowledge of facts and -her swift deductions from them. He had never met a woman -like her, scarcely dreamed that such a woman existed. She -had been in personal touch with all the great ones of the earth, -from the Kaiser upwards, and she judged them shrewdly and -with a neat taste in epigram.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If the Kaiser and the Crown Prince had been ordinary -middle-class folk,” she said, “they would have been in gaol -long ago. The father for swindling the public on a grand scale; -the son for stealing milk-cans.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had met King Constantine, then a thorn in the Allied -flesh, whose sufferance for so long on the Greek throne is still -a mystery to the plain Briton.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a degradation of a name for Constantine the Great,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s just it,” she flashed. “His awful wife says ‘<span class='it'>In hoc -signo vinces</span>,’ and dangles before his eyes the Iron Cross.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No. Godfrey had never met a woman remotely like her. -She was incomparable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The talk developed quickly from the name of Constantine -to names in general. The degradation of names. Uriah, for -instance, that of the most tragic victim of dastardly treachery -in history, now brought low by its association with Heep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love the old Saxon names,” said Lady Northby, with -some irrelevance. “Yours, dear, for instance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a beautiful name,” said Baltazar, “but it’s not Saxon. -It’s far older.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Surely it’s Saxon,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Edna was the wife of Raguel and the mother-in-law of -Tobias, the son of Tobit, the delightful young gentleman carrying -a fish and accompanied by the Angel Raphael, whom you -see in the Italian pictures.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna was impressed. “I wonder if there’s anything -you don’t know?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “I only remember what I’ve read. My early -wrestling with Chinese, I suppose, has trained my memory for -detail. I’m also very fond of the Apocrypha. The Book of -Esdras, for instance, is a well of wonderful names. I love -Hieremoth and Carabasion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently she said to Godfrey: “Your father always makes -me feel so humble and ignorant. Have you ever read the -Apocrypha?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid not.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Neither have I. If you said you had, I should want to sink -under the table. The pair of you would be too much for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her confession of ignorance delighted him as much as her -display of knowledge filled him with wonder. It made her -deliciously human.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When lunch was over and they went up to the drawing-room -she left the elders together and sat for a while apart with him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll go and see Lady Northby, of course,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should just think so,” he replied boyishly. “You see, -I’m New Army and have never had a chance of meeting a -General’s wife. If they’re all like that, no wonder the Army’s -what it is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna smiled indulgently. “She’s a dear. I thought -you would fall in love with her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you couldn’t have known I was in General Northby’s -Division, unless——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Unless what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Unless you’re a witch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With a quick glance she read the tribute in his young eyes. -It almost persuaded her that she possessed uncanny powers. -She looked charmingly mysterious.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us leave it at that,” she said. “Anyhow,” she added, -“Lady Northby can be very useful indeed to a young officer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Useful?” His cheek flushed. “But I couldn’t go to see -any lady—socially—with the idea of getting things out of -her. It would be awful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He met her eyes. “It’s obvious.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She broke into pleasant laughter. “I’m so glad you said -that. If you hadn’t, I should have been dreadfully disappointed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But how could you have thought me capable of such a -thing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His real concern touched her. Inured to her world of intrigue -which had little in it that was so sensitive on the point -of honour, she had taken for granted his appreciation of Lady -Northby’s potential influence. She was too crafty a diplomatist, -however, to let him guess her surprise; still less suspect -her little pang of realization that his standards might be -just a little higher than her own; or her lightning glance back -to her girlhood when her standards were just the same. She -gave him smilingly to understand that it was a playful trap -she had set for him, so that resentment at an implied accusation -was instantaneously submerged beneath a wave of wonder -at the gracious beauty of her soul. This boy of twenty, instinctive -soldier, half-conscious thereof when he came to exercise -his power, could play on fifty rough and violent men as on -an instrument, and make them do his bidding lovingly in the -ease of camp and follow him in battle into the jaws of hell, -as they had done, but he was outclassed in his unwitting struggle -with the girl of five-and-twenty, instinctive schemer after -power, her clear brain as yet undisturbed by any clamourings -of the heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, desiring to bring brightness into the boy’s life, -had brought it with a vengeance. He had not heard of Dorothy. -He had no idea of the state of mind of the Rosaline-rejected -young Romeo of a son of his. Unconscious of peril, he cast -him into the furnace. “An interesting type. A woman of -the moment,” commented placid and philosophic Fifty. “Oh! -she doth teach the torches to burn bright!” sang Twenty. -Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. See the part of Romeo <span class='it'>passim</span>. -Away with Rosaline! His “love did read by rote and could -not spell.” Rosaline-Dorothy was blotted out of his Book of -Existence for ever.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What are your plans?” asked Lady Edna, as soon as the -little cloud had melted beneath the very eager sunshine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As soon as I get a new foot I’ll spend every day at the -War Office until they give me something to do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You oughtn’t to have any difficulty. There are lots of -billets going, I know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. But what kind? I’m not going to sit in an office all -day filling up forms. I want to get a man’s job. Active service -again.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How splendid of you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her commendation was something to live for. After the -British way, however, he deprecated claims to splendour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not a bit. It’s only that one feels rather rotten doing -nothing while other fellows are fighting. They may take me -in the Flying Corps. But I’d sooner go where I belong—to -the job I know. Perhaps I’m rather an ass to think of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not at all. Where there’s a will there’s a way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m going to have a try for it, anyhow,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He thought vindictively of Dorothy’s light patronage, which -would have resulted in a soft job. No soft jobs for him. He -had had a lucky escape. Dorothy and her inconsequence and -flapperish immaturity, and the paralysing work that General -Mackworth would doubtless have found for him—recording -issues of bully-beef or keeping stock of dead men’s kits! Never -in life! In those bright eyes raining influence—no, they were -not bright—they were muffled stars—that was the fascination -of them—he would make himself something to be considered, -respected, admired. He would be the one one-footed -man in the British Army to arrive at greatness. The splendid -end compelled the means. Until that moment he had never -contemplated an heroic continuance of his military career.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna, pathetically young, in spite of myriad ageing -worldlinesses, including a half-humorous, half-repellant marriage -of calculation, was caught by his enthusiasm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should love to see you back again!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That alone is enough,” said he, “to make me move heaven -and earth to get there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She flushed beneath his downright eyes and hid a moment’s -embarrassment by a laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s a very pretty speech,” she said lightly. “I’m glad -to find the Army is going back to its old tradition of manners.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I perfectly agree with you,” exclaimed Baltazar, for her tone -had been purposely pitched higher than that of the preceding -conversation. “I’ve been greatly struck by it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The little intimate talk was over; but enough had been said -before father and son took their leave, to make Godfrey treasure -every one of her beautiful words and repeat them over and over -again. Especially her last words, spoken in a low voice for him -alone: “I don’t want to lose track of you. One so often does in -London. If ever you’re at a loose end, come and report progress. -Ring me up beforehand.” She gave him her number. Victoria -9857. A Golden Number. The figures had a magical significance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was not long before he ventured to obey her, and rang up -the Golden Number. He spent with her an enchanted hour, -the precursor of many hours which Lady Edna stole from her -manifold activities in order to devote them to the young man’s -further enchantment.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>In the meanwhile Quong Ho arrived at Godalming. Quong -Ho delighted with himself, in his ready-made suit and soft felt -hat, in spite of the loss of his pigtail, which the treatment of -his cracked skull had necessitated. Baltazar, too, cast an eye -of approbation on his European appearance, regarding him -somewhat as a creation of his own. His pride, however, was -dashed by Godfrey, who on being asked, eagerly, after the -first interview, what he thought of Quong Ho, cried:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For Heaven’s sake, sir, get the poor devil a new kit!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why—Why?” asked Baltazar, in his impatient way, -“what’s the matter with his clothes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They fit like a flag at the end of a pole in a dead calm,” said -Godfrey. “Or like sails round a mast. You’d have to get a -pack of hounds in order to find his arms and legs. And that -red and purple tie! It’s awful. Ask Marcelle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar had walked Quong Ho over to Churton Towers, -and after they had said good-bye at the gates, he had rushed -back to put his question, leaving Quong Ho in the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle smiled at his disconcerted face. “It would be -scarcely well received at Cambridge.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Give the chap a chance, sir,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want to give him every chance,” exclaimed Baltazar. -“I want to overwhelm him with chances. If his clothes won’t -do, get him some others.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At his summons the Chinaman came up. Baltazar caught -him by his loose sleeve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey doesn’t approve of garments not made to the -precise measurements of the individual human figure. He’ll -take you to his tailor and hosier and hatter and rig you out -properly. He knows what’s right and I don’t. When can you -do it? The sooner the better.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll see what my engagements are,” said Godfrey stiffly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s right,” cried Baltazar. “Telephone me this evening. -His time’s yours. Get him all he wants. Brushes, combs, -shirts, pyjamas, boots. You know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He wrung his hand, waved his hat to Marcelle and marched -off with Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey regarded the retreating figures speechless. Then he -turned to Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of all the cool cheek! Without by your leave or with your -leave! I’m to cart this infernal Chinee about Bond Street. -My God! My tailor will have a fit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So long as Quong Ho gets one, it doesn’t matter,” laughed -Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he was in no humour for pleasantry. He dug his crutch -viciously in the ground as he walked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He takes it for granted that I’d love to be saddled with -this scarecrow of a Chinaman. Don’t you see? It’s preposterous. -My God! I’ve a jolly good mind to set him up regardless, -like a pre-war nut—with solid silver boot-trees and the -rest to correspond. It would serve J. B. right.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said Marcelle with a sidelong glance—in her Sister’s uniform -she looked very demure—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why didn’t you refuse?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He fumed. “How could I? I couldn’t hurt the poor chap’s -feelings. Besides——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Besides what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This father of mine—his big gestures, his ugly mouth—and -his infernal dancing eyes—and behind them something -so pathetic and appealing—I don’t know. Sometimes I think -I loathe the sight of him, and, at others, I feel that I’d be a -beast if I shut my heart against him. And always I feel just -like a rabbit before a boa-constrictor. I’m not a little boy. -I’ve seen life naked. I’m on my own. I object to being bossed. -In the Army it’s different—it’s part of the game; but outside—no!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He limped along to the house full of his grievance. It was -not so much the clothing of Quong Ho that annoyed him, -though he could well have spared himself the irritating embarrassment, -as the sense of his gradual subordination to a -dominating personality. The disconnected dynamo was hitching -itself on to him, and he resented the process.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How you’ve escaped being married out of hand, I don’t -know,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle flushed. “The moment he realizes other people’s -feelings,” she replied, “he becomes the gentlest creature on -earth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish to goodness he’d begin to realize mine,” growled the -young man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When they reached the front steps of Churton Towers, -Marcelle said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wonder whether I could be of any help to you in your -shopping?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You? Why——” He beamed suddenly on her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m free on Friday. I could go up to town with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re an angel!” he declared. “A winged angel from -heaven.” The boy in him broke out sunnily. “That’ll make -all the difference. What a dear you are. Won’t we have a -time! I’ll love to see you choosing the beast’s pyjamas.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They shall be stout and sober flannel,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. Silk. Green, red, yellow and violet. The sort of -thing the chameleon committed suicide on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who’s going to run the show—you or I?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh you. You all the time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed and hobbled up the steps in high good humour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Marcelle went off to her duties smiling pensively. What a -happy woman would be the right woman for Godfrey. Wax -in her hands—but wax of the purest. She was astonished at -the transformation from cloud to sunshine which she, elderly -spinster nearly double his age, had effected, and her nerves -tingled with a sense of feminine power. Her thoughts switched -off from son to father. They were so much alike—from the -feminine point of view, basically children. Were not her fears -groundless? Could she not play upon the man as she played -upon the boy? Recent experience answered yes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But then she faced the root difference. To the boy she surrendered -nothing. To the man she would have to pay for -any measure of domination the price of an indurated habit of -existence, the change of which was fraught with intolerable -fear. No. She could take, take all that she wanted. But she -could not give. There was nothing in her to give. Better this -beautiful autumn friendship than a false recrudescence of -spring, in which lay disaster and misery and disillusion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As for the boy, God was good to have brought him into her -life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile, Baltazar walked home to Godalming with Quong -Ho in gay spirits. It was just like the modern young Englishman -to shy at the depths and attack the surface. And, after -all, as a more alert glance assured him, the surface of Quong -Ho deserved the censure of any reasonable being. One could -almost hear his garments flap in the autumn wind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I fear,” said Quong Ho apologetically, “that my care in -selecting this costume was not sufficiently meticulous.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey’ll soon put that right,” laughed Baltazar. “Anyhow, -it’s the man inside the clothes that matters.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And when he came to think of it, he perceived that the -man inside had had little opportunity of revealing himself, he, -Baltazar, having done the talking for the two of them. Quong -Ho had comported himself very ceremoniously. His manners, -though somewhat florid in English eyes, had been unexceptionable, -devoid of self-consciousness and awkward attempts -at imitation. He had responded politely to the conventional -questions of Marcelle and Godfrey, but there his conversation -had stopped. Of the rare gem presented to them they -had no notion. Never mind. Once let Quong Ho give them -a taste of his quality, and they could not choose but take him -to their bosoms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Which, by the end of the Friday shopping excursion, was -an accomplished fact.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now that Marcelle had assumed responsibility, Godfrey, -after the way of man, regarded the attiring of Quong Ho as a -glorious jest. His bright influence melted Quong Ho’s Oriental -reserve. Encouraged to talk, he gave them sidelights on the -life at Spendale Farm which neither had suspected. His -description, in his formal, unhumorous English, of the boxing -lessons, delighted Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The old man must be a good sport,” he remarked to Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah!” said Quong Ho, bending forward—they were in the -train—“A ‘sport’ is a term of which I have long desired to -know the significance. Will you have the gracious kindness to -expound it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lord! That’s rather a teaser,” said Godfrey. “I suppose -a sport is a chap that can do everything and says nothing, and -doesn’t care a damn for anything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho nodded sagely. “That is most illuminating. I -regret that I have not my notebook with me. But I shall -remember. Incidentally, you have summed up exactly the -character of your honourable father and my most venerated -patron.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s a joy,” Godfrey whispered to Marcelle as they left the -train. “I could listen to him all day long. He talks like the -books my grandmother used to read when she was a kid. Mr. -Ho,” said he, as they proceeded up the platform to the gates, -“you have now a unique opportunity of studying the Western -woman. Miss Baring is going shopping. You see in her eye -the sign that she is going to have the time of her life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Madam,” said Quong Ho, taking off his hat, to the surprise -not only of Godfrey but of the scurrying passengers, -“that is also the superlative achievement of the ladies of my -country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They shopped, they lunched merrily in a select little restaurant -off Shaftesbury Avenue, they shopped again. Godfrey -stood aloof and gave advice; sketched the programme in -broad outlines; Marcelle filled in the details and became responsible -for the selection of the various articles; Quong Ho -smiled politely and submitted the various parts of his body, to -be measured. Only once did he venture to interfere, and that -was when Marcelle was matching ties and socks in the Bond -Street hosier’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I beg most humbly your pardon,” said he, picking out a -tie other than the one selected, “but this shade is the more -exact.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Surely it’s the same,” exclaimed Marcelle, putting the ties -together.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The gentleman is right, madam,” said the shopman. “But -not one person out of ten thousand could tell the difference. I -couldn’t, myself, if I hadn’t been trained at Lyons. I wonder, -madam, whether you would allow me to try a little experiment?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He disappeared into a back room and returned with a pinkish -mass of silk threads.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is a colour test. There are twenty different shades. -Can you sort them?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, amused, took half the mass, and for several minutes -he and Marcelle laboriously sorted the threads. Presently the -shopman turned to Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now you, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, without hesitation, made havoc of the piles and -swiftly arranged the twenty groups in an ascending scale of -red.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s not another man in London who could have done -that under an hour,” said the shopman admiringly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When did you learn it?” asked Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Vain boasting, sir,” replied Quong Ho, “is far from my -habits, but to me these differences are as obvious as black -from white. It is only a matter of informative astonishment -that they are not perceptible both to you and”—he took off -his hat again—“to the most accomplished madam.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look here, old chap,” said Godfrey, “what I want to know -is this. How could you, with your exquisite colour sense, go -about in that awful red and purple tie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To assume the perfection of English pink,” replied Quong -Ho, “I would make any sacrifice. At the same time, it gives -me infinite satisfaction to discover that the taste of Water -End is not that of the metropolis. <span class='it'>Non omnes arbusta juvant -humilesque myricae.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I beg your pardon?” cried Godfrey, with a start, almost, -upsetting the high counter chair on which he was sitting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, perched between Godfrey and Marcelle, turned -with a smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is the Latin poet Virgilius.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, I know that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He says that shrubs and other bucolic appurtenances do -not please everybody—by which he means the sophisticated -inhabitants of capital cities, who prefer such delectable harmonies -of colour”—he waved a hand to the pile of shirts, -socks, ties and pyjamas on the counter—“to the red and purple -atrocities which form the delight of the rural population.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, elbow on counter and head on hand, regarded him -wonderingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mr. Ho,” said he, “you’re immense. Do tell me. I don’t -mean to be impertinent. But for a Chinaman to quote Virgil—pat—How -do you manage to do it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“During my convalescence,” replied Quong Ho, with his -engaging smile, “I read through the works of the poet with -considerable interest. Dr. Rewsby was kind enough to obtain -for me the edition in the series of the Oxford Pocket Classics, -<span class='it'>P. Virgilii Maronis Opera Omnia. Oxonii. MDCCCCXIII</span>, -from which date I concluded that I was reading the most -authoritative text known to English scholarship.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the meanwhile,” said Marcelle, “Mr. Ho is in need of -winter underclothing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Not the least noteworthy of the day’s incidents was the -meeting between Quong Ho and Lady Edna, who, proceeding -on foot to a War Committee in Grosvenor Street, and wearing -the blue serge coat and skirt of serious affairs, ran into -them as they waited for a taxi on the Bond Street kerb. She -stopped, with outstretched hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, Godfrey, I didn’t know you were in town to-day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, suddenly catching Marcelle’s curious glance, she -became conscious of his companions and her cheek flushed. -He hastened to explain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re on outfit duty—indenting for clothing for Mr. Ho, -who was badly bombed, if you remember, with my father.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He performed the introductions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have heard about you, Mr. Ho,” she said graciously. -“You’re a great mathematician.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey wondered at her royal memory. Quong Ho, bare-headed, -said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I but follow painfully in the footsteps of my illustrious -master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed. “You must let Mr. Godfrey bring you round -to see me one of these days.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Madam,” replied Quong Ho, with a low bow. “As the -Italians say, it will be a thousand years until I have the honour -to avail myself of so precious a privilege.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We must fix something up soon, then—one day next -week.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shook hands with Marcelle, nodded to the others, and -went away wreathed in smiles. Quong Ho followed her with -his eyes; then to Godfrey:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have never seen a more beauteous and worshipful lady. -One might say she was one of the goddesses so vividly described -by Publius Virgilius Maro.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your taste seems to be impeccable, sir,” replied Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the train, on the homeward journey, Marcelle, who was -sitting by Godfrey’s side—Quong Ho sat opposite reading an -evening paper—said to him:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You seem to be great friends with Lady Edna Donnithorpe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The best,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you usually let her know when you’re coming up to -town?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey reflected for the fraction of a second. Lady Edna -had certainly committed the unprecedented act of giving herself -away. Frankness was therefore the best policy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sometimes I do,” he replied innocently. “On the off -chance of her being able to give me a cup of tea. It’s only -once in a blue moon that she can, for she’s always all over the -place.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s a very beautiful woman, my dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your taste is as perfect as Quong Ho’s.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, hearing his name, looked with enquiring politeness -over the top of his newspaper.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miss Baring and I were talking of Lady Edna.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah!” said Quong Ho, with a very large smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before they parted, on reaching Churton Towers, Marcelle -put her hand on Godfrey’s shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have asked you that question in the -train—I had no right——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He interrupted her with his boyish laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You dear old thing! You have every right to cross-question -me on my wicked doings. Haven’t I adopted you as a -sort of young mother? Iolanthe. Or the Paphian one which -Quong Ho was gassing about. Now, look here. You just -come to me in a rosy cloud whenever you like, and I’ll tell -you everything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Swear it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I swear it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He kissed her finger-tips, and she went away half-reassured. -But she was sufficiently in the confidence of the Baltazars, -father and son, to know that, for both of them, Lady Edna -Donnithorpe was but a recent acquaintance. And to her the -boy was “Godfrey,” and his presence in London without her -knowledge a matter of surprise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few days later came the order for Godfrey to be transferred -to an orthopædic hospital, where he should learn the -new art of walking with an artificial foot. He parted from her -with reiterated vows of undying affection. From his Iolanthe -mother the secrets of his heart would never be hidden. If she -wanted a real good time, she would chuck the nursing—Heaven -knew she had done her bit in the war—and come -and be a real mother and keep house for him. She smiled -through her tears. “Preposterous child!” she called him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You seem to forget,” said he, “that you’re the only female -thing associated with my family I’ve ever cared a hang about. -I’ve adopted you, and don’t you forget it. When I’ve got my -foot, I’ll march in like a regimental sergeant-major and take -you by the scruff of your Sister’s cap, and off you come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed, trying to attune herself to his gay spirits; but -when she lost the last faint sound on the gravel-path of the -motor-cab that took him away, she went up to her room and -cried foolishly, as she had not cried for years.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='217' id='Page_217'></span><h1>CHAPTER XVIII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>O</span><span class='sc'>N</span> Godfrey’s transference from Godalming, Baltazar, -with characteristic suddenness, moved into a furnished -house in London. The reasons for his sojourn at the -inn existed no longer. Besides, books and other belongings -were quickly usurping the cubic space at his disposal. Marcelle, -urgently invited to a consultation, advised, according to -her practical mind, a flat or a small house which he could furnish -for himself; and she offered such aid as her duties would -allow. He ruled out her suggestion. There must be rooms -for Godfrey and Quong Ho whenever they should be in town; -rooms for servants; decent living rooms, so that the inhabitants -should not have to herd higgledy-piggledy together; also -ample accommodation for Marcelle, should she care to change -her mind. Nothing but a large house would suit him. As -for waiting until painters, decorators, paper-hangers, curtain-makers, -carpet-layers, electric-light fitters and suchlike war-attenuated -tribes had completed their business, it was out of -the question. It would take months. He wanted to establish -himself in a ready-made home right now, and get on with the -war. Such a home his friend Mrs. Jackman had suggested. -The owner, poor fellow, killed in the war; the wife and a boy -of thirteen left ill-provided for. As she could not afford to -live in the house, and yet shrank from selling it and its precious -contents, the boy’s heritage, she would be content to let it -furnished for an indefinite period. There it was—Sussex -Gardens—near the Park—admirable in every way. He was -accustomed to spacious habitations. His house in Chen-Chow -covered nearly an acre. In his exile at Spendale Farm he had -room to breathe. The Godalming inn was charming in its way, -but now and then he had mad impulses to attack the walls of -his sitting-room with his nails and tear them down. What -was wrong with Sussex Gardens?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s extravagant, trouble-shirking, and generally manlike.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Marry me,” said he, “and you shall have a house economical, -trouble-inviting and generally woman-like. Any kind of -old house you consider ideal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll want four or five servants to run it,” she objected, -ignoring his proposition. “Where are you going to get them -from in these war times?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re already there. A cook who’ll act as housekeeper——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll be robbed right and left.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come and save me,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed. “I’m tempted to do so, just out of pity for -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pity won’t do, my dear,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then you must go your own way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m going it,” said Baltazar. “Perhaps you’ll come to -Sussex Gardens now and then to see Godfrey. Possibly Quong -Ho?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I might even come to see John Baltazar,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Baltazar settled down in the big house and gave himself -up to the infinite interests of war-racked London. The weeks -and the months passed. Quong Ho at Cambridge, under the -benign tutelage of Dr. Sheepshanks, began the study of Greek -for his Little Go, and wrote to his patron curious impressions -of the University. “I have the option,” said he, “of taking -up for this examination either an infant’s primer on Logic -compiled by an illustrious thinker of a bygone age, called -Jevons, or a humorous work on the Evidence of Christianity, -by the divine Paley, who seems to have been one of the patriarchs -of the Anglican Church. As the latter seems the more -entertaining, seeing that it tends to destroy in the mind of -the reasoning believer all faith in the historical truth of the -Christian religion, I am studying it with a deep interest based -on the analogy between English and Chinese academic conservatism. -On the other hand, dear sir and most venerated -master, if you could suggest a course in Theology more in consonance -with modern philosophical thought, I should derive -from it much instruction and recreation.” Baltazar bade him -get on with his Greek, so that if he wanted light reading, he -could soothe his leisure hours with Aristotle and Thucydides. -“I am working at Greek, like stags,” wrote Quong Ho later; -“with all the more zeal because I find I have completed already -the mathematical course required for my Tripos.” Some time -afterwards he wrote again: “If you, most honoured sir, would -permit me, I should esteem it a privilege to read for the Science -Tripos as well as the Mathematical. I should enjoy the possibility -of the application of my sound mathematical equipment -to the higher branches of physics.” “Do what you like, my -dear fellow,” replied Baltazar. “Suck the old place dry.” -Quong Ho delighted him. Sheepshanks wrote enthusiastically -of the rare bird. “He will be a monument,” said he, “to your -sound and masterly teaching. I wish you would come back -to us.” But Baltazar had other things to do. Having set his -house in order, established Quong Ho at Cambridge, seen Godfrey -accept his filial position and cemented relations, such as -they were, with Marcelle, he plunged head foremost into the -war. Others floundered about in it, tired after two strenuous -years of buffeting. He came to it fresh, with new zeal and -unimpaired strength of mind and body. With a new, keen -judgment, too, being in the unique position of one with historical -perspective. Others had lived through the fateful -years and could not clear their brains of the myraid cross-currents -that had swirled through them day by day, almost -hour by hour, and had systematized themselves into their -mental being, so that, with all their passionate patriotism, they -could not see the main course. Baltazar brought an untroubled -and vigorous intellect to bear on an accurately studied situation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re all at sixes and sevens,” cried Weatherley one day -in despair, when they were discussing the new weekly review -of the Far Eastern policy which he had asked Baltazar to -control. “Unless we’re careful, the project will drop to pieces. -Russell now declines to edit it unless we give him an autocratic -hand. But Russell’s mad on Slovenes and Ruthenes and Croats. -Clever as he is, he has no sense of proportion. I don’t know -what the devil we’re going to do. There’s no one else can give -the time. For the review to be any good, a man must throw -his whole soul into it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar had one of his flashes. “If you like, I’ll edit the -damned thing. You’ve all been fiddling about for a title. -I’ve got one. ‘The New Universe.’ I’ll undertake to make a -living thing of it, wipe out all the dreary, weary old weekly -and monthly respectabilities. We won’t have a second-rater -writing for it. We’ll appeal to ‘Longleat’s towers’ and ‘Mendip’s -sunless caves.’ We’ll make it the one thing that matters -in this quill-driven country. We’ll have it translated into all -known languages and circulate it over the civilized earth. It’ll -be the only publication that’ll give everybody the truth about -everything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went on in his vehement way. When Weatherley asked -him where the money for so gigantic a scheme was to come -from, he quoted the Tichborne claimant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Some has money and no brains and some has brains and -no money. If those with no money can’t get money from -those with no brains, God help them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And it came to pass, a few days afterwards, at a meeting of -the committee of the new review, that Baltazar had his way. -As he looked with even vision on Ruthenes, Slovenes, Belgians, -Hereros, Jugo-Slavs, British miners, Samoans, the staff of the -Foreign Office, Indian princes, Mrs. Annie Besant, the denizens -of Arkansas, the Southern Chinese, the gilded adorners of -Newport, the Women’s Emergency League, the Wilhelmstrasse, -Armenians, and the Young Men’s Christian Association, a -fact elicited by lengthy discussion of the multitudinous phases -of world politics, and as he succeeded in convincing all the -several zealots of particular interests, that their impassioned -aims were an integral part of his far-reaching scheme, they -came unanimously to the conclusion that no one but he had -the universality to edit The New Universe, and passed a resolution -promising him their loyal co-operation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m going to make this darned thing hum,” said Baltazar -to Weatherley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Money was the first object. Brains he could command in -plenty. He envisaged London as his El Dorado. The history -of his exploitation of the capitalist and landowner would, if it -were published, become a text-book on the science and remain -forever a classic. He forced wealth-guarding doors of whose -existence he had been ignorant six months before; by a stroke -of the genius which had brought him his position in China, he -secured the support, financial and moral, without the control -of an important group of newspapers; he enlisted the aid of -every possible unit in his rapidly increasing circle of acquaintance. -The scope of the Weekly had extended far beyond the -modest bounds of its conception. Originally it was to be an -appeal to the thinkers of all nations. “Damn thinkers,” said -Baltazar. “They’re as scarce as angels and about as useful. -We want to put thoughts into the heads of those that don’t -think. It’s the Doers we want to get hold of. A thing academic -is a thing dead. This is going to live.” Some of the superior -smiled at his enthusiasm; but Baltazar damned them and went -his way. This was going to be the Great Teaching Crusade -of the War, the most far-sweeping instrument of propaganda -known to journalism. He pulled all strings, brought in all -parties. A high dignitary of the Labour World and a Tory -Duke of unimpeachable integrity found themselves appointed -as Trustees of The New Universe Publication Fund. Money -flowed in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One day he ran across Pillivant, in St. James’s Street, Pillivant -mainly individualized by a sable fur coat and a lustrous -silk hat and a monstrous cigar cutting his red face like a fifteen-inch -gun cutting the deck of a battleship. Baltazar greeted -him as a long-lost brother and haled him off to lunch at his -club. Mellowed by the club’s famous Chambertin and 1870 -port, he took a rosy view of all kinds of worlds including The -New Universe, as presented by his host. It was a great scheme, -he agreed. He was sick of all newspapers, no matter of what -shades of opinion. They were all the same. Honesty was not -in them. Nor was there honesty in any Government. Men -with not a quarter of what he had done for the country to -their credit, were being rewarded with peerages and baronetcies. -In the New Year’s Honours List he had not been mentioned. -Not even offered a beastly knighthood. But it didn’t matter. -He was a patriot. And it was very fine old brandy, and he -didn’t mind if he did have another glass. Still, if a man put -down a thousand pounds for a thing, it was only business prudence -to know where he stood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll stand here,” cried Baltazar, spreading before his -eyes a printed list of the General Committee, a galaxy of dazzling -names. “You’ll take rank in the forefront of the biggest -patriotic crusade that ever was. Your light will no longer be -under a bushel. It will shine before men. What’s the good -of your name being lost in a close-printed subscription list? -This is a totally different thing. Your appearance here will -give you position. Look at the people. Have you ever stood -in with a crowd like this before?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar held the mellowed profiteer with his compelling -eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can’t say that I have,” replied Pillivant. “But all the -same——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But all the same,” Baltazar interrupted, “you’ve been at -loggerheads with the War Office. There was that question -asked in the House over the Aerodrome contract. You told -me about it yourself. Now listen to me carefully”—Baltazar -played a gambler’s card—“your coming in with us will -be a guarantee of integrity. It’s obvious that no one on this -list could do otherwise than run straight. The worry it would -save you!” He looked at his watch and jumped up. “By -George! I’ve got an appointment with our Treasurer, Lord -Beldon. Would you like to come along and hear more about -the scheme? Waiter! Ask them to get me a taxi. We’ll find -our hats and coats round here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drove a gratified Pillivant to Chesterfield Gardens and -introduced him to Lord Beldon (with whom he had no appointment -whatever) as an enthusiastic believer in The New Universe, -ready to finance it to the extent of two or three thousand -pounds. “Three thousand, wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I said between two and three thousand,” replied Pillivant, -flattered at his reception by the powerful old peer, and not -daring to fall back on the original one thousand that had been -vaguely suggested. A bluff, of course, for which he admired -Baltazar, although he cursed him in his heart; but was it -worth while calling it? He could buy up this old blighter of a -lord twice over. He would show him that he had the money. -“I was thinking of two thousand five hundred,” he continued. -“But what’s a miserable five hundred? Yes. You can put -me down for three thousand. In fact”—with a flourish he -drew a cheque-book from his pocket—“I’ll write you the -cheque now, payable, I presume, to the Right Honourable -the Earl of Beldon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Or <span class='it'>The New Universe</span>. As you please.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Better be personal,” said Pillivant, enjoying the inscription -of the rolling title and the prospect of the elevated eyebrows -of the bank clerk who should debit the sum to his account.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s exceedingly generous of you, Mr. Pillivant,” said -Lord Beldon, putting the cheque into a drawer of his writing-table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just patriotic, your lordship,” replied Pillivant, with a -profiteering wave of the hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think,” said Baltazar, “that the contributor of such an -important sum ought to be offered some practical interest in -the scheme. Mr. Pillivant’s name will appear on the General -Committee. But that’s more or less honorary. The sub-committees -will do the real business. We’re going to deal with -every phase of the war, Pillivant, and the various sub-committees—their -names will be published large as life and twice -as natural—will supply the editorial department with indisputable -facts. Now,” he turned to Lord Beldon, “if Mr. -Pillivant will serve on the Purity of Contracts Sub-Committee, -he’ll be bringing us a tremendous and invaluable business -experience.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s a most happy suggestion,” smiled Lord Beldon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think so, too. I’ll get a run for my money,” said Pillivant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he had gone, Lord Beldon turned a puzzled brow on -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t that the chap about whom some nasty things were -said a few months ago?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar grinned. “It is,” said he. “We’ve made him disgorge -some of his ill-gotten gains, and, by putting him on the -sub-committee we’ll make him pretty careful about getting -them ill in the future.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus, with ruthless pertinacity he gathered in a great sum -of money, and finally in a splendour of publicity the first -number of <span class='it'>The New Universe</span> appeared, and from the first day -of its appearance Baltazar felt himself to be a power in the -land.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another reputation in certain circles had meanwhile been -made by his trenchant article on Chinese affairs in the <span class='it'>Imperial -Review</span>. It led to an interview with the Chinese Ambassador, -who professed agreeable astonishment at finding the -famous but somewhat mysterious Anglo-Chinaman of Chen-Chow -and the writer of the article one and the same person. -After which he spent many pleasant hours at the Embassy, -discussing Chinese art and philosophy and the prospects of -the career of his prodigious pupil, Quong Ho. In course of -time, the Foreign Office discreetly beckoned to him. It had -heard from authoritative sources—it smiled—that Mr. -Baltazar’s knowledge of China was unique, for though many -other men were intimately acquainted with the country from -the point of view of the official, the missionary, the merchant -and the traveller, it had never heard of a man of his attainments -who had divorced himself from all European influence -and had attained a high position in the social and political -life of non-cosmopolitan China. If Mr. Baltazar would from -time to time put his esoteric knowledge at the service of the -Foreign Office, the Foreign Office would be grateful. At -last, after various interviews with various high personages, for -all this was not conveyed to him in a quarter of an hour, it not -being the way of the Foreign Office to fall on a stranger’s neck -and open its heart to him, he received a proposal practically -identical with Weatherley’s suggestion which he had so furiously -flouted. The Secret Service—the Intelligence Department—had -been crying out for years for a man like him, -who should go among the Chinese as a Chinaman, thoroughly -in their confidence. “A spy?” asked Baltazar bluntly. The -Foreign Office smiled a bland smile and held out deprecating -fingers. Of course not. An agent, acting for the Allies, counteracting -German influence, working in his own way, responsible -to no one but the Powers at Whitehall, but yet, with -necessary secrecy, towards China’s longed-for Declaration of -War against Germany.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“China will come in on our side before the year’s out,” said -Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>How did he know it? Why, it was obvious to any student of -the science of political forces. It was as supererogatory for a -man to go out to China to persuade her to join the Allies as -to stir up a bomb whose fuse was alight, in order to make it -explode. The Foreign Office protested against argument by -analogy. The forthcoming entry of China into the war was -naturally not hidden from its omniscience. But that did not -lessen the vital need of secret and skilful propaganda before, -during and after the period that China might be at war. There -were the eternal German ramifications to be watched; the -possible Japanese influences—it spoke under the seal of -the most absolute confidence—which, without any thought -of disloyalty on the part of Japan, might, not accord with -Western interests; there were also the bewildering cross-currents -of internal Chinese politics. There were thousands -of phases of invaluable information which could not be viewed -by the Embassy; thousands of strings to be pulled which -could not be pulled from Pekin. “We could not, like Germany -and Austria in America, outrage those international principles -upon which the ambassadorial system had been based for -centuries. At the same time——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not above using a spy,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again the Foreign Office deprecated the suggestion. It -wouldn’t dream of asking Mr. Baltazar to take such a position.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then,” said Baltazar, “what are you driving at?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Foreign Office looked at him rather puzzled. As a -matter of fact, it did not quite know. Having Baltazar’s -<span class='it'>dossier</span> pretty completely before it, it had gradually been compelled -to the recognition of Baltazar as a man of supreme -importance in Chinese affairs. He must be used somehow, -but on the way to use him it was characteristically vague and -hesitating. It knew a lot about the Ming Dynasty being a -connoisseur in porcelain—but the Ming Dynasty, and all -that it connoted, had come to an end a devil of a long time -ago; which was a pity, for it only knew the little about Modern -China which it gleaned from the epigrammatic and uninspired -<span class='it'>précis</span> of official reports. To attach Baltazar in any way to -the Embassy was out of the question. The idea would have -sent a shiver down its spine to the very last vertebra of the -most ancient messenger whose father had run on devious -errands for Lord Palmerston. On the other hand, Baltazar -was not of the type which could be sent out on a secret errand. -That fact he had made almost brutally obvious. So, after -looking at him for a puzzled second or two, it smiled invitingly. -Really, it waited for him to make a proposition.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This he did.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Offer me a square and above-board mission as the duly -accredited agent of the British Government—to perform -whatever duties you prescribe for me, and I’ll consider it. At -any rate, I’ll regard the offer as an honour. But to go back to -my friends as Chi Wu Ting——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah!” interrupted the Foreign Office, turning over a page or -two of type-script. “That’s interesting. We wanted to ask you. -How did you get that name in China? You started there, after -your abandonment of your brilliant Cambridge career—you see -we know all about you, Mr. Baltazar—as James Burden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Phonetic,” said Baltazar, impatiently. “It’s as impossible -for an ordinary Chinaman to say James Burden, as for you to -pronounce a word with the Zulu click in it. It’s the nearest -they could get. It’s good Chinese. So I adopted it. I’m known -by it all through Southern China. Let me get on with what I -was saying. To go back to my friends as Chi Wu Ting and -pretend I was acting in their interests, while all the time I -was acting in the interests of the British Government—well, -I’m damned if I would entertain the idea for a second.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Foreign Office winced at the oath, although it damned -lustily in private.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But if Chi Wu Ting goes back, as you say, accredited——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s a different matter altogether.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s still the question of—of remuneration,” said the -Foreign Office.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m by way of being a rich man,” said Baltazar. “I didn’t -spend the eighteen golden years of my life in the interior of -China for my health.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Foreign Office beamed. “That simplifies things enormously.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It generally does,” replied Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A month later the Foreign Office made him the offer which -his sense of personal dignity demanded from them; and, -honour being satisfied, he declined it. He could do better -work for his country in London, said he, than in again burying -himself alive for an indefinite number of years in China. -The Foreign Office regretted his decision; but it gave him to -understand that the offer would always remain open. They -parted on terms of the most cordial politeness; but if the -Foreign Office had heard the things Baltazar said of it, its -upstanding hair would have raised its own roof off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Three months,” he cried to Marcelle, “playing the fool, -wasting their time and mine, when the whole thing could have -been done in five minutes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I can’t quite see,” she objected, “why you went on -when you had made up your mind from the start not to go -back to China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can’t you?” said he. “I’ll explain. I’ve sworn that -there’ll be no more idiocy on the part of John Baltazar to prevent -him coming into his own. He is coming into it. That -the F.O. should recognize his position was an essential factor -of his own. When a man can dictate terms, he has established -himself. See? I suppose,” said he, halting in his abrupt way, -and thrusting his hands deep in his trousers pockets, “you -think this is just childish vanity. Come, say it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She met his bright eyes and smiled up at him. “If I do, -you won’t bite my head off?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. I’ll convince you that it isn’t. Vanity, as its name -implies, is emptiness. Negative. This isn’t vanity, it’s Pride. -Something positive. My pet Deadly Sin. If you’ve got that -strong, you can tell the six others to go back to hell. If I -hadn’t got it, the others would have torn me to bits long ago. -If I were a mongrel and thought myself a prize bull-pup—that -would be vanity. But I know, hang it all, that I’m a prize -bull-pup, and when I take leave to remind myself, and people -like the F.O. of the fact, that’s Pride. And when I say I’ve -sworn to fulfil the Destiny of the prize pup, John Baltazar, -and be one of the intellectual forces that’ll carry the Empire -along to Victory—that’s not vanity. Where’s the emptiness? -It’s Pride—reckoned first of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I -glory in it—well—according to the Theologians, it’s my -damnation: according to me, it’s the other way about. Look. -There’s another way of putting it——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly she was smitten with the memory of Godfrey’s -words five or six months ago, when he fumed at the bear-leading -of Quong Ho—“Those infernal dancing eyes of his—and -behind them something so pathetic and appealing.” The -boy was right. She met just that pathetic appeal. He was -so anxious to put himself right with her. He went on:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I were in the habit of vowing to perform impossible -extravagances, that would be the sign of a vain man. But—apart -from the Acts of God—and I suppose technically we -must classify the wiping out of my life’s work under that -heading—I have carried out every wild-cat scheme I’ve deliberately -set my mind to. So when I say I’m coming into -John Baltazar’s own, I know what I’m talking about, and -that’s the sign of a proud man. And, my dear,” said he after -a pause, occupied in filling and lighting his pipe, “I think this -jolly old sin of mine keeps me from making an ass of myself in -all sorts of other ways.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Swiftly she applied these last words to the relations between -them and confessed their truth. A vain man would have -pestered the life out of her, confident in attaining his ends—ends -as beautiful and spiritual as you please—until through -sheer weariness she yielded. Such a one would enunciate and -firmly believe in the proposition—she had not spent twenty -years among men in angelic ignorance of their idiosyncrasies—that -just hammer, hammer hard enough, and a woman will -be bound to love you in the end. But there were others, with -a deadly, sinful pride like Baltazar, who, scorning the vain, -maintained the dignified attitude of the late lamented King -Canute. He would not claim the impossible.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But this was a far cry from the Imperial Government Mission -to the Far East. She asked, by way of escape from personal -argument:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“After all, this Chinese proposition is a first-rate thing. Is -it so very repugnant to you to go back?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He stood over her with his clenched fists in the air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear,” said he, “you talked last year some silly rot -about a locust. I know the beast better than you do. It ate -all those precious years I spent in that infernal country. The -best years of my life. I’m starting now at fifty-one where I -ought to have started at thirty. That damned Chinese locust -has robbed me of everything. You, Godfrey, the vital life of -England, and a brilliant career with Heaven knows what kind -of power for good. I hold the country in the most deadly -detestation. Nothing in this wide world would induce me to -go back—not even if they wanted to make me an Emperor. -I’ve finished with it for ever and ever. I swear it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You needn’t look as if I were urging you to it,” she laughed. -“I’m sure I don’t want to lose you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right then,” said Baltazar. “Let us talk of something -else.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>In these early months of struggle to enter his kingdom, -Baltazar came nearer happiness than he had ever done before. -A man younger, or more habitually dependent on women, -would have counted the one thing wanting as the one prime -essential and would have regarded everything else as naught. -But Baltazar, although wistfully recognizing the one missing -element, was far too full of the lust of others to sit down and -make moan. Marcelle gave him all she could, a devoted friendship, -a tender intimacy, a sympathetic understanding. He -wanted infinitely more, his man’s nature clamoured for the -whole of her. But what she gave was of enormous comfort. -It was a question of taking it or leaving it. Perhaps had his -love been less, he would have left it. Love me all in all or not -at all, and be hanged to you! That might have been his attitude. -Besides, he knew that by the high-handed proceeding -of the primitive man he could at any moment carry her off to -the cave in Sussex Gardens. In a way, it was his own choice -to live celibate. Sooner accept the graciousness she could give -freely than take by force what she would yield grudgingly. -Let him be happy with what he had.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For he had much.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, learning to walk on his artificial foot, a miracle of -running contrivance, and allowed, as it seemed, almost indefinite -leave until he should reach perfection of movement, took -up his quarters in his house, at first almost angrily, compelled -against his will by the infernal dancing eyes and the pathetic -appeal behind them, and after a short while very contentedly, -appreciating his strange father’s almost womanly solicitude for -his comfort, his facilities for leading his own young man’s life. -Far more attractive the well-appointed house, with a snuggery -of his own made over for him to have and to hold in perpetuity, -with a table always spread for any friends he cared to ask to -lunch or dine, with an alert intellect for companion ever ready -to give of its best, with opportunities of meeting the odd, -fascinating personalities whom the editor of <span class='it'>The New Universe</span> -had gathered round him, with an atmosphere of home all the -more pleasant because of its unfamiliarity, than the bleak -room at an over-crowded hotel, or the cramped Half Moon -Street lodgings which in his boyish experience were the inevitable -condition of a lonely young man’s existence in London. -Once he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know it’s a delicate point, sir, but I should be awfully -glad if you’d let me contribute—pay my way, you know. It’s -really embarrassing for me to accept all this—I can’t explain—it’s -horrid. But I do wish you would let me, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was just after breakfast one morning. Baltazar paused -in the act of filling his pipe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you like, my boy,” said he, “we can discuss the matter -with our housekeeper, Mrs. Simmons, and agree upon a weekly -sum for your board and lodging. I know that you have independent -means and can pay anything in reason. Rather than -not have you here, I should agree to such an arrangement.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It would make me feel easier in my mind, sir,” said Godfrey. -“Shall we have her in now and get the thing over?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet,” said Baltazar. “There’s another side of the -question. By accepting your father’s house as your natural -home, you are giving a very human, though faulty being, -the very greatest happiness he has ever known in his life. -By refusing, you would destroy something that there is no -power in the wide world to replace. I don’t deserve any gratitude -for being your father; but, after all, you’re my son—and -I’m very proud of it. And all I have, not only in my -house but in my heart, is yours.” He lit a match. “Just -yours,” said he, and the breath of the words blew the match -out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Godfrey next met Marcelle, he told her of this.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What the devil could a fellow do,” said he, “but feel a -worm and grovel?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another thing that added greatly to Baltazar’s happiness -was Godfrey’s attitude towards Quong Ho during the vacations, -when the young Chinaman was also a member of the -household.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I like the beggar,” said Godfrey. “He’s so tactful; always -on tap when one wants him, and never in the way when one -doesn’t. And his learning would sink a ship.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, for his part, sat at the feet of the young English -officer and with pathetic earnestness studied him as a model -of English vernacular and deportment, and at the same time -sucked in from him the whole theory of the art of modern -warfare. He had a genius for assimilating knowledge. With -the amused aid of Lady Edna Donnithorpe and Burke, he -acquired prodigious familiarity with the inter-relationships of -the great English families. At Baltazar’s dinner-table he -absorbed modern political thought like a sponge. It was during -the Easter vacation that he more especially determined to -assume the perfect Englishman. Dr. Sheepshanks, towards -the end of term, had made him an astonishing proposition. A -mathematician of his calibre, said he, would be wasted in -China. Why should Mr. Ho not contemplate, as Fellow and -Professor, identification of himself with Cambridge? The war -had swept away all possible contemporary rivals. It was in -his power to attain in a few years not only a brilliant position -in the University, but in the European world of pure science. -Sheepshanks had also written in the same strain to Baltazar. -And when Quong Ho modestly sought his master’s advice, -Baltazar vehemently supported Sheepshanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course you’ll stay. Weren’t those my very words at -the hospital at Water End? Another time perhaps you’ll -believe me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For many years have I been convinced of the infallibility -of your judgment,” said Quong Ho. “I shall also never forget,” -he added, “that I am merely the clay which you have -moulded.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m beginning to think,” cried Baltazar, “that I’m not -your friend Dr. Rewsby’s colossal ass after all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar was happy. He went about shouldering his way -through the amazing war-world, secure in his grip on all that -mattered to him in life. His was a name that, once heard, -stuck in men’s memory. Gradually it became vaguely familiar -to the general public, well known to an expanding circle. His -romantic story, at first to his furious indignation, was paragraphed -far and wide. The Athenæum, under special rule, -reinstated him in his membership. The intransigent policy of -<span class='it'>The New Universe</span> brought him into personal contact with the -High and Mighty at the heads of Ministries. Invitations to -speak by all manners of organizations poured in. As a speaker -his dominating personality found its supreme expression. He -exalted in his newly found strength. The essential man of -action had been trammelled for half a century by the robe of -the scholar. The Zeppelin bomb had set him naked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said Pillivant, meeting him in the offices of <span class='it'>The New Universe</span>: -“A year ago you didn’t know there was a war on. I -took you for the ruddiest freak I had ever come across. Now -you’ve blossomed out into a ruddy swell, bossing everything. -I can’t open a newspaper without seeing your name. How the -hell have you managed to do it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Profiteering,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Profiteering?” asked Pillivant, puckering up his fat face -in perplexity. “What’s your line?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brains,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He turned away delighted. Well, it came to that. There -was no arrogance about it. He was giving everything in his -power to the country. Oppressed, at one time, by the sense -of physical fitness, and fired by the sudden, urgent demand -for man-power, he had, in one of his Gordian-knot cutting -moods, marched into a recruiting office and vaunted his -brawn and muscle. “I’m fifty,” said he, “but I defy anybody -to say I’m not physically equal to any boy of twenty-five.” -But they had politely laughed at him and sent him -away raging furiously. It was then that he followed the despised -counsel of the unimaginative Burtenshaw, <span class='sc'>K.C.</span>, and -joined the Special Constabulary and the National Volunteers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s the next thing you’re going to take on?” asked -Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“First, my dear,” said he, “the whole running of this war. -Then the administration of the Kingdom of God on Earth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a boy you are!” she laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A damned fine boy,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>One fine Sunday in May she came up to town to lunch with -him alone, Godfrey being away somewhere or other for the -week-end.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear,” he cried, excitedly, as soon as she arrived, “I’ve -been dying to see you. It’s going to happen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled into his eager face. There was nothing so extravagant -that it could not happen to Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s talk of a new Ministry—a Ministry of Propaganda.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can’t you guess?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her eyes glistened suddenly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You—Minister?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He nodded. “It’s all in the clouds at present. At least -these whifflers of Cloud-Cuckoo-City think it is. But I don’t. -They don’t see the Star of John Baltazar in the ascendant. -I do. My dear, there’s not an adverse influence in all the bag -of planetary tricks!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If he could have seen and appreciated what was happening -some forty miles off he might have observed in a certain conjunction -of planets, to wit, Venus and Mars, something that -would have modified his optimistic prognostication.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='234' id='Page_234'></span><h1>CHAPTER XIX</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span><span class='sc'>HERE</span> they were in a punt on one of the silent upper -reaches of the Thames above Moulsford; Venus in -white serge, with a blue veil around hat and throat, -reclining gracefully on the cushions, and Mars in white flannels -standing, punt-pole in hand. It was one of those days when -Spring, in exuberant mood, throws off her shyness and masquerades -in the gorgeousness of Summer. The noontide -vapours quivered over the sun-baked meadow beyond the -tow-path, and the shadows beneath the willows on the opposite -bank loomed black and cool. The punt was proceeding -up a patch of blazing river, and the drops from the pole sparkled -like diamonds. Just ahead there was a bend lapped in the -violent shade of overhanging elms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is the nearest thing to Heaven,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wait till we tie up under the trees and it’ll be Heaven -itself,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even in the boating times of peace this stretch was rarely -frequented, being too far both for the London crowd whose -general limit was Goring, and for the Oxford town excursionist -who seldom pushed below Wallingford. Also the <span class='it'>cognoscenti</span> -declared it an uninteresting bit of river, dull and flat, devoid of -the unspeakable charm of Clevedon and Pangbourne, and -therefore unworthy of especial consideration. Still, the River -is the River. Talk to an Englishman of the River, and he will -not think of the Severn or the Wye, or the historic highway -between London Bridge and the sea, but of those few miles of -England’s fairy-stream, the beloved haunts of beauty and -gentleness and love and laughter, where all the cares of the -world are soothed into dreamful ease and the vague passions -and aspirations of youth are transformed into magical definition. -To the Londoner, at any rate, it is as sacred as Westminster -Abbey. So the stretches of loveliness pronounced -dull by the superior, were never neglected, and even this remote -section, on Sundays especially, had its sparse devotees. -But now, in war-time, not a blade or oar or paddle, not a -glistening punt-pole disturbed the sweet stillness of the waters. -Only once, since they had left the boat-house, had a barge -passed them; a barge gay as to its poop with yellow and red, -a thin spiral of smoke from its cabin funnel proclaiming the -cooking of the Sunday dinner, while the barge-folk lounged -on deck, their eyes and attitudes suggestive of those who were -already overfed on lotus, and one small, freckled sunwraith of -a child flitted along the tow-path beside the mild old horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But half an hour had passed since then. The very meadows -no longer showed the once familiar pairs of Sunday lovers. -Were it not for the pleasant cows, it would have been a scene -of lovely desolation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There,” said Godfrey, shipping the pole, and guiding the -punt by the aid of the branches to a mooring. “Allow me to -introduce you to Heaven.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She kissed her hand to the greenery and the dark water -and laughed lightly. “How d’ye do, Heaven?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey turned from the rope which he had made fast and -stumbled to the floor of the punt. She started up in alarm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your foot, dear!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “It’s all right this time. Sometimes I forget -it’s a fake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat beside her on the cushions and pointed to a basket -in front of them. “Shall we start on the nectar and ambrosia, -or is it too early?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us wait a bit and take in Heaven first. What on earth -are you doing?” she asked, a moment afterwards, as he established -himself elbows on knees and chin in hands, and stared -close into her blue eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m taking in all the Heaven that matters to me,” said -Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do I matter so much?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Light me a cigarette,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He obeyed, handed her one alight and she put it between -her lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love doing that,” said he. “I’ve never done it for any -other woman in my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She arched her eyebrows. “Does his Sultanship think he’s -conferring an unprecedented honour on a poor woman?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Edna!” His boyish face flushed suddenly. “You -know what I mean. I never dreamed that a wonderful woman -would ever dream of taking anything from my lips to hers. -Look.” He lit another cigarette and held it out to her. “Let -me have yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Baby!” she said, making the exchange.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All of which imbecility was very bad and sad and mad, but -to the united youth in the punt it was peculiarly agreeable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a difference from last week-end,” she said, contentedly, -after a while.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What happened then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had all the stuff-boxes in London down, Edgar included.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And my venerable sire. I remember. I was at the War -Office all Sunday. And it poured with rain. What did you -do with them?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I stroked them and fed them and put them through their -little tricks,” she laughed. Then she added more seriously, -“It happened to be a very important day for your father. The -Government has gone crazy on finding out new forceful men—and -clearing out the incompetent political hacks. Edgar’s -just hanging on by the skin of his teeth, you know. Well, -they’ve discovered your remarkable father, and last week-end -they practically fixed it up with him. A new Ministry of -Propaganda. Oh!” she laughed again. “I didn’t have such -a bad time after all. But”—she sighed—“this is better. -Don’t let us think of wars or politics or Edgars and such horrible -things.” She threw her cigarette into the water, and bent -down to the basket. “Let us lunch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It had been indeed an important day for Baltazar. The -house near Moulsford, Lady Edna’s personal possession, a -vast square, red-brick, late Georgian building, standing in -grounds that reached down to the river, had been filled with -anxiously chosen High and Mightinesses, among whom her -husband, minister though he was, shone like an inferior satellite. -It was the last move in the game on behalf of John Baltazar -which she had played for many weeks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What are you asking that damned fellow for?” Edgar -Donnithorpe had asked, looking at the list of guests.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because he amuses me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He doesn’t amuse me,” snapped her husband.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was a little thin man, with thin grey hair and a thin -moustache and a thin voice. Up to a few months ago she had -treated him with contemptuous tolerance. Now she had -begun to dislike him exceedingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you don’t want to meet Mr. Baltazar,” she replied, -“you can stay in London.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They sparred in the unedifying manner of ill-assorted husband -and wife.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sick of seeing this overbearing adventurer in my house,” -he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know what I mean. I’m not going to let you make a -fool of yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear man,” she replied cuttingly, “if I were looking -out for a lover, this time I should take a young one.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed scornfully and swept away. Long smouldering -resentment had been suddenly fanned into the flame of open -hostility. She raged in her heart against him. Never before -had he dared to insinuate such a taint in her political interest -in any man. She, Lady Edna Donnithorpe, to carry on an -intrigue with John Baltazar—the insult of it!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next day brought a short but fierce encounter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You pretend to be jealous. You’re not. You’re envious. -You’re envious of a bigger man than yourself. You’re afraid -of him. You little minnows hate Tritons. I quite understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the wrath of a weak and foolish man he sputtered unforgettable -words which no woman ever forgives. She faced him -with lips as thin as his own, and her languorous eyes hardened -into little dots of jade.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You had better see to it that I don’t break you,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Break me? How? Politically?” He laughed a thin -laugh of derision. “In the first place you couldn’t. In the -second you wouldn’t. What would become of your position -if I were out of the Government?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can very well look after myself,” she replied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On Saturday morning he made some apology for loss of -temper which she coldly accepted on condition of his courteous -treatment of John Baltazar. And so it fell that, when the -subject of all this to-do arrived at Moulsford, he found himself -almost effusively welcomed by the negative Edgar, and -thrust into the inner circle of the High and Mightinesses -assembled. As the latter took Baltazar very seriously as a -coming power in the country, and as Lady Edna’s attitude -towards him was marked by no especial characteristic, Edgar -Donnithorpe came to the unhappy conclusion that he had -made a fool of himself, and during the informal discussion on -the creation of the new Ministry, for which purpose the week-end -party had gathered together, he had dared do little more -than “just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike” when Baltazar’s -name was mentioned. Which pusillanimity coming to his -wife’s ears, deepened her resentment against him; and only -Baltazar’s triumphal exit on the Monday morning restrained -her from giving it practical expression. Sufficient for the -day was the success thereof.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the lazy punt, that gracious Spring morning, she strove -to drive the last week-end from her thoughts. She revelled -in the unusual and the audacious. Edgar had gone to Paris -on an international conference. Only an ancient and faded -Aunt, Lady Lætitia Vardon, a sort of permanent aristocratic -caretaker, was in the house; Godfrey the sole guest. And -Aunt Lætitia had caught a God-sent cold and was staying in -bed. They two had the whole bright day before them, and the -scented evening, with never a soul to obtrude on their idyllic -communion. She had always snapped her fingers at convention. -But, Lady Edna Donnithorpe, chartered libertine, had -always observed the terms of her charter, her heart never -having tempted her to break them. This delicious breach was -a different matter altogether. She had even dared to put off -two or three previously invited friends. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She told him this while he helped her to chicken and ham. -He proclaimed her the most wonderful thing in the world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you think I deserve one little day’s holiday in the -year? Just a holiday from the talk, talk, talk, the smiling, -the wheedling, the scheming, with my brain ever on the alert -and seeming to grow bigger and bigger as the night goes on, -until it almost bursts my head when I lie down to sleep?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why do you do it?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She shrugged her graceful shoulders. “I don’t know. I -used to love it. Now I’m beginning to hate it. I was at a -wedding a day or two ago—Charlie Haughton and Minnie -Lavering—you know whom I mean, don’t you? They haven’t -a sixpence between them—and they looked so happy—oh! -so damned happy”—her voice broke adorably—“that I -nearly wept.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He neglected his own plateful of chicken and ham and -bent forward over the basket between them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d do anything in the wide world to make you happy, -Edna.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know you would,” she smiled. “You’re doing your best -now. It’s an excellent best. But it might be better if you -fished out the salt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>While she helped herself daintily from the paper packet -which he held out, he laughed, adoring her ever ready trick of -switching off the sentimental current.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now you are really just a little bit happy, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She nodded intimately, which emboldened him to say:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the life of me I can’t see what induced you to take up -with a rotten sort of cripple like me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Neither can I,” she replied composedly. “Except perhaps -that the rotten cripple is a very brave and distinguished -soldier.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rubbish!” said Godfrey. “There are hundreds of thousands -like me all over the place, as indistinguishable from one -another as peas in a peck.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Won’t you allow a poor woman just a nice sense of discrimination?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll allow the one woman in the universe,” said Godfrey, -“to have everything she pleases.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then that’s that,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They finished their meal happily, drank hot coffee from a -thermos flask and smoked and talked. As on the first day he -had sat beside her, so now, under the spell of her keen sympathy, -he told her of all his doings. For the past two or three -months they had been of absorbing interest. He had besieged -the War Office, as he had gloriously threatened, until one day -he received an appointment on the staff of the Director-General -of Military Operations. That it was due to any other influence -than his own furious and persistent attacks, he had -not the remotest suspicion. He had dashed away from the -amazing interview in a taxi to Lady Edna, whom by good -chance he found at home, and vaunted his generalship. His -father’s blood sang in his veins. The lady to whom, in close -conspiracy with Lady Northby, he owed the billet coveted by -thousands of men, wounded and whole, welcomed his news -with the smiling surprise of a mother who listens to her offspring’s -tale of the wondrous gifts of Santa Claus.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was one of the characteristics of Lady Edna Donnithorpe -to love the secret meed of secret services, a far more subtle -joy than the facile gratitude poured on a Lady Bountiful. -Besides, such a reputation would in itself destroy her power. -Many women of her acquaintance who had enjoyed it for a -brief season during the war, had seen the sacred shoulders of -Authority turned frozenly upon them. She was not one of -those women acting from thoughtless impulse or vanity. The -game of intrigue fascinated her; she knew her winnings and -hoarded them; but they were the concern of no one in the -wide world. Perhaps the time might come when she could -say to Godfrey: “All that you are you owe to me. I have -made you, and I have made your father. I can show you -proofs. What are you going to do?” Blackmail of a kind, -certainly. A woman driven up against a wall is justified in -using any weapons of defence. But all this lay hidden in the -self-protective instinct. No thought of it marred her triumph.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She listened to his fairy-tales of the Allies’ war organization -with a twofold pride. First, in this vicarious entrance -into the jealously guarded Ark of the Covenant, whereby she -gained exact knowledge of mighty happenings to come, denied -even to the self-important Edgar. Secondly, in her unerring -judgment of men. For Baltazar had told her a week before of -his meeting with one of Godfrey’s chiefs, who had given the -boy unreserved praise. Whereupon she herself had made it -her week’s business to track the social doings of the great man -until she ran him down a day or two ago at a friend’s house, -and, in reply to her tactful questionings, he had replied:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Baltazar? Lots of brains. A brilliant fellow, with wonderful -power of detail. Son of that astonishing chap John -Baltazar, who has just come to life again, and everybody’s -talking about. Oh, you needn’t be afraid. We have spotted -him right enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was sufficiently versed in affairs to know that a major-general -does not speak of a third-grade staff officer, and at -the very tail of the grade at that, in eulogistic terms, even to -Lady Edna Donnithorpe, without good reason. She hugged -the word “brilliant” to her heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And while Godfrey talked that May afternoon, she felt -that she was justified in all that she had done, was doing, and -was going to do. Yet, though what she had done gave her -perfect satisfaction, and what she was doing was blatantly -obvious, what she was going to do lay dimly hidden behind a -rosy veil. For the moment this handsome, clean run boy to -whom she had given her heart, much to her own amazement, -was contented with platonic adoration in a punt. How long, -she wondered, would his contentment last? How long, indeed, -would her own? Well, well, <span class='it'>Vogue la galère</span>. Pole the spring-tide -punt. Let her drain to its full the unprecedented glory -of the day.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cares of her crowded, youth-consuming life fell from -her, and she became young again, younger than she had been -before her loveless marriage. As she responded laughing to -his eager, boyish foolishness, she felt that she had never known -till then what it was to be young. She felt an infinite craving -for all she had missed. . . . And Godfrey, standing there in -careless grace, punt-pole in hand, alert, confident, radiant in -promise, was the incarnation of it all: of all the youth and -laughter and love that she had passed by, scornfully unheeding. -She feasted her hungry eyes on him. Not only was he -good to look at, in his physical perfection. He was good to -think upon. He had faced death a thousand times, no doubt -as debonairly as he faced the current of the mild river. He, -that boy whom a whisper could compel to her bidding, had -led men through mazes of unimagined blood and slaughter. -If he had one worm gnawing at his heart, it was the desire to -get back again to this defiant comradeship with death. She -had looked up the record of the achievement that had won -for him the Military Cross. What a man he was! And as she -watched him, there floated across her vision the figure of a -thin, dry, self-seeking politician, and she shivered in the -sunshine. And, as there chanced to be a pause in the boyish -talk, she let her thoughts wander on. No one had ever called -her thin, dry husband a brilliant man, not even the most -sycophantic place hunter who had intrigued for a seat at her -table. But in such terms had the first Authority to whom she -had spoken characterized Godfrey. Not only was he the ordinary -heroic young officer; he was a brilliant man, who would -make his mark as part of the brain that controlled the destinies -of the British Army. And all the sex in her humbled itself -deliciously in the knowledge that this paragon of all Bayards, -or this Bayard of all paragons, loved her with all his youth and -manhood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently she noticed a change in his happy face. A spasm -of pain seemed to pass across it. He drew out the pole, stood -with it poised. He drove it in again, his jaws set in an ugly -way. She waited till the end of the stroke; then she rose to -her feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Stop, dear, stop. You’re overdoing it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Overdoing what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your foot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nonsense! Do sit down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He gathered up the dripping pole preparatory for the thrust; -but she caught his arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sure your foot’s hurting you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It isn’t,” he declared, bending his weight on it. “Not a -little bit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But even as he spoke he made an unconscious grimace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you love me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drew a sharp breath at the categorical question. In a -thousand indirect ways he had told her of his devotion; but -he had never spoken the explicit words. He said quietly and -half wonderingly:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know I love you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then don’t hurt me by hurting yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you really care what happens to me?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I love you better than anything in the world,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They paddled home somewhat sobered by the mutual declaration, -about which they said nothing more. He admitted -overstrain of the still sensitive tissues of the base of the stump, -and railed at his misfortune. It was so humiliating to confess -defeat. She smiled. There might, she said, be compensation. -When they landed, she insisted on his leaning on her for support, -during the walk up to the house, and, although he suffered -damnable torture whenever he set the artificial foot on -the ground, for his pressure on her adorable shoulder was of -the slightest, his progress was one of deliciously compensating -joy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They dined decorously under the inscrutable eyes of butler -and parlourmaid, and after dinner they called for coat and -wrap and went out to sit on the moonlit terrace. As he put -the fur-lined cloak round her, his hand touched her cheek. -She put up a hand caressingly and held his there while she -looked up at him in the dimness. He bent down, greatly daring, -and touched her lips. Then suddenly she clasped his head -and held his kiss long and passionately.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='244' id='Page_244'></span><h1>CHAPTER XX</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span><span class='sc'>HEY</span> arranged it all between them in the comfortingly -short-sighted way of thousands of reprehensible couples -before them. They spoke vaguely of a divorce as -though the wretched Edgar were the conjugal offender, and -pictured a time in the future, after the war, when they should -marry and live the bright and perfect life. In the meanwhile -they proposed to find much happiness and consolation together. -He gave her, she declared, what she had vainly been hungering -for since early childhood—love and sympathy and understanding. -Into his sensitive ears she poured the story of her -disastrous marriage; of the far separated lives of her husband -and herself; of his envies and trivial basenesses. Godfrey had -thought her courted and flattered, a woman passing rich in -love and friendship. Really she had moved the loneliest thing -on earth. Didn’t he see now what he meant to her? She had -been starving and he gave her food. If he withdrew it now, -she would die.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This self-abasement from high estate established her martyrdom -in the eyes of chivalrous youth. He swore eternal devotion, -his soul registering the vow. They wrote frequently to -each other, and met as often as they could. Three mornings -a week, at an astonishingly early hour, she left her house -soberly clad, for the purpose of working at a mythical canteen. -On those mornings Godfrey waited for her at a discreet distance -round the corner of the square, in a two-seater car for -which, as a crippled staff officer, he had contrived to obtain a -petrol permit. An hour’s run—Richmond Park, Barnes -Common: it mattered little where—and Lady Edna went demurely -home to breakfast and Godfrey to his day’s work at -the War Office.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of the canteen Edgar Donnithorpe knew nothing, for she -had merely tossed the invention to her maid, until one morning, -coming down earlier than usual, he met her ascending the -stairs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good lord!” said he. “What have you been doing at this -unearthly hour?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Irritated at having to lie to him, she replied: “I’ve been -doing an hour’s shift at a canteen. Have you any objection?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I? If it pleases -you and doesn’t hurt the Tommies—poor devils.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His sneer jarred on her guilty sensitiveness. Her eyes hardened. -“Why poor devils?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like the rest of the country,” he replied, “at the mercy of -the amateur.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He turned with his thin laugh and left her speechless with -futile anger. She wondered how she had ever regarded him -otherwise than with unmitigated hatred.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She told the incident to Godfrey, having reached the point -of confiding to him such domestic bickerings. He set his teeth -and damned the fellow. How could this incomparable angel -dwell in the same house with him? She sighed. If it were -not for the war. . . . But during the war the house was the -centre of her manifold activities on behalf of the country. As -for the social side of it, she would throw that up to-morrow -only too gladly. Heavens, how weary she was of it all!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish to God I could take you away with me!” said the -young man fiercely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish you could, dear,” she said in her caressing tone. -“But in the meantime we have these happy little hours. We -mustn’t ask too much of fate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I only ask what fate gives to any man—that bus driver -and that policeman—the woman he loves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid,” she laughed, “if you heard the history of -their <span class='it'>vie amoureuse</span>, you would be dreadfully disillusioned. -It seems to me that everybody marries the wrong person in -this muddle-pairing world. We must make the best of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At this period, infatuated though she was, she had no idea -of breaking away from convention, even to the extent of setting -up a household separate from her husband’s. Social life was -dear to her, for all her asseverations to the contrary, and -dearer still the influence that she could command. Yet, as the -days went on she noticed signs of restiveness in Godfrey. An -hour thrice a week in an open car, when half his attention had -to be devoted to the preservation of their own and other people’s -lives, scarcely satisfied his young ardour. The times when he -could lounge free in her boudoir from four to six were over. As -an officer on the staff of the Director-General of Operations, -he knew no hours. The intricate arrangements for the mobility -of the British Army did not depend on the convenience of -young gentlemen at the War Office. Such had to scorn delight -and live laborious days, which on the occasions of especial -military activity were apt to run into the nights. Now and -then, of course, Godfrey could assure himself an hour or so -for lunch, but never could he foretell it on the day before. Only -once, by hasty telephoning, did they manage to meet for lunch -at the Carlton. In the evenings they were a little more successful. -Now and again a theatre together. But Godfrey, -suddenly become sensitive on the point of honour, refused -opportunities of dining at Belgrave Square.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I love a man’s wife, I can’t sit at his table and drink -his wine and smile at him,” he proclaimed bluntly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It seems,” she said, at last, “there’s nothing left but for -me to run away with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not?” he asked, laughing, for her tone was light.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about the British Army?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He reflected. If she had said what about morality, or -Christianity, or his immortal soul, he would have damned -any item of them off-hand. But he couldn’t damn the British -Army. He temporized.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t quite see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you ran away with me, you’d have to run an awful long -way, and leave the Army in the lurch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That would never do,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So we’ll have to sacrifice ourselves for our country till the -war’s over,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, in spite of philosophic and patriotic resolve, the relations -between them grew to be uncertain and dangerous. -Aware of this, she sought to play rather the part of Egeria -than that of the unhappy wife claiming consolation from -her lover.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now about this time arose rumours of political dissatisfaction -in certain quarters; of differences of opinion between the -civil and the military high authorities. Wild gossip animated -political circles, and the wilder it became, the more it was -fostered, here malignantly, then honestly, by political factions -opposed to the Government or to the conjectured strategical -conduct of the war. Lady Edna Donnithorpe, in the thick -of everything that darkened counsel, found the situation -obscure. What were the real facts from the military point of -view? She discussed matters with Godfrey, who, regarding -her as his second self, the purest well of discretion, told her -artlessly what he knew. As a matter of fact, she loyally kept -her inner information to herself; but her eyes were opened to -vast schemes of which the little political folk about her were -ignorant. And one of the most ignorant and most blatantly -cocksure about everything was Edgar Donnithorpe, her husband, -whose attitude, in view of her knowledge, began to fill -her with vague disquietude.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>To all this political unrest, Baltazar was loftily indifferent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The scum of the world’s hell-broth,” said he. “Skim it -off and chuck it away, and let us get on with the cooking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was cooking with all his might, preparing the ingredients -of the contemplated new Ministry. Everything must be -organized before the final step was token. No fiasco like the -jerry-built Ministry of National Service should be possible. -Brains, policy, a far-spread scheme complete in detail first; -then the building and the simple machinery of clerks and -typists. He worked from morning to night, as indeed he had -done all his life long. <span class='it'>The Universal Review</span> sped full-sail on -a course of fantastic prosperity. The man had the touch of -genius that makes success. He spared himself neither mentally -nor physically. He found time for enthusiastic work -with the National Volunteers and the Special Constabulary, -which formerly he had scorned. As a Special Constable he -quickly gained promotion, of which he was inordinately proud. -Said Marcelle:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I believe that running about in an air raid is the greatest -joy of your life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To which, in his honest egotistical way, he replied:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not quite so sure that it isn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Godfrey to Marcelle, discussing him:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The dear old dynamo has hitched himself on to the war -with a vengeance!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had. It absorbed him from the moment of waking to -the moment of falling asleep. Since Godfrey’s appointment -at the War Office, father and son, living in the same house, -met so seldom that they grew each to set an exaggerated value -on the other. The boy, conscious not only himself of the force -of the man, but of the tribute paid to it by the gods and demi-gods -of the land, withdrew his original suspicious antagonism -and surrendered loyally.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m proud of him. My God, I am!” he said to Marcelle. -“My childish faith is justified. I take back all I’ve said this -last year. He’s a marvel, and I’m glad I’m his son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He saw perhaps, at this stage, more of Marcelle than of -Edna. For Marcelle, shortly after her lunch with Baltazar -on the day of Godfrey’s river idyll, had broken down in health -and left Churton Towers. The strain of three years’ incessant -work had ended in collapse. She was ordered three -months’ rest. After a weary fortnight alone in the Cornish -country, she had come to London, in spite of medical advice, -and shared the Bayswater flat of a friend, a working woman, -engaged at the Admiralty. Chance, perhaps a little bit of -design, for the motives that determine a woman’s decision are -often sadly confused; had thus brought her within easy walking -distance of Sussex Gardens and of what the strange man to -whose fortunes destiny seemed to link her, and whom uncontrollable -fears and forces restrained her from marrying, loved -to call the House of Baltazar. Of course, in his headstrong -way, he had vehemently put the house at her disposal. He -would fix up a suite of apartments for her where she could -live, her own mistress, just as she chose. Godfrey, Quong Ho -and servants could go to the devil. They could pig it anywhere -about the house they liked. They would all agree -on the paramount question of her comfort and happiness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In God’s name, why not?” he cried with a large gesture. -“What are you afraid of? Me? Mrs. Grundy? What?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Marcelle shook her head, smiling and stubborn, and -would have none of it. As a concession she agreed to run round -whenever she heard through the telephone that she was wanted. -Baltazar grinned and foretold a life of peripatetic discomfort.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll risk that,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus it happened that Marcelle was in and out of the house -at all seasons, Godfrey clamouring for her as much as his -father. Under vow of secrecy he confided to her his love affair. -At first she professed deep disapprobation. He should remember -her first suspicions and grave warnings. A married -woman! No good could come of such an entanglement, no -matter how guiltless and romantic. As delicately as he could -he reminded her that she herself had cherished a romantic -attachment to a married man. She had, further, avowed her -readiness to run off with him. Edna and he were no whit -worse than the impeccable Marcelle and his revered father. -Whereupon, doting rather foolishly on the young man, she -yielded, listened to the varied developments of his adventure, -and gave sympathy or moral advice, according to the exigencies -of the occasion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her position of confidante, however, caused her many -qualms of conscience. Her common sense told her that he -was treading the path to an all too commonplace bonfire. The -woman was some years older than he. Marcelle admitted her -beauty and superficial charm; but her feminine instinct -pounced on insincerities, affectations and hardnesses undreamed -of by the guileless worshipper. She divined, to her great dismay, -a sudden sex upheaval in this young and self-thwarted -woman rather than a pure passion of love. What ought she -to do? The question kept her awake of nights. She could -not, without breaking the most solemn specific promise, ask -counsel of Baltazar. Nor could she refuse to listen further -to the boy. He would go his own way and leave her in the -misery of incertitude. To go pleading to Lady Edna, like the -heavy mother in a French play, was unimaginable. What -then remained for her but to continue to receive his confidences? -And even then, if she met them with copybook -maxims, he would turn on her with his original <span class='it'>tu quoque</span>, and, -if she persisted, it would be equivalent to the withdrawal of -her sympathetic attention. The only course, therefore, that -remained open was to let things go on as they were, and, as -far as it lay in her power, to keep his feet from pitfalls. His -strange mixture, precipitated by the war, of child and man, -appealed to all the woman within her. In his dealings with -men—she saw him with pride at his father’s table—he had -the air and the experience of five-and-thirty. In dealing with -women, even with her own motherly self, he was the romantic, -unsophisticated boy of eighteen. His real age now was twenty-one. -And at the back of her clean mind lay the conviction that -Lady Edna, however indiscreet she might be, could not make -the complete and criminal fool of herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This conviction deepened when she had an opportunity of -seeing them again together, at a little dinner party of six to -which Baltazar had invited Lady Edna and the Jackmans. -Between them it was “Godfrey” and “Edna” frank and undisguised. -Their friendship was obvious; obvious, too, her -charming assumption of proprietorship. But she carried it -off with the air of a beautiful woman accustomed to such -domination over the men she admitted to her intimacy. Beyond -this, Marcelle could espy nothing; not a soft word, not -a covert glance that betrayed a deeper sentiment. It is all -play to her, she concluded, and grew happier in her mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Toward the end of the evening after the Jackmans had -gone, Lady Edna said lightly to Baltazar:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This boy has told me all sorts of wonderful things about -his den here, and I’ve never seen it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar waved one hand and put the other on Godfrey’s -shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He shall do the honours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you really like to see it?” Godfrey asked innocently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course I should. Your souvenirs——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar beamed on them till they left the drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s the best day’s work I ever did for Godfrey,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Getting him in with Lady Edna. A young fellow wants a -clever woman to shepherd him. Does him no end of good. -Broadens his mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mayn’t it be a bit dangerous?” Marcelle hazarded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dangerous? Suppose he does think himself in love with -her? All the better. Keeps him out of mischief.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But she might possibly fall in love with him too.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wise in the hermit’s theoretic wisdom, he dismissed such -an absurdity with a scornful laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That type of woman can’t fall in love. She’s of the earth -earthly, of the world worldly. Otherwise she couldn’t have -married that rat of a Donnithorpe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose it’s all right,” said Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You belovedest mid-Victorian survival!” he laughed. “I -do believe the young woman’s proposal shocked you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They both would have been, if not shocked, at least brought -to a sense of actual things, had they seen the transports to -which the lovers surrendered themselves as soon as the door of -the den closed behind them. Many hundreds of millions of -youthful pairs have done exactly the same after long separation. -She threw herself into his arms, in which he enfolded -her. They kissed and sighed. They had thought they would -never be alone again. He had been thirsting for her lips all -the tantalizing evening. That wonderful brain of hers—to -suggest this visit to his room. Even if the idea had occurred -to his dull masculine mind, he wouldn’t have had the daring -to tender the invitation. Her ever new adorableness! And -more kisses and raptures, until, side by side in the corner of -the couch, they began to talk of rational matters.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are great things brewing,” she said, after a while. -“Just a whisper has reached me—enough to make it dangerous.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What things do you refer to?” he asked, with a quick -knitting of the brow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She told him of a wild distortion of the plans of the High -Command current in political dining-rooms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s damnable!” he cried angrily. “One tiny grain of fact -to a mountain of imagination. For God’s sake, make it your -business to go about crabbing the lie for all you’re worth!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will. When you really <span class='it'>know</span>, you can speak with such -moral authority that you’re believed, although you don’t give -away a bit of your knowledge. At least, anyone with a little -experience can do it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you’re an adept,” he said admiringly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She drew him nearer, for he had started away on his proclamation -of the damnability of rumours.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is the grain of fact?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, the great scale offensive.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And where’s the rest of the rumour incorrect?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t think I ought to tell you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But don’t you see how important it is that a woman in my -position, and a woman of my character, should know exactly? -Half the calamities of the war are due to women giving away -half secrets of which they’re not allowed to realize the consequences. -Give a woman full confidence, and she’ll be on the -side of the angels.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He kissed her and laughed. Was she not one of the angelic -band herself?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She pleaded subtly, her head on his shoulder, her deep-blue -eyes looking up into his, her breath on his cheek. Surely he -and she were one. One heart, one mind, one soul. Individually -each was the other’s complement. He could work out vast -schemes—the most junior of Third Grade Staff Officers glowed -at the flattery—and she could see, not that they were put into -execution, but that wicked and irresponsible gossip should not -bring them to naught. In her woman’s wheedling she had no -ulterior purpose in view. She was not the political adventuress -unscrupulously seducing enamoured youth to the betrayal of -his country. It was all insatiable curiosity and lust for secret -power. And, as far as lay in her nature, she loved the boy; -she loved him with a sense of possession; she craved him -wholly, his devotion, his mind, his knowledge. His physical -self was hers, at a moment’s call. She played with that certainty -in delicious trepidation. It invested their relationship -in a glamour unknown, mysterious, in spite of her married -estate. But the long-atrophied romantic in her sprang to -sudden life and prevailed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So subtly did she plead that he was unaware of her overmastering -desire. Secure in her love and her loyalty, and -confident in the twin hearts and souls, he told her what he -knew; but the numerical and topographical details, proving -too confusing for her, he laughed and went over to his desk -and, with her sitting over him on the arm of his writing-chair, -sketched a map annotated with facts and figures on a sheet of -notepaper. When he had done, she returned to the sofa and -read the notes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now I understand everything. It’s tremendously exciting, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If it comes off.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She folded up the paper and put it in her bosom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course it’ll come off.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I say, sweetheart,” he cried, watching the disappearing -paper. “For Heaven’s sake don’t go leaving that about! -Better stick it in the fire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She took his hand in delightful intimacy and glanced at -his wrist watch. Then she started up. They must get back -at once, lest the others should subject their absence to undesirable -conjecture.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, the elderly birds”—he laughed gracelessly—“they -love to have a little billing and cooing now and then. They’ll -be grateful to us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But she would not be detained. They went up to the drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He has got a perfect Hun museum downstairs,” she said. -“Each piece with a breathless history.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What interested you most?” asked Marcelle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Me in a gas mask,” said Godfrey, lying readily, for never -a glance had Lady Edna given to the trophies and spoils which -she had set forth to see.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Later, after putting her into her taxi, he said through the -window:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll destroy that scrap of paper, won’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you doubt me, I’ll give it you back now,” she replied -rather sharply, thrusting her hand beneath her cloak.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What could ardent lover do but repudiate the charge of -want of faith? She laughed, and answered in her most caressing -tones:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad, for where it is now it would be awfully awkward -to get at.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The taxi drove off. Godfrey re-entered the house, his young -head full of the thought of the paper on which he had written -lying warm, deep down, in her bare and sacred bosom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna drove home to her solitary house, and, without -asking whether her husband was in or out, went straight to -her bedroom. As soon as she could she dismissed her maid -and sat in her dressing-gown for a long, long time, thinking as -a woman thinks, when for the first time in her life she is not -sure of herself, when she is all but at the parting of the ways -and when each way seems to lead to catastrophe. As a cold, -ambitious girl she had sent the Natural packing; now it had -come galloping back. At last she rose and went to her dressing-table. -On it lay the crumpled scrap of paper. She glanced -at it. The figures and lines conveyed no meaning to her tired -brain. What was the warfare in the world to the warfare in -her soul? She couldn’t concern herself with the higher strategy -to-night. To-morrow, when she was fresh, she would tackle -the intricate scheme. She put the paper into a little secret -drawer of her writing-table of which even her maid did not -know the spring.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='255' id='Page_255'></span><h1>CHAPTER XXI</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>S</span><span class='sc'>HE</span> would read the paper to-morrow, she had said. But -on the morrow she awoke with a violent headache and -stayed abed, and had only time to scramble into her -clothes and attend a twelve o’clock committee meeting in Westminster. -And for the remainder of the day, until she went -to bed exhausted at midnight, she had not a minute to spare. -The next morning she had her early appointment with Godfrey. -She went forth into a raw air with a threat of autumn in it, -and a slight drizzle from an overcast sky. The two-seater, -with damp hood up, was waiting round the corner of the -Square. She opened the door and jumped in, almost before -he was aware of her approach, and rather hysterically flung -her arms about him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh darling, be good to me! I’m feeling so tired and miserable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He proclaimed himself a brute for dragging her out on such -a filthy morning. It was super-angelic of her to come, but he -had scarcely expected her. Wouldn’t it be better to go back -home and rest?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, no, dear,” she murmured. “This is my rest. Beside -you. Storm or sunshine, what does it matter, so long as we’re -together?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It doesn’t matter to me,” said he, driving off. “Hell and -damnation would be Paradise if I always had you with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And in the same emotional key they talked all the time -during their drive through a dank and dismal world. They -felt like Paolo and Francesca in Watts’s picture, clinging together -alone in comfortless space, remote from War Office and -wars and other affairs of men. She wailed:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, darling, if only I had met you before I made my -wretched marriage!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, by God!” said Godfrey, setting his teeth and feeling -very fierce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It did not occur to either of them, in their unhumorous -mood, that when she married he was a gawky boy of sixteen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gradually they came to vital things.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I were little Mrs. Tomkins, whom nobody knows, we -could get a hidden nest somewhere, you and I. It would be -happiness, and it would be hurting or betraying nobody. But -I’m Lady Edna Donnithorpe, related to half the peerage, and -known by sight to everybody who looks at an illustrated paper.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not cut everything and make a bolt of it?” asked -Godfrey, glaring straight in front of him at the cheerless, -almost empty road, his young face set very stem.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your career——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He cursed his career.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your soldier’s post. How can you leave it? You’re doing -a man’s work for your country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hell take it!” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Take what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The whole infernal universe,” he growled, and swerved -viciously so as to avoid imminent collision with an indignant -motor-bus. Again they came to the bed-rock fact of his -soldier’s duty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On their return journey it rained in torrents.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll get wet through if you walk,” said he, when they -arrived at their trysting spot. “I’ll drive you up to the house -and chance it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He chanced it, helped her out of the car and stood on the -pavement, watching her until she had let herself in with her -latchkey. She ran upstairs, to be confronted with her husband -at the door of his room which was on the same landing. -He was in his dressing-gown, and one side of his face was -shaven, the other lathered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thought you went to a canteen in the mornings?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So I do,” she replied calmly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Does young Baltazar work there too?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Young Baltazar very often calls for me, when it rains, on -his way to the War Office, and gives me a lift home.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re seeing far too much of that young man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The last time we discussed the Baltazar family,” she said -with a scornful laugh, “you accused me of an intrigue with -his father. My dear Edgar, go on with your shaving and -don’t be idiotic.” She flung into her room angry and -humiliated. After all, Edgar had the right to consider his -good name, even though his jealousy could not proceed from -betrayed affection. This was the first time he had referred to -Godfrey in any way. Uneasiness beset her; so did the eternal -question of the deceitful wife: “How much did he know?” -They did not meet that day till dinner-time—it was one -of the rare occasions on which they dined alone together—when -he seemed to be making amends for the morning’s -attack by more than usual courteous conversation on current -events. They parted amicably.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next afternoon, arriving home very late, she was surprised -at seeing him coming, half dressed for dinner, from her -room. He smiled in a friendly way and held up a button-hook.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mine’s nowhere to be seen—that confounded new parlourmaid—I -hope you don’t mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re getting quite domestic,” she said ironically.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s pleasanter,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She wondered much at his graciousness for the next few -days. He became attentive, manifested dry solicitude as to her -health and her social and political interests. She dreaded a -recrudescence of the thin sentiment that, on his part, had -sanctioned their marriage. The fear tainted the joy of her -visits to the mythical canteen. Sooner open hostility than -this semblance of conjugal affection.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sorry, darling, to have been so mouldy,” she said, -taking leave of Godfrey one morning, “but the situation is -getting on my nerves. I’m fed up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A day or two later Edgar Donnithorpe entered her sitting-room, -where she was writing letters.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sorry to interrupt you, Edna,” said he, “but have you -definitely decided to go to Moulsford this next week-end?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Certainly. I told you. The Barringtons and Susie Delamere -and one or two others are coming.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you mind if I don’t turn up till Sunday?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course not,” she replied. He was exceedingly polite.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks,” said he. “The fact is, I want to ask a dozen men -or so to dinner here. Only men, you know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced at him rather puzzled, for his proposal was an -unprecedented departure from the custom of the house. -Hitherto he had given his men’s political dinner parties at his -club. There had been no arrangement or understanding between -them as to this mode of entertainment, but so had it -chanced to be; and he was a creature of routine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course. Just as you like. But what’s wrong with the -only place fit to dine at in London?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s war time, my dear,” said he, eyeing her shiftily. “War -time. All the clubs have gone to the devil.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right. If you’ll tell me how many are coming, I’ll see -to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, please don’t. Please don’t worry your head about -it.” He made a step forward and held up his thin hand in a -deprecatory sort of way. “I’ll fix it up. I don’t want it to be -the slightest bit of a concern to you. Thanks so much.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He hurried out. Lady Edna frowned at her half-written -letter. A devious man, Edgar. What was in the wind? The -cook the next day, however, submitted to her a menu which, -with a housewifely modification or so, she passed, and thought -no more of the material banquet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During the week the hint of a rumour reached her, when, -at a public meeting, she ran up against the Rt. Hon. Sir Berkeley -Prynne, a Member of the Government who had been hostile -to her husband for many years and had only given the hatchet -superficial burial during the party truce.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you know a lot of us are quaking in our shoes?” -he said, half banteringly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t,” she said. “But I’ve no doubt it’s good for you. -What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Signs of underground rumblings. Your quick ears have -detected nothing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. Really. Honour bright. Do tell me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shook his head and laughed. “It’ll be a wash-out,” said -he, moving away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gibe or warning, Sir Berkeley’s words were not devoid of -significance. They were aimed at her husband. Underground -rumblings meant intrigue. She had long suspected Edgar of -half-hearted support of the Government; but passionate devotion -to anything was so foreign to his crafty, opportunist -nature, that she had not greatly troubled her mind about his -loyalty. Here, however, was cause for deeper consideration. -The old hacks, as she had said to Godfrey, were being squeezed -out as decently as might be, so as to give place to fresher and -honester men, and Edgar’s position was daily growing more -insecure. But she had thought he was sticking to it desperately. -Was the worm about to turn? And had the projected -dinner-party anything to do with the turning?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She asked him casually who were coming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men connected with the business of the Ministry,” he -replied. “People I must be civil to and who don’t expect us -to worry about their women-folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And she had to be contented with the answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the Saturday afternoon, at Moulsford, she was surprised -to see Rolliter, the old butler, who she thought was staying -the night at Belgrave Square to superintend the dinner party. -Why was he here?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mr. Donnithorpe’s orders, my lady. He said he could get -on quite well without me this evening. I couldn’t insist, my -lady, but I didn’t like leaving at all, especially as Lord Trevanion -was coming.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lord who?” she cried, for he had mentioned a name that -was anathema maranatha in Government circles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think it’s Trevanion, my lady,” said the butler, rather -taken aback by her expression of incredulity. He fished a -paper from his pocket and consulted it. “Yes, my lady. I -saw the list on Mr. Donnithorpe’s table, so I copied it out so -as to write the name-cards before I left.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An idea struck her. “You did this without Mr. Donnithorpe’s -orders?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, yes, my lady. Mr. Donnithorpe being so busy, I -thought it might slip his memory.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did you write the cards?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, my lady. When Mr. Donnithorpe told me to come -down here, I asked him about the name-cards, and he said -he didn’t want them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let me see the list,” she said, recovering her languid manner.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Certainly, my lady.” He handed her the paper. “The -only reason I mentioned Lord Trevanion,” he continued, “was -because I happen to know his lordship is one of the most particular -men in England, and I couldn’t bear to have things -done anyhow when he was dining at the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed in her charming way. “The blood’s on Mr. -Donnithorpe’s head, not yours, Rolliter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rolliter had been in her father’s service before she was born -and had followed her, as butler, when she married.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank you, my lady,” said he, retiring and leaving her -with the list of guests.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was an instructive and at the same time bewildering document. -It contained the names of representatives of all the -disgruntled and pacifist factions in England. No wonder -Edgar dared not face the publicity of a club or restaurant -dinner! No wonder he had lied to her about his guests. No -wonder he had sent Rolliter to the country without writing out -the cards. He wanted to hide the identity of his guests even -from his butler! At each name a new shiver went down her -back. Lord Trevanion, blatant millionaire Little Englander -whom even the Radical Government of 1906 had joyfully -allowed to purchase a peerage, so as to get him out of the -House of Commons. There were Benskin and Pottinger and -Atwater, members of a small Parliamentary gang who lost no -opportunity of impeding the prosecution of the war. Lady -Edna gasped. Finch of the Independent Labour Party. Was -Edgar going mad? Samways, M.P. and Professor of History, -pessimistic apostle of German efficiency and preacher of the -hopelessness of the Allies’ struggle. Editors of pacifist organs—Featherstone, -the most brilliant, whose cranky brain had -made him the partisan of England’s enemies all through his -journalistic career; Fordyce, snaky in his intellectual conceit; -Riordan, dark and suspect. . . . There were others, politicians -and publicists, self-proclaimed patriots and war-winners, -but openly hostile to the Government. Altogether the most -amazing crew that ever Minister of the Crown delighted to -honour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That the ultimate object of this gathering was the overthrowal -of the Government there could be no doubt. How -they were going to manage it was another matter. A rabble -like that, thought Lady Edna scornfully, could not upset a -nervous old lady. It looked rather like a preliminary meeting, -held in secrecy, to start the network in which greater personalities -should be enmeshed and involved. At any rate, on the -part of Edgar Donnithorpe it was black treachery. The more -she scanned the list the more did her soul sicken within her. -It seemed intolerable that this pro-German orgy should take -place in the house of which she was the mistress, while she -remained here, fooled, with her little week-end party. She -burned with vengeance against her husband.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was half-past four. She stood in the drawing-room, which -she had entered a few minutes before, leaving her guests on -the lawn, in order to give some trivial order, and twisted the -accusing paper in her hands, her lips thin, deep in thought. -Presently into her eyes crept a smile of malice, and she went -out of the French window and crossed the grass and joined her -friends. There were only three, Colonel and Mrs. Barrington -and Miss Delamere. A couple of men who were to have come -down had providentially been detained in London.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear people,” she said, smiling. “The war has spread -to Moulsford. There’s nothing in the house for dinner. There’ll -be heaps to-morrow, but none to-night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll go down to the river and angle for a roach,” said Colonel -Barrington.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Or else come with me to town and dine at the Carlton. I’ll -take you all in the Rolls-Royce. It will be a lovely run back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, my dear, it’ll be joy-riding!” cried Mrs. Barrington.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It will be indeed,” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But suppose we’re held up?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll say I have to see my husband on important political -business.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And I’m a soldier on active service,” said Colonel Barrington, -“and must be fed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mind? Not they. What could be pleasanter on a perfect -summer night? Besides, they had not tasted the guilty sweets -of joy-riding for many months. It would be an adventure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They started merrily about six o’clock. Lady Edna was -in gay spirits, as though enjoying a schoolgirl’s freak. Through -the perfumed leafiness of Streatley, Basildon, Pangbourne, -they flew at the high speed of the great car, through Reading -and Maidenhead and Slough, through Hounslow and Brentford. -What was fifty miles? As they approached London Lady Edna -said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will you think me funny if I look in at Belgrave Square -for a minute?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She spoke a word to the chauffeur. A while later the car -swerved to the right from the direct route to Piccadilly, and -at eight o’clock pulled up at the Donnithorpes’ house in Belgrave -Square. Lady Edna sprang from the car and tripped up -the steps.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll let myself in with my latchkey,” she cried to the chauffeur -who was about to ring the bell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the hall she threw off her wraps, gave an instinctive tidying -touch to her hair before a mirror, and walked smiling on -her errand. She waved aside the hired stranger men-servants -busy with plates outside the dining-room door and boldly -entered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a second or two no one observed her, then one or two -guests caught sight of the slender figure stately in her evening -gown, and half rose from their chairs. So the attention of all -was called to her. Edgar Donnithorpe, sitting at the head of -the table with his back to the door, turned and sprang to his -feet with a gasp. To stay polite commotion she laughed and -held up her hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Please don’t anyone get up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her husband, in white anger, said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thought you were at Moulsford, Edna. Is anything the -matter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only your dinner party,” she replied with derisive graciousness. -“I happened to be dining in town, and it occurred -to me to look in and see that your guests had everything they -wanted—especially”—she scanned the faces deliberately—“as -they are all new to the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She bowed and withdrew. Her husband threw down his -napkin and followed her. Neither spoke till they reached -the hall, when they faced each other.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I couldn’t make a scene before all those men,” he began.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course you couldn’t. I knew that,” she interrupted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I’ll make one now. By God I will! What do you -mean by this outrageous behaviour?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To queer your game, my friend. I thought it would be -amusing to show all your pretty conspirators that the gaff -was blown.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m free to ask anyone to my own house. I’m master here, -and the sooner you learn it the better. Are you aware that -you’ve insulted the whole of my guests?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I flattered myself I behaved with peculiar courtesy,” said -Lady Edna. “It’s you who are being rude to them. You had -better go back. Are you coming down to Moulsford to-morrow?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, I’m damned if I am!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He flung away from her, then turned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By God! you shall pay for this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Willingly. It’s worth a lot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glowered at her impotently. What scene could he make -other than one of vulgar recrimination? She had caught him -in a domestic lie and a public act of treachery. For the moment -his wife had all the weapons. So they stood there in -the rosy light of the hall, deadly enemies; she triumphant, -radiant in her scornful beauty; he small, thin, foxy and malignant. -Presently, with a laugh she moved to the front door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never thought you particularly clever, Edgar,” she said. -“But in diplomatic crudity you could give lessons to the -Wilhelmstrasse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With which Parthian shot she opened the door and rejoined -her friends in the car.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Forgive me, dear people,” she said, settling in her place. -“I’ve been having the time of my life.”</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>She returned to town with her guests on Monday morning, -but did not see her husband until late in the afternoon, when, -on his return from the Ministry, he found her alone in her -sitting-room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear Edna,” said he, in a conciliatory tone, “we owe -each other a little mutual understanding. It’s so undignified -to quarrel.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She put the book she was reading pages downward on her -knee.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Most undignified,” she assented.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were rather under a misapprehension as to Saturday -night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, “for I was going to ask you -a question.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What was that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you sent in your resignation to the Prime Minister?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, no. Of course not. That’s where your error in judgment, -if I may be allowed to say so, comes in. I’m aware I -couldn’t be seen publicly with that crowd. I had to manage a -secret meeting. But it was in order to get them on our side. -I thought a frank discussion with them might produce good -results.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Has it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think so,” said he. “Oh yes, I think so. I’m speaking -at Bristol to-night. You’ll see from my speech what my position -is. I mean to define it unmistakably.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad to hear it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned away, hating him and despising him more than -ever. She passed a hideous day, overwhelmed with fears of -treason and disaster.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They were justified the following morning when, looking -through the newspapers brought to her bedside, she first glanced -at and then pored over the leading article in the important daily -edited by Fordyce, one of the guests at the amazing dinner-party. -It was an attack on the Government’s conduct of the -war, based, ostensibly, on the rumours whose inaccuracy Godfrey -had begged her to contradict, but, to those with inner -knowledge, on the real facts of the plan of the High Command. -It was done with diabolical craft. Challenged as to the source -of his information, Fordyce could point to the article and defy -anyone to prove that he was possessed of any esoteric information -at all. It was mere logical deduction from the general -trend of the war policy of the Allied Military Authorities. And -yet the shivering woman knew that the scheme had been -divulged to Fordyce. How? In terror she sprang from her -bed and opened the secret drawer of her desk. The sheet of -notepaper was there just as she had left it. For a moment or -two she stood, her hand on her breast, laughing in a silly way. -Edgar was capable of many things; but not of rifling her private -papers. He was capable of betraying the Government to -Fordyce, but as a Minister, she reflected, he would possibly -be aware of the scheme. As the Saturday evening host he had -communicated it to Fordyce. Possibly to others. But no. -That would have been madness. A man does not blacken -himself to a dozen men at once. The others he had assembled -so as to prepare them, in his underhand, insinuating way, -for this master-stroke. . . . She closed the secret drawer with -an impatient snap, and went about the room clenching her -hands and uttering futile words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The villain! The infernal villain!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No. Life with him henceforth was impossible. She would -break away. . . . She had her house at Moulsford, her own -income. As for her London life, she could take a suite at -Claridge’s. In the indignant moment she almost forgot Godfrey. -Loathing of Edgar overspread all other thoughts. Suddenly -she remembered his Bristol speech, and ran through the -<span class='it'>Times</span> to find the report. Condensed, it contained nothing -but the facile, uninspired claptrap that had characterized his -public utterances since the beginning of his career. He was -lying to the country which he had set out to betray. . . . -Meanwhile—so her excited fancy told her—he was a peril -running loose about the world. What could she do? Drive -off then and there and denounce him to the Prime Minister? -He would certainly ask her why she connected the leader in -<span class='it'>The Morning Gazette</span> with the dinner-party given to her husband’s -political opponents. Whence did she derive her knowledge -that anything more than conjecture underlay the criticism -in Fordyce’s paper? And she would not have a word to -say. Once again she opened the drawer and took out Godfrey’s -notes. Better destroy them. Her fingers met in the middle of -the sheet prepared to tear. Then she paused. No. She -thought of Sir Berkeley Prynne—a man of unstained honour -in private and public life. She would go to him, this in her -hand, tell the whole story and ask his advice. She thrust the -paper back into the drawer, rang for her maid and dressed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A busy woman’s correspondence kept her occupied all the -morning. At half-past twelve came a telephone call from -Godfrey:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When and where can I see you? Something most important.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, darling, what is it?” Her voice shook. “Where are -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“War Office. I can’t tell you anything over the phone. Besides, -I haven’t a minute. I’ll be free in about half an hour.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come round here. I shall be alone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Right.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He switched off, leaving her in throbbing suspense. Naturally -he was coming to her about <span class='it'>The Morning Gazette</span> article. -To her excited fancy the whole War Office was in a state of -blind ferment like an ant-heap bombed with a drop of kerosene. -His tone, too, had been brusque, imperious, that of a -man dealing with crisis. She wished she had gone at once in -search of Sir Berkeley Prynne, instead of wasting her morning -over correspondence. Still, when one is Chairman and Treasurer -of practical concerns, their business has to be attended to. -She went on with her work, her eyes on the little agate clock -in front of her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The rattle of a car. A moment of horrible waiting. Rolliter -at the door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Captain Baltazar, my lady.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood for a breathless second until the butler had -closed the door behind him. Then he strode up and caught -her in his arms. When she could collect herself she looked into -dancing, triumphant eyes. A wave of relief swept through -her. Suddenly she caught the echo, as it were, of Rolliter’s -announcement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Captain——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. And more than that. I’m going to France.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She felt herself grow pale. “My dear——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a great stunt,” he said exultantly. “Northby has -got an Army Corps. He wants me on his staff. I’m going out -as the Brainy One, with a step in rank. Old man Widdowes -talked to me as if I were an infant Haig. You could have -knocked me down with a bunch of straw.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m so glad, dear. I’m so glad you’ve got what you want.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God, yes!” said he, all aglow. “It’s the best thing a -one-footed cripple has done up to now. The W.O. isn’t the -real thing. Out there it is. As soon as I met you, I swore I’d -make good. To be worthy of you, if such a thing is possible.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m a proud woman,” said Lady Edna. “But I don’t -understand—General Northby—I never heard——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course you didn’t. Neither did I. It was all secrecy -and suddenness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He explained roughly the circumstances.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And when do you go out?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In three days’ time. I’m on leave till then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Three days?” She looked at him aghast. “And then you -go away indefinitely?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She paused, drew a long breath or two, and sank limply into -a chair. He looked at her rather wonderingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about me, Godfrey?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the gratification of his wildest boyish ambitions he had -forgotten her woman’s point of view. He had expected her -to share his elation. Remorseful, he bent quickly over her, -reddening and stammering. He was a selfish brute. Did he -really matter so much to her? If she would but say the word, -he would go straight back and refuse the appointment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t talk like a child,” she said. “If you did such a -thing, we should despise each other for the rest of our lives. -But three days—only three days! And I’m at my wits’ end -with unhappiness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sank lover-like by her side and took her hand. What was -wrong?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you seen <span class='it'>The Morning Gazette?</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “Oh yes! There’s a hell of a hullabaloo! But -the beauty of it is, that the whole thing went fut three or four -days ago. I can’t tell you why. We’re working out quite a -different plan. All the same, there’s loud cursing in the camp.” -He looked at her with one of his swift man’s glances. “Of -course, dearest—I’m bound to ask—you never breathed a -word to anybody of what I told you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not a word.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you destroyed that paper at once?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The lie was out before she realized it. Well, it didn’t matter. -The thing was obsolete. She would tear it up. No. She -wouldn’t. She still had to wage her war against her husband, -with the aid of Sir Berkeley Prynne, and the document would -be of great value.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was he who gave it away to the editor of <span class='it'>The Morning -Gazette</span>,” she said, vindictively.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But how the deuce could he have known?” asked Godfrey. -“These things are dead secrets. They never go beyond the -Army Council.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He did know, anyhow. I’ve not seen you since. I’ve a -lot to tell you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She told him. He scrambled to his feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God! what a swine! You must leave him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m going to. I’m going to hound him out of public life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s for you to say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An hour later Godfrey ran down the steps of the house in -Belgrave Square, his head in a whirl.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='269' id='Page_269'></span><h1>CHAPTER XXII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>B</span><span class='sc'>ALTAZAR</span> and Quong Ho were finishing lunch when -Godfrey, flushed and excited, burst in with his news. -An enthusiastically sympathetic parent failed to detect -an unusual note, almost one of vainglory, in the boy’s speech -and manner. He vaunted his success, proclaimed his entry -on a brilliant career. He talked wildly. This to be a war to -end war? A maudlin visionary’s dream. We might crush -the Hun this time and have a sort of peace—a rotten politician’s -peace, but the Hun would apply himself to the intensive -cultivation of Hate, and in twenty years at the latest would -have another go at Frightfulness. And that’s where the -modern scientific soldier would come in. That was his career. -He saw it all before him. And Baltazar, led away by the boy’s -bright promise, clapped both his hands on his shoulders in a -powerful grip, and cried:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m proud of you! My God, I’m proud of you! You and -I will make our name famous again, as it was in the days of -Admiral de Coligny. We’ll do things. We’ll make this rocking -old Europe hum.” He laughed, and fire leaped into his -eyes. “It’s good to be alive these days!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is. It’s glorious!” replied Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, smiling, urbane, approached with outstretched -hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I hope I may be allowed to offer you my sincere congratulations,” -said he. “Although I do not see eye to eye with you -in your prognostication of a recrudescence of warfare after the -pacification of this present upheaval, yet——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Godfrey slapped him on the back, interrupting his -eloquence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s all right, you dear old image. When you get your -Fellowship, I’ll say the same to you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He cut a hunk from a cake on the table and poured out a -whisky and soda.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear boy,” cried Baltazar, darting to the bell, “haven’t -you lunched? You must have a proper meal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey restrained him. No. He hadn’t time. He must -leave London that afternoon, for a day or two, and the next -two or three hours would be a mad rush. A shade of disappointment -passed over Baltazar’s face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was hoping we might have a little dinner to-night to -celebrate your appointment—just ourselves, with Marcelle—and -Lady Edna, if she could come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A smile flickered round Godfrey’s lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dreadfully sorry, sir,” said he. “I’m not my own master. -Anyhow, I know Lady Edna’s engaged. But my last night—yes, -if you will. I’d love it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As soon as he had bolted food and drink, he rushed out. -He must throw some things into a bag, said he. Presently he -returned and took hurried leave. Baltazar gripped him by -the hand and God-blessed him. At the door Godfrey nodded -to Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just a word, old chap.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho followed him into the hall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar went to the open dining-room window, and presently -saw Godfrey clamber into his little two-seater. He -waved a hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good luck!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“See you on Friday, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The car drove off. Quong Ho returned to the dining-room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think, sir,” said he, “that we have just parted from a -happy young man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If a man’s not happy when he gets his heart’s desire at -twenty-one,” said Baltazar, “he had better apply for transference -to another planet. I threw mine away,” he added in a -tone of reminiscence. “Wilfully. I ought to have been Senior -Wrangler. But I was a fool. I was always taking false steps. -That’s the wonderful thing about Godfrey, Quong Ho, as -doubtless you’ve noticed—he always takes the right steps. -A marvellously well-balanced mind.” He smiled in a meditative -way, thanking Heaven for sparing Godfrey those storms -of temperament in which he had so often suffered shipwreck. -A steady chap, disciplined, not to be turned out of his course. -“Well, well,” said he, “now from refreshment to labour. -Come upstairs and let us get on with the work.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was the long vacation, and Quong Ho, tireless and devoted, -was replacing Baltazar’s secretary absent on a much-needed -holiday. A busy afternoon lay before them. That -evening the week’s number of <span class='it'>The New Universe</span> must go to -press; the final proofs be passed, modifying footnotes added -to bring statements and arguments up to the hour’s date, so -swift were the kaleidoscopic variations in the confused world-condition; -and Baltazar’s own editional summary, the dynamo -of the powerful periodical, had to be finished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They sat in Baltazar’s library, at the orderly piled writing-table, -very much as they had sat, a year ago, in the scholarly -room at Spendale Farm. But now no longer as master and -humorously treated pupil. The years of training had borne -excellent fruit, and Quong Ho proved himself to be an invaluable -colleague; so much so that Baltazar, at times, cursed the -University of Cambridge for depriving him, for the greater -part of the year, of one of the most subtle brains in the kingdom. -Quong Ho could point unerringly to a fallacy in an -argument; he seemed to be infallible on questions of fact in -war politics; and such a meticulously accurate proof-corrector -had never been born. In such a light at least did his <span class='it'>rara avis</span> -appear to Baltazar. They worked in silence. Baltazar furiously -inditing his article, Quong Ho, pen in hand, intent on -the proofs. The open window admitted the London sounds of -the warm summer afternoon. Presently Baltazar rose and cast -off coat and waistcoat, and with a sigh of relief at the coolness -of shirt-sleeves, sat down again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why don’t you do the same?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, impeccably attired in a dark suit and a high stiff -collar, replied that he did not feel the heat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I believe it would hurt you not to be prim and precise,” -said Baltazar. “I wonder what would happen if you really -ever let yourself go?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho smiled blandly. “I have been taught, sir, that -self-discipline is the foundation of all virtue.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar laughed. “You’re young. Stick to it. I’ve had -as much as is good for me at my time of life. I’m going to -end my days, thank God, in delightful lack of restraint. I’m -going to let myself go, my friend, over this new job, like a -runaway horse. At last I’ve bullied them into giving me a free -hand. It’s a change from a year ago, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I agree that the change has been most beneficent,” said -Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, by Jove!” cried Baltazar. “Then we were just a -couple of grubby bookworms doing nothing for ourselves or -our fellow-creatures. Now—here you are dealing with -thoughts that shake the world; and I—by Jove!—one of -the leading men in England. I should like to see the bomb -that would knock us out this time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He hitched up his shirt-cuffs and plunged again into his -article. He had scarcely written a sentence, when the door -opened and Marcelle appeared on the threshold. He pushed -back his chair and rose, and advanced to her with both hands -outstretched.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hello! Hello! What has blown you in at this time of -day?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked up at him as she took his hand, and he saw there -was trouble in her eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know I’m disturbing you, but I can’t help it,” she said -quickly. “I must speak to you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps you would like to speak with Mr. Baltazar in -private,” said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Indeed I should, Mr. Ho. Please forgive me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho bowed and retired. Baltazar drew a chair for -her. “Now what’s wrong, my dear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God!” he cried. “Not an accident? He’s not hurt?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh no, no! Nothing of that sort.” She smiled in wan -reassurance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar breathed relief. “I believe if anything happened -to him now, it would break me,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He came round to see me an hour or so ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“After he left here. To tell you of his appointment. Aren’t -you glad?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course I am. But I should be more glad if that had -been all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s up?” he asked, frowning. “Tell me straight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ought I to tell you?” she asked rather piteously. “It’s -betraying his confidence shamefully. I know I’m to blame. -I ought never to have given him my promise. But I can’t -see him go and ruin everything without making some sacrifice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dearest Marcelle, you’re talking in riddles. For -Heaven’s sake give me the word of the enigma.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s Lady Edna Donnithorpe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well. What about her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish he had never set eyes on the woman,” she cried -passionately.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If he’s in love with her, he’ll have to get over it,” said -Baltazar. “France will cure him. And, as I told you the -other evening, the lady’s perfectly callous. So my dear, go -along and don’t worry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t seem to understand me, John dear,” she said -urgently. “The woman is in love with him. It has been -going on for months. He has told me all about it. She gets -up and goes out driving with him in the car at eight o’clock -in the morning.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Silly woman!” growled Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Silly or not, she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t care for him. -Not Lady Edna Donnithorpe. They meet whenever they can. -He comes to me and pours out everything. I ought to have -told you. But I couldn’t break my word. They’re lovers——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lovers? What do you mean?” he asked, bending his heavy -brows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet. Not in that sense, I’m sure. But they soon will -be.” She looked at him anxiously. “I know I’m going to -forfeit Godfrey’s affection, and perhaps your respect—but I -can’t do otherwise.” She paused, then burst out desperately: -“She’s going to run away with him this afternoon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The devil she is!” cried Baltazar. He strode about the -room and threw up his hands. “Oh, the damned young fool!” -He wheeled round on Marcelle. “Why on earth didn’t you -stop it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She pleaded helplessness. How could she? Naturally she -had used every argument, moral and worldly. As it was, he -had dashed off in a fume, calling her unsympathetic and narrow-minded, -regretting that he had ever given her his confidence. -He had promised long ago to let her know everything. -Now that he had kept his word she turned against him. She -had been powerless.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s old enough to look after his own morals,” said Baltazar, -“and I’m not the silly hypocrite to hold up my hands in -horror. But to go and run away with the most notorious society -woman in London and play the devil with his career is -another matter. Oh, the damned young fool!—That rat -Edgar Donnithorpe will get on to it at once. He’s just the -man to stick at nothing.—A filthy divorce case.—The boy’ll -have to resign, if he doesn’t get chucked—then marry the -woman five years older than himself. Where’s the happiness -going to be?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He resumed his striding about the room, in his impetuous -way, and Marcelle followed him timidly with her eyes. “Oh, -damnation!” said he. He had just been lecturing Quong Ho -on Godfrey’s steadiness and balance. Why, he himself had -never done such a scatter-brained thing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where are the precious pair going?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A remote week-end cottage, she said, belonging to a complaisant -friend of Lady Edna’s. Five miles from station, post -office or shop. A lonely Eden in the wilderness. Whether it -was north, east, south or west of London she did not know. -An old woman in charge would look after them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose they’re well on their way by now,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know. Possibly not. He said he had to rush about -town to order his kit. Besides,” she added hopelessly, “what -does it matter when they start?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar cursed in futile freedom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s nothing I wouldn’t give for it not to have happened,” -he exclaimed. “I suppose I was a fool. You warned -me. And it was I who, like an ass, encouraged them. I could -kick myself!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s like you, John, dear, not to blame me,” she said humbly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course I don’t blame you. You thought it boyish folly. . . . -What’s the good of talking about it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They did talk, however, in a helpless way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They had no intention of doing anything desperate,” she -said, “until this morning. If he had remained in London, -they might have gone on indefinitely. The prospect of endless -months in France set the whole thing ablaze. . . . When -I put the moral side before him, he retorted with a <span class='it'>tu quoque</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did he mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That I was ready, at his age, to run away with a married -man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Were you?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose so,” she replied with a weary little smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That was an entirely different affair.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not from the moral point of view.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, damn morals,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed in spite of her distress. It was so characteristic -of the man. If anything got in his way, he just damned it, -and regarded it as non-existent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He moved restlessly about; then, catching sight of his discarded -coat and waistcoat, plunged savagely into them, as -though he were going in pursuit of the erring pair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What are you going to do?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know,” he said, abandoning half-way the furious -buttoning of his waistcoat. “That’s the devil of it, there’s -nothing to be done.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that moment Quong Ho discreetly appeared at the door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will you have particular need of my services for the next -hour?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, of course I shall. Look there!” Baltazar flung a hand -towards the paper-strewn table. “We go to press this evening.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho consulted his watch. “I am sorry then, for I -don’t know how I shall proceed. I promised Captain Godfrey -to take his bag to the railway station at five o’clock.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Smiles wreathed Baltazar’s face of annoyance, and he exchanged -a quick glance with Marcelle. “What railway station?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Waterloo.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thought he had taken his kit with him in the car.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He explained, sir, when he called me into the hall before he -left, that he couldn’t garage the car at Waterloo station.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Therefore I am to seek it in his bedroom and convey it by -taxi to Waterloo.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar nodded approvingly, and the humorous light -appeared in his eyes which Quong Ho could never interpret.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s very lucky you’ve told me, Quong Ho. I want particularly -to say a word or two to Godfrey before he leaves -London. I’ll take his bag. You get on with the work. Perhaps -you’ll send somebody out for a taxi.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll fetch one myself,” said Quong Ho, and bowing as -usual politely to Marcelle, left the room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar clutched her arms with both hands and lifted her -from her seat and, laughing exultantly, kissed her a hearty, -unintelligible kiss—the first for twenty years—leaving her -utterly bewildered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Lord has delivered them into my hands!” he cried. -“The stars in their courses fight for the House of Baltazar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What in the world are you going to do?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Play hell,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Ten minutes afterwards Baltazar was speeding eastwards, -grimly smiling. By skilful contrivance he had despatched the -helpful Quong Ho upstairs to Marcelle at the last moment, and -had pitched Godfrey’s kit into the dining-room and had driven -off without it. If the infatuated youth would not listen to -reason or the lady to the plainest of speech, he should go off -to his love in a cottage unromantically destitute of toothbrush -and pyjamas. Ridicule kills. The boy would hate him for -the moment; but would assuredly live to bless him. Once in -France, he would have no time for folly. The imperious man’s -thoughts flew fast. The lady herself should cure the boy. He -would see to that. If he couldn’t break an Edna Donnithorpe, -bring her to heel, he was not John Baltazar. In his jealousy -for the boy’s honourable career he swept the woman’s possible -emotions into the limbo of inconsiderable things. What kind -of a woman was she, anyhow, to have married a rat like Donnithorpe? -He read her in rough intolerance. Just a freak of -thwarted sex. That was it. If nothing was discovered, she -would return to her normal life and, sizing up the episode in -her cold intellectual way, would discover that the game was -not worth the candles supplied by the old woman in the remote -cottage, and would send Godfrey packing to any kind of -Byronic despair. If the intrigue came out and there was a -divorce and subsequent marriage, there would be the devil to -pay.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The taxi clattered through the gloomy archway approaches -at Waterloo and drew up at the end of the long line of cabs at -the entrance to the station. The summer exodus from London -was just beginning, and the outside platform was a-bustle -with porters, trucks, passengers and luggage. Baltazar, after -paying his fare, lingered for a moment at the great door of -the Booking Hall, and then entered and passed through it into -the hurrying station. A queue stood at the suburban ticket -office. He scanned it, but no Godfrey. He walked the length -of the platform entrances, through the crowds of passengers -and their dumps of luggage and knots of soldiers, some about -to entrain, sitting on the ground with their packs around -them, others, newly arrived on leave: Australians with their -soft hats, wiry Cockneys still encased in the clay of the trenches, -officers of all grades and of all arms. Presently at the central -bookstall, turning away, his arms full of periodicals, Godfrey -came into view. Baltazar approached smiling. His son’s face -darkened. “I didn’t expect to see you here, sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you want to study the ways of a country, there’s nothing -like its great railway stations. They’re a favourite haunt -of mine.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s rather stuffy under this glass roof, don’t you think?” -said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t mind it, my boy,” replied Baltazar cheerfully. -“But it’s lucky I hit upon Waterloo. I shall be able to see -you off. By the way, where are you going?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Somewhere Southampton way, sir,” said Godfrey stiffly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lot of light literature,” remarked Baltazar, motioning to -the periodicals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite a debauch,” said Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s quick eyes picked out the board by the Southampton -platform.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your train, I see, goes at 5.45. You’re a bit early.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, sir. It’s such a long time till the train starts that I -couldn’t think of asking you to wait.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That doesn’t matter a bit, my dear boy. Time is no -object.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m very sorry to be rude, sir—but as a matter of fact I -have an appointment,” said Godfrey desperately. “An important -appointment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And, if you don’t mind, I must wait outside the station. -Quong Ho is bringing my suit-case. I shouldn’t like to miss -him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He made a step forward, but an ironic glitter in his father’s -searching eyes arrested the movement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho isn’t bringing your suit-case. I’ve come instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t understand. -Have you been kind enough to bring my luggage?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” replied Baltazar calmly. “It’s on the floor of the -dining-room.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your interference with my arrangements, sir, is unwarrantable,” -said the boy, pale with anger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Possibly. Unless we adopt the Jesuitical principle of the -end justifying the means.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what is the end, might I ask?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To prevent you from making an infernal fool of yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The young man regarded him inimically. Baltazar felt a -throb of pride in his attitude. A lad of spirit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose Marcelle came straight to you with my confidence. -In giving it to her I made a fool of myself, I admit. -As for what I propose to do, I fail to see that it’s any concern -of yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s heart yearned over the boy. He said in a softened -tone: “It is ruin to your career and a mess up of your -whole life. And your future means so much to me that I’d -sacrifice anything—honour, decency, even your affection -which I thought I had gained—to see you off at any rate to -France with a clean sheet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Godfrey in cold wrath did not heed the pleading note. -He had been betrayed and tricked. Only his soldier’s training -kept him outwardly calm. To the casual glances of the preoccupied -crowd passing by them nothing in the demeanour of -either man gave occasion for special interest. They stood, too, -in a little islet of space apart from the general stream of traffic. -Baltazar went on with his parable. He had not the heart to -hint his projected gibe at the unromantic lack of tooth-brushes. -Things ran too deep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I admit none of your arguments,” said Godfrey at last. -“Besides, I am my own master. I owe you a debt for many -kindnesses; your affection—I don’t undervalue it. But there -things end. After all, we met a year ago as strangers. I’ve -run my life as I chose, and I mean to run it as I choose. I -expect Lady Edna to arrive at any minute. In common delicacy -I must ask you to let me go my own ways.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right, go,” said Baltazar. “But I’ll go with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey’s eyes flamed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You wouldn’t dare!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow,” said Baltazar, “I don’t think there’s a -damned thing in the world that I wouldn’t dare. Haven’t you -found that out?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they stood there for a while longer, talking in their islet -beneath the glass roof of the busy station, and the boy’s heart -was filled with anger and wild hatred of the thick-shouldered, -smiling man, with the powerful face and infernal dancing -eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly Baltazar strode away at a great pace, and -Godfrey, turning, saw that he was cutting off Lady Edna, who -had entered, preceded by a porter wheeling her luggage. Before -he had time to overtake him, Baltazar was already taking -off his hat to an amazed lady and had imperiously checked -the porter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lady Edna,” said he, “I’m here to prevent Godfrey and -yourself from committing the insanity of your lives.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said, mistress of herself, “I don’t understand you, Mr. -Baltazar. You seem to be taking an outrageous liberty. I -am going to stay at the house of a friend who has asked Godfrey -to be my fellow-guest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before Baltazar could reply, Godfrey came hurrying up with -his slight limp and plunged into angry explanations. She -looked at the clock.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you telephone home now,” she said coolly, “a servant -will have ample time to bring your things.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By God, yes!” said Godfrey, angrily depositing the sheaf -of periodicals on her luggage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you got the tickets?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He marched away across the station.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Porter——” said Lady Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But no porter was there, for, unperceived by either of the -lovers, Baltazar had slipped five shillings into the man’s hand -and told him to come back later.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s heaps of time,” said Baltazar. “Now, my dearest -lady, what is the good of make-believe? Cards on the table. -You’re going to make a bolt with Godfrey and throw your cap -over the windmills. There’s a nice little cottage in a wood—in -the depths of the New Forest, I presume, lent you by a -friend who is represented by one solitary old woman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How do you know that?” she asked, her soft eyes hardening -in their characteristic way. “Godfrey has surely not been -such a——“—she paused for a word—“well—such an -imbecile as to tell you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey has told me nothing. You may be certain of that. -His fury against me is sufficiently obvious.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then how do you know?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s my affair,” smiled Baltazar. “Lady Edna,” said -he, “don’t you think that my coming the heavy father like -this puts you into rather an absurd position?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She replied, white-lipped: “I’ll never forgive you till I’m -dead!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve naturally counted on the consequences of your resentment,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you propose to do?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you persist, to thrust upon you the displeasure of my -company, without luggage—just like Godfrey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You——” she began indignantly. And then suddenly: -“Oh, my God!” and clutched him by the arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He followed her stare across the station, and there, in the -archway of the Booking Hall, peering from right to left in his -rat-like way, stood Edgar Donnithorpe.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='281' id='Page_281'></span><h1>CHAPTER XXIII</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>Y</span><span class='sc'>OU</span> seem to have managed your little affair rather -clumsily,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s he doing here?” she asked wildly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Probably catching you and Godfrey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He mustn’t see Godfrey here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s easily managed,” said Baltazar. “I’ll send him -flying out of the telephone box. But what on earth could have -put your husband on the track? What indiscretion have you -been committing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I left a letter for him telling him I wouldn’t stay any longer -in his house. He’s a traitor to his country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar threw up his hands. “Oh, Lord! The usual idiocy. -For a clever woman—well! Anyhow, I’ll head off Godfrey. -When your husband spots you, use your brains. Don’t say a -word to give yourself away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll come back?” she cried, losing her head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll see,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He left her, and fetched a compass round the station, mingling -as much as possible with the never-ceasing throng of soldiers -and civilians and women and luggage, until he arrived at -the row of telephone boxes. There he found Godfrey, waiting -his turn and fuming at the delay.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My boy,” said he, “here are all the elements of a first-class -farce. The injured husband, Edgar Donnithorpe, has turned -up. You had better make tracks as quick as you can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose you gave him the hint,” snarled the young man, -with set teeth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re insulting your own blood to make such a damfool -remark,” said Baltazar. “Go home, and stay there till I come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey met the infernal eyes and, for all his anger and -humiliation, knew that he had accused basely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I apologize, sir,” said he, in his most haughty and military -manner, and marched off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar hesitated. Should he or should he not return to -Lady Edna? If he had escaped the eye of Edgar Donnithorpe, -it were better to leave Lady Edna, injured innocent, to tell -her tale of solitary retirement to sylvan depths where she -could be remote from the consequences of his political turpitude. -On the other hand, if he had been observed, or if Lady -Edna had avowed his presence, his abandonment of her might -be idiotically interpreted. He decided to return.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He saw them at once through the moving traffic: the husband, -his back towards him, gripping a handle of the truck on -which the luggage was piled; the wife facing him, an ironical -smile on her lips. A devilish handsome woman, thought Baltazar. -The boy had taste. There she stood, slim, distinguished -in her simple fawn coat and skirt and little hat to -match, beneath which waved her dark brown hair, very cool, -aristocratic and defiant. Baltazar came up to them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, Donnithorpe!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The thin, grey man wheeled round, and then Baltazar realized -that he had made the wrong decision, for he was the last man -the other expected to see.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You? What are you doing here?” he shouted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hush!” said Lady Edna, with a touch on his arm. “You’re -not at home or in the House of Commons. You’re in a public -place, and you’ll get a crowd round us in no time. Let us -pretend we’re a merry party going on a holiday.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Edgar Donnithorpe threw an anxious glance round to see if -they had attracted undesired attention. But people passed -them by or stood in knots near them, unheeding, intent on -their own affairs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I ask you,” he said in a low voice, “what you are doing at -this railway station with my wife?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, his felt hat at the back of his head and his hands -thrust into his trousers’ pockets beneath the skirts of his buttoned-up, -double-breasted jacket, eyed him in exasperating -amusement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am seeing Lady Edna off on a railway journey. Was it -necessary to ask your permission?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna laughed mockingly. “As far as I can make out, -my husband expected to find me eloping with your son Godfrey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donnithorpe shifted his eyes from one to the other, looking -at them evilly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was with you for nearly a couple of hours to-day. I -had my own very good reasons for suspicion. I went round -to your house, Mr. Baltazar, and asked for your son. I saw -your Chinese secretary——” He caught Baltazar’s involuntary -sudden frown and angry flush. “In justice,” he continued -in his thin, sneering manner, “I must absolve him from -indiscretion. He knows my position in the Government, and -when I informed him that it was imperative I should see your -son on important political business, he told me I should find -him at Waterloo station.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You overreached yourself,” said Baltazar with a bantering -grin. “Godfrey knows no more about politics than a tom-cat. -Quong Ho naturally thought you meant me. You came. -Here I am, seeing your wife off. She telephoned me that she -was leaving your house—going to stay with friends—wanted -a man of the world’s advice on the serious step she was taking—woman-like, -of course, she took the step first, and asked for -advice afterwards—and I naturally put myself at her ladyship’s -disposal. Don’t you think you had better let Lady Edna -get on with her journey? Here’s her porter. Come with me -and see her safe into her carriage.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was enjoying himself amazingly. Donnithorpe, baffled, -tugged at his thin grey moustache. The porter came up, -touching his cap.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Time’s getting on, ma’am. I’ve reserved the two seats——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One seat,” said Lady Edna swiftly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Beg your pardon, ma’am. I thought you said the gentleman -was going with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One seat. I said I was meeting a gentleman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The porter wheeled off the luggage. Lady Edna turned to -follow, but her husband gripped her viciously by the wrist.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Drop that,” growled Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donnithorpe released her, plunged his hand into his breast -pocket and drew out a couple of sheets of paper.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You did say two seats. You meant to go off with him. -There’s some damned trickery about it. But I’ve got the -whip hand, my lady. Just look at this before you go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna turned ghastly white and clutched Baltazar’s -arm to steady herself from the sickening shock. In the desperate -rush, after Godfrey’s departure, the scheming, the packing, -the telephoning, the temporary straightening of affairs, the -chase over London for the complaisant friend whose connivance -was essential, the eagerness to get free of the house -before her husband should return, she had forgotten the scrap -of paper in her secret drawer, with its obsolete information. -Now the horror flashed on her. Her husband had gone to the -drawer before. Hence the article in Fordyce’s paper. Her -first instinct had been right. He had gone to the drawer again. -Her swaying brain wondered how he had discovered the secret -of the spring. But he had found the paper which in her folly -she had not destroyed—and what else besides? She heard, -as in a dream, her husband saying:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If he isn’t your lover, what about these? Here’s proof. -Here’s a matter of court-martial and gaol.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She regained her self-control with a great effort, still holding -to Baltazar. “You hound!” she whispered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, smitten with the realization that comedy had -vanished—the comedy in which he had played so debonair -and masterly a part—vanished in the flash of a cinematographic -film, and that something very near tragedy was staring -him in the face, stretched out his hand for the papers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let me see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Donnithorpe smiled his thin, derisive smile. “No. -They’re too precious. I’ll hold them for you to look at. Keep -away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And there, in the airless glass-roofed railway station, on -that hot summer afternoon, in the midst of the reverberating -noises of trains letting off steam, of a thousand human voices, -of scurrying feet, of grating luggage trunks, in the midst of -a small town’s moving and lounging population, surging now, -at that hour’s height of the suburban traffic with home-going -streams; there, with hundreds of eyes to watch them, hundreds -of ears to hear them, hundreds of successive ears of people -darting bee-like around the busy bookstall not ten yards away, -there three quietly talking human beings stood at grips with -destiny.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is written on your notepaper. It is a War Office -secret. It reveals the whole strategy of the High Command.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s lips grew grim and his eyes bent on the little man -burned like fires. In Donnithorpe’s hands the document was -Godfrey’s death warrant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Baltazar remembered the shock he had received in -Sheepshanks’s room at Cambridge when first he saw a letter -of Godfrey’s, and Godfrey’s after explanation of the identity -of their handwriting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you see? It gives the whole thing away,” Donnithorpe -continued.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m quite aware of it,” said Baltazar. “I drew it up for -your wife.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You?” exclaimed Donnithorpe in incredulous amazement, -while Lady Edna caught a sharp breath and clung more fiercely -to Baltazar’s arm. “Where did you get your information from?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am to be Minister of the new department in a day or -two,” said Baltazar, “and I’m in the inner confidence of the -War Cabinet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But it’s in your son’s handwriting!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s my handwriting,” said Baltazar calmly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drew from his pocket a sheaf of notes for a speech and -handed them to Donnithorpe. “Compare, if you like.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donnithorpe returned them with a curious thin snarl and -held out the other paper.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then you wrote this too?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar glanced at it. It was the first sheet of a letter from -which the other sheet had been torn. Lady Edna saw it and -again swayed, half fainting with sickening humiliation. The -only one of Godfrey’s letters—and only part of one—which -she had kept: two pages breathing such a passionate love as -she had never dreamed that a man in real life could express to -woman. She had forgotten that she had left that, too, in the -secret drawer. She stared haggardly into Baltazar s face. -His lips twisted into a smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I wrote that too,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then you’re a damned villain!” cried Donnithorpe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Very possibly,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donnithorpe turned in his rat-like way to his wife.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you to say about it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly recovered from her fit of terror and shame, she -withdrew her grip from Baltazar’s arm and held herself up -with the scornful poise of her head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing,” she said. “You can flatter yourself now you -know everything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He did not heed her words, but once more looked from one -to the other with a thin, chuckling laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re a pretty pair. You, my lady. And you, Mr. -Minister of Publicity. It strikes me you’ll have to postpone -your elopement.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve got elopement on the brain, my good fellow,” said -Baltazar. “A Minister of Publicity doesn’t elope with a lady -with nothing but what he stands up in. Where’s my luggage?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There,” replied Donnithorpe, pointing to the barriers to -the platform. “Didn’t the porter say she had ordered two -seats—one for a gentleman?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is getting wearisome,” said Lady Edna. “I’ve already -told you how the mistake arose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The solicitous porter, already rewarded with five shillings, -and belonging to a race as richly endowed with human failings -as any other in the world, hurried up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve found a corner seat, ma’am. Put everything into the -carriage. You’ve not much time left.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly she became aware of the awful desolation that -awaited her in the remote cottage in the New Forest with one -horrible old servant woman for company. Within her feminine -unreason clamoured. No, no! She revolted against the grotesque -absurdity of such comfortless living burial. She would -go mad, cut off from every opportunity of hearing instant developments -of this nerve-racking situation. She couldn’t stick -it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve changed my mind, porter. I’m not going. Get my -things out and bring them back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Certainly, ma’am.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The porter ran off. Baltazar thrust his hands again into -his trousers’ pockets. His face was a grim mask.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why don’t you get your luggage out too?” sneered Donnithorpe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be a brainless fool,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fingers in his pockets twitched, and Lady Edna caught -a malevolent flash in his eyes that made her shiver. He would -have liked to wring her neck. Why the devil didn’t she play -the game and go to the cottage and the old woman? He read -her through and through. And mingled with his contempt ran -a thrill of gladness. Godfrey was well rid of her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donnithorpe cackled at his abjuration. He turned to Lady -Edna.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You haven’t condescended to tell me where you were going.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was going, if you want to know, to stay with Sybil Manning -at her little place in the New Forest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Indeed?” said her husband, in his rasping voice, and a -gleam of triumph sparkled in his crafty eyes. “Now it happens -that I, not being quite the fool you and Mr. Baltazar -have thought me, rang up Lady Manning. It was the first -thing I did when I read your letter. I knew you would bolt, -straight to her. I’ve often thought of bringing in a Bill in -Parliament to deprive her of existence. She answered me -herself. She had heard nothing of you, knew nothing of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naturally,” she said jeeringly. “But,” she added, carrying -the war into enemy’s quarters, “she knows everything -about you. Everything, my friend. So will the Prime Minister.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was with the Prime Minister this morning,” said Donnithorpe. -“I told him all about my Saturday evening’s effort -in the cause of solidarity. We parted the best of friends, and -my position is secure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about Fordyce’s article this morning?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This morning I couldn’t conceive how the fellow had got -the information. This evening or to-morrow morning”—he -tapped his breast pocket—“if I am asked, I can point to a -dual source of leakage.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He folded his arms, the crafty political intriguer, thin and -triumphant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of us two,” said Baltazar, “it strikes me that you are the -damnder scoundrel.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What you think is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” -retorted Donnithorpe. “What does interest me is the fact -that my wife was going to stay with Lady Manning in the -New Forest while Lady Manning is in London, and that when -I find her here with you, she decides not to go to the New Forest -after all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna flushed angrily. She was out-manœuvred, outclassed, -beaten on all sides by the thin grey man whom she -despised. She had acted like a brainless, immoral schoolgirl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where do you propose to go now?” asked Donnithorpe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She spat her venom at him. “Anywhere to get out of the -sight of you. Yes, I was going alone to Sybil Manning’s cottage. -I had just left her when you telephoned. I wanted to -get as far away from you as I could and from the disgusting -impressions of the last few days. Now the whole thing would -be spoiled by this abominable insult. I shall stay with my -mother to-night and go down to Moulsford to-morrow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad,” replied Donnithorpe acidly, “you’re not thinking -of returning to my house. I’m not going to have any plea -of condonation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lady Edna moved away haughtily toward the barriers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see my porter. Mr. Baltazar, will you kindly put me -into a taxi?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, he shan’t. You shall go in my car.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, in a cold fury, stood over him threateningly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You stay here,” said he, “or by the living God I’ll half -kill you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He caught up Lady Edna and followed with her in the wake -of the porter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said: “I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can’t ever -repay.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He felt merciless towards her, murderous. “You let that -boy alone, do you hear? You’ve come within a hair’s-breadth -of blasting his life. It remains yet to be seen whether that -hair’s-breadth will save him——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d do anything in my power——” she began.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For God’s sake stop doing things. Hold your tongue. -You’ve been criminal in your piling folly on folly. You’ve done -enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you——?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can take care of myself—and the boy, if you keep quiet. -You’ve got to remember the position. I’m your lover. Avowed -before your husband by both of us—you implicitly. You’re -not to lose sight of that fact. Understand? If you hold any -communication with Godfrey, you’ll get him court-martialled. -Disgraced, probably imprisoned. And then, by God! I won’t -have any pity on you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Talking thus they reached the outer platform of the station -and waited while the porter secured a taxi. She whispered, for -they were brushed by the throng of passengers arriving and -departing:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If Edgar brings a divorce action——? He’s vindictive——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll bring no action, if you stop playing the fool. I’d -advise you not to interfere with my game.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The porter swung from the step of the taxi bringing a new -arrival, and as soon as the latter, a young officer with a suit-case, -had alighted and paid his fare, he piled in Lady Edna’s -belongings. She entered the cab very white and scared. Godfrey -had told her enough about his father for her to realize the -unyielding nature of the man. She was terrified, cowed. He -blazed before her irresistibly elemental. . . . She carried away -with her a blurred impression of his thatch of brown hair coarse -and strong like the crown of some relentless beast as he lifted -his hat when the taxi drove off. She shuddered, and hated him.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar let himself into the house in Sussex Gardens, and -went straight to Godfrey’s room. He found him writing hard. -When the young man sprang up, his quiet eye noted the desk -strewn with many sheets of notepaper.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Writing to her, I suppose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not altogether unnatural,” Godfrey replied in stiff -hostility.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where are you going to address it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey, looking into the infernal eyes, saw that it was not -an idle and impertinent question. Besides, he had spent a -very agitated hour, gnawed by bitter disappointment and -impotent anger and torturing his brain with conjecture as to -what had happened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where is Lady Edna, sir?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She has gone to stay with Lady Ralston.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Her mother?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Dowager Countess of Ralston is, I believe, her mother,” -said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He threw himself into a chair and mopped his forehead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why the devil don’t you open a window?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I didn’t notice,” said Godfrey, and went and threw up the -sash.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was a cosy room at the back of the house, the smoking -den of the late dead owner, furnished with green leather arm-chairs -drawn up at each end of a green leather-covered fender-seat, -with a great green leather-cushioned Chesterfield, with -solid comfortable mahogany tables, writing-desk and bookcases. -On the walls hung well-framed old engravings of solid -worth, and Godfrey had added a little armoury of war trophies, -Hun helmets, rifles, flare pistols, gas-masks, bayonets, gleaming -shell cases of all sizes, a framed blood-stained letter or two -in German script. . . . A cosy room more suitable for a winter’s -evening than a close summer afternoon. Baltazar filled his -lungs with the fresher air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s better,” said he.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey stood by the fireplace, his face set and unyielding.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps you might tell me, sir, what has happened. What -brought Donnithorpe to the station?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The hope of catching you, my son, <span class='it'>in flagrante delicto</span> of -elopement.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho was sure that he wanted you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quong Ho made a mistake. Donnithorpe was exceedingly -surprised to find me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a long pause, during which Baltazar bent his -disconcerting and luminous gaze on the young man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey,” he said at last, “what made you such an infatuated -fool as to give away War Office secrets in writing to -that woman?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A look of horror dawned in the young man’s eyes and he -took a step forward. He gasped:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then, when Baltazar described the disastrous paper, -he cried passionately:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It can’t be! It can’t possibly be! Only this morning she -told me she had destroyed it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She lied, my son,” said Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But she knew it was my honour, my everything——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course she did. Do you suppose that matters to her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey repeated in a dazed way: “There must be some -mistake. She told me she had destroyed it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, she didn’t,” said Baltazar. “She kept it—to gratify -some vanity or ambition. I don’t know. Our talk was too -concentrated to divagate into motives. Anyway, care for -your honour didn’t affect her. She left it about, and Edgar -Donnithorpe has got it and means to use it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The distracted young man sat down, his head in his hands, -and groaned. “My God! That’s the end of me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar deliberately filled and lit a pipe, and said nothing. -Better let the consequences of the lady’s betrayal soak in. . . . -Presently Godfrey rose to his feet and his face was haggard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll go to Donnithorpe and get it back. He daren’t show it. -It’ll be accusing himself of giving away the information to <span class='it'>The -Morning Gazette</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Baltazar held him with his inscrutable eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re a brilliant soldier, my son, but you’re no match for -a foxy old politician—a past master of dirty craft. He put -himself right with the Prime Minister this morning. Besides, -there’s the lady to be considered—not that I think she deserves -much consideration. Still, it’s a convention of honour.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Godfrey flashed: “I’m not going to bring her name into it!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He will. He’ll get the whole story out of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What the devil am I to do?” asked Godfrey with a helpless -gesture.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar rose. “My boy,” said he, “in two or three days’ -time they’re going to make me, a man suddenly sprung from -nowhere, a Minister of the Crown. That shows I’m not altogether -a silly fool.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In spite of the welter of disillusion and catastrophe in which -the boy foundered, he detected in his father’s voice the pathetic, -apologetic note which he had never been able to resist, the note -conveying his father’s yearning desire to make good in his eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know I’m proud of you, sir,” he said. “Which is a -lot more,” he added with a break in his voice, “than you can -say of me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar put his arm round his son’s shoulders very tenderly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My boy,” said he, “I’d give my life for you.” And the -young man hung his head. “The only thing is, will you trust -me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Ten minutes afterwards Baltazar, cheery and confident, stood -at the door preparing to depart from a chastened though more -hopeful Godfrey. Love had conquered. What had passed -between his father and the Donnithorpes the boy did not -know. Of his father’s assumption of the part of indiscreet -lover he had no suspicion. But his father had fascinated him, -dominated his will, evoked in him a blind, unquestioning confidence, -compelled from him a promise of implicit obedience. -Of course there were conditions. He was to petition the War -Office to be allowed to sacrifice his leave and start for France, -at the earliest opportunity, the next day if possible. He was -not to communicate with Lady Edna until his return to -England, whenever that might be. He gave the latter undertaking -readily, her lie rankling in his heart, her callous -disregard of his honour monstrous in its incomprehensibility. -Whatever might be his revulsion of feeling afterwards—and -his clear young brain grappled with the possibility—whatever -might be his unregenerate torment of longing, he accepted -the condition as his punishment. She, so his father said, was -bound by the same condition. . . . Baltazar stood by the door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s all damned hard, old man, I know. But you’ll worry -through. It’s the English way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He walked out, humming “Tipperary” out of tune, the only -modern air he knew, and ascended the stairs and thrust his -head into the drawing-room. There, as he expected, he found -a desolate Marcelle, who, throwing down the book which she -was trying to read, jumped up and ran to the door. What had -happened? Quong Ho had told her of Edgar Donnithorpe’s -call. Godfrey was in black anger against her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go down,” said he, “and make your peace with him. You’ll -stay and dine. I must go now and finish my work before -dinner.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He left her and, still humming “Tipperary,” entered his -library, where Quong Ho was patiently and efficiently working -at the proofs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miss Baring and Captain Godfrey have upbraided me for -indiscretion in that I informed Mr. Donnithorpe of your whereabouts,” -said Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The best day’s work you ever did in your life,” said Baltazar, -seating himself at the table and taking up his pen.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>The dinner was not quite the success for which Baltazar had -hoped, in spite of his efforts to set a tone of light-hearted gaiety. -His best champagne flowed to little purpose. Godfrey acknowledged -the toast to his promotion and appointment with irreproachable -politeness and lamentable lack of fervour. Marcelle -confessed afterwards that she had never sat through so -unjoyous a meal. To make her peace with Godfrey had been -no easy matter. It was but an armistice that she had patched -up. Twice that day had he been betrayed by women, and he -felt sore against an untrustworthy sex. He had admitted her -not an inch further into his confidence. Of the incriminating -scrap of paper he told her nothing. She sat at the table puzzled -and unhappy. Quong Ho ate philosophically when he was not -drinking in the words of wisdom that came from the master’s -lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They broke up early. Godfrey retired to his room. Quong -Ho departed to the printers to correct the proof of the editorial. -Baltazar walked home with Marcelle: a somewhat silent and -miserable little journey. In vain he assured her that she had -been Godfrey’s salvation. She only realized that the boy’s -faith in her had gone. Of the extent of the salvation he, like -Godfrey, said nothing. The position for the moment was too -delicate and grotesque to be told to another person—even to -Marcelle, and his forthrightness scorned half confidences. He -walked back disappointed, ever so little depressed. Hadn’t -he told everybody to put their trust in him and worry their -heads no more about the matter? And they were worrying -considerably.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the end of the passage beyond the hall he saw a streak of -light signifying that Godfrey’s door was ajar. He went down, -opened the door and looked in. There was Godfrey, huddled -up on the Chesterfield, his head in his hands, his fingers clutching -his crisp fair hair. As he seemed unaware of intrusion, -Baltazar closed the door quietly and tiptoed away. No one -knew better than he that every man must go through his little -Gethsemane alone. But the pity of it! He crept upstairs with -an aching heart. Papers by the last post in connection with -the new ministry lay on his desk. He sat down and tried to -deal with them; but at last abandoned them and sucked a -gloomy pipe. Had he saved the boy after all? Would the -woman hold her tongue? Was Donnithorpe such a fool as to -believe his story? Meanwhile he was the avowed lover of the -detested woman and the betrayer of official secrets. And the -vindictive little rat held the proofs. What use was he going -to make of them?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the situation had a grimly humorous aspect. If he had -not seen the boy huddled up in grief and shame downstairs -he would have envisaged it with one of his great laughs. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next day passed quietly. Godfrey was absent till the -evening. He had been to the War Office and arranged to leave -for France on the morrow by the staff train. An agreeable -evening was marred by no reference to Lady Edna or the -scrap of paper. They spoke of books and mathematics and -the war and the probable scope of Godfrey’s duties.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Only when they shook hands for the night did Godfrey say:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think, sir, you’re the best father that ever a man had.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Baltazar, with gladness leaping into his eyes and a grin -on his face, replied:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God knows I try to be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the following morning the post brought him a letter from -Donnithorpe’s solicitors. Would Mr. Baltazar make an appointment -to meet Mr. Donnithorpe and themselves, at his -earliest convenience, on a matter of very serious importance? -He bade Quong Ho ring up and fix the appointment for three -o’clock that afternoon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will you not,” hazarded Quong Ho, “be also accompanied -by your solicitor?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Baltazar in his grand self-confidence. “Damn -lawyers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the long train moved out of Charing Cross station -amid the waving of handkerchiefs and hats, he drew a breath -of unutterable relief. As far as God would allow, the boy was -safe. Safe, at any rate, from the woman with whom he had -pledged his honour not to communicate while he was in France. -And the boy would keep his word. He had been disentangled -from the imbroglio. It was all that mattered. He made his -powerful, almost ruthless way through the sobered crowd of -lately cheerful friends seeing off those dear to them, almost -heedless of the streaming eyes of women who but a moment -ago had been so brave and smiling. He was unique among -them. His son was not seeking, but escaping death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jubilant he walked across the station yard, up Cockspur -Street and Pall Mall. He felt strong—nay, more—all-powerful. -A force before which all the rats of Donnithorpes -and lawyers in the world must crumble. He had no plan; no -idea how he should counter Donnithorpe’s machinations. -He had been accustomed all his life long to wait for the perilous -moment and then get in his grip. He had glorious faith -in his destiny. His and Godfrey’s. The destiny of the House -of Baltazar. The war over, Godfrey would find some sweet -English girl and marry her; and there would be a son to carry -on the torch and hand it, in his turn, to the next generation. -Striding up St. James’s Street, he saw the babe; made calculations -of dates. He would last at least till seventy-five. The -grandson then would be on the verge of manhood. . . . He -laughed. Odd that he should have lived for fifty years before -dreaming of the continuance of his race. Those infernal years -in China! He cursed them. Never mind. If he had gone on -in the humdrum certainty of the perpetuation of his name he -would have missed the present glory of the conception. It -was a wonderful world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He lunched at his club with Weatherley and Burtenshaw, -optimistic to gasconade, prophesying the speedy end of the -war; then the millennium; the world ruled by Anglo-Saxon -fibre of brain and body inspired by Latin nervous force—the -combination towards which civilization had been groping for -centuries. At ten minutes to three he waved them farewell -and drove in a taxi to his appointment in Bedford Row.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was shown into a room where Edgar Donnithorpe and -an impassive elderly man with a face like a horse awaited him. -He felt that he entered like an irresistible force.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='296' id='Page_296'></span><h1>CHAPTER XXIV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>H</span><span class='sc'>E</span> stood, an hour later, on the pavement of that noiseless -and forlorn thoroughfare, and stared at the latest -catastrophe which, like all the others in his impulsive -life, he had of his own deliberate act contrived. As yet he failed -fully to understand his defeat—for defeat it was, surrender -absolute and unconditional. He thrust his hat to the back of -his head and mopped his forehead, and moved slowly up the -street in amazed reaction from the glow of conquest which -warmed him as he had entered the office. He had gone without -any plan of campaign, confident in his intellectual resource -to meet emergency. Merciless craft and cunning vindictiveness -met him. Under the fierce sunshine, angry shame made -him hotter, and the sweat poured down his face. He had been -able only to bluster and threaten in vain retaliation. The grey -rat of a man had laughed at him with rasping thinness. The -horse-faced lawyer had smiled professional deprecation of -heroics. “I shall do this and that,” he declared. “Then our -action will be so and so,” they countered. Like the Duke of -Wellington, he cried: “Publish and be damned.” They pointed -out with icy logic that not they but he and his would suffer -inevitable condemnation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and yours.” That was the lawyer’s phrase. On the -last word two pairs of eyes were bent on him narrowly and significantly. -The unmistakable hint—the only one during the -interview—of Godfrey’s complicity, he had repudiated with -indignation. The consequences concerned himself alone. They -smiled again. “Let it be so, then,” said they, “for the sake -of argument. . . .” As he walked along the burning street he -wondered how much they knew, how much they guessed. -Save for that significant glance, both the grey politician and -the longlipped lawyer had been as inscrutable as Buddhist idols. -And he, John Baltazar, had been hopelessly outmatched.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet, after all, at a cost, he had won the game. Godfrey was -saved. Mechanically he put his hand to the breast pocket of -his thin summer jacket and felt the incriminating document -crackle beneath his touch. That and the sheet of clotted -passion of which he had confessed himself the author. . . . He -continued his way westwards, down the mean and noisy -Theobald’s Road, half conscious of his surroundings. The -drab men and women who jostled him on the pavement and -passed him in the roadway traffic seemed the happy creatures -of a dream—happy in the inalienable possession of their -London heritage. . . . Fragments of the recent interview -passed through his mind. His adversaries had threatened not -to stand alone on the written disclosure of War Office secrets. -They could bring evidence of leakage through Lady Edna, for -some time past, of important military information. He could -quite believe it. The written paper could scarcely be the boy’s -sole infatuated indiscretion; and as for the lady—revealed -as she was yesterday, he counted her capable of any betrayal. -Bluff or not, he had yielded to the threat. While the paper -remained in Donnithorpe’s possession, Godfrey was in grave -peril. . . . “You and yours.” The phrase haunted him. If -he defied them, they would strike through him at Godfrey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Were they aware of farce? If so, why, save for this veiled -allusion, did Godfrey, the real lover, seem to matter so little? -During the interview their attitude puzzled him, until he became -aware of Donnithorpe’s implacable enmity towards him, -John Baltazar. And now he wondered whether the pose of -the injured husband were not a blind for revenge rooted in -deeper motives. Only a fortnight or so ago Godfrey had said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The little beast hates you like poison.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had asked why. Parrot-like, Godfrey had quoted from -Lady Edna’s report of the conversation before his father’s visit -to Moulsford.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A Triton like you gives these political minnows the jumps.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had laughed at the affectionate exaggeration. But was -the boy right after all? Certainly he had paid scant courtesy to -Donnithorpe, whom he had lustily despised as one of the brood -of little folk still parasitically feeding on the Empire which -they had done their best to bring to ruin. Was this the abominable -little insect’s vengeance?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He halted at the hurrying estuary of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, -took off his hat, and again mopped his forehead and the -short thatch of thick brown hair. The words of Dr. Rewsby -of Water-End flashed across his mind—“Have you generally -conducted your life on these extravagant principles?” . . . -and . . . “I should say you were cultivating a very bad habit, -and I should advise you to give it up.” And he remembered -his confession, a year ago, to the sagacious doctor: “You have -the most comforting way in the world of telling me that I’m -the Great Ass of the Universe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That man’s diagnosis,” said Baltazar to himself, putting -on his hat, “was perfectly correct. I am.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He marched in his unconsciously hectoring way down Holborn -and Oxford Street, deep in his thoughts. Yes, once again -his episodical life history had repeated itself. The same old -extravagant principles had once again prevailed. They were -part and parcel of his being, resistless as destiny. Once again, -without thought of the future, he had cast the glowing present -to the winds. Once again he had proved himself the Great -Ass of the Universe. But what did it matter? Godfrey was -saved. Again he made the papers crackle in his pocket. He -had told him he would give his life for him. He strode along -fiercely. By God! Stupendous Ass that he might be, he had -never in his life broken a vow or a promise. . . . Apart from -the passionate love he had conceived for the boy, there was no -reparation adequate for his twenty years’ unconscious neglect. -He swung his stick to the peril of the King’s lieges on the pavement. -It was a young man’s world—this new world that was -to follow the war. Old men like himself were of brief account. -Godfrey should have his chance, unstained, unfettered in the -new world which his generation, throwing mildewed tradition -on a universal bonfire, would have to mould.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drew nearer to the brighter life of West End London, -Oxford Circus, with its proud sweep of great shops and its -plentiful harbours from the streams of the four great thoroughfares. -Reluctant to confine himself yet awhile within the four -walls of his library, he abandoned the straight course home -and went down Regent Street, and at last stood uncertain at -Piccadilly Circus, the centre of London, more than any other -one spot perhaps, the true heart of the Empire. Though it -was the broad day of a summer afternoon, his memory sped -swiftly back over twenty years to the night when he saw it -alive with light and flashing movement and the great city’s joy -of life, for the last time before he sailed for China; when, in -spite of decorous and scholarly living, his heart had sunk within -him at the realization that he was giving up all that, and all -that it symbolized—the familiar and pulsating life of England. -And now he stood in the same glamour-haunted precincts, and -again his heart sank like a stone. He turned, crept for a few -steps down Piccadilly and, catching a taxi putting down a fare -at the Piccadilly Hotel, engaged it and drove home to Sussex -Gardens.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The house appeared bleak and desolate. Quong Ho had -gone some whither. Godfrey—he thanked God—was on his -way to France. Foolishly he had hoped that Marcelle might -be awaiting him, to hear the latest tidings of the boy; but she -was not there. For all its carpeting and pleasant luxury of -furniture the house seemed to be full of echoes, as though it -were an empty shell. For the first time in his life he shrank -almost afraid, from the intolerable loneliness of the lot to which -he had condemned himself. For the last year he had given -way to his long-pent-up craving for human affection. He had -cast his soul into the orgy of love that he had compelled from -the only three dear to him in the world. It had been more -than his daily bread. It had been a kind of daily debauch. It -had lifted him above himself. Marcelle loved him, Godfrey -loved him, Quong Ho loved him, each in their separate ways. -They were always there, ready at hand, to appease the hunger -of the moment. And now, in a flash, he had cut himself adrift -from the beloved three. The love would remain. That he -knew. But from the precious food of its daily manifestations -he would be many thousands of leagues sundered by oceans -and continents. At thirty he could forsake love and face solitude -with the brave fool’s confidence. At fifty he gazed terrified -at the prospect. He had embraced loneliness as a bride, -three years ago, in order to save himself from perdition. But -then his heart had been stone cold, unwarmed by any human -touch. He had felt himself to be an unwanted wanderer in an -alien planet. Spendale Farm had been a haven of comfort, an -Eden of refuge. But the German bomb had revolutionized his -world. It had magically brought him into indissoluble bondage -to human things of unutterable dearness. And now once -more—<span class='it'>finis</span> to the episode which he had thought to be the -story ending only in death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat mechanically at the writing-table in his library and -began to open the letters that had come during his absence. A -leathern Government despatch case containing the day’s papers -from the office which he had only hurriedly visited that morning, -awaited his attention. The deathly sensation that they no -longer concerned him held him in a cold grip. There was a -flaming article from a Croatian statesman which had reached -<span class='it'>The New Universe</span> through devious channels, fraught with -pregnant information. He glanced through it in impotent -detachment, like that of a dead man brought back to the conduct -of his affairs. He was no longer the dynamo of <span class='it'>The New -Universe</span>. Other forces, who and what he knew not, would in -a day or two take his place. <span class='it'>The New Universe</span> would have to -get on, as best it could, without him. He was dead. He had -no more to do with <span class='it'>The New Universe</span> than with the internal -affairs of Mars.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened an envelope addressed in a well-known handwriting -and franked with distinguished initials. It had been -delivered by messenger. Like a dead man he read the achievement -of his ambition: He was a Minister of the Crown. The -public announcement awaited only his formal acceptance. He -stared dully at the idle words. And then suddenly mad rage -against the derisive irony of his destiny shook him and he -sprang from his chair, and, in the unsympathetic privacy of -the room which he had not furnished, he stormed in foolish -fury and vain agony of soul. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was the end of John Baltazar—the John Baltazar in -whom he had always believed, at the moment of proof positive -of the justification of his faith. To Godfrey he had not -boasted unduly. A year ago he had awakened, a new Rip Van -Winkle, to a world for two years at war. In a few months, -God knows how, save through his resistless energy, his new-born -and flaming patriotism and his keen brain, he had established -himself in England as a driving force compelling recognition -and application to the country’s needs. He had won his -position by sheer strength of personality. Transcendental -mathematics and Chinese scholarship he had thrown into the -dust-heap of broken toys. He had emerged from philosophic -childhood into the active life of a man, with his strong hands -fingering the strings of the world’s war. Now the strings were -in his grasp. . . . He had looked far ahead. This Ministry, -though of vast importance, was yet subordinate to the Greater -Powers of the State. He was young. What was fifty-one? -The infancy stage of statesmanship. Why should not he, -John Baltazar, rise to higher power and guide the civilized -world to victory and to triumphant peace?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man had dreamed many dreams. What great man does -not? Never yet has the human being whose day’s vision is -blackened by the curtain of the night reached the shadow of -achievement. Then again: was it of England or of John Baltazar -that he dreamed? Who can tell? Can any man of -noble ambitions, of deep conviction of his own powers, strip -himself naked before his God and tell?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now the dreams were but dreams. Blankness confronted -him. Raving against fate brought no consolation or -relief. In utter dejection he threw himself into an arm-chair -and once more gazed hopelessly at catastrophe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was no longer a John Baltazar. As far as England -was concerned he had ceased to exist. In that lawyer’s office -he had signed his abdication. There was the letter written -and addressed, formally declining the almost hourly expected -offer of the ministerial appointment. The offer had now come. -He had pledged his honour to give immediate signal for the -posting of the answer. That was part of the price demanded -for the surrender of the disastrous documents. He went to -the telephone and curtly carried out those terms of his contract.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There remained the other condition to be fulfilled, for which -they had no other guarantee than his word. There at least—and -a gleam of pride irradiated his gloom—he had triumphed. -He had compelled them to trust his word without a scrap of -written obligation. He would sail for China within a month.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat there alone in the silent house, wondering again -whether he had not set the final seal on himself as the Great -Ass of the Universe. He had been driven, it is true, into a -corner by the malignity and craft of his opponents; but it -was he himself who had dictated the terms of surrender. Acting -on one of the wild impulses that had deflected from childhood -the currents of his life, he had made the amazing proposal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was the end of John Baltazar. He rose, went over to his -table and filled his pipe. Anyhow, the House of Baltazar stood -firm in honour. He would yet dandle the grandson on his knee. -<span class='it'>La course du flambeau</span> was the beginning and end of human -endeavour. The torch was in Godfrey’s hands now. . . . -Feeling for his match-box, his wrist met the hidden papers -in his jacket pocket which he had almost forgotten. He drew -them out, folded the one fraught with court-martial and disgrace -to Godfrey into a long strip and set fire to it, a torch not -to be handed on. He lit his pipe with it instead and watched -it burn till the flame touched his finger-tips. Then he went -over to the grate and burned the love-letter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat down and wrote to Godfrey.</p> - -<div class='blockquote'> - -<p class='noindent'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Boy</span>:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>I think you ought to know that I have been as good as -my word. Three hours after parting from you, I recovered -possession of the document, and this time you may be certain -that it no longer exists, for I have myself destroyed it. Your -sheet now is clean in this respect, and also in others, if the -barrage of silence is maintained.</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:left;margin-left:2em;'>I cannot possibly tell you how I shall miss you.</p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:7em;'>Your ever affectionate father,</p> -<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:1em;'><span class='sc'>John Baltazar</span>.”</p> - -</div> - -<p class='pindent'>That was all. Time enough to tell him about China when he -had made definite arrangements for the voyage. He prayed -anxiously that he might make the announcement in such a -way that Godfrey should never self-reproachfully suspect the -cause of his exile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho, returning a short while afterwards, found him -deeply engaged with the contents of the despatch-case.</p> - -<div><span class='pageno' title='303' id='Page_303'></span><h1>CHAPTER XXV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>A</span><span class='sc'>S</span> he had expected, the Foreign Office beamed on him. -It was immensely gratified that a man of his statesmanlike -qualities should have differentiated so acutely -between the values of the two spheres of his suggested activities. -In bureaucratic satisfaction it rubbed its hands at a -departmental score. Mr. Baltazar had only to name his terms -and conditions. With the Foreign Office it was all plain sailing. -Nay, more. If it could have prevailed with an ultra-conservative -Admiralty, it would have sent him out to China in the -newest, fastest and most mysterious battle-cruiser. But in -Government circles outside the Foreign Office there was the -devil to pay. Consternation also reigned in the office of <span class='it'>The -New Universe</span>. For two or three weeks Baltazar had a grim -time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The first announcement in an evening newspaper of his -retirement from the projected Ministry smote the eyes of an -incredulous and bewildered Marcelle. She caught him on the -telephone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it true?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. Quite true.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I don’t understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll come round this evening and explain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. I’ll come to you. I shan’t be alone here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come to dinner.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miss Graham and I are just sitting down to ours. I’ll run -round after.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All right. I’m free all the evening.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar dined alone with Quong Ho, and talked cheerfully -of matters far remote from the war. No reference was made -to his retirement from English politics, about which Quong -Ho knew everything, or to the Chinese Mission, of which -Quong Ho as yet had no official knowledge. Apart from the -expressed desire of the Foreign Office to keep the appointment -from the press, it was characteristic of Baltazar to maintain -silence, even to those dear to him, as to his especially meteoric -doings. Besides, of the two, Marcelle must have the privilege -of being the first to learn from his own lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She arrived about half-past eight, and he received her in the -drawing-room. She wore a simple, semi-evening old black -dress into which she had changed before her quiet dinner with -her friend, a long pre-war confection, a favourite of Godfrey’s, -moulding her, as he said, in soldierly daring, like Juno. Her -thick brown hair crowned her gloriously. Rest had restored -her to health, and in spite of the anxiety in her eyes, she appeared -to Baltazar in the ripe fullness of her beauty. He strode -to meet her, with his usual gesture of outstretched hands, -strong, confident, admiring, smiling. Yet never did she appear -more desirable, or more remote from his desires.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is the meaning of it—your resignation? I thought -it was the one thing in life you were working for.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I find,” said he, “I can serve my country better in other -ways.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She put a hand to a puzzled forehead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked steadily into her eyes. What was the use of beating -the air with idle words? She would have to know the truth -sooner or later.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By going to China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stared at him open-mouthed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“China?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He stood, his hands deep in his dinner-jacket pockets, balancing -himself alternately on toes and heels, with the air of a -conqueror.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know more about inner China, I suppose, than any man -living. I go out with a free hand to pull two or three million -people together and establish a wise government and exterminate -the German. Hundreds of men can do my job in -England. But those who can do it in China may be counted -on the fingers of a mutilated hand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s all so sudden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m a sudden sort of fellow, as you ought to know,” he -laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you always said you hated the place—would rather -die than go back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In these days you’ve got to do things you hate—for the -good of your country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She sat down, feeling stupefied by his news. She asked:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How long will you be away?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly years. Who knows?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And when do you start?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As soon as I can wind up here. Say in a fortnight’s time.” -She shook her head and looked at the floor, making little -hopeless gestures with her fingers. “You see, my dear,” said -he, “except my own personal ambitions, which I have scrapped -for the time, there’s nothing very much to keep me here. I’ve -done my duty by Quong Ho. He’s on the road to fame at -Cambridge. Godfrey’s settled in France till the end of the -war. And you—well, my dear,” he smiled, “we won’t lose -touch with each other for another twenty years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, of course not,” she said in a queer voice. “We’ll—we’ll -write to each other.” She raised her eyes to his timidly. -“Won’t you be rather lonely out there, without us?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He turned swiftly aside so that she should not see his face. -“Naturally I’ll miss you. Miss the three of you. I’m human. -But, on the other hand, I’m used to being alone. I’m a solitary -by temperament.” Then he flashed round on her. “Don’t -you worry about me. I’ll have my hands too full to be lonely. -I’ll have a real man’s job to get through.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In his vehement way he sketched the kind of work that lay -before him, went off into picturesque reminiscence, unfolded -some of the plans he had already made for the conquest of -those in power in disaffected districts. Anyone but Marcelle -he would have convinced of the whole-hearted and enthusiastic -anticipation of his mission. But a woman whom a man loves -is apt to know him even better than the woman who loves him. -A suspicion, vague but insistent, began to haunt her. Presently -she gave words to it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have Godfrey’s affairs anything to do with this sudden -decision of yours?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He assumed a puzzled look. “Godfrey’s affairs?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. The Donnithorpe business.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He laughed. “My dear, we’re dealing in high international -politics. What on earth can a boy’s calf love have to do with -it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve never told me what happened at Waterloo. Nor -did Godfrey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I simply pulled them apart. Sent Lady Edna home, and -despatched Godfrey to France a day before his time. That’s -all over.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you met Mr. Donnithorpe. Quong Ho——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh yes, I met Donnithorpe. That’s what saved the situation. -He expected to find Godfrey. Found me instead.” He -grinned in the most disarming manner. “A comedy situation. -And off he went defeated.” He took her hand, apparently in -the gayest of moods. “It’s only a woman,” said he, “that -could throw a bridge between Waterloo station and the interior -of China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She let the question drop; but the suspicion remained, and -every minute that passed, until the ormolu clock on the drawing-room -mantelpiece gave her the signal for conventional -retirement, converted it into certainty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He walked with her as usual to the door of her block of -flats. On parting she found tremulous utterance for the sense -of utter forlornness which she had been trying all the evening -to formulate:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s to become of me when you’re gone?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She fled upstairs, not waiting for the lift, and went straight -to her room, with the words echoing in her ears. No. They -did not at all convey her heart’s meaning. They sounded -heartless, selfish. Yet they were true. What would become -of her? For a year she had been enwrapped soul and mind -and thought in the dynamic man. Dynamic, yet so tender, -so chivalrous, so childlike. Without him existence was a blank -full of shuddering fears. And then a coldness as of death fell -upon her. Never once, on this night of the parting of the ways, -had he hinted at his love for her. Had she, by her selfish -folly, her now incomprehensible sex shrinkings, killed at last -the love that once was hers for the taking? Slowly she undressed -and crept into bed; but sleep mocked her. Agonizingly -awake, she stared at her life. . . . And she stared too, -almost in rhythmic alternation, at the life of John Baltazar. -Nothing but some supreme emotional crisis could have caused -this characteristic revolution, this sudden surrender of the -prize of his ambition, this gorgeous acceptance of exile. For -all his contemptuous dismissal of the suggestion, she knew, -with a woman’s unerring logic, that Baltazar had bought Godfrey’s -release from entanglement at the price of his own career. -And never a hint of regret, never a murmur against fate. Never -the faintest appeal to pity. . . . And she arraigned her own -narrow nurse’s self, and condemned it mercilessly. And the -lower she sank in her own esteem, the higher rose Baltazar -until he loomed gigantic as a god above her puny mortality.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her throat was dry. She got out of bed and drank a glass -of water. On her way back across the room her glance fell on -the little brass Yale latchkey, lying on her dressing-table, -which he, in his big, careless way, had insisted on her having, -so that she could gain entrance, as of right, to the house, whenever -she chose. She took it up, gazing at it stupidly. The key -to his home, the key to his heart, the key to his soul—all in -her keeping. And she had despised it. Now she had lost it. -The home would pass into alien hands. His heart was barred. -For the first time, for a whole year, they had met without his -uttering one little word, playful or wistful or tyrannic, to -prove that his nature was open hungrily for her. To-night she -had been but his dear friend. He had accepted her gift of -friendship. She remembered the old French adage: <span class='it'>L’amitié, -c’est le tombeau de l’amour</span>. She sat on the edge of the bed and -mourned hopelessly the death of his love.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the brass Yale latchkey lay mockingly within her -range of vision.</p> - -<hr class='tbk'/> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar walked home, her last words echoing in his ears. -His absence in China would naturally make a difference to her. -She had become part of his household. Godfrey, to whom she -had given a mother’s heart, was indefinitely in France and -alienated from her by his resentment of her breach of confidence. -She had identified herself so unreservedly with the -fortunes of the House of Baltazar that now, cut adrift, she -would be on the high seas, derelict. What could he do to -mitigate her loneliness? If he died, she would be well provided -for. He had made his will some months ago. But he -had every hope of living for many robust years. What indeed -would become of the beloved woman now that their new -attachments to life were broken? The nurse’s career, in which -she had spent the splendid energies of her young womanhood? -If Godfrey were in London, he could commend her, with authority, -to his care. But Godfrey’s vanishing to France was -the essence of the whole business. There remained only Quong -Ho. His appreciation of the comic put Quong Ho out of court.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He entered his house in Sussex Gardens remorseful for lack -of consideration for Marcelle. But, hang it all, one couldn’t -think of everything at once. If she had cared enough for him -to marry him, well—there would have been the Light that -never was on Sea or Land. He would have snapped his fingers -at the doings of the little planet Earth. He would have been -Master of the Universe. But that was not to be. Either all -in all as a wife or not at all. An irrevocable decision. It was -not Marcelle’s fault that she did not love him in that way. . . . -No use thinking of it. It was all over. They had drifted, -however, into an exquisite companionship, as exquisite to her—he -had no false modesty about it—as to him. And now -that was over. What was to become of Marcelle?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was filling his pipe when Quong Ho entered the library -with his little deferential bow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” said he, “may I be allowed to commit an indiscretion?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll do it so discreetly,” said Baltazar, “that it won’t -matter. Fire ahead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the event of your leaving this country on a mission to -the Far East——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What the devil do you know about it?” asked Baltazar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In high Chinese circles in London it is common knowledge,” -replied Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Together with lots of other things concerning me, I suppose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You have many times observed,” said Quong Ho, “that my -countrymen are afflicted with an abnormal thirst for unessential -information.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In spite of his heavy-heartedness, Baltazar smiled grimly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, suppose I am going to China. What of it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“May I postpone Cambridge degree and Fellowship for -several years and accompany you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar’s brow grew black. “Isn’t England good enough -for you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho broke into florid Chinese, the only vehicle for -his emotion. England was the land of his dreams. But why -should he lie beneath the passion-flower of luxury while his -master ate the bread of exile? Surely his degraded unworthiness -might be useful to his illustrious Excellency as confidential -secretary not unversed, thanks to his honoured master and -patron, in the language and scholarship of the Mandarins. -Or, if that was deemed too honourable a position, his filial -piety ordained that he should offer himself as slave or any -debased instrument for which use could be found.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, for God’s sake talk English!” cried Baltazar, his nerves -on edge, foreseeing such endless verbiage in similar perfect -phrasing that awaited him in China.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho spread out his hands and his face grew impassive. -“I have spoken,” he replied simply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t want any more careers upset,” said Baltazar, -irritably. “You’re fixed. You’ve to get your Fellowship. -You’ll stay in England. Besides, I need you here to look after -Miss Baring’s interests.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I confess,” said Quong Ho, gravely, “to being oblivious of -that side of the question.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, lying deep in his arm-chair, pipe in mouth, gazed -intently into the oblique steadfast eyes of the son of his quaint -adoption. The idea of leaving Marcelle under his protection -did not seem in the least comic. He passed an impatient hand -over his brow. Was he losing his sense of values?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Apart from his intellectual gifts, Quong Ho was a man of -shrewd common sense and of infinite trustworthiness. Marcelle -knew this. Unlike so many untravelled Englishwomen, -she did not regard a Chinaman as a sort of dangerous toy dog. -She shared his faith in Quong Ho.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thank you for your offer, my dear fellow,” he said at last, -repenting his ungraciousness. “I know you made it out of -affection for me. I deeply appreciate it. If it weren’t for Miss -Baring, I wouldn’t hesitate. As it is, I leave you here as my -agent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quong Ho bowed. “So long as I can be of service to you, -sir, your word is law,” said he, and retired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar, left alone, resumed his uninspired reflections. He -felt physically and morally weary, a beaten man. He shrank -from his Chinese exile with pathetic dread; shrank from the -toilsome journeys, the eternal compliments of convention that -delayed serious discussion, the perpetual ceremonial, the futile -tea-drinking, the mass of tradition and prejudice and ignorance, -the smiling craft that used it as a buffer against enlightenment. -He looked with dismay on his exclusion from the keen intellectual -talk in which he had revelled for the past year, from the -brain-thrilling battle of Western Thought. It was a man’s -work, his mission; a picked man’s work. Hundreds would -have regarded it as a climax of their diplomatic ambition. But -to him, who had thrown himself into vast schemes for the -reconstruction of the war-torn world, it was exile, defeat. It -was not in his nature to regret his sacrifice. What was done -was done. The stars in their courses had fought against him -individually, even though, in their inscrutable wisdom they -fought, as he believed, for his House. No man who has saturated -himself for years with Chinese thought can escape the -spiritual influence of fatalism. He was a fatalist. It was -written that he should fail in every one of his great adventures. -Yet the fact of it being written made his lot none -the less damnable for the very human and vivid man, once -more involved in predestined shipwreck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He smoked many pipes thinking disconnectedly, without -method, and feeling old and lonely and broken, and very, very -tired. At last his pipe dropped to the floor and he fell asleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly the subconsciousness of a presence in the room -caused him to awake with a start. He looked up and, bewildered, -saw Marcelle standing by his chair. She was crying. -He sprang to his feet, passing his hands over his eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You here?” His glance instinctively sought the clock -on the mantelpiece. “Why, it’s half-past two in the morning!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said: “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t rest. I had to -come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He did not understand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is the matter, my dearest? What can I do for you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only go on loving me, and forgive me,” she said desperately.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I do,” he cried, puzzled. “It’s just hell for me to leave -you. But I can’t help it, my dear. My hand has been forced. -It’s even harder to leave you than it was twenty years ago. I -love you and want you more than ever I did in my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So do I,” she said, in a shaking voice. “That’s why I’m -here, at half-past two in the morning.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Baltazar uttered a great triumphant cry and clasped her in -his arms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My God,” said he, “I’ve won after all!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He held her at arm’s length and looked at her exultantly. -Thank Heaven she had no suspicion of his sense of downfall. -Not Pity, but Love at last awakened, had brought her to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” he repeated. “I’ve won after all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After a while, when he had almost forgotten his words, she -asked him:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did you think you had lost?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My faith in my destiny. The star of Baltazar. Once upon -a time the original bearer of my name, with the others, had -faith in a star, and he followed it and found God.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled. “Dear, aren’t you talking a bit wildly?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s the good of speech if one can’t use it wildly in wild -moments?” He laughed. “Oh, you belovedest woman,” -said he, and kissed her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Presently: “You’ll come out to China with me? You’ll -progress like a queen. I’ll see to that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It doesn’t matter how I progress,” she said, “so long as -I’m with you. I’m yours body and soul to the end of time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To the end of Eternity,” he cried. “I prefer that. It’s -bigger. The biggest there is is good enough for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His dancing eyes burned like flames of pride and happiness. -Twenty years seemed to have fallen from him, and she saw -before her the young man whom as a girl she had loved.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and I are going over to the greatest work ever attempted -by man. The regeneration of half the continent of -Asia. I couldn’t have done it alone. The prospect frightened -me. Yes, it did. I hadn’t the heart. But with you—I stake -my faith in the Star—it’ll be one of the great accomplishments -of the war. Quong Ho will come with us. He’ll have -his chance. I’ll make him one of the great men of the New -China.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went on, expounding his vision of the new order of Oriental -things. She marvelled at him, for it seemed as if he had -but lived for that moment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And divining his Great Sacrifice, she forgot the selfless years -that had all but moulded her into a mere machine of tender -service to maimed and diseased humanity, and felt a thing of -small account before this man whose unconquerable faith and -indomitable courage transformed his colossal vanities into -virtues, and who, for all his egotism, was endowed with the -supreme gift of love.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Godfrey will be astonished at all this,” she hazarded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Astonishment,” said he, “is an emotion salutary for the -very young. It stimulates thought.”</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:6em;font-size:1em;'>THE END</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'>TRANSCRIBER NOTES</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been -employed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious -printer errors occur.</p> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The House of Baltazar, by William J. Locke - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR *** - -***** This file should be named 60120-h.htm or 60120-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/2/60120/ - -Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Jen Haines & the -online Project Gutenberg team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - - </body> - <!-- created with fpgen.py 4.56b on 2018-04-30 11:29:26 GMT --> -</html> diff --git a/old/60120-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/60120-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 40a5589..0000000 --- a/old/60120-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null |
