"I wonder if our escapade with Lady Bounce is out yet? I haven't seen Hal since Thursday."

"Oh yes, it is," eagerly; "the duchess had heard about it. She was pumping me to know who was in the joke. We are longing to see Quin and hear the latest, but he is down east."

"What an oddity he is!" thoughtfully. "I liked him so much: but it is difficult to reconcile him with slumming."

"He's one of the best. Every one loves him. And he does his slumming in quite a way of his own. I've been with him sometimes, and he just goes among the rough characters down there as if he hated being a swell and wanted to be one of them. He positively asks them for sympathy, and of course it takes their fancy and he is friends with them all."

"I think you are a remarkable trio altogether. Hal's cousin Dick is just as original in his way as St. Quintin. And you, of course, are somehow different to the majority. I wonder how you will each end? St. Quintin will perhaps become a bishop. Dick Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame. And you? ..."

He flushed a little. "I shall be left far behind by both of them, futilely wishing to catch up."

"I hope not. Your chance is just as good as theirs, if you choose to make it so,"

"I fail to see that I have any chance at all."

"Most chances rest chiefly with ourselves. It's a great thing to be ready for them if they come. I hope you'll be that."

"I hope so too, but it would be easier if one were more sure they were coming," and he laughed with a lightness that jarred a little.

She rose to go, as it was getting late, feeling slightly disappointed in some vague way; and when they parted she noticed that his handshake was slightly limp, as of one who would not grasp life tightly enough to compel it to surrender its good things to him.

But in her own sanctum she rallied herself, and hardened her heart, asking what had it to do with her after all, and how could his success or non-success in any way concern her.

Doubtless in the end he would share the fate of the great majority and attain only mediocrity; having missed that one great blinding shaft of pain or joy that might have stabbed him into tense, pulsing life, and spurred him up the heights of fame and glory.

She let her evening-cloak slide to a chair, turning to glance at a calling card on the table, with a renewal of the old, callous, cynical air. The practical force of Flip Denton's conversation was making itself felt. Of course it was an absurdity for her to imagine herself in love with a youth of twenty-four - almost the dullest of all ages - be he never so good to look at. She might very well keep a motherly eye on him, and show him a side of life he might perhaps not see otherwise, but it must end there.

No doubt a certain novelty had made the evening unusually pleasant: after two or three more they would certainly pall, and then she would go back to her old chums; the men of the world who had paid their footing and won their experience, and come through, careless enough devils at best in their own phraseology, but non the worse for a fall or two, and a win or two, and a self-taught hardihood for most things life was likely any more to send.

She smiled a little as she remembered how calmly he had thanked her and said good-night. Of a surety he took his fruits quietly and unconcernedly enough. She wondered if he were secretly in love with some pink-and-white dbutante, who flushed and smiled when he spoke, and gazed up at him with fond, adoring eyes. It was likely enough.

No doubt he would tell her all about it soon, as a very young man tells a favourite sister, or a jolly, not too elderly aunt. She rather hoped he would. It would be an anti-climax humorous enough to cure her all in a moment of seeming anything to him other than that jolly, not too elderly aunt. Then she would invite Flip to dinner, and they would be gay together - she could imagine the tone in which he would call her "aunty" - and her folly would fall from her like an outgrown chrysalis, leaving her sane, and cynical, and wordly, and whole again.

The train of thought pleased her, and soothed in some way an indefinable rasping sense of the general futility of all feeling and all striving. Surely she, with her young-old heart, her world-worn memories, and her youth that never was, should know that worldly-wise dictum full well.

Of course she kew it.

The things that mattered were beauty and brilliance and success; and these she had in good measure, brimming over. Her mood made her cross suddenly to the many-sided mirror, and switch on a blaze of light that would brook no feigning.

In its searching gleams she looked at herself with clear, fearless eyes. Yes; it was all there still, untouched and unimpaired by those thirty-two years: the colouring, the skin, the rounded, supple figure - all the things for which men loved her and the world gave her fame.

She gave herself a little mocking salute, and then turned away to hurry into her pretty, cosy bed.

But what the blaze of light had not seen the mothering darkness hid tenderly. Two bright tear-drops, filling tired eyes that had tried so often to fool themselves into blind and callous content.



CHAPTER XII

"Dick Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame," Lorraine had remarked to her companion, and away somewhere down in Kent, an hour or so earlier, Dick had remarked to Hal as they spun along:

"I've got the maddest idea for a novel you ever heard of. I'm going to make the hit of next season."

"I hope it's not about babies," said Hal, thinking of his doggerel.

"Yes, it is - babies and vegetables."

"Oh, nonsense. You can't make a novel out of babies and vegetables."

"You see if I can't. The vegetables are all to be endowed with life, and of course the scene of my tale will be the vegetable kingdom."

"And where do the babies come in?"

"The babies will represent mankind."

"I never heard such rot. Why should mankind be represented by babies? Much better let them be represented by green peas or gooseberries."

"Not at all. Mankind can only properly be represented by babies; mankind being in its infancy."

"But it isn't. It's much older than vegetables."

"It is not. Man was made last, and instead of developing into a reasonable, rational object, like a potato or a cabbage, he has strayed away into all manner of wild side-issues, and is still nothing but a very much perplexed infant."

"And do you propose to try and help him to emulate the reasonable, rational condition of the potato and cabbage?"

"I propose to show him his inferiority to these delectable creations."

"Then if he has any sense he will just duck you in the Serpentine and make you apologise. Personally I consider myself anything but a baby, and far superior to any of the cabbage tribe."

"Ah!..." he cried gleefully. You are actually proving my theory. I can't explain now, but just wait till that book is written."

"Are you taking rooms at Colney Hatch while you do it?"

"I have thought about it. You show more understanding in that remark than in any of the others."

"It doesn't require much effort of understanding to think that out. Is the onion or the mangel-wurzel to be your hero?"

"You are unsympathetic. I shall not tell you any more."

"Not at all. I am most interested really. I should make the cabbage your hero, and the onion your herone, then she can weep on his breast." They swerved violently, and with a little gasp she added, "All the same, I've no desire to weep on the highway underneath a motor-car. What are you doing?"

"I don't know. The steering-wheel seems a bit odd."

They stopped to examine the wheel, and almost immediately, out of the gathering darkness behind shot another car, hooting violently to them to get out of the way. Unable to stop the oncoming car in time, Dick tried to move aside, failed, and in less than a minute the newcomer, in spite of brakes swiftly adjusted, crashed into them, smashing their lamp, and badly damaging the back near-side wheel of the car.

"Well, I'm blowed!" said Dick, "that's the only moment in the whole day you shouldn't have been on that particular square yard of the entire globe. Any other moment, I could either have moved aside or stopped you in time."

The occupant of the other car, who was driving alone, sprang out and came briskly forward.

"What the devil!..." he began, then noticed the lady, and stopped short.

"It was certainly the devil," said Dick, ruefully examining his battered wheel, and "I always thought he was credited with the deceny to look after his own. How have you fared?"

"Well, he seems to have looked after me all right," in a cheery voice; "there's nothing that will prevent my going on to town. But if you will pardon my curiosity, why take root in the middle of the road and ask for trouble?"

Hal's smile suddenly flashed out in the lamp-light irresistibly.

"It's a new theory about vegetables being wiser than mankind, but of course we took root too soon."

A pair of grey eyes looked quizzically at her in the darkness, discerning only the gleam of a white face in a close-fitting bonnet, and the flash of white, even teeth.

"The blasted steering wheel wouldn't act," said Dick. "We had just that second slowed down to examine it. You might have come along here to all eternity and not have been as inopportune."" "You take it very well." The big-coated apparition, in motor-cap with the ear-flaps down, and motor-goggles, and the suggestion of a rotundity about the centre, was not at all engaging to look at, but he had a charming voice.

"I'm taking it so ill that I daren't express myself out loud," said Hal. "What in the world are we to do? Is there a train anywhere near?"

"I'm afraid not, but there is a decent enough inn close by."

"An inn isn't much use to me." She paused, then added solemnly: "I've got a strait-laced brother."

Hal's voice was rather deep and rich for a woman, and it had a dangerous allurement in the darkness. The stranger took off his goggles and tried again to see her face, while Dick took a minute stock of his damage.

"Well," he suggested, a little daringly, "if he is able to chaperone you at the inn himself? -"

"He isn't," said Hal; "he's somewhere east of Piccadilly, studying Phoenician Architecture, and the herringbone pattern on antique masonry."

"Oh, damn!" intercepted Dick, "the old man has let me down badly this time; this car won't move before daybreak. It means a red light burning all night, and we must go to the inn."

"But, Dick," Hal exclaimed in quick alarm. "How can I let Dudley know? He'll have a fit at the idea of my being out all night like that."

"He ought to be too thankful you are safe and sound to mind anything else."

"But he won't; because he is always grumbling at my not getting back before dark. There must surely be a train from somewhere?"

Her voice had grown seriously alarmed as she began to realise what sort of a fix she was in. The stranger came forward to lend his aid to the inspection, and after a cursory glance added his verdict to Dick's.

"You won't move her before morning; and there are no trains anywhere near here on Sunday night. I am going to London myself; you must let me give you both a lift."

Dick stood up with an air of finality.

"I can't leave her. She isn't exactly all my own, you see. I must stay at the inn, but if you wouldn't mind taking Miss Pritchard..." he looked at Hal a little anxiously.

"I shall be delighted," came the brisk response from the stranger.

Hal for once was nonplussed, but her habitual humour reasserted itself.

"I don't know which Dudley will think the most dreadful," she remarked comically, "for me to stay at the inn unchaperoned, or motor back with a stranger. I seem to be fairly between the devil and the deep sea."

The men laughed, but Dick made the decision.

"You had better go back," he said. "He will at least have you safe under lock and key by midnight that way and not lie awake worrying all night himself."

"Then let me run you to the inn first," said the stranger, and after fixing his red lights, Dick went off with them in search of help to make the car safer for the night.

A little later the stranger's motor turned Londonwards with two occupants only, one in front and one behind. After a few miles he stopped.

"Won't you come and sit in front?" It seems so unsociable to travel like this."

"Most unsociable," said Hal, "but it would please Brother Dudley."

"Never mind Brother Dudley now." The voice was very attractive. "Mind me, instead. I'm very dull here, and I hate driving in the dark. My chauffeur is down with the 'flu', and I couldn't beg, borrow, nor steal any one else's."

"Are you a doctor?" she asked, taking her seat beside him.

"Why do you think I should be a doctor?" tucking a warm rug cosily round her, in a leisurely fashion.

"Only because I thought perhaps you were obliged to go, in spite of your chauffeur being ill."

"I was obliged to go, but I'm not a doctor."

They started forward again, but the pace was noticeably slower.

"I hope you don't mind going slowly, it is so difficult to steer in te dark?"

Hal was perfectly aware he had not found it so difficult before, but she only said lightly:

"Anything to keep safe from another mishap. I might have to walk home next time."

"Or stay at an inn with me!..." with an amused laugh. "What would Brother Dudley do then?"

"Have brain fever first, I expect, then creeping paralysis, then sleeping sickness."

He chuckled with enjoyment, and presently remarked: "I don't think you treat Dudley respectfully enough if he is an affectionate elder brother."

"Oh, yes I do. I sort of leaven the lump. Without me he'd be just a clever prig; he couldn't help it. With me he is only better than most men; and his lofty ideas don't get top-heavy, because I keep him in touch with commonplace humanity."

"Why is he better than most men? What is the matter with the rest of us?"

"The rest of you don't bother to have lofty ideas at all, much less struggle to live up to them."

You are a little sweeping. Do you like men to have lofty ideas, and be priggish?"

"They don't necessarily go together. It's only Dudley who thinks all the rest of the world ought to be good too."

"And don't you agree with him?"

"I look at things from a different standpoint. I admire him tremendously, and feel his superiority; but it is more natural to me to take things as I find them and make the best of them as they are."

"You are evidently a very sensible young lady. You can find a warm spot in your heart even for a sinner, for instance!"

"I rather like them," and she gave a low laugh.

"Of course you do, if you're a true woman."

"Oh, I'm a true woman right enough. I like a man to have a spice of the devil in him; and I like playing with fire; and I love getting into mischief."

"Capital!... you and I must be friends. I'm beginning to think it was a lucky mishap for me at all events."

"I haven't finished my qualifications yet. You may change your mind. I like all those sort of things, but at the same time I like the big things as well. Also I'm told I'm most annoyingly practical, and most irritatingly capable of taking care of myself, and never getting burnt, so to speak."

"Who told you that?"

"I think it was some one at the office."

"What office?"

She mentioned the name of one of the leading London papers.

"Oh, you're a working young lady, are you?" He asked the question with a new note in his voice, though it would have been difficult to tell just how the information struck him.

Hal gave another laugh.

"A working young lady! How awful! I shall not be friends with you if you call me anything so dreadful as that."

"What do you call it?"

"Well, I think I like 'Breadwinner' best, as that is what I do it for - but I don't mind working woman."

The stranger looked hard into the darkness a few moments, then he asked suddenly, sitll with the new note in his voice:

"And I suppose you want the vote?"

Mentally he was wondering whether, if she knew who he was, she would attack him physically or insist upon writing in chalk all over his car.

"I don't want it for myself, because I shouldn't know what to do with it, and I haven't much time to find out. But I want fair play for women-workers generally, and if that is the only way to get it, I hope it will come quickly."

"What do you mean by fair play?"

"Just whatever is fair play. I don't think women ought to be making iron chains at Cradley Heath for a penny a yard, for instance, and that sort of thing. I think it is a slur on the men who govern the country that it is possible. If you were one of them, and drove about in this beautiful car, not caring twopence whether starving women were sweated or not, I should -" she hesitated.

"Well, what should you -"

Detecting the mysterious note in his voice, she added with mischievous, half-serious intent:

"I should want to scratch you, and bite you, and push you into the first available ditch, for a poor coward, who was afraid to take care of the interests of woman, in case she got too well able in the end to take care of herself - so there."

He could not help laughing, and when he subsided she added:

"I suppose you are one."

"Why do you suppose it?"

"Never mind. Are you?"

"You promise you won't scratch me and bite me?"

"I'll give you a sporting chance to run away."

"I'm not very likely to run away from you, I think."

They had reached the well-lit roads now, and he turned and looked keenly into her face, partly to see if by chance he might recognise her, and partly to get a cleaner idea of her appearance.

"You look to nice to be a suffragette," he said.

"Such rot! Do I look too nice to care whether working women and outcast women are fairly treated or not?"

"That's only the bluff of the movement. What they really want is power and notoriety."

Hal tossed her head.

"You're a positive worm," she told him frankly.

Again his engaging laugh rang out.

"That's a nice thing to say to a man who has brought you all the way from Millington to London, and helped you out of a tight corner."

The white teeth gleamed suddenly.

"I'll qualify it if you like, and call you a cross between a worm and a brick."

"Not good enough. I won't pass the worm at all. If you don't retract it wholly I shall put you down at the first tram, and let you get back to Bloomsbury on your own."

"I'll retract, if you'll tell me who you are."

"I'll tell you afterwards."

She shook her head.

"Perhaps you are going to Downing Street even now, to plan a crushing blow to the Cause."

"I am going to Downing Street, but it has nothing to do with the Cause, as you call it."

It was her turn to glance round, but she only saw that he was clean-shaven, and somewhat lined. His grey, quizzical eyes met hers full of humour.

"I wonder who we both are?" he said.

"I can easily tell you who I am, as I'm so comfortably of no account. My name is Harriet Pritchard, and my friends call me Hal. I live with Brother Dudley, who is an architect; and if the world isn't any the better for me, I hope it is sometimes a little gayer, that's all."

"And are you engaged to the young man whose steering gear went wrong?"

"No; I am not engaged to any one at all."

"Very nearly perhaps?"

"No; not even within sight of it. Being engaged, and always having to go out with the same pal, would bore me to tears."

"I see." There was a note of satisfaction in his voice. In the brighter lights he had observed that the warm ulster clung to a very shapely figure, and covered a pair of fine shoulders, and even if she was not pretty, for he could not be quite sure on the point, she was certainly very attractive, and had a delightfully engaging smile.

"I wonder if there is room for another in the ranks."

Something a little condescending in the way he made the suggestion nettled Hal.

"Aren't you a rather old?" she asked.

Again his ready laugh rang out.

"I'll give frankness for frankness. I am forty-eight."

"Goodness!... and I am twenty-five."

"Is that all? Then allow me to say you are a remarkably clever young woman."

"A good many breadwinners are; they have to be. Some of them are too clever even for Cabinet Ministers," and she chuckled joyfully.

In the darkness, she did not see the quick gleam in his eyes, as he retorted:

"I don't think many Cabinet Ministers have the luck to meet a breadwinner who is as attractive as she is clever."

"And if the did," sarcastically, "I suppose they would drop the notoriety yarn and find time to consider whether the working woman is treated fairly or not. The weakness in her defence at present seems solely that not enough pretty women make up her defenders. Bah! You all ought to have kittens to play with, and nanny goats and woolly lambs."

"I don't know why you include me. What have I done?"

"Well, if you're going to Downing Street?"

"Why shouldn't I be going to a dinner-party?"

She turned and glanced up with a daredevil light in her eyes that delighted him.

"I not only think you a member of Parliament, but, judging by your fatuous air of superiority, I should imagine you are positively a full-blown Cabinet Minister."

He busied himself with his steering wheel, while little chuckles of enjoyment came out of his muffler.

"And supposing I were?" he said at last.

"Goodness!... I hope you're not?... " in quick alarm.

"Why do you hope so?"

"Oh, I don't know, except that I've never known a Cabinet Minister in my life, and I never expected, if I met one, to treat him like... like -"

"An old and fatuous lump of superiority!" with a gay laugh. "Well, little woman, you needn't be in the least sorry. I don't know that I've ever enjoyed a motor ride more. When will you come again?"

"Are you a Cabinet Minister?..." she asked helplessly.

"Well, I hope you won't disapprove, for I have to plead guilty to being Sir Edwin Crathie."

"Sir Edwin Crathie?" in abashed tones.

"They called me Squib at school." He said it in a whimsical, humorous voice, looking down at her with very friendly eyes.

But Hal had grown silent.

"I'm afraid by your manner you do disapprove?"

"It is certainly embarrassing. I would rather you had been... well, just any one."

"You'll get used to it," still with the twinkle in his eyes. "In the meantime you haven't answered my question. When will you come for another ride?"

She did not reply, and he leaned a little closer.

"You will come again?"

"I'm afraid Brother Dudley wouldn't like it"; and then they both laughed.

"Will you come in?" as they drew up before her door.

"I'm afraid I haven't time; and besides, I'm a little afraid of Brother Dudley. I only feel equal to the Prime Minister this evening."

She held out her hand.

"Well, thank you ever so much. You saved me from a dreadfully tight corner."

"The thanks should be all mine; you saved me from unmitigated boredom. I curses my chauffeur for going down with 'flu' to-day, but now I fee ready to raise his salary for it."

He had pulled of his thick motoring-glove, and was holding her hand in a firm, lingering clasp, which she quickly cut short, tucking both her hands into her ulster pockets, and standing up very straight and slim in the lamplight.

"I'll have to go though the confessional now," she told him, "and sit on the stool of repentance for supper."

"No; don't repent; come again." He moved nearer.

"I'm naturally a very busy man, and I can't make engagements offhand, but I can easily get at you on the telephone. Will you come some afternoon, about half-past four?"

"I think you are very rash. How do you know I shall not bring the colours, and wave them wildly down the street, shouting 'Votes for Women'?"

"I'll risk it. Will you come?"

She moved away, latch-key in hand.

"I don't know. I won't promise, anyway. Good-bye, and my best thanks."

There was a rush of light through an open door, a last bright smile, and he found himself alone in the street.



CHAPTER XIII

When Hal entered the sitting-room and met Dudley's eyes she felt, as she afterwards described it to Lorraine, that she was in for it. Yet it was not so very late, barely half-past nine. On the table her supper was still waiting for her.

"We've had a slight accident," she said, taking the bully by the horns; "something went wrong with the steering gear, and it delayed us. Have you had supper?" noticing the table was still laid for two.

"I always have supper at eight on Sundays, because Mrs. White has to clear it away herself, as you know. Isn't Dick coming in?"

"No. He's -" Hall stopped short, considering the advantages of prevarication.

"I wanted to see him," testily. "He said he would give me a particular address to-night. Why is he in such a hurry?"

"It wasn't Dick who brought me."

She took off her motor-bonnet and threw it on the sofa, running her hands through her bright hair, and rubbing her cheeks, which were a little cold.

"Not Dick?..." Dudley looked up from his book peremptorily. "Who did bring you?"

Hal took her seat at the table.

"Well, you see, we had a slight accident. We had just stopped to examine the steering gear, when another car came round a curve and crashed into us. Dick's car was damaged, and..." she reached across for the salad, and helped herself with as unconcerned an air as she could muster... "Oh!... onions!... how scrumptious!... Mrs. White always remembers my plebeian tastes, but not my patrician ones."

"Well!" he suggested coldly. "Dick's car was damaged, and -"

"Dick had to stay and nurse it."

"Then dit you come home by train?"

"There was no train. There was nothing else."

"Nothing else than what?"

"Nothing but the car that run into us, or going to an inn for the night with Dick. I was afraid you wouldn't like that," with a mischievous gleam.

"My likes and dislikes are not, apparently, of the smallest moment to you, or you would not have been motoring late on Sunday at all."

"Dick can't go other days."

"Who was in this other car?"

"A man."

Again he glanced up quickly.

"Any one else?"

"No. His chauffeur is down with 'flu'."

"Was it some one you knew, then?"

"No. He told me on the way in."

"Am I to gather that you returned to London alone, in a motor-car, with a perfect stranger?"

"I'm afraid you are."

"Why didn't Dick come with you? Surely if he takes you out for the day he might at least see you safely home. I never heard of such proceedings in my life. The man might have been a positive blackguard. Had you any idea who he was?"

"No, none; but what's the use of making a fuss! It's all right now, and I'm safely at home; which is surely better than being in some weird village all night, and you wondering what on earth had become of me."

"That is not the question. It's the whole circumstance from beginning to end. I consider Dick's behaviour most reprehensible."

"He couldn't leave his car alone there in the middle of a Kentish high road. He had to stay somewhere near."

"I think he should have considered you of more importance than the car. To let you return alone, at that hour, with a perfect stranger, is the most unheard of proceeding. I shall certainly tell Dick what I think of him."

"It wasn't Dick's fault," loyally. "I just took the matter into my own hands and came. Dick had nothing to do with it. In fact, I insisted upon his remaining behind."

"Oh, of course you would. You only seem to be happy when you are flying in the face of some convention or other. But Dick is older than you, and he knows my views on these matters. He owed it to me to see you safely home."

"But since I am safely home!..." obstinately.

"You very well might not have been. What the stranger himself must think of you I don't know. Have you any idea who he was?"

"Yes. Sir Edwin Crathie?"

"Sir Edwin Crathie! Do you mean the Cabinet Minister?"

"So he said."

"And did you tell him who you were?"

Again there was a gleam under the lowered lashes.

"I did; but I can't say he either recognised our historie name or seemed much impressed. I really don't believe he had ever heard of me."

Dudley refused to smile. Instead the frown deepened on his face.

"That is probably just as well. Your actions of late cannot be said to be entirely to your credit. What is this tale about Thursday night? I met St. Quintin's father with Uncle Bruce this morning in the Park. You told me Quin's aunt was going to chaperone you. Did she or did she not?"

"I told you Lady Bounce was going to chaperone me. Lady Bounce did chaperone me."

"Is Lady Bounce Quin's aunt?"

"That depends." Hal pushed away her chair, wishing vaguely that fathers and uncles would mind their own business. Either incident alone she could have coped with, but it was a distinct imposition to expect her to manage both at once, and on Sunday night into the bargain.

"I can only presume you lent yourself to such a vulgar proceeding as Quin dressing up as a woman and acting chaperone. Is that the truth?"

"Not entirely. You see, he wasn't an ordinary woman. He went as his aunt, Lady Phyllis Fenton. His personification was a masterpiece."

Dudley began to pace the room. His thin lips were compressed into a straight line, and his whole air distincly worried.

"What you seem quite unable to perceive is the way in which these incidents reflect upon your good taste and upon my guardianship."

Hal grew suddenly nettled.

"It is nonsense to talk of guardianship now. I am twenty-five, and I earn my own living. I am perfectly well able to take care of myself."

"No; that is just what you are not. You are so rash and inconsequent."

"Well, anyhow I get a good deal out of my life, while you -"

He remembered his own Thursday evening and intercepted:

"It is possible to get a great deal out of life without outraging every convention. Do you imagine either Ethel or Doris Hayward would do the wild things you do?"

"Ethel Hayward is a brick. She couldn't be straitlaced anyhow, nor narrow-minded. Doris would do anything under the sun that suited her own ends."

She got up, and turned away without perceiving his frown, beginning to gather up her paraphernalia. He stopped short in his walk.

"If it really was Sir Edwin Crathie who brought you home, I must write and thank him, I think."

"I shouldn't bother; probably it wasn't him at all; only some third-rate actor."

Dudley tried to see her face, not sure if she was serious or not, but she kept her head averted as she added:

"Quite possibly it was Lord Bounce."

"You are always treating a serious subject with levity," he complained. "What am I to think? Do you or do you not believe your escort was Sir Edwin Crathie?"

"Well, as he was awfully afraid I might be a militant suffragette, I think he really was a Cabinet Minister."

"I hope you entirely undeceived him on that score," drily.

"Not at all. I told him I was tingling to scratch him and bite him," and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

Dudley relapsed into silent displeasure, and for a few moments neither spoke. Then Hal, with her garments on her arm, came round to him with a frank, affectionate air.

"Dudley, don't make mountains out of molehills over nothing. I know I am a little wild. I can't help it - we seem to have got mixed up somehow. You've got all the decorum and nice, refined feelings of a charming woman, and I've got the enterprise and 'don't-care' spirit of a man. It isn't any use fighting against facts. You must take me as I am, and make the best of it. I can't change now; and I don't know that I would if I could."

"I don't suppose you would. You positively glory in the very traits that I deplore"; but his voice sounded mollified.

"Oh well, old man, you wouldn't like me to be helpless, and foolish, and woolly-lambified, would you? It wouldn't be half so interesting. Just fancy if you had a sister like Doris Hayward, can you imagine anything tamer?"

He stiffened again, but she did not notice it.

"As for Thursday night, you never ought to have heard about it, and you never would have done if Uncle Bruce had not been such an old telltale. Just wait till I get him alone; that's all. Anyhow, he didn't think it a heinous crime did he ? I expect he gave a great laugh that startled every one within hearing."

As that was exactly what had happened, Dudley made no comment.

"And Sir Edwin Crathie would only have thought me a fool if I had been afraid to come back with him. These things will happen occasionally. They are not worth worrying about. You are too anxious over trifles, Dudley." She moved away towards the door. "Well, good-night, don't forget to return thanks that anyhow I am not in a hospital, generally smashed up."

She left him, and retired to bed, feeling a little depressed. Of course he had not forgiven her, nor would he see things from her point of view. She almost wished he did not mind; but all her life she had had an affection that was almost adoration for her one brother, and it always depressed her to displease him, however indifferent she might seem.

She awoke next morning with the sense of depression still lingering, and set off for the City in far from her usual spirits. The office seemed dingy and dull, and the routine wearisome. It felt like ages and ages since she had driven home through the darkness in Sir Edwin's beautiful car. She wondered if it was real at all; only what else should make all the old friends at the office appear so uninteresting and commonplace.

She speculated a little forlornly as to whether she would ever be likely to see him again, and decided it was most unlikely, and that probably he had already forgotten the whole incident.

And just when she had reached that point in her meditations, the telephone boy came to tell her some one was asking for her. She asked him dispiritedly who it was, and he replied that the gentleman had declined to give a name.

Hal shut herself into the case, took down the receiver, and, still dispiritedly, asked: "Hullo! Are you there?"

"Is that Miss Pritchard?" asked a voice that made her pulses hasten.

"Yes? Who is that?"

"The mere worm," came back the cheery answer.

"What's the matter? You sound somewhat funereal. Was Brother Dudley very angry?"

"Terrible. I am still recovering. He seemed to have grave doubts as to whether you really were the eminent person you professed to be!"

"Oh, he did, did he? And what did you say?"

"That it was quite possible you were only a third-rate actor all the time."

"Thanks. I shall not grow vain on your compliments. Have you any grave doubts yourself?"

"I don't mind either way."

"Thanks again. Well, I am speaking to you from my own private sanctum at the House of Commons; and if you want to make sure, you can take my number, and ring up the Exchange and inquire."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Good girl. You don't sound quite so obstreperous as you were last night. What's the matter?"

"I'm only Mondayfied. The office is always boring on a Monday."

"I'm sorry I can't suggest a spin this afternoon, but I'm too much engaged until Wednesday. Will you come on Wednesday? Well?" as Hal, appeared to be meditating.

"Where do you propose going?" she asked.

"Anywhere you like. I'd better not fetch you from the office though. I'll pick you up just casually in St. Jame's Park. Will you be there at five, near the Archway?"

"All right, if I can get away. How shall I let you know if I change my mind?"

"Don't do anything so childish. The run will do you good after a stuffy office. I'll be there to the minute. Good-bye," and he rang off without waiting for a reply.

Hal went back to her work, with a pleasurable sensation that instead of grey stuffiness there was joyful sunshine. She had never imagined for a moment het would actually carry out his suggestion of a meetingt; and here they were with an actual appointment.

It was so odd, too, that they had not properly seen each other yet; only having met in the light of street lamps; and she fell to wondering eagerly what he was like in broad daylight. A voice whispered, "Perhaps you won't like him at all, and will wish you had not gone"; but her love of adventure easily silenced it, and she looked forward to her outing without any misgivings.

Once she thought she would go an tell Lorraine about it first, but later decided it would be more enjoyable to to so afterwards, and kept her own counsel; which perhaps was not entirely wise, seeing how much more cause Lorraine had to know the world than she had.



CHAPTER XIV

Sir Edwin Crathie had come to the front very rapidly under the auspices of the Liberal Government. Without having any special worth, he was sufficiently brilliant and unscrupulous to brush obstacles aside without compunction, and assert himself in a manner that impressed his hearers with the notion that he was very clever, very thorough, and very reliable.

Those who knew him superficially believed him extra-ordinarily clever. Those who knew him intimately sometimes shrugged their shoulders. He was possessed undoubtedly of a certain flashy sort of cleverness, but some of his greatest skill existed in imposing it upon others as strenght and insight.

As may be imagined, such a man was not much troubled with principles. If a step was likely to help him forward with his ambitions, he took it without considering the moral aspect. If no help was likely to follow, he only took it if it happened to please his fancy. To say that he had climbed by women was to put it mildly.

Many of his steps he had taken on women's hearts, trampling them mercilessly in the process. And since he was admittedly unscrupulous, it was not surprising, for he was possessed not only of an attractive appearance, but of great personal magnetism when he chose to exert it.

He was a bachelor because so far he had considered the single state best forwarded his aims, but a growing and imperative need for money was now causing him to look round among the richest heiresses for some one to pay his debts in consideration of being made Lady Crathie.

In the meantime Hal's independent spirit and freshness suggested an entertaining interlude; and as she attracted him more strongly than any woman had done of late, he decided to follow up their chance friendship just for the amusement of it.

In consequence, he felt quite boyishly eager for the hours to pass on Wednesday, and when at last it was time to start, dismissed his chauffeur with a curt sentence, and started off alone. The chauffeur, it may be mentioned, merely glanced after him, and with a shrug of his shoulders wondered "what the master was up to now."

When Sir Edwin reached the meeting-place he was not particularly surprised to find no signs of Hal. He believed she would come; but evidently she liked being perverse, and would purposely keep him waiting. He ran the car slowly back again, scanning each pedestrian ahead with a certain anxious eagerness, wondering how he would like her in broad daylight.

On returning to the Archway, and still finding no one waiting, he alighted with a pretence of examining some part of the car, and looked back over the paths leading down from Piccadilly.

And something in his mental regions felt rather foolishly glad when he recognised her afar off.

He had never seen her walk, but his instinct told him Hal would move with just the graceful, swinging stride of the tall, slim figure coming towards him, and carry her head and shoulders with just such a dauntless, grenadier attitude.

He found himself standing quite still, with his hands deep in his overcoat pockets, watching her. Her costume, too, pleased his fastidious taste. Of course a first-class tailor had cut a coat and skirt with a fit and hang like that; and the small hat, if it had nothing Parisian about it, anyhow suited the wearer and dress to perfection.

He noted with quiet pleasure that she showed no signs of embarrassment when she met his watching gaze, merely crossing the road with the same jaunty, upright walk, and a gleam of fun in her eyes.

"Hullo!" was her greeting. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting. I've had a busy afternoon helping my chief to give you and The Right Honourable Hayes Matheson a good slanging."

"Oh, you have, have you?"

The grey eyes were growing more and more approving, as he noted each detail most likely to appeal to a man who had made a study of women for many years. The shapely little ears with the glossy hair curling round them, the full, rounded throat, the determined little chin, the frank, fearless eyes.

He still hardly knew whether she was pretty or not, but he discerned wery quickly that she was amply blessed with that rare gift of personality and humour that is so much more durable than a pretty face.

Hal, for her part, was no less interested in him, but she found little else than that she had already seen: humorous, quizzical grey eyes, a face a good deal lined, and a mouth and chin suggesting a nature fond of enjoyment and self-indulgence, which it had never seen any cause to deny itself. She saw that he was very grey about the temples, and a trifle inclined to stoutness, but tall enough and broad enough to carry it off.

A fine figure of a man, though one, she felt instinctively, belonging to a very different world to hers. Because she felt his careful scrutiny, and because she wanted to assert her indifference to it, she remarked suddenly, after a moment:

"Well, how do you like me by daylight?"

"How do you like me?" he retorted, and laughed.

She shook her head, and her eyes grew mischievous.

"Old," she said; "quite old and grey."

"Old be damned! Forty-eight is the prime of life."

She was taking her seat, and gave a low chuckle of enjoyment at having drawn him.

"Ah, you may laugh now," he said, "but I'll soon show you forty-eight is far more attractive than twenty-eight. Where shall we go?"

"I don't mind in the least, but I should prefer to steer for tea and buns."

"Tea and buns!... how like a woman!... How can you expect to get the vote on tea and buns?"

They were spinning along the Broughton Road now, heading for Putney and Richmond, and Hal felt her spirits rising momentarily with the joy of the motion and comfort and fresh air.

"We don't expect to get in on tea and buns; we expect to get it on whisky and beer. That is to say, we expect the course of events to prove that tea and buns conduce to a frame of mind better able to cope with the questions of the day than the whisky and beer drained in such quantities by men."

"And when you've got it you'll all vote for the man who happens to be good-looking, and who can pay you the prettiest compliments."

"A few will vote that way, no doubt, but not the majority. Women are not so fond of pretty men as they were"; and her lips curled significantly.

"Pretty men!..." he echoed, with enjoyment.

"Little woman, you have a neat way of putting things."

He was silent a few minutes, then added:

"I suppose, down at that office they are all in love with you?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked them," with twinkling eyes. "I'm a bit in love with the chief myself."

"Oh, your are, are you? And what aged man might he be?"

"Oh, he's quite old," she laughed; "somewhere about forty-eight."

"And is he in love with you?"

"It just depends. Sometimes he's rather fond of me on a Saturday; but on Mondays he loathes me."

"I see. And are you as changeable?"

"No, I love him always; but on Mondays it's mostly from habit. On Saturdays it's from choice."

He looked down at her, and it was on the tip of his tongue to state some commonplace about being jealous. Then suddenly he looked back to his steering wheel, and the commonplace sentence died unspoken. Quite unaccountably he felt less inclined to flirt and more inclined to be really friendly, and for some distance they skimmed along in silence.

They had tea at the Star and Garter, both chatting volubly on the most interesting topics of the day. Hal's newspaper work had made her cognisant of many subjects very few girls of her age would even have heard of, and her original criticisms delighted him. It was a gay little tea-table, and the time slipped by with extraordinary rapidity. Hal noticed it first.

"Do you know it is half-past six?" she said, "and I'm dining out to-night. We must fly."

"Is it really past six?..." in astonishment. "How the time has flown! You know, you are such an entertaining little woman, you make me forget everything but yourself." He looked at her hard, and the force of habit caused him to add: "I doubt if any other woman I know to-day could have given me so much pleasure."

"Well, you needn't thank me," with her low, fresh laugh, "because I came entirely to give myself pleasure."

"Then I hope you have succeeded. I see it is quite hopeless to expect any sort of a complimentary speech from you."

"Quite; though I don't mind admitting I have been very enjoyably entertained as well."

"That is something, anyhow. And now I suppose you are going straight off home to dress, and dine with some one else, and forget about me?"

"I don't suppose I shall forget you. It happens to be a journalist dinner, and probably we shall tear you to pieces between us before we have finished."

"Well, I'd rather you did that than forget me."

She felt him looking hard into her face, with something a little sinister in his expression, and she got up and turned away.

"Why do you turn away when I am interested? Don't you think you might be a little pleased that I don't want you to forget me?"

He asked the question with a humorous twinkle, though she felt that he meant it seriously as well. This last, however, she was clever enough to ignore, and merely threw him a mischievous glance over her shoulder as she answered:

"Well, I have to consider Brother Dudley's attitude, you see; and I've a notion he would be best pleased for both the incident and motorist of Sunday evening to be forgotten."

He got up slowly, looking amused.

"I suppose he would be horrified at this outing?"

"I strongly suspect he would."

"What if he hears you were out motoring at Richmond with me?"

"Oh, well, I shall tell him you are old enough to be my father, and not to be absurd."

"Why do you harp on my age so?... If I am old enough to be your father, it doesn't follow that I'm too old to be your lover?"

He was standing clos to her now, looking down into her face, and Hal felt a little conscious tremor run through her blood. She faced him squarely, however, and answered in a gay, careless voice:

"Of course it doesn't, only, as I don't happen to want a lover, it's a contingency not worth considering."

"Perhaps the post is already filled?" he suggested, refusing likewise to be daunted.

"Quite filled. It's a case for a placard stating 'House Full', and you," she finished, "would naturally be at the tail end of the queue which has to go away."

He laughed with relish, and gave it up.

"I can see you will take some taming," he said, as he handed her into the car. "My weighty and important position evidently does not impress you in the least."

"Of course not, as you're a Liberal. They have so few really good men, they have to take anything they can get. Back up the Budget and the Chancellor, and exhibit a colossal amount of impudence, and there you are!"

"Well, there isn't much to boast of in the way of men on the Conservative side, is there? Chiefly a collection of cousins, and second-cousins, and cousins by marriage, shoved in by a few interfering old aunts. You don't need me to tell an enlightened young woman like you that even impudence might serve the country better than cousin-ship."

"I wonder sometimes if any of you honestly put the country first at any time; or whether it is just a popular name for a very big 'me'?"

"You are such a little sceptic. Do you always credit people with self-interested motives?"

"I don't know that I do; but if you are a city-worker it is a fairly safe basis to work upon, until you can find proof that you are wrong."

He looked down at her with amusement.

"What a wise little head it is! Do you know, I don't think I ever met any one quite like you before,"

"What you have missed!" was the gay rejoinder, and they both laughed.

"I suppose I mustn't take you home?" as they neared Piccadilly. "Brother Dudley might see us?"

"No, thanks. If you will drop me at Hyde Park Corner I will take a homely bus, and return to my Bloomsbury level."

"Until my next free afternoon, I hope. Will you come again soon?"

"Perhaps."

"What do you do on Sundays?"

"I generally go out with Dick Bruce."

"Does Dick Bruce consider himself entitled to every Sunday?"

"Well, I consider myself entitled to Dick!..." laughing.

"You're evidently very fond of Dick."

"Very," with enthousiasm. "I have been for twenty-five years. We were like the two babies in Punch which said, 'Help yourself and pass the bottle.'"

"Dick's a lucky devil. Does he take Saturday afternoons as well?"

"No; he plays cricket or hockey then."

"Then may I have a Saturday afternoon?"

"It would be jolly;" and a swift gleam in her eyes told him she meant it.

""Very well. I shall consider that a promise. The first Saturday I can arrange, we'll run down to some little place on the coast, and get some sea air. And if you feel inclined to write me a letter between now and then, send it to York Chambers, Jermyn Street."

He pulled up, and instantly she exclaimed in haste:

"Oh, there's my bus. Good-bye, thanks awfully; I must fly"; and before he could get in another word, he saw her clambering on to a motor-omnibus, with the utmost unconcern for his sudden, astonished solitarness.

"Gad!... what a woman she'll be one day," was his comment. "If she'd a hundred thousand pounds I wouldn't mind marrying her myself; she'd never let a chap get bored. I'll warrant," He moved slowly down Piccadilly. "Most of them do," he cogitated; "it doesn't seem as if there were one woman in a thousand who didn't soon become a bore. Heigh-ho, but debts are more boring still sometimes, and I want a fifty-thousand cheque badly."



CHAPTER XV

When Hal went to tell Lorraine of her adventure she found her a victim of the prevailing malady, kept indoors two days with influenza. She was not in bed, but lying on a sofa, by a small fire, looking very frail and ill. Hal did not say much, as Lorraine disliked fussing, but her heart smote her to think she had been absent two days while her friend was a prisoner.

"Why didn't you tell Jean to 'phone me?" she asked. "I would have got here somehow."

Instead of answering, Lorraine nestled down into her cushions, and said:

"It's dreadful nice to see you, chummy."

Hal drew up a footstool, and sat down with her head against the sofa.

"What does the court physician say, Lorry? Of course he is generally fathering and brothering and mothering you as well as doctoring?"

"Yes; he is taking care of me in a sort of all-round, comprehensive fashion. I don't know what I should do without him."

"Do! ... "with a little laugh. "Why, just have another court physician instead." Hal's eyes strayed round the room. "What loverly flowers, Lorraine! Don't they almost make you feel a corpse?"

"They would if they were white, I dare say."

On a little table by the sofa was a bowl of violets, looking very sweet and homely amoung the beautiful exotics filling all the other vases. Hal buried her nose in them.

"How delicious! Who ventured to send you royal highness anything so homely as violets?"

Lorraine's eyes rested on them with a look of tenderness. "Some one not very well off," she said, "who had the perspicacity to know I should value them from him more than the choicest blooms."

"It sounds as if it might have been Dick. Was it?"

"No."

Lorraine replied in a careless tone, suggesting there was no special interest attached to the giver, but, for some unknown reason, Hal chose to be inquisitive.

"The Three Graces are your only 'hard-up' friends, and Quin is down east, so he would not know you were ill. Surely Baby didn't think it at all out by himself, and actually go into a shop and buy them?"

"You shouldn't call Mr. Hermon Baby, Hal; it isn't quite fair."

"Oh, yes it is, as long as he is so objectless and purposeless. Besides, his face is to cherubic I can't help it."

"I call his face very manly."

"Well, so it is - in a way: but it's cherubic also; and then he's so dreadfully placid. If he'd only wake up, and boil over about something."

She was silent a few moments, and then said suddenly;

"Do you know Sir Edwin Crathie, Lorraine?"

"No; why? I now of him."

"What do you know of him?"

"Oh, nothing much. I believe he is a great lady's man."

"I've met him," said Hal; and she proceeded to tell of the motor mishap and subsequent meeting.

Lorraine was interested and amused, but for some strange reason Hal did not tell the tale with her usual gusto, and nothing in her voice or manner suggested it was more than the most casual of meetings. Lorraine, a little preoccupied with her own feelings, for a wonder did not discern that Hal treated the incident with a lightness not quite natural, considering how exceedingly unlooked-for it was, and before the recital was quite finished Jean looked in to inquire if Lorraine would see Mr. Hermon. Lorraine replied in the affirmative, and a moment later Alymer Hermon entered the room.

"I'm so sorry you are not well," he said, in his frank, pleasant way. "I only heard of it last night."

"And then you sent me violets. It was nice of you. I appreciate them so much."

"I guessed Dick," put in Hal, who had not risen from her stool. "I did not think you would have the energy to think of them."

"I have been feeling rather exhausted since," he told her lightly.

"Take the arm chair," said Lorraine smilingly, "and have a good rest."

"Do," echoed Hal. "I'm sure you are tired out with your day's work."

"Don't be so superior," he retorted. "Just because you can type a certain number of words per minute, you give yourself such airs."

"Well, that's a better reason than the fact of being a few inches longer than most people."

"Now you two," put in Lorraine, "don't start quarrelling in such a hurry. Try and be nice and polite to each other for a few minutes."

"Baby doesn't like me when I'm polite," said Hal.

"I've never had a chance to judge."

"Liar. What about the first time we met?"

"I thought you were rather nice in those days. Your offensive attitude is only of comparatively recent date."

"Oh, don't sit there like a stodgy old book-worm, reeling off nicely rounded sentences."

"I hope it might impress you with the incongruity of addressing me as an infant."

Hal looked up from her lowly seat with a mischievous, engaging expression.

"You know you really are rather clever in a useless sort of fashion," she informed him.

"Thank you," making a bow.

"Can't you tell him how to be clever in a useful sort of fashion, with all your practical experience?" suggested Lorraine.

"Oh, I could; but what's the use? he doesn't want to know. It would mean hard work."

"Give him the benefit of a suggestion, anyhow."

"Well, other briefless barristers peg away at journalism, and political agency work, and coaching, and studying. Baby just sits down and looks nice, as if he thought the briefs would come fluttering round him like all the silly, pink-cheeked, wide-eyed girls. You ought to have seen our little maid the night he dined with us. When she first saw him she seemed to mutter 'O my' in a breathless fashion, and when she handed him his plate, she spilt all the gravy on to his knee, gazing into his face."

Hermon looked a little annoyed. "Very few people can talk absolute rot in a clever way," he aimed at her.

Hal laughed.

"Why, that drew you, Baby! You look quite ruffled. I was only pulling your leg: the pink-cheeked girls don't really flutter round, they run away in terror at your scowl. You know he can scowl, Lorraine. At least it isn't exactly a scowl; it'smore a cast-iron solemnity of such degree that it has a Medusa-like effect and freezes the poor little peach-blossom girls into putty images."

"I'm sure Mr. Hermon never gives his personal appearance a thought," Lorraine replied, "except when you insist upon harping on it."

"I can't help it. I feel he's hemmed in with such a sticky, treacly, simpering amount of youthful adoration generally, that I simply have to rag him for his good!"

"It's very kind of you to be so interested in my welfare" - a twinkle gleamed suddenly in his blue eyes - "I certainly like your way of adoring the best."

"Ah" - with an answering twinkle - "I didn't think you had guessed my secret. How embarrassing of you! You have positively driven me away." She rose to her feet. "I must go, Lorry. I can't sit out any more. He has discovered that I adore him."

"You both seem rather imbecile to-night," Lorraine commented; "but surely it needn't drive you away, Hal."

"I must go all the same. We have visitors coming. I shall run in again to-morrow. Be sure and 'phone me if there is anything I can do for you." She kissed Lorraine, and turned to Hermon. "Good-bye. Don't display all your best allurements to Lorraine this evening, because she isn't strong enough for it. Remember my unhappy plight, and let one victim satisfy you for the present."

"What about your victims?" he asked. "Dick is kicking the toes of his boots thin because he saw you yesterday with Sir Edwin Crathie."

Hal coloured up, much to her own disgust, and greatly to Hermon's enjoyment, who immediately followed up his advantage with:

"I suppose we shall all have to cry small now, because of the right honourable gentleman."

"It will be a puzzler for you to cry small," was her rather feeble retort, as she passed out.

Hermon came back and reseated himself in the big arm chair.

"May I stay?" he asked, and Lorraine answered:

"Yes, do," in the frank spirit she had told herself must be her attitude towards him.

So he sat on with an air of content, seeming to fill some place in the pretty room by right of an old comradeship, or some blood-tie, or a mutual understanding - an intangible, indefinable attitude that had sprung into being between them of itself.

Lorraine did not talk much, because she was tired, but she let the goodly sight of him, and the quiet rest of him, lull and soothe her senses for the passing moment without any disturbing questioning. Hermon likewise did not question. He liked being there, and she seemed willing for him to stay, and it seemed enough.

Once or twice lately he was conscious that he had been rather foolish with different admiring friends of the fair sex; and though he was no prig, and knew most men took kisses and caressess when offered, and would have thought it a needless throwing away of good things to refuse, he yet felt a little irritated with himself and the givers without quite knowing why.

And there was another trying incident over a girl he had met at various country-houses the previous summer, and greatly enjoyed a flirtation with. Unfortunately, she appeared not to have understood it in the light of a flirtation; and now she was writing him miserable, reproachful love-letters which had at any rate succeeded in making him wish he had been more circumspect. It soothed his ruffled feelings to be with Lorraine; and it flattered his vanity to feel that she liked him there.

They had been sitting quietly some little time when the front-door bell announced another caller, and Jean came to inquire if her mistress would see Lord Denton. Lorraine half unconsciously glanced at Hermon, and seeing an expression of disappointment on his face, said quietly. "Ask him to come to-morrow, Jean. I am very tired to-night."

Jean went away, and presently returned with a loverly bouquet of malmaisons, and three or four new books. "His lordship will call about twelve," she said: "and he hopes, if you feel able to go out, you will let him take you in his motor." Then she went out, leaving them alone again.

In the pause that followed, Lorraine lay silently watching him for some minutes, wondering what was passing in his mind. Although it was only September still, the evenings were drawing in quickly, and there was little light in the room except the flickering glow of cheerful flames on the hearth. They caught the glint of his hair and shone on his face, throwing the delicate, aristocratic features with cameo-like dinstinctness on the black shadow beyond.

Lorraine looked again, with the eyes of a connoisseur, and she knew that in very truth no merely handsome face and form were here, but a nature and character corresponding to the outward beauty of line and lineament. She wondered once more as she lay there what it must be to have borne such a son; and a surging, aching, tearing pain filled her heart for the longing to have known from experience. She felt she could have been a saint among women for very joy, and an ideal companion, as well as a mother to such as he.

And instead? -

Well, there were murky corners in the background for her as well as her mother, but never from actual seeking. When necessity had not driven her, loneliness had, and the gnawing ache of a fine, fearless soul to grasp some satisfaction from the sorry scheme of things. And always the satisfaction had passed so quickly... so quickly, driving the starved soul back on itself again, with a little extra weight added to its burden of bitter knowledge.

Was there then no counterpart for her - no twin soul - no strong, true comrade, to say "You and I" when sorrow and disillusion came, and so rob pain of its deepest sting?

Then, as if he felt her scrutiny, he turned his face to her slowly, and looked into her eyes.

"You know you are looking rather bad," he said a little awkwardly and shyly. "I'm awfully sorry. I hope you are taking care of yourself."

"I don't suppose I should worry much if left to myself," she told him, with a touch of lightness; "but a very stern physician, and a most resolute maid, insist upon giving me every possible attention."

"It doesn't tire you... my being here?..."

"No; I like it."

"I wonder why?"

"Do you always want to know the why of things?"

"I'm afraid I don't as a rule bother much, but this is a little amazing, isn't it?"

"I don't see why you should think so."

He studied the fire again.

"Only that you are at the top of the ladder, and I am at the bottom."

"I was once there too."

"And did it seem as if it would be impossible ever to reach the top?"

"Yes, often. I don't think anything but resolute, iron determination ever takes any one up. Influence helps a good many up the lower rungs, and saves them a lot of the drudgery, but it cannot do much else, and unless one is full of grit and purpose at heart, one sticks there."

"Still, it must be a great help to be pulled through the drudgery."

"It may mean a good deal of loss also."

"How?"

"I don't suppose success that is won through favour means half so much to the winner as success that is wrenched from Fate by one's own resolute hands. The only thing is, one wonders so often afterwards if it has been worth while."" "Do you wonder that?"

"Ah!... don't I?"

He said nothing, and she went on:

"All the same, I imagine I had to succeed or die. I was built that way. Nothing less than success would have satisfied me. I often crave for quiet, restful happiness now, but if it had been offered then I should have passed it by and struggled blindly for fame. Still, it is hard to think how easily one can take a false step, and suffer for it till the end."

"Did you do that?"

He turned his eyes to her again, and she saw as sympathy in them that was deeper than any feeling he had shown her yet.

"Yes. I was in a very tight corner, and I took a short cut out. I married for money and influence. The step brought me all I anticipated, but it brought other things as well, that I had chosen not to remember: nausea, ennui, self-disgust, loneliness, emptiness. I think I should never have won through without Hal."

"And is your husband living?"

"Yes. In America. We have not troubled each other for a long time. I suppose I am fortunate in being left alone." She was silent a few minutes, and then she told him kindly: "Hal says they always chaff you about marrying an heiress, for the sake of being rich without any need to work; but take my advice, and don't force the hand of Fate before she has had time to give you good things in her own time."

He turned to her with a very engaging smile as he answered:

"They chaff me about a good many things, but most of them are a little wide of the mark. I haven't any leaning at present towards a paid post as husband."

"I'm glad; but I didn't for a moment suppose you had seriously. I wonder what you have a leaning towards?" she added.

"I should like to succeed." He sat forward suddenly and leaned his chin on his hands, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared hard at the flames. "I care a great deal more about succeeding really than any one believes; but I'm afraid I'm not cut out for it."

"I should like to help you," she said simply.

"You are very good," he answered, still looking hard into the fire.

Lorraine got up and moved slowly about the room, touching a flower here, and a flower there, and rearranging them with deft fingers. She turned on an electric light with a soft shade, and glanced at the books Flip Denton had brought her.

Hermon sat back in his chair and watched her. He thought he had never seen her lovelier than she looked in the homely simplicity of a graceful tea-gown, and her thick black hair coiled in a large loose knot low on her neck. It gave her an absurdly youthful air, that somehow seemed far removed from the brilliant star as he knew her on the stage.

Then she came towards him, and stood beside him, resting one foot on the fender and one hand on the mantelpiece; and he saw, with swift seeing, the shapeliness of the long, thin fingers and the graceful, rounded arm.

"You are thoughtful, mon ami," she said, with a soft lightness. "Tell me what you are thinking of."

"I don't know. I don't think I am thinking at all. I feel rather as if I were sunning myself in your smiles, like a cat."

"You like being here, like this?"

"I love it."

"Then come often. Why not?"

"I shall bore you."

"I think not. It is pleasant to me also to have some one keeping me company in such a natural, homely way. You see, I am very much alone. I have no women friends except Hal, who is nearly always engaged; and there are not many men one can invite to come and sit by one's fireside. You seem to come so naturally and simply. It is clever of you. Very few men could. It is difficult to believe you are only twenty-four."

"I fancy years often do not go for very much. I have travelled about alone a great deal. Anyhow, you are just as young for thirty-two as I am old for twenty-four."

"Hal has helped to keep me young. She restores me like some patent elixir. I suppose I love her more than any one in the world."

"I'm not surprised," he answered. "A good many people love Hal. Dick and Quin just dote on her."

She looked at him keenly a moment.

"I am spared wasting my affection," he added, "by her obvious contempt for me."

"She doesn't mean any of it. She only wants to rouse you."

"Still, she succeeds in making me feel rather a worm."

Lorraine made no comment, but she could not resist a little inward smile at the thought of any one making such a man feel a worm. She realised there might be no harm in the leavening influence.

The clock struck seven, and he gave a start, rising quickly to his feet beside her. Lorraine was a little under medium height if anything, and as they stood together he seemed to tower above her like some splendid prehistoric human, while she appeared as some exquisite miniature, or frail and perfect piece of Dresden china.

And again it seemed as if his physical beauty acted upon her with some irresistible magnetism, flowing round her and over her and through her, till she was enveloped and obsessed by him.

His age was nothing, years are mere detail; she felt only that he was a splendid creature, and everything in her gloried in it. She rested her hand lightly on his arm.

"How big you are. You almost overpower me."

He smiled down at her, but it was just a quiet, friendly smile, and she could not tell if her touch stirred him.

"I'm afraid I am rather a monster. It is sometimes a nuisance."

"Ah, don't say that. I am quite sure the first Adam was as big as you, and Eve was frightened and ran away, but she wouldn't for the world have had him an inch smaller. And every true Eve since has gloried in the man who towered above her, and was a little terrifying in his strenght. Don't let them spoil you," she added with a note of wistfulness, "all the Eves who must needs follow with or without your bidding."

"I imagine Hal will counteract much of that; and the feeling, when I am with you, that I am just a great, brainless, useless animal."

"No; you are not that; and you are quite extraordinarily unspoilt as yet. Come and see me again soon, when you've nothing better to do."

"How soon?"

He was looking hard into her face now, almost as if he were only just fully realising her beauty, and she flushed a little as she met his ardent eyes and answered:

"As soon as you like."

"Friday is my first free evening."

"The come and dine here quietly. I shall not act this week at all. I shall run down to the sea from Saturday to Monday."

She had intended to go on Friday afternoon, but with his nearness all Flip Denton's sage advice vanished from her mind, and instead of running away as he urged, she went a step nearer to the temptation.

When he had gone she sat down in the arm chair he had used, and stared hard at the fire. Jean came in to urge her to go to bed, but she only said:

"No; I like this room and the fire. Bring me the fish, or whatever it is, here. I will go to bed about half-past eight if you like, but not before."

So she sat on, and in her heart she saw still the fine face, with its unspoiled freshness, and felt his presence still filling the room.

It would seem Fate had brought her and Hal together into the arena of new happenings and new feelings, for amont the crowded houses of Bloomsbury, in a little high-up bedroo near the sky, Hal sat on the edge of her bed leisurely brushing her long, bright hair, and pondering a telephone message that had asked her to go for a motor ride the following Saturday.

"It means putting Amy off," was her final cogitation, "but I think I'll go. It wil be such fun, and I'm rather sick of work."

So, in spite of strong wills and common-sense warning, we still, as ever, let our footsteps follow the alluring paths, and go boldly forth to meet a joy, ever careless of the following sorrow that may accompany it, until the hour of shunning is past.



CHAPTER XVI

The following Friday afternoon Lorraine went out with Flip Denton in his motor, and among his first questions was:

"Well, how is the foolish falling in love progressing?"

"It is stationary. I've got another friend I want to keep, Flip; another friend like you."

"Ah, I can't pass that. You were never even remotely in sight of falling in love with me. And you know what Kipling says: 'Love's like line-work; you can't stand still, you must go backward or forward.' You don't propose to take my advice and run away from it?"

"Not before I am sure there is danger, anyhow."

They were silent some moments, then she asked him:

"Do men ever run away, Flip?... My experience has been that the average man always has a good try to get what he wants, without much consideration for outside things, or for youth, or for harm."

"That's because beautiful women necessarily come up against the worst in men. It is their fate: one of the balancing conditions perhaps to make things more even with the less-favoured women."

"I suppose great beauty generally undoes a woman. Is it the same with men too? It seems a pity when Nature produces anything beautiful she should not guard it better - beautiful flowers, beautiful birds, beautiful creatures all ravished the quickest; while the little, comfortable daisies, and sparrows, and homely people go serenely on unharmed."

He did not reply, and they sped along in the understanding silence they were both so fond of.

Denton was thinking, as a man may, of various pretty faces that had been the undoing of their owners, and wondering a little dimly and confusedly about the paradoxical contrariness of Nature, who gives a man his strongest desires nearly always towards forbidden ends. Why create a beautiful thing, and then create a longing for it, and then probably descend in wrath upon both heads which did but follow the bent she herself had given them?

Lorraine was wondering a little bitterly why a man may taste forbidden fruit again and again and go unpunished; and why a woman, so often set amid sterner temptations, was yet left so strangely unprotected: the one so quickly able to put an incident aside, and seek fresh fields for conquest; the other so terribly liable to be branded for life in that same incident.

It made a bitterness surge up in her soul for her own unprotected girlhood and struggling youth; and for all they had brought her to learn of the tree of knowledge. No doubt she had been callous enough about it at the time; eager only to dare, and triumph, and achieve; but how should it have been otherwise, since no kindly guiding hand had told her she was wasting her powers and her substance to achieve an end that would never satisfy her soul?

Did she even know she had a soul that would presently crave a satisfaction found only among the higher and better things, and turn away with infinite scorn from the petty triumphs of an hour or a day?

Well, she had fought her fight with the rest, and triumphed greatly in the world's eyes; and now she must abide by the path she had chosen, and glean the best satisfaction she could out of it.

And yet -

Later in the afternoon, when she sat drinking a lonely cup of tea by a lonely fireside, the questioning, probing mood returned again; the significant "and yet" still left the last conclusion without any finality. Looking backward, a sense of resentment seemed to creep over her; a combative desire to get even with Fate about many things while there was time nd opportunity.

She remembered particularly the first man who had tried to lead her astray. He had been considerably more than twice her age, a hardened sinner without any compunction, with a devilish cunning at breaking down defences without any seeming over-persuasion, and at whitewashing his actions into passionate devotion to youngn inexperienced years. She remembered how she had struggled to resist him. It was good to remember now that she had not been his victim.

And yet, what of it, while such men could triumph again and again and go seemingly unpunished, and young, eager, ambitious souls were often so pitifully stranded at the beginning of a career?

Men of his age and his character usually did triumph. How often had she seen it since! The first wrong step not a generous-hearted, hot-headed youth; but a hardened sinner who had wearied of other hardened sinners and turned his evil designs to youth and freshness, hoping perchance to be rejuvenated thereby.

And Nature stood by with folded hands, and saw her fairest creations soiled and ravished before they had reached maturity, without apparently the smallest compunction.

Her first wrong step had been her marriage, and though it had given her a good deal in the beginning, in the end how it had robbed her!... ah! how it had robbed her of those things that could never be won back.

And now, by an unlooked-for turn of events, she found herself among the world-wearied ones, asking for the divine freshness of youth. If she chose to make him love her she believed she could.

And yet? -

She stood beside the window and leaned her haid against the framework, gazing at the river. It was gliding smoothly along now, beautified and glorified by the reflected light of a setting sun. How light transfigured!

The murky, muddy, sullen Thames, so often going with its countless burdens, as one enslaved unwillingly to the needs of commerce, now flashing, shining, silver waters hastening joyfully out to sea. She felt that often and often her life had been as the shadowed, murky waters, enslaved unwillingly by bonds that circumstances had created.

She thought how his life, the life of this man who was beginning to fill her soul, was still like the joyous, shining, waters reflecting sunlight. Was it possible she wanted to bring the shadows and dim its silver radiance for her own gratifications?

And even so, was it in any case likely to go undimmed much longer? The shadows were certain enough to come, if not through her, perhaps through some one with less soul, and less fineness of aim, who would do him far greater harm. Her love for him was not, at least, entirely selfish.

She knew that she cared very much for his future. She cared very much that life should give him a chance to fulfill the best of his promise.

And if the chance came by shadows, well, across the river of a man's life they flitted lightly enough as a rule, chasing each other away, and leaving the waters still flowing joyfully. It was only for a woman, apparently, the shadows left a stain that even the sunlight could not chase away.

It would seem woman was made a helpmeet for man in many ways beside that of keeping his home and bearing his children. How often dit he owe his best development and best achievements to her, absorbing light from her in some mysterious ordering, and soaring away afterwards while she was left among the shadows.

Yet, by some equally mysterious compensation, a woman was often so fashioned that if she could feel the upward flight was won through her, she might rest statisfied even though him she loved had soared away. It was the mother-love blending strangely with the wife-love; the protecting, inspiring, unselfish, mothering instinct, lying in the soul of every true-hearted woman.

Standing gazing at the flashing river, Lorraine, in the midst of her probing, knew that it was his ultimate success and good she wanted, as well as his freshness to sweeten her own life.

And yet? -

What if she brought a shadow where there would otherwise have been no shadow, dimmed a brightness that, without her, had gone undimmed? She knew he was not weak naturally. He did not need any strengthening; only impetus, ambition, aim, and some safeguarding by the way.

She smiled a little drearily at the recollection that it was from her, herself, that probably his own people would think he needed safeguarding. She could foresee that they would likely enough hurl themselves between him and her, oblivious that by doing so they might very possibly be the cause of driving him to far worse. But that, of course, no one could help; as how should they know the fine shades between the women who lived outside the conventions?

But then again, they need not know that the great friendship existed - why should they? After all, few would credit the celebrated, beautiful actress with anything beyond a passing fancy for the youthful, briefless barrister.

And yet? -

Across every fresh pathway she turned her thoughts along, was still that arresting, intangible, "and yet".

The pity of it! At least he was strong, and true, and unspoilt now. Why not give life a chance to leave him so?

Why not give Fate a chance to endow him quickly with the rich, blessed love that kept a man walking straight and strong along his steadfast way?

But again the thought came back of what he would lose, what he must inevitably lose, if he missed the storm and stress and struggle that are as the mill and furnace through wich the gold is refined, and hardened, and separated from the dross.

She went back to the fireside feeling that her probing had brought her nowhither, and that she was only very tired and very depressed.

Then she went slowly away to dress, and chose, somewhat to Jean's surprise, one of the simplest evening frocks she possessed. Jean, knowing the tall, beautiful new friend was coming to dinner, had laid out an elaborate dinner-dress, and arranged the jewel cases for selection.

"Put them away at once," was all her mistress said, with one sweeping glance round. "I shall wear that little blue Liberty gown and a single row of pearls."

When Alymer came he found her already seated by the fire, engaged with some knitting.

"How nice and homely," he said. "I never associated you with anything so commonplace as sewing."

"I'm afraid I can't sew very well," with a little smile. "I can knit this, and that is about all."

"Are you better?" and he scanned her face critically, in an old-fashioned way that gave her secret yoy.

"Yes, sir, thnak you," with a low laugh.

He laughed too, and took up his stand on the hearthrug, with his hands behind his back, in a natural, quite-at-home way, that seemed to come easily to him.

"How jolly it is to see a fire. My mater always seems afraid of beginning too soon. I think she has a sort of feeling that if winter sees fires started he will hurry."

"I never leave them off. My fire is one of my staunchest companions. An empty grate always depresses me, because if it is sunny and hot I want to be out-of-doors, and if it is not, I want my fire. Let us go to dinner, then we can get back and purr over it to our hearts' content."

Because it pleased her to make him an honoured guest, Lorraine had been at considerable pains in ordering her dinner, and she was gratified to observe that it was not wasted on him.

Certainly, among other things at Oxford he had learnt to know a good dinner and good wine, and enjoy them as a connoisseur. It amused her also to observe that the old-fashioned air with which he had inquired a little masterfully after her health, grew upon him as the evening progressed.

She thought he must be a little bit of a tyrant to his mother, and any one he was specially fond of. Not dictatorially so, but with a humorous, half-satirical insistence that was very engaging.

When the sat over the fire together, later, she found herself telling him many things about her early struggles, and first successes, not in the least in a "talking down" attitude, but as to a very sympathetic companion of her own age.

It was evident he was truly interested, and this made him a charming listener. And he told her yet further of his own hopes, and disappointments, and discouragements. Several times since he took his degree, one friend or another had held out hopeful expectations of being able to put him on to this case of that, which might bring a brief. And always the hope had failed, and the promise ended in smoke.

She gave him sympathy in her turn, and said she would not raise his expectations unkindly, but she believed she could really help him to get a start. She would speak to Lord Denton about it. He was always ready to do a little thing like that for her.

"He is one of those dear people," she told him, "who seem to try to make up for their own incorrigible laziness by going out of their way to put some one else in the way of a start."

She saw the colour deepen in his face, and a subdued light shine in his eyes, as he thanked her rather haltingly. The little show of diffidence was very charming. How far removed, how amazingly far removed he was from the average good-looking youth of twenty-four, who was usually so anxious to impress every one with his attributes and his powers.

And he was not even average. Every time she saw him she wondered afresh at his extraordinary wealth of attraction. One could have forgiven him a few airs and mannerisms; but no forgiveness was asked: in every single phrase she found him always the modest, unassuming, high-bred gentleman.

So they sat on and talked, and for the time being the warfare of the afternoon passed from her mind. Probing seemed suddenly out of place. Why probe?... Their friendship had slipped of itself into an old companionship. What need for more? She knew instinctively he would come often to fill her lonely hours, and tell her all about his work and his doings.

And sometimes they would go out together on little jaunts. If they did, who need know, or who, at any rate, need gossip? She felt a gladness grow in her mind at the thought of the happy friendship they might have; guarded perhaps from harm by the disparity in their years, and at the same time of inestimable benefit to him, and pleasure to her. She felt almost motherly as she laid her fingers lightly on his arm, with a little laughing jest, as they stood together before parting.

"I have enjoyed my evening of invalidism so much. Come and see me again soon, won't you?"

"I should love to. You are very good to me."

"Oh, no; I'm not. Don't let us talk of goodness in that way. I like your company; and it is good to have what one likes. I shall expect you again soon, Alymer - I may call you Alymer, mayn't I?... Mr. Hermon is so overpowering."

"I wish you would. I would have asked you, only I was afraid you might think it cheek."

"Very well then, Alymer," with emphasis, "when I have spoken to Lord Denton I will telephone you; and I hope he will be able to start you off on a road that will very nearly end in a verdict of 'Suffocated with briefs.'"

"Or 'briefly suffocated'," he laughed, and beat a hasty retreat, for fear of a reprisal.

When he had gone, Lorraine sat again in the firelight, and it seemed as if the stress and unrest had fallen from her, and only the memory of a pleasant companionship remained. They were going to be the best of pals - why not - and why seek to probe any further?

Apparently he was not susceptible, and cared more for his profession than any one supposed, and so, since she liked to have him there to glory in his comeliness, they could form a mutual benefit society, and no one need be hurt at all. It was all quite simple, and she went to bed feeling rested and refreshed, and looking forward hopefully for the pleasant meetings to come?

Flip Denton was running down to Brighton for the week-end also, to take her out on the Sunday in his car; and he noticed at once that a shadow wich had hovered over her eyes of late had vanished.

"You are looking topping," he told her. "What about the love affair, is it all satisfactorily off? It has been worrying you a little of late."

"It is not exactly off," she replied, "but it is more satisfactorily placed. We are going to be real good pals. He is going to keep me company in some of my lonely hours, and I am going to try and help him to get briefs. I am relying on you for the first one, Flip."

"The dickens you are. My dear girl, why should I put myself out to acquire a brief for a rival?"

"Oh, just because you are you. You know you will love it, Flip! You will get him a brief, and then you will pat yourself on the back and say: 'I know I'm a lazy dog myself, but I'm a devil of a good chap at getting other fellows work.'"

"So I am" - enjoying her thrust - "and it's a splendid line, and gives far more satisfaction in the end. If I tried to work I should only make a mess of it, and drive some one nearly crazy, whereas, in putting another chap on to a job I give such a lot of folks pleasure, I feel I am getting square with the Almighty."