"You will drive me down to Chelsea, won't you?" she begged.

"Righto!" he replied. "I'll get one of these chaps to fetch a taxi."

He succeeded in obtaining one, gleeful because he had outwitted some prior applicant to whom the cab properly belonged.

"Couldn't stop somewhere and have a little supper, could we?" he asked.

"I am afraid not," she answered. "It wouldn't be quite the thing."

He tried to take her hand. After a moment's hesitation she permitted it.

"Mr. Burton," she said softly, "do answer me one question. Did you part with all your beans?"

His hand went up to his forehead for a moment.

"Yes," he replied, "both of them. I only had two, and it didn't seem worth while keeping one. Got my pockets full of money, too, and they are going to make me a director of Menatogen."

"Do you feel any different?" she asked him.

He looked at her in a puzzled way and, striking a match, lit a cigarette without her permission.

"Odd you should ask that," he remarked. "I do feel sort of queer to-night—as though I'd been ill, or something of the sort. There are so many things I can only half remember—at least I remember the things themselves, but the part I took in them seems so odd. Kind of feeling as though I'd been masquerading in another chap's clothes," he added, with an uneasy little laugh. "I don't half like it."

"Tell me," she persisted, "did you really find the music tiresome?"

He nodded.

"Rather," he confessed. "The Chocolate Soldier is my idea of music. I like something with a tune in it. There's been no one to beat Gilbert and Sullivan. I don't know who wrote this Samson and Delilah, but he was a dismal sort of beggar, wasn't he? I like something cheerful. Don't you want to come and have some supper, Edith? I know a place where they play all the popular music."

"No, thank you," she told him gravely.

"You seem so cold and sort of stand-offish to-night," he complained, coming a little closer to her. "Some of those nights down at your place—can't remember 'em very well but I am jolly sure you were different. What's happened? Mayn't I hold your fingers, even?"

His arm would have been around her waist, but she evaded it firmly.

"Don't you know what has happened?" she demanded, earnestly. "Don't you really know?"

"Can't say that I do," he admitted. "I've got a sort of feeling as though I'd been all tied-up like, lately. Haven't been able to enjoy myself properly, and gone mooning about after shadows. To-night I feel just as though I were coming into my own again a bit. I say," he added, admiringly, "you do look stunning! Come and have some supper—no one will know—and let me drive you home afterwards. Do!"

She shook her head.

"I don't think you must talk to me quite like this," she said kindly. "You have a wife, you know, and I am engaged to be married."

He laughed, quite easily.

"Never seen Ellen, have you?" he remarked. "She's a fine woman, you know, although she isn't quite your style. She'd think you sort of pale and colorless, I expect—no kind of go or dash about you."

"Is that what you think?" Edith asked him, smiling.

"You aren't exactly the style I've always admired," he confessed, "but there's something about you," he added, in a puzzled manner,—"I don't know what it is but I remember it from a year ago—something that seemed to catch hold of me. I expect I must be a sentimental sort of Johnny underneath. However, I do admire you, Edith, immensely. I only wish—"

Again she evaded him.

"Please do not forget Mr. Bomford," she begged.

"That silly old ass!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed a poker! You're never going to marry him!"

"I think that I shall," she replied. "At any rate, at present I am engaged to him. Therefore, if you please, you must keep just a little further away. I don't like to mention it, but I think—haven't you been smoking rather too much?"

He laughed, without a trace of sensitiveness. "I have been having rather a day of it," he admitted. "But I say, Edith, if you won't come to supper, I think you might let a fellow—"

She drew back into her corner.

"Mr. Burton," she said, "you must please not come near me."

"But I want a kiss," he protested. "You'd have given me one the other night. You'd have given me as many as I'd liked. You almost clung to me—that night under the cedar tree."

Her eyes for a moment were half closed.

"It was a different world then," she whispered softly. "It was a different Mr. Burton. You see, since then a curtain has come down. We are starting a fresh act and I don't think I know you quite so well as I did."

"Sounds like tommyrot," he grumbled.

The taxicab came to a standstill. The man got down and opened the door. Burton half sulkily stepped out on to the pavement.

"Well, here you are," he announced. "Can't say that I think much of you this evening."

She held out her hand. They were standing on the pavement now, in the light of a gas-lamp, and with the chauffeur close at hand. She was not in the least afraid but there was a lump in her throat. He looked so very common, so far away from those little memories with which she must grapple!

"Mr. Burton," she said, "good-night! I want to thank you for this evening and I want to ask you to promise that if ever you are sorry because I persuaded you to sell those little beans, you will forgive me. It was a very wonderful thing, you know, and I didn't understand. Perhaps I was wrong."

"Don't you worry," he answered, cheerfully. "That's all right, anyway. It's jolly well the best thing I ever did in my life. Got my pockets full of money already, and I mean to have a thundering good time with it. No fear of my ever blaming you. Good-night, Miss Edith! My regards to the governor and tell him I am all on for Menatogen."

He gave his hat a little twist and stepped back into the taxi.

"I will give my father your message," she told him, as the door opened to receive her.

"Righto!" Burton replied. "Leicester Square, cabby!"



CHAPTER XXIX

RICHES AND REPENTANCE

There was considerable excitement in Laurence Avenue when a few mornings later Mr. Alfred Burton, in a perfectly appointed motor-car, drew up before the door of Clematis Villa. In a very leisurely manner he descended and stood looking around him for a moment in the front garden.

"Poky little place," he said half to himself, having completed a disparaging survey. "Hullo, Johnson! How are you?"

Mr. Johnson, who, with a little bag in his hand, had just trudged a mile to save a penny, looked with something like amazement at the apparition which confronted him. Mr. Alfred Burton was arrayed in town clothes of the most pronounced cut. His tail coat was exactly the right length; his trousers, although the pattern was a little loud, were exceedingly well cut. He wore patent boots with white gaiters, a carefully brushed silk hat, and he carried in his hand a pair of yellow kid gloves. He had a malacca cane with a gold top under his arm, and a cigar at the usual angle in the corner of his mouth. No wonder that Mr. Johnson, who was, it must be confessed, exceedingly shabby, took his pipe from his mouth and stared at his quondam friend in amazement.

"Hullo, Burton, you back again?" he exclaimed weakly.

"I am back again just to settle up here," Mr. Burton explained, with a wave of the hand. "Just run down in the car to take the missis out a little way."

Mr. Johnson held on to the railing tightly.

"Your car?"

"My car," Mr. Burton admitted, modestly. "Take you for a ride some day, if you like. How's the wife?"

"First-class, thanks," Mr. Johnson replied. "First-class, thank you, Mr. Burton."

Burton protested mildly.

"No need to 'Mr. Burton' me, Johnson, old fellow! It shall never be said of me that a great and wonderful rise in the world altered my feelings towards those with whom I was once on terms of intimacy. I shall always be glad to know you, Johnson. Thursday evening, isn't it? What are you and the wife doing?"

"I don't know," Johnson confessed, "that we are doing anything particular. We shall turn up at the band, I suppose."

"Good!" Mr. Burton said. "It will be our last Thursday evening in these parts, I expect, but after I have taken the wife for a little spin we'll walk round the band-stand ourselves. Perhaps we shall be able to induce you and Mrs. Johnson to come back and take a little supper with us?"

Mr. Johnson pulled himself together.

"Very kind of you, old cocky," he declared, tremulously. "Been striking it thick, haven't you?"

Burton nodded.

"Dropped across a little thing in the city," he remarked, flicking the dust from the sleeve of his coat. "Jolly good spec it turned out. They made me a director. It's this new Menatogen Company. Heard of it?"

"God bless my soul, of course I have!" Johnson exclaimed. "Millions in it, they say. The shares went from par to four premium in half an hour. I know a man who had a call of a hundred. He's cleared four hundred pounds."

Mr. Burton nodded in a most condescending manner.

"That so?" he remarked. "I've a matter of ten thousand myself, besides some further calls, but I'm not selling just yet. If your friend's got any left, you can tell him from me—and I ought to know as I'm a director—that the shares will be at nine before long. Shouldn't wonder if they didn't go to twenty. It's a grand invention. Best thing I ever touched in my life."

Johnson had been finding it chilly a short time ago but he took off his hat now and mopped his forehead.

"Haven't been home lately, have you?" he remarked.

"To tell you the truth," Mr. Burton explained, puffing at his cigar, "this little affair has been taking up every minute of my time. I had to take chambers in town to keep up with my work. Well, so long, Johnson! See you later at the band-stand. Don't forget we shall be expecting you this evening. May run you up to the west-end, perhaps, if the missis feels like it."

He nodded and proceeded on his way to the front door of his domicile. Mr. Johnson, narrowly escaping an impulse to take off his hat, proceeded on his homeward way.

"Any one at home?" Mr. Burton inquired, letting himself in.

There was no reply. Mr. Burton knocked with his gold-headed cane upon the side of the wall. The door at the end of the passage opened abruptly. Ellen appeared.

"What are you doing there, knocking all the plaster down?" she demanded, sharply. "If you want to come in, why can't you ring the bell? Standing there with your hat on as though the place belonged to you!"

Burton was a little taken aback. He recovered himself, however, secure in the splendid consciousness of his irreproachable clothes and the waiting motor-car. He threw open the door of the parlor.

"Step this way a moment, Ellen," he said. She followed him reluctantly into the room. He put his hand upon her shoulder to lead her to the window. She shook herself free at once.

"Hands off!" she ordered. "What is it you want?"

He pointed out of the window to the magnificent memorial of his success. She looked at it disparagingly.

"What's that? Your taxicab?" she asked. "What did you keep him for? You can get another one at the corner."

Burton gasped.

"Taxicab!" he exclaimed. "Taxicab, indeed! Look at it again. That's a motor-car—my own motor-car. Do you hear that? Bought and paid for!"

"Well, run away and play with it, then!" she retorted, turning as though to leave the room. "I don't want you fooling about here. I'm just getting Alfred's supper." Burton dropped his cigar upon the carpet. Even when he had picked it up, he stood looking at her with his mouth a little open.

"You don't seem to understand, Ellen," he said. "Listen. I've come back home. A share of that motor-car is yours."

"Come back home," Ellen repeated slowly.

"Exactly," he admitted, complacently. "I am afraid this is rather a shock for you, but good news never kills, you know. We'll motor up to the band presently and I've asked the Johnsons to supper. If you've nothing in the house, we'll all go up to the west-end somewhere. . . . What's the matter with you?"

Ellen was looking at that moment positively handsome. Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes ablaze.

"Alfred Burton," she declared, "the last few times I've seen you, I've put you down as being dotty. Now I am sure of it. The sooner you're out of this, the better, before I lose my temper."

"But, my dear Ellen," he protested, soothingly, "I can assure you that what I am telling you is the truth! I have become unexpectedly rich. A fortunate stroke of business—the Menatogen Company, you know—has completely altered our lives. You are naturally overcome—"

"Naturally over-fiddlesticks!" Ellen interrupted. "Look here, my man, I've had about enough of this. You come down here, thinking because you've come to your senses, and because you've got new clothes and a motor-car, that you can just sit down as though nothing had happened. Just let me tell you this—you can't do it! You can leave your wife because she can't stop you. You can stay away from her because she can't drag you back. But you can't come and put on a new suit of clothes and bring a motor-car and say 'I've come back,' and sit down at your usual place and find everything just as you've left it. You can't do that, Alfred Burton, and you must be a bigger fool even than you look to imagine that you can!"

"Ellen," he faltered, "don't you want me back?"

"Not I!" she replied, fiercely. "Not you nor your motor-car nor your money nor any part of you. Come swaggering in, dropping your cigar ash over the place, and behaving as though you'd been a respectable person all your life!" she continued, indignantly. "What right have you got to think that your wife was made to be your slave or your trained dog, to beg when you hold out a piece of biscuit, and go and lie down alone when you don't want her. Send your three pounds a week and get out of it. That's all I want to hear of you! You know the way, don't you?"

Her outstretched forefinger pointed to the door. Burton had never felt so pitifully short of words in his life.

"I—I've asked the Johnsons to supper," he stammered, as he took up his hat.

"Take them to your west-end, then!" Ellen cried, scornfully. "Take them riding in your motor-car. Why don't you tell the man to drive up and down the avenue, that every one may see how fine you are! Would you like to know just what I think of you?"

Burton looked into her face and felt a singular reluctance to listen to the torrent of words which he felt was ready to break upon his head. He tried to hold himself a little more upright.

"You will be sorry for this, Ellen," he said, with some attempt at dignity.

She laughed scornfully.

"One isn't sorry at getting rid of such as you," she answered, and slammed the door behind him.

Burton walked with hesitating footsteps down the footpath. This was not in the least the triumphal return he had intended to make! He stood for a moment upon the pavement, considering. It was curious, but his motor-car no longer seemed to him a glorious vehicle. He was distinctly dissatisfied with the cut of his clothes, the glossiness of his silk hat, his general appearance. The thought of his bank balance failed to bring him any satisfaction whatever. He seemed suddenly, as clearly as though he were looking into a mirror, to see himself with eyes. He recognized even the blatant stupidity of his return, and he admired Ellen more than he had ever admired her in his life.

"Where to, sir?" his brand-new chauffeur asked.

Burton pitched away his cigar.

"Wait a moment," he said, and turning round, walked with firm footsteps back to the house. He tried the door and opened it, looked into the parlor and found it empty. He walked down the passage and pushed open the door of the kitchen. Little Alfred's meal was ready on a tray, the room was spotless and shining, but Ellen, with her head buried in her hands, was leaning forward in her chair, sobbing. He suddenly fell on his knees by her side.

"Please forgive me, Ellen!" he cried, almost sobbing himself. "Please forgive me for being such a rotter. I'll never—I promise that I'll never do anything of the sort again."

She looked up. He ventured to put his arm around her waist. She shook herself free, very weakly. He tried again and with success.

"I know I've made an idiot of myself," he went on. "I'd no right to come down here like that. I just want you to forgive me now, that's all. I didn't mean to swagger about being rich. I'm not enjoying it a bit till you come along."

Ellen raised her head once more. Her lips were' quivering, half with a smile, although the tears were still in her eyes.

"Sure you mean it?" she asked softly.

"Absolutely!" he insisted. "Go and put on your hat with the feathers and we'll meet the Johnsons and take them for a ride."

"You don't like the one with the feathers," she said, doubtfully.

"I like it now," he assured her heartily. "I'm fonder of you at this moment, Ellen, than any one in the world. I always have been, really."

"Stupid!" she declared. "I shall wear my hat with the wing and we will call around at Saunders' and I can buy a motor veil. I always did think that a motor veil would suit me. We'd better call at Mrs. Cross's, too, and have her come in and cook the supper. Don't get into mischief while I'm upstairs."

"I'll come, too—and see little Alfred," he added, hastily.

"Carry the tray, then, and mind where you're going," Ellen ordered.



CHAPTER XXX

A MAN'S SOUL

The half-yearly directors' meeting of the Menatogen Company had just been held. One by one, those who had attended it were taking their leave. The auditor, with a bundle of papers under his arm, shook hands cordially with the chairman—Alfred Burton, Esquire—and Mr. Waddington, and Mr. Bomford, who, during the absence of the professor in Assyria, represented the financial interests of the company.

"A most wonderful report, gentlemen," the auditor pronounced,—"a business, I should consider, without its equal in the world."

"And still developing," Mr. Waddington remarked, impressively.

"And still developing," the auditor agreed. "Another three years like the last and I shall have the pleasure of numbering at least three millionaires among my acquaintances."

"Shall we—?" Mr. Burton suggested, glancing towards Waddington.

Mr. Waddington nodded, but Mr. Bomford took up his hat. He was dressed in the height of subdued fashion. His clothes and manners would have graced a Cabinet Minister. He had, as a matter of fact, just entered Parliament.

"You will excuse me, gentlemen," he said. "I make it a rule never to take anything at all in the middle of the day."

He took his leave with the auditor.

"Pompous old ass!" Mr. Waddington murmured. "A snob!" Mr. Alfred Burton declared,—"that's what I call him! Got his eye on a place in Society. Saw his name in the paper the other day a guest at Lady Somebody's reception. Here goes, old chap—success to Menatogen!"

Waddington drained his glass.

"They say it's his wife who pushes him on so," he remarked.

Mr. Burton's wine went suddenly flat. He drank it but without enjoyment. Then he rose to his feet.

"Well, so long, Waddington, old chap," he said. "I expect the missis is waiting for me."

Mrs. Burton was certainly waiting for her husband. She was sitting back among the cushions of her Sixty horse-power Daimler, wrapped in a motoring coat of the latest fashion, her somewhat brilliant coloring only partially obscured by the silver-gray veil which drooped from her motor bonnet. Burton took his place beside her almost in silence, and they glided off. She looked at him curiously.

"Meeting go off all right?" she asked, a little sharply.

"Top hole," Mr. Burton replied.

"Then what are you so glum about?" she demanded, suspiciously. "You've got nothing to worry about that I can see."

"Nothing at all," Mr. Burton admitted.

"Very good report of Alfred came second post," Mrs. Burton continued. "They say he'll be fit to enter Harrow next year. And an invitation to dine, too, with Lady Goldstein. We're getting on, Alfred. The only thing now is that country house. I wish we could find something to suit us."

"If we keep on looking," Burton remarked, "we are bound to come across something sooner or later. If not, I must build."

"I'm all for building," Mrs. Burton declared. "I don't care for mouldy old ruins, with ivy and damp places upon the walls. I like something fine and spick and span and handsome, with a tower to it, and a long straight drive that you can see down to the road; plenty of stone work about the windows, and good square rooms. As for the garden, well, let that come. We can plant a lot of small trees about, and lay down a lawn. I don't care about other folks' leavings in houses, and a lot of trees around a place always did put me off. Have you told him where to go to?"

Burton shook his head.

"I just told him to drive about thirty or forty miles into the country," he said. "It doesn't matter in what direction, does it? We may see something that will suit us."

The car, with its splendid easy motion, sped noiselessly through the suburbs and out into the country. It seemed to Mr. Burton that he must have dozed. He had been up late the night before, and for several nights before that. He was a little puffy about the cheeks and his eyes were not so bright as they had been. He had developed a habit of dozing off in odd places. When he awoke, he sat up with a start. He had been dreaming. Surely this was a part of the dream! The car was going very slowly indeed. On one side of him was a common, with bushes of flaming gorse and clumps of heather, and little ragged plantations of pine trees; and on his right, a low, old-fashioned house, a lawn of velvet, and a great cedar tree; a walled garden with straight, box-bordered paths, a garden full of old-fashioned flowers whose perfume seemed suddenly to be tearing at some newly-awakened part of the man. He sat up. He stared at the little seat among the rose bushes. Surely he was back again, back again in that strange world, where the flavor of existence was a different thing, where his head had touched the clouds, where all the gross cares and pleasures of his everyday life had fallen away! Was it the perfume of the roses, of the stocks, which had suddenly appealed to some dormant sense of beauty? Or had he indeed passed back for a moment into that world concerning which he had sometimes strange, half doubtful thoughts? He leaned forward, and his eyes wandered feverishly among the hidden places of the garden. The seat was empty. Propped up against the hedge was a notice board: "This House to Let."

"What on earth are you staring at?" Mrs. Burton demanded, with some acerbity. "A silly little place like that would be no use to us. I don't know what the people who've been living there could have been thinking about, to let the garden get into such a state. Fancy a nasty dark tree like that, too, keeping all the sun away from the house! I'd have it cut down if it were mine. What on earth are you looking at, Alfred Burton?"

He turned towards her, heavy-eyed.

"Somewhere under that cedar tree," he said, "a man's soul was buried. I was wondering if its ghost ever walked!"

Mrs. Burton lifted the speaking-tube to her lips.

"You can take the next turning home, John," she ordered.

The man's hand was mechanically raised to his hat. Mrs. Burton leaned back once more among the cushions.

"You and your ghosts!" she exclaimed. "If you want to sit there, thinking like an owl, you'd better try and think of some of your funny stories for to-night. You'll have to sit next that stuck-up Mrs. Bomford, and she takes a bit of amusing."

THE END.