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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. 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