"Then you'll try, Flip?"

"It is humanly possible, he shall have a brief of his very own within the next month."

"You are a dear. Sometimes I think you are the most adorable person I know."

"You don't think it long enough at a time, Lorry. You are too prone to go off suddenly after false gods measuring six-foot-five-and-a-half inches and with the faces of Apollo Belvederes."

"Probably it is a merciful precaution on the part of our guardian angels, Flip; and, anyhow, you know you like a little variation yourself in the way of bulk, and sound, practical, indecorous chorus girldom."

"I do," was his unabashed affirmative. "Nice, comfortable, elevating palliness with you; and a right down rollicking bust-up occasionally with the ladies of the unpretending school of wild oats."

"I want my giant for the present to be satisfied with his palliness with me and his work. Do you think he will?"

"As I haven't seen him I can't say. If I get the chance, however, I'll tell him that "wild oats' are the very devil, and I'd give all I've got to have stuck to work and had naught to do with'em."

"You know you wouldn't, Flip," with a little laugh.

"I know I couldn't, you mean; but I never admit it to juniors."

"Well, you shall come to the flat to meet him. If he gets a brief, we'll have a little dinner party, and I'll ask Hal and her cousin and St. Quintin."

"Right you are. I haven't seen Miss Pritchard for ages. Shall we turn now, and go back by Rottingdean?"

"Let us go wichever way has the best view of the sea. I feel I want to look at wide, breezy spaces for a while, and not talk at all."

"You shall," he promised, and they sped along in silence.



CHAPTER XVII

When Hall sat on the side of her bed, brushing her hair and meditating on her irritation, she had not misjudged when she anticipated great enjoyment from an afternoon run with her new friend.

It would have been difficult indeed to say who enjoyed it the most. Hal was in great form, and Sir Edwin Crathie half unconsciously took his tone from her, dropping his usual attitude towards women he liked, and adopting instead one as gay and careless and inconsequent as hers.

It was not in the nature of the man to desist from flirting with her, but his pretty speeches were coupled with a humour and chaff that robbed them of any pointedness, and merely resulted in an amusing amount of parry and thrust, over which they both laughed whole-heartedly.

"You are an absolute witch," he told her as they sat enjoying a big tea at an hotel on the south coast; "ever since we started you have made me behave more or less like a school-boy, and a tea like this is the climax."

"It's a good thing I am the only witness," she laughed. "The poorness of your jokes alone would have horrified your colleagues, but to see you eating such a tea must have meant a request for your resignation - it is so incompatible with the dignity of a Cabinet Minister."

"I had almost forgotten I was a Cabinet Minister. Gad! but it's nice to get right away from the cares of office occasionally like this. When will you come again?"

"Oh, I don't think I must come any more," roguishly. "I'm sure Brother Dudley will not consent."

"What has Brother Dudley go to do with it?... Did he consent this time?"

"Not exactly. I anticipated his willingness."

"You little fibber. You mean you anticipated his firm refusal, and took French leave, so that you need not disobey him."

"It is true that Dudley and I differ occasionally, but I do not disobey him... if I can help it."

"Well, if you took French leave this time, you can easily do it again."

"But this time it was a novelty. I was curious to find out how I should enjoy an afternoon with you?"

"Rubbish. You knew perfectly well you would enjoy it immensely. So did I. Two people who like each other always know those kind of things at once."

Hal leaned back in her chair, and her expressive mouth twitched in a way that made him long to kiss it hard.

"There are occasions when I don't like you at all," she said.

"Fibber again. When don't you like me?"

"Chiefly when you are quite positive certain sure that I do."

"Well, that is never; so you are a fibber."

"I thought you seemed particularly confident nine seconds ago."

"I was only teasing you. I could hardly have been serious after you have called me a worm, and an old man. So now - when will you come again?"

"In about a month. Let's go out as Guys on the fifth of November."

"A month be blowed! I want to know which day next week?"

"I am full up next week."

"Full up of what?"

"Lorraine Vivian, Dick Bruce, Quin, the Beloved Chief, and the Baby."

"What a list! Is Lorraine Vivian the actress? Who are Quin and the Baby?"

"She is... and they are!..."

"Who does the Baby belong to?"

"It would be difficult to say. About a dozen probably claim him."

"And doesn't he know his own mother?"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of mothers."

"Who were you thinking of?"

"The ladies who have lost their hearts to him."

"I see. Are you one of them?"

"I am not. You see, his beauty has never struck me all of a heap, because I've got so used to it."

"Is he a beautiful baby, or a youth, or a man?"

"A bit of all three. He stands 6 ft. 5 1/2 in., and is superbly handsome. I call him sometimes, for variation, the stuffed blue-and-gold Apollo."

"Well, that's better than 'a positive worm'," laughing, "but I don't mind him. Who is Quin?"

"Quin is a philanthropist, sentimentalist, and hero. He spends his life working in the East End."

"I don't mind him either, and Dick Bruce I've seen. The actress doesn't count, and your precious chief you see every day. Now, then, when will you come again?"

He got up from his seat and came round to her side of the table. He had a vague intention of imprisoning her hand, and perhaps her waist, but some indescribable quality held him off. It was difficult to suppose she did not half guess what was in his mind, and yet, without showing the smallest consciousness or shyness, she faced him with a look so boyishly frank and open it utterly disarmed him.

"I am not a bit more persuasive on my right side than my left, and I have promised next Saturday to the Three Graces - who are Dick and Quin and Baby. We are going to the Crystal Palace to see a football match."

"Then what about Sunday?"

"Oh, I can't come on Sunday."

"Why not?"

"I hardly know, except that it usually belongs to Dudley or Dick."

"Next Sunday needn't."

"Well, that's what I don't know."

"Yes you do." He moved a little nearer. "You've got to keep next Sunday for me. It's my turn. We'll have a splendid day. We'll take Peter, and we'll start early and fly down to the New Forest. It's glorious in the autumn. We'll have a picnic-lunch, and tea at an hotel on the way back. So that's settled." He got up, and lifted her ulster from the back of a chair. "Now come along, and we'll slip home before it gets late enough to cause trouble."

Hal let it pass for the time, and got into her ulster. She was clever enough to see the advantage of retaining a way of escape if she changed her mind, or accepting the invitation if she wanted to later on.

She knew perfectly well a girl did not always go out for a whole day with a man like Sir Edwin with impunity; but she had also something of contempt for a girl who missed a great treat for want of pluck. She preferred to leave the question open, and if she badly wanted to go at the end of the week she would not, at any rate, stay away because she was afraid.

As it happened, circumstances played into Sir Edwin Crathie's hands. About Wednesday, with a diffidence that made Hal secretly amused and secretly curious, Dudley asked her if she would mind if he was away for the whole day on Sunday. As she was generally away herself as long as the summer lasted, she wondered why he should ask her in that manner. It was just as they had finished breakfast, and he busied himself with his pipe-rack as he made the announcement.

"Of course I don't mind," she said. "Are you going into the country?"

"Ye-es." He seemed about to add something further, but changed his mind. Hal, with a little inward chuckle, divined by his manner he must be going somewhere with a lady, and she was pleased, as she liked a man to have woman friends, believing they made him more broad-minded and tolerant and generous-hearted if well-chosen.

She asked no further question, however, and Dudley commenced to whistle softly as he drew on his boots. Evidently his mind was somewhat relieved after the sentence was said.

So now it remained to discover Dick's attitude. She could, of course, quite easily put him off; but she was not quite prepared to do this of her own initiative, as he had so generously placed all his Sundays at her disposal. On Friday, however, he was speaking to her through the telephone.

"I say, Hal, you're coming to the Footer match to-morrow, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course I am. Why?..."

"Well, it's just this way. I was going to motor the pater to Aunt Judith's, and I forgot all about it. He wants me to take him on Sunday instead. What shall I do?... Would you care to come too?"

Hal had not the smallest wish to go to Aunt Judith's, who belonged to the old school, and disapproved in a most outspoken manner of lady-clerks of every sort and description. It was a constant grievance to her, when she set eyes on Hal,that she did not gratefully accept 20 as secretary to a well-known, interesting editor.

In consequence, Hal encountered her as little as possible, accepted gratefully her interesting, easy billet, and consigned the imaginary young children to a Hades peopled with nursery governesses.

"Awfully sweet and good and kind of you, Dicky dear," she called back to him mockingly, "but I think I'll practise a little self-denial this time, and stay away."

"Odd you should say that," he laughed, "because I consider I'm practising a little self-denial in going. What shall you do with yourself? Will Dudley be at home?"

"No; he's going somewhere for the day, that has a nervous, apologetic sort of air about it. I didn't press for particulars, but I'm dying to know. I can't believe he would really take a gay young person out, and yet, judging by his manner, it might be a real flyer from Daly's."

"Good old Dudley!... Then I suppose you will go to Lorraine?"

"Yes, I daresay I shall. Good-bye, see you Saturday."

Hal returned to her work in a meditative mood. She was beginning to wonder why she had not had any message from Sir Edwin all the week. Had he changed his mind, or had he possibly forgotten? If he rang her up presently what was she going to say?

The notion that he had perhaps forgotten was not pleasing; and yet, with all he must have to think about during the week, it was equally not surprising. As a matter of fact, it had been a most trying week for all Ministers.

The party was emphatically growing into disfavour, and all brains had to be utilised to find the most efficacious remedy. Sir Edwin had been very useful in his suggestions, for he had had considerable practice in getting what he wanted by artfulness if no straighter mode offered.

His suggestions to His Majestu's Cabinet were masterpieces of political trickery, and their adoption was a foregone conclusion in spite of the Ministers who raised objections. The party had to win back favour somehow, and at any rate his were the best plans that offered.

But all through the stirring meetings of the week he never once forgot Hal. His silence was merely an adaptation of the policy he was urging upon his colleagues. If I leave her alone till Friday she will get piqued," was his thought, "and then she will come."

Accordingly, soon after the luncheon hour he rang her up.

"Hullo," he called. "At last I have got a moment to speak to you."

"What has happened to all the other moments?" she asked.

"We've had a very anxious, worrying week in the House. I've scarcely had time to get my meals. You surely didn't suppose I had forgotten you - did you?"

"I didn't suppose either way. It didn't matter."

The man at the other end of the wire smiled openly in his empty room. "Prevaricator," was his thought 'but, by Gad, she's game."

"Well, anyhow I hadn't, and I wasn't likely to. I only hope you haven't made another engagement for Sunday? I'm badly in need of a long day in the country. Are you still free?"

"It depends -"

"Oh, nonsense; you can't desert me at the last moment. If I can't get that day off to run down to the New Forest, I shall have to go to a tiresome political luncheon party. Now, be patriotic, and serve your country by attending to the needs of one of her harassed Ministers."

"I am always patriotic."

"Then that settles it. I suppose I'd better not call for you. I'll pick you up at South Kensington Station at 9.30. Peter will make an excellent chaperone, so you needn't worry - good-bye"; and he rang off, leaving Hal to hang up the receiver, not quite sure whether she had been trapped or not.

At his end he moved across to a window with the smile still lingering on his face.

"Nothing like making up a woman's mind for her," he mused; "they're all alike when they are on the edge of the stream, hesitating about the plunge. Give 'em a little shove, and once they're in they swim out boldly enough. The trouble is, when they want to keep the whole river for themselves and will not brook any other swimmers.

"I expect I'm going to have a devil of a time with Gladys, and she'll take a lot of squaring. Women are the deuce when you're short of funds. But I can't help being susceptible, and Hal has caught my fancy altogether. Dear little girl, I expect she'll want a big shove yet before she'll take the real plunge. But it's interesting, by Jove! it's interesting; and when she looks a veiled defiance at me with those candid, mischievous eyes of hers, I know I've got to win somehow."

Hal went back to her work, feeling a little as if she had been swept off her feet; and she was not entirely without misgivings. The possible impropriety of going out alone with a man for the whole day did not rouble her, but the nature of the man, she was shrewd enough to perceive, was a doubtful point.

Of course she was perfectly aware that Aunt Judith, for instance, and Dudley, and probably her mother, had she been alive, would have been scandalised at such a proceeding; but then she had pluckily fended for herself so long, she did not consider she was any longer called upon to mould her actions according to their views. She belonged to the large army of women who have to spend so much of their time on office chairs that their comparatively few hours of pleasure have no room for the ordinary conventions that hem round the leisured, home-walled maiden.

If a treat offered, and it was reasonably within bounds, they took it and were thankful and gave no thought to the possibly uplifted hands of horror among possibly restricted relatives. She was one of those who enjoy the freedom of the American girl, without being of those who, unfortunately, often fall short of her level-headed characteristics; largely perhaps through those very uplifted hands which suggest harm, where harm otherwise might never have been thought of.

It was not, now, any suggestions born of uplifted hands that gave Hal that faint misgiving. It was that growing doubt concerning the nature of the man, and a consciousness that she was unduly pleased the treat was actually to take place - a growing consciousness that in spite of the doubt she cared more about seeing Sir Edwin Crathie than most men, with a like recognition that this might seriously endanger her own peace of mind.

It was all very well to go out together on a basis of good-fellowship and mutual enjoyment, so long as neither care anything beyond; but what if this unmistakable attraction he exercised over her deepened and widened? What if the commonplace, middle-class Hal Pritchard, secretary and typist, fell in love with Sir Edwin Crathie, the Cabinet Minister, and nephew of Lord St. Ives?

But she thrust the thought away, and apostrophised herself for a silly goose, who deserved to get hurt if she had not more sense. Was he not twice her age, and brilliantly clever (so his own party said), and so obviously out of her range altogether that it would be sheer stupidity to allow herself to feel anything beyond the frank fellow-ship they now enjoyed? She insisted vigorously to herself that it would, and went off to have dinner with Lorraine, who was once more delighting her London audience nightly.

It was a curious thing which occured to both afterwards, that there had been some indefinable change, observable in each to each, dating from that particular evening.

Lorraine was more contentedly gay than she had been for some time - a quiet, natural light-heartedness, born of some attainment that was giving her joy. Hal was not clever enough to actually perceive this, but she did perceive that a certain restless, anxious indecision of manner and plans had passed away. For the time being Lorraine was happy in a sense she had not been over her success. That Alymer Hermon had anything to do with it never entered Hal's head. She had treated the whole matter of Lorraine's attraction to him with the lightness that seemed its only claim, and scarcely remembered it at all.

And yet, all the time, it was the young giant who was bringing the soothing and restfulness into the actress's storm-tossed life. He was beginning to be with her constantly - to come to her with all his doings, and his imagings, and his hopes. And, as she had suspected, natural or unnatural, he was the companion of all others who gave her the most pleasure at the time.

World-wearied and brain-wearied with her own unsatisfying successes, she found a new interest in entering into his projects, and scheming and dreaming for his future instead of her own.

She was quite open to herself about the probability that she would have felt nothing of the kind had he been merely a giant, or had he been plain. It was the rare, and indeed remarkable combination of such physical attributes, with brains, and nobility and an utter absence of all assumption.

She forgot about his youth and a certain natural crudity; and what he lacked in experience and development she easily balanced with the extraordinary physical attraction that had never ceased to sway her.

For the rest, the future might go. Her friendship would not hurt him, and his had become necessary to her. If they dreamed over a volcano, what of it? Most dreams for such lives as hers usually were in close proximity to sudden destruction. Waves from nowhere came up and overwhelmed them. Rocks from unseen heights fell on them and crushed them. If she was wise she would take what the present offered, and leave the future alone.

For Hal, on the other hand, had developed something of the restlessness that had fallen from Lorraine. The new element dawning in her life was not a restful one; neihter did it lend itself to her usual spontaneous chaff and gay badinage.

She told Lorraine about her afternoon drive, without giving half the particulars she would have done ordinarily; and when Lorraine asked her about Sunday, she only said she was perhaps going for another run with Sir Edwin. Lorraine did not press the point, because she was having a day with Alymer, and was chiefly glad that Hal was happily provided with a companion to take Dick's place.

Then she went off to her theatre, and Hal went home, wishing the next day were Sunday.



CHAPTER XVIII

Dudley hardly new, himself, why he spoke diffidently about his plans for Sunday, and why he did not tell Hal outright that he was taking Doris Hayward to a picnic at Marlow, given by mutual friends of his and theirs - friends of the old vigorous days, when he and Basil Hayward had gone everywhere together, and Hal had still been a boisterous schoolgirl. Perhaps he felt she might seem to have been rather unkindly left out.

As a matter of fact, an invitation to include his sister had been given; but, for reasons he hardly stopped to face, he chose not to mention it. That was after he had learnt from a visit to the little Holloway flat that nothing would persuade Ethel to leave her brother, who had been ailing more than usual of late, and Doris would accompany him alone.

It had been with a curious mixture of feelings he had heard this. Things were very pitiful up at the little flat, and though his inmost sympathy had gone out generously enough to both girls, with a perversity born of narrow insight he had reserved the deepest of it for Doris.

It seemed to him that she was so young to face such circumstances, and at such an early age to become saddened by the vicissitudes of life. In the depths of her wide blue eyes he saw unshed tears, and the little droop of her pretty mouth went straight to his heart. He wanted to gather her up in his arms, and kiss her and pet her till she was again all sunshine and smiles.

Ha was not unaware that Ethel probably suffered more, but her way of showing it, or perhaps hiding it, appealed to him less. Instead of that mute distress of unshed tears, her quiet eyes wore an inscrutable veil. It was as if the anguish behind the veil were something too terrible and too sacred to be looked upon by a workaday world; but Dudley only knew that a wall of reserve was between him and her trouble.

And her firm, strong mouth had no engaging droop at the corners. It was only if anything a little firmer, almost to sternness.

Dudley believed that Basil was dying at last, after his weary martyrdom, and he believed that Ethel knew it; and in some vague way it hurt him that she gave no sign, and refused to be drawn into any speech concerning his increased weakness.

Doris, on the other hand, spoke of it in a faltering, tearful voice, adding a little pitifully that it made it harder for her that Ethel was so distant and unsympathetic.

In a sense the circumstances nonplussed Dudley altogether. Some inner voice told him that such a depth of wondrous, unselfish devotion as Ethel showed to her invalid brother could not live in the same heart with hardness and want of sympathy; and yet there was the evidence of the swimming, melting eyes and drooping lips of the younger sister left out in the cold.

Perhaps it was unfortunate that on that very evening of Dudley's visit Ethel had come home rather earlier than her wont, to find Doris not yet returned from her daily outing, and, in consequence, the fire out and the sick man shivering with cold. He had looked so dreadfully ill that she had hastened first to get som brandy to revive him, only to find Doris had forgotten her promise to get the empty bottle replaced that morning.

In desperation she had hastened to the other little flat on the same floor, hoping its inmate might chance to have a little to lend.

The tenant was a lonely, harsh-featured spinster, who eked out a precarious living by teaching music. Ethel knew her slightly, as a gaunt woman who usually toiled up the stairs with a sort of scornful weariness of herself and everything else.

She knew that because she was not fashionable, nor striking, nor well-dressed, she taught mostly in rather second-rate schools, and often had to take long journeys to her pupils, coming home tired and worn at night to an empty, comfortless little dwelling, to light her own fire and cook her own evening meal.

She knew, too, that she was a gentlewoman, the daughter of a poor clergyman, left penniless, to fight a hard world alone. Had her own home been happier, she would gladly have asked her to join them sometimes; but the weight of Basil's illness, and her own usual condition of weariness, had left the invitation always unspoken.

"A little brandy," the music-teacher echoed, with a quick note of concern; "yes, I believe I have a drop. Is it your brother? Let me come and see if I can help?"

"Thank you," Ethel had replied, trying not to allow her voice to show how much she would have preferred not to accept the proffered help. "I think I can manage quite well."

But the gaunt spinster followed her across the little landing obstinately. She had seen Doris out half an hour before, and knew that she had not yet returned.

"Ah, you have no fire," she said, in her somewhat grating voice; "if you will let me I will light it," and without more ado she had procured coals and wood for herself, and was down on her knees before the empty grate.

Ethel turned away with a sick, helpless feeling over Doris' selfishness, and after administering a few drops of brandy, chafed the sick man's hands and feet. When Basil felt better he glanced up curiously at the strange, dried-up-looking female who had just succeeded in persuading a cheerful blaze to brighten the room. She looked back into his face frankly.

"You needn't mind me," she informed him; "I'm only the music-teacher from the opposite flat."

"You seem to be rather a kind sort of music-teacher," he said, with his winsome smile, "even if you do only come from the opposite flat."

The hard face relaxed a very little, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, well, it isn't easy to be kind," she answered, "when you don't stand for much else in the universe but a letter of the alphabet." She turned back to her grate and commenced sweeping up the ashes.

Basil roused himself a little further and looked interested.

"What letter do you stand for?"

"Just G." She gave a low, harsh laugh. "G is the letter that distinguishes my flat from the others, and it is all I stand for to God or man."

"I see." His white, pain wrung face looked extraordinarily kind. "Well, G, I'm very deeply grateful to you for coming across to light my fire; and I'm glad there happened to be a G in the universe this afternoon."

She turned her head away sharply, that neither of them might see the sudden, swift mist that dimmed her eyes, but she only answered:

"All the same, if there had been no G, and no you, the universe would have had an atom less pain in it, and no one have been any the worse."

"That's where you're wrong," he told her, "because Ethel couldn't have done without me, and if you put your head in at my door occasionally, and just remark to F that G is across the passage, F will be glad the universe didn't decide to leave G out of the alphabet."

The woman looked at him a moment with a curious expression in her eyes. Then she said:

"Well, if you can take the insult of a maimed, or joyless, or cursed life like that, it oughtn't to be so very hard for me to be glad I happened to be able to come over and light your fire."

"Nor so very hard to come again."

"Ah!..." she hesitated, then said to him, looking half-defiantly towards Ethel: "Time after time, when I thought you were alone, I've wanted to just look in and see if you were all right. But I didn't like to. People don't take to me as a rule, and I'm... I'm... well, I'm not an ingratiating sort of person, and I guessed, probably, you'd all rather do without any help I had to give."

"It was kind of you to think of us at all," Ethel said, not quite sure whether Basil would like her to come in or not.

"You guessed wrong," was his answer. "I think it would be very nice of you to look in occasionally. It certainly seems rather absurd for you to be all alone there, and I all alone here, when we both want a little company. I'm sure the alphabet was not meant to be so unsociable."

"It just depends."

She got up from her keneeling posture on the hearth, and stood, a grotesque apparition enough, looking at him with her greenish, nondescript eyes. Her hay-coloured hair was tightly drawn back from a high, bulging forehead, her eyebrows were so light they scarcely showed at all, while her nose, which started in a nice straight line, had failed her at the last moment by suddenly taking an upward turn in an utterly incongruous fashion. She had high cheek-bones, a parchment skin, and a mouth that was not much more than a slit; the grotesque effect of the whole being heightened by a long, thin neck, which she made no effort to cover with a neat high collar, but accentuated by a half-and-half untidily loose one.

She wore a cheap, ready-made blouse, with absurd little bows tacked on down the front, which Ethel longed to abolish with one sweep, and her skirt, which had shrunk considerably in front, sagged in a dejected fashion behind.

Yet to Basil's kindly eyes, there was something behind it all that was attractive. Fore one thing, she was so eminently sincere. One felt she had no delusions whatever, concerning her appearance or her oddities; and though she looked out upon life with that scornful, resentful air, she had yet a keener sense of humour and a clearer brain than most women. Under different circumstances she might have been a success.

As it was, she appeared to have got into a wrong groove altogether, and, unable to extricate herself, to have merely become an oddity. Basil, from his couch, looked up at her with friendly eyes, and she finished:

"One may want a little company, without wanting just any company."

"You think you will find me even duller than nothing?" and his eyes twinkled.

"You know I didn't mean that. You are clever, and well-read, and probably fastidious. I'm... well, you see what I am! and no good for anything except trying to restrain horrible children from thumping till they break the notes."

"I thought you said you were a music-teacher?"

"That's what they call it," with a dry grimace; "but when I dare to be honest, I have too much respect for music."

"Well, you won't have to weary your soul restraining me from thumping anything, so it will be a change to come and talk to me. We'll turn the tables, and I'll try and restrain you from thumping the universe too hard."

"It would be much more to the point if we thumped together: I, because I'm not wanted, and it's an insult to foist me on to mankind whether I like it or not; and you, because... well, because you are a strong man cursed with helplessness."

"Very well, if you come in that particular mood, we'll just play football with the bally old universe, so to speak. The main point to me is, that we take a rise out of the powers that be, by being a source of entertainment occasionally to each other. As our alphabetical significance in the general scheme is next door to each other, we may as well get what we can out of the circumstance."

She turned aside, looking half humorous and half satirical.

"It sounds well enough as you say it, but I expect the powers are sneering diabolically at us both. However, if you'll let me try to be some sort of company, I'll come across again soon -"

A latch-key was heard in the door, and a moment later Doris entered. When she saw the two women she looked taken aback, and stammered something about not knowing the time.

"When I got in Basil's fire was out, and he was perished with cold," Ethel said coldly; "and as I had to go to Miss... Miss -"

"Call it G," put in the music-teacher, with a comical twist of her mouth.

" - for brandy, she came over and lit the fire for me."

"I couldn't help not knowing the time," Doris murmured in a low, grumbling voice, and went away to take her hat off.

The music-teacher glanced from one to the other, as if about to say something, but changed her mind and moved towards the door. On the treshold she looked back, and said in her short, dry way:

"If F wants anything of G, G will be ready to come instantly."

"Thank you," Basil and Ethel replied together, the former adding, "And don't forget to put your head in at the door occasionally, by way of a reminder."

Ethel said no more to Doris, because she felt it useless, but her silence as they prepared the evening meal together signified her disapproval. She was deeply worried about Basil's failing strength, and longed to speak of it to someone who could understand; but felt such selfish forgetfulness as Doris showed shut her out from any sympathetic discussion.

Then Dudley came, and while Doris looked woebegone and sad, Ethel's face was a little stern with stress and anxiety. Basil tried valiantly to be cheerful enough for all three, but the effort cost him almost more strength than he could muster.

After Dudley had gone, carrying with him the image of Doris's plaintive prettiness and pathetic solitariness, and thinking gladly of the pleasure it would be to take her to Marlow on Sunday, Ethel slipped on her knees beside Basil's couch, overcome for a moment by the burden of his suffering, and the difficulties of their lives.

Often after Dudley had been, and some little act or glance or word had seemed to emphasise the barrier between them, her yearning over Basil had broken down her courage. When she had lost them both, what would become of her then? was the question that utterley undid her, finding no reply beyond a sense of empty darkness.

She told herself she would go right away to another land - to some far colony - where she could begin life afresh, with her haunting memories kept in the background. She would not stay to see the awakening come to Dudley, if Doris were his wife, nor struggle through the long months at the General Post Office, when the end of each day's labour brought no welcoming smile from Basil.

She would not settle down alone in a dingy little flat as their opposite neighbour, to become a mere letter of the alphabet to God and man, surrounded by countless other cyphers of as little meaning and account. She would go away to some new, young land, with her vigour and her courage, and carve out a path with some semblance of reality and value.

Only, could she ever get away from the awful emptiness that would come to her with the loss of Basil, and the utter lack of any incentive to carry on the unequal struggle?

Basil laid his hand on her bowed head, and for a little while seemed unable to speak. Then he steadied his voice, and rallied her with his brave, whimsical thoughts.

"Wouldn't the dear old pater have enjoyed G? She's just the kind of oddity he doted on. Fancy her teaching music of all things. It must be only scales and exercises. I think she's splendid to see the incongruity herself, and refuse to call it music when she dare be honest. What a grotesque figurehead she looks, chum, doesn't she? I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her."

But Ethel could not answer to his cheeriness just yet.

"Basil, why are so many humans just mere letters of the alphabet in the general scheme?"

She had slid into a sitting posture now, and leaned her head against his arm.

"It doesn't matter so much about the men; they can go out into the world and make friends by the way, and become something more if they wish; but what of the single women, who have to work for their living, and have nothing much to look forward to but a sort of terror as to what will become of them when they can work no more? If you could see some of them at the office, with that drawn, dried-up, joyless look, scraping and saving and starving for dread of the years ahead: it's so unfair, so grossly, hideously, cruelly unfair."

"It perhaps won't be when you see all round it, chum. It is so obvious we only see one side of things here. When we see the other side it will all look so different."

"Perhaps, but in the meantime they are here, now, in our very midst, all these unwanted women. If you saw as much of them as I do, I think you would feel even the letter had better not have been supplied. A blank would have meant so much less suffering. A penniless woman without attractiveness, and with neither husband, child, nor father wanting her, is such an anomaly. She just drags on, hating her loneliness, dreading and fearing the future or illness, merely existing because she is called upon to do so for no apparent reason."

"But she can always make friends, chum. If she is kind and cheerful and hopeful she will soon win love of some sort."

"If... yes... but, Basil, to be all that, when one is weighed down with the inequality of chance and a horror of the future calls for a heroine; and Life didn't bother to make many of them heroines. She doesn't seem to have paid much attention to them at all. Orphans and widows and sick people she remembers; but the lonely, ageing, hardened, unwanted spinster! It sometimes seems to me it is just sentimentality to be persuaded everything is all right.

"I don't believe it is all right. There's too much useless, silent aching, and useless, passionate resentment over circumstances that it seems should either never have been, or should be remedied if any Guiding Hand has power. I have determination and I'm strong, Basil; the future doesn't frighten me badly yet, but when you are gone, I feel as if the loneliness might half kill me, and as if then I ought to have the right to become a blank if I wish, since I was never consulted about becoming a letter in the great alphabet."

He did not seek to stay her, knowing with his deep insight that to get such thoughts spoken was better than to brood inwardly; and because of his unshakable faith in her courage, he was not alarmed by them.

Yet he could not offer any comfort. Had not the enigma of useless pain racked and torn his soul piteously through the long years of his illness, leaving him indeed with a wonderful courage, but not with a theory that would fit the needs of suffering mankind? He could bear his own ills, because he had trained and taught himself to take them as a soldier takes the miseries of a hard campaign; but the general sum of suffering was another matter; and he shrank from saying either that suffering was sent by God to do good, or that it was necessary to the human race.

All he knew was simply that ills bravely borne seemed aided by some mysterious power outside their bearers; whereas the craven and the grumbler seemed but to add to their own burden. For the rest, though he would not say it for the pain it gave her, the knowledge of his growing weakness was already a solace to him, and he watched with hidden eagerness for the day that should set him free. At least a corpse was no drain upon the slender purse of a beloved sister; and the gnawing ache of his helplessness and uselessness would be stilled for ever.

If only Dudley had cared for her? From his vantage-ground of the looker-on, with his unnaturally sharpened sensitiveness, he knew perfectly how matters stood and how hopeless the desire seemed.

Dear old Dudlye, his life-long friend, would probably marry Doris and learn his mistake too late; and Ethel, with her fine nature, would go to some one else.

Well, one could not change either one's own little circle of fate, or the universe, just to suit oneself; one could only hope for the best, while there was still room for hope, and cultivate that soldier-spirit, undaunted even in a losing fight.

In the meantime there was the lonely, unwanted spinster opposite, with her immediate claim of nearness and loneness; and, as if to direct her thoughts into another channel, he said:

"You know, chum, I believe G was quite serious about wanting to come in here sometimes. Why not find out which afternoons she comes home early, and let her come and get tea and have it with me here. Then Doris need not worry about getting back in time."

"But if you are feeling weak it will tire you so, Basil, to have a stranger. You will feel obliged to talk to her."

"No, I don't think I shall; and it would be nice to feel she was rather glad not to be a blank after all. Let her come one afternoon and try. Perhaps one way of grappling with the problem of human suffering - the best way - is to try and alleviate the atom of pain that is nearest each one of us."

She assented to please him, and then kissed his forehead with a lingering, adoring tenderness, marvelling that such a sufferer could so think for others. Then she went quietly to bed, feeling, as the gaunt spinster had tried to put it, "If you can bear your ills so, surely I might manage to bear mine more courageously."



CHAPTER XIX

The next evening Ethel crossed the little landing to the lonely flat, and gave the invitation from F to G.

A good deal to her amusement, she found the gaunt spinster knitting babies' socks, with a basket containing several completed pairs beside her. She picked a pair up, and said with a kind little smile:

"I hardly expected to find you doing this."

"Of course not," in a short way, that sounded uncivil without being so. "It's an occupation about as much suited to me as teaching music."

"I wonder why you do it?"

"I do it for bread, naturally. They bring in a few shillings. It is just a fluke that I can make them at all. I know as much about a needle ordinarily as a flying-machine; but I learnt to knit once under protest. I sprained my ankle and was laid up for some weeks, and I told the doctor I should go stark, staring mad if he kept me shut up in a house doing nothing. He said knitting was a very good preventive to madness, and he'd send his wife along. She was a great missionary worker, and she pounced on me like a hawk, and started me off knitting socks for little gutta-percha babies somewhere in the Antipodes, almost before I knew where I was. Such insanity!... as if white babies wanted to be bothered with socks, much less black ones! I told the doctor it was adding insult to injury to allow it to appear I hadn't more common sense than to occupy my time with garments for the heathen. As if there weren't too many garments in the world already, half the community over-dressed, and ready to sell its soul for more. 'Leave them clean and healthy and naked, that's my advice, doctor,' I told him; 'and if you weren't afraid of you wife you'd agree.'"

Ethel leaned against the table, enjoying the rugged face and comically twisted mouth.

"But I thought you were a clergyman's daughter?" she said.

"So I am; but I don't see why I shouldn't be credited with a little common sense even then. I know they haven't much as a rule; what with their sewing-classes, and praying-classes, and mothers' meetings smothering up their minds till they can't see beyond their noses. I never had much to do with that part of it. They didn't like me well enough in the village to want to pray with me nor sew with me; which was just as well, for if I'd prayed, I should have implored the Almighthy to open their minds a little, and widen their views, and give them each a good thick slab of devilry to counteract their general soppiness and short-sighted stupidity. Ugh!... to hear some of those soppy folks praying to be delivered from the Evil One, and to have strength given them to cast the devil from their hearts! Just as if the devil had time to bother with that sanctimonious, chicken-hearted crew. He wasn't very likely to do them the compliment of acknowledging their existence."

"Did no one do any parish work then?"

"Oh, yes, the doctor's wife did most of it. And when a new doctor came they daren't for the life of them have a word to say to him, for fear of the next prayer-meeting, when she would preside. You see, she'd pray for the lost sheep in the fold for about half an hour, and how he went to the wolf for healing, which was the new doctor - instead of the saviour, which was her husband, the old one, and drew lurid pictures of the fiery poisons and deadly draughts the wolf gave the poor sheep to kill him instead of cure him."

"And what became of the new doctor?"

"Oh, of course he had to go - which was a pity, as he was the first person with a sense of humour who ever entered that village as a resident. One could positively talk sense to him, without being regarded as a lunatic. As a rule, you had to feign imbecility there if you didn't want to be considered mad. I had just made up my mind to learn to knit men's ties, instead of babies' socks, when he departed" - and she looked at Ethel with a grimness, and at the same time a lurking humour, that made it quite impossible for Ethel to keep her face.

"And did you change your mind then?" seeing the gaunt spinster was not in the least annoyed at her for laughing.

"Yes; I stuck to the babies' socks. I thought on the whole it was less incongruous for a woman with a face like mine to work for a baby than a man. And that's the nearest I ever got to a love affair. Just to wonder if I'd knit a man a tie, and change my mind, and knit socks for a little black heathen whelp instead."

"O dear!" said Ethel, with a little smothered gasp, "you don't mind if I laugh, do you? You really are very amusing."

"Amusing!..." with a little humorous snort. "Well, I don't mind amusing you; but I do think it's about the most monstrous thing in the way of a practical joke I know, for Nature to create a creature like me, with a natural inclination to want a mate. Just as if any man could bear to get up every morning of his life and see me there."

"Nonsense," Ethel exclaimed. "Basil thinks you are very attractive."

"Does he?" drily. Then, with a sudden, swift humour, "Perhaps it's a pity I didn't learn to knit ties after all!"

"Tell him about why you didn't instead - and abouth the village and the doctor's wife. He'll be so interested. You will be a positive godsend to him. May I tell him to expect you to tea to-morrow?"

"Yes. Tell him, to add to the humour of the situation, I'll bring across a baby's sock to knit. We're both so likely to have a mutual interest in babies."

Ethel kept Basil entertained most of the evening with the account of her interview, rather to the annoyance of Doris, who, for some vague reason, was not at all pleased about the new acquaintance.

Perhaps it was because, on one or two occasions when she had remained out later than she should, she had met the music-teacher and encountered a fierce and disapproving glare. Doris was quite willing to be relieved of her charge occasionally, but she did not at all appreciate the idea of a strong-minded individual, who would certainly not hesitate not only to condemn her selfishness, but to look her scorn of it.

On the evening of Dudley's visit, when she first found the gaunt spinster at the flat, she had gone to bed feeling out of sorts with herself and all the world.

She hated having been caught in her selfish forgetfulness; she hated the idea of the opposite tenant coming in to help Ethel; she hated being Doris Hayward and living in a stuffy Holloway flat. It caused her to turn her thoughts more seriously to a way of escape, and, as a natural sequence, to how much Dudley's attentions might mean.

And further, if they were meant in earnest, how she would feel about marrying him. She made no pretence to herself of loving him; personally, she thought love mostly sentimental nonsense; but she liked being with him, and she liked going about with him.

On the other hand, he was not rich, and she hated poverty. If she waited a little longer, a richer man might turn up?... or, again, he might not, and Dudley might change his mind. Certainly it was very awkward to know which was the wisest course, but in the meantime it would be just as well to keep Dudley attracted.

To this end she gave her hair an extra curl on Saturday evening, and arose betimes on Sunday morning for further preparations. Ethel took a bow off her hat, ironed, and remade it, and finally put the finishing touches to her appearance.

"You look very nice," she said. "I hope you'll have a splendid day. Rund and show yourself to Basil."

Basil told her she would certainly be the belle of the luncheon party, and finally she departed feeling very pleased with herself.

Dudley was waiting for her at Paddington, and his eyes showed plainly that he echoed Basil's opinion, though he did not actually express it in words.

"How did you leave Basil?" he asked. "I wish I felt happier about him."

"He is much brighter altogether. I really think Ethel might have come, as the tenant of the opposite flat would have been only too pleased to go and sit with him. She never seems to have any pleasure, does she? But it is really her own fault. I would have stayed at home to-day if she would have let me."

"I think I'm rather glad she wouldn't; though I am sorry she could not have had the treat as well. We are going to have a lovely day, in spite of its being so late in the year."

As it was only a small birthday luncheon, and the others of the party had either gone overnight or lived near, they were easily able to get a compartment to themselves, and Dudley was conscious of a pleasurable quickening of his pulses at the prospect of the long tte—tte.

And indeed it was not surprising, for Doris looked adorably pretty and winsome, and many a wiser man might have shared his pleased anticipation. Moreover, Doris was not in the least stupid or vapid, however selfish and shallow her nature; and if she chose she could be a very pleasant companion.

And to-day she did so choose, hovering still in indecision over the subject that had filled her thoughts often of late.

Finally, it chanced that during much of the day they were thrown together, and all the time she thought how nice it was to be of so much consequence to any one; while he enjoyed again the sense of her clinging, engaging dependence.

And when they were once more alone in a commpartment, steaming back to town, it was not in the least surprising that, almost before he knew it, Dudley was pouring into her ears a tale of love.

True, it was a very calm and collected tale, but it was none the less genuine for that; and from the bottom of his heart he believed that she, above all women, was the one he desired as his wife. Transports of any description were foreign to his nature. He imagined they always would be.

Joyous excitement and enthusiasm he left to Hal, except such enthusiasm as he kept for old ruins and ancient architecture. Still, it warmed all his blood and quickened all his pulses to have his way at last, and hold Doris in his arms, and try to kiss away the unshed tears and the little droop from her lips.

He took her home from the station, but did not go in because of the lateness of the hour, and the probability that Basil was just getting off to sleep; only kissing her again with a certain old-fashioned, deferential air and promising to come in the course of a day or two to see Ethel and Basil.

Doris let herself in with somewhat mixed feelings.

She had had a delightful day and thoroughly enjoyed it, but, now that the die was cast, and the difficult point settled, she found herself beginning to be more critical of Dudley.

She wished he were not quite so old-fashioned, nor so good. She was a little afraid she would find his sterling qualities distinctly boring, and his high standard a difficult and tiresome one to bother with.

And then, of course, there was Hal. Hal never had liked her and probably never would. Not that it mattered very much. In fact, it was rather pleasant than otherwise to think of Hal's discomfiture and dismay, Doris wondered if she would expect to live with them, and made up her mind then and there, very decisively, that she would never agree to anything of the kind.

She had suffered quite enough from Ethel's superiority, without encountering a second edition in Hal. As she thought of it, and of how she would checkmate Hal's possible plans to make her home with them, she smiled to herself a little cruelly in the darkness.



CHAPTER XX

It was Hal also who filled Dudley's thoughts as he made his way homeward. In her attitude to his engagement he was afraid she was going to personate what is known as a 'though nut to crack." He wondered if she would be waiting up for him, and what in the world she would say when he told her.

As it happened, she was waiting, sitting over the remains of a little fire she had lighted for company. The reason she felt the need of company, and the reason she was waiting, was the fact of a perturbed frame of mind she was endeavouring to soothe, until he came in to give the final touch.

She was perturbed because of the change in Sir Edwin Crathie, and the closing scene of a somewhat eventful day. Until tea-time he had been as gay and lighthearted and inconsequent as ever.

Their lunch in the New Forest had been an immense success, and both had enjoyed it thoroughly. On their way home they further enjoyed a big tea at an hotel.

Moreover, the drive had been delightful. The glory of the autumn tints; the delicious stillness of the autumn weather, and the sunny coolness of the atmosphere had all contributed to make the day perfect. After her long hours of office work and monotony, Hal was only the better tuned to enjoy it, and as she leant back in blissful ease in the luxurious motor, she thought what a goose she would have been to let prudish thoughts influence her to forgo it.

Then, once more, after tea, he had deliberately moved his chair nearer to hers, and struck a personal note that she found it difficult to combat.

"Do you know," he told her blandly, "you're the dearest litte woman I've met for a long time? I don't know when I've enjoyed a whole day with any one so much as this."

"It's just the novelty," she said, adopting a note of unconcern to head him off; "most of your friends flatter and try to please you. It amuses me more to contradict you; that's all."

"Oh, that's all, is it! Well, I dare say if I found a special joy in being contradicted, I could easily humour the fancy without going for a whole day into the country."

"Ver likely - only, since you wanted your day in the country, you kill two birds with one stone, don't you see?"

"And supposing I badly wanted something else from you besides contradiction!... a little affection, for instance!"

"Oh, I'm giving you a lot of that thrown in," gaily, but she pushed her chair a little farther away; "if I didn't rather like you I shouldn't bother to contradict you."

"Rather like me!... that's very cold - I, a great deal more than rather like you."

"That, of course, is different," with a jaunty air, that made them both laugh.

"Still, I don't think we can stop a 'rather liking', now - do you?"

"I don't see why we shouldn't; we are getting on very nicely."

He got up suddenly, and walked away to the window. In his heart of hearts he was a little nonplussed. Of course they couldn't stop where they were, he argued; but how, with a girl of Hal's practical level-headedness get any farther?

Then he remembered he was a firm believer in swift and sudden measures, and usually found they fitted all contingencies. So he swung round, crossed the room, put his hand on her shoulders, and boldly kissed her.

"There," he said - "that is how I 'rather like' you."

Hal was quite taken aback - almost too taken aback to speak; but a red spot burned in each cheek, and a sudden flash seemed to gleam angrily in her eyes. Her quick brain, however, took in the position instantly. If she grew indignant and melodramatic, he would merely laugh at her.

Of course he knew she must be perfectly aware that men often kissed a girl who stood to them in her position, without thinking much of it. To make a fuss would be rather absurd. On the other hand, of course, he had to be disillusioned concerning what he apparently supposed would be her feelings on the subject.

"I call that bad taste," she said coolly. "You might have given me a sporting chance to let you know beforehand I should object." He looked about to repeat the action, but she edged away from him. "Of course I know lots of girls don't mind, but that's nothing to do with you and me. I do."

"Why do you mind?" He felt rather small before the directness of her eyes, and tried to bluster himself on to his former level. "It's very silly of you, especially nowadays. There's no harm in a kiss, is there?"

"None that I know of, but I think we were getting on very nicely without it. We won't risk spoiling things. Come along, I'm longing to be off"; and she moved towards the door.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked.

"Yes; very; but if you'll promise not to do it again I'll try to forget. If you transgress further, we shall just have to leave off being friends - that's all."

He took his seat in the motor beside her in silence, and Peter whizzed them away at a good speed.

Hal, enjoying the motion, kept her face averted, and drank in the lovely, fresh country air.

Presently a hand stole firmly over hers.

"You're not to be angry with me any more, little woman. I'm afraid I was rather a cad, but you've got such a fascinating mouth. I'm sorry."

She looked frankly into his eyes.

"Well, don't do it again, then."

He tried to look no less frankly back, but it was as if some forbidden thought flashed across his mind.

"I'll try not," he said, a trifle lamely, and looked away.

He still kept possession of her hand, however, until she resolutely drew it from him.

"Will Brother Dudley be in?" he asked, when they drew up in Bloomsbury.

"No; he won't get bakc much before nine."

He took her latch-key from her, and opened the door, entering himself, instead of taking her proffered hand.

"Which way?" he asked, and she opened the door into their sitting-room.

"I'll show you Brother Dudley's photograph now you're here," she said in a frank voice - "and the very latest of Lorraine Vivian. I wish I had one of Apollo; but I've never asked for one, because I always make a point of pretending not to admire him."

"It's only pretence, then?" he asked, glancing at the others as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

"It can only be. One is bound to admire him at heart. Nature seldom made a fairer gentleman, and it would be mere perversity to deny it, except, as I do, for his good."

Then suddenly she saw he was scarcely listening to her, and looking at the photographs without seeing them, and instinctively she moved away, feeling a little at loss. The next moment he had caught her shoulders, and kissed her again.

"I said I'd try, and so I have, but it's no use. Little woman, don't be prudish; kiss me back again."

But she pushed him away, and in the firelight he saw she was very white and determined.

"I asked you not to. It is much worse taste still now."

"No, it isn't - don't be silly. Why shouldn't I kiss you? I... I... have got awfully fond of you, and I know you like me somewhere down in your heart."

"I shall cease to do so from this moment."

"I dare you to. Hal, if you like me, why not take the sweets that offer? I'll be bound you've never been kissed in your life as I will kiss you. Don't be prudish. Let me teach you."

She seemed to hesitate a second, in indecision as to what was her best course to withstand him, and, seizing the opportunity, he suddenly caught her in his arms and kissed her on the lips with swift, eager kisses. Then, not giving her time to speak her resentment, he snatched up his hat and moved to the door.

"Don't be angry," he said. "I did try, honour bright, but it's no use; good-bye. I must see you again soon"; and he went out, closing the door behind him.

For some minutes Hal stood quite still, feeling a little dazed. She saw him cross the pavement, give some directions to Peter, and then drive away without a backward glance. She stood still a little longer, then slowly took off her hat, threw it on the sofa, ran her fingers through her hair and sat down.

After a little, the emptiness of the room seemed to oppress her, for though it was not cold, she jumped up and put a match to the fire. Then the landlady came in with her supper.

"'Ad a nice day, miss?" she asked pleasantly.

"Very nice. How's Johnnie? Did you get to see him?" alluding to a small son boarded out at Highgate for his health.

"Yes; I went up to tea with 'im. 'E looks years better already."

"I'm very glad."

Hal sat down to her supper with a preoccupied air, and instead of having a little chat, she relapsed into silence, and the landlady departed. She felt vaguely that something had upset entirely the even tenor of her mind, and she wanted to think. Any other Sunday evening she would have told the landlady something about her motor-ride, for she and Dudley had now been in the same rooms for seven years, and it is quite a fallacy to condemn all London landladies as grasping, bad-tempered tyrants.

Hal was quite fond of Mrs. Carr, and had found her unwearingly thoughtful and attentive. But to-night she wanted to think, and was glad to be alone again, almost immediately returning to her arm chair over the fire.

She was conscious, in a vague, uncertain way, that though Sir Edwin had kissed her because he cared for her, he could not have acted so had he cared in an upright, honest-hearted manner. She attracted him, and he wanted all the pleasure he could get out of the attraction, but there, no doubt, it ended.

For the rest, he was Sir Edwin Crathie, Cabinet Minister, and member of a proud, patrician family. She was Hal Pritchard, secretary, typist, and occasional journalist at the office of a leading London paper.

She grew restless, and commenced roaming round the room. Her knowledge of life, as it is lived near its teeming, throbbing, working centre, warned her that the new turn of their friendship held danger. If she was wise, she would shun the danger, and go back to her old life before he had come into it. She would firmly and resolutely refuse to see him again.

To do so without regret was impossible. Now that the friendship seemed about to cease, she realised it had meant more than she knew. She held her face in her hands, and her cheeks tingled at the memory of the last eager kiss.

She was woman enough to know it was good to be kissed like that by a man who, even if his morals and principles left much to be desired, was still very much a man, and had won a distinction that made most women proud of far less attention than he had shown her.

Still? -

In a different sense she was struggling in a net of circumstances something like Lorraine's. Lorraine wanted to do the right thing, or, at any rate, the sporting thing.

So did Hal.

In a world full of temptations, and backsliding, and much suffering thereby, the sporting thing for the strong woman is to stand to her guns. If Hal dallied with Sir Edwin now, she felt she would be deserting her post. At the judgment-bar of her own heart, which, after all, matters far more than the judgment-bar of public opinion, she would be allowing herself to compromise for the sake of the fleeting, dangerous pleasure.

She stopped short by the window, and stared out into the gloomy, lamplit street. And it crossed her mind to remember the bitter price so many women had paid for that dalliance and compromise, so many now probably gazing out with dull eyes into gloomy streets, hopeless, reckless, and joyless.

Yes; dalliance and compromis were mistakes. The real pluck was the sporting spirit that stood to its guns, even if it cost a big and wearisome effort. She would not dally. She would answer to her own Best, and try to go on her steadfast way.

After all, she had Dudley and Lorraine. It was good to have a brother all to oneself, who was incontestably a dear, in spite of a little priggishness and narrowness. He would be home soon, and then they would have a last chat over the fire together; and that would help to renew her in her determination to cut the dangerous friendship adrift.

She leaned back in the chair a little wearily, and waited for the welcome sound of his key in the latch. She wished he would come quickly, because she did not quite like the way her mind kept reverting to those eager kisses. The memory had the danger of making most other thoughts seem thin and dull; and she wondered how she was going to replace a friendship that had been so full of interest and enjoyment.

If she had dared, she would like to have persuaded herself that he cared for her in the real way; and her cheeks glowed, and her heart thumped a little at the thought of all the real way meant. But her practical side told her only too decidedly that this was not the case.

Perhaps he was not the sort of man who could care in the real way at all. He was too selfish, and grasping, and ambitious by nature. That he was interesting and a delightful companion as well did not help matters. Men were very often all these things together, but the selfish, ambitious, unscrupulous side usually outweighed all the rest in big questions that affected their whole lives.

Then she remembered that many of the girls she knew - quite nice, jolly girls - would have taken the fun that offered, and not bothered about anything beyond the present. Still, that did not affect her own particular case.

One had to try and live up to one's own ideals, not other people's, and in her inmost heart she knew that she thought but poorly of the girls who run foolish risks for the sake of a little extra pleasure and gratification, just as she thought poorly of the man who amused himself, trifling with a girl's affections, to pass a little time.

Then came the welcome sound of Dudley's key, and she sat up and turned an eager face to the door to greet him.

He came in quietly, and returned the greeting with his usual calm, undemonstrative appreciation; only, he did not look at her, nor ask her any questions about her day.

The supper was still waiting for him, and he took a few mouthfuls, in a preoccupied manner, with his face turned away. Hal asked him about the day's outing, wondering not a little at his manner. He seemed anxious, and somewhat ill at ease, and she observed that he did not eat anything to speak of.

At last he got up and came to her side near the fire.

"Aren't you going to sit down?" she asked. "I thought a little fire looked so cosy."

He did not seem to hear her, for instead of replying he coughed nervously, cleared his throat, and said:

"I've something to tell you, Hal - a piece of news."

She waited, watching him with a puzzled, curious air. Then, without any further preamble, he finished abruptly:

"I'm - I'm - engaged to be married."

Hal gave a gasp, and became suddenly taut with amazement and incredulity. "You're - engaged - to - be - married!"

"Yes; you're not very surprised, are you?"

A sudden, awful fear seemed to envelop and clutch at her.

""Who to?" she asked, a little hoarsely?

"To Doris Hayward."

For some reason he seemed unabel to look at her. Vaguely he knew he had dealt her a blow, and that it was of a nature he could not soften.

Hal stared hard at the fire, then suddenly started to her feet.

"You can't mean it," she exclaimed, forgetting to be circumspect. "You couldn't possibly think seriously of marrying Doris Hayward?"

Instantly he stiffened.

"I don't know why you speak of it in that way. Certainly I am serious. It is hardly a question I should joke about."

There was a tense silence, then Hal turned to the sofa and picked up her hat as if she were a little dazed. She seemed suddenly to have nothing to say, and she knew herself to be no good at prevarication. To congratulate him seemed an impossibility just yet.

"Of course I know you have never cared for Doris," he said; "but probably you did not know her well enough. I hope you will soon see you have misjudged her."

"I hope so," she said lamely. "Good-night - I - I - hadn't thought about your getting married. I must get used to the idea. I - " she paused in sudden, swift distress. "Good-night; of course I hope you'll be happy, and all that," and she went hurriedly out, and up to her own room.



CHAPTER XXI

When Hal reached her room she sat down on the bed in the dark, and stared at the dim square of the window. She was feeling stunned, and as if her brain would not work properly. It grasped the significance of old, familiar objects as usual, but seemed quite unable to grip and understand the something strange and new which had suddenly come into being. She remembered she had waited for Dudley to come with soothing for a perturbed frame of mind, and instead, he had brought her - this.

What could it mean? Surely, surely, not that Doris Hayward was to rob her of her brother.

A wave of swift and sudden loneliness seemed to envelop her. The blackness of the night closed in upon her, and desolation swept across her soul.

"If only it had been Ethel," was the vague, uncertain thought: "any one in the world almost but Doris."

And again,

"Why had Dudley been so incredibly blind to Doris's real nature? Why had he of all men been caught by a pretty face? Was it possible he thought his life would need no other help and comfort but that of a charming exterior in his wife?"

How childlike he seemed again to his young sister's practical, worldly knowledge. Of course he knew almost nothing of women, buried in his musty old architectural lore, and giving most of his brain to the contemplation of ancient ruins and edifices.

He had looked up from his books, and Doris had smiled at him, that diabolically winsome, innocent smile of hers; and something in his heart, not quite smothered and likewise not healthily developed, had warmed into sudden, surprised pleasure, and straightway he thought himself in love. Hal was sure of one thingn, that if Doris had not decided it would suit her plans to be Dudley's wife, the idea would not have occured to him.

After all, what did he want with a wife for years to come, going along so contentedly and placidly with his books and his thirst for knowledge, and the peacefulness of their sojourn with Mrs. Carr? No servant troubles, no housekeeping worries, no taxes, no gas and electric-light bills; everything done for them, and for company each other.

Oh, of course, it was all Doris's doing. She wanted to get away from the dingy flat and the poverty, and she had hit upon Dudley as a way out.

Hal got up suddenly with a bursting feeling. Of course she did not even love him, would not even try to change her nature to become more in touch with his, would not trouble in the least what obstacles stood between any real and deep understanding. Perhaps she was not even capable of love, but in any case her affections could not have been given to any one as quiet, and studious, and old-fashioned as Dudley.

She went to the window and threw it open that she might lean out and breathe the open air. Her head burned and ached, and her eyes smarted with a smouldering fire in her brain. She felt more and more how entirely it must have been Doris's doing. Doris had smiled at him, and confided in him, and managed first to convey a pathetic picture of her own loneliness, and then to suggest how happy her life might be with him.

And of course Dudley was all chivalry at heart, and trusting, and tender-hearted; that was one reason why he had always deplored her, Hal's, boyish independence and determination to fend for herself. He did not understand the vigorous, enterprising, working woman.

Immersed in his books and his studies, he had allowed himself to be influenced largely by caricatures, and by the noisy stir of the platform woman. But he understood the Doris type, or thought he did, and placed their engaging dependence before such spirited resolution as her own and Ethel's.

And how to help him? How, now, to thwart the carrying out of Doris' cleverly carried scheme.

Her first thought was Ethel and Basil. She would go to them, and appeal to them to help her.

And then she remembered that "blood is thicker than water." How could they thwart their own sister; and in any case what would Dudley ever see in it but a persecution that would intensify his affection? One hint that Doris was victimised, and she knew Dudley well enough to realise he would only marry her the more quickly, whether he had learned the truth or not.

Opposition of any sort would probably do far more harm than good at present. There was nothing for it but to meet the blow with the best face possible, and hope time might yet bring release.

Then her thoughts went back to Sir Edwin, and quite suddenly and unaccountably she longed to tell him about it. He would be interested for her sake, and he would cheer her up, and make her hopeful in spite of herself.

And yet -

No; to see him again, feeling as she felt now, would only mean to see him in a mood of weakness, that might make her less able to withstand him.

She must rely only on Lorraine and Dick, and try to stand by her previous determination. She would see Lorraine directly she left the office the next day, and in the meantime she would try and hide from Dudley the extent of her dismay.

But in spite of her resolve, when she rested her head on the pillow, the hot tears squeezed through her closed eyelids, and in dumb misery she told herself Dudley was lost to her for ever.

She awoke the next morning with a dull, aching sense of misery that had robbed the sunshine of its warmth, and the day of its brightness; but as she dressed she strengthened herself in a resolve to try and hide her chagrin, and make some amends to Dudley for her reception of the news.

"I suppose you felt pretty disgusted with me last night," she said at the breakfast-table. "I'm sorry, but you took me so violently by surprise."

He had taken his seat, looking grave and displeased, but his face relaxed as he replied:

"I'm afraid I was rather sudden. It seemed the easiest" - he hesitated, then added - "I hope you'll try to get on with Doris."

"Of course." Hal turned away on some slight pretext. "I'd hate giving you up to any one - you know I would - we've - we've - been very happy together here, and - " but her voice broke suddenly.

Dudley looked unhappy, but he steadied his voice and said cheerfully:

"Well, it needn't be very different. If you and Doris will get fond of each other, it will be the same, only better. Of course you will live with us."

"Oh no"; and she tried to smile lightly - "I couldn't - possibly live without Mrs. Carr now. I should never be properly dressed, for one thing, and I should always be forgetting important engagements." She changed the subject quickly, seeing he was about to remonstrate. "Have you seen Ethel and Basil since - since - "

"No; I'm going to see Basil this afternoon, after taking Doris to Wimbledon to see Langfier fly, and I shall stay to dinner. Will you come up this evening?"

"No; I'm going out. Perhaps to-morrow - " she hesitated, as if swallowing a lump in her throat. "You might give my love to Doris, and say I'll come soon." She saw Dudley glance at her inquiringly, and recklessly dashed into another subject, talking at random until she left.

In the afternoon she hurried straight off to Lorraine's flat, arriving a few minutes after Lorraine had come in from a walk in the Park. She was standing by the window, drawing off some long gloves, and even Hal was struck by a sort of newness about her - a bloom and a quiet radiance that was like a renewal of youth.

She was beautifully dressed as ever, buth with a far simpler note than usual - something which suggested she wished to look charming, without attracting attention; something which suppressed the actress in favour of the woman.

It was as if, surrounded with success and attention night after night, and for several years, she had wearied of the rle, and put it aside voluntarily whenever opportunity offered. She had been wont to be verry fashionable and striking in her dress and general appearance, but now Hal noticed vaguely a simpler note all through.

Her face and expression seemed to have changed also. A certain hardness and callousness had gone. Her smile was more genuine, and her eyes kinder. In some mysterious way, it was as though Lorraine had won from the past some gleaming of the woman she might have been under happier circumstances, and without certain harsh experiences.

And it was all owing to her feeling for Alymer Hermon and his youthful pride in her.

They met continually now. Her flat was open to him whenever he liked. He came to her when he had anything interesting to relate - when he was depressed and when he was hopeful. With the inconsequent acceptance of youth, he took from her what an older man would have regarded a little shyly, and perhaps feared to take.

She was his pal, his excellent friend, who gave him such sympathy and interest and encouragement as she could find nowhere else. Because he was young, he drank deep and asked no questions.

He did not imagine for a moment that she was in love with him. True, other women were; but then they told him so, and alarmed him with their attentions. Lorraine was more inclined to laugh at him and make fun of him, in a jolly, pally sort of way, which made him feel perfectly at home with her, and successfully banish any questions.

She was more like a man friend, only better, because a man would have wanted an equal share of interest, whereas Lorraine seemed content to be interested in him. She never encouraged him to talk about her triumphs and her other friends. She rather implied they were so public and apparent already she did not want to hear any more of them.

But she was always ready to talk of his hopes and aspirations, and help him to build foundations to his aircastles. And already, under her tuition and help, he had made immense strides. His work and his objects had become real to him, ambition had taken root and begun to push out little upward shoots. He saw himself one of the leading lights at the Bar, and instead of lazily scoffing, he liked the picture. He wanted to get there, and if Lorraine was ready to help him, why should she not? Why bother to ask questions?

Of course she must be fond of him, or she would not do it; but then he was fond of her too - very fond - and why not? The mere suggestion of danger did not occur to him. She was so many years his senior, and so celebrated, it never crossed his mind to suppose she could have any feeling for him beyond the jolly palliness that seemed to have sprung up naturally between them.

So he came and went between the Temple and her flat and his own quarters, and life began to assume a bigness of possibility that drowned all else, and kept him eager and harworking and safe from the hurtful influences and actions that attend idle hours.

And Lorraine, for the present, walked in her fool's paradise and was content. She watched him slowly and surely fill out both physically and mentally into the promise of his splendid manhood.

She saw his youthful beauty solidifying into the beauty of a man, and carefully watered and tended those budding shoots of ambition that were to help him attain his best promise.

For the time being the thwarted mother-love that is in every woman satisfied her with the evidence of his progress, and she lulled any other into quiescence, hugging to herself the knowledge that it was she alone to whom he would owe greatness, if he won it, and that even his own doting mother had not done, and never could do, the half that she was doing to start him on a steadfast way that should lead to fame and usefulness.

She made it her excuse for ignoring the questions which her wider knowledge could not entirely banish. To what other results the friendship might lead she turned a deaf ear. The other results must take care of themselves, was her thought; it was enough for her that she could help to make him great.

She smiled a little at the thought of the women she had won him from. He talked to her now freely and openly, though always with that unassuming modesty which was so attractive. She knew what he had already had to combat. What a life of self-pleasing and gay-living lay open to him if he chose to take it. She knew that, if he chose it, though he might still win a certain amount of fame, it would never be the well-grounded, staunch, reliable success that she could spur him to.

And so she drew a curtain over the dangers her course might hold, and, in a light and airy way, threw over him the glow and the warm attractiveness of her many fascinations and allurements, that she might keep him free from any foolish engagement or low entanglement, to concentrate all his mind and his heart upon his work and her.

How long such an aim was likely to satisfy her, or how natural or unnatural her course, she left with all the other questions, to be faced, if necessary, later on, or to pass with the swift joy into oblivion.

At least it was not the first time a woman, scarcely young, and having her full measure of success, had turned unaccountably to a man very much her junior, for something she apparently sought in vain from men of her own age. It might be strange, but it was not unique; and for the rest, were not the ways of the little god Love like the ways of many events - "stranger than fiction"?

His magnificent physique, his extraordinarily beautiful head, and his no less extraordinary, unassuming modesty, attracted and held her with links that grew stronger and stronger, and her happiest hours now were those in which he made himself delightfully at home in her flat, and added to his charm by talking to her with the old-fashioned, grandfatherly air she had enjoyed from the first.

And so Hal found a younger and softer Lorraine than she had known for a long time, waiting to hear the burden of her tale of woe.

They talked it over in every aspect, Hal sitting in her favourite attitude on a stool at Lorraine's feet; but very little light could be won through the clouds. All the consolation Lorraine could suggest was a possibility that to be engaged and married to a man like Dudley might change Doris altogether for the better; but Hal, beyond feeling brighter for having spoken out her dismay, felt there was little indeed hope of that.

"Have you seen Sir Edwin Crathie again?" Lorraine asked presently, and she was surprised to see a spot of colour instantly flame into Hal's cheeks.

"I've had a long motor ride with him," she said, speaking as if it were a mere detail.

"Have you?" was Lorraine's very expressive rejoinder.

"Why do you say it like that?" Hal laughed with seeming lightness. "He just took me for a treat. He's rather sorry for me, being boxed up in an office, as he calls it."

"I see. Well, don't forget he has the reputation for being rather a dangerous man, old girl."

Hal laughed again.

"I'll tell him so, and go armed with a revolver next time." She noticed an inquiring look in Lorraine's eyes, and added: "Don't look so serious, Lorry; he is old enough to be my father. He likes a little amusement, the same as you and Baby Hermon."

She turned away as she spoke, and did not see the swift deepening of the look of inquiry, nor a certain strange expression that flitted across Lorraine's face; and almost immediately the door opened, and Alymer Hermon walked in unannounced.

"Hullo, Hal!" he exclaimed - "it's quite a long time since I ran into you here."

"Hullo, Baby!" she retorted. "Why, I declare, you are beginning to look quite a man."

"If you don't mind I'll pick you up and carry you all the way down the stairs to the street; then you'll see if I'm a man or not."

"Tut; any big creature could do that! Got any briefs yet?"

"I have."

Lorraine looked up instantly with an eager, questioning glance - while Hal asked gaily:

"What is it?... I suppose the original holder is sick, or dead, or something, and you are a stop-gap."

"You are wrong, Miss Sharp-tongue. I hold the brief entirely on my own. It hasn't even anything to do with any one in Waltham's Chambers."

And still Lorraine, with shining eyes, watched his face.

"I suppose," said Hal , "the other side have got a very small man, and they wanted a big one to frighten him?"

"Wrong again. The other side has Pym, and he is quite six feet in height."

"Then perhaps he looks clever, and they believe in contrasts."

"I shall carry you down to the street yet," threateningly; "you are running grave risks."

"So is the poor man trusting his defence to you."

"It happens to be a lady."

Hal clapped in her hands.

"Of course," she cried; "now we are getting at it. The lady chose you because she thought your wig and gown becoming. How many interviews shall you be having with her?"

"I couldn't say, but we had one this afternoon."

"And was she very charming? Did she call you Baby?"

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Lorraine.

"I only waste my substance trying to cope with any one as obtuse as Hal. Is she going to stay to dinner?"

"I'm afraid so," smilingly.

He took up his stand on the rug, with his back to the fire and looked down at Hal on her footstool.

"It's a pity about the obtuseness," he commented, "because she is really rather nice to look at. She has improved so much lately."

"Oh no, I haven't," tilting her nose in the air. "I am exactly the same; but you have acquired better taste. Is he going to stay to dinner, Lorraine?"" "I'm afraid so. You will have to call a truce, because I want to hear all about the brief; and I shall hear nothing if you persist in wrangling."

"It isn't my fault," he said. "I always try to be friends."

"Well, as far as that goes, I always try to like you," Hal retorted with a laugh.

"You would find it much easier if you did not hurl insults at me. Begin another plan altogether."

"Come along to dinner," put in Lorraine, rising, "and let us hear about this brief."

She led the way to the dining-room, and they had a merry little meal, arranging all about the congratulatory dinner Lorraine proposed to give for Alymer to celebrate the important occasion of his first brief.

Afterwards Hal drove to the theatre with her, and stayed a short time in her room while, as Lorraine phrased it, she put on her war-paint.

Then she went rather sadly home alone, feeling lost and unhappy about Dudley. It crossed her mind once that Lorraine and Alymer Hermon seemed be on very much more familiar terms than previously, but she paid little heed to the thought, merely supposing that it amused Lorraine to help him in his profession.

She sat over the fire and tried to read, but presently the book went down into her lap, and her eyes sought the cheery flicker of the flames. Only there was no answering glow in her usually bright face, rather a sad uneasiness and perplexity, as if circumstances she hardly knew how to cope with were closing in upon her.

She felt she had come to a difficult path in life she would have to face alone; for in her friendship with Sir Edwin Crathie neither Dudley nor Lorraine could help her.

And, gazing into the fire with serious, thoughtful eyes, it was neither Dudley and Doris, nor Lorraine and Alymer who finally held her thoughts, but sir Edwin Crathie himself.



CHAPTER XXII

The first time Sir Edwin rang up the newspaper office after the memorable Sunday it happened that Hal had gone into the country to report an opening ceremony, graced by Royalty, so she was saved the necessity of framing a reply.

One of the usual reporters being ill, the news editor had asked her if she would like to take his place, and she had eagerly accepted the chance. It meant a day in the country, travelling by special train, and the writing of the report did not worry her at all, as she had already served her apprenticeship to journalism, and knew how to seize on the most interesting points and condense them into a small space.

She had a genius for making friends also, and after an excellent champagne lunch, and a cup of tea captured for her by a pleasant-faced man whom she afterwards discovered to be the Earl of Roxley, she motored back to the railway station with a well-known aeronaut, who promised to take her for a "fly" some day. They travelled up to town in the same compartment, and as Hal had to have her article ready for press when she reached the office, it was necessary to write it in the train.

The "flying man" wished to turn his hand to journalism too, and attempted to help her, without much success, though with a good deal of entertainment for himself. He was specially amused at her determination to lay considerable stress on the fact that one of the horses in the royal carriage fell down between the station and the park.

"What's the good of putting that in?" he argued; "it is of no importance."

"Why, it's almost the most important thing of all," she declared. "You evidently don't know much about journalism. The Public will not be half as interested in the King's speech as in the information that one of the horses fell down, and that the King then put his hands on the Queen's, and told her not to be frightened."

"But he didn't; and the horse only slipped."

"But you're too dense!" she cried, "and, anyhow, you can't be certain that he didn't. It's what he ought to have done, and the British Public will be awfully pleased to know that he did. They'll be frightfully interested in the horse falling down, too. I suppose you would leave it out, and give dated of the building of the edifice, and the different styles of architecture, and the names of illustrious people connected with it. As if any one wanted to know that! The horse will make far better reading, though I daresay I ought to work in a few costs of things. The B.P. loves to know what a thing costs."

"Well, why not value the horse, as you think so much of it? or say that it snapped a trace in half which cost two guineas, and was bought in Bond Street?"

They both laughed, and then Hal said seriously:

"I think I'll make it kick over the centre pole, only then perhaps some of the other reporters will catch it for not having seen the kick also. I once wrote an account of a garden party, and left out that the horses of the Prime Minister's carriage shied and swerved, and one wheel caught against the gate-post. As a matter of fact, it did not do much more than graze it, but some journalist wrote a thrilling account of how the carriage nearly turned over; and I've never forgotten the chief's face when he asked me why I hadn't mentioned the accident to the Prime Minister's carriage. I said there wasn't an accident, and he snapped: 'Well you'd better have turned them all in a heap in the road than left it out altogether!'

"I've never made the same mistake since," she finished, "and now, if the chief sees my paragraphs, he has to ring some one up occasionally, and make sure I haven't gone out of bounds altogether."

"Well, if you're quite determined to lie... I mean romance... why not do it thouroughly? Let the King leap out of the carriage, with the Queen in his arms, and the royal coachman fall backwards off the box - and - and - both the horses burst out laughing?"

"I'd get the sack for that," Hal spluttered, busily plying her pencil, "and then I'd break my heart, because I'm in love with the chief."

"Oh" - with a low laugh, "and is it quite hopeless?"

"Quite. The most hopeless grande passion that ever was. He's been married twice already, and the second is still very much alive. Did the Queen wear a black hat, or a dark purple one?"

"Dark purple, of course, like her dress. Why, I could write the thing better than you."

"I'm sure you could, if you might have half the newspaper. I don't know where you'd be in thirty-six lines!"

"By Jove! Have you got to squeeze it all into thirty-six lines?"

"Less, if possible. There's been a row in Berlin, and we have to allow for thrilling developments, which may crowd out lots of other paragraphs."

"And supposing you want it a few lines longer?"

"Then the compiler will add a bit on about the weather, or throw in another dress description, or something. I'm putting you in now," scribbling on; "but I don't know your name?"

"And I'm not going to tell it to you for your precious paragraph, so you'll have to cross that bit out again."

"Not at all," airily: "a well-known aeronaut, who has recently beaten the distance-record, and is looking remarkably well in spite of his advanced years, was among the distinguished guests!"

He had to cry "pax" then.

"I give you up," he said; "you're too much for me! But I'll take your for a fly the first opportunity I get. Will you come?"

"Will I come!..." in eager tones. "Oh, won't I?"

And he promised to arrange it.

When they reached Euston, Hal had to dash for the first taxi, and tear to the office with her report, and it was not until she was leaving that the call boy told her a gentleman had asked for her on the telephone in the afternoon.

"Did he give any name?" she asked.

"Yes, Mr. Crathie."

Hal suppressed a smile. "I suppose you told him I was out."

"Yes, miss. He wanted to know when you would be back, and I asked Mr. Watson, and he told me to say 'Not before evening.'"

Hal climbed to the top of a bus, and journeyed homewards with a thoughtful air. Of course he would ring her up again the next day, and then what was she to say?

In the meantime, looming big in her immediate horizon was the visit to be paid to Holloway that evening. She was going up without Dudley, having expressed a wish to do so, with which he had willingly complied. She felt it would be easier not to appear forced without him, and would be fairer on Doris also. Yet she dreaded the visit very much, and longed that it was over.

Ethel opened the door to her, as she happened to be in the little kitchen close beside it, and Hal thought she looked very ill as she grasped her hand with warm friendliness, saying:

"How nice of you to come and see Doris so soon."

"What are you doing in the kitchen?" said Hal. "I want to come and help."

"I'm only making a salad, and shall not be long. You must go to the parlour"; and she laughed at the quaint, old-fashioned word.

"No, I'm coming to help," and Hal walked past her, through the open door. "How's Basil? Dudley spoke as if he was not quite so well just now."

"I'm afraid he isn't," with sudden, hardly veiled anxiety; "but it may only be the foggy weather."

To any one else Ethel would probably have asserted that he was well as usual, and changed the subject; but she liked Hal specially, and showed it by being quite honest with her. She also knew perfectly well that Dudley's engagement must have been a great shock to his only sister, not solely because she had nothing whatever in common with Doris, but because she herself must love him; and her heart felt very tender and friendly over her.

Although Hal had come to see Doris, she did not refrain from following her inclination, and seating herself on the kitchen table to chat to Ethel while she made the salad. Doris would keep, was her rapid mental conclusion, and they two might not get another chance of a few words alone.

Chatting thus, it was interesting to note the similarity that existed between these wielders of the pen, each daily immersed in a City office.

Each had the same clear, frank eyes, the same independent poise of head, the same air of capable energy and self-dependence. Each, too, had the same rather colourless skin, from lack of fresh air, though whereas Ethel looked tired and worn, Hal seemed strong and fresh and wore no air of delicacy.

Then Doris came, with her pink-and-white daintiness, and spoke to them both with a little triumphant air of condescension; for was not she engaged to be married, whereas clever, working women usually became "old maids"?

Hal tried not to seem too offhand, but it was quite impossible for her to gush, and she could not pretend a sudden affection just because of the engagement. So she just said something about Dudley being very happy, and hoped they would have good luck, and then went to the sitting-room to talk to Basil, entertaining him immensely with her account of the day's ceremony, and her haphazard friendship with the "flying man", who was going to take her in his aeroplane.

"Who was he?" Basil asked. "Has he won any prizes?"

"I don't know. He dit not tell me. I did not discover his name either, but he was some relation of the 'Lord-of-the-Manor' person who received the King."

"You don't know his name?" asked Doris in a shocked voice. "Weren't you introduced?"

"Never a bit of it," laughed Hal. "I was left behind when the last fly had gone to the station, and he heard me asking anxiously how soon one would get back again, and immediately offered me a seat in the motor he was going in. Another man was with him, a much be-medalled officer, who was somewhat heavy in hand to talk to, and at the station we gave him the slip."

"How can he take you for a fly if you don't know who he is?"

"Well, I dare say he won't; quite likely he didn't mean it; but if he did, he can easily find me at the office. He knew my name, and what paper I was there for. They bot knew, which probably accounts for the gentleman with the medals being somewhat ponderous - soldiers are usually snobbish - and he may not have liked having to ride to the station with a newspaper woman."

"But if the other man was the Lord of the Manor's brother?"

"Oh, that wouldn't make any difference. He might very well be less self-important than anything in a bit of scarlet and medals if he had been the Lord of the Manor himself. Why, the Earl of Roxley got tea for me, and was most attentive."

Doris's eyes opened wider. She had always secretly entertained rather a superior attitude towards Hal and her sister, and was glad she was not an office clerk. The big, breezy, working world, where the individual is taken on his or her merits apart from birth, or standing, or occupation, was quite unknown to her; and that Hal's original, attractive personality might open doors for ever shut to her mediocre, pretty young-ladyhood, would never enter her mind.

"I don't think I should care to talk to any one without being introduced," she remarked a little affectedly, to which Hal shrugged her shoulders and commented:

"It's just as well you haven't to knock about in the world, then. Any one with an ounce of common sense and perspicacity knows when it is safe, and when it is sheer folly."

Basil watched her with an amused air.

"I'm sure you do," he said.

"Yes." She smiled infectiously. "I've only once been spoken to unpleasantly in London, after knocking about for seven years, and then I offered the man a sixpence. I said: 'I'm sorry I haven't any more, and I can't spare that, but if you are hungry!...' He looked as if he would like to slay me, and vanished."

Doris still looked slightly disapproving, and when at last Hal rose to go, she half-unconsciously asked Ethel with her eyes to accompany her to get her hat, instead of her prospective sister-in-law. And when they were alone, Ethel looked into Hal's expressive face, and guessing something of what she carefully hid, said sympathetically:

"You and Dudley have always been so much to each other; I am afraid you must feel it a little having to share him already with another."

Suddenly and inexplicably Hal's eyes filled with tears, and she turned away quite unable to answer.

Ethel pretended not to notice, but her heart bled for her, knowing how much worse it was than just the fact of the engagement.

"I'm so wrapped up in Basil," she went on, "that if it had happened to me I should have felt quite heartbroken, however much I told myself I wanted his happiness."