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+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
+
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