Here and there a simple, provincial-looking family were to be seen who had come up for a few days and had been to an afternoon performance, and were talking with great animation of the rights and wrongs of the hero and heroine of the play. It was characteristic of the provincials that they were really excited about the play itself, hardly knowing who were performing, while the suburbanites took interest only in the actors, all of whom they knew well by name and reputation, even their private life—at least, as much of it as got into the Prattler, The Perfect Lady, and Home Chirps.

On the whole it was a very characteristic London crowd, in that it consisted almost entirely of desirable aliens. Here and there, indeed, one saw a thin, slim, pretty woman with a happy but bothered-looking young man, both obviously English, who talked in low tones, and were evidently at some stage or other of a rose-coloured romance; but they were the exception.

Amidst this noisy and confused clientele, with its showy clothes and obvious feminine charms, Miss Luscombe looked a strange, stray, untidy hothouse plant. She was odd and artificial, and dressed like nothing on earth, in pale and faded colours; but she was not vulgar. She was rather queer and delicate, and intensely amiable. Her self-consciousness made no claim on one; she was not exacting—always pleased and good-tempered. Rathbone recognised these qualities in her, and liked her better to-day, amidst the scent of the tea-cakes and cigarettes and the whine of the violin, than he had ever liked her before.

Pink, fair, calm, clean, and really hardly anything else, except extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in Still Waters Run Deep—a play he had seen as a boy and had always longed to act in.

She had broken the news to him.

"Miss Luscombe, do you mean to say that is the very best you can do for me?"

She explained the difficulties.

He was only one of so many! Unless the name was known it was frightfully difficult—even for geniuses—to get on. Of course, he might try, and go and see the various managers himself, but, frankly, probably nothing would come of it.

He was deeply depressed. What should she suggest?

"Might I ask if you care very, very much?" she asked.

"You might. I do." Yes. His heart was set on it.

Was it really? Well, if he simply hadn't the strength to go on living another day without going on the stage, the only thing, clearly, was just to hire a theatre and go on! A matinee, perhaps. Why not Romeo?

"And why not Juliet?" said he, rather rashly.

"Oh, that would be lovely!"

Her attention wandered at this moment. A very pretty, fair woman was rising from behind a palm where she had been seated with her back to the room. She went out rather quickly, followed by a good-looking young man with a single eye-glass.

"They have been trying to hide!" she exclaimed. "What a joke! It's that sweet Valentia Wyburn and Harry de Freyne. They must have been here when we arrived, for we should have seen them come in. I wonder what they came for?"

"To have tea, perhaps?" suggested Rathbone, after deep thought, shrewdly.

"Yes, yes, I know. But why hide like that?"

"Perhaps they didn't want to be seen," said Rathbone brilliantly.

"Yes, of course, but why not? I hope it doesn't show...."

"Well, it shows there's nothing in it, or they wouldn't come here."

"Does it?" said Miss Luscombe, rather disappointed.

"Well, where's the harm in being here? Ain't we here?"

"Oh yes, of course; but that's different. They're cousins, too, of course; I had forgotten."

"I don't see why you should worry if Romer doesn't," said Rathbone.

Before they left Rathbone had very nearly promised to see about engaging a theatre, and either for a charity or as an invitation matinee, rope, as he expressed it, all his friends in, lock the door, and force them to see him play Romeo to Miss Luscombe's Juliet.

Flora was deliriously happy at the idea, but had too much experience to rely on it, and was quite prepared to be thrown over for another more professional actress, and asked to play one of the ladies at the ball in the first act instead, probably in a mask. She went home and read over her one good notice—a great treasure—that had appeared in an evening paper, and had spoken of her as "a young actress with a bright and winsome personality." That was in a very small part, ten years ago. Would she ever get another real chance?



CHAPTER XIX

AT MISS WESTBURY'S

Mrs. Wyburn found Miss Westbury being sensible and decided and holding forth about things in general to one or two friends over the tea-cups. Something in the way the old lady sat down and unfastened her mantle, so as to be sure to feel the benefit of it when she went out again, made the other women present feel that they were not wanted, and Miss Westbury did not attempt to detain them. For (though she would not have put it like that) she knew that she would get more fun out of her friend's mechancete if they were alone. Scandal, gossip made tedious by morality, is only really enjoyable en tete-a-tete.

"I do so hope, Isabella, that you haven't had any more annoyance about the silly things that are being said about your pretty daughter-in-law," remarked Miss Westbury, leaning back with the comfortable amiability of a fat woman who expects to be amused.

Mrs. Wyburn looked round the room.

"Curious you never have your ceiling painted," she said. "I've often wondered why it is. It looks—you'll forgive me for saying so, Millie, won't you?—as if you left it in its present state from motives of, may I say, economy? But, of course, I know it isn't that—I always say, it's simply that you haven't noticed it. Thanks, no—no tea."

Miss Westbury's serenity was slightly disturbed, as her friend intended.

"I certainly don't spend my whole time lying on my back looking at the ceiling," she answered rather brusquely. "I have far too much to do."

"I never suggested that you should," quickly replied Mrs. Wyburn. "Such a thing never occurred to me for a single moment. And please don't think I wish to interfere, or to make remarks about anything that doesn't concern me. It merely struck me that if, at any time, you thought by some curious chance of having the house done up, it might be a pity to leave out the ceiling. But that was all. I do assure you, Millie, I never dreamt of hurting your feelings."

Miss Westbury laughed with a rather cackling sound—a sound Mrs. Wyburn recognised with satisfaction. It showed just the degree of slight annoyance she loved to cause in any one to whom she was speaking. Miss Westbury, however, waived the question and became hospitable.

"Do let me persuade you to have a toasted bun. Our baker makes them in a special way on purpose for me. There's nothing in the world more sensible with one's tea than a small toasted currant bun. I was speaking to Dr. Gribling about it only the other day, oddly enough, and he quite agreed with me."

"Why only the other day? and why oddly enough, Millie?—I dare say you speak to him constantly about it and about other equally urgent matters." She spoke with what she meant to be a slight sneer, in reply to which Miss Westbury behaved in a manner that is sometimes described as bridling up. She gave a movement meant to be a toss of the head and placed her lips firmly together.

"I like Dr. Gribling, Isabella, because he's a thoroughly sensible man—a man you can say anything to."

Mrs. Wyburn thought that Miss Westbury would say anything to any one, and she shrewdly suspected that Millie was probably the one gleam of amusement in poor old Dr. Gribling's dreary round. However, she waved the eminent physician aside and said—

"About Valentia. She and Romer have gone down to the country, you know."

"Oh, indeed! Quite early to go. Very nice. Have they a large party there, do you know? The Green Gate is such a charming place—so picturesque."

"Have you ever seen it?" Mrs. Wyburn asked.

"Only in the Daily Mail—I mean accounts of week-ends there, and that sort of thing. But I believe it's quite charming. It seems almost a pity though, doesn't it, at the end of the season to begin the same frivolities and gaieties all over again. I wonder they don't take a little rest."

"I believe they are resting. Valentia wrote to me that no one was staying there at all, except, of course, Daphne."

"And Harry de Freyne?"

"Yes, and Mr. de Freyne."

"Strange," said Miss Westbury comfortably. "Curious that extraordinary infatuation of your—son for this young man. But he's a very charming man, isn't he? Most agreeable?"

"He's not absolutely unpleasant."

"I suppose he brightens them up—amuses them? Probably he has very high spirits. Perhaps he has the jar de veev." Miss Westbury had a private pronunciation of foreign expressions all her own. "It is unfortunate, but do you know one often sees that in unprincipled people, Isabella."

"He knows that he's not quite a gentleman, and is trying to laugh it off," said Mrs. Wyburn.

"Does he really? Dear, dear—what a sad thing!—and yet he certainly ought to be a gentleman, you know. On his mother's side he is connected with the——"

"That's not the point," snapped Mrs. Wyburn. "And of course I don't mean to say that—outwardly—he's not. His manner and appearance are distinguished. It's the soul that's vulgar."

"Ah, I see! You mean you're afraid he isn't one of nature's gentlemen?"

"Nature? How do you mean? He has nothing to do with nature. He's a man about town."

"Oh, I beg your pardon—I understood he was an artist. And sometimes, you know, artists are extremely fond of nature; in fact, far too fond."

"I believe all that painting is only done to throw dust in people's eyes—an excuse for idleness. Candidly, I don't like studios; I don't think they're respectable."

"I know what you mean; but still, after all"—Miss Westbury made a feeble attempt at a good-natured defence—"after all, if they all like it—I mean to say, if they're all so happy, why should we——"

"I doubt if my son is happy."

"Oh, really, really? Do you think he's ever noticed anything? Isn't he devoted to Harry de Freyne?"

"Of course he hates him like poison," replied the mother.

Miss Westbury started in delighted horror, and replied sharply, "How do you know that? Did he tell you?"

"Tell me! He would never tell me. Besides, he couldn't tell me—he doesn't know it."

"And how do you know it?"

"Mothers know everything," she replied.

After a minute's pause, Miss Westbury said—

"But if you feel sure that Romer isn't happy, and that he, almost unconsciously perhaps, doesn't really like this young man being always about, mightn't it some day end in some trouble—some explosion?"

"It's quite possible."

"Then I wonder what Romer would do?"

"I know what he would do."

"Good heavens, Isabella, you don't mean to say that he would ever bring a——"

"It's really strange," said Mrs. Wyburn, "that at your age you should still be so silly. Will you never learn to understand anything at all? Of course not. He would protect her."

"Can't something be done? Why don't you speak to Valentia?"

"The advice of a relative-in-law in a case of this kind has never yet been known to be of any real use, Millie. I can only hope the whole thing may gradually wear itself out."

"May it be so, my dear!" echoed Miss Westbury, unctuously.

Mrs. Wyburn got up to go.

Miss Westbury helped her to fasten her mantle.

"I'm so glad you loosened it, or else you might not feel the benefit of it when you go out, Isabella," she observed, for she was not one to miss an opportunity of making a remark of this kind. "And do look on the bright side. I always say that things of this sort may not be true, and even if they are, everything may be for the best in the end."

Mrs. Wyburn liked to excite Millie's interest, and yet somehow loathed her sympathy.

"Yes; do you know, I really should have the ceiling painted, if I were you," she said, as if it were a new idea. "Otherwise your house is looking so nice—quite charming. I think it such an excellent plan not to have flowers in the windows, only ever-greens."

"So glad you think so. It is rather a good arrangement, because, you see, they always look exactly the same all the year round."

"That they certainly do—and nevergreens would be a better name for them," spitefully said Mrs. Wyburn to herself as she drove off.

"What a tiresome mood Isabella was in to-day," said Miss Westbury to herself. "I must go and see Jane Totness and tell her what she said.... Ceiling, indeed! She was nasty!"



CHAPTER XX

A PROPOSAL

Miss Luscombe was looking out of the window, looking up to the street, waiting. At last she saw from her basement (the "tank," as her friends called it) a glimpse on the pavement of a pair of feet that she knew. They were the feet of Mr. John Ryland Rathbone. She hastened to prepare herself for his visit.

It is obvious that people who live in a basement must look at life from a different point of view from all others. The proudest of women in that position must necessarily see it de bas en haut. The woman looking out of the drawing-room or higher for the person she is expecting to see gets more or less of a bird's-eye view. She sees the top of a hat first, and the person necessarily foreshortened. From the dining-room or ground-floor window she sees the approaching visitor through glass, but practically on a level, almost face to face, and therefore is incapable of judging him on the whole or of taking a very large view, since any object placed close to the eye deprives one of a sense of proportion—shuts out everything else. But from a basement window things are very different. It is wonderful how much character one learns to see in feet, and it is still more curious how, to the accustomed eye, their expression can vary from time to time. Flora saw at a glance by the obstinate stamp, the bad-tempered look of his boots, by the nervous impatience of his stride, that Mr. Rathbone was coming to see her in a state of agitation. One would hardly have believed that, without having seen his face at all, she would be so prepared for his behaviour when he arrived as to greet him anxiously from the door, even before he came in, with "Good heavens, what is the matter?"

"How do you know anything is the matter?"

"I guessed. I saw your steps."

"Everything is going wrong about the play. The expenses get larger every day. To sell even one ticket for a charity, they tell me, is simply out of the question! I must invite everybody, and even then most of them won't come. Just think, my dear Miss Luscombe, all this trouble, worry, and expense for amateurs to play Romeo and Juliet at an invitation performance to an absolutely empty house!"

"Why do you think it will be empty?... Your friends?"

"My friends? You're my only friend! Every chap at the Club I have spoken to about it said they would be out of town that day. One or two said they would come on afterwards and join me at supper. Supper! I said it was a matinee; so then they suggested I should give a dinner afterwards. And even women, they're quite as bad. I mentioned it to Lady Walmer. She is always so keen on going everywhere, and makes a hobby of odd charities and things. She said she was going yachting that day, and also that she was going to a wedding."

"What does it matter just about Lady Walmer?"

"Nothing, but it's an indication. Do we want to have no one in a theatre but the dressmakers who made the costumes? Miss Luscombe—Flora! I am beginning to think we'd better chuck it."

"Oh, Mr. Rathbone! The waste and the disappointment!"

"It would be a greater waste to make an utter fool of oneself in an empty house than to postpone it. I'm nervous. I'm really frightened. I'm beginning to see that I've been a fool. As to disappointment, that, Flora, you could console me for if you chose."

"Oh, Mr. Rathbone!"

"You really have been so sweet, so patient, it's my opinion that you are an angel!"

"Oh, indeed I'm not!"

"Well, you have the patience of one. You never think about yourself. You're all kindness and sweetness and thought for other people. To speak perfectly frankly, you have only one tiny fault, Flora. And that is, that you seem a little artificial. But it's my opinion that such affectations as you have are natural to you and you can't help them, and you would be an ideal wife."

Flora was actually silent with gratification. She did not even laugh.

"Look here, Flora, we'd better chuck the performance altogether. Let's give it up, and have a show instead at St. George's, Hanover Square."

"Are you making fun of me?" she asked, in a trembling voice, "because that would not be right. It wouldn't be nice of you—in fact, it would be rather cruel."

"You don't mean to say you care for me the least little bit?" He took both her hands and stared hard at her face. "Is there something real about you then?" he continued.

Tears came to her eyes. She turned her head away.

"This seems too good to be true," she murmured.

"Let's be married," he cried, "on the day we were going to have the show. Let's go to Oberammergau for our honeymoon, and don't let us ever go near the theatre again. Will you, dear? Or am I dreaming?"

"Of course. I always have," she answered ingenuously; "but I hadn't a scrap of hope, and I didn't know how much I cared for you."

"Dear Flora, I shall give up the stage and devote all my time to you."

"So will I," she said. "I shall never want to act again."

"Nor I, never—never!"

"I shall rush home and countermand everything," he cried.

"Oh, go not yet; it is not yet near day," she quoted in the tender voice she used for recitation.

He burst into peals of laughter, and put his arms round her and kissed her impetuously.

"Oh, Flora, what a fool I have been all this time! And you knew it—you knew it perfectly well. I thought when we were rehearsing that once you said the words, 'O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?' with rather marked emphasis on the 'thou'...."

"Do you know that I never cared for any one but you in my life, Flora?"

"Oh, oh! Why is 'C. L.' tattooed on your wrist?"

"I'll have it taken out. I'll have Flora put on instead. I'll have anything you like tattooed in your honour—a hunting scene, a snap-shot of the Coronation—anything you like."

"No, please not. I don't like it; I can't bear it. It's the only thing I ever haven't liked about you. But we'll forget it now, won't we?" she said.

"And I'll forget the stage. Oh, Flora, how I have worried you! Forgive me. We won't think of anything but each other now."

They repeated this sentiment again and again in these and other words for about an hour and a half, and forgot to turn up lights and ring the bell.

* * * * *

The first real love scene Flora had ever acted in was a triumphant success.



CHAPTER XXI

HEREFORD VAUGHAN

To have eleven plays, all written out of one's own head, and all being performed simultaneously in American, in Eskimo, and even in Turkish, besides in every known European language; to have money rolling in, and the strange world of agents and managers pursuing you by every post and imploring for more contracts by every Marconigram; and these triumphs to have come quite suddenly, was really enough to have turned the head of any young man; yet Hereford Vaughan's (known by his very few intimate friends as Gillie) had remained remarkably calm. He was not even embittered by success.

To know his jokes were being got over the footlights of so many lands was a curious sensation, and it often made him laugh suddenly to reflect how wicked certain quips must sound in, say, Japanese. Perhaps his friends were rather inclined to resent the way he retained his balance after what was really an almost unheard-of hit. They would have been readier to pardon it had he shown some sign of boring fatuity; or perhaps they thought he might at least have had a temporary nervous breakdown; taking the form (for choice) of losing all sense of the value of money and wildly throwing bank-notes and gold at every one he saw. But he remained quiet, reserved, and as apparently modest as ever.

Modesty is a valuable merit (as I think Schopenhauer has discovered) in people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful to those who have, but I am not suggesting that Vaughan was not human, and there was, no doubt, many a moment when he smiled to himself, and felt that he was a great man.

He was rather secretive and mysterious than blatant or dashing, and this, of course, made him, on the whole, more interesting to women. The fact that he had made a fortune and lived alone in a charming house with nothing but housekeepers, secretaries, telephones, typewriters, and cooks, of course made all the women of his acquaintance who had the match-making instinct (and what woman has not?) desire to see him married. As he showed no sign of doing so, they tried to console themselves by pretending that he had some secret romance. Old ladies hoped he had a broken heart for some fiancee who was lying under the daisies, having died of decline in the classical middle-Victorian way. Young ladies thought that he was probably fixed up in some way that would be sure in time to dissolve, and that he would marry later on. Far the most popular theory was that he didn't marry simply because he was married, privately; and that he had, no doubt, hurriedly espoused, before he was of age (and before the Registrar), some barmaid or chorus-girl, or other dreadful person, who had turned out far too respectable to divorce, and that he was thus a young man marred. They had no grounds for the rumour except that clever and promising young men often did these things, and he had always been a particularly promising young man, and in this unfortunate case had probably kept his promise.

Vaughan was sitting one morning reading his notices (never believe the greatest men when they tell you that they don't do that!), when Muir Howard came cheerily, almost boisterously, into the room. He was an old school friend who had been devoted to Gillie long before his arrival, and of whose faults, virtues, cheeriness, and admiration Vaughan had made a confirmed habit.

Muir was a very good-looking barrister, with vague parliamentary ambitions and a definite love of machinery. He always had pink cheeks, and wore a pink carnation, and looked as flourishing, gay, and yet, somehow, battered, as Vaughan looked pale, fresh, and sardonic. One of the things that surprised the general public was that Vaughan could not live without the continuous society of a person who certainly could not understand a word he wrote or much that he said. They didn't realise that Vaughan was so accustomed to not listening to Muir's long confidences, to disputing every proposition he made, and contradicting every word he said, that he always felt lost when his friend was away. Muir regarded him as a combination of hero, genius, pet, and child, and was always giving him advice and imploring him not to do too much. To Vaughan he was, as I have said, a habit, and there is always something agreeable in a habit of which one is a little tired.

He had arrived this morning on his bicycle, and came in bringing a whiff of heartiness, self-complacency, and fresh air, saying, "Hallo! hallo! hallo! Priceless to find you in, Gillie!" All he got for it was that Vaughan looked up and said—

"You used to be only breezy. Now you're becoming a thorough draught. Fold up and keep quiet, can't you?"

"Nervous, I suppose," said Muir, in a sympathetic voice. "I wonder you don't take that stuff that you see in the papers about what is good for——"

"Sudden pains in the back on washing-day, bending over the tub, and so forth? The portraits of the people before taking the remedy and after decided me. It seems, by the pictures, to make your hair grow long and give you whiskers and a ghastly squint. Ruins your clothes, too. Your collars get the wrong shape."

"Oh well, leave it alone, then. Perhaps you're right.... You haven't asked me about the Walmers' dance. I took Miss de Freyne to supper. The American chap never turned up, and I was getting on with her simply rippingly, when what do you think she said? Confided in me that she was privately engaged to and frightfully keen on that boy you met at Harry's. The baby Guardsman. Isn't it sickening?"

"What did Miss Walmer do?" asked Vaughan.

"She sort of hung about, waiting for Harry, who seemed to be getting on all right with the two strings to his bow, or two stools, or two bundles of hay, or whatever it is. What luck some people have!"

"Not in this case. He'll lose them both."

"Really? Why?"

"He's not a diplomatist, and he wants such a lot for himself. He wants too much. No self-restraint."

"Pretty useless for Mrs. Wyburn. I like her. She looked topping last night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's a good chap. Awfully dull."

"Most interesting. Are you going to stay here much longer, Muir?"

"Why? Yes."

Vaughan got up.

"All right. Do. I'm going out."

"Where?"

Vaughan did not answer, but gave the heap of notices to his friend, and said—

"Just divide the sheep and goats for me, will you? That's just what they are, the critics—either sheep or goats."

"Of course I will. But, I say—I came here to have a talk."

"I know you did. You have talked."

He went out. Muir smiled to himself, enjoying this treatment as an eccentricity of genius.

Five minutes later Gillie came back.



CHAPTER XXII

GILLIE INTERFERES

He was not much surprised to find Muir proudly examining the invitation cards on the mantelpiece. Muir started and turned round as he came in.

"Back again? Capital!"

"Well, of all the snobs!" said Vaughan.

"Hang it, Gillie, it's only for you. I'm pleased you're getting on, that's all."

"No words can tell you how I despise your point of view. Just tell me something I want to know. Wasn't there a sort of little scene at this dance last night?"

"I didn't see anything," he answered.

"You never do."

"Oh, I remember now, I heard something. It appears that Romer left his wife and Daphne at the dance and then came back in an hour to fetch them, and she wasn't there."

"Who wasn't where?"

"Val and Harry had gone for a little fresh air in a taxi for about a quarter of an hour, that's all. They came back and explained it."

"They would. Don't apologise."

"But just the few minutes that Romer was looking for them made—well, rather a fuss. It was perfectly all right afterwards. They all had supper together. So there wasn't much talk about it, except, as I say, while Romer was waiting for them. I never in my life saw any one look so ghastly as that chap did."

Vaughan sat down and looked thoughtful.

"Only you, Muir, would leave out the only thing of the slightest importance that you had to tell me, which I hear the second I leave the house from that round-faced tattooed idiot, Rathbone, at the corner of the street."

"But I tell you it's all right, old chap."

"All right? Don't you see that this sort of thing constantly happening will gradually undermine ...? I like Valentia. It's a great shame."

"Harry certainly isn't worth smashing up a happy home for," Muir answered, "if that's what you're afraid of. But ... when he marries Miss Walmer it'll be all right. Val will forget about him, and settle down with Romer again. I'm deeper than you think, Gillie ... ah, I don't say much, but I can see as far through a brick wall as most people!"

"Just about as far, I should think," said Vaughan contemptuously.

"What do you propose to do about it?"

"It's likely I'd tell you." Gillie sat down to his desk and rang a bell.

"I suppose I've got to go now, eh?"

"Almost time, I should think."

"Ha, ha, ha! Capital! Well, so long! Be good."

Muir went away as heartily as he had arrived.

The bell was answered by the entrance of the housekeeper, Mrs. Mills. She was a muddle-headed, elderly woman in black silk, whom Vaughan kept because her extraordinary tactlessness amused him. She invariably managed to do and say the wrong thing at the right time. To-day it was a hot morning in July. She came in holding in her hand a little card covered with frost and robins.

"Mr. Vaughan, sir, I appened to be going through my things, and I come across this, sir. I thought pre-aps you'd like it. It is pretty."

She insisted on his taking it.

"Charming, Mrs. Mills, but I don't quite see——"

"Oh, look at the words, sir! They're what I call so appropriate! Do read them."

He read the beautiful words—

Wishing you a blithe and gladsome Yule.

"What on earth——?"

"Well, sir, I only thought they was pretty, and pre-aps you'd like to keep it, sir, or send it to one of your young ladies; but I'll take it away if you don't like it." She put it back in her pocket.

"Frankly, I don't. What a genius you have for the wrong thing! Are you going to give me plum pudding and turkey on Midsummer Day?"

"I shouldn't dream of such a thing, sir."

Gillie had scribbled a letter.

"Go and ring up a messenger boy, will you?"

"May I send Johnson, sir? I don't old with telephones. They buzz at you or makes you jump. And the young person keeps on saying ave you got them? before you've ad time to breathe, in a manner of speaking."

She took the note. Vaughan sat down on a sofa to wait for the answer, glanced at the clock, and said, "Confound Muir! He's made me waste another morning."

When the answer came, Gillie went out and strolled towards Mount Street.

He found Valentia at home, evidently flattered and fluttered at seeing him.

"How sweet of you to come!" she said.

"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Oh! lunching with a leading lady, I suppose?"

"No."

"With whom?"

"With Romeike and Curtice."

"Not really? What fun! What are they like?"

"Oh, Romeike is all right. I don't care so much about Curtice."

She gave him a cigarette.

"I never in my life," said Vaughan, "before to-day, attempted to interfere in anybody else's affairs."

She stared at him.

"But in this case it—may I really smoke?—does seem such a pity! Of course you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Do I?"

"You see, I feel so certain that if you were, let's say—married to Harry and met Romer after, you'd be so wildly in love with Romer."

"So I was," she said in a low voice. "Tremendously! I thought he was a strong silent man with a great deal in him.... Oh! I've told you."

"Yes, but so he is. It's commonplace of you, really, Val, not to see it."

"I'm awfully sorry.... I do love Romer, and I think I appreciate him. But somehow it's a little dull. It's not exciting as I thought it would be."

"Well! if you must have fun, and amusement, and make a hero of somebody, why just Harry? Why not a superior man? Me, for instance?"

He was laughing.

"I've been told that an adoration for you would be hopeless, utterly hopeless." She smiled. "And we're friends. I can't imagine——"

"Nor I. Of course I know it's utterly absurd to come and give people advice on these subjects, and one can't dispute about tastes and all that. But my practical mind revolts to see any one so delightful as you throwing away the substance for the shadow. You see, I'm a mass of platitudes."

"Shadows are very attractive sometimes."

"But they go away too. And then where are you?"

She was silent.

"They do, really. I know what I'm talking about." He stood up. "Think over what I've said."

"You're kind, but you're rather depressing, Gillie," said Val. She looked a little frightened, but very pretty.

"When do you go back to the country?"

"Oh, to-day. We're there now. We only came up for the dance. We're motoring down to the Green Gate.... All of us."

"Oh yes.... I'm afraid you must think me very impertinent."

"Indeed I don't."

"And when I've gone you will give orders that you're never at home to me again. But, somehow, I couldn't help it. If it makes you hate me to remember what I've said, forget it."

She laughed as he rose to go.

"That's all right, Gillie; but what I want to know is, where you're really going."

"I'll tell you, exactly. I'm going home to lunch, because I've an urgent appointment immediately afterwards."

"More plays, I suppose? What sort this time?"

"A light comedy, with a very slight love interest," he answered, "all dialogue, no action.... At least, so far."

"Oh, then it isn't finished yet?"

"Not quite. Good-bye. And if you ever want a change, remember—a superior man!"

They both laughed insincerely.

He left her looking thoughtfully out of the window.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE BALD-FACED STAG

Vaughan went home, and after lunching, chiefly on a newspaper and a cup of coffee, he got into a taxicab and gave a direction.

The vehicle flew smoothly along down Park Lane, past the Marble Arch into the Edgware Road, and on from there between houses and shops, growing gradually uglier and uglier, to Maida Vale, up Shoot-up Hill, and so on until there was a glimpse of suburban country, and gasworks, and glaring posters of melodramas on hoardings, till it stopped suddenly at a real little old roadside inn, straight out of Dickens—"The Bald-faced Stag at Edgware." Edgware suggested John Gilpin, Gillie's favourite poem.

Here he got out, and was positively welcomed, and heartily, by a real roadside innkeeper—also out of Dickens—resembling the elder Weller—a local magnate called Tom Brill, who looked a relic of the coaching days, though really he never did anything but stand in front of the inn in his shirt-sleeves and welcome people.

Vaughan, obviously an habitue, walked through the inn into a perfectly adorable garden, which was so large, so quiet, and so full of pinks, hollyhocks, and other old-fashioned flowers, so absolutely peaceful and sleepy, that one could have imagined oneself miles away in the country.

The garden belonged as much to the Dickens period as the inn itself. It contained a great many wooden arbours in which one could imagine ladies in crinolines archly accepting tea, or refusing sips of shrub (whatever that may be) with whiskered gentlemen. There was a large cage full of Persian pheasants with gorgeous Indian colouring, which always suggested to Vaughan—he didn't know why—the Crimean War. There was a parlour covered with coloured prints of racehorses and boxing matches, and in which was a little round table painted as a draught-board, and furnished with a set of Indian chessmen of red and white ivory. The whole thing, though only twenty minutes' drive from Mayfair, was unknown, unspoilt, and apparently had not altered in any particular since about 1856. Its great charm was that it was utterly unself-conscious; it had no idea that it was quaint.

Vaughan sat down on a rustic seat and plunged into the atmosphere of the period that he loved, revelling in the soothing, delightful calm, and in the fact that nobody there knew who he was (though they knew him well by name), and that none of his friends and acquaintances would have dreamt that he was there.

A large field beyond the garden contained cows, hay, and other rustic things.

Presently Tom Brill came up to him, and he asked after Mrs. Brill, whom her husband always described, with confidential pride, as "Though I say it that shouldn't say it, as fine a woman as you'll meet in a day's march."

Vaughan always assented to this proposition. As he had never himself in his life been for a day's march, and probably never would, he certainly would have had no right to contradict Mr. Brill on the subject.

"Is Miss Brill at home?" he presently asked. "May I see her?"

"Certainly, sir, of course you shall. She's helping her mother. I'll call her. Don't move, sir, don't move."

Miss Brill, who had been helping her mother to look out of the window, now came into the garden, which immediately became idyllic.

She was not in any way like the innkeeper's daughter of Comic Opera. She was a schoolgirl of sixteen, with a long, fair plait, a short serge skirt, and a seraphic oval face. She ought to have been called Fanny or Clara. Unluckily her name was Gladys.

She said in a very sweet voice—

"You're quite a stranger, sir." And she amplified the assertion by adding, "You haven't been here not this ever so long."

"I know I haven't, but I've been longing to come."

"Not you!" she said ironically.

She was standing opposite him, with her hands behind her back. Without a hat, in the glaring afternoon sun, with the complexion, pale pink and white, of a china doll that had never made up, she was a refreshing sight after the theatrical world in London, not to speak of society. Vaughan seemed to think so.

"Well, how did you enjoy the play?" he asked.

"It was very kind of you to send us the tickets. Mother enjoyed it."

"You didn't care much for the piece yourself?"

"I thought it was rather silly," she answered.

He had never had a criticism on his work that pleased him more.

"I mean," she went on, "I shouldn't have thought—well, nobody would go on like that."

"Go on how?"

"Why, go on so silly."

"You wouldn't like to see another play, written by the same man, then?"

"I wouldn't mind another one. Wild horses wouldn't drag me to see that again."

"Wild horses are not likely to try," he observed. At which jest she laughed loudly and charmingly, showing marvellous teeth. She had no cockney accent, though she occasionally and fitfully dropped an H.

"Oh, Gladys, do take me for a walk in the field."

"Want to see the calf?"

"No; I can live without seeing the calf. I want to sit in the field with you."

"You are a caution! Come on then, but I can't stay long."

They climbed the gate, which she seemed to think a quicker mode of entrance than sending for the key, and sat in the field, from which Mr. Brill always declared you could see three counties. Perhaps you could; if so, they all looked exactly alike.

"It's quiet here, isn't it? I shan't have much more of it," she remarked.

"Oh, Gladys! Don't say you're going away!"

"Of course I am. Don't you know I'm going to be a manicure in Bond Street?"

"Bond Street? How revolting! Is that your ambition?"

"Why, I think it would be very nice. I must do something. Father's settled about it. First I'm going to pay to learn it, and then I shall earn quite a lot. It's a great hairdresser's."

"I think it's horrible, Gladys. Perhaps you'll fall in love with a German hairdresser, and be lost to me for ever."

"I shan't fall in love with no foreigners, don't you fret."

"I'm not fretting. Will you have your hair done up?" he asked, lifting the long plait.

"Well, of course I shall, and waved, and that."

"Gladys, they'll spoil you."

The conversation went on in this strain for some time. She alternately repeated the exclamation, "How you do go on!" or accused him of the mysterious crime of being a caution, but she never stopped looking perfectly beautiful and seraphic.

When they went back to the garden a few other visitors had straggled in. They all seemed to come in high dog-carts, and they always ordered eggs, jam, and watercress with their tea, and were immensely impressed by the Persian pheasants.

Vaughan went back to London feeling refreshed, and already, strangely, counting the days till he could come back.

There was not a woman in the world he knew whom he would have taken the slightest trouble to see except Gladys, the innkeeper's daughter. She was an illiterate schoolgirl; and though she had a lovely face, she was stupid, and probably not so angelic as she looked; but he always felt a little disappointed as he drove back. He wished she were in love with him.

And this ungratified wish was, in all his full life with its brilliant success, perhaps his greatest real pleasure.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE GREEN GATE

When Harry came down to breakfast, a little late, he found Valentia waiting to pour out his coffee, and some letters on his plate. She watched him as he opened them. Most of them looked like bills. On the envelope of one was a little blue flag. Harry put this letter in his pocket, and went on eating.

"It's a lovely morning, Harry. So fresh; just the sort of day not to do anything at all."

"Ah! that's what's so delightful about you all," he answered. "You never say, 'What shall we do?' and neither of you have ever said yet that this is Liberty Hall, which means, as a rule, in a country house, 'Breakfast at eight o'clock sharp, you won't mind it being a little cold if you're late, and then we are going for a motor drive at 9.30.' Still, I think, perhaps, one ought to take a little exercise. I feel almost equal to a game of croquet this afternoon—later on—when I'm stronger. Is any one coming down to-day?"

"No. And only Van Buren, and Vaughan and Muir Howard on Sunday. I see you've heard from the Walmers. What do they say?"

"It's sure to be nothing of interest. How I love your hair parted on one side! It makes you look like a boy."

"Not a principal boy, I hope. Why not read the letter?"

Harry got up and fetched himself something from the sideboard.

"I don't feel quite strong enough yet. When I've had breakfast. I should like to paint you as you're looking now, Val. I think I'll do a sketch of you in the rose garden, all in black and white, like a Beardsley, with the balustrades and steps and things behind you. Will you sit to me?"

"That's all very well. But why don't you read your letter?"

"There's sure to be nothing in it."

"How can you tell till you've opened it?"

"I know. I always feel what's in a letter without opening it. Don't you? I absorb the essence, as it were, through the covers of the envelope, as somebody or other—Macaulay, I think—used to absorb all the important things through the covers of a book. Or wasn't it Macaulay? Anyhow, it doesn't matter. It was some tiresome person whom one oughtn't to talk about on a morning like this."

Harry evidently was not quite at his ease.

"But why not read it?" She spoke playfully.

"How persistent women are, just like children. To tease you I just shan't."

"Oh, Harry!"

"I shan't read it now at all," he went on. "I can answer it without reading it."

"It's only that I should like to know how the Walmers are enjoying themselves on Flying Fish. Lady Walmer was a little afraid they mightn't like it."

Here Romer came up to the window and called out—

"I say, Val, come here a minute. I want to ask you something."

"Here I am, dear," and she vanished into the garden.

The second she had gone Harry opened the letter very carefully, and read—

"Dearest Harry,

"You are a rotter never to write. I'm having such a time. Weather priceless, but very sick at not hearing from you. Algie Thynne is here. Do you know him? He's rather a nut. Wish you were here. No more to-day. Bye-bye, old son.

"Your loving "ALEC."

"P.S.—Do write. The moonlight nights are simply topping. Just like a picture. I think you'd like it; otherwise everything is beastly.

"I love you more than ever.

"A."

He put the letter back in the untorn envelope and carefully fastened it up again. He then placed it on the mantelpiece, and having finished his breakfast, lit a cigarette.

He looked thoughtful.

"Algie Thynne, indeed!" he said to himself. "How pathetic, trying to make me jealous! Well, it's a pretty letter, and what's more, it must be answered."

Val came back.

"Romer wants the lawn mown," she said. "He's perfectly mad on the subject of mowing the lawn. He seems to think it ought to be shaved every day. It's the only thing he knows about the country. Well, have you read your letter?"

"There it is," said Harry. "You can read it if you like." He watched her carefully as she took it from the mantelpiece.

"I don't want to read it," she said, holding it.

"Nor do I," said Harry.

"Harry, tell me honestly, wouldn't you really mind if I tore it into little bits and put it in the waste-paper basket—just as it is?"

"Not a straw," said Harry, shaking his head.

She clapped her hands, tore it into tiny pieces, and threw it in the basket. Then she said, in a low voice of deep gratitude—

"Oh, Harry, you are sweet! Do forgive me."

"I don't see that there's anything to forgive," said Harry.

"Yes, there is; lots. I'm afraid I've been horrid. I'll never bother you about any thing again."

She was simply beaming.

"Good," answered Harry indifferently.

But as he followed her into the garden he looked rather perplexed. He felt that this sort of thing was not leading up very well to what he would have to tell her soon. However, why spoil a lovely day by thinking of it?

Like a schoolboy with his holiday task before him, he put it off as long as possible.

Though he didn't own it to himself, and was disdainfully amused at Alec's letter, still the thought of Algie Thynne, moonlight nights on the yacht, topping weather, and his own neglect, gave him some cause for alarm. Algie Thynne was crible with debts, and probably keen on marrying for money. Contemptible young ass! Why didn't he work? Harry despised him.

At the earliest opportunity (which, by the way, did not arise until he had made an excuse to go into the village, where he wrote at the post office) the answer was sent.

Even Harry found the beginning of the letter too difficult, so he always began (as Valentia might have said) without a beginning, which impressed Miss Walmer much more. Ever since he had reached the age of discretion, which, in his case, was at his majority, Harry had been thoroughly trained in the habit of writing letters that gratified the recipient enormously without compromising the writer in the slightest degree. The habitual dread of those betes noires of Don Juan—the breach of promise case and the Divorce Court—had got him into the way of writing the sort of letter that he would have had no objection to hear read aloud in court. Perhaps that was why the sentences were always polished, and the meaning a little vague.

"... I don't speak your language, perhaps, but I understand your letter, reading between the lines. It came like a whiff of fresh sea air. Yes, it would be delightful to be on board Flying Fish now. However, no doubt Algie Thynne—(how eloquently, by the way, you describe him! putting all the complications of his character and the dazzling charm of his personality in a nutshell by the simple sentence 'He's rather a nut!')—amply compensates for my absence. You ask if I know him. I do, though perhaps more by reputation than anything else. We have met once or twice. Where? I can't quite recall. Perhaps at the Oratory, or at the Supper Club or some place of that sort. But somehow I never pursued his acquaintance, nor did it ever ripen into friendship. I felt, instinctively, that he was too clever for me.

"I trust all the same that his brilliance will not altogether overshadow your memory of others. I should not like to think that we were drifting apart. Still, if it should be so, I must resign myself. I could still be happy in thinking of you, Alec.

'Love that is love at all Asks for no earthly coronal'—

but, I remember, you once expressed to me your opinion that all poetry is rot. So I will not bore you with quotations. It is pleasant here, and my cousins are very kind, and leave me alone to think as much as I like. I'm not, somehow, quite in the mood for the usual gaieties and frivolities of a country house. Last night we played Musical Chairs until two in the morning, and to-day I am a little weary. Your postscript gave me joy. I need not say that I reciprocate it, need I?...

"I feel all that you are feeling, and somehow even know what you are doing, and if you did not write again until we meet, I should not be anxious. I have a trusting nature. But when you wire, remember that the telegraph boy has a good way to walk, and when telegrams arrive after midnight, it causes a sensation and much inquiry. Also I cannot help feeling that every one in the village, as well as at the Green Gate, has read the words I would like to keep to myself alone. I have a curious love of mystery—isn't mystery the great charm of all romance?—So to gratify this fancy of mine, sign your next telegram 'Johnson.' I know you won't mind.

"When we meet again, all, I trust, will be clear and definite before us. Best love to dear Lady Walmer, and to yourself what I am sure you will know. Don't be angry with me for not writing oftener. I find it very difficult to express my thoughts, for alas, I have no command of language. Not only that, the pens here have one great fault—they won't write. Otherwise they're quite excellent.... Yes, your note has given me, as the French say, 'furiously to think.'

"Hoping that all will go well with you, and looking forward, think me as always,

"Yours, faithfully, "HARRY BROKE DE FREYNE."

"There! that ought to keep her quiet for a month," he thought as he posted the letter, and with a sigh of relief turned back towards the Green Gate.



CHAPTER XXV

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

By this time Van Buren was entirely in Harry's confidence; that is to say, Harry had gradually trained him to bear without flinching the situation as Harry represented it. He believed Harry had a hopeless romantic affection for Mrs. Romer Wyburn which he was trying to stifle, and that Miss Walmer being hopelessly in love with him, he was doing his best to marry her, partly, as he candidly admitted, on worldly grounds.

Van Buren was deeply touched at Harry's trust in him, and was always trying to keep him up to his good resolutions by pointing out that any understanding (however Platonic) between the pretty Valentia and the handsome guest was dishonourable, a breach of hospitality towards Romer, that silent but admirable host.

Indeed, he repeated to Harry so often and so firmly, "It can't be done; one can't make love to the wife of a friend," that Harry was driven to the point of replying that he hardly saw whom else, as a matter of fact, one could very well make love to; it being impossible to have romances with people one didn't know. And in this case the fact that Harry was very fond of Romer made the temptation far greater, as he explained; Harry being (as he pointed out) so very sensitive and highly strung that he could never, somehow, be really attracted by a woman whose husband was not sympathetic to him. Which point of view Van Buren, shaking his head, regarded as unsound.

Harry now spent much time giving picturesque sketches and impressions of his feelings to his friend, for he had an almost feminine love of talking over personal affairs to the sympathetic. In his benevolence Van Buren longed to protect Valentia and Romer, and to give Miss Walmer all she wanted; but most of all his idea was to save Harry from himself, so he always accepted with alacrity invitations to the Green Gate for altruistic reasons. Besides, his desire to see Daphne, although she was now becoming more and more remote to him, was still persistent, if a little less vivid.

"I've had a beautiful womanly letter from Alec to-day," Harry confided in Van as soon as he arrived. "You know the sort of thing she writes: all in jerks and subaltern's slang. With sincere sentiment showing between the lines. And I answered it."

"A beautiful manly letter, I hope? I'm sure you could do that as well as any one, Harry."

Harry smiled.

"Oh, just some vague, cautious slosh, not unamusing in its way—it'll get there all right."

"Yes, Harry, I know, but I do hope——Ah, Miss Daphne, how beautiful your England is looking to-day! In America we never have a day like this, warm and yet cool, with all those nice, white, fleecy clouds in the sky. Our atmosphere is always so hard and clear. Now this garden with those large trees is just like a Corot. They are fine trees. Poplars, I presume?"

"You do presume," smiled Daphne; "I don't know what they are, but I'm perfectly sure they're not poplars."

"Oh yes—I'm wrong. They're oaks, I've no doubt." He hummed, "'The oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree.' Do let's walk over and look at them closer, Miss Daphne."

"I'm afraid I can't. Tea's ready."

To his annoyance Van was obliged to follow Daphne and join the group round the tea-table. He declined with some formality of manner to accept the glass of iced water Daphne offered him, and looked at her with that look of tender, fixed, respectful reproach that had the effect of irritating her very nearly to the point of incivility.

She turned to Muir Howard, who was looking very pink and cheery. Muir was a popular man for his great ease in making conversation, the kind that is as the pudding part in a plum pudding, and without which the plums, however delightful, could hardly stick together. Though the great majority of people talk commonplaces, their banalities are by no means always the kind that help. Muir's particular way of opening open doors, flogging dead horses, and genially enjoying any spark of fun in his friends, coupled with his good looks and pleasant, hearty disposition, made him a most useful and welcome guest, as a sort of super. He was quite decorative, and could be turned on to talk newspaper politics to dull men, pretty platitudes to plain women; to make himself generally useful, and altogether to help things to go. In this way he was invaluable. Young girls always liked him; he was a great favourite with elderly ladies, and with men of his own age also, who were, however, occasionally bored with his worship for his friend Vaughan. He found it very difficult not to mention Gillie less than once in every five minutes.

That distinguished young man, who was beginning to look a little jaded with incense, was engrossed with his hostess. Whenever he was there Harry always became particularly devoted in his manner to Valentia, and scarcely ever left her other side. This was one of the reasons that she enjoyed Gillie's presence, besides that she was, now that she knew him well, particularly fond of him. His conversation and personality in general had a special flavour.

Every one was talking and laughing with the light intoxication produced by tea and cigarettes in the open air on a fine Sunday afternoon, excepting only Romer, who as usual said hardly anything, absorbed in admiration of his wife. He suddenly remarked—

"I say, Val. The Campbells are coming."

He wondered why this statement produced a burst of irresponsible laughter.

"What fun! Will there be bagpipes?" Vaughan asked.

"No, no. Romer means the Prebendary Campbell, or at least his wife and daughter. They're coming to see us this afternoon. I had quite forgotten. Please all behave nicely. They've been a long time making up their minds. I believe they think we're frivolous."

"Not really? How could they? It reminds one of the story of Henry James." Vaughan stopped to light a cigarette.

"Go on."

"It appears that for some time his near neighbours in the country looked a little coldly on him on the grounds that, being a writer, he must be Bohemian. At last the local doctor's wife and clergyman's wife called on him, and finding him perfectly respectable, stayed for many hours. They were particularly tedious and rather self-righteous. When they had gone, he said thoughtfully to some one who was pitying him for being bored, 'One of those poor wantons has a certain cadaverous grace.'"

The story was well received, except by Van Buren, who seemed painfully shocked.

Daphne, who had gone into the house to fetch some snapshots, now came running back saying—

"Val, Val! The Campbells are arriving in a fly, and they seem to have brought their foreigner with them—that man Miss Campbell told me about. He's a kind of Belgian, and awfully clever—he's invented something."

"What's he invented?"

"Brussels sprouts?" suggested Harry rather sleepily.

"But they've been invented already."

"Why shouldn't he invent them over again? Give him a chance."

Muir began to sing softly, "Young Lochinvar has come out of the West," which he appeared to think a suitable serenade, but he stopped suddenly at Gillie's entreaty.

"I don't mind anything Muir does, as long as he doesn't sing," he always explained.

"It's awful hard lines. I've got a ripping baritone voice, but I never have a chance to use it," murmured Muir.

"You shall sing to me this afternoon. I'll accompany you," whispered Daphne.

Muir had gratefully answered that it was frightfully decent of her, when the servant announced—

"Mrs. and Miss Campbell. Mr.——" He left a blank, unable to pronounce the name.

But Mrs. Campbell introduced Mynheer von Stoendyck.

* * * * *

Mrs. Campbell was an amiable, colourless woman, with a greyish brown fringe that looked as if it were made of Berlin wool. Though she was not yet forty-five, she wore a bonnet with violet velvet strings, and had a very long waist. Also, her skirt, in reality quite normal, looked, to the eye used to contemporary fashion, grotesquely wide at the end.

Her daughter was an ordinary Rectory girl, spoilt by a dash of culture. At a glance all present saw she was in love with Mr. Stoendyck. He was a well-set-up man of about thirty-five, with a military manner and scientific eye-glasses, also a turned-up light moustache. He spoke all languages with one rasping accent, but Mrs. Campbell seemed to suffer under the delusion that he could only understand broken English. So whenever people spoke to him she translated their remarks into a sort of baby language that seemed singularly out of place from her.

"I'm afraid you must think me dreadfully worldly, calling on you on a Sunday," said Mrs. Campbell, laughing socially as she sat down. "But what the Prebendary always says is, the better the day the better the deed."

"Oh, does he always say that?" Harry asked with great apparent interest, waking up. He had been overpowered with languor ever since lunch.

"Yes, and I felt sure you wouldn't mind our bringing our friend, Mr. Stoendyck. He is so clever. He's come over to England about an invention."

Val thought of Brussels sprouts, but did not suggest it.

Mrs. Campbell apparently couldn't take her eyes off the Belgian, whom she watched as one watches a rather dangerous pet, though he appeared particularly safe.

Muir, for an unknown reason addressing the Belgian as Professor, was asking him his impressions of England. Mrs. Campbell bent forward, and said with a nod—

"E ope you like it—Angleterre, you know"—and nodded idiotically.

"I find it most interesting," said Mr. Stoendyck raspingly, in admirable English. "There are opportunities in this country for the pursuance of science, art, and social intercourse which one would hardly have expected. I do not take tea, I thank you much."

"Have a glass of beer?" said Romer, suddenly inspired.

Simple as the sentence was, Mrs. Campbell thought it necessary to translate it with more nods.

"E ask you, ave beer. Biere, you know! Glass," and then she went on in her usual tone, "Most thoughtful of Mr. Wyburn, I'm sure. What a charming place this is of yours, Mrs. Wyburn. I always say the Green Gate is the most picturesque place in the neighbourhood. And Mr. de Freyne, I understand, is an artist. Do you know my daughter, Marion, is so interested in art! And my younger son, Garstin, though he is only twelve years old, shows great artistic talent, too. He did a map of Buckinghamshire that really surprised me, almost any one would recognise it at a glance. I always say I'm sure some day Garstin will be in the Royal Academy."

Van Buren had approached and began to talk to Mrs. Campbell. Val went over to the Belgian, but she heard the American beginning a sentence as usual with, "Pleased to meet you. I've never had the opportunity of mixing much in clerical circles in New York, Mrs. Campbell," and felt sure he was going to ask impossible questions about Prebendaries and Rural Deans.

The rasping Belgian, on whom both the mother and daughter cast continual anxious and admiring eyes, though he seemed thoroughly able to take care of himself, said to Muir, who was taking him on—

"No, I do not spend my entire time over my invention. Mrs. Campbell is so kind as to take me for drives in the environment, to give me a right impression of the beauties of Hertfordshire. For relaxation I play the piano."

"Ha! Musical, eh, Professor?" asked Muir shrewdly. "That's right; so am I. I'm awfully keen on music." He spoke reassuringly.

Mr. Stoendyck looked at him through his glasses, and said without interest—

"Indeed. I find Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, even on the piano, extraordinarily satisfying and refreshing to the mind after the strain of looking at English scenery." He drank a long draught of iced lager.

"Oh! Classical, eh? I'm not up to that. Queen's Hall, eh? That sort of thing."

"I beg your pardon? Is there——Has the Queen a hall in this neighbourhood?"

"How do you mean, Professor?"

"What do you say?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Mrs. Campbell, who managed to hear through her own conversation with Van Buren, called out—

"E say e no understand," and nodded smilingly, seeming to think she had helped matters considerably.

Miss Campbell talked of tennis, matins, hats and the opera to Daphne, but appeared to be absent, and occasionally smiled at the foreigner, who ignored her.

At last the Campbells and their Belgian withdrew, Mrs. Campbell saying that the Prebendary wished them to go to Evensong. Their departure left, as such visits do, a blank and a reaction. Our friends were silent for a minute.

Then Vaughan said—

"I feel crushed, and a little flattened out, too."

"I feel as if my brain were made of cotton wool," said Harry.

"Come and sing," suggested Daphne to Muir, and they went off to the drawing-room, from which strains were soon heard about It IS not because,—something or other.

In the middle of the song Daphne played a wrong note, stopped, and said—

"Oh, I wish Cyril was here!"

"So do I. If he can accompany, I wish he was here."

"Oh, go on!"

"It IS not because thy heart is mine"....

* * * * *

The party in the garden listened with a worried expression.

"How about croquet?" suggested Val. "The tapping noise will take it off."

"Yes. Come on."

"You can't," said Romer. "The lawn wants mowing."



CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE ROSE GARDEN

"How lovely this place must look at dawn!"

"By Jove! That's an idea, Gillie," said Harry. "It must look glorious."

They were sitting in the rose garden with Valentia. It was still quite light, though the sunset glow had nearly faded. There was a rich mellow tone in the sky, a promise of peace, a feeling that it was the end of the day, which, combined with the almost cloyingly sweet scent of the roses, was enough to make any one feel poetical.

"To think we've never seen the sun rise here!" exclaimed Valentia.

Romer here joined them, smoking a cigarette.

"Hasn't Romer ever seen the sun rise here?" Vaughan asked.

"Never," said Romer.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I suppose because it always happens after I've gone to bed," he answered drily.

"Let's sit up all night and see it to-morrow," suggested Valentia.

"Yes. Capital! Do let us!" said Harry.

Romer did not appear much taken with this scheme.

"Oh no, you mustn't sit up," said Vaughan. "That's not the way to see it."

"Is there so much difference between staying up and getting up then?" Val asked.

"Yes, indeed, all the difference in the world. You must get up fresh, with the birds."

"What time do birds get up? Is it very early?"

"It would do if you were out at three this time of the year, or even at four."

"Well, let's do it!"

"Oh, I don't think I shall," said Harry.

He looked at Valentia.

She answered—

"You might make a sketch, you know, of the early birds getting up to catch the worms. But—I don't think I shall. Anyhow, not to-morrow at half-past three."

"All right," said Harry with a nod, "we won't. Don't tell Daphne, or she'll be out at 3.15 to the tick, to take a snapshot of the dawn."

"A snapshot of the dawn! Wouldn't that be sacrilege?"

"Young girls are always inclined to that. They're so prosaic," said Harry, getting up. "I must go and see what Van is doing."

He walked away with his usual quick, supple step and casual bearing. They watched his slim figure as he went. Then Romer followed him, slowly.

Vaughan turned to Valentia and said: "I shouldn't if I were you."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Why, meet Harry at half-past three to-morrow morning in the rose garden."

"Good gracious! I never thought of doing such a thing. Besides, it was your idea.... As a matter of fact, I really assure you it wouldn't be here. It would be in the orchard if anywhere. There is the loveliest cherry-tree there, with a seat all round it."

"How jolly! I'd like to see it. Will you give me the key?"

"Who told you it was kept locked?"

She looked rather annoyed.

"You did, but not intentionally."

"I don't see that you have really any right to suppose——Why shouldn't I go in my own orchard, at any hour I like?"

"But, Val—of course you ought to go in your own orchard. But why don't you meet Romer there?"

"Oh, Gillie, really!..."

"He is so straight, so good-looking, and, under all that manner, he's exactly like Vesuvius. Yes. Fancy, you're living with a volcano and you don't appreciate it!"

"Gillie, it's really rather stupid of you to put things like that. It isn't a question of liking either one person or another. If Romer were ill, or anything like that, don't you know——"

"I know you'd devote yourself to him, like a sister or a mother. You'd put Harry aside for a time as a pleasure that mustn't be indulged in. Now that's just where you're wrong. No! I want to see you being ever so good and kind to dear Harry as a duty to a ne'er-do-well of a cousin; and regarding Romer——"

She did not answer.

"My point is," he went on, "that it's really too distressingly conventional of you to suppose that because you happen to be legally married there can be no sort of romance. Only comradeship, or perhaps affectionate sentiment? That's what you believe."

"Isn't it always so?"

"Most often, I grant. That's generally through the man's point of view. But Romer is an exception. He's as much in love as if he had no hope of ever being within a mile of you."

She seemed rather flattered. "Do you really think so? But even that isn't everything."

"Oh, there's a great deal to be done with Romer," was Vaughan's reply.

He spoke with dreamy significance, and she was silent. Then she exclaimed, turning round suddenly—

"I suppose what you really mean is that Harry doesn't care a bit about me?"

"No, I don't. But he cares a bit about a lot of people, and things. He's superficial, and he has no courage."

"No courage? Harry!"

"He'd crumble up in a crisis if a strong man took him in hand."

"That's all nonsense." She was growing angry. "Hasn't he been up in an aeroplane, and done—oh, all sorts of things? I call Harry daring and brave!"

"That's all vanity. All that is show and vanity. Oh, Valentia, do forgive me."

"I'll try.... here he is."

He was seen coming towards them again. Her anger flickered out at once.

"I suppose he thinks we've been here long enough," she said, smiling as women do at such symptoms.

"Of course he does. Vanity—just vanity." Vaughan strolled away.

"Look here! What were you two talking about?"

"Nothing. About you, Harry."

"Rubbish. What was he talking about?"

"You, only you."

"I can't see that that chap's so brilliant! It seems to me he's just like anybody else. And his work shows it too, really. No soul, no real heart in it. All from the outside."

"Nonsense, Harry, nobody is more kind-hearted, more——"

"Look here, Val, I won't have it. Do you hear?"

"Have what, Harry?"

He lowered his voice. "I won't have it. You must go back. It isn't that I mind. But Romer will soon think it extraordinary, your sitting out alone so long."

"No, he won't."

"All right then, he won't. He must be an ass," said Harry angrily. "I don't know what he's thinking of. Hasn't he got eyes?"

"Yes, of course he has."

"And eyelids too," said Harry. "I dare say he pretends not to see that Vaughan admires you. Too indolent to bother about it."

"Really. Harry—you go too far. Are you thinking of pointing it out?"

She got up.

"One second," said Harry pleadingly. "It's cruel of you to go now."

"I thought you said we'd better get back?"

"Your hands look so lovely by this light," he spoke in his softest voice.

"We really must go."

"Then at half-past three. I'll bring my sketchbook. Do you know where the key is? Perhaps you've lost it. You are so dreadfully careless." He now spoke in the tone of a reproving husband.

"I've got it. Do you think we'd better? I'm rather tired. Shall you be able to wake?"

Harry turned away.

"All right, it doesn't matter, Val. I shall be going soon, and then——"

She followed him quickly.

"No, no, Harry. Of course."

He gave her a grateful look. They joined the group on the little verandah in front of the house. Van Buren was sitting in the corner and seemed in the depths of depression. From the windows could be heard once more strains of music. Daphne was playing an accompaniment. Muir had again begun the song, and got a little further into it—"It is not because thy heart is mine, mine only, mine alone." But Vaughan came up promptly and stopped it.



CHAPTER XXVII

SEEING THE SUN RISE

What a delicate air there was in the garden! There had been a little rain in the night, but Valentia supposed it to be dew. Every little sound seemed the softest music, to the sound of which little dainty things seemed to be dancing in the air. The Green Gate, a red Georgian house, seen in the early glamour with all its blinds down, except one, seemed like a thing half asleep with one eye open.

For a moment she was a little frightened. He was late. She had perhaps got up for nothing. But no, it was worth it. It was lovely here.

Another eye of the house slowly opened, and soon Romeo, or Paolo, or Faust, appeared. True, he was disguised as a flannelled fool, with a sketch-book under his arm. But it was Faust, or Romeo, or Paolo, all the same. He looked very handsome. The thought of scoring off other people in the house had raised his spirits and had even made him wake up in time. Valentia's conversation with Vaughan, whom she knew to be honest and believed to be brilliant, had left a certain insidious influence on her which would tell gradually, and yet their talk had had rather a contradictory effect for the moment. She wanted to prove to herself that he was wrong. And Harry felt that his time was growing short. Very soon he must put an end to it all.

This thought made him more affectionate. It occurred to him for a moment that he would tell her in the orchard; but, of course, he didn't. Every day he thought he would tell her, and something always happened to prevent it. Besides, there would have to be a quarrel anyhow at the end, so why make it longer than necessary?

They sat down under the cherry-tree.

"Fancy you, Valentia, a minion of the moon, rising before dawn! Let me look at you. You fill me with wonder and joy."

"Did you mind getting up very much, Harry?"

"It was rather hard. Listen!... That's a thrush, making a scene with another thrush in the tree."

"Is it? How do you know?"

"Of course it is! How do you know things? How did you know exactly what to wear, Val? I knew you had clothes for every possible occasion; but still, to choose the exact right dress to put on to meet your cousin at dawn in the orchard seems—well, rather extraordinary. Pinkish blue—or is it bluish pink?—to match the sky. How jolly! It fastens in front."

"Well, of course I couldn't expect Ogburn to get up in the middle of the night."

"And no hatpins for once, thank goodness."

"Well, if we sat up till now I shouldn't be wearing a hat, should I?"

"Don't argue. It's too early."

"It isn't really early. It's very late."

"Oh, Val! You're being logical."

He took her hands and looked at them, and quoted—

"They are pale with the pallor of ivories, But they blush at the tips like a curved sea-shell."

"Oh, Harry!"

He was thinking. He looked almost miserable. "I don't see—I must admit—how I shall ever be able to leave your hands!"

She looked at him suspiciously.

"Why should you? What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I only meant I couldn't...."

"Oh!"

"What's that?... Some one coming along the lawn."

"Doesn't it sound curious?" she said—"so rustly!"

"Who can it be? Surely your friend Vaughan couldn't get up at this hour."

"Nonsense! Of course not. They're coming here." She jumped up.

"Go and open the gate at once," said Harry, giving her the key. "I'll wait here a minute." While she obeyed he used a good deal of language. He now felt that he would give all he possessed to keep her there five minutes longer.

"Fancy! It's Romer!" exclaimed Valentia. "He hasn't seen me yet."

"Go to him at once. Tell him you got up to see the sun rise. I'll come directly and join you. Oh, confound it! Do look sharp. Seem pleased to see him." He spoke in a harsh tone of command.

She ran to meet Romer, saying jokingly, "Fancy meeting you!"

"I thought you'd be here. I went to your room and found you were out. Thought I'd get up early."

"I'm so glad. Isn't it lovely and worth seeing here? Come and pick some fruit in the orchard."

"No, thanks."

"Oh, do! Harry's devouring gooseberries. He's sketching the sky."

"Why doesn't Harry come?" said Romer.

He had no expression, and it was always impossible to guess by his looks or his tone what he was thinking or feeling, except when he smiled.

"Here he is."

Harry joined them.

"Good gracious, old boy! Who in the world—! What on earth made you come out so early?"

Romer now smiled and looked at Valentia admiringly.

"Gardener's not up yet. Thought perhaps I'd mow the lawn," he said apologetically.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"REPLY PAID"

Valentia had been hurt at the tone in which Harry had given his orders, and turned from him to help to find the mowing-machine.

"Doesn't she look jolly at sunrise? All that pink and mauve in the sky tones in so well. It seems to suit her. That's how she really should be painted," said Harry, in the tone of an artist admiring his model. "Don't you think so?"

"Yes," said Romer.

"She looks like a golden rose," Harry went on. He wanted to please Val, who he saw was annoyed with him, and to emphasise the openness of his admiration to Romer. "Doesn't she?"

"Quite," said her husband.

Harry felt the morning was spoilt and the situation absurd. He could not bear to be thwarted in any way. He went back to his own room, bounced angrily on to his bed, and went to sleep again, after having seen Valentia through the window helping to push the mower, and saying to himself—

"How like a woman! I shall go up to town with Van Buren and send a wire to Alec."

This was his revenge.

Their momentary fears about Romer were completely dissipated. He seemed exactly as usual. As a rule he was even-tempered. Not many people had seen him put out, though he could be very angry, except with Valentia. During this day he seemed, for him, a little irritable. Perhaps, Val thought, through getting up too early.

Harry went up to town with Van Buren for the day, intending to return the same evening. He soon recovered himself in the course of copious confidences in the train. As soon as he had arrived in London he began to count the minutes before he should go back.

Valentia expected the elder Mrs. Wyburn to lunch.

"What shall we do with her to-day?" Val asked Daphne. "She must be kept in a good temper, because it's the last time she'll come down before going to Bournemouth. It's rather a pity they've all gone. Romer is sure to say the wrong thing to her—let out some trifle that we have been carefully concealing for months—praise up Harry, or something."

"Doesn't she like Harry?"

"Since he went to see her she likes him for herself, but not for me."

"What cheek! But he's not here."

"No, if he were she might like him again all right. Then, Romer talks too slowly for her. Her mind works quicker than his, and one can only deal with him by racing on in front, and turning round to beckon. With Mrs. Wyburn there are only two things that are any use—dash and volubility. It's difficult to keep the thing going when she's alone with us."

"Well, why not pass the time this afternoon by returning the Campbells' visit, and take Mrs. Wyburn with us to 'The Angles'?" Daphne suggested.

"Oh no! It's treating them almost like royalty to go so soon. And there's the Belgian man."

"Doesn't she like Belgians then, Val?"

"I've never asked her. Only, don't you see, it isn't that but the Belgian is what Harry calls a blighter—a beano-blighter; and so is Mrs. Wyburn, and it doesn't do to have two beano-blighters in the same party."

"Ah, I see; they'd clash. What is a beano-blighter exactly, Val?"

"A person who blights beanos. Who makes every one a little uncomfortable, casts a gloom over entertainments—has to be taken in hand and dealt with separately from the others—doesn't blend, you know."

"You mean some one who isn't the life and soul of the party?"

"No, I don't. That's almost as bad in its way. In fact, the life-and-soul-of-the-party person casts almost as great a gloom on the rest as a blighter."

"Oh dear! Yes, I see."

"We must meet her at the station in the motor. I shall put on my blue serge and my plain sailor. She mustn't see me in the garden without a hat, nor in a real one. You do the same, Daphne."

"But my sailor's too large in the head, and that makes it fall over my eyes, and that gives it a Frenchy look, like L'Art et la Mode," protested Daphne.

"Stuff it with paper. Here's the Bystander."

"Oh, isn't it a pity? There's such a pretty picture of——"

"Oh, don't bother."

Mrs. Wyburn was gracious to-day, and all was going well when, about half-past five, a telegram, reply paid, was brought. It was addressed to Harry.

"What shall we do?"

"Why, keep it till he comes. He'll be back to dinner," Romer said.

"Suppose it's something urgent," said Val, seeming a little agitated. "Don't you think perhaps we ought to open it? He won't mind."

"You can't. It's addressed to Harry," said Romer.

Mrs. Wyburn's quick eyes took in some signs of tension, but she continued giving them advice about the garden. She thought the flowers too florid, and was always a little shocked at the extravagant scent and exuberance of the roses. She seemed to think they should be kept more in their place—not allowed to climb all over the house, and romp or lean about the garden doing just what they liked. She had winced in the drawing-room, relented in the dining-room, and refrained, really, only in the kitchen, that she had insisted upon seeing. It was the only room to the decoration of which she gave whole-hearted praise and approval. The cooking at the Green Gate she admitted to be perfect, without pretension. In fact, she thought everything in the house a little overdone, except the mutton.

"I can't think who that wire can be from," Val said several times to Daphne when her mother-in-law had gone. She meant that she could think.

"Well, you'll know directly. Harry's arriving."

Harry found it in the hall, and came in with it.

"You open it for me," he said, giving it to Val.

Since his last instructions to Alec he felt perfectly safe.

She read—

"Thousand thanks awfully bucked at letter at Queens' Hotel Cowes for three days could you join us there wire reply fondest love and kisses.

Johnson."



CHAPTER XXIX

GLADYS

On arriving in London, Vaughan found his secretary with the usual heaps of letters. One envelope, addressed in a large and rather infantine hand, was put aside for him. The note ran—

"The Baldfaced Stag, Edgware.

"Dear Mr. Vaughan,

"I eard only yesterday that the play you kindly sent me and mother to was wrote by you, I call it a shame you didn't tell me before, we saw the name on the programme, but never thought it could be the same but yesterday mother saw a piece in the paper about you in the weekly dispatch and she said it was the same, I'm sory I said the people in the play went on silly I beg pardon for calling the play silly I wouldnt have done it if Id known, so hope youre not angry, they seemed to me to go on silly, but I dont reelly know much about those kind of ladies and gentlemen, we saw the piece in the paper only yesterday and mother said it was the same, we hope you will soon come again to tea the calf is better believe me yours truly

"GLADIS ADELAIDE BRILL."

He instantly wrote back—

"Dear Miss Brill,

"I am so relieved and thankful to hear the calf is better, all the more because I had no idea it had been indisposed. I fancied, though, it was looking a little pale the last time I had the pleasure of meeting it in the field. Please don't think again of your criticism. It gave me very great pleasure. You must think me very foolish. You could say nothing that I would not like except to ask me not to come and see you. I am very busy just now and so have little time for afternoon calls, but will come one of these days soon.

"Yours always, "GILBERT HEREFORD VAUGHAN."



He waited a moment, and then added—

"I will turn up to-morrow at four. Try not to forget me till then."

For the rest of the day he was in high spirits. The letter seemed to keep him up through the various little bothers of the day. He had been going to France for the summer. He admitted to himself that this semi-flirtation was keeping him in England. He didn't like the idea of going away very long from the possibility of turning up at the "Bald-faced Stag."

The explanation Harry gave about Johnson's telegram satisfied Valentia for the time, as he declined the invitation to Cowes, but the incident left an uneasy feeling in Val's mind. She could not bear to own to herself that he was deceiving her, and he hadn't the courage to give it away yet, not that he cared so very much about hurting her, but he was happier at the Green Gate than anywhere else. He liked the house, the atmosphere, and Romer; but what kept him most was, of course, that curious charm Valentia had for him, which was perhaps stronger than ever because he knew that the end was not far off. He often thought he was a fool not to have taken the opportunity to break it off on this occasion. He couldn't stand the idea of not seeing her, just because of the way her hair grew on her forehead! So low, and in such thick waves! Alec Walmer's hair, also fair, was thin and unmeaning. She had a low forehead, and yet the hair began high up. In the evening when it was carefully arranged, and the iron had entered into it, it looked like a stiff transformation, even worse than when left to nature.

But of course, in spite of the reconciliation, a residue of mistrust remained, and on his side a sensation of restlessness which left him irritable; less amiable and pleasant than usual.

They were sitting on the little terrace. He was smoking and reading the paper. He suddenly threw it down and said—

"How quiet you are, Val! Why don't you talk?"

"I don't think I've got anything to say."

"You seem depressed," he said, rather aggressively.

"I feel a little depressed."

Harry gave expression to the usual injustice of the unfaithful.

"What a mistake women make in being gloomy! How foolish it is. Shall I tell you the key of the whole situation between men and women?"

"Do."

"Well, dear, it's just—a smile. Never be dull, never be ill, never be depressed. Be gay—always gay. That's what men like—that's the one thing that they go out for and come in for—a smile."

"Your ideal of a woman seems to be a Cheshire cat," she answered, looking rather amused. "Your motto is, like the man in The Arcadians: Always Merry and Bright. Well, I'm sure there's a good deal in it. But I'm not usually accused of being a dreary person."

"Of course you're not; you're charming, lively, amusing, sympathetic. That's your great attraction, Val. But the last few days you seem rather to have lost it."

"You can hardly resent my feeling a little down, Harry. One or two little things that have happened lately have made me anxious."

"Never be anxious. You ought to trust, trust—always trust."

"Oh, that's all very well! That wire...."

"Are we going to have that all over again? I thought I'd explained." He assumed the air of a patient martyr.

"I know you explained all right. Well, I won't think about it any more. Don't be horrid, Harry.... Have you seen this week's Punch? There's something in it simply too heavenly—such a joke! Let me read it to you."

"It's very sweet of you—but do you ever realise——I wonder if it's ever struck you, Val, that men aren't always in the mood for heavenly jokes? There are times when one likes to think—to see life as it is—to discuss abstract things, even."

"Oh! Well ... what do you think of Daphne's dress? Isn't it pretty? It was made by Ogburn, all out of nothing, in no time."

He looked at Daphne, who was sitting under a tree reading Cyril's last letter over again.

"It's all right. It suits her. I don't call that a serious subject."

"What subject would you like, then?"

"Well—Romer, for instance. Where is he?"

"Talking to the gardener about mowing. Do you want him? I'll call him if you like."

"Dear Val, it's not quite like you to be ironical to me.... You ought not to laugh at Romer either. I'm complex, perhaps—I know I am; but it jars on me when you do that."

She stared at him.

"Look here—I know I'm tiresome," said Harry, returning to his usual caressing manner. "Don't take any notice of it. It's—the weather, I think, or want of exercise. I'll go and improvise a little."

He pushed back his chair, and, with a parting look of forgiveness, he went into the house and began to improvise (rather dismally) a well-known funeral march. Or perhaps it was only a coincidence. Perhaps he would have thought of it if Chopin hadn't.

Harry was only musical by fits and starts, and generally either to impress some one or because he was out of temper. Val never regarded it as a good sign when he grappled with the Steinway.

In ten minutes he had grown tired of his mood of melody, and strolled into the rose garden with a book.

Yes, certainly Harry was restless.



CHAPTER XXX

THE ANGLES

"You're very quiet, Val," remarked Daphne, as they flew along in the motor on their way to call on the Prebendary's wife at The Angles.

Both sisters wore little cottage bonnets, blue motor-veils, and large loose white coats with high collars.

"How can I talk when we're exceeding the speed limit?" said Valentia.

"You usually do. Is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing at all.... Harry's been horrid lately."

"I suppose he is occasionally."

"No, he's not. He's got the artistic temperament, and of course he can't always be the same, poor dear."

"What a pity one can't be an artist without having the artistic temperament! It always seems to mean being late for meals, and losing your temper, or being amusing when every one wants to go to bed."

"As a matter of fact," said Valentia, "I never knew any one with less of it than Harry. There isn't a more hard-headed business man in the world in his way, though he has read poetry and plays the piano sometimes, and paints. He is an artist too ... but—well, not in any of the recognised arts.... I hear Miss Luscombe and Rathbone—I mean Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone—have gone to Oberammergau for their honeymoon."

"Oh! Is that the latest thing to do?"

"Of course not, Daphne, but she thinks it is. Miss Luscombe has spent her life in trying to catch the last omnibus and always just missing it, and she's not going to leave off now just because she happens to be married. Here we are!"

The Prebendary's wife received them very graciously. Her waist looked longer than ever, and her skirt seemed more than usually abnormal in width. She did all that she could to entertain them. She showed them her son Garstin's map of Buckinghamshire, and then said—

"I'll send for Mr. Stoendyck. He's upstairs inventing. You can't think how clever he is and how hard he works. It's really wonderful! We often leave him alone for hours to think things out, and sometimes he plays sonatas; he says it refreshes him. He really is an extraordinary man."

Mr. Stoendyck came in, looking very martial and scientific and pleased with himself, as though he had just invented gunpowder. Mrs. Campbell began as usual to talk baby language, and play a kind of Dumb Crambo at him. He never seemed able to guess the word.

"I hope we haven't interrupted you in your studies," said Val politely.

"She say she ope she not interrupt. Work, you know. Oeuvre—Arbeit."

"I was just amusing myself with the very witty paper from Germany, Kladderadatsch. It is very funny," he said.

"It sounds funny," said Val sympathetically.

"What I find in England is that you're all wonderfully serious, wonderfully courteous, wonderfully kind"—he bowed to his hostess; "but, you'll excuse my saying so, I don't find enough wit or lightness for my temperament. For humour I have to go to Belgium or Germany."

He spoke with intense solemnity.

Mrs. Campbell now began to translate him even to himself.

"You say you like fun, wit—just fun to make laugh?" She made strange signs with her fingers.

He did not appear to understand the code. He stared at her with a frown, and rasped on seriously—

"I find a few comical jokes occasionally a great relief after my heavy work. It is very deep work."

"I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask what the invention is?" said Valentia, smiling.

"Not at all. There is nothing indiscreet whatever in your curiosity, Mrs. Wyburn."

He took a scone covered with butter and swallowed it in an extraordinarily short time, and in an ingenious manner.

"No, there's no indiscretion in the matter at all. Do not trouble yourself on that score. It is merely the natural interest that a cultivated and intellectual English lady would naturally take when she hears of an extraordinary invention from another country." He bowed, and having thus explained her to herself, he then ate another scone.

"She say she want to know, you know," nodded Mrs. Campbell, putting up a playful and threatening finger with dignified coquetry and a stony smile. (She was subject to fits of this kind of marble archness unexpectedly.)

"Yes. So I understood."

The Belgian was looking at Daphne with distinct admiration. Of course Miss Campbell came and sat down beside him. Women always follow their instinct to come and sit on the other side of any man whom they regard as their property. They seem to think that merely by sitting on the other side they protect him from freebooters. As a matter of fact, it would be more sensible, if to distract his attention were the object, to sit opposite with some one else.

Mr. Stoendyck turned his back on her completely, and said to Daphne—

"Very charming, those motor-veils, and the whole costume. At the same time, while being thoroughly practical and sensible, it is, if I may say so, extremely becoming."

He bowed with a condescending air, and went on—

"The English young girl—at least, such specimens as I have seen in the neighbourhood, especially in the country—seems to me a wonderfully beautiful object. In Belgium we are getting on, but we have not reached, as yet, the point of freedom combined with modesty that you constantly see over here. Particularly, as I say, in rural districts."

He then made what can only be described, vulgarly, as a distinct 'eye.'

Both the Campbells looked uneasy.

"The Prebendary will be in soon," said Mrs. Campbell. "He promised faithfully to come back to tea to-day. He also is a very busy man. He come in soon," she spoke reassuringly.

Daphne was suddenly taken with a fou rire and began to laugh helplessly. Val, seeing her condition, and knowing that when she once started there was no hope but in immediate flight, took leave.

They were cordially asked to come again by Mrs. Campbell. But Mr. Stoendyck invited them to lunch, and wanted to fix a day and hour. Mrs. Campbell, however, declined his invitation for them. Mrs. Wyburn, she said, must have a great many engagements.