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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20717-0.txt b/20717-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..183620b --- /dev/null +++ b/20717-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9679 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl on the Boat, by P. G. Wodehouse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Girl on the Boat + +Author: P. G. Wodehouse + +Release Date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20717] +[Most recently updated: February 17, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + + + + +The Girl on the Boat + +BY +P. G. WODEHOUSE + +HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED +3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1 + +A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK + +_Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_ + +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London + + + + +WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT + + +It was Sam Marlowe’s fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S. +“Atlantic” (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking +for a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any +inferior substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage +placed Sam for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay +the pace. + +He follows Billie Bennett “around,” scheming, blundering and hoping, so +does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam’s rival. + +There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house +in Hampshire, where Billie’s ideals still block the way and Sam comes +on in spite of everything. + +Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every +sense of the term. + + + + +ONE MOMENT! + + +Before my friend Mr. Jenkins—wait a minute, Herbert—before my friend +Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like +to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will +kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There +will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long. + +I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. +Ah! but you don’t know. You don’t realise how careful even a splendid +fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn’t have me go down to posterity +as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this +volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, +have read Mr. J. Storer Clouston’s “The Lunatic at Large Again.” (Those +who are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both +the hero of “The Lunatic” and my “Sam Marlowe” try to get out of a +tight corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a +country-house. Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness +that I am innocent, innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue +Wodehouse is not sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr. +Clouston’s appeared simultaneously in serial form in their respective +magazines. This proves, I think, that at these cross-roads, at any +rate, there has been no dirty work. All right, Herb., you can let ’em +in now. + +P. G. WODEHOUSE. + +Constitutional Club, + Northumberland Avenue. + + +Contents + + WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT + ONE MOMENT! + + I. A DISTURBING MORNING + II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN + III. SAM PAVES THE WAY + IV. SAM CLICKS + V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE + VI. SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT + VII. SUNDERED HEARTS + VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION + IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE + X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES + XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT + XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS + XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND + XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER + XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED + XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT + + + + +The Girl on the Boat + + + + +CHAPTER I. +A DISTURBING MORNING + + +Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace +Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight +peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine +summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to +thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the +sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on +the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was +exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her +head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always +woke at eight precisely. + +Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, the author of “The Spreading Light,” “What of the Morrow,” +and all the rest of that well-known series? I’m glad you asked me. Yes, +she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour. + +About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United +States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a +fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, +scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct +seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those +great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely +differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other +subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were +single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the +lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it +as the next person. + +Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for, +spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business +sense in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was +good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary +booked, before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had +finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs +taken for the passport. + +She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved +sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming +home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat +of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its +shady walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its +walls—these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she +belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of +cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her +son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of +it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and +bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very +marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under +her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female +below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now. + +Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores +which she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and +dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She +smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to her own +early-rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call his soul +his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at half-past +nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her correspondence, +and started her duties for the day. + +Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls, +porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this +hell-brew, was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as +she ate. The majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of +purely theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the +Butterfly Club, asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly +dinner. There was a letter from her brother Mallaby—Sir Mallaby +Marlowe, the eminent London lawyer—saying that his son Sam, of whom she +had never approved, would be in New York shortly, passing through on +his way back to England, and hoping that she would see something of +him. Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without +interest, setting aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who +acted as her unpaid secretary, to answer later in the day. + +She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in +the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of +advanced years, entered the room. + +“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.” + +Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred. + +“Didn’t you tell him I was not to be disturbed?” + +“I did not. I loosed him into the parlour.” The staff remained for a +moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. “He says he’s your nephew. +His name’s Marlowe.” + +Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not +seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to +extend the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who once +or twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace +of Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than +water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give +him five minutes. She went into the sitting-room, and found there a +young man who looked more or less like all other young men, though +perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had +last met him, as men so often do between the ages of fifteen and +twenty-five, and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches +round the chest, and in weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and +amiable face, marred at the moment by an expression of discomfort +somewhat akin to that of a cat in a strange alley. + +“Hullo, Aunt Adeline!” he said awkwardly. + +“Well, Samuel!” said Mrs. Hignett. + +There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and +disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not +improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who +imagined that he had long since grown to man’s estate and put off +childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still +affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had +omitted to shave and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug +which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the +hands and feet. + +“Jolly morning,” said Sam, perseveringly. + +“So I imagine. I have not yet been out.” + +“Thought I’d look in and see how you were.” + +“That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes, +that was very kind of you!” + +There was another pause. + +“How do you like America?” said Sam. + +“I dislike it exceedingly.” + +“Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that. +Personally, it doesn’t affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I +like America myself,” said Sam. “I’ve had a wonderful time. Everybody’s +treated me like a rich uncle. I’ve been in Detroit, you know, and they +practically gave me the city and asked me if I’d like another to take +home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the +missing heir! I think America’s the greatest invention on record.” + +“And what brought you to America?” said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this +rhapsody. + +“Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know.” + +“Surely at your age,” said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, “you could be +better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?” + +“Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and +I still play football occasionally.” + +“I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work.” + +“He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take +a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too.” + +“He is perfectly right.” + +“I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?” +said Sam. + +Mrs. Hignett started violently. + +“Why do you say that?” + +“Eh?” + +“What makes you say that?” + +“Oh, well, he’s a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry, and all +that.” + +“There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and +retiring temperament, and sees few women. He is almost a recluse.” + +Sam was aware of this, and had frequently regretted it. He had always +been fond of his cousin in that half-amused and rather patronising way +in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who +run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if +Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman +whom from his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of +the Washouts, much might have been made of him. Both at school and at +Oxford, Eustace had been—if not a sport—at least a decidedly cheery old +bean. Sam remembered Eustace at school, breaking gas globes with a +slipper in a positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford +playing up to him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had +done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the +Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg, +and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down +in the country, miles away from anywhere. + +“Eustace is returning to England on Saturday,” said Mrs. Hignett. She +spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he +had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with +her till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the +question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at +Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the mercy +of servants who might trample over the flowerbeds, scratch the polished +floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. “He sails on the +‘Atlantic.’” + +“That’s splendid!” said Sam. “I’m sailing on the ‘Atlantic’ myself. +I’ll go down to the office and see if we can’t have a state-room +together. But where is he going to live when he gets to England?” + +“Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?” + +“But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?” + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +“Letting Windles!” She spoke as one might address a lunatic. “What put +that extraordinary idea into your head?” + +“I thought father said something about your letting the place to some +American.” + +“Nothing of the kind!” + +It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even +snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He +could not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was +one which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had +certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact, people had pestered her. +There was a rich, fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met +just before sailing at her brother’s house in London. Invited down to +Windles for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place, and +had begged her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had +pursued her with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while +she was on the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she +reached New York. She had not been in America two days when there had +arrived a Mr. Mortimer, bosom friend of Mr. Bennett, carrying on the +matter where the other had left off. For a whole week Mr. Mortimer had +tried to induce her to reconsider her decision, and had only stopped +because he had had to leave for England himself, to join his friend. +And even then the thing had gone on. Indeed, this very morning, among +the letters on Mrs. Hignett’s table, the buff envelope of a cable from +Mr. Bennett had peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder, +then, that Sam’s allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of +“The Spreading Light” momentarily to lose her customary calm. + +“Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles,” she said with finality, +and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an +end—and glad of it—also got up. + +“Well, I think I’ll be going down and seeing about that state-room,” he +said. + +“Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next +lecture.” + +“Of course, yes. Mustn’t interrupt you. I suppose you’re having a great +time, gassing away—I mean—well, good-bye!” + +“Good-bye!” + +Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed +that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of +lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go +through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly +succeeded in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the +daughter of Erin once more. + +“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.” + +“This is intolerable!” cried Mrs. Hignett. “Did you tell him that I was +busy?” + +“I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room.” + +“Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?” + +“He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream +Mortimer.” + +“Bream Mortimer!” + +“Yes, ma’am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being +slippy from the dishes.” + +Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as +she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream +Mortimer. He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who wanted Windles. This +visit could only have to do with the subject of Windles, and she went +into the dining-room in a state of cold fury, determined to squash the +Mortimer family, in the person of their New York representative, once +and for all. + +“Good morning, Mr. Mortimer.” + +Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small bright eyes and a +sharply curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most +parrots do. It gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they +saw Bream Mortimer in restaurants, eating roast beef. They had the +feeling that he would have preferred sunflower seeds. + +“Morning, Mrs. Hignett.” + +“Please sit down.” + +Bream Mortimer looked as though he would rather have hopped on to a +perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with gleaming, +excited eyes. + +“Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!” + +“You _are_ having a word with me alone.” + +“I hardly know how to begin.” + +“Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent.” + +Bream Mortimer started. + +“Then you have heard about it?” + +“I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr. +Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing +else. And now,” cried Mrs. Hignett, fiercely, “you come and try to +re-open the subject. Once and for all, nothing will alter my decision. +No money will induce me to let my house.” + +“But I didn’t come about that!” + +“You did not come about Windles?” + +“Good Lord, no!” + +“Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?” + +Bream Mortimer seemed embarrassed. He wriggled a little, and moved his +arms as if he were trying to flap them. + +“You know,” he said, “I’m not a man who butts into other people’s +affairs....” He stopped. + +“No?” said Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream began again. + +“I’m not a man who gossips with valets....” + +“No?” + +“I’m not a man who....” + +Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. + +“Let us take all your negative qualities for granted,” she said curtly. +“I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us +confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you +have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment, +that you wish to see me about?” + +“This marriage.” + +“What marriage?” + +“Your son’s marriage.” + +“My son is not married.” + +“No, but he’s going to be. At eleven o’clock this morning at the Little +Church Round the Corner!” + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +“Are you mad?” + +“Well, I’m not any too well pleased, I’m bound to say,” admitted Mr. +Mortimer. “You see, darn it all, I’m in love with the girl myself!” + +“Who is this girl?” + +“Have been for years. I’m one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot but never tell their love....” + +“Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?” + +“I’ve always been one of those men who....” + +“Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive +qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all. +You come to me with this absurd story....” + +“Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet who had it from her +maid.” + +“Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to +marry?” + +“I don’t know that I’d call him misguided,” said Mr. Mortimer, as one +desiring to be fair. “I think he’s a right smart picker! She’s such a +corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I’ve loved her +for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is—somehow one never +seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening in the +summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I’m not one of these +smooth, dashing chaps, you see, with a great line of talk. I’m not....” + +“If you will kindly,” said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, “postpone this +essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion, I shall be greatly +obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to +marry.” + +“Haven’t I told you?” said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. “That’s odd. I +haven’t. It’s funny how one doesn’t do the things one thinks one does. +I’m the sort of man....” + +“What is her name?” + +“... the sort of man who....” + +“What is her name?” + +“Bennett.” + +“Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father’s house?” + +“That’s it. You’re a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing.” + +“I intend to.” + +“Fine!” + +“The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane.” + +“That’s right. I’ve noticed it myself.” + +“Their auras are not the same colour.” + +“If I’ve thought that once,” said Bream Mortimer, “I’ve thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve thought it. +Not the same colour. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.” + +“I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall +take immediate steps.” + +“That’s good. But what’s the procedure? It’s getting late. She’ll be +waiting at the church at eleven.” + +“Eustace will not be there.” + +“You think you can fix it?” + +“Eustace will not be there,” repeated Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair. + +“Well, you’ve taken a weight off my mind.” + +“A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights.” + +“I’ll be going. Haven’t had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat +breakfast. Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham +get cut off in their prime. I feel I can rely on you.” + +“You can!” + +“Then I’ll say good-bye.” + +“Good-bye.” + +“I mean really good-bye. I’m sailing for England on Saturday on the +‘Atlantic.’” + +“Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller.” + +Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive. + +“You won’t tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?” + +“I beg your pardon?” + +“You won’t wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?” + +“I do not understand you.” + +“You won’t tell him that I crabbed his act ... gave the thing away ... +gummed the game?” + +“I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention.” + +“Chivalrous?” said Bream Mortimer a little doubtfully. “I don’t know +that I’d call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all’s fair in love +and war. Well, I’m glad you’re going to keep my share in the business +under your hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board.” + +“You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent +sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin.” + +“That’s good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye.” + +“Good-bye. When you reach England, remember me to your father.” + +“He won’t have forgotten you,” said Bream Mortimer, confidently. He did +not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman. +She was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered. + +Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her +late visitor was speaking, schemes had begun to form in her mind like +bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door +had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than +seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and +simplest. She tiptoed softly to her son’s room. Rhythmic snores greeted +her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly in. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN + + +§ 1 + +The White Star liner “Atlantic” lay at her pier with steam up and +gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure +was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors +fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro. +White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain, +though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical +nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, +flowers, and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady +stream. + +The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There +were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by +mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there +was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly +thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in +the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning +compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were +congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the +gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle +and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the +greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise. +However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his +shoulder into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously +lifting some stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling +to within a few yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot +through his right arm, and he spun round with a cry. + +It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New +York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite. + +He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. + +She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes +with red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, +and he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or +possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in +feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the +specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble +about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it +there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft +and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. +Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses +of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty well all +right. + +Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and +for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and +garnished, with “Welcome” on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and +fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the +third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and +docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of +how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He +swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its +covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told +himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which +made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course +of history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, +to clasp this girl to him and.... + +But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. +That, he felt, constituted an obstacle. + +“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried. + +Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an +impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the +moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature.... + +“The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous.” + +Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded +from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl’s lower ribs, a +sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over +the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and +write, of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris +and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, +magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking +their wares on every side. + +“I hope he didn’t hurt you much. You’re the third person he’s bitten +to-day.” She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on +the tip of his black nose. “Not counting waiters at the hotel, of +course,” she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and +he was left thinking of all the things he might have said—all those +graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of +difference on these occasions. + +He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of +pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! +Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl +who comes to see friends off and doesn’t sail herself. And what memory +of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she +went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital. + +§ 2 + +Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through +the crowd of passengers, passengers’ friends, stewards, junior +officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main +companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles, +as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage +leading to his state-room. + +State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on +the chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing +rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the +impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room +left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or +something. When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to +the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be +impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it +suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for +swinging cats does not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable. + +Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart +in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, +began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost +wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed +in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be +a tight fit. Eustace’s bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to +take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, +and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl +with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have +need of diverting society. + +A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened. + +“Hullo, Eustace!” said Sam. + +Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a +deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, +intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He +looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did. + +“Hullo!” he said, in a hollow voice. + +Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, +going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected +something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on +Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the +bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of +Russian novelists. + +“What on earth’s the matter?” said Sam. + +“The matter?” Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, nothing. +Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart’s broken.” He eyed with +considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, +a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who +might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage. + +“If you would care to hear the story...?” he said. + +“Go ahead.” + +“It is quite short.” + +“That’s good.” + +“Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl....” + +“Talking of girls,” said Sam with enthusiasm, “I’ve just seen the only +one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I +was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly....” + +“Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?” + +“Oh, sorry! Go ahead.” + +Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing +occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B. +Midgeley. + +“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....” + +“So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw +such....” + +“Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?” said Eustace +coldly. + +“Oh, sorry! Carry on.” + +“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....” + +“What was her name?” + +“Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly +intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them +immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest +her. She admired my....” + +“I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story.” + +“Don’t bustle me,” said Eustace querulously. + +“Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days.” + +“I’ve forgotten where I was.” + +“You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened? +I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged +to some other johnny?” + +“Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both +agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted—she thought her father +might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother +would—so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now,” +said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, “I ought to have +been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the +parson’s fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding.” + +“And then you quarrelled?” + +“Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the +story. I’m telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow—I can’t make +out how—mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She +stopped the thing.” + +Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his +cousin’s meek subservience to her revolted him. + +“Stopped it? I suppose she said ‘Now, Eustace, you mustn’t!’ and you +said ‘Very well, mother!’ and scratched the fixture?” + +“She didn’t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes, +she might never have heard anything about the marriage.” + +“Then how do you mean she stopped it?” + +“She pinched my trousers!” + +“Pinched your trousers!” + +Eustace groaned. “All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long +before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out +while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn’t +find a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked +everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing +letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she +had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in +the mornings—I don’t as a rule—and they would be back at lunch-time. A +fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I +told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and +she wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but +it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the +man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book +and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn’t meet +him because I hadn’t any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from +what he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening +all the time, and I knowing that she knew—something told me that she +knew—and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was +awful!” + +“And the girl?” + +“She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from +eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn’t +see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her +saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been +thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a +mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had +thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like +Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed.” + +“Did you explain about the trousers?” + +“Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a +man anything except being ridiculous.” + +“I think you’re well out of it,” said Sam, judicially. “She can’t have +been much of a girl.” + +“I feel that now. But it doesn’t alter the fact that my life is ruined. +I have become a woman-hater. It’s an infernal nuisance, because +practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its +way to boost women, and now I’ll have to start all over again and +approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother +behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn’t a law +against them. ‘What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was’t +betrayed the Capitol....’” + +“In Washington?” said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But +then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting +page. + +“In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome.” + +“Oh, as long ago as that?” + +“I was quoting from Thomas Otway’s ‘Orphan.’ I wish I could write like +Otway. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who was’t betrayed the +Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the +cause of a long ten years’ war and laid at last old Troy in ashes? +Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’” + +“Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I +mean. But the girl I met on the dock....” + +“Don’t!” said Eustace Hignett. “If you have anything bitter and +derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if +you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed +girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to +the captain or the ship’s cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that +I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a +future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My +work? I haven’t any. I think I shall take to drink.” + +“Talking of that,” said Sam, “I suppose they open the bar directly we +pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?” + +Eustace shook his head gloomily. + +“Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and +feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay +there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed +now. Don’t let me keep you if you want to go on deck.” + +“It looks to me,” said Sam, “as if I had been mistaken in thinking that +you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage.” + +“Ray of sunshine!” said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve +pyjamas out of the kit-bag. “I’m going to be a volcano!” + +Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get +on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the +sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on +deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the +boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already +taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was +she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He +reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck. +And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from +the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with +people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water. + +Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is +excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always +among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a +blank window on which were inscribed the words, “Watch this space!” In +short, he was one of Nature’s rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and +shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a +moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on—a view which +he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail. + +There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one +visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time +to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and +adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer. + +Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of +the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, +leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like +everybody else, she was staring into the water. + +As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a +wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. +What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, +dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, +who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to +shift back to a position of greater safety. + +At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been +jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been +crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took +Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man +hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail +to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his +hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a +few skilful touches of the finger. + +§ 3 + +In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room +chatting with Eustace about the latter’s bruised soul, some rather +curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, +but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the +reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It +should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is +one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero +in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about +his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space. +We must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in +her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This +happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his +narrative. + +The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a +rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. +The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face +brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of +an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just +forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the +passenger-lined rail. + +The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the +river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She +gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a +handkerchief, swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed +to give himself room, and then, with all the strength of his arm, +hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with +its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell +short by a good six feet, and dropped into the water, where it unfolded +like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar +bills, and an assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets. + +It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest +souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a +lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By +profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood +by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so +now: and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to +give the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the +pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was +not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy, +pressed his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment +later he had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both +hands. + +He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at +his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he +observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young +man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe. + +“Svensk!” exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of +Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the +advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the +situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and +Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise. +He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone. + +Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability +to adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to +come whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water +which tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was +here he was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it +happened, was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his +belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at +school in the “Saving Life” competition. He knew exactly what to do. +You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then +you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr. +Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that +anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from +drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away +from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The +spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; +though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which +occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the +crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good +money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared +applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into +mid-river. + +The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school, +considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the +problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a +leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is +perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects +from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed +throughout of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from +cash which he has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it +would be hard to find a respect in which it does not differ. So far +from lying inert in Sam’s arms and allowing himself to be saved in a +quiet and orderly manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one +who feels that he has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he +disliked competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was +fair competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that +you could grab it yourself—thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted +Sam’s motives—was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would +have none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence +at his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung +hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant’s face to be. + +Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of +life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles +against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply +stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had +known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the +reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would +have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in +convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles, +boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure. +Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist, +which he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the +other’s bowler hat. + +It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly +of his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest +apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was +to sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his +assailant by the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and +accompanied him below the surface. + +By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his +second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that +this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt, +was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it +be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there +was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited. +Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a +merciful release. + +He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent +of Mr. Swenson’s limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he +had never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson—not even +his Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven +distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to +him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of +Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed +to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the +face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in +the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally, +spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the +side of a boat. + +The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had +been brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating +population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows, +skiffs, launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in +that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of +these navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race +came the tug “Reuben S. Watson,” the skipper of which, following a +famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It +was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have +a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business +side of a situation; and it was the skipper’s daughter who insisted +that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar +bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of +extricating the young man from a watery grave. + +The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way—he always +spoiled the girl—with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the +deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his +faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson +rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after +one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to +intercept a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff. + +Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public +fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that +he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an +appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. +Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was +so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it. + +“Well, aincher wet?” said a voice. + +The skipper’s daughter was standing beside him, looking down +commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the +broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the +side in the quest for wealth. + +“Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen +wet guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you’re +certainly _wet!_” + +“I _am_ wet,” admitted Sam. + +“Yessir, you’re wet! Wet’s the word all right. Good and wet, that’s +what you are!” + +“It’s the water,” said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he +could remember what that appointment was. “That’s what has made me +wet.” + +“It’s sure made you wet all right,” agreed the girl. She looked at him +interestedly. “Wotcha do it for?” she asked. + +“Do it for?” + +“Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off’n that ship? I +didn’t see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off’n the +deck like a sack of potatoes.” + +Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered. + +“Where is she?” + +“Where’s who?” + +“The liner.” + +“She’s off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I +seen of her.” + +“She’s not gone!” + +“Sure she’s gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She’s gotta get over to the +other side, ain’t she? Cert’nly she’s gone.” She looked at him +interested. “Do you want to be on board her?” + +“Of course I do.” + +“Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin’ walloping off’n her like a +sack of potatoes?” + +“I slipped. I was pushed or something.” Sam sprang to his feet and +looked wildly about him. “I must get back. Isn’t there any way of +getting back?” + +“Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She’ll +stop to let the pilot off.” + +“Can you take me to quarantine?” + +The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of +trousers. + +“Well, we _could_,” she said. “But pa’s kind of set in his ways, and +right now he’s fishing for dollar bills with the boat hook. He’s apt to +get sorta mad if he’s interrupted.” + +“I’ll give him fifty dollars if he’ll put me on board.” + +“Got it on you?” inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of +sentiment, but she was her father’s daughter and inherited from him the +business sense. + +“Here it is.” He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, but +the contents were only fairly moist. + +“Pa!” said the girl. + +The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child’s cry. + +“Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!” + +The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision. +There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her +hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of +wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive +parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply, +exhibiting a red, bearded face. + +“Pa, this gen’man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He’ll +give you fifty berries.” + +The wrath died out of the skipper’s face like the slow turning down of +a lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to +secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so +suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook. + +“Fifty berries!” + +“Fifty seeds!” the girl assured him. “Are you on?” + +“Queen,” said the skipper simply, “you said a mouthful!” + +Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it +lay towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him +clammily. He squelched as he walked. + +A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail +regarded him with open eyes. + +“My dear sir, you’re very wet,” he said. + +Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to +the companion way. + +“Mummie, why is that man wet?” cried the clear voice of a little child. + +Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs. + +“Good Lord, sir! You’re very wet!” said a steward in the doorway of the +dining saloon. + +“You _are_ wet,” said a stewardess in the passage. + +Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In +the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened +them languidly, then stared. + +“Hullo!” he said. “I say! You’re wet!” + +§ 4 + +Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was +in no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett’s frank curiosity +jarred upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the +floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel +was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on +his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and +went out. + +He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with +bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to +look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For +there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous +young man who looked like a parrot. + +“Oh, _how_ are you?” asked the girl breathlessly. + +“Splendid, thanks,” said Sam. + +“Didn’t you get very wet?” + +“I did get a little damp.” + +“I thought you would,” said the young man who looked like a parrot. +“Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: ‘That fellow’s +going to get wet!’” + +There was a pause. + +“Oh!” said the girl. “May I—Mr.——?” + +“Marlowe.” + +“Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer.” + +Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam. + +“Nearly got left behind,” said Bream Mortimer. + +“Yes, nearly.” + +“No joke getting left behind.” + +“No.” + +“Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time,” said Mr. Mortimer, +driving home his point. + +The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience. +She now spoke again. + +“Oh, Bream!” + +“Hello?” + +“Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it’s all right +about our places for lunch.” + +“It is all right. The table steward said so.” + +“Yes, but go and make certain.” + +“All right.” + +He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes. + +“Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn’t to have done it! Really, you oughtn’t! +You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It +was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions’ dens after +gloves!” + +“Yes?” said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him. +It seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too. + +“It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done! +But you shouldn’t have bothered, really! It’s all right, now.” + +“Oh, it’s all right now?” + +“Yes. I’d quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has +given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to +sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father’s head clerk was to have +gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to +me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had +just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in +a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn’t have dived +in after it.” + +“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile. +He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had +shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out +and shake him by the hand. + +“You really are the bravest man I ever met!” + +“Oh, no!” + +“How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!” + +“I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a +service.” + +“It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do +admire presence of mind. You didn’t hesitate for a second. You just +shot over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!” + +“It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of +keeping one’s head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some +people have it, some haven’t.” + +“And just think! As Bream was saying....” + +“It _is_ all right,” said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. “I saw a +couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So it’s all +right.” + +“Splendid,” said the girl. “Oh, Bream!” + +“Hello?” + +“Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles +is quite comfortable.” + +“Bound to be.” + +“Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little.” + +“Chirrup?” + +“Yes, to cheer him up.” + +“Oh, all right.” + +“Run along!” + +Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only +needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a +properly equipped messenger boy. + +“And, as Bream was saying,” resumed the girl, “you might have been left +behind.” + +“That,” said Sam, edging a step closer, “was the thought that tortured +me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun....” + +“But it hadn’t begun. We have never spoken to each other before now.” + +“Have you forgotten? On the dock....” + +Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes. + +“Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!” + +“The lucky man!” + +Her face clouded. + +“Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It’s his first +voyage.” + +“I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us +together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?” + +“Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish +unpacking. After lunch, perhaps.” + +“I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but....” + +“Oh, mine?” She smiled brightly. “It’s funny that a person’s name is +the last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett.” + +“Bennett!” + +“Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends,” she said softly as she turned away, +“call me Billie!” + + + + +CHAPTER III. +SAM PAVES THE WAY + + +For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl as +she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always +have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a +little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to +re-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to +Eustace Hignett’s story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an +unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her +engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had +been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a +little smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the +object of Eustace Hignett’s affections. And now they had proved to be +one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the +vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine. + +Some men, on making the discovery of this girl’s identity, might have +felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous +entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The +way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina +Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl +had maltreated Eustace’s finer feelings, then her reason for doing so +must have been excellent and praiseworthy. + +After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in +many ways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about +Eustace that gave him any claim to monopolise the affections of a +wonderful girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made +a tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the +engagement, but what right had he to go about the place expecting her +to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor +girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly +sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh +hour, she had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry +for poor old Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion +that Wilhelmina Bennett—her friends called her Billie—had not behaved +in a perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina +Bennett—Billie to her intimates—who made the world worth living in. + +Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a +delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few +times. “Billie ... Billie ... Billie....” It certainly ran pleasantly +off the tongue. “Billie Bennett.” Very musical. “Billie Marlowe.” Still +better. “We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. +‘Billie’ Marlowe....” + +A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. +Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace +Hignett. If Eustace was still capable of speech—and after all the boat +was hardly rolling at all—he would enjoy a further chat about his +ruined life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace’s +society. As a man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme +girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some +great public monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on +a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost reverentially, with +something of the emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum. + +The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By +lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland +scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his +complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to +say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity. + +“Sit down!” he said. “Don’t stand there swaying like that. I can’t bear +it.” + +“Why, we aren’t out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren’t going to be +sea-sick already.” + +“I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off +it.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking +steadily of the Sahara. There,” said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, +“is a place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles of +sand and not a drop of water anywhere!” + +Sam sat down on the lounge. + +“You’re quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on +other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your +unfortunate affair with that girl—Billie Bennett I think you said her +name was.” + +“Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name +was Billie?” + +“I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to +their friends.” + +“I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk +about it. The recollection tortures me.” + +“That’s just what you want. It’s the counter-irritation principle. +Persevere, and you’ll soon forget that you’re on board ship at all.” + +“There’s something in that,” admitted Eustace reflectively. “It’s very +good of you to be so sympathetic and interested.” + +“My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her +first, for instance?” + +“At a dinner....” Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good +memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that +dinner—a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath the +surface of a thick white sauce. + +“And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair, +I suppose?” + +“How did you know she had lovely hair?” + +“My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in +love would have nice hair.” + +“Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably +beautiful. It was red....” + +“Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!” said Marlowe ecstatically. + +Hignett started. + +“What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description. +Her eyes were a deep blue....” + +“Or, rather, green.” + +“Blue.” + +“Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue.” + +“What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?” demanded +Eustace heatedly. “Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?” + +“My dear old man, don’t get excited. Don’t you see I am trying to +construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don’t +pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes +generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There +is the bright green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut +emerald, the faint yellowish green of your face at the present +moment....” + +“Don’t talk about the colour of my face! Now you’ve gone and reminded +me just when I was beginning to forget.” + +“Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again—quick. What +were we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form +a mental picture of people if one knows something about their +tastes—what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite +topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she +like talking about?” + +“Oh, all sorts of things.” + +“Yes, but what?” + +“Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which +first drew us together.” + +“Poetry!” Sam’s heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of +poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and +sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly +paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his +long suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it +would be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bone +them up from time to time. “Any special poet?” + +“Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence +on Spring, did you?” + +“No. What other poets did she like besides you?” + +“Tennyson principally,” said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver +in his voice. “The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of +the King!” + +“The which of what?” inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and +shooting out a cuff. + +“‘The Idylls of the King.’ My good man, I know you have a soul which +would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have +surely heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’” + +“Oh, _those!_ Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’ +Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’ +Well, really? I suppose you haven’t a copy with you on board by any +chance?” + +“There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together. +Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don’t want to see it +again.” + +Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and +presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on +the lounge. + +“Little by little, bit by bit,” he said, “I am beginning to form a sort +of picture of this girl, this—what was her name again? Bennett—this +Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her +seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn’t keen on +golf, by any chance, I suppose?” + +“I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather +enthusiastic. Why?” + +“Well, I’d much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry.” + +“You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to +Wilhelmina Bennett about either, I should imagine.” + +“No, there’s that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some +girls bar golf, and then it’s rather difficult to know how to start the +conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this +Miss Bennett’s nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at +one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I +mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement +if you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything.” + +“Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She +had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever +any shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I +made rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after +we were married.” + +“I see!” said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it: +“Dog—conciliate.” “Yes, of course, that must have wounded her.” + +“Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day +before we—Wilhelmina and I, I mean—were to have been married. It is +some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home +on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean +over the Chesterfield.” + +Sam shook his head reprovingly. + +“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. He extended his cuff and added +the words “Vitally Important” to what he had just written. “It was +probably that which decided her.” + +“Well, I hate dogs,” said Eustace Hignett querulously. “I remember +Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step +in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who +were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters +nowadays, that life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn’t be +reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like +a shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad +was ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he +wore armour. Give me a suit of mail, reaching well down over the +ankles, and I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in +thin flannel trousers, no!” + +Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that +the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high +opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in +a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised +with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? +How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the +world in the quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so +lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness +about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl’s heart for a +time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but, +as a partner for life ... well, he simply wouldn’t do. That was all +there was to it. He simply didn’t add up right. The man a girl like +Wilhelmina Bennett required for a husband was somebody entirely +different ... somebody, felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel +Marlowe. + +Swelled almost to bursting point with these reflections, he went on +deck to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. +She had put on one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance +feminine charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze +playing in her vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking. +Beside her walked young Mr. Bream Mortimer. + +Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight +of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. +What magic there is in a girl’s smile! It is the raisin which, dropped +in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation. + +“Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!” + +“Oh, _there_ you are,” said Bream Mortimer with a slightly different +inflection. + +“I thought I’d like a breath of fresh air before lunch,” said Sam. + +“Oh, Bream!” said the girl. + +“Hello?” + +“Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my +state-room, will you? I had no idea it was so warm.” + +“I’ll carry it,” said Bream. + +“Nonsense! I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and +put it on the berth. It doesn’t matter about folding it up.” + +“All right,” said Bream moodily. + +He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs +in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimer +was experiencing such a moment. + +“He had better chirrup to the dog while he’s there, don’t you think?” +suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream’s +might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the +half-minute. + +“Oh yes! Bream!” + +“Hello?” + +“While you’re down there, just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He +does appreciate it so!” + +Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a +glance at a man’s back; but Bream’s back looked like that of a man to +whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a +piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra. + +“How is your dear little dog, by the way?” inquired Sam solicitously, +as he fell into step by her side. + +“Much better now, thanks. I’ve made friends with a girl on board—did +you ever hear her name—Jane Hubbard—she’s a rather well-known big-game +hunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did him +a world of good. I don’t know what was in it except Worcester Sauce, +but she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had +the botts ... it’s very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor +Pinky when he bit you.” + +“Animal spirits!” said Sam tolerantly. “Pure animal spirits. I like to +see them. But, of course, I love all dogs.” + +“Oh, do you? So do I!” + +“I only wish they didn’t fight so much. I’m always stopping +dog-fights.” + +“I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog-fight. I’m afraid I’m +rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of.” +She looked down. “Have you been reading? What is the book?” + +“The book? Oh, this. It’s a volume of Tennyson.” + +“Are you fond of Tennyson?” + +“I worship him,” said Sam reverently. + +“Those——” he glanced at his cuff—“those ‘Idylls of the King!’ I do not +like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson +with me.” + +“We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!” + +“We will! There is something about Tennyson....” + +“Yes, isn’t there! I’ve felt that myself so often.” + +“Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while +others call it a day when they’ve written something that runs to a +couple of verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long +game was just as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a +marvel with his chip-shots.” + +“That sounds as though you play golf.” + +“When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the +links. Do you play?” + +“I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. +You seem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be great +friends.” + +He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle +sounded. + +“Oh dear!” she cried. “I must rush. But we shall see one another again +up here afterwards?” + +“We will,” said Sam. + +“We’ll sit and read Tennyson.” + +“Fine! Er—you and I and Mortimer?” + +“Oh no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky.” + +“Does he—does he know he is?” + +“Not yet,” said Billie. “I’m going to tell him at lunch.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +SAM CLICKS + + +§ 1 + +It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is +done in the movies they won’t be satisfied with a bald statement like +that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or +whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture +scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:— + +AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE AND +YOUTH AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS FORGED +BY THE LAUGHING LOVE-GOD. + + +and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other +cheek and take a firmer grip of their companion’s hands and the man at +the piano will play “Everybody wants a key to my cellar,” or something +equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on +the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and +intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the +plain frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is +my story and I mean to stick to it. + +Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from +his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had +a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked +out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and +exuberant. + +It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was +uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing +back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would +propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the +test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, +but what of that? + +Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the +manner in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning +proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe’s grandfather had convinced +himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that +the emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe’s grandmother-to-be +was love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the +matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing +sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of +the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was +pulled. Having noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly +pink when he came to the “Thee—only thee!” bit, he felt a mild sense of +encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside +next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to +mention his name in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_ +having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, +he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of +Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, +he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his +addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began “Madam, +you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past +you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary +friendship....” he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing +off. + +How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship +can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir +W. S. Gilbert’s Alphonso. + +“Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks, +He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six: +‘Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!’ +And Emily said: ‘Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!’” + + +Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a +bright young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that +Wilhelmina Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of +time to be his bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the +dock, and all the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, +soup-drinking, tea-drinking, and shuffle-board-playing which they had +done together had merely solidified his original impression. He loved +this girl with all the force of a fiery nature—the fiery nature of the +Marlowes was a by-word in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square—and something +seemed to whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody +like Sir Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he +could not see where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad +than himself. So, wind and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended +to propose to Wilhelmina Bennett this very day. + +He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, +collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face. + +“I am the Bandolero!” sang Sam blithely through the soap. “I am, I am +the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!” + +The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly. + +“Oh, God!” said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head. + +Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been +happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a +pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive. + +“Feeling bad again, old man?” + +“I was feeling all right,” replied Hignett churlishly, “until you began +the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?” + +“Glorious! The sea....” + +“Don’t talk about the sea!” + +“Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the +history of the race. Why don’t you get up?” + +“Nothing will induce me to get up.” + +“Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast.” + +Eustace Hignett shuddered. He eyed Sam sourly. “You seem devilish +pleased with yourself this morning!” he said censoriously. + +Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the +desire to confide in somebody got the better of him. + +“The fact is,” he said apologetically, “I’m in love!” + +“In love!” Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against +the berth above him. “Has this been going on long?” + +“Ever since the voyage started.” + +“I think you might have told me,” said Eustace reproachfully. “I told +you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had +come upon you?” + +“Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a +notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere.” + +“Who is she?” + +“Oh, a girl I met on board.” + +“Don’t do it!” said Eustace Hignett solemnly. “As a friend I entreat +you not to do it. Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don’t +do it!” + +“Don’t do what?” + +“Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are +intending to propose to this girl—probably this morning.” + +“Not this morning—after lunch. I always think one can do oneself more +justice after lunch.” + +“Don’t do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. +Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be +hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out +of sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also +made black? Do you realise...?” + +“Oh, I’ve thought it all out.” + +“And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the +father—and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are +enormously in favour of such a thing happening—of a boy with spectacles +and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six +small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and +had teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in +different styles. How would you like to become the father...?” + +“There is no need to be indelicate,” said Sam stiffly. “A man must take +these chances.” + +“Give her the miss in baulk,” pleaded Hignett. “Stay down here for the +rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to +Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you’re ill and can’t be +disturbed.” + +Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how +it was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this +man. He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on +deck. + +§ 2 + +It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had +through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship +swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with +silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning +which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight +of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and white +skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme which he +had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be put off +till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The finest +efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in better +form than he felt at present. + +“Good morning, Miss Bennett.” + +“Good morning, Mr. Marlowe.” + +“Isn’t it a perfect day?” + +“Wonderful!” + +“It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine.” + +“Yes, doesn’t it?” + +How strange it is that the great emotional scenes of history, one of +which is coming along almost immediately, always begin in this prosaic +way. Shakespeare tries to conceal the fact, but there can be little +doubt that Romeo and Juliet edged into their balcony scene with a few +remarks on the pleasantness of the morning. + +“Shall we walk round?” said Billie. + +Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck +was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting +in a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o’clock +soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of +view of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a +beautiful girl, the place was practically a tube station during the +rush hour. + +“It’s so crowded,” he said. “Let’s go on to the upper deck.” + +“All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson.” + +Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days’ +acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man +was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open +his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down +your finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing +which it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of +conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading +poetry, especially Tennyson’s, almost anything is apt to give you your +cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace +Hignett from an uneasy dose. + +“Now what?” said Eustace. + +“Where’s that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it—ah, here it is. +Well, see you later!” + +“Wait! What are you going to do?” + +“Oh, that girl I told you about,” said Sam making for the door. “She +wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck.” + +“Tennyson?” + +“Yes.” + +“On the upper deck?” + +“Yes.” + +“This is the end,” said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall. + +Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on +deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of +the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of +passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below. + +He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped +steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked +on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him +towered one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried +on, and presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by +the white roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which +seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was +the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients playing an +odd game with long sticks and bits of wood—not shuffleboard but +something even lower in the mental scale. This morning, however, the +devotees of this pastime were apparently under proper restraint, for +the deck was empty. + +“This is jolly,” he said sitting down beside the girl and drawing a +deep breath of satisfaction. + +“Yes, I love this deck. It’s so peaceful.” + +“It’s the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not +meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always +makes me wish that I had a private yacht.” + +“It would be nice.” + +“A private yacht,” repeated Sam, sliding a trifle closer. “We would +sail about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart +of tropic seas.” + +“We?” + +“Most certainly we. It wouldn’t be any fun if you were not there.” + +“That’s very complimentary.” + +“Well, it wouldn’t. I’m not fond of girls as a rule....” + +“Oh, aren’t you?” + +“No!” said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear +at the outset. “Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon +it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual +natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and +seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were +frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch +their deeper natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn’t, if you see +what I mean.” + +“Oh, you wasn’t ... weren’t?” + +“No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love, +and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a +lifetime, lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and +say ‘At last!’” + +“How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself.” + +“Well, yes,” said Sam after a momentary pause. + +“When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most +wonderful thing in the world.” + +“The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming +love, a love which....” + +“Oh, hello!” said a voice. + +All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had +not been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something +missing. The time and the place and the girl—they were all present and +correct; nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object +which seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the +feeling was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no +longer. He was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered +as if he were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam’s primary impulse +was to offer him a nut. + +“Oh, hello, Bream!” said Billie. + +“Hullo!” said Sam. + +“Hello!” said Bream Mortimer. “Here you are!” + +There was a pause. + +“I thought you might be here,” said Bream. + +“Yes, here we are,” said Billie. + +“Yes, we’re here,” said Sam. + +There was another pause. + +“Mind if I join you?” said Bream. + +“N—no,” said Billie. + +“N—no,” said Sam. + +“No,” said Billie again. “No ... that is to say ... oh no, not at all.” + +There was a third pause. + +“On second thoughts,” said Bream, “I believe I’ll take a stroll on the +promenade deck if you don’t mind.” + +They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head +twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away. + +“Who is that fellow?” demanded Sam wrathfully. + +“He’s the son of father’s best friend.” + +Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him +that he had never thought of her having a father. + +“We have known each other all our lives,” continued Billie. “Father +thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was +sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I’m +in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days’ +notice. I....” + +“Oh, hello!” + +“Why, Bream!” said Billie looking at him as he stood on the old spot in +the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of +her father’s best friend might have expected. “I thought you said you +were going down to the promenade deck. + +“I did go down to the promenade deck. And I’d hardly got there when a +fellow who’s getting up the ship’s concert to-morrow night nobbled me +to do something for it. I said I could only do conjuring tricks and +juggling and so on, and he said all right, do conjuring tricks and +juggling, then. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. +I came up to ask you,” he said to Sam, “if you would do something.” + +“No,” said Sam. “I won’t.” + +“He’s got a man who’s going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of +women who both want to sing ‘The Rosary’ but he’s still a turn or two +short. Sure you won’t rally round?” + +“Quite sure.” + +“Oh, all right.” Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. “It’s a +great morning, isn’t it?” + +“Yes,” said Sam. + +“Oh, Bream!” said Billie. + +“Hello?” + +“Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I’m sure she must be +feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck.” + +A look of alarm spread itself over Bream’s face. + +“Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!” + +“She’s a very nice girl.” + +“She’s so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or +something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle.” + +“Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting +experiences. They are most interesting.” + +Bream drifted sadly away. + +“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said Sam. + +“What do you mean?” + +“Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should +like to do it myself.” + +“Oh, don’t let’s talk about Bream. Read me some Tennyson.” + +Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had +absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at +the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed +to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the +volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! +He was all right. He had the stuff. You could rely on him every time. + +He cleared his throat. + +“Oh let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet +Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; +Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, +I shall have had my day. + +Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me +Before I am quite quite sure + That there is one to love me....” + + +This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He +could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big +and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and +took her hand. + +“There is something,” he began in a low voice, “which I have been +trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have +read in my eyes.” + +Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand. + +“Until this voyage began,” he went on, “I did not know what life meant. +And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You’re the +dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I’ll never forget....” He +stopped. “I’m not trying to make it rhyme,” he said apologetically. +“Billie, don’t think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest +notion, dearest ... I don’t know what’s the matter with me ... Billie, +darling, you are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for +you for years and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. +Surely this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you +must have seen that I’ve been keen.... There’s that damned Walt Mason +stuff again!” His eyes fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an +exclamation of enlightenment. “It’s those poems!” he cried. “I’ve been +boning them up to such an extent that they’ve got me doing it too. What +I’m trying to say is, Will you marry me?” + +She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her +eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his. + +§ 3 + +Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face. + +“Darling,” she said, “I’ve a confession to make.” + +“A confession? You? Nonsense!” + +“I can’t get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will +last.” + +“Our love? Don’t be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, it’s +so vast, it’s bound to last ... that is to say, of course it will.” + +She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe. + +“I’m afraid of myself. You see, once before—and it was not so very long +ago,—I thought I had met my ideal, but....” + +Sam laughed heartily. + +“Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace +Hignett?” + +She started violently. + +“You know!” + +“Of course! He told me himself.” + +“Do you know him? Where did you meet him?” + +“I’ve known him all my life. He’s my cousin. As a matter of fact, we +are sharing a state-room on board now.” + +“Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet +him?” + +“Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: ‘Oh, +here you are!’ or something. You know the sort of thing.” + +“It will be terrible.” + +“Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have +realised by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd +his ever expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it +dispassionately ... Eustace ... poor old Eustace ... and _you!_ The +Princess and the Swineherd!” + +“Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?” she asked, surprised. + +“I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with +the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to +marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, +good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of +life are concerned. A man who can’t even stop a dog-fight! In a world +which is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you +trust yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than +I am, but ... well, I mean to say!” + +“I see what you mean. He really wasn’t my ideal.” + +“Not by a mile!” + +She mused, her chin in her hand. + +“Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways.” + +“Oh, a splendid chap,” said Sam tolerantly. + +“Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him +was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well.” + +A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no +objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the +conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to +one subject. + +“Yes?” he said. “Oh yes, I’ve heard him sing. Not lately. He does +drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?” + +“Have you ever heard him sing ‘My love is like a glowing tulip that in +an old-world garden grows’?” + +“I have not had that advantage,” replied Sam stiffly. “But anyone can +sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will +make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ... +that’s a different thing altogether.” + +“Do you sing that sort of thing?” + +“People have been good enough to say....” + +“Then,” said Billie decidedly, “you must certainly do something at the +ship’s concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light +under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent +accompanist. He can accompany you.” + +“Yes, but ... well, I don’t know,” said Sam doubtfully. He could not +help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a +house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion +somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to +identify had thrown a pat of butter at him. + +“Of course you must sing,” said Billie. “I’ll tell Bream when I go down +to lunch. What will you sing?” + +“Well—er—” + +“Well, I’m sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so +wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!” + +Sam’s discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the +sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the +second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing +at all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such +a hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he +was good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times. + +§ 4 + +Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily +brushing the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her +shoulders. On the lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey +kimono, Jane Hubbard watched her, smoking a cigarette. + +Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood. +Her whole appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces +and all that sort of thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl, +about the same age as Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had +looked leopards squarely in the face and caused them to withdraw +abashed into the undergrowth, or wherever it is that leopards withdraw +when abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard flirting lightly at +garden parties, but one could picture her very readily arguing with a +mutinous native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and +light into the soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must +have been rather like Jane Hubbard. + +She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one +hand, a feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was +pleasantly tired after walking eighty-five times round the promenade +deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the moment her head +touched the pillow. But meanwhile she lingered here, for she felt that +Billie had something to confide in her. + +“Jane,” said Billie, “have you ever been in love?” + +Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette. + +“Not since I was eleven,” she said in her deep musical voice. “He was +my music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was +an appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats, +I remember.” + +Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through +her fingers. + +“Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Surely you don’t like weak men. I like a +man who is strong and brave and wonderful.” + +“I can’t stand brave men,” said Jane, “it makes them so independent. I +could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes, +when I have been roughing it out in the jungle,” she went on rather +wistfully, “I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would +put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let +me pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I’m +beginning to want to settle down. After all there are other things for +a woman to do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I +should like to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should +practically have to marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look +after the social end of life and arrange parties and receptions and so +on, and sit ornamentally at the head of my table. I can’t imagine +anything jollier than marriage under conditions like that. When I came +back a bit done up after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a +whisky-and-soda and read poetry to me or prattle about all the things +he had been doing during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!” + +Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a +smoke ring which she had sent floating towards the ceiling. + +“Jane,” said Billie. “I believe you’re thinking of somebody definite. +Who is he?” + +The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited +made her look manlier than ever. + +“I don’t know his name.” + +“But there is really someone?” + +“Yes.” + +“How splendid! Tell me about him.” + +Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor. + +“I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You +know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of +course, but this poor little fellow—_so_ good-looking, my dear! he +reminded me of the pictures of Lord Byron—was hanging from a strap and +being jerked about till I thought his poor little arms would be +wrenched out of their sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he +had some secret sorrow. I offered him my seat, but he wouldn’t take it. +A couple of stations later, however, the man next to me got out and he +sat down and we got into conversation. There wasn’t time to talk much. +I told him I had been down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had +left to be mended. He was so prettily interested when I showed him the +mechanism. We got along famously. But—oh, well, it was just another +case of ships that pass in the night—I’m afraid I’ve been boring you.” + +“Oh, Jane! You haven’t! You see ... you see, I’m in love myself.” + +“I had an idea you were,” said her friend looking at her critically. +“You’ve been refusing your oats the last few days, and that’s a sure +sign. Is he that fellow that’s always around with you and who looks +like a parrot?” + +“Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!” cried Billie indignantly. “As if I +should fall in love with Bream!” + +“When I was out in British East Africa,” said Miss Hubbard, “I had a +bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him to +whistle ‘Annie Laurie’ and to ask for his supper in three native +dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn’t +Bream Mortimer, who is it?” + +“His name is Marlowe. He’s tall and handsome and very strong-looking. +He reminds me of a Greek god.” + +“Ugh!” said Miss Hubbard. + +“Jane, we’re engaged.” + +“No!” said the huntress, interested. “When can I meet him?” + +“I’ll introduce you to-morrow I’m so happy.” + +“That’s fine!” + +“And yet, somehow,” said Billie, plaiting her hair, “do you ever have +presentiments? I can’t get rid of an awful feeling that something’s +going to happen to spoil everything.” + +“What could spoil everything?” + +“Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do +anything to blur the image I have formed of him.” + +“Oh, he won’t. You said he was one of those strong men, didn’t you? +They always run true to form. They never do anything except be strong.” + +Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass. + +“You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane.” + +“Yes?” + +“We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And +I waited and waited and he didn’t come; and what do you think had +happened?” + +“What?” + +“His mother had stolen his trousers.” + +Jane Hubbard laughed heartily. + +“It’s nothing to laugh at,” said Billie seriously “It was a tragedy. I +had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales +seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake.” + +“And you broke off the engagement?” + +“Of course!” + +“I think you were hard on him. A man can’t help his mother stealing his +trousers.” + +“No. But when he finds they’re gone, he can ’phone to the tailor for +some more or borrow the janitor’s or do _something_. But he simply +stayed where he was and didn’t do a thing. Just because he was too much +afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be +married that day.” + +“Now that,” said Miss Hubbard, “is just the sort of trait in a man +which would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man.” + +“I don’t. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and—I don’t know why +it is—I can’t forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my +darling Sam couldn’t look ridiculous, even if he tried. He’s wonderful, +Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see +his eyes flash.” + +Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn. + +“Well, I’ll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you +can arrange to have him flash his eyes then—say between nine-thirty and +ten—I shall be delighted to watch them.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE + + +“Good God!” cried Eustace Hignett. + +He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light +which came through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was +seven-thirty, and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of +strange nightmares, and for the moment he thought that he must still be +dreaming, for the figure before him could have walked straight into any +nightmare and no questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it +was his cousin, Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in +the pigstye, he could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like +that? Was it simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face +really black and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal +size and become a vivid crimson? + +Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a +satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not +have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. +His cousin’s face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab +with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker. + +“Hullo! You awake?” he said, and switched on the light. + +Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend’s profile, seen +dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting +object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent +dreams—and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top +hats and running shorts—had affected him so profoundly. Sam’s +appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a +different and a dreadful world. + +“What ... what ... what...?” he gurgled. + +Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his +nose. + +“How do I look?” + +Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin’s reason must have become +unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like +that, being anxious to be told how he looked. + +“Are my lips red enough? It’s for the ship’s concert, you know. It +starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I’m not on till the second +part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the +ears, or are they all right?” + +Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett’s mind. + +“What on earth are you doing performing at the ship’s concert?” + +“Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man, +and they wouldn’t take no.” Sam deepened the colour of his ears. “As a +matter of fact,” he said casually, “my fiancée made rather a point of +my doing something.” + +A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the +significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace. + +“Your fiancée?” + +“The girl I’m engaged to. Didn’t I tell you about that? Yes, I’m +engaged.” + +Eustace sighed heavily. + +“I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?” + +“Didn’t I tell you her name?” + +“No.” + +“Curious! I must have forgotten.” He hummed an airy strain as he +blackened the tip of his nose. “It’s rather a curious coincidence, +really. Her name is Bennett.” + +“She may be a relation.” + +“That’s true. Of course, girls do have relations.” + +“What is her first name?” + +“That is another rather remarkable thing. It’s Wilhelmina.” + +“Wilhelmina!” + +“Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called +Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence.” + +“What colour is her hair?” demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice. +“Her hair! What colour is it?” + +“Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, +you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it +Titian....” + +“Never mind what I might call it. Is it red?” + +“Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put +it to me like that, it _is_ red.” + +“Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, +like a kitten with a ball of wool?” + +“Yes. Yes, she has.” + +Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry. + +“Sam,” he said, “can you bear a shock?” + +“I’ll have a dash at it.” + +“Brace up!” + +“I’m ready.” + +“The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry +_me_.” + +“Well, well!” said Sam. + +There was a silence. + +“Awfully sorry, of course, and all that,” said Sam. + +“Don’t apologise to _me!_” said Eustace. “My poor old chap, my only +feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity.” He +reached out and pressed Sam’s hand. “I regard you as a toad beneath the +harrow!” + +“Well, I suppose that’s one way of offering congratulations and cheery +good wishes.” + +“And on top of that,” went on Eustace, deeply moved, “you have got to +sing at the ship’s concert.” + +“Why shouldn’t I sing at the ship’s concert?” + +“My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know +that you can’t sing. You can’t sing for nuts! I don’t want to +discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can’t have forgotten what +an ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you +up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you +on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to +pursue.” + +Sam started. + +“Was it you who threw that bit of butter?” + +“It was.” + +“I wish I’d known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar.” + +“Ah, well, it’s seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the +wash anyhow by this time. But don’t let us brood on the past. Let us +put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this +terrible situation.” + +“I don’t want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of +the evening.” + +“The hit of the evening! You! Singing!” + +“I’m not going to sing. I’m going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney +which I did at the Trinity smoker. You haven’t forgotten that? You were +at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a +riot I was—we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don’t feel +well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it +without a rehearsal. You remember how it went.... ‘Hullo, Ernest!’ +‘Hullo, Frank!’ Why not come along?” + +“The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor +that does not heave and wobble under me.” + +“Nonsense! The boat’s as steady as a rock now. The sea’s like a +mill-pond.” + +“Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!” + +“Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow +Mortimer. We’ve been rehearsing all the afternoon, and he seems to have +the hang of the thing. But he won’t be really right. He has no pep, no +vim. Still, if you won’t ... well, I think I’ll be getting along to his +state-room. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal.” + +The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, +gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by +his cousin’s sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to +Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and +dropped with a thud on the rocks. + +His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Sam +rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too +much burnt cork on his cousin’s face to allow of any real registering +of emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well. + +“What’s the matter?” + +Sam sank down on the lounge. + +“The bounder has quit!” + +“The bounder? What bounder?” + +“There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom +thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really +deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the +act! He has left me flat! I went into his state-room just now, as +arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning.” + +“I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond.” + +“It wasn’t that! He’s perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass +took it into his head to propose to Billie just before +dinner—apparently he’s loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing +way—and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the +thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down +at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts +him. He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading +Schopenhauer. I hope it chokes him!” + +“But this is splendid! This lets you out.” + +“What do you mean? Lets me out?” + +“Why, now you won’t be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for +this in years to come.” + +“Won’t I appear! Won’t I dashed well appear! Do you think I’m going to +disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather +die.” + +“But you can’t appear without a pianist.” + +“I’ve got a pianist.” + +“You have?” + +“Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears +like water-wings.” + +“I don’t think I know him.” + +“Yes, you do. He’s you!” + +“Me!” + +“Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night.” + +“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s impossible. I gave you my views +on the subject just now.” + +“You’ve altered them.” + +“I haven’t.” + +“Well, you soon will, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t get up out of +that damned berth you’ve been roosting in all your life, I’m going to +ring for J. B. Midgeley and I’m going to tell him to bring me a bit of +dinner in here and I’m going to eat it before your eyes.” + +“But you’ve had dinner.” + +“Well, I’ll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork +chop....” + +“Stop! Stop!” + +“A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage,” repeated Sam +firmly. “And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now how do we +go?” + +“You wouldn’t do that!” said Eustace piteously. + +“I would and will.” + +“But I shouldn’t be any good at the piano. I’ve forgotten how the thing +used to go.” + +“You haven’t done anything of the kind. I come in and say ‘Hullo, +Ernest!’ and you say ‘Hullo, Frank!’ and then you help me tell the +story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it.” + +“Perhaps there is some child on board....” + +“No. I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We’ve done it together +before.” + +“But, honestly, I really don’t think ... it isn’t as if....” + +Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell. + +“Stop! Stop!” cried Eustace Hignett. “I’ll do it!” + +Sam withdrew his finger. + +“Good!” he said. “We’ve just got time for a rehearsal while you’re +dressing. ‘Hullo, Ernest!’” + +“‘Hullo, Frank,’” said Eustace Hignett brokenly as he searched for his +unfamiliar trousers. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT + + +Ships’ concerts are given in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and Widows, +and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel +that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take +a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They +open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies—so long, as a +rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards +that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the +amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins. + +It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and +recuperation that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was +scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in +the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his +threat and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a +master of oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or +fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had +only just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively +through the shrimps. “The Rosary” had been sung and there was an uneasy +doubt as to whether it was not going to be sung again after the +interval—the latest rumour being that the second of the rival lady +singers had proved adamant to all appeals and intended to fight the +thing out on the lines she had originally chosen if they put her in +irons. + +A young man had recited “Gunga Din” and, wilfully misinterpreting the +gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had +followed it with “Fuzzy-Wuzzy.” His sister—these things run in +families—had sung “My Little Gray Home in the West”—rather sombrely, +for she had wanted to sing “The Rosary,” and, with the same obtuseness +which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered plantation +songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of +silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still +remaining unexpired. + +It was shocked to read the following:— + +7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe. + + +All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in +their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like +a knell! Many of these people were old travellers and their minds went +back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when +performers at ships’ concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens’ +characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false +hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and +other of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there +was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this +S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait +and hope that it would be short. + +There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room +and took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. +The more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be +one of those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though +rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships’ concerts. They +stared at Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous +in the man’s very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of +one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not +know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight +tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner +produce in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, yet +well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a +great many people have recently been eating a great many meals. A few +beads of cold perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett’s brow. He +looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of +the Sahara. + +So tense was Eustace’s concentration that he did not see Billie +Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a +little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content +with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the +front row. She always had a front-row seat at witch dances in Africa, +and the thing had become a habit. + +In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put +up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend +was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of +Eustace. Under her breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in +one of the lesser-known dialects of Northern Nigeria. + +“Billie!” she whispered sharply. + +“What _is_ the matter, Jane?” + +“Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?” + +“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Billie. “His name is Hignett. Why?” + +“It’s the man I met on the Subway!” She breathed a sigh. “Poor little +fellow, how miserable he looks!” + +At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, +pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and +struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the +door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the +entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse +thing had befallen them than even they had looked for. + +The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a +grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. +It advanced towards them, smoking a cigar. + +“Hullo, Ernest,” it said. + +And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. +Dead silence reigned in the saloon. + +“Hullo, Ernest!” + +Those nearest the piano—and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard—now +observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter +still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked +like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised +with him. They felt like that, too. + +In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little +miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment’s thought +should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of +the essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney; +but he had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an +absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more +powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it +pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively +young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. +His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one +of those deep-sea fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had +spoken so searchingly. Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he +bounded from his seat and fled for the deck. + +There was a rustle at Billie’s side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed +him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and +piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in +his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything +that was best and manliest in her nature. Thrusting aside with one +sweep of her powerful arm a steward who happened to be between her and +the door, she raced in pursuit. + +Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin’s dash for the open with a +consternation so complete that his senses seemed to have left him. A +general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt +something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the +imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be +carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the +orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment. +Without him, nothing can be done. + +For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of +the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, +passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen’s +Orphans and Widows. + +The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed +to them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which +renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen +many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon +echoed with their applause. + +It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled +for refuge to his state-room and was lying in the lower berth, chewing +the pillow, a soul in torment. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +SUNDERED HEARTS + + +There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count +of time. + +“Who’s that?” + +“I have a note for you, sir.” + +It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of +the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body +of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star +steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is +ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human +approach to the nightingale. + +“A what?” + +“A note, sir.” + +Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took +the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in +an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a +thrill. He had never seen the handwriting before, but, with the eye of +love, he recognised it. It was just the sort of hand he would have +expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of +a warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope. + +“Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you.” + +Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little +disappointed. I don’t know if you see anything wrong with the letter, +but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it +might have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running +any risk of writer’s cramp, she might have signed it. + +However, these were small matters. No doubt the dear girl had been in a +hurry and so forth. The important point was that he was going to see +her. When a man’s afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a +cheering sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has +made an exhibition of himself at a ship’s concert. A woman’s gentle +sympathy, that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else +at the moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed +the burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his +clothes and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he +felt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted +and it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations. + +She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was +quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea, +making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The +girl appeared to be wrapped in thought and it was not till the sharp +crack of Sam’s head against an overhanging stanchion announced his +approach, that she turned. + +“Oh, is that you?” + +“Yes.” + +“You’ve been a long time.” + +“It wasn’t an easy job,” explained Sam, “getting all that burnt cork +off. You’ve no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter....” + +She shuddered. + +“Don’t!” + +“But I did. You have to with burnt cork.” + +“Don’t tell me these horrible things.” Her voice rose almost +hysterically. “I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned +again as long as I live.” + +“I feel exactly the same.” Sam moved to her side. “Darling,” he said in +a low voice, “it was like you to ask me to meet you here. I know what +you were thinking. You thought that I should need sympathy. You wanted +to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold me in your arms and +tell me that, as we loved each other, what did anything else matter?” + +“I didn’t.” + +“You didn’t?” + +“No, I didn’t.” + +“Oh, you didn’t? I thought you did!” He looked at her wistfully. “I +thought,” he said, “that possibly you might have wished to comfort me. +I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock....” + +“And what about me?” she demanded passionately. “Haven’t I had a +shock?” + +He melted at once. + +“Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all +about it.” + +She looked away from him, her face working. + +“Can’t you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were the +perfect knight.” + +“Yes, isn’t it?” + +“Isn’t what?” + +“I thought you said it was a perfect night.” + +“I said I thought _you_ were the perfect knight.” + +“Oh, ah!” + +A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a +sort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about +for a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily. + +“Yes?” said Sam when he had gone. + +“I forget what I was saying.” + +“Something about my being the perfect knight.” + +“Yes. I thought you were.” + +“That’s good.” + +“But you’re not!” + +“No?” + +“No!” + +“Oh!” + +Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not +understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and +comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled +some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on +one occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a white +mouse into chapel. + +“Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, +Un-something, something, something, please. +When tiddly-umpty umpty brow, +A something something something thou!” + + +He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that +Woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be +relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble. +How little the poet had known woman. + +“Why not?” he said huffily. + +She gave a little sob. + +“I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have +blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again +without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and +helpless....” + +“Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?” + +“You could have done _something!_” The words she had spoken only +yesterday to Jane Hubbard came back to her. “I can’t forgive a man for +looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what,” she cried, “induced you to try to +give an imitation of Bert Williams?” + +Sam started, stung to the quick. + +“It wasn’t Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!” + +“Well, how was I to know?” + +“I did my best,” said Sam sullenly. + +“That is the awful thought.” + +“I did it for your sake.” + +“I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt.” She shuddered again. +Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a +small black golliwog into his hand. “Take it!” + +“What’s this?” + +“You bought it for me yesterday at the barber’s shop. It is the only +present which you have given me. Take it back.” + +“I don’t want it. I shouldn’t know what to do with it.” + +“You must take it,” she said in a low voice. “It is a symbol.” + +“A what?” + +“A symbol of our broken love.” + +“I don’t see how you make that out. It’s a golliwog.” + +“I can never marry you now.” + +“What! Good heavens! Don’t be absurd.” + +“I can’t!” + +“Oh, go on, have a dash at it,” he said encouragingly, though his heart +was sinking. + +She shook her head. + +“No, I couldn’t.” + +“Oh, hang it all!” + +“I couldn’t. I’m a very strange girl....” + +“You’re a very silly girl....” + +“I don’t see what right you have to say that,” she flared. + +“I don’t see what right you have to say you can’t marry me and try to +load me up with golliwogs,” he retorted with equal heat. + +“Oh, can’t you understand?” + +“No, I’m dashed if I can.” + +She looked at him despondently. + +“When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me +for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to +shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail +that morning. Now—” her voice trembled “—if I shut my eyes now, I can +only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing +stock of the ship. How could I marry you, haunted by that picture?” + +“But, good heavens, you talk as though I made a habit of blacking up! +You talk as though you expected me to come to the altar smothered in +burnt cork.” + +“I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night.” She looked at him +sadly. “There’s a bit of black still on your left ear.” + +He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if +struck. + +“So this is the end,” he muttered. + +“Yes. It’s partly on your ear and partly on your cheek.” + +“So this is the end,” he repeated. + +“You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more +butter.” + +He laughed bitterly. + +“Well, I might have expected it. I might have known what would happen! +Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women—as I do now. +Women! What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was’t betrayed +the what’s-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... +who—er—and so on? A woman.... So all is over! There is nothing to be +said but good-bye?” + +“No.” + +“Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!” + +“Good-bye,” said Billie sadly. “I—I’m sorry.” + +“Don’t mention it!” + +“You do understand, don’t you?” + +“You have made everything perfectly clear.” + +“I hope—I hope you won’t be unhappy.” + +“Unhappy!” Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the cry +of a shrimp in pain. “Unhappy! Ha! ha! I’m not unhappy! Whatever gave +you that idea? I’m smiling! I’m laughing! I feel I’ve had a merciful +escape. Oh, ha, ha!” + +“It’s very unkind and rude of you to say that.” + +“It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called +‘Saved from the Scaffold.’” + +“Oh!” + +“I’m not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth +does any man want to get married for? I don’t. Give me my gay bachelor +life! My Uncle Charlie used to say ‘It’s better luck to get married +than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.’ But _he_ was a man who +always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And +good-bye—for ever.” + +He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven +the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken +bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he +had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching. + +As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear +a high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed +door. + +“I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor, + Though his lance be sharrrp and—er keen; +But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour + Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen: +I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour....” + + +Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still +be alive was bad—he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and +bobbing about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he +should be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have +stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting +himself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no +conscience whatever. + +“Well,” he said sternly, “so there you are!” + +Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief +interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an +extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan +look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly +self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain +makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page +drawing in a magazine with “My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee’s +Super-fine Featherweight!” printed underneath him, he could not have +looked more pleased with himself. + +“Hullo!” he said. “I was wondering where you had got to.” + +“Never mind,” said Sam coldly, “where I had got to! Where did you get +to and why? You poor, miserable worm,” he went on in a burst of +generous indignation, “what have you to say for yourself? What do you +mean by dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?” + +“Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn’t foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up +tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed +to go black—I don’t mean you, of course. You were black already—and I +got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself.” + +“Well, why didn’t you?” demanded Sam with a strong sense of injury. “I +might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you +singing....” + +A soft light came into Eustace Hignett’s eyes. + +“I want to tell you all about that,” he said. + +“It’s the most astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it. +Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was +on the Subway in New York....” + +He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York +in the order named. + +“My dear chap, what is the matter?” + +“What is the matter? Ha!” + +“Something is the matter,” persisted Eustace Hignett. “I can tell it by +your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know +you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!” + +“Ha, ha!” + +“You surely can’t still be brooding on that concert business? Why, +that’s all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most +colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things +cannot affect one permanently.” + +“Can’t they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my +engagement is broken off.” + +Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand. + +“Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the +finest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle +words. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak +feelingly. You are well out of it, Sam.” + +Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched +it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett. + +“My heart is broken,” he said with dignity. + +“That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I +know. I’ve been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is +she? A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!” + +“She is nothing of the kind,” said Sam, revolted. + +“Pardon me,” said Eustace firmly, “I speak as an expert. I know her and +I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!” + +“She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic +behaviour, I have lost her.” + +“You speak of the only girl in the world,” said Eustace blithely. “If +you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A +week ago I was on the Subway in New York....” + +“I’m going to bed,” said Sam brusquely. + +“All right. I’ll tell you while you’re undressing.” + +“I don’t want to listen.” + +“A week ago,” said Eustace Hignett, “I will ask you to picture me +seated after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I +got into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun.” + +Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the +elephant gun. + +“She was my soul-mate,” proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. “I +didn’t know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a +wonderful personality, and this elephant gun.” + +“Did she shoot you with it?” + +“Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!” + +“The girl must have been a fool!” said Sam bitterly. “The chance of a +lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?” + +“I haven’t seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun, +and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a +hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nourishing soup out of mangoes, +and what to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how +she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at +the moment—quite unnecessarily if I had only known—because it was only +a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been +broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it +may seem, I forgot all about her.” + +“Do it again!” + +“Tell it again?” + +“Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again.” + +“Nothing,” said Eustace Hignett gravely, “could make me do that. Our +souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their +deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner +... saying ‘You are mine!’ How could I forget her after that? Well, as +I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this +very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck....” + +“Did you writhe?” asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest. + +“I certainly did!” + +“That’s good!” + +“But not for long.” + +“That’s bad!” + +“She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel.” + +“Switch off the light when you’ve finished.” + +“She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are +some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned +with a mixture of some description in a glass. I don’t know what it +was. It had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me +drink it. She said it was what she always used in Africa for +bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ... +are you asleep?” + +“Yes.” + +“Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely +freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was +walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able +to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of +the moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women +since I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They +still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to +include the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith +in Woman. Sam! Sam!” + +“What?” + +“I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman.” + +“Oh, all right.” + +Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile +on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken +only by the distant purring of the engines. + +At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth. + +“Sam!” + +“What is it now?” + +“There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me +she once killed a panther with a hat-pin.” + +Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress. + +Silence fell again. + +“At least I think it was a panther,” said Eustace Hignett at a quarter +past one. “Either a panther or a puma.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION + + +§ 1 + +A week after the liner “Atlantic” had docked at Southampton Sam Marlowe +might have been observed—and was observed by various of the +residents—sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising +watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on +the south coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am +aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the +others—none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte +on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the +asphalte on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel +Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling +incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss +waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For +dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves +that break on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if +it revolted them to have to come to such a place. + +Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with +all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week +at breezy, blighted Bingley? + +Simply because he had been disappointed in love. + +Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an +unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males +behave in the same way under the spur of female fickleness. +_Archilochum_, for instance, according to the Roman writer, _proprio +rabies armavit iambo_. It is no good pretending out of politeness that +you know what that means, so I will translate. _Rabies_—his +grouch—_armavit_—armed—_Archilochum_— Archilochus—_iambo_—with the +iambic—_proprio_—his own invention. In other words, when the poet +Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he +consoled himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in +a new metre which he had thought up immediately after leaving the +house. That was the way the thing affected him. + +On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper +that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an +officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using +profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life. +Constable Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant +while he was on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to +fight him for fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his +head. Accused, questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and +expressed regret, pleading that he had had words with his young woman, +and it had upset him. + +Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought +relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at +Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other +men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot +grizzlies. + +To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any +rate, the service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off +it. His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and +seeing his father, which of course he ought to have done seven days +before. + +He rose from his bench—he had sat down on it directly after +breakfast—and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour +later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the +door of his father’s office. + +The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, +Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway’s Inn, not far from Fleet Street. +The brass plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading. +Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey +of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to +suppose that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You +picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss +with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading +on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms +dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a +Prescott, there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you +are down to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of +Marlowe, Thorpe—what I said before—was, at the time with which this +story deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the +firm and father of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that +ilk; and the outer office, where callers were received and parked till +Sir Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk. + +When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on +a high stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an +extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of +Sam he laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a +particularly successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye +which gave him a truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him +knew that he had a heart of gold and were not intimidated by his +repellent face. Between Sam and himself there had always existed terms +of great cordiality, starting from the time when the former was a small +boy and it had been John Peters’ mission to take him now to the Zoo, +now to the train back to school. + +“Why, Mr. Samuel!” + +“Hullo, Peters!” + +“We were expecting you back a week ago.” + +“Oh, I had something to see to before I came to town,” said Sam +carelessly. + +“So you got back safe!” said John Peters. + +“Safe! Why, of course.” + +Peters shook his head. + +“I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I +sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall +mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to +promise to become my wife.” + +“Ocean liners aren’t often wrecked nowadays.” + +“I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America’s a dangerous +country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?” + +“I don’t think I was.” + +“Ah!” said John Peters significantly. + +He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and +replaced it on the desk. + +“What on earth are you doing with that thing?” asked Sam. + +Mr. Peters lowered his voice. + +“I’m going to America myself in a few days’ time, Mr. Samuel. It’s my +annual holiday, and the guv’nor’s sending me over with papers in +connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It’s a big case over +there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am +to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York. +So I thought it best to be prepared.” + +The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks +flitted across Sam’s face. + +“What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?” he asked. “It’s +safer than London.” + +“Ah, but what about the Underworld? I’ve seen these American films that +they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see ‘Wolves of the +Bowery?’ There was a man in that in just my position, carrying +important papers, and what they didn’t try to do to him! No, I’m taking +no chances, Mr. Samuel!” + +“I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you.” + +Mr. Peters seemed wounded. + +“Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very +fair shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and +practise at the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You’d +be surprised how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I +try how quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, +Mr. Samuel. If you’d ever seen a film called ‘Two-Gun-Thomas,’ you’d +realise that. You haven’t time to wait loitering about.” + +Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it. + +“Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go +right in, Mr. Samuel?” + +Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into +the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable +stenographer, replies to his morning mail. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful +face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London’s best +tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink +carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf +handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him +worldly. + +“Dear Sirs,—We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state +that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that +letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell ’em to go to blazes, +Miss Milliken.” + +“Very well, Sir Mallaby.” + +“That’s that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What +infernal names these people have. Sirs,—On behalf of our client ... oh, +hullo, Sam!” + +“Good morning, father.” + +“Take a seat. I’m busy, but I’ll be finished in a moment. Where was I, +Miss Milliken?” + +“‘On behalf of our client....’” + +“Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where +these people get their names I’m hanged if I know. Your poor mother +wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the +’nineties when you were born, children were frequently christened +Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that.” + +His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember +that the latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had +not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest. + +“Very glad you’re back, Sam. So you didn’t win?” + +“No, I got beaten in the semi-finals.” + +“American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you +were weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You’ll have to rub up +your putting before next year.” + +At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could +appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as +if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his +mind by knitting jumpers. + +“Well, you seem to be in great spirits,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. +“It’s pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. Isn’t it, Miss +Milliken?” + +“Extremely exhilarating,” agreed the stenographer, adjusting her +spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her +heart. + +A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass +that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy +satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these +people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His +laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck +Miss Milliken as exhilarating. + +“On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw,” said Sir Mallaby, +swooping back to duty once more, “we beg to state that we are prepared +to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?” + +“I landed nearly a week ago.” + +“A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why +haven’t I seen you?” + +“I’ve been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea.” + +“Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?” + +“Wrestling with myself,” said Sam with simple dignity. + +Sir Mallaby’s agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was +answering. + +“We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to +be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn’t all athletics. Don’t forget +that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?” + +Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit +when called upon to recite. + +“Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust +thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and +time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like +muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great +men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave +behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ...” said Miss +Milliken respectfully, ... “be up and doing....” + +“All right, all right, all right!” said Sir Mallaby. “I don’t want it +all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about +that when I’ve finished answering these letters. Where was I? ‘We +should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an +appointment....’ Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why +Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate while you were about it?” + +“Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my +mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea +slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast....” + +He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir +Mallaby’s attention had returned to the letter. + +“Oh, what’s the good of answering the dashed thing at all?” said Sir +Mallaby. “Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that +they’ve got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than +Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, +Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, +twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to +marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The +girl is suing him for ten thousand.” + +“How like a woman!” + +Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir +Mallaby took no notice of it whatever. + +“... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter +without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. +Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a +conference and can see nobody for half an hour.” + +When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of +the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring +silently at him. + +“I’m glad you’re back, Sam,” he said at length. “I want to have a talk +with you. You know, it’s time you were settling down. I’ve been +thinking about you while you were in America and I’ve come to the +conclusion that I’ve been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young +man. You’re getting on. I don’t say you’re senile, but you’re not +twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver. +You’ve got to remember that life is—dash it! I’ve forgotten it again.” +He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. “Miss +Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life.... +Yes, yes, that’s enough!” He put down the instrument. “Yes, life is +real, life is earnest,” he said, gazing at Sam seriously, “and the +grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our +lives sublime. In fact, it’s time you took your coat off and started +work.” + +“I am quite ready, father.” + +“You didn’t hear what I said,” exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a look of +surprise. “I said it was time you began work.” + +“And I said I was quite ready.” + +“Bless my soul! You’ve changed your views a trifle since I saw you +last.” + +“I have changed them altogether.” + +Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the +Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange, +even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided, +was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet +office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts +and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. 3’s, and all the rest of it, he +might find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it. + +“Your trip has done you good,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. “The sea +air has given you some sense. I’m glad of it. It makes it easier for me +to say something else that I’ve had on my mind for a good while. Sam, +it’s time you got married.” + +Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern. + +“Swallow some smoke the wrong way?” + +“I was laughing,” explained Sam with dignity. + +Sir Mallaby shook his head. + +“I don’t want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to +approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good, +Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I +was two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and +it was the making of me. A wife might make something of you.” + +“Impossible!” + +“I don’t see why she shouldn’t. There’s lots of good in you, my boy, +though you may not think so.” + +“When I said it was impossible,” said Sam coldly, “I was referring to +the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible +that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My +heart is dead.” + +“Your what?” + +“My heart.” + +“Don’t be a fool. There’s nothing wrong with your heart. All our family +have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a +sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop.” + +“You don’t understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way +that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women +do not exist.” + +“You didn’t tell me about this,” said Sir Mallaby, interested. “When +did this happen? Did she jilt you?” + +“Yes.” + +“In America, was it?” + +“On the boat.” + +Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily. + +“My dear boy, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re taking a shipboard +flirtation seriously? Why, you’re expected to fall in love with a +different girl every time you go on a voyage. You’ll get over this in a +week. You’d have got over it by now if you hadn’t gone and buried +yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea.” + +The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument +to his ear. + +“All right,” he turned to Sam. “I shall have to send you away now, Sam. +Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything +to-night?” + +“No.” + +“Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that? +Well, come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don’t be late.” + +Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken +intercepted him. + +“Oh, Mr. Sam!” + +“Yes?” + +“Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?” + +“I’m dining with him to-night.” + +“Then would you—I don’t like to disturb him now, when he is busy—would +you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza? It runs,” +said Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, “‘Trust no future, howe’er +pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act, in the living +present, Heart within and God o’erhead!’ Thank you so much. Good +afternoon.” + +§ 2 + +Sam, reaching Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by +the butler who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be +down in a few minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe +family, who, if he had not actually dandled Sam on his knees when an +infant, had known him as a small boy, was delighted to see him again. + +“Missed you very much, Mr. Samuel, we all have,” he said +affectionately, as he preceded him to the drawing-room. + +“Yes?” said Sam absently. + +“Very much indeed, sir. I happened to remark only the other day that +the place didn’t seem the same without your happy laugh. It’s good to +see you back once more, looking so well and merry.” + +Sam stalked into the drawing-room with the feeling that comes to all of +us from time to time, that it is hopeless to struggle. The whole damned +circle of his acquaintance seemed to have made up their minds that he +had not a care in the world, so what was the use? He lowered himself +into a deep arm-chair and lit a cigarette. + +Presently the butler reappeared with a cocktail on a tray. Sam drained +it, and scarcely had the door closed behind the old retainer when an +abrupt change came over the whole outlook. It was as if he had been a +pianola and somebody had inserted a new record. Looking well and happy! +He blew a smoke ring. Well, if it came to that, why not? Why shouldn’t +he look well and happy? What had he got to worry about? He was a young +man, fit and strong, in the springtide of life, just about to plunge +into an absorbing business. Why should he brood over a sentimental +episode which had ended a little unfortunately? He would never see the +girl again. If anything in this world was certain, that was. She would +go her way, and he his. Samuel Marlowe rose from his chair a new man, +to greet his father, who came in at that moment fingering a snowy white +tie. + +Sam started at his parent’s splendour in some consternation. + +“Great Scot, father! Are you expecting a lot of people? I thought we +were dining alone.” + +“That’s all right, my boy. A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. We +shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine +and his daughter, a friend of my friend’s friend and my friend’s +friend’s son.” + +“Surely that’s more than six!” + +“No.” + +“It sounded more.” + +“Six,” said Sir Mallaby firmly. He raised a shapely hand with the +fingers outspread. “Count ’em for yourself.” He twiddled his thumb. +“Number one—Bennett.” + +“Who?” cried Sam. + +“Bennett. Rufus Bennett. He’s an American over here for the summer. +Haven’t I ever mentioned his name to you? He’s a great fellow. Always +thinking he’s at death’s door, but keeps up a fine appetite. I’ve been +his legal representative in London for years. Then—” Sir Mallaby +twiddled his first finger—“there’s his daughter Wilhelmina, who has +just arrived in England.” A look of enthusiasm came into Sir Mallaby’s +face. “Sam, my boy, I don’t intend to say a word about Miss Wilhelmina +Bennett, because I think there’s nothing more prejudicial than singing +a person’s praises in advance. I merely remark that I fancy you will +appreciate her! I’ve only met her once, and then only for a few +minutes, but what I say is, if there’s a girl living who’s likely to +make you forget whatever fool of a woman you may be fancying yourself +in love with at the moment, that girl is Wilhelmina Bennett! The others +are Bennett’s friend, Henry Mortimer, also an American—a big lawyer, I +believe, on the other side—and his son Bream. I haven’t met either of +them. They ought to be here any moment now.” He looked at his watch. +“Ah! I think that was the front door. Yes, I can hear them on the +stairs.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE + + +§ 1 + +After the first shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his +father’s harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of +the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one +thing the which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the +toy of Fate. He chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out +for him. Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy, +sentimental, five-reel film scenario, and without consulting him had +had the cool cheek to cast him for one of the puppets. He seemed to see +Fate as a thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a +little as she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous +satisfaction as she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire +qualities. There was not a flaw in the construction. It started off +splendidly with a romantic meeting, had ’em guessing half-way through +when the hero and heroine quarrelled and parted—apparently for ever, +and now the stage was all set for the reconciliation and the slow +fade-out on the embrace. To bring this last scene about, Fate had had +to permit herself a slight coincidence, but she did not jib at that. +What we call coincidences are merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck +in a plot and has to invent the next situation in a hurry. + +Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him +shamefully and he wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had +had his wish, he would never have met her again. Fate, in her +interfering way, had forced this meeting on him and was now +complacently looking to him to behave in a suitable manner. Well, he +would show her! In a few seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting. +He would be distant and polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would +chill her to the bone, and rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide. + +The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers. + +§ 2 + +Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty, +headed the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose +buttons seemed to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him +trotted a small, thin, pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and +carried his nose raised and puckered as though some faintly unpleasant +smell were troubling his nostrils. The fourth member of the party was +dear old Bream. + +There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and +then Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right +wing outstretched. + +“Why, hello!” said Bream. + +“How are you, Mortimer?” said Sam coldly. + +“What, do you know my son?” exclaimed Sir Mallaby. + +“Came over in the boat together,” said Bream. + +“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Old friends, eh? Miss Bennett,” he turned +to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late fiancé, “let me +present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss Bennett.” + +“How do you do?” said Sam. + +“How do you do?” said Billie. + +“Bennett, you’ve never met my son, I think?” + +Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the +appearance of a rather unusually stout prawn. + +“How _are_ you?” he asked, with such intensity that Sam unconsciously +found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule call for +any answer. + +“Very well, thanks.” + +Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. “You are lucky to be able to say +so! Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the +last fifteen years I have not known what it is to enjoy sound health +for a single day. Marlowe,” he proceeded, swinging ponderously round on +Sir Mallaby like a liner turning in the river, “I assure you that at +twenty-five minutes past four this afternoon I was very nearly +convinced that I should have to call you up on the ’phone and cancel +this dinner engagement. When I took my temperature at twenty minutes to +six....” At this point the butler appeared at the door announcing that +dinner was served. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s dinner table, which, like most of the furniture +in the house had belonged to his deceased father and had been built at +a period when people liked things big and solid, was a good deal too +spacious to be really ideal for a small party. A white sea of linen +separated each diner from the diner opposite and created a forced +intimacy with the person seated next to him. Billie Bennett and Sam +Marlowe, as a consequence, found themselves, if not exactly in a +solitude of their own, at least sufficiently cut off from their kind to +make silence between them impossible. Westward, Mr. Mortimer had +engaged Sir Mallaby in a discussion on the recent case of Ouseley _v._ +Ouseley, Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too +complicated to explain here, presented points of considerable interest +to the legal mind. To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the +more striking of his recent symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make +at least an attempt at conversation. + +“How strange meeting you here,” she said. + +Sam, who had been crumbling bread in an easy and debonair manner, +looked up and met her eye. Its expression was one of cheerful +friendliness. He could not see his own eye, but he imagined and hoped +that it was cold and forbidding, like the surface of some bottomless +mountain tarn. + +“I beg your pardon?” + +“I said, how strange meeting you here. I never dreamed Sir Mallaby was +your father.” + +“I knew it all along,” said Sam, and there was an interval caused by +the maid insinuating herself between them and collecting his soup +plate. He sipped sherry and felt a sombre self-satisfaction. He had, he +considered, given the conversation the right tone from the start. Cool +and distant. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Billie bite her lip. +He turned to her again. Now that he had definitely established the fact +that he and she were strangers, meeting by chance at a dinner-party, he +was in a position to go on talking. + +“And how do you like England, Miss Bennett?” + +Billie’s eye had lost its cheerful friendliness. A somewhat feline +expression had taken its place. + +“Pretty well,” she replied. + +“You don’t like it?” + +“Well, the way I look at it is this. It’s no use grumbling. One has got +to realise that in England one is in a savage country, and one should +simply be thankful one isn’t eaten by the natives.” + +“What makes you call England a savage country?” demanded Sam, a staunch +patriot, deeply stung. + +“What would you call a country where you can’t get ice, central +heating, corn-on-the-cob, or bathrooms? My father and Mr. Mortimer have +just taken a house down on the coast and there’s just one niggly little +bathroom in the place.” + +“Is that your only reason for condemning England?” + +“Oh no, it has other drawbacks.” + +“Such as?” + +“Well, Englishmen, for instance. Young Englishmen in particular. +English young men are awful! Idle, rude, conceited, and ridiculous.” + +Marlowe refused hock with a bitter intensity which nearly startled the +old retainer, who had just offered it to him, into dropping the +decanter. + +“How many English young men have you met?” + +Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. “Well, now that I come to +think of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact, +only....” + +“Only?” + +“Well, very few,” said Billie. “Yes,” she said meditatively, “I suppose +I really have been rather unjust. I should not have condemned a class +simply because ... I mean, I suppose there _are_ young Englishmen who +are not rude and ridiculous?” + +“I suppose there are American girls who have hearts.” + +“Oh, plenty.” + +“I’ll believe that when I meet one.” + +Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was +developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, +all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his +chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was +becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into +the realm of distant civility. + +“Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?” + +“No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I +told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there.” + +“You will enjoy that.” + +“I’m sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer’s son Bream will be there. That will be +nice.” + +“Why?” said Sam, backsliding. + +There was a pause. + +“_He_ isn’t rude and ridiculous, eh?” said Sam gruffly. + +“Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity,” +she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the +Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett’s medical confidences a trifle +fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass +on a fork. + +“Besides,” said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, “we are engaged to +be married!” + +§ 3 + +Sam didn’t care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse +into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the +news—just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment, +and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping +the stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but +that was all. + +“Good heavens, Sam!” ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine glasses +were an old and valued set. + +Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth. + +“Awfully sorry, father! Don’t know how it happened.” + +“Something must have given you a shock,” suggested Billie kindly. + +The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was +just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host, +suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on +whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had +successfully established the equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and +was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll, +the whole forming a charming picture in still life. + +“If that glass is in your way....” said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had +hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was +beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this +dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set. + +“Oh, Sir Mallaby,” said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the +juggler, “you needn’t be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn’t +clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I +think it’s so splendid,” said Billie, “when men can do things like +that. I’m always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for +people, but he’s so modest, he won’t.” + +“Refreshingly different,” Sir Mallaby considered, “from the average +drawing-room entertainer.” + +“Yes,” said Billie emphatically. “I think the most terrible thing in +the world is a man who tries to entertain when he can’t. Did I tell you +about the man on board ship, father, at the ship’s concert? Oh, it was +the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!” She +beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in +her voice. “This man got up to do an imitation of somebody—nobody knows +to this day who it was meant to be—and he came into the saloon and +directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there +gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him +altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He +absolutely ran! And he hadn’t said a word! It was the most ridiculous +exhibition I’ve ever seen!” + +The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority +in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was +one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with +laughter. + +“Do you mean,” cried Sir Mallaby, choking, “the poor idiot just stood +there dumb?” + +“Well, he made a sort of yammering noise,” said Billie, “but that only +made him look sillier.” + +“Deuced good!” chuckled Sir Mallaby. + +“Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!” gurgled Mr. Bennett, +swallowing a digestive capsule. + +“May have been half-witted,” suggested Mr. Mortimer. + +Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change +the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar. + +“I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer,” he said. + +“Yes,” said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. “We have at last +succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her +house for the summer.” + +Sir Mallaby gasped. + +“Windles! You don’t mean to tell me that my sister has let you have +Windles!” + +Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly. + +“Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the +summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your +nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just +coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story +short, he said that it would be all right and that we could have the +house.” Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. “He’s a curious boy, young +Hignett. Very nervous in his manner.” + +“Chronic dyspepsia,” said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, “I can tell it +at a glance.” + +“Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?” asked Billie. + +“Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go. +Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and +compact and comfortable and very picturesque.” + +“We do not require a large place,” said Mr. Mortimer. “We shall be +quite a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream....” + +“Don’t forget,” said Billie, “that you have promised to invite Jane +Hubbard down there.” + +“Ah, yes. Wilhelmina’s friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will +be all, except young Hignett himself.” + +“Hignett!” cried Mr. Bennett. + +“Mr. Hignett!” exclaimed Billie. + +There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke +again, and for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen +but present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at +Billie; Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream +started nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his +legal calm. + +“I forgot to tell you that,” he said. “Yes, one of the stipulations—to +which I personally was perfectly willing to agree—was that Eustace +Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause +in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the +circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal +to say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn’t get it except +by agreeing, so I agreed. I’m sure you will think that I acted rightly, +Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances.” + +“Well,” said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, “I certainly did want that +house....” + +“And we couldn’t have had it otherwise,” said Mr. Mortimer, “so that is +all there is to it.” + +“Well, it need make no difference to you,” said Sir Mallaby. “I am sure +you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even be an +entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With +that and the juggling of our friend here and my sister’s late husband’s +orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during +the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?” said Sir Mallaby, on +whom his son’s silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time. + +“Yes,” said Sam, and returned to the silence once more. + +“The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It’s a +thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall,” continued Sir +Mallaby. “How you stop it, I don’t know. When I was down there last it +never seemed to stop. You mustn’t miss the orchestrion!” + +“I certainly shall,” said Mr. Bennett decidedly. “Music of that +description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my +nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune.” + +“So is the orchestrion,” said Sir Mallaby. “I remember once when I was +down there....” + +“I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby,” said Mr. +Mortimer, “during our occupancy of the house. And you, too,” he said, +addressing Sam. + +“I am afraid,” said Sam frigidly, “that my time will be very much +occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much,” he added, after +a moment’s pause. + +“Sam’s going to work,” said Sir Mallaby. + +“Yes,” said Sam with dark determination. “Work is the only thing in +life that matters!” + +“Oh, come, Sam!” said Sir Mallaby. “At your age I used to think love +was fairly important, too!” + +“Love!” said Sam. He jabbed at his soufflé with a spoon. You could see +by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love. + +§ 4 + +Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a +silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and +he and Sam were alone together. + +“Sam,” he said, “do you know what I think?” + +“No,” said Sam. + +Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. “I’ve been +turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come +to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye. +I’ve known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn’t in +that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about +letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to +know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let +the place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket +the cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?” + +“Eh?” said Sam absently. + +“I said, what do you think?” + +“What do I think about what?” + +“About Eustace Hignett and Windles.” + +“What about them?” + +Sir Mallaby regarded him disapprovingly. “I’m hanged if I know what’s +the matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your +brain and left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn’t a word to say for +yourself all through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And +with that delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have +thought you infernally dull.” + +“I’m sorry.” + +“It’s no good being sorry now. The mischief’s done. She has gone away +thinking you an idiot. Do you realise,” said Sir Mallaby warmly, “that +when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a +fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the +table who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of +humour!” + +Sam rose. “I think I’ll be going,” he said. “Good night!” + +A man can bear just so much. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +TROUBLE AT WINDLES + + +§ 1 + +Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles, +looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and +artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he +first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted +blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond, +separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green +and silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a +picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the +eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay +behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white +suggestion of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the +drive as it swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment +of a ruined castle reared itself against a background of firs. + +It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had +definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He +could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could +gaze on it without any lightening of the spirits. + +The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the +flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle, +Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen +since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first +day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight +till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till +eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission +longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in +the daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had +seen finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of +warmth and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the +early days of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled +resentment had given place to a despair too militant to be called +resignation. And with the despair had come a strong distaste for his +fellow human beings, notably and in particular his old friend Mr. +Mortimer, who at this moment broke impatiently in on his meditations. + +“Come along, Bennett. It’s your deal. It’s no good looking at the rain. +Looking at it won’t stop it.” + +Mr. Mortimer’s nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather. + +Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as +partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against +Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to +do. + +Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way +through the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to +proceed from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, +and curled his legs round his chair. + +“I have fourteen cards,” said Mr. Mortimer. “That’s the third time +you’ve mis-dealt.” + +“I don’t care how many cards you’ve got!” said Mr. Bennett with heat. +“That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!” + +He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its +cover and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered +dog, handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. +Murder seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged +countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was +Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to +serve the establishment as a watch-dog. + +“He won’t hurt you,” said Mr. Mortimer carelessly. + +“You keep saying that!” replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. “How do you +know? He’s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were +buying him, I would have had something to say about it!” + +“Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am +within my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, +Wilhelmina has.” + +“Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith,” said Billie. +“I’ve seen them playing together.” + +Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He +disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a +faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He +disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, +though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He +disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace +Hignett. And he disliked Eustace. + +Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the +others. He resented the young man’s presence in the house; and he +resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale +and haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had +the most violent objection to associating with people who looked as +though they were sickening for something. + +He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a +frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr. +Bennett. + +§ 2 + +Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch +on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten. +Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to +this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and +yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson +Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in +England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine. + +Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a +traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages. +It was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a +garden full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he +definitely permitted himself to accept the situation. + +It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great +bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay. +Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a +grave, thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more +respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett’s valet. He carried in one +hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of +jewellery. + +“Good morning, sir.” + +“Morning, Webster,” said Mr. Bennett. “Rather late, eh?” + +“It is,” replied Webster precisely, “a little late, sir. I would have +awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett’s opinion +that a rest would do you good.” + +Mr. Bennett’s sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want +in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter? + +“She did, eh?” + +“Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already +breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer +into Southampton in the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama +hat.” + +“A panama hat!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett. + +“A panama hat, sir.” + +Mr. Bennett’s feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine +day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer +in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him. + +The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually +walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr. +Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to +shave himself. + +Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay +his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He +drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him +from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit. + +Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after +all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere +fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas, +and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun +on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with +gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn. + +At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying +a yesterday’s bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He +drank in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent +excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett, +and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he +remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he +cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was +half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when +burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough. + +Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up +his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a +momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly. +This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry +playfellow. + +Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and +falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that +ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that +occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he +saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. +He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride, +clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as +his pursuer arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a +ledge, where he sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The +bulldog Smith, gazed up at him expectantly. The game was a new one to +Smith, but it seemed to have possibilities. He was a dog who was always +perfectly willing to try anything once. + +Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of +calling for assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects, +some winged, some without wings but—through Nature’s wonderful law of +compensation—equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun +to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him +as if he were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples +down his neck, and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And +then, first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then +swishing down in a steady flood, it began to rain again. + +It was at this point that Mr. Bennett’s manly spirit broke and time +ceased to exist for him. + +Aeons later, a voice spoke from below. + +“Hullo!” said the voice. + +Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing +beneath him, gazing up from under a tam o’shanter cap. Smith, the +bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet. + +“Whatever are you doing up there?” said Jane. “I say, do you know if +the car has come back?” + +“No. It has not.” + +“I’ve got to go to the doctor’s. Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh, +well, I’ll have to walk. Come along, Smith!” She turned towards the +drive, Smith caracoling at her side. + +Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was, +transfixed. That sinister word “ill” held him like a spell. Eustace +Hignett was ill! He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening +for something, confound him! + +“What’s the matter with him?” bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard’s +retreating back. + +“Eh?” queried Jane, stopping. + +“What’s the matter with Hignett?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Is it infectious?” + +“I expect so.” + +“Great Heavens!” cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself cautiously to +the ground, squelched across the dripping grass. + +In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the +barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door +of a friendly monarch. + +“A sharp downpour, sir,” he remarked. + +“Have you been in the house all the time?” demanded Mr. Bennett. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Didn’t you hear me shouting?” + +“I did fancy I heard something, sir.” + +“Then why the devil didn’t you come to me?” + +“I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this +locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have +sometimes wondered,” said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train +of thought, “whether that might be the reason of the name.” + +Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into +which he had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel +outside, and the wettest motor car in England drew up at the front +door. + +§ 3 + +From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and +the rain had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the +poor protection of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward +journey. For the last ten miles Mr. Mortimer had been nursing a sullen +hatred for all created things; and, when entering the house, he came +upon Mr. Bennett hopping about in the hall, endeavouring to detain him +and tell him some long and uninteresting story, his venom concentrated +itself upon his erstwhile friend. + +“Oh, get out of the way!” he snapped, shaking off the other’s hand. +“Can’t you see I’m wet?” + +“Wet! Wet!” Mr. Bennett’s voice quivered with self-pity. “So am I wet!” + +“Father dear,” said Billie reprovingly, “you really oughtn’t to have +come into the house after bathing without drying yourself. You’ll spoil +the carpet.” + +“I’ve _not_ been bathing! I’m trying to tell you....” + +“Hullo!” said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the tail-end +of the party. “Been having a jolly bathe?” + +Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe +against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the +arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants’ +hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a +movement which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the +cake-walk and the grace of the old-fashioned mazurka. + +“What the devil are you doing, you fool?” cried Mr. Bennett. + +“Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week’s +notice,” replied Webster calmly. + +“What’s that?” + +“My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I +cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at.” + +“Oh, go to blazes!” + +“Very good, sir.” Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been +handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to +intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the +stairs. + +“Mortimer!” + +“Oh, what _is_ it?” + +“That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it.” + +“What’s it been doing?” + +“The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up +on that damned castle the whole of the morning!” + +“Father darling,” interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs, +“you mustn’t get excited. You know it’s bad for you. I don’t expect +poor old Smith meant any harm,” she added pacifically, as she +disappeared in the direction of the landing. + +“Of course he didn’t,” snapped Mr. Mortimer. “He’s as quiet as a lamb.” + +“I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had +to run like a hare!” + +The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and +childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up. + +“C’k!” giggled Bream helplessly. “C’k, c’k, c’k!” + +Mr. Bennett turned on him. “Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well, +let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me with—with—er—with +one hand and—and—marry my daughter with the other, you’re wrong! You +can consider your engagement at an end.” + +“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered. + +“Mortimer!” bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was +about to mount the stairs. “Do you or do you not intend to destroy that +dog?” + +“I do not.” + +“I insist on your doing so. He is a menace.” + +“He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn’t even bite you +once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce +_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly.” + +“I don’t care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss....” + +“You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent.” + +There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the +angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with +a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python. + +“Say, Mr. Bennett....” began Bream at his elbow. + +“Get out!” snarled Mr. Bennett. + +“Yes, but, say...!” + +The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster +appeared. + +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Webster, “but luncheon will be served +within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change +of costume.” + +“Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room,” said Mr. Bennett. “I am going +to bed.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +“But, say, Mr. Bennett....” resumed Bream. + +“Grrh!” replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the +stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the +main body. + +§ 4 + +Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of +sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not +lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of +travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters +had made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little +happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on. + +“Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection. +“There was nothing wrong with the lunch.” + +How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment +of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip +of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to +cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known. + +“The lunch,” said Mr. Bennett, “was excellent. Lobsters!” He licked his +lips appreciatively. + +“And, talking of lobsters,” he went on, “I suppose that boy Bream has +told you that I have broken off your engagement?” + +“Yes.” + +“You don’t seem very upset,” said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for +a dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed. + +“Oh, I’ve become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements.” + +“I don’t understand you.” + +“Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything.” Billie gazed +wistfully at the counterpane. “Do you know, father, I’m beginning to +think that I’m rather impulsive. I wish I didn’t do silly things in +such a hurry.” + +“I don’t see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You +took ten years to make up your mind.” + +“I was not thinking of Bream. Another man.” + +“Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young +Hignett?” + +“Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I +was thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!” + +Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his +surprising daughter. His head was beginning to swim. + +“Of course I’ve misunderstood you,” he said. “There’s a catch somewhere +and I haven’t seen it. But for a moment you gave me the impression that +you had promised to marry some man on the boat!” + +“I did!” + +“But...!” Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. “Do you mean to +tell me,” he demanded, having brought out the answer to his +satisfaction, “do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to +three men in three weeks?” + +“Yes,” said Billie in a small voice. + +“Great Godfrey! Er——?” + +“No, only three.” + +Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort. + +“The trouble is,” continued Billie, “one does things and doesn’t know +how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an awful lot +of thinking afterwards, father.” + +“I’m doing a lot of thinking now,” said Mr. Bennett with austerity. +“You oughtn’t to be allowed to go around loose!” + +“Well, it doesn’t matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall +never love anyone again.” + +“Don’t tell me you are still in love with this boat man?” + +Billie nodded miserably. “I didn’t realise it till we came down here. +But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had +thrown away my life’s happiness. It was as if I had been offered a +wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice +reproaching me and saying, ‘You have had your chance. It will never +come again!’” + +“Don’t talk nonsense!” said Mr. Bennett. + +Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well. + +Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an +exclamation. The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory. +“What’s young Hignett got wrong with him?” he asked. + +“Mumps.” + +“Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!” Mr. Bennett quailed. “I’ve never had +mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is awful!... Oh, heavens! +Why did I ever come to this lazar-house!” cried Mr. Bennett, shaken to +his depths. + +“There isn’t the slightest danger, father, dear. Don’t be silly. If I +were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after +this morning.” + +“Sleep! If I only could!” said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes +after the door had closed. + +He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was +wrong. He had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at +the head of a military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he +sat up in bed, blinking in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the +band seemed to be playing still. There was undeniably music in the air. +The room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor +and rolling about in chunks all round his bed. + +Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and +became filled with a restless irritability. There was only one +instrument in the house which could create this infernal din—the +orchestrion in the drawing-room, immediately above which, he recalled, +his room was situated. + +He rang the bell for Webster. + +“Is Mr. Mortimer playing that—that damned gas-engine in the +drawing-room?” + +“Yes, sir. Tosti’s ‘Good-bye.’ A charming air, sir.” + +“Go and tell him to stop it!” + +“Very good, sir.” + +Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The +music still continued to roll about the room. + +“I am sorry to have to inform you, sir,” said Webster, “that Mr. +Mortimer declines to accede to your request.” + +“Oh, he said that, did he?” + +“That is the gist of his remarks, sir.” + +“Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!” + +Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to +the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the +guv’nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would +put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the +Almost-Human—by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was +generally alluded to in the servants’ hall. + +Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his +former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full +dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out +its dirge on the passing of Summer. + +“Will you turn that infernal thing off!” said Mr. Bennett. + +“No!” said Mr. Mortimer. + +“Now, now, now!” said a voice. + +Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on +her face. + +“We can’t have this, you know!” said Jane Hubbard. “You’re disturbing +my patient.” + +She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with +a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the +middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and +closed it behind her. + +The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the +vanquished. + +“Now, what about it!” he said, ungenerously. + +“Interfering girl!” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. “I’ve +a good mind to start it again.” + +“I dare you!” whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his +vanished childhood. “Go on! I dare you!” + +“I’ve a perfect legal right.... Oh well,” he said, “there are lots of +other things I can do!” + +“What do you mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed. + +“Never mind!” said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book. + +Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind. + +He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, +rang for Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him. + +“I want you to go to London,” he said, when she appeared. “I must have +legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him +that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering +himself behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can’t get at him. +Ask Sir Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can’t come himself, tell +him to send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows +anything about the business.” + +“Oh, I’m sure he does!” + +“Eh? How do you know?” + +“Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!” said Billie hastily. “He looks +so clever!” + +“I didn’t notice it myself. Well, he’ll do, if Sir Mallaby’s too busy +to come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that you can see him +first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. +I’ve sent Webster to look out a train.” + +“There’s a splendid train in about an hour. I’ll take that.” + +“It’s giving you a lot of trouble,” said Mr. Bennett, with belated +consideration. + +“Oh, _no!_” said Billie. “I’m only too glad to be able to do this for +you, father dear!” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT + + +The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett’s tongue +at twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at +half-past eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out +his candle and endeavoured to compose himself for a night’s slumber. +Its unconscious host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He +had a vague feeling that the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but +his mind was too engrossed with the task of keeping a look-out for the +preliminary symptoms of mumps to have leisure to bestow much attention +on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused was not sufficient to keep +him awake, and presently he turned on his side and began to fill the +room with a rhythmical snoring. + +How pleasant if one could leave him so—the good man taking his rest. +Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett’s +side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we +are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything +is all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first +discern nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we +perceive him sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him, +while with the first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively +the tip of his protruding tongue. + +At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle—one of the charms of +Windles was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system—and we are +enabled to get a better view of him. + +Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first +beads of a chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible +for a man of his complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as +he could. Panic gripped him. A man whose favourite reading was medical +encyclopædias, he needed no doctor to tell him that this was the end. +Fate had dealt him a knockout blow; his number was up; and in a very +short while now people would be speaking of him in the past tense and +saying what a pity it all was. + +A man in Mr. Bennett’s position experiences strange emotions, and many +of them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the +cost of white paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an +analysis of the unfortunate man’s reflections and be glad of the +chance. It is sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there +was no stint. Whatever are the emotions of a man in such a position, +Mr. Bennett had them. He had them all, one after another, some of them +twice. He went right through the list from soup to nuts, until finally +he reached remorse. And, having reached remorse, he allowed that to +monopolise him. + +In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had +frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would +not have been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and, +if he was going to be remorseful about anything, he might well have +started by being remorseful about that. But it was on his most +immediate past that his wistful mind lingered. He had quarrelled with +his lifelong friend, Henry Mortimer. He had broken off his daughter’s +engagement with a deserving young man. He had spoken harsh words to his +faithful valet. The more Mr. Bennett examined his conduct, the deeper +the iron entered into his soul. + +Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He +could make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the +most suitable time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too +remorseful to think of that. Do It Now had ever been his motto, so he +started by ringing the bell for Webster. + +The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of +dilating on Mr. Bennett’s emotions would find a congenial task in +describing the valet’s thought-processes when the bell roused him from +a refreshing sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the +time he entered his employer’s room he was his own calm self again. + +“Good morning, sir,” he remarked equably. “I fear that it will be the +matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not +aware,” said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting, +“that you intended rising so early.” + +“Webster,” said Mr. Bennett, “I’m a dying man!” + +“Indeed, sir?” + +“A dying man!” repeated Mr. Bennett. + +“Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?” + +Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the +scene. + +“Webster,” he said, “this morning we had an unfortunate +misunderstanding. I’m sorry.” + +“Pray don’t mention it, sir.” + +“I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have +stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!” said Mr. Bennett, who +had half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the +family for years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a +little less than a month ago. “Through thick and thin!” repeated Mr. +Bennett. + +“I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir.” + +“I want to reward you, Webster.” + +“Thank you very much, sir.” + +“Take my trousers!” + +Webster raised a deprecating hand. + +“No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn’t really! You will +need them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply.” + +“Take my trousers,” repeated Mr. Bennett, “and feel in the right-hand +pocket. There is some money there.” + +“I’m sure I’m very much obliged, sir,” said Webster, beginning for the +first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked upon the +treasure-hunt. “The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and +threepence, sir.” + +“Keep it!” + +“Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?” + +“Why, no,” said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. There +had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and +his yearning soul resented it. “Why, no.” + +“Good-night, sir.” + +“Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer’s room?” + +“Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage, +on the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely +obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when you ring.” + +Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed, +put on his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage. + +In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on +crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been +to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had +collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no +sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light +of the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was +sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good +for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow +in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the +distant rumble of an approaching train on the Underground. + +“Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett. + +The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on +again. + +“Henry!” said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small +of the back. + +“Leave it on the mat,” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and +uncovering one corner of his mouth. + +Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt +like a man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to +him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer +made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly +for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle. + +“Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He +had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow. + +“What do you mean, rabbits?” said Mr. Bennett sharply. + +The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already +entering a tunnel. + +“Much too pink!” he murmured as the pillow engulfed him. + +What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot +say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired, +for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above +his slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the +candle and fell into Mr. Mortimer’s exposed ear. The sleeper wakened. + +“What? What? What?” he exclaimed, bounding up. “Who’s that?” + +“It’s me—Rufus,” said Mr. Bennett. “Henry, I’m dying!” + +“Drying?” + +“Dying!” + +Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him +again. + +“Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn,” he muttered. “But too pink! Much +too pink!” + +And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation +and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the +pillow again. + +Mr. Bennett’s sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was +strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once +more, but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain, +as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him +of his situation. A dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping +candle-grease into people’s ears. After all, it was perhaps a little +late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr. +Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him +the glad news of his renewed engagement. + +He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream’s bedroom, he +knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle +quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed. + +“Drop that pistol!” said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with +quiet severity. “I’ve got you covered!” + +Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have +been a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery +that he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady’s, or by the +fact that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to +be a small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a +matter of fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard +carried with her everywhere—a girl’s best friend. + +“My dear young lady!” he gasped. + +On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her +tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without +making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused +her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said. +Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was +glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession +of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had +no evil intentions. + +“Who is it?” she asked. + +“I don’t know how to apologise!” + +“That’s all right! Let’s have a light.” A match flared in the darkness. +Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet +curiosity. “Walking in your sleep?” she inquired. + +“No, no!” + +“Not so loud! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. He’s next door. That’s why I +took this room, in case he was restless in the night.” + +“I want to see Bream Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett. + +“He’s in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to +see him about?” + +“I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my +daughter.” + +“Oh, well, I don’t suppose he’ll mind being woken up to hear that. But +what’s the idea?” + +“It’s a long story.” + +“That’s all right. Let’s make a night of it.” + +“I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute +pain....” + +Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but +without excitement. + +“What nonsense!” she said at the conclusion. + +“I assure you....” + +“I’d like to bet it’s nothing serious at all.” + +“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Bennett, piqued. “I have devoted a +considerable part of my life to medical study....” + +“I know. That’s the trouble. People oughtn’t to be allowed to read +medical books.” + +“Well, we need not discuss it,” said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented +being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of +his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. “I will +leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer.” He clung to a hope that +Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. “Good-night!” + +“But wait a moment!” + +Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard +irritated him. + +His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was +fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber +almost as deep as his father’s; but, once roused, he showed a +gratifying appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of +his visitor’s news competed with consternation and sympathy at the +other half. He thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern +on learning of his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire +to help by offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful +for gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett +withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something +approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost +reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling +voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard’s room. + +“Come here!” said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and +looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring. + +“Well?” said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless. + +“I’m going to have a look at that tongue of yours,” said Jane firmly. +“It’s my opinion that you’re making a lot of fuss over nothing.” + +Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a +dressing-gown can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had +turned and gone into her room. + +“Come in here,” she said. + +Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note +of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself +for his weakness in obeying. + +“Sit down!” said Jane Hubbard. + +She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table. + +“Put your tongue out!” she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her +strange influence, lowered himself on to the stool. “Further out! +That’s right. Keep it like that!” + +“Ouch!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up. + +“Don’t make such a noise! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!” + +“I....” + +“Sit down!” + +Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding +the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it +desperately. + +“Baby!” said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. “Why, I once sewed eighteen +stitches in a native bearer’s head, and he didn’t make half the fuss +you’re making. Now, keep quite still.” + +Mr. Bennett did—for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped +from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality +of the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was +a subdued one. He was just about to speak—he had framed the opening +words of a strong protest—when suddenly he became aware of something in +his mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as +it lay on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at +the same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state +of his tongue. The swelling had gone. + +“I told you so!” said Jane Hubbard placidly. “What is it?” + +“It—it appears to be a piece of....” + +“Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night.” + +Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he +wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. +He restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his +was too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about +it. He needed a confidant. + +Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell, +sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs. + +“Did you ring, sir?” + +“Webster,” cried Mr. Bennett, “it’s all right! I’m not dying after all! +I’m not dying after all, Webster!” + +“Very good, sir,” said Webster. “Will there be anything further?” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS + + +“That’s right!” said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. “Work while you’re young, +Sam, work while you’re young.” He regarded his son’s bent head with +affectionate approval. “What’s the book to-day?” + +“Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence,” said Sam, without looking up. + +“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Highly improving and as interesting as a +novel—some novels. There’s a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred +and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and +Customary Estates. It’s a wonderfully powerful situation. It +appears—but I won’t spoil it for you. Mind you don’t skip to see how it +all comes out in the end!” Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he +addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of +his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath +for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad +in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. “Sam!” + +“Well?” + +“Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of +overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way, +Sam.” + +“Yes?” + +“I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients +will be coming in and asking for advice, and you’ll find yourself in +difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You’d +better lock the outer door.” + +“All right,” said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. +He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which—as of course you +know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage. + +Sir Mallaby looked at his watch. + +“Well, I’ll have to be going. See you later, Sam.” + +“Good-bye.” + +Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and +twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation +to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was +an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam’s mind, +numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal +phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later +his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and +began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett. + +Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby’s dinner-table, Sam had told +himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, +that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but +unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing +on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself +for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he +did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and +now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he +groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the +almost inseparable companion of young men in his position. + +So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light +footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a +tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the +fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his +father’s advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some +frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and +Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him. + +Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the +blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened +the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He +dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk. +Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing. + +There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened. +Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to +him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with +success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a +similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only +Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches +of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who +entered. + +“Good morning,” said a voice. + +Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was +the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking +hours. + +“Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?” asked Billie, addressing the boots. + +Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise. + +“Dropped my pen,” he mumbled, as he rose to the surface. + +He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical +exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he +invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk. + +“Dropped my pen!” he gurgled again. + +“Yes?” said Billie. + +“Fountain-pen,” babbled Sam, “with a broad nib.” + +“Yes?” + +“A broad _gold_ nib,” went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which +comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication. + +“Really?” said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that +this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly +occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his +struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle +more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to +assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as +little of a fool as possible in this girl’s eyes. And what eyes they +were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in.... + +However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat +and became cold and business-like,—the dry young lawyer. + +“Er—how do you do, Miss Bennett?” he said with a question in his voice, +raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this +performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he +had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. +“Miss Bennett, I believe?” + +The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to +this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, +to sob on her soul-mate’s shoulder and generally make everything up; +but at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts—which +was fully as militant as that of the Marlowes—became roused. She told +herself that she had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved +this man. She was a proud girl and refused to admit herself capable of +loving any man who looked at her as if she was something that the cat +had brought in. She drew herself up stiffly. + +“Yes,” she replied. “How clever of you to remember me.” + +“I have a good memory.” + +“How nice! So have I!” + +There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel +casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring +furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought +condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen +were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that +red hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... However! + +“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked in the sort of voice +Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man +with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file. + +“Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby.” + +“My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath. +Cannot I act as his substitute?” + +“Do you know anything about the law?” + +“Do I know anything about the law!” echoed Sam, amazed. “Do I know——! +Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in.” + +“Oh, were you?” said Billie, interested. “Do you always read on the +floor?” + +“I told you I dropped my pen,” said Sam coldly. + +“And of course you couldn’t read without that! Well, as a matter of +fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi—what you said.” + +“I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the +law in all its branches.” + +“Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion +when you wanted to get to sleep?” + +“The orchestrion?” + +“Yes.” + +“The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H’m!” said Sam. + +“You still haven’t made it quite clear,” said Billie. + +“I was thinking.” + +“Oh, if you want to _think!_” + +“Tell me the facts,” said Sam. + +“Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the +country....” + +“I knew that.” + +“_What_ a memory you have!” said Billie kindly. “Well, for some reason +or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything +he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted +to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy him.” + +“I think—I’m not quite sure—I think that’s a tort,” said Sam. + +“A what?” + +“Either a tort or a malfeasance.” + +“Why, you do know something about it after all!” cried Billie, startled +into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and +the sight of her quick smile Sam’s professional composure reeled on its +foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and +babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection +came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him +ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him +ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat; and at that moment there came +another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of +the holiday-making Peters. + +“Good morning, Mr. Samuel,” said Jno. Peters. “Good morning, Miss +Milliken. Oh!” + +He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he +had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that +the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind +him a momentary silence. + +“What a horrible-looking man!” said Billie, breaking it with a little +gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first +sight. + +“I beg your pardon?” said Sam absently. + +“What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!” + +For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of +his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, +Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his +trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it +suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute +he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had +brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy. + +“Who is he?” asked Billie. “He seemed to know you? And who,” she +demanded after a slight pause, “is Miss Milliken?” + +Sam drew a deep breath. + +“It’s rather a sad story,” he said. “His name is John Peters. He used +to be clerk here.” + +“But he isn’t any longer?” + +“No.” Sam shook his head. “We had to get rid of him.” + +“I don’t wonder. A man looking like that....” + +“It wasn’t that so much,” said Sam. “The thing that annoyed father was +that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken.” + +Billie uttered a cry of horror. + +“He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!” + +“He _did_ shoot her—the third time,” said Sam, warming to his work. +“Only in the arm, fortunately,” he added. “But my father is rather a +stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn’t keep him +after that.” + +“Good gracious!” + +“She used to be my father’s stenographer, and she was thrown a good +deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with +her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. +Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given +him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day +that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his +onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he +concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his +condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as +I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. +Still, it wouldn’t do. It wasn’t only that he tried to shoot Miss +Milliken. The thing became an obsession with him, and we found that he +had a fixed idea that every red-haired woman who came into the office +was the girl who had deceived him. You can see how awkward that made +it. Red hair is so fashionable now-a-days.” + +“My hair is red!” whispered Billie pallidly. + +“Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as +Miss Milliken’s. It’s rather fortunate that I happened to be here with +you when he came.” + +“But he may be lurking out there still!” + +“I expect he is,” said Sam carelessly. “Yes, I suppose he is. Would you +like me to go and send him away? All right.” + +“But—but is it safe?” + +Sam uttered a light laugh. + +“I don’t mind taking a risk or two for your sake,” he said, and +sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed +him with worshipping eyes. + +Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself +for the more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which +he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm +being too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested +in the series of chats with Young Mothers. + +“Hullo, Peters,” said Sam. “Want anything?” + +“Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say +good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up +all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final +instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over. +I’m sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel.” + +“Yes, this is his golf day. I’ll tell him you looked in.” + +“Is there anything I can do before I go?” + +“Do?” + +“Well—”—Jno. Peters coughed tactfully—“I see that you are engaged with +a client, Mr. Samuel, and I was wondering if any little point of law +had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of +coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance.” + +“Oh, that lady,” said Sam. “That was Miss Milliken’s sister.” + +“Indeed? I didn’t know Miss Milliken had a sister.” + +“No?” said Sam. + +“She is not very like her in appearance.” + +“No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright, +intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you +came in, and she was most interested. It’s a pity you haven’t got it +with you now, to show to her.” + +“Oh, but I have it! I have, Mr. Samuel!” said Peters, opening a small +handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a +tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. “I was on my way +to the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to +show it to her.” + +“Well, wait here a minute or two,” said Sam. “I’ll have finished +talking business in a moment.” + +He returned to the inner office. + +“Well?” cried Billie. + +“Eh? Oh, he’s gone,” said Sam. “I persuaded him to go away. He was a +little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were +talking about. You say....” He broke off with an exclamation, and +glanced at his watch. “Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I +promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next +court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with +one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you +spare me for a short while? I shan’t be more than ten minutes.” + +“Certainly.” + +“Here is something you may care to look at while I’m gone. I don’t know +if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting.” + +He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_. + +“You can go in now,” said Sam. + +“Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly.” + +Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_ and sat down with his feet on +the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis. + +In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment +offered by Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office, +looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be +the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the +contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back. +She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously. + +Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of +repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one +of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a +cruel, cunning smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself +was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent +simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a +motion-picture studio. + +“How do you do, Miss Milliken?” he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +SHOCKS ALL ROUND + + +Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the +late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that +one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this +wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the +portrait’s frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this +supreme moment she did not even notice it. + +“Er—how do you do?” she said. + +If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said +that she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though +it was considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency. +It had ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had +seen this sort of thing in the movies—there was one series of pictures, +“The Dangers of Diana,” where something of the kind had happened to the +heroine in every reel—but she had not anticipated that it would ever +happen to her; and consequently she had not thought out any plan for +coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should +be prepared for everything, or where is one? + +“I’ve brought the revolver,” said Mr. Peters. + +“So—so I see!” said Billie. + +Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather +a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her +being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl. + +“I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range,” he said. +“Then I thought I might as well look in here.” + +“I suppose—I suppose you’re a good shot?” quavered Billie. + +“I seldom miss,” said Jno. Peters. + +Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this +maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in +time to save her, she essayed further small-talk. + +“It’s—it’s very ugly!” + +“Oh, no!” said Mr. Peters, hurt. + +Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing. + +“Very deadly-looking, I meant,” she corrected herself hastily. + +“It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken,” said Mr. Peters. + +Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of +immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the +deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the +other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, +as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, +Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief. + +“The great thing,” said Jno. Peters, “is to learn to draw quickly. Like +this!” he added producing the revolver with something of the smoothness +and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen Bream +Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. “Everything +depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is +vital.” + +Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try +to convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _idée fixe_, +that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and +might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was +imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring +him, it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly? + +“Mr. Peters,” she cried, “you are quite mistaken!” + +“I beg your pardon,” said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity. +“Nothing of the kind!” + +“You are!” + +“I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential....” + +“You have been misinformed.” + +“Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range,” said +Mr. Peters stiffly. “And if you have ever seen a picture called +‘Two-Gun Thomas’....” + +“Mr. Peters,” cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim +with his meaningless ravings. “Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to +a man at Ealing West!” + +Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed +for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but +many women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could +not at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who _were_ +married to men at Ealing West. + +“Indeed?” he said politely. + +“Won’t you believe me?” exclaimed Billie wildly. + +“Why, certainly, certainly,” said Jno. Peters. + +“Thank God!” said Billie. “I’m not even engaged! It’s all been a +terrible mistake!” + +When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and +different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving +at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at +this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the +intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer +of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to +understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a +breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been +trifling with her heart—hardened lawyer’s clerk as he was, that +poignant cry “I’m not even engaged!” had touched Mr. Peters—and she +wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again. +He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book. + +“I should be glad to hear the facts,” he said with professional +courtesy. “In the absence of the guv’nor....” + +“I have told you the facts!” + +“This man at Ealing West,” said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his +pencil, “he wrote you letters proposing marriage?” + +“No, no, no!” + +“At any rate,” said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, “he made love +to you before witnesses?” + +“Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at +Ealing West!” + +It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to +entertain serious doubts of the girl’s mental balance. The most +elementary acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were +any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a +sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and +he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as +yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out +and laid it nonchalantly in his lap. + +The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her +hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card. + +“I love _you!_” she cried. She wished she could have remembered his +first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a +moment she could hardly call him “Mr. Peters.” “You are the only man I +love.” + +“My gracious goodness!” ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over +backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected +declaration was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He +blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he +could not check a certain thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he +really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct +estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in +inducing his fiancée to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to +wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There +must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like +this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual +conversation. + +Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl +was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge +towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought +to be warned. + +“So that’s all right, isn’t it!” said Billie. + +“Oh, quite, quite!” said Mr. Peters. “Er—Thank you very much!” + +“I thought you would be pleased,” said Billie, relieved but puzzled. +For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he +seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a +strenuous scene. + +“Oh, it’s a great compliment!” Mr. Peters assured her. + +At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment +when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the +instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at his +watch, he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for +events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had +indicated. + +The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little +strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather +agitated, too. Sam caught Billie’s eye. It had an unspoken appeal in +it. He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man +who understood all and was prepared to handle the situation. + +“Come, Peters,” he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on +the clerk’s arm. “It’s time that you went.” + +“Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!” + +“I’ll see you out,” said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer +office and on to the landing outside. “Well, good luck, Peters,” he +said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. “I hope you have a +pleasant trip. Why, what’s the matter? You seem upset.” + +“That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think—really, she cannot be quite +right in her head.” + +“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Sam firmly. “She’s all right! Well, +good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, Mr. Samuel.” + +“When did you say you were sailing?” + +“Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of +seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see +this gentleman down in the country....” + +“All right. Then we’ll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you +have a good time in America. I’ll tell my father you called.” + +Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his +way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair +which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet. + +“Has he really gone?” + +“Yes. He’s gone this time.” + +“Was he—was he violent?” + +“A little,” said Sam. “A little. But I calmed him down.” He looked at +her gravely. “Thank God I was in time!” + +“Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!” cried Billie, and, burying +her face in her hands, burst into tears. + +“There, there!” said Sam. “There, there! Come, come! It’s all right +now! There, there, there!” + +He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted +her hands. + +“There, there, there!” he said. + +I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed +page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be +as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will +by now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an +Army mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied +through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright +she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had +caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low, +bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact +that he had erased for ever from Billie’s mind that undignified picture +of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another +which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was +the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him +to kiss her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would +have said that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh +good, or some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man +Samuel Marlowe was. + +His face was very close to Billie’s, who had cheered up wonderfully by +this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into +her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway. + +“Great Godfrey!” exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from +this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet +face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had +become slightly soluble. “Great Heavens above! Number four!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER + + +Mr. Bennett advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with +one hand on the desk, while with the other he still plied the +handkerchief on his over-heated face. Much had occurred to disturb him +this morning. On top of a broken night he had had an affecting +reconciliation scene with Mr. Mortimer, at the conclusion of which he +had decided to take the first train to London in the hope of +intercepting Billie before she reached Sir Mallaby’s office on her +mission of war. The local train-service kept such indecently early +hours that he had been compelled to bolt his breakfast, and, in the +absence of Billie, the only member of the household who knew how to +drive the car, to walk to the station, a distance of nearly two miles, +the last hundred yards of which he had covered at a rapid gallop, under +the erroneous impression that an express whose smoke he had seen in the +distance was the train he had come to catch. Arrived on the platform, +he had had a trying wait, followed by a slow journey to Waterloo. The +cab which he had taken at Waterloo had kept him in a lively state of +apprehension all the way to the Savoy, owing to an apparent desire to +climb over motor-omnibuses when it could not get round them. At the +Savoy he found that Billie had already left, which had involved another +voyage through the London traffic under the auspices of a driver who +appeared to be either blind or desirous of committing suicide. He had +three flights of stairs to negotiate. And, finally, arriving at the +office, he had found his daughter in the circumstances already +described. + +“Why, father!” said Billie. “I didn’t expect you.” + +As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been +considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it +inadequate and would have said so, had he had enough breath. This +physical limitation caused him to remain speechless and to do the best +he could in the way of stern fatherly reproof by puffing like a seal +after a long dive in search of fish. + +Having done this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards +him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was +the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. +He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of +luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his +manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective +father-in-law of such a one as himself. + +“I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bennett,” said Sam. “You could not have +come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are. +There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, +Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!” + +And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it +more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that. + +“What are you talking about?” said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. “I +haven’t got a son.” + +“I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining +years....” + +“What the devil do you mean, my declining years?” demanded Mr. Bennett +with asperity. + +“He means when they do decline, father dear,” said Billie. + +“Of course, of course,” said Sam. “When they do decline. Not till then, +of course. I wouldn’t dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on +me! And I should like to say for my part,” he went on handsomely, “what +an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. +Bennett. Bennett of New York!” he added spaciously, not so much because +he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that +he did not, but because it sounded well. + +“Oh!” said Mr. Bennett. “You do, do you?” + +Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly +earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his +newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy +father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. +It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to +have directed at anybody, except possibly an exceptionally prudish +judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually +atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only +caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving. + +“Oh, father! You aren’t angry!” + +“Angry!” + +“You _can’t_ be angry!” + +“Why can’t I be angry?” declared Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury +which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. “Why the +devil shouldn’t I be angry? I _am_ angry! I come here and find you +like—like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air +and give three rousing cheers! Of course I’m angry! You are engaged to +be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of +the finest young men I have ever known....” + +“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. “It’s awfully +good of you....” + +“But that’s all over, father.” + +“What’s all over?” + +“You told me yourself that you had broken off my engagement to Bream.” + +“Well—er—yes, I did,” said Mr. Bennett, a little taken aback. “That +is—to a certain extent—so. But,” he added, with restored firmness, +“it’s on again!” + +“But I don’t want to marry Bream!” + +“Naturally!” said Sam. “Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few +days we’ll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea.” + +“It doesn’t matter what you want! A girl who gets engaged to a dozen +men in three weeks....” + +“It wasn’t a dozen!” + +“Well, four—five—six—you can’t expect me not to lose count.... I say a +girl who does that does not know what she wants, and older and more +prudent heads must decide for her. You are going to marry Bream +Mortimer!” + +“All wrong! All wrong!” said Sam, with a reproving shake of the head. +“All wrong! She’s going to marry me.” + +Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier +effort had been a loving glance. + +“Wilhelmina,” he said, “go into the outer office.” + +“But, father, Sam saved my life!” + +“Go into the outer office and wait for me there.” + +“There was a lunatic in here....” + +“There will be another if you don’t go.” + +“He had a pistol.” + +“Go into the outer office!” + +“I shall always love you, Sam!” said Billie, pausing mutinously at the +door. + +“I shall always love _you!_” said Sam cordially. + +“Nobody can keep us apart!” + +“They’re wasting their time, trying.” + +“You’re the most wonderful man in the world!” + +“There never was another girl like you!” + +“Get _out!_” bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this love-scene, +which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly. “Now, sir!” he said to +Sam, as the door closed. + +“Yes, let’s talk it over calmly,” said Sam. + +“I will not talk it over calmly!” + +“Oh, come! You can do it if you try. In the first place, whatever put +this silly idea into your head about that sweet girl marrying Bream +Mortimer?” + +“Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer.” + +“I know,” said Sam. “And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that +against him, it’s a point you can’t afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer! +You and I have Henry Mortimer’s number. We know what Henry Mortimer is +like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You +can’t seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by +marriage.” + +“Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend.” + +“That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend +treating you like that!” + +“The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed +over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial.” + +“Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn’t trust a man like +that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!” + +“I have decided once and for all....” + +“If you’ll take my advice, you will break the thing off.” + +“I will not take your advice.” + +“I wouldn’t expect to charge you for it,” explained Sam reassuringly. +“I give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to +others, free to you.” + +“Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer? +What are you giggling about?” + +“It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I +mean.” + +“Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man.” + +“And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a +girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable +young man.” + +“She will do as I tell her.” + +Sam regarded him sternly. + +“Have you no regard for her happiness?” + +“I am the best judge of what is best for her.” + +“If you ask me,” said Sam candidly, “I think you’re a rotten judge.” + +“I did not come here to be insulted!” + +“I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What +right have you to say that I’m not fit to marry your daughter?” + +“I did not say that.” + +“You’ve implied it. And you’ve been looking at me as if I were a leper +or something the Pure Food Committee had condemned. Why? That’s what I +ask you,” said Sam, warming up. This he fancied, was the way Widgery +would have tackled a troublesome client. “Why? Answer me that!” + +“I....” + +Sam rapped sharply on the desk. + +“Be careful, sir. Be very careful!” He knew that this was what lawyers +always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a +miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of +the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but +Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that +lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be +very careful. + +“What do you mean, be very careful?” said Mr. Bennett. + +“I’m dashed if I know,” said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a +mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by +smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He +endeavoured, however, to smile quietly. + +“Don’t laugh at me!” roared Mr. Bennett. + +“I’m not laughing at you.” + +“You are!” + +“I’m not! I’m smiling quietly.” + +“Well, don’t then!” said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young +companion. “I don’t know why I’m wasting my time, talking to you. The +position is clear to the meanest intelligence. I have no objection to +you personally....” + +“Come, this is better!” said Sam. + +“I don’t know you well enough to have any objection to you or any +opinion of you at all. This is only the second time I have ever met you +in my life.” + +“Mark you,” said Sam, “I think I am one of those fellows who grow on +people....” + +“As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the +noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don’t +know. And I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. You mean nothing in my +life. I don’t know you.” + +“You must persevere,” said Sam. “You must buckle to and get to know me. +Don’t give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to +have a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find +yourself knowing me quite well.” + +“I don’t want to know you!” + +“You say that now, but wait!” + +“And thank goodness I have not got to!” exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing +to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as +though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. +“For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly +understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, +and that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall +try to forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that +Wilhelmina does the same! You’re an impudent scoundrel, sir! An +impudent scoundrel! I don’t like you! I don’t wish to see you again! If +you were the last man in the world I wouldn’t allow my daughter to +marry you! If that is quite clear, I will wish you good morning!” + +Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by +the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life +began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr. +Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer +office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a +moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking +up a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst +in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline’s charming +old-world house, Windles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + + +As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I +have been giving the reader rather too jumpy a time. To almost a +painful degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is +what Aristotle says one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would +not be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions tortured +up to a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy for a bit. +It is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet, +peaceful scene in domestic life. It won’t last long—three minutes, +perhaps, by a good stop-watch—but that is not my fault. My task is to +record facts as they happened. + +The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning +it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to +be. A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at +the end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the +grass in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had +worked themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their +labour would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed +industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged +insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under the +cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was +engaged in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled +up in a ball, lay her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles +slept Smith, the bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but +audible, a boy in shirt-sleeves was washing the car and singing as much +as a treacherous memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad. + +You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added +to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment, +Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad +in white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing +touch that was needed. + +Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, +the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett +did not quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of +distant, but solid, friendship had come to exist between pursuer and +pursued. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself +to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal’s nature and the +essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when they +encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever +betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, +Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern +civilisation has seen to the lion lying down with the lamb. + +“Sketching?” said Mr. Bennett. + +“Yes,” said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her +father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some +such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning +in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but +apart from that her mind was an open book. + +“It’s a great morning,” said Mr. Bennett. + +“So peaceful,” said Billie. + +“The eggs you get in the country in England,” said Mr. Bennett, +suddenly striking a lyrical note, “are extraordinary. I had three for +breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied +competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!” + +He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy. + +“And the hams!” he went on. “The ham I had for breakfast was what I +call ham! I don’t know when I’ve had ham like that. I suppose it’s +something they feed the pigs on!” he concluded, in soft meditation. And +he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful. + +Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking +of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his +clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look +that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself +that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and +romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had +come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily +into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift +side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What +would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently +continued to meditate peacefully on ham. + +They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by +the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room +there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at +once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet, +peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and +terror resume work at the old stand. + +The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged +to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second +assistant at Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr. +Bennett. + +“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.” + +“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged +with bread-crumbed fat. + +“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are +expecting him.” + +“Of course, yes. To be sure.” + +Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French +windows he could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered +that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was +taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written +that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing +from Southampton to-morrow. + +He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. +Peters with an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like +one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm. + +“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to run down. +Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made about +the matter.” + +“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I speak?” + +“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?” + +Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at +the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a +duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, +gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming +scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, +seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had +realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett +ignorant of what he was up against. + +One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some +kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it +seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been +feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and +the subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had +soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea +spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of +pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable +pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, +without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and +seen Billie. + +“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any harm, and, if +you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it +is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in +her head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. She +decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!” + +Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought +crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the +kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down +to zero. + +“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?” + +It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business +connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He +particularised. + +“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were +dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.” + +“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that is?” he +exclaimed. + +“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jno. Peters. “I have only met her once, when +she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and +appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am +not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened +when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a +dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—”—here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, +turned vividly pink—“when she told me—she told me that I was the only +man she loved!” + +Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry. + +“Sweet spirits of nitre! What!” + +“Those were her exact words.” + +“Five!” ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. “By the great +horn spoon, number five!” + +Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred +from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from +his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him +capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow. + +“Wilhelmina!” + +Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to +her that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her +father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she +did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance. + +“What is it, father?” + +Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in +after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There +before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; +and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her +excited senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters +was, as a matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag +of mixed chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie’s +eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, +if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a +pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole +acquaintance with Jno Peters had been one constant backing against +walls. + +“Don’t shoot!” she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand +into the pocket of his coat. “Oh, please don’t shoot!” + +“What the deuce do you mean?” said Mr. Bennett irritably. “Wilhelmina, +this man says that you told him you loved him.” + +“Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!” + +“Suffering cats!” + +Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair. + +“But you’ve only met him once,” he added almost pleadingly. + +“You don’t understand, father dear,” said Billie desperately. “I’ll +explain the whole thing later, when....” + +“Father!” ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. “Did you say ‘father?’” + +“Of course I said ‘father!’” + +“This is my daughter, Mr. Peters.” + +“My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?” + +“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I don’t know my own daughter?” + +“But she called me Mr. Peters!” + +“Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?” + +“But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my +name?” + +The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie. + +“That’s true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?” + +“Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s office, the morning you came there +and found me when I was talking to Sam.” + +Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene +oppressive to a not very robust intellect. + +“He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name was Miss Milliken,” he said dully. + +Billie stared at him. + +“Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!” she repeated. + +“He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as +stenographer for the guv’—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you +my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it.” + +Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries. + +“What revolver? Which revolver? What’s all this about a revolver? Have +you a revolver?” + +“Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I +carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at +the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was +sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because +of the Underworld, you know.” + +A cold gleam had come into Billie’s eyes. Her face was pale and hard. +If Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the +Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending +to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the +song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as +showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much +appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had +had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then +nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam’s penetrating +baritone only by the thickness of a wooden wall. + +Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of +the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead +for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now +in possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the +conclusion that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a +girl who strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense. + +“That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby’s office, Mr. Peters,” she said +in a frosty voice, “Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and +convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss +Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your +head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to +shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were +Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, +and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be +useless to tell you that I wasn’t Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade +you that I was and hadn’t jilted you after all.” + +“Good gracious!” said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet—for always +there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade disappointed. “Then—er—you +don’t love me after all?” + +“No!” said Billie. “I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and +nobody else in the world!” + +The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of +Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it +joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace. + +“I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere,” he +said, paying her a striking tribute. “I hope now that we’ve heard the +last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe.” + +“You certainly have! I don’t want ever to see him again! I hate him!” + +“You couldn’t do better, my dear,” said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. “And +now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss.” + +A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the +stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him. + +“Webster,” said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard, +and her eyes still gleamed coldly. + +“Miss?” said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which +he had been refreshing himself. + +“Will you do something for me?” + +“I should be more than delighted, miss.” + +Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the +recesses of her dress. + +“Do you know the country about here well, Webster?” + +“Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for +several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in.” + +“Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and +another to Cosham? It’s about a mile down....” + +“I know the spot well, miss.” + +“Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is +a little lane....” + +“I know it, miss,” said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he +escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie’s maid, thither. “A delightfully +romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of +blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers....” + +“Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to +take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the +bottom of the lane....” + +“Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss.” + +“Or leaning against it. You can’t mistake him. He is rather tall and +... oh, well, there isn’t likely to be anybody else there, so you can’t +make a mistake. Give him this, will you?” + +“Certainly, miss. Er—any message?” + +“Any what?” + +“Any verbal message, miss?” + +“No, certainly not! You won’t forget, will you, Webster?” + +“On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?” + +“There won’t be any answer,” said Billie, setting her teeth for an +instant. “Oh, Webster!” + +“Miss?” + +“I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?” + +“Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly.” + +“Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?” inquired +Webster, entering the kitchen. “Don’t all speak at once! S. Marlowe. +Ever heard of him?” + +He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart. + +“Because there’s something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me +with notes for him to the bottom of lanes.” + +“And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!” said the scullery-maid, +shocked. “The way they go on. Chronic!” said the scullery-maid. + +“Don’t you go getting alarmed! And don’t you,” added Webster, “go +shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I’ve had to +speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs. +Withers here.” + +He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture. + +“Yes, here’s the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy +kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it’s +wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don’t need to unstick the +envelope to know what’s inside here. It’s the raspberry, ma’am, or I’ve +lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and +proud-looking she was! I don’t know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do +know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that’s going to give +it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn’t Montagu +Webster!” + +“Well!” said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her +labours. “Think of that!” + +“The way I look at it,” said Webster, “is that there’s been some sort +of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she’s +thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent’s +choice. She’s chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble +suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in ‘Cupid or +Mammon,’ that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down +here, only that ended different. For my part I’d be better pleased if +our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own +heart; but these modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff, +they are! Oh, well, it’s none of my affair,” said Webster, stifling a +not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a +warm heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED + + +At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily +unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever +nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper, +Samuel Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end +of the lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her +appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well, +and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows +tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in +the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward +with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white +flutter of Billie’s dress would break the green of the foreground. How +eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would.... + +The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never +seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. +He had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he +resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at +Webster under the brim of his hat. + +The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner +stepping daintily to the block. + +“Mr. Marlowe, sir?” he inquired politely. + +Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this. + +“Eh? What?” + +“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?” + +“Yes, that’s my name.” + +“Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett’s personal gentleman’s +gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you, +sir.” + +Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear +girl had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written +to explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the +sweet, thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His +contentment with the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone +out again, and he found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger. + +“Fine day,” he said, as he took the note. + +“Extremely, sir,” said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of +a grave pity. + +It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to +prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and +he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the +shock knocked him off the gate. + +As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note, +Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and +this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved. + +The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it +back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They +confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it +continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that +pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles +from the sex in his time—your man of gallantry can hardly hope to +escape these unpleasantnesses—but none had got off the mark quite so +swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this. + +“Thanks,” said Sam mechanically. + +“Not at all, sir. You are very welcome.” + +Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. +His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of +his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating +in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, +but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape, +blotting out the sun. + +Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the +realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our +wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that +little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full +possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did +not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that +feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which +makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant. + +“Fine day!” he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it +was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation. + +“Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up,” agreed the valet suavely. + +Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes +didn’t give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him +it would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would +have been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and—and all that +sort of thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only +possible course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him. +He explored his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For +some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note. + +“Will you take this to Miss Bennett?” he said, holding it out. + +Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his +leisure; but he shook his head. + +“Useless, I fear, sir,” he said gravely. + +“What do you mean?” + +“I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss +B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I +saw her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I +assure you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood.” + +“You seem to know a lot about it!” + +“I have studied the sex, sir,” said Webster modestly. + +“I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about +it!” + +“Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of +affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my +respectful sympathy.” + +Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest +conditions. Sam’s had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie’s note. +In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a +stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one +of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly +upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a +mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that +mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort +him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted +condolences from a coal-heaver. + +“I was reading a story—one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if +you are familiar with the series, sir?—in which much the same situation +occurred. It was entitled ‘Cupid or Mammon.’ The heroine, Lady Blanche +Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, despatches a +note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it +often happens like that, sir.” + +“You’re all wrong,” said Sam. “It’s not that at all.” + +“Indeed, sir? I supposed it was.” + +“Nothing like it! I—I——.” + +Sam’s dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself. + +“I don’t know what it’s got to do with you!” + +“Precisely, sir!” said Webster, with dignity. “Just as you say! Good +afternoon, sir!” + +He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without +moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an +expiring gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all. + +“Don’t go!” he cried. + +The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human +support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded +it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his +support. + +“Don’t go!” + +“Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir.” + +Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature +of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened +departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have +moved Webster at that moment. + +“Might I ask, then, what...?” + +“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Sam. “At least, there was, but +now there isn’t, if you see what I mean.” + +“I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir.” + +“Well, I—I—played a sort of—you might almost call it a sort of trick on +Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!” + +“Of course, sir!” + +“And she’s found out! I don’t know how she’s found out, but she has! So +there you are!” + +“Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,—some +kind of innocent deception?” + +“Well, it was like this.” + +It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting +emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman +intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient +points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the +same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, “All for Her,” where the hero, +anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp +to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road. + +“The principle’s the same,” said Webster. + +“Well, what did he do when she found out?” + +“She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the +wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than +they did at the subsequent union.” + +Sam was thoughtful. + +“Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?” + +“Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. +Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being +considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he +dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference.” + +“I wonder where I could get a good tramp,” said Sam, meditatively. + +Webster shook his head. + +“I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir.” + +“No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted.” + +Sam brightened. + +“I’ve got it! _You_ pretend to attack her, and I’ll....” + +“I couldn’t, sir! I couldn’t, really! I should jeopardise my +situation.” + +“Oh, come. Be a man!” + +“No, sir, I fear not. There’s a difference between handing in your +resignation—I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few +words I had with the guv’nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to +withdraw it—I say there’s a difference between handing in your +resignation and being given the sack, and that’s what would +happen—without a character, what’s more, and lucky if it didn’t mean a +prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a thing.” + +“Then I don’t see that there’s anything to be done,” said Sam, +morosely. + +“Oh, I shouldn’t say that, sir,” said Webster encouragingly. “It’s +simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us—you, I +should say....” + +“Us,” said Sam. “Most decidedly us.” + +“Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say +so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself +into this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a +disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in +spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?” + +“Exactly,” said Sam. + +“There are several methods which occur to one....” + +“They don’t occur to _me!_” + +“Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in +‘True As Steel’....” + +“Set fire to the house, eh?” said Sam reflectively. “Yes, there might +be something in that.” + +“I would hardly advise such a thing,” said Webster, a little +hastily—flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking +his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of +the house himself. “A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be +better to save her from drowning, as in ‘The Earl’s Secret.’” + +“Ah, but where could she drown?” + +“Well, there is a lake in the grounds....” + +“Excellent!” said Sam. “Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no +more! The whole thing’s settled. You take her out rowing on the lake, +and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Oh? Well, never mind. You’ll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the +upturned boat or something, I shouldn’t wonder. There’s always a way. +Yes, that’s the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?” + +“I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It +really wouldn’t do.” + +“I can’t see a flaw in it.” + +“Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my +situation....” + +“Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or +something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like +you,” said Sam ingratiatingly. + +“No, sir,” said Webster firmly. “From boyhood up I’ve always had a +regular horror of the water. I can’t so much as go paddling without an +uneasy feeling.” + +The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam’s +thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant +uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again. + +“Well, I don’t see what there _is_ to be done,” he said, gloomily. +“It’s no good my making suggestions, if you have some frivolous +objection to all of them.” + +“My idea,” said Webster, “would be something which did not involve my +own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to +you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I +am anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not +wish to disturb. Did you ever read ‘Footpaths of Fate,’ in the Nosegay +series, sir? I’ve only just remembered it, and it contains the most +helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding +between the heroine and the hero—their names have slipped my mind, +though I fancy his was Cyril—and she had told him to hop it....” + +“To what?” + +“To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?” + +“How the deuce do I know?” + +“He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept +him hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all +was forgotten and forgiven, and never....” + +“I know. Never had the bells of the old village church....” + +“Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow +me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of +action.” + +“Miss Bennett hasn’t got a little brother.” + +“No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it.” + +Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster +imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence. +It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard. + +“You mean I ought to steal her dog?” + +“Precisely, sir.” + +“But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?” + +“The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail.” + +“Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about +eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn’t get within ten +feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it +would chew me into small pieces.” + +“I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In ‘Footpaths of Fate’ there +was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child.” + +“By Jove!” said Sam, impressed. + +“He rewarded her,” said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray +nonchalantly over the countryside, “liberally, very liberally.” + +“If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog,” +said Sam, “don’t worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have +all I’ve got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really +beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. +Where do we go from here?” + +“I beg your pardon, sir?” + +“I mean, what’s the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!” Sam’s face +fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. “It’s all off! It can’t +be done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the +little brute sleeps in the house?” + +“That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal +sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the +interior of the house, sir?” + +“I haven’t been inside it since I was at school. I’m Mr. Hignett’s +cousin, you know.” + +“Indeed, sir? I wasn’t aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor +gentleman.” + +“Has he?” said Sam, not particularly interested. “I used to stay with +him,” he went on, “during the holidays sometimes, but I’ve practically +forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely. +Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a +sort of window-ledge near the front door....” + +“Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal’s +basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific....” + +“Yes, but you haven’t explained yet how I am to get into the house in +the first place.” + +“Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows +while dinner is in progress.” + +“Fine!” + +“You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. +Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?” + +“No, I don’t remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to +stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett wouldn’t +let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a +cupboard?” + +“Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was +glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other +day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. +You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably +seated on the floor till the household retired to bed.” + +“When would that be?” + +“They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is +generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and +knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well.” + +Sam was glowing with frank approval. + +“You know, you’re a master-mind!” he said, enthusiastically. + +“You’re very kind, sir!” + +“One of the lads, by Jove!” said Sam. “And not the worst of them! I +don’t want to flatter you, but there’s a future for you in crime, if +you cared to go in for it.” + +“I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will +regard the scheme as passed and approved?” + +“I should say we would! It’s a bird!” + +“Very good, sir.” + +“I’ll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?” + +“Admirable, sir.” + +“And, I say, about that soporific.... Don’t overdo it. Don’t go killing +the little beast.” + +“Oh, no, sir.” + +“Well,” said Sam, “you can’t say it’s not a temptation. And you know +what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!” + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +A CROWDED NIGHT + + +§ 1 + +If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a +story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to +describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient +with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting +himself to what are, after all, minor developments. This story, for +instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecturing-tour; and no one +realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I +have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my +attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her moral +inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a +great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram +of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and +will stand no nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn’t care what +happened to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. +Hignett made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did +she have ’em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in +Chicago and a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he +desires information, or give him his money back. + +I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me +hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett +herself. The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw +nothing of her. She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor +did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son +Eustace sailed for England in the liner “Atlantic,” she happened to +read in the paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the +journals of New York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty +shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy +during the voyage, was “Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus +Bennett of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co.”. And within five minutes of +digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams +cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her +fingers trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the +daughter of J. Rufus Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, +leaning over rails damp with sea-spray and, in short, generally +starting the whole trouble all over again. + +In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one +who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long +morning’s telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star +brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full +week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable +Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, +and Mrs. Hignett’s heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so +poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any +strolling on the deck during the voyage on the “Atlantic.” + +Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations +for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but +there was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She +wound up her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday, +boarded the “Nuronia” bound for Southampton. + +The “Nuronia” is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built +at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean +liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over +to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then +sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the +evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting +with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling +through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind +the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the +officials that she had nothing to declare. + +Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser +woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to +Windles at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made +of sterner stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she +hired a car and set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when +the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first +ten miles, that she directed the driver to take her instead to the +“Blue Boar” in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to +have reached it at all, at about eleven o’clock. + +At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the +familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour’s walking +would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a +restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before +she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still +there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the +night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in +Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk +and would ring when she returned. + +Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her +home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The +silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the +feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to +the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and +shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She +experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and +which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat +more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the +drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order +to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance +be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from +noticing the fact. + +All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt +indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the +moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity—one might almost say +anarchy—had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She +marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely +abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping +house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the +drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of +his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to +maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If +there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it +was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out. + +She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, +from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which +made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see +anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she +caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears +had been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, +she knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that +went flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars. + +Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant +spell-bound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell +herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there +came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though +something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise +of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a _pas seul_ out of sheer +lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over +something. + +The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, +at many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and +nothing in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise +the skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons +at half-a-crown a visit; but he recognised the truth of the scriptural +adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His +only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted +through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom +undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the +house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did +not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his +presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the +cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and +Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded +silently out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly +form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the +knowledge that something was going on, and being a dog who always liked +to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to +investigate. + +By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to +feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster’s presence of mind +and Smith’s gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the +house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster’s stagger +had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the +servants’ staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without +checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced +that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate +in cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep, and meant to see the thing +through. He gambolled in Webster’s wake up the stairs and along the +passage leading to the latter’s room, and only paused when the door was +brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing +over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far +as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment. + +Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the +hall. The burglars—she had now discovered that there were at least two +of them—appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond +her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be +dislodged she must have assistance. It was man’s work. She made a brave +dash through the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up +them; and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace’s bedroom like a +spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post. + +§ 2 + +At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the +drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told +the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was +camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever +since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl’s kindly +practice to soothe him to rest with some such narrative from her +energetic past. + +“And what happened then?” asked Eustace, breathlessly. + +He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly +from a face which was almost the exact shape of an Association +football; for he had reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins +to swell as though somebody were inflating him with a bicycle-pump. + +“Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went +away!” said Jane Hubbard. + +“You know, you’re wonderful!” cried Eustace. “Simply wonderful!” + +Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty +enthusiasm. He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest +commonplaces of life. + +“Why, if an alligator got into _my_ tent,” said Eustace, “I simply +wouldn’t know what to do! I should be nonplussed.” + +“Oh, it’s just a knack,” said Jane, carelessly. “You soon pick it up.” + +“Nail-scissors!” + +“It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the +rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear.” + +“You’re a marvel!” + +Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had +admired Jane Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the +stories which she had told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid +state had set the seal on his devotion. It has always been like this +since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three days Jane Hubbard had been +weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she monopolised his +entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast and +deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched +heaven, and of the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, +and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would +Eustace Hignett seriously incline, and swore, in faith, ’twas strange, +’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful. He loved +her for the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity +them. In fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying +the licence, had it not been for the fact that his very admiration +served to keep Eustace from pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible +to him that the queen of her sex, a girl who had chatted in terms of +equality with African head-hunters and who swatted alligators as though +they were flies, could ever lower herself to care for a man who looked +like the “after-taking” advertisement of a patent food. + +But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand +each other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come +recently to place a different interpretation on his silence. In the +last few days of the voyage she had quite made up her mind that Eustace +Hignett loved her and would shortly intimate as much in the usual +manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had begun to have doubts. She +was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was distinctly prettier +than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary man is +attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself +for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True, +Billie was officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had +experience of the brittleness of Miss Bennett’s engagements, and she +could by no means regard Eustace as immune. + +“Do you suppose they will be happy?” she asked. + +“Eh? Who?” said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just +finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his +last remark, and Jane’s thoughts had flitted back to the subject that +usually occupied them. + +“Billie and Bream Mortimer.” + +“Oh!” said Eustace. “Yes, I suppose so.” + +“She’s a delightful girl.” + +“Yes,” said Eustace without much animation. + +“And, of course, it’s nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It +doesn’t often happen that way.” + +“No. People’s people generally want people to marry people people don’t +want to marry,” said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which +from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of +every country. + +“I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?” +said Jane casually. + +“Mother doesn’t want me to marry anybody,” said Eustace with gloom. It +was another obstacle to his romance. + +“What, never?” + +“No.” + +“Why ever not?” + +“As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has +to clear out. Silly business!” + +“Well, you wouldn’t let your mother stand in the way if you ever really +fell in love?” said Jane. + +“It isn’t so much a question of _letting_ her stand in the way. The +tough job would be preventing her. You’ve never met my mother!” + +“No, I’m looking forward to it!” + +“You’re looking forward...!” Eustace eyed her with honest amazement. + +“But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your +mind to marry somebody.” + +“What could she do? Why, there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do. Why, +once....” Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to +tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to +reveal. + +“Once—...?” said Jane. + +“Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I—I was +going out to lunch with a man, and—and—” Eustace was not a ready +improvisator—“and she didn’t want me to go, so she stole all my +trousers!” + +Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite +jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard. +That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom +she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the +wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance +which it had never had before. It had lingered in her memory, as +stories will, but it had been a detached episode, having no personal +meaning for her. But now.... “She did that just to stop you going out +to lunch with a man?” she said slowly. + +“Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn’t it?” + +Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze, +shooting across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the +pillow. She was in the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to +curl like withered leaves. + +“Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?” she demanded. + +Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon. +The flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported +his sagging jaw. + +“Why—er—” + +“_Were_ you?” cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There was that in +her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as chewed +blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled +with an unendurable sense of guilt. + +“Well—er—yes,” he mumbled weakly. + +Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She +might know what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but +she was a woman. + +This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on +Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last +stair has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It +was as though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and +caused him to bite his tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a +rock of support. And now the rock had melted away and left him +wallowing in a deep pool. + +He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the +point of declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily +vanished. He felt strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and +peered over the foot of it at her huddled form. + +“Have some barley-water,” he urged. “Try a little barley-water.” + +It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the +doctor’s instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a +glass of water. + +“Go away!” sobbed Jane Hubbard. + +The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace. + +“But I can’t. I’m in bed. Where could I go?” + +“I hate you!” + +“Oh, don’t say that!” + +“You’re still in love with her!” + +“Nonsense! I never was in love with her.” + +“Then why were you going to marry her?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.” + +“Oh! Oh! Oh!” + +Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her +hair. + +“Do have some barley-water,” he said. “Just a sip!” + +“You _are_ in love with her!” sobbed Jane. + +“I’m _not!_ I love _you!_” + +“You don’t!” + +“Pardon _me!_” said Eustace firmly. “I’ve loved you ever since you gave +me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat.” + +“They why didn’t you say so before?” + +“I hadn’t the nerve. You always seemed so—I don’t know how to put it—I +always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to +propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No +girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face.” + +“As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I +have seen your inside!” + +“I beg your pardon?” + +“I mean....” + +Eustace fondled her back hair. + +“Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?” + +“I’ve loved you ever since we met on the Subway.” She raised a +tear-stained face. “If only I could be sure that you really loved me!” + +“I can prove it!” said Eustace proudly. “You know how scared I am of my +mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something +which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a +sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old +Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she +wouldn’t hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina +Bennett had invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that, +if they didn’t come to Windles, they would take some other place, and +that meant I wouldn’t see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it +to him on the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!” + +“Why, you darling angel child,” cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. “Did you +really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!” + +“Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!” + +Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked +him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from +the girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is +a wonderful thing. + +“You mustn’t excite yourself,” she said. “You’ll be getting a +temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep.” She kissed his bulbous +face. “You have made me so happy, Eustace darling.” + +“That’s good,” said Eustace cordially. “But it’s going to be an awful +jar for mother!” + +“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll break the news to your mother. I’m +sure she will be quite reasonable about it.” + +Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. + +“Lie back quite comfortably, and don’t worry,” said Jane Hubbard. “I’m +going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan’t be five +minutes. And forget about your mother. I’ll look after her.” + +Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, +pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of +success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she +moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was +not unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her class; +but he felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant +meditation. + +There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned. + +“Hullo! Back already?” said Eustace, opening his eyes. + +The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a +hole in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his +bedside. + +§ 3 + +In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their +agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of +the truth of that well-known line—“Peace, perfect peace, with loved +ones far away.” There was certainly little hope of peace with loved +ones in his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane +Hubbard would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused +to envisage the scene which would then occur. + +“Eustace!” + +Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart. + +“Eustace!” For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that +it was a changed face that confronted hers. “Good gracious! How stout +you’ve grown!” + +“It’s mumps.” + +“Mumps!” + +“Yes, I’ve got mumps.” + +Mrs. Hignett’s mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow +her to dwell on this subject. + +“Eustace, there are men in the house!” + +This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her. + +“I know,” he said uneasily. + +“You know!” Mrs. Hignett stared. “Did you hear them?” + +“Hear them?” said Eustace, puzzled. + +“The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in +the hall!” + +“Oh, I say, no! That’s rather rotten!” said Eustace. + +“I saw them and heard them! I—oh!” Mrs. Hignett’s sentence trailed off +into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane Hubbard came in. + +Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to +bear shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of +Horace—_Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem_. (For the +benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive +classical education,—memento—Take my tip—servare—preserve—aequam—an +unruffled—mentem—mind—rebus in arduis—in every crisis). She had only +been out of the room a few minutes, and in that brief period a +middle-aged lady of commanding aspect had apparently come up through a +trap. It would have been enough to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard +bore it calmly. All through her vivid life her bedroom had been a sort +of cosy corner for murderers, alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and +every variety of snake, so she accepted the middle-aged lady without +comment. + +“Good evening,” she said placidly. + +Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the +new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in +which she had strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a +nurse; but she wore no nurse’s uniform. + +“Who are you?” she asked stiffly. + +“Who are _you?_” asked Jane. + +“I,” said Mrs. Hignett portentously, “am the owner of this house, and I +should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace +Hignett.” + +A charming smile spread itself over Jane’s finely-cut face. + +“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said. “I have heard so much about you.” + +“Indeed?” said Mrs. Hignett coldly. “And now I should like to hear a +little about you.” + +“I’ve read all your books,” said Jane. “I think they’re wonderful.” + +In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was +straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx +of amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense +from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most +of the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the +country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She +melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, +but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch. + +“My favourite,” said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a +chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress’s +complete works were assembled, “is ‘The Spreading Light.’ I _do_ like +‘The Spreading Light!’” + +“It was written some years ago,” said Mrs. Hignett with something +approaching cordiality, “and I have since revised some of the views I +state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book.” + +“Of course, I can see that ‘What of the Morrow?’ is more profound,” +said Jane. “But I read ‘The Spreading Light’ first, and of course that +makes a difference.” + +“I can quite see that it would,” agreed Mrs. Hignett. “One’s first step +across the threshold of a new mind, one’s first glimpse....” + +“Yes, it makes you feel....” + +“Like some watcher of the skies,” said Mrs. Hignett, “when a new planet +swims into his ken, or like....” + +“Yes, doesn’t it!” said Jane. + +Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle +tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen +in a Wild West Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a +table directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had +shrinkingly anticipated would be the biggest thing since the +Dempsey-Carpentier fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social +and literary evening not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old +Girton students must be. For the first time since his mother had come +into the room he indulged in the luxury of a deep breath. + +“But what are you doing here?” asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost +reluctantly to the main issue. + +Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way +he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, +following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his +Peninsular campaign. “When in doubt,” the Duke used to say, “retire and +dig yourself in.” + +“I’m nursing dear Eustace,” said Jane. + +Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes +which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her. + +“‘Dear Eustace!’” she repeated mechanically. + +“We’re engaged,” said Jane. + +“Engaged! Eustace, is this true?” + +“Yes,” said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed. + +“And poor Eustace is so worried,” continued Jane, “about the house.” +She went on quickly. “He doesn’t want to deprive you of it, because he +knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both hoping—that you +will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan’t want +it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it, +won’t you—to please us?” + +We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. +Only a short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard, +that indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not +express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world’s +greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. +Horace Hignett’s understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The +ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was +hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and +gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the +bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm. + +How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a +pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. +But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst +upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually +dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have +touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing +instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where +Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. Its wailing +lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house. + +“That’s too bad!” said Jane, a little annoyed. “At this time of night!” + +“It’s the burglars!” quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent +events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of +Society. “They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they’re +playing the orchestrion!” + +“Light-hearted chaps!” said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the +criminal world. “Full of spirits!” + +“This won’t do,” said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. “We can’t have +this sort of thing. I’ll go and fetch my gun.” + +“They’ll murder you, dear!” panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm. + +Jane Hubbard laughed. + +“Murder _me!_” she said amusedly. “I’d like to catch them at it!” + +Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind +her. + +“Eustace,” she said solemnly, “that is a wonderful girl!” + +“Yes! She once killed a panther—or a puma, I forget which—with a +hat-pin!” said Eustace with enthusiasm. + +“I could wish you no better wife!” said Mrs. Hignett. + +She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a +battery of artillery had roared. + +The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge +into the elephant-gun. + +“One of them was popping about outside here,” she announced. “I took a +shot at him, but I’m afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any +rate he went away.” + +In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who +had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what +was the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He +had been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly +confronted by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay +him with an enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone +singing down the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned +to his room in three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars +might take everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not +molest his privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very +sensible of him, too, I consider. + +“We’d better go downstairs,” said Jane. “Bring the candle. Not you, +Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a chill. Don’t +stir out of bed!” + +“I won’t,” said Eustace obediently. + +§ 4 + +Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the +thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party +to go to bed; and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind +the piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been +there for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in +which he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so +long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending +the evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had +contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now that he was +actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it +had. + +Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to +contain no air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the +cupboard’s natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a +condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream +in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was +abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the +small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of +harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred times he wished +that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler. + +His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian +mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the +Infinite, but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He +tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind +from the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never +encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by +playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could +remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield, +after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew’s, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, +Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine +through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull +incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room +had called it a day and that his vigil was over. + +But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light +seemed to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where +people had the habit of going and strolling about the garden to all +hours? Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At +any rate, it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He +remembered that Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear +signal on the door. It would be safer to wait for that. + +But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow +impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the +hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought +he heard footsteps but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained +his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a chance. He +fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened +it by slow inches, and peered out. + +The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the +feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to +crawl stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the +disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to +him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and +his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the +cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom +before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession +before subsiding with another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the +end of the world. + +He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of +imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous +system, and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant +desire to get at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had +done it on purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. +For quite a minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had +strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his +attention was diverted. + +So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no +ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What +occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an +electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the +egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his +hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so +completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle +but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt +vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he +simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart +refuses to beat, what hope is there for you? + +At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the +chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the +darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of +ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally +unexpected bulldog. + +“Get out!” whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk. +“Go away!” + +Smith took the opportunity of Sam’s lips having opened to lick the roof +of his mouth. Smith’s attitude in the matter was that Providence in its +all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had +reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of +such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted +downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no +result in front of Webster’s bedroom door, and it was a real treat to +him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable +manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend. + +Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and +occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of +misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the +humans was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position +on a straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those +dogs who rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin +burglars by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply +could not grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a +private house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any +difference between the human beings he knew and the strangers who +dropped in for a late chat after the place was locked up. He had no +intention of biting Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the +present moment what he felt about Sam was that he was one of the best +fellows he had ever met and that he loved him like a brother. + +Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these +amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have +had the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was +just the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts +like that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the +darkness that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively +about his ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he +took to be the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not +warily enough to prevent his cannoning into and almost upsetting a +small table with a vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped, +and the first bit of luck that had come to Sam that night was when he +reached out at a venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on +to the carpet. + +He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold. +If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud +enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go +on. He must have light. It might be a risk; there might be a chance of +somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate; but it was +a risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this +darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door, +on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch +would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside +Windles, and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even +a woman like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost +anything, would still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of +illumination. His only doubt was whether the switch was where it was in +most houses, near the door. + +It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a +delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided +young man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He +positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved. + +He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him +out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered +mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over +the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of +Tosti’s “Good-bye.” + +How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how +long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his +notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, +there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he +heard that, Sam’s rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended +upon him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left +for a hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar +to him in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight +came the recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to +Windles, playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had +concealed himself inside this very suit, and had not only baffled +Eustace through a long summer evening but had wound up by almost +scaring him into a decline by booing at him through the vizor of the +helmet. Happy days, happy days! He leaped at the suit of armour. Having +grown since he was last inside it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but +he managed to get his head into it at last, and the body of the thing +was quite roomy. + +“Thank heaven!” said Sam. + +He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need. + +Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had +opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments. + +§ 5 + +He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up +nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in +blue pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, +Jane Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith +welcomed them all impartially. + +Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob. + +“Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!” + +“Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?” + +Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly. + +“What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!” + +“But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did.” + +“Eustace let you Windles for the summer!” said Mrs. Hignett +incredulously. + +Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been +switching off the orchestrion. + +“Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow,” she said. “The point now +is that there are burglars in the house.” + +“Burglars!” cried Mr. Bennett aghast. “I thought it was you playing +that infernal instrument, Mortimer.” + +“What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?” said Mr. +Mortimer irritably. + +“It woke me up,” said Mr. Bennett complainingly. “And I had had great +difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I +believe I’ve caught the mumps from young Hignett.” + +“Nonsense! You’re always imagining yourself ill,” snapped Mr. Mortimer. + +“My face hurts,” persisted Mr. Bennett. + +“You can’t expect a face like that not to hurt,” said Mr. Mortimer. + +It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the +verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard +intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the +introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk +about burglars, and she intended to do so. + +“For goodness sake stop it!” she said, almost petulantly for one +usually so superior to emotion. “There’ll be lots of time for +quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we’ve got to catch these....” + +“I’m not quarrelling,” said Mr. Bennett. + +“Yes, you are,” said Mr. Mortimer. + +“I’m not!” + +“You are!” + +“Don’t argue!” + +“I’m not arguing!” + +“You are!” + +“I’m not!” + +Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can +possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have +stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard’s +robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front +door, and pull the trigger. + +“I thought that would stop you,” she said complacently, as the echoes +died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She +inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. “Now, the question is....” + +“You made me bite my tongue!” said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved. + +“Serve you right!” said Jane placidly. “Now, the question is, have the +fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think +they’re still in the house.” + +“The police!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue +and his other grievances. “We must summon the police!” + +“Obviously!” said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from +the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had +been mentally assessing. “We must send for the police at once.” + +“We don’t really need them, you know,” said Jane. “If you’ll all go to +bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun....” + +“And blow the whole house to pieces!” said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had +begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was +sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her +esteem. + +“Shall I go for the police?” said Billie. “I could bring them back in +ten minutes in the car.” + +“Certainly not!” said Mr. Bennett. “My daughter gadding about all over +the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!” + +“If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream.” + +“Where _is_ Bream?” said Mr. Mortimer. + +The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented +itself to the company. + +“Where can he be?” said Billie. + +Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is +broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the +joke is at her expense. + +“What a silly girl I am!” she said. “I do believe that was Bream I shot +at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!” + +“You shot my only son!” cried Mr. Mortimer. + +“I shot _at_ him,” said Jane. “My belief is that I missed him. Though +how I came to do it beats me. I don’t suppose I’ve missed a sitter like +that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course,” she proceeded, +looking on the reasonable side, “the visibility wasn’t good, but it’s +no use saying I oughtn’t at least to have winged him, because I ought.” +She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. “I shall get chaffed +about this if it comes out,” she said regretfully. + +“The poor boy must be in his room,” said Mr. Mortimer. + +“Under the bed, if you ask me,” said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her +gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. “_He’s_ all right! +Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning.” + +“Oh, he can’t be!” cried Billie, revolted. + +A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was +engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that +moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, +mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people +whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a +reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream’s sturdy +common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark +corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, +rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her +mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have +behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself +to the varied emotions then engaging her mind. + +“I’ll go and look, if you like,” said Jane agreeably. “You amuse +yourselves somehow till I come back.” + +She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to +Mr. Bennett. + +“It’s all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn’t go, but, if she +doesn’t, how can we get the police? The house isn’t on the ’phone, and +nobody else can drive the car.” + +“That’s true,” said Mr. Bennett, wavering. + +“Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow +morning,” said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way. + +“I’m going,” said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has +occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. +The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the +removal of the rudder has on a boat. “It’s the only thing to do. I +shall be back in no time.” + +She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her +motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding +before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream. + +“Right under the bed,” she announced cheerfully, “making a noise like a +piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars.” + +Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancé. Absolutely unjustified, in +my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. +Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer’s perceptions. His was what the +doctors call a penumbral mental condition. + +“Bream,” said Billie, “I want you to come in the car with me to fetch +the police.” + +“All right,” said Bream. + +“Get your coat.” + +“All right,” said Bream. + +“And cap.” + +“All right,” said Bream. + +He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and +they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both +silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that +Billie’s was thoughtful, while Bream’s was just the silence of a man +who has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can +without it. + +In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of +affairs. + +“Well, that’s something done,” she said, scratching Smith’s broad back +with the muzzle of her weapon. “Something accomplished, something done, +has earned a night’s repose. Not that we’re going to get it yet. I +think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the +house and rout them out. It’s a pity Smith isn’t a bloodhound. He’s a +good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn’t finish in the first +ten.” + +The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like +a young elephant. + +“The first thing to do,” continued Jane, “is to go through the +ground-floor rooms....” She paused to strike a match against the suit +of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of +protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. “I’ll go first, as I’ve +got a gun....” She blew a cloud of smoke. “I shall want somebody with +me to carry a light, and....” + +“Tchoo!” + +“What?” said Jane. + +“I didn’t speak,” said Mr. Mortimer. “Who am I to speak?” he went on +bitterly. “Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything +sensible to suggest?” + +“Somebody spoke,” said Jane. “I....” + +“Achoo!” + +“Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?” cried Jane sharply, wheeling +round on him. + +“There _is_ a draught,” began Mr. Bennett. + +“Well, finish sneezing and I’ll go on.” + +“I didn’t sneeze!” + +“Somebody sneezed.” + +“It seemed to come from just behind you,” said Mrs. Hignett nervously. + +“It couldn’t have come from just behind me,” said Jane, “because there +isn’t anything behind me from which it could have....” She stopped +suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set +expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. “Oh!” she +said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and +sinister. “Oh, I see!” She raised her gun, and placed a muscular +forefinger on the trigger. “Come out of that!” she said. “Come out of +that suit of armour and let’s have a look at you!” + +“I can explain everything,” said a muffled voice through the vizor of +the helmet. “I can—_achoo!_” The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam’s +nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks. + +“I shall count three,” said Jane Hubbard, “One—two—” + +“I’m coming! I’m coming!” said Sam petulantly. + +“You’d better!” said Jane. + +“I can’t get this dashed helmet off!” + +“If you don’t come quick, I’ll blow it off.” + +Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the +costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, +he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages. + +“Hands up!” commanded Jane Hubbard. + +“My hands _are_ up!” retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his +unbecoming head-wear. + +“Never mind trying to raise your hat,” said Jane. “If you’ve lost the +combination, we’ll dispense with the formalities. What we’re anxious to +hear is what you’re doing in the house at this time of night, and who +your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and +perhaps you’ll get off easier. Are you a gang?” + +“Do I look like a gang?” + +“If you ask me what you look like....” + +“My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe....” + +“Alias what?” + +“Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe....” + +An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. + +“The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and....” + +“And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?” said +Mrs. Hignett with acerbity. + +“I’ve rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son....” + +“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jane Hubbard. “Never mind about that. So you know +this fellow, do you?” + +“I don’t know him!” + +“You said you did.” + +“I refuse to know him!” went on Mr. Bennett. “I won’t know him! I +decline to have anything to do with him!” + +“But you identify him?” + +“If he says he’s Samuel Marlowe,” assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, “I +suppose he is. I can’t imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if +he didn’t know it could be proved against him.” + +“_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?” said Mrs. Hignett. + +“Yes,” said Sam. + +“Well, what are you doing in my house?” + +“It’s _my_ house,” said Mr. Bennett, “for the summer, Henry Mortimer’s +and mine. Isn’t that right, Henry?” + +“Dead right,” said Mr. Mortimer. + +“There!” said Mr. Bennett. “You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a +thing, it’s so. There’s nobody’s word I’d take before Henry +Mortimer’s.” + +“When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion,” said Mr. Mortimer, highly +flattered by these kind words, “you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett’s +word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!” + +The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good +deal of feeling. + +“I am not disputing Mr. Bennett’s claim to belong to the Caucasian +race,” said Mrs. Hignett testily. “I merely maintain that this house is +m....” + +“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” interrupted Jane. “You can thresh all that out +some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don’t +see what we can do. We’ll have to let him go.” + +“I came to this house,” said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate +speech, “to make a social call....” + +“At this hour of the night!” snapped Mrs. Hignett. “You always were an +inconsiderate boy, Samuel.” + +“I came to inquire after poor Eustace’s mumps. I’ve only just heard +that the poor chap was ill.” + +“He’s getting along quite well,” said Jane, melting. “If I had known +you were so fond of Eustace....” + +“All right, is he?” said Sam. + +“Well, not quite all right, but he’s going on very nicely.” + +“Fine!” + +“Eustace and I are engaged, you know!” + +“No, really? Splendid! I can’t see you very distinctly—how those +Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things +like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope +you’ll be very happy.” + +“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I’m sure we shall.” + +“Eustace is one of the best.” + +“How nice of you to say so.” + +“All this,” interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor +of this interchange of courtesies, “is beside the point. Why did you +dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, “waking people up.” + +“Scaring us all to death!” complained Mr. Mortimer. + +“I remember you as a boy, Samuel,” said Mrs. Hignett, “lamentably +lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your +selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little.” + +“Don’t ballyrag the poor man,” said Jane Hubbard. “Be human! Lend him a +sardine opener!” + +“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Hignett. “I never liked him +and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his +own wrong-headedness.” + +“It’s not his fault his head’s the wrong size,” said Jane. + +“He must get himself out as best he can,” said Mrs. Hignett. + +“Very well,” said Sam with bitter dignity. “Then I will not trespass +further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local +blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to +him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the +earliest opportunity. Good-night!” He walked coldly to the front door. +“And there are people,” he remarked sardonically, “who say that blood +is thicker than water! I’ll bet they never had any aunts!” + +He tripped over the mat and withdrew. + +§ 6 + +Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had +reached the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been +spending a considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start +readily. At each application of Billie’s foot on the self-starter, it +emitted a tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep +again. Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the +machine moved reluctantly out into the drive. + +“The battery must be run down,” said Billie. + +“All right,” said Bream. + +Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes. +She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists +are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost +irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping +out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system. + +Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark +drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had +received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in +Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a +great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina +Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should +finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply +because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. +Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing. +You might say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe—and, of course, his +habit of playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale—but nobody +could question his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that +time in the harbour at New York! Billie found herself thinking +wistfully about Samuel Marlowe. + +There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything +except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. +Bennett’s Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had +been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The +wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It +was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been +unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to +have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it +would be taken back to its cosy garage. + +Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened. + +“You’ll have to get down and crank her,” she said curtly. + +“All right,” said Bream. + +“Well, go on,” said Billie impatiently. + +“Eh?” + +“Get out and crank her.” + +Bream emerged for an instant from his trance. + +“All right,” he said. + +The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of +our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job +towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help +not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to +accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet +flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum. +This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow +impatient as Bream’s repeated efforts failed of their object. It was +wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have +told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an +emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress. + +“Give it a good sharp twist,” she said. + +“All right,” said Bream. + +“Here, let me do it,” cried Billie. + +She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent +brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint +protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and +was still once more. + +“May I help?” + +It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice—a sepulchral voice, the +sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe’s +cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking +from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected +Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, +if he had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the +management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up +under sudden sepulchral voices. + +Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just +beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided +Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. + +“Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone +wrong.” + +Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure, +strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages +he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have +said to themselves, “Ah, another of those knights off after the +dragons!” and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But +in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted +head pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream. +I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had +shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or +perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected +him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first +of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by +saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam’s unconventional +appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to +make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which +took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the +neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his +room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two +chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots against it. + +Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now, +with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would +stand no nonsense, set the engine going again. + +“Why—why,” she stammered, “why are you wearing that thing on your +head?” + +“Because I can’t get it off.” + +Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it. + +“S—Mr. Marlowe!” she exclaimed. + +“Get in,” said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. “Where +can I take you?” + +“Go away!” said Billie. + +“Get in!” + +“I don’t want to talk to you.” + +“I want to talk to _you!_ Get in!” + +“I won’t.” + +Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted +her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then +throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the +drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came +and went in the golden glow of the head-lights. + +§ 7 + +“Put me down,” said Billie. + +“You’d get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace.” + +“What are you going to do?” + +“Drive about till you promise to marry me.” + +“You’ll have to drive a long time.” + +“Right ho!” said Sam. + +The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand +and grabbed at the steering wheel. + +“Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!” said Sam, righting +the car with a wrench. + +“You’re a brute!” said Billie. + +“Caveman stuff,” explained Sam, “I ought to have tried it before.” + +“I don’t know what you expect to gain by this.” + +“That’s all right,” said Sam, “I know what I’m about.” + +“I’m glad to hear it.” + +“I thought you would be.” + +“I’m not going to talk to you.” + +“All right. Lean back and doze off. We’ve the whole night before us.” + +“What do you mean?” cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk. + +“Have you ever been to Scotland?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“I thought we might push up there. We’ve got to go somewhere and, oddly +enough, I’ve never been to Scotland.” + +Billie regarded him blankly. + +“Are you crazy?” + +“I’m crazy about you. If you knew what I’ve gone through to-night for +your sake you’d be more sympathetic. I love you,” said Sam, swerving to +avoid a rabbit. “And what’s more, you know it.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“You will!” said Sam confidently. “How about North Wales? I’ve heard +people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?” + +“I’m engaged to Bream Mortimer.” + +“Oh no, that’s all off,” Sam assured her. + +“It’s not!” + +“Right off!” said Sam firmly. “You could never bring yourself to marry +a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. +Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran +away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won’t +do!” + +This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not +bring herself to dispute it. + +“Anyway, I hate _you!_” she said, giving the conversation another turn. + +“Why? In the name of goodness, why?” + +“How dared you make a fool of me in your father’s office that morning?” + +“It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think +well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a +lunatic with a pistol. It wasn’t my fault that you found out.” + +“I shall never forgive you!” + +“Why not Cornwall?” said Sam. “The Riviera of England! Let’s go to +Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?” + +“I said I should never forgive you and I won’t.” + +“Well, I hope you’re fond of motoring,” said Sam, “because we’re going +on till you do.” + +“Very well! Go on, then!” + +“I intend to. Of course, it’s all right now while it’s dark. But have +you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall +have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when +they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan’t notice them myself +because it’s a little difficult to notice anything from inside this +thing, but I’m afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know +what we’ll do. We’ll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! +That will be fun!” + +There was a long silence. + +“Is my helmet on straight?” said Sam. + +Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the +hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just +made a curious discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There +was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that +imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found +herself struggling with a desire to laugh. + +“Lochinvar!” said Sam suddenly. “That’s the name of the chap I’ve been +trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? ‘Young +Lochinvar’ the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I’m +doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those +days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man +should wear. Odd how fashions change!” + +Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any +inquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful +curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer. + +“_Why_ are you wearing that thing?” + +“I told you. Purely and simply because I can’t get it off. You don’t +suppose I’m trying to set a new style in gents’ head-wear, do you?” + +“But why did you ever put it on?” + +“Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the +drawing-room....” + +“What!” + +“Didn’t I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in +the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and +started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline’s china, so I thought I’d +better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of +musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So, +what with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide +somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall.” + +“Were you inside there all the time we were...?” + +“Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn’t it? Getting under the +bed, I mean.” + +“Don’t let’s talk about Bream.” + +“That’s the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won’t. Let’s +get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?” + +“But why did you come to the house at all?” + +“To see you.” + +“To see me! At that time of night?” + +“Well, perhaps not actually to see you.” Sam was a little perplexed for +a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his +true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had +begun to exist between them. “To be near you! To be in the same house +with you!” he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right +note. “You don’t know the anguish I went through after I read that +letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, +will you marry me?” + +Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road, +moved smoothly on. + +“Will you marry me?” + +Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with +thoughtful eyes. + +“Will you marry me?” + +The car raced on. + +“Will you marry me?” said Sam. “Will you marry me? Will you marry me?” + +“Oh, don’t talk like a parrot,” cried Billie. “It reminds me of Bream.” + +“But will you?” + +“Yes,” said Billie. + +Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for +the tyres. + +“Did you say ‘yes’?” + +“Yes!” + +“Darling!” said Sam, leaning towards her. “Oh, curse this helmet!” + +“Why?” + +“Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me.” + +“Let me try and get it off. Bend down!” + +“Ouch!” said Sam. + +“It’s coming. There! How helpless men are!” + +“We need a woman’s tender care,” said Sam depositing the helmet on the +floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. “Billie!” + +“Sam!” + +“You angel!” + +“You’re rather a darling after all,” said Billie. “But you want keeping +in order,” she added severely. + +“You will do that when we’re married. When we’re married!” he repeated +luxuriously. “How splendid it sounds!” + +“The only trouble is,” said Billie, “father won’t hear of it.” + +“No, he won’t. Not till it is all over,” said Sam. + +He started the car again. + +“What are you going to do?” said Billie. “Where are you going?” + +“To London,” said Sam. “It may be news to you but the old lawyer like +myself knows that, by going to Doctors’ Commons or the Court of Arches +or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or +something, you can get a special licence and be married almost before +you know where you are. My scheme—roughly—is to dig this special +licence out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and +then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar’s.” + +“Oh, not a registrar’s!” said Billie. + +“No?” + +“I should hate a registrar’s.” + +“Very well, angel. Just as you say. We’ll go to a church. There are +millions of churches in London. I’ve seen them all over the place.” He +mused for a moment. “Yes, you’re quite right,” he said. “A church is +the thing. It’ll please Webster.” + +“Webster?” + +“Yes, he’s rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so +blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster’s feelings. After +all, he brought us together.” + +“Webster? How?” + +“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that some other time,” said Sam. “Just for +the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable? +Fine! Then off we go.” + +The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily +as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had +only known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not +befallen them, for Sam was too happy to sing. + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + +***** This file should be named 20717-0.txt or 20717-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/1/20717/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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G. Wodehouse</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Girl on the Boat</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: P. G. Wodehouse</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20717]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 17, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT ***</div> + +<h1>The Girl on the Boat</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">P. G. WODEHOUSE</h2> + +<h3>HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED<br /> +3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +<img src="images/003.png" width='153' height='250' alt="A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK" /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London +</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT</h2> + +<p> +It was Sam Marlowe’s fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S. +“Atlantic” (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was +looking for a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any +inferior substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage placed Sam +for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay the pace. +</p> + +<p> +He follows Billie Bennett “around,” scheming, blundering and +hoping, so does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam’s rival. +</p> + +<p> +There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house in +Hampshire, where Billie’s ideals still block the way and Sam comes on in +spite of everything. +</p> + +<p> +Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every sense of +the term. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref02"></a>ONE MOMENT!</h2> + +<p> +Before my friend Mr. Jenkins—wait a minute, Herbert—before my +friend Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like +to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will kindly +restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There will be copies +for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long. +</p> + +<p> +I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. Ah! but +you don’t know. You don’t realise how careful even a splendid +fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn’t have me go down to posterity +as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this volume +is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, have read Mr. J. +Storer Clouston’s “The Lunatic at Large Again.” (Those who +are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both the hero of +“The Lunatic” and my “Sam Marlowe” try to get out of a +tight corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a country-house. +Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness that I am innocent, +innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue Wodehouse is not +sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr. Clouston’s appeared +simultaneously in serial form in their respective magazines. This proves, I +think, that at these cross-roads, at any rate, there has been no dirty work. +All right, Herb., you can let ’em in now. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +P. G. WODEHOUSE. +</p> + +<p> +Constitutional Club,<br /> + Northumberland Avenue. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref02">ONE MOMENT!</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. A DISTURBING MORNING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. SAM PAVES THE WAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. SAM CLICKS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. SUNDERED HEARTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>The Girl on the Boat</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +A DISTURBING MORNING</h2> + +<p> +Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace Hignett +had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight peeped in like the +foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine summer morning. The hands +of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of +the ormolu clock in the sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the +carriage clock on the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it +was exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on +the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at eight +precisely. +</p> + +<p> +Was this Mrs. Hignett <i>the</i> Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, the author of “The Spreading Light,” “What of the +Morrow,” and all the rest of that well-known series? I’m glad you +asked me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour. +</p> + +<p> +About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, for +nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh swarm of +British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, +and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to affect them all +simultaneously. It was like one of those great race movements of the Middle +Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on religion, art, politics, and +almost every other subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great +Britain were single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the +lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it as the +next person. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for, spiritual +as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business sense in this woman, +and she meant to get hers while the getting was good. She was half way across +the Atlantic with a complete itinerary booked, before ninety per cent. of the +poets and philosophers had finished sorting out their clean collars and getting +their photographs taken for the passport. +</p> + +<p> +She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved sacrifices. +More than anything else in the world she loved her charming home, Windles, in +the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat of the Hignett family. +Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its shady walks, its silver lake, its +noble elms, the old grey stone of its walls—these were bound up with her +very being. She felt that she belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. +Unfortunately, as a matter of cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but +hold it in trust for her son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and +take possession of it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace +marrying and bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her +very marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under her +eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female below the age +of fifty, had averted the peril up till now. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores which +she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and dressed, she went +down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She smiled tolerantly. She had +never desired to convert her son to her own early-rising habits, for, apart +from not allowing him to call his soul his own, she was an indulgent mother. +Eustace would get up at half-past nine, long after she had finished breakfast, +read her correspondence, and started her duties for the day. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls, +porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this hell-brew, was a +little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she ate. The majority were +from disciples and dealt with matters of purely theosophical interest. There +was an invitation from the Butterfly Club, asking her to be the guest of honour +at their weekly dinner. There was a letter from her brother Mallaby—Sir +Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent London lawyer—saying that his son Sam, of +whom she had never approved, would be in New York shortly, passing through on +his way back to England, and hoping that she would see something of him. +Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without interest, +setting aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who acted as her unpaid +secretary, to answer later in the day. +</p> + +<p> +She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in the +hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of advanced years, +entered the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you tell him I was not to be disturbed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not. I loosed him into the parlour.” The staff remained for +a moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. “He says he’s your +nephew. His name’s Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not seen her +nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to extend the period. She +remembered him as an untidy small boy who once or twice, during his school +holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace of Windles with his beastly +presence. However, blood being thicker than water, and all that sort of thing, +she supposed she would have to give him five minutes. She went into the +sitting-room, and found there a young man who looked more or less like all +other young men, though perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good +deal since she had last met him, as men so often do between the ages of fifteen +and twenty-five, and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches round +the chest, and in weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and amiable face, +marred at the moment by an expression of discomfort somewhat akin to that of a +cat in a strange alley. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Aunt Adeline!” he said awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Samuel!” said Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and disliked +having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not improved in the +slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who imagined that he had +long since grown to man’s estate and put off childish things, was +embarrassed to discover that his aunt still affected him as of old. That is to +say, she made him feel as if he had omitted to shave and, in addition to that, +had swallowed some drug which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, +particularly about the hands and feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Jolly morning,” said Sam, perseveringly. +</p> + +<p> +“So I imagine. I have not yet been out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thought I’d look in and see how you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes, +that was very kind of you!” +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you like America?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“I dislike it exceedingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that. +Personally, it doesn’t affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I like +America myself,” said Sam. “I’ve had a wonderful time. +Everybody’s treated me like a rich uncle. I’ve been in Detroit, you +know, and they practically gave me the city and asked me if I’d like +another to take home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have +been the missing heir! I think America’s the greatest invention on +record.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what brought you to America?” said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by +this rhapsody. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely at your age,” said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, “you +could be better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and I +still play football occasionally.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take a +stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is perfectly right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these +days?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett started violently. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, he’s a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry, and all +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and +retiring temperament, and sees few women. He is almost a recluse.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam was aware of this, and had frequently regretted it. He had always been fond +of his cousin in that half-amused and rather patronising way in which men of +thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who run more to pallor and +intellect; and he had always felt that if Eustace had not had to retire to +Windles to spend his life with a woman whom from his earliest years he had +always considered the Empress of the Washouts, much might have been made of +him. Both at school and at Oxford, Eustace had been—if not a +sport—at least a decidedly cheery old bean. Sam remembered Eustace at +school, breaking gas globes with a slipper in a positively rollicking manner. +He remembered him at Oxford playing up to him manfully at the piano on the +occasion when he had done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a +hit at the Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound +egg, and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down in +the country, miles away from anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace is returning to England on Saturday,” said Mrs. Hignett. +She spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he had +come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with her till the +end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the question. It was +imperative that, while she was away, he should be at Windles. Nothing would +have induced her to leave the place at the mercy of servants who might trample +over the flowerbeds, scratch the polished floors, and forget to cover up the +canary at night. “He sails on the ‘Atlantic.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s splendid!” said Sam. “I’m sailing on the +‘Atlantic’ myself. I’ll go down to the office and see if we +can’t have a state-room together. But where is he going to live when he +gets to England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where +else?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett stared. +</p> + +<p> +“Letting Windles!” She spoke as one might address a lunatic. +“What put that extraordinary idea into your head?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought father said something about your letting the place to some +American.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the kind!” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even snappishly, in +correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He could not know that the +subject of letting Windles for the summer was one which had long since begun to +infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact, +people had pestered her. There was a rich, fat man, an American named Bennett, +whom she had met just before sailing at her brother’s house in London. +Invited down to Windles for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the +place, and had begged her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had +pursued her with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while she was +on the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she reached New York. +She had not been in America two days when there had arrived a Mr. Mortimer, +bosom friend of Mr. Bennett, carrying on the matter where the other had left +off. For a whole week Mr. Mortimer had tried to induce her to reconsider her +decision, and had only stopped because he had had to leave for England himself, +to join his friend. And even then the thing had gone on. Indeed, this very +morning, among the letters on Mrs. Hignett’s table, the buff envelope of +a cable from Mr. Bennett had peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No +wonder, then, that Sam’s allusion to the affair had caused the authoress +of “The Spreading Light” momentarily to lose her customary calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles,” she said with +finality, and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an +end—and glad of it—also got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think I’ll be going down and seeing about that +state-room,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next +lecture.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, yes. Mustn’t interrupt you. I suppose you’re +having a great time, gassing away—I mean—well, good-bye!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed that +equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of lectures on +Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go through the notes +which she had made overnight. She had hardly succeeded in concentrating herself +when the door opened to admit the daughter of Erin once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Ma’am, there was a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is intolerable!” cried Mrs. Hignett. “Did you tell him +that I was busy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream +Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bream Mortimer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being +slippy from the dishes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as she had +justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream Mortimer. He was the son +of the Mr. Mortimer who wanted Windles. This visit could only have to do with +the subject of Windles, and she went into the dining-room in a state of cold +fury, determined to squash the Mortimer family, in the person of their New York +representative, once and for all. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Mr. Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small bright eyes and a sharply +curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most parrots do. It gave +strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they saw Bream Mortimer in +restaurants, eating roast beef. They had the feeling that he would have +preferred sunflower seeds. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, Mrs. Hignett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer looked as though he would rather have hopped on to a perch, but +he sat down. He glanced about the room with gleaming, excited eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> having a word with me alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly know how to begin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never +consent.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer started. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have heard about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr. +Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing else. And +now,” cried Mrs. Hignett, fiercely, “you come and try to re-open +the subject. Once and for all, nothing will alter my decision. No money will +induce me to let my house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t come about that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You did not come about Windles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?” +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer seemed embarrassed. He wriggled a little, and moved his arms as +if he were trying to flap them. +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” he said, “I’m not a man who butts into +other people’s affairs....” He stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“No?” said Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +Bream began again. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a man who gossips with valets....” +</p> + +<p> +“No?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a man who....” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us take all your negative qualities for granted,” she said +curtly. “I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. +Let us confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you +have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment, that +you wish to see me about?” +</p> + +<p> +“This marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“What marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your son’s marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“My son is not married.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but he’s going to be. At eleven o’clock this morning at +the Little Church Round the Corner!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett stared. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m not any too well pleased, I’m bound to say,” +admitted Mr. Mortimer. “You see, darn it all, I’m in love with the +girl myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is this girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have been for years. I’m one of those silent, patient fellows who +hang around and look a lot but never tell their love....” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve always been one of those men who....” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive qualities, +also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all. You come to me with +this absurd story....” +</p> + +<p> +“Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet who had it from her +maid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to +marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I’d call him misguided,” said Mr. +Mortimer, as one desiring to be fair. “I think he’s a right smart +picker! She’s such a corking girl, you know. We were children together, +and I’ve loved her for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it +is—somehow one never seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw +an opening in the summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I’m not +one of these smooth, dashing chaps, you see, with a great line of talk. +I’m not....” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will kindly,” said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, +“postpone this essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion, I shall +be greatly obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to +marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t I told you?” said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. +“That’s odd. I haven’t. It’s funny how one +doesn’t do the things one thinks one does. I’m the sort of +man....” +</p> + +<p> +“What is her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“... the sort of man who....” +</p> + +<p> +“What is her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father’s house?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it. You’re a great guesser. I think you ought to stop +the thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I intend to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine!” +</p> + +<p> +“The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right. I’ve noticed it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Their auras are not the same colour.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I’ve thought that once,” said Bream Mortimer, +“I’ve thought it a hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every +time I’ve thought it. Not the same colour. That’s the whole thing +in a nutshell.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall take +immediate steps.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good. But what’s the procedure? It’s getting +late. She’ll be waiting at the church at eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace will not be there.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think you can fix it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace will not be there,” repeated Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’ve taken a weight off my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great +weights.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be going. Haven’t had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat +breakfast. Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham get cut +off in their prime. I feel I can rely on you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll say good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean really good-bye. I’m sailing for England on Saturday on the +‘Atlantic.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t tell him that I was the one who spilled the +beans?” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t wise him up that I threw a spanner into the +machinery?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not understand you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t tell him that I crabbed his act ... gave the thing away +... gummed the game?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chivalrous?” said Bream Mortimer a little doubtfully. “I +don’t know that I’d call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, +all’s fair in love and war. Well, I’m glad you’re going to +keep my share in the business under your hat. It might have been awkward +meeting him on board.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent +sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye. When you reach England, remember me to your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t have forgotten you,” said Bream Mortimer, +confidently. He did not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget +this woman. She was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her late +visitor was speaking, schemes had begun to form in her mind like bubbles rising +to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door had closed behind Bream +Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than seven, all good. It took her but +a moment to select the best and simplest. She tiptoed softly to her son’s +room. Rhythmic snores greeted her listening ears. She opened the door and went +noiselessly in. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +The White Star liner “Atlantic” lay at her pier with steam up and +gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure was +near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors fiddled +about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro. White-jacketed stewards +wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain, though not visible, was also +employed on some useful work of a nautical nature and not wasting his time. +Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers, and baskets of fruits were flowing on +board in a steady stream. +</p> + +<p> +The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There were men +on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by mothers, by +sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there was an elderly Jewish +lady who was being seen off by exactly thirty-seven of her late neighbours in +Rivington Street. And two men in the second cabin were being seen off by +detectives, surely the crowning compliment a great nation can bestow. The +cavernous Customs sheds were congested with friends and relatives, and Sam +Marlowe, heading for the gang-plank, was only able to make progress by +employing all the muscle and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and +which during the greater part of his life he had developed by athletic +exercise. However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his +shoulder into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting +some stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few +yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right arm, and +he spun round with a cry. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New York +crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. +</p> + +<p> +She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with red +hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he could not +be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly grey. Not that +it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine eyes. So long as they were +large and bright, as were the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not +the man to quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very +tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft +and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her +figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a +man can say no more than that they look pretty well all right. +</p> + +<p> +Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and for +many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and garnished, with +“Welcome” on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and fill it. She +was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the third prettiest. He +had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and docketing girls. But there +was a subtle something about her, a sort of how-shall-one-put-it, which he had +never encountered before. He swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest +swelled beneath its covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he +told himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which +made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of +history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to clasp +this girl to him and.... +</p> + +<p> +But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. That, he +felt, constituted an obstacle. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an impulsive girl +might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the moment and still have a +sweet, womanly nature.... +</p> + +<p> +“The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded from a +bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl’s lower ribs, a sharp +yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the confused +noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write, of Bills who were +instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris and give him their best, and of +all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and +telegraph boys who were honking their wares on every side. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope he didn’t hurt you much. You’re the third person +he’s bitten to-day.” She kissed the animal in a loving and +congratulatory way on the tip of his black nose. “Not counting waiters at +the hotel, of course,” she added. And then she was swept from him in the +crowd, and he was left thinking of all the things he might have said—all +those graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference +on these occasions. +</p> + +<p> +He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of pain, +had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! Perhaps he +would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl who comes to see +friends off and doesn’t sail herself. And what memory of him would she +retain? She would mix him up with the time when she went to visit the +deaf-and-dumb hospital. +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through the +crowd of passengers, passengers’ friends, stewards, junior officers, and +sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main companion-way, +through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles, as far as the dining +saloon; then turned down the narrow passage leading to his state-room. +</p> + +<p> +State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the chart +in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings round them in +pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away +all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of +entertaining—possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on +board, you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized +cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the +second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the +necessity for swinging cats does not arise, and you find yourself quite +comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart in the +passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began to feel the +depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished now that he had not +been so energetic in having his room changed in order to enjoy the company of +his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a tight fit. Eustace’s bag was +already in the cabin, and it seemed to take up the entire fairway. Still, after +all, Eustace was a good sort, and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam +realised that if the girl with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he +was going to have need of diverting society. +</p> + +<p> +A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Eustace!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a deep +sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, intellectual face. +Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would +write <i>vers libre</i>, as indeed he did. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” he said, in a hollow voice. +</p> + +<p> +Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going by his +recollections of him at the University, he had expected something cheerier than +this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be the life and soul of +the party. The man sitting on the bag before him could hardly have filled that +role at a gathering of Russian novelists. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth’s the matter?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“The matter?” Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, +nothing. Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart’s broken.” +He eyed with considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his +head, a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who +might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage. +</p> + +<p> +“If you would care to hear the story...?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Go ahead.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite short.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl....” +</p> + +<p> +“Talking of girls,” said Sam with enthusiasm, “I’ve +just seen the only one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was +like this. I was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when +suddenly....” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sorry! Go ahead.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing occupants +of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B. Midgeley. +</p> + +<p> +“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....” +</p> + +<p> +“So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw +such....” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?” said +Eustace coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sorry! Carry on.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....” +</p> + +<p> +“What was her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly +intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them immensely. She +enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest her. She admired +my....” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t bustle me,” said Eustace querulously. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve forgotten where I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened? I +suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged to some +other johnny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both agreed +that a quiet wedding was what we wanted—she thought her father might stop +the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would—so we decided +to get married without telling anybody. By now,” said Eustace, with a +morose glance at the porthole, “I ought to have been on my honeymoon. +Everything was settled. I had the licence and the parson’s fee. I had +been breaking in a new tie for the wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then you quarrelled?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story. +I’m telling <i>you</i>. What happened was this: somehow—I +can’t make out how—mother found out. And then, of course, it was +all over. She stopped the thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his +cousin’s meek subservience to her revolted him. +</p> + +<p> +“Stopped it? I suppose she said ‘Now, Eustace, you +mustn’t!’ and you said ‘Very well, mother!’ and +scratched the fixture?” +</p> + +<p> +“She didn’t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that +goes, she might never have heard anything about the marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then how do you mean she stopped it?” +</p> + +<p> +“She pinched my trousers!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pinched your trousers!” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace groaned. “All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long +before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out while I was +asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn’t find a single +damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked everywhere. Finally, I went +into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and asked if she had +happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent them all to be pressed. She +said she knew I never went out in the mornings—I don’t as a +rule—and they would be back at lunch-time. A fat lot of use that was! I +had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told her I had a most important +engagement with a man at eleven, and she wanted to know what it was, and I +tried to think of something, but it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had +better telephone to the man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first +number in the book and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I +couldn’t meet him because I hadn’t any trousers! He was pretty +peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the wrong number. And +mother, listening all the time, and I knowing that she knew—something +told me that she knew—and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell +you, it was awful!” +</p> + +<p> +“And the girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from +eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn’t see +me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her saying that what +had happened was all for the best, as she had been thinking it over and had +come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake. She said something about my +not being as dynamic as she had thought I was. She said that what she wanted +was something more like Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the +episode as closed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you explain about the trousers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a +man anything except being ridiculous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re well out of it,” said Sam, judicially. +“She can’t have been much of a girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel that now. But it doesn’t alter the fact that my life is +ruined. I have become a woman-hater. It’s an infernal nuisance, because +practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its way to +boost women, and now I’ll have to start all over again and approach the +subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother behaved and how +Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn’t a law against them. +‘What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was’t betrayed +the Capitol....’” +</p> + +<p> +“In Washington?” said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. +But then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting page. +</p> + +<p> +“In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as long ago as that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was quoting from Thomas Otway’s ‘Orphan.’ I wish I +could write like Otway. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who +was’t betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A +woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years’ war and laid at last old +Troy in ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I +mean. But the girl I met on the dock....” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” said Eustace Hignett. “If you have anything +bitter and derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But +if you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed girl +you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to the captain or +the ship’s cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that I am a soul in +torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a future. What does life +hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My work? I haven’t any. I +think I shall take to drink.” +</p> + +<p> +“Talking of that,” said Sam, “I suppose they open the bar +directly we pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace shook his head gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and +feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay there. As a +matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. Don’t let me +keep you if you want to go on deck.” +</p> + +<p> +“It looks to me,” said Sam, “as if I had been mistaken in +thinking that you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ray of sunshine!” said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve +pyjamas out of the kit-bag. “I’m going to be a volcano!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get on deck +and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the sheep would be +separating from the goats; the passengers would be on deck and their friends +returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the boards on which he trod told him +that this separation must have already taken place. The ship was moving. He ran +lightly up the companion. Was she on board or was she not? The next few minutes +would decide. He reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the +crowded deck. And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came +from the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with +people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water. +</p> + +<p> +Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is +excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always among +those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a blank window on +which were inscribed the words, “Watch this space!” In short, he +was one of Nature’s rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and shove a fat +man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a moment. He had thus +an excellent view of what was going on—a view which he improved the next +instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail. +</p> + +<p> +There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one visible, +was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time to time, as he +battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust this more firmly on +his head. A dressy swimmer. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the girl +he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, leaning out over the +rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else, she was staring into +the water. +</p> + +<p> +As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a wonderful +chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. What would she +not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived in and went boldly to +the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who would be chumps enough to do it, +he thought, as he prepared to shift back to a position of greater safety. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been jostled +out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been crouching, the better to +spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took Sam squarely in the spine. There +was an instant in which that young man hung, as it were, between sea and sky: +then he shot down over the rail to join the man in the blue jersey, who had +just discovered that his hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it +once more with a few skilful touches of the finger. +</p> + +<h3>§ 3</h3> + +<p> +In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room +chatting with Eustace about the latter’s bruised soul, some rather +curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but +curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the reader, +should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It should leap from +crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is one thing I hate, it is +a novel which gets you interested in the hero in chapter one and then cuts back +in chapter two to tell you all about his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this +point we must go back a space. We must return to the moment when, having +deposited her Pekinese dog in her state-room, the girl with the red hair came +out again on deck. This happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was +beginning his narrative. +</p> + +<p> +The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a rattle, +as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. The girl +uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face brightened, and she +began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an elderly man with a red +face made redder by exertion, who had just forced his way to the edge of the +dock and was peering up at the passenger-lined rail. +</p> + +<p> +The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the river. +It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She gesticulated at him. +He gesticulated at her. He produced a handkerchief, swiftly tied up a bundle of +currency bills in it, backed to give himself room, and then, with all the +strength of his arm, hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The +handkerchief with its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the +deck, fell short by a good six feet, and dropped into the water, where it +unfolded like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, +five-dollar bills, and an assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest souls who +ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a lifetime had arrived +for adding substantially to his little savings. By profession he was one of +those men who eke out a precarious livelihood by rowing dreamily about the +water-front in skiffs. He was doing so now: and, as he sat meditatively in his +skiff, having done his best to give the liner a good send off by paddling round +her in circles, the pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. +Swenson was not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of +ecstasy, pressed his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment +later he had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both hands. +</p> + +<p> +He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at his side +sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he observed with not a +little chagrin that he had been joined by a young man in a blue flannel suit +with an invisible stripe. +</p> + +<p> +“Svensk!” exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of +Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the advent of +this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the situation well in +hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and Mr. Swenson desired no +competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise. He travels, thought Mr. +Swenson, the fastest who travels alone. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability to adapt +himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to come whizzing +down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water which tasted in equal +parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was here he was prepared to make +the best of the situation. Swimming, it happened, was one of the things he did +best, and somewhere among his belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup +which he had won at school in the “Saving Life” competition. He +knew exactly what to do. You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under +his arms, and then you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the +astonished Mr. Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated +that anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from drowning, +found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away from a ten-dollar +bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The spiritual agony caused by +this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; though, even had he contrived to +utter the rich Swedish oaths which occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely +have been heard, for the crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had +often paid good money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They +roared applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into +mid-river. +</p> + +<p> +The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school, considered from +the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the problems of afterlife, is +that the object saved on such occasions is a leather dummy, and of all things +in this world a leather dummy is perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It +differs in many respects from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and +constructed throughout of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from +cash which he has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it would be +hard to find a respect in which it does not differ. So far from lying inert in +Sam’s arms and allowing himself to be saved in a quiet and orderly +manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one who feels that he has +fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he disliked competition, was ready +to put up with it, provided that it was fair competition. This pulling your +rival away from the loot so that you could grab it yourself—thus +shockingly had the man misinterpreted Sam’s motives—was another +thing altogether, and his stout soul would have none of it. He began +immediately to struggle with all the violence at his disposal. His large, hairy +hands came out of the water and swung hopefully in the direction where he +assumed his assailant’s face to be. +</p> + +<p> +Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of +life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles against +his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply stunned the +blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had known that +gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the reputation of +possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would have realised the +magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in convivial moments, had +frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles, boots and bits of lead piping +and had gone away depressed by failure. Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do +the job with clenched fist, which he brought down as smartly as possible on the +crown of the other’s bowler hat. +</p> + +<p> +It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly of his +hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest apprehensions. Now +thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was to sell his life dearly, he +wrenched himself round, seized his assailant by the neck, twined his arms about +his middle, and accompanied him below the surface. +</p> + +<p> +By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his second, Sam +was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that this was the end. The +thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt, was just the silly, contrary +way things always happened. Why should it be he who was perishing like this? +Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there was a fellow whom this sort of thing would +just have suited. Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this +as a merciful release. +</p> + +<p> +He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent of Mr. +Swenson’s limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he had +never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson—not even his +Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven distinct legs +twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to him that he was being +done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of Swedes. He put his whole soul +into one last effort ... something seemed to give ... he was free. Pausing only +to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard +and sharp prodded him in the head. Then something caught the collar of his +coat; and, finally, spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and +over the side of a boat. +</p> + +<p> +The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had been brief, +but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating population of the +North River to converge on the scene in scows, skiffs, launches, tugs, and +other vessels. The fact that the water in that vicinity was crested with +currency had not escaped the notice of these navigators, and they had gone to +it as one man. First in the race came the tug “Reuben S. Watson,” +the skipper of which, following a famous precedent, had taken his little +daughter to bear him company. It was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his +rescue. Women often have a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the +hard business side of a situation; and it was the skipper’s daughter who +insisted that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing +dollar bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of +extricating the young man from a watery grave. +</p> + +<p> +The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way—he always +spoiled the girl—with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the +deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his faculties +to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson rise to the surface +some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after one long look of dislike in +his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept a five which was floating under +the stern of a near-by skiff. +</p> + +<p> +Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public fountain. +At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he wanted to do +something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an appointment which he +must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. Meanwhile, he conducted +tentative experiments with his breath. It was so long since he had last +breathed that he had lost the knack of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, aincher wet?” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +The skipper’s daughter was standing beside him, looking down +commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the broad blue +seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the side in the quest for +wealth. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet +guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you’re certainly +<i>wet!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> wet,” admitted Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir, you’re wet! Wet’s the word all right. Good and wet, +that’s what you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the water,” said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he +wished he could remember what that appointment was. “That’s what +has made me wet.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s sure made you wet all right,” agreed the girl. She +looked at him interestedly. “Wotcha do it for?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Do it for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off’n that ship? I +didn’t see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off’n the +deck like a sack of potatoes.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s who?” +</p> + +<p> +“The liner.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the +last I seen of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not gone!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure she’s gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She’s gotta get +over to the other side, ain’t she? Cert’nly she’s +gone.” She looked at him interested. “Do you want to be on board +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin’ walloping off’n her +like a sack of potatoes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I slipped. I was pushed or something.” Sam sprang to his feet and +looked wildly about him. “I must get back. Isn’t there any way of +getting back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. +She’ll stop to let the pilot off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you take me to quarantine?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of trousers. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we <i>could</i>,” she said. “But pa’s kind of +set in his ways, and right now he’s fishing for dollar bills with the +boat hook. He’s apt to get sorta mad if he’s interrupted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give him fifty dollars if he’ll put me on board.” +</p> + +<p> +“Got it on you?” inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of +sentiment, but she was her father’s daughter and inherited from him the +business sense. +</p> + +<p> +“Here it is.” He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, +but the contents were only fairly moist. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa!” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child’s cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!” +</p> + +<p> +The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision. There +was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her hand. It was +long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of wood. Deftly +extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive parent on the only +visible portion of him. He turned sharply, exhibiting a red, bearded face. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa, this gen’man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. +He’ll give you fifty berries.” +</p> + +<p> +The wrath died out of the skipper’s face like the slow turning down of a +lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to secure a +single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so suddenly arisen +you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook. +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty berries!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty seeds!” the girl assured him. “Are you on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Queen,” said the skipper simply, “you said a +mouthful!” +</p> + +<p> +Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it lay +towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him clammily. He +squelched as he walked. +</p> + +<p> +A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail regarded him +with open eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, you’re very wet,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to the +companion way. +</p> + +<p> +“Mummie, why is that man wet?” cried the clear voice of a little +child. +</p> + +<p> +Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord, sir! You’re very wet!” said a steward in the +doorway of the dining saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> wet,” said a stewardess in the passage. +</p> + +<p> +Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In the lower +berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened them languidly, +then stared. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” he said. “I say! You’re wet!” +</p> + +<h3>§ 4</h3> + +<p> +Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was in no +mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett’s frank curiosity jarred upon +him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the floor and a creaking of +woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel was under way again, and his +cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on his side with a hollow moan. Sam +finished buttoning his waistcoat and went out. +</p> + +<p> +He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with bent head +and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to look up, and the +scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For there stood the girl he had +met on the dock. With her was a superfluous young man who looked like a parrot. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>how</i> are you?” asked the girl breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Splendid, thanks,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you get very wet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did get a little damp.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you would,” said the young man who looked like a parrot. +“Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: ‘That +fellow’s going to get wet!’” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the girl. “May I—Mr.——?” +</p> + +<p> +“Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly got left behind,” said Bream Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, nearly.” +</p> + +<p> +“No joke getting left behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time,” said Mr. +Mortimer, driving home his point. +</p> + +<p> +The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience. She now +spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bream!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hello?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it’s all right +about our places for lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is all right. The table steward said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but go and make certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn’t to have done it! Really, you +oughtn’t! You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so +wonderful. It was like the stories of knights who used to jump into +lions’ dens after gloves!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck +him. It seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done! +But you shouldn’t have bothered, really! It’s all right, +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s all right now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I’d quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He +has given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to sail +on this boat in rather a hurry. Father’s head clerk was to have gone to +the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to me, but the +silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had just pulled in the +gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in a handkerchief and it fell +into the water. But you shouldn’t have dived in after it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave +smile. He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had +shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out and shake +him by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You really are the bravest man I ever met!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a +service.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do +admire presence of mind. You didn’t hesitate for a second. You just shot +over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of +keeping one’s head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some +people have it, some haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“And just think! As Bream was saying....” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> all right,” said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. +“I saw a couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So +it’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Splendid,” said the girl. “Oh, Bream!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hello?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles +is quite comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bound to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a +little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chirrup?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to cheer him up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Run along!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only needs a +peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a properly equipped +messenger boy. +</p> + +<p> +“And, as Bream was saying,” resumed the girl, “you might have +been left behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said Sam, edging a step closer, “was the thought that +tortured me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun....” +</p> + +<p> +“But it hadn’t begun. We have never spoken to each other before +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you forgotten? On the dock....” +</p> + +<p> +Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!” +</p> + +<p> +“The lucky man!” +</p> + +<p> +Her face clouded. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It’s his +first voyage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us together. +Would you care for a stroll on deck?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish +unpacking. After lunch, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mine?” She smiled brightly. “It’s funny that a +person’s name is the last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is +Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bennett!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends,” she said softly as she turned +away, “call me Billie!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +SAM PAVES THE WAY</h2> + +<p> +For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl as she +flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always have an +unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a little dizzy +when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to re-adjust all his +preconceived views on any subject. Listening to Eustace Hignett’s story +of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an unflattering opinion of this +Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her engagement simply because on the day +of the marriage his cousin had been short of the necessary wedding garment. He +had, indeed, thought a little smugly how different his goddess of the red hair +was from the object of Eustace Hignett’s affections. And now they had +proved to be one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding +the vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine. +</p> + +<p> +Some men, on making the discovery of this girl’s identity, might have +felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous +entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The way he +looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina Bennett. Eustace, +he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl had maltreated +Eustace’s finer feelings, then her reason for doing so must have been +excellent and praiseworthy. +</p> + +<p> +After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in many ways +... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustace that gave him +any claim to monopolise the affections of a wonderful girl? Where, in a word, +did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a tremendous grievance of the fact that +she had broken off the engagement, but what right had he to go about the place +expecting her to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the +poor girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly +sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she +had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor old +Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that Wilhelmina +Bennett—her friends called her Billie—had not behaved in a +perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina +Bennett—Billie to her intimates—who made the world worth living in. +</p> + +<p> +Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a delightful name +and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few times. “Billie ... +Billie ... Billie....” It certainly ran pleasantly off the tongue. +“Billie Bennett.” Very musical. “Billie Marlowe.” Still +better. “We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. +‘Billie’ Marlowe....” +</p> + +<p> +A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. Obviously +indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace Hignett. If Eustace was +still capable of speech—and after all the boat was hardly rolling at +all—he would enjoy a further chat about his ruined life. Besides, he had +another reason for seeking Eustace’s society. As a man who had been +actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction +for Sam akin to that of some great public monument. He had become a sort of +shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost +reverentially, with something of the emotions of a boy going into his first +dime museum. +</p> + +<p> +The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By lying +absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and +objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere +tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. +He received Sam with a wan austerity. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down!” he said. “Don’t stand there swaying like +that. I can’t bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we aren’t out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren’t +going to be sea-sick already.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off +it.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking steadily of +the Sahara. There,” said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, “is a +place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles of sand and not a +drop of water anywhere!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam sat down on the lounge. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on +other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your unfortunate +affair with that girl—Billie Bennett I think you said her name +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name +was Billie?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to +their friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk +about it. The recollection tortures me.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just what you want. It’s the counter-irritation +principle. Persevere, and you’ll soon forget that you’re on board +ship at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something in that,” admitted Eustace reflectively. +“It’s very good of you to be so sympathetic and interested.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her +first, for instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“At a dinner....” Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good +memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that +dinner—a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath the surface +of a thick white sauce. +</p> + +<p> +“And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know she had lovely hair?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in +love would have nice hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably +beautiful. It was red....” +</p> + +<p> +“Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!” said Marlowe +ecstatically. +</p> + +<p> +Hignett started. +</p> + +<p> +“What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description. +Her eyes were a deep blue....” +</p> + +<p> +“Or, rather, green.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?” demanded +Eustace heatedly. “Am I telling you about her, or are you telling +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear old man, don’t get excited. Don’t you see I am +trying to construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I +don’t pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes +generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the +bright green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faint +yellowish green of your face at the present moment....” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk about the colour of my face! Now you’ve gone and +reminded me just when I was beginning to forget.” +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again—quick. +What were we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form a +mental picture of people if one knows something about their tastes—what +sort of things they are interested in, their favourite topics of conversation, +and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she like talking about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all sorts of things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which first +drew us together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poetry!” Sam’s heart sank a little. He had read a certain +amount of poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and +sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly paper; +but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his long suit. Still +there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it would be possible to +borrow the works of some standard bard and bone them up from time to time. +“Any special poet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on +Spring, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. What other poets did she like besides you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tennyson principally,” said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent +quiver in his voice. “The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls +of the King!” +</p> + +<p> +“The which of what?” inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket +and shooting out a cuff. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Idylls of the King.’ My good man, I know you have a +soul which would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have +surely heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>those!</i> Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson’s ‘Idylls +of the King?’ Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson’s +‘Idylls of the King?’ Well, really? I suppose you haven’t a +copy with you on board by any chance?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together. +Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don’t want to see it +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and presently +came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the lounge. +</p> + +<p> +“Little by little, bit by bit,” he said, “I am beginning to +form a sort of picture of this girl, this—what was her name again? +Bennett—this Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You +make her seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn’t +keen on golf, by any chance, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather +enthusiastic. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’d much sooner talk to a girl about golf than +poetry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to Wilhelmina +Bennett about either, I should imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, there’s that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. +Some girls bar golf, and then it’s rather difficult to know how to start +the conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this Miss +Bennett’s nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at one +time or another you may have said something that offended her. I mean, it seems +curious that she should have broken off the engagement if you had never +disagreed or quarrelled about anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She +had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever any shadow +of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I made rather a point +of it that I would not have it about the home after we were married.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see!” said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it: +“Dog—conciliate.” “Yes, of course, that must have +wounded her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day +before we—Wilhelmina and I, I mean—were to have been married. It is +some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home on the +little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean over the +Chesterfield.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam shook his head reprovingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. He extended his cuff +and added the words “Vitally Important” to what he had just +written. “It was probably that which decided her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hate dogs,” said Eustace Hignett querulously. “I +remember Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to +step in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who were +fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters nowadays, that +life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn’t be reasonable about +it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like a shot. I thought not. We +have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad was ever called upon to do +anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he wore armour. Give me a suit of +mail, reaching well down over the ankles, and I will willingly intervene in a +hundred dog fights. But in thin flannel trousers, no!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that the girl +was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high opinion of her +corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in a favourable light. He +understood her point of view and sympathised with it. An idealist, how could +she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How could she be content with a craven +who, instead of scouring the world in the quest for deeds of derring-do, had +fallen down so lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious +attractiveness about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a +girl’s heart for a time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice +singing voice; but, as a partner for life ... well, he simply wouldn’t +do. That was all there was to it. He simply didn’t add up right. The man +a girl like Wilhelmina Bennett required for a husband was somebody entirely +different ... somebody, felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel Marlowe. +</p> + +<p> +Swelled almost to bursting point with these reflections, he went on deck to +join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. She had put on +one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance feminine charms, and was +striding along the deck with the breeze playing in her vivid hair like the +female equivalent of a Viking. Beside her walked young Mr. Bream Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight of her +welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. What magic there +is in a girl’s smile! It is the raisin which, dropped in the yeast of +male complacency, induces fermentation. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>there</i> you are,” said Bream Mortimer with a slightly +different inflection. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d like a breath of fresh air before lunch,” said +Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bream!” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my +state-room, will you? I had no idea it was so warm.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll carry it,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with it. Trot along +and put it on the berth. It doesn’t matter about folding it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream moodily. +</p> + +<p> +He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs in order +to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimer was experiencing +such a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“He had better chirrup to the dog while he’s there, don’t you +think?” suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as +Bream’s might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the +half-minute. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes! Bream!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hello?” +</p> + +<p> +“While you’re down there, just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. +He does appreciate it so!” +</p> + +<p> +Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a glance at +a man’s back; but Bream’s back looked like that of a man to whom +the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a piano, he would +have made a good hired orchestra. +</p> + +<p> +“How is your dear little dog, by the way?” inquired Sam +solicitously, as he fell into step by her side. +</p> + +<p> +“Much better now, thanks. I’ve made friends with a girl on +board—did you ever hear her name—Jane Hubbard—she’s a +rather well-known big-game hunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for +Pinky which did him a world of good. I don’t know what was in it except +Worcester Sauce, but she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when +they had the botts ... it’s very nice of you to speak so affectionately +of poor Pinky when he bit you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Animal spirits!” said Sam tolerantly. “Pure animal spirits. +I like to see them. But, of course, I love all dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you? So do I!” +</p> + +<p> +“I only wish they didn’t fight so much. I’m always stopping +dog-fights.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog-fight. I’m afraid +I’m rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold +of.” She looked down. “Have you been reading? What is the +book?” +</p> + +<p> +“The book? Oh, this. It’s a volume of Tennyson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you fond of Tennyson?” +</p> + +<p> +“I worship him,” said Sam reverently. +</p> + +<p> +“Those——” he glanced at his cuff—“those +‘Idylls of the King!’ I do not like to think what an ocean voyage +would be if I had not my Tennyson with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!” +</p> + +<p> +“We will! There is something about Tennyson....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t there! I’ve felt that myself so often.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while others +call it a day when they’ve written something that runs to a couple of +verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was just as +good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with his +chip-shots.” +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds as though you play golf.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the +links. Do you play?” +</p> + +<p> +“I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. You +seem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be great friends.” +</p> + +<p> +He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle +sounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear!” she cried. “I must rush. But we shall see one +another again up here afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“We will,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll sit and read Tennyson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine! Er—you and I and Mortimer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor +Pinky.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he—does he know he is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said Billie. “I’m going to tell him at +lunch.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +SAM CLICKS</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is done in +the movies they won’t be satisfied with a bald statement like that; they +will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or whatever they call the +thing in the low dens where motion-picture scenario-lizards do their dark work, +which will run:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE AND YOUTH AND +SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS FORGED BY THE LAUGHING +LOVE-GOD. +</p> + +<p> +and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other cheek +and take a firmer grip of their companion’s hands and the man at the +piano will play “Everybody wants a key to my cellar,” or something +equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on the +half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and intends +finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the plain frank +statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is my story and I mean +to stick to it. +</p> + +<p> +Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from his +tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had a cold bath +when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked out of the porthole +at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and exuberant. +</p> + +<p> +It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was uplifting +this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing back, he had +suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would propose to Wilhelmina +Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. +True, he had only known her for four days, but what of that? +</p> + +<p> +Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner in +which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of marriage. +When Samuel Marlowe’s grandfather had convinced himself, after about a +year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion which he felt towards +Samuel Marlowe’s grandmother-to-be was love, the fashion of the period +compelled him to approach the matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an +evening or two singing sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano +and the rest of the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff +was pulled. Having noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink +when he came to the “Thee—only thee!” bit, he felt a mild +sense of encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside +next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to mention +his name in the course of conversation. Further <i>pour-parlers</i> having +passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, he felt that +the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of Shelley, with some of +the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, he interviewed her father and +obtained his consent to the paying of his addresses. And finally, after writing +her a letter which began “Madam, you will not have been insensible to the +fact that for some time past you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than +those of ordinary friendship....” he waylaid her in the rose-garden and +brought the thing off. +</p> + +<p> +How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship can +hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir W. S. +Gilbert’s Alphonso. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks,<br /> +He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six:<br /> +‘Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!’<br /> +And Emily said: ‘Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!’” +</p> + +<p> +Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a bright young +man and did not require a year to make up his mind that Wilhelmina Bennett had +been set apart by Fate from the beginning of time to be his bride. He had known +it from the moment he saw her on the dock, and all the subsequent strolling, +reading, talking, soup-drinking, tea-drinking, and shuffle-board-playing which +they had done together had merely solidified his original impression. He loved +this girl with all the force of a fiery nature—the fiery nature of the +Marlowes was a by-word in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square—and something +seemed to whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir +Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not see +where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself. So, wind +and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to Wilhelmina +Bennett this very day. +</p> + +<p> +He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, collecting his +shaving materials, began to lather his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I am the Bandolero!” sang Sam blithely through the soap. “I +am, I am the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!” +</p> + +<p> +The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, God!” said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head. +</p> + +<p> +Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been happening to +Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a pleasant surprise each +morning to find that he was still alive. +</p> + +<p> +“Feeling bad again, old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was feeling all right,” replied Hignett churlishly, “until +you began the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Glorious! The sea....” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk about the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the history +of the race. Why don’t you get up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing will induce me to get up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett shuddered. He eyed Sam sourly. “You seem devilish pleased +with yourself this morning!” he said censoriously. +</p> + +<p> +Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the desire to +confide in somebody got the better of him. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is,” he said apologetically, “I’m in +love!” +</p> + +<p> +“In love!” Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply +against the berth above him. “Has this been going on long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ever since the voyage started.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you might have told me,” said Eustace reproachfully. +“I told you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful +thing had come upon you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a +notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a girl I met on board.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t do it!” said Eustace Hignett solemnly. “As a +friend I entreat you not to do it. Take my advice, as a man who knows women, +and don’t do it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t do what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are +intending to propose to this girl—probably this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not this morning—after lunch. I always think one can do oneself +more justice after lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt +you. Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be +hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of sheer +wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also made black? Do +you realise...?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve thought it all out.” +</p> + +<p> +“And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the +father—and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are +enormously in favour of such a thing happening—of a boy with spectacles +and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six small +boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and had teeth like +rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in different styles. How would +you like to become the father...?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need to be indelicate,” said Sam stiffly. “A man +must take these chances.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give her the miss in baulk,” pleaded Hignett. “Stay down +here for the rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to +Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you’re ill and can’t +be disturbed.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how it was +that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this man. He +finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on deck. +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had through +the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship swam in a vast +bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with silver. It was a +morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning which shouted to him to +chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight of Billie Bennett, trim and +gleaming in a pale green sweater and white skirt had the effect of causing +Marlowe to alter the programme which he had sketched out. Proposing to this +girl was not a thing to be put off till after lunch. It was a thing to be done +now and at once. The finest efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not +put him in better form than he felt at present. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Miss Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Mr. Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it a perfect day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +How strange it is that the great emotional scenes of history, one of which is +coming along almost immediately, always begin in this prosaic way. Shakespeare +tries to conceal the fact, but there can be little doubt that Romeo and Juliet +edged into their balcony scene with a few remarks on the pleasantness of the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we walk round?” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck was +always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting in a dull +trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o’clock soup. +Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of view of a man who +wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a beautiful girl, the place was +practically a tube station during the rush hour. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so crowded,” he said. “Let’s go on to the +upper deck.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days’ +acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man was +there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open his +collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down your finger on +some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing which it is rather +difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of conversation. It wants +leading up to. But, if you once start reading poetry, especially +Tennyson’s, almost anything is apt to give you your cue. He bounded +light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace Hignett from an uneasy +dose. +</p> + +<p> +“Now what?” said Eustace. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it—ah, +here it is. Well, see you later!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait! What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that girl I told you about,” said Sam making for the door. +“She wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tennyson?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the upper deck?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is the end,” said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the +wall. +</p> + +<p> +Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on deck, +climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of the ship which +was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of passengers preferred the +promenade deck, two layers below. +</p> + +<p> +He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped steel +structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked on at the last +moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him towered one of the funnels, +before him a long, slender mast. He hurried on, and presently came upon Billie +sitting on a garden seat, backed by the white roof of the smoke-room; beside +this was a small deck which seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all +by itself. It was the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients +playing an odd game with long sticks and bits of wood—not shuffleboard +but something even lower in the mental scale. This morning, however, the +devotees of this pastime were apparently under proper restraint, for the deck +was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“This is jolly,” he said sitting down beside the girl and drawing a +deep breath of satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I love this deck. It’s so peaceful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of +not meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always +makes me wish that I had a private yacht.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be nice.” +</p> + +<p> +“A private yacht,” repeated Sam, sliding a trifle closer. “We +would sail about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of +tropic seas.” +</p> + +<p> +“We?” +</p> + +<p> +“Most certainly we. It wouldn’t be any fun if you were not +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s very complimentary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it wouldn’t. I’m not fond of girls as a +rule....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make +clear at the outset. “Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked +upon it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures +which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till they +find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering away their +emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper natures, I was +... I was ... well, I wasn’t, if you see what I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you wasn’t ... weren’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love, +and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a lifetime, lay an +unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and say ‘At +last!’” +</p> + +<p> +“How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes,” said Sam after a momentary pause. +</p> + +<p> +“When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most +wonderful thing in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming +love, a love which....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hello!” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had not been +able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something missing. The time and +the place and the girl—they were all present and correct; nevertheless +there was something missing, some familiar object which seemed to leave a gap. +He now perceived that what had caused the feeling was the complete absence of +Bream Mortimer. He was absent no longer. He was standing in front of them with +one leg, his head lowered as if he were waiting for someone to scratch it. +Sam’s primary impulse was to offer him a nut. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hello, Bream!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” said Bream Mortimer. “Here you are!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you might be here,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, here we are,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we’re here,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind if I join you?” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“N—no,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“N—no,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Billie again. “No ... that is to say ... oh no, +not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a third pause. +</p> + +<p> +“On second thoughts,” said Bream, “I believe I’ll take +a stroll on the promenade deck if you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head twice +against overhanging steel ropes, melted away. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that fellow?” demanded Sam wrathfully. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s the son of father’s best friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that he had +never thought of her having a father. +</p> + +<p> +“We have known each other all our lives,” continued Billie. +“Father thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream +was sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. +I’m in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few +days’ notice. I....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hello!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Bream!” said Billie looking at him as he stood on the old +spot in the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of +her father’s best friend might have expected. “I thought you said +you were going down to the promenade deck. +</p> + +<p> +“I did go down to the promenade deck. And I’d hardly got there when +a fellow who’s getting up the ship’s concert to-morrow night +nobbled me to do something for it. I said I could only do conjuring tricks and +juggling and so on, and he said all right, do conjuring tricks and juggling, +then. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. I came up to ask +you,” he said to Sam, “if you would do something.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Sam. “I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got a man who’s going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a +couple of women who both want to sing ‘The Rosary’ but he’s +still a turn or two short. Sure you won’t rally round?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right.” Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. +“It’s a great morning, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bream!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I’m sure she must be +feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck.” +</p> + +<p> +A look of alarm spread itself over Bream’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a very nice girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe +or something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting +experiences. They are most interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream drifted sadly away. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should +like to do it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t let’s talk about Bream. Read me some +Tennyson.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had absolutely shot +to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at the beginning of their +conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed to him, could it be recovered. +And when he saw the passage at which the volume had opened he realised that his +luck was in. Good old Tennyson! He was all right. He had the stuff. You could +rely on him every time. +</p> + +<p> +He cleared his throat. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh let the solid ground<br /> + Not fail beneath my feet<br /> +Before my life has found<br /> + What some have found so sweet;<br /> +Then let come what come may,<br /> + What matter if I go mad,<br /> +I shall have had my day.<br /> +<br /> +Let the sweet heavens endure,<br /> + Not close and darken above me<br /> +Before I am quite quite sure<br /> + That there is one to love me....” +</p> + +<p> +This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He could +see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big and dreamy, +gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“There is something,” he began in a low voice, “which I have +been trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have +read in my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Until this voyage began,” he went on, “I did not know what +life meant. And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. +You’re the dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I’ll never +forget....” He stopped. “I’m not trying to make it +rhyme,” he said apologetically. “Billie, don’t think me silly +... I mean ... if you had the merest notion, dearest ... I don’t know +what’s the matter with me ... Billie, darling, you are the only girl in +the world! I have been looking for you for years and years and I have found you +at last, my soul-mate. Surely this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, +I mean, you must have seen that I’ve been keen.... There’s that +damned Walt Mason stuff again!” His eyes fell on the volume beside him +and he uttered an exclamation of enlightenment. “It’s those +poems!” he cried. “I’ve been boning them up to such an extent +that they’ve got me doing it too. What I’m trying to say is, Will +you marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her eyes +misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his. +</p> + +<h3>§ 3</h3> + +<p> +Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Darling,” she said, “I’ve a confession to make.” +</p> + +<p> +“A confession? You? Nonsense!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this +will last.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our love? Don’t be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, +it’s so vast, it’s bound to last ... that is to say, of course it +will.” +</p> + +<p> +She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid of myself. You see, once before—and it was not so +very long ago,—I thought I had met my ideal, but....” +</p> + +<p> +Sam laughed heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace +Hignett?” +</p> + +<p> +She started violently. +</p> + +<p> +“You know!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course! He told me himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know him? Where did you meet him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve known him all my life. He’s my cousin. As a matter of +fact, we are sharing a state-room on board now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: +‘Oh, here you are!’ or something. You know the sort of +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be terrible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have realised +by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd his ever +expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it dispassionately ... +Eustace ... poor old Eustace ... and <i>you!</i> The Princess and the +Swineherd!” +</p> + +<p> +“Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?” she asked, surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with +the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to marry +him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, good fellow, of +course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of life are concerned. A man +who can’t even stop a dog-fight! In a world which is practically one +seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you trust yourself to such a one? +Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than I am, but ... well, I mean to +say!” +</p> + +<p> +“I see what you mean. He really wasn’t my ideal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by a mile!” +</p> + +<p> +She mused, her chin in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a splendid chap,” said Sam tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him was +his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well.” +</p> + +<p> +A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no objection to +praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the conversation seemed to +him to be confining itself too exclusively to one subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” he said. “Oh yes, I’ve heard him sing. Not +lately. He does drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever heard him sing ‘My love is like a glowing tulip that +in an old-world garden grows’?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not had that advantage,” replied Sam stiffly. “But +anyone can sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will +make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ... that’s +a different thing altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you sing that sort of thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“People have been good enough to say....” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Billie decidedly, “you must certainly do +something at the ship’s concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to +hide your light under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an +excellent accompanist. He can accompany you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but ... well, I don’t know,” said Sam doubtfully. He +could not help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at +a house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion +somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to identify +had thrown a pat of butter at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you must sing,” said Billie. “I’ll tell +Bream when I go down to lunch. What will you sing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—er—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so +wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam’s discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the +sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the second place +he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing at all. He could do +that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the Trinity smoker. +He was on safe ground there. He knew he was good. He clasped the girl to him +and kissed her sixteen times. +</p> + +<h3>§ 4</h3> + +<p> +Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily brushing +the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her shoulders. On the +lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey kimono, Jane Hubbard watched +her, smoking a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood. Her whole +appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces and all that sort of +thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl, about the same age as +Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had looked leopards squarely in the +face and caused them to withdraw abashed into the undergrowth, or wherever it +is that leopards withdraw when abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard +flirting lightly at garden parties, but one could picture her very readily +arguing with a mutinous native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness +and light into the soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must +have been rather like Jane Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one hand, a +feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was pleasantly tired +after walking eighty-five times round the promenade deck. Soon she would go to +bed and fall asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. But meanwhile she +lingered here, for she felt that Billie had something to confide in her. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane,” said Billie, “have you ever been in love?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Not since I was eleven,” she said in her deep musical voice. +“He was my music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but +there was an appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of +cats, I remember.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through her +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Surely you don’t like weak +men. I like a man who is strong and brave and wonderful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t stand brave men,” said Jane, “it makes them so +independent. I could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. +Sometimes, when I have been roughing it out in the jungle,” she went on +rather wistfully, “I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who +would put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me +pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I’m beginning +to want to settle down. After all there are other things for a woman to do in +this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I should like to go into +Parliament. And, if I did that, I should practically have to marry. I mean, I +should have to have a man to look after the social end of life and arrange +parties and receptions and so on, and sit ornamentally at the head of my table. +I can’t imagine anything jollier than marriage under conditions like +that. When I came back a bit done up after a long sitting at the House, he +would mix me a whisky-and-soda and read poetry to me or prattle about all the +things he had been doing during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a smoke ring +which she had sent floating towards the ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane,” said Billie. “I believe you’re thinking of +somebody definite. Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited made her +look manlier than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know his name.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is really someone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“How splendid! Tell me about him.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You +know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of course, but +this poor little fellow—<i>so</i> good-looking, my dear! he reminded me +of the pictures of Lord Byron—was hanging from a strap and being jerked +about till I thought his poor little arms would be wrenched out of their +sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he had some secret sorrow. I +offered him my seat, but he wouldn’t take it. A couple of stations later, +however, the man next to me got out and he sat down and we got into +conversation. There wasn’t time to talk much. I told him I had been +down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had left to be mended. He was so +prettily interested when I showed him the mechanism. We got along famously. +But—oh, well, it was just another case of ships that pass in the +night—I’m afraid I’ve been boring you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jane! You haven’t! You see ... you see, I’m in love +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had an idea you were,” said her friend looking at her +critically. “You’ve been refusing your oats the last few days, and +that’s a sure sign. Is he that fellow that’s always around with you +and who looks like a parrot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!” cried Billie indignantly. +“As if I should fall in love with Bream!” +</p> + +<p> +“When I was out in British East Africa,” said Miss Hubbard, +“I had a bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him +to whistle ‘Annie Laurie’ and to ask for his supper in three native +dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn’t +Bream Mortimer, who is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“His name is Marlowe. He’s tall and handsome and very +strong-looking. He reminds me of a Greek god.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ugh!” said Miss Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane, we’re engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said the huntress, interested. “When can I meet +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll introduce you to-morrow I’m so happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fine!” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet, somehow,” said Billie, plaiting her hair, “do you +ever have presentiments? I can’t get rid of an awful feeling that +something’s going to happen to spoil everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“What could spoil everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do anything +to blur the image I have formed of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he won’t. You said he was one of those strong men, +didn’t you? They always run true to form. They never do anything except +be strong.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And I +waited and waited and he didn’t come; and what do you think had +happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“His mother had stolen his trousers.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard laughed heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing to laugh at,” said Billie seriously “It +was a tragedy. I had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the +scales seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you broke off the engagement?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you were hard on him. A man can’t help his mother stealing +his trousers.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But when he finds they’re gone, he can ’phone to the +tailor for some more or borrow the janitor’s or do <i>something</i>. But +he simply stayed where he was and didn’t do a thing. Just because he was +too much afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be +married that day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that,” said Miss Hubbard, “is just the sort of trait in +a man which would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and—I +don’t know why it is—I can’t forgive a man for looking +ridiculous. Thank goodness, my darling Sam couldn’t look ridiculous, even +if he tried. He’s wonderful, Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round +Table. You ought to see his eyes flash.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If +you can arrange to have him flash his eyes then—say between nine-thirty +and ten—I shall be delighted to watch them.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE</h2> + +<p> +“Good God!” cried Eustace Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light which came +through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was seven-thirty, and he had +just woken from a troubled doze, full of strange nightmares, and for the moment +he thought that he must still be dreaming, for the figure before him could have +walked straight into any nightmare and no questions asked. Then suddenly he +became aware that it was his cousin, Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of +father in the pigstye, he could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking +like that? Was it simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face +really black and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal size and +become a vivid crimson? +</p> + +<p> +Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a satisfaction +which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not have seemed to justify. +Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. His cousin’s face was +black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab with a piece of burnt cork and +made it blacker. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! You awake?” he said, and switched on the light. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend’s profile, seen +dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting object. +Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent dreams—and +they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top hats and running +shorts—had affected him so profoundly. Sam’s appearance smote him +like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a different and a dreadful +world. +</p> + +<p> +“What ... what ... what...?” he gurgled. +</p> + +<p> +Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his nose. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I look?” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin’s reason must have become +unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like that, +being anxious to be told how he looked. +</p> + +<p> +“Are my lips red enough? It’s for the ship’s concert, you +know. It starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I’m not on till the +second part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the +ears, or are they all right?” +</p> + +<p> +Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth are you doing performing at the ship’s +concert?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man, +and they wouldn’t take no.” Sam deepened the colour of his ears. +“As a matter of fact,” he said casually, “my fiancée +made rather a point of my doing something.” +</p> + +<p> +A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the significance of +the remark had not been lost on Eustace. +</p> + +<p> +“Your fiancée?” +</p> + +<p> +“The girl I’m engaged to. Didn’t I tell you about that? Yes, +I’m engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace sighed heavily. +</p> + +<p> +“I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I tell you her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Curious! I must have forgotten.” He hummed an airy strain as he +blackened the tip of his nose. “It’s rather a curious coincidence, +really. Her name is Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“She may be a relation.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. Of course, girls do have relations.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is her first name?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is another rather remarkable thing. It’s Wilhelmina.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called +Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“What colour is her hair?” demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow +voice. “Her hair! What colour is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, you +might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it Titian....” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind what I might call it. Is it red?” +</p> + +<p> +“Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put +it to me like that, it <i>is</i> red.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, like +a kitten with a ball of wool?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Yes, she has.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam,” he said, “can you bear a shock?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have a dash at it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brace up!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry +<i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry, of course, and all that,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t apologise to <i>me!</i>” said Eustace. “My poor +old chap, my only feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest +pity.” He reached out and pressed Sam’s hand. “I regard you +as a toad beneath the harrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose that’s one way of offering congratulations and +cheery good wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And on top of that,” went on Eustace, deeply moved, “you +have got to sing at the ship’s concert.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t I sing at the ship’s concert?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that +you can’t sing. You can’t sing for nuts! I don’t want to +discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can’t have forgotten what an +ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against +it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you on that occasion, +though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam started. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it you who threw that bit of butter?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, it’s seven years ago. You would have had to send it to +the wash anyhow by this time. But don’t let us brood on the past. Let us +put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible +situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit +of the evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“The hit of the evening! You! Singing!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to sing. I’m going to do that imitation of +Frank Tinney which I did at the Trinity smoker. You haven’t forgotten +that? You were at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. +What a riot I was—we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you +don’t feel well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could +do it without a rehearsal. You remember how it went.... ‘Hullo, +Ernest!’ ‘Hullo, Frank!’ Why not come along?” +</p> + +<p> +“The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor +that does not heave and wobble under me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! The boat’s as steady as a rock now. The sea’s like +a mill-pond.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow +Mortimer. We’ve been rehearsing all the afternoon, and he seems to have +the hang of the thing. But he won’t be really right. He has no pep, no +vim. Still, if you won’t ... well, I think I’ll be getting along to +his state-room. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal.” +</p> + +<p> +The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave +himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his +cousin’s sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina +Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud on +the rocks. +</p> + +<p> +His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Sam rushed in. +Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too much burnt cork on his +cousin’s face to allow of any real registering of emotion, but he could +tell from his manner that all was not well. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam sank down on the lounge. +</p> + +<p> +“The bounder has quit!” +</p> + +<p> +“The bounder? What bounder?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom +thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really deserving +of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the act! He has left +me flat! I went into his state-room just now, as arranged, and the man was +lying on his bunk, groaning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t that! He’s perfectly fit. But it seems that the +silly ass took it into his head to propose to Billie just before +dinner—apparently he’s loved her for years in a silent, +self-effacing way—and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, +and the thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down +at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. He +says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer. I hope it +chokes him!” +</p> + +<p> +“But this is splendid! This lets you out.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? Lets me out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, now you won’t be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for +this in years to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t I appear! Won’t I dashed well appear! Do you think +I’m going to disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would +rather die.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can’t appear without a pianist.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a pianist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears +like water-wings.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I know him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you do. He’s you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s impossible. I gave you +my views on the subject just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve altered them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you soon will, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t get +up out of that damned berth you’ve been roosting in all your life, +I’m going to ring for J. B. Midgeley and I’m going to tell him to +bring me a bit of dinner in here and I’m going to eat it before your +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve had dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork +chop....” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Stop!” +</p> + +<p> +“A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage,” repeated +Sam firmly. “And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now how do we +go?” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t do that!” said Eustace piteously. +</p> + +<p> +“I would and will.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shouldn’t be any good at the piano. I’ve forgotten how +the thing used to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t done anything of the kind. I come in and say +‘Hullo, Ernest!’ and you say ‘Hullo, Frank!’ and then +you help me tell the story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps there is some child on board....” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We’ve done it together +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, honestly, I really don’t think ... it isn’t as +if....” +</p> + +<p> +Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Stop!” cried Eustace Hignett. “I’ll do +it!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam withdrew his finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” he said. “We’ve just got time for a rehearsal +while you’re dressing. ‘Hullo, Ernest!’” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Hullo, Frank,’” said Eustace Hignett brokenly as he +searched for his unfamiliar trousers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +SCENE AT A SHIP’S CONCERT</h2> + +<p> +Ships’ concerts are given in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and +Widows, and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel +that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a +chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They open with +a long speech from the master of the ceremonies—so long, as a rule, that +it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards that enables the +audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the amateur talent is unleashed, +and the grim work begins. +</p> + +<p> +It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and recuperation +that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was scheduled to appear. +Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in the quiet saloon. The +lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his threat and spoken at great length +on a subject which, treated by a master of oratory, would have palled on the +audience after ten or fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this +speaker had only just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively +through the shrimps. “The Rosary” had been sung and there was an +uneasy doubt as to whether it was not going to be sung again after the +interval—the latest rumour being that the second of the rival lady +singers had proved adamant to all appeals and intended to fight the thing out +on the lines she had originally chosen if they put her in irons. +</p> + +<p> +A young man had recited “Gunga Din” and, wilfully misinterpreting +the gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had +followed it with “Fuzzy-Wuzzy.” His sister—these things run +in families—had sung “My Little Gray Home in the +West”—rather sombrely, for she had wanted to sing “The +Rosary,” and, with the same obtuseness which characterised her brother, +had come back and rendered plantation songs. The audience was now examining its +programmes in the interval of silence in order to ascertain the duration of the +sentence still remaining unexpired. +</p> + +<p> +It was shocked to read the following:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe. +</p> + +<p> +All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in their +seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like a knell! Many +of these people were old travellers and their minds went back wincingly, as one +recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when performers at ships’ concerts +had imitated whole strings of Dickens’ characters or, with the assistance +of a few hats and a little false hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, +Bismarck, Shakespeare, and other of the famous dead. In this printed line on +the programme there was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the +imitation which this S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only +sit and wait and hope that it would be short. +</p> + +<p> +There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and took +his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The more +pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of those +imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do occasionally add +to the horrors of ships’ concerts. They stared at Hignett apprehensively. +There seemed to be something ominous in the man’s very aspect. His face +was very pale and set, the face of one approaching a task at which his humanity +shudders. They could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due +entirely to the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of +an ocean liner produce in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, +yet well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a great +many people have recently been eating a great many meals. A few beads of cold +perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett’s brow. He looked straight +before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of the Sahara. +</p> + +<p> +So tense was Eustace’s concentration that he did not see Billie Bennett, +seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a little thrill of +embarrassment. She wished that she had been content with one of the seats at +the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the front row. She always had a +front-row seat at witch dances in Africa, and the thing had become a habit. +</p> + +<p> +In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up her +fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was staring +eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of Eustace. Under her +breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in one of the lesser-known +dialects of Northern Nigeria. +</p> + +<p> +“Billie!” she whispered sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>is</i> the matter, Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Billie. “His name is +Hignett. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the man I met on the Subway!” She breathed a sigh. +“Poor little fellow, how miserable he looks!” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling +himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing +chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the +saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively +with the feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they had looked +for. +</p> + +<p> +The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a grisly +black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It advanced +towards them, smoking a cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Ernest,” it said. +</p> + +<p> +And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. Dead +silence reigned in the saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Ernest!” +</p> + +<p> +Those nearest the piano—and nobody more quickly than Jane +Hubbard—now observed that the white face of the man on the stool had +grown whiter still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He +looked like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised +with him. They felt like that, too. +</p> + +<p> +In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little miscalculation +which just makes all the difference. A moment’s thought should have told +Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the essential properties to +any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney; but he had completely overlooked the +fact. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have +affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at +it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young +cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. +His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea +fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then +with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for the +deck. +</p> + +<p> +There was a rustle at Billie’s side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed +him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and piteous, at +the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in his moment of +anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that was best and +manliest in her nature. Thrusting aside with one sweep of her powerful arm a +steward who happened to be between her and the door, she raced in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin’s dash for the open with a +consternation so complete that his senses seemed to have left him. A general, +deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt something akin to +his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney +is the one which can least easily be carried through single-handed. The man at +the piano, the leader of the orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of +the entertainment. Without him, nothing can be done. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of the +saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed +through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and +Widows. +</p> + +<p> +The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed to them +to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which renders amateur +imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen many amateur imitations, +but never one as short as this. The saloon echoed with their applause. +</p> + +<p> +It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled for +refuge to his state-room and was lying in the lower berth, chewing the pillow, +a soul in torment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +SUNDERED HEARTS</h2> + +<p> +There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count of time. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a note for you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of the +White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body of men in +the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star steward, waking you +up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is ready, when you wanted to sleep +on till twelve, is the nearest human approach to the nightingale. +</p> + +<p> +“A what?” +</p> + +<p> +“A note, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took the note +from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in an orderly +manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a thrill. He had never +seen the handwriting before, but, with the eye of love, he recognised it. It +was just the sort of hand he would have expected Billie to write, round and +smooth and flowing, the writing of a warm-hearted girl. He tore open the +envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little disappointed. I +don’t know if you see anything wrong with the letter, but the way Sam +looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it might have been longer and +perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running any risk of writer’s cramp, +she might have signed it. +</p> + +<p> +However, these were small matters. No doubt the dear girl had been in a hurry +and so forth. The important point was that he was going to see her. When a +man’s afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a cheering sight to +see; and the same truth holds good when a man has made an exhibition of himself +at a ship’s concert. A woman’s gentle sympathy, that was what +Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else at the moment. That, he felt, was +what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed the burnt cork off his face with all +possible speed and changed his clothes and made his way to the upper deck. It +was like Billie, he felt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would +be deserted and it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations. +</p> + +<p> +She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was quite +full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea, making it +look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The girl appeared to +be wrapped in thought and it was not till the sharp crack of Sam’s head +against an overhanging stanchion announced his approach, that she turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is that you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t an easy job,” explained Sam, “getting all +that burnt cork off. You’ve no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to +use butter....” +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I did. You have to with burnt cork.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tell me these horrible things.” Her voice rose almost +hysterically. “I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned again +as long as I live.” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel exactly the same.” Sam moved to her side. +“Darling,” he said in a low voice, “it was like you to ask me +to meet you here. I know what you were thinking. You thought that I should need +sympathy. You wanted to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold me in +your arms and tell me that, as we loved each other, what did anything else +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you didn’t? I thought you did!” He looked at her +wistfully. “I thought,” he said, “that possibly you might +have wished to comfort me. I have been through a great strain. I have had a +shock....” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about me?” she demanded passionately. +“Haven’t I had a shock?” +</p> + +<p> +He melted at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all +about it.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked away from him, her face working. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were +the perfect knight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you said it was a perfect night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said I thought <i>you</i> were the perfect knight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ah!” +</p> + +<p> +A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a sort of +raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about for a moment, and +went away again. Sailors earn their money easily. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Sam when he had gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I forget what I was saying.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something about my being the perfect knight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I thought you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not!” +</p> + +<p> +“No?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not understand her +mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and comforted and she was like a +petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled some lines of poetry which he had had +to write out a hundred times on one occasion at school as a punishment for +having introduced a white mouse into chapel. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, woman, in our hours of ease,<br /> +Un-something, something, something, please.<br /> +When tiddly-umpty umpty brow,<br /> +A something something something thou!” +</p> + +<p> +He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that Woman, +however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be relied on to +rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble. How little the poet +had known woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” he said huffily. +</p> + +<p> +She gave a little sob. +</p> + +<p> +“I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have +blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again without +picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and helpless....” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You could have done <i>something!</i>” The words she had spoken +only yesterday to Jane Hubbard came back to her. “I can’t forgive a +man for looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what,” she cried, “induced +you to try to give an imitation of Bert Williams?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam started, stung to the quick. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how was I to know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did my best,” said Sam sullenly. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the awful thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did it for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt.” She shuddered +again. Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a +small black golliwog into his hand. “Take it!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this?” +</p> + +<p> +“You bought it for me yesterday at the barber’s shop. It is the +only present which you have given me. Take it back.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want it. I shouldn’t know what to do with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must take it,” she said in a low voice. “It is a +symbol.” +</p> + +<p> +“A what?” +</p> + +<p> +“A symbol of our broken love.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see how you make that out. It’s a golliwog.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can never marry you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Good heavens! Don’t be absurd.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go on, have a dash at it,” he said encouragingly, though his +heart was sinking. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hang it all!” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t. I’m a very strange girl....” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a very silly girl....” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what right you have to say that,” she flared. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what right you have to say you can’t marry me +and try to load me up with golliwogs,” he retorted with equal heat. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, can’t you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m dashed if I can.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him despondently. +</p> + +<p> +“When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me +for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to shut my +eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail that morning. +Now—” her voice trembled “—if I shut my eyes now, I can +only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing stock of +the ship. How could I marry you, haunted by that picture?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, good heavens, you talk as though I made a habit of blacking up! You +talk as though you expected me to come to the altar smothered in burnt +cork.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night.” She looked at +him sadly. “There’s a bit of black still on your left ear.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if struck. +</p> + +<p> +“So this is the end,” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It’s partly on your ear and partly on your cheek.” +</p> + +<p> +“So this is the end,” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more +butter.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I might have expected it. I might have known what would happen! +Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women—as I do now. Women! +What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was’t betrayed the +what’s-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... +who—er—and so on? A woman.... So all is over! There is nothing to +be said but good-bye?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” said Billie sadly. “I—I’m +sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You do understand, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have made everything perfectly clear.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope—I hope you won’t be unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unhappy!” Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the +cry of a shrimp in pain. “Unhappy! Ha! ha! I’m not unhappy! +Whatever gave you that idea? I’m smiling! I’m laughing! I feel +I’ve had a merciful escape. Oh, ha, ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very unkind and rude of you to say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called +‘Saved from the Scaffold.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on +earth does any man want to get married for? I don’t. Give me my gay +bachelor life! My Uncle Charlie used to say ‘It’s better luck to +get married than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.’ But <i>he</i> +was a man who always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And +good-bye—for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven the moon +still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken bravely; the most +captious critic could not but have admitted that he had made a good exit. But +already his heart was aching. +</p> + +<p> +As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a high +tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor,<br /> + Though his lance be sharrrp and—er keen;<br /> +But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour<br /> + Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen:<br /> +I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour....” +</p> + +<p> +Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be alive +was bad—he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing about, +a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he should be singing was an +outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead +of which, here he was comporting himself like a blasted linnet. It was all +wrong. The man could have no conscience whatever. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said sternly, “so there you are!” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief interval which +had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary transformation had +taken place in this young man. His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were +bright. His face wore that beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in +pictures advertising certain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett +had been a full-page drawing in a magazine with “My dear fellow, I always +wear Sigsbee’s Super-fine Featherweight!” printed underneath him, +he could not have looked more pleased with himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” he said. “I was wondering where you had got +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Sam coldly, “where I had got to! Where did +you get to and why? You poor, miserable worm,” he went on in a burst of +generous indignation, “what have you to say for yourself? What do you +mean by dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?” +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn’t foreseen the cigar. I was bearing +up tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed to go +black—I don’t mean you, of course. You were black already—and +I got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, why didn’t you?” demanded Sam with a strong sense of +injury. “I might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find +you singing....” +</p> + +<p> +A soft light came into Eustace Hignett’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to tell you all about that,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the most astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call +it. Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was on +the Subway in New York....” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York in the +order named. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear chap, what is the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter? Ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“Something is the matter,” persisted Eustace Hignett. “I can +tell it by your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know +you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha, ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“You surely can’t still be brooding on that concert business? Why, +that’s all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most +colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things cannot +affect one permanently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my +engagement is broken off.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the finest +thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle words. As one who +has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak feelingly. You are well out of +it, Sam.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched it +eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +“My heart is broken,” he said with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I +know. I’ve been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she? +A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!” +</p> + +<p> +“She is nothing of the kind,” said Sam, revolted. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said Eustace firmly, “I speak as an expert. I +know her and I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic behaviour, +I have lost her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak of the only girl in the world,” said Eustace blithely. +“If you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A +week ago I was on the Subway in New York....” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to bed,” said Sam brusquely. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll tell you while you’re undressing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“A week ago,” said Eustace Hignett, “I will ask you to +picture me seated after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I +got into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the elephant +gun. +</p> + +<p> +“She was my soul-mate,” proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. +“I didn’t know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown +eyes, a wonderful personality, and this elephant gun.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she shoot you with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“The girl must have been a fool!” said Sam bitterly. “The +chance of a lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant +gun, and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a +hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nourishing soup out of mangoes, and what +to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how she soothed my +aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at the moment—quite +unnecessarily if I had only known—because it was only a couple of days +since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been broken off. Well, we parted +at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it may seem, I forgot all about +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do it again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell it again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” said Eustace Hignett gravely, “could make me do +that. Our souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their +deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner ... +saying ‘You are mine!’ How could I forget her after that? Well, as +I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very +boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck....” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you writhe?” asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest. +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly did!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good!” +</p> + +<p> +“But not for long.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s bad!” +</p> + +<p> +“She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Switch off the light when you’ve finished.” +</p> + +<p> +“She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are +some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with a +mixture of some description in a glass. I don’t know what it was. It had +Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it. She said it +was what she always used in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, +believe me or believe me not ... are you asleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely +freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was walking +the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able to look over the +side from time to time and comment on the beauty of the moon on the water.... I +have said some mordant things about women since I came on board this boat. I +withdraw them unreservedly. They still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, +but I have ceased to include the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has +restored my faith in Woman. Sam! Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile on his +face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken only by the +distant purring of the engines. +</p> + +<p> +At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it now?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me she +once killed a panther with a hat-pin.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress. +</p> + +<p> +Silence fell again. +</p> + +<p> +“At least I think it was a panther,” said Eustace Hignett at a +quarter past one. “Either a panther or a puma.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +A week after the liner “Atlantic” had docked at Southampton Sam +Marlowe might have been observed—and was observed by various of the +residents—sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising +watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on the south +coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am aware that by +saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the others—none are +so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte on the Bingley esplanade +is several degrees more depressing than the asphalte on other esplanades. The +Swiss waiters at the Hotel Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class +of bungling incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other +Swiss waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For +dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves that break +on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if it revolted them +to have to come to such a place. +</p> + +<p> +Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with all the +rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week at breezy, +blighted Bingley? +</p> + +<p> +Simply because he had been disappointed in love. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an +unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males behave in +the same way under the spur of female fickleness. <i>Archilochum</i>, for +instance, according to the Roman writer, <i>proprio rabies armavit iambo</i>. +It is no good pretending out of politeness that you know what that means, so I +will translate. <i>Rabies</i>—his +grouch—<i>armavit</i>—armed—<i>Archilochum</i>— +Archilochus—<i>iambo</i>—with the +iambic—<i>proprio</i>—his own invention. In other words, when the +poet Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he consoled +himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in a new metre which +he had thought up immediately after leaving the house. That was the way the +thing affected him. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper that John +Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an officer while in +the discharge of his duty, at the same time using profane language whereby the +officer went in fear of his life. Constable Riggs deposed that on the evening +of the eleventh instant while he was on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, +after offering to fight him for fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it +at his head. Accused, questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and +expressed regret, pleading that he had had words with his young woman, and it +had upset him. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought relief by +slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the +same spirit which has often moved other men in similar circumstances to go off +to the Rockies to shoot grizzlies. +</p> + +<p> +To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any rate, the +service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off it. His heart +still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and seeing his father, which +of course he ought to have done seven days before. +</p> + +<p> +He rose from his bench—he had sat down on it directly after +breakfast—and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour +later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the door of +his father’s office. +</p> + +<p> +The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow +and Appleby are in Ridgeway’s Inn, not far from Fleet Street. The brass +plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading. Reading it, you get +the impression that on the other side quite a covey of lawyers await your +arrival. The name of the firm leads you to suppose that there will be barely +standing-room in the office. You picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes +for Prescott to discuss with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and +Appleby treading on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these +legal firms dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a +Prescott, there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you are down +to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of Marlowe, +Thorpe—what I said before—was, at the time with which this story +deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the firm and father +of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that ilk; and the outer +office, where callers were received and parked till Sir Mallaby could find time +for them, was occupied by a single clerk. +</p> + +<p> +When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on a high +stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an +extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of Sam he +laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a particularly +successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye which gave him a +truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him knew that he had a heart of +gold and were not intimidated by his repellent face. Between Sam and himself +there had always existed terms of great cordiality, starting from the time when +the former was a small boy and it had been John Peters’ mission to take +him now to the Zoo, now to the train back to school. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Samuel!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Peters!” +</p> + +<p> +“We were expecting you back a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I had something to see to before I came to town,” said Sam +carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“So you got back safe!” said John Peters. +</p> + +<p> +“Safe! Why, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +Peters shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I +sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall mentioning it +to the young lady who recently did me the honour to promise to become my +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ocean liners aren’t often wrecked nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America’s a dangerous +country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said John Peters significantly. +</p> + +<p> +He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and replaced +it on the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth are you doing with that thing?” asked Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters lowered his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to America myself in a few days’ time, Mr. Samuel. +It’s my annual holiday, and the guv’nor’s sending me over +with papers in connection with The People <i>v.</i> Schultz and Bowen. +It’s a big case over there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an +American gentleman. I am to take these important papers to his legal +representative in New York. So I thought it best to be prepared.” +</p> + +<p> +The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks flitted +across Sam’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?” he asked. +“It’s safer than London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but what about the Underworld? I’ve seen these American films +that they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see ‘Wolves of the +Bowery?’ There was a man in that in just my position, carrying important +papers, and what they didn’t try to do to him! No, I’m taking no +chances, Mr. Samuel!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters seemed wounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very fair +shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and practise at the +Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You’d be surprised how +quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I try how quickly I can +draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, Mr. Samuel. If you’d +ever seen a film called ‘Two-Gun-Thomas,’ you’d realise that. +You haven’t time to wait loitering about.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go +right in, Mr. Samuel?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into the +attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable stenographer, +replies to his morning mail. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a +bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London’s best tailor, and +his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his +buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His +sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="smcap">Dear Sirs</span>,—We are in receipt of your +favour and in reply beg to state that nothing will induce us ... will induce us +... where did I put that letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell +’em to go to blazes, Miss Milliken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, Sir Mallaby.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What +infernal names these people have. <span class="smcap">Sirs</span>,—On +behalf of our client ... oh, hullo, Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take a seat. I’m busy, but I’ll be finished in a moment. +Where was I, Miss Milliken?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘On behalf of our client....’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where these +people get their names I’m hanged if I know. Your poor mother wanted to +call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the ’nineties when +you were born, children were frequently christened Hyacinth. Well, I saved you +from that.” +</p> + +<p> +His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember that the +latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had not seen him for +many weeks. He inspected him with interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Very glad you’re back, Sam. So you didn’t win?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I got beaten in the semi-finals.” +</p> + +<p> +“American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you were +weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You’ll have to rub up your +putting before next year.” +</p> + +<p> +At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could appeal to +his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as if Dante had +recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his mind by knitting +jumpers. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you seem to be in great spirits,” said Sir Mallaby +approvingly. “It’s pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. +Isn’t it, Miss Milliken?” +</p> + +<p> +“Extremely exhilarating,” agreed the stenographer, adjusting her +spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass that +morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy satisfaction, how +remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these people seemed to imagine +that he was in the highest spirits. His laughter, which had sounded to him like +the wailing of a demon, struck Miss Milliken as exhilarating. +</p> + +<p> +“On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw,” said Sir +Mallaby, swooping back to duty once more, “we beg to state that we are +prepared to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“I landed nearly a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why +haven’t I seen you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wrestling with myself,” said Sam with simple dignity. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby’s agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was +answering. +</p> + +<p> +“We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to +be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn’t all athletics. Don’t +forget that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit when +called upon to recite. +</p> + +<p> +“Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust thou +art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and time is +fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are +beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great men all remind us we can +make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footsteps on the sands +of Time. Let us then ...” said Miss Milliken respectfully, ... “be +up and doing....” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, all right, all right!” said Sir Mallaby. “I +don’t want it all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to +you about that when I’ve finished answering these letters. Where was I? +‘We should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an +appointment....’ Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why +Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate while you were about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my +mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk about +in the distance like some baffled beast....” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir +Mallaby’s attention had returned to the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what’s the good of answering the dashed thing at all?” +said Sir Mallaby. “Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well +that they’ve got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than +Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, +Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them in +verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he comes to me +and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him for ten +thousand.” +</p> + +<p> +“How like a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir Mallaby took +no notice of it whatever. +</p> + +<p> +“... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter +without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. Miss +Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a conference and +can see nobody for half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of the period +which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring silently at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you’re back, Sam,” he said at length. +“I want to have a talk with you. You know, it’s time you were +settling down. I’ve been thinking about you while you were in America and +I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been letting you drift along. +Very bad for a young man. You’re getting on. I don’t say +you’re senile, but you’re not twenty-one any longer, and at your +age I was working like a beaver. You’ve got to remember that life +is—dash it! I’ve forgotten it again.” He broke off and puffed +vigorously into the speaking tube. “Miss Milliken, kindly repeat what you +were saying just now about life.... Yes, yes, that’s enough!” He +put down the instrument. “Yes, life is real, life is earnest,” he +said, gazing at Sam seriously, “and the grave is not our goal. Lives of +great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. In fact, it’s time +you took your coat off and started work.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite ready, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t hear what I said,” exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a +look of surprise. “I said it was time you began work.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I said I was quite ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless my soul! You’ve changed your views a trifle since I saw you +last.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have changed them altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the Hotel +Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange, even morbid, +attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided, was the only medicine +for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet office, far from the tumult and +noise of the world, in a haven of torts and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. +3’s, and all the rest of it, he might find peace. At any rate, it was +worth taking a stab at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Your trip has done you good,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. +“The sea air has given you some sense. I’m glad of it. It makes it +easier for me to say something else that I’ve had on my mind for a good +while. Sam, it’s time you got married.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Swallow some smoke the wrong way?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was laughing,” explained Sam with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you +to approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good, Sam. +It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I was two years +younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and it was the making of +me. A wife might make something of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why she shouldn’t. There’s lots of good in +you, my boy, though you may not think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I said it was impossible,” said Sam coldly, “I was +referring to the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was +impossible that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. +My heart is dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your what?” +</p> + +<p> +“My heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a fool. There’s nothing wrong with your heart. All +our family have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a +sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a +way that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women do +not exist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t tell me about this,” said Sir Mallaby, +interested. “When did this happen? Did she jilt you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“In America, was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the boat.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear boy, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re taking a +shipboard flirtation seriously? Why, you’re expected to fall in love with +a different girl every time you go on a voyage. You’ll get over this in a +week. You’d have got over it by now if you hadn’t gone and buried +yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea.” +</p> + +<p> +The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument to his +ear. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he turned to Sam. “I shall have to send you away +now, Sam. Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything +to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that? Well, +come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don’t be late.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken intercepted +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m dining with him to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then would you—I don’t like to disturb him now, when he is +busy—would you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza? It +runs,” said Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, “‘Trust no +future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act, in +the living present, Heart within and God o’erhead!’ Thank you so +much. Good afternoon.” +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +Sam, reaching Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by the butler +who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be down in a few +minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe family, who, if he had not +actually dandled Sam on his knees when an infant, had known him as a small boy, +was delighted to see him again. +</p> + +<p> +“Missed you very much, Mr. Samuel, we all have,” he said +affectionately, as he preceded him to the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Sam absently. +</p> + +<p> +“Very much indeed, sir. I happened to remark only the other day that the +place didn’t seem the same without your happy laugh. It’s good to +see you back once more, looking so well and merry.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam stalked into the drawing-room with the feeling that comes to all of us from +time to time, that it is hopeless to struggle. The whole damned circle of his +acquaintance seemed to have made up their minds that he had not a care in the +world, so what was the use? He lowered himself into a deep arm-chair and lit a +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the butler reappeared with a cocktail on a tray. Sam drained it, and +scarcely had the door closed behind the old retainer when an abrupt change came +over the whole outlook. It was as if he had been a pianola and somebody had +inserted a new record. Looking well and happy! He blew a smoke ring. Well, if +it came to that, why not? Why shouldn’t he look well and happy? What had +he got to worry about? He was a young man, fit and strong, in the springtide of +life, just about to plunge into an absorbing business. Why should he brood over +a sentimental episode which had ended a little unfortunately? He would never +see the girl again. If anything in this world was certain, that was. She would +go her way, and he his. Samuel Marlowe rose from his chair a new man, to greet +his father, who came in at that moment fingering a snowy white tie. +</p> + +<p> +Sam started at his parent’s splendour in some consternation. +</p> + +<p> +“Great Scot, father! Are you expecting a lot of people? I thought we were +dining alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, my boy. A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. +We shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine and +his daughter, a friend of my friend’s friend and my friend’s +friend’s son.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely that’s more than six!” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounded more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Six,” said Sir Mallaby firmly. He raised a shapely hand with the +fingers outspread. “Count ’em for yourself.” He twiddled his +thumb. “Number one—Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” cried Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Bennett. Rufus Bennett. He’s an American over here for the summer. +Haven’t I ever mentioned his name to you? He’s a great fellow. +Always thinking he’s at death’s door, but keeps up a fine appetite. +I’ve been his legal representative in London for years. +Then—” Sir Mallaby twiddled his first +finger—“there’s his daughter Wilhelmina, who has just arrived +in England.” A look of enthusiasm came into Sir Mallaby’s face. +“Sam, my boy, I don’t intend to say a word about Miss Wilhelmina +Bennett, because I think there’s nothing more prejudicial than singing a +person’s praises in advance. I merely remark that I fancy you will +appreciate her! I’ve only met her once, and then only for a few minutes, +but what I say is, if there’s a girl living who’s likely to make +you forget whatever fool of a woman you may be fancying yourself in love with +at the moment, that girl is Wilhelmina Bennett! The others are Bennett’s +friend, Henry Mortimer, also an American—a big lawyer, I believe, on the +other side—and his son Bream. I haven’t met either of them. They +ought to be here any moment now.” He looked at his watch. “Ah! I +think that was the front door. Yes, I can hear them on the stairs.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +After the first shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his +father’s harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of +the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one thing the +which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the toy of Fate. He +chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out for him. Fate, thought +Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy, sentimental, five-reel film scenario, and +without consulting him had had the cool cheek to cast him for one of the +puppets. He seemed to see Fate as a thin female with a soppy expression and +pince-nez, sniffing a little as she worked the thing out. He could picture her +glutinous satisfaction as she re-read her scenario and gloated over its +sure-fire qualities. There was not a flaw in the construction. It started off +splendidly with a romantic meeting, had ’em guessing half-way through +when the hero and heroine quarrelled and parted—apparently for ever, and +now the stage was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out on the +embrace. To bring this last scene about, Fate had had to permit herself a +slight coincidence, but she did not jib at that. What we call coincidences are +merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck in a plot and has to invent the next +situation in a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him shamefully and he +wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had had his wish, he would +never have met her again. Fate, in her interfering way, had forced this meeting +on him and was now complacently looking to him to behave in a suitable manner. +Well, he would show her! In a few seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting. +He would be distant and polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would chill her +to the bone, and rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers. +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty, headed +the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose buttons seemed +to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him trotted a small, thin, +pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and carried his nose raised and +puckered as though some faintly unpleasant smell were troubling his nostrils. +The fourth member of the party was dear old Bream. +</p> + +<p> +There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and then +Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right wing +outstretched. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, hello!” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, Mortimer?” said Sam coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“What, do you know my son?” exclaimed Sir Mallaby. +</p> + +<p> +“Came over in the boat together,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Old friends, eh? Miss +Bennett,” he turned to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late +fiancé, “let me present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss +Bennett.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do?” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Bennett, you’ve never met my son, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the appearance of +a rather unusually stout prawn. +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>are</i> you?” he asked, with such intensity that Sam +unconsciously found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule +call for any answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. “You are lucky to be able to say so! +Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the last +fifteen years I have not known what it is to enjoy sound health for a single +day. Marlowe,” he proceeded, swinging ponderously round on Sir Mallaby +like a liner turning in the river, “I assure you that at twenty-five +minutes past four this afternoon I was very nearly convinced that I should have +to call you up on the ’phone and cancel this dinner engagement. When I +took my temperature at twenty minutes to six....” At this point the +butler appeared at the door announcing that dinner was served. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s dinner table, which, like most of the furniture in +the house had belonged to his deceased father and had been built at a period +when people liked things big and solid, was a good deal too spacious to be +really ideal for a small party. A white sea of linen separated each diner from +the diner opposite and created a forced intimacy with the person seated next to +him. Billie Bennett and Sam Marlowe, as a consequence, found themselves, if not +exactly in a solitude of their own, at least sufficiently cut off from their +kind to make silence between them impossible. Westward, Mr. Mortimer had +engaged Sir Mallaby in a discussion on the recent case of Ouseley <i>v.</i> +Ouseley, Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too complicated +to explain here, presented points of considerable interest to the legal mind. +To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the more striking of his recent +symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make at least an attempt at conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“How strange meeting you here,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Sam, who had been crumbling bread in an easy and debonair manner, looked up and +met her eye. Its expression was one of cheerful friendliness. He could not see +his own eye, but he imagined and hoped that it was cold and forbidding, like +the surface of some bottomless mountain tarn. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said, how strange meeting you here. I never dreamed Sir Mallaby was +your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it all along,” said Sam, and there was an interval caused +by the maid insinuating herself between them and collecting his soup plate. He +sipped sherry and felt a sombre self-satisfaction. He had, he considered, given +the conversation the right tone from the start. Cool and distant. Out of the +corner of his eye he saw Billie bite her lip. He turned to her again. Now that +he had definitely established the fact that he and she were strangers, meeting +by chance at a dinner-party, he was in a position to go on talking. +</p> + +<p> +“And how do you like England, Miss Bennett?” +</p> + +<p> +Billie’s eye had lost its cheerful friendliness. A somewhat feline +expression had taken its place. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty well,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the way I look at it is this. It’s no use grumbling. One has +got to realise that in England one is in a savage country, and one should +simply be thankful one isn’t eaten by the natives.” +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you call England a savage country?” demanded Sam, a +staunch patriot, deeply stung. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you call a country where you can’t get ice, central +heating, corn-on-the-cob, or bathrooms? My father and Mr. Mortimer have just +taken a house down on the coast and there’s just one niggly little +bathroom in the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that your only reason for condemning England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, it has other drawbacks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such as?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Englishmen, for instance. Young Englishmen in particular. English +young men are awful! Idle, rude, conceited, and ridiculous.” +</p> + +<p> +Marlowe refused hock with a bitter intensity which nearly startled the old +retainer, who had just offered it to him, into dropping the decanter. +</p> + +<p> +“How many English young men have you met?” +</p> + +<p> +Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. “Well, now that I come to think +of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact, only....” +</p> + +<p> +“Only?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, very few,” said Billie. “Yes,” she said +meditatively, “I suppose I really have been rather unjust. I should not +have condemned a class simply because ... I mean, I suppose there <i>are</i> +young Englishmen who are not rude and ridiculous?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose there are American girls who have hearts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, plenty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll believe that when I meet one.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was +developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, all noted +for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his chair, eyeing him +reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was becoming raw. It was time to +jerk the interchange of thought back into the realm of distant civility. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I +told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will enjoy that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer’s son Bream will be there. +That will be nice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said Sam, backsliding. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>He</i> isn’t rude and ridiculous, eh?” said Sam gruffly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural +dignity,” she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the +heir of the Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett’s medical confidences a +trifle fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass on +a fork. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, “we are +engaged to be married!” +</p> + +<h3>§ 3</h3> + +<p> +Sam didn’t care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse +into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the +news—just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment, +and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping the stem +in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but that was all. +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens, Sam!” ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine +glasses were an old and valued set. +</p> + +<p> +Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth. +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry, father! Don’t know how it happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something must have given you a shock,” suggested Billie kindly. +</p> + +<p> +The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was just +about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host, suddenly +became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on whose dreamy calm +the accident had made no impression whatever, had successfully established the +equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and was now cautiously inserting beneath +the latter a section of a roll, the whole forming a charming picture in still +life. +</p> + +<p> +“If that glass is in your way....” said Sir Mallaby as soon as he +had hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was +beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this dinner-party +with a mere remnant of his precious set. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Sir Mallaby,” said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the +juggler, “you needn’t be afraid that Bream will drop it. <i>He</i> +isn’t clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I +think it’s so splendid,” said Billie, “when men can do things +like that. I’m always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for +people, but he’s so modest, he won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Refreshingly different,” Sir Mallaby considered, “from the +average drawing-room entertainer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Billie emphatically. “I think the most terrible +thing in the world is a man who tries to entertain when he can’t. Did I +tell you about the man on board ship, father, at the ship’s concert? Oh, +it was the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about +it!” She beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish +gaiety in her voice. “This man got up to do an imitation of +somebody—nobody knows to this day who it was meant to be—and he +came into the saloon and directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He +just stood there gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve +failed him altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He +absolutely ran! And he hadn’t said a word! It was the most ridiculous +exhibition I’ve ever seen!” +</p> + +<p> +The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority in any +audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was one in the +present case. But the bulk of the company roared with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean,” cried Sir Mallaby, choking, “the poor idiot +just stood there dumb?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he made a sort of yammering noise,” said Billie, “but +that only made him look sillier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deuced good!” chuckled Sir Mallaby. +</p> + +<p> +“Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!” gurgled Mr. Bennett, +swallowing a digestive capsule. +</p> + +<p> +“May have been half-witted,” suggested Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change the +conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. “We have +at last succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her +house for the summer.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“Windles! You don’t mean to tell me that my sister has let you have +Windles!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the +summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your nephew, +young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just coming round to +see me about that very thing. To cut a long story short, he said that it would +be all right and that we could have the house.” Mr. Mortimer took a sip +of burgundy. “He’s a curious boy, young Hignett. Very nervous in +his manner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chronic dyspepsia,” said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, “I can +tell it at a glance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?” asked Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go. +Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and compact +and comfortable and very picturesque.” +</p> + +<p> +“We do not require a large place,” said Mr. Mortimer. “We +shall be quite a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream....” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget,” said Billie, “that you have promised to +invite Jane Hubbard down there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes. Wilhelmina’s friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That +will be all, except young Hignett himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hignett!” cried Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hignett!” exclaimed Billie. +</p> + +<p> +There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke again, and +for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen but present, above +the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at Billie; Billie turned a shade +pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream started nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer +seemed robbed for a moment of his legal calm. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot to tell you that,” he said. “Yes, one of the +stipulations—to which I personally was perfectly willing to +agree—was that Eustace Hignett was to remain on the premises during our +tenancy. Such a clause in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, +had the circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal +to say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn’t get it except +by agreeing, so I agreed. I’m sure you will think that I acted rightly, +Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, “I certainly did want +that house....” +</p> + +<p> +“And we couldn’t have had it otherwise,” said Mr. Mortimer, +“so that is all there is to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it need make no difference to you,” said Sir Mallaby. +“I am sure you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even +be an entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With that +and the juggling of our friend here and my sister’s late husband’s +orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during the +evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?” said Sir Mallaby, on whom +his son’s silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Sam, and returned to the silence once more. +</p> + +<p> +“The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. +It’s a thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall,” +continued Sir Mallaby. “How you stop it, I don’t know. When I was +down there last it never seemed to stop. You mustn’t miss the +orchestrion!” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly shall,” said Mr. Bennett decidedly. “Music of +that description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my +nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune.” +</p> + +<p> +“So is the orchestrion,” said Sir Mallaby. “I remember once +when I was down there....” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby,” said Mr. +Mortimer, “during our occupancy of the house. And you, too,” he +said, addressing Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” said Sam frigidly, “that my time will be very +much occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much,” he added, +after a moment’s pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam’s going to work,” said Sir Mallaby. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Sam with dark determination. “Work is the only +thing in life that matters!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come, Sam!” said Sir Mallaby. “At your age I used to +think love was fairly important, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“Love!” said Sam. He jabbed at his soufflé with a spoon. You +could see by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love. +</p> + +<h3>§ 4</h3> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a silence +which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and he and Sam were +alone together. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam,” he said, “do you know what I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. “I’ve been +turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come to is +that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye. I’ve +known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn’t in that +woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about letting her +house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to know my opinion, I +am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let the place to these people +without her knowledge, and intends to pocket the cheque and not say a word +about it. What do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” said Sam absently. +</p> + +<p> +“I said, what do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do I think about what?” +</p> + +<p> +“About Eustace Hignett and Windles.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about them?” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby regarded him disapprovingly. “I’m hanged if I know +what’s the matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your +brain and left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn’t a word to say for +yourself all through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And with that +delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have thought you infernally +dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good being sorry now. The mischief’s done. She has +gone away thinking you an idiot. Do you realise,” said Sir Mallaby +warmly, “that when she told that extremely funny story about the man who +made such a fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the +table who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of +humour!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam rose. “I think I’ll be going,” he said. “Good +night!” +</p> + +<p> +A man can bear just so much. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /> +TROUBLE AT WINDLES</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles, looking +out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and artificial charms +which had made the place so desirable to him when he first beheld them. +Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted blooms, pressed against +the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond, separated from these by a gravel +pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green and silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford +colleges, stretched to a picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold +altogether from the eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the +lake that lay behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white +suggestion of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the drive as +it swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment of a ruined +castle reared itself against a background of firs. +</p> + +<p> +It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had definitely +captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He could not have +believed that the time would ever come when he could gaze on it without any +lightening of the spirits. +</p> + +<p> +The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the flower +beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle, Mr. Bennett was +also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen since breakfast. This +was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first day it had rained all the +time. The second day it had rained from eight till twelve-fifteen, from +twelve-thirty till four, and from five till eleven. And on this, the third day, +there had been no intermission longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. +Even the writers in the daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that +England had seen finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country +of warmth and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the early +days of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled resentment had +given place to a despair too militant to be called resignation. And with the +despair had come a strong distaste for his fellow human beings, notably and in +particular his old friend Mr. Mortimer, who at this moment broke impatiently in +on his meditations. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Bennett. It’s your deal. It’s no good looking at +the rain. Looking at it won’t stop it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mortimer’s nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as partner +he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against Bream and Billie. +He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to do. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through the +operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed from +beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled his legs +round his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I have fourteen cards,” said Mr. Mortimer. “That’s the +third time you’ve mis-dealt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care how many cards you’ve got!” said Mr. +Bennett with heat. “That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover and, +sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog, handicapped +by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder seemed the mildest of +the desires that lay behind that rugged countenance. As a matter of fact, what +he wanted was cake. His name was Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just +before leaving London to serve the establishment as a watch-dog. +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t hurt you,” said Mr. Mortimer carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“You keep saying that!” replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. “How +do you know? He’s a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you +were buying him, I would have had something to say about it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am within +my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, Wilhelmina +has.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith,” said +Billie. “I’ve seen them playing together.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He disliked +everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a faint paternal +fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He disliked Bream, and +regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, though for years such an +engagement had been his dearest desire. He disliked Jane Hubbard, now out +walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett. And he disliked Eustace. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the others. He +resented the young man’s presence in the house; and he resented the fact +that, being in the house, he should go about, pale and haggard, as though he +were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had the most violent objection to +associating with people who looked as though they were sickening for something. +</p> + +<p> +He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a +frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch on the +dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten. Taking a second +look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to this unusual hour, he +suddenly became aware of something bright and yellow resting beside the watch, +and paused, transfixed, like Robinson Crusoe staring at the footprint in the +sand. If he had not been in England, he would have said that it was a patch of +sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a traveller +in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages. It was not till he +had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a garden full of brightness and +warmth and singing birds that he definitely permitted himself to accept the +situation. +</p> + +<p> +It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great bottle +full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay. Mr. Bennett rang +the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a grave, thin, +intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more respectable. This +was Webster, Mr. Bennett’s valet. He carried in one hand a small mug of +hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of jewellery. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, Webster,” said Mr. Bennett. “Rather late, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is,” replied Webster precisely, “a little late, sir. I +would have awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett’s +opinion that a rest would do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett’s sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want in +this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter? +</p> + +<p> +“She did, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already breakfasted, +she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer into Southampton in +the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama hat.” +</p> + +<p> +“A panama hat!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“A panama hat, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett’s feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine +day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer in a +panama hat. Providence was spoiling him. +</p> + +<p> +The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually walking +backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr. Bennett, having +decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to shave himself. +</p> + +<p> +Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay his white +flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He drew them out, and +as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him from a corner of the drawer. +His salmon-coloured bathing-suit. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after all, why +not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere fifty yards away. +What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas, and climbed into the +bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun on a foggy day, he emerged +from the house and picked his way with gingerly steps across the smooth surface +of the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying a +yesterday’s bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He drank +in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent excavations +had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett, and moved gladly +towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he remembered his friends +principally by their respective bouquets, so he cantered silently across the +turf to take a sniff at him. He was half-way across the lawn when some of the +mud which he had inhaled when burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused +to cough. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up his pink +feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a momentary pause of +surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly. This man, he felt, was +evidently one of the right sort, a merry playfellow. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and falter, when +he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that ancient castle which had +so attracted him on his first visit. On that occasion, it had made merely an +aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he saw in a flash that its practical +merits also were of a sterling order. He swerved sharply, took the base of the +edifice in his stride, clutched at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, +and, just as his pursuer arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a +ledge, where he sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The bulldog Smith, +gazed up at him expectantly. The game was a new one to Smith, but it seemed to +have possibilities. He was a dog who was always perfectly willing to try +anything once. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of calling for +assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects, some winged, some +without wings but—through Nature’s wonderful law of +compensation—equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun to +fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him as if he +were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples down his neck, +and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And then, first dropping +like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then swishing down in a steady +flood, it began to rain again. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this point that Mr. Bennett’s manly spirit broke and time +ceased to exist for him. +</p> + +<p> +Aeons later, a voice spoke from below. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing beneath +him, gazing up from under a tam o’shanter cap. Smith, the bulldog, +gambolled about her shapely feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever are you doing up there?” said Jane. “I say, do you +know if the car has come back?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. It has not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to go to the doctor’s. Poor little Mr. Hignett is +ill. Oh, well, I’ll have to walk. Come along, Smith!” She turned +towards the drive, Smith caracoling at her side. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was, transfixed. That +sinister word “ill” held him like a spell. Eustace Hignett was ill! +He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening for something, confound +him! +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with him?” bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane +Hubbard’s retreating back. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” queried Jane, stopping. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with Hignett?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it infectious?” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great Heavens!” cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself +cautiously to the ground, squelched across the dripping grass. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the barometer +with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door of a friendly +monarch. +</p> + +<p> +“A sharp downpour, sir,” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been in the house all the time?” demanded Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you hear me shouting?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did fancy I heard something, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why the devil didn’t you come to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this +locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have sometimes +wondered,” said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train of thought, +“whether that might be the reason of the name.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into which he +had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel outside, and the +wettest motor car in England drew up at the front door. +</p> + +<h3>§ 3</h3> + +<p> +From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and the rain +had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the poor protection +of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward journey. For the last ten +miles Mr. Mortimer had been nursing a sullen hatred for all created things; +and, when entering the house, he came upon Mr. Bennett hopping about in the +hall, endeavouring to detain him and tell him some long and uninteresting +story, his venom concentrated itself upon his erstwhile friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, get out of the way!” he snapped, shaking off the other’s +hand. “Can’t you see I’m wet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wet! Wet!” Mr. Bennett’s voice quivered with self-pity. +“So am I wet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Father dear,” said Billie reprovingly, “you really +oughtn’t to have come into the house after bathing without drying +yourself. You’ll spoil the carpet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve <i>not</i> been bathing! I’m trying to tell +you....” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the +tail-end of the party. “Been having a jolly bathe?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe against the +leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the arms of Webster, +who had been preparing to drift off to the servants’ hall. Linked +together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a movement which suggested in +equal parts the careless vigour of the cake-walk and the grace of the +old-fashioned mazurka. +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil are you doing, you fool?” cried Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week’s +notice,” replied Webster calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I +cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go to blazes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has +been handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to +intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Mortimer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what <i>is</i> it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s it been doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up on +that damned castle the whole of the morning!” +</p> + +<p> +“Father darling,” interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the +stairs, “you mustn’t get excited. You know it’s bad for you. +I don’t expect poor old Smith meant any harm,” she added +pacifically, as she disappeared in the direction of the landing. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he didn’t,” snapped Mr. Mortimer. +“He’s as quiet as a lamb.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had +to run like a hare!” +</p> + +<p> +The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and childlike, +was not proof against the picture thus conjured up. +</p> + +<p> +“C’k!” giggled Bream helplessly. “C’k, c’k, +c’k!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett turned on him. “Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well, +let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me +with—with—er—with one hand and—and—marry my +daughter with the other, you’re wrong! You can consider your engagement +at an end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mortimer!” bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he +was about to mount the stairs. “Do you or do you not intend to destroy +that dog?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I insist on your doing so. He is a menace.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn’t even bite +you once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce +<i>v.</i> Bayliss covers that point thoroughly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss....” +</p> + +<p> +“You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent.” +</p> + +<p> +There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the angriest +man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with a lawyer, as if +he were in the coils of a python. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Mr. Bennett....” began Bream at his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out!” snarled Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but, say...!” +</p> + +<p> +The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Webster, “but luncheon will be +served within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change +of costume.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room,” said Mr. Bennett. +“I am going to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, say, Mr. Bennett....” resumed Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Grrh!” replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up +the stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the main +body. +</p> + +<h3>§ 4</h3> + +<p> +Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of +sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not lightened by a +bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of travail. There were +lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters had made him the talk of three +New York clubs. He was feeling a little happier when Billie came in to see how +he was getting on. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection. +“There was nothing wrong with the lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment of +lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip of his +tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to cause him the +most acute mental distress which he had ever known. +</p> + +<p> +“The lunch,” said Mr. Bennett, “was excellent. +Lobsters!” He licked his lips appreciatively. +</p> + +<p> +“And, talking of lobsters,” he went on, “I suppose that boy +Bream has told you that I have broken off your engagement?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem very upset,” said Mr. Bennett, who was in the +mood for a dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve become a fatalist on the subject of my +engagements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything.” Billie gazed +wistfully at the counterpane. “Do you know, father, I’m beginning +to think that I’m rather impulsive. I wish I didn’t do silly things +in such a hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. +You took ten years to make up your mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not thinking of Bream. Another man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young +Hignett?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I was +thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his surprising +daughter. His head was beginning to swim. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I’ve misunderstood you,” he said. +“There’s a catch somewhere and I haven’t seen it. But for a +moment you gave me the impression that you had promised to marry some man on +the boat!” +</p> + +<p> +“I did!” +</p> + +<p> +“But...!” Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. “Do you +mean to tell me,” he demanded, having brought out the answer to his +satisfaction, “do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to three +men in three weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Billie in a small voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Great Godfrey! Er——?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, only three.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort. +</p> + +<p> +“The trouble is,” continued Billie, “one does things and +doesn’t know how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an +awful lot of thinking afterwards, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m doing a lot of thinking now,” said Mr. Bennett with +austerity. “You oughtn’t to be allowed to go around loose!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it doesn’t matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall +never love anyone again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tell me you are still in love with this boat man?” +</p> + +<p> +Billie nodded miserably. “I didn’t realise it till we came down +here. But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had +thrown away my life’s happiness. It was as if I had been offered a +wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice reproaching me and +saying, ‘You have had your chance. It will never come +again!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk nonsense!” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an exclamation. +The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory. “What’s +young Hignett got wrong with him?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Mumps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!” Mr. Bennett quailed. +“I’ve never had mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is +awful!... Oh, heavens! Why did I ever come to this lazar-house!” cried +Mr. Bennett, shaken to his depths. +</p> + +<p> +“There isn’t the slightest danger, father, dear. Don’t be +silly. If I were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after +this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sleep! If I only could!” said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes +after the door had closed. +</p> + +<p> +He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was wrong. He +had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at the head of a +military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he sat up in bed, blinking +in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the band seemed to be playing still. +There was undeniably music in the air. The room was full of it. It seemed to be +coming up through the floor and rolling about in chunks all round his bed. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and became +filled with a restless irritability. There was only one instrument in the house +which could create this infernal din—the orchestrion in the drawing-room, +immediately above which, he recalled, his room was situated. +</p> + +<p> +He rang the bell for Webster. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mr. Mortimer playing that—that damned gas-engine in the +drawing-room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. Tosti’s ‘Good-bye.’ A charming air, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go and tell him to stop it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The music still +continued to roll about the room. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to have to inform you, sir,” said Webster, “that +Mr. Mortimer declines to accede to your request.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he said that, did he?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the gist of his remarks, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!” +</p> + +<p> +Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to the +kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the guv’nor was +not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would put his money in the +forthcoming struggle on Consul, the Almost-Human—by which affectionate +nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was generally alluded to in the servants’ +hall. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his former +friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full dozen feet away +from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out its dirge on the passing +of Summer. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you turn that infernal thing off!” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, now, now!” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on her +face. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t have this, you know!” said Jane Hubbard. +“You’re disturbing my patient.” +</p> + +<p> +She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with a firm +finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the middle of a bar. +Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and closed it behind her. +</p> + +<p> +The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the vanquished. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what about it!” he said, ungenerously. +</p> + +<p> +“Interfering girl!” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. +“I’ve a good mind to start it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare you!” whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of +his vanished childhood. “Go on! I dare you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve a perfect legal right.... Oh well,” he said, +“there are lots of other things I can do!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind!” said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind. +</p> + +<p> +He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, rang for +Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to go to London,” he said, when she appeared. “I +must have legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him +that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering himself +behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can’t get at him. Ask Sir +Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can’t come himself, tell him to +send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows anything about +the business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sure he does!” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!” said Billie hastily. +“He looks so clever!” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t notice it myself. Well, he’ll do, if Sir +Mallaby’s too busy to come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that +you can see him first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the +Savoy. I’ve sent Webster to look out a train.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a splendid train in about an hour. I’ll take +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s giving you a lot of trouble,” said Mr. Bennett, with +belated consideration. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>no!</i>” said Billie. “I’m only too glad to be +able to do this for you, father dear!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT</h2> + +<p> +The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett’s tongue at +twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at half-past +eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out his candle and +endeavoured to compose himself for a night’s slumber. Its unconscious +host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He had a vague feeling that +the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but his mind was too engrossed with +the task of keeping a look-out for the preliminary symptoms of mumps to have +leisure to bestow much attention on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused +was not sufficient to keep him awake, and presently he turned on his side and +began to fill the room with a rhythmical snoring. +</p> + +<p> +How pleasant if one could leave him so—the good man taking his rest. +Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett’s +side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we are +compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything is all wrong. +It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first discern nothing; then, as +we grow accustomed to the blackness, we perceive him sitting bolt upright in +bed, staring glassily before him, while with the first finger of his right hand +he touches apprehensively the tip of his protruding tongue. +</p> + +<p> +At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle—one of the charms of Windles +was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system—and we are enabled to +get a better view of him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first beads of a +chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible for a man of his +complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as he could. Panic gripped +him. A man whose favourite reading was medical encyclopædias, he needed +no doctor to tell him that this was the end. Fate had dealt him a knockout +blow; his number was up; and in a very short while now people would be speaking +of him in the past tense and saying what a pity it all was. +</p> + +<p> +A man in Mr. Bennett’s position experiences strange emotions, and many of +them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the cost of white +paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an analysis of the +unfortunate man’s reflections and be glad of the chance. It is +sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there was no stint. Whatever +are the emotions of a man in such a position, Mr. Bennett had them. He had them +all, one after another, some of them twice. He went right through the list from +soup to nuts, until finally he reached remorse. And, having reached remorse, he +allowed that to monopolise him. +</p> + +<p> +In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had +frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would not have +been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and, if he was going +to be remorseful about anything, he might well have started by being remorseful +about that. But it was on his most immediate past that his wistful mind +lingered. He had quarrelled with his lifelong friend, Henry Mortimer. He had +broken off his daughter’s engagement with a deserving young man. He had +spoken harsh words to his faithful valet. The more Mr. Bennett examined his +conduct, the deeper the iron entered into his soul. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He could +make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the most suitable +time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too remorseful to think of that. Do +It Now had ever been his motto, so he started by ringing the bell for Webster. +</p> + +<p> +The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of dilating on +Mr. Bennett’s emotions would find a congenial task in describing the +valet’s thought-processes when the bell roused him from a refreshing +sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the time he entered his +employer’s room he was his own calm self again. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, sir,” he remarked equably. “I fear that it +will be the matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not +aware,” said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting, +“that you intended rising so early.” +</p> + +<p> +“Webster,” said Mr. Bennett, “I’m a dying man!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“A dying man!” repeated Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the scene. +</p> + +<p> +“Webster,” he said, “this morning we had an unfortunate +misunderstanding. I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t mention it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have +stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!” said Mr. Bennett, who had +half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the family for +years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a little less than a +month ago. “Through thick and thin!” repeated Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to reward you, Webster.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take my trousers!” +</p> + +<p> +Webster raised a deprecating hand. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn’t really! You will +need them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take my trousers,” repeated Mr. Bennett, “and feel in the +right-hand pocket. There is some money there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I’m very much obliged, sir,” said Webster, +beginning for the first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked +upon the treasure-hunt. “The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and +threepence, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. +There had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and his +yearning soul resented it. “Why, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer’s room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage, on +the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely obliged. I +will bring you your shaving-water when you ring.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed, put on +his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage. +</p> + +<p> +In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on +crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been to +notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had collared +the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no sound as Mr. Bennett +approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of the candle fell on the back +of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was sleeping with his face buried in the +pillow. It cannot have been good for him, but that was what he was doing. From +the portion of the pillow in which his face was buried strange gurgles +proceeded, like the distant rumble of an approaching train on the Underground. +</p> + +<p> +“Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on again. +</p> + +<p> +“Henry!” said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the +small of the back. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave it on the mat,” mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and +uncovering one corner of his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt like a +man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to him. He nudged +the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer made a noise like a +gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly for a moment, then sat up, +staring at the candle. +</p> + +<p> +“Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back +again. He had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean, rabbits?” said Mr. Bennett sharply. +</p> + +<p> +The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already entering +a tunnel. +</p> + +<p> +“Much too pink!” he murmured as the pillow engulfed him. +</p> + +<p> +What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot say. +Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired, for it is +weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above his slumbering +friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the candle and fell into Mr. +Mortimer’s exposed ear. The sleeper wakened. +</p> + +<p> +“What? What? What?” he exclaimed, bounding up. “Who’s +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s me—Rufus,” said Mr. Bennett. “Henry, +I’m dying!” +</p> + +<p> +“Drying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dying!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him again. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn,” he muttered. “But too +pink! Much too pink!” +</p> + +<p> +And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation and that +no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the pillow again. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett’s sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was +strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once more, +but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain, as if somebody +had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him of his situation. A +dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping candle-grease into people’s +ears. After all, it was perhaps a little late, and there would be plenty of +time to become reconciled to Mr. Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek +out Bream and bring him the glad news of his renewed engagement. +</p> + +<p> +He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream’s bedroom, he +knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle quietly, and +went in. Having done this, he coughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Drop that pistol!” said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, +with quiet severity. “I’ve got you covered!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have been a nice +point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery that he had got +into the wrong room, and that room a lady’s, or by the fact that the lady +whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to be a small cannon at him +over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a matter of fact, a cannon but the +elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard carried with her everywhere—a +girl’s best friend. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young lady!” he gasped. +</p> + +<p> +On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her tent +with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without making +inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused her to utter a +challenge on this occasion, she could not have said. Probably it was due to the +enervating effects of civilisation. She was glad now that she had done so, for, +being awake and in full possession of her faculties, she perceived that the +intruder, whoever he was, had no evil intentions. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how to apologise!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right! Let’s have a light.” A match flared +in the darkness. Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with +quiet curiosity. “Walking in your sleep?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so loud! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. He’s next door. +That’s why I took this room, in case he was restless in the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see Bream Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want +to see him about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I don’t suppose he’ll mind being woken up to hear +that. But what’s the idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long story.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right. Let’s make a night of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute +pain....” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but without +excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“What nonsense!” she said at the conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you....” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to bet it’s nothing serious at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Bennett, piqued. “I have +devoted a considerable part of my life to medical study....” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. That’s the trouble. People oughtn’t to be allowed to +read medical books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we need not discuss it,” said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He +resented being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff +of his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. “I will +leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer.” He clung to a hope that +Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. “Good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“But wait a moment!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard irritated +him. +</p> + +<p> +His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was fulfilled. +It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber almost as deep as his +father’s; but, once roused, he showed a gratifying appreciation of the +gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of his visitor’s news competed with +consternation and sympathy at the other half. He thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, +showed a fitting concern on learning of his terrible situation, and evinced a +practical desire to help by offering him a bottle of liniment which he had +found useful for gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. +Bennett withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something +approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost reached the +landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling voice from the doorway +of Miss Hubbard’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here!” said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, +and looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to have a look at that tongue of yours,” said Jane +firmly. “It’s my opinion that you’re making a lot of fuss +over nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a dressing-gown can, +but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had turned and gone into her +room. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in here,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note of calm +command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself for his weakness +in obeying. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down!” said Jane Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table. +</p> + +<p> +“Put your tongue out!” she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her +strange influence, lowered himself on to the stool. “Further out! +That’s right. Keep it like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ouch!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make such a noise! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down +again!” +</p> + +<p> +“I....” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding the +needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it desperately. +</p> + +<p> +“Baby!” said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. “Why, I once sewed +eighteen stitches in a native bearer’s head, and he didn’t make +half the fuss you’re making. Now, keep quite still.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett did—for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped from +his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality of the fair +surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was a subdued one. He +was just about to speak—he had framed the opening words of a strong +protest—when suddenly he became aware of something in his mouth, +something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as it lay on his +finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at the same time he +became conscious of a marked improvement in the state of his tongue. The +swelling had gone. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you so!” said Jane Hubbard placidly. “What is +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It—it appears to be a piece of....” +</p> + +<p> +“Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he wanted to +sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. He restrained the +impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his was too strong to keep +bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about it. He needed a confidant. +</p> + +<p> +Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell, sighed +resignedly and made his way downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ring, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Webster,” cried Mr. Bennett, “it’s all right! +I’m not dying after all! I’m not dying after all, Webster!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir,” said Webster. “Will there be anything +further?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS</h2> + +<p> +“That’s right!” said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. “Work while +you’re young, Sam, work while you’re young.” He regarded his +son’s bent head with affectionate approval. “What’s the book +to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence,” said Sam, without looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Highly improving and as +interesting as a novel—some novels. There’s a splendid bit on, I +think, page two hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about +Copyhold and Customary Estates. It’s a wonderfully powerful situation. It +appears—but I won’t spoil it for you. Mind you don’t skip to +see how it all comes out in the end!” Sir Mallaby suspended conversation +while he addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of +his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his +weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a +violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. “Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of +overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way, Sam.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients +will be coming in and asking for advice, and you’ll find yourself in +difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You’d +better lock the outer door.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff +reading. He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which—as of +course you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll have to be going. See you later, Sam.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and twining his +fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation to his grappling +with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was an even one, then +gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam’s mind, numbed by constant +batterings against the stony ramparts of legal phraseology, weakened, faltered, +and dropped away; and a moment later his thoughts, as so often happened when he +was alone, darted off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby’s dinner-table, Sam had told +himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that she +had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not +believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had +never succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It +was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than ever, +because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred +and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the grey despair +which is the almost inseparable companion of young men in his position. +</p> + +<p> +So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light footstep +in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a tap on the door +of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the fact that clients were in +his midst. He wished that he had taken his father’s advice and locked up +the office. Probably this was some frightful bore who wanted to make his +infernal will or something, and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination +to assist him. +</p> + +<p> +Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the blighter +might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened the door and peeped +in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He dropped silently to the floor +and concealed himself under the desk. Napoleon was always doing that sort of +thing. +</p> + +<p> +There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened. Sam, +crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him that he was +going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He felt he had acted +just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had +to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and +about eighteen inches of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible +to all who entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning,” said a voice. +</p> + +<p> +Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was the +voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking hours. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?” asked Billie, addressing the boots. +</p> + +<p> +Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise. +</p> + +<p> +“Dropped my pen,” he mumbled, as he rose to the surface. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He +stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit down, +and seated himself at the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Dropped my pen!” he gurgled again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Fountain-pen,” babbled Sam, “with a broad nib.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“A broad <i>gold</i> nib,” went on Sam, with the painful exactitude +which comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication. +</p> + +<p> +“Really?” said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely +that this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly occurred +to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his struggle with +Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle more composed. The old +fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to assert itself to some extent. He +must make an effort to appear as little of a fool as possible in this +girl’s eyes. And what eyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright +planets in.... +</p> + +<p> +However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat and +became cold and business-like,—the dry young lawyer. +</p> + +<p> +“Er—how do you do, Miss Bennett?” he said with a question in +his voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this +performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some +snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. “Miss Bennett, +I believe?” +</p> + +<p> +The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to this +office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, to sob on her +soul-mate’s shoulder and generally make everything up; but at this inane +exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts—which was fully as +militant as that of the Marlowes—became roused. She told herself that she +had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved this man. She was a proud +girl and refused to admit herself capable of loving any man who looked at her +as if she was something that the cat had brought in. She drew herself up +stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she replied. “How clever of you to remember me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a good memory.” +</p> + +<p> +“How nice! So have I!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel casually +about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring furtively at her +profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought condition, and the thumping +of his heart sounded to him as if workmen were mending the street outside. How +beautiful she looked, with that red hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... +However! +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked in the sort of voice +Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with bushy +eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath. +Cannot I act as his substitute?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything about the law?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I know anything about the law!” echoed Sam, amazed. “Do I +know——! Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when +you came in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, were you?” said Billie, interested. “Do you always read +on the floor?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you I dropped my pen,” said Sam coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“And of course you couldn’t read without that! Well, as a matter of +fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi—what you said.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the +law in all its branches.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion when +you wanted to get to sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“The orchestrion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H’m!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“You still haven’t made it quite clear,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if you want to <i>think!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me the facts,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the +country....” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew that.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>What</i> a memory you have!” said Billie kindly. “Well, +for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing +everything he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father +wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think—I’m not quite sure—I think that’s a +tort,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“A what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Either a tort or a malfeasance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you do know something about it after all!” cried Billie, +startled into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and +the sight of her quick smile Sam’s professional composure reeled on its +foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and babbling +of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection came to him that +this girl had once said that she considered him ridiculous. If he let himself +go, would she not continue to think him ridiculous? He sagged back into his +seat; and at that moment there came another tap on the door which, opening, +revealed the sinister face of the holiday-making Peters. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Mr. Samuel,” said Jno. Peters. “Good morning, +Miss Milliken. Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he had taken +at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that the junior partner +was engaged on a business conference. He left behind him a momentary silence. +</p> + +<p> +“What a horrible-looking man!” said Billie, breaking it with a +little gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first +sight. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon?” said Sam absently. +</p> + +<p> +“What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!” +</p> + +<p> +For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of his +Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, Mr. Peters, +whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his trip to America, +would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it suggested a great deal. He +had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute he sat tingling under its impact. +He was not a young man who often had brain-waves, and, when they came, they +made him rather dizzy. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” asked Billie. “He seemed to know you? And +who,” she demanded after a slight pause, “is Miss Milliken?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam drew a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather a sad story,” he said. “His name is John +Peters. He used to be clerk here.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he isn’t any longer?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” Sam shook his head. “We had to get rid of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wonder. A man looking like that....” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t that so much,” said Sam. “The thing that +annoyed father was that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie uttered a cry of horror. +</p> + +<p> +“He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!” +</p> + +<p> +“He <i>did</i> shoot her—the third time,” said Sam, warming +to his work. “Only in the arm, fortunately,” he added. “But +my father is rather a stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we +couldn’t keep him after that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” +</p> + +<p> +“She used to be my father’s stenographer, and she was thrown a good +deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with her. +She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. Peters is a man +of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to understand that his +love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at +Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely +distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had +no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that +... well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good +clerk. Still, it wouldn’t do. It wasn’t only that he tried to shoot +Miss Milliken. The thing became an obsession with him, and we found that he had +a fixed idea that every red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl +who had deceived him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so +fashionable now-a-days.” +</p> + +<p> +“My hair is red!” whispered Billie pallidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as Miss +Milliken’s. It’s rather fortunate that I happened to be here with +you when he came.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he may be lurking out there still!” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect he is,” said Sam carelessly. “Yes, I suppose he is. +Would you like me to go and send him away? All right.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—but is it safe?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam uttered a light laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind taking a risk or two for your sake,” he said, +and sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed him +with worshipping eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself for the +more comfortable perusal of the copy of <i>Home Whispers</i> which he had +brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being too busy to +see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the series of chats with +Young Mothers. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Peters,” said Sam. “Want anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say +good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up all the +week. I have to go down to the country to get some final instructions from the +client whose important papers I am taking over. I’m sorry to have missed +your father, Mr. Samuel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, this is his golf day. I’ll tell him you looked in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything I can do before I go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—”—Jno. Peters coughed tactfully—“I +see that you are engaged with a client, Mr. Samuel, and I was wondering if any +little point of law had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite +capable of coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that lady,” said Sam. “That was Miss Milliken’s +sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed? I didn’t know Miss Milliken had a sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“No?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“She is not very like her in appearance.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright, +intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you came +in, and she was most interested. It’s a pity you haven’t got it +with you now, to show to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I have it! I have, Mr. Samuel!” said Peters, opening a +small handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a +tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. “I was on my way to +the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to show it to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, wait here a minute or two,” said Sam. “I’ll have +finished talking business in a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +He returned to the inner office. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” cried Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? Oh, he’s gone,” said Sam. “I persuaded him to go +away. He was a little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we +were talking about. You say....” He broke off with an exclamation, and +glanced at his watch. “Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I +promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next court. He +wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with one of his +clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you spare me for a short +while? I shan’t be more than ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here is something you may care to look at while I’m gone. I +don’t know if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most +interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his <i>Home Whispers</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“You can go in now,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam took up the copy of <i>Home Whispers</i> and sat down with his feet on the +desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis. +</p> + +<p> +In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment offered by +Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office, looking at the +portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be the Thorpes, +Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the contents-bill outside, was +surprised to hear the door open at her back. She had not expected Sam to return +so instantaneously. +</p> + +<p> +Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of repellent +aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one of those men who, +once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a cruel, cunning +smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself was under the +impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent simper; and in his hand +he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a motion-picture studio. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, Miss Milliken?” he said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +SHOCKS ALL ROUND</h2> + +<p> +Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the late Mr. +Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that one hopes it did +not do him justice. She now shrank back against this wall, as if she were +trying to get through it. The edge of the portrait’s frame tilted her hat +out of the straight, but in this supreme moment she did not even notice it. +</p> + +<p> +“Er—how do you do?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said that she +spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though it was +considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency. It had ebbed out +of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had seen this sort of thing in +the movies—there was one series of pictures, “The Dangers of +Diana,” where something of the kind had happened to the heroine in every +reel—but she had not anticipated that it would ever happen to her; and +consequently she had not thought out any plan for coping with such a situation. +A grave error. In this world one should be prepared for everything, or where is +one? +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve brought the revolver,” said Mr. Peters. +</p> + +<p> +“So—so I see!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather a shy +man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her being interested +in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl. +</p> + +<p> +“I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range,” he +said. “Then I thought I might as well look in here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose—I suppose you’re a good shot?” quavered +Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“I seldom miss,” said Jno. Peters. +</p> + +<p> +Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this maniac in +conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in time to save her, +she essayed further small-talk. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s—it’s very ugly!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” said Mr. Peters, hurt. +</p> + +<p> +Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing. +</p> + +<p> +“Very deadly-looking, I meant,” she corrected herself hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken,” said Mr. Peters. +</p> + +<p> +Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of +immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the +deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the other sex. +After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, as his first act +was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, Billie became conscious of +a faint stirring of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“The great thing,” said Jno. Peters, “is to learn to draw +quickly. Like this!” he added producing the revolver with something of +the smoothness and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen +Bream Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. “Everything +depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is +vital.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try to +convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his <i>idée +fixe</i>, that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and +might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was imperative that +she should humour him. And, while she was humouring him, it suddenly occurred +to her, why not do it thoroughly? +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Peters,” she cried, “you are quite mistaken!” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity. +“Nothing of the kind!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are!” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential....” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been misinformed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range,” +said Mr. Peters stiffly. “And if you have ever seen a picture called +‘Two-Gun Thomas’....” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Peters,” cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim +with his meaningless ravings. “Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to a +man at Ealing West!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed for some +reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but many women, he was +aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could not at the moment think of +any of his feminine acquaintances who <i>were</i> married to men at Ealing +West. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” he said politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you believe me?” exclaimed Billie wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly, certainly,” said Jno. Peters. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” said Billie. “I’m not even engaged! +It’s all been a terrible mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and different +subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving at, there is +bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at this point Jno. +Peters, though still not wholly equal to the intellectual pressure of the +conversation, began to see a faint shimmer of light behind the clouds. In a +nebulous kind of way he began to understand that the girl had come to consult +the firm about a breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had +been trifling with her heart—hardened lawyer’s clerk as he was, +that poignant cry “I’m not even engaged!” had touched Mr. +Peters—and she wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his +depth again. He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book. +</p> + +<p> +“I should be glad to hear the facts,” he said with professional +courtesy. “In the absence of the guv’nor....” +</p> + +<p> +“I have told you the facts!” +</p> + +<p> +“This man at Ealing West,” said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of +his pencil, “he wrote you letters proposing marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate,” said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, “he +made love to you before witnesses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at +Ealing West!” +</p> + +<p> +It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to entertain +serious doubts of the girl’s mental balance. The most elementary +acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were any number of men +at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a sane woman have made an +assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and he was glad that he had the +revolver with him. She had done nothing as yet actively violent, but it was +nice to feel prepared. He took it out and laid it nonchalantly in his lap. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her hands, +in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card. +</p> + +<p> +“I love <i>you!</i>” she cried. She wished she could have +remembered his first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In +such a moment she could hardly call him “Mr. Peters.” “You +are the only man I love.” +</p> + +<p> +“My gracious goodness!” ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over +backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected declaration +was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He blushed violently. +And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he could not check a certain +thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he really is, but Jno. Peters had +always come fairly near to a correct estimate of his charms, and it had always +seemed to him, that, in inducing his fiancée to accept him, he had gone +some. He now began to wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap +after all. There must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring +devotion like this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual +conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl was mad. +That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge towards the door. +Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought to be warned. +</p> + +<p> +“So that’s all right, isn’t it!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite, quite!” said Mr. Peters. “Er—Thank you very +much!” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you would be pleased,” said Billie, relieved but +puzzled. For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he +seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a strenuous +scene. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a great compliment!” Mr. Peters assured her. +</p> + +<p> +At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment when it +had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the instalment of the +serial story in <i>Home Whispers</i>, and, looking at his watch, he fancied +that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for events to have matured along +the lines which his imagination had indicated. +</p> + +<p> +The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little strained. +Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather agitated, too. Sam +caught Billie’s eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it. He gave an +imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who understood all and +was prepared to handle the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Peters,” he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand +on the clerk’s arm. “It’s time that you went.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see you out,” said Sam soothingly, and led him through +the outer office and on to the landing outside. “Well, good luck, +Peters,” he said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. “I hope +you have a pleasant trip. Why, what’s the matter? You seem upset.” +</p> + +<p> +“That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think—really, she cannot be quite +right in her head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Sam firmly. “She’s all +right! Well, good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Mr. Samuel.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you say you were sailing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of +seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see this +gentleman down in the country....” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. Then we’ll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you +have a good time in America. I’ll tell my father you called.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his way back +to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair which Jno. Peters +had occupied. She sprang to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he really gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He’s gone this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was he—was he violent?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little,” said Sam. “A little. But I calmed him +down.” He looked at her gravely. “Thank God I was in time!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!” cried Billie, and, +burying her face in her hands, burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there!” said Sam. “There, there! Come, come! +It’s all right now! There, there, there!” +</p> + +<p> +He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted her +hands. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there, there!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed page. I +have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be as an open book. +And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will by now have become aware +that he was a young man with the gall of an Army mule. His conscience, if he +had ever had one, had become atrophied through long disuse. He had given this +sensitive girl the worst fright she had had since a mouse had got into her +bedroom at school. He had caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street +range making low, bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was +the fact that he had erased for ever from Billie’s mind that undignified +picture of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another +which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was the fact +that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him to kiss her for +the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would have said that he had +acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh good, or some sickening thing +like that. That was the sort of man Samuel Marlowe was. +</p> + +<p> +His face was very close to Billie’s, who had cheered up wonderfully by +this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into her ear, +when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Great Godfrey!” exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene +from this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet +face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had become +slightly soluble. “Great Heavens above! Number four!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with one hand +on the desk, while with the other he still plied the handkerchief on his +over-heated face. Much had occurred to disturb him this morning. On top of a +broken night he had had an affecting reconciliation scene with Mr. Mortimer, at +the conclusion of which he had decided to take the first train to London in the +hope of intercepting Billie before she reached Sir Mallaby’s office on +her mission of war. The local train-service kept such indecently early hours +that he had been compelled to bolt his breakfast, and, in the absence of +Billie, the only member of the household who knew how to drive the car, to walk +to the station, a distance of nearly two miles, the last hundred yards of which +he had covered at a rapid gallop, under the erroneous impression that an +express whose smoke he had seen in the distance was the train he had come to +catch. Arrived on the platform, he had had a trying wait, followed by a slow +journey to Waterloo. The cab which he had taken at Waterloo had kept him in a +lively state of apprehension all the way to the Savoy, owing to an apparent +desire to climb over motor-omnibuses when it could not get round them. At the +Savoy he found that Billie had already left, which had involved another voyage +through the London traffic under the auspices of a driver who appeared to be +either blind or desirous of committing suicide. He had three flights of stairs +to negotiate. And, finally, arriving at the office, he had found his daughter +in the circumstances already described. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, father!” said Billie. “I didn’t expect +you.” +</p> + +<p> +As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been considered +sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it inadequate and would +have said so, had he had enough breath. This physical limitation caused him to +remain speechless and to do the best he could in the way of stern fatherly +reproof by puffing like a seal after a long dive in search of fish. +</p> + +<p> +Having done this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards him with +outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the calmest +person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He did not in so +many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck which had befallen +him, but he tried to make him understand by his manner that he was distinctly +to be envied as the prospective father-in-law of such a one as himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bennett,” said Sam. “You +could not have come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things +are. There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, Mr. +Bennett, and you have found a son!” +</p> + +<p> +And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it more +cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you talking about?” said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. +“I haven’t got a son.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining +years....” +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil do you mean, my declining years?” demanded Mr. +Bennett with asperity. +</p> + +<p> +“He means when they do decline, father dear,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course,” said Sam. “When they do decline. Not +till then, of course. I wouldn’t dream of it. But, once they do decline, +count on me! And I should like to say for my part,” he went on +handsomely, “what an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man +like Mr. Bennett. Bennett of New York!” he added spaciously, not so much +because he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that +he did not, but because it sounded well. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Mr. Bennett. “You do, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly earned +a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his newly-discovered son. It was +not the sort of look a proud and happy father-in-law-to-be ought to have +directed at a prospective relative. It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort +of look which anyone ought to have directed at anybody, except possibly an +exceptionally prudish judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than +usually atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only +caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father! You aren’t angry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Angry!” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>can’t</i> be angry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t I be angry?” declared Mr. Bennett, with that sense +of injury which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. +“Why the devil shouldn’t I be angry? I <i>am</i> angry! I come here +and find you like—like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in +the air and give three rousing cheers! Of course I’m angry! You are +engaged to be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one +of the finest young men I have ever known....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. +“It’s awfully good of you....” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s all over, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s all over?” +</p> + +<p> +“You told me yourself that you had broken off my engagement to +Bream.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—er—yes, I did,” said Mr. Bennett, a little taken +aback. “That is—to a certain extent—so. But,” he added, +with restored firmness, “it’s on again!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t want to marry Bream!” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally!” said Sam. “Naturally! Quite out of the question. +In a few days we’ll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter what you want! A girl who gets engaged to a +dozen men in three weeks....” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t a dozen!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, four—five—six—you can’t expect me not to +lose count.... I say a girl who does that does not know what she wants, and +older and more prudent heads must decide for her. You are going to marry Bream +Mortimer!” +</p> + +<p> +“All wrong! All wrong!” said Sam, with a reproving shake of the +head. “All wrong! She’s going to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier effort had +been a loving glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina,” he said, “go into the outer office.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, father, Sam saved my life!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go into the outer office and wait for me there.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a lunatic in here....” +</p> + +<p> +“There will be another if you don’t go.” +</p> + +<p> +“He had a pistol.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go into the outer office!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always love you, Sam!” said Billie, pausing mutinously at +the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always love <i>you!</i>” said Sam cordially. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody can keep us apart!” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re wasting their time, trying.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the most wonderful man in the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“There never was another girl like you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Get <i>out!</i>” bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this +love-scene, which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly. “Now, +sir!” he said to Sam, as the door closed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, let’s talk it over calmly,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not talk it over calmly!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come! You can do it if you try. In the first place, whatever put +this silly idea into your head about that sweet girl marrying Bream +Mortimer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Sam. “And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold +that against him, it’s a point you can’t afford to ignore. Henry +Mortimer! You and I have Henry Mortimer’s number. We know what Henry +Mortimer is like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. +You can’t seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by +marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend +treating you like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed +over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn’t trust a man +like that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have decided once and for all....” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll take my advice, you will break the thing off.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not take your advice.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t expect to charge you for it,” explained Sam +reassuringly. “I give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. +Six-and-eightpence to others, free to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer? +What are you giggling about?” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I +mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a girl +of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“She will do as I tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam regarded him sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you no regard for her happiness?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am the best judge of what is best for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you ask me,” said Sam candidly, “I think you’re a +rotten judge.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not come here to be insulted!” +</p> + +<p> +“I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What +right have you to say that I’m not fit to marry your daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve implied it. And you’ve been looking at me as if I +were a leper or something the Pure Food Committee had condemned. Why? +That’s what I ask you,” said Sam, warming up. This he fancied, was +the way Widgery would have tackled a troublesome client. “Why? Answer me +that!” +</p> + +<p> +“I....” +</p> + +<p> +Sam rapped sharply on the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful, sir. Be very careful!” He knew that this was what +lawyers always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a +miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of the girl +you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but Sam was in no mood +for these nice distinctions. He only knew that lawyers told people to be very +careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be very careful. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean, be very careful?” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m dashed if I know,” said Sam frankly. The question struck +him as a mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by +smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He +endeavoured, however, to smile quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t laugh at me!” roared Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not laughing at you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not! I’m smiling quietly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t then!” said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his +young companion. “I don’t know why I’m wasting my time, +talking to you. The position is clear to the meanest intelligence. I have no +objection to you personally....” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, this is better!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know you well enough to have any objection to you or any +opinion of you at all. This is only the second time I have ever met you in my +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mark you,” said Sam, “I think I am one of those fellows who +grow on people....” +</p> + +<p> +“As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the +noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don’t +know. And I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. You mean nothing +in my life. I don’t know you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must persevere,” said Sam. “You must buckle to and get +to know me. Don’t give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything +has to have a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find +yourself knowing me quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to know you!” +</p> + +<p> +“You say that now, but wait!” +</p> + +<p> +“And thank goodness I have not got to!” exploded Mr. Bennett, +ceasing to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as +though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. +“For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly +understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and that I +do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to forget your +very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does the same! +You’re an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I don’t +like you! I don’t wish to see you again! If you were the last man in the +world I wouldn’t allow my daughter to marry you! If that is quite clear, +I will wish you good morning!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by the +outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life began to +return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr. Bennett had forgotten +to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer office to tell him so. But the +outer office was empty. Sam stood for a moment in thought, then he returned to +the inner office, and, picking up a time-table, began to look out trains to the +village of Windlehurst in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt +Adeline’s charming old-world house, Windles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /> +DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE</h2> + +<p> +As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I have been +giving the reader rather too jumpy a time. To almost a painful degree I have +excited his pity and terror; and, though that is what Aristotle says one ought +to do, I feel that a little respite would not be out of order. The reader can +stand having his emotions tortured up to a certain point; after that he wants +to take it easy for a bit. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to +depict a quiet, peaceful scene in domestic life. It won’t last +long—three minutes, perhaps, by a good stop-watch—but that is not +my fault. My task is to record facts as they happened. +</p> + +<p> +The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning it into +the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to be. A number of +the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at the end of the lawn, +while others, more energetic, hopped about the grass in quest of worms. Bees, +mercifully ignorant that, after they had worked themselves to the bone +gathering honey, the proceeds of their labour would be collared and consumed by +idle humans, buzzed industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into +flowers. Winged insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under +the cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was engaged +in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled up in a ball, lay +her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles slept Smith, the bulldog. +In the distant stable-yard, unseen but audible, a boy in shirt-sleeves was +washing the car and singing as much as a treacherous memory would permit of a +popular sentimental ballad. +</p> + +<p> +You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added to +deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment, Mr. Bennett +emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad in white flannels and +buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing touch that was needed. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, the +bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett did not +quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of distant, but solid, +friendship had come to exist between pursuer and pursued. Sceptical at first, +Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself to be persuaded of the mildness of +the animal’s nature and the essential purity of his motives; and now it +was only when they encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that +he ever betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, +Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern civilisation +has seen to the lion lying down with the lamb. +</p> + +<p> +“Sketching?” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and +her father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some such +trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning in a leafy +lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but apart from that her +mind was an open book. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a great morning,” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“So peaceful,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“The eggs you get in the country in England,” said Mr. Bennett, +suddenly striking a lyrical note, “are extraordinary. I had three for +breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied competition. +They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!” +</p> + +<p> +He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy. +</p> + +<p> +“And the hams!” he went on. “The ham I had for breakfast was +what I call ham! I don’t know when I’ve had ham like that. I +suppose it’s something they feed the pigs on!” he concluded, in +soft meditation. And he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking of Sam, +and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his clean-cut face, +and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look that ever came +into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself that her relations +with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and romantic, she enjoyed this freshet +of surreptitious meetings which had come to enliven the stream of her life. It +was pleasant to go warily into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast +a swift side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her +fairy-story. What would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and +consequently continued to meditate peacefully on ham. +</p> + +<p> +They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by +the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room +there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at +once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet, +peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and terror +resume work at the old stand. +</p> + +<p> +The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged to +be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second assistant at +Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices +edged with bread-crumbed fat. +</p> + +<p> +“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are +expecting him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, yes. To be sure.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French windows he +could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered that this was the +morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was taking those +Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written that he would +call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from Southampton +to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters with +an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like one of consternation, +of uneasiness, even of alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to +run down. Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made +about the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I +speak?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at the +unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a duty, and he +did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, gazing appreciatively +through the drawing-room windows at the charming scene outside, he had caught +sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, seated in her chair with the +sketching-block on her knee, he had realised that he could not go away in +silence, leaving Mr. Bennett ignorant of what he was up against. +</p> + +<p> +One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some kind on +this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed to leave his +peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling notably happy during his +journey in the train from London, and the subsequent walk from the station. The +splendour of the morning had soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew +inshore from the sea spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There +was a jar of pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived +considerable pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the +pink, without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and +seen Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any +harm, and, if you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I +think it is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in +her head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. +She decidedly is <i>not</i> compos, Mr. Bennett!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought crossed +his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, +this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down to zero. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?” +</p> + +<p> +It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business +connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He +particularised. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were +dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that +is?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jno. Peters. “I have only met her +once, when she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and +appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am not +mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened when I was +left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a dozen words, Mr. +Bennett, when—”—here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, turned +vividly pink—“when she told me—she told me that I was the +only man she loved!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet spirits of nitre! What!” +</p> + +<p> +“Those were her exact words.” +</p> + +<p> +“Five!” ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. “By the +great horn spoon, number five!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred from +seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from his seat +with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him capable, charged to +the French window and emitted a bellow. +</p> + +<p> +“Wilhelmina!” +</p> + +<p> +Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to her that +there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her father could +have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did not know; but she +dropped her block and hurried to his assistance. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, father?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in after +him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before her, looking +more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and there was an ominous +bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her excited senses betrayed the +presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a matter of fact, carrying +in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed chocolates which he had purchased +in Windlehurst. But Billie’s eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. +Her simple creed was that, if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must +be caused by a pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole +acquaintance with Jno Peters had been one constant backing against walls. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t shoot!” she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly +dipped his hand into the pocket of his coat. “Oh, please don’t +shoot!” +</p> + +<p> +“What the deuce do you mean?” said Mr. Bennett irritably. +“Wilhelmina, this man says that you told him you loved him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Suffering cats!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve only met him once,” he added almost pleadingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand, father dear,” said Billie desperately. +“I’ll explain the whole thing later, when....” +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. “Did you say +‘father?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I said ‘father!’” +</p> + +<p> +“This is my daughter, Mr. Peters.” +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I don’t know my own +daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“But she called me Mr. Peters!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know +my name?” +</p> + +<p> +The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters +meet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s office, the morning you +came there and found me when I was talking to Sam.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene +oppressive to a not very robust intellect. +</p> + +<p> +“He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name was Miss Milliken,” he +said dully. +</p> + +<p> +Billie stared at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as +stenographer for the guv’—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show +you my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries. +</p> + +<p> +“What revolver? Which revolver? What’s all this about a revolver? +Have you a revolver?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I carry +it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at the Rupert +Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was sending me to +America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because of the +Underworld, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +A cold gleam had come into Billie’s eyes. Her face was pale and hard. If +Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the Blue +Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending to the +coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the song would +have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as showing that there is +always a bright side, would have been much appreciated by the travelling +gentleman in the adjoining room, who had had a wild night with some other +travelling gentlemen, and was then nursing a rather severe headache, separated +from Sam’s penetrating baritone only by the thickness of a wooden wall. +</p> + +<p> +Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of the male +sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead for some man. +There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now in possession of the +facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion that Sam had played a +practical joke on her, and she was a girl who strongly disapproved of practical +humour at her expense. +</p> + +<p> +“That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby’s office, Mr. Peters,” +she said in a frosty voice, “Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a +long and convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss +Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your head, and +that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to shoot every +red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were Miss Milliken. +Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, and brandished a +revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be useless to tell you that +I wasn’t Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade you that I was and +hadn’t jilted you after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and +yet—for always there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade +disappointed. “Then—er—you don’t love me after +all?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Billie. “I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I +love him and nobody else in the world!” +</p> + +<p> +The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of Mr. +Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it joyfully. He folded +Billie in his ample embrace. +</p> + +<p> +“I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere,” +he said, paying her a striking tribute. “I hope now that we’ve +heard the last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe.” +</p> + +<p> +“You certainly have! I don’t want ever to see him again! I hate +him!” +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t do better, my dear,” said Mr. Bennett, +approvingly. “And now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to +discuss.” +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the +stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him. +</p> + +<p> +“Webster,” said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still +hard, and her eyes still gleamed coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss?” said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with +which he had been refreshing himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you do something for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be more than delighted, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the recesses +of her dress. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the country about here well, Webster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for several +enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and +another to Cosham? It’s about a mile down....” +</p> + +<p> +“I know the spot well, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is a +little lane....” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it, miss,” said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he +escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie’s maid, thither. “A delightfully +romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of blackberry +bushes, the varied wild-flowers....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to +take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the bottom +of the lane....” +</p> + +<p> +“Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or leaning against it. You can’t mistake him. He is rather tall +and ... oh, well, there isn’t likely to be anybody else there, so you +can’t make a mistake. Give him this, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, miss. Er—any message?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any verbal message, miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, certainly not! You won’t forget, will you, Webster?” +</p> + +<p> +“On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?” +</p> + +<p> +“There won’t be any answer,” said Billie, setting her teeth +for an instant. “Oh, Webster!” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?” +inquired Webster, entering the kitchen. “Don’t all speak at once! +S. Marlowe. Ever heard of him?” +</p> + +<p> +He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart. +</p> + +<p> +“Because there’s something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me +with notes for him to the bottom of lanes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!” said the scullery-maid, +shocked. “The way they go on. Chronic!” said the scullery-maid. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you go getting alarmed! And don’t you,” added +Webster, “go shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! +I’ve had to speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to +Mrs. Withers here.” +</p> + +<p> +He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, here’s the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy +kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it’s +wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don’t need to unstick the +envelope to know what’s inside here. It’s the raspberry, +ma’am, or I’ve lost all my power to read the human female +countenance. Very cold and proud-looking she was! I don’t know who this +S. Marlowe is, but I do know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument +that’s going to give it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my +name isn’t Montagu Webster!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from +her labours. “Think of that!” +</p> + +<p> +“The way I look at it,” said Webster, “is that there’s +been some sort of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and +she’s thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her +parent’s choice. She’s chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand +the humble suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in +‘Cupid or Mammon,’ that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the +train coming down here, only that ended different. For my part I’d be +better pleased if our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of +her own heart; but these modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff, +they are! Oh, well, it’s none of my affair,” said Webster, stifling +a not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a warm +heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> +WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED</h2> + +<p> +At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily +unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever nearer with +the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper, Samuel Marlowe dangled +his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end of the lane, and smoked +contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her appearance. He had had an +excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well, and all Nature smiled. The breeze +from the sea across the meadows tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and +sang a soothing song in the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was +looking forward with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the +white flutter of Billie’s dress would break the green of the foreground. +How eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would.... +</p> + +<p> +The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never seen +Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. He had come to +regard this lane as his own private property, and he resented trespassers. He +tucked his legs under him, and scowled at Webster under the brim of his hat. +</p> + +<p> +The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner stepping +daintily to the block. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Marlowe, sir?” he inquired politely. +</p> + +<p> +Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s my name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett’s personal +gentleman’s gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to +deliver to you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear girl had +been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written to explain and +relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the sweet, thoughtful thing +he would have expected her to do. His contentment with the existing scheme of +things returned. The sun shone out again, and he found himself amiably disposed +towards the messenger. +</p> + +<p> +“Fine day,” he said, as he took the note. +</p> + +<p> +“Extremely, sir,” said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly +full of a grave pity. +</p> + +<p> +It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to prepare the +young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and he edged a little +nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the shock knocked him off the +gate. +</p> + +<p> +As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note, Sam +rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and this saved +him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved. +</p> + +<p> +The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it back, +was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They confirmed his +suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it continued as it began, it +was about the warmest thing of its kind that pen had ever written. Webster had +received one or two heated epistles from the sex in his time—your man of +gallantry can hardly hope to escape these unpleasantnesses—but none had +got off the mark quite so swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as +this. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Sam mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, sir. You are very welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. His +toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of his back. +His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating in his throat. He +swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, but without success. A kind +of pall had descended on the landscape, blotting out the sun. +</p> + +<p> +Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the realisation that a +thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our wrong-doing to be detected. +There had seemed no possibility of that little ruse of his being discovered, +and yet here was Billie in full possession of the facts. It almost made the +thing worse that she did not say how she had come into possession of them. This +gave Sam that feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, +which makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant. +</p> + +<p> +“Fine day!” he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that +it was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up,” agreed the valet suavely. +</p> + +<p> +Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes didn’t +give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him it would not +have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would have been possible +then to have pleaded and cajoled and—and all that sort of thing. But what +could he do now? It seemed to him that his only possible course was to write a +note in reply, begging her to see him. He explored his pockets and found a +pencil and a scrap of paper. For some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he +folded the note. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take this to Miss Bennett?” he said, holding it out. +</p> + +<p> +Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his leisure; +but he shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Useless, I fear, sir,” he said gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. +notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw her +face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure you, sir, +she is not in a malleable mood.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to know a lot about it!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have studied the sex, sir,” said Webster modestly. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about +it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of +affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my respectful +sympathy.” +</p> + +<p> +Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest conditions. +Sam’s had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie’s note. In +other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a stranger into +his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one of dull but distinct +gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly upon his raw and unprotected +soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a mantle of sympathy, careless of the +source from which he borrowed that mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he +seemed to indicate, to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam +would have accepted condolences from a coal-heaver. +</p> + +<p> +“I was reading a story—one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know +if you are familiar with the series, sir?—in which much the same +situation occurred. It was entitled ‘Cupid or Mammon.’ The heroine, +Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, +despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it +often happens like that, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re all wrong,” said Sam. “It’s not that at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir? I supposed it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing like it! I—I——.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam’s dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what it’s got to do with you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely, sir!” said Webster, with dignity. “Just as you +say! Good afternoon, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving his +feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring gurgle, and +passed away, regretted by all. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go!” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human support, +overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded it. Already Sam +had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his support. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature of the +conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened departure had +been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved Webster at that +moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Might I ask, then, what...?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Sam. “At least, +there was, but now there isn’t, if you see what I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I—I—played a sort of—you might almost call it a +sort of trick on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“And she’s found out! I don’t know how she’s found out, +but she has! So there you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, +sir,—some kind of innocent deception?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was like this.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, +told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that +he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded +him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, “All for +Her,” where the hero, anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, +had bribed a tramp to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road. +</p> + +<p> +“The principle’s the same,” said Webster. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what did he do when she found out?” +</p> + +<p> +“She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the +wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than they did +at the subsequent union.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam was thoughtful. +</p> + +<p> +“Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very +cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably inferior to +her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out from behind a hedge, +well, it made all the difference.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder where I could get a good tramp,” said Sam, meditatively. +</p> + +<p> +Webster shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you +wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam brightened. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got it! <i>You</i> pretend to attack her, and +I’ll....” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t, sir! I couldn’t, really! I should jeopardise my +situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come. Be a man!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, I fear not. There’s a difference between handing in your +resignation—I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few +words I had with the guv’nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to +withdraw it—I say there’s a difference between handing in your +resignation and being given the sack, and that’s what would +happen—without a character, what’s more, and lucky if it +didn’t mean a prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I don’t see that there’s anything to be done,” +said Sam, morosely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I shouldn’t say that, sir,” said Webster encouragingly. +“It’s simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting +us—you, I should say....” +</p> + +<p> +“Us,” said Sam. “Most decidedly us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say +so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself into this. +You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a disinclination ever to +see you again. How, then, is it possible, in spite of her attitude, to +recapture her esteem?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“There are several methods which occur to one....” +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t occur to <i>me!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in +‘True As Steel’....” +</p> + +<p> +“Set fire to the house, eh?” said Sam reflectively. “Yes, +there might be something in that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would hardly advise such a thing,” said Webster, a little +hastily—flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking his +advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of the house +himself. “A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be better to save +her from drowning, as in ‘The Earl’s Secret.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but where could she drown?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there is a lake in the grounds....” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent!” said Sam. “Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. +Say no more! The whole thing’s settled. You take her out rowing on the +lake, and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh? Well, never mind. You’ll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to +the upturned boat or something, I shouldn’t wonder. There’s always +a way. Yes, that’s the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange +this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It +really wouldn’t do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see a flaw in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my +situation....” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or +something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like +you,” said Sam ingratiatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Webster firmly. “From boyhood up I’ve +always had a regular horror of the water. I can’t so much as go paddling +without an uneasy feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam’s +thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant uplifted +his spirits. Then they fell again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t see what there <i>is</i> to be done,” he said, +gloomily. “It’s no good my making suggestions, if you have some +frivolous objection to all of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“My idea,” said Webster, “would be something which did not +involve my own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to +you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I am +anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not wish to +disturb. Did you ever read ‘Footpaths of Fate,’ in the Nosegay +series, sir? I’ve only just remembered it, and it contains the most +helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding between the +heroine and the hero—their names have slipped my mind, though I fancy his +was Cyril—and she had told him to hop it....” +</p> + +<p> +“To what?” +</p> + +<p> +“To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?” +</p> + +<p> +“How the deuce do I know?” +</p> + +<p> +“He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept him +hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all was forgotten +and forgiven, and never....” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. Never had the bells of the old village church....” +</p> + +<p> +“Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow me +to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of action.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Bennett hasn’t got a little brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster +imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence. It +struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean I ought to steal her dog?” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy +tail.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about +eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn’t get within ten +feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it would chew +me into small pieces.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In ‘Footpaths of +Fate’ there was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the +child.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove!” said Sam, impressed. +</p> + +<p> +“He rewarded her,” said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray +nonchalantly over the countryside, “liberally, very liberally.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog,” +said Sam, “don’t worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can +have all I’ve got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really +beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. Where do we +go from here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, what’s the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!” +Sam’s face fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. +“It’s all off! It can’t be done! How could I possibly get +into the house? I take it that the little brute sleeps in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal +sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the interior +of the house, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t been inside it since I was at school. I’m Mr. +Hignett’s cousin, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir? I wasn’t aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor +gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he?” said Sam, not particularly interested. “I used to +stay with him,” he went on, “during the holidays sometimes, but +I’ve practically forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the +hall vaguely. Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, +a sort of window-ledge near the front door....” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the +animal’s basket is situated. If I administer a slight +soporific....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but you haven’t explained yet how I am to get into the house +in the first place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows +while dinner is in progress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine!” +</p> + +<p> +“You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. +Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I +used to stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett +wouldn’t let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a +cupboard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was +glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other day. It +contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. You could lock +yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably seated on the floor +till the household retired to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“When would that be?” +</p> + +<p> +“They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is +generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and knocked on +the cupboard door to notify you that all was well.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam was glowing with frank approval. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, you’re a master-mind!” he said, enthusiastically. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very kind, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“One of the lads, by Jove!” said Sam. “And not the worst of +them! I don’t want to flatter you, but there’s a future for you in +crime, if you cared to go in for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will regard +the scheme as passed and approved?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say we would! It’s a bird!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be +right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Admirable, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, I say, about that soporific.... Don’t overdo it. Don’t +go killing the little beast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Sam, “you can’t say it’s not a +temptation. And you know what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> +A CROWDED NIGHT</h2> + +<h3>§ 1</h3> + +<p> +If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a +story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to describe, it +is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient with him for straying +from the main channel of his tale and devoting himself to what are, after all, +minor developments. This story, for instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, +the world-famous writer on Theosophy, going over to America to begin a +lecturing-tour; and no one realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. +Hignett flat. I have thrust that great thinker into the background and +concentrated my attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her +moral inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a +great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of a +battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will stand no +nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn’t care what happened to +Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett made out on +her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have ’em tearing +up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a cyclone in St. +Louis? Those are the points on which he desires information, or give him his +money back. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me hastily add +that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett herself. The fact is, she +never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw nothing of her. She did not get within a +thousand miles of Chicago, nor did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very +morning after her son Eustace sailed for England in the liner +“Atlantic,” she happened to read in the paper one of those abridged +passenger-lists which the journals of New York are in the habit of printing, +and got a nasty shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace +would enjoy during the voyage, was “Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of +J. Rufus Bennett of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co.”. And within five minutes +of digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams +cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers +trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus +Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp with +sea-spray and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble all over again. +</p> + +<p> +In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one who +wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long morning’s +telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star brought Mrs. +Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full week before she +could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable Eustace would have over +two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, and Mrs. Hignett’s heart +sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor a sailor as her son was not +likely to have had leisure for any strolling on the deck during the voyage on +the “Atlantic.” +</p> + +<p> +Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations for +departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there was a good +chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up her affairs in New +York, and on the following Wednesday, boarded the “Nuronia” bound +for Southampton. +</p> + +<p> +The “Nuronia” is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was +built at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean +liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to +Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then sauntered +across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the evening of the +day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting with Webster, the +valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling through the windows of the +drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind the piano, Mrs. Hignett was +standing at the Customs barrier telling the officials that she had nothing to +declare. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser woman might +have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles at her ease on the +following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner stuff. Having fortified +herself with a late dinner, she hired a car and set out on the cross-country +journey. It was only when the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three +times in the first ten miles, that she directed the driver to take her instead +to the “Blue Boar” in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but +thankful to have reached it at all, at about eleven o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the familiar +Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour’s walking would take +her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a restorative. One glimpse +of Windles she felt that she must have before she retired for the night, if +only to assure herself that it was still there. She had a cup of coffee and a +sandwich brought to her by the night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for +bedtime is early in Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a +short walk and would ring when she returned. +</p> + +<p> +Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her home and +felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The silhouette of the +ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the feeling which all returning +wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to the lawn and looked at the black +bulk of the house, indistinct and shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came +into her eyes. She experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite +faint, and which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to +gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the +drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to +facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be +rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from noticing the +fact. +</p> + +<p> +All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt indignantly, was +the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the moment her back was +turned. Evidently laxity—one might almost say anarchy—had set in +directly she had removed the eye of authority. She marched to the window and +pushed it open. She had now completely abandoned her kindly scheme of +refraining from rousing the sleeping house and spending the night at the inn. +She stepped into the drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing +Eustace out of his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to +maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If there was +one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it was that every +window in the house must be closed at lights-out. +</p> + +<p> +She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, from the +direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which made her +resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see anything distinctly, +but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she caught sight of a shadowy +male figure, and knew that her worst fears had been realised. The figure was +too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, she knew, was the only man in the house. +Male figures, therefore, that went flitting about Windles, must be the figures +of burglars. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant spell-bound, and +for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell herself that she had +been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of +the hall a dull chunky sound as though something soft had been kicked, followed +by a low gurgle and the noise of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a +<i>pas seul</i> out of sheer lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must +have tripped over something. +</p> + +<p> +The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, at many a +subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and nothing in the proper +circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the skill which had become +his as the result of twelve private lessons at half-a-crown a visit; but he +recognised the truth of the scriptural adage that there is a time for dancing, +and that this was not it. His only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room +he had been confronted through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back +to his bedroom undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the +house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did not wish +to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his presence there +in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the cupboard door, which +had been the signal arranged between himself and Sam, until a more suitable +occasion. In the meantime he bounded silently out into the hall, and +instantaneously tripped over the portly form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused +from a light sleep to the knowledge that something was going on, and being a +dog who always liked to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had +waddled out to investigate. +</p> + +<p> +By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to feel brave +enough to venture into the hall, Webster’s presence of mind and +Smith’s gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the house to +its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster’s stagger had +carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the servants’ +staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without checking his momentum, +closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that interesting events were in +progress which might possibly culminate in cake, had abandoned the idea of +sleep, and meant to see the thing through. He gambolled in Webster’s wake +up the stairs and along the passage leading to the latter’s room, and +only paused when the door was brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat +down to think the thing over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, +promising, as far as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent +entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the hall. The +burglars—she had now discovered that there were at least two of +them—appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond her +handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be dislodged she +must have assistance. It was man’s work. She made a brave dash through +the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up them; and fell +through the doorway of her son Eustace’s bedroom like a spent Marathon +runner staggering past the winning-post. +</p> + +<h3>§ 2</h3> + +<p> +At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the drive, +Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told the story of +how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was camping on the banks +of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever since he had become ill, it had +been the large-hearted girl’s kindly practice to soothe him to rest with +some such narrative from her energetic past. +</p> + +<p> +“And what happened then?” asked Eustace, breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly from a +face which was almost the exact shape of an Association football; for he had +reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins to swell as though somebody +were inflating him with a bicycle-pump. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went +away!” said Jane Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, you’re wonderful!” cried Eustace. “Simply +wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty enthusiasm. +He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest commonplaces of +life. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, if an alligator got into <i>my</i> tent,” said Eustace, +“I simply wouldn’t know what to do! I should be nonplussed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s just a knack,” said Jane, carelessly. “You +soon pick it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nail-scissors!” +</p> + +<p> +“It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the +rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a marvel!” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had admired Jane +Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the stories which she had +told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid state had set the seal on his +devotion. It has always been like this since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three +days Jane Hubbard had been weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she +monopolised his entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast +and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched heaven, +and of the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose +heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would Eustace Hignett +seriously incline, and swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas +passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful. He loved +her for the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity them. In +fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying the licence, had +it not been for the fact that his very admiration served to keep Eustace from +pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible to him that the queen of her sex, a +girl who had chatted in terms of equality with African head-hunters and who +swatted alligators as though they were flies, could ever lower herself to care +for a man who looked like the “after-taking” advertisement of a +patent food. +</p> + +<p> +But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand each +other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come recently to place +a different interpretation on his silence. In the last few days of the voyage +she had quite made up her mind that Eustace Hignett loved her and would shortly +intimate as much in the usual manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had +begun to have doubts. She was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was +distinctly prettier than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary +man is attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself +for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True, Billie was +officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had experience of the +brittleness of Miss Bennett’s engagements, and she could by no means +regard Eustace as immune. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose they will be happy?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh? Who?” said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just +finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his last +remark, and Jane’s thoughts had flitted back to the subject that usually +occupied them. +</p> + +<p> +“Billie and Bream Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Eustace. “Yes, I suppose so.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a delightful girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Eustace without much animation. +</p> + +<p> +“And, of course, it’s nice their fathers being so keen on the +match. It doesn’t often happen that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. People’s people generally want people to marry people people +don’t want to marry,” said Eustace, clothing in words a profound +truth which from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the +youth of every country. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to +marry?” said Jane casually. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother doesn’t want me to marry anybody,” said Eustace with +gloom. It was another obstacle to his romance. +</p> + +<p> +“What, never?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why ever not?” +</p> + +<p> +“As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has to +clear out. Silly business!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you wouldn’t let your mother stand in the way if you ever +really fell in love?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t so much a question of <i>letting</i> her stand in the +way. The tough job would be preventing her. You’ve never met my +mother!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m looking forward to it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re looking forward...!” Eustace eyed her with honest +amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your +mind to marry somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +“What could she do? Why, there isn’t anything she wouldn’t +do. Why, once....” Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been +about to tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to +reveal. +</p> + +<p> +“Once—...?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I—I +was going out to lunch with a man, and—and—” Eustace was not +a ready improvisator—“and she didn’t want me to go, so she +stole all my trousers!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite jungles, +she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard. That story which +Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom she had been engaged, +whose mother had stolen his trousers on the wedding morning ... it all came +back to her with a topical significance which it had never had before. It had +lingered in her memory, as stories will, but it had been a detached episode, +having no personal meaning for her. But now.... “She did that just to +stop you going out to lunch with a man?” she said slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze, shooting +across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the pillow. She was in +the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to curl like withered leaves. +</p> + +<p> +“Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon. The +flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported his sagging +jaw. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—er—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Were</i> you?” cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There +was that in her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as +chewed blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled +with an unendurable sense of guilt. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—er—yes,” he mumbled weakly. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She might know +what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but she was a woman. +</p> + +<p> +This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on Eustace +Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last stair has on the +returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It was as though his +spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and caused him to bite his +tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a rock of support. And now the rock +had melted away and left him wallowing in a deep pool. +</p> + +<p> +He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the point of +declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily vanished. He felt +strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and peered over the foot of it at +her huddled form. +</p> + +<p> +“Have some barley-water,” he urged. “Try a little +barley-water.” +</p> + +<p> +It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the doctor’s +instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a glass of water. +</p> + +<p> +“Go away!” sobbed Jane Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can’t. I’m in bed. Where could I go?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t say that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re still in love with her!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! I never was in love with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why were you going to marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Oh! Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Do have some barley-water,” he said. “Just a sip!” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> in love with her!” sobbed Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m <i>not!</i> I love <i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon <i>me!</i>” said Eustace firmly. “I’ve loved +you ever since you gave me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it +on the boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“They why didn’t you say so before?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t the nerve. You always seemed so—I don’t know +how to put it—I always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the +courage to propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. +No girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face.” +</p> + +<p> +“As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I +have seen your inside!” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean....” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace fondled her back hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve loved you ever since we met on the Subway.” She raised +a tear-stained face. “If only I could be sure that you really loved +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can prove it!” said Eustace proudly. “You know how scared +I am of my mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something +which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a sunburned +neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old Bennett and old +Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. +Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina Bennett had invited you to spend +the summer with her, and I knew that, if they didn’t come to Windles, +they would take some other place, and that meant I wouldn’t see you. So I +hunted up old Mortimer, and let it to him on the quiet, without telling my +mother anything about it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you darling angel child,” cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. +“Did you really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked him in +with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from the girl who so +short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is a wonderful thing. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t excite yourself,” she said. “You’ll +be getting a temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep.” She kissed +his bulbous face. “You have made me so happy, Eustace darling.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s good,” said Eustace cordially. “But it’s +going to be an awful jar for mother!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll break the news to your +mother. I’m sure she will be quite reasonable about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. +</p> + +<p> +“Lie back quite comfortably, and don’t worry,” said Jane +Hubbard. “I’m going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. +I shan’t be five minutes. And forget about your mother. I’ll look +after her.” +</p> + +<p> +Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, pumas, +cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of success. There might +be a sporting chance of victory for her when she moved a step up in the animal +kingdom and tackled his mother. He was not unduly optimistic, for he thought +she was going out of her class; but he felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself +to drift into pleasant meditation. +</p> + +<p> +There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! Back already?” said Eustace, opening his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a hole in a +sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his bedside. +</p> + +<h3>§ 3</h3> + +<p> +In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their agitated +brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the truth of that +well-known line—“Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far +away.” There was certainly little hope of peace with loved ones in his +bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane Hubbard would be +returning with her book, but his imagination refused to envisage the scene +which would then occur. +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace!” For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware +that it was a changed face that confronted hers. “Good gracious! How +stout you’ve grown!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s mumps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mumps!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve got mumps.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett’s mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow +her to dwell on this subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace, there are men in the house!” +</p> + +<p> +This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” he said uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“You know!” Mrs. Hignett stared. “Did you hear them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear them?” said Eustace, puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in the +hall!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, no! That’s rather rotten!” said Eustace. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw them and heard them! I—oh!” Mrs. Hignett’s +sentence trailed off into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane +Hubbard came in. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to bear +shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of +Horace—<i>Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem</i>. (For the +benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive classical +education,—memento—Take my +tip—servare—preserve—aequam—an +unruffled—mentem—mind—rebus in arduis—in every crisis). +She had only been out of the room a few minutes, and in that brief period a +middle-aged lady of commanding aspect had apparently come up through a trap. It +would have been enough to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard bore it calmly. +All through her vivid life her bedroom had been a sort of cosy corner for +murderers, alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and every variety of snake, so +she accepted the middle-aged lady without comment. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening,” she said placidly. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the new +arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in which she had +strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a nurse; but she wore +no nurse’s uniform. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” she asked stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are <i>you?</i>” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I,” said Mrs. Hignett portentously, “am the owner of this +house, and I should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace +Hignett.” +</p> + +<p> +A charming smile spread itself over Jane’s finely-cut face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said. “I have heard so +much about you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” said Mrs. Hignett coldly. “And now I should like to +hear a little about you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve read all your books,” said Jane. “I think +they’re wonderful.” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was straying +from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx of amiability. She +was an authoress who received a good deal of incense from admirers, but she +could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of the incense came by post. +Living a quiet and retired life in the country, it was rarely that she got it +handed to her face to face. She melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to +look like a basilisk, but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good +lunch. +</p> + +<p> +“My favourite,” said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in +a chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress’s +complete works were assembled, “is ‘The Spreading Light.’ I +<i>do</i> like ‘The Spreading Light!’” +</p> + +<p> +“It was written some years ago,” said Mrs. Hignett with something +approaching cordiality, “and I have since revised some of the views I +state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, I can see that ‘What of the Morrow?’ is more +profound,” said Jane. “But I read ‘The Spreading Light’ +first, and of course that makes a difference.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can quite see that it would,” agreed Mrs. Hignett. +“One’s first step across the threshold of a new mind, one’s +first glimpse....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it makes you feel....” +</p> + +<p> +“Like some watcher of the skies,” said Mrs. Hignett, “when a +new planet swims into his ken, or like....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, doesn’t it!” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle tense, in +much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in a Wild West +Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table directly the +shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly anticipated would be +the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier fight seemed to be turning into +a pleasant social and literary evening not unlike what he imagined a meeting of +old Girton students must be. For the first time since his mother had come into +the room he indulged in the luxury of a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +“But what are you doing here?” asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost +reluctantly to the main issue. +</p> + +<p> +Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way he +subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, following the +excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his Peninsular campaign. +“When in doubt,” the Duke used to say, “retire and dig +yourself in.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m nursing dear Eustace,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes which +represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Dear Eustace!’” she repeated mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re engaged,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Engaged! Eustace, is this true?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“And poor Eustace is so worried,” continued Jane, “about the +house.” She went on quickly. “He doesn’t want to deprive you +of it, because he knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both +hoping—that you will accept it as a present when we are married. We +really shan’t want it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you +will take it, won’t you—to please us?” +</p> + +<p> +We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. Only a +short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard, that +indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not express any +surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world’s greatest female +thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. Horace Hignett’s +understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The ever-present fear that had +haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was hers in perpetuity. The relief was +too great. She sat in her chair and gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, +emerged slowly from the bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm. +</p> + +<p> +How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity +that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this +moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night +such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the +room. Somebody appeared to have touched off the orchestrion in the +drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun again in the middle of a +bar at the point where Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. +Its wailing lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s too bad!” said Jane, a little annoyed. “At this +time of night!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the burglars!” quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of +recent events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of +Society. “They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now +they’re playing the orchestrion!” +</p> + +<p> +“Light-hearted chaps!” said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the +criminal world. “Full of spirits!” +</p> + +<p> +“This won’t do,” said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. +“We can’t have this sort of thing. I’ll go and fetch my +gun.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll murder you, dear!” panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to +her arm. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Murder <i>me!</i>” she said amusedly. “I’d like to +catch them at it!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace,” she said solemnly, “that is a wonderful +girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! She once killed a panther—or a puma, I forget +which—with a hat-pin!” said Eustace with enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“I could wish you no better wife!” said Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a battery of +artillery had roared. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge into the +elephant-gun. +</p> + +<p> +“One of them was popping about outside here,” she announced. +“I took a shot at him, but I’m afraid I missed. The visibility was +bad. At any rate he went away.” +</p> + +<p> +In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who had been +aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what was the matter, had +gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He had been creeping down the +passage when he found himself suddenly confronted by a dim figure which, +without a word, had attempted to slay him with an enormous gun. The shot had +whistled past his ears and gone singing down the corridor. This was enough for +Bream. He had returned to his room in three strides, and was now under the bed. +The burglars might take everything in the house and welcome, so that they did +not molest his privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very sensible +of him, too, I consider. +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better go downstairs,” said Jane. “Bring the +candle. Not you, Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a +chill. Don’t stir out of bed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t,” said Eustace obediently. +</p> + +<h3>§ 4</h3> + +<p> +Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the thinking man +than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party to go to bed; and +Sam, who had established himself in the one behind the piano at a quarter to +eight, soon began to feel as if he had been there for an eternity. He could +dimly remember a previous existence in which he had not been sitting in his +present position, but it seemed so long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to +him. The ordeal of spending the evening in this retreat had not appeared +formidable when he had contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now +that he was actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages +it had. +</p> + +<p> +Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to contain no +air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the cupboard’s +natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a condition of pulp. He +seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream in front of a fire. The +darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to +smoke. In addition to this, the small of his back tickled, and he more than +suspected the cupboard of harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred +times he wished that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler. +</p> + +<p> +His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian mystics who +sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the Infinite, but it +reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He tried counting sheep. He +tried going over his past life in his mind from the earliest moment he could +recollect, and thought he had never encountered a duller series of episodes. He +found a temporary solace by playing a succession of mental golf-games over all +the courses he could remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at +Muirfield, after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew’s, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, +Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine through +the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull incredulity to the +realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room had called it a day and that +his vigil was over. +</p> + +<p> +But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light seemed to be +off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where people had the habit +of going and strolling about the garden to all hours? Probably they were still +popping about all over the place. At any rate, it was not worth risking coming +out of his lair. He remembered that Webster had promised to come and knock an +all-clear signal on the door. It would be safer to wait for that. +</p> + +<p> +But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow impatient. +The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the hardest. Time +seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought he heard footsteps +but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained his ears and finding +everything still, he decided to take a chance. He fished in his pocket for the +key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened it by slow inches, and peered out. +</p> + +<p> +The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the feeling +of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl stiffly +forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing events occurred +which were to make this night memorable to him. Something like a rattlesnake +suddenly went off with a whirr, and his head, jerking up, collided with the +piano. It was only the cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as +was its custom before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid +succession before subsiding with another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the +end of the world. +</p> + +<p> +He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of imprisonment +in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous system, and he vacillated +between tears of weakness and a militant desire to get at the cuckoo-clock with +a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on purpose and was now chuckling to +itself in fancied security. For quite a minute he raged silently, and any +cuckoo-clock which had strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of +it. Then his attention was diverted. +</p> + +<p> +So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no ordinary +happening would have had the power to distract him. What occurred now was by no +means ordinary, and it distracted him like an electric shock. As he sat on the +floor, passing a tender hand over the egg-shaped bump which had already begun +to manifest itself beneath his hair, something cold and wet touched his face, +and paralysed him so completely both physically and mentally that he did not +move a muscle but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He +felt vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he simply +could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart refuses to beat, +what hope is there for you? +</p> + +<p> +At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the chest, +rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the darkness. Something +began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of ecstasy; and, clutching +out, he found his arms full of totally unexpected bulldog. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out!” whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a +jerk. “Go away!” +</p> + +<p> +Smith took the opportunity of Sam’s lips having opened to lick the roof +of his mouth. Smith’s attitude in the matter was that Providence in its +all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had +reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of such +indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted downstairs in rather +a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no result in front of +Webster’s bedroom door, and it was a real treat to him to meet a man, +especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable manner on the floor. He +welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend. +</p> + +<p> +Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and +occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of +misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the humans was +quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position on a straight +watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those dogs who rouse the house +and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin burglars by the leg and hold on +till the police arrived. Smith simply could not grasp such an attitude of mind. +He regarded Windles not as a private house but as a social club, and was +utterly unable to see any difference between the human beings he knew and the +strangers who dropped in for a late chat after the place was locked up. He had +no intention of biting Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the present +moment what he felt about Sam was that he was one of the best fellows he had +ever met and that he loved him like a brother. +</p> + +<p> +Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these amiable +sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have had the +intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was just the sort of +woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts like that. He scrambled +stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the darkness that hemmed him in. He +ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively about his ankles, and made for the +slightly less black oblong which he took to be the door leading into the hall. +He moved warily, but not warily enough to prevent his cannoning into and almost +upsetting a small table with a vase on it. The table rocked and the vase +jumped, and the first bit of luck that had come to Sam that night was when he +reached out at a venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on to the +carpet. +</p> + +<p> +He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold. If he +had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud enough to wake a +dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go on. He must have light. +It might be a risk; there might be a chance of somebody upstairs seeing it and +coming down to investigate; but it was a risk that must be taken. He declined +to go on stumbling about in this darkness any longer. He groped his way with +infinite care to the door, on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the +electric-light switch would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been +inside Windles, and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even +a woman like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost anything, would +still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of illumination. His only doubt +was whether the switch was where it was in most houses, near the door. +</p> + +<p> +It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a +delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided young man +actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He positively smiled +as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved. +</p> + +<p> +He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him out of +the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered mind quite +solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over the place. In a +single instant the world had become one vast bellow of Tosti’s +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how long he +would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his notice elsewhere. +But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, there came from somewhere +upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he heard that, Sam’s rigid limbs +relaxed and a violent activity descended upon him. He bounded out into the +hall, looking to right and to left for a hiding-place. One of the suits of +armour which had been familiar to him in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, +and with the sight came the recollection of how, when a mere child on his first +visit to Windles, playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had +concealed himself inside this very suit, and had not only baffled Eustace +through a long summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a +decline by booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy +days! He leaped at the suit of armour. Having grown since he was last inside +it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into it at +last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank heaven!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need. +</p> + +<p> +Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had opened, +sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments. +</p> + +<h3>§ 5</h3> + +<p> +He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. There +was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas and a +dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard with her +elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them all +impartially. +</p> + +<p> +Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +“What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace let you Windles for the summer!” said Mrs. Hignett +incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been switching off +the orchestrion. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow,” she said. “The +point now is that there are burglars in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Burglars!” cried Mr. Bennett aghast. “I thought it was you +playing that infernal instrument, Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?” said +Mr. Mortimer irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“It woke me up,” said Mr. Bennett complainingly. “And I had +had great difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I +believe I’ve caught the mumps from young Hignett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! You’re always imagining yourself ill,” snapped Mr. +Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“My face hurts,” persisted Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t expect a face like that not to hurt,” said Mr. +Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the verge +of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard intervened once +more. This practical-minded girl disliked the introducing of side-issues into +the conversation. She was there to talk about burglars, and she intended to do +so. +</p> + +<p> +“For goodness sake stop it!” she said, almost petulantly for one +usually so superior to emotion. “There’ll be lots of time for +quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we’ve got to catch these....” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not quarrelling,” said Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are,” said Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t argue!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not arguing!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can possess with +the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood by, shrinking from +interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard’s robuster course was to raise +the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and pull the trigger. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought that would stop you,” she said complacently, as the +echoes died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She +inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. “Now, the question +is....” +</p> + +<p> +“You made me bite my tongue!” said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved. +</p> + +<p> +“Serve you right!” said Jane placidly. “Now, the question is, +have the fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think +they’re still in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“The police!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated +tongue and his other grievances. “We must summon the police!” +</p> + +<p> +“Obviously!” said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze +from the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had +been mentally assessing. “We must send for the police at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t really need them, you know,” said Jane. “If +you’ll all go to bed and just leave me to potter round with my +gun....” +</p> + +<p> +“And blow the whole house to pieces!” said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She +had begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was +sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her esteem. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I go for the police?” said Billie. “I could bring them +back in ten minutes in the car.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not!” said Mr. Bennett. “My daughter gadding about +all over the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where <i>is</i> Bream?” said Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented itself +to the company. +</p> + +<p> +“Where can he be?” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is broad-minded +enough to see the humour of the situation even when the joke is at her expense. +</p> + +<p> +“What a silly girl I am!” she said. “I do believe that was +Bream I shot at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You shot my only son!” cried Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“I shot <i>at</i> him,” said Jane. “My belief is that I +missed him. Though how I came to do it beats me. I don’t suppose +I’ve missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of +course,” she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, “the +visibility wasn’t good, but it’s no use saying I oughtn’t at +least to have winged him, because I ought.” She shook her head with a +touch of self-reproach. “I shall get chaffed about this if it comes +out,” she said regretfully. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor boy must be in his room,” said Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“Under the bed, if you ask me,” said Jane, blowing on the barrel of +her gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. “<i>He’s</i> +all right! Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he can’t be!” cried Billie, revolted. +</p> + +<p> +A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged +to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised +and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place +to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am +relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—; but personally +I think highly of Bream’s sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an +elephant-gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it +up after me. Still, rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it +flashed across her mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not +have behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself to +the varied emotions then engaging her mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and look, if you like,” said Jane agreeably. +“You amuse yourselves somehow till I come back.” +</p> + +<p> +She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to Mr. +Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn’t go, but, +if she doesn’t, how can we get the police? The house isn’t on the +’phone, and nobody else can drive the car.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true,” said Mr. Bennett, wavering. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow +morning,” said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going,” said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as +it has occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. +The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the removal +of the rudder has on a boat. “It’s the only thing to do. I shall be +back in no time.” +</p> + +<p> +She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her motoring-cloak. +And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding before her a pale and +glassy-eyed Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Right under the bed,” she announced cheerfully, “making a +noise like a piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancé. Absolutely unjustified, in my +opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. Terror had +stunned Bream Mortimer’s perceptions. His was what the doctors call a +penumbral mental condition. +</p> + +<p> +“Bream,” said Billie, “I want you to come in the car with me +to fetch the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Get your coat.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“And cap.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and they made +their way to the garage at the back of the house, both silent. The only +difference between their respective silences was that Billie’s was +thoughtful, while Bream’s was just the silence of a man who has unhitched +his brain and is getting along as well as he can without it. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s something done,” she said, scratching +Smith’s broad back with the muzzle of her weapon. “Something +accomplished, something done, has earned a night’s repose. Not that +we’re going to get it yet. I think those fellows are hiding somewhere, +and we ought to search the house and rout them out. It’s a pity Smith +isn’t a bloodhound. He’s a good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he +doesn’t finish in the first ten.” +</p> + +<p> +The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a young +elephant. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing to do,” continued Jane, “is to go through +the ground-floor rooms....” She paused to strike a match against the suit +of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of protest +from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. “I’ll go first, as +I’ve got a gun....” She blew a cloud of smoke. “I shall want +somebody with me to carry a light, and....” +</p> + +<p> +“Tchoo!” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t speak,” said Mr. Mortimer. “Who am I to +speak?” he went on bitterly. “Who am I that it should be supposed +that I have anything sensible to suggest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody spoke,” said Jane. “I....” +</p> + +<p> +“Achoo!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?” cried Jane sharply, wheeling +round on him. +</p> + +<p> +“There <i>is</i> a draught,” began Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, finish sneezing and I’ll go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t sneeze!” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody sneezed.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seemed to come from just behind you,” said Mrs. Hignett +nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“It couldn’t have come from just behind me,” said Jane, +“because there isn’t anything behind me from which it could +have....” She stopped suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, +on her face the set expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of +action. “Oh!” she said in a different voice, a voice which was cold +and tense and sinister. “Oh, I see!” She raised her gun, and placed +a muscular forefinger on the trigger. “Come out of that!” she said. +“Come out of that suit of armour and let’s have a look at +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can explain everything,” said a muffled voice through the vizor +of the helmet. “I can—<i>achoo!</i>” The smoke of the +cigarette tickled Sam’s nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall count three,” said Jane Hubbard, +“One—two—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming! I’m coming!” said Sam petulantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better!” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t get this dashed helmet off!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t come quick, I’ll blow it off.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the costumes +of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, he slipped back +at that point to the Middle Ages. +</p> + +<p> +“Hands up!” commanded Jane Hubbard. +</p> + +<p> +“My hands <i>are</i> up!” retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched +at his unbecoming head-wear. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind trying to raise your hat,” said Jane. “If +you’ve lost the combination, we’ll dispense with the formalities. +What we’re anxious to hear is what you’re doing in the house at +this time of night, and who your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean +breast of it and perhaps you’ll get off easier. Are you a gang?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look like a gang?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you ask me what you look like....” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe....” +</p> + +<p> +“Alias what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe....” +</p> + +<p> +An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. +</p> + +<p> +“The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and....” +</p> + +<p> +“And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?” +said Mrs. Hignett with acerbity. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your +son....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jane Hubbard. “Never mind about that. +So you know this fellow, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know him!” +</p> + +<p> +“You said you did.” +</p> + +<p> +“I refuse to know him!” went on Mr. Bennett. “I won’t +know him! I decline to have anything to do with him!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you identify him?” +</p> + +<p> +“If he says he’s Samuel Marlowe,” assented Mr. Bennett +grudgingly, “I suppose he is. I can’t imagine anybody saying he was +Samuel Marlowe if he didn’t know it could be proved against him.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Are</i> you my nephew Samuel?” said Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what are you doing in my house?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s <i>my</i> house,” said Mr. Bennett, “for the +summer, Henry Mortimer’s and mine. Isn’t that right, Henry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead right,” said Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Mr. Bennett. “You hear? And when Henry Mortimer +says a thing, it’s so. There’s nobody’s word I’d take +before Henry Mortimer’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion,” said Mr. Mortimer, highly +flattered by these kind words, “you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett’s +word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!” +</p> + +<p> +The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good deal of +feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not disputing Mr. Bennett’s claim to belong to the Caucasian +race,” said Mrs. Hignett testily. “I merely maintain that this +house is m....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” interrupted Jane. “You can thresh all +that out some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I +don’t see what we can do. We’ll have to let him go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I came to this house,” said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate +speech, “to make a social call....” +</p> + +<p> +“At this hour of the night!” snapped Mrs. Hignett. “You +always were an inconsiderate boy, Samuel.” +</p> + +<p> +“I came to inquire after poor Eustace’s mumps. I’ve only just +heard that the poor chap was ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s getting along quite well,” said Jane, melting. +“If I had known you were so fond of Eustace....” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, is he?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not quite all right, but he’s going on very nicely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine!” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace and I are engaged, you know!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, really? Splendid! I can’t see you very distinctly—how +those Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things +like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope +you’ll be very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I’m sure we shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eustace is one of the best.” +</p> + +<p> +“How nice of you to say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“All this,” interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing +auditor of this interchange of courtesies, “is beside the point. Why did +you dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, “waking +people up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Scaring us all to death!” complained Mr. Mortimer. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember you as a boy, Samuel,” said Mrs. Hignett, +“lamentably lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on +your selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ballyrag the poor man,” said Jane Hubbard. “Be +human! Lend him a sardine opener!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Hignett. “I never +liked him and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through +his own wrong-headedness.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not his fault his head’s the wrong size,” said +Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“He must get himself out as best he can,” said Mrs. Hignett. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Sam with bitter dignity. “Then I will not +trespass further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local +blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to him now. +I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the earliest opportunity. +Good-night!” He walked coldly to the front door. “And there are +people,” he remarked sardonically, “who say that blood is thicker +than water! I’ll bet they never had any aunts!” +</p> + +<p> +He tripped over the mat and withdrew. +</p> + +<h3>§ 6</h3> + +<p> +Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had reached the +garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been spending a +considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start readily. At each +application of Billie’s foot on the self-starter, it emitted a tinny and +reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep again. Eventually, however, +the engines began to revolve and the machine moved reluctantly out into the +drive. +</p> + +<p> +“The battery must be run down,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes. She +hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists are aware, +the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost irresistible. To a +motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping out scathing remarks +either about the battery or the oiling-system. +</p> + +<p> +Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark drive. She +was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had received a painful +shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream. To call it a yellow +streak was to understate the facts. It was a great belt of saffron encircling +his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina Bennett, who had gone through the world +seeking a Galahad, should finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under +beds simply because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. +Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing. You might +say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe—and, of course, his habit of +playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale—but nobody could question +his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that time in the harbour at +New York! Billie found herself thinking wistfully about Samuel Marlowe. +</p> + +<p> +There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything except +the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. Bennett’s +Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had been waiting for +the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The wheels ceased to revolve. +The car did everything except lie down. It was a particularly pig-headed car +and right from the start it had been unable to see the sense in this midnight +expedition. It seemed now to have the idea that if it just lay low and did +nothing, presently it would be taken back to its cosy garage. +</p> + +<p> +Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to get down and crank her,” she said curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, go on,” said Billie impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Get out and crank her.” +</p> + +<p> +Bream emerged for an instant from his trance. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of our +greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job towards the +consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not at all. A man may +have all the other gifts and yet be unable to accomplish a task which the +fellow at the garage does with one quiet flick of the wrist without even +bothering to remove his chewing gum. This being so, it was not only unkind but +foolish of Billie to grow impatient as Bream’s repeated efforts failed of +their object. It was wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought +not to have told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an +emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress. +</p> + +<p> +“Give it a good sharp twist,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Bream. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, let me do it,” cried Billie. +</p> + +<p> +She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent brows and +set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint protesting mutter, +like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and was still once more. +</p> + +<p> +“May I help?” +</p> + +<p> +It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice—a sepulchral voice, the +sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe’s +cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from the +family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream painfully. He +uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he had been a Russian +dancer would undoubtedly have caused the management to raise his salary. He was +in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden sepulchral voices. +</p> + +<p> +Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just +beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided Bream +for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone +wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure, strange, that +is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages he would have excited +no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have said to themselves, “Ah, +another of those knights off after the dragons!” and would have gone on +their way with a civil greeting. But in the present age it is always somewhat +startling to see a helmeted head pop up in front of your motor car. At any +rate, it startled Bream. I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a +lifetime. He had had shocks already that night, but none to be compared with +this. Or perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, +affected him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first +of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying +that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam’s unconventional appearance put +the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments or ask +questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off the lives of the +abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring trees, he dashed away +towards the house and, reaching his room, locked the door and pushed the bed, +the chest of drawers, two chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots +against it. +</p> + +<p> +Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now, with a +masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would stand no +nonsense, set the engine going again. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—why,” she stammered, “why are you wearing that +thing on your head?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I can’t get it off.” +</p> + +<p> +Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it. +</p> + +<p> +“S—Mr. Marlowe!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Get in,” said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. +“Where can I take you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go away!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Get in!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to talk to <i>you!</i> Get in!” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted her +like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then throwing in the +clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the drive and out into the +silent road. Strange creatures of the night came and went in the golden glow of +the head-lights. +</p> + +<h3>§ 7</h3> + +<p> +“Put me down,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Drive about till you promise to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to drive a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right ho!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand and +grabbed at the steering wheel. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, if you <i>want</i> to smash up in a ditch!” said Sam, +righting the car with a wrench. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a brute!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“Caveman stuff,” explained Sam, “I ought to have tried it +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you expect to gain by this.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right,” said Sam, “I know what I’m +about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to hear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you would be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. Lean back and doze off. We’ve the whole night before +us.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever been to Scotland?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought we might push up there. We’ve got to go somewhere and, +oddly enough, I’ve never been to Scotland.” +</p> + +<p> +Billie regarded him blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you crazy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m crazy about you. If you knew what I’ve gone through +to-night for your sake you’d be more sympathetic. I love you,” said +Sam, swerving to avoid a rabbit. “And what’s more, you know +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will!” said Sam confidently. “How about North Wales? +I’ve heard people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North +Wales?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m engaged to Bream Mortimer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, that’s all off,” Sam assured her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not!” +</p> + +<p> +“Right off!” said Sam firmly. “You could never bring yourself +to marry a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. +Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away! No, +no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won’t do!” +</p> + +<p> +This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not bring +herself to dispute it. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyway, I hate <i>you!</i>” she said, giving the conversation +another turn. +</p> + +<p> +“Why? In the name of goodness, why?” +</p> + +<p> +“How dared you make a fool of me in your father’s office that +morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think +well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a lunatic +with a pistol. It wasn’t my fault that you found out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never forgive you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not Cornwall?” said Sam. “The Riviera of England! +Let’s go to Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said I should never forgive you and I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope you’re fond of motoring,” said Sam, +“because we’re going on till you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well! Go on, then!” +</p> + +<p> +“I intend to. Of course, it’s all right now while it’s dark. +But have you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall +have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when they +see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan’t notice them myself because +it’s a little difficult to notice anything from inside this thing, but +I’m afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know what +we’ll do. We’ll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That +will be fun!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Is my helmet on straight?” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered road. +Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit +that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating +about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed +away. She found herself struggling with a desire to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Lochinvar!” said Sam suddenly. “That’s the name of the +chap I’ve been trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? +‘Young Lochinvar’ the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just +what I’m doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose +in those days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man +should wear. Odd how fashions change!” +</p> + +<p> +Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any inquiries +into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful curiosity. In her new +mood she resisted the impulse no longer. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Why</i> are you wearing that thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you. Purely and simply because I can’t get it off. You +don’t suppose I’m trying to set a new style in gents’ +head-wear, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you ever put it on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the +drawing-room....” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the +cupboard in the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out +and started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline’s china, so I thought +I’d better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of +musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So, what with +one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide somewhere. I hid in +one of the suits of armour in the hall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you inside there all the time we were...?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn’t it? Getting under +the bed, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s talk about Bream.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we +won’t. Let’s get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you come to the house at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“To see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To see me! At that time of night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps not actually to see you.” Sam was a little perplexed +for a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his +true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had begun to +exist between them. “To be near you! To be in the same house with +you!” he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right note. +“You don’t know the anguish I went through after I read that letter +of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, will you marry +me?” +</p> + +<p> +Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road, moved +smoothly on. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with thoughtful +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +The car raced on. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you marry me?” said Sam. “Will you marry me? Will you +marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t talk like a parrot,” cried Billie. “It +reminds me of Bream.” +</p> + +<p> +“But will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for the +tyres. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you say ‘yes’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Darling!” said Sam, leaning towards her. “Oh, curse this +helmet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me try and get it off. Bend down!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ouch!” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s coming. There! How helpless men are!” +</p> + +<p> +“We need a woman’s tender care,” said Sam depositing the +helmet on the floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. +“Billie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sam!” +</p> + +<p> +“You angel!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re rather a darling after all,” said Billie. “But +you want keeping in order,” she added severely. +</p> + +<p> +“You will do that when we’re married. When we’re +married!” he repeated luxuriously. “How splendid it sounds!” +</p> + +<p> +“The only trouble is,” said Billie, “father won’t hear +of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he won’t. Not till it is all over,” said Sam. +</p> + +<p> +He started the car again. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” said Billie. “Where are you +going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To London,” said Sam. “It may be news to you but the old +lawyer like myself knows that, by going to Doctors’ Commons or the Court +of Arches or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or +something, you can get a special licence and be married almost before you know +where you are. My scheme—roughly—is to dig this special licence out +of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and then get married at +our leisure before lunch at a registrar’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not a registrar’s!” said Billie. +</p> + +<p> +“No?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hate a registrar’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, angel. Just as you say. We’ll go to a church. There are +millions of churches in London. I’ve seen them all over the place.” +He mused for a moment. “Yes, you’re quite right,” he said. +“A church is the thing. It’ll please Webster.” +</p> + +<p> +“Webster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’s rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so +blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster’s feelings. After all, +he brought us together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Webster? How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that some other time,” said Sam. +“Just for the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you +comfortable? Fine! Then off we go.” +</p> + +<p> +The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily as the +noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had only known it, +they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not befallen them, for Sam was +too happy to sing. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 20717-h.htm or 20717-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/1/20717/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84bf1ff --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #20717 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20717) diff --git a/old/20717-8.txt b/old/20717-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9819d40 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20717-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9706 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Girl on the Boat, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl on the Boat + +Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +Release Date: March 1, 2007 [EBook #20717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +THE GIRL ON THE BOAT + + +BY + +P. G. WODEHOUSE + + +HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED +3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1 + + +[Illustration: A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK] + + +_Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_ + +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London + + + + +WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT + + +It was Sam Marlowe's fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S. +"Atlantic" (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking for +a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any inferior +substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage placed Sam +for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay the pace. + +He follows Billie Bennett "around," scheming, blundering and hoping, so +does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam's rival. + +There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house +in Hampshire, where Billie's ideals still block the way and Sam comes on +in spite of everything. + +Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every +sense of the term. + + + + +ONE MOMENT! + + +Before my friend Mr. Jenkins--wait a minute, Herbert--before my friend +Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like +to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will +kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There +will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long. + +I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. +Ah! but you don't know. You don't realise how careful even a splendid +fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn't have me go down to posterity +as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this +volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, have +read Mr. J. Storer Clouston's "The Lunatic at Large Again." (Those who +are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both the +hero of "The Lunatic" and my "Sam Marlowe" try to get out of a tight +corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a country-house. +Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness that I am +innocent, innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue Wodehouse +is not sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr. Clouston's +appeared simultaneously in serial form in their respective magazines. +This proves, I think, that at these cross-roads, at any rate, there has +been no dirty work. All right, Herb., you can let 'em in now. + + P. G. WODEHOUSE. +Constitutional Club, + Northumberland Avenue. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. A DISTURBING MORNING 11 + + II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN 27 + + III. SAM PAVES THE WAY 56 + + IV. SAM CLICKS 69 + + V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE 95 + + VI. SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT 104 + + VII. SUNDERED HEARTS 111 + + VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION 126 + + IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE 144 + + X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES 159 + + XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT 180 + + XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS 193 + + XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND 207 + + XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER 217 + + XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE 227 + + XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED 242 + + XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT 257 + + + + +THE GIRL ON THE BOAT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A DISTURBING MORNING + + +Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace +Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight +peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine +summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to +thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the +sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on +the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly +eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on the +pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at +eight precisely. + +Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the Morrow," +and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked me. Yes, +she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour. + +About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, +for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh +swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, +philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to +affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race +movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on +religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this one +point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that there +was easy money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of America, and +that they might just as well grab it as the next person. + +Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for, +spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business +sense in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was +good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary +booked, before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had +finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs +taken for the passport. + +She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved +sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming +home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat of +the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its shady +walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its +walls--these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she +belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of +cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her +son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of +it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and +bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very +marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under +her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female +below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now. + +Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores +which she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and +dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She +smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to her own +early-rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call his soul +his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at half-past +nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her correspondence, +and started her duties for the day. + +Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls, +porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this +hell-brew, was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she +ate. The majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely +theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club, +asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly dinner. There was a +letter from her brother Mallaby--Sir Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent London +lawyer--saying that his son Sam, of whom she had never approved, would +be in New York shortly, passing through on his way back to England, and +hoping that she would see something of him. Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. +Hignett skimmed through it without interest, setting aside one or two of +the letters for Eustace, who acted as her unpaid secretary, to answer +later in the day. + +She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in +the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of +advanced years, entered the room. + +"Ma'am, there was a gentleman." + +Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred. + +"Didn't you tell him I was not to be disturbed?" + +"I did not. I loosed him into the parlour." The staff remained for a +moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. "He says he's your nephew. +His name's Marlowe." + +Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not +seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to extend +the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who once or twice, +during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace of Windles +with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than water, and +all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give him five +minutes. She went into the sitting-room, and found there a young man who +looked more or less like all other young men, though perhaps rather +fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had last met him, +as men so often do between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and was +now about six feet in height, about forty inches round the chest, and in +weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and amiable face, marred at +the moment by an expression of discomfort somewhat akin to that of a cat +in a strange alley. + +"Hullo, Aunt Adeline!" he said awkwardly. + +"Well, Samuel!" said Mrs. Hignett. + +There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and +disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not +improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who +imagined that he had long since grown to man's estate and put off +childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still +affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had +omitted to shave and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug which +had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the hands and +feet. + +"Jolly morning," said Sam, perseveringly. + +"So I imagine. I have not yet been out." + +"Thought I'd look in and see how you were." + +"That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes, +that was very kind of you!" + +There was another pause. + +"How do you like America?" said Sam. + +"I dislike it exceedingly." + +"Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that. +Personally, it doesn't affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I +like America myself," said Sam. "I've had a wonderful time. Everybody's +treated me like a rich uncle. I've been in Detroit, you know, and they +practically gave me the city and asked me if I'd like another to take +home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the +missing heir! I think America's the greatest invention on record." + +"And what brought you to America?" said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this +rhapsody. + +"Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know." + +"Surely at your age," said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, "you could be +better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?" + +"Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and +I still play football occasionally." + +"I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work." + +"He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take a +stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too." + +"He is perfectly right." + +"I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?" +said Sam. + +Mrs. Hignett started violently. + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Eh?" + +"What makes you say that?" + +"Oh, well, he's a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry, and all that." + +"There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and +retiring temperament, and sees few women. He is almost a recluse." + +Sam was aware of this, and had frequently regretted it. He had always +been fond of his cousin in that half-amused and rather patronising way +in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who run +more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if Eustace had +not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman whom from +his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of the Washouts, +much might have been made of him. Both at school and at Oxford, Eustace +had been--if not a sport--at least a decidedly cheery old bean. Sam +remembered Eustace at school, breaking gas globes with a slipper in a +positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford playing up to +him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had done that +imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the Trinity +smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg, and it +was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down in the +country, miles away from anywhere. + +"Eustace is returning to England on Saturday," said Mrs. Hignett. She +spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he +had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with her +till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the +question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at +Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the mercy +of servants who might trample over the flowerbeds, scratch the polished +floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. "He sails on the +'Atlantic.'" + +"That's splendid!" said Sam. "I'm sailing on the 'Atlantic' myself. I'll +go down to the office and see if we can't have a state-room together. +But where is he going to live when he gets to England?" + +"Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?" + +"But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?" + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"Letting Windles!" She spoke as one might address a lunatic. "What put +that extraordinary idea into your head?" + +"I thought father said something about your letting the place to some +American." + +"Nothing of the kind!" + +It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even +snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He could +not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was one +which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had +certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact, people had pestered her. +There was a rich, fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met +just before sailing at her brother's house in London. Invited down to +Windles for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place, and +had begged her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had +pursued her with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while +she was on the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she +reached New York. She had not been in America two days when there had +arrived a Mr. Mortimer, bosom friend of Mr. Bennett, carrying on the +matter where the other had left off. For a whole week Mr. Mortimer had +tried to induce her to reconsider her decision, and had only stopped +because he had had to leave for England himself, to join his friend. And +even then the thing had gone on. Indeed, this very morning, among the +letters on Mrs. Hignett's table, the buff envelope of a cable from Mr. +Bennett had peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder, then, +that Sam's allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of "The +Spreading Light" momentarily to lose her customary calm. + +"Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles," she said with finality, +and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an +end--and glad of it--also got up. + +"Well, I think I'll be going down and seeing about that state-room" he +said. + +"Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next +lecture." + +"Of course, yes. Mustn't interrupt you. I suppose you're having a great +time, gassing away--I mean--well, good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" + +Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed +that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of +lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go +through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly succeeded +in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the daughter of +Erin once more. + +"Ma'am, there was a gentleman." + +"This is intolerable!" cried Mrs. Hignett. "Did you tell him that I was +busy?" + +"I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room." + +"Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?" + +"He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream +Mortimer." + +"Bream Mortimer!" + +"Yes, ma'am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being +slippy from the dishes." + +Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as +she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream Mortimer. +He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who wanted Windles. This visit could +only have to do with the subject of Windles, and she went into the +dining-room in a state of cold fury, determined to squash the Mortimer +family, in the person of their New York representative, once and for +all. + +"Good morning, Mr. Mortimer." + +Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small bright eyes and a sharply +curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most parrots do. It +gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they saw Bream +Mortimer in restaurants, eating roast beef. They had the feeling that he +would have preferred sunflower seeds. + +"Morning, Mrs. Hignett." + +"Please sit down." + +Bream Mortimer looked as though he would rather have hopped on to a +perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with gleaming, excited +eyes. + +"Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!" + +"You _are_ having a word with me alone." + +"I hardly know how to begin." + +"Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent." + +Bream Mortimer started. + +"Then you have heard about it?" + +"I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr. +Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing +else. And now," cried Mrs. Hignett, fiercely, "you come and try to +re-open the subject. Once and for all, nothing will alter my decision. +No money will induce me to let my house." + +"But I didn't come about that!" + +"You did not come about Windles?" + +"Good Lord, no!" + +"Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?" + +Bream Mortimer seemed embarrassed. He wriggled a little, and moved his +arms as if he were trying to flap them. + +"You know," he said, "I'm not a man who butts into other people's +affairs...." He stopped. + +"No?" said Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream began again. + +"I'm not a man who gossips with valets...." + +"No?" + +"I'm not a man who...." + +Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. + +"Let us take all your negative qualities for granted," she said curtly. +"I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us +confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you +have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment, +that you wish to see me about?" + +"This marriage." + +"What marriage?" + +"Your son's marriage." + +"My son is not married." + +"No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little +Church Round the Corner!" + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"Are you mad?" + +"Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say," admitted Mr. +Mortimer. "You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!" + +"Who is this girl?" + +"Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot but never tell their love...." + +"Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?" + +"I've always been one of those men who...." + +"Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive +qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all. +You come to me with this absurd story...." + +"Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet who had it from her +maid." + +"Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to +marry?" + +"I don't know that I'd call him misguided," said Mr. Mortimer, as one +desiring to be fair. "I think he's a right smart picker! She's such a +corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I've loved her +for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is--somehow one never +seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening in the +summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I'm not one of these +smooth, dashing chaps, you see, with a great line of talk. I'm not...." + +"If you will kindly," said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, "postpone this +essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion, I shall be greatly +obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to +marry." + +"Haven't I told you?" said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. "That's odd. I +haven't. It's funny how one doesn't do the things one thinks one does. +I'm the sort of man...." + +"What is her name?" + +"... the sort of man who...." + +"What is her name?" + +"Bennett." + +"Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?" + +"That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing." + +"I intend to." + +"Fine!" + +"The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane." + +"That's right. I've noticed it myself." + +"Their auras are not the same colour." + +"If I've thought that once," said Bream Mortimer, "I've thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've thought it. Not +the same colour. That's the whole thing in a nutshell." + +"I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall +take immediate steps." + +"That's good. But what's the procedure? It's getting late. She'll be +waiting at the church at eleven." + +"Eustace will not be there." + +"You think you can fix it?" + +"Eustace will not be there," repeated Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair. + +"Well, you've taken a weight off my mind." + +"A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights." + +"I'll be going. Haven't had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat breakfast. +Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham get cut off +in their prime. I feel I can rely on you." + +"You can!" + +"Then I'll say good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +"I mean really good-bye. I'm sailing for England on Saturday on the +'Atlantic.'" + +"Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller." + +Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive. + +"You won't tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"You won't wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?" + +"I do not understand you." + +"You won't tell him that I crabbed his act ... gave the thing away ... +gummed the game?" + +"I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention." + +"Chivalrous?" said Bream Mortimer a little doubtfully. "I don't know +that I'd call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all's fair in love +and war. Well, I'm glad you're going to keep my share in the business +under your hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board." + +"You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent +sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin." + +"That's good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye." + +"Good-bye. When you reach England, remember me to your father." + +"He won't have forgotten you," said Bream Mortimer, confidently. He did +not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman. She +was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered. + +Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her +late visitor was speaking, schemes had begun to form in her mind like +bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door +had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than +seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and +simplest. She tiptoed softly to her son's room. Rhythmic snores greeted +her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly in. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN + + + 1 + +The White Star liner "Atlantic" lay at her pier with steam up and +gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure +was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors +fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro. +White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain, +though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical +nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers, +and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady stream. + +The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There +were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by +mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there +was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly +thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in +the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning +compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were +congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the +gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle +and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the +greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise. However, +after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder into +the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some stout +female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few +yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right +arm, and he spun round with a cry. + +It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New +York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite. + +He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. + +She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with +red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he +could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly +grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine +eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under +his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of +colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny +freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was +just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim, +her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say +no more than that they look pretty well all right. + +Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and +for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and +garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and +fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the +third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and +docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of +how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He +swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its +covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself, +he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it +all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of +history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to +clasp this girl to him and.... + +But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. +That, he felt, constituted an obstacle. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried. + +Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an +impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the +moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature.... + +"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous." + +Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded +from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs, a +sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the +confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write, +of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris and give +him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys, +American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking their wares on +every side. + +"I hope he didn't hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten +to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the +tip of his black nose. "Not counting waiters at the hotel, of course," +she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and he was left +thinking of all the things he might have said--all those graceful, +witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these +occasions. + +He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of +pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! +Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl +who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory +of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she +went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital. + + + 2 + +Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through +the crowd of passengers, passengers' friends, stewards, junior officers, +and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main +companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles, +as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage leading +to his state-room. + +State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the +chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings +round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression +that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over +to do a bit of entertaining--possibly an informal dance or something. +When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to the +dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to +swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands +again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does +not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable. + +Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart +in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began +to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished +now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed in +order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a +tight fit. Eustace's bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to take +up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, and +would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl with +the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have need +of diverting society. + +A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened. + +"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam. + +Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a +deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, +intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He +looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did. + +"Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice. + +Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going +by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something +cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be +the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him +could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists. + +"What on earth's the matter?" said Sam. + +"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing +much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart's broken." He eyed with +considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, a +harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who +might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage. + +"If you would care to hear the story...?" he said. + +"Go ahead." + +"It is quite short." + +"That's good." + +"Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl...." + +"Talking of girls," said Sam with enthusiasm, "I've just seen the only +one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I +was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly...." + +"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?" + +"Oh, sorry! Go ahead." + +Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing +occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B. +Midgeley. + +"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...." + +"So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw +such...." + +"Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said Eustace +coldly. + +"Oh, sorry! Carry on." + +"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...." + +"What was her name?" + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly +intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them +immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest +her. She admired my...." + +"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story." + +"Don't bustle me," said Eustace querulously. + +"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days." + +"I've forgotten where I was." + +"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened? +I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged +to some other johnny?" + +"Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both agreed +that a quiet wedding was what we wanted--she thought her father might +stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would--so we +decided to get married without telling anybody. By now," said Eustace, +with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have been on my +honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the parson's +fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding." + +"And then you quarrelled?" + +"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story. +I'm telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow--I can't make out +how--mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She stopped +the thing." + +Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his +cousin's meek subservience to her revolted him. + +"Stopped it? I suppose she said 'Now, Eustace, you mustn't!' and you +said 'Very well, mother!' and scratched the fixture?" + +"She didn't say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes, +she might never have heard anything about the marriage." + +"Then how do you mean she stopped it?" + +"She pinched my trousers!" + +"Pinched your trousers!" + +Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long +before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out +while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn't find +a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked everywhere. +Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and +asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent +them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the +mornings--I don't as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time. A fat +lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told +her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she +wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but it +sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the man +and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and +told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him +because I hadn't any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from what +he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening all +the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she +knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was +awful!" + +"And the girl?" + +"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from +eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't +see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her +saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been +thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a +mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had +thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like +Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed." + +"Did you explain about the trousers?" + +"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a +man anything except being ridiculous." + +"I think you're well out of it," said Sam, judicially. "She can't have +been much of a girl." + +"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined. +I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because +practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its +way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and +approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother +behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn't a law +against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was't +betrayed the Capitol....'" + +"In Washington?" said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But +then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting +page. + +"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome." + +"Oh, as long ago as that?" + +"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like +Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the +Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the +cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes? +Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'" + +"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I +mean. But the girl I met on the dock...." + +"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and +derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if +you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed +girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to +the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that +I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a +future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My +work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink." + +"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we +pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?" + +Eustace shook his head gloomily. + +"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and +feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay +there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. +Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck." + +"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that +you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage." + +"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve pyjamas +out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!" + +Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get +on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the +sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on +deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the +boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already +taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was +she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He +reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck. +And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from +the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with +people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water. + +Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is +excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always +among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a +blank window on which were inscribed the words, "Watch this space!" In +short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and +shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a +moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on--a view which +he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail. + +There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one +visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time +to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust +this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer. + +Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the +girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, leaning +out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else, +she was staring into the water. + +As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a +wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. +What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived +in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who +would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to shift +back to a position of greater safety. + +At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been +jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been +crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took +Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man +hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail +to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his hat +was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a few +skilful touches of the finger. + + + 3 + +In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room +chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some rather +curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but +curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the +reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It +should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is +one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero in +chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about his +grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space. We +must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in her +state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This +happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his +narrative. + +The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a +rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. +The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face +brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an +elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just forced +his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the +passenger-lined rail. + +The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the +river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She +gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a handkerchief, +swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed to give himself +room, and then, with all the strength of his arm, hurled the bills in +the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with its precious contents +shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good six feet, +and dropped into the water, where it unfolded like a lily, sending +twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, and an +assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets. + +It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest +souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a +lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By +profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood +by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so now: +and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to give +the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the pleading +face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was not the +man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy, pressed +his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment later he +had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both hands. + +He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at +his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he +observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young +man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe. + +"Svensk!" exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of +Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the +advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the +situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and +Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise. +He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone. + +Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability to +adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to come +whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water which +tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was here he +was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it happened, +was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his belongings at +home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at school in the +"Saving Life" competition. He knew exactly what to do. You get behind +the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then you start +swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr. Swenson who, +being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that anyone would +have the cool impertinence to try to save him from drowning, found +himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away from a ten-dollar +bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The spiritual agony +caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; though, even had he +contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which occurred to him, his +remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the crowd on the dock was +cheering as one man. They had often paid good money to see far less +gripping sights in the movies. They roared applause. The liner, +meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into mid-river. + +The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school, +considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the +problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a +leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is +perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects from +an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed throughout +of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from cash which he +has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it would be hard to +find a respect in which it does not differ. So far from lying inert in +Sam's arms and allowing himself to be saved in a quiet and orderly +manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one who feels that he +has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he disliked +competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was fair +competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that you +could grab it yourself--thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted Sam's +motives--was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would have +none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence at +his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung +hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant's face to be. + +Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of +life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles +against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply +stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had +known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the +reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would +have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in +convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles, +boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure. +Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist, which +he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the other's +bowler hat. + +It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly of +his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest +apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was to +sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his assailant by +the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and accompanied him below +the surface. + +By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his +second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that +this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt, +was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it +be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there +was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited. +Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a +merciful release. + +He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent of +Mr. Swenson's limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he had +never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson--not even his +Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven +distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to +him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of +Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed +to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the +face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in +the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally, +spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the +side of a boat. + +The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had been +brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating +population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows, skiffs, +launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in that +vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these +navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came +the tug "Reuben S. Watson," the skipper of which, following a famous +precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to +this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have a vein +of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a +situation; and it was the skipper's daughter who insisted that the +family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar bills, +should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of extricating +the young man from a watery grave. + +The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way--he always +spoiled the girl--with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the +deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his +faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson +rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after +one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept +a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff. + +Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public +fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he +wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an +appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. +Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was +so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it. + +"Well, aincher wet?" said a voice. + +The skipper's daughter was standing beside him, looking down +commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the +broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the +side in the quest for wealth. + +"Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet +guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you're certainly +_wet_!" + +"I _am_ wet," admitted Sam. + +"Yessir, you're wet! Wet's the word all right. Good and wet, that's what +you are!" + +"It's the water," said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he +could remember what that appointment was. "That's what has made me wet." + +"It's sure made you wet all right," agreed the girl. She looked at him +interestedly. "Wotcha do it for?" she asked. + +"Do it for?" + +"Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off'n that ship? I didn't +see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off'n the deck like a +sack of potatoes." + +Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered. + +"Where is she?" + +"Where's who?" + +"The liner." + +"She's off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I +seen of her." + +"She's not gone!" + +"Sure she's gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She's gotta get over to the +other side, ain't she? Cert'nly she's gone." She looked at him +interested. "Do you want to be on board her?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin' walloping off'n her like a +sack of potatoes?" + +"I slipped. I was pushed or something." Sam sprang to his feet and +looked wildly about him. "I must get back. Isn't there any way of +getting back?" + +"Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She'll +stop to let the pilot off." + +"Can you take me to quarantine?" + +The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of trousers. + +"Well, we _could_," she said. "But pa's kind of set in his ways, and +right now he's fishing for dollar bills with the boat hook. He's apt to +get sorta mad if he's interrupted." + +"I'll give him fifty dollars if he'll put me on board." + +"Got it on you?" inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of +sentiment, but she was her father's daughter and inherited from him the +business sense. + +"Here it is." He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, but +the contents were only fairly moist. + +"Pa!" said the girl. + +The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child's cry. + +"Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!" + +The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision. +There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her +hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of +wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive +parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply, exhibiting +a red, bearded face. + +"Pa, this gen'man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He'll +give you fifty berries." + +The wrath died out of the skipper's face like the slow turning down of a +lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to +secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so +suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook. + +"Fifty berries!" + +"Fifty seeds!" the girl assured him. "Are you on?" + +"Queen," said the skipper simply, "you said a mouthful!" + +Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it lay +towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him +clammily. He squelched as he walked. + +A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail +regarded him with open eyes. + +"My dear sir, you're very wet," he said. + +Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to +the companion way. + +"Mummie, why is that man wet?" cried the clear voice of a little child. + +Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs. + +"Good Lord, sir! You're very wet!" said a steward in the doorway of the +dining saloon. + +"You _are_ wet," said a stewardess in the passage. + +Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In +the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened +them languidly, then stared. + +"Hullo!" he said. "I say! You're wet!" + + + 4 + +Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was in +no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett's frank curiosity jarred +upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the floor and a +creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel was under way +again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on his side with a +hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and went out. + +He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with +bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to +look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For +there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous +young man who looked like a parrot. + +"Oh, _how_ are you?" asked the girl breathlessly. + +"Splendid, thanks," said Sam. + +"Didn't you get very wet?" + +"I did get a little damp." + +"I thought you would," said the young man who looked like a parrot. +"Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: 'That fellow's +going to get wet!'" + +There was a pause. + +"Oh!" said the girl. "May I--Mr.----?" + +"Marlowe." + +"Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer." + +Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam. + +"Nearly got left behind," said Bream Mortimer. + +"Yes, nearly." + +"No joke getting left behind." + +"No." + +"Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time," said Mr. Mortimer, +driving home his point. + +The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience. +She now spoke again. + +"Oh, Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it's all right about +our places for lunch." + +"It is all right. The table steward said so." + +"Yes, but go and make certain." + +"All right." + +He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes. + +"Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn't to have done it! Really, you oughtn't! +You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It +was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions' dens after +gloves!" + +"Yes?" said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him. It +seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too. + +"It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done! +But you shouldn't have bothered, really! It's all right, now." + +"Oh, it's all right now?" + +"Yes. I'd quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has +given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to +sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father's head clerk was to have +gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to +me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had +just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in +a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn't have dived +in after it." + +"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile. +He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had +shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out and +shake him by the hand. + +"You really are the bravest man I ever met!" + +"Oh, no!" + +"How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!" + +"I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a +service." + +"It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do +admire presence of mind. You didn't hesitate for a second. You just shot +over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!" + +"It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of +keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some +people have it, some haven't." + +"And just think! As Bream was saying...." + +"It _is_ all right," said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. "I saw a +couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So it's all +right." + +"Splendid," said the girl. "Oh, Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles +is quite comfortable." + +"Bound to be." + +"Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little." + +"Chirrup?" + +"Yes, to cheer him up." + +"Oh, all right." + +"Run along!" + +Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only +needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a +properly equipped messenger boy. + +"And, as Bream was saying," resumed the girl, "you might have been left +behind." + +"That," said Sam, edging a step closer, "was the thought that tortured +me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun...." + +"But it hadn't begun. We have never spoken to each other before now." + +"Have you forgotten? On the dock...." + +Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes. + +"Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!" + +"The lucky man!" + +Her face clouded. + +"Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It's his first +voyage." + +"I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us +together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?" + +"Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish +unpacking. After lunch, perhaps." + +"I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but...." + +"Oh, mine?" She smiled brightly. "It's funny that a person's name is the +last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett." + +"Bennett!" + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends," she said softly as she turned away, +"call me Billie!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SAM PAVES THE WAY + + +For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl as +she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always +have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a +little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to +re-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to +Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an +unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her +engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had been +short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a little +smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the object of +Eustace Hignett's affections. And now they had proved to be one and the +same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the vampire of a +five-reel feature film turn into the heroine. + +Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's identity, might have +felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous +entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The +way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina +Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl +had maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing so +must have been excellent and praiseworthy. + +After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in many +ways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustace +that gave him any claim to monopolise the affections of a wonderful +girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a +tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the engagement, +but what right had he to go about the place expecting her to be engaged +to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor girl as utterly +heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly sensible. She +had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she had +had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor old +Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that Wilhelmina +Bennett--her friends called her Billie--had not behaved in a perfectly +splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina Bennett--Billie to +her intimates--who made the world worth living in. + +Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a +delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few +times. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantly +off the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still +better. "We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. +'Billie' Marlowe...." + +A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. +Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace Hignett. +If Eustace was still capable of speech--and after all the boat was +hardly rolling at all--he would enjoy a further chat about his ruined +life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's society. As a +man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, Eustace +Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some great public +monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Sam +entered the state-room almost reverentially, with something of the +emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum. + +The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By +lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland +scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his +complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to +say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity. + +"Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bear +it." + +"Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to be +sea-sick already." + +"I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off +it.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking +steadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, +"is a place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles of +sand and not a drop of water anywhere!" + +Sam sat down on the lounge. + +"You're quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on +other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your +unfortunate affair with that girl--Billie Bennett I think you said her +name was." + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name +was Billie?" + +"I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to +their friends." + +"I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk +about it. The recollection tortures me." + +"That's just what you want. It's the counter-irritation principle. +Persevere, and you'll soon forget that you're on board ship at all." + +"There's something in that," admitted Eustace reflectively. "It's very +good of you to be so sympathetic and interested." + +"My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her +first, for instance?" + +"At a dinner...." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good +memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that +dinner--a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath the +surface of a thick white sauce. + +"And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair, +I suppose?" + +"How did you know she had lovely hair?" + +"My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in +love would have nice hair." + +"Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably +beautiful. It was red...." + +"Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically. + +Hignett started. + +"What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description. +Her eyes were a deep blue...." + +"Or, rather, green." + +"Blue." + +"Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue." + +"What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?" demanded +Eustace heatedly. "Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?" + +"My dear old man, don't get excited. Don't you see I am trying to +construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't pretend +to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes generally do +go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the bright +green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faint +yellowish green of your face at the present moment...." + +"Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded me +just when I was beginning to forget." + +"Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again--quick. What +were we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form +a mental picture of people if one knows something about their +tastes--what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite +topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she +like talking about?" + +"Oh, all sorts of things." + +"Yes, but what?" + +"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which +first drew us together." + +"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of +poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and +sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly +paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his +long suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it +would be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bone +them up from time to time. "Any special poet?" + +"Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on +Spring, did you?" + +"No. What other poets did she like besides you?" + +"Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver +in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of +the King!" + +"The which of what?" inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and +shooting out a cuff. + +"'The Idylls of the King.' My good man, I know you have a soul which +would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have +surely heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'" + +"Oh, _those_! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?' +Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?' +Well, really? I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by any +chance?" + +"There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together. +Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it +again." + +Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and +presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the +lounge. + +"Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sort +of picture of this girl, this--what was her name again? Bennett--this +Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her +seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen on +golf, by any chance, I suppose?" + +"I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather +enthusiastic. Why?" + +"Well, I'd much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry." + +"You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to Wilhelmina +Bennett about either, I should imagine." + +"No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some +girls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start the +conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this +Miss Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at +one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I +mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement if +you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything." + +"Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She +had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever any +shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I made +rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after we +were married." + +"I see!" said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it: +"Dog--conciliate." "Yes, of course, that must have wounded her." + +"Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day +before we--Wilhelmina and I, I mean--were to have been married. It is +some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home +on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean +over the Chesterfield." + +Sam shook his head reprovingly. + +"You shouldn't have done that," he said. He extended his cuff and added +the words "Vitally Important" to what he had just written. "It was +probably that which decided her." + +"Well, I hate dogs," said Eustace Hignett querulously. "I remember +Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step +in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who +were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters +nowadays, that life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn't be +reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like a +shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad was +ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he wore +armour. Give me a suit of mail, reaching well down over the ankles, and +I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in thin flannel +trousers, no!" + +Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that +the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high +opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in a +favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised with +it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How +could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world in +the quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so lamentably on his +first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor old +Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he wrote +poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but, as a partner for +life ... well, he simply wouldn't do. That was all there was to it. He +simply didn't add up right. The man a girl like Wilhelmina Bennett +required for a husband was somebody entirely different ... somebody, +felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel Marlowe. + +Swelled almost to bursting point with these reflections, he went on deck +to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. She +had put on one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance feminine +charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze playing in her +vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking. Beside her walked +young Mr. Bream Mortimer. + +Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight +of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. +What magic there is in a girl's smile! It is the raisin which, dropped +in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation. + +"Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!" + +"Oh, _there_ you are," said Bream Mortimer with a slightly different +inflection. + +"I thought I'd like a breath of fresh air before lunch," said Sam. + +"Oh, Bream!" said the girl. + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my +state-room, will you? I had no idea it was so warm." + +"I'll carry it," said Bream. + +"Nonsense! I wouldn't dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and put +it on the berth. It doesn't matter about folding it up." + +"All right," said Bream moodily. + +He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs +in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimer +was experiencing such a moment. + +"He had better chirrup to the dog while he's there, don't you think?" +suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream's +might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the half-minute. + +"Oh yes! Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"While you're down there, just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He +does appreciate it so!" + +Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a +glance at a man's back; but Bream's back looked like that of a man to +whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a +piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra. + +"How is your dear little dog, by the way?" inquired Sam solicitously, as +he fell into step by her side. + +"Much better now, thanks. I've made friends with a girl on board--did +you ever hear her name--Jane Hubbard--she's a rather well-known big-game +hunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did him +a world of good. I don't know what was in it except Worcester Sauce, but +she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had the +botts ... it's very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor Pinky +when he bit you." + +"Animal spirits!" said Sam tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits. I like to +see them. But, of course, I love all dogs." + +"Oh, do you? So do I!" + +"I only wish they didn't fight so much. I'm always stopping dog-fights." + +"I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog-fight. I'm afraid I'm +rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of." +She looked down. "Have you been reading? What is the book?" + +"The book? Oh, this. It's a volume of Tennyson." + +"Are you fond of Tennyson?" + +"I worship him," said Sam reverently. + +"Those----" he glanced at his cuff--"those 'Idylls of the King!' I do +not like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson +with me." + +"We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!" + +"We will! There is something about Tennyson...." + +"Yes, isn't there! I've felt that myself so often." + +"Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while others +call it a day when they've written something that runs to a couple of +verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was just +as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with his +chip-shots." + +"That sounds as though you play golf." + +"When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the +links. Do you play?" + +"I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. You +seem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be great +friends." + +He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle +sounded. + +"Oh dear!" she cried. "I must rush. But we shall see one another again +up here afterwards?" + +"We will," said Sam. + +"We'll sit and read Tennyson." + +"Fine! Er--you and I and Mortimer?" + +"Oh no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky." + +"Does he--does he know he is?" + +"Not yet," said Billie. "I'm going to tell him at lunch." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SAM CLICKS + + + 1 + +It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is +done in the movies they won't be satisfied with a bald statement like +that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or +whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture +scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:-- + + + AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE + AND YOUTH AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS + FORGED BY THE LAUGHING LOVE-GOD. + + +and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other +cheek and take a firmer grip of their companion's hands and the man at +the piano will play "Everybody wants a key to my cellar," or something +equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on +the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and +intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the plain +frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is my +story and I mean to stick to it. + +Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from +his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had +a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked +out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and +exuberant. + +It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was +uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing +back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would +propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the +test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, +but what of that? + +Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner +in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of +marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced himself, +after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion +which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was love, the +fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a +roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental +ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family +sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having +noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he +came to the "Thee--only thee!" bit, he felt a mild sense of +encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside +next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to +mention his name in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_ +having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, +he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of +Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, +he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his +addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam, +you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past +you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary +friendship...." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing +off. + +How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship +can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir +W. S. Gilbert's Alphonso. + + + "Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks, + He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six: + 'Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!' + And Emily said: 'Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!'" + + +Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a bright +young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that Wilhelmina +Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of time to be his +bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the dock, and all +the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, soup-drinking, tea-drinking, +and shuffle-board-playing which they had done together had merely +solidified his original impression. He loved this girl with all the +force of a fiery nature--the fiery nature of the Marlowes was a by-word +in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square--and something seemed to whisper that +she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir Galahad, and, +without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not see where she +could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself. So, wind and +weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to Wilhelmina +Bennett this very day. + +He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, +collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face. + +"I am the Bandolero!" sang Sam blithely through the soap. "I am, I am +the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!" + +The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly. + +"Oh, God!" said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head. + +Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been +happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a +pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive. + +"Feeling bad again, old man?" + +"I was feeling all right," replied Hignett churlishly, "until you began +the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?" + +"Glorious! The sea...." + +"Don't talk about the sea!" + +"Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the +history of the race. Why don't you get up?" + +"Nothing will induce me to get up." + +"Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast." + +Eustace Hignett shuddered. He eyed Sam sourly. "You seem devilish +pleased with yourself this morning!" he said censoriously. + +Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the +desire to confide in somebody got the better of him. + +"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I'm in love!" + +"In love!" Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against +the berth above him. "Has this been going on long?" + +"Ever since the voyage started." + +"I think you might have told me," said Eustace reproachfully. "I told +you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had +come upon you?" + +"Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a +notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere." + +"Who is she?" + +"Oh, a girl I met on board." + +"Don't do it!" said Eustace Hignett solemnly. "As a friend I entreat you +not to do it. Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don't do +it!" + +"Don't do what?" + +"Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are +intending to propose to this girl--probably this morning." + +"Not this morning--after lunch. I always think one can do oneself more +justice after lunch." + +"Don't do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. +Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be +hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of +sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also +made black? Do you realise...?" + +"Oh, I've thought it all out." + +"And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the +father--and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are +enormously in favour of such a thing happening--of a boy with spectacles +and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six +small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and had +teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in different +styles. How would you like to become the father...?" + +"There is no need to be indelicate," said Sam stiffly. "A man must take +these chances." + +"Give her the miss in baulk," pleaded Hignett. "Stay down here for the +rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to +Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you're ill and can't be +disturbed." + +Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how it +was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this man. +He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on deck. + + + 2 + +It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had +through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship +swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with +silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning +which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight +of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and white +skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme which he +had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be put off +till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The finest +efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in better +form than he felt at present. + +"Good morning, Miss Bennett." + +"Good morning, Mr. Marlowe." + +"Isn't it a perfect day?" + +"Wonderful!" + +"It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine." + +"Yes, doesn't it?" + +How strange it is that the great emotional scenes of history, one of +which is coming along almost immediately, always begin in this prosaic +way. Shakespeare tries to conceal the fact, but there can be little doubt +that Romeo and Juliet edged into their balcony scene with a few remarks +on the pleasantness of the morning. + +"Shall we walk round?" said Billie. + +Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck +was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting in +a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o'clock +soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of view +of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a beautiful +girl, the place was practically a tube station during the rush hour. + +"It's so crowded," he said. "Let's go on to the upper deck." + +"All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson." + +Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days' +acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man +was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open +his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down your +finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing which +it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of +conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading +poetry, especially Tennyson's, almost anything is apt to give you your +cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace +Hignett from an uneasy dose. + +"Now what?" said Eustace. + +"Where's that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it--ah, here it is. +Well, see you later!" + +"Wait! What are you going to do?" + +"Oh, that girl I told you about," said Sam making for the door. "She +wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck." + +"Tennyson?" + +"Yes." + +"On the upper deck?" + +"Yes." + +"This is the end," said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall. + +Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on +deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of +the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of +passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below. + +He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped +steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked +on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him towered +one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried on, and +presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by the white +roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which seemed to +have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was the deck on +which one could occasionally see the patients playing an odd game with +long sticks and bits of wood--not shuffleboard but something even lower +in the mental scale. This morning, however, the devotees of this pastime +were apparently under proper restraint, for the deck was empty. + +"This is jolly," he said sitting down beside the girl and drawing a deep +breath of satisfaction. + +"Yes, I love this deck. It's so peaceful." + +"It's the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not +meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always +makes me wish that I had a private yacht." + +"It would be nice." + +"A private yacht," repeated Sam, sliding a trifle closer. "We would sail +about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of +tropic seas." + +"We?" + +"Most certainly we. It wouldn't be any fun if you were not there." + +"That's very complimentary." + +"Well, it wouldn't. I'm not fond of girls as a rule...." + +"Oh, aren't you?" + +"No!" said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear +at the outset. "Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon it. +A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures +which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till +they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering +away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper +natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn't, if you see what I mean." + +"Oh, you wasn't ... weren't?" + +"No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love, +and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a lifetime, +lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and say 'At +last!'" + +"How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself." + +"Well, yes," said Sam after a momentary pause. + +"When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most +wonderful thing in the world." + +"The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming +love, a love which...." + +"Oh, hello!" said a voice. + +All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had not +been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something missing. +The time and the place and the girl--they were all present and correct; +nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object which +seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the feeling +was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no longer. He +was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered as if he +were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam's primary impulse was to +offer him a nut. + +"Oh, hello, Bream!" said Billie. + +"Hullo!" said Sam. + +"Hello!" said Bream Mortimer. "Here you are!" + +There was a pause. + +"I thought you might be here," said Bream. + +"Yes, here we are," said Billie. + +"Yes, we're here," said Sam. + +There was another pause. + +"Mind if I join you?" said Bream. + +"N--no," said Billie. + +"N--no," said Sam. + +"No," said Billie again. "No ... that is to say ... oh no, no at all." + +There was a third pause. + +"On second thoughts," said Bream, "I believe I'll take a stroll on the +promenade deck if you don't mind." + +They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head +twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away. + +"Who is that fellow?" demanded Sam wrathfully. + +"He's the son of father's best friend." + +Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that +he had never thought of her having a father. + +"We have known each other all our lives," continued Billie. "Father +thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was +sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I'm +in disgrace, you know I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days' +notice. I...." + +"Oh, hello!" + +"Why, Bream!" said Billie looking at him as he stood on the old spot in +the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of +her father's best friend might have expected. "I thought you said you +were going down to the promenade deck. + +"I did go down to the promenade deck. And I'd hardly got there when a +fellow who's getting up the ship's concert to-morrow night nobbled me to +do something for it. I said I could only do conjuring tricks and +juggling and so on, and he said all right, do conjuring tricks and +juggling, then. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. +I came up to ask you," he said to Sam, "if you would do something." + +"No," said Sam. "I won't." + +"He's got a man who's going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of +women who both want to sing 'The Rosary' but he's still a turn or two +short. Sure you won't rally round?" + +"Quite sure." + +"Oh, all right." Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. "It's a +great morning, isn't it?" + +"Yes," said Sam. + +"Oh, Bream!" said Billie. + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I'm sure she must be +feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck." + +A look of alarm spread itself over Bream's face. + +"Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!" + +"She's a very nice girl." + +"She's so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or +something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle." + +"Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting +experiences. They are most interesting." + +Bream drifted sadly away. + +"I don't blame Miss Hubbard," said Sam. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should +like to do it myself." + +"Oh, don't let's talk about Bream. Read me some Tennyson." + +Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had +absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at +the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed +to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the +volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! +He was all right. He had the stuff. You could rely on him every time. + +He cleared his throat. + + + "Oh let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + + Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me + Before I am quite quite sure + That there is one to love me...." + + +This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He +could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big +and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and +took her hand. + +"There is something," he began in a low voice, "which I have been trying +to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have read in +my eyes." + +Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand. + +"Until this voyage began," he went on, "I did not know what life meant. +And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You're the +dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I'll never forget...." He +stopped. "I'm not trying to make it rhyme," he said apologetically. +"Billie, don't think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest +notion, dearest ... I don't know what's the matter with me ... Billie, +darling, you are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for you +for years and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. Surely +this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you must have +seen that I've been keen.... There's that damned Walt Mason stuff +again!" His eyes fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an +exclamation of enlightenment. "It's those poems!" he cried. "I've been +boning them up to such an extent that they've got me doing it too. What +I'm trying to say is, Will you marry me?" + +She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her +eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his. + + + 3 + +Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face. + +"Darling," she said, "I've a confession to make." + +"A confession? You? Nonsense!" + +"I can't get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will +last." + +"Our love? Don't be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, it's so +vast, it's bound to last ... that is to say, of course it will." + +She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe. + +"I'm afraid of myself. You see, once before--and it was not so very long +ago,--I thought I had met my ideal, but...." + +Sam laughed heartily. + +"Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace +Hignett?" + +She started violently. + +"You know!" + +"Of course! He told me himself." + +"Do you know him? Where did you meet him?" + +"I've known him all my life. He's my cousin. As a matter of fact, we are +sharing a state-room on board now." + +"Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet +him?" + +"Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: 'Oh, +here you are!' or something. You know the sort of thing." + +"It will be terrible." + +"Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have realised +by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd his ever +expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it +dispassionately ... Eustace ... poor old Eustace ... and _you_! The +Princess and the Swineherd!" + +"Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?" she asked, surprised. + +"I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with +the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to +marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, +good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of life +are concerned. A man who can't even stop a dog-fight! In a world which +is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you trust +yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than I am, +but ... well, I mean to say!" + +"I see what you mean. He really wasn't my ideal." + +"Not by a mile!" + +She mused, her chin in her hand. + +"Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways." + +"Oh, a splendid chap," said Sam tolerantly. + +"Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him +was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well." + +A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no +objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the +conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to one +subject. + +"Yes?" he said. "Oh yes, I've heard him sing. Not lately. He does +drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?" + +"Have you ever heard him sing 'My love is like a glowing tulip that in +an old-world garden grows'?" + +"I have not had that advantage," replied Sam stiffly. "But anyone can +sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will +make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ... that's +a different thing altogether." + +"Do you sing that sort of thing?" + +"People have been good enough to say...." + +"Then," said Billie decidedly, "you must certainly do something at the +ship's concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light +under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent +accompanist. He can accompany you." + +"Yes, but ... well, I don't know," said Sam doubtfully. He could not +help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a +house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion +somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to +identify had thrown a pat of butter at him. + +"Of course you must sing," said Billie. "I'll tell Bream when I go down +to lunch. What will you sing?" + +"Well--er--" + +"Well, I'm sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so +wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!" + +Sam's discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the +sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the +second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing at +all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a +hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he was +good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times. + + + 4 + +Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily +brushing the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her +shoulders. On the lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey +kimono, Jane Hubbard watched her, smoking a cigarette. + +Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood. +Her whole appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces and +all that sort of thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl, +about the same age as Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had +looked leopards squarely in the face and caused them to withdraw abashed +into the undergrowth, or where-ever it is that leopards withdraw when +abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard flirting lightly at garden +parties, but one could picture her very readily arguing with a mutinous +native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and light into the +soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must have been +rather like Jane Hubbard. + +She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one +hand, a feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was +pleasantly tired after walking eighty-five times round the promenade +deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the moment her head +touched the pillow. But meanwhile she lingered here, for she felt that +Billie had something to confide in her. + +"Jane," said Billie, "have you ever been in love?" + +Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette. + +"Not since I was eleven," she said in her deep musical voice. "He was my +music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was an +appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats, I +remember." + +Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through her +fingers. + +"Oh, Jane!" she exclaimed. "Surely you don't like weak men. I like a man +who is strong and brave and wonderful." + +"I can't stand brave men," said Jane, "it makes them so independent. I +could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes, +when I have been roughing it out in the jungle," she went on rather +wistfully, "I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would +put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me +pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I'm beginning +to want to settle down. After all there are other things for a woman to +do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I should like +to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should practically have to +marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look after the social end +of life and arrange parties and receptions and so on, and sit +ornamentally at the head of my table. I can't imagine anything jollier +than marriage under conditions like that. When I came back a bit done up +after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a whisky-and-soda and +read poetry to me or prattle about all the things he had been doing +during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!" + +Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a smoke +ring which she had sent floating towards the ceiling. + +"Jane," said Billie. "I believe you're thinking of somebody definite. +Who is he?" + +The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited +made her look manlier than ever. + +"I don't know his name." + +"But there is really someone?" + +"Yes." + +"How splendid! Tell me about him." + +Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor. + +"I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You +know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of +course, but this poor little fellow--_so_ good-looking, my dear! he +reminded me of the pictures of Lord Byron--was hanging from a strap and +being jerked about till I thought his poor little arms would be wrenched +out of their sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he had some +secret sorrow. I offered him my seat, but he wouldn't take it. A couple +of stations later, however, the man next to me got out and he sat down +and we got into conversation. There wasn't time to talk much. I told him +I had been down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had left to be +mended. He was so prettily interested when I showed him the mechanism. +We got along famously. But--oh, well, it was just another case of ships +that pass in the night--I'm afraid I've been boring you." + +"Oh, Jane! You haven't! You see ... you see, I'm in love myself." + +"I had an idea you were," said her friend looking at her critically. +"You've been refusing your oats the last few days, and that's a sure +sign. Is he that fellow that's always around with you and who looks like +a parrot?" + +"Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!" cried Billie indignantly. "As if I +should fall in love with Bream!" + +"When I was out in British East Africa," said Miss Hubbard, "I had a +bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him to +whistle 'Annie Laurie' and to ask for his supper in three native +dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn't +Bream Mortimer, who is it?" + +"His name is Marlowe. He's tall and handsome and very strong-looking. He +reminds me of a Greek god." + +"Ugh!" said Miss Hubbard. + +"Jane, we're engaged." + +"No!" said the huntress, interested. "When can I meet him?" + +"I'll introduce you to-morrow I'm so happy." + +"That's fine!" + +"And yet, somehow," said Billie, plaiting her hair, "do you ever have +presentiments? I can't get rid of an awful feeling that something's +going to happen to spoil everything." + +"What could spoil everything?" + +"Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do +anything to blur the image I have formed of him." + +"Oh, he won't. You said he was one of those strong men, didn't you? They +always run true to form. They never do anything except be strong." + +Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass. + +"You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane." + +"Yes?" + +"We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And +I waited and waited and he didn't come; and what do you think had +happened?" + +"What?" + +"His mother had stolen his trousers." + +Jane Hubbard laughed heartily. + +"It's nothing to laugh at," said Billie seriously "It was a tragedy. I +had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales +seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake." + +"And you broke off the engagement?" + +"Of course!" + +"I think you were hard on him. A man can't help his mother stealing his +trousers." + +"No. But when he finds they're gone, he can 'phone to the tailor for +some more or borrow the janitor's or do _something_. But he simply +stayed where he was and didn't do a thing. Just because he was too much +afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be +married that day." + +"Now that," said Miss Hubbard, "is just the sort of trait in a man which +would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man." + +"I don't. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and--I don't know why +it is--I can't forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my +darling Sam couldn't look ridiculous, even if he tried. He's wonderful, +Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see his +eyes flash." + +Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn. + +"Well, I'll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you +can arrange to have him flash his eyes then--say between nine-thirty and +ten--I shall be delighted to watch them." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE + + +"Good God!" cried Eustace Hignett. + +He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light which +came through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was seven-thirty, +and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of strange nightmares, +and for the moment he thought that he must still be dreaming, for the +figure before him could have walked straight into any nightmare and no +questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it was his cousin, +Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in the pigstye, he +could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like that? Was it +simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face really black +and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal size and become +a vivid crimson? + +Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a +satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not +have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. +His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab +with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker. + +"Hullo! You awake?" he said, and switched on the light. + +Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend's profile, seen +dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting +object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent +dreams--and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top +hats and running shorts--had affected him so profoundly. Sam's +appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a +different and a dreadful world. + +"What ... what ... what...?" he gurgled. + +Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his +nose. + +"How do I look?" + +Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become +unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like +that, being anxious to be told how he looked. + +"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It +starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second +part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the +ears, or are they all right?" + +Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind. + +"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?" + +"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man, +and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a +matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiance made rather a point of my +doing something." + +A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the +significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace. + +"Your fiance?" + +"The girl I'm engaged to. Didn't I tell you about that? Yes, I'm +engaged." + +Eustace sighed heavily. + +"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?" + +"Didn't I tell you her name?" + +"No." + +"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he +blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence, +really. Her name is Bennett." + +"She may be a relation." + +"That's true. Of course, girls do have relations." + +"What is her first name?" + +"That is another rather remarkable thing. It's Wilhelmina." + +"Wilhelmina!" + +"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called +Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence." + +"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice. +"Her hair! What colour is it?" + +"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, +you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it +Titian...." + +"Never mind what I might call it. Is it red?" + +"Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put +it to me like that, it _is_ red." + +"Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, +like a kitten with a ball of wool?" + +"Yes. Yes, she has." + +Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry. + +"Sam," he said, "can you bear a shock?" + +"I'll have a dash at it." + +"Brace up!" + +"I'm ready." + +"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry +_me_." + +"Well, well!" said Sam. + +There was a silence. + +"Awfully sorry, of course, and all that," said Sam. + +"Don't apologise to _me_!" said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only +feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He +reached out and pressed Sam's hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath the +harrow!" + +"Well, I suppose that's one way of offering congratulations and cheery +good wishes." + +"And on top of that," went on Eustace, deeply moved, "you have got to +sing at the ship's concert." + +"Why shouldn't I sing at the ship's concert?" + +"My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that +you can't sing. You can't sing for nuts! I don't want to discourage you, +but, long ago as it is, you can't have forgotten what an ass you made of +yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against it like +this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you on that occasion, +though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue." + +Sam started. + +"Was it you who threw that bit of butter?" + +"It was." + +"I wish I'd known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar." + +"Ah, well, it's seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the +wash anyhow by this time. But don't let us brood on the past. Let us put +our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible +situation." + +"I don't want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of +the evening." + +"The hit of the evening! You! Singing!" + +"I'm not going to sing. I'm going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney +which I did at the Trinity smoker. You haven't forgotten that? You were +at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a +riot I was--we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don't feel +well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it +without a rehearsal. You remember how it went.... 'Hullo, Ernest!' +'Hullo, Frank!' Why not come along?" + +"The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor +that does not heave and wobble under me." + +"Nonsense! The boat's as steady as a rock now. The sea's like a +mill-pond." + +"Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!" + +"Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow +Mortimer. We've been rehearsing all the afternoon, and he seems to have +the hang of the thing. But he won't be really right. He has no pep, no +vim. Still, if you won't ... well, I think I'll be getting along to his +state-room. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal." + +The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave +himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his +cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina +Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a +thud on the rocks. + +His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Sam +rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too +much burnt cork on his cousin's face to allow of any real registering of +emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well. + +"What's the matter?" + +Sam sank down on the lounge. + +"The bounder has quit!" + +"The bounder? What bounder?" + +"There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom +thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really +deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the +act! He has left me flat! I went into his state-room just now, as +arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning." + +"I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond." + +"It wasn't that! He's perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass +took it into his head to propose to Billie just before +dinner--apparently he's loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing +way--and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the +thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down +at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. +He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer I +hope it chokes him!" + +"But this is splendid! This lets you out." + +"What do you mean? Lets me out?" + +"Why, now you won't be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for this +in years to come." + +"Won't I appear! Won't I dashed well appear! Do you think I'm going to +disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather +die." + +"But you can't appear without a pianist." + +"I've got a pianist." + +"You have?" + +"Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears +like water-wings." + +"I don't think I know him." + +"Yes, you do. He's you!" + +"Me!" + +"Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night." + +"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's impossible. I gave you my views +on the subject just now." + +"You've altered them." + +"I haven't." + +"Well, you soon will, and I'll tell you why. If you don't get up out of +that damned berth you've been roosting in all your life, I'm going to +ring for J. B. Midgeley and I'm going to tell him to bring me a bit of +dinner in here and I'm going to eat it before your eyes." + +"But you've had dinner." + +"Well, I'll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork +chop...." + +"Stop! Stop!" + +"A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage," repeated Sam +firmly. "And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now how do we go?" + +"You wouldn't do that!" said Eustace piteously. + +"I would and will." + +"But I shouldn't be any good at the piano. I've forgotten how the thing +used to go." + +"You haven't done anything of the kind. I come in and say 'Hullo, +Ernest!' and you say 'Hullo, Frank!' and then you help me tell the story +about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it." + +"Perhaps there is some child on board...." + +"No. I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We've done it together +before." + +"But, honestly, I really don't think ... it isn't as if...." + +Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell. + +"Stop! Stop!" cried Eustace Hignett. "I'll do it!" + +Sam withdrew his finger. + +"Good!" he said. "We've just got time for a rehearsal while you're +dressing. 'Hullo, Ernest!'" + +"'Hullo, Frank,'" said Eustace Hignett brokenly as he searched for his +unfamiliar trousers. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT + + +Ships' concerts are given in aid of the Seamen's Orphans and Widows, +and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel that +any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a +chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They +open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies--so long, as a +rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards +that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the +amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins. + +It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and +recuperation that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was +scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in +the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his threat +and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a master of +oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or fifteen minutes; +and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only just got past +the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through the shrimps. +"The Rosary" had been sung and there was an uneasy doubt as to whether +it was not going to be sung again after the interval--the latest rumour +being that the second of the rival lady singers had proved adamant to +all appeals and intended to fight the thing out on the lines she had +originally chosen if they put her in irons. + +A young man had recited "Gunga Din" and, wilfully misinterpreting the +gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had +followed it with "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." His sister--these things run in +families--had sung "My Little Gray Home in the West"--rather sombrely, +for she had wanted to sing "The Rosary," and, with the same obtuseness +which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered plantation +songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of +silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still +remaining unexpired. + +It was shocked to read the following:-- + + + 7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe. + + +All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in +their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like +a knell! Many of these people were old travellers and their minds went +back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when +performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens' +characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false +hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and +other of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there +was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this +S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait +and hope that it would be short. + +There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and +took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The +more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of +those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do +occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They stared at +Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous in the +man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one +approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know +that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor +which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner produce +in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, yet well-defined, +smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a great many people +have recently been eating a great many meals. A few beads of cold +perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett's brow. He looked straight +before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of the Sahara. + +So tense was Eustace's concentration that he did not see Billie +Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a +little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content +with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the +front row. She always had a front-row seat at witch dances in Africa, +and the thing had become a habit. + +In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up +her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was +staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of +Eustace. Under her breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in one +of the lesser-known dialects of Northern Nigeria. + +"Billie!" she whispered sharply. + +"What _is_ the matter, Jane?" + +"Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?" + +"As a matter of fact, I do," said Billie. "His name is Hignett. Why?" + +"It's the man I met on the Subway!" She breathed a sigh. "Poor little +fellow, how miserable he looks!" + +At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, +pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and +struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the +door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the +entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing +had befallen them than even they had looked for. + +The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a +grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It +advanced towards them, smoking a cigar. + +"Hullo, Ernest," it said. + +And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. +Dead silence reigned in the saloon. + +"Hullo, Ernest!" + +Those nearest the piano--and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard--now +observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter +still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked +like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised +with him. They felt like that, too. + +In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little +miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment's thought +should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the +essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney; but he +had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute +surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it +had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth +at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its +curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes +protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea fishes +concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then +with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for +the deck. + +There was a rustle at Billie's side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed +him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and +piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in +his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that +was best and manliest in her nature. Thrusting aside with one sweep of +her powerful arm a steward who happened to be between her and the door, +she raced in pursuit. + +Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin's dash for the open with a +consternation so complete that his senses seemed to have left him. A +general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt +something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the +imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be +carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the +orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment. +Without him, nothing can be done. + +For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of +the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, +passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen's +Orphans and Widows. + +The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed to +them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which +renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen +many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon +echoed with their applause. + +It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled +for refuge to his state-room and was lying in the lower berth, chewing +the pillow, a soul in torment. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SUNDERED HEARTS + + +There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count +of time. + +"Who's that?" + +"I have a note for you, sir." + +It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of +the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body +of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star +steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is +ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human +approach to the nightingale. + +"A what?" + +"A note, sir." + +Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took +the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in +an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a +thrill. He had never seen the handwriting before, but, with the eye of +love, he recognised it. It was just the sort of hand he would have +expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of a +warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope. + +"Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you." + +Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little +disappointed. I don't know if you see anything wrong with the letter, +but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it might +have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running any +risk of writer's cramp, she might have signed it. + +However, these were small matters. No doubt the dear girl had been in a +hurry and so forth. The important point was that he was going to see +her. When a man's afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a cheering +sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has made an +exhibition of himself at a ship's concert. A woman's gentle sympathy, +that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else at the +moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed the +burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his clothes +and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he felt, to have +chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted and it was +hallowed for them both by sacred associations. + +She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was +quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea, +making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The +girl appeared to be wrapped in thought and it was not till the sharp +crack of Sam's head against an overhanging stanchion announced his +approach, that she turned. + +"Oh, is that you?" + +"Yes." + +"You've been a long time." + +"It wasn't an easy job," explained Sam, "getting all that burnt cork +off. You've no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter...." + +She shuddered. + +"Don't!" + +"But I did. You have to with burnt cork." + +"Don't tell me these horrible things." Her voice rose almost +hysterically. "I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned again +as long as I live." + +"I feel exactly the same." Sam moved to her side. "Darling," he said in +a low voice, "it was like you to ask me to meet you here. I know what +you were thinking. You thought that I should need sympathy. You wanted +to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold me in your arms and +tell me that, as we loved each other, what did anything else matter?" + +"I didn't." + +"You didn't?" + +"No, I didn't." + +"Oh, you didn't? I thought you did!" He looked at her wistfully. "I +thought," he said, "that possibly you might have wished to comfort me. +I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock...." + +"And what about me?" she demanded passionately. "Haven't I had a shock?" + +He melted at once. + +"Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all +about it." + +She looked away from him, her face working. + +"Can't you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were the +perfect knight." + +"Yes, isn't it?" + +"Isn't what?" + +"I thought you said it was a perfect night." + +"I said I thought _you_ were the perfect knight." + +"Oh, ah!" + +A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a +sort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about +for a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily. + +"Yes?" said Sam when he had gone. + +"I forget what I was saying." + +"Something about my being the perfect knight." + +"Yes. I thought you were." + +"That's good." + +"But you're not!" + +"No?" + +"No!" + +"Oh!" + +Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not +understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and +comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled +some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on +one occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a white +mouse into chapel. + + + "Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, + Un-something, something, something, please. + When tiddly-umpty umpty brow, + A something something something thou!" + + +He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that +Woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be +relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble. +How little the poet had known woman. + +"Why not?" he said huffily. + +She gave a little sob. + +"I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have +blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again +without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and +helpless...." + +"Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?" + +"You could have done _something_!" The words she had spoken only +yesterday to Jane Hubbard came back to her. "I can't forgive a man for +looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what," she cried, "induced you to try to +give an imitation of Bert Williams?" + +Sam started, stung to the quick. + +"It wasn't Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!" + +"Well, how was I to know?" + +"I did my best," said Sam sullenly. + +"That is the awful thought." + +"I did it for your sake." + +"I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. +Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a +small black golliwog into his hand. "Take it!" + +"What's this?" + +"You bought it for me yesterday at the barber's shop. It is the only +present which you have given me. Take it back." + +"I don't want it. I shouldn't know what to do with it." + +"You must take it," she said in a low voice. "It is a symbol." + +"A what?" + +"A symbol of our broken love." + +"I don't see how you make that out. It's a golliwog." + +"I can never marry you now." + +"What! Good heavens! Don't be absurd." + +"I can't!" + +"Oh, go on, have a dash at it," he said encouragingly, though his heart +was sinking. + +She shook her head. + +"No, I couldn't." + +"Oh, hang it all!" + +"I couldn't. I'm a very strange girl...." + +"You're a very silly girl...." + +"I don't see what right you have to say that," she flared. + +"I don't see what right you have to say you can't marry me and try to +load me up with golliwogs," he retorted with equal heat. + +"Oh, can't you understand?" + +"No, I'm dashed if I can." + +She looked at him despondently. + +"When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me +for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to +shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail +that morning. Now--" her voice trembled "--if I shut my eyes now, I can +only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing +stock of the ship. How could I marry you, haunted by that picture?" + +"But, good heavens, you talk as though I made a habit of blacking up! +You talk as though you expected me to come to the altar smothered in +burnt cork." + +"I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night." She looked at him +sadly. "There's a bit of black still on your left ear." + +He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if +struck. + +"So this is the end," he muttered. + +"Yes. It's partly on your ear and partly on your cheek." + +"So this is the end," he repeated. + +"You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more +butter." + +He laughed bitterly. + +"Well, I might have expected it. I might have known what would happen! +Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women--as I do now. +Women! What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was't betrayed +the what's-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... +who--er--and so on? A woman.... So all is over! There is nothing to be +said but good-bye?" + +"No." + +"Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!" + +"Good-bye," said Billie sadly. "I--I'm sorry." + +"Don't mention it!" + +"You do understand, don't you?" + +"You have made everything perfectly clear." + +"I hope--I hope you won't be unhappy." + +"Unhappy!" Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the cry +of a shrimp in pain. "Unhappy! Ha! ha! I'm not unhappy! Whatever gave +you that idea? I'm smiling! I'm laughing! I feel I've had a merciful +escape. Oh, ha, ha!" + +"It's very unkind and rude of you to say that." + +"It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called +'Saved from the Scaffold.'" + +"Oh!" + +"I'm not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth +does any man want to get married for? I don't. Give me my gay bachelor +life! My Uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to get married +than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But _he_ was a man who +always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And +good-bye--for ever." + +He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven +the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken +bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he +had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching. + +As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a +high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door. + + + "I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor, + Though his lance be sharrrp and--er keen; + But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour + Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen: + I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...." + + +Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be +alive was bad--he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing +about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he should be +singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have stricken Eustace +Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting himself like a +blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no conscience +whatever. + +"Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!" + +Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief +interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary +transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had +disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly +self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes +of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing +in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Super-fine +Featherweight!" printed underneath him, he could not have looked more +pleased with himself. + +"Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to." + +"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get to +and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of generous +indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by +dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?" + +"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up +tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed +to go black--I don't mean you, of course. You were black already--and I +got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself." + +"Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam with a strong sense of injury. "I +might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you +singing...." + +A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes. + +"I want to tell you all about that," he said. + +"It's the most astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it. +Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was +on the Subway in New York...." + +He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York +in the order named. + +"My dear chap, what is the matter?" + +"What is the matter? Ha!" + +"Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett. "I can tell it by +your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know you +so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!" + +"Ha, ha!" + +"You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why, +that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most +colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things +cannot affect one permanently." + +"Can't they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my +engagement is broken off." + +Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand. + +"Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the finest +thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle words. As +one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak feelingly. You are +well out of it, Sam." + +Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched +it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett. + +"My heart is broken," he said with dignity. + +"That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I +know. I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she? +A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!" + +"She is nothing of the kind," said Sam, revolted. + +"Pardon me," said Eustace firmly, "I speak as an expert. I know her and +I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!" + +"She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic +behaviour, I have lost her." + +"You speak of the only girl in the world," said Eustace blithely. "If +you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A +week ago I was on the Subway in New York...." + +"I'm going to bed," said Sam brusquely. + +"All right. I'll tell you while you're undressing." + +"I don't want to listen." + +"A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture me seated +after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I got into +conversation with a girl with an elephant gun." + +Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the +elephant gun. + +"She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "I +didn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a +wonderful personality, and this elephant gun." + +"Did she shoot you with it?" + +"Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!" + +"The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of a +lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?" + +"I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun, +and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a +hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nourishing soup out of mangoes, +and what to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how +she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at +the moment--quite unnecessarily if I had only known--because it was only +a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been +broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it +may seem, I forgot all about her." + +"Do it again!" + +"Tell it again?" + +"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again." + +"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our +souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their +deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner +... saying 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I +was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this +very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck...." + +"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest. + +"I certainly did!" + +"That's good!" + +"But not for long." + +"That's bad!" + +"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel." + +"Switch off the light when you've finished." + +"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are +some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with +a mixture of some description in a glass. I don't know what it was. It +had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it. +She said it was what she always used in Africa for bull-calves with the +staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ... are you asleep?" + +"Yes." + +"Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely +freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was +walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able +to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of the +moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women since +I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They still +apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to include the +whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith in Woman. +Sam! Sam!" + +"What?" + +"I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman." + +"Oh, all right." + +Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile +on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken +only by the distant purring of the engines. + +At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth. + +"Sam!" + +"What is it now?" + +"There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me +she once killed a panther with a hat-pin." + +Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress. + +Silence fell again. + +"At least I think it was a panther," said Eustace Hignett at a quarter +past one. "Either a panther or a puma." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION + + + 1 + +A week after the liner "Atlantic" had docked at Southampton Sam Marlowe +might have been observed--and was observed by various of the +residents--sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising +watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on +the south coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am +aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the +others--none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte +on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the +asphalte on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel +Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling +incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss +waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For +dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves +that break on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if +it revolted them to have to come to such a place. + +Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with +all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week +at breezy, blighted Bingley? + +Simply because he had been disappointed in love. + +Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an +unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males +behave in the same way under the spur of female fickleness. +_Archilochum_, for instance, according to the Roman writer, _proprio +rabies armavit iambo_. It is no good pretending out of politeness that +you know what that means, so I will translate. _Rabies_--his +grouch--_armavit_--armed--_Archilochum_--Archilochus--_iambo_--with the +iambic--_proprio_--his own invention. In other words, when the poet +Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he +consoled himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in a +new metre which he had thought up immediately after leaving the house. +That was the way the thing affected him. + +On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper +that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an +officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using +profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life. Constable +Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant while he was +on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to fight him for +fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his head. Accused, +questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and expressed regret, +pleading that he had had words with his young woman, and it had upset +him. + +Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought +relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at +Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other +men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot +grizzlies. + +To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any +rate, the service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off +it. His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and +seeing his father, which of course he ought to have done seven days +before. + +He rose from his bench--he had sat down on it directly after +breakfast--and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour +later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the +door of his father's office. + +The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, +Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway's Inn, not far from Fleet Street. +The brass plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading. +Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey +of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to suppose +that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You picture +Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss with him +the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading on your +toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms dwindle. +The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a Prescott, +there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you are down to +your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of Marlowe, +Thorpe--what I said before--was, at the time with which this story +deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the firm and +father of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that ilk; and +the outer office, where callers were received and parked till Sir +Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk. + +When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on +a high stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an +extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of Sam +he laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a +particularly successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye +which gave him a truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him +knew that he had a heart of gold and were not intimidated by his +repellent face. Between Sam and himself there had always existed terms +of great cordiality, starting from the time when the former was a small +boy and it had been John Peters' mission to take him now to the Zoo, now +to the train back to school. + +"Why, Mr. Samuel!" + +"Hullo, Peters!" + +"We were expecting you back a week ago." + +"Oh, I had something to see to before I came to town," said Sam +carelessly. + +"So you got back safe!" said John Peters. + +"Safe! Why, of course." + +Peters shook his head. + +"I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I +sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall +mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to +promise to become my wife." + +"Ocean liners aren't often wrecked nowadays." + +"I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America's a dangerous +country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?" + +"I don't think I was." + +"Ah!" said John Peters significantly. + +He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and +replaced it on the desk. + +"What on earth are you doing with that thing?" asked Sam. + +Mr. Peters lowered his voice. + +"I'm going to America myself in a few days' time, Mr. Samuel. It's my +annual holiday, and the guv'nor's sending me over with papers in +connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It's a big case over +there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am +to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York. +So I thought it best to be prepared." + +The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks +flitted across Sam's face. + +"What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?" he asked. "It's +safer than London." + +"Ah, but what about the Underworld? I've seen these American films that +they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see 'Wolves of the +Bowery?' There was a man in that in just my position, carrying important +papers, and what they didn't try to do to him! No, I'm taking no +chances, Mr. Samuel!" + +"I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you." + +Mr. Peters seemed wounded. + +"Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very fair +shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and practise at +the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You'd be surprised +how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I try how +quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, Mr. +Samuel. If you'd ever seen a film called 'Two-Gun-Thomas,' you'd realise +that. You haven't time to wait loitering about." + +Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it. + +"Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go +right in, Mr. Samuel?" + +Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into +the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable +stenographer, replies to his morning mail. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face +and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, +and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation +in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was +twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly. + +"DEAR SIRS,--We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state +that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that +letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell 'em to go to blazes, +Miss Milliken." + +"Very well, Sir Mallaby." + +"That's that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What +infernal names these people have. SIRS,--On behalf of our client ... oh, +hullo, Sam!" + +"Good morning, father." + +"Take a seat. I'm busy, but I'll be finished in a moment. Where was I, +Miss Milliken?" + +"'On behalf of our client....'" + +"Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where +these people get their names I'm hanged if I know. Your poor mother +wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the +'nineties when you were born, children were frequently christened +Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that." + +His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember +that the latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had +not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest. + +"Very glad you're back, Sam. So you didn't win?" + +"No, I got beaten in the semi-finals." + +"American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you were +weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You'll have to rub up your +putting before next year." + +At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could +appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as +if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his +mind by knitting jumpers. + +"Well, you seem to be in great spirits," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. +"It's pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. Isn't it, Miss Milliken?" + +"Extremely exhilarating," agreed the stenographer, adjusting her +spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her +heart. + +A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass +that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy satisfaction, +how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these people seemed +to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His laughter, which had +sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck Miss Milliken as +exhilarating. + +"On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw," said Sir Mallaby, +swooping back to duty once more, "we beg to state that we are prepared +to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?" + +"I landed nearly a week ago." + +"A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why +haven't I seen you?" + +"I've been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea." + +"Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?" + +"Wrestling with myself," said Sam with simple dignity. + +Sir Mallaby's agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was +answering. + +"We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to +be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn't all athletics. Don't forget +that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?" + +Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit +when called upon to recite. + +"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust +thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and +time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like +muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great +men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave +behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ..." said Miss +Milliken respectfully, ... "be up and doing...." + +"All right, all right, all right!" said Sir Mallaby. "I don't want it +all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about +that when I've finished answering these letters. Where was I? 'We should +be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an appointment....' +Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not +Margate while you were about it?" + +"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my +mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk +about in the distance like some baffled beast...." + +He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir +Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter. + +"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir +Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that +they've got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than Goole, +and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, +Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them +in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he +comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him +for ten thousand." + +"How like a woman!" + +Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir Mallaby +took no notice of it whatever. + +"... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter +without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. +Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a +conference and can see nobody for half an hour." + +When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of the +period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring +silently at him. + +"I'm glad you're back, Sam," he said at length. "I want to have a talk +with you. You know, it's time you were settling down. I've been thinking +about you while you were in America and I've come to the conclusion that +I've been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young man. You're +getting on. I don't say you're senile, but you're not twenty-one any +longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver. You've got to +remember that life is--dash it! I've forgotten it again." He broke off +and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. "Miss Milliken, kindly +repeat what you were saying just now about life.... Yes, yes, that's +enough!" He put down the instrument. "Yes, life is real, life is +earnest," he said, gazing at Sam seriously, "and the grave is not our +goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. In +fact, it's time you took your coat off and started work." + +"I am quite ready, father." + +"You didn't hear what I said," exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a look of +surprise. "I said it was time you began work." + +"And I said I was quite ready." + +"Bless my soul! You've changed your views a trifle since I saw you +last." + +"I have changed them altogether." + +Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the +Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange, +even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided, +was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet +office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts +and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. 3's, and all the rest of it, he might +find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it. + +"Your trip has done you good," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. "The sea +air has given you some sense. I'm glad of it. It makes it easier for me +to say something else that I've had on my mind for a good while. Sam, +it's time you got married." + +Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern. + +"Swallow some smoke the wrong way?" + +"I was laughing," explained Sam with dignity. + +Sir Mallaby shook his head. + +"I don't want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to +approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good, +Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I was +two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and it +was the making of me. A wife might make something of you." + +"Impossible!" + +"I don't see why she shouldn't. There's lots of good in you, my boy, +though you may not think so." + +"When I said it was impossible," said Sam coldly, "I was referring to +the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible +that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My +heart is dead." + +"Your what?" + +"My heart." + +"Don't be a fool. There's nothing wrong with your heart. All our family +have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a +sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop." + +"You don't understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way +that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women +do not exist." + +"You didn't tell me about this," said Sir Mallaby, interested. "When +did this happen? Did she jilt you?" + +"Yes." + +"In America, was it?" + +"On the boat." + +Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily. + +"My dear boy, you don't mean to tell me that you're taking a shipboard +flirtation seriously? Why, you're expected to fall in love with a +different girl every time you go on a voyage. You'll get over this in a +week. You'd have got over it by now if you hadn't gone and buried +yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea." + +The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument to +his ear. + +"All right," he turned to Sam. "I shall have to send you away now, Sam. +Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything +to-night?" + +"No." + +"Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that? +Well, come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don't be late." + +Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken +intercepted him. + +"Oh, Mr. Sam!" + +"Yes?" + +"Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?" + +"I'm dining with him to-night." + +"Then would you--I don't like to disturb him now, when he is +busy--would you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza? +It runs," said Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, "'Trust no future, +howe'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act, in the +living present, Heart within and God o'erhead!' Thank you so much. Good +afternoon." + + + 2 + +Sam, reaching Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by the +butler who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be down +in a few minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe family, +who, if he had not actually dandled Sam on his knees when an infant, had +known him as a small boy, was delighted to see him again. + +"Missed you very much, Mr. Samuel, we all have," he said affectionately, +as he preceded him to the drawing-room. + +"Yes?" said Sam absently. + +"Very much indeed, sir. I happened to remark only the other day that the +place didn't seem the same without your happy laugh. It's good to see +you back once more, looking so well and merry." + +Sam stalked into the drawing-room with the feeling that comes to all of +us from time to time, that it is hopeless to struggle. The whole damned +circle of his acquaintance seemed to have made up their minds that he +had not a care in the world, so what was the use? He lowered himself +into a deep arm-chair and lit a cigarette. + +Presently the butler reappeared with a cocktail on a tray. Sam drained +it, and scarcely had the door closed behind the old retainer when an +abrupt change came over the whole outlook. It was as if he had been a +pianola and somebody had inserted a new record. Looking well and happy! +He blew a smoke ring. Well, if it came to that, why not? Why shouldn't +he look well and happy? What had he got to worry about? He was a young +man, fit and strong, in the springtide of life, just about to plunge +into an absorbing business. Why should he brood over a sentimental +episode which had ended a little unfortunately? He would never see the +girl again. If anything in this world was certain, that was. She would +go her way, and he his. Samuel Marlowe rose from his chair a new man, to +greet his father, who came in at that moment fingering a snowy white +tie. + +Sam started at his parent's splendour in some consternation. + +"Great Scot, father! Are you expecting a lot of people? I thought we +were dining alone." + +"That's all right, my boy. A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. We +shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine +and his daughter, a friend of my friend's friend and my friend's +friend's son." + +"Surely that's more than six!" + +"No." + +"It sounded more." + +"Six," said Sir Mallaby firmly. He raised a shapely hand with the +fingers outspread. "Count 'em for yourself." He twiddled his thumb. +"Number one--Bennett." + +"Who?" cried Sam. + +"Bennett. Rufus Bennett. He's an American over here for the summer. +Haven't I ever mentioned his name to you? He's a great fellow. Always +thinking he's at death's door, but keeps up a fine appetite. I've been +his legal representative in London for years. Then--" Sir Mallaby +twiddled his first finger--"there's his daughter Wilhelmina, who has +just arrived in England." A look of enthusiasm came into Sir Mallaby's +face. "Sam, my boy, I don't intend to say a word about Miss Wilhelmina +Bennett, because I think there's nothing more prejudicial than singing a +person's praises in advance. I merely remark that I fancy you will +appreciate her! I've only met her once, and then only for a few minutes, +but what I say is, if there's a girl living who's likely to make you +forget whatever fool of a woman you may be fancying yourself in love +with at the moment, that girl is Wilhelmina Bennett! The others are +Bennett's friend, Henry Mortimer, also an American--a big lawyer, I +believe, on the other side--and his son Bream. I haven't met either of +them. They ought to be here any moment now." He looked at his watch. +"Ah! I think that was the front door. Yes, I can hear them on the +stairs." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE + + + 1 + +After the first shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his +father's harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of +the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one +thing the which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the +toy of Fate. He chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out +for him. Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy, sentimental, +five-reel film scenario, and without consulting him had had the cool +cheek to cast him for one of the puppets. He seemed to see Fate as a +thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a little as +she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous satisfaction as +she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire qualities. There +was not a flaw in the construction. It started off splendidly with a +romantic meeting, had 'em guessing half-way through when the hero and +heroine quarrelled and parted--apparently for ever, and now the stage +was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out on the embrace. +To bring this last scene about, Fate had had to permit herself a slight +coincidence, but she did not jib at that. What we call coincidences are +merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck in a plot and has to invent +the next situation in a hurry. + +Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him shamefully +and he wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had had his +wish, he would never have met her again. Fate, in her interfering way, +had forced this meeting on him and was now complacently looking to him +to behave in a suitable manner. Well, he would show her! In a few +seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting. He would be distant and +polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would chill her to the bone, and +rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide. + +The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers. + + + 2 + +Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty, +headed the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose +buttons seemed to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him +trotted a small, thin, pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and +carried his nose raised and puckered as though some faintly unpleasant +smell were troubling his nostrils. The fourth member of the party was +dear old Bream. + +There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and +then Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right +wing outstretched. + +"Why, hello!" said Bream. + +"How are you, Mortimer?" said Sam coldly. + +"What, do you know my son?" exclaimed Sir Mallaby. + +"Came over in the boat together," said Bream. + +"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Old friends, eh? Miss Bennett," he turned +to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late fianc, "let me +present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss Bennett." + +"How do you do?" said Sam. + +"How do you do?" said Billie. + +"Bennett, you've never met my son, I think?" + +Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the +appearance of a rather unusually stout prawn. + +"How _are_ you?" he asked, with such intensity that Sam unconsciously +found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule call for +any answer. + +"Very well, thanks." + +Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. "You are lucky to be able to say so! +Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the last +fifteen years I have not known what it is to enjoy sound health for a +single day. Marlowe," he proceeded, swinging ponderously round on Sir +Mallaby like a liner turning in the river, "I assure you that at +twenty-five minutes past four this afternoon I was very nearly convinced +that I should have to call you up on the 'phone and cancel this dinner +engagement. When I took my temperature at twenty minutes to six...." At +this point the butler appeared at the door announcing that dinner was +served. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe's dinner table, which, like most of the furniture in +the house had belonged to his deceased father and had been built at a +period when people liked things big and solid, was a good deal too +spacious to be really ideal for a small party. A white sea of linen +separated each diner from the diner opposite and created a forced +intimacy with the person seated next to him. Billie Bennett and Sam +Marlowe, as a consequence, found themselves, if not exactly in a +solitude of their own, at least sufficiently cut off from their kind to +make silence between them impossible. Westward, Mr. Mortimer had engaged +Sir Mallaby in a discussion on the recent case of Ouseley _v._ Ouseley, +Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too complicated to +explain here, presented points of considerable interest to the legal +mind. To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the more striking +of his recent symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make at least an +attempt at conversation. + +"How strange meeting you here," she said. + +Sam, who had been crumbling bread in an easy and debonair manner, looked +up and met her eye. Its expression was one of cheerful friendliness. He +could not see his own eye, but he imagined and hoped that it was cold +and forbidding, like the surface of some bottomless mountain tarn. + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"I said, how strange meeting you here. I never dreamed Sir Mallaby was +your father." + +"I knew it all along," said Sam, and there was an interval caused by the +maid insinuating herself between them and collecting his soup plate. He +sipped sherry and felt a sombre self-satisfaction. He had, he +considered, given the conversation the right tone from the start. Cool +and distant. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Billie bite her lip. He +turned to her again. Now that he had definitely established the fact +that he and she were strangers, meeting by chance at a dinner-party, he +was in a position to go on talking. + +"And how do you like England, Miss Bennett?" + +Billie's eye had lost its cheerful friendliness. A somewhat feline +expression had taken its place. + +"Pretty well," she replied. + +"You don't like it?" + +"Well, the way I look at it is this. It's no use grumbling. One has got +to realise that in England one is in a savage country, and one should +simply be thankful one isn't eaten by the natives." + +"What makes you call England a savage country?" demanded Sam, a staunch +patriot, deeply stung. + +"What would you call a country where you can't get ice, central heating, +corn-on-the-cob, or bathrooms? My father and Mr. Mortimer have just +taken a house down on the coast and there's just one niggly little +bathroom in the place." + +"Is that your only reason for condemning England?" + +"Oh no, it has other drawbacks." + +"Such as?" + +"Well, Englishmen, for instance. Young Englishmen in particular. English +young men are awful! Idle, rude, conceited, and ridiculous." + +Marlowe refused hock with a bitter intensity which nearly startled the +old retainer, who had just offered it to him, into dropping the +decanter. + +"How many English young men have you met?" + +Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. "Well, now that I come to +think of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact, only...." + +"Only?" + +"Well, very few," said Billie. "Yes," she said meditatively, "I suppose +I really have been rather unjust. I should not have condemned a class +simply because ... I mean, I suppose there _are_ young Englishmen who +are not rude and ridiculous?" + +"I suppose there are American girls who have hearts." + +"Oh, plenty." + +"I'll believe that when I meet one." + +Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was +developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, +all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his +chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was +becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into +the realm of distant civility. + +"Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?" + +"No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I +told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there." + +"You will enjoy that." + +"I'm sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer's son Bream will be there. That will be +nice." + +"Why?" said Sam, backsliding. + +There was a pause. + +"_He_ isn't rude and ridiculous, eh?" said Sam gruffly. + +"Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity," +she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the +Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett's medical confidences a trifle +fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass on +a fork. + +"Besides," said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, "we are engaged to be +married!" + + + 3 + +Sam didn't care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse +into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the +news--just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment, +and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping the +stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but that was +all. + +"Good heavens, Sam!" ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine glasses +were an old and valued set. + +Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth. + +"Awfully sorry, father! Don't know how it happened." + +"Something must have given you a shock," suggested Billie kindly. + +The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was +just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host, +suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on +whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had +successfully established the equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and +was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll, the +whole forming a charming picture in still life. + +"If that glass is in your way...." said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had +hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was +beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this +dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set. + +"Oh, Sir Mallaby," said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the +juggler, "you needn't be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn't +clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I think +it's so splendid," said Billie, "when men can do things like that. I'm +always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for people, but he's +so modest, he won't." + +"Refreshingly different," Sir Mallaby considered, "from the average +drawing-room entertainer." + +"Yes," said Billie emphatically. "I think the most terrible thing in the +world is a man who tries to entertain when he can't. Did I tell you +about the man on board ship, father, at the ship's concert? Oh, it was +the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!" She +beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in +her voice. "This man got up to do an imitation of somebody--nobody knows +to this day who it was meant to be--and he came into the saloon and +directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there +gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him +altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He +absolutely ran! And he hadn't said a word! It was the most ridiculous +exhibition I've ever seen!" + +The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority +in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was +one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with +laughter. + +"Do you mean," cried Sir Mallaby, choking, "the poor idiot just stood +there dumb?" + +"Well, he made a sort of yammering noise," said Billie, "but that only +made him look sillier." + +"Deuced good!" chuckled Sir Mallaby. + +"Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!" gurgled Mr. Bennett, +swallowing a digestive capsule. + +"May have been half-witted," suggested Mr. Mortimer. + +Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change +the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar. + +"I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer," he said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. "We have at last +succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her +house for the summer." + +Sir Mallaby gasped. + +"Windles! You don't mean to tell me that my sister has let you have +Windles!" + +Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly. + +"Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the +summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your +nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just +coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story short, +he said that it would be all right and that we could have the house." +Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. "He's a curious boy, young +Hignett. Very nervous in his manner." + +"Chronic dyspepsia," said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, "I can tell it at +a glance." + +"Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?" asked Billie. + +"Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go. +Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and +compact and comfortable and very picturesque." + +"We do not require a large place," said Mr. Mortimer. "We shall be quite +a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream...." + +"Don't forget," said Billie, "that you have promised to invite Jane +Hubbard down there." + +"Ah, yes. Wilhelmina's friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will be +all, except young Hignett himself." + +"Hignett!" cried Mr. Bennett. + +"Mr. Hignett!" exclaimed Billie. + +There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke again, +and for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen but +present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at Billie; +Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream started +nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his legal +calm. + +"I forgot to tell you that," he said. "Yes, one of the stipulations--to +which I personally was perfectly willing to agree--was that Eustace +Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause +in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the +circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal to +say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn't get it except by +agreeing, so I agreed. I'm sure you will think that I acted rightly, +Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances." + +"Well," said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, "I certainly did want that +house...." + +"And we couldn't have had it otherwise," said Mr. Mortimer, "so that is +all there is to it." + +"Well, it need make no difference to you," said Sir Mallaby. "I am sure +you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even be an +entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With that +and the juggling of our friend here and my sister's late husband's +orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during +the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?" said Sir Mallaby, on +whom his son's silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time. + +"Yes," said Sam, and returned to the silence once more. + +"The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It's a +thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall," continued Sir +Mallaby. "How you stop it, I don't know. When I was down there last it +never seemed to stop. You mustn't miss the orchestrion!" + +"I certainly shall," said Mr. Bennett decidedly. "Music of that +description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my +nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune." + +"So is the orchestrion," said Sir Mallaby. "I remember once when I was +down there...." + +"I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby," said Mr. Mortimer, +"during our occupancy of the house. And you, too," he said, addressing +Sam. + +"I am afraid," said Sam frigidly, "that my time will be very much +occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much," he added, after +a moment's pause. + +"Sam's going to work," said Sir Mallaby. + +"Yes," said Sam with dark determination. "Work is the only thing in life +that matters!" + +"Oh, come, Sam!" said Sir Mallaby. "At your age I used to think love was +fairly important, too!" + +"Love!" said Sam. He jabbed at his souffl with a spoon. You could see +by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love. + + + 4 + +Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a +silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and +he and Sam were alone together. + +"Sam," he said, "do you know what I think?" + +"No," said Sam. + +Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. "I've been +turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come +to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye. +I've known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn't in +that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about +letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to +know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let the +place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket the +cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?" + +"Eh?" said Sam absently. + +"I said, what do you think?" + +"What do I think about what?" + +"About Eustace Hignett and Windles." + +"What about them?" + +Sir Mallaby regarded him disaprovingly. "I'm hanged if I know what's the +matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your brain and +left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn't a word to say for yourself all +through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And with that +delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have thought you +infernally dull." + +"I'm sorry." + +"It's no good being sorry now. The mischief's done. She has gone away +thinking you an idiot. Do you realise," said Sir Mallaby warmly, "that +when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a +fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the table +who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of humour!" + +Sam rose. "I think I'll be going," he said. "Good night!" + +A man can bear just so much. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TROUBLE AT WINDLES + + + 1 + +Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles, +looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and +artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he +first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted +blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond, +separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green and +silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a +picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the +eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay +behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white suggestion +of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the drive as it +swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment of a ruined +castle reared itself against a background of firs. + +It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had +definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He +could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could gaze +on it without any lightening of the spirits. + +The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the +flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle, +Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen +since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first +day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight +till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till +eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission +longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in the +daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had seen +finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of warmth +and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the early days +of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled resentment had +given place to a despair too militant to be called resignation. And with +the despair had come a strong distaste for his fellow human beings, +notably and in particular his old friend Mr. Mortimer, who at this +moment broke impatiently in on his meditations. + +"Come along, Bennett. It's your deal. It's no good looking at the rain. +Looking at it won't stop it." + +Mr. Mortimer's nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather. + +Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as +partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against +Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to +do. + +Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through +the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed +from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled +his legs round his chair. + +"I have fourteen cards," said Mr. Mortimer. "That's the third time +you've mis-dealt." + +"I don't care how many cards you've got!" said Mr. Bennett with heat. +"That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!" + +He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover +and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog, +handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder +seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged +countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was +Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to +serve the establishment as a watch-dog. + +"He won't hurt you," said Mr. Mortimer carelessly. + +"You keep saying that!" replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. "How do you +know? He's a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were +buying him, I would have had something to say about it!" + +"Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am within +my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, +Wilhelmina has." + +"Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith," said Billie. +"I've seen them playing together." + +Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He +disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a +faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He +disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, +though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He +disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett. +And he disliked Eustace. + +Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the +others. He resented the young man's presence in the house; and he +resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale and +haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had the +most violent objection to associating with people who looked as though +they were sickening for something. + +He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a +frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr. +Bennett. + + + 2 + +Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch +on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten. +Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to +this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and +yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson +Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in +England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine. + +Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a +traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages. It +was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a garden +full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he definitely +permitted himself to accept the situation. + +It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great +bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay. +Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a grave, +thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more +respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett's valet. He carried in one +hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of +jewellery. + +"Good morning, sir." + +"Morning, Webster," said Mr. Bennett. "Rather late, eh?" + +"It is" replied Webster precisely, "a little late, sir. I would have +awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett's opinion +that a rest would do you good." + +Mr. Bennett's sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want +in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter? + +"She did, eh?" + +"Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already +breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer +into Southampton in the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama +hat." + +"A panama hat!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett. + +"A panama hat, sir." + +Mr. Bennett's feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine +day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer +in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him. + +The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually +walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr. +Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to shave +himself. + +Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay +his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He +drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him +from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit. + +Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after +all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere +fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas, +and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun +on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with +gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn. + +At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying a +yesterday's bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He drank +in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent +excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett, +and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he +remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he +cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was +half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when +burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough. + +Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up +his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a +momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly. +This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry +playfellow. + +Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and +falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that +ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that +occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he +saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. +He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride, clutched +at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as his pursuer +arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a ledge, where he +sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The bulldog Smith, gazed up +at him expectantly. The game was a new one to Smith, but it seemed to +have possibilities. He was a dog who was always perfectly willing to try +anything once. + +Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of +calling for assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects, some +winged, some without wings but--through Nature's wonderful law of +compensation--equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun +to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him as +if he were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples down +his neck, and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And then, +first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then swishing +down in a steady flood, it began to rain again. + +It was at this point that Mr. Bennett's manly spirit broke and time +ceased to exist for him. + +Aeons later, a voice spoke from below. + +"Hullo!" said the voice. + +Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing +beneath him, gazing up from under a tam o'shanter cap. Smith, the +bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet. + +"Whatever are you doing up there?" said Jane. "I say, do you know if the +car has come back?" + +"No. It has not." + +"I've got to go to the doctor's. Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh, +well, I'll have to walk. Come along, Smith!" She turned towards the +drive, Smith caracoling at her side. + +Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was, transfixed. +That sinister word "ill" held him like a spell. Eustace Hignett was ill! +He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening for something, +confound him! + +"What's the matter with him?" bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard's +retreating back. + +"Eh?" queried Jane, stopping. + +"What's the matter with Hignett?" + +"I don't know." + +"Is it infectious?" + +"I expect so." + +"Great Heavens!" cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself cautiously to +the ground, squelched across the dripping grass. + +In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the +barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door of +a friendly monarch. + +"A sharp downpour, sir," he remarked. + +"Have you been in the house all the time?" demanded Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Didn't you hear me shouting?" + +"I did fancy I heard something, sir." + +"Then why the devil didn't you come to me?" + +"I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this +locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have sometimes +wondered," said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train of thought, +"whether that might be the reason of the name." + +Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into +which he had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel +outside, and the wettest motor car in England drew up at the front door. + + + 3 + +From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and the +rain had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the poor +protection of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward journey. +For the last ten miles Mr. Mortimer had been nursing a sullen hatred for +all created things; and, when entering the house, he came upon Mr. +Bennett hopping about in the hall, endeavouring to detain him and tell +him some long and uninteresting story, his venom concentrated itself +upon his erstwhile friend. + +"Oh, get out of the way!" he snapped, shaking off the other's hand. +"Can't you see I'm wet?" + +"Wet! Wet!" Mr. Bennett's voice quivered with self-pity. "So am I wet!" + +"Father dear," said Billie reprovingly, "you really oughtn't to have +come into the house after bathing without drying yourself. You'll spoil +the carpet." + +"I've _not_ been bathing! I'm trying to tell you...." + +"Hullo!" said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the tail-end +of the party. "Been having a jolly bathe?" + +Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe +against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the +arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants' +hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a movement +which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the cake-walk and +the grace of the old-fashioned mazurka. + +"What the devil are you doing, you fool?" cried Mr. Bennett. + +"Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week's +notice," replied Webster calmly. + +"What's that?" + +"My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I +cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at." + +"Oh, go to blazes!" + +"Very good, sir." Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been +handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to +intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the +stairs. + +"Mortimer!" + +"Oh, what _is_ it?" + +"That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it." + +"What's it been doing?" + +"The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up +on that damned castle the whole of the morning!" + +"Father darling," interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs, +"you mustn't get excited. You know it's bad for you. I don't expect poor +old Smith meant any harm," she added pacifically, as she disappeared in +the direction of the landing. + +"Of course he didn't," snapped Mr. Mortimer. "He's as quiet as a lamb." + +"I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had +to run like a hare!" + +The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and +childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up. + +"C'k!" giggled Bream helplessly. "C'k, c'k, c'k!" + +Mr. Bennett turned on him. "Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well, +let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me +with--with--er--with one hand and--and--marry my daughter with the +other, you're wrong! You can consider your engagement at an end." + +"Oh, I say!" ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered. + +"Mortimer!" bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was +about to mount the stairs. "Do you or do you not intend to destroy that +dog?" + +"I do not." + +"I insist on your doing so. He is a menace." + +"He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn't even bite you +once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce +_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly." + +"I don't care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss...." + +"You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent." + +There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the +angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with +a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python. + +"Say, Mr. Bennett...." began Bream at his elbow. + +"Get out!" snarled Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, but, say...!" + +The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster +appeared. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said Webster, "but luncheon will be served +within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change +of costume." + +"Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room," said Mr. Bennett. "I am going +to bed." + +"Very good, sir." + +"But, say, Mr. Bennett...." resumed Bream. + +"Grrh!" replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the +stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the +main body. + + + 4 + +Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of +sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not +lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of +travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters had +made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little +happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on. + +"Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection. +"There was nothing wrong with the lunch." + +How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment +of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip +of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to +cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known. + +"The lunch," said Mr. Bennett, "was excellent. Lobsters!" He licked his +lips appreciatively. + +"And, talking of lobsters," he went on, "I suppose that boy Bream has +told you that I have broken off your engagement?" + +"Yes." + +"You don't seem very upset," said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for a +dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed. + +"Oh, I've become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything." Billie gazed +wistfully at the counterpane. "Do you know, father, I'm beginning to +think that I'm rather impulsive. I wish I didn't do silly things in such +a hurry." + +"I don't see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You +took ten years to make up your mind." + +"I was not thinking of Bream. Another man." + +"Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young +Hignett?" + +"Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I was +thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!" + +Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his +surprising daughter. His head was beginning to swim. + +"Of course I've misunderstood you," he said. "There's a catch somewhere +and I haven't seen it. But for a moment you gave me the impression that +you had promised to marry some man on the boat!" + +"I did!" + +"But...!" Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. "Do you mean to +tell me," he demanded, having brought out the answer to his +satisfaction, "do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to +three men in three weeks?" + +"Yes," said Billie in a small voice. + +"Great Godfrey! Er----?" + +"No, only three." + +Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort. + +"The trouble is," continued Billie, "one does things and doesn't know +how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an awful lot of +thinking afterwards, father." + +"I'm doing a lot of thinking now," said Mr. Bennett with austerity. "You +oughtn't to be allowed to go around loose!" + +"Well, it doesn't matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall never +love anyone again." + +"Don't tell me you are still in love with this boat man?" + +Billie nodded miserably. "I didn't realise it till we came down here. +But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had +thrown away my life's happiness. It was as if I had been offered a +wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice reproaching +me and saying, 'You have had your chance. It will never come again!'" + +"Don't talk nonsense!" said Mr. Bennett. + +Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well. + +Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an +exclamation. The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory. +"What's young Hignett got wrong with him?" he asked. + +"Mumps." + +"Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!" Mr. Bennett quailed. "I've never had +mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is awful!... Oh, heavens! Why +did I ever come to this lazar-house!" cried Mr. Bennett, shaken to his +depths. + +"There isn't the slightest danger, father, dear. Don't be silly. If I +were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after this +morning." + +"Sleep! If I only could!" said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes +after the door had closed. + +He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was +wrong. He had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at the +head of a military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he sat up +in bed, blinking in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the band +seemed to be playing still. There was undeniably music in the air. The +room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor and +rolling about in chunks all round his bed. + +Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and +became filled with a restless irritability. There was only one +instrument in the house which could create this infernal din--the +orchestrion in the drawing-room, immediately above which, he recalled, +his room was situated. + +He rang the bell for Webster. + +"Is Mr. Mortimer playing that--that damned gas-engine in the +drawing-room?" + +"Yes, sir. Tosti's 'Good-bye.' A charming air, sir." + +"Go and tell him to stop it!" + +"Very good, sir." + +Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The +music still continued to roll about the room. + +"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr. +Mortimer declines to accede to your request." + +"Oh, he said that, did he?" + +"That is the gist of his remarks, sir." + +"Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!" + +Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to +the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the +guv'nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would +put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the +Almost-Human--by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was +generally alluded to in the servants' hall. + +Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his +former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full +dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out its +dirge on the passing of Summer. + +"Will you turn that infernal thing off!" said Mr. Bennett. + +"No!" said Mr. Mortimer. + +"Now, now, now!" said a voice. + +Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on +her face. + +"We can't have this, you know!" said Jane Hubbard. "You're disturbing my +patient." + +She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with +a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the +middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and +closed it behind her. + +The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the +vanquished. + +"Now, what about it!" he said, ungenerously. + +"Interfering girl!" mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. "I've +a good mind to start it again." + +"I dare you!" whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his +vanished childhood. "Go on! I dare you!" + +"I've a perfect legal right.... Oh well," he said, "there are lots of +other things I can do!" + +"What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed. + +"Never mind!" said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book. + +Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind. + +He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, rang +for Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him. + +"I want you to go to London," he said, when she appeared. "I must have +legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him +that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering +himself behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can't get at him. Ask +Sir Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can't come himself, tell him +to send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows +anything about the business." + +"Oh, I'm sure he does!" + +"Eh? How do you know?" + +"Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!" said Billie hastily. "He looks +so clever!" + +"I didn't notice it myself. Well, he'll do, if Sir Mallaby's too busy to +come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that you can see him +first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. I've +sent Webster to look out a train." + +"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that." + +"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett, with belated +consideration. + +"Oh, _no_!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do this for +you, father dear!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT + + +The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett's tongue +at twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at +half-past eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out his +candle and endeavoured to compose himself for a night's slumber. Its +unconscious host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He had a +vague feeling that the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but his +mind was too engrossed with the task of keeping a look-out for the +preliminary symptoms of mumps to have leisure to bestow much attention +on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused was not sufficient to keep +him awake, and presently he turned on his side and began to fill the +room with a rhythmical snoring. + +How pleasant if one could leave him so--the good man taking his rest. +Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett's +side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we +are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything is +all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first discern +nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we perceive him +sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him, while with the +first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively the tip of his +protruding tongue. + +At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle--one of the charms of +Windles was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system--and we are +enabled to get a better view of him. + +Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first +beads of a chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible +for a man of his complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as +he could. Panic gripped him. A man whose favourite reading was medical +encyclopdias, he needed no doctor to tell him that this was the end. +Fate had dealt him a knockout blow; his number was up; and in a very +short while now people would be speaking of him in the past tense and +saying what a pity it all was. + +A man in Mr. Bennett's position experiences strange emotions, and many +of them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the cost +of white paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an analysis +of the unfortunate man's reflections and be glad of the chance. It is +sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there was no stint. +Whatever are the emotions of a man in such a position, Mr. Bennett had +them. He had them all, one after another, some of them twice. He went +right through the list from soup to nuts, until finally he reached +remorse. And, having reached remorse, he allowed that to monopolise him. + +In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had +frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would not +have been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and, if he +was going to be remorseful about anything, he might well have started by +being remorseful about that. But it was on his most immediate past that +his wistful mind lingered. He had quarrelled with his lifelong friend, +Henry Mortimer. He had broken off his daughter's engagement with a +deserving young man. He had spoken harsh words to his faithful valet. +The more Mr. Bennett examined his conduct, the deeper the iron entered +into his soul. + +Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He +could make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the +most suitable time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too remorseful +to think of that. Do It Now had ever been his motto, so he started by +ringing the bell for Webster. + +The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of +dilating on Mr. Bennett's emotions would find a congenial task in +describing the valet's thought-processes when the bell roused him from +a refreshing sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the +time he entered his employer's room he was his own calm self again. + +"Good morning, sir," he remarked equably. "I fear that it will be the +matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not aware," +said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting, "that you +intended rising so early." + +"Webster," said Mr. Bennett, "I'm a dying man!" + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"A dying man!" repeated Mr. Bennett. + +"Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?" + +Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the +scene. + +"Webster," he said, "this morning we had an unfortunate +misunderstanding. I'm sorry." + +"Pray don't mention it, sir." + +"I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have +stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!" said Mr. Bennett, who had +half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the +family for years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a +little less than a month ago. "Through thick and thin!" repeated Mr. +Bennett. + +"I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir." + +"I want to reward you, Webster." + +"Thank you very much, sir." + +"Take my trousers!" + +Webster raised a deprecating hand. + +"No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn't really! You will need +them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply." + +"Take my trousers," repeated Mr. Bennett, "and feel in the right-hand +pocket. There is some money there." + +"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, sir," said Webster, beginning for the +first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked upon the +treasure-hunt. "The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and +threepence, sir." + +"Keep it!" + +"Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?" + +"Why, no," said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. There +had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and his +yearning soul resented it. "Why, no." + +"Good-night, sir." + +"Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer's room?" + +"Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage, on +the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely +obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when you ring." + +Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed, +put on his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage. + +In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on +crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been +to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had +collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no +sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of +the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was +sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good +for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow +in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the distant +rumble of an approaching train on the Underground. + +"Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett. + +The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on +again. + +"Henry!" said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small +of the back. + +"Leave it on the mat," mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and +uncovering one corner of his mouth. + +Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt +like a man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to +him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer +made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly +for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle. + +"Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!" said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He +had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow. + +"What do you mean, rabbits?" said Mr. Bennett sharply. + +The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already +entering a tunnel. + +"Much too pink!" he murmured as the pillow engulfed him. + +What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot +say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired, +for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above his +slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the candle +and fell into Mr. Mortimer's exposed ear. The sleeper wakened. + +"What? What? What?" he exclaimed, bounding up. "Who's that?" + +"It's me--Rufus," said Mr. Bennett. "Henry, I'm dying!" + +"Drying?" + +"Dying!" + +Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him +again. + +"Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn," he muttered. "But too pink! Much +too pink!" + +And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation +and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the +pillow again. + +Mr. Bennett's sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was +strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once +more, but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain, +as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him +of his situation. A dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping +candle-grease into people's ears. After all, it was perhaps a little +late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr. +Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him the +glad news of his renewed engagement. + +He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream's bedroom, he +knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle +quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed. + +"Drop that pistol!" said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with +quiet severity. "I've got you covered!" + +Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have been +a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery that +he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady's, or by the fact +that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to be a +small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a matter of +fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard carried with her +everywhere--a girl's best friend. + +"My dear young lady!" he gasped. + +On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her +tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without +making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused +her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said. +Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was +glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession +of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had +no evil intentions. + +"Who is it?" she asked. + +"I don't know how to apologise!" + +"That's all right! Let's have a light." A match flared in the darkness. +Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet +curiosity. "Walking in your sleep?" she inquired. + +"No, no!" + +"Not so loud! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. He's next door. That's why I took +this room, in case he was restless in the night." + +"I want to see Bream Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett. + +"He's in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to +see him about?" + +"I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my +daughter." + +"Oh, well, I don't suppose he'll mind being woken up to hear that. But +what's the idea?" + +"It's a long story." + +"That's all right. Let's make a night of it." + +"I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute pain...." + +Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but +without excitement. + +"What nonsense!" she said at the conclusion. + +"I assure you...." + +"I'd like to bet it's nothing serious at all." + +"My dear young lady," said Mr. Bennett, piqued. "I have devoted a +considerable part of my life to medical study...." + +"I know. That's the trouble. People oughtn't to be allowed to read +medical books." + +"Well, we need not discuss it," said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented +being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of +his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. "I will +leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer." He clung to a hope that +Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. "Good-night!" + +"But wait a moment!" + +Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard +irritated him. + +His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was +fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber +almost as deep as his father's; but, once roused, he showed a gratifying +appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of his visitor's +news competed with consternation and sympathy at the other half. He +thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern on learning of +his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire to help by +offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful for +gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett +withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something +approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost +reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling +voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard's room. + +"Come here!" said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and +looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring. + +"Well?" said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless. + +"I'm going to have a look at that tongue of yours," said Jane firmly. +"It's my opinion that you're making a lot of fuss over nothing." + +Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a dressing-gown +can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had turned and gone +into her room. + +"Come in here," she said. + +Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note +of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself +for his weakness in obeying. + +"Sit down!" said Jane Hubbard. + +She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table. + +"Put your tongue out!" she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her strange +influence, lowered himself on to the stool. "Further out! That's right. +Keep it like that!" + +"Ouch!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up. + +"Don't make such a noise! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!" + +"I...." + +"Sit down!" + +Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding +the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it +desperately. + +"Baby!" said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. "Why, I once sewed eighteen +stitches in a native bearer's head, and he didn't make half the fuss +you're making. Now, keep quite still." + +Mr. Bennett did--for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped +from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality of +the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was a +subdued one. He was just about to speak--he had framed the opening words +of a strong protest--when suddenly he became aware of something in his +mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as it lay +on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at the +same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state of +his tongue. The swelling had gone. + +"I told you so!" said Jane Hubbard placidly. "What is it?" + +"It--it appears to be a piece of...." + +"Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night." + +Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he +wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. He +restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his was +too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about it. +He needed a confidant. + +Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell, +sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs. + +"Did you ring, sir?" + +"Webster," cried Mr. Bennett, "it's all right! I'm not dying after all! +I'm not dying after all, Webster!" + +"Very good, sir," said Webster. "Will there be anything further?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS + + +"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young, Sam, +work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with +affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?" + +"Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up. + +"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a +novel--some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred +and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and Customary +Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--but I won't +spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes out in the +end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an imaginary +ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this +was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome +with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent +nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!" + +"Well?" + +"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of +overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way, +Sam." + +"Yes?" + +"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients +will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in +difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd +better lock the outer door." + +"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. He +had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which--as of course you +know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage. + +Sir Mallaby looked at his watch. + +"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam." + +"Good-bye." + +Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and +twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation +to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was +an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind, +numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal +phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later +his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and +began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett. + +Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby's dinner-table, Sam had told +himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that +she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he +did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like +this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself for more than +two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he did not still +love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the +truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly +and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the almost inseparable +companion of young men in his position. + +So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light +footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a +tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the +fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his +father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some +frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and +Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him. + +Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the +blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened the +door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He +dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk. +Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing. + +There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened. +Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him +that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He +felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis. +And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have +seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches of trousered legs +were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who entered. + +"Good morning," said a voice. + +Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was +the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking +hours. + +"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots. + +Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise. + +"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface. + +He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical +exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he +invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk. + +"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again. + +"Yes?" said Billie. + +"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib." + +"Yes?" + +"A broad _gold_ nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which +comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication. + +"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that +this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly +occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his +struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle +more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to +assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as little +of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what eyes they were! +Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in.... + +However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat +and became cold and business-like,--the dry young lawyer. + +"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, +raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance +on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some +snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss +Bennett, I believe?" + +The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to +this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, +to sob on her soul-mate's shoulder and generally make everything up; but +at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts--which was +fully as militant as that of the Marlowes--became roused. She told +herself that she had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved +this man. She was a proud girl and refused to admit herself capable of +loving any man who looked at her as if she was something that the cat +had brought in. She drew herself up stiffly. + +"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me." + +"I have a good memory." + +"How nice! So have I!" + +There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel +casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring +furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought +condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen +were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red +hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... However! + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice +Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with +bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file. + +"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby." + +"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath. +Cannot I act as his substitute?" + +"Do you know anything about the law?" + +"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know----! +Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in." + +"Oh, were you?" said Billie, interested. "Do you always read on the +floor?" + +"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly. + +"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of +fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said." + +"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the +law in all its branches." + +"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion +when you wanted to get to sleep?" + +"The orchestrion?" + +"Yes." + +"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam. + +"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie. + +"I was thinking." + +"Oh, if you want to _think_!" + +"Tell me the facts," said Sam. + +"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the +country...." + +"I knew that." + +"_What_ a memory you have!" said Billie kindly. "Well, for some reason +or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything +he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted +to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy him." + +"I think--I'm not quite sure--I think that's a tort," said Sam. + +"A what?" + +"Either a tort or a malfeasance." + +"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled +into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and +the sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on its +foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and +babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection +came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him +ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him +ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat; and at that moment there came +another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of +the holiday-making Peters. + +"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, Miss +Milliken. Oh!" + +He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he +had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that +the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind +him a momentary silence. + +"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little +gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first +sight. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently. + +"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!" + +For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of +his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, +Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his +trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it +suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute +he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had +brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy. + +"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she +demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?" + +Sam drew a deep breath. + +"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used to +be clerk here." + +"But he isn't any longer?" + +"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him." + +"I don't wonder. A man looking like that...." + +"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father was +that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken." + +Billie uttered a cry of horror. + +"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!" + +"He _did_ shoot her--the third time," said Sam, warming to his work. +"Only in the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a +stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him +after that." + +"Good gracious!" + +"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a good deal +with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with her. +She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. Peters is +a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to +understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she +was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion--I +mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it +very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he +came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I say, we had to +dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. Still, it wouldn't +do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken. The thing +became an obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that +every red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had +deceived him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so +fashionable now-a-days." + +"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly. + +"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as Miss +Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here with you +when he came." + +"But he may be lurking out there still!" + +"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would you +like me to go and send him away? All right." + +"But--but is it safe?" + +Sam uttered a light laugh. + +"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, and +sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed +him with worshipping eyes. + +Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself +for the more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which he +had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being +too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the +series of chats with Young Mothers. + +"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?" + +"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say +good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up +all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final +instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over. +I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel." + +"Yes, this is his golf day. I'll tell him you looked in." + +"Is there anything I can do before I go?" + +"Do?" + +"Well--"--Jno. Peters coughed tactfully--"I see that you are engaged +with a client, Mr. Samuel, and I was wondering if any little point of +law had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of +coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance." + +"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister." + +"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister." + +"No?" said Sam. + +"She is not very like her in appearance." + +"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright, +intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you +came in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got it +with you now, to show to her." + +"Oh, but I have it! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a small +handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a +tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my way to +the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to show +it to her." + +"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam. "I'll have finished talking +business in a moment." + +He returned to the inner office. + +"Well?" cried Billie. + +"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a +little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were +talking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, and +glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I +promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next +court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with +one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you +spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes." + +"Certainly." + +"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know +if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting." + +He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_. + +"You can go in now," said Sam. + +"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly." + +Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_ and sat down with his feet on +the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis. + +In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment +offered by Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office, +looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be +the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the +contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back. +She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously. + +Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of +repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one +of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a +cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself +was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent +simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a +motion-picture studio. + +"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SHOCKS ALL ROUND + + +Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the +late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that +one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this +wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the +portrait's frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this supreme +moment she did not even notice it. + +"Er--how do you do?" she said. + +If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said that +she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though it was +considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency. It had +ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had seen this +sort of thing in the movies--there was one series of pictures, "The +Dangers of Diana," where something of the kind had happened to the +heroine in every reel--but she had not anticipated that it would ever +happen to her; and consequently she had not thought out any plan for +coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should be +prepared for everything, or where is one? + +"I've brought the revolver," said Mr. Peters. + +"So--so I see!" said Billie. + +Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather a +shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her being +interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl. + +"I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range," he said. +"Then I thought I might as well look in here." + +"I suppose--I suppose you're a good shot?" quavered Billie. + +"I seldom miss," said Jno. Peters. + +Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this +maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in +time to save her, she essayed further small-talk. + +"It's--it's very ugly!" + +"Oh, no!" said Mr. Peters, hurt. + +Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing. + +"Very deadly-looking, I meant," she corrected herself hastily. + +"It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken," said Mr. Peters. + +Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of +immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the +deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the +other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, +as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, +Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief. + +"The great thing," said Jno. Peters, "is to learn to draw quickly. Like +this!" he added producing the revolver with something of the smoothness +and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen Bream +Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. "Everything depends +on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is vital." + +Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try to +convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _ide fixe_, +that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and +might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was +imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring him, +it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly? + +"Mr. Peters," she cried, "you are quite mistaken!" + +"I beg your pardon," said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity. +"Nothing of the kind!" + +"You are!" + +"I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential...." + +"You have been misinformed." + +"Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range," said +Mr. Peters stiffly. "And if you have ever seen a picture called 'Two-Gun +Thomas'...." + +"Mr. Peters," cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim with +his meaningless ravings. "Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to a man +at Ealing West!" + +Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed +for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but many +women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could not +at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who _were_ +married to men at Ealing West. + +"Indeed?" he said politely. + +"Won't you believe me?" exclaimed Billie wildly. + +"Why, certainly, certainly," said Jno. Peters. + +"Thank God!" said Billie. "I'm not even engaged! It's all been a +terrible mistake!" + +When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and +different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving +at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at +this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the +intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer +of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to +understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a +breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been +trifling with her heart--hardened lawyer's clerk as he was, that +poignant cry "I'm not even engaged!" had touched Mr. Peters--and she +wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again. +He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book. + +"I should be glad to hear the facts," he said with professional +courtesy. "In the absence of the guv'nor...." + +"I have told you the facts!" + +"This man at Ealing West," said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his +pencil, "he wrote you letters proposing marriage?" + +"No, no, no!" + +"At any rate," said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, "he made love +to you before witnesses?" + +"Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at +Ealing West!" + +It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to +entertain serious doubts of the girl's mental balance. The most +elementary acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were +any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a +sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and +he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as +yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out +and laid it nonchalantly in his lap. + +The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her +hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card. + +"I love _you_!" she cried. She wished she could have remembered his +first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a +moment she could hardly call him "Mr. Peters." "You are the only man I +love." + +"My gracious goodness!" ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over +backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected +declaration was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He +blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he +could not check a certain thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he +really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct +estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in +inducing his fiance to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to +wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There +must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like +this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual +conversation. + +Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl +was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge +towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought to +be warned. + +"So that's all right, isn't it!" said Billie. + +"Oh, quite, quite!" said Mr. Peters. "Er--Thank you very much!" + +"I thought you would be pleased," said Billie, relieved but puzzled. For +a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he seemed +to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a strenuous +scene. + +"Oh, it's a great compliment!" Mr. Peters assured her. + +At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment +when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the +instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at his +watch, he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for +events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had +indicated. + +The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little +strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather +agitated, too. Sam caught Billie's eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it. +He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who +understood all and was prepared to handle the situation. + +"Come, Peters," he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on +the clerk's arm. "It's time that you went." + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!" + +"I'll see you out," said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer +office and on to the landing outside. "Well, good luck, Peters," he +said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. "I hope you have a +pleasant trip. Why, what's the matter? You seem upset." + +"That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think--really, she cannot be quite +right in her head." + +"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sam firmly. "She's all right! Well, +good-bye." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Samuel." + +"When did you say you were sailing?" + +"Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of +seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see +this gentleman down in the country...." + +"All right. Then we'll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you have +a good time in America. I'll tell my father you called." + +Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his +way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair +which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet. + +"Has he really gone?" + +"Yes. He's gone this time." + +"Was he--was he violent?" + +"A little," said Sam. "A little. But I calmed him down." He looked at +her gravely. "Thank God I was in time!" + +"Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!" cried Billie, and, burying +her face in her hands, burst into tears. + +"There, there!" said Sam. "There, there! Come, come! It's all right now! +There, there, there!" + +He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted +her hands. + +"There, there, there!" he said. + +I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed +page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be +as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will by +now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an Army +mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied +through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright +she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had +caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low, +bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact +that he had erased for ever from Billie's mind that undignified picture +of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another which +showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was the fact +that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him to kiss +her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would have said +that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh good, or +some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man Samuel Marlowe +was. + +His face was very close to Billie's, who had cheered up wonderfully by +this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into +her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway. + +"Great Godfrey!" exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from +this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet +face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had +become slightly soluble. "Great Heavens above! Number four!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER + + +Mr. Bennett advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with +one hand on the desk, while with the other he still plied the +handkerchief on his over-heated face. Much had occurred to disturb him +this morning. On top of a broken night he had had an affecting +reconciliation scene with Mr. Mortimer, at the conclusion of which he +had decided to take the first train to London in the hope of +intercepting Billie before she reached Sir Mallaby's office on her +mission of war. The local train-service kept such indecently early hours +that he had been compelled to bolt his breakfast, and, in the absence of +Billie, the only member of the household who knew how to drive the car, +to walk to the station, a distance of nearly two miles, the last hundred +yards of which he had covered at a rapid gallop, under the erroneous +impression that an express whose smoke he had seen in the distance was +the train he had come to catch. Arrived on the platform, he had had a +trying wait, followed by a slow journey to Waterloo. The cab which he +had taken at Waterloo had kept him in a lively state of apprehension all +the way to the Savoy, owing to an apparent desire to climb over +motor-omnibuses when it could not get round them. At the Savoy he found +that Billie had already left, which had involved another voyage through +the London traffic under the auspices of a driver who appeared to be +either blind or desirous of committing suicide. He had three flights of +stairs to negotiate. And, finally, arriving at the office, he had found +his daughter in the circumstances already described. + +"Why, father!" said Billie. "I didn't expect you." + +As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been +considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it +inadequate and would have said so, had he had enough breath. This +physical limitation caused him to remain speechless and to do the best +he could in the way of stern fatherly reproof by puffing like a seal +after a long dive in search of fish. + +Having done this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards +him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was +the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. +He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of +luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his +manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective +father-in-law of such a one as himself. + +"I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bennett," said Sam. "You could not have +come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are. +There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, +Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!" + +And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it +more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that. + +"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. "I +haven't got a son." + +"I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining years...." + +"What the devil do you mean, my declining years?" demanded Mr. Bennett +with asperity. + +"He means when they do decline, father dear," said Billie. + +"Of course, of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, +of course. I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on +me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what +an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. +Bennett. Bennett of New York!" he added spaciously, not so much because +he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that he +did not, but because it sounded well. + +"Oh!" said Mr. Bennett. "You do, do you?" + +Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly +earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his +newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy +father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It +was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to +have directed at anybody, except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge +at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually atrocious +murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only caught the +tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving. + +"Oh, father! You aren't angry!" + +"Angry!" + +"You _can't_ be angry!" + +"Why can't I be angry?" declared Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury +which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. "Why the +devil shouldn't I be angry? I _am_ angry! I come here and find you +like--like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air +and give three rousing cheers! Of course I'm angry! You are engaged to +be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of +the finest young men I have ever known...." + +"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. "It's awfully good +of you...." + +"But that's all over, father." + +"What's all over?" + +"You told me yourself that you had broken off my engagement to Bream." + +"Well--er--yes, I did," said Mr. Bennett, a little taken aback. "That +is--to a certain extent--so. But," he added, with restored firmness, +"it's on again!" + +"But I don't want to marry Bream!" + +"Naturally!" said Sam. "Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few +days we'll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea." + +"It doesn't matter what you want! A girl who gets engaged to a dozen men +in three weeks...." + +"It wasn't a dozen!" + +"Well, four--five--six--you can't expect me not to lose count.... I say +a girl who does that does not know what she wants, and older and more +prudent heads must decide for her. You are going to marry Bream +Mortimer!" + +"All wrong! All wrong!" said Sam, with a reproving shake of the head. +"All wrong! She's going to marry me." + +Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier +effort had been a loving glance. + +"Wilhelmina," he said, "go into the outer office." + +"But, father, Sam saved my life!" + +"Go into the outer office and wait for me there." + +"There was a lunatic in here...." + +"There will be another if you don't go." + +"He had a pistol." + +"Go into the outer office!" + +"I shall always love you, Sam!" said Billie, pausing mutinously at the +door. + +"I shall always love _you_!" said Sam cordially. + +"Nobody can keep us apart!" + +"They're wasting their time, trying." + +"You're the most wonderful man in the world!" + +"There never was another girl like you!" + +"Get _out_!" bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this love-scene, +which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly. "Now, sir!" he said to +Sam, as the door closed. + +"Yes, let's talk it over calmly," said Sam. + +"I will not talk it over calmly!" + +"Oh, come! You can do it if you try. In the first place, whatever put +this silly idea into your head about that sweet girl marrying Bream +Mortimer?" + +"Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer." + +"I know," said Sam. "And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that +against him, it's a point you can't afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer! +You and I have Henry Mortimer's number. We know what Henry Mortimer is +like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You +can't seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by +marriage." + +"Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend." + +"That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend +treating you like that!" + +"The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed +over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial." + +"Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn't trust a man like +that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!" + +"I have decided once and for all...." + +"If you'll take my advice, you will break the thing off." + +"I will not take your advice." + +"I wouldn't expect to charge you for it," explained Sam reassuringly. "I +give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to others, +free to you." + +"Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer? +What are you giggling about?" + +"It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I +mean." + +"Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man." + +"And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a +girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable young +man." + +"She will do as I tell her." + +Sam regarded him sternly. + +"Have you no regard for her happiness?" + +"I am the best judge of what is best for her." + +"If you ask me," said Sam candidly, "I think you're a rotten judge." + +"I did not come here to be insulted!" + +"I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What +right have you to say that I'm not fit to marry your daughter?" + +"I did not say that." + +"You've implied it. And you've been looking at me as if I were a leper +or something the Pure Food Committee had condemned. Why? That's what I +ask you," said Sam, warming up. This he fancied, was the way Widgery +would have tackled a troublesome client. "Why? Answer me that!" + +"I...." + +Sam rapped sharply on the desk. + +"Be careful, sir. Be very careful!" He knew that this was what lawyers +always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a +miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of +the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but +Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that +lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be +very careful. + +"What do you mean, be very careful?" said Mr. Bennett. + +"I'm dashed if I know," said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a +mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by +smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He +endeavoured, however, to smile quietly. + +"Don't laugh at me!" roared Mr. Bennett. + +"I'm not laughing at you." + +"You are!" + +"I'm not! I'm smiling quietly." + +"Well, don't then!" said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young +companion. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time, talking to you. The +position is clear to the meanest intelligence. I have no objection to +you personally...." + +"Come, this is better!" said Sam. + +"I don't know you well enough to have any objection to you or any +opinion of you at all. This is only the second time I have ever met you +in my life." + +"Mark you," said Sam, "I think I am one of those fellows who grow on +people...." + +"As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the +noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don't +know. And I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. You mean nothing in my +life. I don't know you." + +"You must persevere," said Sam. "You must buckle to and get to know me. +Don't give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to have +a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find yourself +knowing me quite well." + +"I don't want to know you!" + +"You say that now, but wait!" + +"And thank goodness I have not got to!" exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing to +be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as +though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. +"For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly +understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and +that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to +forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does +the same! You're an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I +don't like you! I don't wish to see you again! If you were the last man +in the world I wouldn't allow my daughter to marry you! If that is +quite clear, I will wish you good morning!" + +Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by +the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life +began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr. +Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer +office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a +moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking up +a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst in +Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline's charming old-world +house, Windles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + + +As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I +have been giving the reader rather too jumpy a time. To almost a painful +degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is what +Aristotle says one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would not +be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions tortured up to +a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy for a bit. It is +with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet, peaceful +scene in domestic life. It won't last long--three minutes, perhaps, by a +good stop-watch--but that is not my fault. My task is to record facts as +they happened. + +The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning +it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to be. +A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at the +end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the grass +in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had worked +themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their labour +would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed industriously to +and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged insects danced +sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under the cedar-tree Billie +Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was engaged in drawing a +picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled up in a ball, lay her +Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles slept Smith, the +bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but audible, a boy in +shirt-sleeves was washing the car and singing as much as a treacherous +memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad. + +You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added +to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment, +Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad in +white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing touch +that was needed. + +Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, +the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett +did not quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of +distant, but solid, friendship had come to exist between pursuer and +pursued. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself +to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal's nature and the essential +purity of his motives; and now it was only when they encountered each +other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever betrayed the +slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, Mr. Bennett +reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern civilisation has +seen to the lion lying down with the lamb. + +"Sketching?" said Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes," said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her +father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some +such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning +in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but +apart from that her mind was an open book. + +"It's a great morning," said Mr. Bennett. + +"So peaceful," said Billie. + +"The eggs you get in the country in England," said Mr. Bennett, suddenly +striking a lyrical note, "are extraordinary. I had three for breakfast +this morning which defied competition, simply defied competition. They +were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!" + +He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy. + +"And the hams!" he went on. "The ham I had for breakfast was what I call +ham! I don't know when I've had ham like that. I suppose it's something +they feed the pigs on!" he concluded, in soft meditation. And he gave a +little sigh. Life was very beautiful. + +Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking +of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his +clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes--so vastly superior to any +look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling +herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and +romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had +come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily +into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift +side-glance at her father--the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What +would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently +continued to meditate peacefully on ham. + +They had sat like this for perhaps a minute--two happy mortals lulled by +the gentle beauty of the day--when from the window of the drawing-room +there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at +once--and have done with it--that this is the point where the quiet, +peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and +terror resume work at the old stand. + +The maid--her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged +to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second +assistant at Green's Grocery Stores in Windlehurst--approached Mr. +Bennett. + +"Please, sir, a gentleman to see you." + +"Eh?" said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged +with bread-crumbed fat. + +"A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are +expecting him." + +"Of course, yes. To be sure." + +Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French +windows he could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered +that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe's clerk--who was +taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America--had written +that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from +Southampton to-morrow. + +He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters +with an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like one of +consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm. + +"Morning, Mr. Peters," said Mr. Bennett. "Very good of you to run down. +Take a seat, and I'll just go through the few notes I have made about +the matter." + +"Mr. Bennett," exclaimed Jno. Peters. "May--may I speak?" + +"What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?" + +Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at +the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a +duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, +gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming +scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, +seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had +realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett +ignorant of what he was up against. + +One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some +kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed +to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling +notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the +subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had +soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea +spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of +pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable +pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, +without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and +seen Billie. + +"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I don't want to do anybody any harm, and, if +you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it +is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in +her head. I don't say she's dangerous, but she isn't compos. She +decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!" + +Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought +crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the +kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters' sanity went down +to zero. + +"What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?" + +It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business +connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He +particularised. + +"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were +dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee." + +"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he +exclaimed. + +"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when she +came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and +appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am +not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened +when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a +dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when--"--here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, +turned vividly pink--"when she told me--she told me that I was the only +man she loved!" + +Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry. + +"Sweet spirits of nitre! What!" + +"Those were her exact words." + +"Five!" ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. "By the great horn +spoon, number five!" + +Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred +from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from +his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him +capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow. + +"Wilhelmina!" + +Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to her +that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her +father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did +not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance. + +"What is it, father?" + +Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in +after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before +her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and +there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her excited +senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a +matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed +chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes, +though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno. +Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She +screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno +Peters had been one constant backing against walls. + +"Don't shoot!" she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand +into the pocket of his coat. "Oh, please don't shoot!" + +"What the deuce do you mean?" said Mr. Bennett irritably. "Wilhelmina, +this man says that you told him you loved him." + +"Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!" + +"Suffering cats!" + +Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair. + +"But you've only met him once," he added almost pleadingly. + +"You don't understand, father dear," said Billie desperately. "I'll +explain the whole thing later, when...." + +"Father!" ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. "Did you say 'father?'" + +"Of course I said 'father!'" + +"This is my daughter, Mr. Peters." + +"My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are--are you sure?" + +"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I don't know my own daughter?" + +"But she called me Mr. Peters!" + +"Well, it's your name, isn't it?" + +"But, if she--if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my +name?" + +The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie. + +"That's true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?" + +"Why, in--in Sir Mallaby Marlowe's office, the morning you came there +and found me when I was talking to Sam." + +Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene +oppressive to a not very robust intellect. + +"He--Mr. Samuel--told me your name was Miss Milliken," he said dully. + +Billie stared at him. + +"Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!" she repeated. + +"He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as +stenographer for the guv'--for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you +my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it." + +Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries. + +"What revolver? Which revolver? What's all this about a revolver? Have +you a revolver?" + +"Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I +carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at +the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was +sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared--because +of the Underworld, you know." + +A cold gleam had come into Billie's eyes. Her face was pale and hard. If +Sam Marlowe--at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the +Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending to +the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch--could have seen her, the song +would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as showing that +there is always a bright side, would have been much appreciated by the +travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had had a wild night +with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then nursing a rather +severe headache, separated from Sam's penetrating baritone only by the +thickness of a wooden wall. + +Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of +the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead +for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now in +possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion +that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a girl who +strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense. + +"That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby's office, Mr. Peters," she said +in a frosty voice, "Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and +convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss +Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your +head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to +shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were Miss +Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, and +brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be +useless to tell you that I wasn't Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade +you that I was and hadn't jilted you after all." + +"Good gracious!" said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet--for always +there is bitter mixed with the sweet--a shade disappointed. +"Then--er--you don't love me after all?" + +"No!" said Billie. "I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and +nobody else in the world!" + +The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of +Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it +joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace. + +"I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere," he +said, paying her a striking tribute. "I hope now that we've heard the +last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe." + +"You certainly have! I don't want ever to see him again! I hate him!" + +"You couldn't do better, my dear," said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. "And +now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss." + +A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the +stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him. + +"Webster," said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard, and +her eyes still gleamed coldly. + +"Miss?" said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which he +had been refreshing himself. + +"Will you do something for me?" + +"I should be more than delighted, miss." + +Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the +recesses of her dress. + +"Do you know the country about here well, Webster?" + +"Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for +several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in." + +"Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and +another to Cosham? It's about a mile down...." + +"I know the spot well, miss." + +"Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is a +little lane...." + +"I know it, miss," said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he +escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie's maid, thither. "A delightfully +romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of +blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers...." + +"Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to +take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the +bottom of the lane...." + +"Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss." + +"Or leaning against it. You can't mistake him. He is rather tall and ... +oh, well, there isn't likely to be anybody else there, so you can't make +a mistake. Give him this, will you?" + +"Certainly, miss. Er--any message?" + +"Any what?" + +"Any verbal message, miss?" + +"No, certainly not! You won't forget, will you, Webster?" + +"On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?" + +"There won't be any answer," said Billie, setting her teeth for an +instant. "Oh, Webster!" + +"Miss?" + +"I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?" + +"Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly." + +"Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?" inquired +Webster, entering the kitchen. "Don't all speak at once! S. Marlowe. +Ever heard of him?" + +He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart. + +"Because there's something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me with +notes for him to the bottom of lanes." + +"And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!" said the scullery-maid, +shocked. "The way they go on. Chronic!" said the scullery-maid. + +"Don't you go getting alarmed! And don't you," added Webster, "go +shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I've had to +speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs. +Withers here." + +He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture. + +"Yes, here's the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy +kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it's +wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don't need to unstick the +envelope to know what's inside here. It's the raspberry, ma'am, or I've +lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and +proud-looking she was! I don't know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do +know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that's going to give +it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn't Montagu +Webster!" + +"Well!" said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her +labours. "Think of that!" + +"The way I look at it," said Webster, "is that there's been some sort of +understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she's thought +better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent's choice. +She's chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble suitor the +mitten. There was a rather similar situation in 'Cupid or Mammon,' that +Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down here, only that +ended different. For my part I'd be better pleased if our Miss B. would +let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own heart; but these +modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff, they are! Oh, well, +it's none of my affair," said Webster, stifling a not unmanly sigh. For +beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a warm heart. Montagu +Webster was a sentimentalist. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED + + +At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily +unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever +nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper, Samuel +Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end of the +lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her +appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well, +and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows +tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in the +long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward with a +roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white flutter of +Billie's dress would break the green of the foreground. How eagerly he +would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would.... + +The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never +seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. He +had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he +resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at +Webster under the brim of his hat. + +The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner +stepping daintily to the block. + +"Mr. Marlowe, sir?" he inquired politely. + +Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this. + +"Eh? What?" + +"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?" + +"Yes, that's my name." + +"Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett's personal gentleman's +gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you, +sir." + +Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear girl +had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written to +explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the sweet, +thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His contentment with +the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone out again, and he +found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger. + +"Fine day," he said, as he took the note. + +"Extremely, sir," said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of +a grave pity. + +It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to +prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and +he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the shock +knocked him off the gate. + +As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note, +Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and +this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved. + +The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it +back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They +confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it +continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that +pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles +from the sex in his time--your man of gallantry can hardly hope to +escape these unpleasantnesses--but none had got off the mark quite so +swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this. + +"Thanks," said Sam mechanically. + +"Not at all, sir. You are very welcome." + +Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. +His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of +his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating +in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, but +without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape, blotting +out the sun. + +Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the realisation +that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our wrong-doing +to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that little ruse of +his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full possession of the +facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did not say how she had +come into possession of them. This gave Sam that feeling of self-pity, +that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which makes the bringing +home of crime so particularly poignant. + +"Fine day!" he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it +was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation. + +"Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up," agreed the valet suavely. + +Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes +didn't give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him it +would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would have +been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and--and all that sort of +thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only possible +course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him. He explored +his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For some moments he +scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note. + +"Will you take this to Miss Bennett?" he said, holding it out. + +Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his +leisure; but he shook his head. + +"Useless, I fear, sir," he said gravely. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. +notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw +her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure +you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood." + +"You seem to know a lot about it!" + +"I have studied the sex, sir," said Webster modestly. + +"I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about it!" + +"Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of +affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my +respectful sympathy." + +Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest +conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note. +In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a +stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one +of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly +upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a +mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that +mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort +him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted +condolences from a coal-heaver. + +"I was reading a story--one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if +you are familiar with the series, sir?--in which much the same +situation occurred. It was entitled 'Cupid or Mammon.' The heroine, Lady +Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, +despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I +believe it often happens like that, sir." + +"You're all wrong," said Sam. "It's not that at all." + +"Indeed, sir? I supposed it was." + +"Nothing like it! I--I----." + +Sam's dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself. + +"I don't know what it's got to do with you!" + +"Precisely, sir!" said Webster, with dignity. "Just as you say! Good +afternoon, sir!" + +He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving +his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring +gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all. + +"Don't go!" he cried. + +The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human +support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded +it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his +support. + +"Don't go!" + +"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir." + +Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature +of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened +departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved +Webster at that moment. + +"Might I ask, then, what...?" + +"There's been a misunderstanding," said Sam. "At least, there was, but +now there isn't, if you see what I mean." + +"I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir." + +"Well, I--I--played a sort of--you might almost call it a sort of trick +on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!" + +"Of course, sir!" + +"And she's found out! I don't know how she's found out, but she has! So +there you are!" + +"Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,--some +kind of innocent deception?" + +"Well, it was like this." + +It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting +emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence +of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he +said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the +Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero, anxious to win the +esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an +attack upon her in a lonely road. + +"The principle's the same," said Webster. + +"Well, what did he do when she found out?" + +"She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the +wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than +they did at the subsequent union." + +Sam was thoughtful. + +"Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?" + +"Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very +cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably +inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out +from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference." + +"I wonder where I could get a good tramp," said Sam, meditatively. + +Webster shook his head. + +"I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir." + +"No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted." + +Sam brightened. + +"I've got it! _You_ pretend to attack her, and I'll...." + +"I couldn't, sir! I couldn't, really! I should jeopardise my situation." + +"Oh, come. Be a man!" + +"No, sir, I fear not. There's a difference between handing in your +resignation--I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few +words I had with the guv'nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to +withdraw it--I say there's a difference between handing in your +resignation and being given the sack, and that's what would +happen--without a character, what's more, and lucky if it didn't mean a +prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a thing." + +"Then I don't see that there's anything to be done," said Sam, +morosely. + +"Oh, I shouldn't say that, sir," said Webster encouragingly. "It's +simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us--you, I +should say...." + +"Us," said Sam. "Most decidedly us." + +"Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say +so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself +into this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a +disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in +spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?" + +"Exactly," said Sam. + +"There are several methods which occur to one...." + +"They don't occur to _me_!" + +"Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in +'True As Steel'...." + +"Set fire to the house, eh?" said Sam reflectively. "Yes, there might be +something in that." + +"I would hardly advise such a thing," said Webster, a little +hastily--flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking +his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of +the house himself. "A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be +better to save her from drowning, as in 'The Earl's Secret.'" + +"Ah, but where could she drown?" + +"Well, there is a lake in the grounds...." + +"Excellent!" said Sam. "Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no +more! The whole thing's settled. You take her out rowing on the lake, +and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?" + +"No, sir." + +"Oh? Well, never mind. You'll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the +upturned boat or something, I shouldn't wonder. There's always a way. +Yes, that's the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?" + +"I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It +really wouldn't do." + +"I can't see a flaw in it." + +"Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my +situation...." + +"Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or +something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like +you," said Sam ingratiatingly. + +"No, sir," said Webster firmly. "From boyhood up I've always had a +regular horror of the water. I can't so much as go paddling without an +uneasy feeling." + +The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam's +thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant +uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again. + +"Well, I don't see what there _is_ to be done," he said, gloomily. "It's +no good my making suggestions, if you have some frivolous objection to +all of them." + +"My idea," said Webster, "would be something which did not involve my +own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to +you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I am +anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not wish +to disturb. Did you ever read 'Footpaths of Fate,' in the Nosegay +series, sir? I've only just remembered it, and it contains the most +helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding between +the heroine and the hero--their names have slipped my mind, though I +fancy his was Cyril--and she had told him to hop it...." + +"To what?" + +"To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?" + +"How the deuce do I know?" + +"He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept him +hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all was +forgotten and forgiven, and never...." + +"I know. Never had the bells of the old village church...." + +"Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow +me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of +action." + +"Miss Bennett hasn't got a little brother." + +"No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it." + +Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster +imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence. +It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard. + +"You mean I ought to steal her dog?" + +"Precisely, sir." + +"But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?" + +"The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail." + +"Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about +eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn't get within ten +feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it +would chew me into small pieces." + +"I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In 'Footpaths of Fate' there +was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child." + +"By Jove!" said Sam, impressed. + +"He rewarded her," said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray nonchalantly +over the countryside, "liberally, very liberally." + +"If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog," said +Sam, "don't worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have all +I've got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really beginning +to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. Where do we go +from here?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir?" + +"I mean, what's the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!" Sam's face fell. +The light of hope died out of his eyes. "It's all off! It can't be +done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the little +brute sleeps in the house?" + +"That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal +sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the +interior of the house, sir?" + +"I haven't been inside it since I was at school. I'm Mr. Hignett's +cousin, you know." + +"Indeed, sir? I wasn't aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor +gentleman." + +"Has he?" said Sam, not particularly interested. "I used to stay with +him," he went on, "during the holidays sometimes, but I've practically +forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely. +Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a sort +of window-ledge near the front door...." + +"Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal's +basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific...." + +"Yes, but you haven't explained yet how I am to get into the house in +the first place." + +"Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows +while dinner is in progress." + +"Fine!" + +"You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. +Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?" + +"No, I don't remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to +stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett wouldn't +let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a +cupboard?" + +"Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was +glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other +day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. +You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably +seated on the floor till the household retired to bed." + +"When would that be?" + +"They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is +generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and +knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well." + +Sam was glowing with frank approval. + +"You know, you're a master-mind!" he said, enthusiastically. + +"You're very kind, sir!" + +"One of the lads, by Jove!" said Sam. "And not the worst of them! I +don't want to flatter you, but there's a future for you in crime, if you +cared to go in for it." + +"I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will regard +the scheme as passed and approved?" + +"I should say we would! It's a bird!" + +"Very good, sir." + +"I'll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?" + +"Admirable, sir." + +"And, I say, about that soporific.... Don't overdo it. Don't go killing +the little beast." + +"Oh, no, sir." + +"Well," said Sam, "you can't say it's not a temptation. And you know +what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A CROWDED NIGHT + + + 1 + +If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a +story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to +describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient +with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting +himself to what are, after all, minor developments. This story, for +instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecturing-tour; and no one +realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I +have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my +attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her moral +inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader--a +great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of +a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will +stand no nonsense--rising to remark that he doesn't care what happened +to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett +made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have +'em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a +cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires +information, or give him his money back. + +I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me +hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett herself. +The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw nothing of her. +She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor did she +penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son Eustace +sailed for England in the liner "Atlantic," she happened to read in the +paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the journals of New +York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty shock when she saw +that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy during the voyage, +was "Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus Bennett of Bennett, +Mandelbaum and Co.". And within five minutes of digesting this +information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams cancelling all +her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers trembled as +she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus +Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp +with sea-spray and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble all +over again. + +In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one +who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long +morning's telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star +brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full +week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable +Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, +and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor +a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling +on the deck during the voyage on the "Atlantic." + +Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations +for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there +was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up +her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday, boarded the +"Nuronia" bound for Southampton. + +The "Nuronia" is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built at +a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner +broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to +Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then +sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the +evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting +with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling +through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind +the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the +officials that she had nothing to declare. + +Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser +woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles +at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner +stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she hired a car and +set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when the car, a +genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles, +that she directed the driver to take her instead to the "Blue Boar" in +Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at +all, at about eleven o'clock. + +At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the +familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour's walking +would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a +restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before +she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still +there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the +night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in +Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk +and would ring when she returned. + +Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her +home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The +silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the +feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to +the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and +shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She +experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which +lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more +adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the +drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to +facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be +rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from +noticing the fact. + +All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt +indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the +moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity--one might almost say +anarchy--had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She +marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely +abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping +house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the +drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of +his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to +maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If +there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it +was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out. + +She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, +from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which +made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see +anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she +caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears had +been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, she +knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that went +flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars. + +Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant +spell-bound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell +herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there +came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though +something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise +of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a _pas seul_ out of sheer +lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over +something. + +The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, at +many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and nothing +in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the +skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons at +half-a-crown a visit; but he recognised the truth of the scriptural +adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His +only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted +through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom +undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the +house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did +not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his +presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the +cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and +Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded silently +out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly form of +Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the knowledge that +something was going on, and being a dog who always liked to be in the +centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to investigate. + +By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to +feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster's presence of mind +and Smith's gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the +house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster's stagger +had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the +servants' staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without +checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that +interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate in +cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep, and meant to see the thing +through. He gambolled in Webster's wake up the stairs and along the +passage leading to the latter's room, and only paused when the door was +brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing +over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far as +he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment. + +Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the hall. +The burglars--she had now discovered that there were at least two of +them--appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond +her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be +dislodged she must have assistance. It was man's work. She made a brave +dash through the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up +them; and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace's bedroom like a +spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post. + + + 2 + +At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the +drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told +the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was +camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever +since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl's kindly +practice to soothe him to rest with some such narrative from her +energetic past. + +"And what happened then?" asked Eustace, breathlessly. + +He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly +from a face which was almost the exact shape of an Association football; +for he had reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins to swell +as though somebody were inflating him with a bicycle-pump. + +"Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went +away!" said Jane Hubbard. + +"You know, you're wonderful!" cried Eustace. "Simply wonderful!" + +Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty +enthusiasm. He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest +commonplaces of life. + +"Why, if an alligator got into _my_ tent," said Eustace, "I simply +wouldn't know what to do! I should be nonplussed." + +"Oh, it's just a knack," said Jane, carelessly. "You soon pick it up." + +"Nail-scissors!" + +"It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the +rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear." + +"You're a marvel!" + +Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had +admired Jane Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the +stories which she had told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid +state had set the seal on his devotion. It has always been like this +since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three days Jane Hubbard had been +weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she monopolised his +entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast and deserts +idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched heaven, and of +the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose +heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would Eustace +Hignett seriously incline, and swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas +passing strange, 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. He loved her for +the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity them. In +fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying the +licence, had it not been for the fact that his very admiration served to +keep Eustace from pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible to him +that the queen of her sex, a girl who had chatted in terms of equality +with African head-hunters and who swatted alligators as though they were +flies, could ever lower herself to care for a man who looked like the +"after-taking" advertisement of a patent food. + +But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand +each other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come +recently to place a different interpretation on his silence. In the last +few days of the voyage she had quite made up her mind that Eustace +Hignett loved her and would shortly intimate as much in the usual +manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had begun to have doubts. She +was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was distinctly prettier +than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary man is +attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself +for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True, +Billie was officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had +experience of the brittleness of Miss Bennett's engagements, and she +could by no means regard Eustace as immune. + +"Do you suppose they will be happy?" she asked. + +"Eh? Who?" said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just +finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his +last remark, and Jane's thoughts had flitted back to the subject that +usually occupied them. + +"Billie and Bream Mortimer." + +"Oh!" said Eustace. "Yes, I suppose so." + +"She's a delightful girl." + +"Yes," said Eustace without much animation. + +"And, of course, it's nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It +doesn't often happen that way." + +"No. People's people generally want people to marry people people don't +want to marry," said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which +from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of +every country. + +"I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?" +said Jane casually. + +"Mother doesn't want me to marry anybody," said Eustace with gloom. It +was another obstacle to his romance. + +"What, never?" + +"No." + +"Why ever not?" + +"As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has +to clear out. Silly business!" + +"Well, you wouldn't let your mother stand in the way if you ever really +fell in love?" said Jane. + +"It isn't so much a question of _letting_ her stand in the way. The +tough job would be preventing her. You've never met my mother!" + +"No, I'm looking forward to it!" + +"You're looking forward...!" Eustace eyed her with honest amazement. + +"But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your +mind to marry somebody." + +"What could she do? Why, there isn't anything she wouldn't do. Why, +once...." Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to +tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to +reveal. + +"Once--...?" said Jane. + +"Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I--I was +going out to lunch with a man, and--and--" Eustace was not a ready +improvisator--"and she didn't want me to go, so she stole all my +trousers!" + +Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite +jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard. +That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom +she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the +wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance +which it had never had before. It had lingered in her memory, as stories +will, but it had been a detached episode, having no personal meaning for +her. But now.... "She did that just to stop you going out to lunch with +a man?" she said slowly. + +"Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn't it?" + +Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze, +shooting across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the +pillow. She was in the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to +curl like withered leaves. + +"Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?" she demanded. + +Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon. +The flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported +his sagging jaw. + +"Why--er--" + +"_Were_ you?" cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There was that in +her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as chewed +blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled +with an unendurable sense of guilt. + +"Well--er--yes," he mumbled weakly. + +Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She +might know what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but +she was a woman. + +This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on +Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last stair +has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It was as +though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and caused +him to bite his tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a rock of +support. And now the rock had melted away and left him wallowing in a +deep pool. + +He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the +point of declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily +vanished. He felt strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and +peered over the foot of it at her huddled form. + +"Have some barley-water," he urged. "Try a little barley-water." + +It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the +doctor's instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a glass +of water. + +"Go away!" sobbed Jane Hubbard. + +The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace. + +"But I can't. I'm in bed. Where could I go?" + +"I hate you!" + +"Oh, don't say that!" + +"You're still in love with her!" + +"Nonsense! I never was in love with her." + +"Then why were you going to marry her?" + +"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time." + +"Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her +hair. + +"Do have some barley-water," he said. "Just a sip!" + +"You _are_ in love with her!" sobbed Jane. + +"I'm _not_! I love _you_!" + +"You don't!" + +"Pardon _me_!" said Eustace firmly. "I've loved you ever since you gave +me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat." + +"They why didn't you say so before?" + +"I hadn't the nerve. You always seemed so--I don't know how to put it--I +always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to +propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No +girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face." + +"As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I +have seen your inside!" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"I mean...." + +Eustace fondled her back hair. + +"Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?" + +"I've loved you ever since we met on the Subway." She raised a +tear-stained face. "If only I could be sure that you really loved me!" + +"I can prove it!" said Eustace proudly. "You know how scared I am of my +mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something +which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a +sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old +Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she wouldn't +hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina Bennett had +invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that, if they +didn't come to Windles, they would take some other place, and that meant +I wouldn't see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it to him on +the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!" + +"Why, you darling angel child," cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. "Did you +really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!" + +"Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!" + +Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked +him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from the +girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is a +wonderful thing. + +"You mustn't excite yourself," she said. "You'll be getting a +temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep." She kissed his bulbous +face. "You have made me so happy, Eustace darling." + +"That's good," said Eustace cordially. "But it's going to be an awful +jar for mother!" + +"Don't you worry about that. I'll break the news to your mother. I'm +sure she will be quite reasonable about it." + +Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. + +"Lie back quite comfortably, and don't worry," said Jane Hubbard. "I'm +going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan't be five +minutes. And forget about your mother. I'll look after her." + +Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, +pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of +success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she +moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was not +unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her class; but he +felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant +meditation. + +There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned. + +"Hullo! Back already?" said Eustace, opening his eyes. + +The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a hole +in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his bedside. + + + 3 + +In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their +agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the +truth of that well-known line--"Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones +far away." There was certainly little hope of peace with loved ones in +his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane Hubbard +would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused to +envisage the scene which would then occur. + +"Eustace!" + +Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart. + +"Eustace!" For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that +it was a changed face that confronted hers. "Good gracious! How stout +you've grown!" + +"It's mumps." + +"Mumps!" + +"Yes, I've got mumps." + +Mrs. Hignett's mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow +her to dwell on this subject. + +"Eustace, there are men in the house!" + +This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her. + +"I know," he said uneasily. + +"You know!" Mrs. Hignett stared. "Did you hear them?" + +"Hear them?" said Eustace, puzzled. + +"The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in +the hall!" + +"Oh, I say, no! That's rather rotten!" said Eustace. + +"I saw them and heard them! I--oh!" Mrs. Hignett's sentence trailed off +into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane Hubbard came in. + +Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to +bear shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of +Horace--_Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem_. (For the +benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive +classical education,--memento--Take my +tip--servare--preserve--aequam--an unruffled--mentem--mind--rebus in +arduis--in every crisis). She had only been out of the room a few +minutes, and in that brief period a middle-aged lady of commanding +aspect had apparently come up through a trap. It would have been enough +to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard bore it calmly. All through her +vivid life her bedroom had been a sort of cosy corner for murderers, +alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and every variety of snake, so she +accepted the middle-aged lady without comment. + +"Good evening," she said placidly. + +Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the +new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in which +she had strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a nurse; +but she wore no nurse's uniform. + +"Who are you?" she asked stiffly. + +"Who are _you_?" asked Jane. + +"I," said Mrs. Hignett portentously, "am the owner of this house, and I +should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace +Hignett." + +A charming smile spread itself over Jane's finely-cut face. + +"I'm so glad to meet you," she said. "I have heard so much about you." + +"Indeed?" said Mrs. Hignett coldly. "And now I should like to hear a +little about you." + +"I've read all your books," said Jane. "I think they're wonderful." + +In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was +straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx of +amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense +from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of +the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the +country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She +melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but +she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch. + +"My favourite," said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a +chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress's +complete works were assembled, "is 'The Spreading Light.' I _do_ like +'The Spreading Light!'" + +"It was written some years ago," said Mrs. Hignett with something +approaching cordiality, "and I have since revised some of the views I +state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book." + +"Of course, I can see that 'What of the Morrow?' is more profound," said +Jane. "But I read 'The Spreading Light' first, and of course that makes +a difference." + +"I can quite see that it would," agreed Mrs. Hignett. "One's first step +across the threshold of a new mind, one's first glimpse...." + +"Yes, it makes you feel...." + +"Like some watcher of the skies," said Mrs. Hignett, "when a new planet +swims into his ken, or like...." + +"Yes, doesn't it!" said Jane. + +Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle +tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in +a Wild West Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table +directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly +anticipated would be the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier +fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social and literary evening +not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old Girton students must be. +For the first time since his mother had come into the room he indulged +in the luxury of a deep breath. + +"But what are you doing here?" asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost +reluctantly to the main issue. + +Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way +he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, +following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his +Peninsular campaign. "When in doubt," the Duke used to say, "retire and +dig yourself in." + +"I'm nursing dear Eustace," said Jane. + +Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes +which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her. + +"'Dear Eustace!'" she repeated mechanically. + +"We're engaged," said Jane. + +"Engaged! Eustace, is this true?" + +"Yes," said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed. + +"And poor Eustace is so worried," continued Jane, "about the house." She +went on quickly. "He doesn't want to deprive you of it, because he knows +what it means to you. So he is hoping--we are both hoping--that you will +accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan't want it, +you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it, won't +you--to please us?" + +We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. +Only a short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard, +that indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not +express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world's +greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. +Horace Hignett's understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The +ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was +hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and +gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the +bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm. + +How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a +pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. +But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst +upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually +dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have +touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing +instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where +Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. Its wailing lament +for the passing of Summer filled the whole house. + +"That's too bad!" said Jane, a little annoyed. "At this time of night!" + +"It's the burglars!" quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent +events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of +Society. "They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they're +playing the orchestrion!" + +"Light-hearted chaps!" said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the +criminal world. "Full of spirits!" + +"This won't do," said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. "We can't have +this sort of thing. I'll go and fetch my gun." + +"They'll murder you, dear!" panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm. + +Jane Hubbard laughed. + +"Murder _me_!" she said amusedly. "I'd like to catch them at it!" + +Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind +her. + +"Eustace," she said solemnly, "that is a wonderful girl!" + +"Yes! She once killed a panther--or a puma, I forget which--with a +hat-pin!" said Eustace with enthusiasm. + +"I could wish you no better wife!" said Mrs. Hignett. + +She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a +battery of artillery had roared. + +The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge +into the elephant-gun. + +"One of them was popping about outside here," she announced. "I took a +shot at him, but I'm afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any +rate he went away." + +In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who +had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what was +the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He had +been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly confronted +by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay him with an +enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone singing down +the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned to his room in +three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars might take +everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not molest his +privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very sensible of him, +too, I consider. + +"We'd better go downstairs," said Jane. "Bring the candle. Not you, +Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a chill. Don't +stir out of bed!" + +"I won't," said Eustace obediently. + + + 4 + +Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the +thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party +to go to bed; and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind the +piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been there +for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in which +he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so long +ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending the +evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had +contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now that he was +actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it +had. + +Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to +contain no air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the +cupboard's natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a +condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream +in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was +abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the +small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of +harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred times he wished that +the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler. + +His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian +mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the +Infinite, but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He +tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind from +the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never +encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by +playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could +remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield, +after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew's, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, +Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine +through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull +incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room +had called it a day and that his vigil was over. + +But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light seemed +to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where people +had the habit of going and strolling about the garden to all hours? +Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At any rate, +it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He remembered that +Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear signal on the door. +It would be safer to wait for that. + +But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow +impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the +hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought +he heard footsteps but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained +his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a chance. He +fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened +it by slow inches, and peered out. + +The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the +feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl +stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing +events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. +Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his +head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the cuckoo-clock, +which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom before striking, +proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession before subsiding with +another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the end of the world. + +He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of +imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous system, +and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant desire to get +at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on +purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. For quite a +minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had strayed within +his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his attention was +diverted. + +So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no +ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What +occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an +electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the +egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his +hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so +completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle +but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt +vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he +simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart +refuses to beat, what hope is there for you? + +At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the +chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the +darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of +ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally +unexpected bulldog. + +"Get out!" whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk. +"Go away!" + +Smith took the opportunity of Sam's lips having opened to lick the roof +of his mouth. Smith's attitude in the matter was that Providence in its +all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had +reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of +such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted +downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no +result in front of Webster's bedroom door, and it was a real treat to +him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable +manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend. + +Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and +occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of +misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the humans +was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position on a +straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those dogs who +rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin burglars +by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply could not +grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a private +house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any difference +between the human beings he knew and the strangers who dropped in for a +late chat after the place was locked up. He had no intention of biting +Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the present moment what he felt +about Sam was that he was one of the best fellows he had ever met and +that he loved him like a brother. + +Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these +amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have had +the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was just +the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts like +that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the darkness +that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively about his +ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he took to be +the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not warily enough +to prevent his cannoning into and almost upsetting a small table with a +vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped, and the first bit of +luck that had come to Sam that night was when he reached out at a +venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on to the carpet. + +He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold. +If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud +enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go +on. He must have light. It might be a risk; there might be a chance of +somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate; but it was a +risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this +darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door, +on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch +would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside Windles, +and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even a woman +like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost anything, would +still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of illumination. His +only doubt was whether the switch was where it was in most houses, near +the door. + +It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a +delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided young +man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He +positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved. + +He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him +out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered +mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over +the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of +Tosti's "Good-bye." + +How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how +long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his +notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, +there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he heard +that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon +him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a +hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him +in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the +recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles, +playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself +inside this very suit, and had not only baffled Eustace through a long +summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by +booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days! +He leaped at the suit of armour. Having grown since he was last inside +it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into +it at last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy. + +"Thank heaven!" said Sam. + +He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need. + +Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had +opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments. + + + 5 + +He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. +There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas +and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard +with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them +all impartially. + +Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob. + +"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!" + +"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?" + +Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly. + +"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!" + +"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did." + +"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett +incredulously. + +Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been +switching off the orchestrion. + +"Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow," she said. "The point now +is that there are burglars in the house." + +"Burglars!" cried Mr. Bennett aghast. "I thought it was you playing that +infernal instrument, Mortimer." + +"What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?" said Mr. +Mortimer irritably. + +"It woke me up," said Mr. Bennett complainingly. "And I had had great +difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I +believe I've caught the mumps from young Hignett." + +"Nonsense! You're always imagining yourself ill," snapped Mr. Mortimer. + +"My face hurts," persisted Mr. Bennett. + +"You can't expect a face like that not to hurt," said Mr. Mortimer. + +It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the +verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard +intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the +introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk +about burglars, and she intended to do so. + +"For goodness sake stop it!" she said, almost petulantly for one usually +so superior to emotion. "There'll be lots of time for quarrelling +to-morrow. Just now we've got to catch these...." + +"I'm not quarrelling," said Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, you are," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"I'm not!" + +"You are!" + +"Don't argue!" + +"I'm not arguing!" + +"You are!" + +"I'm not!" + +Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can +possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood +by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard's robuster +course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and +pull the trigger. + +"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes +died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She +inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...." + +"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved. + +"Serve you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the +fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think +they're still in the house." + +"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and +his other grievances. "We must summon the police!" + +"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the +ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been +mentally assessing. "We must send for the police at once." + +"We don't really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you'll all go to +bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...." + +"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had +begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was +sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her +esteem. + +"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in +ten minutes in the car." + +"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over +the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!" + +"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream." + +"Where _is_ Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer. + +The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented +itself to the company. + +"Where can he be?" said Billie. + +Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is +broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the +joke is at her expense. + +"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot +at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!" + +"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer. + +"I shot _at_ him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though +how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a sitter like +that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, +looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no +use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She +shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about +this if it comes out," she said regretfully. + +"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her +gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "_He's_ all right! Leave +him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning." + +"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted. + +A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was +engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that +moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, +mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people +whose simple annals I am relating--my position is merely that of a +reporter--; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy +common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark +corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, +rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her +mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have +behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself +to the varied emotions then engaging her mind. + +"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse +yourselves somehow till I come back." + +She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to +Mr. Bennett. + +"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she +doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and +nobody else can drive the car." + +"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering. + +"Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow +morning," said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way. + +"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has +occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. +The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the +removal of the rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall +be back in no time." + +She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her +motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding +before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream. + +"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a +piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars." + +Billie cast a scornful look at her fianc. Absolutely unjustified, in my +opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. +Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the +doctors call a penumbral mental condition. + +"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch +the police." + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Get your coat." + +"All right," said Bream. + +"And cap." + +"All right," said Bream. + +He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and +they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both +silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that +Billie's was thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who +has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without +it. + +In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of +affairs. + +"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back +with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done, +has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I think +those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and +rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. He's a good +cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn't finish in the first ten." + +The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a +young elephant. + +"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the +ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit of +armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of +protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've +got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me +to carry a light, and...." + +"Tchoo!" + +"What?" said Jane. + +"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on +bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything +sensible to suggest?" + +"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...." + +"Achoo!" + +"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round +on him. + +"There _is_ a draught," began Mr. Bennett. + +"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on." + +"I didn't sneeze!" + +"Somebody sneezed." + +"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously. + +"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there +isn't anything behind me from which it could have...." She stopped +suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set +expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she +said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and +sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular +forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of +that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!" + +"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of +the helmet. "I can--_achoo_!" The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's +nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks. + +"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard, "One--two--" + +"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly. + +"You'd better!" said Jane. + +"I can't get this dashed helmet off!" + +"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off." + +Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the +costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, +he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages. + +"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard. + +"My hands _are_ up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his +unbecoming head-wear. + +"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the +combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to +hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who +your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and perhaps +you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?" + +"Do I look like a gang?" + +"If you ask me what you look like...." + +"My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe...." + +"Alias what?" + +"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe...." + +An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. + +"The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and...." + +"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said +Mrs. Hignett with acerbity. + +"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son...." + +"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know +this fellow, do you?" + +"I don't know him!" + +"You said you did." + +"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I +decline to have anything to do with him!" + +"But you identify him?" + +"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I +suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if +he didn't know it could be proved against him." + +"_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett. + +"Yes," said Sam. + +"Well, what are you doing in my house?" + +"It's _my_ house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry Mortimer's +and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?" + +"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a +thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry Mortimer's." + +"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly +flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett's word +is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!" + +The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good +deal of feeling. + +"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian +race," said Mrs. Hignett testily. "I merely maintain that this house is +m...." + +"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out +some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't +see what we can do. We'll have to let him go." + +"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate +speech, "to make a social call...." + +"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were an +inconsiderate boy, Samuel." + +"I came to inquire after poor Eustace's mumps. I've only just heard that +the poor chap was ill." + +"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known you +were so fond of Eustace...." + +"All right, is he?" said Sam. + +"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely." + +"Fine!" + +"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!" + +"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly--how those +Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things +like this on their heads beats me--but you sound a good sort. I hope +you'll be very happy." + +"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall." + +"Eustace is one of the best." + +"How nice of you to say so." + +"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor of +this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance +in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up." + +"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer. + +"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably +lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your +selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little." + +"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a +sardine opener!" + +"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him +and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his +own wrong-headedness." + +"It's not his fault his head's the wrong size," said Jane. + +"He must get himself out as best he can," said Mrs. Hignett. + +"Very well," said Sam with bitter dignity. "Then I will not trespass +further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local +blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to +him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the +earliest opportunity. Good-night!" He walked coldly to the front door. +"And there are people," he remarked sardonically, "who say that blood is +thicker than water! I'll bet they never had any aunts!" + +He tripped over the mat and withdrew. + + + 6 + +Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had reached +the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been spending a +considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start readily. At +each application of Billie's foot on the self-starter, it emitted a +tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep again. +Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the machine moved +reluctantly out into the drive. + +"The battery must be run down," said Billie. + +"All right," said Bream. + +Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes. +She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists +are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost +irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping +out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system. + +Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark +drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had +received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream. +To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a great +belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina +Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should finish +her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply because people +shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. Why, Samuel Marlowe +would have perished rather than do such a thing. You might say what you +liked about Samuel Marlowe--and, of course, his habit of playing +practical jokes put him beyond the pale--but nobody could question his +courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that time in the harbour +at New York! Billie found herself thinking wistfully about Samuel +Marlowe. + +There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything +except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. +Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had +been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The +wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It was +a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been +unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to +have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it +would be taken back to its cosy garage. + +Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened. + +"You'll have to get down and crank her," she said curtly. + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Well, go on," said Billie impatiently. + +"Eh?" + +"Get out and crank her." + +Bream emerged for an instant from his trance. + +"All right," he said. + +The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of +our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job +towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not +at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to +accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet +flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum. +This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow +impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was +wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have +told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an +emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress. + +"Give it a good sharp twist," she said. + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Here, let me do it," cried Billie. + +She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent +brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint +protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and +was still once more. + +"May I help?" + +It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice--a sepulchral voice, the +sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's +cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from +the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream +painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he +had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the management +to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden +sepulchral voices. + +Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just +beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided +Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. + +"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone +wrong." + +Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure, +strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages +he would have excited no comment at all. Passers by would simply have +said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the +dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in +the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head +pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream. I +will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had +shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or perhaps +it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected him more +disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first of the +series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying +that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put +the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments +or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off +the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring +trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked +the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two chairs, the towel +stand, and three pairs of boots against it. + +Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now, +with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would +stand no nonsense, set the engine going again. + +"Why--why," she stammered, "why are you wearing that thing on your +head?" + +"Because I can't get it off." + +Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it. + +"S--Mr. Marlowe!" she exclaimed. + +"Get in," said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. "Where +can I take you?" + +"Go away!" said Billie. + +"Get in!" + +"I don't want to talk to you." + +"I want to talk to _you_! Get in!" + +"I won't." + +Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted +her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then +throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the +drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came +and went in the golden glow of the head-lights. + + + 7 + +"Put me down," said Billie. + +"You'd get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"Drive about till you promise to marry me." + +"You'll have to drive a long time." + +"Right ho!" said Sam. + +The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand +and grabbed at the steering wheel. + +"Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!" said Sam, righting +the car with a wrench. + +"You're a brute!" said Billie. + +"Caveman stuff," explained Sam, "I ought to have tried it before." + +"I don't know what you expect to gain by this." + +"That's all right," said Sam, "I know what I'm about." + +"I'm glad to hear it." + +"I thought you would be." + +"I'm not going to talk to you." + +"All right. Lean back and doze off. We've the whole night before us." + +"What do you mean?" cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk. + +"Have you ever been to Scotland?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I thought we might push up there. We've got to go somewhere and, oddly +enough, I've never been to Scotland." + +Billie regarded him blankly. + +"Are you crazy?" + +"I'm crazy about you. If you knew what I've gone through to-night for +your sake you'd be more sympathetic. I love you," said Sam, swerving to +avoid a rabbit. "And what's more, you know it." + +"I don't care." + +"You will!" said Sam confidently. "How about North Wales? I've heard +people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?" + +"I'm engaged to Bream Mortimer." + +"Oh no, that's all off," Sam assured her. + +"It's not!" + +"Right off!" said Sam firmly. "You could never bring yourself to marry a +man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. +Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away! +No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won't do!" + +This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not +bring herself to dispute it. + +"Anyway, I hate _you_!" she said, giving the conversation another turn. + +"Why? In the name of goodness, why?" + +"How dared you make a fool of me in your father's office that morning?" + +"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think +well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a +lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out." + +"I shall never forgive you!" + +"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to +Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?" + +"I said I should never forgive you and I won't." + +"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going +on till you do." + +"Very well! Go on, then!" + +"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have +you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall +have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when +they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself +because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this +thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know +what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That +will be fun!" + +There was a long silence. + +"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam. + +Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered +road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious +discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There was something so +novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her +dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with +a desire to laugh. + +"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been +trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young Lochinvar' +the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm doing now, +and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those days a +helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man should +wear. Odd how fashions change!" + +Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any +inquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful +curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer. + +"_Why_ are you wearing that thing?" + +"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't +suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' head-wear, do you?" + +"But why did you ever put it on?" + +"Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the +drawing-room...." + +"What!" + +"Didn't I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in +the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and +started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline's china, so I thought I'd +better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of +musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So, what +with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide +somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall." + +"Were you inside there all the time we were...?" + +"Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn't it? Getting under the +bed, I mean." + +"Don't let's talk about Bream." + +"That's the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won't. Let's +get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?" + +"But why did you come to the house at all?" + +"To see you." + +"To see me! At that time of night?" + +"Well, perhaps not actually to see you." Sam was a little perplexed for +a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his +true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had +begun to exist between them. "To be near you! To be in the same house +with you!" he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right +note. "You don't know the anguish I went through after I read that +letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, will +you marry me?" + +Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road, +moved smoothly on. + +"Will you marry me?" + +Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with +thoughtful eyes. + +"Will you marry me?" + +The car raced on. + +"Will you marry me?" said Sam. "Will you marry me? Will you marry me?" + +"Oh, don't talk like a parrot," cried Billie. "It reminds me of Bream." + +"But will you?" + +"Yes," said Billie. + +Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for +the tyres. + +"Did you say 'yes'?" + +"Yes!" + +"Darling!" said Sam, leaning towards her. "Oh, curse this helmet!" + +"Why?" + +"Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me." + +"Let me try and get it off. Bend down!" + +"Ouch!" said Sam. + +"It's coming. There! How helpless men are!" + +"We need a woman's tender care," said Sam depositing the helmet on the +floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. "Billie!" + +"Sam!" + +"You angel!" + +"You're rather a darling after all," said Billie. "But you want keeping +in order," she added severely. + +"You will do that when we're married. When we're married!" he repeated +luxuriously. "How splendid it sounds!" + +"The only trouble is," said Billie, "father won't hear of it." + +"No, he won't. Not till it is all over," said Sam. + +He started the car again. + +"What are you going to do?" said Billie. "Where are you going?" + +"To London," said Sam. "It may be news to you but the old lawyer like +myself knows that, by going to Doctors' Commons or the Court of Arches +or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or +something, you can get a special licence and be married almost before +you know where you are. My scheme--roughly--is to dig this special +licence out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and +then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar's." + +"Oh, not a registrar's!" said Billie. + +"No?" + +"I should hate a registrar's." + +"Very well, angel. Just as you say. We'll go to a church. There are +millions of churches in London. I've seen them all over the place." He +mused for a moment. "Yes, you're quite right," he said. "A church is the +thing. It'll please Webster." + +"Webster?" + +"Yes, he's rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so +blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster's feelings. After +all, he brought us together." + +"Webster? How?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you all about that some other time," said Sam. "Just for +the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable? +Fine! Then off we go." + +The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily +as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had +only known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not +befallen them, for Sam was too happy to sing. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl on the Boat, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + +***** This file should be named 20717-8.txt or 20717-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/1/20717/ + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/20717-8.zip b/old/20717-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d875765 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20717-8.zip diff --git a/old/20717-page-images.zip b/old/20717-page-images.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0767718 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20717-page-images.zip diff --git a/old/20717.txt b/old/20717.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c44ce94 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20717.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9706 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Girl on the Boat, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl on the Boat + +Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +Release Date: March 1, 2007 [EBook #20717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +THE GIRL ON THE BOAT + + +BY + +P. G. WODEHOUSE + + +HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED +3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1 + + +[Illustration: A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK] + + +_Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_ + +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London + + + + +WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT + + +It was Sam Marlowe's fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S. +"Atlantic" (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking for +a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any inferior +substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage placed Sam +for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay the pace. + +He follows Billie Bennett "around," scheming, blundering and hoping, so +does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam's rival. + +There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house +in Hampshire, where Billie's ideals still block the way and Sam comes on +in spite of everything. + +Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every +sense of the term. + + + + +ONE MOMENT! + + +Before my friend Mr. Jenkins--wait a minute, Herbert--before my friend +Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like +to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will +kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There +will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long. + +I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. +Ah! but you don't know. You don't realise how careful even a splendid +fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn't have me go down to posterity +as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this +volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, have +read Mr. J. Storer Clouston's "The Lunatic at Large Again." (Those who +are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both the +hero of "The Lunatic" and my "Sam Marlowe" try to get out of a tight +corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a country-house. +Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness that I am +innocent, innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue Wodehouse +is not sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr. Clouston's +appeared simultaneously in serial form in their respective magazines. +This proves, I think, that at these cross-roads, at any rate, there has +been no dirty work. All right, Herb., you can let 'em in now. + + P. G. WODEHOUSE. +Constitutional Club, + Northumberland Avenue. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. A DISTURBING MORNING 11 + + II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN 27 + + III. SAM PAVES THE WAY 56 + + IV. SAM CLICKS 69 + + V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE 95 + + VI. SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT 104 + + VII. SUNDERED HEARTS 111 + + VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION 126 + + IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE 144 + + X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES 159 + + XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT 180 + + XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS 193 + + XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND 207 + + XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER 217 + + XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE 227 + + XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED 242 + + XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT 257 + + + + +THE GIRL ON THE BOAT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A DISTURBING MORNING + + +Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace +Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight +peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine +summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to +thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the +sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on +the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly +eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on the +pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at +eight precisely. + +Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the Morrow," +and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked me. Yes, +she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour. + +About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, +for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh +swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, +philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to +affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race +movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on +religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this one +point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that there +was easy money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of America, and +that they might just as well grab it as the next person. + +Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for, +spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business +sense in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was +good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary +booked, before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had +finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs +taken for the passport. + +She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved +sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming +home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat of +the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its shady +walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its +walls--these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she +belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of +cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her +son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of +it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and +bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very +marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under +her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female +below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now. + +Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores +which she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and +dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She +smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to her own +early-rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call his soul +his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at half-past +nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her correspondence, +and started her duties for the day. + +Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls, +porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this +hell-brew, was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she +ate. The majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely +theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club, +asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly dinner. There was a +letter from her brother Mallaby--Sir Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent London +lawyer--saying that his son Sam, of whom she had never approved, would +be in New York shortly, passing through on his way back to England, and +hoping that she would see something of him. Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. +Hignett skimmed through it without interest, setting aside one or two of +the letters for Eustace, who acted as her unpaid secretary, to answer +later in the day. + +She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in +the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of +advanced years, entered the room. + +"Ma'am, there was a gentleman." + +Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred. + +"Didn't you tell him I was not to be disturbed?" + +"I did not. I loosed him into the parlour." The staff remained for a +moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. "He says he's your nephew. +His name's Marlowe." + +Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not +seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to extend +the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who once or twice, +during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace of Windles +with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than water, and +all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give him five +minutes. She went into the sitting-room, and found there a young man who +looked more or less like all other young men, though perhaps rather +fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had last met him, +as men so often do between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and was +now about six feet in height, about forty inches round the chest, and in +weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and amiable face, marred at +the moment by an expression of discomfort somewhat akin to that of a cat +in a strange alley. + +"Hullo, Aunt Adeline!" he said awkwardly. + +"Well, Samuel!" said Mrs. Hignett. + +There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and +disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not +improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who +imagined that he had long since grown to man's estate and put off +childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still +affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had +omitted to shave and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug which +had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the hands and +feet. + +"Jolly morning," said Sam, perseveringly. + +"So I imagine. I have not yet been out." + +"Thought I'd look in and see how you were." + +"That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes, +that was very kind of you!" + +There was another pause. + +"How do you like America?" said Sam. + +"I dislike it exceedingly." + +"Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that. +Personally, it doesn't affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I +like America myself," said Sam. "I've had a wonderful time. Everybody's +treated me like a rich uncle. I've been in Detroit, you know, and they +practically gave me the city and asked me if I'd like another to take +home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the +missing heir! I think America's the greatest invention on record." + +"And what brought you to America?" said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this +rhapsody. + +"Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know." + +"Surely at your age," said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, "you could be +better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?" + +"Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and +I still play football occasionally." + +"I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work." + +"He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take a +stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too." + +"He is perfectly right." + +"I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?" +said Sam. + +Mrs. Hignett started violently. + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Eh?" + +"What makes you say that?" + +"Oh, well, he's a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry, and all that." + +"There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and +retiring temperament, and sees few women. He is almost a recluse." + +Sam was aware of this, and had frequently regretted it. He had always +been fond of his cousin in that half-amused and rather patronising way +in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who run +more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if Eustace had +not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman whom from +his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of the Washouts, +much might have been made of him. Both at school and at Oxford, Eustace +had been--if not a sport--at least a decidedly cheery old bean. Sam +remembered Eustace at school, breaking gas globes with a slipper in a +positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford playing up to +him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had done that +imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the Trinity +smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg, and it +was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down in the +country, miles away from anywhere. + +"Eustace is returning to England on Saturday," said Mrs. Hignett. She +spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he +had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with her +till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the +question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at +Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the mercy +of servants who might trample over the flowerbeds, scratch the polished +floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. "He sails on the +'Atlantic.'" + +"That's splendid!" said Sam. "I'm sailing on the 'Atlantic' myself. I'll +go down to the office and see if we can't have a state-room together. +But where is he going to live when he gets to England?" + +"Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?" + +"But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?" + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"Letting Windles!" She spoke as one might address a lunatic. "What put +that extraordinary idea into your head?" + +"I thought father said something about your letting the place to some +American." + +"Nothing of the kind!" + +It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even +snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He could +not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was one +which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had +certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact, people had pestered her. +There was a rich, fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met +just before sailing at her brother's house in London. Invited down to +Windles for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place, and +had begged her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had +pursued her with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while +she was on the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she +reached New York. She had not been in America two days when there had +arrived a Mr. Mortimer, bosom friend of Mr. Bennett, carrying on the +matter where the other had left off. For a whole week Mr. Mortimer had +tried to induce her to reconsider her decision, and had only stopped +because he had had to leave for England himself, to join his friend. And +even then the thing had gone on. Indeed, this very morning, among the +letters on Mrs. Hignett's table, the buff envelope of a cable from Mr. +Bennett had peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder, then, +that Sam's allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of "The +Spreading Light" momentarily to lose her customary calm. + +"Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles," she said with finality, +and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an +end--and glad of it--also got up. + +"Well, I think I'll be going down and seeing about that state-room" he +said. + +"Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next +lecture." + +"Of course, yes. Mustn't interrupt you. I suppose you're having a great +time, gassing away--I mean--well, good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" + +Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed +that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of +lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go +through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly succeeded +in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the daughter of +Erin once more. + +"Ma'am, there was a gentleman." + +"This is intolerable!" cried Mrs. Hignett. "Did you tell him that I was +busy?" + +"I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room." + +"Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?" + +"He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream +Mortimer." + +"Bream Mortimer!" + +"Yes, ma'am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being +slippy from the dishes." + +Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as +she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream Mortimer. +He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who wanted Windles. This visit could +only have to do with the subject of Windles, and she went into the +dining-room in a state of cold fury, determined to squash the Mortimer +family, in the person of their New York representative, once and for +all. + +"Good morning, Mr. Mortimer." + +Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small bright eyes and a sharply +curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most parrots do. It +gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they saw Bream +Mortimer in restaurants, eating roast beef. They had the feeling that he +would have preferred sunflower seeds. + +"Morning, Mrs. Hignett." + +"Please sit down." + +Bream Mortimer looked as though he would rather have hopped on to a +perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with gleaming, excited +eyes. + +"Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!" + +"You _are_ having a word with me alone." + +"I hardly know how to begin." + +"Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent." + +Bream Mortimer started. + +"Then you have heard about it?" + +"I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr. +Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing +else. And now," cried Mrs. Hignett, fiercely, "you come and try to +re-open the subject. Once and for all, nothing will alter my decision. +No money will induce me to let my house." + +"But I didn't come about that!" + +"You did not come about Windles?" + +"Good Lord, no!" + +"Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?" + +Bream Mortimer seemed embarrassed. He wriggled a little, and moved his +arms as if he were trying to flap them. + +"You know," he said, "I'm not a man who butts into other people's +affairs...." He stopped. + +"No?" said Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream began again. + +"I'm not a man who gossips with valets...." + +"No?" + +"I'm not a man who...." + +Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman. + +"Let us take all your negative qualities for granted," she said curtly. +"I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us +confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you +have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment, +that you wish to see me about?" + +"This marriage." + +"What marriage?" + +"Your son's marriage." + +"My son is not married." + +"No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little +Church Round the Corner!" + +Mrs. Hignett stared. + +"Are you mad?" + +"Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say," admitted Mr. +Mortimer. "You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!" + +"Who is this girl?" + +"Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang +around and look a lot but never tell their love...." + +"Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?" + +"I've always been one of those men who...." + +"Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive +qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all. +You come to me with this absurd story...." + +"Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet who had it from her +maid." + +"Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to +marry?" + +"I don't know that I'd call him misguided," said Mr. Mortimer, as one +desiring to be fair. "I think he's a right smart picker! She's such a +corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I've loved her +for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is--somehow one never +seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening in the +summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I'm not one of these +smooth, dashing chaps, you see, with a great line of talk. I'm not...." + +"If you will kindly," said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, "postpone this +essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion, I shall be greatly +obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to +marry." + +"Haven't I told you?" said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. "That's odd. I +haven't. It's funny how one doesn't do the things one thinks one does. +I'm the sort of man...." + +"What is her name?" + +"... the sort of man who...." + +"What is her name?" + +"Bennett." + +"Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The +red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?" + +"That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the +thing." + +"I intend to." + +"Fine!" + +"The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son +do not vibrate on the same plane." + +"That's right. I've noticed it myself." + +"Their auras are not the same colour." + +"If I've thought that once," said Bream Mortimer, "I've thought it a +hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've thought it. Not +the same colour. That's the whole thing in a nutshell." + +"I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall +take immediate steps." + +"That's good. But what's the procedure? It's getting late. She'll be +waiting at the church at eleven." + +"Eustace will not be there." + +"You think you can fix it?" + +"Eustace will not be there," repeated Mrs. Hignett. + +Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair. + +"Well, you've taken a weight off my mind." + +"A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights." + +"I'll be going. Haven't had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat breakfast. +Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham get cut off +in their prime. I feel I can rely on you." + +"You can!" + +"Then I'll say good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +"I mean really good-bye. I'm sailing for England on Saturday on the +'Atlantic.'" + +"Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller." + +Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive. + +"You won't tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"You won't wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?" + +"I do not understand you." + +"You won't tell him that I crabbed his act ... gave the thing away ... +gummed the game?" + +"I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention." + +"Chivalrous?" said Bream Mortimer a little doubtfully. "I don't know +that I'd call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all's fair in love +and war. Well, I'm glad you're going to keep my share in the business +under your hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board." + +"You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent +sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin." + +"That's good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye." + +"Good-bye. When you reach England, remember me to your father." + +"He won't have forgotten you," said Bream Mortimer, confidently. He did +not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman. She +was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered. + +Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her +late visitor was speaking, schemes had begun to form in her mind like +bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door +had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than +seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and +simplest. She tiptoed softly to her son's room. Rhythmic snores greeted +her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly in. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN + + +Sec. 1 + +The White Star liner "Atlantic" lay at her pier with steam up and +gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure +was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors +fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro. +White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain, +though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical +nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers, +and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady stream. + +The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There +were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by +mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there +was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly +thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in +the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning +compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were +congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the +gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle +and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the +greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise. However, +after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder into +the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some stout +female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few +yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right +arm, and he spun round with a cry. + +It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New +York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite. + +He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. + +She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with +red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he +could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly +grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine +eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under +his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of +colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny +freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was +just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim, +her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say +no more than that they look pretty well all right. + +Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and +for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and +garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and +fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the +third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and +docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of +how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He +swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its +covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself, +he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it +all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of +history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to +clasp this girl to him and.... + +But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. +That, he felt, constituted an obstacle. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried. + +Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an +impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the +moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature.... + +"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous." + +Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded +from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs, a +sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the +confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write, +of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris and give +him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys, +American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking their wares on +every side. + +"I hope he didn't hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten +to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the +tip of his black nose. "Not counting waiters at the hotel, of course," +she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and he was left +thinking of all the things he might have said--all those graceful, +witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these +occasions. + +He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of +pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition! +Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl +who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory +of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she +went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital. + + +Sec. 2 + +Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through +the crowd of passengers, passengers' friends, stewards, junior officers, +and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main +companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles, +as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage leading +to his state-room. + +State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the +chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings +round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression +that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over +to do a bit of entertaining--possibly an informal dance or something. +When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to the +dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to +swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands +again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does +not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable. + +Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart +in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began +to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished +now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed in +order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a +tight fit. Eustace's bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to take +up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, and +would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl with +the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have need +of diverting society. + +A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened. + +"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam. + +Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a +deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, +intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He +looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did. + +"Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice. + +Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going +by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something +cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be +the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him +could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists. + +"What on earth's the matter?" said Sam. + +"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing +much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart's broken." He eyed with +considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, a +harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who +might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage. + +"If you would care to hear the story...?" he said. + +"Go ahead." + +"It is quite short." + +"That's good." + +"Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl...." + +"Talking of girls," said Sam with enthusiasm, "I've just seen the only +one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I +was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly...." + +"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?" + +"Oh, sorry! Go ahead." + +Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing +occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B. +Midgeley. + +"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...." + +"So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw +such...." + +"Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said Eustace +coldly. + +"Oh, sorry! Carry on." + +"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...." + +"What was her name?" + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly +intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them +immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest +her. She admired my...." + +"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story." + +"Don't bustle me," said Eustace querulously. + +"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days." + +"I've forgotten where I was." + +"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened? +I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged +to some other johnny?" + +"Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both agreed +that a quiet wedding was what we wanted--she thought her father might +stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would--so we +decided to get married without telling anybody. By now," said Eustace, +with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have been on my +honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the parson's +fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding." + +"And then you quarrelled?" + +"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story. +I'm telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow--I can't make out +how--mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She stopped +the thing." + +Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his +cousin's meek subservience to her revolted him. + +"Stopped it? I suppose she said 'Now, Eustace, you mustn't!' and you +said 'Very well, mother!' and scratched the fixture?" + +"She didn't say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes, +she might never have heard anything about the marriage." + +"Then how do you mean she stopped it?" + +"She pinched my trousers!" + +"Pinched your trousers!" + +Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long +before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out +while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn't find +a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked everywhere. +Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and +asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent +them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the +mornings--I don't as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time. A fat +lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told +her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she +wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but it +sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the man +and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and +told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him +because I hadn't any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from what +he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening all +the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she +knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was +awful!" + +"And the girl?" + +"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from +eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't +see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her +saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been +thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a +mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had +thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like +Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed." + +"Did you explain about the trousers?" + +"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a +man anything except being ridiculous." + +"I think you're well out of it," said Sam, judicially. "She can't have +been much of a girl." + +"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined. +I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because +practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its +way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and +approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother +behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn't a law +against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was't +betrayed the Capitol....'" + +"In Washington?" said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But +then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting +page. + +"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome." + +"Oh, as long ago as that?" + +"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like +Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the +Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the +cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes? +Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'" + +"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I +mean. But the girl I met on the dock...." + +"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and +derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if +you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed +girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to +the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that +I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a +future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My +work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink." + +"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we +pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?" + +Eustace shook his head gloomily. + +"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and +feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay +there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. +Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck." + +"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that +you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage." + +"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve pyjamas +out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!" + +Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get +on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the +sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on +deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the +boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already +taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was +she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He +reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck. +And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from +the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with +people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water. + +Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is +excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always +among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a +blank window on which were inscribed the words, "Watch this space!" In +short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and +shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a +moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on--a view which +he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail. + +There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one +visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time +to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust +this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer. + +Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the +girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, leaning +out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else, +she was staring into the water. + +As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a +wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl. +What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived +in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who +would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to shift +back to a position of greater safety. + +At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been +jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been +crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took +Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man +hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail +to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his hat +was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a few +skilful touches of the finger. + + +Sec. 3 + +In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room +chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some rather +curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but +curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the +reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It +should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is +one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero in +chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about his +grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space. We +must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in her +state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This +happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his +narrative. + +The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a +rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck. +The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face +brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an +elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just forced +his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the +passenger-lined rail. + +The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the +river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She +gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a handkerchief, +swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed to give himself +room, and then, with all the strength of his arm, hurled the bills in +the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with its precious contents +shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good six feet, +and dropped into the water, where it unfolded like a lily, sending +twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, and an +assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets. + +It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest +souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a +lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By +profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood +by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so now: +and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to give +the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the pleading +face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was not the +man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy, pressed +his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment later he +had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both hands. + +He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at +his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he +observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young +man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe. + +"Svensk!" exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of +Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the +advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the +situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and +Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise. +He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone. + +Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability to +adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to come +whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water which +tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was here he +was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it happened, +was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his belongings at +home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at school in the +"Saving Life" competition. He knew exactly what to do. You get behind +the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then you start +swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr. Swenson who, +being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that anyone would +have the cool impertinence to try to save him from drowning, found +himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away from a ten-dollar +bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The spiritual agony +caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; though, even had he +contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which occurred to him, his +remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the crowd on the dock was +cheering as one man. They had often paid good money to see far less +gripping sights in the movies. They roared applause. The liner, +meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into mid-river. + +The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school, +considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the +problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a +leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is +perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects from +an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed throughout +of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from cash which he +has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it would be hard to +find a respect in which it does not differ. So far from lying inert in +Sam's arms and allowing himself to be saved in a quiet and orderly +manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one who feels that he +has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he disliked +competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was fair +competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that you +could grab it yourself--thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted Sam's +motives--was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would have +none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence at +his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung +hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant's face to be. + +Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of +life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles +against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply +stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had +known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the +reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would +have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in +convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles, +boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure. +Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist, which +he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the other's +bowler hat. + +It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly of +his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest +apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was to +sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his assailant by +the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and accompanied him below +the surface. + +By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his +second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that +this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt, +was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it +be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there +was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited. +Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a +merciful release. + +He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent of +Mr. Swenson's limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he had +never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson--not even his +Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven +distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to +him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of +Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed +to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the +face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in +the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally, +spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the +side of a boat. + +The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had been +brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating +population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows, skiffs, +launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in that +vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these +navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came +the tug "Reuben S. Watson," the skipper of which, following a famous +precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to +this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have a vein +of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a +situation; and it was the skipper's daughter who insisted that the +family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar bills, +should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of extricating +the young man from a watery grave. + +The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way--he always +spoiled the girl--with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the +deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his +faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson +rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after +one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept +a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff. + +Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public +fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he +wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an +appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. +Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was +so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it. + +"Well, aincher wet?" said a voice. + +The skipper's daughter was standing beside him, looking down +commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the +broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the +side in the quest for wealth. + +"Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet +guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you're certainly +_wet_!" + +"I _am_ wet," admitted Sam. + +"Yessir, you're wet! Wet's the word all right. Good and wet, that's what +you are!" + +"It's the water," said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he +could remember what that appointment was. "That's what has made me wet." + +"It's sure made you wet all right," agreed the girl. She looked at him +interestedly. "Wotcha do it for?" she asked. + +"Do it for?" + +"Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off'n that ship? I didn't +see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off'n the deck like a +sack of potatoes." + +Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered. + +"Where is she?" + +"Where's who?" + +"The liner." + +"She's off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I +seen of her." + +"She's not gone!" + +"Sure she's gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She's gotta get over to the +other side, ain't she? Cert'nly she's gone." She looked at him +interested. "Do you want to be on board her?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin' walloping off'n her like a +sack of potatoes?" + +"I slipped. I was pushed or something." Sam sprang to his feet and +looked wildly about him. "I must get back. Isn't there any way of +getting back?" + +"Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She'll +stop to let the pilot off." + +"Can you take me to quarantine?" + +The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of trousers. + +"Well, we _could_," she said. "But pa's kind of set in his ways, and +right now he's fishing for dollar bills with the boat hook. He's apt to +get sorta mad if he's interrupted." + +"I'll give him fifty dollars if he'll put me on board." + +"Got it on you?" inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of +sentiment, but she was her father's daughter and inherited from him the +business sense. + +"Here it is." He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, but +the contents were only fairly moist. + +"Pa!" said the girl. + +The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child's cry. + +"Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!" + +The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision. +There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her +hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of +wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive +parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply, exhibiting +a red, bearded face. + +"Pa, this gen'man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He'll +give you fifty berries." + +The wrath died out of the skipper's face like the slow turning down of a +lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to +secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so +suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook. + +"Fifty berries!" + +"Fifty seeds!" the girl assured him. "Are you on?" + +"Queen," said the skipper simply, "you said a mouthful!" + +Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it lay +towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him +clammily. He squelched as he walked. + +A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail +regarded him with open eyes. + +"My dear sir, you're very wet," he said. + +Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to +the companion way. + +"Mummie, why is that man wet?" cried the clear voice of a little child. + +Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs. + +"Good Lord, sir! You're very wet!" said a steward in the doorway of the +dining saloon. + +"You _are_ wet," said a stewardess in the passage. + +Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In +the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened +them languidly, then stared. + +"Hullo!" he said. "I say! You're wet!" + + +Sec. 4 + +Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was in +no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett's frank curiosity jarred +upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the floor and a +creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel was under way +again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on his side with a +hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and went out. + +He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with +bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to +look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For +there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous +young man who looked like a parrot. + +"Oh, _how_ are you?" asked the girl breathlessly. + +"Splendid, thanks," said Sam. + +"Didn't you get very wet?" + +"I did get a little damp." + +"I thought you would," said the young man who looked like a parrot. +"Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: 'That fellow's +going to get wet!'" + +There was a pause. + +"Oh!" said the girl. "May I--Mr.----?" + +"Marlowe." + +"Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer." + +Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam. + +"Nearly got left behind," said Bream Mortimer. + +"Yes, nearly." + +"No joke getting left behind." + +"No." + +"Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time," said Mr. Mortimer, +driving home his point. + +The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience. +She now spoke again. + +"Oh, Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it's all right about +our places for lunch." + +"It is all right. The table steward said so." + +"Yes, but go and make certain." + +"All right." + +He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes. + +"Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn't to have done it! Really, you oughtn't! +You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It +was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions' dens after +gloves!" + +"Yes?" said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him. It +seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too. + +"It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done! +But you shouldn't have bothered, really! It's all right, now." + +"Oh, it's all right now?" + +"Yes. I'd quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has +given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to +sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father's head clerk was to have +gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to +me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had +just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in +a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn't have dived +in after it." + +"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile. +He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had +shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out and +shake him by the hand. + +"You really are the bravest man I ever met!" + +"Oh, no!" + +"How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!" + +"I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a +service." + +"It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do +admire presence of mind. You didn't hesitate for a second. You just shot +over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!" + +"It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of +keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some +people have it, some haven't." + +"And just think! As Bream was saying...." + +"It _is_ all right," said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. "I saw a +couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So it's all +right." + +"Splendid," said the girl. "Oh, Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles +is quite comfortable." + +"Bound to be." + +"Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little." + +"Chirrup?" + +"Yes, to cheer him up." + +"Oh, all right." + +"Run along!" + +Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only +needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a +properly equipped messenger boy. + +"And, as Bream was saying," resumed the girl, "you might have been left +behind." + +"That," said Sam, edging a step closer, "was the thought that tortured +me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun...." + +"But it hadn't begun. We have never spoken to each other before now." + +"Have you forgotten? On the dock...." + +Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes. + +"Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!" + +"The lucky man!" + +Her face clouded. + +"Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It's his first +voyage." + +"I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us +together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?" + +"Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish +unpacking. After lunch, perhaps." + +"I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but...." + +"Oh, mine?" She smiled brightly. "It's funny that a person's name is the +last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett." + +"Bennett!" + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends," she said softly as she turned away, +"call me Billie!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SAM PAVES THE WAY + + +For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl as +she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always +have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a +little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to +re-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to +Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an +unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her +engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had been +short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a little +smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the object of +Eustace Hignett's affections. And now they had proved to be one and the +same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the vampire of a +five-reel feature film turn into the heroine. + +Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's identity, might have +felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous +entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The +way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina +Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl +had maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing so +must have been excellent and praiseworthy. + +After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in many +ways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustace +that gave him any claim to monopolise the affections of a wonderful +girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a +tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the engagement, +but what right had he to go about the place expecting her to be engaged +to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor girl as utterly +heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly sensible. She +had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she had +had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor old +Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that Wilhelmina +Bennett--her friends called her Billie--had not behaved in a perfectly +splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina Bennett--Billie to +her intimates--who made the world worth living in. + +Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a +delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few +times. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantly +off the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still +better. "We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. +'Billie' Marlowe...." + +A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. +Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace Hignett. +If Eustace was still capable of speech--and after all the boat was +hardly rolling at all--he would enjoy a further chat about his ruined +life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's society. As a +man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, Eustace +Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some great public +monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Sam +entered the state-room almost reverentially, with something of the +emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum. + +The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By +lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland +scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his +complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to +say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity. + +"Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bear +it." + +"Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to be +sea-sick already." + +"I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off +it.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking +steadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, +"is a place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles of +sand and not a drop of water anywhere!" + +Sam sat down on the lounge. + +"You're quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on +other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your +unfortunate affair with that girl--Billie Bennett I think you said her +name was." + +"Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name +was Billie?" + +"I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to +their friends." + +"I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk +about it. The recollection tortures me." + +"That's just what you want. It's the counter-irritation principle. +Persevere, and you'll soon forget that you're on board ship at all." + +"There's something in that," admitted Eustace reflectively. "It's very +good of you to be so sympathetic and interested." + +"My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her +first, for instance?" + +"At a dinner...." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good +memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that +dinner--a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath the +surface of a thick white sauce. + +"And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair, +I suppose?" + +"How did you know she had lovely hair?" + +"My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in +love would have nice hair." + +"Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably +beautiful. It was red...." + +"Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically. + +Hignett started. + +"What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description. +Her eyes were a deep blue...." + +"Or, rather, green." + +"Blue." + +"Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue." + +"What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?" demanded +Eustace heatedly. "Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?" + +"My dear old man, don't get excited. Don't you see I am trying to +construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't pretend +to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes generally do +go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the bright +green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faint +yellowish green of your face at the present moment...." + +"Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded me +just when I was beginning to forget." + +"Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again--quick. What +were we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form +a mental picture of people if one knows something about their +tastes--what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite +topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she +like talking about?" + +"Oh, all sorts of things." + +"Yes, but what?" + +"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which +first drew us together." + +"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of +poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and +sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly +paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his +long suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it +would be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bone +them up from time to time. "Any special poet?" + +"Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on +Spring, did you?" + +"No. What other poets did she like besides you?" + +"Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver +in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of +the King!" + +"The which of what?" inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and +shooting out a cuff. + +"'The Idylls of the King.' My good man, I know you have a soul which +would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have +surely heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'" + +"Oh, _those_! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?' +Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?' +Well, really? I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by any +chance?" + +"There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together. +Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it +again." + +Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and +presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the +lounge. + +"Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sort +of picture of this girl, this--what was her name again? Bennett--this +Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her +seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen on +golf, by any chance, I suppose?" + +"I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather +enthusiastic. Why?" + +"Well, I'd much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry." + +"You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to Wilhelmina +Bennett about either, I should imagine." + +"No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some +girls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start the +conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on this +Miss Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at +one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I +mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement if +you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything." + +"Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She +had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever any +shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I made +rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after we +were married." + +"I see!" said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it: +"Dog--conciliate." "Yes, of course, that must have wounded her." + +"Not half so much as he wounded me. He pinned me by the ankle the day +before we--Wilhelmina and I, I mean--were to have been married. It is +some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home +on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean +over the Chesterfield." + +Sam shook his head reprovingly. + +"You shouldn't have done that," he said. He extended his cuff and added +the words "Vitally Important" to what he had just written. "It was +probably that which decided her." + +"Well, I hate dogs," said Eustace Hignett querulously. "I remember +Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step +in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who +were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters +nowadays, that life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn't be +reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like a +shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad was +ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he wore +armour. Give me a suit of mail, reaching well down over the ankles, and +I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in thin flannel +trousers, no!" + +Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that +the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high +opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in a +favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised with +it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How +could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world in +the quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so lamentably on his +first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor old +Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he wrote +poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but, as a partner for +life ... well, he simply wouldn't do. That was all there was to it. He +simply didn't add up right. The man a girl like Wilhelmina Bennett +required for a husband was somebody entirely different ... somebody, +felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel Marlowe. + +Swelled almost to bursting point with these reflections, he went on deck +to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. She +had put on one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance feminine +charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze playing in her +vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking. Beside her walked +young Mr. Bream Mortimer. + +Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight +of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. +What magic there is in a girl's smile! It is the raisin which, dropped +in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation. + +"Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!" + +"Oh, _there_ you are," said Bream Mortimer with a slightly different +inflection. + +"I thought I'd like a breath of fresh air before lunch," said Sam. + +"Oh, Bream!" said the girl. + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my +state-room, will you? I had no idea it was so warm." + +"I'll carry it," said Bream. + +"Nonsense! I wouldn't dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and put +it on the berth. It doesn't matter about folding it up." + +"All right," said Bream moodily. + +He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs +in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimer +was experiencing such a moment. + +"He had better chirrup to the dog while he's there, don't you think?" +suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream's +might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the half-minute. + +"Oh yes! Bream!" + +"Hello?" + +"While you're down there, just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He +does appreciate it so!" + +Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a +glance at a man's back; but Bream's back looked like that of a man to +whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a +piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra. + +"How is your dear little dog, by the way?" inquired Sam solicitously, as +he fell into step by her side. + +"Much better now, thanks. I've made friends with a girl on board--did +you ever hear her name--Jane Hubbard--she's a rather well-known big-game +hunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did him +a world of good. I don't know what was in it except Worcester Sauce, but +she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had the +botts ... it's very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor Pinky +when he bit you." + +"Animal spirits!" said Sam tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits. I like to +see them. But, of course, I love all dogs." + +"Oh, do you? So do I!" + +"I only wish they didn't fight so much. I'm always stopping dog-fights." + +"I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog-fight. I'm afraid I'm +rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of." +She looked down. "Have you been reading? What is the book?" + +"The book? Oh, this. It's a volume of Tennyson." + +"Are you fond of Tennyson?" + +"I worship him," said Sam reverently. + +"Those----" he glanced at his cuff--"those 'Idylls of the King!' I do +not like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson +with me." + +"We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!" + +"We will! There is something about Tennyson...." + +"Yes, isn't there! I've felt that myself so often." + +"Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while others +call it a day when they've written something that runs to a couple of +verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was just +as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with his +chip-shots." + +"That sounds as though you play golf." + +"When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the +links. Do you play?" + +"I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. You +seem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be great +friends." + +He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle +sounded. + +"Oh dear!" she cried. "I must rush. But we shall see one another again +up here afterwards?" + +"We will," said Sam. + +"We'll sit and read Tennyson." + +"Fine! Er--you and I and Mortimer?" + +"Oh no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky." + +"Does he--does he know he is?" + +"Not yet," said Billie. "I'm going to tell him at lunch." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SAM CLICKS + + +Sec. 1 + +It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is +done in the movies they won't be satisfied with a bald statement like +that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or +whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture +scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:-- + + + AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE + AND YOUTH AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS + FORGED BY THE LAUGHING LOVE-GOD. + + +and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other +cheek and take a firmer grip of their companion's hands and the man at +the piano will play "Everybody wants a key to my cellar," or something +equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on +the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and +intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the plain +frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is my +story and I mean to stick to it. + +Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from +his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had +a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked +out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and +exuberant. + +It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was +uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing +back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would +propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the +test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, +but what of that? + +Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner +in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of +marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced himself, +after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion +which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was love, the +fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a +roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental +ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family +sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having +noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he +came to the "Thee--only thee!" bit, he felt a mild sense of +encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside +next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to +mention his name in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_ +having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, +he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of +Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, +he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his +addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam, +you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past +you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary +friendship...." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing +off. + +How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship +can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir +W. S. Gilbert's Alphonso. + + + "Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks, + He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six: + 'Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!' + And Emily said: 'Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!'" + + +Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a bright +young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that Wilhelmina +Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of time to be his +bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the dock, and all +the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, soup-drinking, tea-drinking, +and shuffle-board-playing which they had done together had merely +solidified his original impression. He loved this girl with all the +force of a fiery nature--the fiery nature of the Marlowes was a by-word +in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square--and something seemed to whisper that +she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir Galahad, and, +without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not see where she +could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself. So, wind and +weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to Wilhelmina +Bennett this very day. + +He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, +collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face. + +"I am the Bandolero!" sang Sam blithely through the soap. "I am, I am +the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!" + +The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly. + +"Oh, God!" said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head. + +Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been +happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a +pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive. + +"Feeling bad again, old man?" + +"I was feeling all right," replied Hignett churlishly, "until you began +the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?" + +"Glorious! The sea...." + +"Don't talk about the sea!" + +"Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the +history of the race. Why don't you get up?" + +"Nothing will induce me to get up." + +"Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast." + +Eustace Hignett shuddered. He eyed Sam sourly. "You seem devilish +pleased with yourself this morning!" he said censoriously. + +Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the +desire to confide in somebody got the better of him. + +"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I'm in love!" + +"In love!" Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against +the berth above him. "Has this been going on long?" + +"Ever since the voyage started." + +"I think you might have told me," said Eustace reproachfully. "I told +you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had +come upon you?" + +"Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a +notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere." + +"Who is she?" + +"Oh, a girl I met on board." + +"Don't do it!" said Eustace Hignett solemnly. "As a friend I entreat you +not to do it. Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don't do +it!" + +"Don't do what?" + +"Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are +intending to propose to this girl--probably this morning." + +"Not this morning--after lunch. I always think one can do oneself more +justice after lunch." + +"Don't do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. +Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be +hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of +sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also +made black? Do you realise...?" + +"Oh, I've thought it all out." + +"And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the +father--and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are +enormously in favour of such a thing happening--of a boy with spectacles +and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six +small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and had +teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in different +styles. How would you like to become the father...?" + +"There is no need to be indelicate," said Sam stiffly. "A man must take +these chances." + +"Give her the miss in baulk," pleaded Hignett. "Stay down here for the +rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to +Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you're ill and can't be +disturbed." + +Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how it +was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this man. +He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on deck. + + +Sec. 2 + +It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had +through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship +swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with +silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning +which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight +of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and white +skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme which he +had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be put off +till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The finest +efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in better +form than he felt at present. + +"Good morning, Miss Bennett." + +"Good morning, Mr. Marlowe." + +"Isn't it a perfect day?" + +"Wonderful!" + +"It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine." + +"Yes, doesn't it?" + +How strange it is that the great emotional scenes of history, one of +which is coming along almost immediately, always begin in this prosaic +way. Shakespeare tries to conceal the fact, but there can be little doubt +that Romeo and Juliet edged into their balcony scene with a few remarks +on the pleasantness of the morning. + +"Shall we walk round?" said Billie. + +Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck +was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting in +a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o'clock +soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of view +of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a beautiful +girl, the place was practically a tube station during the rush hour. + +"It's so crowded," he said. "Let's go on to the upper deck." + +"All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson." + +Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days' +acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man +was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open +his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down your +finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing which +it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of +conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading +poetry, especially Tennyson's, almost anything is apt to give you your +cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace +Hignett from an uneasy dose. + +"Now what?" said Eustace. + +"Where's that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it--ah, here it is. +Well, see you later!" + +"Wait! What are you going to do?" + +"Oh, that girl I told you about," said Sam making for the door. "She +wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck." + +"Tennyson?" + +"Yes." + +"On the upper deck?" + +"Yes." + +"This is the end," said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall. + +Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on +deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of +the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of +passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below. + +He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped +steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked +on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him towered +one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried on, and +presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by the white +roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which seemed to +have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was the deck on +which one could occasionally see the patients playing an odd game with +long sticks and bits of wood--not shuffleboard but something even lower +in the mental scale. This morning, however, the devotees of this pastime +were apparently under proper restraint, for the deck was empty. + +"This is jolly," he said sitting down beside the girl and drawing a deep +breath of satisfaction. + +"Yes, I love this deck. It's so peaceful." + +"It's the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not +meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always +makes me wish that I had a private yacht." + +"It would be nice." + +"A private yacht," repeated Sam, sliding a trifle closer. "We would sail +about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of +tropic seas." + +"We?" + +"Most certainly we. It wouldn't be any fun if you were not there." + +"That's very complimentary." + +"Well, it wouldn't. I'm not fond of girls as a rule...." + +"Oh, aren't you?" + +"No!" said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear +at the outset. "Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon it. +A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures +which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till +they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering +away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper +natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn't, if you see what I mean." + +"Oh, you wasn't ... weren't?" + +"No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love, +and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a lifetime, +lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and say 'At +last!'" + +"How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself." + +"Well, yes," said Sam after a momentary pause. + +"When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most +wonderful thing in the world." + +"The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming +love, a love which...." + +"Oh, hello!" said a voice. + +All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had not +been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something missing. +The time and the place and the girl--they were all present and correct; +nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object which +seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the feeling +was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no longer. He +was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered as if he +were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam's primary impulse was to +offer him a nut. + +"Oh, hello, Bream!" said Billie. + +"Hullo!" said Sam. + +"Hello!" said Bream Mortimer. "Here you are!" + +There was a pause. + +"I thought you might be here," said Bream. + +"Yes, here we are," said Billie. + +"Yes, we're here," said Sam. + +There was another pause. + +"Mind if I join you?" said Bream. + +"N--no," said Billie. + +"N--no," said Sam. + +"No," said Billie again. "No ... that is to say ... oh no, no at all." + +There was a third pause. + +"On second thoughts," said Bream, "I believe I'll take a stroll on the +promenade deck if you don't mind." + +They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head +twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away. + +"Who is that fellow?" demanded Sam wrathfully. + +"He's the son of father's best friend." + +Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that +he had never thought of her having a father. + +"We have known each other all our lives," continued Billie. "Father +thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was +sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I'm +in disgrace, you know I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days' +notice. I...." + +"Oh, hello!" + +"Why, Bream!" said Billie looking at him as he stood on the old spot in +the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of +her father's best friend might have expected. "I thought you said you +were going down to the promenade deck. + +"I did go down to the promenade deck. And I'd hardly got there when a +fellow who's getting up the ship's concert to-morrow night nobbled me to +do something for it. I said I could only do conjuring tricks and +juggling and so on, and he said all right, do conjuring tricks and +juggling, then. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. +I came up to ask you," he said to Sam, "if you would do something." + +"No," said Sam. "I won't." + +"He's got a man who's going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of +women who both want to sing 'The Rosary' but he's still a turn or two +short. Sure you won't rally round?" + +"Quite sure." + +"Oh, all right." Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. "It's a +great morning, isn't it?" + +"Yes," said Sam. + +"Oh, Bream!" said Billie. + +"Hello?" + +"Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I'm sure she must be +feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck." + +A look of alarm spread itself over Bream's face. + +"Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!" + +"She's a very nice girl." + +"She's so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or +something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle." + +"Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting +experiences. They are most interesting." + +Bream drifted sadly away. + +"I don't blame Miss Hubbard," said Sam. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should +like to do it myself." + +"Oh, don't let's talk about Bream. Read me some Tennyson." + +Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had +absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at +the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed +to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the +volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! +He was all right. He had the stuff. You could rely on him every time. + +He cleared his throat. + + + "Oh let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + + Let the sweet heavens endure, + Not close and darken above me + Before I am quite quite sure + That there is one to love me...." + + +This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He +could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big +and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and +took her hand. + +"There is something," he began in a low voice, "which I have been trying +to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have read in +my eyes." + +Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand. + +"Until this voyage began," he went on, "I did not know what life meant. +And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You're the +dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I'll never forget...." He +stopped. "I'm not trying to make it rhyme," he said apologetically. +"Billie, don't think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest +notion, dearest ... I don't know what's the matter with me ... Billie, +darling, you are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for you +for years and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. Surely +this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you must have +seen that I've been keen.... There's that damned Walt Mason stuff +again!" His eyes fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an +exclamation of enlightenment. "It's those poems!" he cried. "I've been +boning them up to such an extent that they've got me doing it too. What +I'm trying to say is, Will you marry me?" + +She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her +eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his. + + +Sec. 3 + +Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face. + +"Darling," she said, "I've a confession to make." + +"A confession? You? Nonsense!" + +"I can't get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will +last." + +"Our love? Don't be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, it's so +vast, it's bound to last ... that is to say, of course it will." + +She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe. + +"I'm afraid of myself. You see, once before--and it was not so very long +ago,--I thought I had met my ideal, but...." + +Sam laughed heartily. + +"Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace +Hignett?" + +She started violently. + +"You know!" + +"Of course! He told me himself." + +"Do you know him? Where did you meet him?" + +"I've known him all my life. He's my cousin. As a matter of fact, we are +sharing a state-room on board now." + +"Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet +him?" + +"Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: 'Oh, +here you are!' or something. You know the sort of thing." + +"It will be terrible." + +"Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have realised +by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd his ever +expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it +dispassionately ... Eustace ... poor old Eustace ... and _you_! The +Princess and the Swineherd!" + +"Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?" she asked, surprised. + +"I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with +the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to +marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, +good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of life +are concerned. A man who can't even stop a dog-fight! In a world which +is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you trust +yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than I am, +but ... well, I mean to say!" + +"I see what you mean. He really wasn't my ideal." + +"Not by a mile!" + +She mused, her chin in her hand. + +"Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways." + +"Oh, a splendid chap," said Sam tolerantly. + +"Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him +was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well." + +A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no +objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the +conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to one +subject. + +"Yes?" he said. "Oh yes, I've heard him sing. Not lately. He does +drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?" + +"Have you ever heard him sing 'My love is like a glowing tulip that in +an old-world garden grows'?" + +"I have not had that advantage," replied Sam stiffly. "But anyone can +sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will +make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ... that's +a different thing altogether." + +"Do you sing that sort of thing?" + +"People have been good enough to say...." + +"Then," said Billie decidedly, "you must certainly do something at the +ship's concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light +under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent +accompanist. He can accompany you." + +"Yes, but ... well, I don't know," said Sam doubtfully. He could not +help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a +house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion +somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to +identify had thrown a pat of butter at him. + +"Of course you must sing," said Billie. "I'll tell Bream when I go down +to lunch. What will you sing?" + +"Well--er--" + +"Well, I'm sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so +wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!" + +Sam's discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the +sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the +second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing at +all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a +hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he was +good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times. + + +Sec. 4 + +Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily +brushing the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her +shoulders. On the lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey +kimono, Jane Hubbard watched her, smoking a cigarette. + +Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood. +Her whole appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces and +all that sort of thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl, +about the same age as Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had +looked leopards squarely in the face and caused them to withdraw abashed +into the undergrowth, or where-ever it is that leopards withdraw when +abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard flirting lightly at garden +parties, but one could picture her very readily arguing with a mutinous +native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and light into the +soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must have been +rather like Jane Hubbard. + +She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one +hand, a feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was +pleasantly tired after walking eighty-five times round the promenade +deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the moment her head +touched the pillow. But meanwhile she lingered here, for she felt that +Billie had something to confide in her. + +"Jane," said Billie, "have you ever been in love?" + +Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette. + +"Not since I was eleven," she said in her deep musical voice. "He was my +music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was an +appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats, I +remember." + +Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through her +fingers. + +"Oh, Jane!" she exclaimed. "Surely you don't like weak men. I like a man +who is strong and brave and wonderful." + +"I can't stand brave men," said Jane, "it makes them so independent. I +could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes, +when I have been roughing it out in the jungle," she went on rather +wistfully, "I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would +put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me +pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I'm beginning +to want to settle down. After all there are other things for a woman to +do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I should like +to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should practically have to +marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look after the social end +of life and arrange parties and receptions and so on, and sit +ornamentally at the head of my table. I can't imagine anything jollier +than marriage under conditions like that. When I came back a bit done up +after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a whisky-and-soda and +read poetry to me or prattle about all the things he had been doing +during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!" + +Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a smoke +ring which she had sent floating towards the ceiling. + +"Jane," said Billie. "I believe you're thinking of somebody definite. +Who is he?" + +The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited +made her look manlier than ever. + +"I don't know his name." + +"But there is really someone?" + +"Yes." + +"How splendid! Tell me about him." + +Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor. + +"I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You +know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of +course, but this poor little fellow--_so_ good-looking, my dear! he +reminded me of the pictures of Lord Byron--was hanging from a strap and +being jerked about till I thought his poor little arms would be wrenched +out of their sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he had some +secret sorrow. I offered him my seat, but he wouldn't take it. A couple +of stations later, however, the man next to me got out and he sat down +and we got into conversation. There wasn't time to talk much. I told him +I had been down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had left to be +mended. He was so prettily interested when I showed him the mechanism. +We got along famously. But--oh, well, it was just another case of ships +that pass in the night--I'm afraid I've been boring you." + +"Oh, Jane! You haven't! You see ... you see, I'm in love myself." + +"I had an idea you were," said her friend looking at her critically. +"You've been refusing your oats the last few days, and that's a sure +sign. Is he that fellow that's always around with you and who looks like +a parrot?" + +"Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!" cried Billie indignantly. "As if I +should fall in love with Bream!" + +"When I was out in British East Africa," said Miss Hubbard, "I had a +bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him to +whistle 'Annie Laurie' and to ask for his supper in three native +dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn't +Bream Mortimer, who is it?" + +"His name is Marlowe. He's tall and handsome and very strong-looking. He +reminds me of a Greek god." + +"Ugh!" said Miss Hubbard. + +"Jane, we're engaged." + +"No!" said the huntress, interested. "When can I meet him?" + +"I'll introduce you to-morrow I'm so happy." + +"That's fine!" + +"And yet, somehow," said Billie, plaiting her hair, "do you ever have +presentiments? I can't get rid of an awful feeling that something's +going to happen to spoil everything." + +"What could spoil everything?" + +"Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do +anything to blur the image I have formed of him." + +"Oh, he won't. You said he was one of those strong men, didn't you? They +always run true to form. They never do anything except be strong." + +Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass. + +"You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane." + +"Yes?" + +"We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And +I waited and waited and he didn't come; and what do you think had +happened?" + +"What?" + +"His mother had stolen his trousers." + +Jane Hubbard laughed heartily. + +"It's nothing to laugh at," said Billie seriously "It was a tragedy. I +had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales +seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake." + +"And you broke off the engagement?" + +"Of course!" + +"I think you were hard on him. A man can't help his mother stealing his +trousers." + +"No. But when he finds they're gone, he can 'phone to the tailor for +some more or borrow the janitor's or do _something_. But he simply +stayed where he was and didn't do a thing. Just because he was too much +afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be +married that day." + +"Now that," said Miss Hubbard, "is just the sort of trait in a man which +would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man." + +"I don't. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and--I don't know why +it is--I can't forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my +darling Sam couldn't look ridiculous, even if he tried. He's wonderful, +Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see his +eyes flash." + +Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn. + +"Well, I'll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you +can arrange to have him flash his eyes then--say between nine-thirty and +ten--I shall be delighted to watch them." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE + + +"Good God!" cried Eustace Hignett. + +He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light which +came through the porthole of the state-room. The hour was seven-thirty, +and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of strange nightmares, +and for the moment he thought that he must still be dreaming, for the +figure before him could have walked straight into any nightmare and no +questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it was his cousin, +Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in the pigstye, he +could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like that? Was it +simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face really black +and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal size and become +a vivid crimson? + +Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a +satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not +have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. +His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab +with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker. + +"Hullo! You awake?" he said, and switched on the light. + +Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend's profile, seen +dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting +object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent +dreams--and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top +hats and running shorts--had affected him so profoundly. Sam's +appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a +different and a dreadful world. + +"What ... what ... what...?" he gurgled. + +Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his +nose. + +"How do I look?" + +Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become +unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like +that, being anxious to be told how he looked. + +"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It +starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second +part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the +ears, or are they all right?" + +Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind. + +"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?" + +"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man, +and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a +matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of my +doing something." + +A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the +significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace. + +"Your fiancee?" + +"The girl I'm engaged to. Didn't I tell you about that? Yes, I'm +engaged." + +Eustace sighed heavily. + +"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?" + +"Didn't I tell you her name?" + +"No." + +"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he +blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence, +really. Her name is Bennett." + +"She may be a relation." + +"That's true. Of course, girls do have relations." + +"What is her first name?" + +"That is another rather remarkable thing. It's Wilhelmina." + +"Wilhelmina!" + +"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called +Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence." + +"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice. +"Her hair! What colour is it?" + +"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, +you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it +Titian...." + +"Never mind what I might call it. Is it red?" + +"Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put +it to me like that, it _is_ red." + +"Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, +like a kitten with a ball of wool?" + +"Yes. Yes, she has." + +Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry. + +"Sam," he said, "can you bear a shock?" + +"I'll have a dash at it." + +"Brace up!" + +"I'm ready." + +"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry +_me_." + +"Well, well!" said Sam. + +There was a silence. + +"Awfully sorry, of course, and all that," said Sam. + +"Don't apologise to _me_!" said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only +feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He +reached out and pressed Sam's hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath the +harrow!" + +"Well, I suppose that's one way of offering congratulations and cheery +good wishes." + +"And on top of that," went on Eustace, deeply moved, "you have got to +sing at the ship's concert." + +"Why shouldn't I sing at the ship's concert?" + +"My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that +you can't sing. You can't sing for nuts! I don't want to discourage you, +but, long ago as it is, you can't have forgotten what an ass you made of +yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against it like +this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you on that occasion, +though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue." + +Sam started. + +"Was it you who threw that bit of butter?" + +"It was." + +"I wish I'd known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar." + +"Ah, well, it's seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the +wash anyhow by this time. But don't let us brood on the past. Let us put +our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible +situation." + +"I don't want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of +the evening." + +"The hit of the evening! You! Singing!" + +"I'm not going to sing. I'm going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney +which I did at the Trinity smoker. You haven't forgotten that? You were +at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a +riot I was--we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don't feel +well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it +without a rehearsal. You remember how it went.... 'Hullo, Ernest!' +'Hullo, Frank!' Why not come along?" + +"The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor +that does not heave and wobble under me." + +"Nonsense! The boat's as steady as a rock now. The sea's like a +mill-pond." + +"Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!" + +"Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow +Mortimer. We've been rehearsing all the afternoon, and he seems to have +the hang of the thing. But he won't be really right. He has no pep, no +vim. Still, if you won't ... well, I think I'll be getting along to his +state-room. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal." + +The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave +himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his +cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina +Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a +thud on the rocks. + +His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Sam +rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too +much burnt cork on his cousin's face to allow of any real registering of +emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well. + +"What's the matter?" + +Sam sank down on the lounge. + +"The bounder has quit!" + +"The bounder? What bounder?" + +"There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom +thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really +deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the +act! He has left me flat! I went into his state-room just now, as +arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning." + +"I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond." + +"It wasn't that! He's perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass +took it into his head to propose to Billie just before +dinner--apparently he's loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing +way--and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the +thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down +at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. +He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer I +hope it chokes him!" + +"But this is splendid! This lets you out." + +"What do you mean? Lets me out?" + +"Why, now you won't be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for this +in years to come." + +"Won't I appear! Won't I dashed well appear! Do you think I'm going to +disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather +die." + +"But you can't appear without a pianist." + +"I've got a pianist." + +"You have?" + +"Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears +like water-wings." + +"I don't think I know him." + +"Yes, you do. He's you!" + +"Me!" + +"Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night." + +"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's impossible. I gave you my views +on the subject just now." + +"You've altered them." + +"I haven't." + +"Well, you soon will, and I'll tell you why. If you don't get up out of +that damned berth you've been roosting in all your life, I'm going to +ring for J. B. Midgeley and I'm going to tell him to bring me a bit of +dinner in here and I'm going to eat it before your eyes." + +"But you've had dinner." + +"Well, I'll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork +chop...." + +"Stop! Stop!" + +"A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage," repeated Sam +firmly. "And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now how do we go?" + +"You wouldn't do that!" said Eustace piteously. + +"I would and will." + +"But I shouldn't be any good at the piano. I've forgotten how the thing +used to go." + +"You haven't done anything of the kind. I come in and say 'Hullo, +Ernest!' and you say 'Hullo, Frank!' and then you help me tell the story +about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it." + +"Perhaps there is some child on board...." + +"No. I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We've done it together +before." + +"But, honestly, I really don't think ... it isn't as if...." + +Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell. + +"Stop! Stop!" cried Eustace Hignett. "I'll do it!" + +Sam withdrew his finger. + +"Good!" he said. "We've just got time for a rehearsal while you're +dressing. 'Hullo, Ernest!'" + +"'Hullo, Frank,'" said Eustace Hignett brokenly as he searched for his +unfamiliar trousers. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT + + +Ships' concerts are given in aid of the Seamen's Orphans and Widows, +and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel that +any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a +chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They +open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies--so long, as a +rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards +that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the +amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins. + +It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and +recuperation that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was +scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in +the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his threat +and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a master of +oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or fifteen minutes; +and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only just got past +the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through the shrimps. +"The Rosary" had been sung and there was an uneasy doubt as to whether +it was not going to be sung again after the interval--the latest rumour +being that the second of the rival lady singers had proved adamant to +all appeals and intended to fight the thing out on the lines she had +originally chosen if they put her in irons. + +A young man had recited "Gunga Din" and, wilfully misinterpreting the +gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had +followed it with "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." His sister--these things run in +families--had sung "My Little Gray Home in the West"--rather sombrely, +for she had wanted to sing "The Rosary," and, with the same obtuseness +which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered plantation +songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of +silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still +remaining unexpired. + +It was shocked to read the following:-- + + + 7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe. + + +All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in +their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like +a knell! Many of these people were old travellers and their minds went +back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when +performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens' +characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false +hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and +other of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there +was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this +S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait +and hope that it would be short. + +There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and +took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The +more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of +those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do +occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They stared at +Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous in the +man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one +approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know +that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor +which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner produce +in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, yet well-defined, +smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a great many people +have recently been eating a great many meals. A few beads of cold +perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett's brow. He looked straight +before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of the Sahara. + +So tense was Eustace's concentration that he did not see Billie +Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a +little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content +with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the +front row. She always had a front-row seat at witch dances in Africa, +and the thing had become a habit. + +In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up +her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was +staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of +Eustace. Under her breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in one +of the lesser-known dialects of Northern Nigeria. + +"Billie!" she whispered sharply. + +"What _is_ the matter, Jane?" + +"Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?" + +"As a matter of fact, I do," said Billie. "His name is Hignett. Why?" + +"It's the man I met on the Subway!" She breathed a sigh. "Poor little +fellow, how miserable he looks!" + +At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, +pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and +struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the +door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the +entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing +had befallen them than even they had looked for. + +The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a +grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It +advanced towards them, smoking a cigar. + +"Hullo, Ernest," it said. + +And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. +Dead silence reigned in the saloon. + +"Hullo, Ernest!" + +Those nearest the piano--and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard--now +observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter +still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked +like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised +with him. They felt like that, too. + +In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little +miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment's thought +should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the +essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney; but he +had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute +surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it +had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth +at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its +curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes +protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea fishes +concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then +with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for +the deck. + +There was a rustle at Billie's side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed +him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and +piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in +his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that +was best and manliest in her nature. Thrusting aside with one sweep of +her powerful arm a steward who happened to be between her and the door, +she raced in pursuit. + +Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin's dash for the open with a +consternation so complete that his senses seemed to have left him. A +general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt +something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the +imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be +carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the +orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment. +Without him, nothing can be done. + +For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of +the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, +passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen's +Orphans and Widows. + +The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed to +them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which +renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen +many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon +echoed with their applause. + +It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled +for refuge to his state-room and was lying in the lower berth, chewing +the pillow, a soul in torment. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SUNDERED HEARTS + + +There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count +of time. + +"Who's that?" + +"I have a note for you, sir." + +It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of +the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body +of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star +steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is +ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human +approach to the nightingale. + +"A what?" + +"A note, sir." + +Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took +the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in +an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a +thrill. He had never seen the handwriting before, but, with the eye of +love, he recognised it. It was just the sort of hand he would have +expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of a +warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope. + +"Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you." + +Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little +disappointed. I don't know if you see anything wrong with the letter, +but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it might +have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running any +risk of writer's cramp, she might have signed it. + +However, these were small matters. No doubt the dear girl had been in a +hurry and so forth. The important point was that he was going to see +her. When a man's afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a cheering +sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has made an +exhibition of himself at a ship's concert. A woman's gentle sympathy, +that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else at the +moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed the +burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his clothes +and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he felt, to have +chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted and it was +hallowed for them both by sacred associations. + +She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was +quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea, +making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The +girl appeared to be wrapped in thought and it was not till the sharp +crack of Sam's head against an overhanging stanchion announced his +approach, that she turned. + +"Oh, is that you?" + +"Yes." + +"You've been a long time." + +"It wasn't an easy job," explained Sam, "getting all that burnt cork +off. You've no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter...." + +She shuddered. + +"Don't!" + +"But I did. You have to with burnt cork." + +"Don't tell me these horrible things." Her voice rose almost +hysterically. "I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned again +as long as I live." + +"I feel exactly the same." Sam moved to her side. "Darling," he said in +a low voice, "it was like you to ask me to meet you here. I know what +you were thinking. You thought that I should need sympathy. You wanted +to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold me in your arms and +tell me that, as we loved each other, what did anything else matter?" + +"I didn't." + +"You didn't?" + +"No, I didn't." + +"Oh, you didn't? I thought you did!" He looked at her wistfully. "I +thought," he said, "that possibly you might have wished to comfort me. +I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock...." + +"And what about me?" she demanded passionately. "Haven't I had a shock?" + +He melted at once. + +"Have you had a shock too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all +about it." + +She looked away from him, her face working. + +"Can't you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were the +perfect knight." + +"Yes, isn't it?" + +"Isn't what?" + +"I thought you said it was a perfect night." + +"I said I thought _you_ were the perfect knight." + +"Oh, ah!" + +A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a +sort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about +for a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily. + +"Yes?" said Sam when he had gone. + +"I forget what I was saying." + +"Something about my being the perfect knight." + +"Yes. I thought you were." + +"That's good." + +"But you're not!" + +"No?" + +"No!" + +"Oh!" + +Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not +understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and +comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled +some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on +one occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a white +mouse into chapel. + + + "Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, + Un-something, something, something, please. + When tiddly-umpty umpty brow, + A something something something thou!" + + +He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that +Woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be +relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble. +How little the poet had known woman. + +"Why not?" he said huffily. + +She gave a little sob. + +"I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have +blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again +without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and +helpless...." + +"Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?" + +"You could have done _something_!" The words she had spoken only +yesterday to Jane Hubbard came back to her. "I can't forgive a man for +looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what," she cried, "induced you to try to +give an imitation of Bert Williams?" + +Sam started, stung to the quick. + +"It wasn't Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!" + +"Well, how was I to know?" + +"I did my best," said Sam sullenly. + +"That is the awful thought." + +"I did it for your sake." + +"I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. +Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a +small black golliwog into his hand. "Take it!" + +"What's this?" + +"You bought it for me yesterday at the barber's shop. It is the only +present which you have given me. Take it back." + +"I don't want it. I shouldn't know what to do with it." + +"You must take it," she said in a low voice. "It is a symbol." + +"A what?" + +"A symbol of our broken love." + +"I don't see how you make that out. It's a golliwog." + +"I can never marry you now." + +"What! Good heavens! Don't be absurd." + +"I can't!" + +"Oh, go on, have a dash at it," he said encouragingly, though his heart +was sinking. + +She shook her head. + +"No, I couldn't." + +"Oh, hang it all!" + +"I couldn't. I'm a very strange girl...." + +"You're a very silly girl...." + +"I don't see what right you have to say that," she flared. + +"I don't see what right you have to say you can't marry me and try to +load me up with golliwogs," he retorted with equal heat. + +"Oh, can't you understand?" + +"No, I'm dashed if I can." + +She looked at him despondently. + +"When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me +for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to +shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail +that morning. Now--" her voice trembled "--if I shut my eyes now, I can +only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing +stock of the ship. How could I marry you, haunted by that picture?" + +"But, good heavens, you talk as though I made a habit of blacking up! +You talk as though you expected me to come to the altar smothered in +burnt cork." + +"I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night." She looked at him +sadly. "There's a bit of black still on your left ear." + +He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if +struck. + +"So this is the end," he muttered. + +"Yes. It's partly on your ear and partly on your cheek." + +"So this is the end," he repeated. + +"You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more +butter." + +He laughed bitterly. + +"Well, I might have expected it. I might have known what would happen! +Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women--as I do now. +Women! What mighty ills have not been done by woman? Who was't betrayed +the what's-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... +who--er--and so on? A woman.... So all is over! There is nothing to be +said but good-bye?" + +"No." + +"Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!" + +"Good-bye," said Billie sadly. "I--I'm sorry." + +"Don't mention it!" + +"You do understand, don't you?" + +"You have made everything perfectly clear." + +"I hope--I hope you won't be unhappy." + +"Unhappy!" Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the cry +of a shrimp in pain. "Unhappy! Ha! ha! I'm not unhappy! Whatever gave +you that idea? I'm smiling! I'm laughing! I feel I've had a merciful +escape. Oh, ha, ha!" + +"It's very unkind and rude of you to say that." + +"It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called +'Saved from the Scaffold.'" + +"Oh!" + +"I'm not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth +does any man want to get married for? I don't. Give me my gay bachelor +life! My Uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to get married +than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But _he_ was a man who +always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And +good-bye--for ever." + +He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven +the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken +bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he +had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching. + +As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a +high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door. + + + "I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor, + Though his lance be sharrrp and--er keen; + But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour + Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen: + I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...." + + +Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be +alive was bad--he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing +about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he should be +singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have stricken Eustace +Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting himself like a +blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no conscience +whatever. + +"Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!" + +Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief +interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary +transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had +disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly +self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes +of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing +in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Super-fine +Featherweight!" printed underneath him, he could not have looked more +pleased with himself. + +"Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to." + +"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get to +and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of generous +indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by +dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?" + +"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up +tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed +to go black--I don't mean you, of course. You were black already--and I +got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself." + +"Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam with a strong sense of injury. "I +might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you +singing...." + +A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes. + +"I want to tell you all about that," he said. + +"It's the most astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it. +Makes you believe in Fate and all that kind of thing. A week ago I was +on the Subway in New York...." + +He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New York +in the order named. + +"My dear chap, what is the matter?" + +"What is the matter? Ha!" + +"Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett. "I can tell it by +your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know you +so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me!" + +"Ha, ha!" + +"You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why, +that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most +colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things +cannot affect one permanently." + +"Can't they? Let me tell you that, as a result of that concert, my +engagement is broken off." + +Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand. + +"Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the finest +thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle words. As +one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak feelingly. You are +well out of it, Sam." + +Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched +it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett. + +"My heart is broken," he said with dignity. + +"That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I +know. I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is she? +A rag and a bone and a hank of hair!" + +"She is nothing of the kind," said Sam, revolted. + +"Pardon me," said Eustace firmly, "I speak as an expert. I know her and +I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!" + +"She is the only girl in the world, and, owing to your idiotic +behaviour, I have lost her." + +"You speak of the only girl in the world," said Eustace blithely. "If +you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A +week ago I was on the Subway in New York...." + +"I'm going to bed," said Sam brusquely. + +"All right. I'll tell you while you're undressing." + +"I don't want to listen." + +"A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture me seated +after some difficulty in a carriage in the New York Subway. I got into +conversation with a girl with an elephant gun." + +Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the +elephant gun. + +"She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "I +didn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a +wonderful personality, and this elephant gun." + +"Did she shoot you with it?" + +"Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!" + +"The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of a +lifetime and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?" + +"I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun, +and explained its mechanism. She told me the correct part of a +hippopotamus to aim at, how to make a nourishing soup out of mangoes, +and what to do when bitten by a Borneo wire-snake. You can imagine how +she soothed my aching heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at +the moment--quite unnecessarily if I had only known--because it was only +a couple of days since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been +broken off. Well, we parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it +may seem, I forgot all about her." + +"Do it again!" + +"Tell it again?" + +"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again." + +"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our +souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their +deepest depths, saying.... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner +... saying 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I +was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this +very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on the deck...." + +"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest. + +"I certainly did!" + +"That's good!" + +"But not for long." + +"That's bad!" + +"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel." + +"Switch off the light when you've finished." + +"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are +some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with +a mixture of some description in a glass. I don't know what it was. It +had Worcester Sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it. +She said it was what she always used in Africa for bull-calves with the +staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not ... are you asleep?" + +"Yes." + +"Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely +freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was +walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able +to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty of the +moon on the water.... I have said some mordant things about women since +I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They still +apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to include the +whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith in Woman. +Sam! Sam!" + +"What?" + +"I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in Woman." + +"Oh, all right." + +Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile +on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken +only by the distant purring of the engines. + +At about twelve-thirty a voice came from the lower berth. + +"Sam!" + +"What is it now?" + +"There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me +she once killed a panther with a hat-pin." + +Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress. + +Silence fell again. + +"At least I think it was a panther," said Eustace Hignett at a quarter +past one. "Either a panther or a puma." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION + + +Sec. 1 + +A week after the liner "Atlantic" had docked at Southampton Sam Marlowe +might have been observed--and was observed by various of the +residents--sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that rising +watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on +the south coast of England are blots on the landscape, but though I am +aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the +others--none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalte +on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the +asphalte on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel +Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling +incompetence by themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss +waiters at all the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For +dreariness of aspect Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves +that break on its shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if +it revolted them to have to come to such a place. + +Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with +all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week +at breezy, blighted Bingley? + +Simply because he had been disappointed in love. + +Nothing is more curious than the myriad ways in which reaction from an +unfortunate love-affair manifests itself in various men. No two males +behave in the same way under the spur of female fickleness. +_Archilochum_, for instance, according to the Roman writer, _proprio +rabies armavit iambo_. It is no good pretending out of politeness that +you know what that means, so I will translate. _Rabies_--his +grouch--_armavit_--armed--_Archilochum_--Archilochus--_iambo_--with the +iambic--_proprio_--his own invention. In other words, when the poet +Archilochus was handed his hat by the lady of his affections, he +consoled himself by going off and writing satirical verse about her in a +new metre which he had thought up immediately after leaving the house. +That was the way the thing affected him. + +On the other hand, we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper +that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an +officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using +profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life. Constable +Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant while he was +on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to fight him for +fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his head. Accused, +questioned by the magistrate, admitted the charge and expressed regret, +pleading that he had had words with his young woman, and it had upset +him. + +Neither of these courses appealed to Samuel Marlowe. He had sought +relief by slinking off alone to the Hotel Magnificent at +Bingley-on-the-Sea. It was the same spirit which has often moved other +men in similar circumstances to go off to the Rockies to shoot +grizzlies. + +To a certain extent the Hotel Magnificent had dulled the pain. At any +rate, the service and cooking there had done much to take his mind off +it. His heart still ached, but he felt equal to going to London and +seeing his father, which of course he ought to have done seven days +before. + +He rose from his bench--he had sat down on it directly after +breakfast--and went back to the hotel to inquire about trains. An hour +later he had begun his journey and two hours after that he was at the +door of his father's office. + +The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, +Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway's Inn, not far from Fleet Street. +The brass plate, let into the woodwork of the door, is misleading. +Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey +of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to suppose +that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You picture +Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss with him +the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading on your +toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms dwindle. +The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a Prescott, +there an Appleby, till, before you know where you are, you are down to +your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of Marlowe, +Thorpe--what I said before--was, at the time with which this story +deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the firm and +father of the celebrated black-face comedian, Samuel of that ilk; and +the outer office, where callers were received and parked till Sir +Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk. + +When Sam opened the door this clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on +a high stool, holding in one hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an +extraordinarily large and powerful-looking revolver. At the sight of Sam +he laid down both engines of destruction and beamed. He was not a +particularly successful beamer, being hampered by a cast in one eye +which gave him a truculent and sinister look; but those who knew him +knew that he had a heart of gold and were not intimidated by his +repellent face. Between Sam and himself there had always existed terms +of great cordiality, starting from the time when the former was a small +boy and it had been John Peters' mission to take him now to the Zoo, now +to the train back to school. + +"Why, Mr. Samuel!" + +"Hullo, Peters!" + +"We were expecting you back a week ago." + +"Oh, I had something to see to before I came to town," said Sam +carelessly. + +"So you got back safe!" said John Peters. + +"Safe! Why, of course." + +Peters shook his head. + +"I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I +sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall +mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to +promise to become my wife." + +"Ocean liners aren't often wrecked nowadays." + +"I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America's a dangerous +country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?" + +"I don't think I was." + +"Ah!" said John Peters significantly. + +He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and +replaced it on the desk. + +"What on earth are you doing with that thing?" asked Sam. + +Mr. Peters lowered his voice. + +"I'm going to America myself in a few days' time, Mr. Samuel. It's my +annual holiday, and the guv'nor's sending me over with papers in +connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It's a big case over +there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am +to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York. +So I thought it best to be prepared." + +The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks +flitted across Sam's face. + +"What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?" he asked. "It's +safer than London." + +"Ah, but what about the Underworld? I've seen these American films that +they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see 'Wolves of the +Bowery?' There was a man in that in just my position, carrying important +papers, and what they didn't try to do to him! No, I'm taking no +chances, Mr. Samuel!" + +"I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you." + +Mr. Peters seemed wounded. + +"Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very fair +shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and practise at +the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You'd be surprised +how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I try how +quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, Mr. +Samuel. If you'd ever seen a film called 'Two-Gun-Thomas,' you'd realise +that. You haven't time to wait loitering about." + +Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it. + +"Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go +right in, Mr. Samuel?" + +Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into +the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable +stenographer, replies to his morning mail. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face +and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, +and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation +in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was +twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly. + +"DEAR SIRS,--We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state +that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that +letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell 'em to go to blazes, +Miss Milliken." + +"Very well, Sir Mallaby." + +"That's that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What +infernal names these people have. SIRS,--On behalf of our client ... oh, +hullo, Sam!" + +"Good morning, father." + +"Take a seat. I'm busy, but I'll be finished in a moment. Where was I, +Miss Milliken?" + +"'On behalf of our client....'" + +"Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where +these people get their names I'm hanged if I know. Your poor mother +wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the +'nineties when you were born, children were frequently christened +Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that." + +His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember +that the latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had +not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest. + +"Very glad you're back, Sam. So you didn't win?" + +"No, I got beaten in the semi-finals." + +"American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you were +weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You'll have to rub up your +putting before next year." + +At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could +appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as +if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his +mind by knitting jumpers. + +"Well, you seem to be in great spirits," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. +"It's pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. Isn't it, Miss Milliken?" + +"Extremely exhilarating," agreed the stenographer, adjusting her +spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her +heart. + +A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass +that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy satisfaction, +how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these people seemed +to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His laughter, which had +sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck Miss Milliken as +exhilarating. + +"On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw," said Sir Mallaby, +swooping back to duty once more, "we beg to state that we are prepared +to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?" + +"I landed nearly a week ago." + +"A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why +haven't I seen you?" + +"I've been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea." + +"Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?" + +"Wrestling with myself," said Sam with simple dignity. + +Sir Mallaby's agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was +answering. + +"We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to +be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn't all athletics. Don't forget +that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?" + +Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit +when called upon to recite. + +"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust +thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and +time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like +muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great +men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave +behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ..." said Miss +Milliken respectfully, ... "be up and doing...." + +"All right, all right, all right!" said Sir Mallaby. "I don't want it +all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about +that when I've finished answering these letters. Where was I? 'We should +be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an appointment....' +Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not +Margate while you were about it?" + +"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my +mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk +about in the distance like some baffled beast...." + +He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir +Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter. + +"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir +Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that +they've got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than Goole, +and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, +Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them +in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he +comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him +for ten thousand." + +"How like a woman!" + +Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir Mallaby +took no notice of it whatever. + +"... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter +without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam. +Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a +conference and can see nobody for half an hour." + +When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of the +period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring +silently at him. + +"I'm glad you're back, Sam," he said at length. "I want to have a talk +with you. You know, it's time you were settling down. I've been thinking +about you while you were in America and I've come to the conclusion that +I've been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young man. You're +getting on. I don't say you're senile, but you're not twenty-one any +longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver. You've got to +remember that life is--dash it! I've forgotten it again." He broke off +and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. "Miss Milliken, kindly +repeat what you were saying just now about life.... Yes, yes, that's +enough!" He put down the instrument. "Yes, life is real, life is +earnest," he said, gazing at Sam seriously, "and the grave is not our +goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. In +fact, it's time you took your coat off and started work." + +"I am quite ready, father." + +"You didn't hear what I said," exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a look of +surprise. "I said it was time you began work." + +"And I said I was quite ready." + +"Bless my soul! You've changed your views a trifle since I saw you +last." + +"I have changed them altogether." + +Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the +Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange, +even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided, +was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet +office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts +and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. 3's, and all the rest of it, he might +find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it. + +"Your trip has done you good," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. "The sea +air has given you some sense. I'm glad of it. It makes it easier for me +to say something else that I've had on my mind for a good while. Sam, +it's time you got married." + +Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern. + +"Swallow some smoke the wrong way?" + +"I was laughing," explained Sam with dignity. + +Sir Mallaby shook his head. + +"I don't want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to +approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good, +Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I was +two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and it +was the making of me. A wife might make something of you." + +"Impossible!" + +"I don't see why she shouldn't. There's lots of good in you, my boy, +though you may not think so." + +"When I said it was impossible," said Sam coldly, "I was referring to +the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible +that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My +heart is dead." + +"Your what?" + +"My heart." + +"Don't be a fool. There's nothing wrong with your heart. All our family +have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a +sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop." + +"You don't understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way +that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women +do not exist." + +"You didn't tell me about this," said Sir Mallaby, interested. "When +did this happen? Did she jilt you?" + +"Yes." + +"In America, was it?" + +"On the boat." + +Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily. + +"My dear boy, you don't mean to tell me that you're taking a shipboard +flirtation seriously? Why, you're expected to fall in love with a +different girl every time you go on a voyage. You'll get over this in a +week. You'd have got over it by now if you hadn't gone and buried +yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea." + +The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument to +his ear. + +"All right," he turned to Sam. "I shall have to send you away now, Sam. +Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything +to-night?" + +"No." + +"Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that? +Well, come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don't be late." + +Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken +intercepted him. + +"Oh, Mr. Sam!" + +"Yes?" + +"Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?" + +"I'm dining with him to-night." + +"Then would you--I don't like to disturb him now, when he is +busy--would you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza? +It runs," said Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, "'Trust no future, +howe'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act, in the +living present, Heart within and God o'erhead!' Thank you so much. Good +afternoon." + + +Sec. 2 + +Sam, reaching Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by the +butler who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be down +in a few minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe family, +who, if he had not actually dandled Sam on his knees when an infant, had +known him as a small boy, was delighted to see him again. + +"Missed you very much, Mr. Samuel, we all have," he said affectionately, +as he preceded him to the drawing-room. + +"Yes?" said Sam absently. + +"Very much indeed, sir. I happened to remark only the other day that the +place didn't seem the same without your happy laugh. It's good to see +you back once more, looking so well and merry." + +Sam stalked into the drawing-room with the feeling that comes to all of +us from time to time, that it is hopeless to struggle. The whole damned +circle of his acquaintance seemed to have made up their minds that he +had not a care in the world, so what was the use? He lowered himself +into a deep arm-chair and lit a cigarette. + +Presently the butler reappeared with a cocktail on a tray. Sam drained +it, and scarcely had the door closed behind the old retainer when an +abrupt change came over the whole outlook. It was as if he had been a +pianola and somebody had inserted a new record. Looking well and happy! +He blew a smoke ring. Well, if it came to that, why not? Why shouldn't +he look well and happy? What had he got to worry about? He was a young +man, fit and strong, in the springtide of life, just about to plunge +into an absorbing business. Why should he brood over a sentimental +episode which had ended a little unfortunately? He would never see the +girl again. If anything in this world was certain, that was. She would +go her way, and he his. Samuel Marlowe rose from his chair a new man, to +greet his father, who came in at that moment fingering a snowy white +tie. + +Sam started at his parent's splendour in some consternation. + +"Great Scot, father! Are you expecting a lot of people? I thought we +were dining alone." + +"That's all right, my boy. A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. We +shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine +and his daughter, a friend of my friend's friend and my friend's +friend's son." + +"Surely that's more than six!" + +"No." + +"It sounded more." + +"Six," said Sir Mallaby firmly. He raised a shapely hand with the +fingers outspread. "Count 'em for yourself." He twiddled his thumb. +"Number one--Bennett." + +"Who?" cried Sam. + +"Bennett. Rufus Bennett. He's an American over here for the summer. +Haven't I ever mentioned his name to you? He's a great fellow. Always +thinking he's at death's door, but keeps up a fine appetite. I've been +his legal representative in London for years. Then--" Sir Mallaby +twiddled his first finger--"there's his daughter Wilhelmina, who has +just arrived in England." A look of enthusiasm came into Sir Mallaby's +face. "Sam, my boy, I don't intend to say a word about Miss Wilhelmina +Bennett, because I think there's nothing more prejudicial than singing a +person's praises in advance. I merely remark that I fancy you will +appreciate her! I've only met her once, and then only for a few minutes, +but what I say is, if there's a girl living who's likely to make you +forget whatever fool of a woman you may be fancying yourself in love +with at the moment, that girl is Wilhelmina Bennett! The others are +Bennett's friend, Henry Mortimer, also an American--a big lawyer, I +believe, on the other side--and his son Bream. I haven't met either of +them. They ought to be here any moment now." He looked at his watch. +"Ah! I think that was the front door. Yes, I can hear them on the +stairs." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE + + +Sec. 1 + +After the first shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his +father's harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of +the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one +thing the which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the +toy of Fate. He chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out +for him. Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy, sentimental, +five-reel film scenario, and without consulting him had had the cool +cheek to cast him for one of the puppets. He seemed to see Fate as a +thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a little as +she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous satisfaction as +she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire qualities. There +was not a flaw in the construction. It started off splendidly with a +romantic meeting, had 'em guessing half-way through when the hero and +heroine quarrelled and parted--apparently for ever, and now the stage +was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out on the embrace. +To bring this last scene about, Fate had had to permit herself a slight +coincidence, but she did not jib at that. What we call coincidences are +merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck in a plot and has to invent +the next situation in a hurry. + +Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him shamefully +and he wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had had his +wish, he would never have met her again. Fate, in her interfering way, +had forced this meeting on him and was now complacently looking to him +to behave in a suitable manner. Well, he would show her! In a few +seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting. He would be distant and +polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would chill her to the bone, and +rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide. + +The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers. + + +Sec. 2 + +Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty, +headed the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose +buttons seemed to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him +trotted a small, thin, pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and +carried his nose raised and puckered as though some faintly unpleasant +smell were troubling his nostrils. The fourth member of the party was +dear old Bream. + +There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and +then Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right +wing outstretched. + +"Why, hello!" said Bream. + +"How are you, Mortimer?" said Sam coldly. + +"What, do you know my son?" exclaimed Sir Mallaby. + +"Came over in the boat together," said Bream. + +"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Old friends, eh? Miss Bennett," he turned +to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late fiance, "let me +present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss Bennett." + +"How do you do?" said Sam. + +"How do you do?" said Billie. + +"Bennett, you've never met my son, I think?" + +Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the +appearance of a rather unusually stout prawn. + +"How _are_ you?" he asked, with such intensity that Sam unconsciously +found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule call for +any answer. + +"Very well, thanks." + +Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. "You are lucky to be able to say so! +Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the last +fifteen years I have not known what it is to enjoy sound health for a +single day. Marlowe," he proceeded, swinging ponderously round on Sir +Mallaby like a liner turning in the river, "I assure you that at +twenty-five minutes past four this afternoon I was very nearly convinced +that I should have to call you up on the 'phone and cancel this dinner +engagement. When I took my temperature at twenty minutes to six...." At +this point the butler appeared at the door announcing that dinner was +served. + +Sir Mallaby Marlowe's dinner table, which, like most of the furniture in +the house had belonged to his deceased father and had been built at a +period when people liked things big and solid, was a good deal too +spacious to be really ideal for a small party. A white sea of linen +separated each diner from the diner opposite and created a forced +intimacy with the person seated next to him. Billie Bennett and Sam +Marlowe, as a consequence, found themselves, if not exactly in a +solitude of their own, at least sufficiently cut off from their kind to +make silence between them impossible. Westward, Mr. Mortimer had engaged +Sir Mallaby in a discussion on the recent case of Ouseley _v._ Ouseley, +Figg, Mountjoy, Moseby-Smith and others, which though too complicated to +explain here, presented points of considerable interest to the legal +mind. To the east, Mr. Bennett was relating to Bream the more striking +of his recent symptoms. Billie felt constrained to make at least an +attempt at conversation. + +"How strange meeting you here," she said. + +Sam, who had been crumbling bread in an easy and debonair manner, looked +up and met her eye. Its expression was one of cheerful friendliness. He +could not see his own eye, but he imagined and hoped that it was cold +and forbidding, like the surface of some bottomless mountain tarn. + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"I said, how strange meeting you here. I never dreamed Sir Mallaby was +your father." + +"I knew it all along," said Sam, and there was an interval caused by the +maid insinuating herself between them and collecting his soup plate. He +sipped sherry and felt a sombre self-satisfaction. He had, he +considered, given the conversation the right tone from the start. Cool +and distant. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Billie bite her lip. He +turned to her again. Now that he had definitely established the fact +that he and she were strangers, meeting by chance at a dinner-party, he +was in a position to go on talking. + +"And how do you like England, Miss Bennett?" + +Billie's eye had lost its cheerful friendliness. A somewhat feline +expression had taken its place. + +"Pretty well," she replied. + +"You don't like it?" + +"Well, the way I look at it is this. It's no use grumbling. One has got +to realise that in England one is in a savage country, and one should +simply be thankful one isn't eaten by the natives." + +"What makes you call England a savage country?" demanded Sam, a staunch +patriot, deeply stung. + +"What would you call a country where you can't get ice, central heating, +corn-on-the-cob, or bathrooms? My father and Mr. Mortimer have just +taken a house down on the coast and there's just one niggly little +bathroom in the place." + +"Is that your only reason for condemning England?" + +"Oh no, it has other drawbacks." + +"Such as?" + +"Well, Englishmen, for instance. Young Englishmen in particular. English +young men are awful! Idle, rude, conceited, and ridiculous." + +Marlowe refused hock with a bitter intensity which nearly startled the +old retainer, who had just offered it to him, into dropping the +decanter. + +"How many English young men have you met?" + +Billie met his eye squarely and steadily. "Well, now that I come to +think of it, not many. In fact, very few. As a matter of fact, only...." + +"Only?" + +"Well, very few," said Billie. "Yes," she said meditatively, "I suppose +I really have been rather unjust. I should not have condemned a class +simply because ... I mean, I suppose there _are_ young Englishmen who +are not rude and ridiculous?" + +"I suppose there are American girls who have hearts." + +"Oh, plenty." + +"I'll believe that when I meet one." + +Sam paused. Cold aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was +developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, +all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his +chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was +becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into +the realm of distant civility. + +"Are you making a long stay in London, Miss Bennett?" + +"No, not long. We are going down to the country almost immediately. I +told you my father and Mr. Mortimer had taken a house there." + +"You will enjoy that." + +"I'm sure I shall. Mr. Mortimer's son Bream will be there. That will be +nice." + +"Why?" said Sam, backsliding. + +There was a pause. + +"_He_ isn't rude and ridiculous, eh?" said Sam gruffly. + +"Oh, no. His manners are perfect, and he has such a natural dignity," +she went on, looking affectionately across the table at the heir of the +Mortimers, who, finding Mr. Bennett's medical confidences a trifle +fatiguing, was yawning broadly, and absently balancing his wine glass on +a fork. + +"Besides," said Billie in a soft and dreamy voice, "we are engaged to be +married!" + + +Sec. 3 + +Sam didn't care, of course. We, who have had the privilege of a glimpse +into his iron soul, know that. He was not in the least upset by the +news--just surprised. He happened to be raising his glass at the moment, +and he registered a certain amount of restrained emotion by snapping the +stem in half and shooting the contents over the tablecloth: but that was +all. + +"Good heavens, Sam!" ejaculated Sir Mallaby, aghast. His wine glasses +were an old and valued set. + +Sam blushed as red as the stain on the cloth. + +"Awfully sorry, father! Don't know how it happened." + +"Something must have given you a shock," suggested Billie kindly. + +The old retainer rallied round with napkins, and Sir Mallaby, who was +just about to dismiss the affair with the polished ease of a good host, +suddenly became aware of the activities of Bream. That young man, on +whose dreamy calm the accident had made no impression whatever, had +successfully established the equilibrium of the glass and the fork, and +was now cautiously inserting beneath the latter a section of a roll, the +whole forming a charming picture in still life. + +"If that glass is in your way...." said Sir Mallaby as soon as he had +hitched up his drooping jaw sufficiently to enable him to speak. He was +beginning to feel that he would be lucky if he came out of this +dinner-party with a mere remnant of his precious set. + +"Oh, Sir Mallaby," said Billie, casting an adoring glance at the +juggler, "you needn't be afraid that Bream will drop it. _He_ isn't +clumsy! He is wonderful at that sort of thing, simply wonderful! I think +it's so splendid," said Billie, "when men can do things like that. I'm +always trying to get Bream to do some of his tricks for people, but he's +so modest, he won't." + +"Refreshingly different," Sir Mallaby considered, "from the average +drawing-room entertainer." + +"Yes," said Billie emphatically. "I think the most terrible thing in the +world is a man who tries to entertain when he can't. Did I tell you +about the man on board ship, father, at the ship's concert? Oh, it was +the most awful thing you ever saw. Everybody was talking about it!" She +beamed round the table, and there was a note of fresh girlish gaiety in +her voice. "This man got up to do an imitation of somebody--nobody knows +to this day who it was meant to be--and he came into the saloon and +directly he saw the audience he got stage fright. He just stood there +gurgling and not saying a word, and then suddenly his nerve failed him +altogether and he turned and tore out of the room like a rabbit. He +absolutely ran! And he hadn't said a word! It was the most ridiculous +exhibition I've ever seen!" + +The anecdote went well. Of course there will always be a small minority +in any audience which does not appreciate a funny story, and there was +one in the present case. But the bulk of the company roared with +laughter. + +"Do you mean," cried Sir Mallaby, choking, "the poor idiot just stood +there dumb?" + +"Well, he made a sort of yammering noise," said Billie, "but that only +made him look sillier." + +"Deuced good!" chuckled Sir Mallaby. + +"Funniest thing I ever heard in my life!" gurgled Mr. Bennett, +swallowing a digestive capsule. + +"May have been half-witted," suggested Mr. Mortimer. + +Sam leaned across the table with a stern set face. He meant to change +the conversation if he had to do it with a crowbar. + +"I hear you have taken a house in the country, Mr. Mortimer," he said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Mortimer. He turned to Sir Mallaby. "We have at last +succeeded in persuading your sister, Mrs. Hignett, to let us rent her +house for the summer." + +Sir Mallaby gasped. + +"Windles! You don't mean to tell me that my sister has let you have +Windles!" + +Mr. Mortimer nodded triumphantly. + +"Yes. I had completely resigned myself to the prospect of spending the +summer in some other house, when yesterday I happened to run into your +nephew, young Eustace Hignett, on the street, and he said he was just +coming round to see me about that very thing. To cut a long story short, +he said that it would be all right and that we could have the house." +Mr. Mortimer took a sip of burgundy. "He's a curious boy, young +Hignett. Very nervous in his manner." + +"Chronic dyspepsia," said Mr. Bennett authoritatively, "I can tell it at +a glance." + +"Is Windles a very lovely place, Sir Mallaby?" asked Billie. + +"Charming. Quite charming. Not large, of course, as country houses go. +Not a castle, I mean, with hundreds of acres of park land. But nice and +compact and comfortable and very picturesque." + +"We do not require a large place," said Mr. Mortimer. "We shall be quite +a small party. Bennett and myself, Wilhelmina, Bream...." + +"Don't forget," said Billie, "that you have promised to invite Jane +Hubbard down there." + +"Ah, yes. Wilhelmina's friend, Miss Hubbard. She is coming. That will be +all, except young Hignett himself." + +"Hignett!" cried Mr. Bennett. + +"Mr. Hignett!" exclaimed Billie. + +There was an almost imperceptible pause before Mr. Mortimer spoke again, +and for an instant the demon of embarrassment hovered, unseen but +present, above the dinner table. Mr. Bennett looked sternly at Billie; +Billie turned a shade pinker and gazed at the tablecloth; Bream started +nervously. Even Mr. Mortimer seemed robbed for a moment of his legal +calm. + +"I forgot to tell you that," he said. "Yes, one of the stipulations--to +which I personally was perfectly willing to agree--was that Eustace +Hignett was to remain on the premises during our tenancy. Such a clause +in the agreement was, I am quite aware, unusual, and, had the +circumstances been other than they were, I would have had a good deal to +say about it. But we wanted the place, and we couldn't get it except by +agreeing, so I agreed. I'm sure you will think that I acted rightly, +Bennett, considering the peculiar circumstances." + +"Well," said Mr. Bennett reluctantly, "I certainly did want that +house...." + +"And we couldn't have had it otherwise," said Mr. Mortimer, "so that is +all there is to it." + +"Well, it need make no difference to you," said Sir Mallaby. "I am sure +you will find my nephew Eustace most unobtrusive. He may even be an +entertaining companion. I believe he has a nice singing voice. With that +and the juggling of our friend here and my sister's late husband's +orchestrion, you will have no difficulty in amusing yourselves during +the evenings. You remember the orchestrion, Sam?" said Sir Mallaby, on +whom his son's silence had been weighing rather heavily for some time. + +"Yes," said Sam, and returned to the silence once more. + +"The late Mr. Hignett had it put in. He was very fond of music. It's a +thing you turn on by pressing a button in the wall," continued Sir +Mallaby. "How you stop it, I don't know. When I was down there last it +never seemed to stop. You mustn't miss the orchestrion!" + +"I certainly shall," said Mr. Bennett decidedly. "Music of that +description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my +nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune." + +"So is the orchestrion," said Sir Mallaby. "I remember once when I was +down there...." + +"I hope you will come down there again, Sir Mallaby," said Mr. Mortimer, +"during our occupancy of the house. And you, too," he said, addressing +Sam. + +"I am afraid," said Sam frigidly, "that my time will be very much +occupied for the next few months. Thank you very much," he added, after +a moment's pause. + +"Sam's going to work," said Sir Mallaby. + +"Yes," said Sam with dark determination. "Work is the only thing in life +that matters!" + +"Oh, come, Sam!" said Sir Mallaby. "At your age I used to think love was +fairly important, too!" + +"Love!" said Sam. He jabbed at his souffle with a spoon. You could see +by the scornful way he did it that he did not think much of love. + + +Sec. 4 + +Sir Mallaby, the last cigar of the night between his lips, broke a +silence which had lasted a quarter of an hour. The guests had gone, and +he and Sam were alone together. + +"Sam," he said, "do you know what I think?" + +"No," said Sam. + +Sir Mallaby removed his cigar and spoke impressively. "I've been +turning the whole thing over in my mind, and the conclusion I have come +to is that there is more in this Windles business than meets the eye. +I've known your Aunt Adeline all my life, and I tell you it isn't in +that woman to change her infernal pig-headed mind, especially about +letting her house. She is a monomaniac on that subject. If you want to +know my opinion, I am quite certain that your cousin Eustace has let the +place to these people without her knowledge, and intends to pocket the +cheque and not say a word about it. What do you think?" + +"Eh?" said Sam absently. + +"I said, what do you think?" + +"What do I think about what?" + +"About Eustace Hignett and Windles." + +"What about them?" + +Sir Mallaby regarded him disaprovingly. "I'm hanged if I know what's the +matter with you to-night, Sam. You seem to have unhitched your brain and +left it in the umbrella stand. You hadn't a word to say for yourself all +through dinner. You might have been a Trappist monk. And with that +delightful girl Miss Bennett, there, too. She must have thought you +infernally dull." + +"I'm sorry." + +"It's no good being sorry now. The mischief's done. She has gone away +thinking you an idiot. Do you realise," said Sir Mallaby warmly, "that +when she told that extremely funny story about the man who made such a +fool of himself on board the ship, you were the only person at the table +who was not amused? She must have thought you had no sense of humour!" + +Sam rose. "I think I'll be going," he said. "Good night!" + +A man can bear just so much. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TROUBLE AT WINDLES + + +Sec. 1 + +Mr. Rufus Bennett stood at the window of the drawing-room of Windles, +looking out. From where he stood he could see all those natural and +artificial charms which had made the place so desirable to him when he +first beheld them. Immediately below, flower beds, bright with assorted +blooms, pressed against the ivied stone wall of the house. Beyond, +separated from these by a gravel pathway, a smooth lawn, whose green and +silky turf rivalled the lawns of Oxford colleges, stretched to a +picturesque shrubbery, not so dense as to withhold altogether from the +eye of the observer an occasional silvery glimpse of the lake that lay +behind it. To the left, through noble trees, appeared a white suggestion +of old stable yards; while to the right, bordering on the drive as it +swept round to a distant gate, nothing less than a fragment of a ruined +castle reared itself against a background of firs. + +It had been this sensational fragment of Old England which had +definitely captured Mr. Bennett on his first visit to the place. He +could not have believed that the time would ever come when he could gaze +on it without any lightening of the spirits. + +The explanation of his gloom was simple. In addition to looking at the +flower beds, the lawn, the shrubbery, the stable yard, and the castle, +Mr. Bennett was also looking at the fifth heavy shower that had fallen +since breakfast. This was the third afternoon of his tenancy. The first +day it had rained all the time. The second day it had rained from eight +till twelve-fifteen, from twelve-thirty till four, and from five till +eleven. And on this, the third day, there had been no intermission +longer than ten minutes. It was a trying Summer. Even the writers in the +daily papers seemed mildly surprised, and claimed that England had seen +finer Julys. Mr. Bennett, who had lived his life in a country of warmth +and sunshine, the thing affected in much the same way as the early days +of the Flood must have affected Noah. A first startled resentment had +given place to a despair too militant to be called resignation. And with +the despair had come a strong distaste for his fellow human beings, +notably and in particular his old friend Mr. Mortimer, who at this +moment broke impatiently in on his meditations. + +"Come along, Bennett. It's your deal. It's no good looking at the rain. +Looking at it won't stop it." + +Mr. Mortimer's nerves also had become a little frayed by the weather. + +Mr. Bennett returned heavily to the table, where, with Mr. Mortimer as +partner he was playing one more interminable rubber of bridge against +Bream and Billie. He was sick of bridge, but there was nothing else to +do. + +Mr. Bennett sat down with a grunt, and started to deal. Half-way through +the operation the sound of rather stertorous breathing began to proceed +from beneath the table. Mr. Bennett glanced agitatedly down, and curled +his legs round his chair. + +"I have fourteen cards," said Mr. Mortimer. "That's the third time +you've mis-dealt." + +"I don't care how many cards you've got!" said Mr. Bennett with heat. +"That dog of yours is sniffing at my ankles!" + +He looked malignantly at a fine bulldog which now emerged from its cover +and, sitting down, beamed at the company. He was a sweet-tempered dog, +handicapped by the outward appearance of a canine plug-ugly. Murder +seemed the mildest of the desires that lay behind that rugged +countenance. As a matter of fact, what he wanted was cake. His name was +Smith, and Mr. Mortimer had bought him just before leaving London to +serve the establishment as a watch-dog. + +"He won't hurt you," said Mr. Mortimer carelessly. + +"You keep saying that!" replied Mr. Bennett pettishly. "How do you +know? He's a dangerous beast, and if I had had any notion that you were +buying him, I would have had something to say about it!" + +"Whatever you might have said would have made no difference. I am within +my legal rights in purchasing a dog. You have a dog. At least, +Wilhelmina has." + +"Yes, and Pinky-Boodles gets on splendidly with Smith," said Billie. +"I've seen them playing together." + +Mr. Bennett subsided. He was feeling thoroughly misanthropic. He +disliked everybody, with perhaps the exception of Billie, for whom a +faint paternal fondness still lingered. He disliked Mr. Mortimer. He +disliked Bream, and regretted that Billie had become engaged to him, +though for years such an engagement had been his dearest desire. He +disliked Jane Hubbard, now out walking in the rain with Eustace Hignett. +And he disliked Eustace. + +Eustace, he told himself, he disliked rather more than any of the +others. He resented the young man's presence in the house; and he +resented the fact that, being in the house, he should go about, pale and +haggard, as though he were sickening for something. Mr. Bennett had the +most violent objection to associating with people who looked as though +they were sickening for something. + +He got up and went to the window. The rain leaped at the glass like a +frolicking puppy. It seemed to want to get inside and play with Mr. +Bennett. + + +Sec. 2 + +Mr. Bennett slept late on the following morning. He looked at his watch +on the dressing table when he got up, and found that it was past ten. +Taking a second look to assure himself that he had really slumbered to +this unusual hour, he suddenly became aware of something bright and +yellow resting beside the watch, and paused, transfixed, like Robinson +Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in +England, he would have said that it was a patch of sunshine. + +Mr. Bennett stared at the yellow blob with the wistful mistrust of a +traveller in a desert who has been taken in once or twice by mirages. It +was not till he had pulled up the blind and was looking out on a garden +full of brightness and warmth and singing birds that he definitely +permitted himself to accept the situation. + +It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great +bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay. +Mr. Bennett rang the bell joyfully, and presently there entered a grave, +thin, intellectual-looking man who looked like a duke, only more +respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett's valet. He carried in one +hand a small mug of hot water, reverently, as if it were a present of +jewellery. + +"Good morning, sir." + +"Morning, Webster," said Mr. Bennett. "Rather late, eh?" + +"It is" replied Webster precisely, "a little late, sir. I would have +awakened you at the customary hour, but it was Miss Bennett's opinion +that a rest would do you good." + +Mr. Bennett's sense of well-being deepened. What more could a man want +in this world than fine weather and a dutiful daughter? + +"She did, eh?" + +"Yes, sir. She desired me to inform you that, having already +breakfasted, she proposed to drive Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Bream Mortimer +into Southampton in the car. Mr. Mortimer senior wished to buy a panama +hat." + +"A panama hat!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett. + +"A panama hat, sir." + +Mr. Bennett's feeling of satisfaction grew still greater. It was a fine +day; he had a dutiful daughter; and he was going to see Henry Mortimer +in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him. + +The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually +walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr. +Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to shave +himself. + +Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay +his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He +drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him +from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit. + +Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after +all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere +fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas, +and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun +on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with +gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn. + +At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying a +yesterday's bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He drank +in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent +excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett, +and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he +remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he +cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was +half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when +burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough. + +Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up +his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a +momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly. +This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry +playfellow. + +Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and +falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that +ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that +occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he +saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. +He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride, clutched +at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as his pursuer +arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a ledge, where he +sat with his feet hanging well out of reach. The bulldog Smith, gazed up +at him expectantly. The game was a new one to Smith, but it seemed to +have possibilities. He was a dog who was always perfectly willing to try +anything once. + +Mr. Bennett now began to address himself in earnest to the task of +calling for assistance. His physical discomfort was acute. Insects, some +winged, some without wings but--through Nature's wonderful law of +compensation--equipped with a number of extra pairs of legs, had begun +to fit out exploring expeditions over his body. They roamed about him as +if he were some newly opened recreation ground, strolled in couples down +his neck, and made up jolly family parties on his bare feet. And then, +first dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath, then swishing +down in a steady flood, it began to rain again. + +It was at this point that Mr. Bennett's manly spirit broke and time +ceased to exist for him. + +Aeons later, a voice spoke from below. + +"Hullo!" said the voice. + +Mr. Bennett looked down. The stalwart form of Jane Hubbard was standing +beneath him, gazing up from under a tam o'shanter cap. Smith, the +bulldog, gambolled about her shapely feet. + +"Whatever are you doing up there?" said Jane. "I say, do you know if the +car has come back?" + +"No. It has not." + +"I've got to go to the doctor's. Poor little Mr. Hignett is ill. Oh, +well, I'll have to walk. Come along, Smith!" She turned towards the +drive, Smith caracoling at her side. + +Mr. Bennett, though free now to move, remained where he was, transfixed. +That sinister word "ill" held him like a spell. Eustace Hignett was ill! +He had thought all along that the fellow was sickening for something, +confound him! + +"What's the matter with him?" bellowed Mr. Bennett after Jane Hubbard's +retreating back. + +"Eh?" queried Jane, stopping. + +"What's the matter with Hignett?" + +"I don't know." + +"Is it infectious?" + +"I expect so." + +"Great Heavens!" cried Mr. Bennett, and, lowering himself cautiously to +the ground, squelched across the dripping grass. + +In the hall, Webster the valet, dry and dignified, was tapping the +barometer with the wrist action of an ambassador knocking on the door of +a friendly monarch. + +"A sharp downpour, sir," he remarked. + +"Have you been in the house all the time?" demanded Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Didn't you hear me shouting?" + +"I did fancy I heard something, sir." + +"Then why the devil didn't you come to me?" + +"I supposed it to be the owls, sir, a bird very frequent in this +locality. They make a sort of harsh, hooting howl, sir. I have sometimes +wondered," said Webster, pursuing a not uninteresting train of thought, +"whether that might be the reason of the name." + +Before Mr. Bennett could join him in the region of speculation into +which he had penetrated, there was a grinding of brakes on the gravel +outside, and the wettest motor car in England drew up at the front door. + + +Sec. 3 + +From Windles to Southampton is a distance of about twenty miles; and the +rain had started to fall when the car, an open one lacking even the poor +protection of a cape hood, had accomplished half the homeward journey. +For the last ten miles Mr. Mortimer had been nursing a sullen hatred for +all created things; and, when entering the house, he came upon Mr. +Bennett hopping about in the hall, endeavouring to detain him and tell +him some long and uninteresting story, his venom concentrated itself +upon his erstwhile friend. + +"Oh, get out of the way!" he snapped, shaking off the other's hand. +"Can't you see I'm wet?" + +"Wet! Wet!" Mr. Bennett's voice quivered with self-pity. "So am I wet!" + +"Father dear," said Billie reprovingly, "you really oughtn't to have +come into the house after bathing without drying yourself. You'll spoil +the carpet." + +"I've _not_ been bathing! I'm trying to tell you...." + +"Hullo!" said Bream, with amiable innocence, coming in at the tail-end +of the party. "Been having a jolly bathe?" + +Mr. Bennett danced with silent irritation, and, striking a bare toe +against the leg of a chair, seized his left foot and staggered into the +arms of Webster, who had been preparing to drift off to the servants' +hall. Linked together, the two proceeded across the carpet in a movement +which suggested in equal parts the careless vigour of the cake-walk and +the grace of the old-fashioned mazurka. + +"What the devil are you doing, you fool?" cried Mr. Bennett. + +"Nothing, sir. And I should be glad if you would accept my week's +notice," replied Webster calmly. + +"What's that?" + +"My notice sir, to take effect at the expiration of the current week. I +cannot acquiesce in being cursed and sworn at." + +"Oh, go to blazes!" + +"Very good, sir." Webster withdrew like a plenipotentiary who has been +handed his papers on the declaration of war, and Mr. Bennett, sprang to +intercept Mr. Mortimer, who had slipped by and was making for the +stairs. + +"Mortimer!" + +"Oh, what _is_ it?" + +"That infernal dog of yours. I insist on your destroying it." + +"What's it been doing?" + +"The savage brute chased me all over the garden and kept me sitting up +on that damned castle the whole of the morning!" + +"Father darling," interposed Billie, pausing on her way up the stairs, +"you mustn't get excited. You know it's bad for you. I don't expect poor +old Smith meant any harm," she added pacifically, as she disappeared in +the direction of the landing. + +"Of course he didn't," snapped Mr. Mortimer. "He's as quiet as a lamb." + +"I tell you he chased me from one end of the garden to the other! I had +to run like a hare!" + +The unfortunate Bream, whose sense of the humorous was simple and +childlike, was not proof against the picture thus conjured up. + +"C'k!" giggled Bream helplessly. "C'k, c'k, c'k!" + +Mr. Bennett turned on him. "Oh, it strikes you as funny, does it? Well, +let me tell you that if you think you can laugh at me +with--with--er--with one hand and--and--marry my daughter with the +other, you're wrong! You can consider your engagement at an end." + +"Oh, I say!" ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered. + +"Mortimer!" bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was +about to mount the stairs. "Do you or do you not intend to destroy that +dog?" + +"I do not." + +"I insist on your doing so. He is a menace." + +"He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn't even bite you +once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce +_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly." + +"I don't care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss...." + +"You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent." + +There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the +angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with +a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python. + +"Say, Mr. Bennett...." began Bream at his elbow. + +"Get out!" snarled Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, but, say...!" + +The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster +appeared. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said Webster, "but luncheon will be served +within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change +of costume." + +"Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room," said Mr. Bennett. "I am going +to bed." + +"Very good, sir." + +"But, say, Mr. Bennett...." resumed Bream. + +"Grrh!" replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the +stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the +main body. + + +Sec. 4 + +Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of +sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not +lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of +travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters had +made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little +happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on. + +"Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection. +"There was nothing wrong with the lunch." + +How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment +of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip +of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to +cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known. + +"The lunch," said Mr. Bennett, "was excellent. Lobsters!" He licked his +lips appreciatively. + +"And, talking of lobsters," he went on, "I suppose that boy Bream has +told you that I have broken off your engagement?" + +"Yes." + +"You don't seem very upset," said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for a +dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed. + +"Oh, I've become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything." Billie gazed +wistfully at the counterpane. "Do you know, father, I'm beginning to +think that I'm rather impulsive. I wish I didn't do silly things in such +a hurry." + +"I don't see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You +took ten years to make up your mind." + +"I was not thinking of Bream. Another man." + +"Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young +Hignett?" + +"Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I was +thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!" + +Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his +surprising daughter. His head was beginning to swim. + +"Of course I've misunderstood you," he said. "There's a catch somewhere +and I haven't seen it. But for a moment you gave me the impression that +you had promised to marry some man on the boat!" + +"I did!" + +"But...!" Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. "Do you mean to +tell me," he demanded, having brought out the answer to his +satisfaction, "do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to +three men in three weeks?" + +"Yes," said Billie in a small voice. + +"Great Godfrey! Er----?" + +"No, only three." + +Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort. + +"The trouble is," continued Billie, "one does things and doesn't know +how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an awful lot of +thinking afterwards, father." + +"I'm doing a lot of thinking now," said Mr. Bennett with austerity. "You +oughtn't to be allowed to go around loose!" + +"Well, it doesn't matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall never +love anyone again." + +"Don't tell me you are still in love with this boat man?" + +Billie nodded miserably. "I didn't realise it till we came down here. +But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had +thrown away my life's happiness. It was as if I had been offered a +wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice reproaching +me and saying, 'You have had your chance. It will never come again!'" + +"Don't talk nonsense!" said Mr. Bennett. + +Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well. + +Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an +exclamation. The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory. +"What's young Hignett got wrong with him?" he asked. + +"Mumps." + +"Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!" Mr. Bennett quailed. "I've never had +mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is awful!... Oh, heavens! Why +did I ever come to this lazar-house!" cried Mr. Bennett, shaken to his +depths. + +"There isn't the slightest danger, father, dear. Don't be silly. If I +were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after this +morning." + +"Sleep! If I only could!" said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes +after the door had closed. + +He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was +wrong. He had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at the +head of a military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he sat up +in bed, blinking in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the band +seemed to be playing still. There was undeniably music in the air. The +room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor and +rolling about in chunks all round his bed. + +Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and +became filled with a restless irritability. There was only one +instrument in the house which could create this infernal din--the +orchestrion in the drawing-room, immediately above which, he recalled, +his room was situated. + +He rang the bell for Webster. + +"Is Mr. Mortimer playing that--that damned gas-engine in the +drawing-room?" + +"Yes, sir. Tosti's 'Good-bye.' A charming air, sir." + +"Go and tell him to stop it!" + +"Very good, sir." + +Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The +music still continued to roll about the room. + +"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr. +Mortimer declines to accede to your request." + +"Oh, he said that, did he?" + +"That is the gist of his remarks, sir." + +"Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!" + +Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to +the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the +guv'nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would +put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the +Almost-Human--by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was +generally alluded to in the servants' hall. + +Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his +former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full +dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out its +dirge on the passing of Summer. + +"Will you turn that infernal thing off!" said Mr. Bennett. + +"No!" said Mr. Mortimer. + +"Now, now, now!" said a voice. + +Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on +her face. + +"We can't have this, you know!" said Jane Hubbard. "You're disturbing my +patient." + +She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with +a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the +middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and +closed it behind her. + +The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the +vanquished. + +"Now, what about it!" he said, ungenerously. + +"Interfering girl!" mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. "I've +a good mind to start it again." + +"I dare you!" whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his +vanished childhood. "Go on! I dare you!" + +"I've a perfect legal right.... Oh well," he said, "there are lots of +other things I can do!" + +"What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed. + +"Never mind!" said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book. + +Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind. + +He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, rang +for Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him. + +"I want you to go to London," he said, when she appeared. "I must have +legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him +that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering +himself behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can't get at him. Ask +Sir Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can't come himself, tell him +to send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows +anything about the business." + +"Oh, I'm sure he does!" + +"Eh? How do you know?" + +"Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!" said Billie hastily. "He looks +so clever!" + +"I didn't notice it myself. Well, he'll do, if Sir Mallaby's too busy to +come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that you can see him +first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. I've +sent Webster to look out a train." + +"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that." + +"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett, with belated +consideration. + +"Oh, _no_!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do this for +you, father dear!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT + + +The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett's tongue +at twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at +half-past eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out his +candle and endeavoured to compose himself for a night's slumber. Its +unconscious host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He had a +vague feeling that the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but his +mind was too engrossed with the task of keeping a look-out for the +preliminary symptoms of mumps to have leisure to bestow much attention +on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused was not sufficient to keep +him awake, and presently he turned on his side and began to fill the +room with a rhythmical snoring. + +How pleasant if one could leave him so--the good man taking his rest. +Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett's +side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we +are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything is +all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first discern +nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we perceive him +sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him, while with the +first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively the tip of his +protruding tongue. + +At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle--one of the charms of +Windles was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system--and we are +enabled to get a better view of him. + +Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first +beads of a chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible +for a man of his complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as +he could. Panic gripped him. A man whose favourite reading was medical +encyclopaedias, he needed no doctor to tell him that this was the end. +Fate had dealt him a knockout blow; his number was up; and in a very +short while now people would be speaking of him in the past tense and +saying what a pity it all was. + +A man in Mr. Bennett's position experiences strange emotions, and many +of them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the cost +of white paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an analysis +of the unfortunate man's reflections and be glad of the chance. It is +sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there was no stint. +Whatever are the emotions of a man in such a position, Mr. Bennett had +them. He had them all, one after another, some of them twice. He went +right through the list from soup to nuts, until finally he reached +remorse. And, having reached remorse, he allowed that to monopolise him. + +In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had +frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would not +have been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and, if he +was going to be remorseful about anything, he might well have started by +being remorseful about that. But it was on his most immediate past that +his wistful mind lingered. He had quarrelled with his lifelong friend, +Henry Mortimer. He had broken off his daughter's engagement with a +deserving young man. He had spoken harsh words to his faithful valet. +The more Mr. Bennett examined his conduct, the deeper the iron entered +into his soul. + +Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He +could make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the +most suitable time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too remorseful +to think of that. Do It Now had ever been his motto, so he started by +ringing the bell for Webster. + +The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of +dilating on Mr. Bennett's emotions would find a congenial task in +describing the valet's thought-processes when the bell roused him from +a refreshing sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the +time he entered his employer's room he was his own calm self again. + +"Good morning, sir," he remarked equably. "I fear that it will be the +matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not aware," +said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting, "that you +intended rising so early." + +"Webster," said Mr. Bennett, "I'm a dying man!" + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"A dying man!" repeated Mr. Bennett. + +"Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?" + +Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the +scene. + +"Webster," he said, "this morning we had an unfortunate +misunderstanding. I'm sorry." + +"Pray don't mention it, sir." + +"I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have +stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!" said Mr. Bennett, who had +half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the +family for years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a +little less than a month ago. "Through thick and thin!" repeated Mr. +Bennett. + +"I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir." + +"I want to reward you, Webster." + +"Thank you very much, sir." + +"Take my trousers!" + +Webster raised a deprecating hand. + +"No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn't really! You will need +them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply." + +"Take my trousers," repeated Mr. Bennett, "and feel in the right-hand +pocket. There is some money there." + +"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, sir," said Webster, beginning for the +first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked upon the +treasure-hunt. "The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and +threepence, sir." + +"Keep it!" + +"Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?" + +"Why, no," said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. There +had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and his +yearning soul resented it. "Why, no." + +"Good-night, sir." + +"Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer's room?" + +"Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage, on +the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely +obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when you ring." + +Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed, +put on his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage. + +In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on +crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been +to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had +collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no +sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of +the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was +sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good +for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow +in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the distant +rumble of an approaching train on the Underground. + +"Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett. + +The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on +again. + +"Henry!" said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small +of the back. + +"Leave it on the mat," mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and +uncovering one corner of his mouth. + +Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt +like a man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to +him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer +made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly +for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle. + +"Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!" said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He +had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow. + +"What do you mean, rabbits?" said Mr. Bennett sharply. + +The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already +entering a tunnel. + +"Much too pink!" he murmured as the pillow engulfed him. + +What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot +say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired, +for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above his +slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the candle +and fell into Mr. Mortimer's exposed ear. The sleeper wakened. + +"What? What? What?" he exclaimed, bounding up. "Who's that?" + +"It's me--Rufus," said Mr. Bennett. "Henry, I'm dying!" + +"Drying?" + +"Dying!" + +Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him +again. + +"Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn," he muttered. "But too pink! Much +too pink!" + +And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation +and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the +pillow again. + +Mr. Bennett's sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was +strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once +more, but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain, +as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him +of his situation. A dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping +candle-grease into people's ears. After all, it was perhaps a little +late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr. +Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him the +glad news of his renewed engagement. + +He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream's bedroom, he +knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle +quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed. + +"Drop that pistol!" said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with +quiet severity. "I've got you covered!" + +Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have been +a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery that +he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady's, or by the fact +that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to be a +small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a matter of +fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard carried with her +everywhere--a girl's best friend. + +"My dear young lady!" he gasped. + +On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her +tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without +making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused +her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said. +Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was +glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession +of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had +no evil intentions. + +"Who is it?" she asked. + +"I don't know how to apologise!" + +"That's all right! Let's have a light." A match flared in the darkness. +Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet +curiosity. "Walking in your sleep?" she inquired. + +"No, no!" + +"Not so loud! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. He's next door. That's why I took +this room, in case he was restless in the night." + +"I want to see Bream Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett. + +"He's in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to +see him about?" + +"I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my +daughter." + +"Oh, well, I don't suppose he'll mind being woken up to hear that. But +what's the idea?" + +"It's a long story." + +"That's all right. Let's make a night of it." + +"I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute pain...." + +Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but +without excitement. + +"What nonsense!" she said at the conclusion. + +"I assure you...." + +"I'd like to bet it's nothing serious at all." + +"My dear young lady," said Mr. Bennett, piqued. "I have devoted a +considerable part of my life to medical study...." + +"I know. That's the trouble. People oughtn't to be allowed to read +medical books." + +"Well, we need not discuss it," said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented +being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of +his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. "I will +leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer." He clung to a hope that +Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. "Good-night!" + +"But wait a moment!" + +Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard +irritated him. + +His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was +fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber +almost as deep as his father's; but, once roused, he showed a gratifying +appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of his visitor's +news competed with consternation and sympathy at the other half. He +thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern on learning of +his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire to help by +offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful for +gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett +withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something +approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost +reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling +voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard's room. + +"Come here!" said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and +looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring. + +"Well?" said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless. + +"I'm going to have a look at that tongue of yours," said Jane firmly. +"It's my opinion that you're making a lot of fuss over nothing." + +Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a dressing-gown +can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had turned and gone +into her room. + +"Come in here," she said. + +Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note +of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself +for his weakness in obeying. + +"Sit down!" said Jane Hubbard. + +She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table. + +"Put your tongue out!" she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her strange +influence, lowered himself on to the stool. "Further out! That's right. +Keep it like that!" + +"Ouch!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up. + +"Don't make such a noise! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!" + +"I...." + +"Sit down!" + +Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding +the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it +desperately. + +"Baby!" said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. "Why, I once sewed eighteen +stitches in a native bearer's head, and he didn't make half the fuss +you're making. Now, keep quite still." + +Mr. Bennett did--for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped +from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality of +the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was a +subdued one. He was just about to speak--he had framed the opening words +of a strong protest--when suddenly he became aware of something in his +mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as it lay +on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at the +same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state of +his tongue. The swelling had gone. + +"I told you so!" said Jane Hubbard placidly. "What is it?" + +"It--it appears to be a piece of...." + +"Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night." + +Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he +wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. He +restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his was +too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about it. +He needed a confidant. + +Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell, +sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs. + +"Did you ring, sir?" + +"Webster," cried Mr. Bennett, "it's all right! I'm not dying after all! +I'm not dying after all, Webster!" + +"Very good, sir," said Webster. "Will there be anything further?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS + + +"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young, Sam, +work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with +affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?" + +"Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up. + +"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a +novel--some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred +and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and Customary +Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--but I won't +spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes out in the +end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an imaginary +ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this +was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome +with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent +nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!" + +"Well?" + +"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of +overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way, +Sam." + +"Yes?" + +"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients +will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in +difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd +better lock the outer door." + +"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. He +had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which--as of course you +know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage. + +Sir Mallaby looked at his watch. + +"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam." + +"Good-bye." + +Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and +twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation +to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was +an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind, +numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal +phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later +his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and +began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett. + +Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby's dinner-table, Sam had told +himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that +she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he +did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like +this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself for more than +two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he did not still +love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the +truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly +and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the almost inseparable +companion of young men in his position. + +So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light +footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a +tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the +fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his +father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some +frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and +Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him. + +Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the +blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened the +door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He +dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk. +Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing. + +There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened. +Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him +that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He +felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis. +And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have +seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches of trousered legs +were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who entered. + +"Good morning," said a voice. + +Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was +the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking +hours. + +"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots. + +Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise. + +"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface. + +He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical +exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he +invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk. + +"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again. + +"Yes?" said Billie. + +"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib." + +"Yes?" + +"A broad _gold_ nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which +comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication. + +"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that +this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly +occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his +struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle +more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to +assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as little +of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what eyes they were! +Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in.... + +However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat +and became cold and business-like,--the dry young lawyer. + +"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, +raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance +on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some +snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss +Bennett, I believe?" + +The effect of the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to +this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, +to sob on her soul-mate's shoulder and generally make everything up; but +at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts--which was +fully as militant as that of the Marlowes--became roused. She told +herself that she had been mistaken in supposing that she still loved +this man. She was a proud girl and refused to admit herself capable of +loving any man who looked at her as if she was something that the cat +had brought in. She drew herself up stiffly. + +"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me." + +"I have a good memory." + +"How nice! So have I!" + +There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel +casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring +furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought +condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen +were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red +hair peeping out beneath her hat and.... However! + +"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice +Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with +bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file. + +"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby." + +"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath. +Cannot I act as his substitute?" + +"Do you know anything about the law?" + +"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know----! +Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in." + +"Oh, were you?" said Billie, interested. "Do you always read on the +floor?" + +"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly. + +"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of +fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said." + +"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the +law in all its branches." + +"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion +when you wanted to get to sleep?" + +"The orchestrion?" + +"Yes." + +"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam. + +"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie. + +"I was thinking." + +"Oh, if you want to _think_!" + +"Tell me the facts," said Sam. + +"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the +country...." + +"I knew that." + +"_What_ a memory you have!" said Billie kindly. "Well, for some reason +or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything +he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted +to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started this orchestrion just to annoy him." + +"I think--I'm not quite sure--I think that's a tort," said Sam. + +"A what?" + +"Either a tort or a malfeasance." + +"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled +into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and +the sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on its +foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and +babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection +came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him +ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him +ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat; and at that moment there came +another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of +the holiday-making Peters. + +"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, Miss +Milliken. Oh!" + +He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he +had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that +the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind +him a momentary silence. + +"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little +gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first +sight. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently. + +"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!" + +For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of +his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, +Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his +trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was, it +suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute +he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had +brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy. + +"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she +demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?" + +Sam drew a deep breath. + +"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used to +be clerk here." + +"But he isn't any longer?" + +"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him." + +"I don't wonder. A man looking like that...." + +"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father was +that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken." + +Billie uttered a cry of horror. + +"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!" + +"He _did_ shoot her--the third time," said Sam, warming to his work. +"Only in the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a +stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him +after that." + +"Good gracious!" + +"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a good deal +with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with her. +She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. Peters is +a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to +understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she +was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion--I +mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it +very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he +came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I say, we had to +dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. Still, it wouldn't +do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken. The thing +became an obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that +every red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had +deceived him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so +fashionable now-a-days." + +"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly. + +"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as Miss +Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here with you +when he came." + +"But he may be lurking out there still!" + +"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would you +like me to go and send him away? All right." + +"But--but is it safe?" + +Sam uttered a light laugh. + +"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, and +sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed +him with worshipping eyes. + +Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself +for the more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which he +had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being +too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the +series of chats with Young Mothers. + +"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?" + +"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say +good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up +all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final +instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over. +I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel." + +"Yes, this is his golf day. I'll tell him you looked in." + +"Is there anything I can do before I go?" + +"Do?" + +"Well--"--Jno. Peters coughed tactfully--"I see that you are engaged +with a client, Mr. Samuel, and I was wondering if any little point of +law had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of +coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance." + +"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister." + +"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister." + +"No?" said Sam. + +"She is not very like her in appearance." + +"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright, +intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you +came in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got it +with you now, to show to her." + +"Oh, but I have it! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a small +handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a +tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my way to +the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to show +it to her." + +"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam. "I'll have finished talking +business in a moment." + +He returned to the inner office. + +"Well?" cried Billie. + +"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a +little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were +talking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, and +glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I +promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next +court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with +one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you +spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes." + +"Certainly." + +"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know +if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting." + +He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_. + +"You can go in now," said Sam. + +"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly." + +Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_ and sat down with his feet on +the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis. + +In the inner room Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment +offered by Widgery and was engaged on making a tour of the office, +looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be +the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows, and Applebys mentioned on the +contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back. +She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously. + +Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of +repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one +of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling a +cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself +was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent +simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a +motion-picture studio. + +"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SHOCKS ALL ROUND + + +Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the +late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that +one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this +wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the +portrait's frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this supreme +moment she did not even notice it. + +"Er--how do you do?" she said. + +If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said that +she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though it was +considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency. It had +ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had seen this +sort of thing in the movies--there was one series of pictures, "The +Dangers of Diana," where something of the kind had happened to the +heroine in every reel--but she had not anticipated that it would ever +happen to her; and consequently she had not thought out any plan for +coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should be +prepared for everything, or where is one? + +"I've brought the revolver," said Mr. Peters. + +"So--so I see!" said Billie. + +Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather a +shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her being +interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl. + +"I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range," he said. +"Then I thought I might as well look in here." + +"I suppose--I suppose you're a good shot?" quavered Billie. + +"I seldom miss," said Jno. Peters. + +Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this +maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in +time to save her, she essayed further small-talk. + +"It's--it's very ugly!" + +"Oh, no!" said Mr. Peters, hurt. + +Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing. + +"Very deadly-looking, I meant," she corrected herself hastily. + +"It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken," said Mr. Peters. + +Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of +immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the +deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the +other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, +as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, +Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief. + +"The great thing," said Jno. Peters, "is to learn to draw quickly. Like +this!" he added producing the revolver with something of the smoothness +and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen Bream +Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. "Everything depends +on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is vital." + +Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try to +convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _idee fixe_, +that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and +might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was +imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring him, +it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly? + +"Mr. Peters," she cried, "you are quite mistaken!" + +"I beg your pardon," said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity. +"Nothing of the kind!" + +"You are!" + +"I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential...." + +"You have been misinformed." + +"Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range," said +Mr. Peters stiffly. "And if you have ever seen a picture called 'Two-Gun +Thomas'...." + +"Mr. Peters," cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim with +his meaningless ravings. "Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to a man +at Ealing West!" + +Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed +for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but many +women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could not +at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who _were_ +married to men at Ealing West. + +"Indeed?" he said politely. + +"Won't you believe me?" exclaimed Billie wildly. + +"Why, certainly, certainly," said Jno. Peters. + +"Thank God!" said Billie. "I'm not even engaged! It's all been a +terrible mistake!" + +When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and +different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving +at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at +this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the +intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer +of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to +understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a +breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been +trifling with her heart--hardened lawyer's clerk as he was, that +poignant cry "I'm not even engaged!" had touched Mr. Peters--and she +wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again. +He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book. + +"I should be glad to hear the facts," he said with professional +courtesy. "In the absence of the guv'nor...." + +"I have told you the facts!" + +"This man at Ealing West," said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his +pencil, "he wrote you letters proposing marriage?" + +"No, no, no!" + +"At any rate," said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, "he made love +to you before witnesses?" + +"Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at +Ealing West!" + +It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to +entertain serious doubts of the girl's mental balance. The most +elementary acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were +any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a +sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and +he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as +yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out +and laid it nonchalantly in his lap. + +The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her +hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card. + +"I love _you_!" she cried. She wished she could have remembered his +first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a +moment she could hardly call him "Mr. Peters." "You are the only man I +love." + +"My gracious goodness!" ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over +backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected +declaration was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He +blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he +could not check a certain thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he +really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct +estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in +inducing his fiancee to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to +wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There +must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like +this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual +conversation. + +Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl +was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge +towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought to +be warned. + +"So that's all right, isn't it!" said Billie. + +"Oh, quite, quite!" said Mr. Peters. "Er--Thank you very much!" + +"I thought you would be pleased," said Billie, relieved but puzzled. For +a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he seemed +to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a strenuous +scene. + +"Oh, it's a great compliment!" Mr. Peters assured her. + +At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment +when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the +instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at his +watch, he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for +events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had +indicated. + +The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little +strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather +agitated, too. Sam caught Billie's eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it. +He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who +understood all and was prepared to handle the situation. + +"Come, Peters," he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on +the clerk's arm. "It's time that you went." + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!" + +"I'll see you out," said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer +office and on to the landing outside. "Well, good luck, Peters," he +said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. "I hope you have a +pleasant trip. Why, what's the matter? You seem upset." + +"That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think--really, she cannot be quite +right in her head." + +"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sam firmly. "She's all right! Well, +good-bye." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Samuel." + +"When did you say you were sailing?" + +"Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of +seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see +this gentleman down in the country...." + +"All right. Then we'll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you have +a good time in America. I'll tell my father you called." + +Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his +way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair +which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet. + +"Has he really gone?" + +"Yes. He's gone this time." + +"Was he--was he violent?" + +"A little," said Sam. "A little. But I calmed him down." He looked at +her gravely. "Thank God I was in time!" + +"Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!" cried Billie, and, burying +her face in her hands, burst into tears. + +"There, there!" said Sam. "There, there! Come, come! It's all right now! +There, there, there!" + +He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted +her hands. + +"There, there, there!" he said. + +I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed +page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be +as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will by +now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an Army +mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied +through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright +she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had +caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low, +bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact +that he had erased for ever from Billie's mind that undignified picture +of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another which +showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was the fact +that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him to kiss +her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would have said +that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh good, or +some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man Samuel Marlowe +was. + +His face was very close to Billie's, who had cheered up wonderfully by +this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into +her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway. + +"Great Godfrey!" exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from +this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet +face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had +become slightly soluble. "Great Heavens above! Number four!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER + + +Mr. Bennett advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with +one hand on the desk, while with the other he still plied the +handkerchief on his over-heated face. Much had occurred to disturb him +this morning. On top of a broken night he had had an affecting +reconciliation scene with Mr. Mortimer, at the conclusion of which he +had decided to take the first train to London in the hope of +intercepting Billie before she reached Sir Mallaby's office on her +mission of war. The local train-service kept such indecently early hours +that he had been compelled to bolt his breakfast, and, in the absence of +Billie, the only member of the household who knew how to drive the car, +to walk to the station, a distance of nearly two miles, the last hundred +yards of which he had covered at a rapid gallop, under the erroneous +impression that an express whose smoke he had seen in the distance was +the train he had come to catch. Arrived on the platform, he had had a +trying wait, followed by a slow journey to Waterloo. The cab which he +had taken at Waterloo had kept him in a lively state of apprehension all +the way to the Savoy, owing to an apparent desire to climb over +motor-omnibuses when it could not get round them. At the Savoy he found +that Billie had already left, which had involved another voyage through +the London traffic under the auspices of a driver who appeared to be +either blind or desirous of committing suicide. He had three flights of +stairs to negotiate. And, finally, arriving at the office, he had found +his daughter in the circumstances already described. + +"Why, father!" said Billie. "I didn't expect you." + +As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been +considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it +inadequate and would have said so, had he had enough breath. This +physical limitation caused him to remain speechless and to do the best +he could in the way of stern fatherly reproof by puffing like a seal +after a long dive in search of fish. + +Having done this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards +him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was +the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. +He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of +luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his +manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective +father-in-law of such a one as himself. + +"I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bennett," said Sam. "You could not have +come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are. +There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, +Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!" + +And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it +more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that. + +"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. "I +haven't got a son." + +"I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining years...." + +"What the devil do you mean, my declining years?" demanded Mr. Bennett +with asperity. + +"He means when they do decline, father dear," said Billie. + +"Of course, of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, +of course. I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on +me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what +an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. +Bennett. Bennett of New York!" he added spaciously, not so much because +he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that he +did not, but because it sounded well. + +"Oh!" said Mr. Bennett. "You do, do you?" + +Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly +earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his +newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy +father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It +was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to +have directed at anybody, except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge +at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually atrocious +murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only caught the +tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving. + +"Oh, father! You aren't angry!" + +"Angry!" + +"You _can't_ be angry!" + +"Why can't I be angry?" declared Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury +which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. "Why the +devil shouldn't I be angry? I _am_ angry! I come here and find you +like--like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air +and give three rousing cheers! Of course I'm angry! You are engaged to +be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of +the finest young men I have ever known...." + +"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. "It's awfully good +of you...." + +"But that's all over, father." + +"What's all over?" + +"You told me yourself that you had broken off my engagement to Bream." + +"Well--er--yes, I did," said Mr. Bennett, a little taken aback. "That +is--to a certain extent--so. But," he added, with restored firmness, +"it's on again!" + +"But I don't want to marry Bream!" + +"Naturally!" said Sam. "Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few +days we'll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea." + +"It doesn't matter what you want! A girl who gets engaged to a dozen men +in three weeks...." + +"It wasn't a dozen!" + +"Well, four--five--six--you can't expect me not to lose count.... I say +a girl who does that does not know what she wants, and older and more +prudent heads must decide for her. You are going to marry Bream +Mortimer!" + +"All wrong! All wrong!" said Sam, with a reproving shake of the head. +"All wrong! She's going to marry me." + +Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier +effort had been a loving glance. + +"Wilhelmina," he said, "go into the outer office." + +"But, father, Sam saved my life!" + +"Go into the outer office and wait for me there." + +"There was a lunatic in here...." + +"There will be another if you don't go." + +"He had a pistol." + +"Go into the outer office!" + +"I shall always love you, Sam!" said Billie, pausing mutinously at the +door. + +"I shall always love _you_!" said Sam cordially. + +"Nobody can keep us apart!" + +"They're wasting their time, trying." + +"You're the most wonderful man in the world!" + +"There never was another girl like you!" + +"Get _out_!" bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this love-scene, +which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly. "Now, sir!" he said to +Sam, as the door closed. + +"Yes, let's talk it over calmly," said Sam. + +"I will not talk it over calmly!" + +"Oh, come! You can do it if you try. In the first place, whatever put +this silly idea into your head about that sweet girl marrying Bream +Mortimer?" + +"Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer." + +"I know," said Sam. "And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that +against him, it's a point you can't afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer! +You and I have Henry Mortimer's number. We know what Henry Mortimer is +like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You +can't seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by +marriage." + +"Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend." + +"That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend +treating you like that!" + +"The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed +over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial." + +"Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn't trust a man like +that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!" + +"I have decided once and for all...." + +"If you'll take my advice, you will break the thing off." + +"I will not take your advice." + +"I wouldn't expect to charge you for it," explained Sam reassuringly. "I +give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to others, +free to you." + +"Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer? +What are you giggling about?" + +"It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I +mean." + +"Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man." + +"And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a +girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable young +man." + +"She will do as I tell her." + +Sam regarded him sternly. + +"Have you no regard for her happiness?" + +"I am the best judge of what is best for her." + +"If you ask me," said Sam candidly, "I think you're a rotten judge." + +"I did not come here to be insulted!" + +"I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What +right have you to say that I'm not fit to marry your daughter?" + +"I did not say that." + +"You've implied it. And you've been looking at me as if I were a leper +or something the Pure Food Committee had condemned. Why? That's what I +ask you," said Sam, warming up. This he fancied, was the way Widgery +would have tackled a troublesome client. "Why? Answer me that!" + +"I...." + +Sam rapped sharply on the desk. + +"Be careful, sir. Be very careful!" He knew that this was what lawyers +always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a +miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of +the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but +Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that +lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be +very careful. + +"What do you mean, be very careful?" said Mr. Bennett. + +"I'm dashed if I know," said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a +mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by +smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He +endeavoured, however, to smile quietly. + +"Don't laugh at me!" roared Mr. Bennett. + +"I'm not laughing at you." + +"You are!" + +"I'm not! I'm smiling quietly." + +"Well, don't then!" said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young +companion. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time, talking to you. The +position is clear to the meanest intelligence. I have no objection to +you personally...." + +"Come, this is better!" said Sam. + +"I don't know you well enough to have any objection to you or any +opinion of you at all. This is only the second time I have ever met you +in my life." + +"Mark you," said Sam, "I think I am one of those fellows who grow on +people...." + +"As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the +noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don't +know. And I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. You mean nothing in my +life. I don't know you." + +"You must persevere," said Sam. "You must buckle to and get to know me. +Don't give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to have +a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find yourself +knowing me quite well." + +"I don't want to know you!" + +"You say that now, but wait!" + +"And thank goodness I have not got to!" exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing to +be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as +though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. +"For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly +understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and +that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to +forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does +the same! You're an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I +don't like you! I don't wish to see you again! If you were the last man +in the world I wouldn't allow my daughter to marry you! If that is +quite clear, I will wish you good morning!" + +Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by +the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life +began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr. +Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer +office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a +moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking up +a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst in +Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline's charming old-world +house, Windles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE + + +As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I +have been giving the reader rather too jumpy a time. To almost a painful +degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is what +Aristotle says one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would not +be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions tortured up to +a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy for a bit. It is +with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet, peaceful +scene in domestic life. It won't last long--three minutes, perhaps, by a +good stop-watch--but that is not my fault. My task is to record facts as +they happened. + +The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning +it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to be. +A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at the +end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the grass +in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had worked +themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their labour +would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed industriously to +and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged insects danced +sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under the cedar-tree Billie +Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was engaged in drawing a +picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled up in a ball, lay her +Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles slept Smith, the +bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but audible, a boy in +shirt-sleeves was washing the car and singing as much as a treacherous +memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad. + +You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added +to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment, +Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad in +white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing touch +that was needed. + +Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, +the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett +did not quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of +distant, but solid, friendship had come to exist between pursuer and +pursued. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself +to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal's nature and the essential +purity of his motives; and now it was only when they encountered each +other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever betrayed the +slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, Mr. Bennett +reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern civilisation has +seen to the lion lying down with the lamb. + +"Sketching?" said Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes," said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her +father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some +such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning +in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but +apart from that her mind was an open book. + +"It's a great morning," said Mr. Bennett. + +"So peaceful," said Billie. + +"The eggs you get in the country in England," said Mr. Bennett, suddenly +striking a lyrical note, "are extraordinary. I had three for breakfast +this morning which defied competition, simply defied competition. They +were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!" + +He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy. + +"And the hams!" he went on. "The ham I had for breakfast was what I call +ham! I don't know when I've had ham like that. I suppose it's something +they feed the pigs on!" he concluded, in soft meditation. And he gave a +little sigh. Life was very beautiful. + +Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking +of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his +clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes--so vastly superior to any +look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling +herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and +romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had +come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily +into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift +side-glance at her father--the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What +would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently +continued to meditate peacefully on ham. + +They had sat like this for perhaps a minute--two happy mortals lulled by +the gentle beauty of the day--when from the window of the drawing-room +there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at +once--and have done with it--that this is the point where the quiet, +peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and +terror resume work at the old stand. + +The maid--her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged +to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second +assistant at Green's Grocery Stores in Windlehurst--approached Mr. +Bennett. + +"Please, sir, a gentleman to see you." + +"Eh?" said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged +with bread-crumbed fat. + +"A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are +expecting him." + +"Of course, yes. To be sure." + +Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French +windows he could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered +that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe's clerk--who was +taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America--had written +that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from +Southampton to-morrow. + +He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters +with an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like one of +consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm. + +"Morning, Mr. Peters," said Mr. Bennett. "Very good of you to run down. +Take a seat, and I'll just go through the few notes I have made about +the matter." + +"Mr. Bennett," exclaimed Jno. Peters. "May--may I speak?" + +"What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?" + +Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at +the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a +duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, +gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming +scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, +seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had +realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett +ignorant of what he was up against. + +One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some +kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed +to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling +notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the +subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had +soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea +spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of +pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable +pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, +without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and +seen Billie. + +"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I don't want to do anybody any harm, and, if +you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it +is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in +her head. I don't say she's dangerous, but she isn't compos. She +decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!" + +Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought +crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the +kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters' sanity went down +to zero. + +"What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?" + +It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business +connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He +particularised. + +"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were +dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee." + +"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he +exclaimed. + +"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when she +came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and +appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am +not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened +when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a +dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when--"--here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, +turned vividly pink--"when she told me--she told me that I was the only +man she loved!" + +Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry. + +"Sweet spirits of nitre! What!" + +"Those were her exact words." + +"Five!" ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. "By the great horn +spoon, number five!" + +Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred +from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from +his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him +capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow. + +"Wilhelmina!" + +Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to her +that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her +father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did +not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance. + +"What is it, father?" + +Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in +after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before +her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and +there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her excited +senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a +matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed +chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes, +though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno. +Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She +screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno +Peters had been one constant backing against walls. + +"Don't shoot!" she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand +into the pocket of his coat. "Oh, please don't shoot!" + +"What the deuce do you mean?" said Mr. Bennett irritably. "Wilhelmina, +this man says that you told him you loved him." + +"Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!" + +"Suffering cats!" + +Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair. + +"But you've only met him once," he added almost pleadingly. + +"You don't understand, father dear," said Billie desperately. "I'll +explain the whole thing later, when...." + +"Father!" ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. "Did you say 'father?'" + +"Of course I said 'father!'" + +"This is my daughter, Mr. Peters." + +"My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are--are you sure?" + +"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I don't know my own daughter?" + +"But she called me Mr. Peters!" + +"Well, it's your name, isn't it?" + +"But, if she--if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my +name?" + +The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie. + +"That's true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?" + +"Why, in--in Sir Mallaby Marlowe's office, the morning you came there +and found me when I was talking to Sam." + +Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene +oppressive to a not very robust intellect. + +"He--Mr. Samuel--told me your name was Miss Milliken," he said dully. + +Billie stared at him. + +"Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!" she repeated. + +"He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as +stenographer for the guv'--for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you +my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it." + +Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries. + +"What revolver? Which revolver? What's all this about a revolver? Have +you a revolver?" + +"Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I +carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at +the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was +sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared--because +of the Underworld, you know." + +A cold gleam had come into Billie's eyes. Her face was pale and hard. If +Sam Marlowe--at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the +Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending to +the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch--could have seen her, the song +would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as showing that +there is always a bright side, would have been much appreciated by the +travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had had a wild night +with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then nursing a rather +severe headache, separated from Sam's penetrating baritone only by the +thickness of a wooden wall. + +Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of +the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead +for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now in +possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion +that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a girl who +strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense. + +"That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby's office, Mr. Peters," she said +in a frosty voice, "Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and +convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss +Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your +head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to +shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were Miss +Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, and +brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be +useless to tell you that I wasn't Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade +you that I was and hadn't jilted you after all." + +"Good gracious!" said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet--for always +there is bitter mixed with the sweet--a shade disappointed. +"Then--er--you don't love me after all?" + +"No!" said Billie. "I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and +nobody else in the world!" + +The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of +Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it +joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace. + +"I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere," he +said, paying her a striking tribute. "I hope now that we've heard the +last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe." + +"You certainly have! I don't want ever to see him again! I hate him!" + +"You couldn't do better, my dear," said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. "And +now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss." + +A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the +stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him. + +"Webster," said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard, and +her eyes still gleamed coldly. + +"Miss?" said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which he +had been refreshing himself. + +"Will you do something for me?" + +"I should be more than delighted, miss." + +Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the +recesses of her dress. + +"Do you know the country about here well, Webster?" + +"Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for +several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in." + +"Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and +another to Cosham? It's about a mile down...." + +"I know the spot well, miss." + +"Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is a +little lane...." + +"I know it, miss," said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he +escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie's maid, thither. "A delightfully +romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of +blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers...." + +"Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to +take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the +bottom of the lane...." + +"Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss." + +"Or leaning against it. You can't mistake him. He is rather tall and ... +oh, well, there isn't likely to be anybody else there, so you can't make +a mistake. Give him this, will you?" + +"Certainly, miss. Er--any message?" + +"Any what?" + +"Any verbal message, miss?" + +"No, certainly not! You won't forget, will you, Webster?" + +"On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?" + +"There won't be any answer," said Billie, setting her teeth for an +instant. "Oh, Webster!" + +"Miss?" + +"I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?" + +"Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly." + +"Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?" inquired +Webster, entering the kitchen. "Don't all speak at once! S. Marlowe. +Ever heard of him?" + +He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart. + +"Because there's something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me with +notes for him to the bottom of lanes." + +"And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!" said the scullery-maid, +shocked. "The way they go on. Chronic!" said the scullery-maid. + +"Don't you go getting alarmed! And don't you," added Webster, "go +shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I've had to +speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs. +Withers here." + +He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture. + +"Yes, here's the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy +kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it's +wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don't need to unstick the +envelope to know what's inside here. It's the raspberry, ma'am, or I've +lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and +proud-looking she was! I don't know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do +know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that's going to give +it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn't Montagu +Webster!" + +"Well!" said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her +labours. "Think of that!" + +"The way I look at it," said Webster, "is that there's been some sort of +understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she's thought +better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent's choice. +She's chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble suitor the +mitten. There was a rather similar situation in 'Cupid or Mammon,' that +Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down here, only that +ended different. For my part I'd be better pleased if our Miss B. would +let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own heart; but these +modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff, they are! Oh, well, +it's none of my affair," said Webster, stifling a not unmanly sigh. For +beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a warm heart. Montagu +Webster was a sentimentalist. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED + + +At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily +unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever +nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper, Samuel +Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end of the +lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her +appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well, +and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows +tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in the +long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward with a +roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white flutter of +Billie's dress would break the green of the foreground. How eagerly he +would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would.... + +The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never +seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. He +had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he +resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at +Webster under the brim of his hat. + +The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner +stepping daintily to the block. + +"Mr. Marlowe, sir?" he inquired politely. + +Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this. + +"Eh? What?" + +"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?" + +"Yes, that's my name." + +"Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett's personal gentleman's +gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you, +sir." + +Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear girl +had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written to +explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the sweet, +thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His contentment with +the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone out again, and he +found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger. + +"Fine day," he said, as he took the note. + +"Extremely, sir," said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of +a grave pity. + +It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to +prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and +he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the shock +knocked him off the gate. + +As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note, +Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and +this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved. + +The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it +back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They +confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it +continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that +pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles +from the sex in his time--your man of gallantry can hardly hope to +escape these unpleasantnesses--but none had got off the mark quite so +swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this. + +"Thanks," said Sam mechanically. + +"Not at all, sir. You are very welcome." + +Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. +His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of +his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating +in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, but +without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape, blotting +out the sun. + +Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the realisation +that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our wrong-doing +to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that little ruse of +his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full possession of the +facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did not say how she had +come into possession of them. This gave Sam that feeling of self-pity, +that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which makes the bringing +home of crime so particularly poignant. + +"Fine day!" he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it +was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation. + +"Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up," agreed the valet suavely. + +Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes +didn't give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him it +would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would have +been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and--and all that sort of +thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only possible +course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him. He explored +his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For some moments he +scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note. + +"Will you take this to Miss Bennett?" he said, holding it out. + +Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his +leisure; but he shook his head. + +"Useless, I fear, sir," he said gravely. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. +notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw +her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure +you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood." + +"You seem to know a lot about it!" + +"I have studied the sex, sir," said Webster modestly. + +"I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about it!" + +"Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of +affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my +respectful sympathy." + +Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest +conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note. +In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a +stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one +of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly +upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a +mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that +mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort +him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted +condolences from a coal-heaver. + +"I was reading a story--one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if +you are familiar with the series, sir?--in which much the same +situation occurred. It was entitled 'Cupid or Mammon.' The heroine, Lady +Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, +despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I +believe it often happens like that, sir." + +"You're all wrong," said Sam. "It's not that at all." + +"Indeed, sir? I supposed it was." + +"Nothing like it! I--I----." + +Sam's dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself. + +"I don't know what it's got to do with you!" + +"Precisely, sir!" said Webster, with dignity. "Just as you say! Good +afternoon, sir!" + +He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving +his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring +gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all. + +"Don't go!" he cried. + +The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human +support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded +it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his +support. + +"Don't go!" + +"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir." + +Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature +of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened +departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved +Webster at that moment. + +"Might I ask, then, what...?" + +"There's been a misunderstanding," said Sam. "At least, there was, but +now there isn't, if you see what I mean." + +"I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir." + +"Well, I--I--played a sort of--you might almost call it a sort of trick +on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!" + +"Of course, sir!" + +"And she's found out! I don't know how she's found out, but she has! So +there you are!" + +"Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,--some +kind of innocent deception?" + +"Well, it was like this." + +It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting +emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence +of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he +said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the +Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero, anxious to win the +esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an +attack upon her in a lonely road. + +"The principle's the same," said Webster. + +"Well, what did he do when she found out?" + +"She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the +wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than +they did at the subsequent union." + +Sam was thoughtful. + +"Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?" + +"Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very +cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably +inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out +from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference." + +"I wonder where I could get a good tramp," said Sam, meditatively. + +Webster shook his head. + +"I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir." + +"No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted." + +Sam brightened. + +"I've got it! _You_ pretend to attack her, and I'll...." + +"I couldn't, sir! I couldn't, really! I should jeopardise my situation." + +"Oh, come. Be a man!" + +"No, sir, I fear not. There's a difference between handing in your +resignation--I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few +words I had with the guv'nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to +withdraw it--I say there's a difference between handing in your +resignation and being given the sack, and that's what would +happen--without a character, what's more, and lucky if it didn't mean a +prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a thing." + +"Then I don't see that there's anything to be done," said Sam, +morosely. + +"Oh, I shouldn't say that, sir," said Webster encouragingly. "It's +simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us--you, I +should say...." + +"Us," said Sam. "Most decidedly us." + +"Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say +so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself +into this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a +disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in +spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?" + +"Exactly," said Sam. + +"There are several methods which occur to one...." + +"They don't occur to _me_!" + +"Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in +'True As Steel'...." + +"Set fire to the house, eh?" said Sam reflectively. "Yes, there might be +something in that." + +"I would hardly advise such a thing," said Webster, a little +hastily--flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking +his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of +the house himself. "A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be +better to save her from drowning, as in 'The Earl's Secret.'" + +"Ah, but where could she drown?" + +"Well, there is a lake in the grounds...." + +"Excellent!" said Sam. "Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no +more! The whole thing's settled. You take her out rowing on the lake, +and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?" + +"No, sir." + +"Oh? Well, never mind. You'll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the +upturned boat or something, I shouldn't wonder. There's always a way. +Yes, that's the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?" + +"I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It +really wouldn't do." + +"I can't see a flaw in it." + +"Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my +situation...." + +"Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or +something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like +you," said Sam ingratiatingly. + +"No, sir," said Webster firmly. "From boyhood up I've always had a +regular horror of the water. I can't so much as go paddling without an +uneasy feeling." + +The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam's +thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant +uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again. + +"Well, I don't see what there _is_ to be done," he said, gloomily. "It's +no good my making suggestions, if you have some frivolous objection to +all of them." + +"My idea," said Webster, "would be something which did not involve my +own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to +you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I am +anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not wish +to disturb. Did you ever read 'Footpaths of Fate,' in the Nosegay +series, sir? I've only just remembered it, and it contains the most +helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding between +the heroine and the hero--their names have slipped my mind, though I +fancy his was Cyril--and she had told him to hop it...." + +"To what?" + +"To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?" + +"How the deuce do I know?" + +"He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept him +hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all was +forgotten and forgiven, and never...." + +"I know. Never had the bells of the old village church...." + +"Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow +me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of +action." + +"Miss Bennett hasn't got a little brother." + +"No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it." + +Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster +imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence. +It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard. + +"You mean I ought to steal her dog?" + +"Precisely, sir." + +"But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?" + +"The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail." + +"Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about +eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn't get within ten +feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it +would chew me into small pieces." + +"I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In 'Footpaths of Fate' there +was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child." + +"By Jove!" said Sam, impressed. + +"He rewarded her," said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray nonchalantly +over the countryside, "liberally, very liberally." + +"If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog," said +Sam, "don't worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have all +I've got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really beginning +to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. Where do we go +from here?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir?" + +"I mean, what's the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!" Sam's face fell. +The light of hope died out of his eyes. "It's all off! It can't be +done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the little +brute sleeps in the house?" + +"That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal +sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the +interior of the house, sir?" + +"I haven't been inside it since I was at school. I'm Mr. Hignett's +cousin, you know." + +"Indeed, sir? I wasn't aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor +gentleman." + +"Has he?" said Sam, not particularly interested. "I used to stay with +him," he went on, "during the holidays sometimes, but I've practically +forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely. +Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a sort +of window-ledge near the front door...." + +"Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal's +basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific...." + +"Yes, but you haven't explained yet how I am to get into the house in +the first place." + +"Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows +while dinner is in progress." + +"Fine!" + +"You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. +Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?" + +"No, I don't remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to +stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett wouldn't +let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a +cupboard?" + +"Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was +glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other +day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. +You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably +seated on the floor till the household retired to bed." + +"When would that be?" + +"They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is +generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and +knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well." + +Sam was glowing with frank approval. + +"You know, you're a master-mind!" he said, enthusiastically. + +"You're very kind, sir!" + +"One of the lads, by Jove!" said Sam. "And not the worst of them! I +don't want to flatter you, but there's a future for you in crime, if you +cared to go in for it." + +"I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will regard +the scheme as passed and approved?" + +"I should say we would! It's a bird!" + +"Very good, sir." + +"I'll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?" + +"Admirable, sir." + +"And, I say, about that soporific.... Don't overdo it. Don't go killing +the little beast." + +"Oh, no, sir." + +"Well," said Sam, "you can't say it's not a temptation. And you know +what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A CROWDED NIGHT + + +Sec. 1 + +If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a +story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to +describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient +with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting +himself to what are, after all, minor developments. This story, for +instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on +Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecturing-tour; and no one +realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I +have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my +attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her moral +inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader--a +great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of +a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will +stand no nonsense--rising to remark that he doesn't care what happened +to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett +made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have +'em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a +cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires +information, or give him his money back. + +I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me +hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett herself. +The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw nothing of her. +She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor did she +penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son Eustace +sailed for England in the liner "Atlantic," she happened to read in the +paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the journals of New +York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty shock when she saw +that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy during the voyage, +was "Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus Bennett of Bennett, +Mandelbaum and Co.". And within five minutes of digesting this +information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams cancelling all +her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers trembled as +she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus +Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp +with sea-spray and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble all +over again. + +In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one +who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long +morning's telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star +brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full +week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable +Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, +and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor +a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling +on the deck during the voyage on the "Atlantic." + +Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations +for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there +was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up +her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday, boarded the +"Nuronia" bound for Southampton. + +The "Nuronia" is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built at +a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner +broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to +Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then +sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the +evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting +with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling +through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind +the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the +officials that she had nothing to declare. + +Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser +woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles +at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner +stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she hired a car and +set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when the car, a +genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles, +that she directed the driver to take her instead to the "Blue Boar" in +Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at +all, at about eleven o'clock. + +At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the +familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour's walking +would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a +restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before +she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still +there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the +night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in +Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk +and would ring when she returned. + +Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her +home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The +silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the +feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to +the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and +shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She +experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which +lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more +adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the +drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to +facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be +rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from +noticing the fact. + +All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt +indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the +moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity--one might almost say +anarchy--had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She +marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely +abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping +house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the +drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of +his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to +maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If +there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it +was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out. + +She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, +from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which +made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see +anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she +caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears had +been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, she +knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that went +flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars. + +Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant +spell-bound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell +herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there +came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though +something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise +of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a _pas seul_ out of sheer +lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over +something. + +The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, at +many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and nothing +in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the +skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons at +half-a-crown a visit; but he recognised the truth of the scriptural +adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His +only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted +through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom +undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the +house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did +not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his +presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the +cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and +Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded silently +out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly form of +Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the knowledge that +something was going on, and being a dog who always liked to be in the +centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to investigate. + +By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to +feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster's presence of mind +and Smith's gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the +house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster's stagger +had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the +servants' staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without +checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that +interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate in +cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep, and meant to see the thing +through. He gambolled in Webster's wake up the stairs and along the +passage leading to the latter's room, and only paused when the door was +brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing +over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far as +he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment. + +Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the hall. +The burglars--she had now discovered that there were at least two of +them--appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond +her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be +dislodged she must have assistance. It was man's work. She made a brave +dash through the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up +them; and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace's bedroom like a +spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post. + + +Sec. 2 + +At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the +drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told +the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was +camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever +since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl's kindly +practice to soothe him to rest with some such narrative from her +energetic past. + +"And what happened then?" asked Eustace, breathlessly. + +He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly +from a face which was almost the exact shape of an Association football; +for he had reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins to swell +as though somebody were inflating him with a bicycle-pump. + +"Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went +away!" said Jane Hubbard. + +"You know, you're wonderful!" cried Eustace. "Simply wonderful!" + +Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty +enthusiasm. He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest +commonplaces of life. + +"Why, if an alligator got into _my_ tent," said Eustace, "I simply +wouldn't know what to do! I should be nonplussed." + +"Oh, it's just a knack," said Jane, carelessly. "You soon pick it up." + +"Nail-scissors!" + +"It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the +rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear." + +"You're a marvel!" + +Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had +admired Jane Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the +stories which she had told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid +state had set the seal on his devotion. It has always been like this +since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three days Jane Hubbard had been +weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she monopolised his +entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast and deserts +idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched heaven, and of +the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose +heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would Eustace +Hignett seriously incline, and swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas +passing strange, 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. He loved her for +the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity them. In +fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying the +licence, had it not been for the fact that his very admiration served to +keep Eustace from pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible to him +that the queen of her sex, a girl who had chatted in terms of equality +with African head-hunters and who swatted alligators as though they were +flies, could ever lower herself to care for a man who looked like the +"after-taking" advertisement of a patent food. + +But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand +each other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come +recently to place a different interpretation on his silence. In the last +few days of the voyage she had quite made up her mind that Eustace +Hignett loved her and would shortly intimate as much in the usual +manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had begun to have doubts. She +was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was distinctly prettier +than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary man is +attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself +for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True, +Billie was officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had +experience of the brittleness of Miss Bennett's engagements, and she +could by no means regard Eustace as immune. + +"Do you suppose they will be happy?" she asked. + +"Eh? Who?" said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just +finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his +last remark, and Jane's thoughts had flitted back to the subject that +usually occupied them. + +"Billie and Bream Mortimer." + +"Oh!" said Eustace. "Yes, I suppose so." + +"She's a delightful girl." + +"Yes," said Eustace without much animation. + +"And, of course, it's nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It +doesn't often happen that way." + +"No. People's people generally want people to marry people people don't +want to marry," said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which +from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of +every country. + +"I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?" +said Jane casually. + +"Mother doesn't want me to marry anybody," said Eustace with gloom. It +was another obstacle to his romance. + +"What, never?" + +"No." + +"Why ever not?" + +"As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has +to clear out. Silly business!" + +"Well, you wouldn't let your mother stand in the way if you ever really +fell in love?" said Jane. + +"It isn't so much a question of _letting_ her stand in the way. The +tough job would be preventing her. You've never met my mother!" + +"No, I'm looking forward to it!" + +"You're looking forward...!" Eustace eyed her with honest amazement. + +"But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your +mind to marry somebody." + +"What could she do? Why, there isn't anything she wouldn't do. Why, +once...." Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to +tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to +reveal. + +"Once--...?" said Jane. + +"Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I--I was +going out to lunch with a man, and--and--" Eustace was not a ready +improvisator--"and she didn't want me to go, so she stole all my +trousers!" + +Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite +jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard. +That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom +she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the +wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance +which it had never had before. It had lingered in her memory, as stories +will, but it had been a detached episode, having no personal meaning for +her. But now.... "She did that just to stop you going out to lunch with +a man?" she said slowly. + +"Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn't it?" + +Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze, +shooting across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the +pillow. She was in the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to +curl like withered leaves. + +"Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?" she demanded. + +Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon. +The flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported +his sagging jaw. + +"Why--er--" + +"_Were_ you?" cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There was that in +her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as chewed +blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled +with an unendurable sense of guilt. + +"Well--er--yes," he mumbled weakly. + +Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She +might know what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but +she was a woman. + +This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on +Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last stair +has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It was as +though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and caused +him to bite his tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a rock of +support. And now the rock had melted away and left him wallowing in a +deep pool. + +He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the +point of declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily +vanished. He felt strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and +peered over the foot of it at her huddled form. + +"Have some barley-water," he urged. "Try a little barley-water." + +It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the +doctor's instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a glass +of water. + +"Go away!" sobbed Jane Hubbard. + +The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace. + +"But I can't. I'm in bed. Where could I go?" + +"I hate you!" + +"Oh, don't say that!" + +"You're still in love with her!" + +"Nonsense! I never was in love with her." + +"Then why were you going to marry her?" + +"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time." + +"Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her +hair. + +"Do have some barley-water," he said. "Just a sip!" + +"You _are_ in love with her!" sobbed Jane. + +"I'm _not_! I love _you_!" + +"You don't!" + +"Pardon _me_!" said Eustace firmly. "I've loved you ever since you gave +me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat." + +"They why didn't you say so before?" + +"I hadn't the nerve. You always seemed so--I don't know how to put it--I +always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to +propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No +girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face." + +"As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I +have seen your inside!" + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"I mean...." + +Eustace fondled her back hair. + +"Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?" + +"I've loved you ever since we met on the Subway." She raised a +tear-stained face. "If only I could be sure that you really loved me!" + +"I can prove it!" said Eustace proudly. "You know how scared I am of my +mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something +which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a +sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old +Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she wouldn't +hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina Bennett had +invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that, if they +didn't come to Windles, they would take some other place, and that meant +I wouldn't see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it to him on +the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!" + +"Why, you darling angel child," cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. "Did you +really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!" + +"Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!" + +Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked +him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from the +girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is a +wonderful thing. + +"You mustn't excite yourself," she said. "You'll be getting a +temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep." She kissed his bulbous +face. "You have made me so happy, Eustace darling." + +"That's good," said Eustace cordially. "But it's going to be an awful +jar for mother!" + +"Don't you worry about that. I'll break the news to your mother. I'm +sure she will be quite reasonable about it." + +Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. + +"Lie back quite comfortably, and don't worry," said Jane Hubbard. "I'm +going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan't be five +minutes. And forget about your mother. I'll look after her." + +Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, +pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of +success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she +moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was not +unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her class; but he +felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant +meditation. + +There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned. + +"Hullo! Back already?" said Eustace, opening his eyes. + +The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a hole +in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his bedside. + + +Sec. 3 + +In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their +agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the +truth of that well-known line--"Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones +far away." There was certainly little hope of peace with loved ones in +his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane Hubbard +would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused to +envisage the scene which would then occur. + +"Eustace!" + +Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart. + +"Eustace!" For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that +it was a changed face that confronted hers. "Good gracious! How stout +you've grown!" + +"It's mumps." + +"Mumps!" + +"Yes, I've got mumps." + +Mrs. Hignett's mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow +her to dwell on this subject. + +"Eustace, there are men in the house!" + +This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her. + +"I know," he said uneasily. + +"You know!" Mrs. Hignett stared. "Did you hear them?" + +"Hear them?" said Eustace, puzzled. + +"The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in +the hall!" + +"Oh, I say, no! That's rather rotten!" said Eustace. + +"I saw them and heard them! I--oh!" Mrs. Hignett's sentence trailed off +into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane Hubbard came in. + +Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to +bear shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of +Horace--_Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem_. (For the +benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive +classical education,--memento--Take my +tip--servare--preserve--aequam--an unruffled--mentem--mind--rebus in +arduis--in every crisis). She had only been out of the room a few +minutes, and in that brief period a middle-aged lady of commanding +aspect had apparently come up through a trap. It would have been enough +to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard bore it calmly. All through her +vivid life her bedroom had been a sort of cosy corner for murderers, +alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and every variety of snake, so she +accepted the middle-aged lady without comment. + +"Good evening," she said placidly. + +Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the +new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in which +she had strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a nurse; +but she wore no nurse's uniform. + +"Who are you?" she asked stiffly. + +"Who are _you_?" asked Jane. + +"I," said Mrs. Hignett portentously, "am the owner of this house, and I +should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace +Hignett." + +A charming smile spread itself over Jane's finely-cut face. + +"I'm so glad to meet you," she said. "I have heard so much about you." + +"Indeed?" said Mrs. Hignett coldly. "And now I should like to hear a +little about you." + +"I've read all your books," said Jane. "I think they're wonderful." + +In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was +straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx of +amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense +from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of +the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the +country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She +melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but +she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch. + +"My favourite," said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a +chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress's +complete works were assembled, "is 'The Spreading Light.' I _do_ like +'The Spreading Light!'" + +"It was written some years ago," said Mrs. Hignett with something +approaching cordiality, "and I have since revised some of the views I +state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book." + +"Of course, I can see that 'What of the Morrow?' is more profound," said +Jane. "But I read 'The Spreading Light' first, and of course that makes +a difference." + +"I can quite see that it would," agreed Mrs. Hignett. "One's first step +across the threshold of a new mind, one's first glimpse...." + +"Yes, it makes you feel...." + +"Like some watcher of the skies," said Mrs. Hignett, "when a new planet +swims into his ken, or like...." + +"Yes, doesn't it!" said Jane. + +Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle +tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in +a Wild West Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table +directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly +anticipated would be the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier +fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social and literary evening +not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old Girton students must be. +For the first time since his mother had come into the room he indulged +in the luxury of a deep breath. + +"But what are you doing here?" asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost +reluctantly to the main issue. + +Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way +he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, +following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his +Peninsular campaign. "When in doubt," the Duke used to say, "retire and +dig yourself in." + +"I'm nursing dear Eustace," said Jane. + +Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes +which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her. + +"'Dear Eustace!'" she repeated mechanically. + +"We're engaged," said Jane. + +"Engaged! Eustace, is this true?" + +"Yes," said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed. + +"And poor Eustace is so worried," continued Jane, "about the house." She +went on quickly. "He doesn't want to deprive you of it, because he knows +what it means to you. So he is hoping--we are both hoping--that you will +accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan't want it, +you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it, won't +you--to please us?" + +We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. +Only a short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard, +that indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not +express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world's +greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. +Horace Hignett's understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The +ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was +hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and +gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the +bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm. + +How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a +pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. +But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst +upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually +dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have +touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing +instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where +Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. Its wailing lament +for the passing of Summer filled the whole house. + +"That's too bad!" said Jane, a little annoyed. "At this time of night!" + +"It's the burglars!" quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent +events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of +Society. "They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they're +playing the orchestrion!" + +"Light-hearted chaps!" said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the +criminal world. "Full of spirits!" + +"This won't do," said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. "We can't have +this sort of thing. I'll go and fetch my gun." + +"They'll murder you, dear!" panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm. + +Jane Hubbard laughed. + +"Murder _me_!" she said amusedly. "I'd like to catch them at it!" + +Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind +her. + +"Eustace," she said solemnly, "that is a wonderful girl!" + +"Yes! She once killed a panther--or a puma, I forget which--with a +hat-pin!" said Eustace with enthusiasm. + +"I could wish you no better wife!" said Mrs. Hignett. + +She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a +battery of artillery had roared. + +The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge +into the elephant-gun. + +"One of them was popping about outside here," she announced. "I took a +shot at him, but I'm afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any +rate he went away." + +In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who +had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what was +the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He had +been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly confronted +by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay him with an +enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone singing down +the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned to his room in +three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars might take +everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not molest his +privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very sensible of him, +too, I consider. + +"We'd better go downstairs," said Jane. "Bring the candle. Not you, +Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a chill. Don't +stir out of bed!" + +"I won't," said Eustace obediently. + + +Sec. 4 + +Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the +thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party +to go to bed; and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind the +piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been there +for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in which +he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so long +ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending the +evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had +contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now that he was +actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it +had. + +Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to +contain no air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the +cupboard's natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a +condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream +in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was +abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the +small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of +harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred times he wished that +the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler. + +His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian +mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the +Infinite, but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He +tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind from +the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never +encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by +playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could +remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield, +after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew's, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, +Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine +through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull +incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room +had called it a day and that his vigil was over. + +But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light seemed +to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where people +had the habit of going and strolling about the garden to all hours? +Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At any rate, +it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He remembered that +Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear signal on the door. +It would be safer to wait for that. + +But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow +impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the +hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought +he heard footsteps but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained +his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a chance. He +fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened +it by slow inches, and peered out. + +The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the +feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl +stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing +events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. +Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his +head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the cuckoo-clock, +which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom before striking, +proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession before subsiding with +another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the end of the world. + +He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of +imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous system, +and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant desire to get +at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on +purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. For quite a +minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had strayed within +his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his attention was +diverted. + +So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no +ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What +occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an +electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the +egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his +hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so +completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle +but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt +vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he +simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart +refuses to beat, what hope is there for you? + +At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the +chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the +darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of +ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally +unexpected bulldog. + +"Get out!" whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk. +"Go away!" + +Smith took the opportunity of Sam's lips having opened to lick the roof +of his mouth. Smith's attitude in the matter was that Providence in its +all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had +reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of +such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted +downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no +result in front of Webster's bedroom door, and it was a real treat to +him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable +manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend. + +Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and +occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of +misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the humans +was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position on a +straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those dogs who +rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin burglars +by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply could not +grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a private +house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any difference +between the human beings he knew and the strangers who dropped in for a +late chat after the place was locked up. He had no intention of biting +Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the present moment what he felt +about Sam was that he was one of the best fellows he had ever met and +that he loved him like a brother. + +Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these +amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have had +the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was just +the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts like +that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the darkness +that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively about his +ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he took to be +the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not warily enough +to prevent his cannoning into and almost upsetting a small table with a +vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped, and the first bit of +luck that had come to Sam that night was when he reached out at a +venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on to the carpet. + +He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold. +If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud +enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go +on. He must have light. It might be a risk; there might be a chance of +somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate; but it was a +risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this +darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door, +on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch +would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside Windles, +and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even a woman +like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost anything, would +still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of illumination. His +only doubt was whether the switch was where it was in most houses, near +the door. + +It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a +delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided young +man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He +positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved. + +He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him +out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered +mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over +the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of +Tosti's "Good-bye." + +How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how +long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his +notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, +there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he heard +that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon +him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a +hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him +in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the +recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles, +playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself +inside this very suit, and had not only baffled Eustace through a long +summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by +booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days! +He leaped at the suit of armour. Having grown since he was last inside +it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into +it at last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy. + +"Thank heaven!" said Sam. + +He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need. + +Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had +opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments. + + +Sec. 5 + +He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. +There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas +and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard +with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them +all impartially. + +Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob. + +"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!" + +"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?" + +Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly. + +"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!" + +"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did." + +"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett +incredulously. + +Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been +switching off the orchestrion. + +"Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow," she said. "The point now +is that there are burglars in the house." + +"Burglars!" cried Mr. Bennett aghast. "I thought it was you playing that +infernal instrument, Mortimer." + +"What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?" said Mr. +Mortimer irritably. + +"It woke me up," said Mr. Bennett complainingly. "And I had had great +difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I +believe I've caught the mumps from young Hignett." + +"Nonsense! You're always imagining yourself ill," snapped Mr. Mortimer. + +"My face hurts," persisted Mr. Bennett. + +"You can't expect a face like that not to hurt," said Mr. Mortimer. + +It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the +verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard +intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the +introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk +about burglars, and she intended to do so. + +"For goodness sake stop it!" she said, almost petulantly for one usually +so superior to emotion. "There'll be lots of time for quarrelling +to-morrow. Just now we've got to catch these...." + +"I'm not quarrelling," said Mr. Bennett. + +"Yes, you are," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"I'm not!" + +"You are!" + +"Don't argue!" + +"I'm not arguing!" + +"You are!" + +"I'm not!" + +Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can +possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood +by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard's robuster +course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and +pull the trigger. + +"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes +died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She +inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...." + +"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved. + +"Serve you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the +fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think +they're still in the house." + +"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and +his other grievances. "We must summon the police!" + +"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the +ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been +mentally assessing. "We must send for the police at once." + +"We don't really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you'll all go to +bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...." + +"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had +begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was +sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her +esteem. + +"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in +ten minutes in the car." + +"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over +the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!" + +"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream." + +"Where _is_ Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer. + +The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented +itself to the company. + +"Where can he be?" said Billie. + +Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is +broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the +joke is at her expense. + +"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot +at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!" + +"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer. + +"I shot _at_ him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though +how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a sitter like +that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, +looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no +use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She +shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about +this if it comes out," she said regretfully. + +"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her +gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "_He's_ all right! Leave +him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning." + +"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted. + +A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was +engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that +moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, +mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people +whose simple annals I am relating--my position is merely that of a +reporter--; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy +common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark +corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, +rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her +mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have +behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself +to the varied emotions then engaging her mind. + +"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse +yourselves somehow till I come back." + +She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to +Mr. Bennett. + +"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she +doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and +nobody else can drive the car." + +"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering. + +"Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow +morning," said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way. + +"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has +occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. +The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the +removal of the rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall +be back in no time." + +She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her +motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding +before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream. + +"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a +piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars." + +Billie cast a scornful look at her fiance. Absolutely unjustified, in my +opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. +Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the +doctors call a penumbral mental condition. + +"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch +the police." + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Get your coat." + +"All right," said Bream. + +"And cap." + +"All right," said Bream. + +He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and +they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both +silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that +Billie's was thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who +has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without +it. + +In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of +affairs. + +"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back +with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done, +has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I think +those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and +rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. He's a good +cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn't finish in the first ten." + +The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a +young elephant. + +"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the +ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit of +armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of +protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've +got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me +to carry a light, and...." + +"Tchoo!" + +"What?" said Jane. + +"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on +bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything +sensible to suggest?" + +"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...." + +"Achoo!" + +"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round +on him. + +"There _is_ a draught," began Mr. Bennett. + +"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on." + +"I didn't sneeze!" + +"Somebody sneezed." + +"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously. + +"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there +isn't anything behind me from which it could have...." She stopped +suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set +expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she +said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and +sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular +forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of +that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!" + +"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of +the helmet. "I can--_achoo_!" The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's +nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks. + +"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard, "One--two--" + +"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly. + +"You'd better!" said Jane. + +"I can't get this dashed helmet off!" + +"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off." + +Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the +costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, +he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages. + +"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard. + +"My hands _are_ up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his +unbecoming head-wear. + +"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the +combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to +hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who +your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and perhaps +you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?" + +"Do I look like a gang?" + +"If you ask me what you look like...." + +"My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe...." + +"Alias what?" + +"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe...." + +An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. + +"The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and...." + +"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said +Mrs. Hignett with acerbity. + +"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son...." + +"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know +this fellow, do you?" + +"I don't know him!" + +"You said you did." + +"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I +decline to have anything to do with him!" + +"But you identify him?" + +"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I +suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if +he didn't know it could be proved against him." + +"_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett. + +"Yes," said Sam. + +"Well, what are you doing in my house?" + +"It's _my_ house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry Mortimer's +and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?" + +"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer. + +"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a +thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry Mortimer's." + +"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly +flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett's word +is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!" + +The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good +deal of feeling. + +"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian +race," said Mrs. Hignett testily. "I merely maintain that this house is +m...." + +"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out +some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't +see what we can do. We'll have to let him go." + +"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate +speech, "to make a social call...." + +"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were an +inconsiderate boy, Samuel." + +"I came to inquire after poor Eustace's mumps. I've only just heard that +the poor chap was ill." + +"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known you +were so fond of Eustace...." + +"All right, is he?" said Sam. + +"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely." + +"Fine!" + +"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!" + +"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly--how those +Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things +like this on their heads beats me--but you sound a good sort. I hope +you'll be very happy." + +"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall." + +"Eustace is one of the best." + +"How nice of you to say so." + +"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor of +this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance +in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up." + +"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer. + +"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably +lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your +selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little." + +"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a +sardine opener!" + +"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him +and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his +own wrong-headedness." + +"It's not his fault his head's the wrong size," said Jane. + +"He must get himself out as best he can," said Mrs. Hignett. + +"Very well," said Sam with bitter dignity. "Then I will not trespass +further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local +blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to +him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the +earliest opportunity. Good-night!" He walked coldly to the front door. +"And there are people," he remarked sardonically, "who say that blood is +thicker than water! I'll bet they never had any aunts!" + +He tripped over the mat and withdrew. + + +Sec. 6 + +Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had reached +the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been spending a +considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start readily. At +each application of Billie's foot on the self-starter, it emitted a +tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep again. +Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the machine moved +reluctantly out into the drive. + +"The battery must be run down," said Billie. + +"All right," said Bream. + +Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes. +She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists +are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost +irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping +out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system. + +Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark +drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had +received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream. +To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a great +belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina +Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should finish +her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply because people +shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. Why, Samuel Marlowe +would have perished rather than do such a thing. You might say what you +liked about Samuel Marlowe--and, of course, his habit of playing +practical jokes put him beyond the pale--but nobody could question his +courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that time in the harbour +at New York! Billie found herself thinking wistfully about Samuel +Marlowe. + +There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything +except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. +Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had +been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The +wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It was +a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been +unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to +have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it +would be taken back to its cosy garage. + +Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened. + +"You'll have to get down and crank her," she said curtly. + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Well, go on," said Billie impatiently. + +"Eh?" + +"Get out and crank her." + +Bream emerged for an instant from his trance. + +"All right," he said. + +The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of +our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job +towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not +at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to +accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet +flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum. +This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow +impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was +wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have +told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an +emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress. + +"Give it a good sharp twist," she said. + +"All right," said Bream. + +"Here, let me do it," cried Billie. + +She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent +brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint +protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and +was still once more. + +"May I help?" + +It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice--a sepulchral voice, the +sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's +cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from +the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream +painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he +had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the management +to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden +sepulchral voices. + +Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just +beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided +Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. + +"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone +wrong." + +Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure, +strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages +he would have excited no comment at all. Passers by would simply have +said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the +dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in +the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head +pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream. I +will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had +shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or perhaps +it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected him more +disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first of the +series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying +that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put +the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments +or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off +the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring +trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked +the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two chairs, the towel +stand, and three pairs of boots against it. + +Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now, +with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would +stand no nonsense, set the engine going again. + +"Why--why," she stammered, "why are you wearing that thing on your +head?" + +"Because I can't get it off." + +Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it. + +"S--Mr. Marlowe!" she exclaimed. + +"Get in," said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. "Where +can I take you?" + +"Go away!" said Billie. + +"Get in!" + +"I don't want to talk to you." + +"I want to talk to _you_! Get in!" + +"I won't." + +Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted +her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then +throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the +drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came +and went in the golden glow of the head-lights. + + +Sec. 7 + +"Put me down," said Billie. + +"You'd get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"Drive about till you promise to marry me." + +"You'll have to drive a long time." + +"Right ho!" said Sam. + +The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand +and grabbed at the steering wheel. + +"Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!" said Sam, righting +the car with a wrench. + +"You're a brute!" said Billie. + +"Caveman stuff," explained Sam, "I ought to have tried it before." + +"I don't know what you expect to gain by this." + +"That's all right," said Sam, "I know what I'm about." + +"I'm glad to hear it." + +"I thought you would be." + +"I'm not going to talk to you." + +"All right. Lean back and doze off. We've the whole night before us." + +"What do you mean?" cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk. + +"Have you ever been to Scotland?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I thought we might push up there. We've got to go somewhere and, oddly +enough, I've never been to Scotland." + +Billie regarded him blankly. + +"Are you crazy?" + +"I'm crazy about you. If you knew what I've gone through to-night for +your sake you'd be more sympathetic. I love you," said Sam, swerving to +avoid a rabbit. "And what's more, you know it." + +"I don't care." + +"You will!" said Sam confidently. "How about North Wales? I've heard +people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?" + +"I'm engaged to Bream Mortimer." + +"Oh no, that's all off," Sam assured her. + +"It's not!" + +"Right off!" said Sam firmly. "You could never bring yourself to marry a +man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. +Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away! +No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won't do!" + +This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not +bring herself to dispute it. + +"Anyway, I hate _you_!" she said, giving the conversation another turn. + +"Why? In the name of goodness, why?" + +"How dared you make a fool of me in your father's office that morning?" + +"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think +well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a +lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out." + +"I shall never forgive you!" + +"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to +Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?" + +"I said I should never forgive you and I won't." + +"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going +on till you do." + +"Very well! Go on, then!" + +"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have +you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall +have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when +they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself +because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this +thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know +what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That +will be fun!" + +There was a long silence. + +"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam. + +Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered +road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious +discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There was something so +novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her +dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with +a desire to laugh. + +"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been +trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young Lochinvar' +the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm doing now, +and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those days a +helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man should +wear. Odd how fashions change!" + +Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any +inquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful +curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer. + +"_Why_ are you wearing that thing?" + +"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't +suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' head-wear, do you?" + +"But why did you ever put it on?" + +"Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the +drawing-room...." + +"What!" + +"Didn't I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in +the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and +started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline's china, so I thought I'd +better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of +musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So, what +with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide +somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall." + +"Were you inside there all the time we were...?" + +"Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn't it? Getting under the +bed, I mean." + +"Don't let's talk about Bream." + +"That's the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won't. Let's +get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?" + +"But why did you come to the house at all?" + +"To see you." + +"To see me! At that time of night?" + +"Well, perhaps not actually to see you." Sam was a little perplexed for +a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his +true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had +begun to exist between them. "To be near you! To be in the same house +with you!" he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right +note. "You don't know the anguish I went through after I read that +letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, will +you marry me?" + +Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road, +moved smoothly on. + +"Will you marry me?" + +Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with +thoughtful eyes. + +"Will you marry me?" + +The car raced on. + +"Will you marry me?" said Sam. "Will you marry me? Will you marry me?" + +"Oh, don't talk like a parrot," cried Billie. "It reminds me of Bream." + +"But will you?" + +"Yes," said Billie. + +Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for +the tyres. + +"Did you say 'yes'?" + +"Yes!" + +"Darling!" said Sam, leaning towards her. "Oh, curse this helmet!" + +"Why?" + +"Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me." + +"Let me try and get it off. Bend down!" + +"Ouch!" said Sam. + +"It's coming. There! How helpless men are!" + +"We need a woman's tender care," said Sam depositing the helmet on the +floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. "Billie!" + +"Sam!" + +"You angel!" + +"You're rather a darling after all," said Billie. "But you want keeping +in order," she added severely. + +"You will do that when we're married. When we're married!" he repeated +luxuriously. "How splendid it sounds!" + +"The only trouble is," said Billie, "father won't hear of it." + +"No, he won't. Not till it is all over," said Sam. + +He started the car again. + +"What are you going to do?" said Billie. "Where are you going?" + +"To London," said Sam. "It may be news to you but the old lawyer like +myself knows that, by going to Doctors' Commons or the Court of Arches +or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or +something, you can get a special licence and be married almost before +you know where you are. My scheme--roughly--is to dig this special +licence out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and +then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar's." + +"Oh, not a registrar's!" said Billie. + +"No?" + +"I should hate a registrar's." + +"Very well, angel. Just as you say. We'll go to a church. There are +millions of churches in London. I've seen them all over the place." He +mused for a moment. "Yes, you're quite right," he said. "A church is the +thing. It'll please Webster." + +"Webster?" + +"Yes, he's rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so +blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster's feelings. After +all, he brought us together." + +"Webster? How?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you all about that some other time," said Sam. "Just for +the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable? +Fine! Then off we go." + +The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily +as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had +only known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not +befallen them, for Sam was too happy to sing. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl on the Boat, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** + +***** This file should be named 20717.txt or 20717.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/7/1/20717/ + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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