Hal dabbed her eyes a little viciously.

"Of course I want him to be happy," she managed to say; "but it is nice of you to understand."

"There's one thing," Ethel continued, "you will become a sort of relation, and you've no idea how pleased Basil and I will be about that."

"Will you?" Hal smiled through her tears, "I rather wonder at it."

"Of course we shall. Basil and I think you are one of the finest characters we have ever known. You've no idea how proud we are when you come to see us," which proved Ethel's understanding heart, for a little generous praise is a kind healer to a sore spirit.

Hal looked into her eyes, with a pleased light in her own.

"You are too generous, but it's nice to be thought well of by any one like you and Basil. I shall remember it when I am silly enough to be downhearted, and it will cheer me up."

She had to hurry away then to catch a train, and as she went her mind was full of the thought:

"Why, oh why, had Dudley, in his blindness, wooed the younger sister?"

"Well?" he said, as she entered their sitting-room, where he was reading over the fire. "How did you get on?"

"Oh, splendidly" - trying to throw a little enthusiasm into her voice. "Doris looked amazingly pretty."

She show a soft light in his eyes, and because it rather maddened her, she hastened to add: "But I see a great change in Basil."

"Yes?... I wondered if you would. I was afraid he did not seem so well."

"Dudley" - with sudden seriousness - "when Basil dies, it will just about break Ethel up. She idolises him."

"I know; but she can hardly wish him to live on if he continues to grow worse."

"I suppose not; but it's rather awful to think of what it will mean to her to lose him. And she's so sympathetic and tender-hearted." Hal stood a moment looking gravely at the fire - "you know, I think she's the most splendid person I've ever known."

"Splendid!... " a trifle testily. "Why? Splendid seems an odd word to use."

"It's the one that suits Ethel Hayward best of all. Anything else would be too commonplace. When I think what her life is - the endless struggle to make both ends meet - work morning, noon, and night - and on the top of it all the brother she adores a helpless, suffering invalid, it quite overawes me. If she were bitter and complaining it would be different, but she is nearly always cheerful and hopeful and ready to think of some one else's troubles. And yet she isn't goody-goody - nor what one describes as "worthy'; she's just human through and through."

"She sometimes seems to me a little severe," he said.

"Severe!... Oh, Dudley, she is the kindest soul alive."

"Perhaps she was tired; but it seemed to me, considering Doris's youth, she expected rather a lot of her."

"Ah!..."

Hal turned away, and picked up an evening paper. The exclamation might have meant anything, yet Dudley half knew it meant that in some way Hal believed Doris had wilfully misrepresented her sister, and, naturally resenting the inference, he returned to his book and said no more.

Hal lingered a little longer, passed one or two remarks on the evening news, told him of her day in the country, and then went to bed.

Yet, in spite of her soreness towards Doris, something in her evening with Ethel had unaccountably cheered and refreshed her - the kindly praise, the warm-hearted affection, the sight of the strong, womanly face, unembittered by its heavy sorrow.

Hal stood at her window, and glanced out over the City, and felt renewed in her determination to withstand Sir Edwin Crathie's advances. She knew that he was treating her with a lack of respect he would not have dared to show a woman in his own circle.

He was treating her as a City typist; and however much she wished to prolong it, she knew she owed it to herself to cut it adrift.

And the next day, when the anticipated telephone call came, her resolution was firm and unshaken.

"Tell the gentleman I am engaged," she told the call boy.

He came back again a moment later to know what time she would be disengaged, and she gave the message: "It is quite impossible to say. I have some most important work on hand."

The small boy grinned in a way that made Hal long to box his ears, but she returned to her work, and pretended not to see.

At the other end of the wire the speaker sat back in his chair and muttered an oath; then for some moments he stared gloomily at his desk.

"Damn it! I like her pluck," ran his thoughts; "but I don't mean to be put off like that. I've got to see her again somehow, if it's only to prove I'm not the cad she thinks me."



CHAPTER XXIII

The following afternoon when Hal left the office about half-past four she saw a motor she recognised a little way down the street, and was almost immediately accosted by Sir Edwin himself.

"I knew you left at this time," he said frankly, "so I came to meet you."

Hal looked a little taken aback.

"I wonder why you did that," was all she found to say.

"Well, it was the only way, since you won't come to the telephone, and I am afraid to call on you in Bloomsbury. I want to talk to you. Come along and have some tea."

Hal hesitated, looking doubtfully at the motor, but he urged her on.

"Come; surely you're not afraid to have a cup of tea with me. We'll go to the Carlton - or the Ritz if you prefer it - and take a conspicuous table."

"In my office garments!" with a low laugh. "I don't want to be taken for your housekeeper."

"My housekeeper is a deuce of a swell," laughing in his turn. "She certainly wouldn't be seen in a last year's frock; but you're one of the lucky people who manage to look smart, even in office clothes, as you call them - so come along."

Hal got into the motor.

"Which is it to be? Ritz or Carlton?"

"Oh, Carlton - and not the centre table."

"How do you manage it?" he said, as they glided off, looking at her with critical, admiring eyes.

"Manage what? I wish you wouldn't look at me like a doctor studying my health. I shall put my tongue out in a minute."

"Don't do that. A colleague or an opponent would be sure to be looking, and I don't know which would be worse. Manage to look smart in anything, of course I mean."

"Oh, it's Lorraine Vivian and her maid; they loathe to see me dowdy."

"With a little help from the Almighty, who gave you a haughty little nose and a short upper lip," he told her laughingly. "You're been very angry with me, I'm afraid, and no doubt I deserved it, but I'm going to make you be friends again and forgive me."

"You won't find it easy."

"I dare say not; but I'm going to try all the same. Shall I begin with a humble apology?"

"You couldn't be humble. I shouldn't believe in it."

"I believe I could with you - which means a great deal. Tell me, were you fully determined not to speak to me on the telephone, and not to see me again?"

"Most certainly I was."

"What nonsense! And did you really suppose I should submit without making an effort to see you, and persuade you to be friends again?"

Hal tilted her nose up a little, and glanced away as she replied a trifle scathingly:

"I supposed, having found I was not the sort of girl you imagined, and not one you could take liberties with, that possibly our friendship would cease to interest you."

He coloured slightly.

"You hit hard, but I suppose I have deserved it. I shall now have to prove to you that I've turned over a new leaf, and deserve it no longer."

They stopped before the Carlton as he spoke, and he led the way into the lounge, and to a side table.

"I'm sure you'll trust me this far," he said; "people stare so when one is in the middle of the room."

Hal sat down and drew off her gloves, feeling, in spite of herself, unmistakably happy. It was good to be there, instead of trudging home to Bloomsbury; and it was specially good to be chatting to him again.

A dear friend may be always a dear friend, and yet not just the one one wants at the moment. When things are difficult, and irritating, and disappointing, the pleasantest companion is apt to be one with so much individual regard for us at the time that we can hold forth upon our troubles without any fear of boring our listener.

When Hal had poured her tale of woe into Lorraine's ear, she had known that Lorraine was genuinely interested and sorry - and yet, also, that something else occupied her mind at the same time. Sitting now, opposite to Sir Edwin Crathie, it was perfectly apparent for the time being that his mind was entirely at her service.

This was further shown by the fact that he realised something was worrying her before she told him.

"What's the matter?" he asked abruptly; "you look as if something very boring had happened."

"It has."

Hal kept her eyes lowered a moment, with a thoughtful air, and the corners of the fascinating mouth drooped a little.

"What has happened?... Tell me what is bothering you."

He spoke reremptorily, yet with an evident concern for her that made the peremptory tone dangerously alluring. Hal remained silent, though she felt her pulses quicken, and he added:

"Come, we are going to be friends again; aren't we? I've told you I'm very sorry; I can't do more. You will really have to forgive me now."

She looked into his face, and something in his eyes told her he was quite genuine for the time. Of course it might be rash, and unwise, and various other things, but it had been a difficult, trying week, and his sympathy was passing good now. Sir Edwin met her gaze for a moment, and then lowered his.

He thought it was chiefly when her eyes laughed that he wanted to kiss her, but when they had that serious, rather appealing expression, he began to feel they were more disturbing still. Mastering his unmanageable senses with an effort, he looked up again, and said:

"Well, what is it? Of course you must tell me."

"Brother Dudley is going to be married," said Hal with her usual directness.

"When?" And Sir Edwin gave a low exclamation of surprise. "Isn't it rather sudden?"

"Very," in dry tones.

"And I suppose you don't want to love your prospective sister-in-law all in a hurry."

"I don't want to love her at all."

"Then I don't suppose you will," with a little laugh. "Presumably you know her."

"I have known her a long time. If I had been asked, she is the last girl I could have believed Dudley would care for. I don't believe he does care for her in the real sense. She is very pretty, and she wanted to marry him, and she just played on his feelings."

"What do you call 'in the real sense' ?" he asked pointedly.

"A pink spot burned in Hal's cheeks; she felt the question a little beside the mark, and did not want to answer it.

"She has rather a dull home, and is very poor, and I think she thought on the whole life would be improved if she were Dudley's wife."

"And that is not the real sense?" insistently.

"It certainly is not love."

"Well, you haven't yet told me what is?"

"I don't know much about it, and" - hastily - "I don't want to. When it's real it hurts, and when it isn't real it's just feebleness."

"Still, you must know some day."

He liked to see the spot of colour spreading in her cheeks, and the frank eyes growing a little defiant as he pressed her against her will.

"It doesn't follow that I must. Perhaps I shall just be feeble, and marry for a home and luxuries."

"Never," with conviction. "You'll - Hal, you'll get it badly when once you're caught."

"I never said you might call me 'Hal'."

"Didn't you? Well, I apologise. May I?"

She could not help laughing.

"You evidently mean to; and I suppose you usually have your own way."

"Very often. That's sensible of you. Of course you are sometimes annoying sensible and practical. I don't know that I ever liked any one quite so level-headed before. It never appealed to me. Yet, somehow, I think you could lose your head. You've got it in you to do so. I wouldn't give tuppence for a woman who hadn't."

Hal was silent, and, as usual, he pressed his point.

"Do you think you could lose your head?"

"I don't think I shall," was the evasive answer.

"I wonder," he said.

She felt him looking hard into her face, and moved restlessly beneath a scrutiny that quickened her pulses and warmed her blood in a way that was altogether new. Then suddenly she looked up.

"Don't you think we are rather talking drivel? Let's get back to the original subject. I don't want to lose my head - it's rather a nice one - sound and reliable and all that."

He sat back in his chair with a laugh.

"You're very clever," he told her admiringly. "I always seem to be out-flanked in the end. Very well then, Brother Dudley has got engaged foolishly, and Hal has been quietly fretting, instead of being a sensible little woman, and telling her friend all about it straight away. What are you going to do now?"

"I can't do anything. He won't get married for a few months anyway."

"And when he does?"

"Then I shall stay where I am, and make the best of it, I suppose... but... but" - her voice broke a little - "I'm a positive fool about Dudley. I can't bear to lose him."

"Poor little woman. Well, I'll be good to you if you'll let me. I dare say I can brighten things up a little. Every cloud has a silver lining, you know."

"I don't know where Dudley's will be," with a wintry smile. "It wouldn't be so hard if I thought there was any chance of his being happy. But there isn't. He doesn't in the least know her real character."

They sat on until seven o'clock, and then Hal rose to go, feeling happier than she had done ever since they last met.

"Well, am I forgiven?" he asked, as she buttoned her gloves.

"You are, for the present," with an arch glance; "but I reserve the right to retract at a moment's notice."

"And in the meantime you will prove it by coming out to lunch on Sunday? We might go to the Zoo afterwards, and make friends with some of the animals."

At the first suggestion of lunch Hal had been ready to shy away, but the idea of the Zoo on Sunday afternoon was too much for her, and she said with unmistakable longing:

"I should simply love the Zoo." Then, after a pause: "Couldn't I meet you there about three?"

"But why wait until three?" It is not very friendly of you to refuse to lunch with me."

"I usually go to Lorraine" - somewhat lamely.

"Why not bring Miss Vivian with you?"

"Oh, could I?" eagerly; "that would be splendid - if she is disengaged."

A curious little half smile crossed his eyes at her eagerness; but he only said:

"Certainly, and if she cares to bring a friend, to make the party an even number, I shall be only too pleased. Shall we say the Piccadilly, for a change, at 1.30?"

Hal thanked him, and as she sped homewards in a taxi he had procured for her, she viewed the prospect with real delight.

Dudley, of course, would be spending his Sunday with Doris, and she and Lorraine, supposing the latter were disengaged, might have found the afternoon a little long alone. The evening was the occasion of the dinner-party to commemorate Alymer Hermon's first brief, so it was very likely Lorraine would be free at midday.

She thought it was nice of Sir Edwin to invite her friend as well, and as she reviewed the afternoon meeting, her heart was foolishly glad over his apology, and insistent determination to be friends. It was evident, she believed, that if she adhered to her resolute resistance of familiarity, she would be able to keep him at a discreet distance, and they might enjoy a really delightful friendship.

Her eyes were smiling and glad at the little upper window that night. She had hated cutting off their friendship. The days had been dull and dragging without even a telephone chat with him; and though she still told herself it was chiefly because of the shock of Dudley's engagement, she knew it was a little for his sake also.

And she thought further, if they might now include Lorraine in some of their meetings, it would be an added safeguard, and very entertaining as well. She meant to telephone to her the first thing in the morning to fix up their Sunday engagement.

Inquiries on the telephone, however, the next morning, elicited the information that Lorraine had already arranged to go out to lunch; and thus Hal found herself unexpectedly thrown on her own resources. A little note from Ethel asking her to accompany Dudley if she had nothing better to do, placed her in a further awkward position.

She did not want to go to Holloway, to swell the number of mouths to be fed out of Ethel's slender housekeeping purse, and add one more to be cooked for, etc., on Ethel's one free day. Finally, because it was the simplest, as well as the pleasantest thing to do, she telephoned Sir Edwin, and told him Lorraine could not accompany her on Sunday, but she would be there herself, and afterwards go to the Zoo.

And at the other end of the wire Sir Edwin smiled, an enigmatical smile that was unmistakably pleased, as he put back the receiver, and glanced towards the cosy fire in his grate.

"I wonder," he said to himself meditatively, "if one could make her care, whether she could care enough to lose her head."



CHAPTER XXIV

It was rather a curious circumstance, that on the occasion of Lorraine's dinner-party, Alymer Hermon was the first to notice an indefinable change in Hal. To the others she was only gayer than usual, more sparkling, better-looking.

From the Zoological Gardens Sir Edwin had taken her home in a taxi, and after being a delightful companion all the afternoon, had said good-bye in just the friendly, pally spirit that Hal wished, without exhibiting any alarming symptoms whatever to disturb her peace of mind. He had indeed been at his very best; far nicer than ever before; and together they had thoroughly enjoyed their intercourse, through iron bars, with the animals they both loved.

Moreover, his knowledge on most subjects did not exclude zoology, and he was able to tell her numberless little details of the ways and habits of beasts that Hal rejoiced to hear, because she loved all four-footed things.

And then there had been the pleasant consciousness of a new winter costume, that was not only very up-to-date, but remarkable becoming; and Hal was true woman enough to enjoy the knowledge that she looked her best. Neither was it in any degree a mediocre "best"; and even Sir Edwin was a little surprised to find himself with a companion who attracted nearly as many admiring glances as various lady friends who were recognised beauties.

Her slim, graceful figure was singularly perfect, and, als he observed with fresh pleasure each time they met, she walked with a natural elegance and grace that were a delight to the eye. And happiness gave a faint pink flush to her cheeks and a light to her eyes, that somehow seemed to radiate gaiety; and her intense power of enjoyment communicated itself to others in a way that was wholly delifhtful.

So they spent a gay afternoon, which cemented the former acquaintanceship into a firmer bond of friendship, and because of it he vowed within himself he would play fair with her, and make no more advances he was not prepared to follow up in an honourable spirit.

For Hal, it was enough that the past mistake seemed genuinely regretted and wiped out, and that all his manner to her now held deference and respect. And she was intensely glad - almost alarmingly glad, if she had stopped to consider; only that would have cast a shadow on the sunshine; and she preferred to take the sunshine while it offered, and leave the future to take care of itself.

And in the meantime there was Lorraine's dinner-party, instead of a lonely evening, and once more she dressed herself with care and skill; and later stood up straight and slim in Lorraine's pretty drawing-room, radiating happiness, and surprising even old friends with her goodlooks.

Alymer Hermon remarked it first. He was standing beside her on the hearth, and he looked down from his great height with laughing, quizzical eyes and said:

"You're looking astonishingly pretty to-night. Have you been consulting a beauty specialist?"

Dick Bruce and Quin laughed delightedly.

"Why, of course!" cried Dick, digging his hands deep into his pockets, and giving himself a little gleeful shake, "I've been puzzling my head to grasp what it was. I'd forgotten all about the beauty specialists. It must have cost an awful lot, Hal."

"It did," she told them; "but you've no idea how clever they are. They can renovate the most hopeless faces. I'm sure you'd all find it worth while running to the expense."

"Now, come Hal," objected Quin laughingly. "We can't have the ornament of our flat insulted like that. The rising barrister needs no beauty specialist, you must admit."

Hal looked up at the giant with twitching lips.

"I was going to suggest a brain specialist for him. It won't be much use getting lots of briefs because he looks nice in his wig and gown if he hasn't the brains to win his cases."

Hermon caught her by the shoulders to shake her, and at that moment Lord Denton quietly entered the room.

Lorraine had met him in the hall, while hastening across for something she had forgotten, and told him to go in, so that he entered unannounced, and saw the group before they knew of his presence.

Especially he seemed to see the two on the hearthrug. Hal, with her shining eyes, rising coulour, and laughing lips, and Hermon with a sort of answering glow in his face, boyishly gripping her shoulders as if to shake her. He stood and looked at them a moment without speaking, then Hal espied him, and thinking he had that instant entered, exclaimed:

"Help!... Help!... Lord Denton, I am caught in the clutches of Leviathan."

He came forward smillingly.

"Leviathan does not look as if he meant to eat you; and even if he did, I don't believe my courage would run to closing with six-foot-five-and-a-half."

"Awful, isn't it?" she said, releasing herself and giving him her hand. "He is like those lanky pieces of corn which are all stalk and no head. Have you seen him before?"

"Once," offering his hand to Hermon. "Delighted to see you again. I hear you've made a hit already. My cousin tells me his friend is charmed with your way of grappling with her case."

"Did you take her by the shoulders?" asked Hal wickedly, rubbing her own.

"No,' Lord Denton told her. "He was very grave indeed. You must give him his due, Miss Pritchard. You've seen him grave yourself, haven't you now?"

"Yes; and he looked like a boiled owl. On the whole, I prefer him imbecile."

Alymer turned on her threateningly, but she slipped behind the other two, saying:

"Have you met these also, Lord Denton. Mr. St. Quintin, of Shoreditch, and my cousin, Dick Bruce, poet, novelist, and mother's help."

Denton shook hands with them genially, and then Lorraine came back, and they all followed her to the dining-room.

The repast was a very gay one. Every one was in the best of spirits, and, which is more important still, all were in attune, and there was no dissentient note. Hal was perhaps the gayest, and Lord Denton found himself watching her almost if he were seeing her for the first time. She seemed to him to have developed amazingly in the few months since he last met her, but he supposed girls of her age often developed quickly.

Yet even then it seemed a little strange that the merry, rather crude young typist, as he had regarded her before, should so easily appear a sparkling, distinguished guest. He could not help a little mental comparision with Lorraine, not in any way to the latter's detriment, but with a vague thought at the back of his mind concerning her and Hermon.

Lorraine would always be beautiful: her whole face and form were modelled on lines that would stand the ravages of many years; and for him she would ever be one of the dearest of women; but could she match Hal's young, vigorous, independence, that was very likely to prove more attractive than a generously given devotion?

Men, like women, are drawn to an indifference that piques them; and he, man of the world that he was, foresaw a strong irresistible attraction about Hal's spirited independence.

But, on the other hand, Lorraine was intensely sympathetic and understanding, as well as beautiful; and it seemed strange indeed if any man she chose to enslave could resist her.

He watched Hermon bend his fair head down to her dark one, with an affectionate, protective air, that was very becoming to him; and observed that with Hal it was all sparring, and told himself Lorraine had nothing to fear.

They toasted Hermon on his brief, and on the laurel wreath Dick announced he already perceived sprouting on his manly brow. Hal said it was only a daisy chain, or the halo of a cherubim; and the laurels were rightly sprouting on Dick's brow as a novelist.

Hermon returned thanks in a witty, clever little speech, during which Lorraine seemed scarcely able to take her eyes from his face, and Lord Denton recognised more fully the extraordinary attraction such a man must wield, whether by intention or quite unconsciously.

He pictured him towering a head and shoulders above nearly every one around at the law courts, with his clear-cut, fine face, looking yet more striking in the severe setting of a wig and gown; and he knew that Lorraine had made no mistake when she said he only wanted impetus and a chance to make a name for himself. If he could rap out a dainty little speech like this at a moment's notice, wearing just that air of unpretentious, boyish humour, his path ought undoubtedly to be a path of roses, petted by women, admired and appreciated by men.

"In conclusion," he was saying, "may I suggest a toast to Miss Pritchard? I am sure you will all join me in offering her our warmest congratulations upon her sudden and unlooked-for promotion, from a somewhat nondescript young person to a brilliant and beautiful society belle."

"Speech! speech!" cried Dick and Quin to her gleefully, noisely rattling their glasses, and Hal got to her feet.

"Ladies and gentleman and Baby Alymer Hermon," she began. "You must allow me to acknowledge your kind toast by congratulating you all, in return, upon the sudden and swift development of you powers of vision and perspicacity: equalled only, I may say, by your extraordinary dulness in not having observed long ago those traits for which you are pleased, at this late hour, to offer me your congratulations. Before I sit down I should like to suggest we all drink the healths of the celebrated actress who is our hostess, of a bishop in the making -" signifying Quin; "a great novelist in the brewing, and a gentleman justly celebrated for the eloquence and ease with which he does nothing at all" - and she bowed to Lord Denton.

"Capital!" he exclaimed. "I am evidently dining in very distinguished company to-night"; a little later, turning to Dick, he added: "How soon, may I ask, will this great novel be procurable by the general public?"

Before Dick could reply, Hal intercepted gaily:

"Well, I think the carrots and turnips have fallen out as to which takes precedence at a dinner-party: isn't that so, Dick? And until the difficult question is settled, progress halts."

"Something of the kind," agreed Dick promptly; "and there is also discord among the vegetable marrows and pumpkins on a similar question; but when the Baby Brigade has settled the views of the Trade Unions, and reversed the Osborne Judgment, we shall be able to proceed smoothly."

"It sounds a very extraordinary type of novel," said Lorraine.

"It is. I wanted, if possible, to write something even more imbecile than has ever yet been written. I have not the patience for great length; nor the wit for brilliant satire; nor the imagination for te popular, spicy, impossible, ill-flavoured romance; so I have chosen the other line, adopted by the great majority, and aim at purposeless, pointless imbecility."

"And is Hal the model for your heroine?" asked Hermon.

When Hal's indignation and epithets had subsided, Quin remarked that he supposed the book fairly bristled with mothers, and with paragraphs of good advice to them.

"Well, yes," Dick admitted. "There are certainly a good many mothers - far more mothers than wives, in fact."

"Oh, naughty!" put in Lord Denton.

"Not at all. It has to do with a theory. It is to bring out the common sense of vegetables compared to humans. Humans condemn millions of women, specially born for motherhood, to purposeless, joyless spinsterhood, all on account of a prejudice. No green, brainless, commonplace vegetable would be guilty of such unutterable folly as that."

"Don't be too sweeping," quoth Quin. "In the East End women are still mothers from choice; and given decent, healthy conditions, they would proudly raise an army to protect their country from her threatening foes. It is not their fault that 50 per cent of their offspring are sickly, anaemic little weeds."

"It sounds as if your book has a serious side in spite of its imbecility?" suggested Lorraine.

"Imbecility and madness are usually full of seriousness," Dick told her - "far more so than commonplace rationalism."

"And do you want to revolutionise society?"

"Oh dear no; what an alarming idea!"

"Then what do you want?" - they asked him.

"I want to see all the superfluous unemployed spinsters busy, happy mothers, patriotically contributing to raise a splendid fighting-force, for one thing, which will certainly be regarded as an utterly imbecile idea by a magnificently rational world."

"And have you any theory about it?" asked Lord Denton.

"Nothing but the worn-out, commonplace, absurdly natural theories of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. My only chance is that, being so ancient, and so absurdly natural, the modern world may mistake them for something entirely new, and seize upon them with the fasionable avidity for novelties."

"Or they may lock you up," suggested Quin.

"In any case I'm afraid you'll be too late," Hal commented, with a half grave, half sarcastic air; "for before your theories can make any headway, England is likely to have given all her life-blood to systems, and restrictions, and cut-and-dried conventions, utterly regardless of her need for a strong protecting force to maintain her existence at all. Taken in the aggregate, she never has bothered much about the primary necessity for the best possible conditions for the mothers of the future."

"What a learned sentence, Hal," put in Lorraine, looking amused. "Quite worthy of a militant suffragette."

"The announced suffragettes are not the only ones who care for England's future," she said. "I suppose I care a good deal because I'm in the newspaper world, and I know something of what she has to contend against in the way of petty party spirit and the self-aggrandising of some of her so-called leaders, who haven't an ounce of true patriotism, and only want to shout something outrageous in a very loud voice, just to attract public attention."

"I think Bruce is right up to a certain point," remarked Lord Denton. "We can hardly contemplate the reinstitution of polygamy, but it certainly ought to be the business of the State to see that every child born into the country is given the best possible conditions in which to become a good citizen and, if necessary, a good soldier."

"Isn't there a Poor Law for that express purpose?" asked Lorraine.

"Don't speak of it," commented Quin sadly. "Our Poor Law, like so many excellent institutions, is mostly run on a wrong basis. Huge sums of money are expended in procuring homes for homeless children, and the last thing that seems to be considered is the suitability of the home. Applications are accepted in a perfunctory, business-like way by guardians and others - and perhaps an inspector takes a casual glance round; but the moral aspect of the whole matter, as to character and habits, is mostly left to chance. We, who are on the spot, often have to rescue children from the homes the State has provided for them."

"It is more supervision, then, that you want?" asked Lord Denton.

"It is a different sort of supervision altogether. It ought to be woman's work, not man's - women who are paid and encouraged and helped."

"But that might be defying some of the precious conventions," put in Hal with a touch of scorn - "making women too important, don't you know; and encouraging them to be something more than household ornaments. We can't have that, even for the sake of the future. It would be too alarming. No; England will continue in her cast-iron rut of prejudice, until most of her soul-power is dried up, and only the husk of a great nation is left, to follow in the way of other husks."

"Then I will go to the new, young, strong nation, and watch her splendid rise," quoth Dick.

"Traitor!" they threw at him, but he was quite imperturbed. "Strength and vigour are better than old traditions and an enfeebled race; and sombebody, somewhere on the globe, had got to listen to what I am bound to teach."

"You dear old Juggins," said Hal, "when England has passed her zenith, and gone under to the new, strong race, you will be found sitting meditating among cabbages and green peas, like Omar Khayym in his rose garden. The rest of us will have died in the fighting-line - except Baby, and they will put him under a glass case, and preserve him as one of the few fine specimens left of a decadent race - in spite of his brainlessness."

"Are we a decadent race?" asked Lorraine thoughtfully.

"Only the House of Lords and a few leading Conservatives," said Lord Denton with flippancy. "The workingman who has the courage to refuse to work, and the Liberal members who have the grit to demand salaries for upsetting the Constitution, led by a few eminent Ministers who delight to remove their neighbour's landmark, and relieve his pocket, are the splendid fellows of the grand new opening era of prosperity and greatness."

"Still," put in Quin hopefully, "it is very fashionable to go big-game shooting nowadays, and an African lion may yet chew up a few of them."

"Poor lion!" quoth Lorraine; "but what a fine finale for the king of beasts, to chew up the despoilers of kings. Shall we go to the drawing-room?" And she rose to lead the way.

A Bridge table was arranged in an alcove for Hal and three of the men, and Lorraine and Hermon sat over the fire for preference. They were far enough away from the players to be able to speak of them unheard, and Hermon, in the course of their conversation, mentioned that he saw something different in Hal to-night to what he had noticed before.

Lorraine thought she was only very lively, but Hermon looked doubtful. He could not express what he seemed to see, but in some way her liveliness held a new note. He thought she had more tone and a new kind of assurance, and he tried to explain it to Lorraine.

"I expect she's had a jolly afternoon," was all Lorraine said, with a smile. "She has been to the Zoo with Sir Edwin Crathie."

"Has she?" significantly, and Hermon raised his eyebrows. "Are they still friends, then? I thought she only knew him slightly."

"Thas was at the beginning," and Lorraine glanced at him with the smile deepening in her eyes. "There always has to be a beginning - doesn't there?"

But no answering smile shone in Alymer Hermon's face, rather a slight shade of anxiety as he glanced across the room at Hal. "I should not like a sister of mine to have much to do with Sir Edwin Crathie," he said gravely.

"Perhaps not, you dear old Solemn-acre," giving his arm a gentle pat; "but a sister of yours would not have learned early to battle with the world as Hal has."

"But surely if she is less protected than a sister of mine would have been, there is the greater cause for caution."

"There is no comparision. A sister of yours would always have known protection, and always rely on it, and if it failed her she might find herself in difficulties and dangers she hardly knew how to cope with. Hal faced the difficulties and the dangers early, and learnt to be her own defence and protector. Some women have to, you see. It is necessary for them to wield weapons and armour out of their own strength, and be prepared to be buffeted by a heartless world, and not be afraid. If you had a sister, you would want to keep her in cotton-wool, and never let any rough, enlightening experience come near her. If I had a daughter, I should like her to have the enlightening experience early, and learn to be strong and self-dependent like Hal; then I shouldn't be afraid of her future."

She was silent a few moments, then added thoughtfully: "I think it would be better for society in general if the girls of the leisured classes knew more about the world, and were better able to take car of themselves; meaning, of course, with a pride like Hal's in going straight because it's the game."

Hermon's eyes again strayed to Hal's pretty head, with its glossy brown hair, and Lorraine continued after a pause:

"If I'm afraid of anything with Hal, it is that she might let herself get to care for some one who isn't worth her little finger, or some one who is out of her reach, or something generally impossible. She wouldn't care lightly; and she'd get dreadfully hurt."

"But surely she couldn't actually fall in love with a man like Edwin Crathie?" he remonstrated.

"I wasn't thinking of Sir Edwin specially. She goed about a great deal, you know, and meets many people. She has a strong vein of romance too. I always feel I shall be very glad when she is safely anchored, if only it is to the right man."

They were interrupted then by the Bridge players, who had finished their first rubber, and Lord Denton persuaded Hermon to change places with him for a time, and came to sit over the fire with Lorraine. Presently he too mentioned Hal.

"She is the best woman Bridge player I have ever met," he said. "She seems to be developing into something rather out of the ordinary. Hasn't she grown much better-looking?"

Lorraine smiled, a slow, sweet smile.

"Alymer Hermon has just been praising Hal too," she said; "I like to hear you men admire her; it shows you can appreciate sterling worth as well - well - shall we call it daring impropriety?"

"You are a little severe."

"Am I? Well, you see, I know a good many men pretty intimately; and I have gleaned from various confiding moments that it is not the working woman chiefly, relying only on her own protection, who strays into the murky byways and muddy corners of life. It is surprisingly often the direction of the idle, home-guarded, bored young lady. Flip, if it came to a choice, I believe I would put my money on the worker. It's such a splendid, healthy, steadying thing to have a real purpose and a real occupation; instead of just days and weeks of idle enjoyment. And as for temptations! Well, they abound pretty fully in both cases; it isn't the amount of temptation likely to be encountered that matters, so much as the quality of the individual armour to meet it with."

"Still, when it comes to being hungry and cold and having no money?" he argued.

"It doesn't make much difference in the long run, except that one hopes The Man Above will surely find a wider forgiveness for the woman who was hungry and cold than for the woman who was just bored, but hadn't the grit to find an aim and purpose to renew and invigorate a purposeless life. All the same, I'd like to see Hal safely anchored to a real good fellow. Flip, if you could persuade her to try, she'd make you a splendid wife."

"And what in the world should I do with a splendid wife?" laughing frankly into her face - "what an appalling possession! Lorry, old girl, I've got a splendid woman pal, and that's good enough for me. If I ever want a wife you shall have the privilege of finding me one: but it won't be until I am old and gouty, and then she had better be a hospital nurse, inured to irritability."

"You are quite hopeless," shaking her head at him, "but I don't particularly want to lose you as a friend, unless it is for Hal; so we'll say no more."

"Sensible woman! And now I must really be off. I like your friends, Lorry. They're very fresh. And of course Hermon is tremendous. You haven't overdrawn him at all. Only to be careful. Remember the burnt child. A man like that ought to be made to wear a mask and hideous garments, for the protection of susceptible females."

"He would need to speak through a grating trumpet as well."

"Yes, I suppose he would. Even I can hear the attraction in his voice. It will be splendid when he begins to feel his feet in the law courts. We'll make a celebrity of him, shall we - just for the interest of it. But it's to be only a hobby, Lorraine, no entanglements, mind" - and he laughed his low, pleasant laught.

"Very well, call it a hobby, or what you like - only keep him in mind now, Flip. I've got him into an ambitious spirit that means everything, if there is enough fuel at the beginning to keep it alight until it is a glowing pile quite capable of burning gaily alone."

"Right you are. I like him. You fan the flame, and I'll rake up the fuel. I'll speak to Hodson about him to-morrow. He's always ready to lend a hand to a promising junior."

When they had all gone, Lorraine lingered a few moments by her fireside.

"A hobby!" she breathed; "yes, why not? Man-making is almost equal to man-bearing. I have no son to spur up the Olympian heights; but what might I not do for Alymer, if... if - "

She placed her hands on the mantelshelf, and leaned her forehead down on them.

"Alymer," she whispered, a little brokenly, "I wonder if I ought to be ready to give you all, and ask nothing? Perhaps make you all the splendid man you might be, just for some one else, and get nothing myself but a heart-ache?"



CHAPTER XXV

The winter months passed more or less uneventfully and pleasantly. The case in which Hermon had held his first brief, though in only a very secondary position, was rather splendidly won. An unlooked-for development in it roused public interest, and filled the Hall with spectators. Lord Denton went out of curiosity, and was present when Hermon, as an unknown junior, made his first public appearance.

He was not the only man specially interested either; seniour councel on both sides had its grandiloquent eye on the new-comer, so to speak - interested to know how he would acquit himself. Afterwards they congratulated him very warmly, and Denton went to tell Lorraine he had made a hit.

"He looked splendid," he declared enthusiastically; "and het was delightfully calm and self-possessed. He'll soon get another brief now. You see."

He did; and the future began to look very full of promise to this favourite of fortune.

As Lorraine had predicted, his growing success filled his mind, and kept him safe from many pitfalls; while her sympathetic companionship satisfied him in other respects, and formed a substantial bulwark between him and the women who would have tried to spoil him.

He had other women friends as well, but Lorraine felt they were not dangerous, by the way he talked of them. As long as he did not get foolishly engaged, and cripple his career at the very outset, as he easily might while he had no income to rely on, she did not fear. Lord Denton advised her to marry him to an heiress as soon as possible, but Lorraine knew better than to risk an impeding millstone of gold, and insisted he must just win his way through on the allowance his father gave him.

In the meantime they were a great deal together, and though they seldom went to any public place alone, they occasionally broke their rule; and it was known, at any rate in theatrical circles, that Lorraine rarely went out with her own old set, and had grown reserved and quiet. Hal knew something of the absorbing friendship, but she still made light of it, and sparred with Hermon whenever she saw him - "for his good."

As a matter of fact, she did not go quite so much to Lorraine's as usual herself; for many of the hours she had been accustomed to spend there she now spent with Sir Edwin Crathie. All through the winter they continued to take motor rides into the country; and often they went together to a quiet, unfashionable golf club, where they were both learning to overcome the intricacies and trials of that absorbing pastime.

It was easy for Sir Edwin to silence curious tongues. He spoke of her quite frankly as his niece, and Hal more or less acquiesced, because it was simpler to arrange an afternoon's golf, for Dudley had managed to become very thoroughly absorbed in Doris, and she aksed no questions.

The only two to raise any real objections were Dick and Alymer Hermon. Dick had to be talked round, and thoroughly impressed with Sir Edwin's great age (of forty-eight), and though Hal did not state the actual years, she was perfectly correct in insisting that he was old enough to be her father; though she need not perhaps have said it in quite such a tone of ridiculing an absurd idea.

Anyhow, Dick was pacified up to a certain point, and obliged to see that the new friendship did her good, keeping her cheerful and hopeful in spite of her bitter disappointment about Dudley's engagement, and generally brightening the whole of the winter routine for her.

With Hermon it was rather different. Ha was less cosmopolitan than Dick, and he insistently adhered to his first idea concerning what he would have felt had Hal been his sister.

Why she should have been specially interested did not occur to him. Dick, of course, actually was a sort of brother, being much more so in a sense than many real brothers, as far as personal interest and protection went.

When Has was first left an orphan she had been a great deal with him, at his own home, and they had always been special friends both then and since.

But Hermon was in no sense either a brother or a special friend. They had never done anything else but spar, howerver good-naturedly; and Lorraine, in consequence, twitted him once or twice about looking grave over Hal's doings.

And Hermon had laughed, and coloured a little, saying something about a feeling at the flat that they all had a sort of right in Hal, and he didn't see what that brute, Crathie - a Liberal into the bargain - wanted to be taking her about for.

He even went so far as to say something to Hal herself about it; one day, when they were alone in Lorraine's drawing-room, waiting for her to come in, Hal had just told him frankly she had played golf with Sir Edwin the previous day; and in a sudden burst of indignation Hermon exclaimed:

"I can't think how you can be so friendly with the man. Surely you know what he is? He has about as much principle as my foot."

Hal had turned round and stared at him in blank astonishment.

"Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed, "what an outburst! What has Sir Edwin done to hurt you?"

But he stood his ground steadily.

"You know it isn't that. If you were my sister, I wouldn't let you go out with him as you do."

"Then what a comfort for me, I'm not. And really, Baby dear! I'm much more adapted to be your mother."

"Rot!"

He looked at her almost fiercely for a moment, scarcely aware of it himself, buth with a sudden, swift, unaccountable resentment of the old joke. Hal, surprised again, backed away a little, eyeing him with a quizzical, roguish expression that made him want desperately to shake her.

"Grandpapa," she murmured, with a mock, apologetic air, "you really mustn't get so worked up at - at your advanced years."

His face relaxed suddenly into laughter.

'I don't know whether I want to shake you or kiss you... you... you - "

"Thanks, I'll take the shake," she interrupted promptly. "I certainly haven't deserved such severe punishment as a kiss."

He took a step towards her, but she stood quite still and laughed in his face; and he could only turn away, laughing himself.

Yet he was conscious that her attitude riled him. He was not in the least vain, but all the same it was absurd that Hal should persist in being the one woman who was not only utterly indifferent to his attractions, but seemed almost to scorn him for them. In some of the others it would not have mattered in the least - at any rate he thought so - but in Hal it was sheer nonsense.

He liked her better than any one, except perhaps Lorraine, and he always enjoyed their sparring; but of course there was a limit, and she really might be seriously friendly sometimes; and anyhow he hated Sir Edwin Crathie.

While he thought all this more or less vaguely, Hal watched him with undisguised amusement.

"Don't think so hard," she said; "it spoils the line of your profile."

"Hang my profile!" he exclaimed, almost crossly. "Can't you be serious for five minutes, you're always so - so - "

"Not at all. I'm perfectly serious. A frown doesn't suit you one little bit. Imagine a scowl on one of Raphael's cherubim."

"I don't want to imagine anything so silly, and I'm not in the least like a cherub. It would be more sensible if you want to do some wise imagining, to think of Sir Edwin Crathie, and imagine yourself in the devil's clutches."

"But I've not the smallest wish to be in Sir Edwin's clutches, so why should I try to imagine it?... and you're not at all polite, are you?"

"I'm honest anyway; and I'll warrant that's more than he can rise to."

"But really, dear Alymer," reverting again to the mocking tone, "at what period of your friendship with him have you had occasion to find him out?"

"Your sarcasm won't frighten me. A man knows more about this sort of thing than a girl. Of course he is all right in an ordinary way, but you are so often with him... Considering his political career, it is positively unpatriotic of you to be such close friends."

"Such nonsense! Do you want me to be as bigoted and narrow-minded as those Conservatives who are continually holding the party back, because they are quite incapable of realising there are two sides to a question? I don't hold the same views as Sir Edwin at all. I'm not likely to, being on the staff of the Morning Mail; but that isn't any reason why I should object to him as a friend."

"No; but his reputation might be."

Hal stamped her foot.

"Oh, don't stand there and talk about a man's reputation in that superior, self-satisfied fashion. What is it to you anyhow? My friendship can't possibly be any concern of yours."

She moved away with a restless, ruffled manner, and threw back at him:

"Of course I'm awfully grateful to you for being so interested in my welfare, but your concern is a little misplaced. I am quite capable of taking care of myself, and have been for at least seven years."

He looked hurt, and about to retort, but at that moment Lorraine's latch-key sounded in the door, and Hal went out into the hall to meet her.

"I'm so glad you've come," she remarked, as they re-entered together. "Baby is in one of his insufferable, superior moods, and is lecturing me on my friendship with Sir Edwin. And all because I casually mentioned I had had a game of golf with him."

Lorraine looked a little surprised, but she only remarked laughingly:

"It's a little fad of his to lecture. I rather like it; but I wonder he had the temerity to lecture you."

"Unfortunately, lecturing doesn't instil common sense," put in Hermon, "and it only requires common sense to understand Sir Edwin Crathie isn't very likely to prove a satisfactory friend."

"You mean it only requires dense, narrow-minded self-satisfaction. Really, Baby, if you are so good to look at, there is surely a limit even to your permissible airs and graces"; and Hal tossed her head.

"Now come, you two," interposed Lorraine; "I don't want quarreling over my tea. Give her some of that sticky pink-and-white cake, Alymer, and have some yourself, and you will soon both grow amiable again."

"He hasn't got his bibliotheek," Hal snapped, "and he knows his mother told him he was to have bread-and-butter first. You are not to spoil him, Lorry. Spoilt children are odious."

"So are conceited women," he retorted. "It's only that new hat that is making you so pleased with yourself."

"It's a dear hat," she commented. "You have to pin a curl on with it, else there's a gap. I'm in mortal dread I shall lose the curl, or find it hanging down my back."

No more was said on the subject of Sir Edwin, but when Hal was about to leave, and found that Hermon was staying on, she pursed up her lips with an air of sanctimonious disapproval and said:

"I don't want to hurt any one's feelings, but I'm not at all sure Mr. Hermont is quite a nice friend for you, Lorraine. His conversation is neither elevating nor improving, and I hardly like to go off now and leave you alone with him."

"Don't worry," Lorraine laughed. "He is improving every day under my tuition. I hope you can say as much for Sir Edwin."

"I can," she answered frankly. "He has learnt quite a lot since I took him in hand; especially about women and the vote. He has positively made the discovery that they don't all want it just for notoriety, and novelty; but I'm afraid he won't succeed in convincing the other dense old gentlemen in the Cabinet. Good-bye!"

"Be circumspect, O Youth and Beauty. And don't let him over-eat himself, Lorry," she finished, as she departed.



CHAPTER XXVI

When Hermon was finding fault with Hal's friendship for Sir Edwin Crathie, it had not apparently occured to him that his own friends and relations were likely enough to take precisely the same view of his friendship with Lorraine Vivian. He did not want to think it, any more than Hal had done, and therefore he conveniently ignored the probability, and indulged in the reflection that any how they were never likely to hear of it.

Yet it was through them, and their ill-chosen mode of interference, that the first trouble arose, when that quiet, peaceful winter was over, and the spring arrived with renewing and vigour, and with new happenings in other beside the natural world.

It was as though the one gladsome winter of pleasant companionship and firesides was given to them all - Dudley and Hal, Ethel and Basil, Lorraine and Hermon - before the wider issues of the future stepped in and claimed their toll of sorrow before they gave the deeper joys.

Alymer Hermon's father and mother were at this time living in a charming house at Sevenoaks, whither he went at least once a week to see them.

His father had become more or less of a recluse, enjoying a quiet old age with his books; but his mother was an energetic, bigoted lady of the old school, who had allowed much natural kindliness to become absorbed in her devotion to church precepts and church works.

When it first reached her ears that her only son, of boundless hopes and dreams, was continually with the actress Lorraine Vivian, she was horrified beyond words.

Undoubtedly the story had been much magnified and embroidered, and accepted as a scandalous liaison or entanglement without any inquiry. To make matters worse, Mrs. Hermon belonged so thouroughly to the old school that she could not even distinguish between a clever celebrated actress and a chorus girl.

The stage, to her, was a synonym which included all things theatrical in one comprehensive ban of immorality and vice, with degrees, of course, but in no case without deserving censure from the eminently respectable, well-born British matron. She could not have been more upset had the heroine of the story been the under housemaid; and indeed she placed actressess and housemaids in much the same category.

Of course the friendship must be stopped, and stopped instantly. What a mercy of mercies she had discovered it so soon, and that now it might be nipped in the bud. Just at the very outset of his career, too, which had so astonishingly developed of late, and caused her such proud delight.

That that surprising development, both in the career and the beloved son, might have anything to do with this dreadful entanglement was not to be thought of for a moment; and when Alymer's father ventured to suggest thoughtfully and a little wonderingly that the friendship had certainly not harmed the boy, she turned on him with bitterness, ending up with the dictum that men were all alike when there was a woman in the case, and could not possibly form an unbiassed opinion.

After which, she went off to church to a week-day service, partly to pray for guidance in a matter in which she had already firmly decided what line to take, and partly to unburden her mind to her pet clergyman. Of course she must speak to Alymer that very evening. How fortunate that it was one of the nights he almost always came to Sevenoaks.

If only he had lived at home it would never have happened. It was all that hateful little flat where he lived with Bruce and St. Quintin. She ought never to have given way so easily. If his father had docked his allowance, in order to compel him to live at home, he would soon have got used to the daily train journey, and it would have been far better for him.

Now, of course, he was not likely to hear of it; and since he was making such good headway in his profession, it certainly did seem a pity to risk upsetting him. But no doubt a little quiet talk would convince him of the unwisdom of allowing his name to be associated with an actress just now; and once more she congratulated herself that she had heard in time.

The Rev. Hetherington listended to her story with all the sympathetic horror she could wish, and she felt buoyed up in her adamantine decision, although she still harped on the intention of praying for guidance.

The Rev. Hetherington, of morbid and woeful countenance, was one who looked across a world glorious with spring sunshine, as if he saw nothing but the earwigs, and black-beetles, and creepy, crawly things of existence, and he promised readily to pray also: and perhaps God smiled the smile He keeps for the good people who so often ask to be guided by His Will, when they have long before decided exactly what that Will shall be.

The pastor accompanied his parishioner to her door, walking slowly with her through a garden bursting into a joyous splendour of crocuses, and snowdrops, and promise of laughing daffodils in warm corners; and together they lamented the terrible temptations of wicked sirens that beset the paths of splendid young men in the world.

"Not that he isn't a good, affectionate son," she finished, "but he has always been made so much of - which is not in the least surprising, and no doubt he has grown lax. Still, he might have remembered how proud a name he bore, and, at least, have drawn the line at a frivolous, painted actress. His father says she is very clever and quite well known, but even he cannot deny she probably paints her face; and surely that is enough to show what her mind is! How Alymer could endure it, I don't know. He has been used to such perfect ladies all his life, and the mere sight of paint should disgust him."

"Of course, of course," murmured the mournful parson, who had great hopes of a big subscription for his Young Women's Bible Class, and was in two minds as to whether to regard the present moment as auspicious, and introduce the need of educating all young women in high and holy thoughts; or whether it was wiser to wait until his companion were in a less perturbed frame of mind.

And the crocuses nodded and laughed, holding up their little yellow staves gaily to the sunshine, and shouting to each other that it was spring, clamouring to make the most of their great day, before the flowers came in battalions to crowd them out of sight and mind.

And the gentle little snowdrops whispered secrets to each other, which only themselves could hear, about warmth and sunshine and the beauty of the new spring world - too old in the wisdom of nature to pay any heed to the two humans who would rather have had a world all maxims and rules, and rigid straight lines from which no gladsome young hearts ever strayed.

Finally the mournful clergyman went away without asking for his subscription, having made mental decision that there would be far more trouble to come over the painted woman, and yet more propitious occasion was likely to arise.

And Alymer's mother went into the house with set, severe lips; and pulled down all the blinds that were letting in sunlight, for fear some of the carpets got spoiled.

She did not, however, venture into the library, where her husband sat in a large bow window reading, with sunlight flooding all round him, and sunshine in his quiet eyes, and the sunshine of a great man's thoughts filling his mind.

He was too much of a philosopher to worry about his son, and, moreover he knew Alymer well, and had great faith in his good sense; but he realised a mother would take fright more quickly, and that it was as well to let her have her talk with the boy, and comfort herself with the belief that she had saved him. As long as she did not shut out his library sunlight, nor bring her pet clergyman into his sanctum, he found it easy to balance her sterling companionable qualities against certain others of a trying nature, and go serenely on his philosophical way.

Undoubtedly Alymer was a well-selected mixture of both parents. To his mother he owed his fine features and his power of resolve when he chose to exert it; and to his father his splendid stature, his quiet little humours, and the old-fashioned, courtly protectiveness that had so quickly won Lorraine's heart.

Yet it was a mixture that might have borne no practical results if left to itself, but rather a retarding.

As Lorraine had so clearly seen, the spur of ambition, and a resolute determination to succeed in other walks than that of the casual, charming, petted favourite of fortune, were indispensable to bring his traits into a harmony with each other that would achieve.

It was to this end that she had given him of her best encouragement and help; too old and too wise not to have seen that whatever her own personal feelings towards him, it was extremely probable that she had helped him towards realising his highest promise, for some one else to reap the deepest joy of it.

Well, at any rate she had had the interest and the companionship, and these had not been small things. He had come into her life just when it was wearying of triumph and adulation; when lovely frocks and jewels, and hosts of admirers - the very things she had craved for a few years earlier - had commenced to pall in the light of the little real satisfaction to be won from them. With some women perhaps they never palled. Perhaps each fresh conquest renewed them, and each fresh triumph invigorated.

In Lorraine's complex character, the love of success was blended with a love of the deeper and richer things of life. She was of those to whom, at times, wide spaces, and fresh breezes, and the big, sweeping, elemental things call loudly, above the noise of the world of fashion; and she knew what it was to be filled with an aching nausea of all she had practically sold her soul to win, and a yearning nostalgia for something that might satisfy the finer instincts of her nature.

And in a measure her interest in Hermon had filled the void. Whatever her feeling had been in the beginning, it had undoubtedly merged now into a definite purpose for his good, from which she meant to eliminate - if the time came when he wanted to be free of her - any claim her heart might clamour to assert.

Her dealings with him were, for the time being, on a par with the generous unselfishness she had shown towards her mother. For both of them she found the courage and resolution to thrust herself in the background and give of her best as the hour required.

If the friendship had been permitted to develop quietly along these lines, a future day might have witnessed Lorraine quite naturally outgrowing her infatuation, and happily satisfied with the result of her unwearying interest and effort; while Hermon, from his proud pinnacle of success, would still have felt her his best friend.

But at the critical moment the blundering, disturbing hand was permitted to jar the harmony of the strings and spoil the melody. To what end?... who knows?... Perhaps to some unseen, mysterious widening, and deepening, and learning necessary to the onward march of Humanity towards its goal of Perfection.



CHAPTER XXVII

Alymer knew directly he entered the house, and saw his mother, that something had upset her, but he did not associate it with Lorraine, and kissed her with his usual warm affection.

It was not until after dinner, when they were alone in the drawing-room, that the subject was broached, and then, with very little preliminary, Mrs. Hermon - bending Divine Guidance to her own will - made a merciless attack on "the painted woman."

It was no doubt the most unwise course of action conceivable; but Mrs. Hermon, with her quiet and philosophical husband, and her only son, had led a sheltered, smoothly flowing married life, after a yet more sheltered girlhood, far removed from the passionate upheavals of society, and she had neither practical worldly knowledge nor experience to aid her.

She told him the story that had reached her ears through the jealousy of a sister, whose only son was very plain, and a scapegrace, and who had been fiendishly glad to have an opportunity to cast a slur upon the doings of the successful, handsome, steady young barrister.

"Douglas says he is always with her," had been her sister's conclusion - "and that every one is talking about it, and there is a dreadful lot of scandal. I thought it was only kind to tell you, as if he goes on in the same way he will certainly ruin his career."

Then had come the parting shot.

"We all think so much of Alymer, that I would not believe such a story of him without proof. Douglas said he usualy went to her flat in Chelsea about five, when he leaves Chambers, and I went twice to see if he came; and on each occasion he strode along, and swung into the building almost as if he lived there."

Mrs. Hermon did not at first tell her son the source of her information, and he did not ask her. Neither, somewhat to her surprise, did he attempt to exculpate himself, nor to make any denial.

He stood up on the hearth with that straight, strong look he had, when all his faculties were acute, and heard her through to the end. Then she said in a hurt voice: " You don't deny it, Alymer. I have been hoping you went to the flat on business, and there was some mistake."

"I deny everything that you have implied against Miss Vivian. The story of the friendship is true."

His quiet self-possession seemed to disconcert her a little. She was prepared for indignant denial, or angry remonstrance even; but this calm self-possession was something almost new to her. True, he had always been calm and philosophical, like his father; but this was something deeper and stronger than she had yet known in him.

"The fact is, mother," he went on after a pause, "you have run away with a totally wrong idea of Miss Vivian. If she were the sort of actress you picture, you might perhaps be anxious; but all the same I think you might have given me credit for rather better taste."

"My dear, an actress is an actress - and every one knows what that is; and the mere fact of her calling, or whatever you like to name it, is sufficient to seriously hurt your position."

He smiled a little.

"I dispute the dictum that every one knows whant an actress is, in the sweeping sense you mean. I do not think you know, for one. I shall have to try and persuade Miss Vivian to come and see you."

"Indeed I hope you will do no such thing."

Again he smiled.

"In any case I should not succeed. She is very proud, and would resent patronage even more than you."

Mrs. Hermon gave a significant sniff of incredulity, but she only said:

"Well, Alymer dear, you will give me a promise not to see her any more - won't you?"

"I can't do that, mother."

"Why not?"

"It is out of the question. For one thing, I owe too much to Miss Vivian; and for another, I am too fond of her."

"All the more reason you should try to break off the friendship at once, before she has succeeded in any of her schemes to entangle you."

"She has no schemes to entangle me, as you put it. She has been a splendid friend. I owe my first brief to her, and a good deal else beside."

"Well, and no doubt you have already given her a good deal in return. Quite as much as she deserves. There is no necessity for you to truin your whole career, just because she happens to like being seen out with you."

There was a silence, in which Alymer seemed to be cogitating how best to disarm his mother's fears; and also to be reminding himself of her natural ignorance on theatrical matters, and his own need to be patient therefore. At last he said quietly:

"Miss Vivian only wants to help me in my profession; and I can only tell you again she has been a splendid friend to me. Aunt Edith has told you a great deal of nonsense. She has always been glad to pick holes in me if she could. Most of it is lies, and you must take my word for it. It is useless to discus the matter. I am sorry you have been so worried, but I don't know how to make you understand."

"I understand far better than you think; and I know you ought to end the friendship at once. I want you to do so."

"It is out of the question. But you need not worry. You must just forget. No..." as she attempted further remonstrance; "don't go on. I cannot listen to any more against Miss Vivian. I think I will go and smoke a pipe with the pater. Shall you come and sit with us?" And a certain expression in his eyes that reminded her of his father in his most decisive moods told her he meant to say no more. She rose at once.

She had failed, and she knew it, but she had not the smallest intention of giving in. She had started on the wrong tack, that was all. Of course the boy was too chivalrous to go back on a friend, particularly as he believed he was under some obligation to her. Her plan of mercilessly tearing the lady to pieces had not been a good one, but she would think of something else, and save him in spite of himself.

And comforting herself with this reflection, she allowed the subject to drop, and went with him to the library. Her next plan should be a more sure one. She would work in secret with an agent to help her, who could see the enormity of the danger, and appreciate more thoroughly than his father the urgent need to interfere. She had already a vague plan in her head that she believed an excellent one, and which she could put into execution immediately.

It was an old-fashioned, time-worn plan, but Mrs. Hermon was a woman of old-fashioned ideas, and she did not know but that she was the originator. She had not the least idea that quite the commonplace course of action in these questions was to send a secret emissary to the lady, to reason with her, or plead with her, or bribe her, according to her status, on behalf of the innocent young victim of her charms. The great thing, she imagined, was to find a suitable agent.

Now, besides the sister who was jealous, she had a bachelor brother of a certain well-known stamp. A good-looking, aristocratic, well-preserved man of independent means; and though over sixty years of age, still a gallant, with not much in his handsome head beyond a pathetic desire to continue to captivate, and a belief that he was as invincible as ever.

Very shady stories had more than once been written down to his account, but he had the wit always to rise above them and sail serenely on to do more mischief.

His sister rightly surmised that he would have considerable knowledge concerning actressess and the theatrical world, and without troubling to consult her husband, she took him into her confidence and unburdened all her trouble.

"Phew!" murmured the elderly beau, "so the young scamp has got entangled with an actress, has he? Shocking!... shocking!... But don't worry, Ailsa; we'll soon square the lady one way or another. Do you - er - happen to know if she is of the nature one can offer money to?"

"I think not. Alymer insists she is a lady in the real sense; though, if so, why did she go on the stage?"

"Love of excitement, I dare say. Is she, by any chance, a chorus girl?"

"No, not exactly; though really I fail to see any difference in degree between one actress and another. They are all on the stage; and no doubt they all paint their faces and snare good-looking young men."

"No doubt," agreed the man, who had more than once made it his business to snare an unsuspecting, trusting girl.

"And you will go to see her, and persuade her to drop him; won't you, Percy? It is no use talking to his father; he does not see the matter in a serious enough light. He believes Alymer will soon tire of her. So he may, but in the meantime she may irredeemably injure his career. Of course, if it is a question of money we will find it all right; but whatever it is, try to cut the whole matter off entirely. Make love to her yourself, Percy, if that is what she wants - you know you have always been rather good at that sort of thing"; and she smiled at her own astonishing wordly wisdom, feeling almost rakish at having framed such a sentence.

"Ah!" with a deprecatory shake of his head, that did not, however, hide a certain fitful gleam in his eyes, "I am getting too old for those kinds of pranks now, but I will do my best to - er - " For a moment he wondered whether he meant to do his best to make love to the actress himself, or try to rescue Alymer, and finally finished: "follow out your wishes and suggestions."

"I knew you would, Percy. It was a good idea of mine to ask you. Don't mince matters at all, will you? Make her thoroughly understand she has got to give him up under any circumstances, or we shall, well - er - take proceedings if it is possible. Anyhow, Alymer must be guarded against himself, and his father is too unpractical to help, so we must do it alone."

"I quite agree. Alymer is an exceptionally fine fellow, with an exceptionally promising future; and if he cannot see for himself how foolish a scandal would be just at the outset, we must, as you say, save him on our own account. I am fond of Alymer, very fond, and very proud, and I will do all in my power over the matter. What is the actress's name, did you say?"

"I don't think I mentioned it; but Edith told me in her letter. I will look for it."

She went to a writing-table, and returned with the epistle in her hand, glancing through it until she came to the required information, when, without looking up, she read, "Lorraine Vivian."

At the same time a sudden, curious, startled expression crossed the faded eyes of the white-haired gallant, and he turned quicly aside, stroking his moustache with a slightly nervous air.

"Eh? Do you mean the well-known celebrity?" he asked. "Surely not Miss Vivian of the Queen's Theatre?"

"I suppose so. I never go to the theatre, so I never hear these names. Edith certainly writes as if she were well known. Does it makes any difference?" she asked, as he was silent. "Don't you want to go? If you don't I must find some one else; that is all."

"But certainly I will go. I was only a little surprised. She must be a good deal older than Alymer."

"That only makes it worse. No doubt she is no longer pretty enough for older men, so she has to set her cap at young ones, who are flattered by her attention. I certainly thought Alymer had more sense - but there - one never knows, and these women are very clever, I believe."

"D - d - I mean - extraordinarily clever; but we can be clever too, and I dare say we can contrive to outwit her."

A little later he went away to catch a train back to town, leaving his sister reassured and hopeful; but as he went he repeated to himself in a low, incredulous voice: "Lorraine Vivian... Lorraine Vivian... How strange that I should be asked to undertake a mission that will cause us to meet again. I wonder if you will recognise me quickly? I flatter myself, even white hair has not destroyed my claims to a woman's favour."



CHAPTER XXVIII

Lorraine had not the smallest idea of what was coming upon her. She knew perfectly well herself that it would be most unwise for a rising young barrister to get talked about with an actress known to have a husband living, and it had made her a great deal more cautious than she would otherwise have bothered to be.

Moreover, Alymer, seeing nothing to gain by making known his mother's fears, preferred not to annoy her with any account of them. To say that he was wholly unaffected by it, however, would be to say too much. He was, indeed, exceedingly and bitterly annoyed with his interfering aunt, who had obviously tried to make trouble for some petty motive of jealousy. He only hoped that his mother would take her line from him and his father, and maintain a dignified front, unmoved by his aunt's tale-bearing gossip.

He was slightly affected in another way also. It was almost the first time he had seriously considered what the world might say if their great friendship was known. He knew it well enough to believe it would be in haste to put the worst construction on it, though their own immediate friends might stand by them loyally.

It caused him to consider that construction in a light he had hitherto been protected from by circumstances, for it thrust forward an aspect they had successfully kept in the background. It made him ask the question, What was he prepared to do if his aunt continued her persecution, and some sort of change had to be made in the friendly, delightful intercourse?

He wondered a good deal what Lorraine's own attitude would be. Would she, perhaps, now that she had given him his start, cut all the friendship off for his good, and return to her old friends and admirers? He shrank from the contemplation of such a solution undisguisedly, and meant to continue their pleasant relations if possible.

He certainly wished no change whatever, if it could be avoided. Lorraine meant everything to him just then, and he could not but know how much his companionship and affection had come to mean to her.

So the next day he paid his customary visit, and talked as usual of many things, but said no word of what had passed the previous night.

Lorraine's room was full of violets and snowdrops, cushions of them on every side, in lovely array. He moved about looking at them, and she watched him from a low chair by the fire, clad in some new spring gown of an exquisite mauve shade, that seemed to tone with the violet-bedecked room.

It gave her dark eyes something of a violet tint, and her hands looked as white and delicate as the snowdrops. Moving about from mass of blossoms, Alymer, glancing at her, thought she looked younger and lovelier than ever.

"You have a spring air about you," he said, "and all the room seems full of spring. There is something about it all I like better than the lilies and roses and malmaisons usually making a display."

"I sent them all to the dining-room," she told him. "Every spring is such a beautiful new thing, it has to be allowed to reign supreme for a little while in here. It gives me rather an ache to see them, all the same" - after a pause - "they make me dream of the smell of the new woodland, that delicious, damp, earthy smell of spring, and all the young, joyful bursting of buds and springing of seeds and the mating birds, and the showers that make the leaves glisten. I feel as if I should like to tramp out across the country in such a shower, and get healthily wet, and be a real bit of the spring for just one week."

"Why don't you go? You are not looking very well, and the country air would probably do you no end of good."

"I don't want to go alone, and I do not know who I could take. Hal is not able to leave, and mother would merely be bored to tears, and Flip Denton is at Monte Carlo. There is no one really but you and Hal and Flip who would fit in with my spring mood. Any one else would strike a discordant note."

"I wish I could come."

The wish escaped him almost involuntarily, as, with the sight of the spring flowers and the spring scent in his nostrils, he too felt the call of the fresh, wild, vigorous things in his blood.

Lorraine looked at him with a curious expression on her face. Why, she wondered, did he not seriously contemplate coming? Why did he so steadily pursue, as far as she was concerned, his serene and passionless path? She believed he cared more for her than for any one else; and, if so, was it possible the ache sometimes in her heart for a closer bond and resolutely strangled, had no counterpart in his hot, vigorous youth?

Then he looked suddenly into her eyes, as if to see whether she had heard his wish, and what she thought of it. And as their gaze met, she saw the blood mantle to his face, and a half-shamed expression creep into it, as if he had been discovered in a thought that should never have been permitted.

He looked away again to the flowers, and Lorraine turned her eyes to the fire, with a swift wonder in her mind. She felt that something had transpired since they last parted - something she did not know of, and that was entirely different to anything that had crossed their path before. Some new thought had been put into his mind. Something that made him give her that half-shy, half-wondering look.

She gazed hard at the fire, and her pulses began to beat a little fitfully. She knew instinctively that something had come suddenly into being between them, which neither might name, and which was the oldest thing in the world.

And then across her mind, as once before, swept with swift pitilessness a vision of what might have been; of what life might have held for her had she been among the blessed - an aching, tearing longing for a youthful hour she had irretrievably missed. She drew her hand across her eyes, ignoring his presence, shutting him out, seeing only the heavenly joy she had missed.

Supposing such a moment had come to her with such a man, when she, like him, was in the first flush of youth and beauty; of dreams and hopes, and rich believing. What a knight for a lovely maid! What a lover to dream of bashfully and fearfully; and with all her soul one thought of him.

From her vantage ground of much doing and much knowing, she looked back yearningly to the bloom and springtide of life, when all splendid things are possible, and any day may bring the splendid knight.

And instead had come... ah, what?

Well! For her it had been the wolf in sheep's clothing, who, beside all he had robbed her of, had taken all her chance of the one great awakening to blinding joy. Now she could only look upon the joy from afar, seeing a barrier of fateful years, and, like a drawn sword at the gate of her dream, the stern, unyielding decree that has echoed unchanged down the long centuries: "Thou shalt not - "

Alymer was silent too, standing with the thoughtful expression on his face that was so attractive, probing a little nervously into that wish he had expressed, and wondering a little uncertainly just what it meant.

Then Lorraine got up.

"You are grave, mon ami; and it is the springtime. Grave thoughts are for the autumn of life - recklessness better becomes the joyful spring."

"Are you ever reckless nowadays?" he asked, watching her graceful movements as she bent down and buried her face in a cushion of violets.

"I am when I smell violets. They may be modest and retiring little flowers, but they hold spring rapture and spring lavishness and spring desiring in their scent all the same."

"Then you are reckless now?"

What was it made him dally thus upon dangerous ground? What was it made him speak to Lorraine as he had never spoken before, on the very day after his mother's admonition? Why did his immense height and strength and the young vigour in his blood suddenly blot out the years that lay between them, and sweep into his soul, the knowledge of his masculinity and might, which of its own nature possessively dominated her femininity?

They seemed all at once to have strayed into an atmosphere, born of that warning admonition, and of their talk, of the reckless, creative spring; and because, in spite of his youth, he was very much a man, and she was a dangerously attractive woman, his pulses leapt fitfully and eagerly with the swift ache that has existed ever since God made man and woman.

Without looking up, Lorraine felt this. The very air about them seemed charged with it, and she too, under some spell of springtime, moved into closer proximity to the splendid knight. She brushed against his arm unconsciously; and looking down on the top of her dark head, he said half-shyly:

"You somehow seem such a little thing to-day, Lorraine, I feel as if I could pick you up, as one does a small child."

"Please don't," with a low laugh - "just think of my dignity."

"But you are not dignified to-day. You seem as young and light-hearted as the springtime. I feel as if I must be years older than you."

She raised her face suddenly, with yearning eyes:

"Oh, let us emulate the spring this once - let us both be young and foolish and real, and pretend there isn't any one else in the world."

Fore one second he looked at her with wondering incredulity, then, with a tender little laugh he suddenly bent down and folded his arms round her till she seemed to vanish altogether into his embrace, and kissed her on the lips.

"The scent of violets has intoxicated us," he said, and kissed her again.

Then he gently pushed her into her big, deep chair.

"I'm going now. I only ran in to see how you were after that bad headache. You must bring the lilies and malmaisons back to-morrow, or I shall be offending so grievously you will forbid me the flat. Good-bye!" And without another word he went away out of the room.