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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42771 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      the Google Books Library Project. See
+      http://www.google.com/books?id=jE8gAAAAMAAJ
+
+
+
+
+
+HAPPY HOUSE
+
+The BARONESS VON HUTTEN
+
+
+
+
+HAPPY HOUSE
+
+by
+
+The BARONESS VON HUTTEN
+
+Author of "Pam," "Pam Decides," "Sharrow," "Kingsmead," etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+New York
+George H. Doran Company
+
+Copyright, 1920,
+By George H. Doran Company
+
+
+
+
+_TO MISS LILY BETTS_
+
+
+MY DEAR LILY: _We three, one of us in a chair, and two of us upside down
+on the grass-plot, have decided that this book must be dedicated to you,
+in memory of how we did not work on it at Sennen Cove, and how we did
+work on it here. So here it is, with our grateful love, from_
+
+  _Your affectionate_
+  _Richard, and Hetty, and B. v. H._
+  PENZANCE
+
+
+
+
+HAPPY HOUSE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Mrs. Walbridge stood at the top of the steps, a pink satin slipper in
+her hand, looking absently out into the late afternoon. The July
+sunlight spread in thick layers across the narrow, flagged path to the
+gate, and the shadows under the may tree on the left were motionless, as
+if cut out of lead. The path was strewn with what looked like
+machine-made snowflakes, and a long piece of white satin ribbon had
+caught on the syringa bush on the right of the green gate, and hung like
+a streak of whiter light across the leaves. Someone inside the house was
+playing a fox-trot, and sounds of tired laughter were in the air, but
+the well-known author, Mrs. Walbridge, did not hear them. She was
+leaning against the side of the door, recklessly crushing her new grey
+frock, and her eyes were fixed on the gate in the unseeing stare of
+utter fatigue. Presently the music stopped and the sudden silence seemed
+to rouse her, for, with a deep sigh and a little shake of the head that
+was evidently characteristic, she turned and went slowly into the house.
+
+A few minutes later a brisk-looking young man in a new straw hat came
+down the street and paused at the gate, peering up at the fanlight to
+verify his whereabouts. Number eighty-eight did not seem to satisfy
+him, but suddenly his eyes fell on the gate. On its shabby green were
+painted the words, very faded, almost undecipherable, "Happy House," and
+with a contented nod the young man opened the gate and went quickly up
+the steps. No one answered his ring, so he rang again. Again the silence
+was unbroken, but from somewhere far off he heard the sound of laughter
+and talking, and, peering forward into the little hall, he took a small
+notebook from his pocket and wrote a few words in it, whistling softly
+between his teeth. He was a freckled-faced young man with a tip-tilted
+nose, not in the least like the petals of a flower, and with a look of
+cheery cheekiness. After a moment he went into the passage and thrust
+his head into the open drawing-room door. The room was filled with
+flowers, and though the windows were wide open, it smelt close, as if it
+had already been full of people. The walls were covered with pink and
+white moiré paper, whose shiny surface was broken by various pictures.
+Watts's "Hope" in a gilt frame dominated the mantelpiece; a copy of "The
+Fighting Téméraire" faced it, and there were a good many photographs
+elaborately framed, grouped, like little families, in clusters. Between
+the windows hung an old, faded photogravure of "The Soul's Awakening,"
+and "Alone at Last" revealed its artless passion over a walnut
+chiffonier laden with small pieces of china. The young man in the straw
+hat, which was now pushed far back on his sweat-darkened fair hair,
+stood in the middle of the room and looked round, scratching his head
+with his pencil. His bright eyes missed nothing, and although he was
+plainly a young man full of buoyant matter-of-factness, there was scorn,
+not unkindly, but decided, in his merry but almost porcine eyes as he
+made mental notes of his surroundings.
+
+"Poor old girl," he muttered. "Hang that 'bus accident. I wish I'd been
+here in time for the party----" Then his shrewd face softened as the
+deeper meaning of the room reached him. It was ugly; it was commonplace,
+but it was more of a home than many a room his journalistic activities
+had acquainted him with. By a low, shabby, comfortable-looking arm-chair
+that stood near the flower-filled grate was a dark-covered table on
+which stood five photographs, all in shiny silver or leather frames. Mr.
+Wick stood over the table tapping his teeth softly with his pencil, and
+moving his lips in a way that produced a hollow tune. "So that's the
+little lot," he said to himself in a cheerful, confidential voice.
+"Three feminines and two masculines, as the Italians say. And very nice
+too. Her own corner, I bet. Yes, there's her fountain pen." He took it
+up and made a note of its make and laid it carefully down. There was a
+little fire-screen in the shape of a banner of wool embroidery on the
+table. "That's how she keeps the firelight out of her eyes when she's
+working in the winter. Poor old girl. What ghastly muck it is, too----
+Good thing for her the public likes it. Now, then, what about that bell?
+Guess I'll go and have another tinkle at it." He started to the door,
+when it was pushed further open and the owner of the house came in. Mr.
+Wick knew at the first glance that it was the owner of the house. A
+fattish, middle-aged man in brand new shepherd's plaid trousers and a
+not quite so new braided morning-coat.
+
+"Hallo! I--I beg your pardon----" the new-comer began, not at all in
+the voice of one who begs pardon. Mr. Wick waved his hand kindly.
+
+"Oliver Wick's my name," he explained. "I come from _Round the Fire_ for
+an account of the wedding, but I got mixed up with a rather good 'bus
+smash in Oxford Street, and that's why I'm late."
+
+"Oh, I see. Want a description of the wedding, do you? Clothes and so
+on? I'm afraid I'm not much good for that, but if you'll come into the
+garden I'll get one of my daughters to tell you. Some of the young
+people are still there, as a matter of fact."
+
+Mr. Walbridge had stopped just short of being a tall man. His
+figure had thickened and spread as he grew older and his hips were
+disproportionately broad, which gave him a heavy, clumsy look. In his
+reddish, rather swollen face were traces of what had been great beauty,
+and he had the unpleasant manner of a man who consciously uses his charm
+as a means to attain his own ends.
+
+"Come into the dining-room first and have a glass of the widow," he
+suggested, as he led the way down the narrow passage towards an open
+door at the back of the house.
+
+Mr. Wick, who had no inhuman prejudice against conviviality, followed
+him into the dining-room and partook, as his quick eyes made notes of
+everything on which they rested, of a glass of warmish, rather doubtful
+wine.
+
+"I suppose Mrs. Walbridge will give me five minutes?" the young man
+asked, setting down his glass and taking a cigarette from the very shiny
+silver case offered him by his host. Mr. Walbridge laughed, showing the
+remains of a fine set of teeth artfully reinforced by a skilled
+dentist.
+
+"Oh, yes. My wife will quite enjoy being interviewed. Women always like
+that kind of thing, and, between you and me and the gate-post," he
+poured some champagne into a tumbler and drank it before he went on,
+"interviewers don't come round quite as they used in her younger days."
+
+Mr. Wick despised the novels of the poor lady he had come to interview,
+but he was a youth not without chivalry, and something in his host's
+manner irritated him.
+
+"She has a very good book public, anyhow, has Violet Walbridge. You
+mustn't mind me calling her that. I shouldn't call Browning Mr.
+Browning, you know, or Victoria Cross Miss Cross."
+
+Walbridge nodded. "Oh, yes, they're pretty stories, pretty stories,
+though I like stronger stuff myself. Just re-reading 'L'Assommoir'
+again. Met Zola once when I was living in Paris. Always wondered how he
+smashed his nose. Well, if you're ready, let's come down into the garden
+where the ladies are."
+
+The garden of Happy House was a long narrow strip almost entirely
+covered by a grass tennis court, and bounded by a narrow, crowded,
+neglected herbaceous border. As he stood at the top of the steep flight
+of steps leading down to where the group of young people were sprawled
+about in dilapidated old deck-chairs or on the grass, Mr. Wick's quick
+eyes saw the herbaceous border, and, what is more, they understood it.
+It was a meagre, squeezed, depressed looking attempt, and the young man
+from Brondesbury knew instinctively that, whereas the tennis court was
+loved by the young people of the family, the wild and pathetic flowers
+belonged to the old lady he had come to interview. Somehow he seemed to
+know, as he told his mother later, quite a lot about Violet Walbridge,
+just through looking at her border.
+
+The sun was setting now, and a little wind had come up, stirring the
+leaves on the old elm under whose shade, erratic and scant, the little
+group were seated. Three or four young men were there, splendid, if
+rather warm, in their wedding garments, and several young women and
+girls, the pretty pale colours of their fine feathers harmonising
+charmingly with the evening. At the far end of the garden a lady was
+walking, with a blue silk sunshade over her shoulder. As the two men
+came down the steps Mr. Walbridge pointed to her.
+
+"There's my wife," he said. "Shall I come and introduce you?"
+
+"No, thank you. No, no, I'll go by myself," the young man answered
+hastily, and as he went down across the lawn he heard a girl's voice
+saying laughingly: "Reporter to interview Mrs. Jellaby." The others
+laughed, not unkindly, but their laughter lent to Mr. Wick's approach to
+Mrs. Walbridge a deference it might otherwise not have had. She had not
+heard him coming, and was standing with her back to him, her head and
+shoulders hidden by the delphinium-blue sunshade, and when she turned,
+starting nervously at the sound of his voice, he realised with painful
+acuteness that delphinium blue is not the colour to be worn by daylight
+by old ladies. Her thin, worn face, in which the bones showed more than
+in any face he had ever seen, was flooded with the blue colour that
+seemed to fill all the hollows and lines with indigo, and her large
+sunken eyes, on which the upper eyelids fitted too closely, must have
+been, the young man noticed, beautiful eyes long ago. They were of that
+most rare eye-colour, a really dark violet, and the eyebrows on the very
+edge of the clearly defined frontal bone were slightly arched and well
+marked over the temples. When he had told her who he was and his errand,
+she flushed with pleasure and held out her hand to him, and he, whose
+profession is probably second only to that of dentistry in its
+unpopularity, was touched by her simple pleasure.
+
+"My Chief thought the public would be interested in the wedding. He
+tells me this daughter--the bride, I mean--was the original of--of--one
+of your chief heroines."
+
+Violet Walbridge led the way to an old, faded green garden seat, on
+which they sat down.
+
+"Yes, she's the original of 'Rose Parmenter,'" she helped him out
+gently, without offence at his having forgotten the name. "I wish you
+had seen her. But you can say that she was looking beautiful, because
+she was----"
+
+Mr. Wick whipped out his notebook and his beautifully sharpened pencil,
+contrived a little table of his knees, and looked up at her.
+
+"'Rose Parmenter'--oh, yes. That's one of your best-known books, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes, that and 'Starlight and Moonlight.' They sold best, though 'One
+Maid's Word' has done very well. That," she added slowly, "has been done
+into Swedish, as well as French and German. 'Queenie's Promise' has been
+done into six languages."
+
+Her voice was very low, and peculiarly toneless, but he noticed a little
+flush of pleasure in her thin cheeks--a flush that induced him, quite
+unexpectedly to himself, to burst out with the information that a friend
+of his sister--Jenny _her_ name was--just revelled in his companion's
+works. "Give me a box o' chocs," Kitty will say, "and one of Violet
+Walbridge's books, and I wouldn't change places with Queen Mary."
+
+Without being urged, Mrs. Walbridge gave the young man details he
+wanted--that her daughter's name was Hermione Rosalind; that she was the
+second daughter and the third child, and that she had married a man
+named Gaskell-Walker--William Gaskell-Walker.
+
+"He belongs to a Lancashire family, and they've gone to the Lakes for
+their honeymoon." The author waved her thin hand towards the group of
+young people at the other end of the lawn. "There's the rest of my
+flock," she said, her voice warming a little. "The tall man who's
+looking at his watch is my other son-in-law, Dr. Twiss of Queen Anne
+Street, Cavendish Square. He married my eldest daughter, Maud, four
+years ago. Their little boy was page to-day. He's upstairs asleep now."
+
+As she spoke one of the girls in the group left the others and came
+towards her and Wick.
+
+"This is your daughter, too?" the young man asked, a little throb of
+pleasure in his voice.
+
+"Yes, this," Mrs. Walbridge answered, taking the girl's hand, "is my
+baby, Griselda. Grisel, dear, this is Mr.--Mr.----"
+
+"Wick," said the young man. "Oliver Wick."
+
+"You've come to interview Mum?" Miss Walbridge asked, a little
+good-natured raillery in her voice.
+
+The young man bowed. "Yes. I represent _Round the Fire_, and my Chief
+thought that the public would be interested in an account of the
+wedding----" His eyes were glued to the young girl's face. She was very
+small, and, he thought to himself, the blackest white girl he had ever
+seen; so dark that if he had not known who she was he might have
+wondered whether she were not the whitest black girl--her hair was
+coal-black and her long eyes like inkwells, and her skin, smooth as
+vellum, without a touch of colour, was a rich golden brown. She was
+charmingly dressed in canary-coloured chiffon, and round her neck she
+wore a little necklet of twisted strands of seed pearls, from which hung
+a large, beautifully cut pearl-shaped topaz.
+
+"I came to tell you, Mum," she went on, glancing over her shoulder at
+one of the upper windows, "that Hilary's awake and bawling his head off,
+and Maud wants you to go up to him."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge rose and Wick noticed, although he could not have
+explained it, how very different were her grey silk draperies from the
+yellow ones of her daughter. She had, moreover, sat down carelessly, and
+the back of her frock was crushed and twisted.
+
+"It's my little grandson," she explained. "He's always frightened when
+he wakes up. I'll go to him. Perhaps you'd like my daughter to show you
+the wedding presents, Mr. Wick."
+
+Oliver Wick was very young, and he was an ugly youth as well, but
+something about him held the girl's attention, in spite of his being
+only a reporter. This something, though she did not know it, was power,
+so it was perfectly natural that the little, spoilt beauty should lead
+him into the house to the room upstairs where the presents were set
+forth. His flowery article in the next number of _Round the Fire_
+expressed great appreciation of the gifts, but there was no detailed
+account of them, and that was because, although he looked at them and
+seemed to see what he was looking at, he really saw nothing but Miss
+Walbridge's enchanting little face.
+
+"Do you ever read any of Mum's novels?" the girl asked him at last, as
+they stood by the window, looking down over the little garden into the
+quiet, tree-bordered road.
+
+The young man hesitated, and she burst out laughing, pointing a finger
+of scorn at him.
+
+"You've not?" she cried. "Own up. You needn't mind. I'm sure I don't
+blame you; they're awful rubbish--poor old Mum! I often wonder who it is
+_does_ read them."
+
+As she finished speaking, the door into the back room opened, and Mrs.
+Walbridge came out, carrying the little boy who had been crying. His
+long, fat legs, ending in shiny patent leather slippers, hung limply
+down, and his towsled fair head leant on her shoulder. He was dressed in
+cavalier costume of velvet and satin, and his fat, stupid face was
+blotted and blurred with tears. He looked so very large and heavy, and
+Mrs. Walbridge looked so small and old and tired that the young man went
+towards with his arms held out.
+
+"Let me carry him down for you," he said. "He's too heavy----"
+
+Griselda laughed. "My mother won't let you," she said gaily. "She always
+carries him about. She's much stronger than she looks."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge didn't speak, but, with a little smile, went out of the
+room and slowly downstairs. Her daughter shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Mum's not only superannuated as to novels," she announced, smoothing
+her hair in front of a glass; "she's the old-fashioned mother and
+grandmother. She won't let us do a thing."
+
+Her bright beauty had already cast a small spell on the young man, but
+nevertheless he answered her in a flash:
+
+"Do you ever try?"
+
+She stared for a moment. In spite of his journalistic manner and what is
+really best described as his cheek, Oliver Wick was a gentleman, and the
+girl had instinctively accepted him as such. But at the abrupt, frank
+censure in his voice she drew herself up and assumed a new manner.
+
+"Now that you've seen the presents," she said, in what he knew she
+thought to be a haughty tone, "I think I must get back to my friends."
+
+He grinned. "Righto! Sorry to have detained you. But I haven't quite
+finished my talk with Mrs. Walbridge. I'm sure she won't mind giving me
+a few tips about her next book. Our people love that kind of
+thing--_eat_ it."
+
+He cast his eye about the pleasant sunny room, and then, as he reached
+the door, stopped.
+
+"I suppose this is _your_ room?" he asked, with bland disregard of her
+manner.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well--different kinds of pictures, you know; brown wallpaper, and
+that's a good Kakemono. Hanabosa Iccho, isn't it?"
+
+Miss Walbridge's face expressed surprise too acute to be altogether
+courteous.
+
+"I--I don't know," she said. "I know it's a very good one. Mother bought
+it for Paul--that's my brother--he's very fond of such things--for his
+birthday and at Christmas--his room is being painted, so some of his
+things are in here."
+
+The young man looked admiringly at the grey and white study of monkeys
+and leaves.
+
+"I've got an uncle who collects them," he said, "and that's a jolly good
+one. I suppose that Mrs. Walbridge goes in for Japanese art too?"
+
+"Poor mother!" The girl laughed. "She doesn't know a Kakemono from a
+broomstick. Paul found that one at some sale and asked her to give it to
+him."
+
+They went slowly down the stairs, the girl's pretty white hand sliding
+lightly along the polished rail in a way that put all thought of
+Japanese art out of the young man's active mind. He was going to be a
+great success, for he had the conquering power of concentrating not only
+his thoughts but his feelings on one thing at a time; and for the moment
+the only thing in the world was Griselda Walbridge's left hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Happy House was a big old house with rooms on both sides of the door,
+and a good many bedrooms, but it was old-fashioned in the wrong way,
+like a man's straw hat, say, of the early seventies. It was inconvenient
+without being picturesque. There was only one bathroom, and the passages
+were narrow. Most of the children had been born there, indeed all of
+them except Paul, for the prudent Mrs. Walbridge had bought it out of
+the proceeds of her first book, "Queenie's Promise"--a book that is even
+now dear to thousands of romantic hearts in obscure homes. Paul had been
+born in the little house at Tooting Bec, for there it was that the Great
+Success had been written. In those days might have been seen walking
+under the fine trees of the common, a little dowdy figure with a bustle
+and flowing unhygienic draperies, that was the newly married Mrs.
+Ferdinand Walbridge, in the throes of literary invention. But just
+before the birth of Maud Evelyn the removal had been made; the hastily
+gathered, inexpensive household gods had been carried by the faithful
+Carter Paterson to Walpole Road and set up in their over-large, rather
+dwarfing shrine. Those were the days of limitless ambition and mad, rosy
+dreams, when Ferdinand was still regarded by his young wife much in the
+way that Antony Trollope's heroines worshipped their husbands a short
+time before. The romantic light of the runaway match still hung round
+him and his extraordinary good looks filled her with unweakened pride.
+
+They hung up Mr. Watts's "Hope," the beautiful and touching "Soul's
+Awakening" (which, indeed, bore a certain resemblance to Walbridge at
+that time), she arranged her little odds and ends of china, and her few
+books that her father had sent her after the half-hearted reconciliation
+following Paul's birth, and one of the first things they bought was a
+gilt clock, representing two little cupids on a see-saw. Mrs.
+Walbridge's taste was bad, but it was no worse than the taste of the
+greater part of her contemporaries of her own class, for she belonged
+body and soul to the Philistines. She hadn't even an artistic uncle
+clinging to the uttermost skirts of the pre-Raphaelites to lighten her
+darkness, and, behold, when she had made it, her little kingdom looked
+good to her. She settled down light-heartedly and without misgivings, to
+her quadruple rôle of wife, mother, housekeeper and writer. She had no
+doubt, the delicate little creature of twenty, but that she could
+"manage" and she had been managing ever since. She managed to write
+those flowery sentimental books of hers in a room full of crawling,
+experimental, loud-voiced babies; she managed to break in a series of
+savage handmaidens, who married as soon as she had taught them how to do
+their work; she managed to make flowers grow in the shabby, weed-grown
+garden; she managed to mend stair-carpets, to stick up fresh wallpapers,
+to teach her children their prayers and how to read and write; she
+managed to cook the dinner during the many servantless periods. The fate
+of her high-born hero and heroine tearing at her tender heart, while
+that fabulous being, the printer's devil, waited, in a metaphorical
+sense, on her doorstep. But most of all, she managed to put up with
+Ferdinand. She had loved him strongly and truly, but she was a
+clear-sighted little woman, and she could not be fooled twice in the
+same way, which, from some points of view, is a misfortune in a wife. So
+gradually she found him out, and with every bit of him that crumbled
+away, something of herself crumbled too. Nobody knew very much about
+those years, for she was one of those rare women who have no confidante,
+and she was too busy for much active mourning. Ferdinand was an
+expensive luxury. She worked every day and all day, believed in her
+stories with a pathetic persistence, cherishing all her press
+notices--she pasted them in a large book, and each one was carefully
+dated. She had a large public, and made a fairly large, fairly regular
+income, but there never was enough money, because Walbridge not only
+speculated and gambled in every possible way, but also required a great
+deal for his own personal comforts and luxuries. For years it was the
+joy of the little woman's heart to dress him at one of the classic
+tailors in Savile Row; his shirts and ties came from a Jermyn Street
+shop, his boots from St. James's Street, and his gloves (he had very
+beautiful hands) were made specially for him in the Rue de Rivoli. For
+many years Ferdinand Walbridge (or Ferdie, as he was called by a large
+but always changing circle of admiring friends) was one of the most
+carefully dressed men in town. He had an office somewhere in the city,
+but his various attempts at business always failed sooner or later, and
+then after each failure he would settle down gently and not ungratefully
+to a long period of what he called rest.
+
+When the three elder children were eight, six and three, a very bad time
+had come to "Happy House." Little had been known about it except for the
+main fact that Mr. Walbridge was made a bankrupt. But Caroline Breeze,
+the only woman who was anything like an intimate friend of the
+household, knew that there was, over and above this dreadful business, a
+worse trouble.
+
+Caroline Breeze was one of those women who are not unaffectionately
+called "a perfect fool" by their friends, but she was a close-mouthed,
+loyal soul, and had never talked about it to anyone. But years
+afterwards, when the time had come for her to speak, she spoke, out of
+her silent observation, to great purpose. For a long time after his
+bankruptcy Ferdie Walbridge walked about like a moulting bird; his
+jauntiness seemed to have left him, and without it he wilted and became
+as nothing. During this three years Mrs. Walbridge for the first time
+did her writing in the small room in the attic--the small room with the
+sloping roof and the little view of the tree-tops and sky of which she
+grew so fond, and which, empty and desolate though it was, had gradually
+grown to be called the study; and that was the time when Caroline Breeze
+was of such great use to her. For Caroline used to come every day and
+take the children, as she expressed it, off their mother's hands.
+
+In '94 Mrs. Walbridge produced "Touchstones," in '95 "Under the Elms"
+and in '96 "Starlight and Moonlight." It was in '98 that there appeared
+in the papers a small notice to the effect that Mr. Ferdinand Walbridge
+was discharged from his bankruptcy, having paid his creditors twenty
+shillings in the pound.
+
+Naturally, after this rehabilitation, Mr. Walbridge became once more his
+charming and fascinating self, and was the object of many
+congratulations from the entirely new group of friends that he had
+gathered round him since his misfortune.
+
+"Most chaps would have been satisfied to pay fifteen shillings in the
+pound," more than one of these gentlemen declared to him, and Ferdie
+Walbridge, as he waved his hand and expressed his failure to comprehend
+such an attitude, really almost forgot that it was his wife and not
+himself who had provided the money that had washed his honour clean.
+
+Caroline Breeze, faithful and best of friends, lived up three pairs of
+stairs in the Harrow Road, and one of her few pleasures was the keeping
+of an accurate and minute record of her daily doings. Perhaps some
+selections from the diary will help to bring us up to date in the story
+of "Happy House."
+
+_October_, 1894--_Tuesday._--Have been with poor Violet. Mr. Walbridge
+has been most unfortunate, and someone has made him a bankrupt. It is a
+dreadful blow to Violet, and poor little Hermy only six weeks old.
+Brought Maud home for the night with me. She's cutting a big tooth. Gave
+her black currant jam for tea. Do hope the seeds won't disagree with
+her....
+
+_Wednesday._--Not much sleep with poor little Maud. Took her round and
+got Hermy in the pram, and did the shopping. Saw Mr. Walbridge for a
+moment. He looks dreadfully ill, poor man. Told me he nearly shot
+himself last night. I told him he must bear up for Violet's sake....
+
+_A week later._--Went to "Happy House" and took care of the children
+while Violet was at the solicitors. She looks frightfully ill and
+changed, somehow. I don't quite understand what it is all about. Several
+people I know have gone bankrupt, and none of their wives seem as upset
+as Violet....
+
+_November 5th._--Spent the day at "Happy House" looking after the
+children. Violet had to go to the Law Courts with Mr. Walbridge. He
+looked so desperate this morning that I crept in and hid his razors. He
+dined at the King's Arms with some of his friends, and Violet and I had
+high tea together. She looks dreadfully ill, and the doctor says she
+must wean poor little Hermy. She said very little, but I'm afraid she
+blames poor Mr. Walbridge. I begged her to be gentle with him, and she
+promised she would, but she looked so oddly at me that I wished I hadn't
+said it.
+
+_November 20th._--Violet has moved into the top room next the nursery to
+be nearer the children. I must say I think this is wrong of her. She
+ought to consider her husband. He looks a little better, but my heart
+aches for him.
+
+_February_, 1895.--Violet's new book doing very well. Third edition out
+yesterday. She's getting on well with the one for the autumn. Such a
+pretty title--"Under the Elms." It's about a foundling, which I think is
+always so sweet. She's very busy making over the children's clothes.
+Ferdie (he says it is ridiculous that such an intimate friend as I am
+should go on calling him Mr. Walbridge) has gone to Torquay for a few
+weeks as he's very run down. Mem.--I lent him ten pounds, as dear Violet
+really doesn't seem quite to understand that a gentleman needs a little
+extra money when he's away. He was sweet about her. Told me how very
+good she was, and said that her not understanding about the pocket money
+is not her fault, as, of course, she is not quite so well born as he. He
+is very well connected indeed, though he doesn't care to have much to do
+with his relations. He's to pay me back when his two new pastels are
+sold. They are at Jackson's in Oxford Street, and look lovely in the
+window....
+
+_November_, 1895.--Violet's new book out to-day--"Under the Elms"--a
+sweet story. She gave me a copy with my name in it, and I sat up till
+nearly two, with cocoa, reading it. Very touching, and made me cry, but
+has a happy ending. I wish I had such a gift.
+
+_January 13th_, 1896.--Just had a long talk with poor Ferdie. He is
+really very unlucky. Had his pocket picked on his way home from the city
+yesterday with £86 15s. 4d. in his purse. Does not wish to tell poor
+Violet. It would distress her so. He had bought some shares in some kind
+of mineral--I forget the name--and they had gone up, and he had been
+planning to buy her a new coat and skirt, and a hat, and lovely presents
+for all the children. He's such a kind man. He was even going to buy six
+pairs of gloves for me. The disappointment is almost more than he can
+bear. Sometimes I think Violet is rather hard on him. I couldn't bear to
+see him so disappointed, so I am lending him £50 out of the Post Office
+Savings Bank. He's going to pay me six per cent. It's better than I can
+get in any other _safe_ investment. He's to pay me at midsummer.
+_N.B._--That makes £60.
+
+_February 12th_, 1896.--Paul's birthday. Went to tea to "Happy House."
+Violet made a beautiful cake with white icing, and had squeezed little
+pink squiggles all over it in a nice pattern. She gave him a fine new
+pair of boots and a bath sponge. His daddy gave him a drum--a real
+one--and a large box of chocolates.
+
+_February 13th_, 1896.--Ferdie came round at seven this morning to ask
+me to help nurse Paul. He was ill all night with nettle-rash in his
+throat, and nearly choked, poor little boy. I've been there all day.
+Susan told me Ferdie's grief in the night was something awful. It's a
+good thing Violet does not take things so to heart. Odd about the
+chocolate. It seems it's always given him nettle-rash.
+
+_September 4th_, 1896.--Darling Hermy's second birthday. Her mother made
+her a really lovely coat out of her Indian shawl. I knitted her a
+petticoat. Dear Ferdie gave her a huge doll with real hair, that talks,
+and a box of chocolates, which we took away from her, as Paul cried for
+some. Ferdie had quite forgotten that chocolates poison Paul. He was
+very wonderful this evening after the children had gone to bed. He had
+made some money (only a little) by doing some work in the city, and he
+had bought Violet a lovely pair of seed-pearl earrings. I suppose she
+was very tired, because she was really quite ungracious about them, and
+hurt his feelings dreadfully. There was also some trouble about the gas
+man, which I didn't quite understand. But afterwards, when I had gone
+upstairs to take a last look at the children, they had a talk, and as I
+came downstairs I saw him kneeling in front of her with his head in her
+lap. He has such pretty curly hair, and when I came in he came to me and
+took my hand and said he didn't mind my seeing his tears, as I was the
+same as a sister, and asked me to help influence her to forgive him, and
+to begin over again. It was very touching, and I couldn't help crying a
+little. I was so sorry for him. Violet is really rather hard. I
+suggested to her that after all many nice people go bankrupt, and that
+other women have far worse things to bear, and she looked at me very
+oddly for a moment, almost as if she despised me, though it can't have
+been that....
+
+_September 30th_, 1896.--Have been helping Violet move her things back
+into the downstairs room. Ferdie was so pleased. He brought home a great
+bunch of white lilac--in September!--and put it in a vase by the bed. I
+thought it was a lovely little attention.
+
+_July 4th_, 1897.--A beautiful little boy came home this morning to
+"Happy House." They are going to call him Guy, which is Ferdie's
+favourite name. He was dreadfully disappointed it wasn't a little girl,
+so that she could be named Violet Peace. He's so romantic. What a pity
+there is no masculine name meaning Peace....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr. Oliver Wick's ideas of courtship were primitive and unshakable. On
+one or two clever, ingenious pretexts he visited "Happy House" twice
+within the month after his first visit, in order, as he expressed it to
+himself, to look over Miss Walbridge in the light of a possible wife.
+That he was in love with her he recognised, to continue using his own
+language, "from the drop of the hat," "from the first gun." But although
+he belonged to the most romantic race under the sun, Mr. Wick was no
+fool, and whereas anything like a help-meet would have displeased him
+almost to the point of disgust, he had certain standards to which any
+one with claims to be the future Mrs. Oliver Wick must more or less
+conform. He didn't care a bit about money--he felt that money was his
+job, not the girl's--but she'd got to be straight, she'd got to be a
+good looker, and she'd got to be good-tempered. No shrew-taming for
+him--at least not in his own domestic circle.
+
+One evening, shortly after his third visit to "Happy House," the young
+man was standing at the tallboys in his mother's room in Spencer
+Crescent, Brondesbury, tying a new tie over an immaculate dress shirt.
+
+"I'm going to do the trick to-night," he declared, filled with pleasant
+confidence, "or bust."
+
+Mrs. Wick, who looked more like her son's grandmother than his mother,
+sat in a low basket chair by the window, stretching, with an old, thin
+pair of olive-wood glove stretchers, the new white gloves that were to
+put the final touch of splendour to the wooer's appearance.
+
+She was a pleasant-faced old woman, with a strong chin and keen, clear
+eyes, and when she smiled she showed traces of past beauty.
+
+"Well, of course," she said, snapping the glove-stretchers at him
+thoughtfully, "you know everything--you always did--and far be it from
+me to make any suggestions to you."
+
+He turned round, grinning, his ugly face full of subtle likeness to her
+handsome one.
+
+"Oh, go on," he jeered, "you wonderful old thing! Some day your pictures
+will be in the penny papers as the mother of Baron Wick of Brondesbury.
+Of course I know everything! Look at this tie, for instance. A
+Piccadilly tie, built for dukes, tied in Brondesbury by Fleet Street.
+What's his name--D'Orsay--couldn't do it better. But what were you going
+to say?"
+
+She laughed and held out the gloves. "Here you are, son. Only this. I
+bet you sixpence she won't look at you. She'll turn you down; refuse
+you; give you the cold hand; icy mit--what d'you call it? And then,
+you'll come back and weep on my shoulder."
+
+Mr. Wick, who had taken the gloves, stood still for a minute, his face
+full of sudden thought.
+
+"She may," he said, "she may. I don't care if she does. I tell you she's
+lovely, mother. She'd look like a fairy queen if the idiots who paint
+'em realised that fairies ought to be dark, and not tow-coloured. Of
+course she'll refuse me a few times, but her father'll be on my side."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he's a rather clever old scoundrel, and he'll know that I'm a
+succeeder--a getter."
+
+The old woman looked thoughtful. "I haven't liked anything you told me
+about _him_, Olly. But, after all, he has paid up, and lots of good men
+have been unfortunate in business."
+
+The young fellow took up his dress-coat, which was new and richly lined,
+and drew it on with care.
+
+"Oh, I'm not marrying into this family because I admire my future
+father-in-law," he answered. "I haven't any little illusions about him,
+old lady. It's his wife who's done the paying, or I'm very much
+mistaken. She's an honest woman--poor thing."
+
+There was such deep sympathy in his voice that his mother, who had
+risen, and was patting and smoothing the new coat into place on his
+broad shoulders, pulled him round till he faced her, and looked down at
+him, for she was taller than he.
+
+"Why are you so sorry for her?"
+
+He hesitated for a moment, and his hesitation meant much to her.
+
+"I don't know. She never says anything, of course. She seems happy
+enough, but I believe--I believe she's found him out----"
+
+"God help her," Mrs. Wick answered.
+
+The young man remembered this episode as he sat opposite his hostess at
+dinner an hour and a half later. The dining-room had been re-papered
+since he had drunk that glass of luke-warm wine in it the day of
+Hermione's wedding, and his sharp eyes noticed the absence of several
+ugly things that had been there then. Stags no longer hooted to each
+other across mountain chasms over the sideboard, and one or two good
+line drawings hung in their place.
+
+"How do you like it?" Griselda asked him. "Paul and I have been cheering
+things up a bit."
+
+"Splendid," he replied promptly. "I say, how beautiful your sister is!"
+
+Griselda's rather hard little face softened charmingly as she looked
+across the table, where the bride was sitting. Hermione Gaskell-Walker
+was a very handsome young woman in an almost classical way, and her
+short-sighted, clever-looking husband, who sat nearly opposite her,
+evidently thought so too, for he peered over the flowers at her in
+adoration that was plain and pleasing to see.
+
+"They've such a jolly house in Campden Hill. His father was Adrian
+Gaskell-Walker, the landscape painter, and collected things."
+
+Mr. Wick nodded, but did not answer, for he was busy making a series of
+those mental photographs, whose keenness and durability so largely
+contributed to his success in life. He had an amazing power of storing
+up records of incidents that somehow or other might come in useful to
+him, and this little dinner party, which he had decided to be a
+milestone on his road, interested him acutely in its detail.
+
+By candlelight, in perfect evening dress, Ferdinand Walbridge's slightly
+dilapidated charms were very manifest. On his right sat an elderly lady
+about whom Mr. Wick's apparatus recorded only one word--pearls.
+
+Next to her came Paul Walbridge, looking older than his twenty-nine
+years--thin, delicate, rather high shouldered, with remarkably glossy
+dark hair and immense soft, dove-coloured eyes. He looked far better
+bred, the young man decided, than he had any right to look; his hands,
+in particular, might have been modelled by Velasquez.
+
+"Supercilious----" Wick thought, and then paused, not adding the "ass"
+that had come into his mind, for he knew that Paul Walbridge was not an
+ass, although he would have liked to call him one.
+
+Next Paul came the beautiful Hermione, with magnificent shoulders white
+as flour, and between her and her mother sat a man named Walter
+Crichell, a portrait painter, one of the best in the secondary school--a
+man with over-red lips and short white hands with unpleasant, pointed
+fingers.
+
+"That fellow's a stinker," Wick decided, never to change his mind.
+
+Next came the hostess, thin, worn, rather silent, in the natural
+isolation of an old woman sitting between two young men, each of whom
+had youth and beauty on his far side.
+
+Then, of course, came Oliver himself and Grisel. Next to Grisel,
+Gaskell-Walker, the lower part of whose face was clever, but who would
+probably find himself handicapped by the qualities belonging to too
+high, too straight a forehead; and next him, consequently on the host's
+left, sat Crichell's wife. Young Wick could not look at her very
+comfortably without leaning forward, but he caught one or two glimpses
+of her face as Walbridge bent over her, and promised himself a good look
+in the drawing-room. She was worth it, he knew. A soft, velvety brown
+creature, a little on the fat side, but rather beautiful. It was plain,
+too, that the old man admired her.
+
+Mr. Wick studied his host's face for a moment as he thus completed his
+circle of observation, and so strong were his feelings as he looked at
+Mr. Walbridge that quite unintentionally he said "Ugh!" aloud.
+
+"What did you say?" It was Mrs. Walbridge who spoke--her first remark
+for quite a quarter of an hour--and in her large eyes was the anxious,
+guilty look of one who has allowed herself to wool-gather in public.
+
+Wick started, blushed scarlet, and then burst out laughing at his
+dilemma.
+
+"I didn't say anything," he answered. "I was only thinking. I beg your
+pardon, Mrs. Walbridge."
+
+Her worn face softened into a kind smile, and he noticed that her teeth
+were even and very white.
+
+"It is awful, isn't it," she said, "to--to get thinking about things
+when one ought to be talking? I'm afraid I'm very dull for a young man
+to sit next."
+
+"Oh, come, Mrs. Walbridge," he protested, "when you know how they all
+lapped up that article I wrote about you."
+
+She bridled gently. "It was a very nice article." After a minute she
+added anxiously, her thin fingers pressing an old blue enamel brooch
+that fastened the rather crumpled lace at her throat: "Tell me, Mr.
+Wick, do you--do you really think that--that people like my books as
+much as they used to?"
+
+"You must have a very big public," he answered, wishing she had not put
+the question.
+
+"Yes, I know I have, but--you see, of course I'm not young any more, and
+the children--they know a great many people, and bring some of them here
+and--I've noticed that while they are all very kind, they don't seem to
+have--to have really read my books."
+
+"Don't they?" said Wick, full of sympathy. "Dear me!"
+
+She shook her head. "No, they really don't, and I've been wondering
+if--if it is that they're beginning to find me--a little old-fashioned."
+
+What he wanted to say in return for this was: "But, bless your heart,
+you _are_ old-fashioned, the old-fashionest old dear that ever lived!"
+What he did say was: "Well, I suppose lots of people think Thackeray and
+Dickens old-fashioned----" But when Grisel turned just then and fired
+some question at him, he felt a weak longing to mop his brow. It had
+been a narrow escape, and he would not have hurt the old lady's feelings
+for worlds. Something about this faded, exhausted-looking little old
+literary bee touched the young fellow in a quite new way.
+
+"Gosh!" he thought; "now if it was mother, she wouldn't let people think
+her old-fashioned; she wouldn't _be_ old-fashioned. My word, wouldn't
+she just sit up at night and write something to beat Wells, and Elinor
+Glyn, and the rest of them into a cocked hat!"
+
+Grisel, in white--white that would have done very well, he thought, in
+Grosvenor Square or St. James's--was in her best mood that night, and as
+they talked he felt himself slipping lower and lower into the
+abyss--that pleasant abyss on the edge of which he had hovered so many
+times before without letting himself go.
+
+It was then that the question of Bruce Collier's book rose. It was
+Crichell who brought up the subject, and as he described the book he
+enthusiastically waved his peculiarly white hands, which Mr. Wick
+thought, with some disgust, looked as if they were on the point of
+sprouting into horrid white tubers like potatoes in a dark cellar.
+
+"The finest book I've read for years," he declared. "Magnificent piece
+of work."
+
+"Walter's quite mad about it," his wife put in, leaning forward and
+making motions with her hand and throat like those of a sunning pigeon.
+"He dined with us last night--Mr. Collier--and he's an extraordinary
+creature. Never touched a drug in his life, yet he knows all about
+it--and as for the other things----" she shrugged her shoulders and
+laughed. Her husband shook his fist at her.
+
+"Now, Clara," he said, "curb that tongue of yours, my dear, or you'll
+shock Mrs. Walbridge. Have you read the book, Mrs. Walbridge, 'Reek'?"
+
+The little writer shook her head. "No, I haven't very much time for
+reading. I've just read 'The Rosary.' What a delightful book it is!"
+
+Grisel stretched her hand across Wick and took hold of her mother's.
+
+"Never mind, darling, you shan't be teased, and you mustn't read 'Reek.'
+I shouldn't dream of allowing you to."
+
+Walbridge, in whose handsome, swollen eyes a new little flame was
+showing, looked up from a whispered talk with Mrs. Crichell and smiled
+at his wife.
+
+"No, darling," he agreed, "I can't have you reading such books. It would
+ruin your style. I'm sure Mr. Wick agrees with me, don't you, Mr. Wick?
+Mr. Wick is a great admirer of your books," he added in an insufferable
+way.
+
+She didn't speak, but Wick saw her thin lips quiver a little, and
+hastened to answer:
+
+"I'm only a business man, Mr. Walbridge, and know nothing at all about
+literature, but I know this much--I bet the chap who wrote 'Reek' would
+give his eye-tooth to have Mrs. Walbridge's sales!"
+
+Hermione Gaskell-Walker raised her heavy-lidded eyes and smiled at him
+gratefully, as she murmured, "Darling mum," and, stimulated by his
+success, Mr. Wick ended the conversation by saying firmly, as Mrs.
+Walbridge caught the eye of the pearl lady: "Filthy book, anyhow; not
+fit to be read by ladies----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some hours later a not very crestfallen young man sat in the small
+dining-room of 11, Spencer Crescent, Brondesbury, and ate poached eggs
+on toast--he was always ready for poached eggs--and announced to his
+dressing-gowned and beslippered mother that the lady of his choice had
+rejected him.
+
+"Couldn't dream of it," he announced cheerfully, reaching for butter
+with his own knife in a way only permissible at such out-of-hour meals.
+"She pretended to be surprised, you know, and then, when that didn't
+work, she tried to assume that I was mad. Pretty little piece, she is,
+mother. Dimples in her lovely face she's got, and eyes like two little
+black suns, shining away----"
+
+His mother coughed drily. "You don't seem remarkably cast down," she
+observed, rubbing her nose with her thumb--a broad and capable thumb,
+"and here was I wasting my tissue in an agony of fear about my
+broken-hearted boy."
+
+He cocked his head as little snub-nosed dogs do, indeed, he all but
+cocked one ear, and his eyes twinkled.
+
+"You and your tissue, indeed! You don't think I thought she was going
+to jump down my throat, do you? I'd hate a girl who took me first time.
+I like being refused--looks well. I hope she'll refuse me three or four
+times more."
+
+"If she could see you eat poached eggs in your shirt-sleeves, with all
+the varnish off your hair, she'd go on refusing you to the crack o'
+doom," retorted the old lady.
+
+Then they went to bed, and in five minutes the rejected one was snoring
+comfortably.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"Roseleaves and Lavender," Violet Walbridge's last novel, was selling
+pretty well, but a few days after the dinner party the author left her
+house about half-past eleven, mounted a No. 3 bus, settled herself in
+the prow and travelled down to the Strand in answer to a rather pressing
+invitation from her publishers.
+
+It was a fine October morning, with a little tang in the air, so
+windless that some early falling leaves left their boughs with an air of
+doubt and travelled very slowly, almost hesitatingly, towards the earth.
+All the smoke went straight up into the sky, and several caged birds on
+the route were singing loudly outside their windows. The bus was full of
+people, more or less all of them of the type who made Mrs. Walbridge's
+public, and there were, without doubt, several girls sitting almost
+within reach of her who would have felt it in the nature of an adventure
+to meet the author of "Queenie's Promise" and "One Maid's Word." It is
+interesting to think that there are fewer people who would genuinely
+thrill at the sight of George Meredith, if he were still alive, than
+would thrill at having met such a writer as Violet Walbridge. But no one
+knew who the little, dowdily dressed woman was, and her journey to
+Charing Cross was uneventful. God, who gives all mercies, gave the gift
+of vanity, and Mrs. Walbridge, although very humble-minded, was not
+without her innocent share in the consoling fault. More than once she
+had given herself the pleasure of telling some casually met stranger
+who she was. Once her yearly holiday at Bexhill had been given a glow of
+glory by the fact that she had by chance found the chambermaid at the
+little hotel, engrossed to the point of imbecility in "Starlight and
+Moonlight." Delicately, shyly, she had made known to the girl the fact
+of her identity, and the reverence, almost awe, of the poor ignorant
+servant in meeting the author of that splendid book had made her very
+happy for many hours.
+
+Another time a working man in a train had been quarrelling with his wife
+for the possession of a torn copy of "Aaron's Rod" (a book which Mrs.
+Walbridge privately considered a little strong), and as she got out of
+the train and the man handed her down her holdall, she had thrown the
+exciting information of her identity into his face and run for her life,
+feeling herself akin to Dickens, Miss Ethel M. Dell, Robert Louis
+Stevenson, and all the other great ones of the earth. But these splendid
+events had never been frequent, and of late years they had almost ceased
+to occur. And as the little lady got off the bus at Charing Cross and
+blundered apologetically into a tall, rosy-faced girl, who clutched _The
+Red Magazine_ to her breast, she wondered wistfully if the girl would
+have been delighted if she had told her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, publishers, had their offices in the Strand,
+and Mrs. Walbridge's appointment was for half-past eleven. She felt a
+little nervous and depressed as she went up in the lift, for Mr. Lubbock
+was a very imposing man, whose fine bay-windowed waistcoat always
+overawed her a little. However, it was probably the glory of the golden
+autumn day that had got on her nerves. She was always sad on such days,
+so she tried to look bold and successful as she passed Wheeler, the old
+clerk, Mr. Lubbock's right-hand man, whom she had known for a quarter of
+a century.
+
+Wheeler, however, did not respond to her remarks about the weather as he
+had once done, and when she had waited nearly half an hour her
+depression had grown still greater, and she was finally ushered into the
+inner office with hands and feet icy with fear.
+
+Harrison Lubbock, a large, abnormally clean-looking old gentleman, with
+a ruff of silky white hair round his polished scalp, greeted her kindly,
+but without enthusiasm.
+
+"I've asked you to call, Mrs. Walbridge," he began at once with a
+pronounced glance at the clock, "on a little matter of business. Mr.
+Payne and I have been talking things over of late--business matters you
+understand--and we have come to the conclusion that there are one or two
+of our authors to whom a few words of advice might be of use." He
+paused, and she looked at him anxiously.
+
+"I see," she said, her face growing a little paler. "I--I'm one of those
+authors?"
+
+He bowed, and the soft folds of his beautifully shaved double chin
+dropped a little lower over his high collar.
+
+"Yes, yes, quite so. You're a very old, shall I say, client?--of
+ours----"
+
+She would have liked to reply that at that moment the word patient might
+be more applicable to her, but she dared not, and after a moment he went
+on:
+
+"I think we may say that we are very old friends."
+
+This was awful. She was no business woman, and she had little knowledge
+of the world, but even she knew that it meant danger, in an interview
+avowedly a business interview, when friendship was invoked. She
+stammered something, and he went on:
+
+"Your books have sold--sell--very well, on the whole. We have done our
+best for them, and, as you know, the cost of publishing and
+advertising--particularly advertising--has nearly doubled since the
+war."
+
+Again he paused, and this time she bowed, being afraid to say that she
+knew conditions were such that her percentage on sales had gone down,
+while the sale price of her books had gone up to seven and six. She
+noticed Mr. Lubbock's sleeve-links; they were new ones and very neat, of
+gold and platinum. How she wished she could buy a pair like that for
+Paul! In the old days her envy would have been for Ferdie. Mr. Lubbock
+cleared his throat, fitted his fat finger-tips neatly together, and
+began to be sprightly.
+
+"Amazing how the output of books of fiction has increased of late years,
+isn't it? Dear me, I can remember when 2250 would have been considered a
+big output, and now there are so many good writers, so many excellent
+writers, Mrs. Walbridge, that we are forced by competition and market
+conditions to bring out nearly three times that number. I wonder if you
+have kept up with the new writers," he went on after a pause, "Mrs.
+Levett, Joan Kelly, Austen Goodheart, and so on--and Wanda Potter. Wanda
+Potter's last book sold over a hundred thousand."
+
+"I haven't read any of them, I'm afraid. I've so little time----" She
+tried to smile and felt as if her lips were freezing.
+
+"Just so, just so; exactly what I was saying to Payne. 'Mrs. Walbridge
+is a very busy woman,' I said to Payne. 'She hasn't time--she can't be
+_expected_ to have time--to read all these things, so it's quite natural
+that--that----'" He broke off, and taking up a little bronze figure of a
+poodle, that served as a paper weight, he examined it carefully for a
+moment. "I'm sure you understand what I mean, Mrs. Walbridge," he said
+at last.
+
+She was looking at the corner of his polished mahogany writing table;
+she was looking at two carefully jointed bits of wood, finely grained
+and smoothly welded together, but what she saw was "Happy House"; Ferdie
+and his new cedar cigar chest yawning to be filled; of an unpaid
+tailor's bill; of his annual cough (Ferdie coughed himself regularly to
+Torquay every autumn); she saw Paul and his new edition de luxe of
+Swinburne, and the Rowlandson "Horse Fair" he had taken her to see in
+King Street, St. James's--the "Horse Fair" that was to cost "only
+eighteen guineas." She saw the little sea-green frock that hung in the
+great Frenchman's window in Hanover Square, the little frock that would
+look so beautiful on Grisel. She saw a vision of a hecatomb of roasts of
+beef and saddles of mutton, and oysters, and burgundy, that she was
+longing to offer up to her family gods. She saw the natural skunk coat
+she had been planning to give to poor dear Caroline for Christmas. She
+saw the new bathroom, on which the men were already working, that was to
+be Grisel's. Then these things passed away, and the corner of the table
+again appeared, and Mr. Lubbock was saying, in that kind, dreadful voice
+of his: "I feel quite sure that you understand our position, Mrs.
+Walbridge, and, after all, the reduction is not of very great
+consequence."
+
+Before she could speak the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver
+and bent forward, politeness and courtesy expressed in every line of his
+big figure as clearly as if the telephone had been a person he was
+speaking to.
+
+"Oh--oh, yes, is that you, Payne?" she heard him say. "Yes, what an odd
+coincidence, she's here with me now!" and Mrs. Walbridge knew that it
+was no coincidence; that they had planned it all out between them, and
+for a moment she had a wild idea of flight. She would run and run down
+the narrow, dusty stairs and out into the street, and not hear any of it
+said. It seemed that she could bear the reduction of her money, but that
+she could not bear it discussed by these two men who held not only her,
+but "Happy House" and everybody in "Happy House" in the hollow of their
+hands. But she dared not move, and presently Mr. Payne came in.
+
+Mr. Payne was a little, yellowish-pink man, who looked like a weazel. He
+had lashless and browless blue eyes, and his nose was sharp and his
+teeth looked very sharp. He was brisk and brusque in his manner, and he
+dashed at the subject of the smaller price for the next book with an
+abruptness that was only one degree more bearable than Mr. Lubbock's
+smoothness.
+
+"Yes, yes," he declared, shaking hands rather violently. "I knew you
+understood, Mrs. Walbridge, didn't I, Lubbock? 'Mrs. Walbridge is a
+business woman,' I said, 'and of course she'll understand that the war
+has changed things very considerably, to say nothing of the--of
+the--ah--inevitable march of time.'"
+
+"I was telling Mrs. Walbridge," Lubbock joined in, "that I thought it
+would be a good plan for her to read some of the new books. Haven't we
+got Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'? Excellent story, excellent--and sells
+well." He called up someone on the telephone, and smiling into it,
+working his rough eyebrows genially, he gave orders for someone named
+Briggs to get Miss Potter's last book for Mrs. Walbridge. "Wait a
+minute, George. What other ones would you suggest? Oh, yes, and Mr.
+Goodheart's 'New Odyssey.' Useful book that," to Mrs. Walbridge. "You
+take them, with our compliments, and just--just go through them----"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge had risen and stood before the table, her hands clutching
+very hard at her shabby leather bag.
+
+Mr. Payne was about to speak, when something in her face stopped him.
+They had known her for years. They had treated her very well, and they
+had made a great deal of money out of her. But both of them felt at that
+moment that until then they had never quite known her. Her face was very
+white, and her immense hollow eyes were full of almost unbearable
+misery. But it was the bravery of her that struck them both.
+
+"Do I understand," she said quietly, "that you mean that I am
+old-fashioned--too old-fashioned?" They did not answer, and she went on,
+not realising that they both felt that she had turned the tables on
+them. "You mean that my books don't sell so well as they did because
+they are not up to date, because I'm--old."
+
+"Good gracious, Mrs. Walbridge," broke in Mr. Payne, with the horrid
+facetiousness of well-meaning vulgarity, "what an idea! We simply mean
+that because you are so busy you have not had time to--how shall I say
+it?--to keep exactly up to date. But a lady with your gifts and your
+great experience is not going to pretend that she finds any difficulty
+in changing this----"
+
+She bowed. "Thank you, Mr. Payne. I think I understand. My new book
+would have been ready in a few days, but if you can give me an extra
+fortnight, I'll go through it again and try to--to modernise it a
+little."
+
+Then she said good morning, and went quietly out.
+
+Mr. Lubbock let himself heavily down into his swivel chair.
+
+"Dear me," he said, being a man of unblemished vocabulary, "that was
+very unpleasant, Payne."
+
+Mr. Payne lit a cigarette. "It was beastly," he retorted, blinking
+rapidly through the smoke. "Upon my word, it's quite upset me. Poor old
+thing! She'll never be able to do it, Lubbock. Never in this world. By
+God, it's quite upset me! I'll have a pint of champagne for my lunch."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Violet Walbridge had a little shopping to do. She had to go to
+Sketchley's to get some blouses that had been cleaned for Griselda; she
+went to Selfridges for a paper box of opened oysters for Paul, who was
+at home with a cold; and she had two bills to pay in Oxford Street. When
+these things were done, and she had bought a bunch of chrysanthemums
+from a flower-girl, she took her place near the kerb and waited for her
+bus. And then it was that the malicious gods struck her their final blow
+for that day. Two young women stood near her, laden with parcels,
+cheerfully talkative. One of them had been to a dance the night before;
+the other one's baby had a new tooth, a very remarkable tooth, it
+seemed, and both of them were in a state of pleasant turmoil and fret
+about frocks that they were having made. Mrs. Walbridge listened to them
+innocently, standing first on one foot and then on the other to rest
+herself, her various parcels hugged close under her arms, the oysters
+borne like a sacred offering in both hands.
+
+"Dear me," one of the young women said suddenly, "it's after one
+o'clock!"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge started, for one o'clock was her lunch hour, and her
+husband was very particular about punctuality in others.
+
+"I meant to pop in to the _Times_ Book Club and get something to read,"
+declared the mother of the baby with the new tooth, "but it's too late.
+Have you read that thing 'Reek'? I've forgotten who it's by--somebody
+new."
+
+"No. I've been down for it for days and days, but I can't get it. I've
+read a splendid new book, though--Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'--awfully
+clever, and Joan Kelly's 'Ploughshares.'"
+
+"I had an ulcerated tooth the other day," answered her friend, "and
+couldn't go out, and sent Winnie to Boots' with a list of books, and
+they were all out, so that nice red-haired girl--_you_ know--picked out
+some herself and sent me, and guess what one of them was. Violet
+Walbridge's last one--'Rosemary and Lavender'--or something----"
+
+The other one laughed. "Oh, I know. 'Sage and Onions,' George calls it.
+_Awful_ trash--can't stand her nowadays."
+
+A bus arrived at that moment, and the two young women going on top, Mrs.
+Walbridge crept inside, and sat crushed between two large uncomfortable
+women, her face bent over the oysters.
+
+"'Sage and Onions,'" she kept repeating under her breath, "'Sage and
+Onions'----"
+
+Ferdie was very much annoyed because she was late for lunch, and called
+her very selfish to be out parading the streets doing idiotic errands
+when she ought to be at home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Lord Effingham" was the book on which Mrs. Walbridge was at work, and
+she sat the greater part of the next three nights reading the books that
+Mr. Lubbock had given her, with a view to freshening up her nearly
+finished novel. She could not read during the day, because she had too
+much to do.
+
+The plumbers had played havoc with the house in getting the new bathroom
+in, and the cook had to leave even more unexpectedly than cooks
+generally leave because her only sister was marrying and she had to go
+home and look after her mother. This domestic complication is familiar
+to many, but it didn't make it any easier for Mrs. Walbridge. Nor did
+things improve when Maud Twiss and her husband went for a second
+honeymoon to Ireland, leaving little Hilary at "Happy House."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge loved her grandson; but he was a querulous, spoilt child,
+and at the best of times his presence was upsetting. Now, with no cook,
+with plumbers and the dreadful necessity of modernising "Lord
+Effingham," the little boy nearly drove her mad.
+
+One morning, about four weeks after her interview with Mr. Lubbock, she
+was sitting in her little attic at the back of the house, surrounded by
+closely written sheets of foolscap into which she had red-inked her
+desperate efforts at enlivening--Lady Tryx, the heroine, had started on
+a new career of endless cigarettes and cocktails, and a hitherto
+blameless housemaid, who at first had been dismissed by an unkind
+countess on a charge of theft, was now burdened with an illegitimate
+baby; but even this failed to brighten up the dull level of decency that
+was so discouraging to the publishers. Violet Walbridge was a failure at
+illegitimacy and lawless passion, and, what was worse, she knew it.
+
+It was cold up in the attic, for there was no fireplace, and something
+had gone wrong with her oil-stove. Paul had promised to see to it before
+going to the City that morning, but he had forgotten, so his mother had
+to put an old flannel dressing-gown on over her ordinary clothes and
+wrap her aching feet in a shawl. Her hands were covered with red ink,
+for her cheap stylographic pen leaked, and her pretty black hair, wavy
+and attractively threaded with white, was tumbled and loose.
+
+She was utterly discouraged and unhappy about the book. "Lord
+Effingham," with ridiculous perseverance, insisted on pursuing his so
+blightingly blameless career. Her effort had put the book, such as it
+was, completely out of shape, and she could have cried with despair as
+she sat there staring through the curtainless window at the sky. Her
+burden was so very great, and it made it worse, although she had always
+prided herself on keeping her secret, that no one knew how utterly
+dependent the whole household of "Happy House" was on her books.
+
+Her husband had an office and regarded himself as a business man; Paul
+worked in a bank, and poor Guy had been called up and was in France. (He
+had been with some stockbrokers in the City.) But none of them had ever
+contributed anything serious to the upkeep of the house.
+
+Paul's salary was small, and his mother considered that the poor boy
+really needed all that he made, because he was one of those people who
+are very dependent on beautiful surroundings. He was a poet, too, and
+had written some charming verse, most of which was still unpublished,
+but every line of which was carefully copied in a vellum covered book
+someone had sent to his mother one Christmas from Florence.
+
+Somehow that morning her mind was full of the now long absent Guy. Guy
+was the troublesome one. They were all tabulated in her mind--Hermione
+being the beauty, and Maud, "my eldest girl," while Paul was artistic.
+
+There had been scrapes in Guy's early days (he was only twenty-one now).
+Certainly his tendencies had been inherited from his father--full grown
+cap-â-pie tendencies they were, sprung whole, it seemed, from Ferdie's
+brain, as Pallas Athene sprang from her father, Zeus's. The boy was fond
+of billiards and devoted to horses, and there had been a time--a very
+tragic time--when he had shown signs of being too fond of whisky and
+soda. But that was past. Twice he had been home on leave from the front,
+and he had undoubtedly improved in many ways.
+
+A year ago there had been an Entanglement--(Mrs. Walbridge thought of it
+with a capital in her mind)--with a young Frenchwoman in Soho, but that
+too seemed to have died down and now that the war was certainly going to
+end before long--this dreadful war to which we in England had so
+dreadfully become accustomed--he would be coming back. She sighed, for
+Guy's return would mean an even severer strain on her resources. He was
+rather a dandy and fond of clothes, but he had grown and expanded of
+late, and would need new things.
+
+She looked down with something very much like hatred at the impeccable
+"Lord Effingham," whose persistent virtue and the wholesome tendencies
+of whose female friends were such drawbacks to her living children.
+
+She struggled on and wrote a few pages, realising that the
+interpolations she had made were as clumsy and damaging to her story as
+were the red ink words that expressed them to the fair sheets of her
+manuscript.
+
+Presently she heard footsteps, and a familiar little cough, coming up
+the stairs. It was Ferdinand coming, she knew, for a talk with her about
+his visit to Torquay.
+
+"Dear me, Violet, why can't you write downstairs like a Christian," he
+began fretfully, turning up his coat collar and plunging his hands into
+his trouser pockets. "All this affectation of needing quiet and solitude
+for such work as yours is simply ridiculous."
+
+She glanced up at him without moving. "I'm sorry, Ferdie," she said
+gently, "but indeed it isn't affectation. I really can't work when
+people are going in and out, and poor little Hilary is so noisy."
+
+"Poor little Hilary! Damn nonsense! I slept very badly last night, and
+had just got nicely off this morning about half-past nine, when he came
+into my room and waked me--wanted my boot-jack for a boat, little
+beast!"
+
+"Oh, I _am_ sorry--I told him he mustn't disturb you. I'd just gone down
+to show Jessie how to make the mince----"
+
+"Jessie's cooking is abominable. I don't know why you haven't got
+someone by this time."
+
+When Ferdie's indignation had died away, he began again.
+
+"What I want to know is about my rooms at Torquay. Has Mrs. Bishop
+written?"
+
+"Yes. Her letter came this morning. I've got it somewhere here"--she
+rummaged about, but failed to find the letter. "I must have left it
+downstairs. She says she can't let you have the front room, because some
+general has got it and is going to stay all winter."
+
+"Damnation! Just the kind of thing that always happens to me."
+
+The clear morning light, falling undiluted from the sky, seemed to
+expose his mean soul almost cruelly, and his wife turned her eyes
+hastily away. She had known him now, as he really was, for many years
+and yet somehow the memory of what he had once seemed to be, what he had
+been to her, in her loving imagination, came back to her with painful
+force, and smote her to the heart.
+
+"She says there is a very nice room at the back----"
+
+He rose impatiently, waving his beautiful hands, on which the veins were
+beginning to stand out ominously.
+
+"Oh, of course, you _would_ think it delightful for me to have a room at
+the back. Nobody but _you_ ever _does_ appreciate beauty, views or
+anything of that kind. When am I to go?"
+
+"The room will be ready on Wednesday. But, listen, Ferdie, if you think
+you can't bear it, why don't you write to Mrs. Bishop yourself and ask
+her to look out something for you? You see, she knows you, so she'd take
+more pains than if I wrote----"
+
+A smile that she knew and hated crept round his mouth. "Yes, that's
+possible, she might," he answered. "Nice little woman, Mrs. Bishop, and
+although she is only a boarding-house keeper, she knows a gentleman when
+she sees him."
+
+At the door he paused. "Well, I'll go and write to her. I suppose you've
+got some money, my dear? I paid my last cent to the income-tax man the
+other day. I'm sure you needn't have declared all that money to them,
+Violet----"
+
+"I only told them the truth, Ferdie."
+
+It was an old quarrel, this about the declaration to the income-tax
+people, and one in which he was always beaten, so, with a shrug, he went
+downstairs.
+
+After a moment he called, his musical voice hoarse with the effort:
+"Violet--I say, Violet, have my new shirts come?"
+
+"I--I didn't know you had ordered any, dear----"
+
+"Oh, didn't you? No, I may have forgotten to tell you. Well, I did.
+Thought I might as well get two dozen while I was about it. Things are
+going up so."
+
+There was a little pause and then she said, "I hope you got them at that
+nice place in Oxford Street?"
+
+He had begun to whistle, but now he stopped and snarled out, "No, I
+didn't then. I suppose it's _my_ business where I order my own shirts? I
+got them at my usual shirt-makers in Jermyn Street."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge went quietly back into her little study and sat down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon she went by Underground to Oxford Street and from there
+walked in a cold grey rain to Queen Anne Street, where her daughter,
+Mrs. Twiss, lived. Doctor Twiss lived in one-half of a roomy old house
+in Queen Anne Street. His waiting-room and his consulting-room were at
+the left of the door, those on the right belonging to a fashionable
+dentist--but the rest of his rooms were two flights upstairs, the
+dentist, who was a rich man, occupying the whole of the first floor.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge paused before she rang at the upstairs door, for she was
+very tired, and her usually placid thoughts seemed broken and confused.
+Maud was her eldest daughter and in some ways the most companionable,
+but she was a selfish woman and devotedly fond of her husband and little
+boy, so that she had scant room for anyone else in her life.
+
+"If only Maud would be sympathetic," Mrs. Walbridge thought, as she
+finally rang.
+
+"Mrs. Twiss is in the bedroom," the maid told her, "she ain't very well
+to-day. I think the sea voyage upset 'er."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge nodded to her and went down the narrow rose-walled
+passage and knocked.
+
+Mrs. Twiss was lying down on a divan at the foot of her bed, reading.
+
+"Oh, Mum," she cried, without getting up, "how sweet of you to come so
+soon! How are you, all right? We've had the most glorious
+time--Moreton's put on four pounds and never looked better in his life."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge sat down and looked round at the pleasant, familiar room.
+There were plenty of flowers about and piles of new books, and all the
+illustrated weeklies, and on a little Moorish table close to the divan
+stood a gilt basket full of chocolates.
+
+"You seem to be having a comfortable afternoon, my dear."
+
+Maud laughed.
+
+"I am. I expect we shall have a pretty bad time when we begin to count
+up--travelling is fearfully expensive now--Moreton had to send home for
+an extra fifty pounds. So we're taking it easy to-day. He's gone to the
+hospital, and we're dining at the Carlton and going to see 'Chu Chin
+Chow' to-night."
+
+There was a little pause. Mrs. Walbridge was very unaccustomed to
+telling bad news; being told it was more in her line. But she was in
+such distress that she had thought she must tell Maud about Lubbock and
+Payne. It would have done her good just to talk it over. But now, when
+she tried, she found she could not.
+
+"Caroline had taken Hilary to the Zoo when your telephone message came,"
+she began, "or I would have brought him along. He's been very good,
+Maud, and his appetite is splendid. I got him a bottle of cod liver oil
+and malt, because I thought his little ribs stuck out a bit when I
+bathed him----"
+
+"Oh, the pet! I'm longing to see him! We've brought him all sorts of
+presents. Oh, Mum, I was going to get you a sweet little bracelet of old
+Irish paste--you know--a thing in four little chains. But at the last
+minute Moreton found we had spent so much that I had to give him my last
+fiver. So you'll take the will for the deed, won't you?"
+
+"Of course, darling, how sweet of you to think of it. I'm glad Moreton
+is so much better," Mrs. Walbridge began after a moment, "I hope he'll
+have lots of patients this winter."
+
+Maud's fair face clouded. She was a big, handsome woman, though less
+shapely in her features than her sisters, and already showed signs of
+being very fat in a few years' time, although she was only twenty-eight.
+
+"I hope so, too," she grumbled. "Things are really awfully serious. I
+believe all the tradespeople put their prices up when they hear this
+address."
+
+"I suppose it wouldn't--I suppose it wouldn't do for you to go and live
+in a cheaper house?" Mrs. Walbridge faltered.
+
+Maud sat straight up in her horror and dropped a half-bitten chocolate
+on the floor.
+
+"My goodness, mother, what a perfectly poisonous idea! Why, it would
+ruin Moreton after having begun here. _Of course_ we can't."
+
+She came and sat down on a stool near her mother and leaned her head on
+her mother's knees.
+
+"I'm longing to see Hilary," she repeated, playing with a bit of her
+silk dressing-gown nervously. "And I have something to tell him,
+Mum--he'll--he'll be having a little sister in the spring."
+
+Poor Mrs. Walbridge sat perfectly still for a moment, her hand on her
+daughter's silky brown hair. Another baby, another duty, another worry,
+and she would be the only one who would really suffer, although Maud and
+her gay, well-meaning young husband would talk a great deal about their
+responsibilities.
+
+"Mum," Maud said coaxingly. "Darling, you've got a new book coming out,
+haven't you? Don't go and buy Paul any more of those nasty Japanese
+things; those monkeys make me sick anyhow. Be a lamb, and let me have a
+hundred pounds to see me through, will you?"
+
+There was nothing particularly imploring in her voice, for she was quite
+used to asking favours of her mother, and repeated favours always turn
+into rights sooner or later. When her mother didn't answer, she screwed
+round on her stool and looked up.
+
+"Why, Mum," she cried, "what's the matter? Why do you look like that?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge kissed her. "Nothing, dear, I'm tired. I've been working
+very hard."
+
+She rose and her big daughter scrambled to her feet, laughing merrily.
+
+"Oh, you old pet! Was it working hard at it's psychological masterpiece?
+Anybody'd think you were what's-his-name, who wrote 'Elektra'!" She
+laughed again, pleasant, full-throated, musical laughter, that yet cut
+her hearer to her sore heart.
+
+"Don't--don't laugh, dear," she said gently. "I know my bodes are awful
+rubbish, but----"
+
+Mrs. Twiss stared and took another chocolate.
+
+"Oh, darling," she murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We
+all _love_ your books. Well, you'll let me have the hundred, won't you,
+pet? We're going to name her Violet."
+
+The little sad face under the old-fashioned, pheasant-winged hat
+softened a little. "I'll do my best, dear," she said. "Now I must go.
+Give my love to Moreton."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It was about a week after Mrs. Walbridge's visit to Mrs. Twiss that
+Griselda went to the play with old Mrs. Wick and her son. Greatly to the
+girl's astonishment, Mr. Wick turned up two or three days after her
+decided rejection of him, and his manner had shown nothing of the
+traditional depression of the refused young man. Indeed, he seemed
+particularly gay, and had brought her some sweets--sticky balls rolled
+in wax paper, that he told her were the best sweets on earth.
+
+"My mother made 'em," he said. "She's great at making things. These ones
+are a sort of nougat. You try one--_you'll_ see----"
+
+The uncouth looking sweetmeats were indeed delicious, and the two young
+people sat at the top of the stairs leading to the garden (for it was
+one of those odd, lost summer days that wander along through our island
+winters like lonely strayed children), and munched and talked, and
+talked and munched, in as friendly a way, Griselda thought, as if he had
+never mentioned marriage to her.
+
+"I don't like your frock," he said suddenly, speaking with difficulty,
+for his mother's sweets were sticky. "You're too dark for blue. Makes
+you look yellow."
+
+"Well, upon my word!" The girl was full of innocent airs and graces;
+little affectations blossomed all over her, and perhaps they were only
+the blossom of future graces. But somehow, this odd reporter person, as
+she called him to her mother, clutched at these premature flowerets
+like a black frost, and she found herself being as natural as a little
+boy with him.
+
+"You are polite," she remarked.
+
+He smiled from ear to ear.
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm very rude, but it's true. You ought to wear green and
+brown, or yellow or white. Imagine a buttercup dressed in blue serge!"
+
+Everyone likes to talk about himself or herself, so for a moment Grisel
+enjoyed herself thoroughly, as they gravely discussed the different
+kinds of flowers that she might be said to resemble. Then he invited her
+to go to the play, and when she refused demurely, he chuckled with
+delight.
+
+"Oh, now you think I'm the ignorant young man," he retorted. "You think
+I don't know that you couldn't go with me alone. (Of course, so far as
+that's concerned you _could_--all the smart girls, dukes' and earls'
+daughters, do)--but I have not invited you to. My mother's coming with
+us."
+
+"Your mother?"
+
+"Yes. Naturally she's anxious to meet you."
+
+She looked at him innocently, her eyes like black-heart cherries with
+the sun on them.
+
+"Why should your mother wish to meet me?"
+
+"Oh," he answered. "Don't you realise that I'm an only son?"
+
+"What's that got to do with it?"
+
+He looked at her gravely, his flexible lips steady as iron. "Most
+mothers want to know the girl their son's going to marry, don't you
+think?"
+
+Before she could help it, she laughed. "But her sons aren't going to
+marry me."
+
+"No, but her son is. I am. Oh, yes," he went on before she could speak.
+"We shan't be married this winter, of course, but in the spring we
+shall. You may choose a nice month. It'll be a proud day for you, my
+dear, and jolly lucky you'll be to get me!"
+
+She rose and refused another sweet. "No thanks, we must go in now. I've
+got a lot to do. My father's not very well, and I may have to go down to
+Torquay to look after him if he doesn't get better."
+
+"Miss Walbridge," he spoke in a voice that to her was quite new, and
+when she turned, looking at him over her shoulder, something in the
+dignity of his face forced her to turn completely round and wait.
+
+"Don't think me a perfect fool," he said. "I can't help teasing you.
+You--you're so little and so young. What I'd like to do would be to lift
+you up on my shoulder and run round and round the garden with you, and
+scare the life out of you, but I daren't do that, so I have to tease
+you. Besides, you know," he added very gravely, "it is true that I love
+you, and I mean you to marry me."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge, who was in the dining-room packing some bottles of
+home-made beef-tea to send to Torquay, could not help overhearing the
+rest of this conversation. She never forgot it, or the young man's face
+as he finished speaking to Griselda, who suddenly seemed more
+responsible, more grown-up than her mother had ever seen her.
+
+"Please don't say anything more about that, Mr. Wick," she said gently.
+"I like you very much--we all do, even my mother, who's so
+old-fashioned--but I can't possibly marry you."
+
+The four young eyes stared into each other for what seemed a long time,
+and then he drew back courteously to let her pass.
+
+"I'll not say anything more about it for three months," he declared. "I
+promise you that."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus the arrangement about going to the play had been made, and when the
+evening came Mr. Wick drove up in a taxi and carried his prize off to
+the box at the theatre, where he had already installed his mother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Grisel came home she went up to her mother's room, slipping out of
+her frock and putting on her mother's shabby old dressing-gown, that she
+declared to be a perfect disgrace, and sat on the foot of the bed
+describing the adventures of the evening.
+
+"She's a perfect old dear, Mum," the girl declared. "Very large, not
+exactly fat, you know, but big. Very little hair, brushed quite flat,
+and done up in a tiny bun at the back, and the most beautiful manners,
+like some old-fashioned duchess. Like an old duchess in one of your
+books, Mum--that kind--not like a _live_ one----"
+
+"I see," murmured Mrs. Walbridge. "How did you like the play?"
+
+"Oh, it was very pretty. Mary Grey looked perfectly beautiful. She's
+such a dear, but I wish she had sung. _They_ liked it awfully, but
+somehow I never understand Shakespeare's plays--never quite know what
+they are driving at, I mean. The place was packed, and I saw lots of
+people I know. The Murchisons were there, and Dickie Scotts, and that
+awful Pellaby woman, _covered_ with pearls and jewels. Johnny Holden
+came up just as we were leaving, and told me that he had seen Guy. He's
+only just back. He said Guy's awfully fit, and has done some very good
+caricatures. He says there's going to be an armistice as sure as eggs is
+eggs. The Hun is a dead man according to him. And, oh, Mother, you'll
+never guess--Oliver Wick went out on the 28th of August, 1914, and was
+all through the Big Push and the retreat from Mons. Fancy his never
+telling us! Johnny mentioned it. He was wounded there--during the
+retreat. One of his fingers is quite stiff. I never noticed it, did
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, I never did. So he's been out?"
+
+"Yes, and he only had one leave all the time. He was invalided out last
+year--there's a bullet somewhere inside him still. His mother says she
+thinks it must be in his brain. She _does_ adore him, Mum."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was silent, for she envied this other woman, not exactly
+her son, but her love for her son. Her own boys were very dear to her,
+but one quality was lacking in her love for them, and that was
+adoration. For although she was only a fourth-rate novelist, she had the
+sad gift of unswerving clear-sightedness, and no merciful delusion
+blinded her when she looked at her own children.
+
+Grisel had stopped brushing her pretty hair, which lay like two wings
+over her young breast, framing her little quick face, and bringing out
+its vivid whiteness. She was sitting with the silver brush on her knees,
+and in her eyes brooded an unusually deep thought.
+
+"You like him, my dear, don't you?"
+
+The girl started. "Who? Oh, Oliver? No--I mean----" She rose and put
+the brush on the dressing-table.
+
+"How nice that you call him Oliver," commented her mother, in a
+matter-of-fact voice. "I like him, too. I think he's a delightful young
+fellow. So boyish, isn't he?"
+
+Grisel came to the bed, her momentary embarrassment scattered to the
+winds by the sober sense of her mother's words.
+
+"Yes, he's a dear," she said simply, "but his mother's a perfect pet,
+and she's coming to see us. You'll love her, Mum." At the door she
+turned. "Good-night, Mum darling. Don't worry about your old book. It's
+sure to come out all right. What did you say the name of it was?"
+
+"'Lord Effingham.'"
+
+The girl stepped back in surprise at her mother's tone. "Why, good
+gracious, Mum, you spoke as if he were a real man and you hated him! I
+hope he isn't one of the modern horrors, like that dreadful man in
+'Reek.'" She ran back to the bed and gave her mother a little stroke and
+shake. "I couldn't dream of allowing you to write horrid modern books
+about beastly real people," she said protectingly. Then she went to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning a telegram arrived from Torquay, saying that Mr.
+Walbridge was no better, and asking his wife to come down and look after
+him. She had expected just such a wire (for he was one of those people
+who always become ill when they are bored or lonely) and she had already
+arranged to send Grisel down.
+
+The girl liked Torquay and had two or three friends there, and it would
+be a pleasant change for her. Besides, her mother thought, if things
+were going to be really bad, it would be better to have the children out
+of the way.
+
+So Grisel, much pleased, and not at all worried about her father, went
+off, and for several days after her departure Mrs. Walbridge worked
+uninterruptedly in the deserted drawing-room. The weather had changed,
+and it was intensely stormy and wet, so there was something pleasant in
+the shut-in feeling of the firelit room.
+
+Paul, now the only one at home, was, of course, at the bank all day, and
+most evenings he either dined out or went out immediately after dinner.
+He was a silent man, very preoccupied with his own thoughts and
+possessed of the negative gift of taking no interest whatever in other
+people's affairs. He scorned curiosity with all his heart, and never
+suspected that curiosity is very often only an expression of human
+interest.
+
+Of late, too, his mother had noticed he had been even more silent and
+absent-minded than ever, and she wondered if he was having a love
+affair. She dared not ask him, however, and so the long days and longer
+evenings passed in almost unending hard work for the little writing
+woman, and finally she arrived at a certain amount of success with the
+troublesome "Lord Effingham."
+
+Her book was entirely changed. Such atmosphere as it had ever had she
+had destroyed, and, very proud of the illegitimate baby she had
+introduced into its innocent pages, she one night packed up the
+manuscript and ran out to a greengrocer in the neighbourhood, where
+lived an old man who sometimes did errands for her.
+
+Old Mr. King was at home, and would be delighted to go round the next
+morning at half-past nine to take the very valuable parcel safely down
+to Messrs. Lubbock & Payne.
+
+She thanked the greengrocer's wife, who was the old man's daughter, and,
+putting up her umbrella, went out again into the wet.
+
+It was a shiny black night, full of storm noises and unceasing rain, and
+when she reached "Happy House" Mrs. Walbridge stood for a moment under
+her umbrella, leaning against the little green gate, where the name was
+now almost illegible, and looked about her, breathing more freely in the
+thought that the book was done; for good or evil; that she had done her
+best by it, and that if it failed, it must just fail.
+
+She felt more cheerful now that "Lord Effingham" was off her hands.
+Things _must_ improve, she thought.
+
+The political news was much better; the armistice might be signed any
+day, and perhaps when Guy came back he would, after all, be helpful to
+her.
+
+Ferdie was better. She had had a letter that morning, and little Grisel
+was having a happy time with her friends. There was to be a dance, and
+she had written for her new white satin frock to be sent down.
+
+"I must go to Swan & Edgars and get her a new pair of satin slippers,"
+she thought, as she went up the steps, and opened the door with her
+latchkey. "Fancy the little minx dancing her last pair through the other
+night!"
+
+She went down into the kitchen and made herself a cup of extra strong
+cocoa to drink in bed. Cocoa in bed with a book is a very cosy thing.
+
+The boys had always thought her a frump, and Guy in particular hated
+her old black velvet evening gown, and, now that he had been in Paris
+and seen all the smart clothes, he would despise the black velvet gown
+more than ever. If only she could have some kind of a new evening frock.
+Grey would do. Iron grey would wear almost as well as black. She set
+down her cup of cocoa with a little sigh. Ridiculous to think about that
+kind of thing when she only had one hundred and eighty pounds in the
+bank.
+
+Then she read a few pages of "Thomas à Kempis," turned out her light,
+and lay still in the dark waiting for sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Paul's room was a large one at the back on the second floor. It looked
+into the elm tree, and was very pleasant and quiet.
+
+A few days after Mrs. Walbridge had sent the manuscript of "Lord
+Effingham" to her publishers, she was in Paul's room, helping him hang a
+new picture that he had picked up at a sale. His mother thought it a
+very ugly picture; in fact, she thought it not nice, but she said
+nothing, for her opinion was of no value to him, and she knew it.
+
+It was a sunshiny day, and the naked boughs of the old tree stirred and
+made odd little noises as the east wind attacked it in gusts. The
+shadows of the branches danced across the dull green walls and made the
+gleams of light on the picture glasses die and come to life again in a
+way that gave the large room something the air of a glade in a wood.
+
+Paul, in his shirt-sleeves, stood on a pair of steps hammering a nail
+into the exact spot in the wall that he had decided on after long
+measurement and reflection.
+
+"I do hope you're wearing your thick Jaegers, darling," his mother said,
+as she took the hammer from him and held up the picture.
+
+"Not yet," he said. "I'm going to put them on to-morrow." He hung up the
+picture and backed gravely off the ladder, looking up at it, a smile of
+pride and satisfaction softening his over-delicate, rather supercilious
+face. "A little gem, Mother, though you probably don't think so," he
+announced good-naturedly. "Bruce Collier wanted it. He's got a fine
+collection."
+
+"Bruce Collier," Mrs. Walbridge pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I've
+heard his name. Who is he, Paul?"
+
+"The chap who wrote 'Reek.' Crichell was talking about him here one
+night in the summer. There's the book an the table. He gave it to me."
+
+She picked the book up and opened it. "What beautiful paper," she said
+slowly, "and I love the print, Paul."
+
+He nodded. "Oh, yes. Nares publishes him. Now I'm going to put the
+Kakemono here, Mother." He indicated a blank space on the wall near his
+writing-table. "Will you get it? You won't be sorry to have it out of
+the girls' room, will you?"
+
+She went obediently towards the door, and at it she turned.
+
+"You'll be surprised, dear, but, do you know, I have got quite used to
+those monkeys, and really like them now!"
+
+He looked up from filling his pipe and smiled at her, his narrow face--a
+face of a type so often seen nowadays in very young men--too
+small-featured, too clean-cut, too narrow in the brow, too lacking in
+the big old British qualities, both good and bad, and yet full of
+uncreative cleverness--lighted by whimsical, not unkindly, astonishment.
+
+"'Violet Walbridge confesses to a passion for Honobosa Iccho,'" he
+declaimed, as if quoting a possible headline. "No, no, Mother darling,
+that won't do. You must stick to Marcus Stone. Trot along and get it,
+there's a dear."
+
+She trotted along and got it, and brought it back, carefully rolled on
+its stick.
+
+"Grisel will be sorry to find it gone," she said, as he hung it on the
+nail and let it slowly slide down the wall. "She loves it."
+
+"She loves it because Wick knew about the artist. Imitative little
+monkey, Grisel."
+
+His mother stared at him. It was on her lips to say, "So are you--so are
+you an imitative monkey," for she realised that these new artistic
+tastes of his were derived from some model and not from any instinctive
+search for a peculiar kind of beauty. Instead she only said, referring
+to an old pet name of her own for her children, "Yes, one of God's
+apelets, and so are you, Paul."
+
+He had backed to the far side of the room and stood surveying the effect
+of the Kakemono with much satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, dear," he murmured, without listening to her. "That's very good,
+just there. The light catches it just right."
+
+As he spoke, Jessie, the maid, came in, still straightening a hastily
+tied-on cap and apron.
+
+"A gentleman downstairs to see you, sir."
+
+Paul nodded.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Crichell! We're going to the Grafton Galleries together to see
+that 'Moonlight in the Trenches' fellow's pictures."
+
+"Please, Mr. Paul, it ain't Mr. Crichell." Jessie was still standing by
+the door.
+
+"Oh, who is it?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. Not at all a nice gentleman. I wouldn't leave him
+alone in the drorin'-room if I was you."
+
+The girl left the room, and Mrs. Walbridge sat down suddenly. Paul's
+face had changed, and she was frightened.
+
+"Look here, Mother," he said, "I'm afraid it's a brute of a fellow on
+business. I told him I'd kill him if he came here, but"--the young man
+waved his long, nervous hands helplessly--"he's come, you see."
+
+Her big hollow eyes were fixed on him with a strained, unwinking stare.
+
+"Oh, Paul," she whispered, "what is it?"
+
+He moved irresolutely towards the door, came back, took up his coat and
+then threw it on to the divan under the Rowlandson "Horse Fair."
+
+"Look here, Mother," he said, "I must get him out of the house. Suppose
+you go and tell him--tell him that I'm not in. Perhaps you'd better say
+that I'm out of town."
+
+"Is it a bill?" she asked tonelessly, without moving.
+
+"No--that is--not exactly. The fact is, it's a money-lender. Alfred
+Brock put me on to a good thing in the City, and it--it went wrong
+somehow, so I borrowed fifty pounds of this chap--Somerset's his
+name--and I---- But go and tell him I'm out. I'll explain it all to you
+afterwards," he broke off nervously.
+
+She walked to the window and stood looking out, and he thought she was
+crying.
+
+"Don't, Mother, please don't," he exclaimed. "It's quite all right. I
+shall have the money next week, and the brute's just got to wait, that's
+all."
+
+But she was not crying, and that was not why she had turned her face
+from him. And what she saw, oddly enough, as she looked out into the
+empty boughs of the elm tree, was the face of old Mrs. Wick, whose
+picture young Wick carried in his pocket, and had once shown her. "What
+a happy woman, what a happy woman!" she was saying under her breath.
+After a pause she turned round.
+
+"I'll not say you're out, Paul, and I won't say you're away. I'll see
+the man, and I'll tell him you'll pay him next week."
+
+Across his white face flashed the wild impatience of the man who,
+knowing that there is for his ailment only one remedy and that a
+desperate one, is offered some homely, perfectly inefficacious
+substitute.
+
+"Don't be a----" he broke out. But she went downstairs without heeding
+him.
+
+The man stood in the middle of the drawing-room, looking round at the
+homely furniture. Being what she was, Mrs. Walbridge had, of course,
+expected a florid and bediamonded Jew, instead of which the man was a
+stocky, red-faced, snub-nosed Englishman, who approached to her innocent
+ideal of a prize-fighter.
+
+"Good morning."
+
+At her voice he whirled round and about awkwardly.
+
+"Sorry to trouble you, m'm, I'm sure," he began, grasping the situation
+with what to her seemed marvellous quickness. "Young gentleman had
+better come down hisself."
+
+"My son----" she began.
+
+But he waved her into silence with a small, roughcast looking hand.
+
+"No good sayin' he's out of town, ma'am, or even spendin' the day on the
+river, 'cos he ain't."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge looked at him, a slow wave of understanding creeping to
+her brain.
+
+"I wasn't going to tell you that my son is out, or away," she returned
+quietly. "He's upstairs. He's extremely sorry, but he will not be able
+to pay you your--your little account until next week."
+
+The man stared at her in honest surprise, and then his red face melted
+into rather pleasant curves of irrepressible laughter.
+
+"Well, I'll be--I'll be blowed!" he cried, slapping his knee. "Did he
+send you down to tell me that? My governor will laugh at that."
+
+They talked, this ill-assorted pair, for about half an hour, and then
+the man left the house very quietly, bowing at the door with real
+respect to the lady who had so amused him. He had heard of Violet
+Walbridge all his life, and vaguely remembered having read "Queenie's
+Promise" when he was about sixteen, and had the mumps, and to think that
+she should be like this! Very much "blowed" and inclined to being
+damned, as he told his wife later, he disappeared out of Mrs.
+Walbridge's life.
+
+She went upstairs, and found Paul walking up and down the room, smoking
+cigarettes furiously, his neglected pipe on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Lord, Mother, what an age you've been!" he cried, petulantly. "Was it
+Somerset himself?"
+
+"No, this man's name was Green. He tells me, Paul, that they have
+applied to you several times; that the money was due last week."
+
+He nodded sulkily. "Yes, it was. If Alfred Brock hadn't been a fool, it
+wouldn't have happened. Brock shall never see a penny of my money
+again."
+
+"He told me," his mother went on, her hand on the door handle, "that he
+knew you had a collection of pictures and things, and he--he was going
+to make you sell some of them."
+
+"The swine! Poor mother," he added carelessly, "a nasty half hour for
+you, I'm afraid. What did you say to him to make him go?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge looked curiously round the room as if she saw it for the
+first time. The Rowlandson, the Kakemono, the exquisite little Muirhead,
+the French pastel that shocked her; the beautiful adjustable
+reading-chair, with its lectern-like bookrest; the fourteenth century
+Persian prayer rug; the odds and ends of good china on the mantelpiece.
+All these treasures, so dear to Paul, that she, in her innocence, had
+regarded as inexpensive whims, had received a new value through the odd
+medium of Mr. Green.
+
+"I didn't say much to him, Paul," she answered slowly. "I--I paid him."
+
+She went out and closed the door. The young man took a hasty step
+towards it, then hesitated and went back to his arm-chair. It was jolly
+decent of her. He'd thank her and give her a kiss for it at tea time. He
+must think of something graceful and appropriate to say. Meantime he was
+chilly and uncomfortable, so, leaning forward, he lit a match and set
+fire to the coal-heaped grate. "Jolly decent of mother," he thought,
+leaning back to watch the glowing of the fire. "Those absurd books of
+hers really are pretty useful, after all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was pleasant that evening to have a long letter from Grisel, and Mrs.
+Walbridge, who had been busy since Mr. Green's departure in getting off
+a basket of beef-tea, home-made potted meat, and red-currant jelly, to
+Torquay, and who had been bound by an old promise to take tea with poor
+Caroline, found the letter when she came in, and as Paul, after his
+hurried thanks, had gone out for the rest of the day and evening, she
+changed into her warm dressing-gown, and settled down to her supper tray
+in the drawing-room, with a pint of ale and a nicely browned sausage,
+and Grisel's letter.
+
+Grisel wrote a peculiarly delightful hand, each letter small and
+well-shaped, and nearly as clear as print. She was also fluent and had a
+certain gift for description, so that her letters were a real treat to
+her mother. This one, written on several sheets of beautiful pale grey
+paper with "Conroy Hall" in one corner, promised to be an unusually
+delightful one, for it contained, she saw, glancing through it, a full
+description of the ball at which her daughter had worn the new satin
+shoes she had sent her from Swan & Edgars.
+
+     "_Darling Mum,_" Griselda began, "_I haven't written for several
+     days because I've been having such a good time that there wasn't a
+     minute for anything except frivoling! You'll gather from this that
+     the poor old Dad is better, and his headaches have gone. I don't
+     think it was anything but liver myself. And he's been hob-nobbing
+     with some old friends who have turned up at one of the big
+     hotels--I forget which._
+
+      "_I came here the day before yesterday to stay with Elsie, and
+      I've never had such a good time in my life. Fred has put an awful
+      lot of money into the place and furnished it splendidly, so it's
+      really wonderful. He's like a little white rat, it's no good
+      concealing that, but then he's like such a very_ NICE _white rat,
+      and he adores Elsie, and thinks nothing's too good for her.
+      They've lived like fighting cocks all through the war. How they
+      get the food I can't imagine! Of course, they make their own
+      butter, and have swindled the Government like anything, which, of
+      course, is great fun._
+
+      "_Elsie has just had a lot of new clothes from London, and really
+      looks a dream, although she's as fat as a little pig. Of course,
+      they've done a lot of entertaining of wounded for years now,
+      otherwise I don't think they would have known there is a war.
+      Elsie says she's awfully glad there's no Vere de Vere blood in
+      Fred, or he would have minded things more. He really is a typical
+      nouveau riche out of a novel (not one of your novels, darling)._
+
+      "_Did I tell you how glad I was that you've got 'Lord Effingham'
+      into shape? It'll be a relief to your poor mind. I found 'From
+      Sunlight to Shadow' in the library, and have been reading it, and
+      I think it's perfectly sweet. I really did enjoy it very much. It
+      reminded me of Rosa N. Carey. How I used to love her books when I
+      was a kid!_
+
+      "_We have no men-servants here, but Fred's going to get a dozen or
+      so as soon as the Armistice is signed. Meantime there are swarms
+      of lovely footmanettes, too pretty for words, in violet frocks and
+      lace caps and aprons. They all look as if George Grossmith had
+      drilled them, somehow. One rather expects them to burst out into
+      song, but they don't._
+
+      "_Well, the ball was a great success. I'm writing in bed. It's
+      after lunch. We danced till after five, and I was such a belle,
+      Mum! All the girls down here seem to be six foot tall, and many of
+      them have that new uniform-walk--I'm sure serving in different
+      corps made the women's feet all spread; they are big and thick
+      about the ankles, too--so I appeared as the old-fashioned
+      Christmas pantomime fairy, done in white and gold. That's what
+      Fred said. My frock really was as good as anybody's, you darling.
+      Hundreds of beautiful youths rolled up to contend for the honour
+      of a dance. It really was fun after the over-femaled parties we
+      have been to lately, and I felt like Queenie, or that girl in
+      'Touchstones,'--the cruel one who broke hearts. Oh, Mother
+      darling, what a noodle you are not to know that it's the man who
+      does the heart-breaking nowadays!_
+
+      "_Lady Sybil Ross was here with her twins. They looked just like
+      partridge eggs, they're so speckly, but they're nice girls; but
+      they treated me as if I was a little doll of some kind, as if they
+      were surprised that I could talk and walk, being so small as I am.
+      Fanny Ross has been engaged three times, and each time the man has
+      been killed at the front. Isn't it awful? But I couldn't help
+      laughing. There didn't seem to be any reason why she should stop
+      being engaged to one after the other for ever, and it doesn't seem
+      to hurt her in the least._
+
+      "_Father came last night, of course, and you would have been proud
+      of him; he looked such a beautiful old pet. Of course, his diet
+      and the water wagon have done wonders for his looks. His eyes are
+      as clear as a child's--or were the first part of the evening, but
+      rather fell off towards the end (off the water wagon, I mean!) Of
+      course, he was quite all right, you know, but he was very genial
+      and his eyes a bit swimmy. Poor old Dad._
+
+      "_Did I tell you that Clara Crichell's here? She's staying with
+      her mother, who has taken a house, and she and Dad had the time of
+      their lives together. She's very pretty, but towards the end of
+      the evening she looked rather like a squashed tomato, I thought.
+      Seriously, I think she's quite crazy about father. I'm so glad
+      you're old-fashioned, darling, and that I don't have to chaperon
+      you too. A frisky young mother is an awful responsibility for a
+      girl, and I should hate to have to ask anyone's intentions about
+      my Mamma!_
+
+      "_I've just had the most scrumptious lunch--heavenly sweetbreads
+      in little paper boats, and eggs done in some wonderful French way,
+      and grape-fruit salad, and a sweet little carafe like a
+      scent-bottle, full of some divine white wine. I love having my
+      meals in bed, and I adore having a maid to look after me. If I
+      marry a rich man, never again as long as I live will I put on my
+      stockings myself, I swear it!_
+
+      "_Well, I went to supper with an awfully nice boy (I forget his
+      name), who urged me to marry him and share his pension as a 2nd
+      Lieutenant. I've danced my new shoes to ribbons--war satin, of
+      course--and the next evening frock I have must be black, darling.
+      Lots of girls younger than I are wearing black, and it's so
+      becoming._
+
+      "_I had a ridiculous present from Oliver yesterday--four beautiful
+      giant kippers tied up in blue ribbon. Of course, he thought I was
+      at Mrs. Bishop's, but wasn't he a goose to send me kippers?_
+
+      "_By the way, I've a serious beau--a most charming old man, Sir
+      John Barclay. He's perfectly delightful. Quite old and frightfully
+      rich. Snow-white hair and the most lovely tenor voice. He's
+      staying in the house, and, though I say it as shouldn't, is my
+      slave. He sang 'The Banks of Allan Water' the other day, and made
+      me cry. Such a sweet, young-sounding voice it is. He sent me the
+      loveliest flowers this morning. Really, it looks very much as if
+      he was going to offer himself and his worldly goods to me! I hope
+      he doesn't, because he really is a dear, and he looks as if he
+      might mind being hurt._
+
+      "_How are you, dearest? You must enjoy being all alone. Do eat
+      enough; don't live on toast and tea, and don't let Jessie forget
+      your hot bottle._
+
+      "_Dearest love to you,_
+
+  "GRISEL.
+
+     "_P. S.--When you send me a new pair of slippers, please send me a
+     pair of stockings too, as there are simply no soles left in my last
+     pair._"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Mr. Wick, on his way to "Happy House" one very wet afternoon, in the
+beginning of November, gave way to pleasant dreams. He knew that the
+lady of his affections was still in Torquay, for he had had a letter
+from her, but she had bidden him go and see her mother, and collect one
+or two books that she wanted, and send them down to her.
+
+"I'm rather worried about Mum," she had written, "without any particular
+reason. I wish you'd go and take a look at her and let me know if
+everything's all right."
+
+Mr. Wick, who had had a serious conflict with his chief a few days
+before, and come out with streaming colours, was feeling very happy, in
+spite of the pouring rain and the dreadful uniformity of the
+wet-November-afternoon faces about him. He was one step farther on
+towards his goal, which was nothing less than becoming a great newspaper
+proprietor and running the political world from a swivel chair somewhere
+in Fleet Street. And it was very sweet to him to be sent in this
+intimate way by Griselda Walbridge to inspect and report on her mother.
+
+And now, under the shelter of his dripping umbrella, he was finishing a
+book, which he had read conscientiously, though with incredible
+swiftness. Since his meeting with Griselda, he had taken the trouble to
+look through half a dozen of Mrs. Walbridge's books, and could see (for
+he was unconsciously a very good critic) what the secret of their
+success was.
+
+"Very slow," he explained to his mother. "Nothing much happens and there
+are the same people in all of them, with different names. She always has
+pretty names for the girls, and the men are usually swells. Kind of book
+a woman could read while she's knitting, or boiling the clothes, or
+bathing the baby, without either losing the thread of the story or
+scamping her work."
+
+But this new book, he realised, had lost that easy quality. There were
+pages of undigested realism scattered through it; several of the stock
+characters were missing. There was, for instance, no faithful old family
+butler, no sinuous foreign adventuress. (The innocence of Violet
+Walbridge's adventuresses was prodigious, in spite of the desperate
+epithets she showered on them) and there was a superfluous infant,
+nameless, and as unnecessary to the story as it was to his mother, whose
+presence was as inappropriate as that of Gaby Deslys at a Quaker
+meeting.
+
+"That baby puts the lid on," the young man thought, stuffing the book in
+his mackintosh pocket and feeling in the other pocket for the safety of
+the treasure he had put there. "She'll bust the whole show if she goes
+on like that. She can't do the new stuff, and her old patients won't
+stand such strong doses as this."
+
+As he got off the bus his mind was engaged with wondering whether Mrs.
+Walbridge had any fortune apart from her pen.
+
+"Strikes me that Paul is something of an _objet de luxe_," he reflected,
+as he turned off Albany Street. "Bank clerks oughtn't to go messing about
+with stockbrokers, and that fellow Brock is a bad egg. When I've
+married Griselda, pretty pet, we shan't have very much to do with
+Master Paul. The other one, Guy, the soldier, looks a decent lad. I like
+that photograph."
+
+As he reached the house his pace slackened and over his shrewd
+journalistic face came an odd softening as if for a moment his very
+thoughts had stopped using slang. The green swing gate with its half
+effaced words touched him anew. The more he knew of Mrs. Walbridge and
+her family, the greater seemed the pathos of the name of her house.
+
+"I suppose she named it that years ago when she was young," he thought
+gently. "I suppose she kept the paint fresh at first, and then later it
+didn't seem worth while."
+
+A very modern product was this Oliver Wick--the kind of a man that could
+not have existed a quarter of a century ago, when young men were either
+gentlemen or cads, as the saying went. He had set out to make a great
+fortune and he was going to make it. He was conscious to his finger-tips
+of his powers and his gift of observation and of managing inferior
+minds. His habitual language was a jargon composed of journalistic,
+sporting, and society slang, yet his mind was open to the most tender
+impressions, his sharp little eyes always ready to soften to a tear, and
+he loved and read poetry with avidity.
+
+Now he stood for a moment in the pouring rain, touched to the quick by
+the pathos of the shabby little gate of the unsuccessful, overworked old
+novelist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found Mrs. Walbridge sitting by the fire in her expressionless
+drawing-room, reading. She was so engrossed in her book that, after a
+hurried greeting, she at once began to talk of it.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Wick," she cried, forgetting to ask him to sit down, which,
+however, he promptly did, "have you read this?"
+
+He glanced at the book. "Yes, it's the book Mr. Crichell talked about
+that night at dinner here." After a second he added a little awkwardly,
+"I--I wouldn't read it if I were you, Mrs. Walbridge."
+
+She closed the book and drew back in her chair with a little flush.
+
+"I--I've nearly finished it. Everyone's been talking about it, and I
+found it in my son's room."
+
+He was silent for a moment, for he did not know quite what to say to
+her, to this old lady whose literary stockpot produced such a harmless
+and uniform brew.
+
+"Reek" was not important enough to be called strong meat; it was just a
+thoroughly nasty book whose author dwelt lovingly on obscene side-issues
+of ordinary life, and in whose three hundred odd pages of closely
+printed matter there was not a word, nor even a suggestion that could
+help or even cheer for a moment any conceivable reader.
+
+"Disgusting rubbish," he declared after a moment. "My old mother read
+the first chapter and marched down with it in the tongs and put it in
+the kitchen fire." He chuckled at the vision of the old lady's slow
+progress down the narrow passage, with the tongs held straight out
+before her. "That showed my young sister Jenny what _she_ thought of
+it!" He paused and then went on very quickly, with a little flicker of
+colour in his thin, white face, "You won't let Grisel read it?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge shuddered. "Dear me, no. Not that she would understand
+it," she added slowly.
+
+There was a pause and the young man watched the firelight playing over
+the hollowed, haggard face with the deeply-lined white brow, and the
+tired violet eyes. It came to him suddenly how very pretty she must have
+been in her youth--her youth, so long ago, and before he was born (he
+was twenty-six). And then she said slowly, in a hesitating voice:
+
+"It's such a stupid book. It's so badly put together and the people
+aren't real."
+
+If a six months' old baby had sat up in its cradle and quoted Plato to
+him the young journalist could not have been more surprised. That Violet
+Walbridge, of all people on earth, should criticise the construction of
+a novel by Bruce Collier! Bruce Collier, who was undoubtedly the head of
+the new school of writers, and about whom most serious critics wrote
+columns in the morning papers. He stared at her in frank, almost
+open-mouthed astonishment, and she went on without apparently noticing
+his emotion, and speaking modestly, but with a sureness that he had
+never observed in her before.
+
+"You see, if Swithin Cleveland had been in the ruins that time--_you_
+know--he could not possibly have written that letter to Sophia."
+
+"Why couldn't he?" stammered Wick.
+
+For a few minutes he listened to her soft, rather unmodulated voice, as
+she unfolded her ideas to him, and then suddenly he jumped up and
+slapped his knee.
+
+"By Jove," he shouted, "you're right, you're right, Mrs. Walbridge, and
+not one of them--the critics I mean--has seen it!"
+
+He tramped up and down the room, talking rapidly, brandishing his arms
+in a characteristically ungraceful, but expressive way.
+
+"Why don't you write an article about it? I'll make my chief print it in
+one of his decent papers. Not that--not that," he broke off stammering
+hopelessly, "_Round the Fire_ isn't very good in its _way_, you
+know--but I mean in _Cosmos_ or _The Jupiter_."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge laughed softly. "Don't apologise for _Round the Fire_,"
+she said. "I think I know exactly what it is."
+
+He sat down again. The wind was whipping against the window with a
+delightful crackling noise. The corner by the homely hearth in the dim,
+inexpressive drawing-room was very pleasant in its way, and he liked, he
+very greatly liked, the old-fashioned lady in the shabby grey gown--the
+lady whom, if he had to stop the stars in their courses to accomplish
+it, was going to be his mother-in-law. He had always liked Mrs.
+Walbridge; he had always known that she held qualities that in a
+mother-in-law would be shining ones, but she had a personality a little
+too like this drawing-room of hers, too like the old mirror that hung
+over the mantelpiece and was a little cloudy, a little obscure, and now,
+behold, something had breathed on the mirror and it had cleared! Like a
+flash he saw the future. Himself England's greatest newspaper king, in a
+great, fine, romantic old house somewhere--St. James's Square for
+choice, failing that, Manchester Square might do--and by his side was
+his lovely little blackest white girl, and beside her, in subdued grey
+velvet and lace, the perfect mother-in-law, perfect because, not only
+had she been capable of producing a wife fit for the greatest man in
+England, and of being herself gently and quietly and modestly
+impressive, but she possessed that great blessing to a man in the
+position that he would be in, a keenly critical mind, and the mind would
+be, he felt, in a way his, because he had discovered it. He was sure
+that no one in her household or among her friends even suspected Mrs.
+Walbridge of such an astonishing possession.
+
+"Look here," he said at the end of half an hour or so, when they had
+discussed Mr. Collier's rather putrescent masterpiece pretty thoroughly,
+"I suppose Grisel's told you that I mean to marry her?"
+
+"She's told me that you'd asked her."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," he waved his hand impatiently, "asking her, I
+mean. I have asked her two or three times, just for the sake of form,
+you know. But she's got to do it sooner or later. I'm in no hurry."
+
+"Dear me," murmured his hostess, a little frightened by the novelty of
+his point of view.
+
+"Yes. You mustn't think me cheeky or--dashing, you know," he protested
+gravely. "I'm not really. I only mention it now to you so that you would
+understand what I'm going to say."
+
+"Yes?" She spoke very gently, and her eyes were kind and benign.
+
+"I was going to ask you," he said, his manner suddenly changing to one
+that impressed her, unconsciously to both of them. "I was going to ask
+you if you don't think you could do something to modernise your style a
+little. Just from the business point of view, I mean."
+
+He saw her wince, but kept on, with benevolent ruthlessness.
+
+"I've been reading over some of your books since I met you, and I like
+'em, and I quite see the reason for their popularity." He broke off
+shortly, and asked her, his head cocked on one side, his lips pursed
+fiercely: "How are your sales now, compared to what they were, say, ten
+years ago?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge took up the poker and bent over the fire. He knew she was
+doing it to hide her face, and moved slightly so that he could keep on
+looking at her, for he meant to have the truth, and knew that this
+truthful lady would not hesitate to lie to him on this occasion.
+
+"About the same, I think," she said in an undertone, poking the fire
+destructively.
+
+He took the poker out of her hand, and by pointing it at her, forced her
+slowly back into her chair.
+
+"Oh, come now," he protested. "Honour bright--man to man, you
+know--_business_----"
+
+There was a pause, after which she said: "Well, then, if you put it like
+that, no! my sales have been growing less for some years now, slowly,
+until--until quite lately. My last book was really almost a failure.
+Don't," she added, clasping her thin hands and bending forward a little,
+"don't mention this to Grisel, will you? They none of them know. I--I
+didn't like to worry them."
+
+The young man rose and walked to the window, saying: "Oh, hell!" under
+his breath.
+
+"Of course I won't tell Grisel," he almost shouted from between the lace
+curtains; "but doesn't your husband know?"
+
+"Oh, no--no. They none of them do. It would only worry them, you know."
+
+"It must worry you, doesn't it?"
+
+Neither of them noticed that the young man, who might so well have been
+one of her younger children, was behaving quite as if he were what he
+had destined himself to be, a powerful and experienced king of
+journalism. And she, who had written books while he was crawling on his
+nursery floor, sat before him with folded hands, answering his questions
+with the simplicity and lack of reserve of a child. For once he had
+broken her barriers down, he realised how the poor thing was relieved
+and glad to talk about her troubles.
+
+Thus it came that she told him all about that dreadful interview with
+Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, and of her struggles with "Lord Effingham."
+
+"I've modernised it," she said, with hopefulness that made him want to
+cry, "but it didn't seem very good to me. But then I don't suppose one's
+ever a very good judge of one's own work----"
+
+"Then one ought to be," he thrust in brutally. "Every man and every
+woman ought to be the best judge of his or her work. Any other kind of
+talk's nonsense. You ought to know your best book. Don't you? Because if
+you don't, I can tell you."
+
+She trembled as she looked up at him. "I know you're going to say
+'Queenie's Promise,'" she said feebly.
+
+He shook his head. "Well, it isn't, then. It's the 'Under Secretary.' I
+read that through from start to finish in the Underground the other day,
+and it's--it's got the makings of a real good story."
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Jessie brought in the tea, and by
+doing so changed these two bewitched people back to their real selves,
+and the millionaire newspaper king found himself once more only a young
+reporter, and the trembling literary aspirant at his feet became, as at
+the wave of a wand, again the tired, once mildly successful old
+novelist, his hostess and potential mother-in-law.
+
+They were both embarrassed for a few minutes, and then, as they drank
+their tea, Mrs. Walbridge found herself, to her great though gentle
+surprise, telling him what she instinctively called the story of her
+life.
+
+"My father was a solicitor," she said, "in Lincoln's Inn, and we lived
+in Russell Street. It's a boarding-house now. I went past it the other
+day on my way to the Tube, and it brought it all back so clearly! My
+mother died when I was a child, and one of my aunts brought me up. She
+was very old-fashioned, and rather an invalid, so as a child I saw
+hardly anyone but her and my nurse, and once in a long while my father.
+For years I never read anything but Miss Yonge's books, and Edna
+Lyall's, and _The Girl's Own Paper_. My aunt was very particular about
+my books."
+
+"She must have been," growled the young man, trying to eat his toast
+silently, so that he could hear.
+
+"I never went to school, but had a series of governesses, all very sad
+women. Most governesses seem to be sad, don't they? And all oldish, and
+not in very good health. I was allowed to read Sir Walter Scott's poems,
+and one or two of Dickens as I grew older. But I never liked Dickens; he
+writes about such common people. I loved Bulwer, and my aunt allowed me
+to read several of his. My aunt died when I was sixteen, and six months
+after her death my father went to Mexico on business, which would have
+made him a very rich man if it had turned out as he hoped. One of my old
+governesses came to stay in the house while he was gone. Her name was
+Miss Sweet, and I liked her because she was sentimental and had a soft
+voice, and wasn't at all particular about dates. Then it was that I
+wrote my first book--or not quite then, for I was nearly eighteen, but
+my father was still away."
+
+She hesitated for a moment. She was allowing her voice more scope since
+the gloom had thickened in the quiet room. The young man did not move,
+for he feared to disturb her.
+
+"It was a caretaker in the next house which had long been empty that put
+the idea into my head. She was an old woman with a niece, who lived with
+her, and the niece was very pretty. The story was a dreadful one--a
+tragedy, and the girl committed suicide. I can't quite tell you," the
+quiet voice went on, "what it meant to an ignorant girl, sheltered as I
+was, to be plunged into the midst of such horrors. Poor old Mrs. Bell
+waked us up in the middle of the night when it happened, and I went
+alone, as Miss Sweet had a bad attack of asthma."
+
+She shuddered, and reaching to the back of a chair, took from it and
+wrapped round her shoulders a little old red shawl. On and on went the
+quiet voice, telling the story with a kind of neat dexterity and absence
+of the overburdening adjectives common to such narration.
+
+Wick was amazed and filled with pity at the thought of what life had
+been to this woman to reduce her powers to the deadly level of the tales
+that she poured out regularly every autumn.
+
+"It was a dreadful business, as you see, but somehow after the first it
+didn't frighten or upset me much, though it made poor Miss Sweet quite
+ill. Afterwards we went down to Lulworth Cove for a change, and it was
+while we were down there that I wrote the book. I was very happy then.
+Your work," she added, with a touch of innocent vanity, "not being
+creative, you may not realise what writing a book really is, but it's
+very wonderful. I used to sit on the rocks and scribble away by the
+hour. I think it was very good too, and I was proud of it. And the day
+after we got home, in the autumn--we had been called back by a telegram
+saying that my father had reached Liverpool--I packed up the manuscript
+on the dining-room table and addressed it to Mr. Murray. Someone had
+spilt a little black currant jam on the tablecloth, and as I arranged
+the pages I managed to smear a little of it across the title, and I
+remember getting cold water and a bit of cotton-wool and washing it off,
+and then drying it before the kitchen fire, and mending the spoilt
+letters with a very fine pen, so that it would look nice. 'Hannah' was
+the name of it. Not a very good title, but that was the way it came to
+me," she added softly, and her voice trailed away into silence.
+
+The darkness increased suddenly, and the firelight made a lake of colour
+on the hearthrug, the only colour left in the room.
+
+"Well," Wick asked hoarsely, "did John Murray publish it?"
+
+She laughed. "John Murray never saw it. I left it on the hall table that
+night, and was going to register it myself in the morning. When my
+father came in late he noticed it, and opened it."
+
+"Well----?"
+
+Somehow he never forgot the feel of the room at that moment, or the
+chill sound of the next words as they fell on his waiting ears.
+
+"He burnt it." After a little while she went on: "He was horrified by
+it. I suppose it was not very proper, written by a young girl, and he
+had never known that I understood about such things, but of course I
+did, after the adventure of poor Kitty Bailey. Ring the bell, will you,
+Oliver? It's growing very dark."
+
+He rang, and while the lamp was being brought he knelt on the old
+hearthrug and mended the fire. In a few moments the crude, unlovely room
+was piteously bright, and the mystery had flown.
+
+"Weren't you very angry?" Wick asked, as the door closed on the maid.
+
+"I? Oh, no. It was he who was angry--my father. I think he was too hard
+on me, but it didn't matter very much. It was probably very badly
+written, though at the time I thought it was good."
+
+Wick held out his hand. "Well, I must be off. Thank you so much for
+telling me, Mrs. Walbridge. Did you go on writing at once then?"
+
+Her thin, small-boned hand quivered in his as she answered:
+
+"Oh, no. I didn't write again until--until after my marriage."
+
+They stood looking very kindly at each other, the old woman and the
+young man, and then she said suddenly, as he took up his hat and stick:
+
+"I don't know why I told you, except, perhaps, that it happened, the
+burning of 'Hannah,' I mean, thirty-five years ago to-day. I was
+thinking about it before you came."
+
+As he hurried through the rain towards the 'bus, the young man counted
+back.
+
+"That makes her fifty-two," he said. "I thought she was older than
+that."
+
+As he squeezed into the crowded interior of "everybody's carriage," as
+de Amicis calls it, a feeling of great pity swept over him. "How it must
+have hurt," he thought, "for her to remember it like that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Gaskell-Walkers returned from their very long honeymoon a few days
+later and spent the night at Happy House, their own house being not
+quite ready for them.
+
+It having rained without ceasing for a week at the Lakes, the young man
+had taken his bride to North Devon, where he had hired a car and they
+had spent a delightful time tearing over the country as fast as they
+could go, which happened to be Mr. Gaskell-Walker's higher form of
+enjoyment. He had made notes of the distance traversed each separate
+day, and to Mrs. Walbridge's bewildered mind, it seemed as if they had
+been nowhere, but had spent their time going from or to different
+places. However, her pretty daughter was in blooming health, and
+displayed her airs and graces in an artless and becoming way like some
+pretty bird. Wracked with worry, almost unbearably anxious about her new
+work, on which subject her publishers had maintained a silence which
+looked ominous. Mrs. Walbridge gave herself up to delight for a few
+hours in watching the happiness of these young people and hearing their
+comfortable plans for the future. She had never seen the house in
+Campden Hill, but Hermione had been taken there shortly before her
+wedding, and was delighted with everything about it. The drawing-room
+was apparently the only drawing-room in London that was over twenty feet
+long, and the art treasures, about which the young woman talked
+vaguely, but with immense satisfaction, seemed to be various and
+valuable.
+
+"There is a whole room full of Chinese dragons," Gaskell-Walker told her
+at dinner, "wicked-looking, teethy devils of all sizes. I used to be
+awfully frightened of them when I was a kid."
+
+"And the loveliest Indian screens, mother, you know, that dull,
+crumbly-looking wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge had no idea of the exact income of her son-in-law, but
+she knew that the young couple intended to keep three servants and that
+Billy was partner in a fairly prosperous, though new, stockbroking firm
+in Throgmorton Street. He was not so sympathetic to her as Maud's
+husband. Moreton Twiss was young and full of boyish high spirits and a
+kind of innocent horse-play, that even the arrival of Hilary had in no
+wise quieted; and for some reason his untidy black hair and twinkling
+eyes were dearer to her than the correct smartness of the more
+conventional Gaskell-Walker.
+
+Gaskell-Walker was ten or twelve years older than the other man,
+although he had married the younger daughter, and being extremely
+short-sighted, he wore pince-nez, without which his mother-in-law had
+never seen him. She was one of those people who prefer eyes to be
+unglazed. However, everything pointed to happiness being in store for
+Hermy, for she and her husband were very much in love with each other,
+he rather more than she was, which her mother felt to be as things
+should be. And the little dinner was very pleasant, Paul being at his
+best, which was very good, so good that he rarely produced it for family
+use, and Hermy, being a daughter for any mother's eyes to rest upon with
+pride, in her pretty sapphire-blue frock, with the charming diamond
+pendant her husband had given her for her wedding present, blinking on
+her lovely bosom.
+
+"What news from Guy?" the bride asked, as they lingered in the
+old-fashioned way over their walnuts and port.
+
+"I had a beautiful letter from him only this afternoon. I am going to
+show it to you. He's very well and seems to have made some nice friends
+amongst the officers."
+
+Gaskell-Walker laughed. "Trust Master Guy to make friends," he said,
+cracking a nut with care, his over-manicured nails flashing as he did
+so. "Easier to make than to keep them in his case."
+
+"Like the Governor," commented Paul carelessly.
+
+"Children, children," Mrs. Walbridge glanced with anxious eyes from the
+one to the other, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your father so--or
+Guy either, Paul, if you don't mind."
+
+Gaskell-Walker bowed courteously. "I am sorry, Mrs. Walbridge," he
+answered, plainly meaning what he said, "I was only chaffing. We always
+tease the brat about his new intimate friends, and I didn't mean to say
+a word against him."
+
+"Is father really better?" Hermione put in, smiling at her mother over
+the top of her glass. "I hear he is carrying on anyhow with Clara
+Crichell. Who was it told us so, Billy?"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Hermy," put in Paul with a glance at his mother, who,
+however, had paid no attention to the remark.
+
+It was a peculiarity of Mrs. Walbridge's children that, while each one
+of them individually was capable of hurting her a dozen times a day, not
+one of them could bear one of the others to inflict the slightest
+scratch on her.
+
+"The kid's having a grand time," Paul went on to his sister, "with Fred
+and Elsie Ford. Balls and dinners every night and adorers by the dozen,
+so Archie Pratt told me. He had been down there--he's a cousin of
+Elsie's, you know. He says the kid's the success of the place. Seemed
+rather smitten himself, I thought."
+
+"I loathe Archie Pratt," murmured Hermione, "he smells of white rose and
+is always talking about biplanes and monoplanes."
+
+"He is an A1 airman," put in her husband, "they say he is down for a
+D. S. O. for that Italian business. By the way, Paul, I hear the
+Armistice is most certainly going to be signed next week."
+
+Paul nodded. "Yes, according to the paper it is, but some of these
+duffers will probably put it off."
+
+"No. I have it pretty straight. It really is going to be. The Hun cannot
+possibly hold out any longer. It's funny the way they cling to that
+figure-head of the Kaiser. But his nerve seems to be completely broken.
+He won't be able to stick it out."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge pushed back her chair. "Guy says they expect it to be
+signed on Monday or Tuesday--the French expect it, I mean."
+
+"What is Guy going to do then?" asked Gaskell-Walker, as he opened the
+door.
+
+His mother-in-law looked at him vaguely. "Do? I don't know. I suppose
+he'll go back to the City. Mr. McCormick promised to take him back, but
+I don't know--he hasn't said anything about it. I'll get his letter."
+
+They went upstairs to the girl's room, for Paul had long since
+established his æsthetic inability to sit in "the mausoleum," as he
+called the drawing-room, and there, among the pretty modern
+knick-knacks and pictures, the mother read her soldier son's letter.
+
+It was a good letter, unoriginal and typical in its lack of grumbling
+and rather artificial cheerfulness. The writer called his friends and
+comrades by odd nicknames, vegetable and otherwise; he gave the details
+of the food, and the delights of sleeping in a bed once more after
+eighteen months of trench life. Then at the last there was something
+over which Mrs. Walbridge hesitated for a moment--something which was
+plainly very important to her. Billy Gaskell-Walker got up.
+
+"I'll just go down and get a cigar out of my coat pocket," he said
+kindly.
+
+But Mrs. Walbridge stopped him. "No, no, Billy, don't go," she said,
+"I'd like you to hear because you are going to be brothers now." She
+could not tell him that it was Paul before whom she had hesitated to
+read the more intimate part of the letter.
+
+Paul sat at the far end of the room, reading a newspaper, his smoothly
+brushed hair gleaming over the back of Grisel's favourite chair.
+
+"Of course, you know that Guy has been rather foolish," his mother went
+on after a pause, putting on her spectacles again. "But he is only
+twenty-one, after all, and that's not so very old, is it?"
+
+Curiously enough the stranger, the man who was nothing to her or to her
+boy by blood, understood her better and was closer to her at that moment
+than either her son or her daughter. Gaskell-Walker drew his chair a
+little nearer and took his cigarette out of his mouth, a queer little
+unpremeditated act of homage which she noticed and for which she was
+grateful.
+
+"A man of twenty-one," he said slowly, "is not a man at all, he's only
+a child, and Guy is so good-looking, he's so full of what women call
+charm----" he broke off with an expressive shrug, and after smiling
+gratefully at him, and lowering her voice a little that she might not
+disturb Paul's study of the _Evening Standard_, his mother-in-law went
+on with the letter, reading in a low, moved voice:
+
+     "'_Dear old Mum, I shall be awfully glad to get back. I've been
+     thinking quite a lot lately and I can see better than I used to
+     what a selfish young cub I've always been to you. Of course, it's
+     your own fault that we're all such pigs. You've been too good to
+     us!_'--That," the reader broke off to say, "is ridiculous.--'_But
+     then I've just sort of taken everything for granted. It's been part
+     of nature that you should sit up in the little garret room, slaving
+     away at writing books to do things and buy things for us. It never
+     struck me before that you don't have much of a time, but it does
+     now, and when I come back I'm going to try to be a little more
+     decent to you. It isn't that I didn't love you----_'" Her voice
+     fell still lower and she shot another nervous glance at the back of
+     Paul's immovable head. "'_I always did--we all do, of course. It's
+     just possible that we're all selfish without meaning to be and I've
+     been the worst, because, of course, Paul has been working for years
+     and has no time to do very much, and it's different with the girls.
+     But I'd give something nice now, when I think about it all out
+     here, if I hadn't always been such a hound about going upstairs for
+     you and down to the kitchen and little things like that. Your poor
+     old feet must have been pretty tired sometimes chasing about doing
+     things for us, and in future I'm going to do the chasing._'"
+
+"Bless him," put in Hermione lazily, "he's a good child. We must kill
+the fatted calf for him when he comes home. Billy, we'll have a
+beautiful party----."
+
+Gaskell-Walker nodded. "Bravo, Brat," he approved gently. "We mustn't
+tease him any more. Perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I might get him a
+job in Throgmorton Street. Don't think much of McCormick, anyway.
+
+"There's a little more," went on Mrs. Walbridge, who had not listened to
+this conversation, but was bending over her letter, partly, it struck
+her son-in-law, to hide her eyes, "it's about--about that poor girl--you
+know."
+
+Paul turned round in his chair and rested his chin on its black satin
+back.
+
+"Francine, you mean"--he laughed with a little sneer, "what about her?
+The youth seems to be making his soul in earnest, but I have my doubts
+as to whether the lady will be satisfied with the rôle he offers her."
+
+"Oh, shut up, Paul, you're a cat," Hermione almost snapped, in her
+unusual vehemence. "Unless, I am very much mistaken you liked the girl
+yourself till the Brat came along and wiped your eye."
+
+"Shut up, you two. Go on, Mrs. Walbridge," interrupted Gaskell-Walker.
+"The girl's no worse than most young fellow's first adventure. Go and
+chew your bone on the mat, you two, if you've got to squabble. I want to
+hear what the Brat says."
+
+After a pained look at her elder son, Mrs. Walbridge went on with the
+letter, Paul walking ostentatiously indifferent to the piano and
+turning over the music on top of it as she did so.
+
+     "'_I know you have been worried to death about my silly scrape with
+     that girl, but it really wasn't so bad as you all thought. I can't
+     tell you about it in a letter, but I will when I see you and then
+     you'll see that I wasn't quite such an ass as most people imagined.
+     Anyhow, I straightened it all out the best way I could before I
+     went back after my last leave, and I know you'll be glad to hear
+     that I didn't treat her badly._' That's all he said about her. Then
+     he asks about his bullfinch--we've not told him it died--and sends
+     his love to everyone." Her voice shook a little as she read on.
+     "'_Tell old Paul I'm awfully glad to hear he's doing so well, and
+     hope he'll soon be able to get out of that cursed bank. I wish he'd
+     write to me, letters are a great boon out here. Give the girls each
+     a kiss and tell Billy that a little stick won't do Mrs. Hermy any
+     harm, when she goes through her manners at home!_' Isn't it a very
+     nice letter, Billy?"
+
+"It is indeed, Mrs. Walbridge, there's good stuff in the Brat, and for
+one, I'm going to do my best to help it come out. He'll have a good time
+at our house--we both like entertaining, and I've done pretty well this
+year, and it'll be nice for him to have a cheery place to go to, full of
+young people. We must get some pretty flappers to amuse him, Hermy, and
+then he won't want to go wasting his time in silly places."
+
+Paul turned. "I rather think," he drawled, "that we haven't, in spite of
+all these virtuous plans, heard the last of the excellent Francine.
+Good-night, Gaskell-Walker." He left the room, closing the door very
+softly behind him.
+
+"I do wish," snapped Hermy, "that Paul would slam the door when he's
+furious, like a Christian. That cat-footed way of his drives me mad."
+
+A little later Mrs. Walbridge accompanied her guests to their room,
+where everything had been prepared for them with the most minute and
+loving care.
+
+"There's the cold milk, Billy, on your side, and Hermy's hot milk is in
+the thermos. The windows are open at the top about a foot. Is that
+right?"
+
+Hermione kissed her mother, who, after a minute's hesitation, kissed her
+again.
+
+"That's poor little Guy's kiss," the elder woman said. "Oh, Hermy, I'm
+so glad he's coming home."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge then held out her hand to her son-in-law. "Good-night.
+Billy, it's nice having you here. You've been very kind about Guy. It
+has made me happy."
+
+Gaskell-Walker peered closely into her face, for he had taken his
+glasses off. He was a selfish man, and not particularly tender-hearted,
+selfishness after forty having a tendency to grow a thick membrane over
+the feelings. But something in her face touched him.
+
+"Good-night, dear Mrs. Walbridge," he said gently. "Will you allow your
+new son-in-law to kiss you good-night?" And he bent and kissed her on
+her soft cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+At half-past seven on the morning of Armistice Day Caroline Breeze, who
+was an early waker, but a late riser, was sitting up in bed reading. Her
+small, high up flat was very comfortable, and the good old woman had
+only to cross the room to light her gas-ring and prepare her morning
+tea. This she had done half an hour before, and was now propped up
+against many pillows with a pleasantly furnished tea-tray on her lap,
+bread and butter in one hand, which she dipped shamelessly into her tea,
+as she read, with avid, dreamy eyes, a new novel.
+
+Miss Breeze was about sixty, and of irredeemable plainness, being the
+victim of that cruel form of indigestion that makes the nose red and the
+eyes watery. Her sparse grey hair, the front part of which was by day
+covered by a front of grey glossiness with but few pretences at
+concealment, that now hung, carefully brushed, on the foot of her bed
+like a bloodless and innocently come by war trophy, was screwed up on
+top of her big square head. She wore a little flannel jacket of the
+wrong shade of pink; her eiderdown, her window curtains, her wallpaper
+were pink, all too, of that pathetically wrong shade, but being
+comfortably colour blind, or taste blind, she knew nothing of this, and
+regarded her room as a bower of beauty and charm. The book she was
+reading was intensely interesting; there was in it a most cruelly
+treated companion, a revolting lap-dog that had to be taken for walks
+in the park, and a handsome nephew who ground his teeth in moments of
+emotion, and had designs on Rosamund (that was the governess's name). So
+engrossed was the good lady that presently she allowed her bit of bread
+and butter to soak too long in the tea, and as she raised it to her
+mouth it disintegrated, and fell with a horrid splash on her jacket.
+
+"Oh, dear, how disgusting!" the old lady said aloud, laying down her
+book and removing the tea-soaked and buttery bread with a knife. "I do
+hope it's going to end all right."
+
+When she had rubbed the front of her jacket vigorously with her napkin,
+she took up the book, and with a furtive air turned to the last page.
+This habit of looking at the end before she got to it was one of which
+Miss Breeze was very ashamed, but she was so tender-hearted that when
+she saw in the story any signs of possible tragedy, she really could not
+resist taking a hasty glance at the ending, just to see if things were
+all right. If they were she went back to the tale with undisturbed zest,
+and undiminished excitement over the intervening troubles of the
+heroine. But if the author had been so foolish as to allow death or
+misunderstanding to blight the life of her heroine, Caroline Breeze
+closed the book and never opened it again.
+
+She had just resumed her reading, when a ring came at her door. The
+postman did not ring, and she did not receive telegrams, so she was
+startled, and sat staring owl-like through her glasses towards the door.
+The ring was repeated, followed by a quick tapping of ungloved fingers
+on the panel, and she heard a voice:
+
+"Let me in, Caroline, it's only me."
+
+"Good gracious. It's Violet!"
+
+Slipping the tray from her knees to the little bamboo table at the side
+of the bed, Miss Breeze wrapped the eiderdown round her, and scuttled
+across and opened the door. She kissed her guest and they both went back
+into the warm bedroom; for the fire in the little drawing-room would not
+be lit until just before Miss Breeze got up, and lying in bed in the
+morning was her one self-indulgence.
+
+"My dear, take your hat off and sit down in the comfortable chair.
+Whatever has brought you here at this hour?"
+
+"Trouble," answered Mrs. Walbridge simply, doing as she was told. "I
+want you to do something for me, Caroline, it's a favour. I've very
+little time, so I can't explain. I must have some money."
+
+"Money!" Miss Breeze had known Mrs. Walbridge for many years, but she
+had never suspected that her friend had money troubles.
+
+"Yes, I must have some at once, and I want you to--to pawn these for
+me."
+
+Opening her bag, she took out a little old case into which she had
+crowded her two or three old-fashioned diamond rings, and two pairs of
+earrings, one of seed pearls, the other of pale sapphires clumsily set
+in diamond chips and thick gold.
+
+Caroline Breeze had never been inside a pawnshop in her life, but she
+did not protest against the horrid errand.
+
+"I'll get up at once and go," she said. "What do you think they ought to
+give me?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge, who was very pale, and whose eyes looked larger and more
+sunken than ever, shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I haven't the
+slightest idea," she said.
+
+"What's that book?" she added sharply, the crimson cover of her friend's
+novel catching her eyes.
+
+Miss Breeze's face, already so red and white in the wrong places, turned
+a deep bluish colour of extreme embarrassment. "Oh, it's--it's just a
+book," she stammered, laying her hand on it. "I--I thought I'd like to
+read it, just to see if it really is good."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge, who had risen, held out her hand.
+
+"Let me see it, Caroline," she said quietly, and Miss Breeze gave it to
+her. "I thought so--Beryl J. Bell. I've seen it advertised. Jones &
+Hayward advertise a great deal. Is it--is it good?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge's voice shook a little, and Caroline Breeze turned her
+eyes away.
+
+"Nothing extra," she answered in a voice that tried to be indifferent.
+"I suppose they spend a lot of money in advertising her."
+
+Forgetting her hurry, Mrs. Walbridge sat down again and looked eagerly
+through the book. There was a long silence, a flutter of pages being the
+only noise in the quiet room. Caroline Breeze's faithful heart ached for
+her friend, and in her wisdom she said nothing. But Mrs. Walbridge spoke
+after she had closed the book and laid it down on the bed.
+
+"I suppose you know," her voice was very quiet and the colour had died
+away from her face, leaving the shadows and lines in it deeper than
+ever. "I suppose you know that 'Lord Effingham' is--a failure?"
+
+Caroline made a dreadful grimace, rumpling up her nose and protruding
+her thick lips two or three times rapidly, a way she had when she was
+embarrassed or distressed.
+
+"Oh, no," she protested, "not a failure. I've noticed that the critics
+don't seem to like it _quite_ so much as the others, but----"
+
+"Don't. It's a failure, Caroline, and it's right that it should be. I
+tried to change it, to make it more modern, and I've spoiled it
+completely. It's neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring."
+
+"Oh, Violet!" Poor Miss Breeze's watery eyes overflowed a little, the
+tears did not fall, but spread awkwardly, scantily, over her rutted
+cheeks, and made her plain face even plainer. "I love your books, and I
+love this one too. If they had let you alone it would have been sweet."
+
+"Yes, but they didn't let me alone, and they were right not to. They
+weren't unkind, they were right."
+
+There was something innocently pathetic in the little figure by the bed.
+The plain old felt hat was on one side of her head, and in the
+strengthening morning light she looked a really old woman--an unhappy,
+hopeless old woman.
+
+"I'm old-fashioned, Caroline--out of date. That's what it is. These new
+people--that woman for instance, Beryl J. Bell--she's young, she
+believes in her books, her mind isn't tired like mine. I know." She rose
+and moved nervously about the room, speaking in a quick undertone. "I've
+always known that my books aren't very good of course--not like Hichens,
+I mean, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and Arnold Bennett--but they were good
+of their kind, and people did like them, I know they did. I've had
+letters from people I've never even heard of, showing how much they
+liked them, and how they had helped them. But now they're old-fashioned
+even among old-fashioned ones. That's it." She stood still to utter the
+saddest of cries. "I'm old, Caroline. I'm old."
+
+Poor Caroline Breeze burst into loud snuffling sobs, and rising from her
+bed, her skimpy nightgown clinging to her bony legs, she embraced her
+poor friend, and tried to comfort her with love and lies. Violet
+Walbridge did not cry. She was never a tearful woman, and at this moment
+was far past such a show of feeling.
+
+"Get back into bed, dear. You'll catch cold," she said gently, patting
+her friend's bony shoulder. "I must go now or they'll miss me. Come to
+lunch when you've been to the pawnshop. It's good of you to go. I know I
+ought to go myself, but somehow I can't, with my own things, and I
+thought it would not be so bad for you, because you can _tell_ the man
+that it's for a friend."
+
+This idea she cherished, poor innocent lady, as one of great
+originality, and to Miss Breeze as well it appeared valuable. But even
+now, grieved as she was for her friend, it never occurred to the
+faithful Caroline that the financial situation of "Happy House" could
+possibly be one of more than temporary tightness.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge never talked of money matters and for all Miss Breeze
+knew might have a regular income quite apart from her books. So the kind
+old maid's assumption was that one of the boys had got into a scrape,
+and that Mrs. Walbridge wished to help him without her husband's
+knowledge. For, in spite of the fact that Ferdie Walbridge, on the
+strength of having once paid back ten pounds of his original loan from
+Miss Breeze, had on several occasions borrowed further small sums of
+her, to avoid, he said, bothering poor Violet about trifles, Caroline
+still cherished her pristine belief that husbands were superior beings,
+who ought not to be troubled by small matters by their wives.
+
+As the friends parted Caroline ventured one question. "There's another
+book sold to Lubbock & Payne, isn't there? On that last contract, I
+mean."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, this is the last of the three. I--I
+dare say I shall hear from them shortly."
+
+Caroline Breeze went back to her room, and dressed and prepared to go on
+her, to her, so strange and adventurous errand.
+
+No one saw Mrs. Walbridge come home, and the morning dragged along with
+its usual round of dull duties, until about half past ten, when Miss
+Breeze arrived, her long queer figure, in her tight-fitting jacket edged
+with strips of shabby mink, and her oddly rakish hat decorated with a
+scrap of gold lace and a big bunch of pink roses.
+
+"I've been, dear," she burst out eagerly, as she came into the attic
+room, where her friend sat at her work-table, "and I've got fifty-two
+pounds. Isn't it splendid?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge's face fell. "Oh, thanks--that's very good," she said,
+"and I'm so grateful to you, Caroline."
+
+"It wasn't a bit like what I had expected," Miss Breeze explained,
+unbuttoning her jacket, and pulling out her cherished lace frill. "I
+rather thought there would be little pens, you know, like the ones in
+Dickens, with a young man leaning across a counter. But it was exactly
+like a shop and there was a very nice little back room, and such a
+polite man, a Christian. He said the diamonds were very good, but small,
+and he didn't seem to believe me when I told him it was for a friend.
+Wasn't it odd of him?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge nodded. She had taken up a pencil and was making some
+notes on an old envelope, "twenty-six, thirty-six," she murmured. "Are
+they really signing the Armistice to-day?" she asked a moment later,
+looking up.
+
+"Yes, I think so. The streets are crowded, everybody seems to be waiting
+for something. I don't see why they don't sign the peace at once, and
+not waste time over an armistice; it would be far simpler."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge rose. "Let's go downstairs, dear," she said.
+
+But at that moment a sudden ringing of bells filled the air--bells from
+all sides, bells big, bells small, bells musical and bells harsh. The
+two women stared at each other.
+
+"That must be it," Miss Breeze cried. "I thought they were going to fire
+off cannon."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge went to the little window and opened it. The sun was
+shining, and the sky was as clear as if they looked at it from some
+empty moor. She stood and looked up.
+
+"Thank God," she said. "Now all the sons and brothers and lovers will be
+coming home--those who are left----"
+
+"And husbands," agreed Miss Breeze, clasping her hands.
+
+As the cannon began to roar, Violet Walbridge turned and looked at her
+friend with a curious expression in her fine eyes. "And husbands," she
+added softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While the two women were having their simple lunch the house door burst
+open and Griselda came running in, glowing with colour and happiness,
+looking the picture of youth and beauty, in a little close-fitting fur
+cap and stole of the same kind of fur. The Fords had motored her up to
+town to see the celebrations and to go to a ball at one of the big
+hotels that night.
+
+"Oh, mother," she cried, "aren't you glad it's over--the war, I mean?"
+
+She sat down at the table, and leaning her chin in her hand, watched the
+two women as they pecked at their bread and cheese.
+
+"Aren't you surprised to see me? We only came up on the spur of the
+moment. Fred said it was a historical event, and we ought not to miss
+it, and he telephoned through and got rooms. The prices are perfectly
+fearful, but he really doesn't care what he spends. So here we are. They
+sent me up here in the car."
+
+"Where," asked her mother, in an odd, dry little voice, "did you get
+those furs?"
+
+Griselda, who had taken off the stole, glanced down at it carelessly.
+"Oh, this. Elsie gave it to me. Fred gave her some heavenly sables the
+other day, so she didn't want these any more."
+
+"I gave you my beaver set."
+
+The girl glanced curiously at her mother's face. "I know you did, dear,
+and it's very nice, of course. But beaver doesn't suit me, and besides
+it's very old fashioned."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge started at the last word, and her wedding ring struck
+sharply against a glass.
+
+"Old fashioned?" she said. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, come upstairs,
+dear, and take your things off in my room. Jessie's turning yours out
+to-day, but it'll be ready in a little while."
+
+Griselda caught up her stole and threw it round her shoulders. "Oh, I'm
+not staying," she explained carelessly. "We're at the Ritz. It's only
+for two or three days, so I thought I wouldn't--upset things here--and
+besides, Elsie wanted me. Sir John Barclay is motoring her and me back
+on the day after to-morrow----"
+
+"Who is Sir John Barclay?" asked Miss Breeze interestedly. Grisel
+laughed.
+
+"Try to bear it, Caroline," she said, "but he's not young and handsome;
+he's old. _Very_ nice," she added, patronisingly, "but really old. White
+hair and all that. Isn't it a pity, for he's as rich as
+Croesus--copper in Africa it is, and sheep and cows in South America.
+I wish he'd adopt me as a favourite grandchild." As she spoke a long,
+throaty honk of a motor horn was heard. "That's Peters. I promised Elsie
+I wouldn't be late, and he's reminding me. We're lunching at the Carlton
+with Sir John, so I really _mustn't_ be late. Good-bye, dears."
+
+She kissed both the women and they all three walked to the hall door
+together.
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you," the girl went on, as she opened the door.
+"Dad says he's going to stay on for another fortnight. He says his
+health's better, but really and truly he's having the time of his life
+and is a thoroughly gay old dog. Oh, yes, and he wants you to send him
+some new pajamas--only two or three pairs, and you're not to send him
+mauve ones. Rather naughty of him to be so particular, isn't it?"
+
+"Griselda!" Mrs. Walbridge's voice was very stern, and the girl made a
+funny little face as she ran down the path.
+
+They watched her get into the big car, and waved their hands to her as
+it bore her quietly away.
+
+The two women went back into the house and sat down in the drawing-room.
+The fire had gone out during the excitement of the morning, and the room
+looked more than ever unlovely and uninhabited. Mrs. Walbridge stood for
+a moment gazing down at the five photographs.
+
+"Dear Grisel is having a splendid time, isn't she?" asked Caroline
+warmly. "How nice for her to have such rich friends."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge did not answer. Her eyes were still fixed on the pictures
+of her five children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+A week later Mrs. Walbridge received a letter from her publishers. It
+was a very kind letter, for, after all, publishers are human beings, and
+Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne were really sorry to hurt their poor little
+client.
+
+"'Pon my word, it really makes me feel quite miserable," Mr. Lubbock had
+told his partner, with perfect sincerity, as they drew up a rough draft
+of the letter for Miss Borlays, their most confidential secretary, to
+type.
+
+Mr. Payne nodded in agreement. "Poor old thing, it'll be an awful blow,
+and I half suspect," he added, "that she supports that rascally,
+good-looking husband of hers by her earnings."
+
+"There are a lot of children, too, Payne. I've forgotten how many, but a
+great many," added Mr. Lubbock, smoothing his impeccable waistcoat.
+"Poor little woman. I wish we didn't have to do it. Of course, she has
+grown absolutely out of date, and this last book is disastrous,
+positively disastrous."
+
+However, after some discussion, the two men decided, for the sake of old
+times and long friendship, to accept one more book from Mrs. Walbridge.
+
+"We'll buy outright," Lubbock suggested. "What do you say? Give her a
+cheque for five hundred pounds and let her deliver the manuscript when
+she likes. That'll let her down a bit easier."
+
+Mr. Payne nodded. "Five hundred pounds is a lot of money," he protested
+feebly. "We shan't sell as many copies either after this last mess.
+However, we'll do it."
+
+When they had finished the rough draft and sent it in to the efficient
+Miss Borlays, the two men went out to lunch, and had a bottle of Clos
+Vogeot to console themselves, both for what was practically a gift of a
+large sum of money, and also for their sincere sympathy with that poor
+little superannuated scribbler. After his third glass of the excellent
+and mellowing wine, Mr. Lubbock even recalled to his friend how very
+pretty Mrs. Walbridge had been twenty years ago.
+
+"I remember thinking I had never seen such eyes in my life," the good
+gentleman murmured reminiscently, "and I was only just married in those
+days, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The letter was less of a blow to Mrs. Walbridge than might have been
+expected, for, when faced with absolute ruin, an unexpected five hundred
+pounds comes very nearly like manna from heaven. Her relief when she had
+cashed the cheque and actually had the notes folded away in her shabby
+little old bag was so great that she had to struggle to keep the tears
+from her habitually tearless eyes. She did not go straight home from the
+bank, and restraining herself with a violent effort from rushing in to
+thank Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne--a course which she knew would be
+extremely distressing to them both--she did an unjustifiable but very
+forgivable thing. She went to Peter Robinson's and spent twenty-seven
+pounds nineteen and sixpence on a muff and stole for Griselda. This she
+had sent straight to her daughter, and, sitting at the counter in the
+shop, she wrote a little letter on a bit of paper out of one of her
+notebooks.
+
+     "_My darling_," she said, in her beautiful, clear writing, "_here's
+     a little present for you. I can't bear you to accept things from
+     anyone but me. Explain to Elsie Ford, and I'm sure she'll
+     understand your asking her to take back the beautiful furs she so
+     kindly wanted to give you._
+
+      "_When are you coming back? I don't want to cut your pleasure
+      short, but you've been away for a long time now, and I miss you.
+      Oliver came to see me yesterday, and he has a box for 'Roxana,'
+      and wants you and me and a friend of his, a young man, to go with
+      him on Thursday. Guy will be coming back any day now, and
+      Christmas is near--and in fact I want my baby very badly._
+
+  "_Your loving mother_,
+  "VIOLET WALBRIDGE."
+
+This note she pinned on the muff, and herself folded the soft paper over
+it as it lay in the box. The girl who had sold it to her was very
+sympathetic and pleasant, and promised that it should go off that very
+day. When these things were accomplished, Mrs. Walbridge went on to
+Campden Hill, where she was lunching with Hermione.
+
+Hilltop Road, Campden Hill, is a blind alley, beautifully quiet, with
+grass growing between the cobble-stones that pave it. It is a quiet,
+sunny, tree-sheltered place, with five or six engardened houses on
+either side, the smallest of which belonged to the Gaskell-Walkers. Even
+now, in November, a few scraggy roses and some brown-edged hydrangeas
+still garnished the sodden garden, and Mrs. Walbridge noticed with
+pleasure, as she went up the path, that the painters were evidently out.
+The door and windows glittered steadily in the glory of new bottle-green
+paint, and the windows themselves had lost the hollow-eyed look
+incidental to houses where the housemaids are not yet settled down to a
+religious respect for their blinds.
+
+She was a little late for lunch, but Maud was the only other guest, and,
+as Maud was very hungry, they had not waited for her, and she found them
+sitting cosily over curried eggs in the pretty dining-room. She had not
+seen Maud for about a fortnight, and was pleased to find her looking
+well and rosy. Hilary was at the seaside with his Grannie Twiss, and
+Maud and Moreton, she was told, had been having a high old time doing
+the theatres.
+
+"We are praying," the young wife added pleasantly, "for bubonic plague,
+or cholera, or something. Poor Moreton's only had three patients since
+we got back, and one of them only had neuralgia from his tooth, and
+Moreton had to send him across the passage to Mr. Burton to pull out a
+few. That," she added, reaching for the salt, "was rather bitter."
+
+Hermione, looking radiantly pretty in her smart trousseau coat and
+skirt, was full of simple news about her husband and her house and their
+plans.
+
+"Billy's not forgotten his promise about the Brat," she said, after a
+while. "He's asked Mr. Browning, his partner, you know, and he says he
+thinks they could make some kind of a place for him--for Guy, I mean."
+
+"That's very kind of him. I haven't heard from Guy for over a week. I
+suppose he'll be coming any day now, bless him."
+
+Then she was asked and told news of Paul, and this information was given
+and accepted rather coldly, for Paul was not a favourite with his
+brother and sisters, and their interest was only conventional.
+
+"I believe he did rather well in something; I forget what, copper or
+something, last week," Mrs. Walbridge explained. "He's bought a lovely
+teapot with flowers all over it, and a picture--a water-colour of Venice
+that he says will be worth double what he paid for it in a few years."
+
+"Grisel's having a grand time," one of the young women exclaimed towards
+the end of the lunch. "Elsie Ford is jolly good to her."
+
+Her mother's delicate eyebrows stirred a little ruefully. "I don't like
+this new custom of taking presents from one's friends," she said.
+
+"Nonsense, mother. Everybody does it, and Elsie's so rich it doesn't
+matter to her what she gives away. Do you remember how we despised her
+for marrying Fred Ford, Hermy?"
+
+Hermione nodded. "Yes; he was dreadful in those days, wasn't he? There
+wasn't a decent 'o' in him. Real cockney."
+
+"She's toned him down a lot, though," put in the other, "and he has a
+trick of picking up smart slang--really _good_ slang, you know--that
+makes him quite possible. When's the kid coming home, mum?"
+
+"A few days before Christmas. I had a letter from her yesterday. They
+are doing a lot of motoring, which, of course, Grisel loves. There's an
+old gentleman named Barclay who is very kind to her," she said.
+
+Hermione Gaskell-Walker burst out laughing. "You'll be having the kind
+old gentleman for a son-in-law if you don't look out, you innocent old
+pet," she said, lighting her coffee machine, and blowing out the match.
+"Elsie told me--I met her the other day in Harrod's when she came up for
+that special performance at His Majesty's--that the old man was crazy
+about the kid, and," she added with satisfaction, "rolling--simply
+rolling."
+
+Her mother looked bewildered. "Rolling----?"
+
+"In money, dear. He's extremely rich--cattle, I think, in Argentina. She
+always was the best-looking of the three of us, so it's only fair she
+should make the best match."
+
+Maud interrupted her indignantly. "Best match, indeed! An old man like
+that. How sickening of you, Hermy. I wouldn't give up Moreton for all
+the millionaires in the world."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge patted her hand. "That's right, dear," she murmured, and
+Mrs. Gaskell-Walker looked a little ashamed of herself.
+
+"You needn't think I'm not fond of Billy, for I am. He's absolutely
+perfect. I was only speaking from the worldly point of view, and it
+would be funny if the kid should burst out into a title, and millions,
+while Moreton is hunting illusive patients, and Billy worrying himself
+dead on the Stock Exchange."
+
+After lunch Mrs. Walbridge was taken over the house, which was very
+comfortable and full of things that she supposed must be beautiful,
+although to her they were for the most part grotesque, if not ugly. The
+mattresses, and such homely appurtenances, were oldish, she found, and
+rather shabby, but everything downstairs was imposing, and that,
+Hermione thought, was the chief thing.
+
+"By the way, mother," the young wife burst out as they came down the
+steep staircase, "what about that Wick man? There's not going to be any
+trouble with him, I hope?"
+
+"Trouble?"
+
+"Yes, with Grisel, I mean. Billy took a fancy to him rather, and asked
+him to come and see us, so he turned up the other Sunday for supper.
+He's very nice. We both liked him, but there's something very odd about
+him, don't you think?"
+
+Maud laughed. "It's only that he says all the things that most people
+only think."
+
+"I like him," Mrs. Walbridge announced firmly. "I like him very much.
+Did he say anything to you about Griselda, Hermy--or to Billy?"
+
+"No, not exactly. But when he talked about the future, and he always
+does talk about the future (I never knew anyone who seemed to have less
+use for the past, or even the present), he seemed to assume that she
+would always be there, with him, I mean."
+
+"He's asked her to marry him, and she's refused him."
+
+"Really? He doesn't seem much cast down by it. I never saw a more cheery
+person in my life. Billy says he'll be a great success some day."
+
+Maud went part of the way home with her mother, and asked her again for
+the loan. Mrs. Walbridge hesitated.
+
+"I don't quite see how I can, dear," she said behind her muff, for they
+were in a bus. "My--my last book has not sold quite so well as the
+others."
+
+Maud nodded. "I've seen some of the notices. Awfully sorry, dear. By the
+way, why don't you try to brighten up your style a little? They're
+awfully sweet and all that, but they are a little old-fashioned, you
+know."
+
+"I--I tried to brighten up 'Lord Effingham,'" her mother faltered, and
+Maud laughed with kindly meant amusement that cut deep.
+
+"'Lord Effingham' really was the limit. That baby was most shocking. We
+blushed for you, Moreton and I. Moreton says he thinks you don't read
+enough of the new stuff. Oh, I don't mean really good stuff, like Wells
+and May Sinclair and that lot, but the second-rate ones that sell so
+well--Mrs. Llovitt and Austen Goodheart, and so on. This Bell woman,
+too--what's her name?--Beryl J. Bell. I don't think her book is really
+better than yours, but every second person one meets is reading it."
+
+Before they parted she returned again to the question of the loan.
+
+"If you possibly can you'll let me have it, won't you? We really are
+rather at our wits' end. Everyone is so dreadfully healthy just now, and
+the rent is pretty bad--quarter-day coming. I do want some pretty things
+for little Violet. I should hate her to wear Hilary's left-offs."
+
+A little smile, that was almost whimsical, touched Mrs. Walbridge's
+flexible lips.
+
+"My children all wore each other's left-offs," she said softly, "and it
+didn't seem to hurt them. Grisel looked very sweet in your long robes.
+However, I'll see what I can do, darling, and I _can_ let you have
+twenty-five--only don't mention it to Paul, will you?"
+
+She changed buses at Oxford Circus, and after waiting a long time on the
+corner, she gave up trying to force her way into the overcrowded buses
+(for she hadn't the gift of crowds) and walked home. It was nearly
+tea-time when she reached Happy House, and after a hasty cup of tea she
+went up to her little attic study and sat down to work.
+
+When Paul came home at dinner-time he was not unreasonably annoyed to
+find his mother still writing.
+
+"Do come down," he called. "Dinner's on the table, and I'm hungry."
+
+When she appeared, he looked with distaste at her ruffled hair and
+ink-stained finger.
+
+"Really, mother," he exclaimed irritably, "I do think you might manage
+to be in time for meals. It's disgusting to a man to get home and have
+to wait for his food."
+
+"I shan't be a minute, dear," she said. "I must just wash my hands and
+brush my hair."
+
+"Oh, bother your hands and your hair; come along. I'm going to the
+play--gallery--with Bruce Collier, to the Coliseum, so I shan't have to
+dress, but I've very little time."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was a careful housekeeper, but things will go wrong
+sometimes in every house, and this was one of those occasions for her.
+She had a new cook whom she ought, she knew, to have superintended, but
+the call of her book had been too loud and she had forgotten all about
+dinner. The soup was lumpy and luke-warm, and the leg of mutton
+quivering and purple. Paul watched it as she cut the first slice (she
+always did the carving), and threw down his napkin angrily.
+
+"Raw meat--that's really too much! I'll go to the club and get a
+sandwich."
+
+Tears rose to her eyes. "Oh, Paul, I _am_ sorry, very sorry," she cried,
+"and I don't wonder you're annoyed, but don't go. Let me make you a
+Welsh rabbit."
+
+He shook his head and rose. "No, no. I'd rather go."
+
+"I--I--it was my fault," she went on. "I got so interested in my book
+that I utterly forgot dinner."
+
+At the door he turned and looked back at her pitilessly.
+
+"Your book! If your books were worth while there'd be some excuse for
+artistic absent-mindedness, but considering the stuff you turn out, I
+shouldn't think such mundane details as soup and mutton need be so
+infinitely beneath you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Walbridge sat still for several minutes, staring at the closed
+door, a strange look on her pale face. Presently she rose, the look in
+her eyes intensifying, almost solidifying, to one that would
+immeasurably have astonished her son if he could have seen it. Lighting
+a lamp, she went quickly upstairs to her little writing room, and,
+unfastening the buttons of her right sleeve, freeing her wrist, she took
+up her pen and began to write. Day had begun to light her square of sky
+when she crept down quietly to bed the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+A few days before Christmas Ferdinand Walbridge and his youngest
+daughter came home. It, was over two months since his wife had seen him,
+and she was very much struck by his look of health and youth.
+
+"The sea air has done you a world of good, Ferdie," she commented
+gently.
+
+He shot a quick glance at her out of marvellously cleared and unswollen
+eyes.
+
+"Torquay agrees with me," he answered shortly; "always did."
+
+Then he told her with genuine pleasure--for, like so many men with whom
+selfishness is almost a disease, he liked spending money, and was rather
+generous than otherwise--that he had made a good thing from a tip in
+copper, given him by a friend in Torquay.
+
+"Sir John Barclay," he explained. "Grisel will have written you about
+him."
+
+She nodded. "Oh, yes. The kind old gentleman."
+
+"Exactly, the kind old gentleman." He laughed. "He and I are very
+friendly, and, as I say, he put me on to this thing, and I cleared a
+couple of hundred pounds."
+
+She was about to ask him if he couldn't manage some of the quarterly
+bills with part of the money, when he cut the ground from under her feet
+by taking from his pocket five five-pound notes and handing them to her.
+
+"That's just a little present for you, old girl," he said, "to help you
+out with Christmas."
+
+Before she had finished thanking him, the house door had banged behind
+him.
+
+Grisel had not arrived yet, as she was coming by car with the Fords, who
+were spending Christmas at the Savoy, and Mrs. Walbridge ran out and
+bought some flowers to decorate the girl's room.
+
+She had not forgiven Paul for the episode of the underdone mutton. He
+had hurt her many times before, but he had never so thoroughly disgusted
+her, and her indignation, that she knew to be justified and fair, was in
+an odd way a strength to her. She had worked for hours every day on her
+new book, and was behindhand in consequence with her Christmas plans,
+but Grisel must have flowers. She spent nearly three pounds of the
+twenty-five her husband had given her at the beautiful shop in Baker
+Street, and then, because she was afraid of crushing them, took a taxi
+home, and was met by a look of cold raillery by Paul, who was letting
+himself into the house with his latchkey as she drove up.
+
+"I hope Lubbock & Payne are paying you well for the new masterpiece," he
+said, as she came up the steps laden with flowers. He was surprised at
+the look she gave him in return.
+
+"Your father made me a present this morning," she said quietly, "and if
+I choose to buy flowers with some of it that doesn't concern you, my
+dear Paul."
+
+Up in the girls' room (as the upstairs sitting-room was still called,
+although only one girl was left) she had half an hour of real pleasure,
+filling vases with water and arranging flowers to the best advantage.
+She was passionately devoted to the pretty things, but for many years
+now had had to give up buying them, or trying to keep growing things in
+the house. Growing plants need care and time, and Mrs. Walbridge had
+little leisure for such delightful attentions.
+
+But now Grisel was coming home, so she felt perfectly satisfied in
+spending such an enormous sum of money as nearly three pounds on
+adorning the girl's room.
+
+Her husband had not known at what time the Fords and their guest would
+reach London. They would, no doubt, lunch on the way, and as Sir John
+Barclay was coming up with them, they would probably stop to explore any
+old churches they might pass. He had a passion for routing about in
+chilly, romantic old churches.
+
+"Fond of arches, and architecture, and flying buttresses and things," he
+added, with the pleasant disdain of one to whom those chaste joys make
+no appeal.
+
+So, when the flowers were arranged, and the blinds drawn down, and the
+fire lit, Mrs. Walbridge went to her own room and put on her only
+afternoon dress. It looked very shabby, she thought, as she stood in
+front of the glass. It had never been much of a frock, and she had worn
+it and worn it and worn it. It was of black silk, of some thin, papery
+kind that looked cracked in a strong light, and the sleeves were very
+old-fashioned, with something wrong about the shoulders. She sighed a
+little, and then gave her pretty curly hair a last smooth of the brush
+and went downstairs.
+
+She was a little anxious lest one of the children might notice the
+absence of her rings, and the seed pearl earrings, which, being one of
+her husband's very few gifts, were a part of her immemorial gala attire;
+she was almost sure that he would notice their absence, and she felt
+that she would die with shame if any of them knew about the pawning.
+
+The new cook had produced some unexpectedly tempting-looking cakes, and
+Jessie, much elated by her reinstatement as a one-job woman, was waiting
+in all the glories of new cap and apron, to open the door to Miss
+Griselda, while the mistress, in the dreary drawing-room, sat down by
+the fire to wait for her daughter.
+
+She was lost in thought over her new book, which was engrossing her very
+deeply. She heard a sudden knocking on the glass panel of the house
+door, and jumped up and ran to open the door, flinging out her arms and
+crying:
+
+"Oh, my darling!"
+
+"Thanks, Mrs. Walbridge. I like being called your darling. You might
+kiss me too, if you don't mind. It's Christmas time."
+
+Oliver Wick laughed cheerfully as the little lady started back in
+fright. "That's what I call a nice warm welcome," the young man went on,
+following her into the hall and hanging up his hat.
+
+"Then she hasn't come? May I come in and wait? I've really come to see
+her, you know, but I've got a very decent excuse--a note from my mother,
+saying how delighted we shall be to dine with you on Christmas Eve." He
+produced a letter and followed his hostess into the drawing-room,
+carrying something that looked like a small hatbox with great care.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge read the note and expressed her satisfaction at its
+contents.
+
+"What have you got in that box," she added.
+
+"Flowers for Grisel," he answered promptly. "Beauties. Just look." He
+raised the lid of his box and showed her an enormous bunch of closely
+packed Parma violets. "Aren't they lovely?" he asked, beaming with
+pleasure, "and won't she love them?"
+
+"She will indeed. Let's go upstairs and put them in water, shall we?"
+
+And thus it was that when Griselda Walbridge reached home after having
+stayed nearly two months with the Freddie Fords at Conroy Hall, Torquay,
+she found Mr. Wick awaiting her with a curious air of belonging to the
+household as much, or even more, than she did.
+
+"You're fatter," he said, looking at her critically, his small eyes shut
+as if she were a picture and he an expert, "and you've got that nasty
+red stuff on your lips. Oh, fie!"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge watched them happily, as she leant back in Hermione's
+favourite old chair by the fire. There was something in this friendly,
+busy youth that she loved. He gave her a safe feeling, and she decided,
+as she watched his sparring with her daughter, that she would be glad to
+see Grisel safely married to him. He was poor, she knew, but she had
+unconsciously accepted his own ideas about his future, and knew that his
+poverty was merely a temporary thing, and that he was headed straight
+for power and wealth. Besides, power and wealth were not things that she
+had ever greatly valued.
+
+Grisel was thinner, she went on thinking. She looked taller in her
+beautifully fitting chestnut brown skirt and chiffon tan blouse. The
+girl had changed. She looked more grown up, more of what her mother
+innocently characterised as "a society girl." Her manner, too, was
+different. She seemed at once a little bored and excited about
+something.
+
+She had opened her dressing-case and taken out a variety of little
+belongings and was darting about the room like, her mother thought, a
+swallow, settling these things in their old places. A handsomely framed
+photograph of her father (his gift on her last birthday) she put on the
+mantelpiece, and turned with a little laugh.
+
+"Isn't Dad looking splendid," she said. "He's been motoring a lot, you
+know, and it's done him a world of good."
+
+"Oh, I didn't know he went with you," her mother observed, surprised.
+Grisel took a little silver and enamel cigarette box out of her pocket
+and put it on the table.
+
+"He didn't go with us," she answered carelessly. "The Crichells had
+their car, you know, and he and Clara used to knock about a bit."
+
+"Surely, my dear, you don't call Mrs. Crichell by her Christian name?"
+
+"Don't I? I call everybody by their Christian names--everyone does. The
+old ones hate being 'Miss-ed'--reminds them of their age, you see. Even
+Elsie's mother hated being called Mrs. Hulbert, but, of course, I
+wouldn't call her Pansy! She really _is_ old. Must be as old as you,
+dear, though I must say she doesn't look it."
+
+Oliver Wick glanced quickly at Mrs. Walbridge, but looked away in
+relief, for he saw that she was untouched by the girl's careless remark,
+and he realised with a pang of satisfaction that her sensitiveness lay
+far from such matters as age and looks.
+
+"Did you see much of that Mrs. Crichell?" he asked, as she sat down and
+lit a cigarette. She laughed.
+
+"Yes. I know you hate her, but she's really not so bad, and Mr. Crichell
+and she entertained a good deal. They had an awfully nice house there."
+
+"I don't hate her," said Oliver Wick quietly, "but she's vulgar, and too
+idle and empty-headed to be much good, or happy. Women like that are
+always on the edge of making beasts of themselves, even if they don't do
+it."
+
+"Oh, a Daniel come to judgment!" she jeered. "You seem very wise, this
+afternoon."
+
+"Yes," he answered drily. "I'm always rather sage on Saturdays. Friday's
+pay day, you know, at my shop, and nothing makes a man feel so wise as
+money in his breeches pocket. You," he added, "have, on the contrary,
+gained chiefly in folly, I should say."
+
+She laughed. "Have I? I'm not at all sure of that."
+
+There was something thoughtful in her voice and face, and her mother
+looked at her wonderingly.
+
+Oliver's face was imperturbable. "Who's the man?" he asked, and she
+actually jumped, so that her cigarette fell out of her amber holder to
+the floor.
+
+"What d'you say?" she asked, as she picked up the cigarette. "Who was
+the what?"
+
+"Man--the man you're contemplating marrying?"
+
+All that there was of the new and the strange in Griselda seemed to her
+mother to flower in her answer to the young man's question.
+
+She threw back her head and laughed, her pretty throat shown to the best
+advantage as she did so. Then coolly looking at Wick from under her
+lashes in a consciously attractive way, she drawled:
+
+"I'm not going to tell you his name, though you're perfectly right, oh
+shrewd young knight of the fountain pen."
+
+Wick was shrewd, but he was also very young, and Mrs. Walbridge felt a
+little pang of pain as she saw how white he had grown and what a smitten
+look had come to his face. After a second he rallied, and lit a
+cigarette, but he had been badly hurt, and his face showed it as he
+said, with a laugh:
+
+"That's a phase all attractive young girls go through--trying to make up
+their minds to marry some rich man they don't like, before they have the
+sense to settle down with the handsome object of their true affections."
+
+"The object being you, I suppose?" she retorted.
+
+"Grisel, Grisel," her mother protested gently. "You really go too far,
+my dear."
+
+The girl laughed. "Poor mother. You're longing to tell me it isn't
+womanly, aren't you? But it's very kind of you to have brought me the
+violets, Oliver, and I'm glad to see you, and all that----" She held out
+her hand carelessly, with something of the air of a stage queen, "but
+I'm dining out, and must have a talk with mother before I dress, so I'm
+afraid you must go now."
+
+He rose at once, apologising nervously and sensitively for having stayed
+too long, and Mrs. Walbridge went down to the door with him. He was very
+slow in getting into his coat, and she purposely did not look at him.
+She knew he was suffering, and she had an absurd feeling that he was
+hers, that she had written him--that she knew exactly what he was going
+through, and what he was going to do.
+
+Then he opened the door and turned round, grinning broadly and holding
+out his hand.
+
+"She got the first one in that round, didn't she?" he asked. "Never
+mind, I'll get her yet, the young minx! Oh, my word," he added,
+relapsing suddenly into helpless, conscious pathos: "What a little
+beauty she is! My knees feel like wet tissue paper."
+
+Before she could speak he had bent and kissed her (for though he was not
+very tall, he was taller than she), and was gone into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The Christmas Eve dinner party was rather a large one. Hermione and her
+husband could not come, as they were obliged to dine with relations of
+the Gaskell-Walkers. But the Twiss's were there, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Crichell, and Paul and the Wicks, and, to Griselda's joy, the great
+Bruce Collier honoured them with his presence. She knew that this
+condescension was due to his having once met her coming out of the house
+when he was on his way to see Paul.
+
+Walbridge had, as usual, helped by spending all his available money on
+things of a showy and convivial nature. The quarterly gas bill was still
+unpaid, and he was having serious trouble with his tailor, but he had
+sent in a case of champagne, and a box of the best cigars money could
+buy, and all sorts of impressive, though unnecessary dainties, such as
+caviare, pâté de foie, brandied cherries, oysters and so on, besides a
+fifteen-pound turkey, which quite put out of joint, as Grisel expressed
+it, "the pope's nose of the poor little eleven-pounder mother had bought
+for the occasion."
+
+Ferdie had been very fussy and tiresome ever since he came back from
+Torquay, and at the last minute, distrustful of the new cook's powers,
+he had insisted on getting a woman in for the Christmas Eve dinner. The
+permanent cook wept all day, and went through the usual procedure of
+reproaches and threats, but she finally quieted down, by the help of a
+bottle of port, and the dinner really was excellent.
+
+At the last minute the table had had to be redecorated, because Ferdie
+had been seized with a desire to have orchids. Mrs. Walbridge sat
+patiently by and watched him remove her time-honoured design of holly
+and mistletoe and smilax, and then arrange the lovely purple and mauve
+things that she now saw for the first time in her life without a shop
+front between her and them. She dared not ask the price; she dared not
+offer to help him, for he was extraordinarily irritable, and in spite of
+his look of renewed health and youth, moved to violent invective by the
+slightest word or suggestion. She watched him now as he darted from side
+to side of the table trying the effect of the different clear-glass
+vases, full of the expensive flowers that his wife privately thought so
+much less lovely than roses or sweet peas.
+
+He was looking very handsome, and had certainly renewed his youth in a
+way that made her feel, as she raised her eyes to the glass that always
+hung opposite his place at table, that she looked older and more dowdy
+than ever. And yet there was something in his face that displeased her,
+and seemed to give her an odd kind of warning. After a while she rose
+and went quietly to the door.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked sharply.
+
+"I'm going up to write a little."
+
+"Oh, rubbish! Go down to the kitchen and make sure that everything's all
+right. That's far more important."
+
+"I've been down to the kitchen," she answered gently, with something in
+her eyes that disconcerted him. "Everything is all right, and as you are
+going to arrange the seats I'm going to write for a while."
+
+She went upstairs and closed the door, and sat down before her
+work-table, where her lamp always stood nowadays filled and trimmed,
+with a box of matches by its side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Old Mrs. Wick, rather imposing in grey, with some fine lace, and a cap,
+and a handsome old brooch of Irish paste and black enamel, necessarily
+sat on Ferdie Walbridge's right at dinner. Mrs. Crichell, very handsome
+in jade green velvet, sat on his left, as she had sat, Oliver
+remembered, from his place on Mrs. Walbridge's left, that night in the
+early autumn, when he had first dined at the house.
+
+Oliver was very proud of his old mother, and with good reason, for her
+plain, strong face was by far the most arresting, apart from the mere
+fact of superficial beauty, at the table. His little sister too, whose
+soft red hair foamed over her head like scarlet soap-suds, bore the
+proximity of three very good-looking young women remarkably well. She
+was plainly by far the most intelligent of the four, and once or twice
+when the celebrated Mr. Collier laid down the law with even more than
+his usual cocksureness, little Jenny dashed in, as her delighted brother
+thought, and wiped the floor with him. He was a pretentious, posing man,
+Mr. Collier, disposing of such writers as Thomas Hardy and Meredith with
+a few words of amused contempt.
+
+"Hardy has talent," he said, screwing his glass in his eye, and studying
+Griselda's charming face with relish. "Of course, he writes well, but
+he's very old-fashioned, and far too long-winded. There's not one of his
+books that would not be better for a little judicious paring down."
+
+"And who," put in Jenny Wick's high, clear voice, "whom do you suggest
+as a parer?"
+
+Collier glared at her, and Paul who, for some reason, had hardly taken
+his eyes off his red-headed _vis-à-vis_, gave a sudden laugh, although
+he had had no intention of doing so.
+
+"I like your sister," Maud Twiss said pleasantly, turning to Oliver, and
+speaking in an undertone. "She's a dear little thing."
+
+"Isn't she," he answered, "very like me, don't you think?"
+
+And Maud, who knew him less well than the other members of the family,
+was a little disconcerted, and blushed. She looked very handsome when
+she blushed, and Crichell leant across the table to her, waving those
+white hands of his in the way that was so singularly distasteful to
+Wick. Once more the young man was reminded of things sprouting in dark
+places, and then his quick imagination improved on this crude vision,
+and he seemed to catch a glimpse of blind sea-worms writhing in some
+sunless cavern.
+
+"When are you going to sit to me, Mrs. Twiss?" the painter asked. But
+Twiss, who sat the other side of Jenny, leant over and answered for his
+wife.
+
+"Never, Mr. Crichell. She's no time for portraits."
+
+Paul, who disliked his younger brother-in-law, sneered at this, and Maud
+saw him.
+
+"I saw you yesterday, Paul," she said, without lowering her voice. "You
+didn't see me, did you?"
+
+He turned to her with a little snarl. "Yesterday? No, I didn't."
+
+"I thought not. I was lunching at the Piccadilly Grill with Elynor
+Twiss."
+
+Paul didn't answer, but he turned to Mrs. Wick and made some unimportant
+remark to her. The old lady was amused by the situation, and she did not
+like Paul, whereas Maud struck her as a kind, pretty young woman who
+ought to be aided and abetted in her attack on a disagreeable,
+pettish-minded brother.
+
+"No," she returned, in her sonorous voice, "I never did. Do you often go
+to the Piccadilly Grill, Mr. Walbridge? I was there with Oliver the
+other day."
+
+Paul was furious. He didn't mind bear baiting, but he did object to
+being the bear, and Oliver, who knew his mother and her wicked ways, and
+who had also caught a pained look in Mrs. Walbridge's eyes, leaned
+across Maud and made a sign to the old lady. The sign consisted of
+slipping the forefinger of his right hand down into his collar and
+giving it a jerk as if he felt a little breathless. Mrs. Wick laughed.
+She loved teasing, but this was an old signal used only when Oliver felt
+that she really had gone far enough. So she nodded good-humouredly at
+her son and let the subject of the Piccadilly Grill drop.
+
+After that the dinner went on pleasantly enough, and Mrs. Walbridge saw
+with pleasure that Ferdie really seemed to be enjoying himself. Mr.
+Walbridge, like everybody else, had the qualities of his defects, and he
+was a very good host.
+
+Mrs. Wick was old and plain, and did not interest him in the least, but
+she was his guest, and he was charming to her--charming, that is, as far
+as a man may be said to be charming to a woman who is not at all charmed
+by him. Pretty Mrs. Crichell, on his left, talked a good deal to Moreton
+Twiss, who admired and took pleasure in her beauty, as every man ought
+always to admire and take pleasure in the beauty of any pretty woman.
+To do them justice, most of them do.
+
+Grisel, of all the people at the table, seemed the least amused, Wick
+thought. Mr. Collier plainly admired her, but she seemed to derive less
+satisfaction from this circumstance than might have been expected, and
+he knew that she had never liked Crichell, who sat on her right. When
+her brilliant little face was in repose, it had a new look of fatigue
+and boredom. Wick watched her constantly throughout dinner, for he was
+hampered by no wish to conceal his admiration, and he came to the
+conclusion that she was not only preoccupied, but worried about
+something. He wondered if Walbridge knew the cause of this worry, for
+the girl turned more than once towards her father, and looked at him in
+a way that puzzled her observer.
+
+They went upstairs for coffee, the girls' sitting-room being not only
+larger and pleasanter than the drawing-room, but the piano also being
+there, and when the men had come in and Oliver made a bee-line for
+Grisel, he found that she looked even more nervous and tired than he had
+thought.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head. "Tired. Besides it's very warm in here."
+
+"Come and sit by the window."
+
+She obeyed him listlessly, and they sat down in the window seat that
+looked down over the little path leading round the house to the kitchen
+door.
+
+"I do wish," the girl burst out suddenly, "that mother wouldn't have the
+Crichells here."
+
+He stared at her. "But I thought you liked her. Why do you call her by
+her Christian name if you don't?"
+
+"I don't say I don't like her. I saw you looking at his hands at dinner.
+Aren't they beastly?"
+
+"Horrid. Has he done anything--anything you don't like?"
+
+She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I--I wish they hadn't come."
+
+As she spoke Wick's sister began to play, something very modern, of
+which he could make neither head nor tail. But she played brilliantly,
+and with what seemed almost unequalled facility, although he knew what
+hours of daily hard work went to its perfection.
+
+Grisel leant back in her corner, and shut her eyes for a minute. She was
+really pale, and looked seriously troubled and puzzled. He turned and
+watched the listening group round the fire. Mrs. Crichell lay back in a
+low chair, her beautiful arms hanging loose over its sides. She was
+really lovely, the young man thought--as lovely, that is, as a woman of
+forty could possibly be, and Mr. Collier evidently agreed with him, for
+his eyes were fixed on her. Crichell had taken up a magazine, folded
+back the last page, and was rapidly sketching Maud Twiss, who sat
+looking away from him and did not see what he was doing. Twiss had gone
+to the telephone and Paul stood near the piano, watching Jenny, as her
+red head bobbed funnily over the keys as she played.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge had left the room, and Walbridge stood leaning against
+the door in a pose often drawn by du Maurier in the eighties.
+
+"I say," Wick whispered to Grisel, hoping to make her laugh, "your
+father is most awfully good-looking. Perfectly splendid to-night, isn't
+he?"
+
+She gave a little pettish start. "Oh, do be quiet," she snapped. "If
+you knew how sick and tired I was of having father's good looks drummed
+into me----"
+
+She rose and marched over to the chair her mother had left, and sat
+down, staring at her father, as if she disliked him intensely.
+
+Wick sat still, feeling very much injured, for, after all, most girls
+would like to hear their father praised--at least, most pretty girls. Of
+course, if she had been plain, he reflected gravely, one could
+understand her being so shirty.
+
+As Jenny stopped playing, Mrs. Walbridge came back into the room, and
+approached Mrs. Crichell.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she said kindly, "but someone has just telephoned to
+your husband from his mother's house and asked if he's not going on
+there."
+
+Mrs. Crichell unfurled her fan, which was of black feathers like some
+big wing. "Dear me, how tiresome!" she said. "He's having such a good
+time, sketching Maud, and she doesn't even see him. Walter," she called.
+
+Crichell turned. "Yes?"
+
+She gave him the message, and he rose without any comment. "You'll let
+me take this magazine with me, Mrs. Walbridge?" he asked.
+
+Maud turned and stared at him. She was a little annoyed, but plainly
+thought the matter not worth making a fuss about, and Mrs. Crichell rose
+and took up her gloves, and gave herself a little shake more than ever
+like a sleek pigeon that has been sitting in the sun.
+
+"Oh, need you go too?" Mrs. Walbridge asked, hospitably.
+
+She hesitated. "No--I don't know--Walter, what d'you think?"
+
+"I think," he said coldly, "you might as well stay where you are. My
+mother is not well," he explained to his hostess, "and she's quite
+alone."
+
+Ferdie Walbridge came forward. "Have a whisky and soda before you go,
+old man," he said warmly. "I'll bring Mrs. Crichell home in a taxi. We
+want her to sing for us; we couldn't think of letting her go yet."
+
+Crichell stood with his back towards Oliver Wick, and he had clasped his
+hands behind him in a way he had. Wick did not catch what he said in
+reply to this remark, but noticed his hands move, and again thought of
+the writhing of the unpleasant sea-worms.
+
+When her husband had gone, Mrs. Crichell sang, accompanying herself; or
+rather she cooed little Spanish and Mexican ballads, the words of which
+no one present could understand, although their meaning was made fairly
+clear by the extreme eloquence of her face and gestures.
+
+"That's very clever," old Mrs. Wick commented to Moreton Twiss who sat
+near her.
+
+"It's very nearly wonderful," the old woman insisted gently.
+
+Twiss looked at her, his good-looking, blue-chinned face rather
+critical. "Oh, well, if you admire it," he said, "I've nothing more to
+say. Personally I don't. In fact," he added, confidentially, leaning
+forward, "I can't bear the woman, so probably I'm unfair to her
+singing."
+
+Later in the evening Jenny Wick accompanied Paul, as he sang some old
+ballads full of a kind of academic gruesomeness. He had, singularly, a
+delightfully warm baritone voice, and sang well. His rendering of "Lord
+Edward My Son" was extremely fine, and little Jenny Wick was delighted,
+and they arranged to meet during the holidays so that she might show him
+a lot of queer Basque songs that her father had collected years ago.
+
+Mrs. Wick and Mrs. Walbridge had a long talk before the evening was
+over, and though they were intensely reserved women in different ways,
+the observant Oliver saw with delight that their attitude showed promise
+of a real friendship.
+
+When he said good-night to Mrs. Walbridge, he invited her to kiss him,
+but this she refused to do, patting his cheek instead.
+
+It was late, and the Twisses and Mr. Collier had gone long since. Mrs.
+Wick and her daughter and son left at the same time that Mrs. Crichell
+and Mr. Walbridge started out on their hunt for a taxi, for none had
+been on the rank when they telephoned.
+
+The Crichells lived in Hamilton Terrace, so the walk would not be very
+long, and when finally at the corner a belated taxi did draw up and
+showed signs of being willing to accept a fare, Mrs. Crichell refused to
+take it.
+
+"I really live only just round the corner," she said kindly to the old
+woman, "and it's a long way to Baker Street. Do take it, Mrs. Wick."
+
+So the three Wicks said "Good-night," and got into the taxi, and the
+other two walked on.
+
+"Well, mother," the young man asked, putting an arm round each of his
+companions as he sat bodkin between them, "did you enjoy your evening?"
+
+"I did, son," she returned. "What a queer world it is! To think that all
+of us will be just a handful of churchyard mould, somewhere, in a few
+years' time."
+
+Jenny burst out laughing. "And may I ask which of the guests to-night
+struck you as being particularly mouldy?"
+
+But Mrs. Wick was serious. "Don't try to be funny, Jenny," she answered
+gravely. "It really struck me that it is strange, when you come to think
+of it, how important we all feel, and what rubbish we all are." After a
+minute she added, with apparent irrelevance, "That Violet Walbridge of
+yours is a fine, brave little soul, Olly. I like her."
+
+"I knew you would. And what," the young man added, "did you think of
+your future daughter-in-law?"
+
+"She's very pretty, but--you'll be annoyed with me for saying so--but I
+should like her better if she were more like her mother."
+
+The young man gave her a little squeeze. "Her mother's twice the woman
+she is, of course. But then, on the other hand," he added, "she's young,
+and has plenty of time to improve."
+
+The cab had stopped at Baker Street Station, and as he jumped out and
+turned to help the old lady, he added, "You wouldn't like me to marry
+Mrs. Walbridge, even if she was free, would you? She really _is_ a
+little too old for me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The day after Christmas--a day spent by the "Happy House" people at
+Campden Hill, where, also, Maud and her husband and little Hilary were
+present--Violet Walbridge achieved the business talk with her husband
+that she had had in her mind ever since his return, and which, in some
+way difficult to define, he seemed to be trying to escape. It was late,
+in the afternoon of Boxing Day, and the others had gone to a matinée,
+and he was to dine with the Crichells and go to a play in the evening.
+He was resting. He seemed to rest a good deal lately, she noticed, and
+when she had asked Grisel that morning if it seemed to her to mean that
+he was not feeling quite well, the girl had surprised her by laughing in
+a new, harsh way, and giving her a hasty, unexpected kiss.
+
+"It's only a beauty cure, darling," she said. "Can't you see that? He
+takes more care of his looks nowadays than any woman, except perhaps
+Clara Crichell."
+
+"How do you mean, dear?" For Mrs. Walbridge was singularly ignorant
+about such matters, and in all her life had used no more subtle cosmetic
+than ordinary cold cream, and water and soap.
+
+"Clara! My goodness, I've seen her having it done. A woman comes to her
+every morning of her life--a Mrs. Bryant here in town, and a Frenchwoman
+at Torquay, and they rub grease into her face and knead it and flap it
+with wet cotton wool, and tap it with litch bags full of dried leaves
+and herbs soaked in something. Oh, it's a wonderful business." The girl
+tossed her head with the contempt of her nineteen years for such
+devices. "I don't like her much, mother," she added, suddenly, with a
+change of voice, turning to the glass and doing something to her smooth
+hair.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge nodded. "I know. I don't think I like her much either.
+But she's very pretty. People enjoy meeting her, and your father seems
+to have taken a fancy to her."
+
+Griselda had said no more, but when the lady's name came up on Boxing
+Day between Ferdie and herself, Violet Walbridge remembered what her
+daughter had said. Her husband had had a sleep, she knew, but when she
+heard him moving about over her head, as she sat in the drawing-room
+sewing, she rose, folded her work and went upstairs. He was sitting in
+front of the dressing-table pouring some yellow liquid over his hair
+with one hand, while, with the other, he rubbed. The room smelt of
+orange flowers.
+
+"Ferdie," she began, sitting down near him, "I want to have a little
+talk with you."
+
+He frowned and set down his bottle. "Oh, dear me," he protested. "I do
+wish you'd let me alone. This is holiday time. No one wants to talk
+business at Christmas."
+
+But she was firm, and put on her glasses, and opened the little notebook
+she had brought with her. "I'm sorry," she said, "but we really must
+settle matters. I'm sure I don't like it any more than you do, Ferdie,
+and, besides, what I have to say is--is very unpleasant, and difficult
+for me."
+
+He stopped rubbing his wavy hair, which stood up tumbled all over his
+head, giving him an absurdly boyish, helpless look. "Don't tell me this
+cook's going to leave!"
+
+She shook her head. "No, it's worse than that. I've been worried for a
+long time now, but I didn't like to trouble you, because you weren't
+well--and then--the holidays, and Grisel coming home, and all. But I
+really can't put it off any longer."
+
+So she told him, as he sat there at her little old dressing-table
+wrapped in a fine, new, brocaded dressing-gown, that he had bought, he
+said, in Torquay, but which, nevertheless, she had seen, in folding it
+that morning, had been made by Charvet in Paris. He looked (although the
+simile didn't occur to her) like a rather battered Greek statue--rather
+injured and scratched old statue, not quite free from mould, and the
+effects of damp and sun, but the lines of him were splendid, and the
+late afternoon light very favourable.
+
+She told him--and after the first he listened without comment--about the
+gradual decrease of her sales, and her slowly coming to realise that
+this was the result not only of the change in the taste of the younger
+generation, but of her own basic old-fashionedness.
+
+"I tried, you know, to brighten up my style in 'Lord Effingham,' and I
+failed."
+
+He looked at her oddly, as he sat with his chin on his breast. "I know,"
+he said, not unkindly. "I was sorry about that. Of course, we're none of
+us as young as we used to be, Violet."
+
+She was considered by her family to be unobservant, because she rarely
+mentioned the little things she saw, but she had always seen a good
+deal, and now she did not miss the satisfied little glance he gave to
+his face in the mirror. He felt, she knew, that he himself was the
+exception to that horrid rule about growing older, and for a moment she
+felt the ageing woman's exasperation at the greater stability of men's
+looks. Her exasperation, however, was very mild, and quite kindly.
+
+Then she showed him Messrs. Lubbock & Payne's letter, and explained
+about the five hundred pounds.
+
+"How much have you got left of that?" he asked.
+
+"Exactly two hundred. There was the quarter's rent, and the man called
+twice about the gas, so I had to pay him, and the piano bill came, and
+then there were your pyjamas, and Melton came himself about your last
+suits, and was really rather unpleasant, so I paid him twenty pounds on
+account. Then there was a little matter in which I had to help one of
+the boys."
+
+She waited, expecting him to make some disagreeable remark about her
+eternal ability and willingness to go to the boys' rescue, but to her
+surprise he said nothing, and sat with folded arms, listening in
+silence.
+
+"Grisel had to have one or two things," she went on, after a moment,
+"and then I wanted to help Maud get her things for the new baby, and Guy
+wanted ten pounds, poor boy. I've written it all down here. I'll leave
+it with you, Ferdie. And then Christmas, you know, was rather expensive,
+and I don't," she added honestly, "seem very clever at getting things
+cheap." Still he didn't answer, and something in his silence gave her a
+little sensation of fear. "Are you listening?" she asked timidly.
+
+He rose and walked about the room, the tassels of his dressing-gown
+trailing after him, his head down. She had expected him to scold, even
+to rail at her, and she had gathered up her courage to meet such a
+scene, but this queer silence, and the unmistakable look of pity in his
+face were harder to bear than any amount of reproaches or anger would
+have been.
+
+She suddenly felt very old, and very tired, and very helpless. She had
+been independent and self-reliant for over a quarter of a century, ever
+since, in fact, she had first found out what her handsome husband really
+was. But now at this crisis she wanted--she longed for some kind, strong
+person to take the reins out of her weary hands and drive the coach for
+her for a while.
+
+"You mean then," he said at last, "that if this new book fails, you--you
+won't be selling any others?"
+
+She hesitated. "If this one should be good they _might_ make another
+contract," she said. "I don't know. I'm afraid it's very bad, although
+it seems to come to me easily and quickly.
+
+"But what are you going to do?" he asked, turning round and looking at
+her, still with that grave, disconcerting kindness that seemed so far
+off, as if it had nothing to do with him. She made a little gesture with
+her hands.
+
+"I don't know, Ferdie. What do _you_ think we had better do?"
+
+"I think," he began slowly--then his face cleared. "There's the
+telephone bell," he cried. "It's--it's a man about a speculation. I'll
+just go down and see." He hurried downstairs. When he came back he was
+smiling, and had an almost silly aspect of happiness.
+
+She caught her breath. What if, after all, now, when she had failed,
+Ferdie was going to be successful and make up for all her years of
+struggle! "Is it all right?" she asked.
+
+"All right? Oh, yes." He sat down again and began to comb his hair,
+parting it with infinite care, skilfully avoiding, she noticed, the thin
+place at the crown.
+
+"I'll think all this over, my dear," he said hastily, as the clock
+struck half-past six. "I must dress now. We're dining early. By the way,
+I hope you aren't encouraging any nonsense with that journalist
+fellow--with Grisel, I mean."
+
+"Oliver Wick? I shouldn't know how to encourage or discourage," she
+answered, "even if I wanted to do either. Times have changed since our
+day, Ferdie."
+
+"My God, yes; they have indeed!" he agreed. "But there must be no
+nonsense about her marrying that boy. I thought she seemed a little
+lackadaisical and dull since we got back, and I heard her talking to him
+on the telephone this morning. It would be a great pity to throw her
+away on a little nobody like him." This was one of his ducal moments,
+and she never protested against his assumption that he belonged to the
+great ones of the earth. So she said nothing, and when he had come back
+from turning on the water in the bathroom, she got up, knowing that he
+wished to be alone.
+
+"Do you think--do you think you can think of something?" she asked, as
+she reached the door. "I was wondering if you would mind if we let the
+house and moved to some cheaper one."
+
+"No, no, no," he burst out. "We'll do nothing of the kind. That's
+perfectly impossible."
+
+A little touched by his unexpected vehemence, she smiled back at him.
+
+"I didn't know you cared so much for poor old 'Happy House,'" she said.
+
+"Run along, my dear girl. I must dress. Don't bother your head. Things
+will turn out all right. If I'm not very much mistaken, Sir John
+Barclay is going to ask Grisel to marry him. If he does, she'll be the
+luckiest girl alive."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge stared at him, her face a sudden, distressing red. "Oh,
+Ferdie! But he's an old man!"
+
+Walbridge, who had reached the bathroom door, drew himself up, playing
+shoulders and chest, and his fine, big, muscular throat. "Nonsense! He's
+only fifty-four. _I'm_ fifty-four!"
+
+She nodded and said no more. He was fifty-five, but that didn't matter
+one way or the other, she felt.
+
+As she went downstairs the telephone again rang and she answered it. It
+was Grisel, apparently in a great hurry.
+
+"Mother, darling, I've just met Oliver, and he says he's coming to the
+house this evening--and I don't want to see him."
+
+"Why, dear?" her mother asked, looking gently and kindly at the
+telephone.
+
+"Well--I can't go into it on the telephone--I'm telephoning you from the
+Underground. Sir John Barclay is here. He was at the play too, you know,
+and I'm dining with him. Yes, alone. Yes I _am_, mother. No, I don't
+have to dress, we're going to a grill-room somewhere. Oh, please don't
+fuss!" The girl's voice was irritable and sharp. "Do you understand?
+Tell Oliver I can't get back."
+
+"I shall tell him," Mrs. Walbridge said firmly, "that you're dining with
+Sir John Barclay."
+
+Grisel made a little inarticulate sound, and then her mother heard her
+sigh impatiently. "All right. Just as you like. It doesn't matter, but
+for goodness' sake don't let him stay late. I must go now, darling.
+You'll make it all right, won't you? Good-bye."
+
+She rang off, and her mother stood looking at the telephone as if it
+were a human being, as most people have found themselves doing at one
+time or other.
+
+She dined alone, not even seeing Walbridge before he slipped out while
+she was in her attic-room writing. Very soon after dinner Oliver
+arrived, and although he said little and insisted on being very merry,
+telling her some ridiculous stories, she had an unhappy evening. She had
+tried to avoid telling him where Grisel was, but it had been impossible,
+for there was something uncanny about him, he was such a good guesser,
+and as soon as she had explained that Griselda was out, he had known all
+about it.
+
+"Dining with Sir John Barclay, I suppose, in some grill-room," he said
+shortly.
+
+"Yes. He seems," she added, "to be a charming old gentleman."
+
+"Oh, the devil! Old gentleman indeed!" he went on, without apologising.
+"I saw him to-day as they came out of the theatre. I knew where they
+were going, you see, and managed to get round there just as the play was
+out. He's a fine-looking man, and a gentleman, and I'd like to wring his
+neck."
+
+"Surely," she said, not insincerely, for her husband's impressions were,
+she knew, not always very accurate, "why shouldn't an old man--for he is
+old compared to Grisel--like to take a pretty girl out to dinner?"
+
+Wick cocked his head on one side, and deliberately shut one eye in a way
+that would have been vulgar if he had been vulgar himself.
+
+"No, no, Mrs. Walbridge, that won't do, that won't do at all," he said,
+in a way that made her laugh. "You know as well as I do that Grisel's a
+minx. She's trying to make up her mind to marry Sir John Barclay because
+he's rich and she doesn't want to see me because----" he broke off
+suddenly and his voice changed to one of great softness, "she's almost
+half in love with me already."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge clasped her hands and looked at him nervously. "I don't
+think that's fair," she said, "to say that about a young girl."
+
+"Oh, my hat! Anything's fair to a man who's fighting for his life--and
+that's me. Oh, yes. I know it sounds absurd and anyone but you would
+laugh at me. But I _am_ fighting for my life, and what's more," he said
+with finality, rising as if to emphasise his speech, "I'm going to win.
+I'm going to get her. She's a spoilt, selfish, mercenary little minx,
+but I love her and I'm going to change her into an angel."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge did not like to have her baby called mercenary, and
+spoilt, and selfish. Perhaps she liked it less for knowing that it was
+true, but the young man swept away her protests by further invective,
+and finally she was bound to admit that the girl's long stay with the
+rich and luxury-loving Fords had not done her any good. Wick smiled, and
+looked at the clock.
+
+"Done her good! It's nearly ruined her. Most men would give her up in
+disgust since she's been back this time--but not me. I'll go now, or
+she'll be coming in."
+
+They shook hands and as he got to the door he looked round with a
+comical groan. "If only," he said, "if only she wasn't so easy to look
+at."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Griselda, during several days, was hardly at home at all. The Fords were
+still in town; she had lunched one day in Queen Anne Street, the next at
+Campden Hill, and nearly every night the Fords fetched her to take her
+to a play or a party.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge could, of course, have forced the girl into a
+confidential talk, but she was not of the kind who do force people to
+talk against their will, and it was very plain to her that her daughter
+was avoiding her, although the girl was oddly enough at the same time
+full of little sudden bursts of affection and unusually generous in the
+matter of little passing hugs and kisses for her mother.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was less troubled than she otherwise would have been by
+this preoccupation of her daughter, owing to the fact that she herself
+was very much taken up with the new book she was writing. She had made
+several attempts, for she felt weighed down with gratitude to her
+publisher in sending her the cheque before the book was written, and she
+had rather lost sight of the fact that this, kind though it was, was in
+reality a _douceur_ to sweeten the hard fact of her dismissal from their
+list of authors. She had begun and destroyed several novels before she
+got really started, and now this new one was filling her mind day and
+night, although she felt grave doubts as to whether it was going to be
+good. It was dreadful to her to reflect that the book might turn out as
+much of a failure as "Lord Effingham" had been, and thus cause pecuniary
+loss to Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne. So she worked day and night, her pen
+flying over the paper in a way that roused Paul's grave doubts as to the
+results of her labour.
+
+"You can't possibly write a book that way, mother," the young man said
+one day when he had come up to her study to have her mend a glove that
+he had split. "You ought to see the way Collier writes. Works for hours
+over one bit, and weighs every word."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge said nothing, for it would not have been any good, she
+thought. She did not express her conviction that the result of Mr. Bruce
+Collier's word-weighing was hardly worth while, but, as she stitched at
+the glove, the young man, who was in a good mood, went on, not unkindly,
+to encourage her, as he expressed it, to take more pains with her work.
+He did not know that her contract with Lubbock & Payne had come to an
+end, with no prospect of renewal. She had not again referred the matter
+to her husband, and he had not mentioned the subject to her. She was
+living in the curious isolation of a writer engaged in congenial work.
+She was deliberately allowing her mind to rest from pecuniary cares for
+a few days, in order that her novel might progress satisfactorily.
+
+"You ought to work regularly," Paul explained. It was Sunday morning,
+and he looked very smart, turned out as he was for a luncheon party
+after church parade. "Collier does. And I met Miss Potter, who writes
+about mediæval Constantinople--her books sell enormously--and she told
+me that she writes as regularly as she eats her meals--two hours in the
+morning and two hours in the afternoon. That's what keeps her brain so
+fresh."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge, who had read one of the books in question and did not
+consider it remarkable for mental freshness, stitched silently, and bit
+off the thread with her sharp little teeth.
+
+"My dear boy," she said, "when you were children I wrote every afternoon
+for four solid hours. I couldn't write in the morning because I had to
+help make the beds, and do the marketing, and wash and dress you all,
+and get some of you off to school and others out for a walk with either
+poor Caroline, or Fanny Perkins. Then I had to cook your father's lunch
+myself, because he always had a delicate stomach; and when was I to do
+any work in the morning to keep my brain fresh?"
+
+Paul was surprised. His mother so rarely defended herself, and he felt
+under the mild humorousness of her manner, a distinct appreciation of
+the fact that he had made rather a fool of himself by his admonition.
+Feeling more like a son, and less like a superior being than he had felt
+for some years, he drew on the gloves with a little laugh.
+
+"I daresay you are right," he admitted. "I didn't realise all that. But
+whatever you did in those days you're certainly not writing like that on
+this book. Twice now when I've come in very late I've seen the light
+under this door, and you're looking very tired."
+
+She _was_ very tired, and her eyes filled with tears at the unexpected
+sign of interest.
+
+"Will you be back to lunch? Oh, no. You told me you wouldn't. I'll walk
+over and get Caroline. A little fresh air will do me good."
+
+He frowned. "Where's Grisel? I've not seen her for days. Doesn't she
+ever stay in nowadays?"
+
+"She's lunching at the Henry Twisses with Moreton and Maud."
+
+"And where's father?" He glanced sharply at her as he spoke. She took up
+her pen and pulled a hair off its nib.
+
+"I think he said he was lunching with the Crichells."
+
+"No, he's not. Crichell went to Birmingham yesterday about his one-man
+show."
+
+"Did he?" she said indifferently. "I wasn't really listening. Tell
+Jessie to call me at twelve, will you? I lose track of time," she added
+apologetically, "when I'm shut away up here."
+
+The young man went out, and she settled down again to her work. The
+holidays were nearly over, and her book was approaching its end.
+
+"I do hope," she said, as Jessie called her and she went down to dress
+for going to fetch Caroline Breeze, "I do hope it'll be good."
+
+The house was very quiet. It struck her as she went downstairs, with her
+jacket and hat on, that it was quieter than a house ought to be with two
+young people living in it. She longed suddenly for Guy--her naughty boy.
+He was troublesome, but he was pleasantly noisy, and though he had no
+voice like Paul, she liked hearing him sing, and even whistle, as he
+went up and down the stairs, and his untidy hats and gloves in the hall
+looked friendly and hearty somehow.
+
+She met Miss Breeze as she turned off Albany Street, and they walked
+back together.
+
+"I've seen nothing of you lately," Miss Breeze complained pleasantly. "I
+was thinking in church this morning--during the sermon that is--that I
+should be glad when the holidays are over."
+
+"It's more my book than the holidays. Oh, Caroline, I'm so worried about
+it."
+
+Miss Breeze, who was rather pathetically dressed for church in all her
+best clothes, looked anxiously down at her friend.
+
+"Dear me, Violet, I do hope you've not been trying to write one of those
+horrid modern books. Mrs. Barker lent me several the other day, and I do
+think it's quite wrong to write such books. I read two of Rosa Carey's
+after them, just to take the taste out of my mouth."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "Oh, no, of course I wouldn't do such a
+thing as that. But I'm afraid it isn't anything like so good as my best
+books, although I must say I'm enjoying writing it." She frowned in a
+puzzled way. "If only it could be good, and Mr. Lubbock would make a new
+contract with me!"
+
+The two friends walked quietly on in the mild winter morning, discussing
+the probability of the new book pleasing Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne. It
+never occurred to Miss Breeze to ask to be allowed to look at the
+manuscript, nor to Mrs. Walbridge to suggest reading a part of it aloud
+to her. Mrs. Walbridge had never read one word of her own work aloud to
+a soul since the very early days in Tooting Bec, when she sat on a sofa
+with her, as yet, unchipped Greek god beside her, and read him the most
+sentimental bits of "Queenie's Promise."
+
+The two women had a long quiet day together, and then, as no one came in
+at supper time, they had a boiled egg and a cup of tea apiece, and went
+out for a little walk in the dark, a mild pleasure to which Mrs.
+Walbridge was rather attached, although she had been very seldom able to
+gratify it, owing to the little trammels of family life. It gave her an
+indefinable pleasure to see the lights behind drawn curtains, and to
+catch an occasional glimpse of a cosy fire through forgotten windows;
+she liked to see people--happy, chattering people--opening their own
+house door with keys and going into the shelter and comfort of their own
+homes. There was a clear, poetic little thrill for her in a sight that
+exasperate many people--that of humble lovers bare-facedly embracing at
+street corners. Even overfed old ladies leading frightful pugs and
+moth-eaten Scotch terriers seemed to ring a little bell in her heart,
+but these, of course, were faces of the morning. However, there were
+several openings of doors that happened opportunely that evening for her
+benefit, and one charming picture of three white-shod, white-frocked
+children racing down a high flight of steps screaming with rapture at
+meeting their father who, when his hat was knocked off by their
+onslaught, revealed a bald and shining head, and a fat plebeian face,
+but whom the children obviously adored. The little Walbridges had never
+greeted their father in this way, and she rather envied the protesting
+mother, who stood at the top of the steps.
+
+"It's very pleasant walking at night," the kind Caroline, who really
+hated it, exclaimed, as this particular door closed on the happy family.
+And Mrs. Walbridge gave her arm a little squeeze and did not speak.
+
+Caroline's tall and gaunt and forbidding person was yet shy and full of
+old-fashioned tremors. It caused her real fear to be out alone after
+nightfall, so Mrs. Walbridge accompanied her to her door, and went back
+to "Happy House" alone. She had forgotten her key, and so knocked on the
+panels of the door with her knuckles. Someone was in the drawing-room
+and was, she thought, sure to hear her. No one did hear at first, and,
+after a moment, she knocked again. Presently the door opened and
+Griselda let her in. The girl had been crying, and her usually smooth
+hair was untidy and damp-looking. But when they were in the
+drawing-room, and before her mother could ask her what was the matter,
+she burst into a little laugh.
+
+"Well, mother dear, you must give me your blessing, for I'm engaged to
+be married."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge sat down and took off her glasses. She knew that the girl
+was on the verge of an uncontrollable breakdown, and it was her nature
+to discourage uncontrollable breakdowns.
+
+"Are you, my dear?" she asked quietly. "Of course you've my blessing. I
+suppose it's Sir John Barclay. Haven't I had two daughters married
+before, and don't I know the signs?" Her little joke did its duty, and
+quieted Grisel.
+
+"But you've never even seen him--Sir John--John I mean."
+
+"I've heard about him from your father, and from Mrs. Ford. They say
+he's charming."
+
+The girl rose and began to smooth her hair before the glass.
+
+"He is," she said. "He's a darling. Oh, I forgot to show you this," and
+she held out her little left hand on which hung a huge ruby in a ring
+far too big for her. "It's got to be made smaller," she said. "Not the
+ruby, but the ring," and she laughed, and the laugh sounded more natural
+this time.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge rose and kissed her. "Well, my dear," she said, "it'll be
+very funny to hear you called 'my Lady,' but I don't mind confessing to
+you that I think Sir John, however nice he may be, is a very lucky man.
+Come along, let's have a cup of cocoa."
+
+Both maids were out, so they went down into the quiet, clean kitchen,
+lit the gas-ring, and had a little feast such as they had had many times
+before.
+
+Violet Walbridge had described hundreds of sentimental scenes between
+newly engaged girls and their mothers, but she did not herself behave in
+the least as one of her characters would have done, for, instead of
+provoking a scene, and confidences and tears, and a display of back
+hair, such as she had been rather fond of in her novels, she carefully
+avoided all reference to the signs of tears on her daughter's face, and
+they talked only of the most matter of fact aspects of the engagement.
+Sir John was going to Argentina as soon as the authorities would let
+him, it seemed, and wanted the wedding to be in September, immediately
+after he returned.
+
+"I was awfully afraid," the girl added naïvely, "that he was going to
+marry me now, and take me with him to South America."
+
+Her mother sipped her cocoa reflectively, and did not raise the question
+of the exact meaning of the word afraid.
+
+"Oh, no," she said, "much nicer in every way to wait till he comes back.
+I think your father will be pleased; he seems to like him very much."
+
+"Ye-e-e-s." Grisel looked up quickly from her ring, which she was
+twisting round her finger in the lamp light. "Oh, yes. Father will be
+pleased."
+
+"They are great friends, aren't they?" her mother asked, as the clock
+struck half-past ten.
+
+Grisel hesitated. "Well, I don't know that they are great friends," she
+said in a thoughtful voice. "Sir John is very different from father, you
+know. He's very dignified and rather stern, and he couldn't bear the
+Crichells. But father likes him, anyhow----"
+
+"Well, come along, dear, we must get to bed. I don't know where anyone
+in the household is, but they've got keys, of course."
+
+"Poor mother, you've been alone all day." There was sudden compunction
+in Grisel's voice as they went up the dark stairs to the ground floor.
+
+"Oh, no. I haven't. I've not been alone at all," the mother answered
+gaily. "Caroline came to lunch and stayed all the afternoon. I just
+walked home with her----"
+
+She would have liked to go into her child's bedroom with her on that
+important evening of her life, and help her undress, and even brush her
+hair, as one of the mothers in her own books would have done. But though
+she was old-fashioned herself, she knew that her daughter was not. So
+they kissed on the landing, and separated for the night without any
+further display of sentiment. But it was a long, long time before Violet
+Walbridge slept that Sunday. At half-past twelve she crept out and saw
+the light still burning in Grisel's room, and at two she did the same
+thing. Finally, knowing that she could not sleep, she put on her
+dressing-gown and padded softly upstairs in her old felt slippers to the
+room in the attic, and, having lit her lamp, did two hours hard work,
+while the winter sky was gradually drained of its darkness, and the
+clear grey that is neither darkness nor light took the place of the
+night, to give way slowly, as if reluctantly, to the morning.
+
+She wrote rapidly, her face white and sharp, bent over the paper. She
+had forgotten now her sad conviction of the book's worthlessness. Words
+came out in a torrent, as if independently of herself, and her hand
+struggled to keep up with her ideas. She knew that this was the wrong
+way to write--that the great novelists whom she so admired worked
+carefully, measuring their words, weighing each one as if it was a
+pearl--her own facility having always been like that of an older child
+telling tales by the fire to the little ones. She had connected the
+mediocrity of her work with this fatal ease of narration. She had been
+scorned kindly (for one of her troubles had never been that horrid one
+of envy and bitterness in the minds of others) for this effortless
+facility, and she knew it. But now she could no more have held back for
+what she called polishing her phrases than a little brook in full
+freshet forcing itself into a pool. On and on she wrote, forgetting
+fatigue, forgetting her troubles, forgetting everything but the fate of
+the people she was describing, and at last, just as the clock struck
+five, her pen wrote "finis" to her twenty-third novel, and laid itself
+down. She sat for a moment staring at the paper, suddenly very tired,
+and conscious that her feet were numb with cold. She went to the window
+and looked out into the livid unfriendly light, and then, stuffing the
+manuscript into the drawer of her table, she crept downstairs.
+
+As she went back to her room, it occurred to her that she had not heard
+Ferdie come in. He had slept on a camp bed in his dressing-room since
+his return, because of his cough, which, he said, troubled him a good
+deal at night.
+
+She opened his door softly. He lay there asleep, with the growing
+daylight falling on his face. She stood for a moment, looking at him,
+wondering that she had not heard him come in, reproaching herself mildly
+for her indifference to him, and deliberately recalling him as he had
+been in the old days, when she first knew him.
+
+How handsome he had been! She remembered the day--it was in winter
+too--when she had crept downstairs in the old house in Russell Street,
+and joined him in a musty, smelling, old "growler," that took them to
+the train for High Wycombe, where they had been married before lunch.
+Poor Ferdie! He had failed her utterly; she had suffered, and suffered
+silently; but as she looked at him there as he slept, her eyes filled
+with tears. He looked very lonely, very pathetic somehow, and helpless.
+The thin place shone out from his tumbled hair, and for a moment she was
+gripped by the helpless pathos of the briefness of life, of the
+inexorable march gravewards of every human being. Poor Ferdie, she
+thought again, as she went sadly back to bed.
+
+She had no doubt failed him, too, and now they were both old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+As Mrs. Walbridge went down to breakfast the next morning, she was
+conscious of a hope that Paul would not be too pleased about his
+sister's engagement. She had not stopped to analyse her feeling, but it
+was not an unkind one. For Paul to be greatly pleased, would, she knew,
+mean that the worst side of his nature was touched by the event. So it
+was with some relief that she found the young man and his sister in the
+dining-room quarrelling.
+
+"It's disgraceful," he declared, as she opened the door. "He's nearly
+old enough to be your grandfather."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge's heart gave a thump of pleasure at this speech, not that
+she dreamed of his words having any influence on Grisel, but because
+honest indignation over an abstract right or wrong was very rarely
+roused in her son.
+
+"Paul, Paul," she said gently, as she rang the bell and sat down behind
+the old-fashioned, acorn-topped, silver-plated tea equipage.
+"Good-morning, children."
+
+Grisel kissed her and sat down at her place near the door, the chair
+with its back to the fire had always been Paul's.
+
+"My romantic brother feels that I am wasting my young life in marrying
+Sir John Barclay," she declared, laughing lightly.
+
+Paul grunted, and unfolded the morning paper. "There are plenty of men
+who aren't beggars. I _do_ call it disgusting of Grisel to marry an old
+man simply because he's rich."
+
+He looked younger and softer in his unexpected anger, and his mother's
+eyes rested on him with an odd expression of surprised relief. "He's
+right in theory, you know, darling," she agreed, turning to the girl.
+"Everybody'll say the same thing."
+
+Grisel gave her ring a twist, and said nothing till the door had closed
+on the maid. Then she helped herself to butter. "Oh, I know. Crabbed age
+and youth--but Sir John--John, I mean--isn't crabbed--that's just the
+point. He's a perfectly charming man, and everyone says so, mother, and
+he's ever so young in some ways. He's worth," she added, with an odd
+little flush of humility, "worth a dozen of me."
+
+"Nobody denies that," put in Paul, taking his tea from his mother.
+"You're a useless little baggage enough, everyone knows that. And I
+shouldn't say a word if there was any chance of you even really liking
+him, to say nothing of--of----" He broke off, and added gravely, as if
+he were making use of words that he feared, "of loving him."
+
+His mother stared at him. "Why, what _do_ you mean, Paul? You're being
+very rude, and it's wrong of you. Of course Grisel likes Sir John,
+and--and many women have loved husbands much older than themselves," she
+added shamefacedly, aware of her own duplicity, for she was a devoted
+believer in the union of youth to youth, and the growing old together of
+happy married couples. Whence she drew this romantic belief it would be
+hard to say, for the experience had certainly not come her way, and as
+it happened several of her married friends had come to grief. But it was
+her belief, and probably one of the secrets of the popularity of her
+books, for in her heyday people liked pleasant stories about pleasant
+people, who suffered, of course, through the machinations of the wicked,
+but who made their way steadily, through floods of tears, to the safe
+shores of the old-fashioned happy ending.
+
+"I suppose the old fellow wears a padded coat and stays," Paul went on,
+less angry now, and settling down to a solid enjoyment of tormenting his
+little sister.
+
+"Ass! He's only fifty-two, and isn't a bit that kind."
+
+"What kind?"
+
+"Oh, well, trying to be young. A stale beau. He seems a mere boy, for
+instance, in some ways, beside father."
+
+Paul scowled and said nothing. His mother had noticed several times of
+late that there was some kind of dissension between him and his father,
+but they had never been very friendly, no house being big enough for two
+absolutely selfish men, and their interests had always clashed. But
+during the last few weeks this antagonism had seemed to quicken into
+something more definite, and Mrs. Walbridge wondered vaguely, as she ate
+her breakfast, what it meant.
+
+Grisel, who was pale, was yet too young to bear in her face any ugly
+traces of her sleepless night, and she went through the meal with a kind
+of resolute gaiety. She was full Of her own affairs, and declared her
+intention of ringing up the girls as soon as she had finished eating,
+and telling them the news.
+
+"Maud and Moreton will be delighted," she declared. "They liked him so
+much that night, and he's giving Billy some kind of work, something in
+the City, that Billy says will be awfully useful to him, because Sir
+John is so well known. Billy and Hermy were frightfully pleased. Wasn't
+it kind of him?--of Sir John, I mean."
+
+"Oh, now she's experiencing the joys of patronage," commented Paul,
+spreading strawberry jam on his toast. "She'll be getting us all little
+jobs, mother. Oh, hell!"
+
+He was not a young man who used bad language, and his mother was
+surprised as well as shocked at it. But before she could remonstrate the
+door opened, and Ferdie came in, pale and tired-looking, with heavy eyes
+and nervous twitching of his eyebrows, that boded evil things for his
+companions.
+
+Grisel looked at him sharply, and Paul, turning, fixed his eyes so
+unswervingly on his father's face that his father snapped at him.
+
+"What the deuce are you glaring at?"
+
+"You," said the young man, coolly. "It's no good, Guv'nor, you can't
+keep it up at your time of life. You'll be as plain as the rest of us if
+you go on like this."
+
+His words were not so offensive to his mother as they would have been to
+most women, as addressed by son to father, for Ferdie Walbridge's
+character was such that though his children undoubtedly had a certain
+pride in him because of his good looks, and a kind of affection that was
+not empty of pity, he had never, even when they were very little
+children, inspired the least fear or even respect in them.
+
+She looked, however, anxiously from one to the other of the three faces
+round the table, and was relieved when Grisel, with a little determined
+air of excitement, held out her left hand, and waved it under her
+father's swollen, surly eyes.
+
+"Look at that, oh beau sabreur," she cried, "and behold the future Lady
+Barclay, and rejoice."
+
+"Hallo, hallo!" His boorishness disappeared like a flash, and a
+surprising amount of boyish beauty and delight rested on his face for a
+moment, like the light from a passing torch. He kissed her and murmured
+a few words of delight and sympathy, and taking up his cup walked about
+the room, sipping tea and talking to himself as much as to the others.
+
+"Good girl, good girl--you'll be very happy--Sir John Barclay's a fine
+man. I knew it. I saw it coming! I'm not surprised. Violet, what did I
+tell you? Well, are you proud of your baby, old woman?"
+
+He gave his wife a rough thump on the back as he passed her chair. "He's
+a baronet too. Delightful fellow, delightful." He stopped short, drawing
+himself up and preening in the way that was half infuriating and half
+pathetic. "Fancy his being _my_ son-in-law with that white hair!"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge really could not bear him when he did that, so she rose,
+ashamed of her feeling of disgust, and went out of the room.
+
+Presently she heard the door slam, and knew that Paul had left. So,
+after her daily interview with the cook, she went up to her study, and
+sat down to think. Sir John Barclay would be coming to-day to see her,
+and the interview would be a difficult one for her, for she was ashamed
+of her daughter's decision; she was a bad liar, and she had always
+shunned with a kind of fastidious pain, the sight of an old man in love
+with a young girl. Then, too, there was Oliver, and her intimate
+knowledge of him. Poor Oliver! He would be coming, and he would have to
+be told, and his queer face would have that dreadful look of pain in it,
+and then he would laugh and be ridiculous, and that would be still
+worse. She wished Ferdie would say something to her about their
+business affairs, but he hadn't said a word. He seemed able to put
+troublesome thoughts clean away out of his mind, but she couldn't. What
+was to become of them all? If only this book would please Mr. Lubbock
+and Mr. Payne!
+
+She heard the telephone bell ring faintly, and opening the door after a
+moment heard the sound of Grisel's voice a little high and unnatural, it
+seemed to her.
+
+"He's the greatest dear," the girl was saying. "I knew you and Moreton
+would be glad."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge closed the door, and sat down. She was so used to
+moulding events in her novels that it seemed to her intolerable and
+almost ridiculous that in real life, in this matter of her little
+daughter, for instance, events so obstinately refused to be moulded. She
+ought to be able to make Oliver Wick suddenly rich enough to snatch her
+away from this monstrous old man, who coveted her youth and beauty.
+Unconsciously Mrs. Walbridge had fallen into the language of her
+novels--and love should triumph among roses in the last chapter. But now
+she could no nothing. Grisel had made her choice, and the old monster
+was to triumph. Her only comfort in this dreary reverie was that Paul,
+selfish, hard Paul, should unconsciously have taken sides with her in
+her hatred of the marriage. She had never understood Paul. He was to her
+not so much like a closed book as like a book written in a foreign
+language of which she knew only a word or two here and there. She had
+expected him to be pleased, because of Sir John Barclay's riches, and lo
+and behold he was as displeased as she was, and full of a regret that,
+though bitterly expressed, was, she knew, based on a genuine
+sentimental disapproval of mercenary marriages.
+
+After a while she opened the drawer of the table and took out the
+manuscript, and, more in the hope of forgetting for a while about Grisel
+than for anything else she began to read it. How flat it was! How dull!
+The people were all unnatural; their language silly and vulgar. Her face
+settled into lines of utter misery as she read. Mr. Lubbock and Mr.
+Payne would never publish such stuff. She heard a clock strike once or
+twice as she sat reading. The sound conveyed nothing to her. On and on
+she read, and when finally the page with "finis" caught her eye she
+realised that it must be late, and started up guiltily. Her misery was
+too deep for tears, but as she closed the door on the failure she spoke
+aloud to herself. "Written out," she said slowly. "That's what it is.
+I'm old, and I'm written out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early that afternoon a woman who lived on the same landing as Miss
+Breeze, came to "Happy House" with a note.
+
+Caroline was in bed with a bad go of asthma, and would Violet come to
+see her? Mrs. Walbridge went to the girls' room, where Griselda was
+writing notes, and told her.
+
+"Poor Caroline! I suppose I ought to go, dear, but I don't want to miss
+Sir John when he comes."
+
+Grisel, who had been very gay and full of laughter all day, looked up
+sombrely.
+
+"Oh, he won't be here before tea-time, I should think," she said. "He's
+very busy, you know. Besides, father's in. Don't stay long. It'll be all
+right."
+
+"Writing letters, are you?" her mother asked foolishly.
+
+She nodded. "Yes. Ever so many people I've got to tell, of course. Looks
+so silly written down. 'I know you will be glad to hear,' 'I'm sure you
+will be surprised when I tell you'"--she jabbed viciously at a clean
+sheet of paper with her pen, sending a spray of ink across it.
+
+"Have you written to Oliver Wick?"
+
+"No, I haven't. He's such a goose. I thought perhaps you would write to
+Mrs. Wick."
+
+"You must write and tell him at once, daughter," Violet Walbridge said
+sternly, and Grisel did not answer.
+
+Caroline Breeze thought her friend looked very tired, and though she
+didn't say so, very plain, when she came in to her bedroom, a small
+bunch of asters in her hand. Miss Breeze had been ill, but felt better
+now, and was sitting up in bed smoking a medicated cigarette, the smell
+of which was very dreadful to Mrs. Walbridge. To her surprise, the
+sentimental Caroline was rapturous with delight over the news of the
+engagement. Darling Grisel, she was sure, would be very happy. "Better
+to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave," she cried.
+
+"No young man wanted her to be his slave," protested Mrs. Walbridge,
+with mild horror.
+
+"That Oliver Wick did." Caroline had never liked the young Mr. Wick,
+Violet knew, because, plain and unalluring old woman that she was, she
+resented the young man's lack of beauty. He failed in every way to come
+up to her standard of a lover, and Grisel, of all the "Happy House"
+children, having been her special care and pet, she felt that she had a
+kind of right to object to such an unattractive and penniless young man
+venturing to approach the girl, who was nearer to her than any young
+thing in the world.
+
+"She'll pay for dressing, too, Grisel will," Caroline declared, shaking
+her head vigorously, and inhaling the thick yellow smoke from her
+cigarette. "Where are they going to live? I suppose he'll be getting her
+a house in one of the swell squares. Berkeley Square would be my
+choice," she added. "By the way, Violet, it's a splendid name, Barclay.
+I wonder if he's any relation to--isn't there an earldom of that name?"
+
+Violet shook her head. "I'm sure I don't know," she said indifferently.
+"I do wish he was younger. Why, he's older than I am, Caroline!"
+
+"Fudge and nonsense! Fifteen years younger, to all intents and purposes.
+Besides, Ferdie told me one day that he has magnificent health. That
+always makes a difference, to say nothing of his money," she added
+vaguely. "It'd be lovely to have someone in the family with plenty of
+money."
+
+"It won't make much difference to us," commented Mrs. Walbridge.
+
+"No, of course not, but still--oh, Violet, I do hope they'll like the
+book! By the way, I was reading a paper yesterday about a girl who got a
+prize in some competition. She only got the fourth prize, and it was a
+hundred pounds! Why don't you try for one of them?"
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was humbled-minded, but she had her pride. "I saw that
+thing. It was some rubbish that they print in pale blue paper
+covers--scullery maid's romance!"
+
+Caroline bridled. "I'm sure I didn't mean to offend you. As far as
+that's concerned, there are a lot of competitions, and some very good
+writers write for them. Harbottle's offering a thousand pounds for a
+good novel, to start off his new five shilling edition."
+
+But Mrs. Walbridge was not to be beguiled into paths of speculative
+dalliance. "I'm writing my book, as you know, for Lubbock & Payne," she
+said, "and even if I had a chance of winning a prize, which I haven't,
+it wouldn't be honest to offer my book to anybody else."
+
+The talk then turned again to Grisel and her prospects.
+
+Somehow, although her dear old friend had done her best to cheer her up,
+it was with a very flagging heart that Mrs. Walbridge reached "Happy
+House" at tea-time.
+
+She was afraid to face in her own mind the latent fear she had about
+Oliver Wick. But she was tired, and could not put him resolutely out of
+her mind, and she looked a very weary, faded little creature, on the
+very verge of old age, as she toiled up the steps and opened the door.
+
+Voices upstairs in the girls' room. She went up a few steps and
+listened. Yes, there was a man's voice she had never heard before. Sir
+John Barclay had come.
+
+For a moment she thought of going to her own room and putting on her
+afternoon dress. She knew how shabby she looked; she had on her oldest
+hat, for the afternoon had looked threatening, and she had not touched
+her hair since the early morning. Then, with a little sigh, she went
+straight on. It wouldn't matter to this prospective bridegroom that his
+lovely little sweetheart's mother was a dowdy old woman; and she was
+tired, and wanted a cup of tea more than anything in the world. So,
+without pausing, she opened the door and went in.
+
+Maud and Hermy were both there, and they were all sitting round the
+tea-table at which Grisel, very flushed and excited and pretty,
+presided. The stranger sat with his back to the door. She had only time
+to see that it was a straight, broad, strong back, surmounted by a
+well-shaped head, covered with thick white hair, when the girls saw her
+and rose in a little covey, fluttering towards her with cries of
+excitement and affection.
+
+"Oh, mother, isn't he delightful?" Maud whispered as she kissed her, and
+Hermione's face expressed real unselfish sympathy and happiness. And
+then Grisel, taking her by the hand, smiled over her shoulder.
+
+"Come, John," she said, "this is mother."
+
+The big man stood still in the middle of his advance, a puzzled, queer
+look in his face, which even looked, she noticed, a little pale.
+
+"Isn't it," he began, and broke off. Then he came up to her and held out
+his hands. "Surely," he said, slowly, "you used to be Miss Violet
+Blaine?"
+
+"Yes." She was staring at him with utter amazement, so strange was his
+manner, and the three young women were also staring.
+
+"What do you mean, John?" Griselda burst out, after a pause that seemed
+interminable. "What's the matter?"
+
+Then the man laughed, gave himself a little shake and taking Mrs.
+Walbridge's hand, bent and kissed it with a grace that proved that he
+had lived long in some Latin country.
+
+"Nothing's the matter," he said, in a pleasant deep voice, "except that
+I knew your mother over thirty years ago, and I hadn't realised that you
+were her child."
+
+They all sat down, the three girls chattering in amazed amusement and
+amused amazement. The two elders said little, and then, when Mrs.
+Walbridge had been given her cup of tea and drunk a little of it, she
+looked up with her big clear eyes at the man who was going to marry her
+daughter.
+
+"It seems very rude," she said gently, "but you know I don't remember
+you! Are you quite sure you are not mistaken?"
+
+"Why, how can he be, Mum, when he knew your name?" laughed Hermione. "Do
+tell us about it, Sir John."
+
+Barclay crossed his knees and folded his arms. He was a man with a fine,
+smooth shaven face of the kind that might belong equally well to either
+a very fine actor or a judge. His light blue eyes had a fair and level
+gaze, and his finest feature, his mouth, was strong and benevolent, with
+well-set corners, and firmness without harshness.
+
+"It's quite natural," he said to Mrs. Walbridge, "that you should not
+remember me. We met just before I went to the Argentine, as it was then
+called, thirty-one years ago, at the house of some people named Fenwick,
+near High Wycombe. You were staying in the house, and my father was the
+dean of the parish, and the Fenwick boys and girls were my best friends.
+We had a picnic to Naphill, and danced, and we drove on a brake to
+Chalfont St. Giles to see Milton's house. Now do you remember?"
+
+A deep, beautifying flush swept across the face under the deplorable old
+hat. "I remember the picnic perfectly. A bottle of cold tea got broken
+and ruined somebody's frock, do you remember? And I remember Milton's
+house, but," she shook her head a little embarrassed but truthful, "I'm
+awfully sorry, but I can't remember you."
+
+There was a little pause, during which his fine face did not change.
+
+"You were very preoccupied, I think," he added. "You weren't
+particularly happy at the time, and I was only a long-legged loon of a
+boy of twenty-one. But I remember," he went on, "I've always
+remembered."
+
+"Well, then, darling, you won't mind having Sir John as a son-in-law,
+will you?"
+
+It was Hermione who spoke. She was always the readiest of speech, being
+the least fine of feeling of the three girls, and the slight strain that
+lay on them all merged away at her commonplace words.
+
+Sir John took his leave a few minutes later, and as he shook hands with
+Mrs. Walbridge, he looked down at her very kindly, very gently. The
+three others had gone into the bedroom on purpose to leave the two
+elders alone a moment.
+
+"She's very young, you know," Violet Walbridge said, without
+preliminary.
+
+"I know. I shall never forget that." And she felt as she went to her own
+room that he had made her a solemn and very comforting promise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+To Mrs. Walbridge's surprise and relief, Oliver Wick made no sign for
+several days, although she herself had written to his mother on some
+pretext and mentioned the engagement in a casual reference that she
+regarded as very dishonest, though necessary, and probably useful. The
+morning of New Year's Eve an answer to her note had come from old Mrs.
+Wick, and she read it several times.
+
+     "_Dear Mrs. Walbridge,--Thanks very much for your note telling me
+     of the engagement. I am sure you will be glad to know that that
+     queer son of mine is not coming to 'Happy House' at present. He's
+     very unhappy, less I think because he has given up hope of marrying
+     Grisel, than because he is disappointed in her for becoming engaged
+     to a man he is convinced she does not love. I can tell you this
+     quite frankly because he is so fond of you that I am sure you know
+     him well and will understand._
+
+      "_He is as much like a fussy old mother as a lover in his attitude
+      towards your daughter. He does so resent her knowing and liking
+      people he despises, such as that poor Mr. and Mrs. Ford, for
+      instance, and the Crichells. I met Mrs. Crichell the other day at
+      the Leicester Galleries. She's certainly very pretty, but as I saw
+      from your face that you dislike her, I don't mind telling you that
+      I do too. There's something very unpleasant about her. However,
+      it's very rude of me to abuse your acquaintances, so I'll stop._
+
+      "_Jenny will be seeing your son New Year's Day, as she's going to
+      accompany him in some songs at Mrs. Gaskell-Walker's, so we hope
+      to hear good news of you all then._
+
+  "_Yours sincerely,_
+  "FRANCES WICK."
+
+Oliver carried out his intention, and nothing was seen of him at "Happy
+House" for some time. Things went very smoothly. Grisel seemed happy,
+and Sir John's devotion to her seemed to her mother exactly what it
+should have been--neither slavish nor domineering, without that touch of
+patronage, so often seen in old men, however much they may be in love,
+towards their young sweethearts. He had never again referred to their
+early acquaintance, and Mrs. Walbridge was conscious of a sincere regret
+that, do what she would, she could not recall him as a youth to her
+memory.
+
+He was very kind to every one of the family, and Walbridge very often
+lunched with him at his Club in the City, and spoke vaguely of good
+things he had been put on by his prospective son-in-law. Walbridge never
+lost sight of the joke of his (Ferdinand Walbridge) being father-in-law
+to a man of Barclay's age. But he seemed very disposed to make every
+possible use of Barclay's experience and kindness.
+
+One day, towards the end of January, Mrs. Walbridge sat by the fire in
+the drawing-room, working hard at her new book. It was bitterly cold, so
+cold that she had been obliged to come down from her study in the attic.
+
+Guy, who had been detained in Paris on some regimental business,
+greatly to his own disgust, had written that he was coming back in a few
+days, and Mrs. Walbridge's feelings as she sat there in the quiet house,
+more nearly approached happiness than she had felt for a long time.
+Griselda, who had been lunching with Maud at her mother-in-law's house,
+had not come in, and apparently a long, quiet afternoon was before Mrs.
+Walbridge. Her new book, after all, was going on fairly well, and Mr.
+Payne had written her a very kind letter in reply to her explanation
+about her failure with the other one, and he had given her an extension
+of time that promised to make the completion of "Rosemary" an easy
+matter. She wrote on and on, and then suddenly, in the middle of her
+work, and rather to her disappointment, Sir John Barclay was announced
+by the proud Jessie.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you," he said kindly, sitting down by the
+fire and warming his hands. "Are you working on your book? I've just had
+news calling me to Scotland. Where's Grisel?"
+
+She explained, saying that Grisel had gone to Maud. "You're sure to find
+her there."
+
+He nodded. "All right. I'll go and take her out to dinner, and she can
+take me down to the station, and then Smith can drive her home." He
+looked at his watch. "It's only half-past four. You're sure I'm not
+disturbing you? Would you rather have me go?"
+
+"Oh, no. Ring the bell and I'll give you some tea. Yes, I'm working at
+my book," she went on. "I've got to get it done as soon as I can; the
+publishers want it."
+
+He looked very kind and interested as he sat there, his handsome head
+turned towards her, his strong hands held up to the fire--so kind, that
+suddenly she found herself telling him about her other book, "Lord
+Effingham"--the failure.
+
+"I'd worked so hard at it," she said, "and it seemed to go
+well--although I never liked it much; it wasn't a very nice book. And
+then when I read it through I saw how hopelessly bad it was."
+
+He pleased her by accepting her verdict without flattery and
+contradiction.
+
+"Perhaps you were too tired. You seem to me to have a great many
+different duties----"
+
+She shook her head. "No, I wasn't tired, and I've always been used to
+writing in a hugger-mugger kind of way," she added, with a simple vanity
+that touched him. "I could always concentrate."
+
+"Who are your publishers?" he asked after a moment. "Oh, yes, good
+men--good men. I'm not much of a novel reader myself, but of course I
+know their name."
+
+And then to her own surprise she told him the tragedy of the expired
+contract. He listened attentively, his whole mind fixed on her story.
+When she had finished he put one or two shrewd questions to her, and
+reflected over her answers, after which he said: "I may as well tell you
+that I knew this before, Mrs. Walbridge."
+
+She started.
+
+"Oh, did you? Do you know them--Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne, I mean?"
+
+"No. Your husband told me several weeks ago."
+
+Something in his face betrayed to her his distaste either at Walbridge's
+confidence or the manner in which it had been made, and she flushed
+faintly. For Ferdie had, she knew, often disgusted people.
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully, and then to her surprise his face
+changed, and with a very young smile he broke out: "After all, you've
+changed very little!"
+
+"Oh, Sir John! I'm an old woman," she protested sincerely, "and I was
+only a child then."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I know. The outside of you has changed, of course, but you're much the
+same in other ways. For instance, you are still worrying to death about
+something--that business of the book, I suppose--just as you were then.
+I remember one day in the vicarage garden we had been playing tennis, I
+tried to persuade you, silly young cub that I was, to confide in me."
+
+"Oh," she cried suddenly, clasping her hands, "didn't you wear a red
+blazer--red and white stripes? And hadn't you some ridiculous nickname?"
+
+"Good. You've remembered. I am glad." He threw his head back and
+laughed, and she liked the shine of his white teeth in the firelight.
+"Of course I had. They called me 'Scrags.'"
+
+She was silent for a little while, and he knew that she was seeing again
+the shabby old rectory garden with its roses and hollyhocks, and its
+lumpy tennis lawn, and himself, the youth in the scarlet blazer.
+
+"It was my old school blazer," he told her in a gentle voice, not to
+interrupt too much the current of her thoughts. "I remember it was too
+short in the arms, and I was rather ashamed of it. I thought," he added
+whimsically, "that you might laugh at it."
+
+"I?" The gentle astonishment in her eyes amused him.
+
+"Yes, you. Some day I'll tell you about it, but not now. I've a piece of
+good news for you," he added. "Your husband and I had a long talk this
+morning, and as his present business arrangements seem rather
+unsatisfactory, and as I happen to need a--kind of partner in one of my
+little business concerns, I've persuaded him to take the position. It's
+nothing very brilliant," he went on hurriedly, frightened by the change
+in her face. "Only five hundred a year, but he seems to think he would
+prefer it to this present work he is doing----"
+
+The look she turned on him was astonishingly like a look of anger, and
+for some reason it delighted him in its contrast to her husband's easy
+gratitude. He hated scenes, and was not very well versed in the ways of
+women, but for reasons of his own his heart sang as she rose.
+
+"I understand very little about business," she said coldly. "But it's
+very kind of you to give a position to my husband. I think, if you will
+excuse me, I will leave you now. I am sure Grisel will be back here
+soon, and I've a seamstress upstairs."
+
+Instead of going to fetch her, he waited there over an hour for Grisel,
+walking up and down the room, and without visible impatience.
+
+When his little sweetheart arrived she ran upstairs for a warmer coat
+for they were going to motor. She was gone some time and when they were
+in the car and he had tucked her luxuriously up in a big rug of flexible
+dark fur she explained to him why she had kept him waiting.
+
+"It was poor mother. Something's upset her. She was crying--actually
+crying. I don't think I've ever seen my mother cry before. There she
+was, face down on her bed, just howling like a child----"
+
+He winced. "You must learn, dearest," he said gently, "not to tell me
+things I have no business to know."
+
+She looked up at him through her long lashes and laughed wickedly.
+"Perhaps if you try long enough," she returned, "you'll make a lady of
+me."
+
+But his face remained grave. "Your mother," he said, "is a splendid
+woman, my dear. I've a very great admiration for her."
+
+Griselda loved her mother; most girls do love their mothers, but this
+homage, from a man she admired and respected so much, surprised her.
+
+"Mother? Little old Mum?" she repeated naïvely. "She's a dear, of
+course----"
+
+Barclay looked down at her.
+
+"You'll think me an awful old fogey," he said slowly, "but I do
+seriously wish, my little dear, that you would show a little more--well,
+understanding, for your mother--to her, I mean."
+
+"Oh, it's _you_ who don't understand," she returned as gravely as he.
+"_I_ understand, we all do, a great deal more about mother than she
+could bear to know. Father's always been a beast, but we have to pretend
+to her that we don't know it----"
+
+They drove on, a little closer together mentally than they had ever been
+before. Grisel had been very sweet, very womanly, for that short moment,
+and she, for her part, had, for a brief time, been able to regard him
+less as the old man she was going to marry for his money, than as a kind
+and companionable contemporary.
+
+Meantime Mrs. Walbridge had another guest. She had gone up to her
+writing room, and was working on her new book, when Jessie announced
+that Mr. Crichell was in the young ladies' room.
+
+"Mr. Crichell?"
+
+"Yes, m'm, and he's in a great hurry."
+
+"Didn't he ask for master?"
+
+"No, m'm," the girl returned with decision, "he asked for you, quite
+partic'lar, m'm."
+
+It struck Mrs. Walbridge as odd that Crichell should have asked for her,
+for she hardly knew him. But she smoothed her hair and turned down her
+sleeve, calling out to Jessie as she went to bring up some more tea.
+
+"Not for me, Mrs. Walbridge," Crichell began, hearing her last words.
+"No tea, thanks. I've come on a--very unpleasant errand."
+
+She saw that he was very much disturbed, his sleek face being blurred by
+queer little dull red patches. Sitting down by the fire she motioned him
+to do the same. But he remained standing, his short legs far apart, his
+hands behind his back.
+
+"What I have to say will be painful to you," he went on hurriedly. "But
+it's no worse for you than it is for me. In fact, not so bad, for you
+must have had some kind of an idea----"
+
+He broke off, seeing from her face that she had even now no notion of
+what he was driving at.
+
+"I don't understand at all," she said quietly. "Do sit down, Mr.
+Crichell."
+
+"It's no good beating about the bush," he resumed, still standing. "It's
+just this. I'm--I'm going to divorce my wife, and Walbridge will be
+co-respondent."
+
+"Walbridge?" she repeated stupidly, staring at him with what he
+viciously called to himself, the face of an idiot. "My husband?"
+
+"Yes, your husband--and my wife's lover. Pretty little story, isn't it?"
+As she was about to speak, he went on, purposely lashing himself, it
+struck her, into a fury. "I've suspected something for a long time.
+Haven't you?"
+
+She shook her head. "No." But as she spoke she remembered certain
+half-forgotten little happenings that might have roused her curiosity
+had she been more interested in her husband.
+
+"Now don't tell me it isn't true, because it is," he snapped, again
+interrupting her as she was about to speak.
+
+She was very sorry for him, and looked at him compassionately as he
+stood there twisting and waving his white hands.
+
+"I'm not going to tell you it isn't true, Mr. Crichell," she answered
+gently. "I suppose it is, and I'm very, very sorry for you."
+
+Swamped as he was by hurt egotism, he did not fail to observe the
+peculiarity of her attitude.
+
+"Very kind of you," he muttered, at a loss. "I--I am sorry for you, too.
+In fact, we're in rather a ridiculous position, you and I, aren't we?"
+His loud laugh was very shrill, and she held up her hand warningly.
+
+"Hush."
+
+Then he sat down and told her the story. How for months, ever since the
+late summer, in fact, he had noticed a change in his wife.
+
+"She always had a lot of boys buzzing about and it never occurred to me
+to suspect Walbridge. I--why he's twenty years older than I am--or near
+it. I came up and down to town a good deal, and knew they used to see a
+good deal of each other, but, as I say, the fact of his age blinded me,
+damn him! Then, a week ago, that night here, I--I caught them looking at
+each other, and when I got back from seeing my mother--(it was Clara,
+by the way, who told my mother where we were going to be, and put her up
+to telephoning for me), I took the trouble to find out what time she had
+got home, and found that he had come back with her and stayed till three
+o'clock."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge started. That was the morning when she had stood by her
+husband's bedside watching him as he lay asleep.
+
+"So after that--my God, it's only a week ago!--I kept my eyes open, and
+to-day I found these."
+
+He pulled a bundle of letters out of his breast pocket, and tossed them
+into her lap. The letters were tied with a piece of yellow ribbon, and
+taking hold of them by the ribbons, Mrs. Walbridge held them out to him.
+
+"I don't want to see them," she said.
+
+"You'd better--to convince you."
+
+"But I am convinced."
+
+He rose solemnly, and put the letters back into his pocket.
+
+"Then I'll not detain you any longer. I thought I'd better come and tell
+you myself."
+
+At the door he turned.
+
+"Dirty trick, wasn't it? Seen enough of women to know better. But I
+trusted her----"
+
+They stared at each other for a moment, and then he came back into the
+room.
+
+"I'm very sorry for you, too," he said awkwardly. "You take it so
+quietly that I rather forgot----"
+
+She laughed a little. "Perhaps," she said, "you'll think better of
+it--of divorcing her. There are so many things to be considered, Mr.
+Crichell."
+
+But at this his fury rose again, and he shouted that nothing in heaven
+or earth would prevent his divorcing her. "And you'll have to do the
+same," he added, almost menacingly.
+
+"Why should I divorce my husband?"
+
+"Surely you don't want him after this?"
+
+"I want him," she replied very slowly, as if feeling for the right
+words, "exactly as much as I've wanted him for many years, Mr.
+Crichell."
+
+As she spoke they heard the rattle of a latchkey in the front door.
+
+"That's Ferdie," she said hastily. "Oh, you won't have a quarrel with
+him, will you?"
+
+"No. I've already seen him--I've nothing more to say. How can I get out
+without meeting him?"
+
+With pathetic knowledge of her husband, she bade him stay where he was.
+
+"I'll tell him you're here, and he'll go into the dining-room."
+
+At the foot of the stairs she met Walbridge taking off his coat, a
+curiously boyish look in his face. "Ferdie," she said quietly, "Mr.
+Crichell's in the girls' room."
+
+With a little smile of almost bitter amusement, she watched him as he
+tiptoed into the dining-room and closed the door.
+
+When Crichell had gone she joined her husband. He was smoking and
+walking up and down, a glass of whisky and soda in his hand.
+
+"Well," he began at once, with the little nervous bluster of the man who
+doubts his own courage, "I suppose he's told you."
+
+"Yes, he's told me," and then she added, without seeing the strangeness
+of her words. "I'm so sorry."
+
+He stared, and then, with a little laugh of relief, drained his glass
+and set it down.
+
+"It had to be," he announced with visible satisfaction at the romantic
+element of the situation. "But I'm sorry, too, Violet, very sorry. I've
+fought long and hard."
+
+She looked at him with a little gleam in her eyes that arrested his
+attention, although he told himself it could not possibly be a gleam of
+amusement.
+
+"No, Ferdie," she said, "I don't think you fought long and hard. I don't
+think you fought at all."
+
+Looking pitifully like a pricked balloon, he dropped into a chair and
+gripped the edge of the dining-room table.
+
+"What do you mean, Violet? _Really!_" he murmured, with the indignation
+of a sensitive man confronted with a feminine lack of delicacy.
+
+"Oh, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Ferdie, and no doubt you do
+feel extremely romantic. But it would save time if you didn't try to be
+romantic with me. You see, I know you very well."
+
+Before he could gather his wits together to answer her, she had gone on
+quietly:
+
+"I won't tell you what I think of your treating Mr. Crichell in this
+way, after accepting his hospitality all winter. It would not do any
+good, and it wouldn't interest you. But I am wondering if you couldn't
+persuade him, in some way, not to make a scandal. Don't interrupt me.
+Wait a minute. It will be so dreadful for her--for Mrs. Crichell, I
+mean. How could you have been so careless as to let him find out?"
+
+Walbridge leant across the table towards her, his face almost imbecile
+in his open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"Do you--do you know what you are talking about?" he stammered. "Are you
+sane at all? I never heard of such a thing in my born days."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm sane enough. But I don't want the children to know. It's
+an awfully bad example for Guy; he'll be home in a day or two. Just
+think, he's only twenty-one, and he doesn't know--I mean he thinks--oh,
+yes, it would be awful if there was a scandal."
+
+Ferdinand Walbridge made a great effort and managed to scramble to his
+feet, mentally as well as physically.
+
+"My dear," he said, modulating his beautiful voice with instinctive
+skill, "you don't understand. This is not an amourette. I _love_ Clara
+Crichell. It is the one wish of my life to make her--to marry her."
+
+For many years her indifference to her husband had been so complete, so
+unqualified by anything except a little retrospective pity, that he had
+never dreamed of the thoroughness of her knowledge of him. She had never
+cared to let him know; she had been busy, and it had not seemed worth
+while, and now she found difficulty in making him understand her
+position, without unnecessarily hurting his feelings.
+
+"But you can't marry her," she said slowly. "There's _me_."
+
+"Surely you'll not be so wicked as to ruin our lives," he went on,
+secretly, she knew, rather enjoying himself, "because of an
+old-fashioned, obsolete prejudice? What's divorce nowadays? A mere
+nothing."
+
+"I know," she said wearily, for she felt suddenly very tired. "Most
+people think so, but I don't."
+
+"But you don't mean to say that you want a man who no longer loves you?"
+
+It was nearly six o'clock, and the room was lighted only by firelight.
+In the charitable gloom Walbridge looked very handsome, and the attitude
+he instinctively struck was not unbeautiful theoretically. She looked
+at him for a moment.
+
+"My dear Ferdie," she said at last, "I can't talk any more now because
+Hermy and Billy and Mr. Peter Gaskell-Walker are dining with us at
+half-past seven, and I've several things to see to. And as to your
+loving me, you know perfectly well that you've not loved me for nearly
+thirty years."
+
+He was too utterly baffled to find a word in reply, and by the time he
+could speak she had left the room.
+
+As he dressed for dinner, having unsuccessfully tried to get into her
+room, he reflected with sincere self-pity that it was small wonder he
+had fallen in love with a beautiful, sympathetic woman like Clara.
+Violet was plainly not quite sane. He gave a vicious jerk to his tie as
+he reached this point.
+
+"Why, damn it all," he muttered, "she doesn't seem to care a hang!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+All this happened on a Thursday, and on the following Wednesday Mrs.
+Walbridge went out quietly, and sent a telegram to Oliver Wick's office,
+asking him to come and see her that evening. She was to be alone--alone,
+it seemed to her distracted mind, for the first time for weeks. For
+every day and all day some one or other of her family had been with her,
+trying to persuade her to do the thing her soul detested--to divorce her
+husband.
+
+Maud was very vehement. Her indignation with her father knew no bounds,
+and Moreton Twiss agreed with his wife. He was a quick-witted man, with
+a good gift of words, that he poured out unmercifully over the poor
+little lady, until she felt literally beaten to death.
+
+"It's perfectly disgusting of him," Maud interrupted once. "I should
+think you would loathe the sight of him. I'm sure I do."
+
+But Mrs. Walbridge did not loathe the sight of her husband. That is, she
+did not loathe him appreciably more than she had done for years. They
+might say what they liked. Billy Gaskell-Walker, too, to her amazement,
+broke into the most hideous, strange language the moment the subject of
+his father-in-law came up--called him all the names under the heavens.
+But nothing made any difference. Paul might sneer and make his most
+razorlike remarks about his father and the lady whom he wished to make
+their stepmother; Grisel might cry and beg her mother for her sake to
+put her father clean away.
+
+"It's like a bad rat, or something," the girl said in her high
+fastidiousness. "He makes the house unpleasant."
+
+But rail, scorn, revile as they might, Mrs. Walbridge had her
+standpoint, and stuck to it. She did not believe in divorce, and she
+wasn't going to divorce her husband. What was more, after three days of
+exasperated wrangling discussion, she surprised them all by bidding them
+be quiet.
+
+They were having tea, all of them, in the girls' room. The air was thick
+with cigarette smoke, and the two sons-in-law and Paul were drinking
+whisky and soda. Mrs. Walbridge, looking very small in the corner of the
+big sofa, suddenly sat bolt upright and looked angrily round at them.
+
+"Oh, hold your tongues, all of you," she cried in a voice of authority.
+"You mustn't speak of him like that. I won't have it. He's my husband,
+not yours. Poor fellow!"
+
+They all stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses, which,
+indeed, one or two of them privately believed she must have done.
+
+"Oh, mother, how can you?" It was naturally Griselda, the baby, who
+dared defy her. "You don't seem to realise what an utter beast he's
+been, and how we all loathe him for treating you--yes, _you_--like
+this."
+
+"Poor fellow, indeed! Have a little pride, mother," suggested Paul, as
+if he had said "have a little marmalade." But she didn't waver.
+
+"Yes, poor fellow. I'm extremely sorry for him. You none of you seem to
+realise what a pitiful thing it is for an old man, the father of a
+family of grown-up children, to be making such a ridiculous spectacle of
+himself."
+
+Literally aghast, they stared, first at her, then at each other, and in
+the silence she marched in triumph out of the room. Her misery was very
+great, in spite of the queerness of her attitude, for she felt keenly
+the pathos of her utter detachment of attitude, and her mind was thrown
+back violently into the old days thirty years before, when she had loved
+him, when she had believed in him, and defied and given up her whole
+little world for his sake.
+
+Poor Sir John Barclay still remembered her unhappiness and preoccupation
+in the old days that summer at High Wycombe, but she had not told him
+she had been suffering because she had been sent to the country by her
+furious father to get her away from Ferdinand Walbridge. He did not know
+how she had hoped against hope that Walbridge would, by some means, find
+out where she was and get a letter to her, or manage to see her. She had
+almost forgotten these things herself, until this business of Clara
+Crichell had brought them back to her memory. It was a tragic,
+heart-breaking thing, she felt, that an honest, romantic, deep love such
+as hers had been for the beautiful young man her father had so detested,
+could ever die so utterly as hers had.
+
+It was dreadful to her, and seemed a shameful thing, that she could feel
+no pang of jealousy or loneliness in the knowledge that her husband, her
+companion for thirty years and the father of her five children, was
+prepared to give up these children, his home life and her companionship
+for another woman. Instead of what she believed would have been normal
+emotions, she was conscious of a deep sorrow that he had been such a
+fool as to fall in love with a woman of Mrs. Crichell's type, for she
+knew with uncanny clearness exactly what Mrs. Crichell was. If only he
+had fallen in love with someone who might possibly make him happy,
+someone who was companionable and ambitious! But this woman, she knew,
+was so like himself in her laziness, mental vacuity and self-centred
+one-sidedness, that they were bound to destroy each other.
+
+The whole family had assumed that her sole reason for refusing the
+divorce was a semi-religious objection to that institution. It was true
+that, although she was not a religious woman, her innate respect for the
+forms of the church gave her the greatest possible horror of the divorce
+court, but she knew, though none of the others seemed to suspect it,
+that if Clara Crichell had been a different kind of woman, one with whom
+she could, so to speak, trust her poor, faulty Ferdie, her objections
+would have been bound to give way, in the course of time, to the
+combined wishes of her family and friends. And she was afraid to utter
+this instinctive fear of Mrs. Crichell because, although she knew little
+of real life, she had an uncanny knowledge of the mental workings of the
+men and women in books, who are, after all, more or less, like human
+beings; and she felt that she could not bear to be misunderstood, as she
+was certain to be if she uttered one word of personal objection to Mrs.
+Crichell. They would all think she was jealous, and she would be unable
+to persuade them that she was not.
+
+Oliver found her pacing up and down her drawing-room in her afternoon
+gown, which she had forgotten to fasten down the back, and which showed
+a pathetic strip of merino petticoat.
+
+"Something's wrong with your back here," he said. "Shall I hook it up? I
+often fasten Jenny's new-fangled things, and they hook up to her neck.
+Well, here I am, Mrs. Walbridge, _à la disposition di Usted_."
+
+One of his useful little gifts was a way of keeping in mind, and
+reproducing with impeccable inflection, little once-heard scraps of
+foreign languages, and somehow it comforted the worried woman to hear
+him talking so much in his usual manner; in spite of Grisel's
+engagement, his world had not turned over.
+
+"Have you--have you heard anything about us lately?" she began
+nervously, as they sat down, and she nodded at his battered old
+cigarette case, held interrogatively up to her.
+
+"Yes," he answered abruptly, his manner changing. "I hear that Grisel
+has a string of pearls, and is growing very fond of her aged suitor."
+
+"He's not an aged suitor, and you mustn't call him one.
+
+"Well, then, her gay young spark. It doesn't really matter, and she's
+not really happy, and I know it, and so do you."
+
+"Oh, Oliver, please don't make me unhappy about that. Things are bad
+enough without Grisel's coming to grief."
+
+He pricked his ears. "What do you mean--things are bad enough? What's
+happened? I'm not going to worry you. I'm sorry----"
+
+"It's about--it's about Mr. Walbridge. I don't quite know how to tell
+you."
+
+Oliver looked hastily round the room. "Oh, no, he's not here. He went
+away yesterday morning."
+
+"Gone away? Good heavens! Has he been losing money?"
+
+"No; he has no money," she answered simply. "It's much worse than that.
+It's--it's about a lady."
+
+He gave a long whistle. "By golly! Is it, though? Then I'll bet it's
+that over-ripe woman who sat next him at dinner--the painter's wife."
+
+"Yes, it is. They have fallen in love with each other."
+
+The young man threw his cigarette in the fire in his excitement.
+
+"No! They can't have. Why, bless me, he's an old man--I beg your pardon.
+But he isn't _young_, is he?"
+
+"That doesn't matter. He's fallen in love with her and Mr. Crichell's
+found out."
+
+"My hat! The man with the nasty fingers."
+
+"Yes. And they're all after me--not a soul stands up for me, Oliver. So
+that's why I sent for you. I thought perhaps you would."
+
+"Of course I will. You want someone to see you through divorcing him.
+Well, I'm your boy. Have you got a solicitor? And--excuse me speaking so
+plainly--have you got proofs?"
+
+She laughed forlornly at his mistake. "Oh, my dear, you've got it all
+wrong. It's the other way about. It's they that want me to divorce him
+and I--I won't."
+
+His face changed. He looked at her with surprise and commiseration in
+his eyes.
+
+"Oh, I see," he said quietly. "I didn't understand."
+
+He felt that it would be indecorous for him to ask this old lady, as he
+considered her, whether she really cared for the husband he had always
+found so unpleasant, but he could in no way account for her refusing to
+take the obvious course.
+
+She saw his perplexity and went straight to the point. "You see," she
+said, "I know what you are thinking, but I've known Mr. Walbridge for a
+long time, and I know that he couldn't possibly be happy with a woman as
+selfish and self-centred as Mrs. Crichell."
+
+"Then you want him to be happy?" He spoke very gravely, his voice
+sounding like that of a man very much older than himself.
+
+She was grateful to him for not showing any surprise at her attitude.
+
+"Oh, yes. I should like him to be happy. You're too young to understand,
+Oliver. I hope you never will understand. But I'm not at all angry with
+him, and I've always disliked Mrs. Crichell very much."
+
+"So have I. Couldn't bear her, and neither could my mother. But why did
+you send for me, Mrs. Walbridge? I'll do any mortal thing for you, but
+the better I understand, the more useful I shall be."
+
+"Oh, I just want you to stand up for me when they all attack me, and try
+to make me divorce him."
+
+"I see. I certainly think the choice ought to be yours. But," he added,
+"I don't agree with you. I--I think you're making a mistake. By the way,
+has the lady any money?"
+
+"Oh, yes, she's quite well off."
+
+There was a pause, at the end of which he said, "Well, I--it beats me.
+Why do you suppose she wants him?" Then he added, feeling that he had
+failed in tact, in thus speaking of the man who, after all, was his
+companion's husband, and whom she wanted, in her queer way, to help.
+"Well, it beats me."
+
+"Mr. Walbridge has always been considered a very handsome man," she
+said, in a voice of complete clarity and explanation. And then the door
+opened and Griselda came suddenly in, wrapped in a big fur-collared
+velvet cloak.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, on seeing Wick. "I didn't know anyone was here.
+They all went on to the opera," she said, sitting down and letting her
+cloak slip back, "and my head ached--I think I've a cold coming on--so I
+got a taxi and came home. How are you, Oliver, and how is your mother? I
+saw Jenny the other day, but I was in a taxi and she didn't see me."
+
+"They're both well, thanks," he answered. "It's a long time since I saw
+you, young lady."
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+There was a pause, and Mrs. Walbridge glanced anxiously from one to the
+other of the two painstakingly indifferent faces.
+
+"No letters, mother?" the girl asked.
+
+"Yes, there are two for you. One from Sir John."
+
+"Good, I'll go and get them." She held out her hand to Oliver. "Then
+I'll go on up to bed. I really do feel rather bad. Good-night."
+
+He held her hand closely. "You're a nice young minx," he told her,
+laughing. "I suppose you think I ought to congratulate you on your
+engagement."
+
+"It's a matter of complete indifference to me whether you do or not."
+
+"Grisel, Grisel!" put in her mother.
+
+Still he held her hand, his critical eyes looking her up and down.
+
+"Good-night," she said again, trying to withdraw her hand.
+
+"You're losing your looks," he declared. "You're too thin, and your eyes
+are sunk into your head. It won't do, Grisel. You'll have to give in.
+You used to be the prettiest thing alive, and unless you own up to your
+old gentleman and confess to me that you can't live without me, you'll
+soon have to join the sad army of the girls who aren't so pretty as they
+feel."
+
+She was furiously angry--so angry that she could not speak, and when he
+suddenly let go her hand, she stumbled back and nearly fell. She left
+the room without a word, and he sat down and hid his face for a moment
+in his hands.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was indignant with him, but somehow she dared not speak,
+and after a minute he rose.
+
+"I'll go now," he said. "I'm done. Little brute!"
+
+"I'm so sorry for you," she said, which was quite different from what
+she had meant to say.
+
+"I know you are, and I deserve it; I deserve everybody's pity. But damn
+it all," he added, with sudden brightness, pushing back the strands of
+straight dun-coloured hair that hung down over his damp forehead, "I'll
+get her yet."
+
+She went with him to the door, and they stood on the step in the bitter
+cold of the still night.
+
+"You'll stand by me then? You'll believe," she added earnestly, laying
+her hand on his sleeve, "that I'm not just being a cat; that I really am
+doing what I know will be best for him in the long run?"
+
+"If you suddenly spat at me and scratched my eyes out and ran up the
+wall there, and sat licking your fur, I shouldn't believe you were a
+cat. But, mind you, Mrs. Walbridge, I think you are making a great
+mistake. What on earth will you do with him about the house in this
+frame of mind?"
+
+"Oh, don't make it any harder for me. I know that I'm right."
+
+They parted very kindly, and she went back into the house, knowing that
+he would, as she expressed it, take sides with her. But something of the
+virtue of her resolution seemed to have gone out of her, for, young as
+he was, she respected his shrewdness and his instinct, and it depressed
+her to know that he disapproved of her determination.
+
+The next evening, Wick dined with the Gaskell-Walkers in Campden Hill.
+He was the only guest, and Hermione told him at once that they had sent
+for him in order to talk over this disgusting business of her father's.
+When Gaskell-Walker had laid before him the combined reasons of the
+whole tribe for wishing for the divorce, Wick sat down his glass and
+looked at his host.
+
+"I agree with every word you've said," he answered, without unnecessary
+words. "It's a great mistake, but I know why she's doing it."
+
+"That's more than any of _us_ knows," mourned Hermione. "I feel that I
+never wish to look my father in the face again."
+
+"Oh, that's going too far," the young man protested. "He's an awful old
+scoundrel, of course, but still, there are plenty more like him."
+
+Before they parted, Wick uttered a word of wisdom. "She won't give in to
+you, or any of you, or to me," he said. "There's nothing so obstinate in
+this world as a good woman fighting for a principle, and the fact that
+the principle is perfectly idiotic has no bearing on the case. But your
+mother's an old-fashioned woman, Mrs. Gaskell-Walker, and she's written
+so many sentimental stories that her whole mind is coloured by them. If
+you can get Mrs. Crichell to go to your mother and grovel and tear her
+hair and cry, your mother would divorce your father." Then he went his
+way.
+
+"By Jove!" Gaskell-Walker said to his wife. "I believe he's right. Stout
+fellow! I'll put your father up to this. I'll look him up at lunch at
+Seeley's to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mrs. Walbridge never told any of her children what it was that made her
+so suddenly decide, two days after her interview with Oliver Wick, to do
+as her husband begged her, and give him his freedom, as he invariably
+called it. Freedom is a prettier word than divorce, and he had a natural
+instinct for eliminating ugly words from his life, although he had never
+been very particular about steering clear of the deeds to which the
+words fitted.
+
+"Very well, Ferdie," she said to him, the Sunday morning when he came to
+get his clothes and various little belongings. "You shall have it, your
+freedom. I'll give it to you."
+
+In his muddle-headed gratitude, he nearly kissed her. She drew back, an
+irrepressible smile twitching at her lips. He was such a goose!
+
+"I think," he said, "you had better get Gaskell-Walker to manage things
+for you. It--it might be rather awkward for Paul. You see, we can't have
+_her_ name brought into it"--there was actual reverence in his voice at
+the words--"and I'll have to take certain steps."
+
+"Oh, I know," she said quietly. "She told us yesterday. Don't have any
+more in the papers than you can help, will you?" she added, "it's all so
+horrid."
+
+"Oh, her name won't be mentioned at all--thanks to your kindness," he
+added, a little grandiloquently.
+
+She looked at him with a queer expression. "I wasn't thinking of her
+name. I was thinking of ours--yours and mine, and the children's,
+Ferdinand."
+
+He winced when she called him Ferdinand. It reminded him of some
+earlier, painful scenes in their life, when she had been unable to
+pronounce the shorter version of his name.
+
+He rose and walked up and down the ugly room. "I hope you believe," he
+began, clearing his throat, "that I'm very sorry about all this. Such
+things are always unpleasant, but I assure you, Violet, that it--it was
+stronger than I."
+
+"We needn't go into that. Have you enough money to live comfortably till
+your marriage?"
+
+He nodded. "Oh, yes. I signed my papers with Barclay the day he went
+away, you know, and have been at the office every day. I--I intend," he
+went on, groping for words, "to give you half of my salary; that's two
+hundred and fifty a year, and I thought perhaps if you moved into a
+smaller house,--there will only be you and Guy then, and he'll soon be
+earning something--that--that you might manage to get on all right."
+
+She nodded. "Oh, yes, I shall manage." She didn't add that up to this
+she always had managed to keep, not only herself, but, for the greater
+part of their married life, him as well.
+
+"I'm sorry about that business of your books," he resumed, with another
+awkward pause, during which he took a cigarette out of a very beautiful
+new gold case, which he hurriedly stuffed back into his pocket. "I hope
+this new one will be a success. I do, really, Violet."
+
+She looked at his nervous, heated face with a queer, incongruous pity
+that seemed to her almost undignified.
+
+"I'm sure you do, Ferdie," she answered kindly. "There's no reason on
+earth why you should not wish me well. I certainly wish you every
+happiness."
+
+He was relieved and grateful at her lack of resentment, but at the same
+time it piqued him a little. He felt that it was not altogether normal
+of her to take things quite like this. He looked at her curiously, and
+her face seemed old, very plain, linked as it was to his memory of Clara
+Crichell's luscious beauty. He was very sorry for her, not only for
+being that most contemptible of creatures, an old woman without charm,
+but also because she was losing him.
+
+They parted in the most friendly way, after he had telephoned for a taxi
+and laden it with his various boxes and bags.
+
+"Where shall I send your letters?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't know where I am," he declared nervously, "or they'll
+bring in collusion. Gaskell-Walker will do it all for you." He paused on
+the step, looking up at the house into which, thirty years ago, they had
+come together, full of hopes and plans, and across his still beautiful,
+degenerate face there swept a little cloud of sentimental regret.
+"Life's a queer thing, isn't it?" he murmured, taking off his hat and
+standing bare-headed.
+
+She nodded. "Yes, it is." Then she added quickly, "Never mind, Ferdie,
+it's all right. The children will come round after a bit. It's natural
+they should be annoyed just at first."
+
+"If ever there's anything I can do for you," he added, incongruously,
+"after this business is over, of course, you'll let me know, won't you?"
+
+He went his way, and she stood looking after him. It was all remarkably
+odd, but perhaps oddest of all was that he had failed to understand at
+the end of all these years, how little she could miss him; that it had
+always been she that had taken care of him, and that therefore that it
+was he who would miss the prop for the loss of which he was
+conventionally compassionating her.
+
+For several days after this, nothing at all happened, and the attention
+of her little world was turned towards Hermione, whose mother-in-law had
+unexpectedly died, leaving her an attractive, though not very valuable,
+collection of old jewelry. The inspection and re-designing of these
+treasures came as a real boon to the whole family.
+
+"I feel as if my mind had been washed again after this nasty business of
+father's," Maud Twiss declared, after two or three days of excitement.
+"I think Hermy's wrong to have those opals set that way, but then
+they're her's and not mine, so it doesn't matter. What a pity the old
+lady had such a passion for cameos--they don't suit Hermy at all--but
+I'd give my head for that star sapphire."
+
+It was the 12th of February, and Maud had arrived first of the little
+group of people invited to dine at "Happy House" in honour of Paul's
+birthday.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge had not felt much inclined for any festivities, but Paul
+for some reason insisted on a little party, and the atmosphere being
+cleared by the progress of the regular proceedings towards the divorce,
+the others had backed him up. Sir John Barclay was still away, and
+Moreton Twiss had been obliged to go to an annual Club dinner, but the
+Wicks were coming, and Paul had added various delicacies to the menu in
+a way that was so like his father, that his mother was a little
+saddened by it. Paul too, she knew, would always be able to spend money
+on things that pleased him, and she foresaw that he would never have a
+penny for dull details like gas bills or cooks. He even brought in an
+armful of flowers, and Maud, who had a new tea-gowny garment for the
+occasion, arranged them for him, in the very vases his father had bought
+to hold his orchids the night of the Christmas Eve party. It seemed
+years ago, Mrs. Walbridge thought, and yet it was only about seven
+weeks.
+
+Grisel had objected strongly to the Wicks being invited. She pretended
+to be very annoyed with Oliver for what she called his idiotic and
+underbred behaviour that night when she had come in after the
+dinner-party.
+
+"He's sure to be tiresome again, mother. His peculiar brand of humour
+doesn't happen to appeal to me." But when Mrs. Walbridge had suggested
+to Paul that the Wicks were not absolutely necessary to his birthday
+party he declared pettishly that there wouldn't be any party if it
+wasn't for Jenny Wick. She was the best accompanist he had ever had, and
+an extremely nice girl--not a bit like her cub of a brother.
+
+Grisel might, of course, have dined out, but, like many other families,
+although they quarrelled with each other, and did not particularly like
+each other, the Walbridges yet hung together in a helpless, uncongenial
+kind of way, and always remembered and mildly recognised each other's
+birthdays.
+
+Grisel came downstairs while Maud was putting the last touches to the
+red and white roses that had been Paul's choice. The girl had a new
+frock of black, with heavy gold embroidery, and though very pale and
+heavy-eyed, her beauty was undeniably growing, as the baby curves left
+her face and what can only be called the elegance of its bony structure
+became more apparent. Her jaw-bone was a thing of real beauty, and the
+likeness of her brow to her mother's was very great.
+
+"Oh, Grisel, what a love of a frock!" Maud cried, kissing her. "Where
+_did_ you get it?"
+
+"Greville and Ross. Glad you like it."
+
+Maud settled the last Jacquemenot in its place, and put her arm round
+her sister's waist. "Let's go into the drawing-room," she said. "I'd
+hate going upstairs. Never, never again shall I have another baby."
+
+"You look beautiful, Maud," the girl assured her earnestly. "It suits
+you somehow."
+
+"Nonsense! But what's the matter with _you_, dear? You look tired out."
+
+"Yes, I've been making a fool of myself. Three dances in the last five
+days."
+
+"When's John coming home?"
+
+They sat down on the uncomfortable sofa under the gilt mirror, and
+Griselda leant back against a non-existent cushion, and sat up with a
+little scowl.
+
+"Oh, he will be back in a day or two, thank goodness. Oh, Maud, I have
+missed him so; you have no idea," she insisted, "how much I have missed
+him!"
+
+Before her marriage Maud Twiss, who, after all, was nine years older
+than Grisel, had been rather jealous of her little sister's greater
+charm and beauty. But since she had been married her feelings had
+changed and the sisters had grown towards each other a little. Hermione
+had always been more selfish than Maud, and, besides, she and Grisel had
+much the same hair and profiles, so the youngest girl had always been
+inclined to like the eldest one best. They sat there on the sofa
+discussing things in general, but avoiding two subjects--the divorce
+and Oliver Wick. Fortunately the Gaskell-Walkers arrived before the
+Wicks, and shortly after the arrival of Jenny and Oliver, Bruce Collier
+turned up with a young Frenchman as fifth man.
+
+Everyone had some kind of present for Paul, who accepted them with
+extreme seriousness and regarded himself--most unusual in a young
+Englishman--as the legitimate centre of attraction of the evening. Paul
+had a disconcerting way, for all his disagreeable mannerisms and
+selfishness, of doing certain things that reminded his mother almost
+unbearably of his babyhood and little boyhood. And this evening, as he
+stood, as pleased as possible, at the little table where all his
+presents were spread out, she wondered if the others were as struck as
+she was by the incongruity of his manner. Red-headed little Jenny Wick,
+who stood near her, read her thoughts.
+
+"Isn't he funny," the girl said in an undertone, shaking her fat silk
+curls and wrinkling up her snow-white but befreckled little nose. "He's
+just like a baby. I wish I had brought him a rattle."
+
+"They're all like babies," murmured Mrs. Walbridge absently, her eyes
+fixed on space. "Every one of them."
+
+"Have you heard the news?" the girl asked, mysteriously, drawing her
+hostess a little to one side, under pretence of looking at a picture
+near the mantelpiece.
+
+"News! No, what news?" Poor Mrs. Walbridge started, for, at the present
+crisis in her life, all news seemed to point towards her own domestic
+trouble.
+
+Jenny looked very wise. "He'll be telling you himself, no doubt, but I
+don't mind telling you first. It's Oliver."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge looked at young Wick, who was talking, with every
+appearance of complete happiness, to Hermione, with whom he was very
+good friends. "What is it?" she asked. "I've not seen him for nearly a
+fortnight."
+
+"I know. He's been very busy. The fact is he's engaged to be married,
+and we see hardly anything of him, mother and I."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge felt the ground rock under her feet. How could it be
+possible that Oliver Wick was engaged when only a few nights ago he had
+sat before her in the room downstairs shaken to the heart by misery
+about Grisel? "Are you--are you _sure_?" she faltered.
+
+Jenny laughed. "Well, I ought to be. We hear nothing but Dorothy from
+morning till night--that is, whenever we _do_ see him, he talks of
+nothing else. And isn't it ridiculous, her name's Perkins?"
+
+"Dorothy Perkins! That is a coincidence. I'm sure I hope they'll be very
+happy. Does your mother like her?" the poor lady murmured, trying to get
+her bearings.
+
+"Oh, we've never seen her, mother and I. She lives at Chiswick and her
+mother's an invalid, so she hardly ever leaves her. We've seen her
+picture, though, and she's lovely."
+
+Dinner was announced at that moment, and Mrs. Walbridge, never as long
+as she lived, could remember one thing about the meal, except that young
+Latour, who sat next to her and knew not a word of English, had the most
+beautiful manners she had ever seen in her life, and really almost made
+her believe--almost, but not quite--that the few remaining crumbs of her
+schoolgirl French that she was able to scrape together and offer him,
+were not only comprehensible but eloquent. He was a very small young man
+with black hair, so smooth and glossy that it looked like varnish, and
+a long, long white nose, sensitive nostrils and bright darting eyes like
+those of an intelligent bird. Bruce Collier, who prided himself on his
+perfect French, tried at first to translate the conversation of the
+young man and his hostess to each other, but "Mossioo Latour," as Mrs.
+Walbridge laboriously called him, waved aside his offered aid with a
+cigarette-stained, magnanimous hand.
+
+"Mais non, mais non, mêlez vous de vos affaires, mon cher," he
+protested, "Nous nous entendons parfaitement bien, n'est-ce pas, Madame
+Vollbridge?"
+
+And Mrs. Walbridge nodded and said, "Oh ooee." She said "oh ooee" many
+times, also "Je ne say pas" and "N'est-ce pas." And she loved the young
+man for his painstaking courtesy. But after a while he drifted naturally
+into a more amusing dialogue with Hermione, whom he obviously admired
+very much, and Mrs. Walbridge was left to her confused realisation of
+the utter perfidy of man. Oliver Wick engaged! She would have been burnt
+at the stake for her belief in the reality of his love for Griselda; yet
+there he was, radiantly happy, chattering and joking with everyone in
+turn, and no doubt, the mother thought, with most unjust and
+inconsequent anger, the picture of that Dorothy Perkins in his pocket.
+And she looked at Griselda's over-tired, nervous little face and hated
+Oliver Wick.
+
+The Wicks, who were spending the night with some friends in the
+neighbourhood, were the last to leave, for Jenny and Paul (who had sung
+a great deal and unusually well during the evening) had some new songs
+to try. So after all the others had gone, the two went to the piano and
+set to work on seriously trying over some rather difficult music of
+Ravel and some of the more modern Russians.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge, Grisel, and Oliver sat by the fire, Oliver extremely
+busy roasting chestnuts, which he offered in turn to his hostesses on an
+ash-tray. He was squatting in front of the grate, laughing and jesting
+with every appearance of an almost silly satisfaction with life, and
+when at last, even Mrs. Walbridge refusing to eat any more burnt
+chestnuts, he rose with a sigh and sat down between them.
+
+"What a delightful evening," he said. "That's a lovely gown, Grisel. I
+don't think I ever saw you look better."
+
+"Thanks," she murmured.
+
+"When's Sir John coming back?"
+
+She started and looked at him in surprise; it was the first time that he
+had mentioned Sir John's name that evening.
+
+"He'll be back the day after to-morrow."
+
+"You must be awfully glad," he said sympathetically.
+
+There was a little pause while the music rose to a loudness greater than
+was comfortable as a background to conversation. Then he said gently,
+"I'm sorry I made such a fool of myself the last time I saw you, Grisel.
+I meant it, you know. I was perfectly serious--puppy love, you know!
+Heavens, how I must have bored you! Well, it's all over now and I've
+made my manners. And now," he added with a look of proud shyness in his
+face, "I've got something to tell you."
+
+"Yes?" Grisel murmured.
+
+"It's this. I--I'm engaged to be married to the sweetest girl in all the
+world."
+
+The words seemed vaguely familiar to Mrs. Walbridge, and then she
+realised that she had written them often.
+
+"Her name is Perkins, isn't it?" said Mrs. Walbridge kindly, but with
+ludicrous effect.
+
+"Mother!" said Grisel sharply.
+
+Wick took a leather case from his pocket. "Here's her picture," he said.
+"You're the very first people I've shown it to, except my dear old
+mother and my little sister."
+
+This, too, seemed vaguely familiar to the novelist. Indeed, she had a
+feeling that none of the conversation was true--that she was writing it
+in one of her own books.
+
+Grisel took the photograph and held it towards her mother; they looked
+at it together.
+
+"Oh, she's beautiful!" Mrs. Walbridge cried in amazement.
+
+He nodded. "Isn't she? And this picture isn't half good enough. You see,
+her colouring is so wonderful!"
+
+"She's lovely," Grisel said slowly, "simply lovely. I think I've seen
+her somewhere, too."
+
+He took the photograph and gazed at it in dreamy ecstasy.
+
+"If you ever had," he said, "you couldn't possibly forget her." Then he
+added shyly to Mrs. Walbridge, "Isn't it wonderful that such a girl
+could ever have looked at a fellow like me?"
+
+Paul's beautiful voice, so utterly unlike himself, rose and fell softly
+in a charming song of Chausson's about lilacs, and there was a little
+silence for a minute.
+
+"Mrs. Perkins is an invalid," Oliver went on at last, when he had put
+the picture away in his left-hand breast pocket, "so my poor girl hardly
+ever leaves her. She's a most devoted daughter."
+
+"_H'm!_"
+
+"I beg your pardon?" he asked turning deferentially to Grisel.
+
+"Oh, no--I didn't say anything. Do tell us more about the Perkins
+family," she said with a grand air.
+
+"About the father and mother? Oh, there isn't much to tell. Except that
+they have managed to produce Dorothy. The father's a painter--a very bad
+painter. A charming old man. Looks like William de Morgan; big forehead,
+you know--white hair. They are very poor, but of course that doesn't
+matter."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge was beginning to feel more comfortable, and shook her
+head in unqualified assent.
+
+"Of course it doesn't, as long as you--love each other."
+
+"Ah!" the young man murmured, his voice ringing unmistakably true, "I
+love the girl all right."
+
+"She'll value your constancy, I should think," Griselda drawled,
+"ridiculous creature that you are."
+
+He gazed at her humbly.
+
+"You're quite right to laugh at me," he returned, "I did make a perfect
+fool of myself about you, but, after all, I'm not so very old, you
+know."
+
+"How can you be sure," she asked, trying to look like a dowager, "that
+you really _do_ love now? I should think that you'd be a little nervous
+about it."
+
+The music had ceased, and his sister came forward.
+
+"Come along, Olly, we must be off. It's frightfully late."
+
+She began to roll up her music, and Wick answered Griselda's question.
+
+"I'm perfectly sure," he said gravely, "that I've found my girl--what
+poets call my mate. And I shall love her till I die."
+
+"I hope you will, I'm sure," put in Mrs. Walbridge warmly, to cover
+Grisel's unkind air of distance. And when she had let the Wicks out of
+the door with Paul, she hurried upstairs to reprove her daughter for her
+unsympathetic manner, but Griselda had gone to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Early the next morning old Mrs. Wick, who also had been spending the
+night in town with the friends where her children were staying, was
+gratified, while she was still in bed, by a visit from her son, who
+burst into the room apparently more than delighted with himself and the
+way his particular world was wagging.
+
+"A most beautiful party, mother," he exclaimed, wrapping himself up in
+her eiderdown, for his pyjamas were old, and worn, and chilly. "And the
+wretch looked lovelier than ever."
+
+"I hope you aren't going to backslide, Oliver," she said severely,
+taking her spectacles out of their old case and putting them on so that
+she might look at him over their tops.
+
+"Oh, dear no, but I don't mind owning to you, mother, that if it wasn't
+for Dorothy, I _might_ be in danger! She used to be a fairy princess,
+but now she's a princess of ideal royalty. Such a beautiful gown--worth,
+I'm sure, twenty-five guineas, and a little string of lovely
+pearls--_his_ gift, and the big ruby. I shall never," he added
+thoughtfully, "be able to dress poor Dorothy like that."
+
+His mother regarded him suspiciously.
+
+"Oh, go on," she said, "with your Dorothy."
+
+He rose, and did a few steps of the "Bacchanal à la Mordkin," whistling
+the music through his teeth. "Speak not, oh aged one," he then cried,
+striking an attitude, "with disrespect of the moon-faced and altogether
+irreproachable Dorothy."
+
+Mrs. Wick shook her head. "I'm really sorry for you, Oliver," she said.
+"You're so silly, and as to your Dorothy Perkins, I believe her name's
+Harris."
+
+He grinned. "Well, perhaps it is. After all, there's very little
+difference between Perkins and Harris. And it's done the trick. Oh,
+mother, you should have seen me! I was an absolute gem of
+half-shamefaced love-sickness."
+
+"I don't see why you had to tell all that rubbish to Jenny and me," the
+old woman protested, a little offended, rubbing her nose with her thumb.
+
+"But of course I had to! Jenny's seeing that soft idiot of a Paul every
+day, and would be sure to give it away." He chuckled. "I saw her
+whispering it as a great secret to the old lady and she was so surprised
+she never ate a bit of dinner--it was a good dinner, too."
+
+"You're a rascal," his mother declared comfortably, "and you deserve to
+have her marry twenty old gentlemen."
+
+He sat down, his face suddenly grave.
+
+"Ah no, mother. All's fair in love and war. I haven't yet made up my
+mind which of the two this is, but it's one. She's a pig-headed little
+brute, my lovely love is, and as obstinate as a mule. She's made up her
+mind to marry this man and be rich and comfortable, and I don't think
+anything on earth could have stopped her, except----" he grinned
+wickedly, "just this--jealousy. She nearly died with jealousy before my
+eyes. Ah, if you could have heard her! 'Please tell us more about the
+Perkins family,'" he mimicked, "and her little chin went further and
+further in the air. She hated me like hell!--but, oh, she loved me!"
+
+A maid knocked at the door and brought in a little round tray with a cup
+of tea on it.
+
+"Your tea's in your room, sir," she said. And then he sent her to bring
+it to him.
+
+"I want you to go and see them, mother. You aren't to go and tell Jenny,
+mind you, that--that her name's Harris, but I want you to go to 'Happy
+House'--what a name for it, by the way!--and tell them all sorts of
+things about the Perkins. Don't forget that they live at Chiswick, and
+that the old man's an unsuccessful artist--miniatures," he added
+thoughtfully, "is his line, and Mrs. Perkins is an invalid.
+
+"Yes, I know. You told us that. What's the matter with her? Heart
+disease, I suppose."
+
+"Not at all. Stomach. She never digests anything except--what do you
+call it--koumiss. Yes, she lives on koumiss."
+
+"When are you going away, Oliver?" the old lady asked presently, between
+two sips of what is to Britons closer to nectar than any other liquid on
+earth.
+
+"Either to-night or to-morrow. And oh, I forgot, don't say anything to
+them--the 'Happy House' people, I mean--about me and my doings."
+
+"Why, don't they know about Sparks?"
+
+"Nope. They don't know anything about what has been happening lately.
+They think I'm still the penniless reporter. That's very important, too.
+It's the penniless reporter Miss Minx has got to propose to, _not_ the
+latest and favourite discovery of the Great Chief."
+
+"I don't think that's quite fair," his mother said. "After all, it's a
+great deal to expect any girl to marry a young man who is penniless as
+well as a nobody."
+
+"But I'm not a nobody, and I'm going to be a very big somebody, and she
+ought to _know_ that I shall be a success. Did the girl think," he added
+angrily, waving his arm, "that I would let her starve, or send her on
+the stage to keep me? No. She ought to have understood, and now she's
+got to be punished."
+
+She felt, this wise and clever old hen, that this hatchling of hers was
+not even an ordinary barnyard duck, that he was a wild, alien bird,
+capable of almost any flight.
+
+"Well, my dear, your description of Dorothy Perkins has rather made my
+mouth water," she declared, as he rose and took a look out of the
+passage to see if he could nip back unobserved to his room (he had
+forgotten to bring his dressing-gown). "Such a lovable, home-keeping,
+devoted daughter you made her!"
+
+"Exactly. Where I was canniest though," he returned, "was when I made
+her perfectly lovely as well. That little brute would never believe in a
+_plain_ girl."
+
+"But where did you get the photograph? It really is exceptionally
+lovely."
+
+"I bought her at a photographers in Birmingham, when I was there the
+week before last. I had to take the man out to lunch to persuade him to
+sell it. She's an Irish girl--was governess to some rich Jew in
+Edgbaston, and she married a vet. in the army, and has gone to Egypt, so
+it's as safe as a church. Now mind, mother," he bent over and kissed
+her, and gave her a little hug, "mind you don't give it away to Jenny. I
+shall be back in about a week, and you must keep the flag flying for me
+while I'm away."
+
+"All right, dear, I will. I don't like telling lies, but I do it very
+well when I want to. Any brothers and sisters--the Perkins's, I mean?"
+
+"No. Only child. I'm going to lunch to-day," he said, "with some of our
+_other_ editors--ahem! I see myself being very chummy with the editor of
+the _English Gentleman_. Oh, Lord!"
+
+"Yes, dear. Wait a minute, Olly. Just suppose," his mother said, looking
+at him seriously over her glasses, "just suppose that things did go
+wrong, and that after all she married Sir John Barclay."
+
+He stood still, put his hand on the door, an almost grotesque figure in
+his faded pink and white striped flannel pyjamas.
+
+"I don't know," he said slowly. "It would be pretty bad, mother; worse
+than you think." After a pause he shook his head and opened the door
+wide. "It isn't going to happen," he said, "and I'm not going to weaken
+myself by looking at the bad side of things." Then he went out and she
+heard his door close.
+
+An hour later, as Oliver went downstairs to breakfast, the telephone
+bell rang and, as he was expecting a call from the office, he answered
+it. The thing buzzed for a minute and then he heard a voice say, "Is--is
+that Mr. Catherwood's house?"
+
+Putting his hand over the receiver and turning his head well away, the
+young man answered in a loud and fervid whisper, "Yes, you blessed lamb,
+you little darling devil, it _is_ Mr. Catherwood's house!" Then he took
+his hand away and said in an affected voice, "Yes, moddom."
+
+"I have tried three Catherwoods in the book," continued the voice,
+struggling witty nervous hesitation. "I don't know the Christian name of
+the one I am looking for, but is there a Mr. Wick staying there?"
+
+"Yes, moddom."
+
+"Will you please call him to the phone. Tell him it's Miss Griselda--I
+mean Miss Walbridge--Bridge--B-r-i-d-g-e."
+
+Dancing with joy, his voice perfectly steady, he pretended to
+misunderstand her. "Miss Burbridge, moddom?"
+
+"No, no--oh," and a little troubled sigh chased the laughter from his
+face.
+
+"I'll call him," he said, almost forgetting himself and adding "moddom"
+spasmodically. Then after a moment he spoke in his own voice. "Hallo,
+what is it? Is it you, Grisel?"
+
+"Yes, oh Oliver, I _have_ had such a time getting you. Listen, we're in
+awful trouble. Guy's dying in Paris and they have telegraphed for mother
+to come. The telegram came late last night. She's never been out of
+England in her life and hasn't the slightest idea how to travel and--and
+Paul won't be able to go; he couldn't get a pass now the Peace
+Conference is on--a friend of his tried last week in almost the same
+circumstances, and he couldn't----"
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"Mother wants you to come round and tell her about things. Paul will go
+to the Foreign Office for her, but she knows you know Paris well, and
+then you can tell her about getting there--trains, and so on, on the
+other side of the channel. Will you come?"
+
+He came perilously near forgetting the Perkins's at that moment.
+
+"I'll come at once. Perhaps you'll give me some breakfast?"
+
+"Oh, yes, anything. Do come."
+
+Then he added, "What a pity Sir John isn't here. He would have been a
+great comfort to you now."
+
+"Yes," vaguely, "wouldn't he? Oh, we're all so frightened about Guy."
+
+"What's the matter with him, do you know?" he asked, as Mr. Catherwood
+came downstairs and nodded to him through the banisters. Grisel
+explained that it was pneumonia following on "flu," and he heard her
+blow her poor little nose.
+
+Promising to come round at once, he went and explained to his host, and
+ten minutes later jumped out of his taxi and ran up the steps of "Happy
+House."
+
+Grisel and Mrs. Walbridge were at breakfast, but Paul had hurried off
+straight to the house of some minor Foreign Office official whom he
+happened to know. Mrs. Walbridge already had her hat on, he noticed, and
+anything more helpless and pathetic than her haggard, tear-stained,
+bewildered face Oliver thought he had never seen in his life. She kissed
+him absent-mindedly as if he had been a son, and he sat down and Grisel
+plied him with food.
+
+Grisel, who had been crying (for she and Guy were nearly of an age and
+had always been fond of each other), said, "You never saw him--he is
+such a dear! Oh, it's too cruel to have fought all through the war, and
+now----"
+
+"Hush, hush," he said, patting her wrist with a fine imitation of
+brotherly detachment, "give the poor boy a chance. Who sent the
+telegram?"
+
+"A nurse."
+
+"H'm. Where is he?"
+
+"He's at a private hospital. The telegram's in mother's bag."
+
+As she spoke, the maid brought in the letters, and Grisel looked through
+them listlessly. One, addressed in firm, bold writing to herself, Wick
+knew instinctively must come from Sir John. There was only one for Mrs.
+Walbridge, and as Grisel handed it to her mother she said:
+
+"Don't open it, dear. I'm sure it's only a bill." Mrs. Walbridge did not
+even look at it.
+
+"What time does the train start," she asked impatiently. "Oliver, you
+must help me. I've never been out of England, and I can't speak French."
+
+Grisel opened her letter and read it through indifferently. "John will
+be back to-morrow night."
+
+"Oh, then you'll be all right, darling," Mrs. Walbridge returned. "You'd
+better go and stay with Hermy. Or would you rather have Miss Wick come
+and stay with you here?"
+
+"I don't want anyone to come and stay with me, and I don't want to go to
+Hermy's. I shall stay here, where I belong. Oh, mother, mother, if only
+we knew--if only we _knew_."
+
+She bent down over the table and burst into tears, crying into her poor
+little handkerchief, that Wick saw had already received more than its
+share of moisture. He took a nice clean handkerchief from his own
+pocket, and gave it to her.
+
+"Take this," he said kindly. "It's got some Florida water on it too."
+
+She took it, between a laugh and a moan, and buried her face in its
+happy folds. Then he took out a notebook and his famous fountain pen,
+and began to scribble.
+
+"Are you writing notes down for me?" Mrs. Walbridge asked. "Put down all
+the little things. Remember that I know absolutely nothing about travel.
+Oh, if only Paul could have gone with me."
+
+He noticed that neither of them had mentioned, or apparently so much as
+given a thought to the absent husband and father.
+
+"Paul couldn't get a permit, as you said on the telephone. Things have
+tightened up worse than ever now that the Peace Conference has really
+begun."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge nodded. "I know."
+
+He rose and put his pen in his pocket. "I must be off now," he said.
+"I've several things to do. Can you arrange to go by the one-thirty
+train?"
+
+"Yes. Paul rang up this Mr. White, and he said he would manage to pull
+it through."
+
+"Good." The young man went to the desolate little woman and put his hand
+on her shoulder. "Cheer up, Mrs. Walbridge," he said. "Lots of people
+pull through pneumonia, and I believe Guy's going to. I have a kind of
+feeling that he is."
+
+She smiled at him, a little consoled, as one often is by just such
+foolish hopefulness.
+
+"If only there wasn't that Conference," she said, beautifully
+disregarding the world's interests, "then Paul could come with me."
+
+"Well, Paul can't, but--now, listen to me--I can, and I'm going to."
+
+She stared at him. "To the station, you mean?"
+
+"No, I don't. I mean to Paris. Now you mustn't keep me. I've got a
+thousand things to do, but I'll be here in a taxi at twelve o'clock.
+Shall I get the tickets?"
+
+"Oh, yes, do. Oh, how good you are!" In her relief and gratitude she
+leant her head against his shoulder and cried a little. Grisel looked
+on, very pale and tense. "Can--can you leave Miss Perkins?" she asked
+forlornly.
+
+For a moment he trembled on the brink of abject confession. Then he
+girded up his loins.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said. "She'll quite understand. Very understanding girl.
+I--I'll ring her up from the office."
+
+"If--if you'd like to ring her up from here"--Grisel's voice shook a
+little, and he bent his face over Mrs. Walbridge's jaded hat to hide a
+smile of triumph that he could not repress--"mother and I will be
+upstairs in my room--with the door shut."
+
+"No, thanks. I've got to get to the office anyhow, and I'll ring her up
+from there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Guy Walbridge did not die. He was very ill, and many weeks passed before
+his mother could bring him back to England; but after the first part of
+her stay in Paris he was out of danger, and her letters, particularly
+those she wrote to Caroline Breeze, showed that she was having a happy
+time. One of these letters had perhaps better be given, as it explains a
+good many things. She went to Paris on the 13th of February. This letter
+was written the first Tuesday in March, and was dated at a
+boarding-house in the Rue St. Ferdinand. One evening after dinner
+Grisel, to whom Caroline had brought the letter in the afternoon,
+according to directions in it, read it aloud to Oliver and Jenny Wick
+and Sir John Barclay, as they sat round the fire in the girls' room.
+
+"She really seems to be having a good time," Grisel began, taking the
+thin sheets out of the envelope and throwing the end of her cigarette
+into the fire. "I'm glad too. She needed a change."
+
+Barclay smiled at her. "Isn't it," he asked, "the first change your
+mother has ever had?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes. I know you think we're awful, the way we treat her,
+John," she added, "but she never wanted to go away. I think her best
+holidays have always been when we were all off staying somewhere, and
+she had the house to herself."
+
+"I don't," commented Jenny Wick, with a shrewd little grimace. "I think
+she likes best to have you one at a time--all to herself."
+
+Oliver said nothing. It was the second time that he had been to the
+house since his return, but the first in which he had been there quite
+in this way--_en famille_--for the two brothers-in-law were there on the
+other occasion, and there had been things about the journey to Paris
+that he had not cared to tell them.
+
+"Well, never mind that," he said. "Go on with the letter."
+
+"'MY DEAR CAROLINE,'--The first part's about--oh, about Caroline's
+landlady's twins--not very interesting. Let me see. Oh, here we are:
+'_We've been for a long drive in the Bois de Boulogne. You've no idea
+how different it is from Hyde Park, but it's very nice, just the
+same._'"
+
+"Speaks the Islander," from Wick.
+
+"'_It is very cold here, colder, I think, than London, but it's clear
+and sunny. I feel very well, and in the last few days I have begun to
+get fatter; you'll be surprised to hear, Caroline, that I've had to let
+out my afternoon dress. I got a very nice piece of----_' Oh, I won't
+read this."
+
+"Yes, do," shouted Oliver. "I want to know what she got a nice piece
+of."
+
+"'_Of lace at the Galleries Lafayette, and a little woman here has made
+me a fichu that quite brightens up the old black satin._' Isn't she a
+dear? '_I went to Notre Dame this morning. It's beautiful, and I like
+the homely way poor people come in and say their prayers for a few
+minutes and then go out again. There were two market baskets full of
+vegetables just inside the door this morning, and a flower-girl burning
+candles before a statue. Of course it's idolatrous, but it's a very
+pretty custom._'"
+
+Oliver laughed. "Imagine one of the Piccadilly Circus flower-girls
+strolling in for a moment's spiritual comfort to Westminster Abbey!"
+
+"'_I bought some very nice scones at a little shop near the Louvre, and
+Guy did enjoy them with his tea. But guess what they cost, my dear.
+Fifty centimes apiece--sixpence! The prices here are perfectly dreadful.
+Oh, I bought E. V. Lucas's "Wanderer in Paris," and go out for a couple
+of hours every day, when Guy doesn't want me, with it, and it's very
+delightful. Paris must have changed very much, and no one could call it
+gay now, and I never saw such deep mourning in my life. Half the women
+are in black, real old-fashioned widows' weeds, not like our war widows'
+little ballet skirts._
+
+"'_It's quite as east-windy and dusty as London, and the taximen are
+perfect fiends. They say that the family of anyone killed by a vehicle
+is obliged to pay for obstructing the traffic. Of course if this is
+true, it explains why they drive so fast._'"
+
+Sir John laughed. "This, I take it, is the novelistic imagination of
+which we hear so much."
+
+"'_Thanks very much for sending me "Haycocks" and "Bess Knighthood."
+I've read "Haycocks," and like it very much in some ways, but as for
+"Bess Knighthood," how could it have taken that prize? Fancy getting a
+thousand pounds for such a book! I saw it at Brentano's, and the man
+told me everybody was reading it. I think it's rather a cruel book, and
+I don't believe any family could really be quite so horrid._'"
+
+Grisel looked up. "That's true. They were perfect brutes, weren't they?
+Poor old Mum! I suppose she's a little jealous. I _loved_ it myself!"
+
+"It's going to be dramatised. Did I tell you, Grisel?" Wick lighted a
+cigarette as he spoke. "It'll make a splendid play. I never heard of the
+author before, did you? E. R. East. Man or woman?"
+
+"Oh, woman, of course. No, I don't think I ever heard of her before.
+What a wonderful thing," Grisel added, "to get a thousand pounds prize
+just for writing a story."
+
+"Just for writing a story." Wick grinned. "Philistine!"
+
+"Oh, mother speaks about that--listen:
+
+"'_Do you remember that day, Caroline dear, when you wanted me to write
+a book for the competition? Just imagine "Sunlight and Shadow" or "One
+Maid's Word" being judged by the Committee that awarded that thousand
+pounds!_"
+
+"Poor mother. I mustn't forget to tell her when I write that Mr. Payne
+wrote a very nice letter about her new book. It's coming out in a few
+days. I do hope it'll be a success, poor darling. You know, it's a
+dreadful thing, John, but I can't get through a book of mother's
+nowadays."
+
+"Can't you, my dear?"
+
+"No. They _are_ about such dull people. I wish I liked them, because she
+must know I don't."
+
+"Oh, she's used to that," he answered. "Paul is remarkably frank about
+it. But go on; finish the letter."
+
+The next page was devoted to a description of the famous pictures and
+statues which Mrs. Walbridge was making a point of seeing. It was
+plainly a surprise to her that this had turned out to be not altogether
+an unpleasant fulfilment of duty.
+
+"'_I really love some of the pictures_,' she explained naïvely, '_and I
+almost forgot to come home for lunch the day I went to the Luxembourg.
+Some day I shall try to make time to go to the National Gallery._'"
+
+Wick groaned. "Oh--oh dear! She's like a child," he said. "Why, do you
+know, she positively trembled with excitement when the train stopped and
+she first noticed one of those long, straight roads edged with
+poplars--the kind that are always in illustrated magazines. She even
+thought the fisher wives with their caps picturesque. I'm going to take
+her on some sprees in London when she gets back. We're going to the
+Tower together, and she wants to see the Cathedral at St. Albans."
+
+"'_There's a lady in the house_,'" Grisel began again, after an
+unamiable glance at the young man, "'_who's been buying clothes to go to
+South America with. Yesterday I went with her to two or three
+dressmakers, and the things really are lovely, Caroline. Of course they
+seem very young, and one or two of this Mrs. Hammerton's would have
+looked to me childish on Grisel, but it's the fashion here, and they
+certainly do wear their clothes better than we do. I've got a lovely hat
+for Grisel--black. (All the prettiest hats seem to be black.) And Hermy
+will be delighted with an evening frock I have got for her. Maud's box
+went off the other day. You never saw such darling little things in your
+life. I wish I could be home to help nurse her, but Dr. Butler won't let
+Guy come back for a long time yet, and he wants us to go to Cannes at
+the end of next week. Doesn't it seem odd that I should be travelling
+about like this at my time of life? I wonder if the Mediterranean really
+is as blue as people say! I wish Oliver was going to be here. I rather
+dread the journey, although Guy really speaks good French now._
+
+"'_I wish, my dear, you would go and see Ferdie and look over his
+things. It would be perfectly safe for you to go, as you aren't one of
+the family. I had a very nice letter from him the other day--about Guy,
+of course--but he seems to feel it rather difficult to look after his
+own underclothes, and so on. I don't suppose he has a whole sock to his
+name----_'"
+
+Grisel broke off and looked round her audience. "Isn't that just like
+Mum?" she said. "I suppose she'll be mending Mrs. Crichell's--no, Mrs.
+Walbridge's--things by this time next year."
+
+"I saw Crichell to-day," said Sir John gravely. "The case is down one of
+the first in the Trinity term. They've got all the evidence and so on.
+Ugh! What a beastly business it is! The woman ought to be whipped; and
+as for your father, my dear----" He broke off, and Grisel laughed.
+
+"Oh, go on. Don't spare father. I'm sure I don't mind what you say about
+him. Paul saw him dining somewhere with the--lady who has sold herself
+as scapegoat. I should think there would be a good deal of money in that
+kind of job nowadays. Quite an idea!" she added flippantly.
+
+"Oh, shut up, Grisel." It was Jenny who spoke.
+
+But Grisel sat with the letter on her lap. An idea had occurred to
+her--an idea that would have occurred to anyone less self-engrossed than
+she many weeks before.
+
+"John," she burst out, "is father still in that office of yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But--but how can he stay? Wouldn't you rather have him go?"
+
+Barclay came back to his chair. "No," he said quietly. "I prefer to have
+him stay."
+
+"But----" She flushed and rose. "But how can he stay and take your money
+when you feel about him as you do?"
+
+"It's quite all right, my dear. Business is one thing and friendship
+another."
+
+But she over-rode his words. "Nonsense! You only gave him a job--well,
+it's a kind of charity now that you're no longer friends."
+
+"Nonsense, Grisel." It was Wick who spoke. "You don't seriously think
+that Sir John would have given your father the job unless he knew he was
+going to be useful? Business men don't do that kind of thing. Isn't that
+right, sir?"
+
+Barclay bowed his head. "Yes. It is your father's knowledge of French
+that is of value to me. His domestic difficulties have made no change in
+that."
+
+Grisel had forgotten all about little Jenny, with whom she was not very
+intimate, and went on rapidly, her pride aflame.
+
+"Is he going to stay on in your--in your employ, then, after his
+marriage to that disgusting woman?"
+
+"I hope so. You forget," Barclay added in a grave voice, "that if your
+father were not working he would be unable to continue to support your
+mother and----" he hesitated a little "you."
+
+She shivered and went to the fire. "I see. Yes, I see," she murmured.
+Then she picked up the letter again, and read them a detailed account of
+what the doctor had told her mother about Guy's condition. The letter
+ended by asking Miss Breeze to take it to "Happy House," as the writer
+was too busy to set it all down a second time.
+
+Grisel folded it up, and put it back into the envelope.
+
+"My mother had a note from her," Wick remarked, "two or three days ago,
+it was. And she sent Jenny two pairs of gloves. I like to think," he
+added, "of her there in Paris running about with the E. V. Lucas under
+her arm, seeing things she has always heard of. She also," he added,
+"wrote a charming note to Miss Perkins."
+
+"Did she? Has Miss Perkins written to her?"
+
+He nodded. "Yes. She was awfully touched by the letter. So was Mrs.
+Perkins. Your mother's promised to go and see them as soon as she gets
+home."
+
+Grisel smiled with a touch of condescension. "By the way, as she's so
+confined to the house by her mother's health, you might take me to see
+her one afternoon. Or--or Sir John would let us go in the car."
+
+Sir John nodded. "Any day you say, my dear."
+
+Wick was terrified for a moment, and then agreed to the proposal with
+becoming enthusiasm.
+
+"That _would_ be kind of you," he answered. "I've been longing to
+suggest it, but didn't quite like to."
+
+She looked at him sideways, and he saw her knuckles whiten.
+
+"When can you go?" he went on, pursuing his advantage with a beaming
+face. "Could you go to-morrow?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've got to go to Derby," Sir John put in. "I'm motoring two
+men down on rather important business."
+
+"And on Friday," Grisel added hastily, "I've an engagement."
+
+"What about Saturday?" he insisted, thoroughly enjoying himself.
+
+"Saturday I'm going to be with Maud all day."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "There you are! Always busy. But I do want
+you to meet Doll. I'm sure you'll like her. She's awfully interested in
+you. I think," he added fatuously as his downright little sister stared
+at him in amazement approaching open-mouthed astonishment, "she was
+inclined to be--well, it sounds ridiculous, but girls are all alike--to
+be a little jealous of you just at first, Grisel. But of course that's
+all right now."
+
+Grisel tossed her head. "I should think so," she retorted.
+
+Sir John watched them with a puzzled look in his clear eyes. Their talk
+seemed to him to be in surprisingly bad taste. He had noticed before
+that the subject of Miss Perkins seemed to bring out in them both a
+quality that he could not define, but that he greatly disliked, and it
+was odd that Grisel at such moments displeased him far more than young
+Wick. He was a clear-sighted man who had seen a good deal of the world,
+and of course it had not escaped him that Wick must only very recently
+have been in love with Grisel, for sometimes he had caught in the young
+man's eyes a look that was at least reminiscent of a stronger feeling
+than Miss Perkins might have approved of. He felt a mild curiosity about
+Miss Perkins, whose photograph he had seen, and whose beauty was
+undeniable, and he remembered that the last time Wick had been at the
+house he had dropped on the floor, and left, a fat letter in a delicate
+grey envelope, addressed in a pretty hand, and that Grisel, who had
+found it, remarked, as he propped it up against a brass candlestick:
+"Chiswick postmark. Miss Perkins, of course."
+
+Barclay reflected, as he walked home that night, that if it were not for
+Miss Perkins he should feel extremely sorry for young Wick. He liked the
+boy. He liked him for his initiative and general air of success.
+Incidentally he knew through a friend who was high up in the hierarchy
+in Fleet Street, of which the head was a man whom Oliver called his
+Chief, of this youth's recent and rapid promotion, and the confidential
+position to which he had been raised over the heads of dozens of more
+experienced and older men. He had said nothing of these things at "Happy
+House," and so far as he could judge Oliver was regarded there still as
+the unimportant, though pushful reporter, who had been sent to write up
+Hermione's wedding in the previous July. Why the young man was
+concealing his remarkable advance Barclay had no idea. But he did not
+consider it his business to tell what he knew, and even Wick himself had
+no idea of his rival's information. "The beautiful Miss Perkins," the
+elder man thought, as he walked along in the bright moonlight, "will be
+My Lady before she has been married five years, or I'm very much
+mistaken."
+
+Meantime, Wick, who now had a room in a little blind alley off Fleet
+Street, was toiling upstairs thoroughly tired in every sense. He had
+expected Miss Perkins to effect a quicker revolution than she had been
+able to do. He was overworked, for the great man who had taken him in
+hand was testing him at every point, and things were not being made easy
+for him; that was not the great man's way. He had, moreover, to contend
+with the very natural jealousy of a good many men at the office, over
+whose resentful heads he had been promoted, and their protests were
+none the less bitter because they were forced to be silent ones.
+Criticism of the Chief's plans, or even whims, were not tolerated in
+Fleet Street. Wick found his work hampered and retarded in every
+possible way, but he was too clever to speak a word of protest during
+his rare but fruitful interviews with the "Boss," whose eyes twinkled as
+he asked him each time that they met: "Well, Mr. Wick, things going
+well, I hope?" And Wick, knowing that he knew (for he knew everything),
+that things were being made damnably hard for him, invariably answered
+with a corresponding twinkle and a pugnacious tightening of the lips:
+"Top-hole." But now, after this second evening he had spent at "Happy
+House" since his return from Paris, he was worn out and discouraged, and
+he sat down on the edge of his bed, the moonlight pouring in through the
+uncurtained window, and allowed his face to drop and line without
+restraint.
+
+"I'll go and see mother to-morrow," he said aloud, "and tell her all
+about it. She'll set me right, if I'm settable. The only decent thing in
+the whole world is that Mrs. Walbridge is having the time of her life in
+Paris, bless her! What a stupid letter!" He took a letter from his
+pocket and tossed it on to the dressing-table. "I wonder what they would
+say if they could read mine! Ah, well."
+
+As he got into bed and blew out his candle, he groaned heavily. "Damn
+Miss Perkins," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+One day in early May Sir John Barclay, who had been lunching at "Happy
+House," managed to slip as he went down the steps into the garden and
+tore the tendons away from one of his ankles. Grisel telephoned for the
+doctor, who bound it up and gave Sir John, who was suffering acute pain,
+a quietening draught of some kind, and went away leaving Grisel and her
+lover in the dismal drawing-room alone together.
+
+"Did it hurt much?" she asked anxiously.
+
+He nodded, "Yes, ridiculously. It is odd how a little injury like that
+can hurt so much more than a good many serious ones." After a moment he
+added, looking thoughtfully at her as she moved about setting the room
+to rights, "It is exactly the same with mental pain, too, my dear. Ever
+noticed that?"
+
+"What do you mean?" She turned at the door, grasping the basin of cold
+water in which the bandages had been wetted.
+
+"I mean that some little annoyance or disappointment," he went on
+slowly, feeling his way, "often causes one more real discomfort than a
+big blow would."
+
+She nodded listlessly. "I suppose so. I'll be back in a minute, John."
+
+The strengthening spring sunshine fell through a window full on his face
+as he waited for her to come back, and there was something very
+thoughtful and a little sad in his strong blue eyes. In spite of his
+white hair he looked very young for his years, and his face, finely
+modelled and dignified, held a look of mental clarity and freshness,
+that, combined with its dominant expression of quiet energy, was very
+striking. But a heat wave had been hovering over London for the last
+three days and the humid warmth had tired everyone, and even he looked a
+little fagged.
+
+As Grisel came back and drew together the hideous lace curtains that the
+doctor had wrenched to the ends of the poles, he said gently:
+
+"This heat is exhausting you, my dear. You look fagged and worn."
+
+"Why not say hideous at once?" she laughed, with a little edge in her
+voice and her slim hands moving restlessly as she sat down.
+
+"For two reasons, the first is that you are not looking or never could
+look hideous; the second that I am too old and too old-fashioned for the
+brutal frankness that seems so popular nowadays." After a moment he
+added quietly, "I leave that kind of downrightness to younger men--such
+as Oliver Wick."
+
+She started. "Oliver Wick's manners are perfectly abominable, and they
+seem to get worse. The beautiful Miss Perkins does not appear to have a
+very good influence on him."
+
+John Barclay's blue eyes did not waver from her face.
+
+"And yet," he said, "there is no doubt, at least to my mind, that the
+young man is very much in love."
+
+"Oh, he's _always_ very much in love," she retorted, the edge in her
+voice sharpening. "Why, it is only nine months ago that he was making a
+perfect fool of himself about--about a friend of mine."
+
+Barclay nodded. "Yes, I gathered from something his mother said that
+the young lady with the floral name has not the advantage of being his
+first love. I suppose the girl--the other girl," he took a cigarette
+case from his pocket and lit a cigarette, "didn't care about him."
+
+Grisel rose. "Oh, give me a cigarette. Care about him? I should think
+she didn't. He bored the life out of the poor girl with his
+scenes--and--and," she struck a match, "his absurd white face."
+
+"Dear me, I should have called him rather brown," commented Sir John
+mildly. "Quite a brown young man, I should have said."
+
+"Oh, yes, but he used to turn white, and all those hideous lines in his
+face used to look suddenly so sharp and--and so deep."
+
+"Very emotional he must be. You knew the young lady well, then?"
+
+Grisel shot a quick glance at him. "Yes--yes, I did. She was a friend of
+mine. She has--she is in South America now."
+
+"I see. But we are digressing. What I started to say was that as you are
+looking so tired, and as it is so frightfully hot, and as my foot is
+going to make me pretty useless for a few days, suppose we go for a
+little motor tour?"
+
+Her face brightened, "Oh yes, let's. Couldn't we go to the sea, John,
+I--I think the sea up north somewhere would brace me--I mean all of us
+up and make us feel better."
+
+"Good! What do you think of Yorkshire, Whitby or Robinhood Bay? Could
+you start to-morrow?"
+
+She flushed with pleasure and came over and kissed his forehead, at
+which he smiled a little sadly in his growing wisdom.
+
+"We can get Caroline to go with us," the girl resumed, sitting down on
+the sofa and smoothing the shawl which she had spread over his bandaged
+foot. "Poor old Caroline, she never gets any pleasure, and she will love
+it."
+
+"I think perhaps you had better ring up Jackson" (he gave the number)
+"and tell him to get the car ready for a long run to-morrow; and if you
+and Paul don't mind, and will put me up to-night, you might tell Jackson
+to send Bob up with my clothes and things. It would not hurt this foot
+to be perfectly quiet till we start, and Bob can make the compresses,
+and bandage it, as well as any doctor."
+
+After a little pause she answered, "Yes, that would be splendid. You can
+have mother's room, and Bob can sleep in--in the dressing-room. Shall I
+go and tell Caroline?"
+
+"No, go and telephone." He repeated the number. "Better get Jackson at
+once. By the way, Miss Perkins' young man will be coming in this
+afternoon, won't he?"
+
+She nodded, "Yes, oh dear, I had forgotten. He and Jenny are coming to
+dinner. Paul has a lot of new Russian music----"
+
+Barclay sat there and listened to her pretty voice at the telephone, the
+thoughtful look in his face deepening though not saddening, and when she
+came back he asked her abruptly if she thought Paul and Jenny Wick were
+falling in love with each other.
+
+She stood in a pool of sunlight on the other side of the mantelpiece,
+twisting the ruby on her finger. She had grown a little thin during the
+hot weather, and her slight, graceful figure looked almost too
+unsubstantial in the little dove coloured frock.
+
+"Paul and Jenny?" she murmured, "I don't know, John, I have been
+wondering myself."
+
+"Would you--would you like it if they did?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. I like Jenny very much; she is too good for Paul,
+really."
+
+He nodded, "Yes, I see what you mean, but on the other hand she draws
+out the very best that there is in the boy."
+
+"Paul is not a boy, he's thirty."
+
+"Thirty is boyhood to fifty-three," he answered smiling. "I like the
+little lady with her edible looking curls, and her music is _real_
+music, based on the best things in her; music is no good at all when it
+is built only on the emotions. Of course, if they do marry, the
+energetic journalist would be almost a member of the family--he and his
+wife."
+
+Grisel laughed and gave a comic shiver. "Oh dear, oh dear, then I should
+have to live cheek and jowl with perfection; it would be dreadful."
+
+"By that time, dear," he said gravely, "you and I will not be living
+exactly cheek and jowl with anyone at 'Happy House.'"
+
+"No, no, of course not. I was only thinking"--she broke off a little
+confused, and he laughed.
+
+"Oh, John," she said, "you are such a dear and I am so fond of you! You
+always make everything so much nicer--and so much easier to bear."
+
+As she spoke Jessie came in with the tea tray, and when she had gone
+out, and Grisel was pouring out the tea with sudden gaiety and high
+spirits, Barclay went on as if they had not been interrupted:
+
+"That sounds almost as if you had things to bear."
+
+Her eyes darkened. "Well, haven't I? After all, it's not very pleasant
+to have one's own father make such a ridiculous fool of himself as my
+father is doing. I suppose you saw that article in the _Express_
+yesterday?"
+
+He nodded, "Yes, a very decent little article; the papers have behaved
+very well on the whole, considering that he is, well--your mother's
+husband."
+
+She looked at him blankly and then understood. "Oh, mother's books you
+mean! Yes, I suppose that does make it a little better known, the
+divorce business, I mean--poor mother!"
+
+"Why poor mother, Grisel?"
+
+"The books, you know," she returned vaguely, stirring her tea.
+"They--they are so awful, John."
+
+"Are they?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes. So old-fashioned and sentimental and utterly unreal. I
+have not been able to get through one for years."
+
+"Haven't you?" he answered reflectively. "I read one the other day, and,
+thanks I suppose to my own old-fashionedness and sentimentality, I quite
+liked it."
+
+"Not really! What was it?"
+
+"It was called, I think, 'The Under Secretary.'"
+
+She nodded, "Yes, that's one of the best ones, and you know it used to
+be very popular. The later ones are awful, and, oh, John," the girl's
+beautiful face was filled with real sympathy, "'Lord Effingham' was
+perfectly dreadful--you know she tried to modernise it--you never read
+such hopeless stuff in your life."
+
+"Yes, I looked at that one day somewhere. It struck me as being very
+pathetic, Grisel."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose so, but then lots of other
+writers have changed with the times--advanced I mean--only mother seems
+to have stuck back in the eighties somewhere. It is not so much that her
+stories are bad," she went on with an air of disinterested criticism
+that rather jarred on her hearer, "it is the way she tells them that is
+so--so hopelessly out of fashion. Why just look at Marjory Brendon, and
+Miss Thirsk and Eugene and Olive Parker, their books are just as
+hopeless as mother's from a _literary_ point of view, but they sell like
+anything because they're modern."
+
+"Yes, I am not much of a novel reader," he said, "and when I do read a
+novel I like the old ones, Dickens and Thackeray and so on, but I must
+say I do not see much of the modern ones that are considered literary.
+The two or three I have struck have been either deadly dull in their
+wealth of utterly unattractive details, or so filthy that they ought to
+be burnt; that book Paul lent me, for instance, 'Reek,' is not fit for
+any decent young woman to read."
+
+Grisel nodded, "Yes, it is horrid. I began it, but mother wouldn't let
+me finish it. I love 'Haycocks,' don't you?"
+
+He shook his head. "No. Of course it is beautifully written, but people
+with such undeveloped minds and such lack of knowledge of anything
+except turnips and sheep, don't interest me."
+
+"That is the one my mother likes. Yes, I know what you mean about the
+turnips," the girl added thoughtfully, "but I suppose it is a perfect
+picture of the lives of such people. It is selling splendidly. I like
+'Bess Knighthood' better, only I don't believe any family could be so
+horrid to each other. Yet it is told in an odd, attractive way. Mother
+couldn't bear it, yet it got the 1,000 dollar prize. 'Young Bears at
+Play' was the book I liked best of all. Oliver gave us those two, and I
+laughed till I was limp over it. Betterton is a funny man."
+
+They talked on and on very pleasantly, very cosily, and as the draught
+given him by the doctor began to take effect Barclay's eyes grew heavy
+and his voice gradually softer; finally his head fell back against the
+pillow and he slept.
+
+Grisel sat for some time looking at him in his unconsciousness, and it
+seemed to the girl that she was really seeing for the first time this
+man who was to be her husband. She studied his face closely; its well
+marked eyebrows and strong serene mouth; a good face it was, she saw,
+the best of faces. And then she gave a little shiver and rose, for
+somehow the intimacy of the little scene was painful to her.
+
+After a minute she went quietly out of the room and down into the
+garden. A little wind had risen as the sun began to go down, and the
+leaves in the big elm tree were stirring with small, brisk sounds, as if
+they, too, felt better for the coolness. The sky was unusually bright in
+its hard blueness, and the two lilac bushes, one purple and the other
+white, that had been gently grilling all day, sent out strong waves of
+sweetness as they swayed in the freshening air. Grisel Walbridge sat
+down on the steps and gazed out across the garden. One or two of the
+earlier rose bushes were starred with half-open buds, and a patch of
+some intensely yellow flower in one of the pathetic herbaceous borders
+caught her eye--so yellow it was that it looked like a pool of
+concentrated light--an altar of sunshine, the girl thought absently.
+Then her mind went back to the sleeping man in the drawing-room. "How
+handsome he looked," she said to herself resolutely. "How kind his face
+is, and how strong. I certainly am a very lucky girl." Yet somehow she
+seemed to know better than ever before what it was she was really doing
+in marrying this kind powerful man. Strong and placid and handsome as he
+undoubtedly was, the relaxation of sleep had revealed one thing very
+clearly to her. His face was as smooth, and more unlined than that of
+many much younger men whom she knew--the flesh looked firm and sound,
+and the muscles were shapely and did not sag, but she moved restlessly
+and leaning her head against the handrail on which a climbing rose had
+swung its first clumps of thick pink blossom. "He's old," she said,
+"old." In her security of perfect solitude she had, without knowing it,
+spoken aloud, and Oliver Wick, who had come down the passage
+noiselessly, on rubber-soled tennis shoes, heard her, without her having
+heard him, and for several minutes he stood in the doorway quite
+motionless, his white flannelled figure sharply outlined against the
+inner darkness, his tennis racquet in his hand, listening, as it seemed
+to him, to the repeated echo of her words. They seemed to go on for a
+long time, the words, "He is old--he is old."
+
+Presently he tiptoed back into the house and a moment later came
+bounding out into the sunshine very noisily, so noisily that she turned
+with an irritated frown, and on her seeing who it was her frown
+deepened. "Oh, it is you," she said ungraciously, "I thought you were
+coming to _dinner_, you and Jenny."
+
+"We are; Jenny is spending the night with Mrs. Gaskell-Walker, and I am
+at the Catherwoods."
+
+"I see. Will you come upstairs? Sir John is asleep in the drawing-room.
+He has sprained his ankle and is asleep."
+
+Wick expressed proper regret at the accident, but declined to go in.
+
+"I have a message for you," he went on, sitting down, pulling up the
+knees of his trousers, "from Dorothy. She's awfully sorry to have missed
+you on Tuesday."
+
+"Yes, I was sorry too, but I thought you quite understood that I was
+going to tea with Hermione."
+
+He shook his head. "No, I muddled it somehow, fool that I am. And about
+Monday, I am afraid it is no good after all, for she is going to
+Birmingham to see her grandmother, who is ill. She had a wire while I
+was there last night."
+
+"Oh, I am sorry," Grisel said stiffly, picking a cluster of pink roses
+and smelling them. "I hope the old lady will soon be better."
+
+Mr. Wick had apparently great faith in the recuperative powers of his
+betrothed's grandmother.
+
+"Oh, she'll be all right; they are a splendidly healthy family, the
+Wandsworths. It is her _mother's_ mother, you see."
+
+Grisel looked at him. "Mrs. Perkins herself does not seem to be like the
+rest of them, then," she suggested maliciously.
+
+He did not flinch. "No, poor thing, she's the exception that proves the
+rule. She's always bemoaning it. However, they are trying massage now, a
+peculiar kind of massage and dumb-bells, and I really believe it is
+going to do her good."
+
+Grisel nodded indifferently. "I hope so, I am sure. Have you been
+playing tennis?"
+
+"Yes, Joan Catherwood and I had four sets. She beat me hollow, too. How
+pretty these roses are!"
+
+She nodded. "Yes, aren't they; I love them." Then she stroked her cheek
+with a pretty cluster as if it had been a powder puff.
+
+Wick picked a bunch and smelt it.
+
+"Lovely things," he murmured in a rather maudlin voice. "I am glad you
+like them, Grisel."
+
+"Glad? Why?"
+
+His small eyes looked at her reproachfully.
+
+"My dear girl," he said, "don't you understand, don't you realise why
+they are my favourite flowers?"
+
+She stared for a moment and then rose impatiently.
+
+"Oh, of course, 'Dorothy Perkins,'" she said shortly. "Come along in,
+it's too hot here."
+
+As he followed her, Mr. Wick treated himself to a silent chuckle, and
+kicked over the edge of the veranda the clump of roses she had dropped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Caroline Breeze's diary at this time contained several items that bear
+on the history of that year at "Happy House." Miss Breeze had indeed
+been glad to chaperon Griselda to Yorkshire, and the journey and short
+stay there was to her delightful in every respect.
+
+"Sir John," she wrote on one occasion, "is the most chivalrous man, his
+manners are perfectly beautiful. One would think by his politeness to me
+that it must be me he was engaged to (which, of course, in point of
+years might be considered more suitable), and not Grisel at all. He
+behaves as if she was not exactly a daughter, but a niece he was very
+fond of."
+
+In another place she gives way to reflection about Grisel herself. "A
+very much spoiled girl. I suppose her winter with the Fords at Torquay
+has turned her head a little, for I am sure she never used to be so
+changeable and hard to please. She is almost fretful sometimes and dear
+Sir John is so patient with her. He is a wonderful man. He seems to have
+taken a great fancy to that tiresome Mr. Wick, and he has invited him
+down here for Sunday. (This was written at Whitby.) I am sorry he is
+coming and so is Grisel. She told me yesterday that he bores her to
+death. It rather surprises me, for he never struck me as exactly a
+bore."
+
+Then a little later she describes the visit.
+
+"Mr. Wick has been to Weston-super-Mare to see Miss Perkins, who is
+there with some friends, after nursing her grandmother. Grisel was
+quite cross with him and although, of course, one sympathises with the
+young man's raptures about his sweetheart, I must admit he rather rubs
+her in--Miss Perkins, I mean.
+
+"Sir John seems very much interested in Miss Perkins, and, if she had
+come to Scarborough as she intended at first, he was going to take us
+over in the car to see her. I am quite sorry her friends decided to go
+to Weston-super-Mare instead, for I should love to see her. They are
+going to be married in November, and really Mr. Wick's expression when
+he talks about her is very nearly ridiculous."
+
+A week later the diary goes on:
+
+"We are going back to-morrow, for Paul has had a wire from dear Violet,
+saying they are leaving Cauterets and coming to Paris on their way home.
+I shall be glad to see Violet, it seems years since she went. Oliver is
+going to bring them back from Paris, where he has gone in connection
+with the signing of the Peace. Miss Perkins has written a charming
+letter to Grisel; she must be a lovely girl.
+
+"Grisel and Sir John are to be married in October, as he has to go to
+the Argentine at the end of that month and she wants to go with him. I
+hope the change will do her good, for she really looks ill and doesn't
+seem at all herself."
+
+Mr. Wick about this time writes to his mother from Paris.
+
+     "_It was wildly successful, but I nearly broke down a dozen times,
+     sometimes into a roar of laughter and sometimes into tears of pity.
+     She does so hate my poor Dorothy, mother, she is as jealous as a
+     Turk and so in love with me that I wonder everyone in the world
+     doesn't see it, but they don't. I rather had some doubts about Sir
+     John once or twice, he is no fool, and I have caught him looking at
+     me in a rather understanding way. He displays an almost suspicious
+     interest in my young woman. I made a little slip and had her headed
+     for Scarborough, but I saw in his eyes a plan for driving us all
+     over there to see her, so I had Billy Barnes wire me from
+     Birmingham that their plans were changed and I packed them all off
+     to Weston-super-Mare, a place that I am sure Dorothy would enjoy if
+     she really existed._
+
+      "_There is only one thing, mother dear, that disturbs me at all,
+      and that is Sir John Barclay. He is a splendid old fellow and I am
+      afraid he is going to be upset over our marriage. However, that
+      can't be helped, and after all a man of his age has no real right
+      to romance! That belongs to us_"--and so on and so on.
+
+On the morning after her return Grisel came downstairs to find a
+telegram just being handed in at the door. It was addressed to her and
+announced that her mother and brother would arrive that night. It was
+from Wick, dated Paris. She was a little late that morning, and Paul had
+nearly finished his breakfast when she opened the dining-room door.
+
+"They are coming to-night, Paul," she said. "This wire has just come
+from Oliver."
+
+Paul slew a wasp on the edge of his jam-baited plate and then took the
+telegram.
+
+"Good!" he said. "I shall be glad to see them, and Guy will like those
+new songs of mine; we must get Jenny to come in to-morrow night and I
+will sing them."
+
+She sat down.
+
+"You like Jenny very much, don't you?" she asked gently.
+
+He looked up, his clever face, sometimes so highly repellent, almost
+tender.
+
+"Jenny is a dear," he declared, "she is the best accompanist I have ever
+had and her taste of music is perfect."
+
+Grisel, who had poured out her coffee, leaned her chin on her clasped
+hands and looked at him thoughtfully.
+
+"It is not only the music, you know," she said, "I think it is her
+kindness that I like so much. Although she is so little and quick, her
+mind always seems to jump towards the nice things in people instead of
+like us--we always jump towards the faults. Instinctively, we seem to,
+don't we, Paul?"
+
+He was silent for a moment, apparently studying with deep interest the
+remains of the wasp on his plate.
+
+"Yes, I suppose we do. You and I and Hermione certainly do. We get that
+from our beautiful father, no doubt. Mother and Maud are different, but
+then, of course Jenny Wick has had a great pull in her mother. Mrs. Wick
+is a fine old----" he paused, and added gravely, "_fellow_. That's what
+she is like, a fine old man, whereas our father was always like a
+spoilt, and--_not_ fine--woman. By the way," he suddenly felt in his
+pocket. "I had a letter from father last night. He seems to be in
+trouble of some kind."
+
+"He would." Grisel answered indifferently. "Perhaps Clara Crichell is
+sick of him; I should think she would be by this time."
+
+Paul tossed the letter to her across the table.
+
+"All she ever saw in him was his looks," he answered, "and he is looking
+particularly handsome just now--or was three weeks ago. Barclay keeps
+him pretty busy and he is on the water wagon, so as far as his beauty
+goes he is flourishing like a rose."
+
+Grisel opened the letter, which was written in pencil on a half sheet of
+paper.
+
+     "_Dear Paul_," it said, "_let me know when your mother is coming
+     back, as I must see her. What on earth is she doing in Paris so
+     long? They say everything is frightfully expensive there now._
+
+      "_Thanks for sending me my bathing suit, I have had one or two
+      good swims and feel the better for them. I have been trying to
+      find new rooms. This is an awful hole I am in, but London is so
+      full of those beastly Colonials and Americans that I cannot get in
+      anywhere._
+
+      "_Is Grisel all right? I saw her sitting in Sir John's car in
+      front of Solomons the other day, but she did not see me._ I WAS ON
+      A BUS. _I thought she looked seedy. Do write and tell me the news,
+      and mind you let me know as soon as you know when your mother and
+      Guy are coming back; it really strikes me as very odd her
+      galloping about France like this at her age._
+
+  "_Your affectionate father_,
+  "FERDINAND WALBRIDGE."
+
+"Characteristic, isn't it?" Paul asked.
+
+She nodded. "Yes, very. Something has happened to upset him. Wouldn't it
+be awful, Paul," she added, unconscious of any oddity in her speech, "if
+Clara chucked him after all and we had to take him back!"
+
+"Take him back, indeed!"
+
+"Yes, mother would, you know, if he came to grief."
+
+He rose. "Not while I'm alive, she won't," he said, with the amazing
+firmness of the powerless. "Well, I must be off. I will send up some
+flowers if I can find any that are not a guinea a bloom." He hesitated
+and turned at the door. "Will you ring up Jenny and say they are coming,
+or shall I? They might dine instead of to-morrow----"
+
+"You don't want Jenny here the first night they are back, do you?"
+
+"Well, yes; to-morrow would be better, of course, but I have just
+remembered that I have an engagement to-morrow. Mother likes
+Jenny--she's never in anybody's way--and it will cheer Guy up to hear
+some music after his journey."
+
+He went out, leaving his sister smiling over the peculiar and highly
+characteristic logic of his last speech. How like Paul! She knew that
+Oliver Wick would be sure to come straight to "Happy House" with his
+charges, because there was luggage to be seen to and carried up, and a
+thousand little matters to be settled before he went off to Brondesbury,
+so it would be after all only natural for him to stay and have a bit of
+dinner before he went on to Brondesbury, and as for Jenny, she was
+staying, as she so often did, with Joan Catherwood.
+
+Barclay, who was going away in a day or two, was to have taken her out
+to dinner, but she rang him up at his office and asked him to dine at
+"Happy House" instead, he being, as she told herself with decision, one
+of the family. She gave the number and after the usual delay a voice
+from the office answered her.
+
+"Hallo, yes, you wish to speak to Sir John. Who is it, please?"
+
+Grisel started, for it was her father's voice speaking to her.
+
+"It is Miss----" she began nervously, and then making a face at herself,
+she went on, "It is Grisel, father. Is John there?"
+
+Ferdie Walbridge's soft voice had an unmistakable thrill in it as he
+spoke again.
+
+"Oh, it is you, dear! How are you, Grisel, and when is mother--I mean
+your mother--coming home?"
+
+"They are coming to-night; Paul had a wire this morning from Mr. Wick."
+
+There was a little pause and she could almost see her father's
+beautiful, self-indulgent face sharpen for a moment with surprise. He
+had a way at such moments of catching his underlip sharply back with his
+white teeth, and inflating his nostrils. This she knew he was doing now.
+
+"To-night! Dear me, I hope they will have had a good crossing." Then he
+added pitifully, "Dear me, Grisel, is it not--strange--that I should not
+be there when they come?"
+
+Grisel laughed. "Well, really, father!" she said.
+
+"Oh, I know, I know. Of course, it is all my own fault," he was playing
+on his voice now, and it was very pleasant to hear, although she
+despised him for doing it. "But when you are my age, my child, you will
+know that habit is a great thing and that old ties are not easily
+broken."
+
+"I know that already," she snapped, "I thought it was you who didn't."
+
+After a pause, feeling that he was about to become lyrical, she cut him
+short by asking pleasantly:
+
+"How are--the Crichells?"
+
+There was a pause and then he nobly replied:
+
+"Poor Crichell, for whom I am very sorry, is coming back to-day. He has
+been in Scotland and--er--Mrs. Crichell----"
+
+"Oh, don't mind me, father, call her Clara," she interrupted, conscious
+of and quite horrified by her own bad taste, and yet somehow unable to
+keep back the words.
+
+"Thank you, my dear. _Clara_ is staying with some friends in
+Herefordshire."
+
+"Well," she went on with a change of tone, "will you tell John I am
+here, and want to speak to him?"
+
+Again she could almost see her father gazing at her with noble reproach.
+
+"I will tell him," he said with magnificent rhythm and throb in his
+voice, "I will tell him, my child, that you are here----"
+
+Then, knowing that he would add "God bless you," she snatched the
+receiver from her ear and held it against her hip so as not to hear the
+words.
+
+During the morning Caroline Breeze came in to see how her recent
+travelling companion felt after their journey. The summer winds and sun
+that had been so kind to Griselda, painting her delicate face with
+mellow brown and dusky crimson, had attacked poor Caroline's plain old
+countenance with unkind vehemence. Her lashless eyes looked red and raw,
+like Marion's nose in Shakespeare, and her thin and unusual
+cartilaginous nose was not only painted scarlet, but highly varnished as
+well and there were two little patches on her cheeks that were peeling;
+but the good creature had no envy or even the mildest resentment at fate
+in her long, narrow body. She was delighted to see the girl looking
+brighter, and happier, and gave vent to a curious noise, nearly like a
+crow, over the news of the arrival.
+
+"Oh dear," she kept repeating, rubbing her dry hands together with a
+rough scrape, "I shall be glad to see Violet--I _shall_ be glad to see
+Violet," and then she went down into the kitchen to undertake all the
+more tiresome errands that must be done in order to achieve a really
+brilliant reception for the travellers.
+
+Grisel was busy all day in a pleasant, unwearying manner. She filled her
+mother's room with flowers out of the garden and arranged those sent by
+Paul in the glasses for the table.
+
+In the afternoon Jenny Wick arrived, with a basket of green peas that
+had been sent to her mother by a friend in the country and that Mrs.
+Wick had sent on as a little present to the "Happy House" people.
+
+Late in the afternoon the cook, who was Grisel's devoted slave, being
+very busy with some elaborate confections in the kitchen, the two girls
+sat on the back steps where the Dorothy Perkins roses would, before
+long, be in their full glory, and shelled the peas, each with a big blue
+check apron over her frock.
+
+"I guess this is the first time that ruby has ever shelled peas," Jenny
+exclaimed after a while. "It _is_ a beauty, Grisel."
+
+Grisel nodded, and her utter indifference struck the other girl.
+
+"Funny," she remarked shrewdly, "how easily one gets used to things. You
+were nearly off your head about that ruby at first, weren't you, and now
+you don't care a bit about it."
+
+"Oh, yes I do. It is very beautiful, but--well, that's just as you say.
+One does get used to things--some things that is," she added sombrely.
+
+Jenny, whose little cream-coloured face was peppered all over with large
+pale freckles, like the specks in _eau de vie de Dantzig_, added a
+handful of peas to the pan, that glittered like silver in the bright
+sun.
+
+"It's grand that people do get used to things," she reflected, screwing
+up her little nose, "almost as good as getting _over_ things. Oh,
+Grisel, do you remember how miserable poor Olly used to be about you?"
+
+"Nonsense! He thought he was, but he wasn't, really."
+
+"You don't know. He was frightfully unhappy. Mother and I were worried
+to death----"
+
+Grisel laughed. "Poor fellow. But anyhow it didn't last very long, did
+it?"
+
+"No, but it would have done," Jenny agreed with a shrewd shake of her
+curls, "if Dorothy had not come along."
+
+"We were going over to see 'Dorothy,' if she had come to Scarborough."
+
+"Yes, it was tiresome, their going to that other place. Oliver has been
+having such fun in Paris choosing an engagement ring for her; he has got
+a beauty, he says, a very old one. An emerald with diamonds around it."
+
+The two girls were intimate enough for Grisel to be able without
+rudeness to exclaim at the obvious expensiveness of this choice.
+
+"Yes, of course, it is," Jenny agreed, "but naturally he would want to
+give her something worth while."
+
+Grisel glanced at her big ruby and went on shelling peas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The various preparations for the dinner that night turned out, however,
+to be more or less in vain, for the travellers were delayed and did not
+reach the house until nearly ten o'clock. Dinner had been arranged for
+eight, and when half past eight had struck Grisel rang and sent word to
+cook that they would not wait any longer.
+
+"The cook," she explained to Sir John, "is a sensitive soul and very
+particular about having _her_ things ruined by waiting."
+
+Sir John laughed. "Well, I am glad, for my part I'm hungry. The sea air
+has given me a furious appetite."
+
+Little Jenny Wick looked at him thoughtfully. She did not think him
+looking well and her bright eyes revealed the thought.
+
+He smiled down at her. "I know what you are thinking, Miss Jenny," he
+said, as if speaking to a child. "The heat has fagged me a little, but
+I'm really very well. How is your mother?" he added, for he and old Mrs.
+Wick had struck up a great friendship and more than once he had taken
+her for long rides in his car by himself.
+
+Although she was the mother of so young a girl as Jenny, Mrs. Wick was
+several years older than her new friend, and treated him rather in an
+elder-sisterly way that had a great charm for him whose people had been
+dead for years, and who at "Happy House" was so very much the elder of
+everyone.
+
+So now he was glad to hear that Mrs. Wick was well, and looking forward
+to seeing him before long.
+
+"We must have a long spin some day before I go away," he answered. "I
+always enjoy a talk with your mother."
+
+Jenny nodded. "So does she with you, Sir John."
+
+"She's so glad Olly is coming back she doesn't know what to do with
+herself," the girl added, giving a little shake in a bird-like way to
+her pretty frilly frock, as she rose to go in to dinner. "The way she
+prefers that boy to me is simply scandalous."
+
+Barclay laughed. "You look ill-treated. I suppose," he added as they
+crossed the hall _en masse_, "Miss Perkins will be very glad, too, if
+she is back yet, that is from Weston-super-Mare!"
+
+"Yes, she and her mother and father are at Bury St. Edmunds now, with
+some relations of Mr. Perkins. Mother went down the other day and spent
+a couple of nights, but they could not put me up."
+
+The dinner was rather silent, for everyone was disappointed by the
+non-arrival of the travellers. Paul, who was in good form and the happy
+temper that Jenny Wick's presence always produced in him, did most of
+the talking, for he was intensely interested in a lot of new songs,
+Russian and Spanish, that he had just got and, with the naïvete that was
+in his case, as it so often is, only a form of selfishness, he assumed
+that everyone else was as deeply interested as he was.
+
+Grisel, who had not seen her lover that day until he arrived rather late
+for dinner, told him in a low voice of her talk with her father on the
+telephone.
+
+"He really was upset about something," she added at the end of the
+story. "Of course, he was not so upset as he seemed, but there _is_
+something wrong, I'm sure. I believe mother would take him back if Clara
+Crichell did not marry him after all."
+
+"What on earth makes you think that she won't marry him?" he asked,
+puzzled. "No woman alive would go through all this business of the
+divorce and the publicity unless she really cared for the man."
+
+Grisel shrugged her thin shoulders. "Oh, well, I don't know. You see, we
+know him so well that I suppose we instinctively fear she may have got
+to know him and--and--not liked what she has learnt."
+
+It struck Barclay as a very sad thing for a man that his own daughter
+should judge him in this unrancorous but pitiless way.
+
+"I rather like your father, you know," he said slowly, "in some ways. He
+is very much nicer away from home than he is in it."
+
+"He must be," she answered, with the charity of utter indifference. "He
+must be charming somewhere, and he certainly isn't when he is here!"
+
+"It struck me the last time I saw him," Barclay went on slowly, "that he
+was not--very happy. I suppose he misses your mother."
+
+Grisel stirred, and he hastened to explain.
+
+"Oh, yes, I mean just that--misses your mother. She has taken care of
+him for years, you know, and I don't imagine Mrs. Crichell would be as
+patient with his moods and vagaries as your mother has always been."
+
+Then suddenly the memory of her father in his less pleasant phases swept
+over Grisel, and her face was grim and tight as she answered:
+
+"No, and I hope she isn't! His hot milk last thing at night, and his
+four grades of underclothing, and his trouser-pressing machines, and
+his indigestion! His hot bottles in the middle of the night every time
+he's dined too well, and poor mother poking around in the kitchen
+heating kettles on the gas-ring! Oh, no, Mrs. Crichell won't much _like_
+that side of her beau sabreur, as she calls him."
+
+After dinner, as they walked in the garden, Sir John told her that he
+had met Walter Crichell that morning.
+
+"The poor wretch looks miserably unhappy," he said. "Those white hands
+of his look--look shrunken in their skin--rather as if he had kid gloves
+on."
+
+Grisel shuddered. "Ugh! his hands are loathsome! After all," she added a
+moment later, staring at a rose-bush, "there is no reason why the poor
+wretch should be hurt like this just because he has horrid hands! Oh!
+John," she cried, catching his arm almost as if she were frightened,
+"what an awful lot of misery there is in the world."
+
+He covered her small hand with his big, strong, brown one.
+
+"Yes, dear, there is. A great deal of it is inevitable and has to be
+borne, but the other kind--the kind that can be avoided--ought always, I
+think, to be avoided. It is right that it _should_ be avoided."
+
+She loosed his arm and looked up at him as they walked on.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that when people find they have made mistakes--and everyone does
+find that once in a while--I think that no consideration of pride or
+advantage ought to stand in the way of open confession and restoration."
+
+There was a little pause.
+
+"You are thinking about mother and father. You mean that if Mrs.
+Crichell finds she has been mistaken, she ought to say so and go back to
+her husband, even though people laughed at her for it."
+
+"No, I was not thinking of the Crichells or your father."
+
+The great heat had gathered masses of thick, quilted-looking clouds over
+London, and nervous little spurts of wind startled the trees every now
+and then and stirred the heavy-headed roses. The air smelt of dust and
+drying vegetation.
+
+Grisel looked up. "There's going to be a storm," she said. "Shall we go
+in?"
+
+"If you like, dear; but the storm won't break yet awhile. Though," he
+stood looking up at the sky for a moment, his thick white hair moving,
+she thought, just as the leaves on the trees moved in the spasmodic
+wind, "there is going to be one."
+
+They went slowly into the drawing-room, although the others were
+upstairs, and Paul's beautiful voice was already heard trying one of the
+new songs.
+
+"Let's stay here," he suggested. "It's cooler on this side of the house,
+and I don't feel inclined for music to-night."
+
+"Neither do I," she said, "but Paul does, so we shall have it! Yes, it
+is cool in here. Give me a cigarette, John, will you?"
+
+He did so, and they sat in almost unbroken silence, smoking. Presently
+the door-bell rang, and voices were heard outside.
+
+"That's Moreton and Maud," Griselda explained, without rising. "They
+have motored up from Burnham Beeches to see Guy."
+
+"You ought to go up to them, oughtn't you?" he asked gently.
+
+"No; they will be all right, and they'll love hearing the songs, and
+Paul will tell them we are in the garden." Again they were silent.
+
+The air was extremely oppressive in spite of the rising wind, and
+Grisel's head ached faintly. Every now and then one of the long lace
+curtains would blow into the room and writhe about as if reaching for
+something, to sink back listlessly into its place.
+
+"How heavy the scent of those lilacs is," the girl said after a while,
+glancing at a big bowl of them on the table, and Barclay raised his head
+suddenly, with a new look in his face.
+
+"Yes; that brings back to me a story that I've been thinking of telling
+you. I think I will tell you now, Grisel," he said. "Something that
+happened in my youth. My father was a parson, and there were six of us
+children. My mother died when I was about eight, and an old aunt of
+ours, my father's sister, came and lived with us and brought us up. She
+was a good woman, absolutely without imagination, and she looked rather
+like Miss Breeze. When I think of my Aunt Susan I always see her behind
+a kind of barricade of baskets full of mending of all kinds. She spent
+the greater part of her life with a boy's stocking drawn up over her
+left arm and a needle full of wool in her right hand. She did her best
+by us, poor woman, but she bored us, every one, and I suppose she could
+not have been very wise about our health, because before I left home
+four of us had died, two--the twins, who had never been very strong--of
+pneumonia, and the other two of diphtheria. It is not very interesting,
+but it explains just a little the way I felt that day----" He broke
+off.
+
+"I was just twenty-one," he went on, smiling at her, "an awkward colt of
+a boy, too big for my clothes, and too hungry for my father's income,
+and one day my sister Celia, the only other one of us who lived to grow
+up----"
+
+"I know--the one who died in New Zealand."
+
+"Yes. Well, one day Celia and I went up to Coops Hall, our nearest
+neighbours, some people named Fenwick, to plan tennis. It was a day like
+yesterday, very sunny and hot, and it must have been about this time of
+the year, because the white lilacs--a great clump of them of which Mrs.
+Fenwick was very proud--were in full bloom, and the air thick with their
+scent."
+
+He glanced at the bowl on the table as he spoke.
+
+"I remember perfectly well how I felt as we came up the incline of the
+lawn to the tulip trees where two or three hammocks were slung and where
+the Fenwick girls and their brother were sitting. That is one of the
+moments in my life of which I can still always recapture the very
+_feel_." After a moment he went on. "She was standing, leaning on a
+croquet mallet, with her sideface towards me. Her left profile, which
+was always better than the right--and still is for that matter----" He
+smiled, his face singularly sweetening at the thought.
+
+"But, John!" the girl cried in amazement, "you romantic old thing, you
+are telling me a love story!"
+
+He looked at her gravely. "I am, my dear. The only love story I ever had
+until I met you."
+
+She shrank back in her big chair as if drawing away from a too close
+physical touch, and he went on.
+
+"She wore a blue and white striped dress, as it used to be called in
+those days, bunched up at the back over a bustle, and, oh dear me, how
+her hair shone in the sun! It was rather a saintly face," he went on
+after a moment, "but the hair was the hair of a siren, full of waves and
+tendrils, and bewitching high lights and shades. Well, I was introduced
+to her, and we played croquet together, and then we had tea. And that
+was all. Did you ever read a little poem, 'There is a lady sweet and
+kind'?"
+
+She shook her head. "No, John. You know I don't like poetry much."
+
+"Well, listen. I don't remember the exact words, but it's like this:
+
+  "'There is a lady sweet and kind,
+  Was never face so pleased my mind;
+  I did but seeing her pass by,
+  And yet I loved her until I die.
+
+  "'Cupid has wounded and doth range
+  Her country and she my love doth change;
+  But change the earth and change the sky,
+  But still will I love her till I die.'
+
+"Well, my dear, I was exactly like that romantic youth. For over a
+quarter of a century my mind remained perfectly true to the memory of
+that sad-faced girl in the garden. She came once to my father's rectory,
+and we played tennis, and after that I didn't see her again for over
+thirty years."
+
+Grisel watched him with wide, fascinated eyes, as if he was someone she
+had never seen before. She was trying to do what is so hard for a young
+person to do--look back into an old person's youth and really see that
+youth face to face.
+
+"Why was she unhappy?" she asked as he paused and very slowly lit
+another cigarette.
+
+"Oh, that, too, was a romance. Hers, just as she was mine. She had been
+sent to the Fenwicks to try to distract her mind and draw her away from
+a young man to whom she was attached."
+
+"Did you ever tell her that you had fallen in love with her?"
+
+"Good heavens, no! I was not a lover. I was a worshipper, and she was so
+beautiful, so perfect----" He broke off. "Ah, my dear, that's the kind
+of love that's worth having."
+
+She watched him, her face changing to one of less detached curiosity.
+
+"Dear me, John," she said, "you alarm me, for this kind of love is
+certainly not what you give me."
+
+She laughed, but he looked at her very seriously.
+
+"No," he said, "it is not. I give you the best I have got, but it is not
+much for a young creature like you."
+
+She flushed, and her face contracted for a second.
+
+"Oh, I hope you don't think I am ungrateful," she stammered.
+
+He shook his head. "No, it is only that I'm wondering if it was not
+wrong of me to persuade you to accept--so little."
+
+"But, John, I----"
+
+"Wait a moment, Grisel. I have been thinking about this for a long time
+now, and this seems the right moment to say it. Hallo! it's raining!" he
+broke off, looking out of the window.
+
+"It has been raining for a long time," she said dully. "Go on, please."
+
+The air, quickened by the quiet rush of water, came in refreshingly at
+the window, and the music upstairs had ceased, so that the silence was
+very perfect.
+
+"I think," Barclay went on, looking at her with a reassuring
+smile, "that it is my duty to advise you to think it all over
+again--everything."
+
+"Oh, John," she faltered, "this is my fault. It is because I have been
+dull and moody. You think I'm ungrateful. You _must_ think I am, but,
+indeed, I am not."
+
+"Any marriage that is based on gratitude," he said sharply, leaning
+forward in the gloom, "is bound to go smash. I mean exactly what I say,
+Grisel: you must think it all over again. I have told you the truth; you
+know just how I feel, and, of course, you have known all along that you
+do not love me as"--he rose and came slowly towards her--"as, say, Miss
+Perkins presumably loves Wick."
+
+She stood facing him with quickened breath. "Miss Perkins has nothing to
+do with it, John," she said with a quiet dignity that touched him. "If
+you wish to break our engagement, I--I am quite willing to let you do
+so, of course, but _I_ don't wish to break it." She turned and went out
+of the room.
+
+He went to the window and stood looking out into the delightful rain; he
+could smell fresh leaves and revived flowers; the very smell of wet dust
+was pleasant.
+
+For a long time he stood there, going over in his mind the scene that
+had just passed. It struck him as very odd that Grisel had not guessed
+that the girl in his story had been her mother. He could not, in his
+well-balanced middle age, realise the savage strength of her youthful
+egotism. It seemed strange to him, but it was very plain, that the only
+interest in his story lay, to her, in the fact that it explained why he
+had not much left to give her--_her_. The story itself seemed to her, he
+could see, as remote as if its actors had been contemporaries of Noah.
+It was too far off for her to feel it. Quite different, however, it had
+been when he mentioned Miss Perkins' name. Half anxiously he had hoped
+by mentioning Miss Perkins to precipitate the crisis that he felt to be
+on its way, but nothing happened. His gun had missed fire.
+
+"I shall have to have a talk with Mrs. Walbridge," he said to himself at
+last as the clock struck half-past nine. "Something has got to be done,
+poor little thing----" Then he went upstairs and joined the others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+When the taxi drew up at the gate, Maud and Paul and Grisel ran
+downstairs.
+
+Moreton Twiss, who was reading and smoking in the corner, did not come
+to the window, and Barclay and Jenny leaned out in the wet, watching the
+little scene of greeting in the glistening band of light from the open
+door.
+
+Finally the house door was banged, and the taxi drove away.
+
+"Shall we go down?" Jenny asked, dancing with excitement. "I do so want
+to see Guy!"
+
+"I think we had better wait where we are. If they want us they will come
+up here or send for us. Look here, Miss Wick," Barclay went on, struck
+by a sudden idea, "I am worried about Grisel. What do you think of her?"
+
+Jenny, whose face was contradictory in that it was at once the face of
+an elf, and of a very practical modern girl, sat down on the back of a
+chesterfield and looked at him thoughtfully.
+
+"I have been wondering," she said after a pause, "if you noticed it
+too."
+
+"Oh, then you _have_ seen?"
+
+"Seen? Why, of course. I have never seen anyone change so in my life.
+Everybody says she looks so much better for being at the sea, but she
+does not. That's nothing but sunburn, and she is as thin as a herring
+and as nervous"--she broke off, looking round for a simile--"as a wild
+cat. I was speaking to my brother about her only the other day."
+
+"Ah!" Something in Sir John's voice struck her, and again she looked at
+him penetratingly. "What did your brother say?" he went on, meeting her
+gaze. "He strikes me as a pretty shrewd fellow."
+
+"He is--or ought to be--but since he became engaged he seems unable to
+think of anyone but his blessed Dorothy. He said he thought Grisel
+looked very well and seemed extremely happy."
+
+Sir John was silent for a moment, but the peculiarity of his expression
+did not escape his observant companion.
+
+"He was very keen on Grisel himself at one time, you know, Oliver was,"
+she added, "but they always fight nowadays. Of course, she is not
+perfect like his Dorothy, but I don't mind telling you, Sir John, that
+if it wasn't for _you_ I should be very sorry that he ever met Dorothy."
+
+"Do you think Grisel could ever have--come to care for your brother?"
+
+Barclay's voice was very quiet and kind, but the girl hesitated for a
+moment, eyeing him in a perplexed way before she answered.
+
+"Oh, I am sure I don't know! Rather stupid to talk about it to _you_,
+anyway. I suppose----"
+
+"I don't see that at all, and I should really rather like to know your
+opinion," he added slowly, "of my defeated rival." After a pause: "I
+mean, what do you think would have happened if _he_ had been the
+successful one?"
+
+"Well, then," Jenny said, weighing her words and obviously striving for
+the exact expression of her thoughts, "I do not think they would have
+got on very well if--if you had not come along. You see," she explained
+as she smiled in an encouraging way, "Oliver is as clever as the Old
+Nick. He is so silly sometimes, and talks in such an idiotic way that
+lots of people think he must be a fool, but he isn't; and although he
+was so in love with Grisel--and you can hardly believe it now, from the
+way he drivels about Dorothy Perkins--but he was in love with
+Grisel--there was never any of the 'love is blind' business about him.
+He always saw right through her."
+
+"Poor little thing!" Barclay murmured with a laugh. "Anyway, she refused
+him!"
+
+"Oh, yes; but he used to go for her about things and tease the life out
+of her. That, of course, was good for Grisel. She gets too much
+flattery. I do hope," the intelligent little creature went on, so
+earnestly that there seemed nothing ridiculous in her assumption of
+equality of knowledge and years with her companion, "that you are not
+going to spoil her, Sir John!"
+
+"I hope not. So you think that an occasional wigging does her good."
+
+"Rather! It does us _all_ good. I know _I_ get on a high horse every now
+and then, and start galloping off, and then Master Oliver cracks his
+whip, and down we come in the dust, and I know it is good for me."
+
+He liked her, liked her thoroughly, with her mixture of music and
+sharpness; above all, he liked her for not apologising for her perfectly
+fair criticism of her friend. He was a man who inclined to be very
+impatient of unnecessary apologies.
+
+"Well, well," he said, as, in answer to a message brought up by Jessie,
+they went downstairs. "Miss Perkins seems to have played a rather
+important part in all our lives, doesn't she? I am afraid my poor
+Grisel could never compete with her in the matter of womanly
+perfection."
+
+"Oh, I don't suppose Dorothy is as bad--as _good_--as Oliver thinks,"
+the girl laughed. "No girl ever was, but still----"
+
+The first thing that met Sir John's eyes as he opened the dining-room
+door was Oliver Wick's face. Oliver sat opposite him, and as Jenny went
+into the room Barclay stood for a moment watching the scene of greeting
+and exclamations and introductions, and it struck him that there was
+something very odd in Wick's face as he, too, looked on after kissing
+his sister.
+
+The young man looked at once triumphant and touched, and in an odd way,
+despite the triumph, hurt.
+
+Barclay's impression that something very strange was going on in the
+room strengthened as he advanced to the table. Then Mrs. Walbridge,
+whose back had been towards him, and over whose chair Jenny was leaning,
+turned and held out her hand. Barclay stared almost open-mouthed, then
+he fell back a step, glanced sharply at Wick, whose complexity of
+expression had simplified, he saw, to one of sheer pride of achievement
+and delight.
+
+It was, indeed, Mrs. Walbridge whose hand her old adorer now held in
+his, but it was an entirely new Mrs. Walbridge. A beautifully dressed,
+much younger, shyly self-possessed woman, whose faint blush of pleasure
+in his plainly-shown surprise gave her an oddly reminiscent look of the
+girl in the garden of so many years ago.
+
+Her hair, which since he had found her again had been carelessly
+smoothed back, and dulled from lack of care, now shone almost with the
+old lustre, and its bewitching curliness was made the highest use of.
+Her metamorphosis was so complete and so striking that it would have
+been foolish to try to ignore it, and he found himself saying simply as
+he released her hand:
+
+"I never should have known you, Mrs. Walbridge." She laughed and bade
+him sit down.
+
+"I know," she said, "Paul hardly _did_ know me as I got out of the cab,
+did you, Paul?"
+
+"No," the young man answered, "I was never so surprised in my life."
+
+"It is all Oliver's doing," she went on, as she began her interrupted
+dinner. "He would have it. Wait till you see some of the things he has
+bought me, Maud! He went to all the dressmakers with me, and was so
+fussy about my hats that I nearly threw them in his face." But her smile
+at the young man across the table was a very loving one.
+
+He beamed back at her in a way that struck the new-comer as being
+enviable. He himself felt suddenly very old, very isolated. Violet
+Walbridge's husband had been a dismal failure, and her children were
+selfish, and spoilt, and not one of them, he had always thought, really
+appreciated her, but here was this queer journalistic young man whose
+odd gifts were certainly more than intelligence and might easily be the
+youthful growth of genius, plainly loving and understanding her like the
+most perfect of sons. Barclay envied her.
+
+"I did," Oliver was saying. "With my own hand I did it. With my little
+bow and arrow I killed cock sparrow of British clothes and unselfish
+indifference! Wait till you see the evening dress we got. My word! And
+there's a tea-gown. We had a most unseemly scene over that tea-gown;
+nearly came to blows, didn't we, _petite mère_?"
+
+She laughed. "I shall never dare wear it; it's the most unrespectable
+looking garment. I only got it to make him stop talking." She went on,
+turning to Griselda. "He talked the two saleswomen nearly into collapse,
+and the _premier vendeuse_ went and got Madame Carlier herself. His
+words flowed, and flowed, like a dreadful, devastating river, and they
+were all nearly drowned."
+
+"So you got the tea-gown as a plank to save them," Oliver grinned. "Some
+day when we are married, Grisel"--Grisel, started violently, and after a
+momentary pause, during which he bit his lip, he went on in an injured
+voice, "What is the matter? _Aren't_ you going to be married? I
+certainly am! I was going to say, when we are _all_ married I can tell
+my wife about our dreadful scenes in the lingerie shop and _chez la
+corsetière_. Oh, la, la!"
+
+"Oh, la, la."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge blushed scarlet, and whispered to Maud, who sat next her,
+that he had really been dreadful over her night gowns. "The girl who
+served us laughed till she was black. I really don't know _what_ she
+thought we were!"
+
+Guy, who was more like his mother than any of the others, and who
+looked, despite his serious illness, particularly fit and well, now took
+up the tale and went on with it.
+
+"He is an awful fellow, really, is Wick, and I can only hope his real
+mother has more fight in her than mine."
+
+"She's mine, too, yours is," Wick interrupted, his voice steady, but his
+eyes bright. "She has adopted me, and I have adopted her."
+
+"How will Miss Perkins like this new relationship and all that it
+entails?" Barclay asked, looking away from Mrs. Walbridge for the first
+time for several minutes.
+
+"Oh, she'll be delighted! She's _longing_ to meet Mrs. Walbridge and all
+of them, particularly, of course," he added politely, "Grisel."
+
+For some reason everyone at the table turned and looked at Grisel. She
+was leaning back in her chair, her face clearly alarmingly white, and
+her nose looked pointed.
+
+Paul, who sat next to her, took hold of her hand.
+
+"What is the matter," he asked roughly.
+
+She moved a little and forced herself to speak. "It's my head. I have
+felt rather bad all day, haven't I?" she added, turning to Barclay with
+pathetic eagerness.
+
+He rose. "Yes, dear, your head was bad before dinner, even. Come, I'll
+take you out into the air."
+
+Paul opened the door and Grisel and Barclay went out, and the others
+heard the veranda door open and close behind them.
+
+"Grisel looks like the very deuce," nodded Guy gruffly. "Can't think
+what you have all been dreaming of to let her get into such a state."
+
+"It really has been frightfully hot," Jenny Wick said explanatorily.
+"I've felt like a rag all day, and Grisel isn't nearly so strong as I
+am."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge looked anxiously at her eldest daughter.
+
+"How do _you_ think she is, Maud?"
+
+Maud shrugged her shoulders. "She certainly looks bad enough to-night,
+but, of course, I have seen very little of her--our being down at
+Burnham Beeches--what do you think, Moreton?"
+
+The young doctor hesitated for a moment. "It is her nerves," he said.
+"She strikes me as being a bit upset about something. Most probably,
+poor kid, it's this affair about--about her father."
+
+Young Wick had stopped eating, and was rolling a bit of bread absently
+between his thumb and first finger. His fair eyebrows were twisted into
+an odd frown and his mouth was set.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge rose. "I'm going to see if she is all right," she
+declared anxiously, but Paul put out a detaining hand.
+
+"Don't, mother, John will look after her. He'll see that she is all
+right. Don't worry, she is a bit run down, but that is nothing. I think
+I know something that will put everything straight," he added. "I should
+have waited for him to tell you himself, but as you are worried he won't
+mind my telling you now. You know how anxious he has been to get back to
+Argentina?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, he had a letter to-night from some big official, saying that they
+would let him go the moment peace is signed. Peace will certainly be
+signed this week, and he will get off I should think next week, and I
+believe--mind you, I don't know, only think--that he is going to ask
+Grisel to marry him at once and go out with him."
+
+"That's a very good plan," declared Moreton Twiss with all the authority
+of the doctor, "the sea journey would put her to rights, better than
+anything in the world. Splendid."
+
+"Did he tell you he was going to suggest this?" Mrs. Walbridge asked in
+a faltering voice. "Oh, Paul, I don't want her to go so soon."
+
+"Nonsense, mother, you must not be selfish," returned Paul, briskly. "I
+was very late getting back to-night, and he picked me up at the corner
+in his car and showed me the letter. He didn't exactly suggest it, in
+fact, I rather think it was I who asked him if he would not be wanting
+her to marry him at once under the circumstances, but I'd like to bet £5
+on his doing it at this moment out there in the rain."
+
+As he spoke they heard the outside door closing again, and after a
+moment Barclay came into the dining-room alone.
+
+"Grisel has gone upstairs," he said. "Her head is pretty bad. She may
+come down later."
+
+They all went up to the girls' room, and shortly after the Twiss' and
+the Wicks who were spending the night with the Catherwoods, left, and
+the rain having ceased, Paul walked back with them.
+
+When they had gone Mrs. Walbridge, Sir John and Guy sat on for a while
+in the pleasant, flower-filled room, and presently Mrs. Walbridge asked
+Guy to leave her alone with Sir John, and the young man said
+"Good-night," and went out.
+
+Mrs. Walbridge sat very slim and graceful-looking in her new clothes,
+and, what was still more remarkable, her new bearing, on the black
+chesterfield, and Barclay walked up and down the room restlessly, his
+hands behind him, his head sunk thoughtfully on his breast.
+
+Neither of them spoke for a long time, and then Mrs. Walbridge broke the
+silence.
+
+"Sir John," she began abruptly, "I do hope you are not going to want to
+take Grisel back with you to South America next week?"
+
+He turned. "So Paul has told you?"
+
+"Yes. I hope you don't mind."
+
+"Not at all. That is why I told him."
+
+"He thought--he thought you might be asking her to marry you at
+once--while you were on the veranda I mean."
+
+He shook his head. "No, I didn't mention it to her." Then he went on
+very deliberately, looking her straight in the face, "Mrs. Walbridge, I
+do not wish to marry your daughter."
+
+As soon as she had grasped that she really had heard the words, she
+sprang to her feet, years younger in her anger.
+
+"What do you mean?" she cried.
+
+He smiled sadly. "Don't be angry, I have the greatest possible esteem
+and admiration for Grisel."
+
+"But you do not wish to marry her?"
+
+"No! I do not."
+
+In those few short days of long ago he had never seen Violet Blaine
+angry, and since he had found her again she had seemed so timid, so
+flattened by life, that he had been unable to conceive of her in any
+mood but that of her daily one of gentle unobtrusive hopelessness; and
+now, as she blazed at him, standing there with clenched hands and
+shortened breath, he suddenly felt twenty years younger, as if all sorts
+of recent things had been only a dream, and that this--this only, was
+real.
+
+He looked at her with such plain-to-be-seen satisfaction and admiration,
+that she was startled and drew back, losing her bearings, and then he
+spoke.
+
+"You and I," he said, "are too old to do anything but speak plainly to
+each other; affectations and pretty little pretences are part of the
+pageant of youth; we have no right to them. So I will be quite short in
+telling you what I have to say. Grisel is a delightful girl as well as
+a most beautiful one, but I made a mistake in asking her to marry me. I
+do not wish to marry her; I do not love her."
+
+Again her righteous anger blazed up to his curious gratification and
+delight, but he went on doggedly.
+
+"I have been trying this afternoon to make her break off the engagement,
+but I have failed, so I shall have to do it myself."
+
+"But it is outrageous, abominable! You have no right to treat my
+daughter so."
+
+"I have no right," he said, "to treat any woman in the world with less
+than entire honesty, and least of all your daughter."
+
+Something in his voice penetrated through her anger into her mind and
+mitigated her glance a little as she answered:
+
+"What do you mean? Why least of all my daughter?"
+
+There was a little pause, then his simple words fell very quietly on the
+silence. "Because," he said, "for over thirty years I have loved you."
+
+She could not answer for a moment so deep was her amazement, and then,
+as so often is the case, she could only repeat his words.
+
+"Loved me!"
+
+"Yes, you. I have never married, never in my life used the word love to
+any woman until I met Grisel, and that was because you were always there
+in my memory, and there was no room for anyone else."
+
+"But I did not even remember you!"
+
+"No! And you have no idea," he added, smiling sadly, "how after thirty
+years those words of yours-'that you did not remember me'--hurt me.
+Well, there you are. Such as I am I have been absolutely faithful to my
+boyish love for you."
+
+So many different feelings were struggling in her mind that her face was
+tremulous with varied fleeting expressions. Her beautiful deep eyes were
+wet, and her lips looked fuller and red, more like the lips of a girl
+than they had done for years.
+
+"When I met her at Torquay," he went on, looking away from her with
+delicacy, "I had no idea she was your daughter. I had never even heard
+your married name, but something in her, particularly a trick she has
+with her hands, and then the shape of her ears, always recalled you, and
+I encouraged myself, deliberately encouraged myself, to fall in love
+with her. I very nearly succeeded too," he added smiling. "Who could
+not? Such a charming child."
+
+There was a little pause. It had begun to rain again and the soft
+pattering sound on the windows filled the air.
+
+"Then I came here and saw you. You, as the years had made you--as the
+years of Ferdinand Walbridge had made you," he added, with sudden
+firmness.
+
+She looked up still with the odd air of youth in her face. "Poor
+Ferdie," she murmured, "he never meant it, you know."
+
+"They never do," he answered dryly. "The very worst husbands are those
+who did not mean it."
+
+"Well, then," he went on, after a moment, "I had a good deal of
+thinking, one way and another, and it struck me that if I could make her
+happy it would make you happy as well. And I tried."
+
+"Oh, you have, you have; you have been so good," she interrupted,
+clasping her hands. "It's only that she is not very well."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Surely you must see," he asked slowly, "what
+is the matter with her?"
+
+"Then there _is_ something the matter with her?"
+
+"Of course there is. Why, look at her," he rejoined roughly. "She nearly
+fainted under your very noses out of sheer misery to-night, and not one
+of you saw the reason."
+
+She stared at him, her lips moving faintly, and at last she said:
+
+"What was the reason?"
+
+"Wick, young Wick. She is madly in love with him, and he is worth it."
+
+A worldlier woman or a less wise one might have suspected that Barclay
+was using young Wick as a means to help him out of an irksome
+engagement, but Mrs. Walbridge knew.
+
+"So I was right," she murmured thoughtfully. "I had begun to think I was
+wrong." Then she started, clenching the arms of her chair hard.
+
+"Oh, dear," she cried, "what about Miss Perkins?"
+
+He laughed. "That's the question; what about Miss Perkins? There _is_
+something about her; some mystery, I mean. But never mind that now. The
+point is this. Grisel has practically refused to break off her
+engagement with me, so I shall just have to screw up my courage and
+break mine with her. A nasty job."
+
+"You must not mention Oliver to her. It would not be fair, because of
+Miss Perkins."
+
+He looked at her curiously. "You don't mean to say that you still think
+that Wick cares a button about Dorothy Perkins or anyone else except
+Grisel?"
+
+"But if he doesn't--oh, how dreadful it all is--why is he engaged to
+her?"
+
+"That I don't know. I shall know by this time to-morrow." He looked at
+his watch. "It is only eleven now. I wonder," he went on slowly, "if I
+could get him on the telephone? May as well get it over at once."
+
+She told him the number, and acting on certain instructions of his went
+to Grisel's room while he was telephoning. The girl was sitting by the
+window still dressed, but with her hair plaited in a long tail down her
+back, which gave her an odd effect of being a child dressed in some one
+else's clothes. "My head was so bad," she explained. "I have been
+brushing my hair."
+
+"Good, I am glad you have not gone to bed, darling, for John is still
+here and wants to see you in a little while."
+
+"Oh, mother, it's so late."
+
+Mrs. Walbridge kissed her smooth, black, old-fashioned, silky hair. "I
+know, dear, but he has had an important telegram, and wishes to speak to
+you about it. Oh, look, it has stopped raining, and the moon is coming
+out!"
+
+She stood for a while looking out into the delicate gleams of the
+rain-soaked garden, and then said gently:
+
+"Grisel, darling, have you seen Miss Perkins yet?"
+
+"No, but he--he showed me the ring he has got for her."
+
+"Yes, I saw it, too. I think that the girl who marries Oliver," the
+mother went on, pitifully conscious of the futility of searching for the
+most painless words, "will be very, very happy."
+
+Grisel nodded without speaking.
+
+"You see, in Paris, and travelling with him, I--I have got to know him
+so well. He--he is a splendid fellow, Grisel, under all his nonsense."
+
+"I know, mother," the girl's voice was very low, and very gentle.
+
+After a moment Mrs. Walbridge went on, going to the back of her
+daughter's chair, and stroking her little head with smooth, regular
+movements.
+
+"Sometimes I have wished, dear, that you--that you could have cared for
+him."
+
+"I!" The girl broke away from her gentle hand and faced her. "What if I
+_had_ cared for him? Thank God I didn't; but what if I had? A splendid
+kind of love _that_ was to trust--would have been--I mean. Why it was
+only a week after--after that time in the drawing-room when he looked so
+awful--_not_ a week after that, that he was engaged to this beast of a
+Perkins girl. I--I hate him," she cried, suddenly breaking down with an
+unreserved voice that at once frightened and relieved her mother.
+
+Kneeling by the window she cried, cried as her mother knew she had not
+done for years, her little shoulders shaking, her forehead on the window
+sill.
+
+"Hush, dear, you must not cry. Better wash your face and sniff some
+camphor. Remember John will be wanting to see you in a few minutes."
+
+Violet Walbridge had forced herself to speak coldly and in a voice
+devoid of sympathy, and the effect of this manoeuvre showed in the
+girl's rising almost at once and darting into the bathroom. Her mother
+heard the roaring of the cold water and stood for a moment listening.
+Then, without a word, she went back to Barclay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+"Have you any idea why I asked you to come back, Wick?"
+
+Oliver Wick, who had been told to sit down opposite Sir John, looked up
+at him for a long minute. The young man's face was white, and seemed
+suddenly to have grown thin, but in his still excitement his eyes were
+oddly lucent. At last he answered:
+
+"Well, sir," he said, his voice so tense that while it did not tremble
+it vibrated a little. "I do not know exactly _why_, but I think I know
+what it's about."
+
+"Good. Then we need not waste any time."
+
+The clock struck as he spoke, and Barclay, who was smoking a cigar,
+waited until the silence was undisturbed before saying quietly, "It's
+about Griselda Walbridge."
+
+Wick murmured, "I thought as much."
+
+"I want," Barclay went on, watching the young face very closely, "your
+help in a matter of great importance both to Grisel and to me."
+
+"I'd do a great deal for you, sir. I'd do anything in the
+world--for--Griselda."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say that. Well, what steps would you advise me to
+take in order to--to break off my engagement to Griselda?"
+
+The hot red leaped to Wick's face, and he started violently, but he did
+not speak for a time; his surprise was unblemished by his having had any
+suspicion that the interview was going to take this turn, and for a
+moment he was incapable of sane speech. When he could find his voice it
+was to exclaim blandly, "Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because," the older man answered in a perfectly even voice, "I know
+that she loves you."
+
+Wick rose. "Oh, you know that!"
+
+"I do, and because of this I have suggested to her that perhaps, when
+she did me the honour of accepting me, she--she made a mistake."
+
+A sudden grin, as disconcerting as it was irresistible, appeared on the
+young man's face, and they both waited for it to disappear much as they
+might have waited for the withdrawal of an intruding stranger.
+
+"Oh, no, she didn't make any mistake," Wick broke out when he could
+again control his facial muscles. "She knew perfectly well when she
+accepted you; knew--that--well, sir"--he proceeded boldly, yet with a
+very charming deference--"that she loved me."
+
+"Surely she never told you this?" Barclay's voice was stern.
+
+"Oh, bless my soul, no never; in fact," the grin again quivered on his
+lips for a second, "she did some pretty tall lying about it, poor little
+minx."
+
+"I see. Then, to be brief, you have known all along that I was bound to
+be disappointed?"
+
+"Yes, sir." Wick's brightly shining, smiling eyes met his fairly and
+squarely. "You see, she meant to marry you and did her best, but--well,
+I knew she would break down in the end."
+
+"Neither of you seem," the elder man said, but with a hint of dryness in
+his voice, "to have considered my feelings much."
+
+But Wick protested, "Oh, yes, we did--I mean to say _I_ did. I thought
+a lot about you at one time and another, sir."
+
+"And to what conclusions did these--reflections--lead you?"
+
+Wick, who was still standing, took out his cigarette case and snapped it
+thoughtfully several times.
+
+"To this," he returned at last, "that though I was really sorry for you,
+it just could not be helped."
+
+"I see, youth must have its day."
+
+"Yes, or 'every dog' is better. What I mean is that really, you know,
+normally, your day for that particular form of happiness ought to have
+been, well--before we--Griselda and I, were even born."
+
+There was so much odd gentleness in the way he voiced his ruthless
+theory that Barclay was touched.
+
+"You are not far out there," he answered unemotionally, "only my day
+never did come. It was a kind of false dawn--and then--ah, well, it is
+rather late, so suppose we get to business. As matters stand at present,
+this young lady happens to be engaged not to you, but to me, and what is
+more, she--she has practically refused to break the engagement, so it is
+left to me. And this," he added cheerfully, "is a little hard on me,
+don't you think?"
+
+"I do. Do you want me to do it for you?"
+
+"No. I want to hear your ideas about the matter. For example, what would
+you suggest as a good first step?"
+
+Wick thought for a moment. "I don't quite see the first step, but the
+_end_ is perfectly clear."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"She must propose to me." The young man's voice was full of confidence,
+and he appeared to be unconscious of the absurdity of his suggestion.
+
+"Grisel--Grisel to propose to you? Nonsense, Wick!"
+
+"But she must. Look here, Sir John." Wick, who had sat down, leaned
+forward, his elbows on his knees, and spoke very earnestly.
+
+"You know nothing about me, sir, so, if you don't mind, I'd better tell
+you a little. You see, they--the Walbridges--think that I am still the
+little Fleet Street reporter I was when they first knew me, but--I am
+not. For several months"--he talked on, explaining his position with a
+modest pride that pleased his hearer.
+
+"So I am actually speaking to the editor of a London newspaper!" Sir
+John at last smiled kindly.
+
+"Yes. _Sparks_ is a rotten paper, but his making me editor of it is only
+a trick of the chiefs to find out what I am made of, so I don't mind.
+He's a sly old devil, long sighted and crafty, and he has, so to speak,
+laid me wide open and is now poking about in my in'ards to find out all
+about me." He laughed. "Lord, how the old man is sweating, trying to
+tire me out, and I get fresher and fresher! Oh, yes," he went on after
+another chuckle, "I am his latest YOUNG MAN and I have got better works
+than most of them and I am bound to succeed all right. So that's that."
+His mouth set, and he was silent for a moment, plainly looking into the
+future. "And by the time I am your age, Sir John," he said slowly, "I
+shall be what Fleet Street calls a 'Great Man.' I shall also be a
+multi-millionaire. Miss Minx will never starve."
+
+"Yes, but you forget that she is still engaged to me."
+
+Wick's eyes lost their far-off look.
+
+"So she is," he admitted, "so she is. Guess I am going on a bit too
+fast. However," he went on with an air of conclusiveness, "she can't
+very well marry you if you don't want her, and you don't. So let's get
+on." He had rumpled his fine mouse-coloured hair, which stood up
+ludicrously, and he now tried to smooth it down, which made it more
+absurd than before.
+
+Sir John watched him with a smile. "Well, now that we understand each
+other," the older man began, "suppose you tell me something else. I
+think I am not wrong in assuming that you--love Griselda?"
+
+He had been half afraid to put the question, not that he doubted the
+gist of the reply, but that he shrank from a possible awkwardness or
+unbeautiful expression of it. He had been wrong.
+
+Wick dropped his hands and turned to him his symmetrical face excited
+and bold looking, his eyes blooming with youth and love.
+
+"Yes," he said with dignity, "I do. And----"
+
+"You believe that her love for you is big enough to bring her to the
+point of--of--well--foregoing the thing for whose sake she accepted me?"
+
+"Of course I do, but--you can see for yourself that she has not been
+happy. I have made it just as hard for her as I possibly could, too. I
+have not told her about _Sparks_, or the chiefs taking a shine to me, or
+my rise in salary. I--I wanted her to have a bad time, I--I wanted the
+little wretch to feel what she was going to give up in giving up you,
+and all your things, just for me. For the penniless, obscure kid I was
+at first."
+
+"And you think that she will do this now?"
+
+"Yes, poor little thing, oh, yes, she will!" He mused for a moment and
+then his face sharpened again and he added testily, "But I won't ask her
+to."
+
+"You mean that she must ask you?" Barclay spoke more gently. "Well, when
+she has asked you to marry her--what are you going to do about poor Miss
+Perkins?"
+
+Wick literally bounced to his feet, as if the name had been a bomb
+dropped into the room.
+
+"Oh, Miss Perkins--Miss Perkins," he repeated almost idiotically.
+
+"Yes. This is bound to be something of a blow to her." Barclay's face
+was very grave, but there was a slight quiver in his voice.
+
+Oliver Wick had, just then, no ear for slight quivers.
+
+"I--oh, she'll be all right," he murmured feebly.
+
+"You mean that she won't mind?"
+
+"Oh, no, she won't mind. She's a remarkably sensible girl----" then he
+burst into a roar of laughter. "Look here, Sir John," he gasped, "it's
+no good, I have a horrible confession to make to you. I shall have to
+murder Miss Perkins!" Again he shouted with childish, almost painfully
+loud laughter, and Sir John laughed with him.
+
+At last Sir John wiped his eyes. "I take it you will be able to kill the
+lady without much bloodshed?" he asked. "I--I have been suspecting as
+much."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The moon was flooding the rain bejewelled garden with light as Griselda
+Walbridge came down the steps. She walked slowly, as if her little feet
+were heavy, and her smooth dark head was bent. At the foot of the steps
+she stopped and looked around. "John," she called softly, "John, are you
+there?"
+
+No one answered, and she shrank back against the rose-festooned
+handrail. The moonlight was very bright, but the shadows were black and
+solid-looking, and it was later, too, than she had ever been alone in
+the garden.
+
+In the silence she turned and looked up the steps to the open house
+door. Her mother had told her that Barclay was waiting for her in the
+garden and now where was he, she wondered. In the clear light her small
+face, a little hard in reality, looked unusually child-like and
+spiritual. She stared up at the sky, and across the garden, and then,
+thinking that Barclay for some reason had not waited for her after all,
+walked slowly along across the tennis lawn.
+
+She was dressed in true sapphire blue, the best colour of all for
+moonlight, and presently she stopped by a rose tree and pulled a deep
+red rose, her big ruby glowing as she tugged at the tough stem and then,
+emboldened and soothed by the perfect quiet, she went slowly on, holding
+the rose against her cheek.
+
+Near the old bench where her mother and Oliver had sat on Hermione's
+wedding day, she started back frightened and then gave a nervous little
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, here you are," she cried.
+
+The owner of the cigarette came out of the shadow, and again she cried
+out, this time in a very different voice, "Oh, it is _you_."
+
+"Yes, it is me," Wick answered britannically. "Oh, Grisel, Grisel, do
+look at that moon----"
+
+He drew her hand through his arm and thus old-fashionedly linked they
+stood in silence for a moment.
+
+Then she said, "Where is--Sir John? Mother said he was here waiting for
+me."
+
+Wick stared at the moon a moment longer and then said quietly:
+
+"Grisel, I love you!"
+
+"Oliver, you are crazy!"
+
+"No, sit down on the bench."
+
+"Thanks, I'd rather not, I must go in----"
+
+"Sit down----"
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Grisel, sit down."
+
+"No."
+
+"Grisel, sit down!"
+
+Grisel sat down, and he sat beside her.
+
+"Did you hear what I said a minute ago?" he went on quietly.
+
+"Not being deaf, I did. What they call lunal madness, I suppose." Her
+voice shook, but her tone was one of awful hauteur.
+
+"Lunar, no such word as lunal. Grisel, I love you."
+
+"Really," she protested, "I must go in."
+
+"Grisel, I----"
+
+"I," she broke out furiously, "you say that again and I shall--yell."
+
+"Yell then, it will do you good. Yell like hell. And you love me."
+
+She sprang to her feet. "I don't. What an abominable thing to say.
+How--how----"
+
+"How dare I? Easy. Almost as easy as looking at you, my pretty. Grisel,
+we love each other."
+
+She burst into nervous, shrill laughter, and then suddenly stopped.
+
+"I cannot help laughing, you are such an idiot," she said, "but I am
+very angry. Have you forgotten that I am--engaged to John----"
+
+"John be damned."
+
+Helpless tears crowded into her eyes and her throat swelled suddenly.
+"How hateful you are."
+
+"I am not hateful, darling. I am your true love."
+
+"Oh, Oliver," she cried in despair, her feelings so varied, and so
+entangled, that she could not straighten them out. "What about Dorothy
+Perkins?"
+
+"Dorothy Perkins is a flower."
+
+"A--a what?"
+
+"_A flower._ I mean to say, she is a creeper."
+
+"Oliver," she laid her hand on his arm and peered anxiously into his
+face. "What is the matter with you? Aren't you well?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I am well, but she _is_ a creeper." He stretched out his arm
+and pointed. "There she is on the steps." Then he saw that she was
+really alarmed for his sanity.
+
+"Grisel, darling, that rose, that rose climbing on the steps, is the
+only Dorothy Perkins I know."
+
+"But----"
+
+"No, it is true. I--I made her up, my little darling."
+
+"How could you make her up?" she wailed. "You could not make up a girl!"
+
+"But she isn't a girl, sweetheart. I invented her, to make you jealous."
+
+Suddenly Grisel broke down and their great moment was upon them. When
+she had cried herself into exhausted quiet in his arms he wiped her eyes
+on his handkerchief.
+
+"Oh, I--I _have_ hated her so, Oliver. But--whose was the photograph
+then?"
+
+He explained.
+
+"But _Jenny_ talked about her, and even your mother."
+
+"Of course, that's what mothers are for."
+
+Suddenly she sat up and smoothed her hair. "Oh, dear me, what--what will
+poor John say?"
+
+Wick stiffened. Now came the test. "What do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"Why, when I tell him. Poor John!"
+
+He stuffed the damp handkerchief back into his pocket, and lit a
+cigarette.
+
+"When you tell him what?"
+
+"Why, about us."
+
+Wick very deliberately puffed at his cigarette. "I don't think I would
+mention it," he said.
+
+"Oliver, what do you mean?"
+
+He rose, and walked up and down in front of her.
+
+"I mean that because I just lost my head and made a fool of myself there
+is no reason that that splendid old fellow should be--worried."
+
+"Worried!" she almost screamed. "I don't understand you."
+
+"Well, I mean, my dear, that because--I behaved like a cad and--and
+kissed a girl who is going to marry another man--a man a thousand times
+my superior in every way--there is no reason for _his_ being troubled by
+knowing about it. I am ashamed of myself, and I beg your pardon, and I
+am sure you will forgive me."
+
+The pallor made her in the moonlight look almost unearthly, and he was
+obliged to bend his eyes resolutely away from her, during the pause that
+ensued.
+
+"Then you--then you meant nothing by it?" she stammered.
+
+"No. At least--oh, well--of course you know that I love you, but I quite
+agree with you that to marry a penniless young beggar like me would be
+madness----"
+
+She was so amazed, so honestly horrified by his cynical cold-bloodedness
+that for a moment she could not speak.
+
+"How--how can I marry him after _that_?" she gasped.
+
+"Oh, quite easily, dear. You forgive me, and I will forgive you and we
+will both blame--the moon," he waved his hand, "and the roses," and then
+she broke down.
+
+"I can't, I can't," she wailed, "you know I can't. Oh, Oliver, if you
+love me you must marry me."
+
+Wick, though deeply stirred, held his ground.
+
+"I don't see any _must_," he said morosely, and at last his triumph
+came.
+
+"But you will, won't you?" she cried. "Oh, Oliver, you will marry me?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At about this time Mrs. Walbridge and Sir John Barclay sat together in
+the girls' room. Mrs. Walbridge's eyes, strangely youthful-looking,
+fixed thoughtfully on her companion. They had had a long talk, and now,
+at the end of it, she put a question to him.
+
+"But you," she said gently, "are you sure you will not be unhappy,
+John?"
+
+And he said, his grave face full of serenity, "Yes. I have always known
+that I was too old for her, you know, Violet--I suppose I may call you
+Violet now?"
+
+In the moonlight her little blush gave her face a marvellous look of
+girlishness, and his eyes shone as he looked at her.
+
+"Your--your divorce case is on for Wednesday, isn't it," he asked after
+a little pause.
+
+"Yes. I suppose they will be married in six months time? Oh, John, I
+hope so--poor Ferdie, he--he doesn't bear trouble very well. I do hope
+it will be all right."
+
+They talked on, and he told her that he should not stay long in South
+America, that in November he would come back to London for good.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad," she answered. "I am very glad. For I shall be a
+little lonely later on. Griselda will go very soon, and Paul really
+cares for little Jenny, and I hope--of course I shall have Guy for a
+while--I must tell you about Guy, John--the war has--taught him such a
+lot. He is changed enormously. Do you know, he and I are better friends
+than I have ever been with any of the others? I am so thankful--but
+still, he is young, and of course will be full of his own interests, and
+I shall be glad to have you near--one of my own age--but will you _like_
+living always in London?"
+
+Barclay nodded. "Yes, I shall always live in London. Somewhere not too
+far from--here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+It was one o'clock when Mrs. Walbridge at last found herself alone. She
+was very tired, but so happy and excited that she did not want to go to
+bed, and after walking restlessly about the girls' room, and the
+drawing-room, living over again the happenings of the last few crowded
+hours, she went softly up two flights of stairs and opened the door of
+her little study.
+
+It was many weeks since she had sat there at the old table, and the
+moonlight revealed a thick layer of dust over the inky blotting-paper
+and the cheap, china ink-stand. Noiselessly she opened the window and
+stood looking out at the night. She had always loved the quiet, dark
+hours and the mystery and purity of night had all her life made a strong
+appeal to her imagination. The millions of people who lay helpless and
+innocent in sleep; the rest from scheming and struggle; the renewal of
+strength; and the ebbing towards dawn of enfeebled life. The very fact
+that some of the great thoroughfares of London were being washed--laved
+she mentally called it--and purified from their accumulation of ugly
+unhygienic filth; all these things made night a time of beauty and
+romance to this writer of sentimental rubbish. It seemed, she had always
+thought, to make the sin-defiled old world young and innocent again for
+a few hours, and this night was to be an unforgettable one to her.
+
+Guy had come back finer, and with greater promises of nobility than
+ever before. Grisel had finally come--been dragged--to her senses, and
+would worthily fulfil her womanhood with Oliver, whom Mrs. Walbridge
+told herself she loved nearly as much as she loved her own sons. In
+reality she loved the young journalist far more than even Guy, but this
+she did not, and never was, to know.
+
+She went on counting her blessings. Maud's baby was lovely, and strong,
+and patients were really beginning, if not exactly to flock at least, to
+come in decent numbers to Moreton Twiss. Hermione was enjoying what to
+her mother seemed an almost unparalleled social success, among people
+innocently believed by Mrs. Walbridge to be of very high society indeed;
+little Jenny Wick seemed to like Paul, and if she married him he seemed
+to stand a very good chance of improving in every way, of becoming
+kinder and less selfish.
+
+Thus, standing in the moonlight, Mrs. Walbridge thankfully reviewed the
+many good things in her life.
+
+"To be sure," she thought, her face clouding, "it was very sad about
+Ferdie, it was a dreadful, almost tragic thing that their old life,
+however trying and disappointing it had been to her, should have been
+broken in this way. Like many other women she felt that, though her
+husband was a bad one he was, because he had been the lover of her youth
+and was the father of her children, a thing of odd pathos and even value
+to her. He was like," she thought, "a bit of china--a bowl or a
+jug--bought by her in her youth, and though she had been deceived in
+thinking it genuine and though it was cracked all over, she yet
+preferred to keep it than to lose it."
+
+Carrying on the simile, the divorce case seemed to her like a public
+sale, in which all the blemishes and cracks of her poor jug would be
+exposed to indifferent observers.
+
+All this she felt very sharply, but at the same time there was an
+immense relief that never again would Ferdie live under the same roof
+with her, that she would never again have to listen to his boasting, to
+hear his plausible, usually agreeable lies, to endure his peevish
+reproaches when things went wrong. Never again, she told herself with an
+odd little smile, need she have fried liver for breakfast. Ferdie
+cherished for fried liver a quite impossible ideal of tenderness and
+juiciness, and every Sunday morning for a quarter of a century she had
+come downstairs praying that the liver might be all right this time. And
+it never was all right. No, she would never have fried liver on her
+table again.
+
+Then she thought about Paris. Paris, once Guy was out of danger, had
+been wonderful in its freedom from household cares, its lack of
+responsibility to anyone. At first she had hardly been able to believe
+that no one would ask her where she was going, and instantly suggest her
+not going there, but somewhere else. And then Cannes! One of her
+favourite literary devices had always been to send the heroines to the
+Sunny South.
+
+She had written lavishly of the tropical heat, the incredible blueness
+of the quiet sea, of the wealth of flowers in that vague bepalaced land,
+but the reality (although the sea was not quite so blue as she had
+expected it to be) overwhelmed her. The best of all had been the gentle,
+balmy laziness that gradually wrapped her round and enveloped her, the
+laziness that even an occasionally sharp, dusty wind could not dispel.
+
+Best of all she had had no duties. Not one. And she had sat on her
+balcony in a comfortable cane rocking-chair, by the hour. "I just sat,
+and sat, and sat," she thought, leaning against the window sill. "How
+beautiful it was." And, now that her regret about her cracked jug had
+been softened by time, and mitigated by the variety of new joys that had
+come to her, she could henceforth, in a more decorous British way, go on
+sitting.
+
+Paul would, of course, continue to bully her and to nag, but if, as she
+hoped, little Jenny cared enough about him to marry him, he would turn
+his bullying and nagging attentions, in a very modified way, to her. It
+was, Mrs. Walbridge reflected innocently, right that a man should give
+up tormenting his mother once he had a wife of his own. And little
+red-headed Jenny could, she thought with a smile, look after herself.
+
+As for Mrs. Crichell--once she, too, was Mrs. Ferdie, _she_ would no
+doubt look after herself. It was a rather startling thought, that of two
+Mrs. Ferdies! "I suppose I shall be Mrs. Violet?"
+
+The clock on the stairs struck again, and Mrs. Violet started. "Good
+gracious," she murmured aloud, "how dreadfully late it is."
+
+She looked round the little room once more, recalling the hundreds of
+hours she had sat there grilling in summer; freezing in winter, working
+on her books, and then with a queer little smile she went downstairs.
+She told herself resolutely as she went that this was perfectly
+ridiculous; that she _must_ go to bed but she didn't want to go to bed,
+and, moreover, she suddenly realised that she was hungry.
+
+In her excitement she had eaten very little dinner, and after locking
+the front door she ran down into the kitchen. After a hurried
+examination of the larder, and experiencing a new and what she felt to
+be un-British distaste for cold mutton, she decided to scramble some
+eggs. Lighting the gas-ring, she broke three eggs into a yellow bowl,
+and began to beat them briskly with a silver fork.
+
+The kitchen was a pleasant place, newly painted and whitewashed, and a
+row of highly flourishing pink and white geraniums garnished the long
+low window. Really, a _very_ nice kitchen, its mistress mused happily.
+
+When she had whipped the eggs enough, she set the table, spreading a
+lace teacloth on one end of it, and reaching down a plate and a cup and
+saucer from the rack. She was smiling now, for there was to her gentle
+spirit of adventure something rather romantic in this solitary, very
+late meal.
+
+"I do not know," she said as she set the saucepan on the ring and
+dropped a big bit of butter into it, "whether it is supper or
+breakfast."
+
+Then a sudden idea came to her. She set the saucepan on the table and
+flew to the larder, whence, after a hurried search, she brought back two
+large fine tomatoes. She had always been extremely fond of scrambled
+eggs with tomatoes, but Ferdie loathed tomatoes, and Paul had inherited
+his distaste for them, so she had long since renounced this innocent
+gluttony. Now Ferdie had gone, and Paul was asleep, and there was
+nothing on earth to prevent her having "Spanish eggs," as she called
+them. She turned the savoury mess, very much peppered and salted, out on
+to two slices of buttered toast, and sat down with the teapot at hand,
+to enjoy herself.
+
+"I will--I will tell John about this," she reflected gaily. "He'll
+laugh."
+
+She had been so busy up to this, since he had told her, that she had
+hardly had time to think about it, but now, as she ate, she went back
+over their talk together. It seemed to her very wonderful that such a
+man should have cared for her, and her mind was full of pathetic
+gratitude to him for what she did not at all realise he must often have
+regarded as a perfect nuisance.
+
+Here she had been, she thought, struggling along at "Happy House" with
+Ferdie and the children, losing her youth, and her hopes, and her looks,
+and there--somewhere--anywhere--had been that fine, handsome, successful
+man, loving her! It was most wonderful. "I hope, though," her thoughts
+went on as she began on her delicious hot eggs, "that he didn't _mean_
+anything by what he said about the divorce--and his always living
+somewhere near--us."
+
+She had written nearly two dozen very sentimental novels, and was an
+adept at happy endings, but she blushed in her solitude at the thought
+that Barclay might possibly be contemplating for her and him anything so
+indecorous as in their case it would be, as such a happy ending.
+
+"Oh, no, I am sure he didn't--but how wonderful it would be to have him
+for a friend. For the boys too, with his fine character and his
+cleverness." Oh, yes, she was going to be very proud of him, and the
+fragrance of the old romance would always hang over their friendship.
+And then suddenly she blushed hotly, and laid down her fork.
+
+"Violet Walbridge," she said severely, precisely as she would have made
+one of her own heroines in like case apostrophise herself, "you are not
+being honest. You know that he _did_ mean something. You know that he
+will--not now, of course, but after a long, long time--ask you--to be
+his wife." Feeling very wicked, and very shy, she faced the question for
+a moment, and then took a long drink of tea--a long draught of tea her
+heroine would have called it--"but if he does," she decided, her eyes
+full of tears, "it won't be for ages, and I need not decide now. I can
+tell him when the time comes that--that----" as she reached this point
+her eyes happened to fall on a pot of white paint that was standing on a
+shelf in the corner. Cook, she supposed, had been painting something in
+the scullery and the pot had been forgotten. Her face changed.
+
+It was very odd. She had been meaning for years to have the words "Happy
+House" renewed on the gate, but the irony of the name had somehow forced
+her into putting it off, and for a long time now she had been dating her
+letters just 88, Walpole Road, and not using the name at all; the
+romantic, foolish name, it had come to look to her now. She rose with a
+smile, and reached down the pot, and stood stirring the thick paint with
+the brush.
+
+"Now," she thought, "it really _is_ 'Happy House'--or it's going to
+be"--and she would have the words there again.
+
+Refreshed by the tea and food, she felt less than ever inclined for bed
+and, laughing aloud at her own folly, she decided that she would paint
+the words on the gate herself.
+
+The moon was still shining, yet it was too early for any prying eye to
+see her, and it would, she thought, with that novelist's imagination of
+hers--the thing without which not even the worst novel could possibly
+be written--be a romantic and splendid ending to the most wonderful day
+in her life.
+
+Opening the area door softly she crept up the steps with the pot and
+brush in her hand, and went down the flagged path. The moon was paling
+and the shadows lay less distinctly on the quiet road, but the general
+gloom seemed greater. Not a soul was in sight; not a sound broke the
+sleepy stillness; not a light shone in any window. Opening the gate, and
+closing it again to steady it, Mrs. Walbridge, forgetting her beautiful
+frock, knelt down on the pavement and set to work. The poor old words,
+last renewed, she remembered the day Paul came of age, when Ferdie had
+given one of his characteristic parties, were nearly obliterated.
+
+Very carefully the thankful little woman worked, her heart singing.
+Darling Grisel, how happy she had looked when she left her lying in bed,
+the big ruby gone from her finger, and the little old emerald bought in
+Paris for Miss Perkins, in its place. It was really wonderful how well
+everything was turning out! Paul and Jenny had certainly advanced a good
+deal in their friendship during her absence. Jenny must marry him, oh
+dear, and Mrs. Crichell _must_ marry Ferdie, too. John, dear, wise
+romantic John thought she would, and, after all, she thought, as her
+brush worked, poor Ferdie had lots of good qualities really, and she,
+Violet, had always been too dull, too staid for him.
+
+"Clara Crichell liked entertaining, and really has great talents as a
+hostess and I always was dreadful at parties." She dipped the brush in
+again and began on the "y." "He is one of those people for whom success
+is really good," she went on; "who knows but that he may turn out very
+well as the husband of a rich woman, poor Ferdie----"
+
+"Violet!" She started and ruined the "H" in "House." Poor Ferdie stood
+before her.
+
+"Ferdie, is it you?" she cried stupidly, still kneeling.
+
+"Yes, of course it is me," he snapped crossly. "What on earth are you
+doing out here in the middle of the night?"
+
+Scrambling to her feet she answered anxiously, "I--I am just painting.
+But why are you here?"
+
+"Let's go into the house and I will tell you," he said. "I have come
+home, Violet!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Ferdinand Walbridge sat in the kitchen of "Happy
+House," drinking tea and eating scrambled eggs--without tomatoes. He had
+on a velvet jacket of Paul's, for he was cold, and the glass out of
+which he had drunk a stiff brandy and soda still stood on the table.
+Beside him sat his wife, her face full of troubled sympathy.
+
+"Enough salt?" she asked presently.
+
+He nodded. "The food at the Rosewarne is beastly, it has played the very
+deuce with my digestion----"
+
+"Did you have hot water every morning?"
+
+"No, it was luke warm half the time and made me feel sick."
+
+He went on eating in silence, and she studied his face. That he should
+look ill, and unhappy, did not, after what he had told her, surprise her
+much; what did strike her was his look of age. She had often seen him
+when he was ill, but this was the first time that his face not only
+showed his real age, but looked actually older. The lines in it seemed
+deeper, and his eyes, under heavy suddenly wrinkled lids, lustreless and
+watery. He had cried a good deal of course, she reflected pitifully, but
+never before had his easy tears made his eyes look like that.
+
+"I do think," he murmured resentfully, "that you might have remembered
+that I like China tea."
+
+"I did remember, Ferdie, but there is not any in the house. You know all
+the rest of us prefer Ceylon."
+
+He grunted and went on eating. "Poor china jug," she thought, "his
+cracks were very apparent now."
+
+"Oh, Ferdie," she broke out, "I am really awfully sorry for you."
+
+He looked up, his haggard face a little softened.
+
+"Yes, I believe you really are, Violet, and I can tell you one thing,
+Clara wouldn't be if she was in your shoes."
+
+She didn't answer, for she really did not know what to say about
+Clara--Clara, who had behaved so cruelly to poor Ferdie.
+
+"She is a woman," he burst out, "with no heart, absolutely none."
+
+"Perhaps she--perhaps she is sorry for Mr. Crichell," she suggested
+timidly.
+
+He laughed. "Sorry? Not she. I tell you it is the legacy that has done
+it. The legacy. She always could twist Crichell around her little
+finger, and the very minute she heard the news, off she went to him and
+made up. You mark my words, the greater part of that legacy will be
+hanging round her neck before very long."
+
+"But, Ferdie, she can't be as bad as that. No woman could. People often
+make mistakes, you know, and she may have found that--that--after all,
+her heart was really his."
+
+He rose and stared at her rudely. "Like one of the awful women in your
+novels! I tell you, it was the legacy that did it. Perfectly revolting,
+because, after all," he added with an odious, fatuous laugh, "all other
+things being equal, it's _me_ she loves. Why, I never saw a woman----"
+he broke off, seeming to realise suddenly the bad taste of his attitude.
+"But that's not the point," he went on, nervously--"the point is
+this----"
+
+She drew a long breath and clenched her hands in her lap to fortify
+herself for the coming scene. Nothing, she knew, not even the real
+suffering he had been through, could induce Ferdie to forego a dramatic
+scene.
+
+"Hum," he cleared his throat violently and Mrs. Walbridge, instinctively
+true to her wifely duty, answered:
+
+"Yes, Ferdinand?"
+
+"Well," he made a little gesture with his handsome hand, which struck
+her as being not quite so clean as usual. "I have done wrong, and--I beg
+your pardon." His voice was sonorous and most musical, and as he
+finished speaking he dropped his head on his breast in a kind of
+splendid compromise between the attitude of shame and a court bow.
+
+"I--I forgive you, Ferdie, of course, I forgive you," but she knew that
+he had not yet got his money's worth out of the situation.
+
+"Violet," he began again--and then as if for the first time, he looked
+at her, not as a refuge, or a feather-bed, or a soothing draught, but as
+a woman. "Why, what----" he stammered, staring, "what have you been
+doing with yourself? You look--different somehow. You look years
+younger, and--and where did you get that gown?" To her dismay he ended
+on a sharp note of suspicion.
+
+"I bought it in Paris," she answered quietly.
+
+"Bought it? Why, it is worth twenty guineas, if it's worth a penny!
+Violet, I--I hope you have not been--forgetting that you are my wife,
+while I have been away?"
+
+She nearly laughed, he was so ridiculous, but her deep eyes filled with
+tears over the pathos of it.
+
+"Listen, Ferdie," she said gently, "you need not worry about me. I am an
+old woman now and I have always been a good woman. I bought this dress,
+and several others, in Paris, with money that I got as a prize for a
+book."
+
+He stared at her stupidly with his blood-shot eyes.
+
+"Yes, a book you have probably read. It's called 'Bess Knighthood.'"
+
+"You--you didn't write 'Bess Knighthood!'"
+
+"Yes, I did. After 'Lord Effingham' was such a failure, I just--just sat
+down and wrote 'Bess Knighthood.' I don't know how I did it--it went so
+fast I could hardly remember it, when it was done." A wan smile stirred
+her lips, which seemed to have lost their recent fullness and looked
+flat and faded, "but I got the prize."
+
+"Oh." He looked annoyed, and she realised at once that he felt injured,
+for it had always given him a pleasant feeling of superiority to laugh
+at her looks, and now he could laugh no more.
+
+"Yes," she resumed, drawing herself up a little in her pride, "and I
+have not spent very much--I have got nearly five hundred pounds left, so
+if you need some, Ferdie----"
+
+The early day was by now coming in over the geraniums, and in its wan
+light, each of them thought how ruinous the other looked.
+
+Walbridge gazed at his wife. "You are fagged out," he said pompously.
+"It is very late, I think we had better go upstairs," and without a word
+she followed him up into the hall.
+
+"One of your old pyjama suits is in the dressing-room chest-of-drawers,"
+she said, as he went on up the front stairs, leaning heavily on the
+handrail. "I--I have one or two things to do, Ferdie."
+
+He turned, looking down, dominating her even now in her miserable
+triumph.
+
+"All right," he said, "I--I will sleep in the dressing-room. Don't be
+long, Violet," and Ferdinand Walbridge went to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Walbridge took up the pot of paint and the sprawling brush from
+where they were lying on the pavement and looked at the words on the
+gate. "Happy" stood out neatly, but the "H" in "House" was obliterated
+by a great splash, and the remaining letters, untouched by the fresh
+paint, looked by contrast more faded and faint than ever.
+
+"Dear me," she thought, "what a mess." And then, because she was a tidy
+woman, as well as to avoid questions and conjectures, she rubbed off the
+smear of paint as well as she could with one of the new Paris
+handkerchiefs, and resumed her interrupted task.
+
+In a few moments her work was done, and the words she had chosen for the
+new house thirty years ago showed out once more distinctly on the green
+gate. She rose to her knees, too tired for thought, sensible only of a
+violent longing for sleep; to-morrow, she knew, she must think. She must
+think about the turn things were taking; about the coming back of her
+husband, and the resumption of the old daily routine; of Ferdie's
+fretfulness, of liver for breakfast, and, most of all, she must think
+about Sir John Barclay.
+
+"Poor John," she thought, giving a last look at the words on the gate,
+"and poor Ferdie. Oh, how tired I am----" she went into the house and
+shut the door.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42771 ***