UNEASY MONEY

By P. G. Wodehouse

1

In a day in June, at the hour when London moves abroad in questof lunch, a young man stood at the entrance of the BandoleroRestaurant looking earnestly up Shaftesbury Avenue--a large youngman in excellent condition, with a pleasant, good-humoured, brown, clean-cut face. He paid no attention to the stream of humanitythat flowed past him. His mouth was set and his eyes wore aserious, almost a wistful expression. He was frowning slightly. One would have said that here was a man with a secret sorrow. 

William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, had no secretsorrow. All that he was thinking of at that moment was the bestmethod of laying a golf ball dead in front of the Palace Theatre. It was his habit to pass the time in mental golf when ClaireFenwick was late in keeping her appointments with him. On oneoccasion she had kept him waiting so long that he had been able todo nine holes, starting at the Savoy Grill and finishing up nearHammersmith. His was a simple mind, able to amuse itself withsimple things. 

As he stood there, gazing into the middle distance, an individualof dishevelled aspect sidled up, a vagrant of almost the maximumseediness, from whose midriff there protruded a trayful of astrange welter of collar-studs, shoe-laces, rubber rings, buttonhooks, and dying roosters. For some minutes he had beeneyeing his lordship appraisingly from the edge of the kerb, andnow, secure in the fact that there seemed to be no policeman inthe immediate vicinity, he anchored himself in front of him andobserved that he had a wife and four children at home, allstarving. 

This sort of thing was always happening to Lord Dawlish. There wassomething about him, some atmosphere of unaffected kindliness, that invited it. 

In these days when everything, from the shape of a man's hat tohis method of dealing with asparagus, is supposed to be an indexto character, it is possible to form some estimate of Lord Dawlishfrom the fact that his vigil in front of the Bandolero had beenexpensive even before the advent of the Benedict with the studsand laces. In London, as in New York, there are spots where it isunsafe for a man of yielding disposition to stand still, and thecorner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus is one of them. Scrubby, impecunious men drift to and fro there, waiting for thegods to provide something easy; and the prudent man, conscious ofthe possession of loose change, whizzes through the danger zone athis best speed, 'like one that on a lonesome road doth walk infear and dread, and having once turned round walks on, and turnsno more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth closebehind him tread. ' In the seven minutes he had been waiting twofrightful fiends closed in on Lord Dawlish, requesting loans offive shillings till Wednesday week and Saturday week respectively, and he had parted with the money without a murmur. 

A further clue to his character is supplied by the fact that boththese needy persons seemed to know him intimately, and that eachcalled him Bill. All Lord Dawlish's friends called him Bill, andhe had a catholic list of them, ranging from men whose names werein 'Debrett' to men whose names were on the notice boards ofobscure clubs in connexion with the non-payment of dues. He wasthe sort of man one instinctively calls Bill. 

The anti-race-suicide enthusiast with the rubber rings did not callLord Dawlish Bill, but otherwise his manner was intimate. Hislordship's gaze being a little slow in returning from the middledistance--for it was not a matter to be decided carelessly andwithout thought, this problem of carrying the length of ShaftesburyAvenue with a single brassy shot--he repeated the gossip from thehome. Lord Dawlish regarded him thoughtfully. 

'It could be done, ' he said, 'but you'd want a bit of pull on it. I'm sorry; I didn't catch what you said. '

The other obliged with his remark for the third time, withincreased pathos, for constant repetition was making him almostbelieve it himself. 

'Four starving children?'

'Four, guv'nor, so help me!'

'I suppose you don't get much time for golf then, what?' said LordDawlish, sympathetically. 

It was precisely three days, said the man, mournfully inflating adying rooster, since his offspring had tasted bread. 

This did not touch Lord Dawlish deeply. He was not very fond ofbread. But it seemed to be troubling the poor fellow with thestuds a great deal, so, realizing that tastes differ and thatthere is no accounting for them, he looked at him commiseratingly. 

'Of course, if they like bread, that makes it rather rotten, doesn't it? What are you going to do about it?'

'Buy a dying rooster, guv'nor, ' he advised. 'Causes great fun andlaughter. '

Lord Dawlish eyed the strange fowl without enthusiasm. 

'No, ' he said, with a slight shudder. 

There was a pause. The situation had the appearance of being at adeadlock. 

'I'll tell you what, ' said Lord Dawlish, with the air of one who, having pondered, has been rewarded with a great idea: 'the factis, I really don't want to buy anything. You seem by bad luck tobe stocked up with just the sort of things I wouldn't be seen deadin a ditch with. I can't stand rubber rings, never could. I'm notreally keen on buttonhooks. And I don't want to hurt yourfeelings, but I think that squeaking bird of yours is about thebeastliest thing I ever met. So suppose I give you a shilling andcall it square, what?'

'Gawd bless yer, guv'nor. '

'Not at all. You'll be able to get those children of yours somebread--I expect you can get a lot of bread for a shilling. Do theyreally like it? Rum kids!'

And having concluded this delicate financial deal Lord Dawlishturned, the movement bringing him face to face with a tall girl inwhite. 

During the business talk which had just come to an end this girlhad been making her way up the side street which forms a short cutbetween Coventry Street and the Bandolero, and several admirers offeminine beauty who happened to be using the same route had almostdislocated their necks looking after her. She was a strikinglyhandsome girl. She was tall and willowy. Her eyes, shaded by herhat, were large and grey. Her nose was small and straight, hermouth, though somewhat hard, admirably shaped, and she carriedherself magnificently. One cannot blame the policeman on duty inLeicester Square for remarking to a cabman as she passed that heenvied the bloke that that was going to meet. 

Bill Dawlish was this fortunate bloke, but, from the look of himas he caught sight of her, one would have said that he did notappreciate his luck. The fact of the matter was that he had onlyjust finished giving the father of the family his shilling, and hewas afraid that Claire had seen him doing it. For Claire, deargirl, was apt to be unreasonable about these little generositiesof his. He cast a furtive glance behind him in the hope that thedisseminator of expiring roosters had vanished, but the man wasstill at his elbow. Worse, he faced them, and in a hoarse butcarrying voice he was instructing Heaven to bless his benefactor. 

'Halloa, Claire darling!' said Lord Dawlish, with a sort ofsheepish breeziness. 'Here you are. '

Claire was looking after the stud merchant, as, grasping hiswealth, he scuttled up the avenue. 

'Only a bob, ' his lordship hastened to say. 'Rather a sad case, don't you know. Squads of children at home demanding bread. Didn'twant much else, apparently, but were frightfully keen on bread. '

'He has just gone into a public-house. '

'He may have gone to telephone or something, what?'

'I wish, ' said Claire, fretfully, leading the way down thegrillroom stairs, 'that you wouldn't let all London sponge on youlike this. I keep telling you not to. I should have thought thatif any one needed to keep what little money he has got it wasyou. '

Certainly Lord Dawlish would have been more prudent not to haveparted with even eleven shillings, for he was not a rich man. Indeed, with the single exception of the Earl of Wetherby, whosefinances were so irregular that he could not be said to possess anincome at all, he was the poorest man of his rank in the BritishIsles. 

It was in the days of the Regency that the Dawlish coffers firstbegan to show signs of cracking under the strain, in the era ofthe then celebrated Beau Dawlish. Nor were his successors backwardin the spending art. A breezy disregard for the preservation ofthe pence was a family trait. Bill was at Cambridge when hispredecessor in the title, his Uncle Philip, was performing theconcluding exercises of the dissipation of the Dawlish doubloons, a feat which he achieved so neatly that when he died there wasjust enough cash to pay the doctors, and no more. Bill foundhimself the possessor of that most ironical thing, a moneylesstitle. He was then twenty-three. 

Until six months before, when he had become engaged to ClaireFenwick, he had found nothing to quarrel with in his lot. He wasnot the type to waste time in vain regrets. His tastes weresimple. As long as he could afford to belong to one or two golfclubs and have something over for those small loans which, incertain of the numerous circles in which he moved, were theinevitable concomitant of popularity, he was satisfied. And thismodest ambition had been realized for him by a group of what hewas accustomed to refer to as decent old bucks, who had installedhim as secretary of that aristocratic and exclusive club, Brown'sin St James Street, at an annual salary of four hundred pounds. With that wealth, added to free lodging at one of the best clubsin London, perfect health, a steadily-diminishing golf handicap, and a host of friends in every walk of life, Bill had felt that itwould be absurd not to be happy and contented. 

But Claire had made a difference. There was no question of that. In the first place, she resolutely declined to marry him on fourhundred pounds a year. She scoffed at four hundred pounds a year. To hear her talk, you would have supposed that she had beenbrought up from the cradle to look on four hundred pounds a yearas small change to be disposed of in tips and cab fares. That initself would have been enough to sow doubts in Bill's mind as towhether he had really got all the money that a reasonable manneeded; and Claire saw to it that these doubts sprouted, byconfining her conversation on the occasions of their meetingalmost entirely to the great theme of money, with its minorsub-divisions of How to get it, Why don't you get it? and I'm sickand tired of not having it. 

She developed this theme to-day, not only on the stairs leading tothe grillroom, but even after they had seated themselves at theirtable. It was a relief to Bill when the arrival of the waiter withfood caused a break in the conversation and enabled him adroitlyto change the subject. 

'What have you been doing this morning?' he asked. 

'I went to see Maginnis at the theatre. '

'Oh!'

'I had a wire from him asking me to call. They want me to call. They want me to take up Claudia Winslow's part in the number onecompany. '

'That's good. '

'Why?'

'Well--er--what I mean--well, isn't it? What I mean is, leadingpart, and so forth. '

'In a touring company?'

'Yes, I see what you mean, ' said Lord Dawlish, who didn't at all. He thought rather highly of the number one companies that hailedfrom the theatre of which Mr Maginnis was proprietor. 

'And anyhow, I ought to have had the part in the first placeinstead of when the tour's half over. They are at Southampton thisweek. He wants me to join them there and go on to Portsmouth withthem. '

'You'll like Portsmouth. '

'Why?'

'Well--er--good links quite near. '

'You know I don't play golf. '

'Nor do you. I was forgetting. Still, it's quite a jolly place. '

'It's a horrible place. I loathe it. I've half a mind not to go. '

'Oh, I don't know. '

'What do you mean?'

Lord Dawlish was feeling a little sorry for himself. Whatever hesaid seemed to be the wrong thing. This evidently was one of thedays on which Claire was not so sweet-tempered as on some otherdays. It crossed his mind that of late these irritable moods ofhers had grown more frequent. It was not her fault, poor girl! hetold himself. She had rather a rotten time. 

It was always Lord Dawlish's habit on these occasions to make thisexcuse for Claire. It was such a satisfactory excuse. It coveredeverything. But, as a matter of fact, the rather rotten time whichshe was having was not such a very rotten one. Reducing it to itssimplest terms, and forgetting for the moment that she was anextraordinarily beautiful girl--which his lordship found itimpossible to do--all that it amounted to was that, her motherhaving but a small income, and existence in the West Kensingtonflat being consequently a trifle dull for one with a taste for theluxuries of life, Claire had gone on the stage. By birth shebelonged to a class of which the female members are seldom calledupon to earn money at all, and that was one count of her grievanceagainst Fate. Another was that she had not done as well on thestage as she had expected to do. When she became engaged to Billshe had reached a point where she could obtain without difficultygood parts in the touring companies of London successes, butbeyond that it seemed it was impossible for her to soar. It wasnot, perhaps, a very exhilarating life, but, except to the eyes oflove, there was nothing tragic about it. It was the cumulativeeffect of having a mother in reduced circumstances and grumblingabout it, of being compelled to work and grumbling about that, andof achieving in her work only a semi-success and grumbling aboutthat also, that--backed by her looks--enabled Claire to give quitea number of people, and Bill Dawlish in particular, the impressionthat she was a modern martyr, only sustained by her indomitablecourage. 

So Bill, being requested in a peevish voice to explain what hemeant by saying, 'Oh, I don't know, ' condoned the peevishness. Hethen bent his mind to the task of trying to ascertain what he hadmeant. 

'Well, ' he said, 'what I mean is, if you don't show up won't it berather a jar for old friend Maginnis? Won't he be apt to foam atthe mouth a bit and stop giving you parts in his companies?'

'I'm sick of trying to please Maginnis. What's the good? He nevergives me a chance in London. I'm sick of being always on tour. I'msick of everything. '

'It's the heat, ' said Lord Dawlish, most injudiciously. 

'It isn't the heat. It's you!'

'Me? What have I done?'

'It's what you've not done. Why can't you exert yourself and makesome money?'

Lord Dawlish groaned a silent groan. By a devious route, but withunfailing precision, they had come homing back to the same oldsubject. 

'We have been engaged for six months, and there seems about asmuch chance of our ever getting married as of--I can't think ofanything unlikely enough. We shall go on like this till we'redead. '

'But, my dear girl!'

'I wish you wouldn't talk to me as if you were my grandfather. What were you going to say?'

'Only that we can get married this afternoon if you'll say theword. '

'Oh, don't let us go into all that again! I'm not going to marryon four hundred a year and spend the rest of my life in a pokeylittle flat on the edge of London. Why can't you make more money?'

'I did have a dash at it, you know. I waylaid old Bodger--ColonelBodger, on the committee of the club, you know--and suggested overa whisky-and-soda that the management of Brown's would be behavinglike sportsmen if they bumped my salary up a bit, and the old boynearly strangled himself trying to suck down Scotch and laugh atthe same time. I give you my word, he nearly expired on thesmoking-room floor. When he came to he said that he wished Iwouldn't spring my good things on him so suddenly, as he had aweak heart. He said they were only paying me my present salarybecause they liked me so much. You know, it was decent of the oldboy to say that. '

'What is the good of being liked by the men in your club if youwon't make any use of it?'

'How do you mean?'

'There are endless things you could do. You could have got MrBreitstein elected at Brown's if you had liked. They wouldn't havedreamed of blackballing any one proposed by a popular man like you, and Mr Breitstein asked you personally to use your influence--youtold me so. '

'But, my dear girl--I mean my darling--Breitstein! He's the limit!He's the worst bounder in London. '

'He's also one of the richest men in London. He would have doneanything for you. And you let him go! You insulted him!'

'Insulted him?'

'Didn't you send him an admission ticket to the Zoo?'

'Oh, well, yes, I did do that. He thanked me and went thefollowing Sunday. Amazing how these rich Johnnies love gettingsomething for nothing. There was that old American I met down atMarvis Bay last year--'

'You threw away a wonderful chance of making all sorts of money. Why, a single tip from Mr Breitstein would have made yourfortune. '

'But, Claire, you know, there are some things--what I mean is, ifthey like me at Brown's, it's awfully decent of them and all that, but I couldn't take advantage of it to plant a fellow likeBreitstein on them. It wouldn't be playing the game. '

'Oh, nonsense!'

Lord Dawlish looked unhappy, but said nothing. This matter of MrBreitstein had been touched upon by Claire in previous conversations, and it was a subject for which he had little liking. Experience hadtaught him that none of the arguments which seemed so conclusiveto him--to wit, that the financier had on two occasions only justescaped imprisonment for fraud, and, what was worse, made anoise when he drank soup, like water running out of a bathtub--hadthe least effect upon her. The only thing to do when Mr Breitsteincame up in the course of chitchat over the festive board was tostay quiet until he blew over. 

'That old American you met at Marvis Bay, ' said Claire, her memoryflitting back to the remark which she had interrupted; 'well, there's another case. You could easily have got him to dosomething for you. '

'Claire, really!' said his goaded lordship, protestingly. 'How onearth? I only met the man on the links. '

'But you were very nice to him. You told me yourself that youspent hours helping him to get rid of his slice, whatever thatis. '

'We happened to be the only two down there at the time, so I wasas civil as I could manage. If you're marooned at a Cornishseaside resort out of the season with a man, you can't spend yourtime dodging him. And this man had a slice that fascinated me. Ifelt at the time that it was my mission in life to cure him, so Ihad a dash at it. But I don't see how on the strength of that Icould expect the old boy to adopt me. He probably forgot myexistence after I had left. '

'You said you met him in London a month or two afterwards, and hehadn't forgotten you. '

'Well, yes, that's true. He was walking up the Haymarket and I waswalking down. I caught his eye, and he nodded and passed on. Idon't see how I could construe that into an invitation to go andsit on his lap and help myself out of his pockets. '

'You couldn't expect him to go out of his way to help you; butprobably if you had gone to him he would have done something. '

'You haven't the pleasure of Mr Ira Nutcombe's acquaintance, Claire, or you wouldn't talk like that. He wasn't the sort of manyou could get things out of. He didn't even tip the caddie. Besides, can't you see what I mean? I couldn't trade on a chanceacquaintance of the golf links to--'

'That is just what I complain of in you. You're too diffident. '

'It isn't diffidence exactly. Talking of old Nutcombe, I wasspeaking to Gates again the other night. He was telling me aboutAmerica. There's a lot of money to be made over there, you know, and the committee owes me a holiday. They would give me a fewweeks off any time I liked. 

'What do you say? Shall I pop over and have a look round? I mighthappen to drop into something. Gates was telling me about fellowshe knew who had dropped into things in New York. '

'What's the good of putting yourself to all the trouble andexpense of going to America? You can easily make all you want inLondon if you will only try. It isn't as if you had no chances. You have more chances than almost any man in town. With your titleyou could get all the directorships in the City that you wanted. '

'Well, the fact is, this business of taking directorships hasnever quite appealed to me. I don't know anything about the game, and I should probably run up against some wildcat company. I can'tsay I like the directorship wheeze much. It's the idea of knowingthat one's name would be being used as a bait. Every time I saw iton a prospectus I should feel like a trout fly. '

Claire bit her lip. 

'It's so exasperating!' she broke out. 'When I first told myfriends that I was engaged to Lord Dawlish they were tremendouslyimpressed. They took it for granted that you must have lots ofmoney. Now I have to keep explaining to them that the reason wedon't get married is that we can't afford to. I'm almost as badlyoff as poor Polly Davis who was in the Heavenly Waltz Company withme when she married that man, Lord Wetherby. A man with a titlehas no right not to have money. It makes the whole thing farcical. 

'If I were in your place I should have tried a hundred things bynow, but you always have some silly objection. Why couldn't you, for instance, have taken on the agency of that what-d'you-call-itcar?'

'What I called it would have been nothing to what the poor devilswho bought it would have called it. '

'You could have sold hundreds of them, and the company would havegiven you any commission you asked. You know just the sort ofpeople they wanted to get in touch with. '

'But, darling, how could I? Planting Breitstein on the club wouldhave been nothing compared with sowing these horrors about London. I couldn't go about the place sticking my pals with a car which, Igive you my honest word, was stuck together with chewing-gum andtied up with string. '

'Why not? It would be their fault if they bought a car that wasn'tany good. Why should you have to worry once you had it sold?'

It was not Lord Dawlish's lucky afternoon. All through lunch hehad been saying the wrong thing, and now he put the coping-stoneon his misdeeds. Of all the ways in which he could have answeredClaire's question he chose the worst. 

'Er--well, ' he said, '_noblesse oblige_, don't you know, what?'

For a moment Claire did not speak. Then she looked at her watchand got up. 

'I must be going, ' she said, coldly. 

'But you haven't had your coffee yet. '

'I don't want any coffee. '

'What's the matter, dear?'

'Nothing is the matter. I have to go home and pack. I'm going toSouthampton this afternoon. '

She began to move towards the door. Lord Dawlish, anxious tofollow, was detained by the fact that he had not yet paid thebill. The production and settling of this took time, and whenfinally he turned in search of Claire she was nowhere visible. 

Bounding upstairs on the swift feet of love, he reached thestreet. She had gone. 

2

A grey sadness surged over Bill Dawlish. The sun hid itself behinda cloud, the sky took on a leaden hue, and a chill wind blewthrough the world. He scanned Shaftesbury Avenue with a jaundicedeye, and thought that he had never seen a beastlier thoroughfare. Piccadilly, however, into which he shortly dragged himself, waseven worse. It was full of men and women and other depressingthings. 

He pitied himself profoundly. It was a rotten world to live in, this, where a fellow couldn't say _noblesse oblige_ withoutupsetting the universe. Why shouldn't a fellow say _noblesseoblige?_ Why--? At this juncture Lord Dawlish walked into alamp-post. 

The shock changed his mood. Gloom still obsessed him, but blendednow with remorse. He began to look at the matter from Claire'sviewpoint, and his pity switched from himself to her. In the firstplace, the poor girl had rather a rotten time. Could she be blamedfor wanting him to make money? No. Yet whenever she made suggestionsas to how the thing was to be done, he snubbed her by saying_noblesse oblige_. Naturally a refined and sensitive young girlobjected to having things like _noblesse oblige_ said to her. Wherewas the sense in saying _noblesse oblige_? Such a confoundedly sillything to say. Only a perfect ass would spend his time rushing aboutthe place saying _noblesse oblige_ to people. 

'By Jove!' Lord Dawlish stopped in his stride. He disentangledhimself from a pedestrian who had rammed him on the back. 'I'll doit!'

He hailed a passing taxi and directed the driver to make for thePen and Ink Club. 

The decision at which Bill had arrived with such dramaticsuddenness in the middle of Piccadilly was the same at which somecenturies earlier Columbus had arrived in the privacy of his home. 

'Hang it!' said Bill to himself in the cab, 'I'll go to America!'The exact words probably which Columbus had used, talking thething over with his wife. 

Bill's knowledge of the great republic across the sea was at thisperiod of his life a little sketchy. He knew that there had beenunpleasantness between England and the United States inseventeen-something and again in eighteen-something, but thatthings had eventually been straightened out by Miss Edna Mayand her fellow missionaries of the Belle of New York Company, since which time there had been no more trouble. Of Americancocktails he had a fair working knowledge, and he appreciatedragtime. But of the other great American institutions he wascompletely ignorant. 

He was on his way now to see Gates. Gates was a comparativelyrecent addition to his list of friends, a New York newspapermanwho had come to England a few months before to act as his paper'sLondon correspondent. He was generally to be found at the Pen andInk Club, an institution affiliated with the New York Players, ofwhich he was a member. 

Gates was in. He had just finished lunch. 

'What's the trouble, Bill?' he inquired, when he had deposited hislordship in a corner of the reading-room, which he had selectedbecause silence was compulsory there, thus rendering it possiblefor two men to hear each other speak. 'What brings you charging inhere looking like the Soul's Awakening?'

'I've had an idea, old man. '

'Proceed. Continue. '

'Oh! Well, you remember what you were saying about America?'

'What was I saying about America?'

'The other day, don't you remember? What a lot of money there wasto be made there and so forth. '

'Well?'

'I'm going there. '

'To America?'

'Yes. '

'To make money?'

'Rather. '

Gates nodded--sadly, it seemed to Bill. He was rather a melancholyyoung man, with a long face not unlike a pessimistic horse. 

'Gosh!' he said. 

Bill felt a little damped. By no mental juggling could he construe'Gosh!' into an expression of enthusiastic approbation. 

Gates looked at Bill curiously. 'What's the idea?' he said. 'Icould have understood it if you had told me that you were going toNew York for pleasure, instructing your man Willoughby to see thatthe trunks were jolly well packed and wiring to the skipper ofyour yacht to meet you at Liverpool. But you seem to have sordidmotives. You talk about making money. What do you want with moremoney?'

'Why, I'm devilish hard up. '

'Tenantry a bit slack with the rent?' said Gates sympathetically. 

Bill laughed. 

'My dear chap, I don't know what on earth you're talking about. How much money do you think I've got? Four hundred pounds a year, and no prospect of ever making more unless I sweat for it. '

'What! I always thought you were rolling in money. '

'What gave you that idea?'

'You have a prosperous look. It's a funny thing about England. I've known you four months, and I know men who know you; but I'venever heard a word about your finances. In New York we all wearlabels, stating our incomes and prospects in clear lettering. Well, if it's like that it's different, of course. There certainlyis more money to be made in America than here. I don't quite seewhat you think you're going to do when you get there, but that'sup to you. 

'There's no harm in giving the city a trial. Anyway, I can giveyou a letter or two that might help. '

'That's awfully good of you. '

'You won't mind my alluding to you as my friend William Smith?'

'William Smith?'

'You can't travel under your own name if you are really seriousabout getting a job. Mind you, if my letters lead to anything itwill probably be a situation as an earnest bill-clerk or aneffervescent office-boy, for Rockefeller and Carnegie and that lothave swiped all the soft jobs. But if you go over as Lord Dawlishyou won't even get that. Lords are popular socially in America, but are not used to any great extent in the office. If you try tobreak in under your right name you'll get the glad hand and beasked to stay here and there and play a good deal of golf anddance quite a lot, but you won't get a job. A gentle smile willgreet all your pleadings that you be allowed to come in and savethe firm. '

'I see. '

'We may look on Smith as a necessity. '

'Do you know, I'm not frightfully keen on the name Smith. Wouldn'tsomething else do?'

'Sure. We aim to please. How would Jones suit you?'

'The trouble is, you know, that if I took a name I wasn't used toI might forget it. '

'If you've the sort of mind that would forget Jones I doubt ifever you'll be a captain of industry. '

'Why not Chalmers?'

'You think it easier to memorize than Jones?'

'It used to be my name, you see, before I got the title. '

'I see. All right. Chalmers then. When do you think of starting?'

'To-morrow. '

'You aren't losing much time. By the way, as you're going to NewYork you might as well use my flat. '

'It's awfully good of you. '

'Not a bit. You would be doing me a favour. I had to leave at amoment's notice, and I want to know what's been happening to theplace. I left some Japanese prints there, and my favouritenightmare is that someone has broken in and sneaked them. Writedown the address--Forty-blank East Twenty-seventh Street. I'llsend you the key to Brown's to-night with those letters. '

Bill walked up the Strand, glowing with energy. He made his way toCockspur Street to buy his ticket for New York. This done, he setout to Brown's to arrange with the committee the details of hisdeparture. 

He reached Brown's at twenty minutes past two and left it again attwenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hallporter had handed him a telephone message. The telephoneattendants at London clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. Theone in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paperthe words: '1 p. M. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call uponMr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a messageconsisting of two words: 'Good news. '

It was stimulating. The probability was that all Jerry Nicholswanted to tell him was that he had received stable informationabout some horse or had been given a box for the Empire, but forall that it was stimulating. 

Bill looked at his watch. He could spare half an hour. He set outat once for the offices of the eminent law firm of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols, of which aggregation of Nicholseshis friend Jerry was the last and smallest. 

3

On a west-bound omnibus Claire Fenwick sat and raged silently in theJune sunshine. She was furious. What right had Lord Dawlish to lookdown his nose and murmur '_Noblesse oblige_' when she asked him aquestion, as if she had suggested that he should commit some crime?It was the patronizing way he had said it that infuriated her, as ifhe were a superior being of some kind, governed by codes which shecould not be expected to understand. Everybody nowadays did the sortof things she suggested, so what was the good of looking shocked andsaying '_Noblesse oblige_'?

The omnibus rolled on towards West Kensington. Claire hated theplace with the bitter hate of one who had read society novels, andyearned for Grosvenor Square and butlers and a general atmosphereof soft cushions and pink-shaded lights and maids to do one'shair. She hated the cheap furniture of the little parlour, thepenetrating contralto of the cook singing hymns in the kitchen, and the ubiquitousness of her small brother. He was only ten, andsmall for his age, yet he appeared to have the power of being intwo rooms at the same time while making a nerve-racking noise inanother. 

It was Percy who greeted her to-day as she entered the flat. 

'Halloa, Claire! I say, Claire, there's a letter for you. It cameby the second post. I say, Claire, it's got an American stamp onit. Can I have it, Claire? I haven't got one in my collection. '

His sister regarded him broodingly. 'For goodness' sake don'tbellow like that!' she said. 'Of course, you can have the stamp. Idon't want it. Where is the letter?'

Claire took the envelope from him, extracted the letter, andhanded back the envelope. Percy vanished into the dining-room witha shattering squeal of pleasure. 

A voice spoke from behind a half-opened door--

'Is that you, Claire?'

'Yes, mother; I've come back to pack. They want me to go toSouthampton to-night to take up Claudia Winslow's part. '

'What train are you catching?'

'The three-fifteen. '

'You will have to hurry. '

'I'm going to hurry, ' said Claire, clenching her fists as twosimultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos, proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in asunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under theinfliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waitingfor the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. Shemeant to get her packing done in record time and escape from thisplace. She went into her bedroom and began to throw thingsuntidily into her trunk. She had put the letter in her pocketagainst a more favourable time for perusal. A glance had told herthat it was from her friend Polly, Countess of Wetherby: thatPolly Davis of whom she had spoken to Lord Dawlish. Polly Davis, now married for better or for worse to that curious invertebrateperson, Algie Wetherby, was the only real friend Claire had madeon the stage. A sort of shivering gentility had kept her alooffrom the rest of her fellow-workers, but it took more than ashivering gentility to stave off Polly. 

Claire had passed through the various stages of intimacy with her, until on the occasion of Polly's marriage she had acted as herbridesmaid. 

It was a long letter, too long to be read until she was atleisure, and written in a straggling hand that made readingdifficult. She was mildly surprised that Polly should have writtenher, for she had been back in America a year or more now, and thiswas her first letter. Polly had a warm heart and did not forgether friends, but she was not a good correspondent. 

The need of getting her things ready at once drove the letter fromClaire's mind. She was in the train on her way to Southamptonbefore she remembered its existence. 

It was dated from New York. 

MY DEAR OLD CLAIRE, --Is this really my first letter to you? Isn'tthat awful! Gee! A lot's happened since I saw you last. I musttell you first about my hit. Some hit! Claire, old girl, I own NewYork. I daren't tell you what my salary is. You'd faint. 

I'm doing barefoot dancing. You know the sort of stuff. I startedit in vaudeville, and went so big that my agent shifted me to therestaurants, and they have to call out the police reserves tohandle the crowd. You can't get a table at Reigelheimer's, whichis my pitch, unless you tip the head waiter a small fortune andpromise to mail him your clothes when you get home. I dance duringsupper with nothing on my feet and not much anywhere else, and ittakes three vans to carry my salary to the bank. 

Of course, it's the title that does it: 'Lady Pauline Wetherby!'Algie says it oughtn't to be that, because I'm not the daughter ofa duke, but I don't worry about that. It looks good, and that'sall that matters. You can't get away from the title. I was born inCarbondale, Illinois, but that doesn't matter--I'm an Englishcountess, doing barefoot dancing to work off the mortgage on theancestral castle, and they eat me. Take it from me, Claire, I'm ariot. 

Well, that's that. What I am really writing about is to tell youthat you have got to come over here. I've taken a house atBrookport, on Long Island, for the summer. You can stay with metill the fall, and then I can easily get you a good job in NewYork. I have some pull these days, believe me. Not that you'llneed my help. The managers have only got to see you and they'llall want you. I showed one of them that photograph you gave me, and he went up in the air. They pay twice as big salaries overhere, you know, as in England, so come by the next boat. 

Claire, darling, you must come. I'm wretched. Algie has got mygoat the worst way. If you don't know what that means it meansthat he's behaving like a perfect pig. I hardly know where tobegin. Well, it was this way: directly I made my hit my pressagent, a real bright man named Sherriff, got busy, of course. Interviews, you know, and Advice to Young Girls in the eveningpapers, and How I preserve my beauty, and all that sort of thing. Well, one thing he made me do was to buy a snake and a monkey. Roscoe Sherriff is crazy about animals as aids to advertisement. He says an animal story is the thing he does best. So I boughtthem. 

Algie kicked from the first. I ought to tell you that since weleft England he has taken up painting footling little pictures, and has got the artistic temperament badly. All his life he's beenstarting some new fool thing. When I first met him he pridedhimself on having the finest collection of photographs ofrace-horses in England. Then he got a craze for model engines. After that he used to work the piano player till I nearly wentcrazy. And now it's pictures. 

I don't mind his painting. It gives him something to do and keepshim out of mischief. He has a studio down in Washington Square, and is perfectly happy messing about there all day. 

Everything would be fine if he didn't think it necessary to tackon the artistic temperament to his painting. He's developed theidea that he has nerves and everything upsets them. 

Things came to a head this morning at breakfast. Clarence, mysnake, has the cutest way of climbing up the leg of the table andlooking at you pleadingly in the hope that you will give himsoft-boiled egg, which he adores. He did it this morning, and nosooner had his head appeared above the table than Algie, with a kindof sharp wail, struck him a violent blow on the nose with a teaspoon. Then he turned to me, very pale, and said: 'Pauline, this mustend! The time has come to speak up. A nervous, highly-strung manlike myself should not, and must not, be called upon to live in ahouse where he is constantly meeting snakes and monkeys withoutwarning. Choose between me and--'

We had got as far as this when Eustace, the monkey, who I didn'tknow was in the room at all, suddenly sprang on to his back. He isvery fond of Algie. 

Would you believe it? Algie walked straight out of the house, stillholding the teaspoon, and has not returned. Later in the day hecalled me up on the phone and said that, though he realized that aman's place was the home, he declined to cross the threshold againuntil I had got rid of Eustace and Clarence. I tried to reason withhim. I told him that he ought to think himself lucky it wasn'tanything worse than a monkey and a snake, for the last person RoscoeSherriff handled, an emotional actress named Devenish, had to keep ayoung puma. But he wouldn't listen, and the end of it was that herang off and I have not seen or heard of him since. 

I am broken-hearted. I won't give in, but I am having an awful time. So, dearest Claire, do come over and help me. If you could possiblysail by the _Atlantic_, leaving Southampton on the twenty-fourth ofthis month, you would meet a friend of mine whom I think you wouldlike. His name is Dudley Pickering, and he made a fortune inautomobiles. I expect you have heard of the Pickering automobiles?

Darling Claire, do come, or I know I shall weaken and yield toAlgie's outrageous demands, for, though I would like to hit himwith a brick, I love him dearly. 

Your affectionatePOLLY WETHERBY

Claire sank back against the cushioned seat and her eyes filledwith tears of disappointment. Of all the things which would havechimed in with her discontented mood at that moment a suddenflight to America was the most alluring. Only one considerationheld her back--she had not the money for her fare. 

Polly might have thought of that, she reflected, bitterly. Shetook the letter up again and saw that on the last page there was apostscript--

PS. --I don't know how you are fixed for money, old girl, but ifthings are the same with you as in the old days you can't berolling. So I have paid for a passage for you with the linerpeople this side, and they have cabled their English office, soyou can sail whenever you want to. Come right over. 

An hour later the manager of the Southampton branch of the WhiteStar Line was dazzled by an apparition, a beautiful girl who burstin upon him with flushed face and shining eyes, demanding a berth onthe steamship _Atlantic_ and talking about a Lady Wetherby. Tenminutes later, her passage secured, Claire was walking to the localtheatre to inform those in charge of the destinies of The Girl andthe Artist number one company that they must look elsewhere for asubstitute for Miss Claudia Winslow. Then she went back to her hotelto write a letter home, notifying her mother of her plans. 

She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. Back in WestKensington a rich smell of dinner would be floating through theflat; the cook, watching the boiling cabbage, would be singing AFew More Years Shall Roll; her mother would be sighing; and herlittle brother Percy would be employed upon some juveniledeviltry, the exact nature of which it was not possible toconjecture, though one could be certain that it would be somethinginvolving a deafening noise. 

Claire smiled a happy smile. 

4

The offices of Messrs Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols werein Lincoln's Inn Fields. The first Nichols had been dead since thereign of King William the Fourth, the second since the jubileeyear of Queen Victoria. The remaining brace were Lord Dawlish'sfriend Jerry and his father, a formidable old man who knew all theshady secrets of all the noble families in England. 

Bill walked up the stairs and was shown into the room where Jerry, when his father's eye was upon him, gave his daily imitation of ayoung man labouring with diligence and enthusiasm at the law. Hisfather being at the moment out at lunch, the junior partner waspractising putts with an umbrella and a ball of paper. 

Jerry Nichols was not the typical lawyer. At Cambridge, where Billhad first made his acquaintance, he had been notable for anexuberance of which Lincoln's Inn Fields had not yet cured him. There was an airy disregard for legal formalities about him whichexasperated his father, an attorney of the old school. He came tothe point, directly Bill entered the room, with a speed and levitythat would have appalled Nichols Senior, and must have caused theother two Nicholses to revolve in their graves. 

'Halloa, Bill, old man, ' he said, prodding him amiably in thewaistcoat with the ferrule of the umbrella. 'How's the boy? Fine!So'm I. So you got my message? Wonderful invention, thetelephone. '

'I've just come from the club. '

'Take a chair. '

'What's the matter?'

Jerry Nichols thrust Bill into a chair and seated himself on thetable. 

'Now look here, Bill, ' he said, 'this isn't the way we usually dothis sort of thing, and if the governor were here he would spendan hour and a half rambling on about testators and beneficiarylegatees, and parties of the first part, and all that sort of rot. But as he isn't here I want to know, as one pal to another, whatyou've been doing to an old buster of the name of Nutcombe. '

'Nutcombe?'

'Nutcombe. '

'Not Ira Nutcombe?'

'Ira J. Nutcombe, formerly of Chicago, later of London, now adisembodied spirit. '

'Is he dead?'

'Yes. And he's left you something like a million pounds. '

Lord Dawlish looked at his watch. 

'Joking apart, Jerry, old man, ' he said, 'what did you ask me tocome here for? The committee expects me to spend some of my timeat the club, and if I hang about here all the afternoon I shalllose my job. Besides, I've got to get back to ask them for--'

Jerry Nichols clutched his forehead with both hands, raised bothhands to heaven, and then, as if despairing of calming himself bythese means, picked up a paper-weight from the desk and hurled itat a portrait of the founder of the firm, which hung over themantelpiece. He got down from the table and crossed the room toinspect the ruins. 

Then, having taken a pair of scissors and cut the cord, he allowedthe portrait to fall to the floor. 

He rang the bell. The prematurely-aged office-boy, who wasundoubtedly destined to become a member of the firm some day, answered the ring. 

'Perkins. '

'Yes, sir?'

'Inspect yonder _soufflee_. '

'Yes, sir. '

'You have observed it?'

'Yes, sir. '

'You are wondering how it got there?'

'Yes, sir. '

'I will tell you. You and I were in here, discussing certain legalminutiae in the interests of the firm, when it suddenly fell. Weboth saw it and were very much surprised and startled. I soothedyour nervous system by giving you this half-crown. The wholeincident was very painful. Can you remember all this to tell myfather when he comes in? I shall be out lunching then. '

'Yes, sir. '

'An admirable lad that, ' said Jerry Nichols as the door closed. 'He has been here two years, and I have never heard him sayanything except "Yes, sir. " He will go far. Well, now that I amcalmer let us return to your little matter. Honestly, Bill, youmake me sick. When I contemplate you the iron enters my soul. Youstand there talking about your tuppenny-ha'penny job as if itmattered a cent whether you kept it or not. Can't you understandplain English? Can't you realize that you can buy Brown's and turnit into a moving-picture house if you like? You're a millionaire!'

Bill's face expressed no emotion whatsoever. Outwardly he appearedunmoved. Inwardly he was a riot of bewilderment, incapable ofspeech. He stared at Jerry dumbly. 

'We've got the will in the old oak chest, ' went on Jerry Nichols. 'I won't show it to you, partly because the governor has got thekey and he would have a fit if he knew that I was giving you earlyinformation like this, and partly because you wouldn't understandit. It is full of "whereases" and "peradventures" and "heretofores"and similar swank, and there aren't any stops in it. It takes the legalmind, like mine, to tackle wills. What it says, when you've peeledoff a few of the long words which they put in to make it moreinteresting, is that old Nutcombe leaves you the money becauseyou are the only man who ever did him a disinterested kindness--andwhat I want to get out of you is, what was the disinterested kindness?Because I'm going straight out to do it to every elderly, rich-lookingman I can find till I pick a winner. '

Lord Dawlish found speech. 

'Jerry, is this really true?'

'Gospel. '

'You aren't pulling my leg?'

'Pulling your leg? Of course I'm not pulling your leg. What do youtake me for? I'm a dry, hard-headed lawyer. The firm of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols doesn't go about pulling people'slegs!'

'Good Lord!'

'It appears from the will that you worked this disinterested gag, whatever it was, at Marvis Bay no longer ago than last year. Wherein you showed a lot of sense, for Ira J. , having altered hiswill in your favour, apparently had no time before he died toalter it again in somebody else's, which he would most certainlyhave done if he had lived long enough, for his chief recreationseems to have been making his will. To my certain knowledge he hasmade three in the last two years. I've seen them. He was one ofthose confirmed will-makers. He got the habit at an early age, andwas never able to shake it off. Do you remember anything about theman?'

'It isn't possible!'

'Anything's possible with a man cracked enough to make freak willsand not cracked enough to have them disputed on the ground ofinsanity. What did you do to him at Marvis Bay? Save him fromdrowning?'

'I cured him of slicing. '

'You did what?'

'He used to slice his approach shots. I cured him. '

'The thing begins to hang together. A certain plausibility creepsinto it. The late Nutcombe was crazy about golf. The governor usedto play with him now and then at Walton Heath. It was the onlything Nutcombe seemed to live for. That being so, if you got ridof his slice for him it seems to me, that you earned your money. The only point that occurs to me is, how does it affect youramateur status? It looks to me as if you were now a pro. '

'But, Jerry, it's absurd. All I did was to give him a tip or two. We were the only men down there, as it was out of the season, andthat drew us together. And when I spotted this slice of his I justgave him a bit of advice. I give you my word that was all. Hecan't have left me a fortune on the strength of that!'

'You don't tell the story right, Bill. I can guess what reallyhappened--to wit, that you gave up all your time to helping theold fellow improve his game, regardless of the fact that itcompletely ruined your holiday. '

'Oh, no!'

'It's no use sitting there saying "Oh, no!" I can see you at it. The fact is, you're such an infernally good chap that something ofthis sort was bound to happen to you sooner or later. I thinkmaking you his heir was the only sensible thing old Nutcombe everdid. In his place I'd have done the same. '

'But he didn't even seem decently grateful at the time. '

'Probably not. He was a queer old bird. He had a most almighty rowwith the governor in this office only a month or two ago aboutabsolutely nothing. They disagreed about something trivial, andold Nutcombe stalked out and never came in again. That's the sortof old bird he was. '

'Was he sane, do you think?'

'Absolutely, for legal purposes. We have three opinions from leadingdoctors--collected by him in case of accidents, I suppose--each ofwhich declares him perfectly sound from the collar upward. But aman can be pretty far gone, you know, without being legally insane, and old Nutcombe--well, suppose we call him whimsical. He seems tohave zigzagged between the normal and the eccentric. 

'His only surviving relatives appear to be a nephew and a niece. The nephew dropped out of the running two years ago when his aunt, old Nutcombe's wife, who had divorced old Nutcombe, left him hermoney. This seems to have soured the old boy on the nephew, for inthe first of his wills that I've seen--you remember I told you Ihad seen three--he leaves the niece the pile and the nephew onlygets twenty pounds. Well, so far there's nothing very eccentricabout old Nutcombe's proceedings. But wait!

'Six months after he had made that will he came in here and madeanother. This left twenty pounds to the nephew as before, butnothing at all to the niece. Why, I don't know. There was nothingin the will about her having done anything to offend him duringthose six months, none of those nasty slams you see in wills about"I bequeath to my only son John one shilling and sixpence. Nowperhaps he's sorry he married the cook. " As far as I can make outhe changed his will just as he did when he left the money to you, purely through some passing whim. Anyway, he did change it. Heleft the pile to support the movement those people are running forgetting the Jews back to Palestine. 

'He didn't seem, on second thoughts, to feel that this was quitesuch a brainy scheme as he had at first, and it wasn't long beforehe came trotting back to tear up this second will and switch backto the first one--the one leaving the money to the niece. Thatrestoration to sanity lasted till about a month ago, when he brokeloose once more and paid his final visit here to will you thecontents of his stocking. This morning I see he's dead after ashort illness, so you collect. Congratulations!'

Lord Dawlish had listened to this speech in perfect silence. He nowrose and began to pace the room. He looked warm and uncomfortable. His demeanour, in fact, was by no means the accepted demeanour ofthe lucky heir. 

'This is awful!' he said. 'Good Lord, Jerry, it's frightful!'

'Awful!--being left a million pounds?'

'Yes, like this. I feel like a bally thief. '

'Why on earth?'

'If it hadn't been for me this girl--what's her name?'

'Her name is Boyd--Elizabeth Boyd. '

'She would have had the whole million if it hadn't been for me. Have you told her yet?'

'She's in America. I was writing her a letter just before you camein--informal, you know, to put her out of her misery. If I hadwaited for the governor to let her know in the usual course of redtape we should never have got anywhere. Also one to the nephew, telling him about his twenty pounds. I believe in humane treatmenton these occasions. The governor would write them a legal letterwith so many "hereinbefores" in it that they would get the ideathat they had been left the whole pile. I just send a cheery linesaying "It's no good, old top. Abandon hope, " and they know justwhere they are. Simple and considerate. '

A glance at Bill's face moved him to further speech. 

'I don't see why you should worry, Bill. How, by any stretch ofthe imagination, can you make out that you are to blame for thisBoyd girl's misfortune? It looks to me as if these eccentric willsof old Nutcombe's came in cycles, as it were. Just as he was duefor another outbreak he happened to meet you. It's a moralcertainty that if he hadn't met you he would have left all hismoney to a Home for Superannuated Caddies or a Fund for Supplyingthe Deserving Poor with Niblicks. Why should you blame yourself?'

'I don't blame myself. It isn't exactly that. But--but, well, whatwould you feel like in my place?'

'A two-year-old. '

'Wouldn't you do anything?'

'I certainly would. By my halidom, I would! I would spend thatmoney with a vim and speed that would make your respectedancestor, the Beau, look like a village miser. '

'You wouldn't--er--pop over to America and see whether somethingcouldn't be arranged?'

'What!'

'I mean--suppose you were popping in any case. Suppose you hadhappened to buy a ticket for New York on to-morrow's boat, wouldn't you try to get in touch with this girl when you got toAmerica, and see if you couldn't--er--fix up something?'

Jerry Nichols looked at him in honest consternation. He had alwaysknown that old Bill was a dear old ass, but he had never dreamedthat he was such an infernal old ass as this. 

'You aren't thinking of doing that?' he gasped. 

'Well, you see, it's a funny coincidence, but I was going toAmerica, anyhow, to-morrow. I don't see why I shouldn't try to fixup something with this girl. '

'What do you mean--fix up something? You don't suggest that youshould give the money up, do you?'

'I don't know. Not exactly that, perhaps. How would it be if Igave her half, what? Anyway, I should like to find out about her, see if she's hard up, and so on. I should like to nose round, youknow, and--er--and so forth, don't you know. Where did you say thegirl lived?'

'I didn't say, and I'm not sure that I shall. Honestly, Bill, youmustn't be so quixotic. '

'There's no harm in my nosing round, is there? Be a good chap andgive me the address. '

'Well'--with misgivings--'Brookport, Long Island. '

'Thanks. '

'Bill, are you really going to make a fool of yourself?'

'Not a bit of it, old chap. I'm just going to--er--'

'To nose round?'

'To nose round, ' said Bill. 

Jerry Nichols accompanied his friend to the door, and once morepeace reigned in the offices of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, andNichols. 

The time of a man who has at a moment's notice decided to leavehis native land for a sojourn on foreign soil is necessarily takenup with a variety of occupations; and it was not till thefollowing afternoon, on the boat at Liverpool, that Bill hadleisure to write to Claire, giving her the news of what hadbefallen him. He had booked his ticket by a Liverpool boat inpreference to one that sailed from Southampton because he had notbeen sure how Claire would take the news of his sudden decision toleave for America. There was the chance that she might ridicule orcondemn the scheme, and he preferred to get away without seeingher. Now that he had received this astounding piece of news fromJerry Nichols he was relieved that he had acted in this way. Whatever Claire might have thought of the original scheme, therewas no doubt at all what she would think of his plan of seekingout Elizabeth Boyd with a view to dividing the legacy with her. 

He was guarded in his letter. He mentioned no definite figures. Hewrote that Ira Nutcombe of whom they had spoken so often had mostsurprisingly left him in his will a large sum of money, and easedhis conscience by telling himself that half of a million poundsundeniably was a large sum of money. 

The addressing of the letter called for thought. She would haveleft Southampton with the rest of the company before it couldarrive. Where was it that she said they were going next week?Portsmouth, that was it. He addressed the letter Care of The Girland the Artist Company, to the King's Theatre, Portsmouth. 

5

The village of Brookport, Long Island, is a summer place. Itlives, like the mosquitoes that infest it, entirely on its summervisitors. At the time of the death of Mr Ira Nutcombe, the onlyall-the-year-round inhabitants were the butcher, the grocer, thechemist, the other customary fauna of villages, and Miss ElizabethBoyd, who rented the ramshackle farm known locally as Flack's andeked out a precarious livelihood by keeping bees. 

If you take down your _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Volume III, AUS to BIS, you will find that bees are a 'large and naturalfamily of the zoological order Hymenoptera, characterized by theplumose form of many of their hairs, by the large size of thebasal segment of the foot ... And by the development of a "tongue"for sucking liquid food, ' the last of which peculiarities, it isinteresting to note, they shared with Claude Nutcombe Boyd, Elizabeth's brother, who for quite a long time--till his money ranout--had made liquid food almost his sole means of sustenance. These things, however, are by the way. We are not such snobs as tothink better or worse of a bee because it can claim kinship withthe _Hymenoptera_ family, nor so ill-bred as to chaff it forhaving large feet. The really interesting passage in the articleoccurs later, where it says: 'The bee industry prospers greatly inAmerica. '

This is one of those broad statements that invite challenge. Elizabeth Boyd would have challenged it. She had not prosperedgreatly. With considerable trouble she contrived to pay her way, and that was all. 

Again referring to the 'Encyclopaedia, ' we find the words: 'Beforeundertaking the management of a modern apiary, the beekeepershould possess a certain amount of aptitude for the pursuit. ' Thiswas possibly the trouble with Elizabeth's venture, considered froma commercial point of view. She loved bees, but she was not anexpert on them. She had started her apiary with a small capital, abook of practical hints, and a second-hand queen, principallybecause she was in need of some occupation that would enable herto live in the country. It was the unfortunate condition of ClaudeNutcombe which made life in the country a necessity. At that timehe was spending the remains of the money left him by his aunt, andElizabeth had hardly settled down at Brookport and got her ventureunder way when she found herself obliged to provide for Nutty acombination of home and sanatorium. It had been the poor lad'smistaken view that he could drink up all the alcoholic liquor inAmerica. 

It is a curious law of Nature that the most undeserving brothersalways have the best sisters. Thrifty, plodding young men, who getup early, and do it now, and catch the employer's eye, and savehalf their salaries, have sisters who never speak civilly to themexcept when they want to borrow money. To the Claude Nutcombes ofthe world are vouchsafed the Elizabeths. 

The great aim of Elizabeth's life was to make a new man of Nutty. It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport, with--unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at thestore--its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pullhim together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. Sheliked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in thenext room with a broom and a dustpan, for in the simple lexicon ofFlack's there was no such word as 'help'. The privy purse wouldnot run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombethe housework. 

Several days after Claire Fenwick and Lord Dawlish, by differentroutes, had sailed from England, Elizabeth Boyd sat up in bed andshook her mane of hair from her eyes, yawning. Outside her windowthe birds were singing, and a shaft of sunlight intruded itselfbeneath the blind. But what definitely convinced her that it wastime to get up was the plaintive note of James, the cat, patrolling the roof of the porch. An animal of regular habits, James always called for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp. 

Elizabeth got out of bed, wrapped her small body in a pink kimono, thrust her small feet into a pair of blue slippers, yawned again, and went downstairs. Having taken last night's milk from the ice-box, she went to the back door, and, having filled James's saucer, stood on the grass beside it, sniffing the morning air. 

Elizabeth Boyd was twenty-one, but standing there with her hairtumbling about her shoulders she might have been taken by anot-too-close observer for a child. It was only when you saw her eyesand the resolute tilt of the chin that you realized that she was ayoung woman very well able to take care of herself in a difficultworld. Her hair was very fair, her eyes brown and very bright, andthe contrast was extraordinarily piquant. They were valiant eyes, full of spirit; eyes, also, that saw the humour of things. And hermouth was the mouth of one who laughs easily. Her chin, small likethe rest of her, was strong; and in the way she held herself therewas a boyish jauntiness. She looked--and was--a capable littleperson. 

She stood besides James like a sentinel, watching over him as hebreakfasted. There was a puppy belonging to one of the neighbourswho sometimes lumbered over and stole James's milk, disposing ofit in greedy gulps while its rightful proprietor looked on withpiteous helplessness. Elizabeth was fond of the puppy, but hersense of justice was keen and she was there to check thisbrigandage. 

It was a perfect day, cloudless and still. There was peace in theair. James, having finished his milk, began to wash himself. Asquirrel climbed cautiously down from a linden tree. From theorchard came the murmur of many bees. 

Aesthetically Elizabeth was fond of still, cloudless days, butexperience had taught her to suspect them. As was the custom inthat locality, the water supply depended on a rickety windwheel. It was with a dark foreboding that she returned to the kitchen andturned on one of the taps. For perhaps three seconds a stream ofthe dimension of a darning-needle emerged, then with a sad gurglethe tap relapsed into a stolid inaction. There is no stolidity soutter as that of a waterless tap. 

'Confound it!' said Elizabeth. 

She passed through the dining-room to the foot of the stairs. 

'Nutty!'

There was no reply. 

'Nutty, my precious lamb!'

Upstairs in the room next to her own a long, spare form began touncurl itself in bed; a face with a receding chin and a smallforehead raised itself reluctantly from the pillow, and ClaudeNutcombe Boyd signalized the fact that he was awake by scowling atthe morning sun and uttering an aggrieved groan. 

Alas, poor Nutty! This was he whom but yesterday Broadway hadknown as the Speed Kid, on whom head-waiters had smiled and lesserwaiters fawned; whose snake-like form had nestled in so many afront-row orchestra stall. 

Where were his lobster Newburgs now, his cold quarts that werewont to set the table in a roar?

Nutty Boyd conformed as nearly as a human being may to Euclid'sdefinition of a straight line. He was length without breadth. Fromboyhood's early day he had sprouted like a weed, till now in themiddle twenties he gave startled strangers the conviction that itonly required a sharp gust of wind to snap him in half. Lying inbed, he looked more like a length of hose-pipe than anything else. While he was unwinding himself the door opened and Elizabeth cameinto the room. 

'Good morning, Nutty!'

'What's the time?' asked her brother, hollowly. 

'Getting on towards nine. It's a lovely day. The birds aresinging, the bees are buzzing, summer's in the air. It's one ofthose beautiful, shiny, heavenly, gorgeous days. '

A look of suspicion came into Nutty's eyes. Elizabeth was notoften as lyrical as this. 

'There's a catch somewhere, ' he said. 

'Well, as a matter of fact, ' said Elizabeth, carelessly, 'thewater's off again. '

'Confound it!'

'I said that. I'm afraid we aren't a very original family. '

'What a ghastly place this is! Why can't you see old Flack andmake him mend that infernal wheel?'

'I'm going to pounce on him and have another try directly I seehim. Meanwhile, darling Nutty, will you get some clothes on and goround to the Smiths and ask them to lend us a pailful?'

'Oh, gosh, it's over a mile!'

'No, no, not more than three-quarters. '

'Lugging a pail that weighs a ton! The last time I went theretheir dog bit me. '

'I expect that was because you slunk in all doubled up, and he gotsuspicious. You should hold your head up and throw your chest outand stride up as if you were a military friend of the family. '

Self-pity lent Nutty eloquence. 

'For Heaven's sake! You drag me out of bed at some awful hour ofthe morning when a rational person would just be turning in; yousend me across country to fetch pailfuls of water when I'm feelinglike a corpse; and on top of that you expect me to behave like adrum-major!'

'Dearest, you can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long asyou get the fluid. We must have water. I can't fetch it. I'm adelicately-nurtured female. '

'We ought to have a man to do these ghastly jobs. '

'But we can't afford one. Just at present all I ask is to be ableto pay expenses. And, as a matter of fact, you ought to be verythankful that you have got--'

'A roof over my head? I know. You needn't keep rubbing it in. '

Elizabeth flushed. 

'I wasn't going to say that at all. What a pig you are sometimes, Nutty. As if I wasn't only too glad to have you here. What I wasgoing to say was that you ought to be very thankful that you havegot to draw water and hew wood--'

A look of absolute alarm came into Nutty's pallid face. 

'You don't mean to say that you want some wood chopped?'

'I was speaking figuratively. I meant hustle about and work in theopen air. The sort of life you are leading now is what millionairespay hundreds of dollars for at these physical-culture places. Ithas been the making of you. '

'I don't feel made. '

'Your nerves are ever so much better. '

'They aren't. '

Elizabeth looked at him in alarm. 

'Oh, Nutty, you haven't been--seeing anything again, have you?'

'Not seeing, dreaming. I've been dreaming about monkeys. Whyshould I dream about monkeys if my nerves were all right?'

'I often dream about all sorts of queer things. '

'Have you ever dreamed that you were being chased up Broadway by achimpanzee in evening dress?'

'Never mind, dear, you'll be quite all right again when you havebeen living this life down here a little longer. '

Nutty glared balefully at the ceiling. 

'What's that darned thing up there on the ceiling? It looks like ahornet. How on earth do these things get into the house?'

'We ought to have nettings. I am going to pounce on Mr Flack aboutthat too. '

'Thank goodness this isn't going to last much longer. It's nearlytwo weeks since Uncle Ira died. We ought to be hearing from thelawyers any day now. There might be a letter this morning. '

'Do you think he has left us his money?'

'Do I? Why, what else could he do with it? We are his onlysurviving relatives, aren't we? I've had to go through life with aghastly name like Nutcombe as a compliment to him, haven't I? Iwrote to him regularly at Christmas and on his birthday, didn't I?Well, then! I have a feeling there will be a letter from thelawyers to-day. I wish you would get dressed and go down to thepost-office while I'm fetching that infernal water. I can't thinkwhy the fools haven't cabled. You would have supposed they wouldhave thought of that. '

Elizabeth returned to her room to dress. She was conscious of afeeling that nothing was quite perfect in this world. It would benice to have a great deal of money, for she had a scheme in hermind which called for a large capital; but she was sorry that itcould come to her only through the death of her uncle, of whom, despite his somewhat forbidding personality, she had always beenfond. She was also sorry that a large sum of money was coming toNutty at that particular point in his career, just when thereseemed the hope that the simple life might pull him together. Sheknew Nutty too well not to be able to forecast his probablebehaviour under the influence of a sudden restoration of wealth. 

While these thoughts were passing through her mind she happened toglance out of the window. Nutty was shambling through the gardenwith his pail, a bowed, shuffling pillar of gloom. As Elizabethwatched, he dropped the pail and lashed the air violently for awhile. From her knowledge of bees ('It is needful to remember thatbees resent outside interference and will resolutely defendthemselves, ' _Encyc. Brit. _, Vol. III, AUS to BIS) Elizabethdeduced that one of her little pets was annoying him. This episodeconcluded, Nutty resumed his pail and the journey, and at thismoment there appeared over the hedge the face of Mr John Prescott, a neighbour. Mr Prescott, who had dismounted from a bicycle, called to Nutty and waved something in the air. To a stranger theperformance would have been obscure, but Elizabeth understood it. Mr Prescott was intimating that he had been down to the post-officefor his own letters and, as was his neighbourly custom on theseoccasions, had brought back also letters for Flack's. 

Nutty foregathered with Mr Prescott and took the letters from him. Mr Prescott disappeared. Nutty selected one of the letters andopened it. Then, having stood perfectly still for some moments, hesuddenly turned and began to run towards the house. 

The mere fact that her brother, whose usual mode of progressionwas a languid saunter, should be actually running, was enough totell Elizabeth that the letter which Nutty had read was from theLondon lawyers. No other communication could have galvanized himinto such energy. Whether the contents of the letter were good orbad it was impossible at that distance to say. But when shereached the open air, just as Nutty charged up, she saw by hisface that it was anguish not joy that had spurred him on. He wasgasping and he bubbled unintelligible words. His little eyesgleamed wildly. 

'Nutty, darling, what is it?' cried Elizabeth, every maternalinstinct in her aroused. 

He was thrusting a sheet of paper at her, a sheet of paper thatbore the superscription of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols, with a London address. 

'Uncle Ira--' Nutty choked. 'Twenty pounds! He's left me twentypounds, and all the rest to a--to a man named Dawlish!'

In silence Elizabeth took the letter. It was even as he had said. A few moments before Elizabeth had been regretting the imminentdescent of wealth upon her brother. Now she was inconsistentenough to boil with rage at the shattering blow which had befallenhim. That she, too, had lost her inheritance hardly occurred toher. Her thoughts were all for Nutty. It did not need the sight ofhim, gasping and gurgling before her, to tell her how overwhelmingwas his disappointment. 

It was useless to be angry with the deceased Mr Nutcombe. He wastoo shadowy a mark. Besides, he was dead. The whole current of herwrath turned upon the supplanter, this Lord Dawlish. She picturedhim as a crafty adventurer, a wretched fortune-hunter. For somereason or other she imagined him a sinister person with a blackmoustache, a face thin and hawk-like, and unpleasant eyes. Thatwas the sort of man who would be likely to fasten his talons intopoor Uncle Ira. 

She had never hated any one in her life before, but as she stoodthere at that moment she felt that she loathed and detestedWilliam Lord Dawlish--unhappy, well-meaning Bill, who only a fewhours back had set foot on American soil in his desire to noseround and see if something couldn't be arranged. 

Nutty fetched the water. Life is like that. There is nothingclean-cut about it, no sense of form. Instead of being permittedto concentrate his attention on his tragedy Nutty had to trudgethree-quarters of a mile, conciliate a bull-terrier, and trudgeback again carrying a heavy pail. It was as if one of the heroesof Greek drama, in the middle of his big scene, had been asked torun round the corner to a provision store. 

The exercise did not act as a restorative. The blow had been toosudden, too overwhelming. Nutty's reason--such as it was--totteredon its throne. Who was Lord Dawlish? What had he done toingratiate himself with Uncle Ira? By what insidious means, withwhat devilish cunning, had he wormed his way into the old man'sfavour? These were the questions that vexed Nutty's mind when hewas able to think at all coherently. 

Back at the farm Elizabeth cooked breakfast and awaited herbrother's return with a sinking heart. She was a soft-heartedgirl, easily distressed by the sight of suffering; and she wasaware that Nutty was scarcely of the type that masks its woesbehind a brave and cheerful smile. Her heart bled for Nutty. 

There was a weary step outside. Nutty entered, slopping water. Oneglance at his face was enough to tell Elizabeth that she hadformed a too conservative estimate of his probable gloom. Withouta word he coiled his long form in a chair. There was silence inthe stricken house. 

'What's the time?'

Elizabeth glanced at her watch. 

'Half-past nine. '

'About now, ' said Nutty, sepulchrally, 'the blighter is ringingfor his man to prepare his bally bath and lay out his gold-leafunderwear. After that he will drive down to the bank and draw someof our money. '

The day passed wearily for Elizabeth. Nutty having the air of onewho is still engaged in picking up the pieces, she had not theheart to ask him to play his customary part in the householdduties, so she washed the dishes and made the beds herself. Afterthat she attended to the bees. After that she cooked lunch. 

Nutty was not chatty at lunch. Having observed 'About now theblighter is cursing the waiter for bringing the wrong brand ofchampagne, ' he relapsed into a silence which he did not againbreak. 

Elizabeth was busy again in the afternoon. At four o'clock, feeling tired out, she went to her room to lie down until the nextof her cycle of domestic duties should come round. 

It was late when she came downstairs, for she had fallen asleep. The sun had gone down. Bees were winging their way heavily back tothe hives with their honey. She went out into the grounds to tryto find Nutty. There had been no signs of him in the house. Therewere no signs of him about the grounds. It was not like him tohave taken a walk, but it seemed the only possibility. She wentback to the house to wait. Eight o'clock came, and nine, and itwas then the truth dawned upon her--Nutty had escaped. He hadslipped away and gone up to New York. 

6

Lord Dawlish sat in the New York flat which had been lent him byhis friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; theday, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm. Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively. 

Lord Dawlish had found New York enjoyable, but a trifle fatiguing. There was much to be seen in the city, and he had made the mistakeof trying to see it all at once. It had been his intention, whenhe came home after dinner that night, to try to restore thebalance of things by going to bed early. He had sat up longer thanhe had intended, because he had been thinking about this letter. 

Immediately upon his arrival in America, Bill had sought out alawyer and instructed him to write to Elizabeth Boyd, offering herone-half of the late Ira Nutcombe's money. He had had time duringthe voyage to think the whole matter over, and this seemed to himthe only possible course. He could not keep it all. He would feellike the despoiler of the widow and the orphan. Nor would it befair to Claire to give it all up. If he halved the legacyeverybody would be satisfied. 

That at least had been his view until Elizabeth's reply hadarrived. It was this reply that lay on the table--a brief, formalnote, setting forth Miss Boyd's absolute refusal to accept anyportion of the money. This was a development which Bill had notforeseen, and he was feeling baffled. What was the next step? Hehad smoked many pipes in the endeavour to find an answer to thisproblem, and was lighting another when the door-bell rang. 

He opened the door and found himself confronting an extraordinarilytall and thin young man in evening-dress. 

Lord Dawlish was a little startled. He had taken it for granted, when the bell rang, that his visitor was Tom, the liftman fromdownstairs, a friendly soul who hailed from London and had beendropping in at intervals during the past two days to acquire thelatest news from his native land. He stared at this changelinginquiringly. The solution of the mystery came with the stranger'sfirst words--

'Is Gates in?'

He spoke eagerly, as if Gates were extremely necessary to hiswell-being. It distressed Lord Dawlish to disappoint him, butthere was nothing else to be done. 

'Gates is in London, ' he said. 

'What! When did he go there?'

'About four months ago. '

'May I come in a minute?'

'Yes, rather, do. '

He led the way into the sitting-room. The stranger gave abruptlyin the middle, as if he were being folded up by some invisibleagency, and in this attitude sank into a chair, where he lay backlooking at Bill over his knees, like a sorrowful sheep peeringover a sharp-pointed fence. 

'You're from England, aren't you?'

'Yes. '

'Been in New York long?'

'Only a couple of days. '

The stranger folded himself up another foot or so until his kneeswere higher than his head, and lit a cigarette. 

'The curse of New York, ' he said, mournfully, 'is the wayeverything changes in it. You can't take your eyes off it for aminute. The population's always shifting. It's like a railwaystation. You go away for a bit and come back and try to find yourold pals, and they're all gone: Ike's in Arizona, Mike's in asanatorium, Spike's in jail, and nobody seems to know where therest of them have got to. I came up from the country two days ago, expecting to find the old gang along Broadway the same as ever, and I'm dashed if I've been able to put my hands on one of them!Not a single, solitary one of them! And it's only six months sinceI was here last. '

Lord Dawlish made sympathetic noises. 

'Of course, ' proceeded the other, 'the time of year may havesomething to do with it. Living down in the country you lose countof time, and I forgot that it was July, when people go out of thecity. I guess that must be what happened. I used to know all sortsof fellows, actors and fellows like that, and they're all awaysomewhere. I tell you, ' he said, with pathos, 'I never knew Icould be so infernally lonesome as I have been these last twodays. If I had known what a rotten time I was going to have Iwould never have left Brookport. '

'Brookport!'

'It's a place down on Long Island. '

Bill was not by nature a plotter, but the mere fact of travellingunder an assumed name had developed a streak of wariness in him. He checked himself just as he was about to ask his companion if hehappened to know a Miss Elizabeth Boyd, who also lived atBrookport. It occurred to him that the question would invite acounter-question as to his own knowledge of Miss Boyd, and he knewthat he would not be able to invent a satisfactory answer to thatoffhand. 

'This evening, ' said the thin young man, resuming his dirge, 'Iwas sweating my brain to try to think of somebody I could hunt upin this ghastly, deserted city. It isn't so easy, you know, tothink of fellows' names and addresses. I can get the names allright, but unless the fellow's in the telephone-book, I'm done. Well, I was trying to think of some of my pals who might still bearound the place, and I remembered Gates. Remembered his address, too, by a miracle. You're a pal of his, of course?'

'Yes, I knew him in London. '

'Oh, I see. And when you came over here he lent you his flat? Bythe way, I didn't get your name?'

'My name's Chalmers. '

'Well, as I say, I remembered Gates and came down here to look himup. We used to have a lot of good times together a year ago. Andnow he's gone too!'

'Did you want to see him about anything important?'

'Well, it's important to me. I wanted him to come out to supper. You see, it's this way: I'm giving supper to-night to a girl who'sin that show at the Forty-ninth Street Theatre, a Miss Leonard, and she insists on bringing a pal. She says the pal is a goodsport, which sounds all right--' Bill admitted that it sounded allright. 'But it makes the party three. And of all the infernalthings a party of three is the ghastliest. '

Having delivered himself of this undeniable truth the strangerslid a little farther into his chair and paused. 'Look here, whatare you doing to-night?' he said. 

'I was thinking of going to bed. '

'Going to bed!' The stranger's voice was shocked, as if he hadheard blasphemy. 'Going to bed at half-past ten in New York! Mydear chap, what you want is a bit of supper. Why don't you comealong?'

Amiability was, perhaps, the leading quality of Lord Dawlish'scharacter. He did not want to have to dress and go out to supper, but there was something almost pleading in the eyes that looked athim between the sharply-pointed knees. 

'It's awfully good of you--' He hesitated. 

'Not a bit; I wish you would. You would be a life-saver. '

Bill felt that he was in for it. He got up. 

'You will?' said the other. 'Good boy! You go and get into someclothes and come along. I'm sorry, what did you say your namewas?'

'Chalmers. '

'Mine's Boyd--Nutcombe Boyd. '

'Boyd!' cried Bill. 

Nutty took his astonishment, which was too great to be concealed, as a compliment. He chuckled. 

'I thought you would know the name if you were a pal of Gates's. Iexpect he's always talking about me. You see, I was pretty wellknown in this old place before I had to leave it. '

Bill walked down the long passage to his bedroom with no trace ofthe sleepiness which had been weighing on him five minutes before. He was galvanized by a superstitious thrill. It was fate, Elizabeth Boyd's brother turning up like this and making friendlyovertures right on top of that letter from her. This astonishingthing could not have been better arranged if he had planned ithimself. From what little he had seen of Nutty he gathered thatthe latter was not hard to make friends with. It would be a simpletask to cultivate his acquaintance. And having done so, he couldrenew negotiations with Elizabeth. The desire to rid himself ofhalf the legacy had become a fixed idea with Bill. He had theimpression that he could not really feel clean again until he hadmade matters square with his conscience in this respect. He feltthat he was probably a fool to take that view of the thing, butthat was the way he was built and there was no getting away fromit. 

This irruption of Nutty Boyd into his life was an omen. It meantthat all was not yet over. He was conscious of a mild surprisethat he had ever intended to go to bed. He felt now as if he neverwanted to go to bed again. He felt exhilarated. 

In these days one cannot say that a supper-party is actually givenin any one place. Supping in New York has become a peripateticpastime. The supper-party arranged by Nutty Boyd was scheduled tostart at Reigelheimer's on Forty-second Street, and it was therethat the revellers assembled. 

Nutty and Bill had been there a few minutes when Miss DaisyLeonard arrived with her friend. And from that moment Bill wasnever himself again. 

The Good Sport was, so to speak, an outsize in Good Sports. Sheloomed up behind the small and demure Miss Leonard like a linertowed by a tug. She was big, blonde, skittish, and exuberant; shewore a dress like the sunset of a fine summer evening, and sheeffervesced with spacious good will to all men. She was one ofthose girls who splash into public places like stones into quietpools. Her form was large, her eyes were large, her teeth werelarge, and her voice was large. She overwhelmed Bill. She hit hisastounded consciousness like a shell. She gave him a buzzing inthe ears. She was not so much a Good Sport as some kind of anexplosion. 

He was still reeling from the spiritual impact with this femaletidal wave when he became aware, as one who, coming out of aswoon, hears voices faintly, that he was being addressed by MissLeonard. To turn from Miss Leonard's friend to Miss Leonardherself was like hearing the falling of gentle rain after athunderstorm. For a moment he revelled in the sense of beingsoothed; then, as he realized what she was saying, he startedviolently. Miss Leonard was looking at him curiously. 

'I beg your pardon?' said Bill. 

'I'm sure I've met you before, Mr Chalmers. '

'Er--really?'

'But I can't think where. '

'I'm sure, ' said the Good Sport, languishingly, like a sentimentalsiege-gun, 'that if I had ever met Mr Chalmers before I shouldn'thave forgotten him. '

'You're English, aren't you?' asked Miss Leonard. 

'Yes. '

The Good Sport said she was crazy about Englishmen. 

'I thought so from your voice. '

The Good Sport said that she was crazy about the English accent. 

'It must have been in London that I met you. I was in the revue atthe Alhambra last year. '

'By George, I wish I had seen you!' interjected the infatuatedNutty. 

The Good Sport said that she was crazy about London. 

'I seem to remember, ' went on Miss Leonard, 'meeting you out atsupper. Do you know a man named Delaney in the Coldstream Guards?'

Bill would have liked to deny all knowledge of Delaney, though thelatter was one of his best friends, but his natural honestyprevented him. 

'I'm sure I met you at a supper he gave at Oddy's one Fridaynight. We all went on to Covent Garden. Don't you remember?'

'Talking of supper, ' broke in Nutty, earning Bill's heartygratitude thereby, 'where's the dashed head-waiter? I want to findmy table. '

He surveyed the restaurant with a melancholy eye. 

'Everything changed!' He spoke sadly, as Ulysses might have donewhen his boat put in at Ithaca. 'Every darned thing differentsince I was here last. New waiter, head-waiter I never saw beforein my life, different-coloured carpet--'

'Cheer up, Nutty, old thing!' said Miss Leonard. 'You'll feelbetter when you've had something to eat. I hope you had the senseto tip the head-waiter, or there won't be any table. Funny howthese places go up and down in New York. A year ago the wholemanagement would turn out and kiss you if you looked like spendinga couple of dollars here. Now it costs the earth to get in atall. '

'Why's that?' asked Nutty. 

'Lady Pauline Wetherby, of course. Didn't you know this was whereshe danced?'

'Never heard of her, ' said Nutty, in a sort of ecstasy of wistfulgloom. 'That will show you how long I've been away. Who is she?'

Miss Leonard invoked the name of Mike. 

'Don't you ever get the papers in your village, Nutty?'

'I never read the papers. I don't suppose I've read a paper foryears. I can't stand 'em. Who is Lady Pauline Wetherby?'

'She does Greek dances--at least, I suppose they're Greek. Theyall are nowadays, unless they're Russian. She's an Englishpeeress. '

Miss Leonard's friend said she was crazy about these picturesqueold English families; and they went in to supper. 

 * * * * *

Looking back on the evening later and reviewing its leadingfeatures, Lord Dawlish came to the conclusion that he nevercompletely recovered from the first shock of the Good Sport. Hewas conscious all the time of a dream-like feeling, as if he werewatching himself from somewhere outside himself. From someconning-tower in this fourth dimension he perceived himself eatingbroiled lobster and drinking champagne and heard himself bearingan adequate part in the conversation; but his movements werelargely automatic. 

Time passed. It seemed to Lord Dawlish, watching from without, that things were livening up. He seemed to perceive a quickeningof the _tempo_ of the revels, an added abandon. Nutty wasgetting quite bright. He had the air of one who recalls the goodold days, of one who in familiar scenes re-enacts the joys of hisvanished youth. The chastened melancholy induced by many months offetching of pails of water, of scrubbing floors with a mop, and ofjumping like a firecracker to avoid excited bees had been purgedfrom him by the lights and the music and the wine. He was tellinga long anecdote, laughing at it, throwing a crust of bread at anadjacent waiter, and refilling his glass at the same time. It isnot easy to do all these things simultaneously, and the fact thatNutty did them with notable success was proof that he was pickingup. 

Miss Daisy Leonard was still demure, but as she had just slipped apiece of ice down the back of Nutty's neck one may assume that shewas feeling at her ease and had overcome any diffidence or shynesswhich might have interfered with her complete enjoyment of thefestivities. As for the Good Sport, she was larger, blonder, andmore exuberant than ever and she was addressing someone as 'Bill'. 

Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon of the evening, as itadvanced, was the change it wrought in Lord Dawlish's attitudetoward this same Good Sport. He was not conscious of the beginningof the change; he awoke to the realization of it suddenly. At thebeginning of supper his views on her had been definite and clear. When they had first been introduced to each other he had had astunned feeling that this sort of thing ought not to be allowed atlarge, and his battered brain had instinctively recalled that lineof Tennyson: 'The curse is come upon me. ' But now, warmed withfood and drink and smoking an excellent cigar, he found that agentler, more charitable mood had descended upon him. 

He argued with himself in extenuation of the girl's peculiaridiosyncrasies. Was it, he asked himself, altogether her faultthat she was so massive and spoke as if she were addressing anopen-air meeting in a strong gale? Perhaps it was hereditary. Perhaps her father had been a circus giant and her mother thestrong woman of the troupe. And for the unrestraint of her mannerdefective training in early girlhood would account. He began toregard her with a quiet, kindly commiseration, which in its turnchanged into a sort of brotherly affection. He discovered that heliked her. He liked her very much. She was so big and jolly androbust, and spoke in such a clear, full voice. He was glad thatshe was patting his hand. He was glad that he had asked her tocall him Bill. 

People were dancing now. It has been claimed by patriots thatAmerican dyspeptics lead the world. This supremacy, though partlydue, no doubt, to vast supplies of pie absorbed in youth, may beattributed to a certain extent also to the national habit ofdancing during meals. Lord Dawlish had that sturdy reverence forhis interior organism which is the birthright of every Briton. Andat the beginning of supper he had resolved that nothing shouldinduce him to court disaster in this fashion. But as the time wenton he began to waver. 

The situation was awkward. Nutty and Miss Leonard were repeatedlyleaving the table to tread the measure, and on these occasions theGood Sport's wistfulness was a haunting reproach. Nor was thespectacle of Nutty in action without its effect on Bill'sresolution. Nutty dancing was a sight to stir the most stolid. 

Bill wavered. The music had started again now, one of thosetwentieth-century eruptions of sound that begin like a train goingthrough a tunnel and continue like audible electric shocks, thatset the feet tapping beneath the table and the spine thrillingwith an unaccustomed exhilaration. Every drop of blood in his bodycried to him 'Dance!' He could resist no longer. 

'Shall we?' he said. 

Bill should not have danced. He was an estimable young man, honest, amiable, with high ideals. He had played an excellent gameof football at the university; his golf handicap was plus two; andhe was no mean performer with the gloves. But we all of us haveour limitations, and Bill had his. He was not a good dancer. Hewas energetic, but he required more elbow room than the ordinarydancing floor provides. As a dancer, in fact, he closely resembleda Newfoundland puppy trying to run across a field. 

It takes a good deal to daunt the New York dancing man, but theinvasion of the floor by Bill and the Good Sport undoubtedlycaused a profound and even painful sensation. Linked together theyformed a living projectile which might well have intimidated thebravest. Nutty was their first victim. They caught him inmid-step--one of those fancy steps which he was just beginning toexhume from the cobwebbed recesses of his memory--and swept himaway. After which they descended resistlessly upon a stoutgentleman of middle age, chiefly conspicuous for the glitteringdiamonds which he wore and the stoical manner in which he dancedto and fro on one spot of not more than a few inches in size inthe exact centre of the room. He had apparently staked out a claimto this small spot, a claim which the other dancers had decided torespect; but Bill and the Good Sport, coming up from behind, hadhim two yards away from it at the first impact. Then, scatteringapologies broadcast like a medieval monarch distributing largesse, Bill whirled his partner round by sheer muscular force and beganwhat he intended to be a movement toward the farther corner, skirting the edge of the floor. It was his simple belief thatthere was more safety there than in the middle. 

He had not reckoned with Heinrich Joerg. Indeed, he was not awareof Heinrich Joerg's existence. Yet fate was shortly to bring themtogether, with far-reaching results. Heinrich Joerg had left theFatherland a good many years before with the prudent purpose ofescaping military service. After various vicissitudes in the landof his adoption--which it would be extremely interesting torelate, but which must wait for a more favourable opportunity--hehad secured a useful and not ill-recompensed situation as one ofthe staff of Reigelheimer's Restaurant. He was, in point of fact, a waiter, and he comes into the story at this point bearing a trayfull of glasses, knives, forks, and pats of butter on littleplates. He was setting a table for some new arrivals, and in orderto obtain more scope for that task he had left the crowded aislebeyond the table and come round to the edge of the dancing-floor. 

He should not have come out on to the dancing-floor. In anothermoment he was admitting that himself. For just as he was loweringhis tray and bending over the table in the pursuance of hisprofessional duties, along came Bill at his customary high rateof speed, propelling his partner before him, and for the firsttime since he left home Heinrich was conscious of a regret that hehad done so. There are worse things than military service!

It was the table that saved Bill. He clutched at it and itsupported him. He was thus enabled to keep the Good Sport fromfalling and to assist Heinrich to rise from the morass of glasses, knives, and pats of butter in which he was wallowing. Then, thedance having been abandoned by mutual consent, he helped his nowsomewhat hysterical partner back to their table. 

Remorse came upon Bill. He was sorry that he had danced; sorrythat he had upset Heinrich; sorry that he had subjected the GoodSport's nervous system to such a strain; sorry that so much glasshad been broken and so many pats of butter bruised beyond repair. But of one thing, even in that moment of bleak regrets, he wasdistinctly glad, and that was that all these things had takenplace three thousand miles away from Claire Fenwick. He had notbeen appearing at his best, and he was glad that Claire had notseen him. 

As he sat and smoked the remains of his cigar, while renewing hisapologies and explanations to his partner and soothing the ruffledNutty with well-chosen condolences, he wondered idly what Clairewas doing at that moment. 

Claire at that moment, having been an astonished eye-witness ofthe whole performance, was resuming her seat at a table at theother end of the room. 

7

There were two reasons why Lord Dawlish was unaware of ClaireFenwick's presence at Reigelheimer's Restaurant: Reigelheimer's issituated in a basement below a ten-storey building, and in orderto prevent this edifice from falling into his patrons' soup theproprietor had been obliged to shore up his ceiling with massivepillars. One of these protruded itself between the table whichNutty had secured for his supper-party and the table at whichClaire was sitting with her friend, Lady Wetherby, and her steameracquaintance, Mr Dudley Pickering. That was why Bill had not seenClaire from where he sat; and the reason that he had not seen herwhen he left his seat and began to dance was that he was not oneof your dancers who glance airily about them. When Bill danced hedanced. 

He would have been stunned with amazement if he had known thatClaire was at Reigelheimer's that night. And yet it would havebeen remarkable, seeing that she was the guest of Lady Wetherby, if she had not been there. When you have travelled three thousandmiles to enjoy the hospitality of a friend who does near-Greekdances at a popular restaurant, the least you can do is to go tothe restaurant and watch her step. Claire had arrived with PollyWetherby and Mr Dudley Pickering at about the time when Nutty, hisgloom melting rapidly, was instructing the waiter to open thesecond bottle. 

Of Claire's movements between the time when she secured her ticketat the steamship offices at Southampton and the moment when sheentered Reigelheimer's Restaurant it is not necessary to give adetailed record. She had had the usual experiences of the oceanvoyager. She had fed, read, and gone to bed. The only notableevent in her trip had been her intimacy with Mr Dudley Pickering. 

Dudley Pickering was a middle-aged Middle Westerner, who by thriftand industry had amassed a considerable fortune out of automobiles. Everybody spoke well of Dudley Pickering. The papers spoke well ofhim, Bradstreet spoke well of him, and he spoke well of himself. Onboard the liner he had poured the saga of his life into Claire'sattentive ears, and there was a gentle sweetness in her manner whichencouraged Mr Pickering mightily, for he had fallen in love withClaire on sight. 

It would seem that a schoolgirl in these advanced days would knowwhat to do when she found that a man worth millions was in lovewith her; yet there were factors in the situation which gaveClaire pause. Lord Dawlish, of course, was one of them. She hadnot mentioned Lord Dawlish to Mr Pickering, and--doubtless lestthe sight of it might pain him--she had abstained from wearing herengagement ring during the voyage. But she had not completely lostsight of the fact that she was engaged to Bill. Another thing thatcaused her to hesitate was the fact that Dudley Pickering, howeverwealthy, was a most colossal bore. As far as Claire couldascertain on their short acquaintance, he had but one subject ofconversation--automobiles. 

To Claire an automobile was a shiny thing with padded seats, inwhich you rode if you were lucky enough to know somebody who ownedone. She had no wish to go more deeply into the matter. DudleyPickering's attitude towards automobiles, on the other hand, morenearly resembled that of a surgeon towards the human body. To hima car was something to dissect, something with an interior bothinteresting to explore and fascinating to talk about. Clairelistened with a radiant display of interest, but she had herdoubts as to whether any amount of money would make it worth whileto undergo this sort of thing for life. She was still in thishesitant frame of mind when she entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant, and it perturbed her that she could not come to some definitedecision on Mr Pickering, for those subtle signs which every womancan recognize and interpret told her that the latter, having pavedthe way by talking machinery for a week, was about to boil overand speak of higher things. 

At the very next opportunity, she was certain, he intended topropose. 

The presence of Lady Wetherby acted as a temporary check on thedevelopment of the situation, but after they had been seated attheir table a short time the lights of the restaurant weresuddenly lowered, a coloured limelight became manifest near theroof, and classical music made itself heard from the fiddles inthe orchestra. 

You could tell it was classical, because the banjo players wereleaning back and chewing gum; and in New York restaurants onlydeath or a classical speciality can stop banjoists. 

There was a spatter of applause, and Lady Wetherby rose. 

'This, ' she explained to Claire, 'is where I do my stunt. Watchit. I invented the steps myself. Classical stuff. It's called theDream of Psyche. '

It was difficult for one who knew her as Claire did to associatePolly Wetherby with anything classical. On the road, in England, when they had been fellow-members of the Number Two company of_The Heavenly Waltz_, Polly had been remarkable chiefly for afund of humorous anecdote and a gift, amounting almost to genius, for doing battle with militant landladies. And renewing theirintimacy after a hiatus of a little less than a year Claire hadfound her unchanged. 

It was a truculent affair, this Dream of Psyche. It was not so muchdancing as shadow boxing. It began mildly enough to the accompanimentof _pizzicato_ strains from the orchestra--Psyche in her trainingquarters. _Rallentando_--Psyche punching the bag. _Diminuendo_--Psycheusing the medicine ball. _Presto_--Psyche doing road work. _Forte_--Thenight of the fight. And then things began to move to a climax. Withthe fiddles working themselves to the bone and the piano boundingunder its persecutor's blows, Lady Wetherby ducked, side-stepped, rushed, and sprang, moving her arms in a manner that may have beenclassical Greek, but to the untrained eye looked much more like thelast round of some open-air bout. 

It was half-way through the exhibition, when you could smell thesawdust and hear the seconds shouting advice under the ropes, thatClaire, who, never having seen anything in her life like thisextraordinary performance, had been staring spellbound, awoke tothe realization that Dudley Pickering was proposing to her. Itrequired a woman's intuition to divine this fact, for Mr Pickeringwas not coherent. He did not go straight to the point. He rambled. But Claire understood, and it came to her that this thing hadtaken her before she was ready. In a brief while she would have togive an answer of some sort, and she had not clearly decided whatanswer she meant to give. 

Then, while he was still skirting his subject, before he hadwandered to what he really wished to say, the music stopped, theapplause broke out again, and Lady Wetherby returned to the tablelike a pugilist seeking his corner at the end of a round. Her facewas flushed and she was breathing hard. 

'They pay me money for that!' she observed, genially. 'Can youbeat it?'

The spell was broken. Mr Pickering sank back in his chair in apunctured manner. And Claire, making monosyllabic replies to herfriend's remarks, was able to bend her mind to the task of findingout how she stood on this important Pickering issue. That he wouldreturn to the attack as soon as possible she knew; and the nexttime she must have her attitude clearly defined one way or theother. 

Lady Wetherby, having got the Dance of Psyche out of her system, and replaced it with a glass of iced coffee, was inclined forconversation. 

'Algie called me up on the phone this evening, Claire. '

'Yes?'

Claire was examining Mr Pickering with furtive side glances. Hewas not handsome, nor, on the other hand, was he repulsive. 'Undistinguished' was the adjective that would have described him. He was inclined to stoutness, but not unpardonably so; his hairwas thin, but he was not aggressively bald; his face was dull, butcertainly not stupid. There was nothing in his outer man which hismillions would not offset. As regarded his other qualities, hisconversation was certainly not exhilarating. But that also wasnot, under certain conditions, an unforgivable thing. No, lookingat the matter all round and weighing it with care, the realobstacle, Claire decided, was not any quality or lack of qualitiesin Dudley Pickering--it was Lord Dawlish and the simple fact thatit would be extremely difficult, if she discarded him in favour of aricher man without any ostensible cause, to retain her self-respect. 

'I think he's weakening. '

'Yes?'

Yes, that was the crux of the matter. She wanted to retain hergood opinion of herself. And in order to achieve that end it wasessential that she find some excuse, however trivial, for breakingoff the engagement. 

'Yes?'

A waiter approached the table. 

'Mr Pickering!'

The thwarted lover came to life with a start. 

'Eh?'

'A gentleman wishes to speak to you on the telephone. '

'Oh, yes. I was expecting a long-distance call, Lady Wetherby, andleft word I would be here. Will you excuse me?'

Lady Wetherby watched him as he bustled across the room. 

'What do you think of him, Claire?'

'Mr Pickering? I think he's very nice. '

'He admires you frantically. I hoped he would. That's why I wantedyou to come over on the same ship with him. '

'Polly! I had no notion you were such a schemer. '

'I would just love to see you two fix it up, ' continued LadyWetherby, earnestly. 'He may not be what you might call a genius, but he's a darned good sort; and all his millions help, don'tthey? You don't want to overlook these millions, Claire!'

'I do like Mr Pickering. '

'Claire, he asked me if you were engaged. '

'What!'

'When I told him you weren't, he beamed. Honestly, you've only gotto lift your little finger and--Oh, good Lord, there's Algie!'

Claire looked up. A dapper, trim little man of about forty wasthreading his way among the tables in their direction. It was ayear since Claire had seen Lord Wetherby, but she recognized himat once. He had a red, weather-beaten face with a suspicion ofside-whiskers, small, pink-rimmed eyes with sandy eyebrows, thesmoothest of sandy hair, and a chin so cleanly shaven that it wasdifficult to believe that hair had ever grown there. Although hisevening-dress was perfect in every detail, he conveyed a subtlesuggestion of horsiness. He reached the table and sat down withoutinvitation in the vacant chair. 

'Pauline!' he said, sorrowfully. 

'Algie!' said Lady Wetherby, tensely. 'I don't know what you'vecome here for, and I don't remember asking you to sit down and putyour elbows on that table, but I want to begin by saying that Iwill not be called Pauline. My name's Polly. You've got a way ofsaying Pauline, as if it were a gentlemanly cuss-word, that makesme want to scream. And while you're about it, why don't you sayhow-d'you-do to Claire? You ought to remember her, she was mybridesmaid. '

'How do you do, Miss Fenwick. Of course, I remember you perfectly. I'm glad to see you again. '

'And now, Algie, what is it? Why have you come here?' LordWetherby looked doubtfully at Claire. 'Oh, that's all right, ' saidLady Wetherby. 'Claire knows all about it--I told her. '

'Then I appeal to Miss Fenwick, if, as you say, she knows all thefacts of the case, to say whether it is reasonable to expect a manof my temperament, a nervous, highly-strung artist, to welcome thepresence of snakes at the breakfast-table. I trust that I am notan unreasonable man, but I decline to admit that a long, greensnake is a proper thing to keep about the house. '

'You had no right to strike the poor thing. '

'In that one respect I was perhaps a little hasty. I happened tobe stirring my tea at the moment his head rose above the edge ofthe table. I was not entirely myself that morning. My nerves weresomewhat disordered. I had lain awake much of the night planning acanvas. '

'Planning a what?'

'A canvas--a picture. '

Lady Wetherby turned to Claire. 

'I want you to listen to Algie, Claire. A year ago he did not knowone end of a paint-brush from the other. He didn't know he had anynerves. If you had brought him the artistic temperament on a platewith a bit of watercress round it, he wouldn't have recognized it. And now, just because he's got a studio, he thinks he has a rightto go up in the air if you speak to him suddenly and run about theplace hitting snakes with teaspoons as if he were Michelangelo!'

'You do me an injustice. It is true that as an artist I developedlate--But why should we quarrel? If it will help to pave the wayto a renewed understanding between us, I am prepared to apologizefor striking Clarence. That is conciliatory, I think, MissFenwick?'

'Very. '

'Miss Fenwick considers my attitude conciliatory. '

'It's something, ' admitted Lady Wetherby, grudgingly. 

Lord Wetherby drained the whisky-and-soda which Dudley Pickeringhad left behind him, and seemed to draw strength from it, for henow struck a firmer note. 

'But, though expressing regret for my momentary loss of self-control, I cannot recede from the position I have taken up as regards theessential unfitness of Clarence's presence in the home. '

Lady Wetherby looked despairingly at Claire. 

'The very first words I heard Algie speak, Claire, were atNewmarket during the three o'clock race one May afternoon. He washanging over the rail, yelling like an Indian, and what he wasyelling was, "Come on, you blighter, come on! By the living jingo, Brickbat wins in a walk!" And now he's talking about receding fromessential positions! Oh, well, he wasn't an artist then!'

'My dear Pau--Polly. I am purposely picking my words on thepresent occasion in order to prevent the possibility of furthermisunderstandings. I consider myself an ambassador. '

'You would be shocked if you knew what I consider you!'

'I am endeavouring to the best of my ability--'

'Algie, listen to me! I am quite calm at present, but there's noknowing how soon I may hit you with a chair if you don't come toearth quick and talk like an ordinary human being. What is it thatyou are driving at?'

'Very well, it's this: I'll come home if you get rid of thatsnake. '

'Never!'

'It's surely not much to ask of you, Polly?'

'I won't!'

Lord Wetherby sighed. 

'When I led you to the altar, ' he said, reproachfully, 'youpromised to love, honour, and obey me. I thought at the time itwas a bit of swank!'

Lady Wetherby's manner thawed. She became more friendly. 

'When you talk like that, Algie, I feel there's hope for you afterall. That's how you used to talk in the dear old days when you'dcome to me to borrow half-a-crown to put on a horse! Listen, nowthat at last you seem to be getting more reasonable; I wish Icould make you understand that I don't keep Clarence for sheerlove of him. He's a commercial asset. He's an advertisement. Youmust know that I have got to have something to--'

'I admit that may be so as regards the monkey, Eustace. Monkeys asaids to publicity have, I believe, been tested and found valuableby other artistes. I am prepared to accept Eustace, but the snakeis worthless. '

'Oh, you don't object to Eustace, then?'

'I do strongly, but I concede his uses. '

'You would live in the same house as Eustace?'

'I would endeavour to do so. But not in the same house as Eustaceand Clarence. '

There was a pause. 

'I don't know that I'm so stuck on Clarence myself, ' said LadyWetherby, weakly. 

'My darling!'

'Wait a minute. I've not said I would get rid of him. '

'But you will?'

Lady Wetherby's hesitation lasted but a moment. 'All right, Algie. I'll send him to the Zoo to-morrow. '

'My precious pet!'

A hand, reaching under the table, enveloped Claire's in a lovingclasp. 

From the look on Lord Wetherby's face she supposed that he wasunder the delusion that he was bestowing this attention on hiswife. 

'You know, Algie, darling, ' said Lady Wetherby, melting completely, 'when you get that yearning note in your voice I just flop and takethe full count. '

'My sweetheart, when I saw you doing that Dream ofWhat's-the-girl's-bally-name dance just now, it was all I coulddo to keep from rushing out on to the floor and hugging you. '

'Algie!'

'Polly!'

'Do you mind letting go of my hand, please, Lord Wetherby?' saidClaire, on whom these saccharine exchanges were beginning to havea cloying effect. 

For a moment Lord Wetherby seemed somewhat confused, but, pullinghimself together, he covered his embarrassment with a pompositythat blended poorly with his horsy appearance. 

'Married life, Miss Fenwick, ' he said, 'as you will no doubtdiscover some day, must always be a series of mutual compromises, of cheerful give and take. The lamp of love--'

His remarks were cut short by a crash at the other end of theroom. There was a sharp cry and the splintering of glass. Theplace was full of a sudden, sharp confusion. They jumped up withone accord. Lady Wetherby spilled her iced coffee; Lord Wetherbydropped the lamp of love. Claire, who was nearest the pillar thatseparated them from the part of the restaurant where the accidenthad happened, was the first to see what had taken place. 

A large man, dancing with a large girl, appeared to have chargedinto a small waiter, upsetting him and his tray and the contentsof his tray. The various actors in the drama were now engaged insorting themselves out from the ruins. The man had his back towardher, and it seemed to Claire that there was something familiarabout that back. Then he turned, and she recognized Lord Dawlish. 

She stood transfixed. For a moment surprise was her only emotion. How came Bill to be in America? Then other feelings blended withher surprise. It is a fact that Lord Dawlish was lookingsingularly uncomfortable. 

Claire's eyes travelled from Bill to his partner and took in withone swift feminine glance her large, exuberant blondeness. Thereis no denying that, seen with a somewhat biased eye, the GoodSport resembled rather closely a poster advertising a revue. 

Claire returned to her seat. Lord and Lady Wetherby continued totalk, but she allowed them to conduct the conversation without herassistance. 

'You're very quiet, Claire, ' said Polly. 

'I'm thinking. '

'A very good thing, too, so they tell me. I've never tried itmyself. Algie, darling, he was a bad boy to leave his nice home, wasn't he? He didn't deserve to have his hand held. '

8

It had been a great night for Nutty Boyd. If the vision of hissister Elizabeth, at home at the farm speculating sadly on thewhereabouts of her wandering boy, ever came before his mental eyehe certainly did not allow it to interfere with his appreciationof the festivities. At Frolics in the Air, whither they movedafter draining Reigelheimer's of what joys it had to offer, and atPeale's, where they went after wearying of Frolics in the Air, hewas in the highest spirits. It was only occasionally that therecollection came to vex him that this could not last, that--sincehis Uncle Ira had played him false--he must return anon to theplace whence he had come. 

Why, in a city of all-night restaurants, these parties ever breakup one cannot say, but a merciful Providence sees to it that theydo, and just as Lord Dawlish was contemplating an eternity of thecompany of Nutty and his two companions, the end came. MissLeonard said that she was tired. Her friend said that it was ashame to go home at dusk like this, but, if the party was going tobe broken up, she supposed there was nothing else for it. Bill wastoo sleepy to say anything. 

The Good Sport lived round the corner, and only required LordDawlish's escort for a couple of hundred yards. But Miss Leonard'shotel was in the neighbourhood of Washington Square, and it wasNutty's pleasing task to drive her thither. Engaged thus, hereceived a shock that electrified him. 

'That pal of yours, ' said Miss Leonard, drowsily--she washalf-asleep--'what did you say his name was?'

'Chalmers, he told me. I only met him to-night. '

'Well, it isn't; it's something else. It'--Miss Leonardyawned--'it's Lord something. '

'How do you mean, "Lord something"?'

'He's a lord--at least, he was when I met him in London. '

'Are you sure you met him in London?'

'Of course I'm sure. He was at that supper Captain Delaney gave atOddy's. There can't be two men in England who dance like that!'

The recollection of Bill's performance stimulated Miss Leonardinto a temporary wakefulness, and she giggled. 

'He danced just the same way that night in London. I wish I couldremember his name. I almost had it a dozen times tonight. It'ssomething with a window in it. '

'A window?' Nutty's brain was a little fatigued and he felthimself unequal to grasping this. 'How do you mean, a window?'

'No, not a window--a door! I knew it was something about a house. I know now, his name's Lord Dawlish. '

Nutty's fatigue fell from him like a garment. 

'It can't be!'

'It is. '

Miss Leonard's eyes had closed and she spoke in a muffled voice. 

'Are you sure?'

'Mm-mm. '

'By gad!'

Nutty was wide awake now and full of inquiries; but his companionunfortunately was asleep, and he could not put them to her. Agentleman cannot prod a lady--and his guest, at that--in the ribsin order to wake her up and ask her questions. Nutty sat back andgave himself up to feverish thought. 

He could think of no reason why Lord Dawlish should have come toAmerica calling himself William Chalmers, but that was no reasonwhy he should not have done so. And Daisy Leonard, who all alonghad remembered meeting him in London, had identified him. 

Nutty was convinced. Arriving finally at Miss Leonard's hotel, hewoke her up and saw her in at the door; then, telling the man todrive to the lodgings of his new friend, he urged his mind torapid thought. He had decided as a first step in the following upof this matter to invite Bill down to Elizabeth's farm, and thethought occurred to him that this had better be done to-night, forhe knew by experience that on the morning after these littlejaunts he was seldom in the mood to seek people out and invitethem to go anywhere. 

All the way to the flat he continued to think, and it waswonderful what possibilities there seemed to be in this littlescheme of courting the society of the man who had robbed him ofhis inheritance. He had worked on Bill's feelings so successfullyas to elicit a loan of a million dollars, and was just proceedingto marry him to Elizabeth, when the cab stopped with the suddensharpness peculiar to New York cabs, and he woke up, to findhimself at his destination. 

Bill was in bed when the bell rang, and received his late host inhis pyjamas, wondering, as he did so, whether this was the NewYork custom, to foregather again after a party had been broken up, and chat till breakfast. But Nutty, it seemed, had come with amotive, not from a desire for more conversation. 

'Sorry to disturb you, old man, ' said Nutty. 'I looked in to tellyou that I was going down to the country to-morrow. I wonderedwhether you would care to come and spend a day or two with us. '

Bill was delighted. This was better than he had hoped for. 

'Rather!' he said. 'Thanks awfully!'

'There are plenty of trains in the afternoon, ' said Nutty. 'Idon't suppose either of us will feel like getting up early. I'llcall for you here at half-past six, and we'll have an early dinnerand catch the seven-fifteen, shall we? We live very simply, youknow. You won't mind that?'

'My dear chap!'

'That's all right, then, ' said Nutty, closing the door. 'Goodnight. '

9

Elizabeth entered Nutty's room and, seating herself on the bed, surveyed him with a bright, quiet eye that drilled holes in herbrother's uneasy conscience. This was her second visit to him thatmorning. She had come an hour ago, bearing breakfast on a tray, and had departed without saying a word. It was this uncannysilence of hers even more than the effects--which still lingered--ofhis revels in the metropolis that had interfered with Nutty'senjoyment of the morning meal. Never a hearty breakfaster, he hadfound himself under the influence of her wordless disapprovalphysically unable to consume the fried egg that confronted him. Hehad given it one look; then, endorsing the opinion which he hadonce heard a character in a play utter in somewhat similarcircumstances--that there was nothing on earth so homely as anegg--he had covered it with a handkerchief and tried to pullhimself round with hot tea. He was now smoking a sad cigarette andwaiting for the blow to fall. 

Her silence had puzzled him. Though he had tried to give her noopportunity of getting him alone on the previous evening when hehad arrived at the farm with Lord Dawlish, he had fully expectedthat she would have broken in upon him with abuse and recriminationin the middle of the night. Yet she had not done this, nor had shespoken to him when bringing him his breakfast. These things foundtheir explanation in Elizabeth's character, with which Nutty, thoughhe had known her so long, was but imperfectly acquainted. Elizabethhad never been angrier with her brother, but an innate goodness ofheart had prevented her falling upon him before he had had rest andrefreshment. 

She wanted to massacre him, but at the same time she told herselfthat the poor dear must be feeling very, very ill, and should havea reasonable respite before the slaughter commenced. 

It was plain that in her opinion this respite had now lasted longenough. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she hadclosed the door, then leaned a little forward and spoke. 

'Now, Nutty!'

The wretched youth attempted bluster. 

'What do you mean--"Now, Nutty"? What's the use of looking at afellow like that and saying "Now, Nutty"? Where's the sense--'

His voice trailed off. He was not a very intelligent young man, but even he could see that his was not a position where righteousindignation could be assumed with any solid chance of success. Asa substitute he tried pathos. 

'Oo-oo, my head does ache!'

'I wish it would burst, ' said his sister, unkindly. 

'That's a nice thing to say to a fellow!'

'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have said it--'

'Oh, well!'

'Only I couldn't think of anything worse. '

It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too. As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far downas he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and woundedsort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation. 

'Nutty, ' she said, 'I've struggled for years against theconviction that you were a perfect idiot. I've forced myself, against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, butnow I give in. I can't believe you are responsible for youractions. Don't imagine that I am going to heap you with reproachesbecause you sneaked off to New York. I'm not even going to tellyou what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, lettingme know where you were. I can understand all that. You weredisappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and Isuppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just runaway and come back again with a headache, I'd have treated youlike the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are toomuch, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for anindefinite period is one of them. I'm not saying anything againstMr Chalmers personally. I haven't had time to find out much abouthim, except that he's an Englishman; but he looks respectable. Which, as he's a friend of yours, is more or less of a miracle. '

She raised her eyebrows as a faint moan of protest came frombeneath the sheets. 

'You surely, ' she said, 'aren't going to suggest at this hour ofthe day, Nutty, that your friends aren't the most horrible set ofpests outside a prison? Not that it's likely after all thesemonths that they are outside a prison. You know perfectly wellthat while you were running round New York you collected the mostpernicious bunch of rogues that ever fastened their talons into asilly child who ought never to have been allowed out without hisnurse. ' After which complicated insult Elizabeth paused forbreath, and there was silence for a space. 

'Well, as I was saying, I know nothing against this Mr Chalmers. Probably his finger-prints are in the Rogues' Gallery, and he isbetter known to the police as Jack the Blood, or something, but hehasn't shown that side of him yet. My point is that, whoever heis, I do not want him or anybody else coming and taking up hisabode here while I have to be cook and housemaid too. I object tohaving a stranger on the premises spying out the nakedness of theland. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty, my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindlythink up at your earliest convenience some plan for politelyejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--becauseif you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. '

And, completely restored to good humour by her own eloquence, Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was a trait in her characterwhich she had often lamented, that she could not succeed inkeeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end. Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse wouldtickle her sense of humour, or the appearance of her victim wouldbecome too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion itwas the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath thebedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weakattempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound ofher laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm aftera thunderstorm. 

'I mean it, ' she said. 'It really is too bad of you! You mighthave had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if weare in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I'm going tomake myself very unpopular with this Mr Chalmers of yours. By thisevening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I amabout to persecute him. '

'What do you mean?' asked Nutty, alarmed. 

'I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of thehives. '

'For goodness' sake!'

'After that I shall--with his assistance--transfer some honey. Andafter that--well, I don't suppose he will be alive by then. If heis, I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do, after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful. '

A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth didnot hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs. 

Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds. It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come uponhim. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under thesame roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and itshould be simple to establish such friendly relations as wouldenable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider herrefusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle's money. Hehad seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night, but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was somethingabout the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a manat his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he likedElizabeth, and he liked this dwelling-place of hers. He was quitewilling to stay on here indefinitely. 

Nature had done well by Flack's. The house itself was morepleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owingto the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventionalflattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so manyimprovements that the general effect was unusually delightful. 

Bill perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. Hethrew away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight, shewas more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat andwholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard's friend. Andsuch was the reaction from what might be termed his laterReigelheimer's mood that if he had been asked to define femininecharm in a few words, he would have replied without hesitationthat it was the quality of being as different as possible in everyway from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification. She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to whichit was a joy to listen. 

'I was just admiring your place, ' he said. 

'Its appearance is the best part of it, ' said Elizabeth. 'It is adeceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can't bathe init because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren'tgo near them because of the ticks. '

'Ticks?'

'They jump on you and suck your blood, ' said Elizabeth, carelessly. 'And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors afterdusk because of the mosquitoes. ' She paused to mark the effect ofthese horrors on her visitor. 'And then, of course, ' she went on, as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag andcatch the next train, 'the bees are always stinging you. I hope youare not afraid of bees, Mr Chalmers?'

'Rather not. Jolly little chaps!'

A gleam appeared in Elizabeth's eye. 

'If you are so fond of them, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming andhelping me open one of the hives?'

'Rather!'

'I'll go and fetch the things. '

She went into the house and ran up to Nutty's room, waking thatsufferer from a troubled sleep. 

'Nutty, he's bitten. '

Nutty sat up violently. 

'Good gracious! What by?'

'You don't understand. What I meant was that I invited your MrChalmers to help me open a hive, and he said "Rather!" and iswaiting to do it now. Be ready to say good-bye to him. If he comesout of this alive, his first act, after bathing the wounds withammonia, will be to leave us for ever. '

'But look here, he's a visitor--'

'Cheer up! He won't be much longer. '

'You can't let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive. When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out ofmyself for a week. '

'That was because you had been smoking. Bees dislike the smell oftobacco. '

'But this fellow may have been smoking. '

'He has just finished a strong cigar. '

'For Heaven's sake!'

'Good-bye, Nutty, dear; I mustn't keep him waiting. '

Lord Dawlish looked with interest at the various implements whichshe had collected when she rejoined him outside. He relieved herof the stool, the smoker, the cotton-waste, the knife, thescrewdriver, and the queen-clipping cage. 

'Let me carry these for you, ' he said, 'unless you've hired avan. '

Elizabeth disapproved of this flippancy. It was out of place inone who should have been trembling at the prospect of doom. 

'Don't you wear a veil for this sort of job?'

As a rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy withher bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but untilto-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter wasthat, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar andfriendly with her by this time and recognized that she came amongthem without hostile intent, it might well happen that among somany thousands there might be one slow-witted enough and obtuseenough not to have grasped this fact. And in such an event a veilwas better than any amount of explanations, for you cannot stickto pure reason when quarrelling with bees. 

But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herselfin this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor, and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards. 

'Oh, no, ' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Areyou?'

'Rather not!'

'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'

'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I couldleave most of the doing to the bee. '

Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado. She did not speak again until they reached the hives. 

In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What, heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at closequarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--beessallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, beestrampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to passthe time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic. Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniaturehigh-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of beingtremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actualwork. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and itpleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump. 

'Don't be afraid, ' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have nostings. '

'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'

'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seventhousand eight hundred nostrils, you know. '

'That gives him a sporting chance of smelling a cigar--what? Imean to say, if he misses with eight hundred of his nostrils he'sapt to get it with the other thirty-seven thousand. '

Elizabeth was feeling annoyed with her bees. They resolutelydeclined to sting this young man. Bees flew past him, bees flewinto him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly infront of him, as who should say, 'What have we here?' but not asingle bee molested him. Yet when Nutty, poor darling, went withina dozen yards of the hives he never failed to suffer for it. Inher heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was becauseNutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completelyand behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dreamof Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the momentshe put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness whichdoes so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed herannoyance with her unbidden guest. 

Without commenting on his last remark, she took the smoker fromhim and set to work. She inserted in the fire-chamber a handful ofthe cotton-waste and set fire to it; then with a preliminary puffor two of the bellows to make sure that the conflagration had notgone out, she aimed the nozzle at the front door of the hive. 

The results were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who weredoing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily backinto the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as otherbees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials withfoolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and morepronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directedmore smoke through the crack. This done, she removed the cover, set it down on the grass beside her, lifted the super-cover andapplied more smoke, and raised her eyes to where Bill stoodwatching. His face wore a smile of pleased interest. 

Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She resented his smile. Shehung the smoker on the side of the hive. 

'The stool, please, and the screw-driver. '

She seated herself beside the hive and began to loosen the outsidesection. Then taking the brood-frame by the projecting ends, shepulled it out and handed it to her companion. She did it as onewho plays an ace of trumps. 

'Would you mind holding this, Mr Chalmers?'

This was the point in the ceremony at which the wretched Nutty hadbroken down absolutely, and not inexcusably, considering theseverity of the test. The surface of the frame was black with whatappeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of somesort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had beenlighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparentto the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed ofmass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered andjostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking Citymen trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-pastfive in the afternoon. 

Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, droppedthe frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreatexpedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, moreprudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seethingframe with interest, but without apparent panic. 

'I want you to help me here, Mr Chalmers. You have stronger wriststhan I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly. '

'I've got it. '

'Jerk it down as sharply as you can to within a few inches of thedoor, and then jerk it up again. You see, that shakes them off. '

'It would me, ' agreed Bill, cordially, 'if I were a bee. '

Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumpsand by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation didnot daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey, would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it downwith a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had neverbeen able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower, asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entranceto the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate thecause of the earthquake. 

Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest. 

'It has always been a mystery to me, ' he said, 'why they neverseem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them. They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose theonly way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenlydropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out forhome that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it'sa ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I knowwhen I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they wouldbury my remains or cremate them. '

'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly. 'Have you done it before?'

Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly. 

'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent ayear on a bee-farm once, learning the business. '

For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabethwas conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she hadschemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity ofdoing what he had done a thousand times before!

And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed thatthere are certain things in life which shall act as hoops ofsteel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one ofthese; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest ofall is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Noteven a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion. 

The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between manand man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed tothem that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look intoeach other's eyes and say 'My brother!'

The effect of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. Theycrashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosiveshell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at thefarm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to hisbecoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking andwashing-up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. Shereflected that he was there. He could stay there as long as heliked, the longer the better. 

'You have really kept bees?'

'Not actually kept them, worse luck! I couldn't raise the capital. You see, money was a bit tight--'

'I know, ' said Elizabeth, sympathetically. 'Money is like that, isn't it?'

'The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish totry anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through. Some very decent old boys got me another job. '

'What job?'

'Secretary to a club. '

'In London, of course?'

'Yes. '

'And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!'

Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great. 

'I should have liked it, ' said Bill, wistfully. 'London's allright, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have awhacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere--'

He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himselfforgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past fewweeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about notbeing able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buydozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this businessof being a millionaire. 

'That's my ambition too, ' said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was thevery first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty's views onfarming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to anenthusiast. 'If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, andin the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, andtake them out to it and let them wallow in it. '

'Wouldn't they do a lot of damage?'

'I shouldn't mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage. If they ruined the place beyond repair I'd go and buy another. 'She laughed. 'It isn't so impossible as it sounds. I came verynear being able to do it. ' She paused for a moment, but went onalmost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimatetroubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? 'Anuncle of mine--'

Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had asense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done someparticularly low crime and was contemplating another. 

'--An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all thefarms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord. I wonder ifyou have heard of him?--Lord Dawlish--got hold of uncle somehowand induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him. '

She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that hewas crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take otherpeople's misfortunes to heart like that. 

'I don't know how he managed it, ' she went on. 'He must haveworked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn't a weak sortof man whom you could do what you liked with. He was veryobstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing itsomehow, and then'--her eyes blazed at the recollection--'he hadthe insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half. I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally Irefused it. '

'But--but--but why?'

'Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don't think I was going toaccept charity from the man who had cheated me?'

'But--but perhaps he didn't mean it like that. What I mean to sayis--as charity, you know. '

'He did! But don't let's talk of it any more. It makes me angry tothink of him, and there's no use spoiling a lovely day like thisby getting angry. '

Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be sodifficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he hadnot revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point ofdoing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why thatcurt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer's letter. Well, there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time mightaccomplish something. 

'What do you want me to do next?' he said. 'Why did you open thehive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?'

Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had butone motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him. She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided. Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive abrother-mason. 

She faced him bravely. 

'I didn't want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I openedthat hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brotherdid, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would driveyou away, because I thought then that I didn't want you down here. I'm ashamed of myself, and I don't know where I'm getting thenerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on--on and on andon. '

Bill was aghast. 

'Good Lord! If I'm in the way--'

'You aren't in the way. '

'But you said--'

'But don't you see that it's so different now? I didn't know thenthat you were fond of bees. You must stay, if my telling youhasn't made you feel that you want to catch the next train. Youwill save our lives--mine and Nutty's too. Oh, dear, you'rehesitating! You're trying to think up some polite way of gettingout of the place! You mustn't go, Mr Chalmers; you simply muststay. There aren't any mosquitoes, no jellyfish--nothing! Atleast, there are; but what do they matter? You don't mind them. Doyou play golf?'

'Yes. '

'There are links here. You can't go until you've tried them. Whatis your handicap?'

'Plus two. '

'So is mine. '

'By Jove! Really?'

Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes dancing. 

'Why, we're practically twin souls, Mr Chalmers! Tell me, I knowyour game is nearly perfect, but if you have a fault, is it atendency to putt too hard?'

'Why, by Jove--yes, it is!'

'I knew it. Something told me. It's the curse of my life too!Well, after that you can't go away. '

'But if I'm in the way--'

'In the way! Mr Chalmers, will you come in now and help me washthe breakfast things?'

'Rather!' said Lord Dawlish. 

10

In the days that followed their interrupted love-scene atReigelheimer's Restaurant that night of Lord Dawlish's unfortunateencounter with the tray-bearing waiter, Dudley Pickering'sbehaviour had perplexed Claire Fenwick. She had taken it forgranted that next day at the latest he would resume the offer ofhis hand, heart, and automobiles. But time passed and he made nomove in that direction. Of limousine bodies, carburettors, spark-plugs, and inner tubes he spoke with freedom and eloquence, but the subject of love and marriage he avoided absolutely. Hisbehaviour was inexplicable. 

Claire was piqued. She was in the position of a hostess who hasswept and garnished her house against the coming of a guest andwaits in vain for that guest's arrival. She made up her mind whatto do when Dudley Pickering proposed to her next time, andthereby, it seemed to her, had removed all difficulties in theway of that proposal. She little knew her Pickering!

Dudley Pickering was not a self-starter in the motordrome of love. He needed cranking. He was that most unpromising of matrimonialmaterial, a shy man with a cautious disposition. If he overcamehis shyness, caution applied the foot-brake. If he succeeded inforgetting caution, shyness shut off the gas. At Reigelheimer'ssome miracle had made him not only reckless but un-self-conscious. Possibly the Dream of Psyche had gone to his head. At any rate, hehad been on the very verge of proposing to Claire when theinterruption had occurred, and in bed that night, reviewing theaffair, he had been appalled at the narrowness of his escape fromtaking a definite step. Except in the way of business, he was aman who hated definite steps. He never accepted even a dinnerinvitation without subsequent doubts and remorse. The consequencewas that, in the days that followed the Reigelheimer episode, whatLord Wetherby would have called the lamp of love burned rather lowin Mr Pickering, as if the acetylene were running out. He stilladmired Claire intensely and experienced disturbing emotions whenhe beheld her perfect tonneau and wonderful headlights; but heregarded her with a cautious fear. Although he sometimes dreamedsentimentally of marriage in the abstract, of actual marriage, ofmarriage with a flesh-and-blood individual, of marriage thatinvolved clergymen and 'Voices that Breathe o'er Eden, ' andgiggling bridesmaids and cake, Dudley Pickering was afraid with aterror that woke him sweating in the night. His shyness shrankfrom the ceremony, his caution jibbed at the mysteries of marriedlife. So his attitude toward Claire, the only girl who hadsucceeded in bewitching him into the opening words of an actualproposal, was a little less cordial and affectionate than if shehad been a rival automobile manufacturer. 

Matters were in this state when Lady Wetherby, who, having dancedclassical dances for three months without a break, required arest, shifted her camp to the house which she had rented for thesummer at Brookport, Long Island, taking with her Algie, herhusband, the monkey Eustace, and Claire and Mr Pickering, herguests. The house was a large one, capable of receiving a bigparty, but she did not wish to entertain on an ambitious scale. The only other guest she proposed to put up was Roscoe Sherriff, her press agent, who was to come down as soon as he could get awayfrom his metropolitan duties. 

It was a pleasant and romantic place, the estate which LadyWetherby had rented. Standing on a hill, the house looked downthrough green trees on the gleaming waters of the bay. Smoothlawns and shady walks it had, and rustic seats beneath spreadingcedars. Yet for all its effect on Dudley Pickering it might havebeen a gasworks. He roamed the smooth lawns with Claire, and satwith her on the rustic benches and talked guardedly of lubricatingoil. There were moments when Claire was almost impelled to forfeitwhatever chance she might have had of becoming mistress of thirtymillion dollars and a flourishing business, for the satisfactionof administering just one whole-hearted slap on his round andthinly-covered head. 

And then Roscoe Sherriff came down, and Dudley Pickering, who fordays had been using all his resolution to struggle against thesiren, suddenly found that there was no siren to struggle against. No sooner had the press agent appeared than Claire deserted himshamelessly and absolutely. She walked with Roscoe Sherriff. MrPickering experienced the discomfiting emotions of the man whopushes violently against an abruptly-yielding door, or treadsheavily on the top stair where there is no top stair. He wasshaken, and the clamlike stolidity which he had assumed asprotection gave way. 

Night had descended upon Brookport. Eustace, the monkey, was inhis little bed; Lord Wetherby in the smoking-room. It was Sunday, the day of rest. Dinner was over, and the remainder of the partywere gathered in the drawing-room, with the exception of MrPickering, who was smoking a cigar on the porch. A full moonturned Long Island into a fairyland. 

Gloom had settled upon Dudley Pickering and he smoked sadly. Allrather stout automobile manufacturers are sad when there is a fullmoon. It makes them feel lonely. It stirs their hearts to thoughtsof love. Marriage loses its terrors for them, and they thinkwistfully of hooking some fair woman up the back and buying herhats. Such was the mood of Mr Pickering, when through the dimnessof the porch there appeared a white shape, moving softly towardhim. 

'Is that you, Mr Pickering?'

Claire dropped into the seat beside him. From the drawing-roomcame the soft tinkle of a piano. The sound blended harmoniouslywith the quiet peace of the night. Mr Pickering let his cigar goout and clutched the sides of his chair. 

 Oi'll--er--sing thee saw-ongs ov Arrabee, Und--ah ta-ales of farrr Cash-mee-eere, Wi-ild tales to che-eat thee ovasigh Und charrrrm thee to-oo a tear-er. 

Claire gave a little sigh. 

'What a beautiful voice Mr Sherriff has!'

Dudley Pickering made no reply. He thought Roscoe Sherriff had abeastly voice. He resented Roscoe Sherriff's voice. He objected toRoscoe Sherriff's polluting this fair night with his cacophony. 

'Don't you think so, Mr Pickering?'

'Uh-huh. '

'That doesn't sound very enthusiastic. Mr Pickering, I want you totell me something. Have I done anything to offend you?'

Mr Pickering started violently. 

'Eh?'

'I have seen so little of you these last few days. A little whileago we were always together, having such interesting talks. Butlately it has seemed to me that you have been avoiding me. '

A feeling of helplessness swept over Mr Pickering. He was vaguelyconscious of a sense of being treated unjustly, of there being aflaw in Claire's words somewhere if he could only find it, but thesudden attack had deprived him of the free and unfettered use ofhis powers of reasoning. He gurgled wordlessly, and Claire wenton, her low, sad voice mingling with the moonlight in a mannerthat caused thrills to run up and down his spine. He feltparalyzed. Caution urged him to make some excuse and follow itwith a bolt to the drawing-room, but he was physically incapableof taking the excellent advice. Sometimes when you are out in yourPickering Gem or your Pickering Giant the car hesitates, falters, and stops dead, and your chauffeur, having examined the carburettor, turns to you and explains the phenomenon in these words: 'Themixture is too rich. ' So was it with Mr Pickering now. The moonlightalone might not have held him; Claire's voice alone might not haveheld him; but against the two combined he was powerless. Themixture was too rich. He sat and breathed a little stertorously, and there came to him that conviction that comes to all of us nowand then, that we are at a crisis of our careers and that themoment through which we are living is a moment big with fate. 

The voice in the drawing-room stopped. Having sung songs of Arabyand tales of far Cashmere, Mr Roscoe Sherriff was refreshinghimself with a comic paper. But Lady Wetherby, seated at thepiano, still touched the keys softly, and the sound increased therichness of the mixture which choked Dudley Pickering's spiritualcarburettor. It is not fair that a rather stout manufacturershould be called upon to sit in the moonlight while a beautifulgirl, to the accompaniment of soft music, reproaches him withhaving avoided her. 

'I should be so sorry, Mr Pickering, if I had done anything tomake a difference between us--'

'Eh?' said Mr Pickering. 

'I have so few real friends over here. '

Claire's voice trembled. 

'I--I get a little lonely, a little homesick sometimes--'

She paused, musing, and a spasm of pity rent the bosom beneathDudley Pickering's ample shirt. There was a buzzing in his earsand a lump choked his throat. 

'Of course, I am loving the life here. I think America'swonderful, and nobody could be kinder than Lady Wetherby. But--Imiss my home. It's the first time I have been away for so long. Ifeel very far away sometimes. There are only three of us at home:my mother, myself, and my little brother--little Percy. '

Her voice trembled again as she spoke the last two words, and itwas possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as asort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in Englishliterature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful childpining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Orcurvature of the spine. 

He found Claire's hand in his. He supposed dully he must havereached out for it. Soft and warm it lay there, while the universepaused breathlessly. And then from the semi-darkness beside himthere came the sound of a stifled sob, and his fingers closed asif someone had touched a button. 

'We have always been such chums. He is only ten--such a dear boy!He must be missing me--'

She stopped, and simultaneously Dudley Pickering began to speak. 

There is this to be said for your shy, cautious man, that on therare occasions when he does tap the vein of eloquence that veinbecomes a geyser. It was as if after years of silence andmonosyllables Dudley Pickering was endeavouring to restore theaverage. 

He began by touching on his alleged neglect and avoidance ofClaire. He called himself names and more names. He plumbed thedepth of repentance and remorse. Proceeding from this, heeulogized her courage, the pluck with which she presented asmiling face to the world while tortured inwardly by separationfrom her little brother Percy. He then turned to his own feelings. 

But there are some things which the historian should hold sacred, some things which he should look on as proscribed material for hispen, and the actual words of a stout manufacturer of automobilesproposing marriage in the moonlight fall into this class. It isenough to say that Dudley Pickering was definite. He left no roomfor doubt as to his meaning. 

'Dudley!'

She was in his arms. He was embracing her. She was his--the latestmodel, self-starting, with limousine body and all the newest. No, no, his mind was wandering. She was his, this divine girl, thisqueen among women, this--

From the drawing-room Roscoe Sherriff's voice floated out inunconscious comment--

 Good-bye, boys! I'm going to be married to-morrow. Good-bye, boys! I'm going from sunshine to sorrow. No more sitting up till broad daylight. 

Did a momentary chill cool the intensity of Dudley Pickering'sardour? If so he overcame it instantly. He despised RoscoeSherriff. He flattered himself that he had shown Roscoe Sherriffpretty well who was who and what was what. 

They would have a wonderful wedding--dozens of clergymen, scoresof organs playing 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden, ' platoons ofbridesmaids, wagonloads of cake. And then they would go back toDetroit and live happy ever after. And it might be that in time tocome there would be given to them little runabouts. 

 I'm going to a life Of misery and strife, So good-bye, boys!

Hang Roscoe Sherriff! What did he know about it! Confound him!Dudley Pickering turned a deaf ear to the song and wallowed in hishappiness. 

Claire walked slowly down the moonlit drive. She had removedherself from her Dudley's embraces, for she wished to be alone, tothink. The engagement had been announced. All that part of it wasover--Dudley's stammering speech, the unrestrained delight ofPolly Wetherby, the facetious rendering of 'The Wedding Glide' onthe piano by Roscoe Sherriff, and it now remained for her to tryto discover a way of conveying the news to Bill. 

It had just struck her that, though she knew that Bill was inAmerica, she had not his address. 

What was she to do? She must tell him. Otherwise it might quiteeasily happen that they might meet in New York when she returnedthere. She pictured the scene. She saw herself walking with DudleyPickering. Along came Bill. 'Claire, darling!' ... Heavens, whatwould Dudley think? It would be too awful! She couldn't explain. No, somehow or other, even if she put detectives on his trail, shemust find him, and be off with the old love now that she was onwith the new. 

She reached the gate and leaned over it. And as she did so someonein the shadow of a tall tree spoke her name. A man came into thelight, and she saw that it was Lord Dawlish. 

11

Lord Dawlish had gone for a moonlight walk that night because, like Claire, he wished to be alone to think. He had fallen with apleasant ease and smoothness into the rather curious life lived atElizabeth Boyd's bee-farm. A liking for picnics had lingered inhim from boyhood, and existence at Flack's was one prolongedpicnic. He found that he had a natural aptitude for the moremuscular domestic duties, and his energy in this directionenchanted Nutty, who before his advent had had a monopoly of thesetasks. 

Nor was this the only aspect of the situation that pleased Nutty. When he had invited Bill to the farm he had had a vague hope thatgood might come of it, but he had never dreamed that things wouldturn out as well as they promised to do, or that such a warm andimmediate friendship would spring up between his sister and theman who had diverted the family fortune into his own pocket. Billand Elizabeth were getting on splendidly. They were together allthe time--walking, golfing, attending to the numerous needs of thebees, or sitting on the porch. Nutty's imagination began to runaway with him. He seemed to smell the scent of orange-blossoms, tohear the joyous pealing of church bells--in fact, with thedifference that it was not his own wedding that he was anticipating, he had begun to take very much the same view of the future that wasabout to come to Dudley Pickering. 

Elizabeth would have been startled and embarrassed if she couldhave read his thoughts, for they might have suggested to her thatshe was becoming a great deal fonder of Bill than the shortness oftheir acquaintance warranted. But though she did not fail toobserve the strangeness of her brother's manner, she traced it toanother source than the real one. Nutty had a habit of startingback and removing himself when, entering the porch, he perceivedthat Bill and his sister were already seated there. His ownimpression on such occasions was that he was behaving withconsummate tact. Elizabeth supposed that he had had some sort of aspasm. 

Lord Dawlish, if he had been able to diagnose correctly the almostpaternal attitude which had become his host's normal manner thesedays, would have been equally embarrassed but less startled, forconscience had already suggested to him from time to time that hehad been guilty of a feeling toward Elizabeth warmer than anyfeeling that should come to an engaged man. Lying in bed at theend of his first week at the farm, he reviewed the progress of hisfriendship with her, and was amazed at the rapidity with which ithad grown. 

He could not conceal it from himself--Elizabeth appealed to him. Being built on a large scale himself, he had always been attractedby small women. There was a smallness, a daintiness, a livelinessabout Elizabeth that was almost irresistible. She was so capable, so cheerful in spite of the fact that she was having a hard time. And then their minds seemed to blend so remarkably. There were noodd corners to be smoothed away. Never in his life had he felt sosupremely at his ease with one of the opposite sex. He lovedClaire--he drove that fact home almost angrily to himself--but hewas forced to admit that he had always been aware of something inthe nature of a barrier between them. Claire was querulous attimes, and always a little too apt to take offence. He had neverbeen able to talk to her with that easy freedom that Elizabethinvited. Talking to Elizabeth was like talking to an attractiveversion of oneself. It was a thing to be done with perfectconfidence, without any of that apprehension which Claire inspiredlest the next remark might prove the spark to cause an explosion. But Claire was the girl he loved--there must be no mistake aboutthat. 

He came to the conclusion that the key to the situation was thefact that Elizabeth was American. He had read so much of theAmerican girl, her unaffectedness, her genius for easy comradeship. Well, this must be what the writer fellows meant. He had happenedupon one of those delightful friendships without any suspicion ofsex in them of which the American girl had the monopoly. Yes, thatmust be it. It was a comforting explanation. It accounted for hisfeeling at a loose end whenever he was away from Elizabeth for asmuch as half an hour. It accounted for the fact that they understoodeach other so well. It accounted for everything so satisfactorilythat he was able to get to sleep that night after all. 

But next morning--for his conscience was one of those persistentconsciences--he began to have doubts again. Nothing clings like asuspicion in the mind of a conscientious young man that he hasbeen allowing his heart to stray from its proper anchorage. 

Could it be that he was behaving badly toward Claire? The thoughtwas unpleasant, but he could not get rid of it. He extractedClaire's photograph from his suit-case and gazed solemnly upon it. 

At first he was shocked to find that it only succeeded inconvincing him that Elizabeth was quite the most attractive girlhe ever had met. The photographer had given Claire rather a severelook. He had told her to moisten the lips with the tip of thetongue and assume a pleasant smile, with the result that sheseemed to glare. She had a rather markedly aggressive look, queenly perhaps, but not very comfortable. 

But there is no species of self-hypnotism equal to that of a manwho gazes persistently at a photograph with the preconceived ideathat he is in love with the original of it. Little by little Billfound that the old feeling began to return. He persevered. By theend of a quarter of an hour he had almost succeeded in capturinganew that first fine careless rapture which, six months ago, hadcaused him to propose to Claire and walk on air when she acceptedhim. 

He continued the treatment throughout the day, and by dinner-timehad arranged everything with his conscience in the most satisfactorymanner possible. He loved Claire with a passionate fervour; heliked Elizabeth very much indeed. He submitted this diagnosis toconscience, and conscience graciously approved and accepted it. 

It was Sunday that day. That helped. There is nothing like Sundayin a foreign country for helping a man to sentimental thoughts ofthe girl he has left behind him elsewhere. And the fact that therewas a full moon clinched it. Bill was enabled to go for anafter-dinner stroll in a condition of almost painful loyalty to Claire. 

From time to time, as he walked along the road, he took out thephotograph and did some more gazing. The last occasion on which hedid this was just as he emerged from the shadow of a large treethat stood by the roadside, and a gush of rich emotion rewardedhim. 

'Claire!' he murmured. 

An exclamation at his elbow caused him to look up. There, leaningover a gate, the light of the moon falling on her beautiful face, stood Claire herself!

12

In trying interviews, as in sprint races, the start is everything. It was the fact that she recovered more quickly from herastonishment that enabled Claire to dominate her scene with Bill. She had the advantage of having a less complicated astonishment torecover from, for, though it was a shock to see him there when shehad imagined that he was in New York, it was not nearly such ashock as it was to him to see her here when he had imagined thatshe was in England. She had adjusted her brain to the situationwhile he was still gaping. 

'Well, Bill?'

This speech in itself should have been enough to warn Lord Dawlishof impending doom. As far as love, affection, and tenderness areconcerned, a girl might just as well hit a man with an axe as say'Well, Bill?' to him when they have met unexpectedly in themoonlight after long separation. But Lord Dawlish was too shatteredby surprise to be capable of observing _nuances_. If his love hadever waned or faltered, as conscience had suggested earlier in theday, it was at full blast now. 

'Claire!' he cried. 

He was moving to take her in his arms, but she drew back. 

'No, really, Bill!' she said; and this time it did filter throughinto his disordered mind that all was not well. A man who is agood deal dazed at the moment may fail to appreciate a remark like'Well, Bill?' but for a girl to draw back and say, 'No, really, Bill!' in a tone not exactly of loathing, but certainly of painedaversion, is a deliberately unfriendly act. The three short words, taken in conjunction with the movement, brought him up with assharp a turn as if she had punched him in the eye. 

'Claire! What's the matter?'

She looked at him steadily. She looked at him with a sort ofqueenly woodenness, as if he were behind a camera with a velvetbag over his head and had just told her to moisten the lips withthe tip of the tongue. Her aspect staggered Lord Dawlish. Acursory inspection of his conscience showed nothing but purity andwhiteness, but he must have done something, or she would not bestaring at him like this. 

'I don't understand!' was the only remark that occurred to him. 

'Are you sure?'

'What do you mean?'

'I was at Reigelheimer's Restaurant--Ah!'

The sudden start which Lord Dawlish had given at the opening wordsof her sentence justified the concluding word. Innocent as hisbehaviour had been that night at Reigelheimer's, he had been gladat the time that he had not been observed. It now appeared that hehad been observed, and it seemed to him that Long Island suddenlyflung itself into a whirling dance. He heard Claire speaking along way off: 'I was there with Lady Wetherby. It was she whoinvited me to come to America. I went to the restaurant to see herdance--and I saw you!'

With a supreme effort Bill succeeded in calming down the excitedlandscape. He willed the trees to stop dancing, and they camereluctantly to a standstill. The world ceased to swim and flicker. 

'Let me explain, ' he said. 

The moment he had said the words he wished he could recall them. Their substance was right enough; it was the sound of them thatwas wrong. They sounded like a line from a farce, where the erringhusband has been caught by the masterful wife. They wereridiculous. Worse than being merely ridiculous, they created anatmosphere of guilt and evasion. 

'Explain! How can you explain? It is impossible to explain. I sawyou with my own eyes making an exhibition of yourself with ahorrible creature in salmon-pink. I'm not asking you who she is. I'm not questioning you about your relations with her at all. Idon't care who she was. The mere fact that you were at a publicrestaurant with a person of that kind is enough. No doubt youthink I am making a great deal of fuss about a very ordinarything. You consider that it is a man's privilege to do thesethings, if he can do them without being found out. But it endedeverything so far as I am concerned. Am I unreasonable? I don'tthink so. You steal off to America, thinking I am in England, andbehave like this. How could you do that if you really loved me?It's the deceit of it that hurts me. '

Lord Dawlish drew in a few breaths of pure Long Island air, but hedid not speak. He felt helpless. If he were to be allowed towithdraw into the privacy of the study and wrap a cold, wet towelabout his forehead and buckle down to it, he knew that he coulddraft an excellent and satisfactory explanation of his presence atReigelheimer's with the Good Sport. But to do it on the spur ofthe moment like this was beyond him. 

Claire was speaking again. She had paused for a while after herrecent speech, in order to think of something else to say; andduring this pause had come to her mind certain excerpts from oneof those admirable articles on love, by Luella Delia Philpotts, which do so much to boost the reading public of the United Statesinto the higher planes. She had read it that afternoon in theSunday paper, and it came back to her now. 

'I may be hypersensitive, ' she said, dropping her voice from theaccusatory register to the lower tones of pathos, 'but I have suchhigh ideals of love. There can be no true love where there is notperfect trust. Trust is to love what--'

She paused again. She could not remember just what Luella DeliaPhilpotts had said trust was to love. It was something extremelyneat, but it had slipped her memory. 

'A woman has the right to expect the man she is about to marry toregard their troth as a sacred obligation that shall keep him aspure as a young knight who has dedicated himself to the quest ofthe Holy Grail. And I find you in a public restaurant, dancingwith a creature with yellow hair, upsetting waiters, andstaggering about with pats of butter all over you. '

Here a sense of injustice stung Lord Dawlish. It was true thatafter his regrettable collision with Heinrich, the waiter, he haddiscovered butter upon his person, but it was only one pat. Clairehad spoken as if he had been festooned with butter. 

'I am not angry with you, only disappointed. What has happened hasshown me that you do not really love me, not as I think of love. Oh, I know that when we are together you think you do, but absenceis the test. Absence is the acid-test of love that separates thebase metal from the true. After what has happened, we can't go onwith our engagement. It would be farcical. I could never feel thatway toward you again. We shall always be friends, I hope. But asfor love--love is not a machine. It cannot be shattered and puttogether again. '

She turned and began to walk up the drive. Hanging over the top ofthe gate like a wet sock, Lord Dawlish watched her go. Theinterview was over, and he could not think of one single thing tosay. Her white dress made a patch of light in the shadows. Shemoved slowly, as if weighed down by sad thoughts, like one who, asLuella Delia Philpotts beautifully puts it, paces with measuredstep behind the coffin of a murdered heart. The bend of the drivehid her from his sight. 

About twenty minutes later Dudley Pickering, smoking sentimentallyin the darkness hard by the porch, received a shock. He was musingtenderly on his Claire, who was assisting him in the process bysinging in the drawing-room, when he was aware of a figure, thesinister figure of a man who, pressed against the netting of theporch, stared into the lighted room beyond. 

Dudley Pickering's first impulse was to stride briskly up to theintruder, tap him on the shoulder, and ask him what the devil hewanted; but a second look showed him that the other was built ontoo ample a scale to make this advisable. He was a large, fit-looking intruder. 

Mr Pickering was alarmed. There had been the usual epidemic ofburglaries that season. Houses had been broken into, valuablepossessions removed. In one case a negro butler had been struckover the head with a gas-pipe and given a headache. In thesecircumstances, it was unpleasant to find burly strangers lookingin at windows. 

'Hi!' cried Mr Pickering. 

The intruder leaped a foot. It had not occurred to Lord Dawlish, when in an access of wistful yearning he had decided to sneak upto the house in order to increase his anguish by one last glimpseof Claire, that other members of the household might be out in thegrounds. He was just thinking sorrowfully, as he listened to themusic, how like his own position was to that of the hero ofTennyson's _Maud_--a poem to which he was greatly addicted, when Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit him like atorpedo. 

He turned in agitation. Mr Pickering having prudently elected tostay in the shadows, there was no one to be seen. It was as if thevoice of conscience had shouted 'Hi!' at him. He was justwondering if he had imagined the whole thing, when he perceivedthe red glow of a cigar and beyond it a shadowy form. 

It was not the fact that he was in an equivocal position, staringinto a house which did not belong to him, with his feet onsomebody else's private soil, that caused Bill to act as he did. It was the fact that at that moment he was not feeling equal toconversation with anybody on any subject whatsoever. It did notoccur to him that his behaviour might strike a nervous stranger assuspicious. All he aimed at was the swift removal of himself froma spot infested by others of his species. He ran, and MrPickering, having followed him with the eye of fear, went rathershakily into the house, his brain whirling with professionalcracksmen and gas pipes and assaulted butlers, to relate hisadventure. 

'A great, hulking, ruffianly sort of fellow glaring in at thewindow, ' said Mr Pickering. 'I shouted at him and he ran like arabbit. '

'Gee! Must have been one of the gang that's been working downhere, ' said Roscoe Sherriff. 'There might be a quarter of a columnin that, properly worked, but I guess I'd better wait until heactually does bust the place. '

'We must notify the police!'

'Notify the police, and have them butt in and stop the thing andkill a good story!' There was honest amazement in the Press-agent'svoice. 'Let me tell you, it isn't so easy to get publicitythese days that you want to go out of your way to stop it!'

Mr Pickering was appalled. A dislike of this man, which had grownless vivid since his scene with Claire, returned to him withredoubled force. 

'Why, we may all be murdered in our beds!' he cried. 

'Front-page stuff!' said Roscoe Sherriff, with gleaming eyes. 'Andthree columns at least. Fine!'

It might have consoled Lord Dawlish somewhat, as he lay awakethat night, to have known that the man who had taken Claire fromhim--though at present he was not aware of such a man'sexistence--also slept ill. 

13

Lady Wetherby sat in her room, writing letters. The rest of thehousehold were variously employed. Roscoe Sherriff was prowlingabout the house, brooding on campaigns of publicity. DudleyPickering was walking in the grounds with Claire. In a littleshack in the woods that adjoined the high-road, which he hadconverted into a temporary studio, Lord Wetherby was working on apicture which he proposed to call 'Innocence', a study of a smallItalian child he had discovered in Washington Square. LadyWetherby, who had been taken to see the picture, had suggested'The Black Hand's Newest Recruit' as a better title than the oneselected by the artist. 

It is a fact to be noted that of the entire household only LadyWetherby could fairly be described as happy. It took very little tomake Lady Wetherby happy. Fine weather, good food, and a completeabstention from classical dancing--give her these and she asked nomore. She was, moreover, delighted at Claire's engagement. Itseemed to her, for she had no knowledge of the existence of LordDawlish, a genuine manifestation of Love's Young Dream. She likedDudley Pickering and she was devoted to Claire. It made her happyto think that it was she who had brought them together. 

But of the other members of the party, Dudley Pickering wasunhappy because he feared that burglars were about to raid thehouse; Roscoe Sherriff because he feared they were not; Clairebecause, now that the news of the engagement was out, it seemed tobe everybody's aim to leave her alone with Mr Pickering, whoseundiluted society tended to pall. And Lord Wetherby was unhappybecause he found Eustace, the monkey, a perpetual strain upon hisartistic nerves. It was Eustace who had driven him to his shack inthe woods. He could have painted far more comfortably in thehouse, but Eustace had developed a habit of stealing up to him andplucking the leg of his trousers; and an artist simply cannot giveof his best with that sort of thing going on. 

Lady Wetherby wrote on. She was not fond of letter-writing and shehad allowed her correspondence to accumulate; but she wasdisposing of it in an energetic and conscientious way, when theentrance of Wrench, the butler, interrupted her. 

Wrench had been imported from England at the request of LordWetherby, who had said that it soothed him and kept him fromfeeling home-sick to see a butler about the place. Since then hehad been hanging to the establishment as it were by a hair. Hegave the impression of being always on the point of giving notice. There were so many things connected with his position of which hedisapproved. He had made no official pronouncement of the matter, but Lady Wetherby knew that he disapproved of her classicaldancing. His last position had been with the Dowager Duchess ofWaveney, the well-known political hostess, who--even had thesomewhat generous lines on which she was built not prevented thepossibility of such a thing--would have perished rather than dancebarefooted in a public restaurant. Wrench also disapproved ofAmerica. That fact had been made plain immediately upon hisarrival in the country. He had given America one look, and thenhis mind was made up--he disapproved of it. 

'If you please, m'lady!'

Lady Wetherby turned. The butler was looking even more thanusually disapproving, and his disapproval had, so to speak, crystallized, as if it had found some more concrete and definiteobjective than either barefoot dancing or the United States. 

'If you please, m'lady--the hape!'

It was Wrench's custom to speak of Eustace in a tone of restraineddisgust. He disapproved of Eustace. The Dowager Duchess ofWaveney, though she kept open house for members of Parliament, would have drawn the line at monkeys. 

'The hape is behaving very strange, m'lady, ' said Wrench, frostily. 

It has been well said that in this world there is alwayssomething. A moment before, Lady Wetherby had been feelingcompletely contented, without a care on her horizon. It wasfoolish of her to have expected such a state of things to last, for what is life but a series of sharp corners, round each ofwhich Fate lies in wait for us with a stuffed eel-skin? Somethingin the butler's manner, a sort of gloating gloom which heradiated, told her that she had arrived at one of these cornersnow. 

'The hape is seated on the kitchen-sink, m'lady, throwing new-laideggs at the scullery-maid, and cook desired me to step up and askfor instructions. '

'What!' Lady Wetherby rose in agitation. 'What's he doing thatfor?' she asked, weakly. 

A slight, dignified gesture was Wrench's only reply. It was nothis place to analyse the motives of monkeys. 

'Throwing eggs!'

The sight of Lady Wetherby's distress melted the butler's sternreserve. He unbent so far as to supply a clue. 

'As I understand from cook, m'lady, the animal appears to havetaken umbrage at a lack of cordiality on the part of the cat. Itseems that the hape attempted to fondle the cat, but the latterscratched him; being suspicious, ' said Wrench, 'of his _bonafides_. ' He scrutinized the ceiling with a dull eye. 'Whereupon, 'he continued, 'he seized her tail and threw her with considerableforce. He then removed himself to the sink and began to hurl eggsat the scullery-maid. '

Lady Wetherby's mental eye attempted to produce a picture of thescene, but failed. 

'I suppose I had better go down and see about it, ' she said. 

Wrench withdrew his gaze from the ceiling. 

'I think it would be advisable, m'lady. The scullery-maid isalready in hysterics. '

Lady Wetherby led the way to the kitchen. She was wroth withEustace. This was just the sort of thing out of which Algie wouldbe able to make unlimited capital. It weakened her position withAlgie. There was only one thing to do--she must hush it up. 

Her first glance, however, at the actual theatre of war gave herthe impression that matters had advanced beyond the hushing-upstage. A yellow desolation brooded over the kitchen. It was not somuch a kitchen as an omelette. There were eggs everywhere, fromfloor to ceiling. She crunched her way in on a carpet of oozingshells. 

Her entry was a signal for a renewal on a more impressive scale ofthe uproar that she had heard while opening the door. The air wasfull of voices. The cook was expressing herself in Norwegian, theparlour-maid in what appeared to be Erse. On a chair in a cornerthe scullery-maid sobbed and whooped. The odd-job man, who was abaseball enthusiast, was speaking in terms of high praise ofEustace's combined speed and control. 

The only calm occupant of the room was Eustace himself, who, either through a shortage of ammunition or through weariness ofthe pitching-arm, had suspended active hostilities, and was nowlooking down on the scene from a high shelf. There was a broodingexpression in his deep-set eyes. He massaged his right ear withthe sole of his left foot in a somewhat _distrait_ manner. 

'Eustace!' cried Lady Wetherby, severely. 

Eustace lowered his foot and gazed at her meditatively, then atthe odd-job man, then at the scullery-maid, whose voice rose highabove the din. 

'I rather fancy, m'lady, ' said Wrench, dispassionately, 'that theanimal is about to hurl a plate. '

It had escaped the notice of those present that the shelf on whichthe rioter had taken refuge was within comfortable reach of thedresser, but Eustace himself had not overlooked this importantstrategic point. As the butler spoke, Eustace picked up a plateand threw it at the scullery-maid, whom he seemed definitely tohave picked out as the most hostile of the allies. It was a fastinshoot, and hit the wall just above her head. 

''At-a-boy!' said the odd-job man, reverently. 

Lady Wetherby turned on him with some violence. His detachedattitude was the most irritating of the many irritating aspects ofthe situation. She paid this man a weekly wage to do odd jobs. Thecapture of Eustace was essentially an odd job. Yet, instead ofdoing it, he hung about with the air of one who has paid hishalf-dollar and bought his bag of peanuts and has now nothing todo but look on and enjoy himself. 

'Why don't you catch him?' she cried. 

The odd-job man came out of his trance. A sudden realization cameupon him that life was real and life was earnest, and that if hedid not wish to jeopardize a good situation he must bestirhimself. Everybody was looking at him expectantly. It seemed to bedefinitely up to him. It was imperative that, whatever he did, heshould do it quickly. There was an apron hanging over the back ofa chair. More with the idea of doing something than because hethought he would achieve anything definite thereby, he picked upthe apron and flung it at Eustace. Luck was with him. The apronenveloped Eustace just as he was winding up for another inshootand was off his balance. He tripped and fell, clutched at theapron to save himself, and came to the ground swathed in it, giving the effect of an apron mysteriously endowed with life. Thetriumphant odd-job man, pressing his advantage like a goodgeneral, gathered up the ends, converted it into a rude bag, andone more was added to the long list of the victories of the humanover the brute intelligence. 

Everybody had a suggestion now. The cook advocated drowning. Theparlour-maid favoured the idea of hitting the prisoner with abroom-handle. Wrench, eyeing the struggling apron disapprovingly, mentioned that Mr Pickering had bought a revolver that morning. 

'Put him in the coal-cellar, ' said Lady Wetherby. 

Wrench was more far-seeing. 

'If I might offer the warning, m'lady, ' said Wrench, 'not thecellar. It is full of coal. It would be placing temptation in theanimal's way. '

The odd-job man endorsed this. 

'Put him in the garage, then, ' said Lady Wetherby. 

The odd-job man departed, bearing his heaving bag at arm's length. The cook and the parlour-maid addressed themselves to comfortingand healing the scullery-maid. Wrench went off to polish silver, Lady Wetherby to resume her letters. The cat was the last of theparty to return to the normal. She came down from the chimney anhour later covered with soot, demanding restoratives. 

Lady Wetherby finished her letters. She cut them short, forEustace's insurgence had interfered with her flow of ideas. Shewent into the drawing-room, where she found Roscoe Sherriffstrumming on the piano. 

'Eustace has been raising Cain, ' she said. 

The Press-agent looked up hopefully. He had been wearing a ratherpreoccupied air. 

'How's that?' he asked. 

'Throwing eggs and plates in the kitchen. '

The gleam of interest which had come into Roscoe Sherriff's facedied out. 

'You couldn't get more than a fill-in at the bottom of a column onthat, ' he said, regretfully. 'I'm a little disappointed in thatmonk. I hoped he would pan out bigger. Well, I guess we've justgot to give him time. I have an idea that he'll set the house onfire or do something with a punch like that one of these days. Youmustn't get discouraged. Why, that puma I made Valerie Devenishkeep looked like a perfect failure for four whole months. A childcould have played with it. Miss Devenish called me up on thephone, I remember, and said she was darned if she was going tospend the rest of her life maintaining an animal that might aswell be stuffed for all the liveliness it showed, and that she wasgoing right out to buy a white mouse instead. Fortunately, Italked her round. 

'A few weeks later she came round and thanked me with tears in hereyes. The puma had suddenly struck real mid-season form. It clawedthe elevator-boy, bit a postman, held up the traffic for miles, and was finally shot by a policeman. Why, for the next few daysthere was nothing in the papers at all but Miss Devenish and herpuma. There was a war on at the time in Mexico or somewhere, andwe had it backed off the front page so far that it was over beforeit could get back. So, you see, there's always hope. I've beennursing the papers with bits about Eustace, so as to be ready forthe grand-stand play when it comes--and all we can do is to wait. It's something if he's been throwing eggs. It shows he's wakingup. '

The door opened and Lord Wetherby entered. He looked fatigued. Hesank into a chair and sighed. 

'I cannot get it, ' he said. 'It eludes me. '

He lapsed into a sombre silence. 

'What can't you get?' said Lady Wetherby, cautiously. 

'The expression--the expression I want to get into the child'seyes in my picture, "Innocence". '

'But you have got it. '

Lord Wetherby shook his head. 

'Well, you had when I saw the picture, ' persisted Lady Wetherby. 'This child you're painting has just joined the Black Hand. Hehas been rushed in young over the heads of the waiting listbecause his father had a pull. Naturally the kid wants to dosomething to justify his election, and he wants to do it quick. You have caught him at the moment when he sees an old gentlemancoming down the street and realizes that he has only got to sneakup and stick his little knife--'

'My dear Polly, I welcome criticism, but this is more--'

Lady Wetherby stroked his coat-sleeve fondly. 

'Never mind, Algie, I was only joking, precious. I thought thepicture was coming along fine when you showed it to me. I'll comeand take another look at it. '

Lord Wetherby shook his head. 

'I should have a model. An artist cannot mirror Nature properlywithout a model. I wish you would invite that child down here. '

'No, Algie, there are limits. I wouldn't have him within a mileof the place. '

'Yet you keep Eustace. '

'Well, you made me engage Wrench. It's fifty-fifty. I wish youwouldn't keep picking on Eustace, Algie dear. He does no harm. MrSherriff and I were just saying how peaceable he is. He wouldn'thurt--'

Claire came in. 

'Polly, ' she said, 'did you put that monkey of yours in thegarage? He's just bitten Dudley in the leg. '

Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation. 

'Now perhaps--'

'We went in just now to have a look at the car, ' continuedClaire. 'Dudley wanted to show me the commutator on the exhaust-boxor the windscreen, or something, and he was just bending overwhen Eustace jumped out from nowhere and pinned him. I'm afraid hehas taken it to heart rather. '

Roscoe Sherriff pondered. 

'Is this worth half a column?' He shook his head. 'No, I'm afraidnot. The public doesn't know Pickering. If it had been CharlieChaplin or William J. Bryan, or someone on those lines, we couldhave had the papers bringing out extras. You can visualize WilliamJ. Bryan being bitten in the leg by a monkey. It hits you. ButPickering! Eustace might just as well have bitten the leg of thetable!'

Lord Wetherby reasserted himself. 

'Now that the animal has become a public menace--'

'He's nothing of the kind, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'He's only alittle upset to-day. '

'Do you mean, Pauline, that even after this you will not get ridof him?'

'Certainly not--poor dear!'

'Very well, ' said Lord Wetherby, calmly. 'I give you warning thatif he attacks me I shall defend myself. '

He brooded. Lady Wetherby turned to Claire. 

'What happened then? Did you shut the door of the garage?'

'Yes, but not until Eustace had got away. He slipped out like astreak and disappeared. It was too dark to see which way he went. '

Dudley Pickering limped heavily into the room. 

'I was just telling them about you and Eustace, Dudley. '

Mr Pickering nodded moodily. He was too full for words. 

'I think Eustace must be mad, ' said Claire. 

Roscoe Sherriff uttered a cry of rapture. 

'You've said it!' he exclaimed. 'I knew we should get actionsooner or later. It's the puma over again. Now we are all right. Now I have something to work on. "Monkey Menaces Countryside. ""Long Island Summer Colony in Panic. " "Mad Monkey Bites One--"'

A convulsive shudder galvanized Mr Pickering's portly frame. 

'"Mad Monkey Terrorizes Long Island. One Dead!"' murmured RoscoeSherriff, wistfully. 'Do you feel a sort of shooting, Pickering--akind of burning sensation under the skin? Lady Wetherby, I guessI'll be getting some of the papers on the phone. We've got a bigstory. '

He hurried to the telephone, but it was some little time before hecould use it. Dudley Pickering was in possession, talkingearnestly to the local doctor. 

14

It was Nutty Boyd's habit to retire immediately after dinner tohis bedroom. What he did there Elizabeth did not know. Sometimesshe pictured him reading, sometimes thinking. Neither suppositionwas correct. Nutty never read. Newspapers bored him and books madehis head ache. And as for thinking, he had the wrong shape offorehead. The nearest he ever got to meditation was a sort oftrance-like state, a kind of suspended animation in which his minddrifted sluggishly like a log in a backwater. Nutty, it isregrettable to say, went to his room after dinner for the purposeof imbibing two or three surreptitious whiskies-and-sodas. 

He behaved in this way, he told himself, purely in order to spareElizabeth anxiety. There had been in the past a fool of a doctorwho had prescribed total abstinence for Nutty, and Elizabeth knewthis. Therefore, Nutty held, to take the mildest of drinks withher knowledge would have been to fill her with fears for hissafety. So he went to considerable inconvenience to keep thematter from her notice, and thought rather highly of himself fordoing so. 

It certainly was inconvenient--there was no doubt of that. It madehim feel like a cross between a hunted fawn and a burglar. But hehad to some extent diminished the possibility of surprise byleaving his door open; and to-night he approached the cupboardwhere he kept the materials for refreshment with a certainconfidence. He had left Elizabeth on the porch in a hammock, apparently anchored for some time. Lord Dawlish was out in thegrounds somewhere. Presently he would come in and join Elizabethon the porch. The risk of interruption was negligible. 

Nutty mixed himself a drink and settled down to brood bitterly, ashe often did, on the doctor who had made that disastrousstatement. Doctors were always saying things like that--sweepingthings which nervous people took too literally. It was true thathe had been in pretty bad shape at the moment when the words hadbeen spoken. It was just at the end of his Broadway career, when, as he handsomely admitted, there was a certain amount of truth inthe opinion that his interior needed a vacation. But since then hehad been living in the country, breathing good air, taking thingseasy. In these altered conditions and after this lapse of time itwas absurd to imagine that a moderate amount of alcohol could dohim any harm. 

It hadn't done him any harm, that was the point. He had tested thedoctor's statement and found it incorrect. He had spent threehectic days and nights in New York, and--after a reasonableinterval--had felt much the same as usual. And since then he hadimbibed each night, and nothing had happened. What it came to wasthat the doctor was a chump and a blighter. Simply that andnothing more. 

Having come to this decision, Nutty mixed another drink. He wentto the head of the stairs and listened. He heard nothing. Hereturned to his room. 

Yes, that was it, the doctor was a chump. So far from doing himany harm, these nightly potations brightened Nutty up, gave himheart, and enabled him to endure life in this hole of a place. Hefelt a certain scornful amusement. Doctors, he supposed, had toget off that sort of talk to earn their money. 

He reached out for the bottle, and as he grasped it his eye wascaught by something on the floor. A brown monkey with a long, greytail was sitting there staring at him. 

There was one of those painful pauses. Nutty looked at the monkeyrather like an elongated Macbeth inspecting the ghost of Banquo. The monkey looked at Nutty. The pause continued. Nutty shut hiseyes, counted ten slowly, and opened them. 

The monkey was still there. 

'Boo!' said Nutty, in an apprehensive undertone. 

The monkey looked at him. 

Nutty shut his eyes again. He would count sixty this time. A coldfear had laid its clammy fingers on his heart. This was what thatdoctor--not such a chump after all--must have meant!

Nutty began to count. There seemed to be a heavy lump inside him, and his mouth was dry; but otherwise he felt all right. That wasthe gruesome part of it--this dreadful thing had come upon him ata moment when he could have sworn that he was sound as a bell. Ifthis had happened in the days when he ranged the Great White Way, sucking up deleterious moisture like a cloud, it would have beenintelligible. But it had sneaked upon him like a thief in thenight; it had stolen unheralded into his life when he hadpractically reformed. What was the good of practically reformingif this sort of thing was going to happen to one?

'... Fifty-nine ... Sixty. '

He opened his eyes. The monkey was still there, in precisely thesame attitude, as if it was sitting for its portrait. Panic surgedupon Nutty. He lost his head completely. He uttered a wild yelland threw the bottle at the apparition. 

Life had not been treating Eustace well that evening. He seemed tohave happened upon one of those days when everything goes wrong. The cat had scratched him, the odd-job man had swathed him in anapron, and now this stranger, in whom he had found at first apleasant restfulness, soothing after the recent scenes of violencein which he had participated, did this to him. He dodged themissile and clambered on to the top of the wardrobe. It was hisinstinct in times of stress to seek the high spots. And thenElizabeth hurried into the room. 

Elizabeth had been lying in the hammock on the porch when herbrother's yell had broken forth. It was a lovely, calm, moonlightnight, and she had been revelling in the peace of it, whensuddenly this outcry from above had shot her out of her hammocklike an explosion. She ran upstairs, fearing she knew not what. She found Nutty sitting on the bed, looking like an overwroughtgiraffe. 

'Whatever is the--?' she began; and then things began to impressthemselves on her senses. 

The bottle which Nutty had thrown at Eustace had missed thelatter, but it had hit the wall, and was now lying in many pieceson the floor, and the air was heavy with the scent of it. Theremains seemed to leer at her with a kind of furtive swagger, after the manner of broken bottles. A quick thrill of anger ranthrough Elizabeth. She had always felt more like a mother to Nuttythan a sister, and now she would have liked to exercise thematernal privilege of slapping him. 

'Nutty!'

'I saw a monkey!' said her brother, hollowly. 'I was standing overthere and I saw a monkey! Of course, it wasn't there really. Iflung the bottle at it, and it seemed to climb on to thatwardrobe. '

'This wardrobe?'

'Yes. '

Elizabeth struck it a resounding blow with the palm of her hand, and Eustace's face popped over the edge, peering down anxiously. 'I can see it now, ' said Nutty. A sudden, faint hope came to him. 'Can you see it?' he asked. 

Elizabeth did not speak for a moment. This was an unusualsituation, and she was wondering how to treat it. She was sorryfor Nutty, but Providence had sent this thing and it would befoolish to reject it. She must look on herself in the light of adoctor. It would be kinder to Nutty in the end. She had thefeminine aversion from the lie deliberate. Her ethics on the_suggestio falsi_ were weak. She looked at Nutty questioningly. 

'See it?' she said. 

'Don't you see a monkey on the top of the wardrobe?' said Nutty, becoming more definite. 

'There's a sort of bit of wood sticking out--'

Nutty sighed. 

'No, not that. You didn't see it. I don't think you would. '

He spoke so dejectedly that for a moment Elizabeth weakened, butonly for an instant. 

'Tell me all about this, Nutty, ' she said. 

Nutty was beyond the desire for evasion and concealment. His onewish was to tell. He told all. 

'But, Nutty, how silly of you!'

'Yes. '

'After what the doctor said. '

'I know. '

'You remember his telling you--'

'I know. Never again!'

'What do you mean?'

'I quit. I'm going to give it up. '

Elizabeth embraced him maternally. 

'That's a good child!' she said. 'You really promise?'

'I don't have to promise, I'm just going to do it. '

Elizabeth compromised with her conscience by becoming soothing. 

'You know, this isn't so very serious, Nutty, darling. I mean, it's just a warning. '

'It's warned me all right. '

'You will be perfectly all right if--'

Nutty interrupted her. 

'You're sure you can't see anything?'

'See what?'

Nutty's voice became almost apologetic. 

'I know it's just imagination, but the monkey seems to me to beclimbing down from the wardrobe. '

'I can't see anything climbing down the wardrobe, ' said Elizabeth, as Eustace touched the floor. 

'It's come down now. It's crossing the carpet. '

'Where?'

'It's gone now. It went out of the door. '

'Oh!'

'I say, Elizabeth, what do you think I ought to do?'

'I should go to bed and have a nice long sleep, and you'll feel--'

'Somehow I don't feel much like going to bed. This sort of thingupsets a chap, you know. '

'Poor dear!'

'I think I'll go for a long walk. '

'That's a splendid idea. '

'I think I'd better do a good lot of walking from now on. Didn'tChalmers bring down some Indian clubs with him? I think I'llborrow them. I ought to keep out in the open a lot, I think. Iwonder if there's any special diet I ought to have. Well, anyway, I'll be going for that walk. '

At the foot of the stairs Nutty stopped. He looked quickly intothe porch, then looked away again. 

'What's the matter?' asked Elizabeth. 

'I thought for a moment I saw the monkey sitting on the hammock. '

He went out of the house and disappeared from view down the drive, walking with long, rapid strides. 

Elizabeth's first act, when he had gone, was to fetch a bananafrom the ice-box. Her knowledge of monkeys was slight, but shefancied they looked with favour on bananas. It was her intentionto conciliate Eustace. 

She had placed Eustace by now. Unlike Nutty, she read the papers, and she knew all about Lady Wetherby and her pets. The fact thatLady Wetherby, as she had been informed by the grocer in friendlytalk, had rented a summer house in the neighbourhood madeEustace's identity positive. 

She had no very clear plans as to what she intended to do withEustace, beyond being quite resolved that she was going to boardand lodge him for a few days. Nutty had had the jolt he needed, but it might be that the first freshness of it would wear away, inwhich event it would be convenient to have Eustace on thepremises. She regarded Eustace as a sort of medicine. A seconddose might not be necessary, but it was as well to have themixture handy. She took another banana, in case the first mightnot be sufficient. She then returned to the porch. 

Eustace was sitting on the hammock, brooding. The complexities oflife were weighing him down a good deal. He was not aware ofElizabeth's presence until he found her standing by him. He hadjust braced himself for flight, when he perceived that she borerich gifts. 

Eustace was always ready for a light snack--readier now thanusual, for air and exercise had sharpened his appetite. He tookthe banana in a detached manner, as it to convey the idea that itdid not commit him to any particular course of conduct. It was agood banana, and he stretched out a hand for the other. Elizabethsat down beside him, but he did not move. He was convinced now ofher good intentions. It was thus that Lord Dawlish found them whenhe came in from the garden. 

'Where has your brother gone to?' he asked. 'He passed me just nowat eight miles an hour. Great Scot! What's that?'

'It's a monkey. Don't frighten him; he's rather nervous. '

She tickled Eustace under the ear, for their relations were nowfriendly. 

'Nutty went for a walk because he thought he saw it. '

'Thought he saw it?'

'Thought he saw it, ' repeated Elizabeth, firmly. 'Will youremember, Mr Chalmers, that, as far as he is concerned, thismonkey has no existence?'

'I don't understand. '

Elizabeth explained. 

'You see now?'

'I see. But how long are you going to keep the animal?'

'Just a day or two--in case. '

'Where are you going to keep it?'

'In the outhouse. Nutty never goes there, it's too near thebee-hives. '

'I suppose you don't know who the owner is?'

'Yes, I do; it must be Lady Wetherby. '

'Lady Wetherby!'

'She's a woman who dances at one of the restaurants. I read in aSunday paper about her monkey. She has just taken a house nearhere. I don't see who else the animal could belong to. Monkeys arerarities on Long Island. '

Bill was silent. 'Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, flushing his brow. ' For days he had been trying to find an excusefor calling on Lady Wetherby as a first step toward meeting Claireagain. Here it was. There would be no need to interfere withElizabeth's plans. He would be vague. He would say he had justseen the runaway, but would not add where. He would create anatmosphere of helpful sympathy. Perhaps, later on, Elizabeth wouldlet him take the monkey back. 

'What are you thinking about?' asked Elizabeth. 

'Oh, nothing, ' said Bill. 

'Perhaps we had better stow away our visitor for the night. '

'Yes. '

Elizabeth got up. 

'Poor, dear Nutty may be coming back at any moment now, ' she said. 

But poor, dear Nutty did not return for a full two hours. When hedid he was dusty and tired, but almost cheerful. 

'I didn't see the brute once all the time I was out, ' he toldElizabeth. 'Not once!'

Elizabeth kissed him fondly and offered to heat water for a bath;but Nutty said he would take it cold. From now on, he vowed, nothing but cold baths. He conveyed the impression of being ablend of repentant sinner and hardy Norseman. Before he went tobed he approached Bill on the subject of Indian clubs. 

'I want to get myself into shape, old top, ' he said. 

'Yes?'

'I've got to cut it out--to-night I thought I saw a monkey. '

'Really?'

'As plain as I see you now. ' Nutty gave the clubs a tentativeswing. 'What do you do with these darned things? Swing them aboutand all that? All right, I see the idea. Good night. '

But Bill did not pass a good night. He lay awake long, thinkingover his plans for the morrow. 

15

Lady Wetherby was feeling battered. She had not realized howseriously Roscoe Sherriff took the art of publicity, nor whatwould be the result of the half-hour he had spent at the telephoneon the night of the departure of Eustace. 

Roscoe Sherriff's eloquence had fired the imagination of editors. There had been a notable lack of interesting happenings thissummer. Nobody seemed to be striking or murdering or havingviolent accidents. The universe was torpid. In these circumstances, the escape of Eustace seemed to present possibilities. Reportershad been sent down. There were three of them living in the housenow, and Wrench's air of disapproval was deepening every hour. 

It was their strenuousness which had given Lady Wetherby thatbattered feeling. There was strenuousness in the air, and sheresented it on her vacation. She had come to Long Island tovegetate, and with all this going on round her vegetation wasimpossible. She was not long alone. Wrench entered. 

'A gentleman to see you, m'lady. '

In the good old days, when she had been plain Polly Davis, of thepersonnel of the chorus of various musical comedies, Lady Wetherbywould have suggested a short way of disposing of this untimelyvisitor; but she had a position to keep up now. 

'From some darned paper?' she asked, wearily. 

'No, m'lady. I fancy he is not connected with the Press. '

There was something in Wrench's manner that perplexed LadyWetherby, something almost human, as if Wrench were on the pointof coming alive. She did not guess it, but the explanation wasthat Bill, quite unwittingly, had impressed Wrench. There was thatabout Bill that reminded the butler of London and dignifiedreceptions at the house of the Dowager Duchess of Waveney. It wasdeep calling unto deep. 

'Where is he?'

'I have shown him into the drawing-room, m'lady. '

Lady Wetherby went downstairs and found a large young man awaitingher, looking nervous. 

Bill was feeling nervous. A sense of the ridiculousness of hismission had come upon him. After all, he asked himself, what onearth had he got to say? A presentiment had come upon him that hewas about to look a perfect ass. At the sight of Lady Wetherby hisnervousness began to diminish. Lady Wetherby was not a formidableperson. In spite of her momentary peevishness, she brought withher an atmosphere of geniality and camaraderie. 

'It's about your monkey, ' he said, coming to the point at once. 

Lady Wetherby brightened. 

'Oh! Have you seen it?'

He was glad that she put it like that. 

'Yes. It came round our way last night. '

'Where is that?'

'I am staying at a farm near here, a place they call Flack's. Themonkey got into one of the rooms. '

'Yes?'

'And then--er--then it got out again, don't you know. '

Lady Wetherby looked disappointed. 

'So it may be anywhere now?' she said. 

In the interests of truth, Bill thought it best to leave thisquestion unanswered. 

'Well, it's very good of you to have bothered to come out and tellme, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'It gives us a clue, at any rate. Thankyou. At least, we know now in which direction it went. '

There was a pause. Bill gathered that the other was looking on theinterview as terminated, and that she was expecting him to go, andhe had not begun to say what he wanted to say. He tried to thinkof a way of introducing the subject of Claire that should not seemtoo abrupt. 

'Er--' he said. 

'Well?' said Lady Wetherby, simultaneously. 

'I beg your pardon. '

'You have the floor, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'Shoot!'

It was not what she had intended to say. For months she had beentrying to get out of the habit of saying that sort of thing, butshe still suffered relapses. Only the other day she had toldWrench to check some domestic problem or other with his hat, andhe had nearly given notice. But if she had been intending to putBill at his ease she could not have said anything better. 

'You have a Miss Fenwick staying with you, haven't you?' he said. 

Lady Wetherby beamed. 

'Do you know Claire?'

'Yes, rather!'

'She's my best friend. We used to be in the same company when Iwas in England. '

'So she has told me. '

'She was my bridesmaid when I married Lord Wetherby. '

'Yes. '

Lady Wetherby was feeling perfectly happy now, and when LadyWetherby felt happy she always became garrulous. She was one ofthose people who are incapable of looking on anybody as a strangerafter five minutes' acquaintance. Already she had begun to regardBill as an old friend. 

'Those were great days, ' she said, cheerfully. 'None of us had abean, and Algie was the hardest up of the whole bunch. After wewere married we went to the Savoy for the wedding-breakfast, andwhen it was over and the waiter came with the check, Algie said hewas sorry, but he had had a bad week at Lincoln and hadn't theprice on him. He tried to touch me, but I passed. Then he had a goat the best man, but the best man had nothing in the world but onesuit of clothes and a spare collar. Claire was broke, too, so theend of it was that the best man had to sneak out and pawn my watchand the wedding-ring. '

The room rang with her reminiscent laughter, Bill supplying a bassaccompaniment. Bill was delighted. He had never hoped that itwould be granted to him to become so rapidly intimate withClaire's hostess. Why, he had only to keep the conversation inthis chummy vein for a little while longer and she would give himthe run of the house. 

'Miss Fenwick isn't in now, I suppose?' he asked. 

'No, Claire's out with Dudley Pickering. You don't know him, doyou?'

'No. '

'She's engaged to him. '

It is an ironical fact that Lady Wetherby was by nature one of thefirmest believers in existence in the policy of breaking thingsgently to people. She had a big, soft heart, and she hated hurtingher fellows. As a rule, when she had bad news to impart to any oneshe administered the blow so gradually and with such mystery as tothe actual facts that the victim, having passed through thevarious stages of imagined horrors, was genuinely relieved, whenshe actually came to the point, to find that all that had happenedwas that he had lost all his money. But now in perfect innocence, thinking only to pass along an interesting bit of information, shehad crushed Bill as effectively as if she had used a club for thatpurpose. 

'I'm tickled to death about it, ' she went on, as it were over herhearer's prostrate body. It was I who brought them together, youknow. I wrote telling Claire to come out here on the _Atlantic, _knowing that Dudley was sailing on that boat. I had an idea theywould hit it off together. Dudley fell for her right away, and shemust have fallen for him, for they had only known each otherfor a few weeks when they came and told me they were engaged. It happened last Sunday. '

'Last Sunday!'

It had seemed to Bill a moment before that he would never again becapable of speech, but this statement dragged the words out ofhim. Last Sunday! Why, it was last Sunday that Claire had brokenoff her engagement with him!

'Last Sunday at nine o'clock in the evening, with a full moonshining and soft music going on off-stage. Real third-act stuff. '

Bill felt positively dizzy. He groped back in his memory forfacts. He had gone out for his walk after dinner. They had dinedat eight. He had been walking some time. Why, in Heaven's name, this was the quickest thing in the amatory annals of civilization!His brain was too numbed to work out a perfectly accurateschedule, but it looked as if she must have got engaged to thisPickering person before she met him, Bill, in the road that night. 

'It's a wonderful match for dear old Claire, ' resumed LadyWetherby, twisting the knife in the wound with a happy unconsciousness. 'Dudley's not only a corking good fellow, but he has thirty milliondollars stuffed away in the stocking and a business that brings himin a perfectly awful mess of money every year. He's the Pickering ofthe Pickering automobiles, you know. '

Bill got up. He stood for a moment holding to the back of hischair before speaking. It was almost exactly thus that he had feltin the days when he had gone in for boxing and had stoppedforceful swings with the more sensitive portions of his person. 

'That--that's splendid!' he said. 'I--I think I'll be going. '

'I heard the car outside just now, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'I thinkit's probably Claire and Dudley come back. Won't you wait and seeher?'

Bill shook his head. 

'Well, good-bye for the present, then. You must come round again. Any friend of Claire's--and it was bully of you to bother aboutlooking in to tell of Eustace. '

Bill had reached the door. He was about to turn the handle whensomeone turned it on the other side. 

'Why, here is Dudley, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'Dudley, this is afriend of Claire's. '

Dudley Pickering was one of those men who take the ceremony ofintroduction with a measured solemnity. It was his practice tograsp the party of the second part firmly by the hand, hold it, look into his eyes in a reverent manner, and get off some littlespeech of appreciation, short but full of feeling. The openingpart of this ceremony he performed now. He grasped Bill's handfirmly, held it, and looked into his eyes. And then, havingperformed his business, he fell down on his lines. Not a wordproceeded from him. He dropped the hand and stared at Billamazedly and--more than that--with fear. 

Bill, too, uttered no word. It was not one of those chattymeetings. 

But if they were short on words, both Bill and Mr Pickering werelong on looks. Bill stared at Mr Pickering. Mr Pickering stared atBill. 

Bill was drinking in Mr Pickering. The stoutness of Mr Pickering--theorderliness of Mr Pickering--the dullness of Mr Pickering--all thesethings he perceived. And illumination broke upon him. 

Mr Pickering was drinking in Bill. The largeness of Bill--theembarrassment of Bill--the obvious villainy of Bill--none of thesethings escaped his notice. And illumination broke upon him also. 

For Dudley Pickering, in the first moment of their meeting, hadrecognized Bill as the man who had been lurking in the grounds andpeering in at the window, the man at whom on the night when he hadbecome engaged to Claire he had shouted 'Hi!'

'Where's Claire, Dudley?' asked Lady Wetherby. 

Mr Pickering withdrew his gaze reluctantly from Bill. 

'Gone upstairs. '

I'll go and tell her that you're here, Mr--You never told me yourname. '

Bill came to life with an almost acrobatic abruptness. There weremany things of which at that moment he felt absolutely incapable, and meeting Claire was one of them. 

'No; I must be going, ' he said, hurriedly. 'Good-bye. '

He came very near running out of the room. Lady Wetherby regardedthe practically slammed door with wide eyes. 

'Quick exit of Nut Comedian!' she said. 'Whatever was the matterwith the man? He's scorched a trail in the carpet. '

Mr Pickering was trembling violently. 

'Do you know who that was? He was the man!' said Mr Pickering. 

'What man?'

'The man I caught looking in at the window that night!'

'What nonsense! You must be mistaken. He said he knew Claire quitewell. '

'But when you suggested that he should meet her he ran. '

This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Lady Wetherby. 

'So he did!'

'What did he tell you that showed he knew Claire?'

'Well, now that I come to think of it, he didn't tell me anything. I did the talking. He just sat there. '

Mr Pickering quivered with combined fear and excitement andinductive reasoning. 

'It was a trick!' he cried. 'Remember what Sherriff said thatnight when I told you about finding the man looking in at thewindow? He said that the fellow was spying round as a preliminarymove. To-day he trumps up an obviously false excuse for gettinginto the house. Was he left alone in the rooms at all?'

'Yes. Wrench loosed him in here and then came up to tell me. '

'For several minutes, then, he was alone in the house. Why, he hadtime to do all he wanted to do!'

'Calm down!'

'I am perfectly calm. But--'

'You've been seeing too many crook plays, Dudley. A man isn'tnecessarily a burglar because he wears a decent suit of clothes. '

'Why was he lurking in the grounds that night?'

'You're just imagining that it was the same man. '

'I am absolutely positive it was the same man. '

'Well, we can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Herecomes Claire. Claire, old girl, ' she said, as the door opened, 'doyou know a man named--Darn it! I never got his name, but he's--'

Claire stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other. 

'What's the matter, Dudley?' she said. 

'Dudley's gone clean up in the air, ' explained Lady Wetherby, tolerantly. 'A friend of yours called to tell me he had seenEustace--'

'So that was his excuse, was it?' said Dudley Pickering. 'Did hesay where Eustace was?'

'No; he said he had seen him; that was all'

'An obviously trumped-up story. He had heard of Eustace's escapeand he knew that any story connected with him would be a passportinto the house. '

Lady Wetherby turned to Claire. 

'You haven't told us yet if you know the man. He was a big, tall, broad gazook, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'Very English'

'He faked the English, ' said Dudley Pickering. 'That man was nomore an Englishman than I am. '

'Be patient with him, Claire, ' urged Lady Wetherby. 'He's beengoing to the movies too much, and thinks every man who has had histrousers pressed is a social gangster. This man was the mostEnglish thing I've ever seen--talked like this. '

She gave a passable reproduction of Bill's speech. Claire started. 

'I don't know him!' she cried. 

Her mind was in a whirl of agitation. Why had Bill come to thehouse? What had he said? Had he told Dudley anything?

'I don't recognize the description, ' she said, quickly. 'I don'tknow anything about him. '

'There!' said Dudley Pickering, triumphantly. 

'It's queer, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'You're sure you don't know him, Claire?'

'Absolutely sure. '

'He said he was living at a place near here, called Flack's. '

'I know the place, ' said Dudley Pickering. 'A sinister, tumbledownsort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living. '

'I thought it was a bee-farm, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'One of thetradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girlbicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me shewas named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack's. '

'A blind!' said Mr Pickering, stoutly. 'The girl's the man'saccomplice. It's quite easy to see the way they work. The girlcomes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That'sto lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goesabout cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can't get away fromthe fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglariesdown here, and nobody has found out who did them. '

Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently. 

'And now, ' she said, 'having got us scared stiff, what are yougoing to do about it?'

'I am going, ' he said, with determination, 'to take steps. '

He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs. 

'Bless him!' said Lady Wetherby. 'I'd no idea your Dudley had somuch imagination, Claire. He's a perfect bomb-shell. '

Claire laughed shakily. 

'It is odd, though, ' said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, 'that thisman should have said that he knew you, when you don't--'

Claire turned impulsively. 

'Polly, I want to tell you something. Promise you won't tellDudley. I wasn't telling the truth just now. I do know this man. Iwas engaged to him once. '

'What!'

'For goodness' sake don't tell Dudley!'

'But--'

'It's all over now; but I used to be engaged to him. '

'Not when I was in England?'

'No, after that. '

'Then he didn't know you are engaged to Dudley now?'

'N-no. I--I haven't seen him for a long time. '

Lady Wetherby looked remorseful. 

'Poor man! I must have given him a jolt! But why didn't you tellme about him before?'

'Oh, I don't know. '

'Oh, well, I'm not inquisitive. There's no rubber in mycomposition. It's your affair. '

'You won't tell Dudley?'

'Of course not. But why not? You've nothing to be ashamed of. '

'No; but--'

'Well, I won't tell him, anyway. But I'm glad you told me abouthim. Dudley was so eloquent about burglars that he almost had megoing. I wonder where he rushed off to?'

Dudley Pickering had rushed off to his bedroom, and was examininga revolver there. He examined it carefully, keenly. Preparednesswas Dudley Pickering's slogan. He looked rather like a stoutsheriff in a film drama. 

16

In the interesting land of India, where snakes abound andscorpions are common objects of the wayside, a native who has hadthe misfortune to be bitten by one of the latter pursues anadmirably common-sense plan. He does not stop to lament, nor doeshe hang about analysing his emotions. He runs and runs and runs, and keeps on running until he has worked the poison out of hissystem. Not until then does he attempt introspection. 

Lord Dawlish, though ignorant of this fact, pursued almostidentically the same policy. He did not run on leaving LadyWetherby's house, but he took a very long and very rapid walk, than which in times of stress there are few things of greatermedicinal value to the human mind. To increase the similarity, hewas conscious of a curious sense of being poisoned. He feltstifled--in want of air. 

Bill was a simple young man, and he had a simple code of ethics. Above all things he prized and admired and demanded from hisfriends the quality of straightness. It was his one demand. He hadnever actually had a criminal friend, but he was quite capable ofintimacy with even a criminal, provided only that there wassomething spacious about his brand of crime and that it did notinvolve anything mean or underhand. It was the fact that MrBreitstein whom Claire had wished him to insinuate into his club, though acquitted of actual crime, had been proved guilty ofmeanness and treachery, that had so prejudiced Bill against him. The worst accusation that he could bring against a man was that hewas not square, that he had not played the game. 

Claire had not been square. It was that, more than the shock ofsurprise of Lady Wetherby's news, that had sent him striding alongthe State Road at the rate of five miles an hour, staring beforehim with unseeing eyes. A sudden recollection of their lastinterview brought a dull flush to Bill's face and accelerated hisspeed. He felt physically ill. 

It was not immediately that he had arrived at even this sketchyoutline of his feelings. For perhaps a mile he walked as thescorpion-stung natives run--blindly, wildly, with nothing in hismind but a desire to walk faster and faster, to walk as no man hadever walked before. And then--one does not wish to be undulyrealistic, but the fact is too important to be ignored--he beganto perspire. And hard upon that unrefined but wonder-working flowcame a certain healing of spirit. Dimly at first but every momentmore clearly, he found it possible to think. 

In a man of Bill's temperament there are so many qualities woundedby a blow such as he had received, that it is hardly surprisingthat his emotions, when he began to examine them, were mixed. Nowone, now another, of his wounds presented itself to his notice. And then individual wounds would become difficult to distinguishin the mass of injuries. Spiritually, he was in the position of aman who has been hit simultaneously in a number of sensitive spotsby a variety of hard and hurtful things. He was as little able, during the early stages of his meditations, to say where he washurt most as a man who had been stabbed in the back, bitten in theankle, hit in the eye, smitten with a blackjack, and kicked on theshin in the same moment of time. All that such a man would be ableto say with certainty would be that unpleasant things had happenedto him; and that was all that Bill was able to say. 

Little by little, walking swiftly the while, he began to make arough inventory. He sorted out his injuries, catalogued them. Itwas perhaps his self-esteem that had suffered least of all, for hewas by nature modest. He had a savage humility, valuable in acrisis of this sort. 

But he looked up to Claire. He had thought her straight. And allthe time that she had been saying those things to him that nightof their last meeting she had been engaged to another man, a fat, bald, doddering, senile fool, whose only merit was his money. Scarcely a fair description of Mr Pickering, but in a man inBill's position a little bias is excusable. 

Bill walked on. He felt as if he could walk for ever. Automobileswhirred past, hooting peevishly, but he heeded them not. Dogstrotted out to exchange civilities, but he ignored them. Thepoison in his blood drove him on. 

And then quite suddenly and unexpectedly the fever passed. Almostin mid-stride he became another man, a healed, sane man, keenlyaware of a very vivid thirst and a desire to sit down and restbefore attempting the ten miles of cement road that lay betweenhim and home. Half an hour at a wayside inn completed the cure. Itwas a weary but clear-headed Bill who trudged back through thegathering dusk. 

He found himself thinking of Claire as of someone he had knownlong ago, someone who had never touched his life. She seemed sofar away that he wondered how she could ever have affected him forpain or pleasure. He looked at her across a chasm. This is thereal difference between love and infatuation, that infatuationcan be slain cleanly with a single blow. In the hour of clearvision which had come to him, Bill saw that he had never lovedClaire. It was her beauty that had held him, that and the appealwhich her circumstances had made to his pity. Their minds had notrun smoothly together. Always there had been something thatjarred, a subtle antagonism. And she was crooked. 

Almost unconsciously his mind began to build up an image of theideal girl, the girl he would have liked Claire to be, the girlwho would conform to all that he demanded of woman. She would bebrave. He realized now that, even though it had moved his pity, Claire's querulousness had offended something in him. 

He had made allowances for her, but the ideal girl would have hadno need of allowances. The ideal girl would be plucky, cheerfullyvaliant, a fighter. She would not admit the existence of hardluck. 

She would be honest. Here, too, she would have no need of allowances. No temptation would be strong enough to make her do a mean act orthink a mean thought, for her courage would give her strength, andher strength would make her proof against temptation. She would bekind. That was because she would also be extremely intelligent, and, being extremely intelligent, would have need of kindness toenable her to bear with a not very intelligent man like himself. For the rest, she would be small and alert and pretty, and fairhaired--and brown-eyed--and she would keep a bee farm and her namewould be Elizabeth Boyd. 

Having arrived with a sense of mild astonishment at thisconclusion, Bill found, also to his surprise, that he had walkedten miles without knowing it and that he was turning in at thefarm gate. Somebody came down the drive, and he saw that it wasElizabeth. 

She hurried to meet him, small and shadowy in the uncertain light. James, the cat, stalked rheumatically at her side. She came up toBill, and he saw that her face wore an anxious look. He gazed ather with a curious feeling that it was a very long time since hehad seen her last. 

'Where have you been?' she said, her voice troubled. 'I couldn'tthink what had become of you. '

'I went for a walk. '

'But you've been gone hours and hours. '

'I went to a place called Morrisville. '

'Morrisville!' Elizabeth's eyes opened wide. 'Have you walkedtwenty miles?'

'Why, I--I believe I have. '

It was the first time he had been really conscious of it. Elizabeth looked at him in consternation. Perhaps it was theassociation in her mind of unexpected walks with the newly-bornactivities of the repentant Nutty that gave her the feeling thatthere must be some mental upheaval on a large scale at the back ofthis sudden ebullition of long-distance pedestrianism. Sheremembered that the thought had come to her once or twice duringthe past week that all was not well with her visitor, and that hehad seemed downcast and out of spirits. 

She hesitated. 

'Is anything the matter, Mr Chalmers?'

'No, ' said Bill, decidedly. He would have found a difficulty inmaking that answer with any ring of conviction earlier in the day, but now it was different. There was nothing whatever the matterwith him now. He had never felt happier. 

'You're sure?'

'Absolutely. I feel fine. '

'I thought--I've been thinking for some days--that you might be introuble of some sort. '

Bill swiftly added another to that list of qualities which he hadbeen framing on his homeward journey. That girl of his would beangelically sympathetic. 

'It's awfully good of you, ' he said, 'but honestly I feel like--Ifeel great. '

The little troubled look passed from Elizabeth's face. Her eyestwinkled. 

'You're really feeling happy?'

'Tremendously. '

'Then let me damp you. We're in an awful fix!'

'What! In what way?'

'About the monkey. '

'Has he escaped?'

'That's the trouble--he hasn't. '

'I don't understand. '

'Come and sit down and I'll tell you. It's a shame to keep youstanding after your walk. '

They made their way to the massive stone seat which Mr Flack, thelandlord, had bought at a sale and dumped in a moment ofexuberance on the farm grounds. 

'This is the most hideous thing on earth, ' said Elizabethcasually, 'but it will do to sit on. Now tell me: why did you goto Lady Wetherby's this afternoon?'

It was all so remote, it seemed so long ago that he had wanted tofind an excuse for meeting Claire again, that for a moment Billhesitated in actual perplexity, and before he could speak Elizabethhad answered the question for him. 

'I suppose you went out of kindness of heart to relieve the poorlady's mind, ' she said. 'But you certainly did the wrong thing. You started something!'

'I didn't tell her the animal was here. '

'What did you tell her?'

'I said I had seen it, don't you know. '

'That was enough. '

'I'm awfully sorry. '

'Oh, we shall pull through all right, but we must act at once. Wemust be swift and resolute. We must saddle our chargers and up andaway, and all that sort of thing. Show a flash of speed, ' sheexplained kindly, at the sight of Bill's bewildered face. 

'But what has happened?'

'The press is on our trail. I've been interviewing reporters allthe afternoon. '

'Reporters!'

'Millions of them. The place is alive with them. Keen, hatchet-facedyoung men, and every one of them was the man who really unravelledsome murder mystery or other, though the police got the credit forit. They told me so. '

'But, I say, how on earth--'

'--did they get here? I suppose Lady Wetherby invited them, '

'But why?'

'She wants the advertisement, of course. I know it doesn't soundsensational--a lost monkey; but when it's a celebrity's lostmonkey it makes a difference. Suppose King George had lost amonkey; wouldn't your London newspapers give it a good deal ofspace? Especially if it had thrown eggs at one of the ladies andbitten the Duke of Norfolk in the leg? That's what our visitor hasbeen doing apparently. At least, he threw eggs at the scullery-maidand bit a millionaire. It's practically the same thing. At anyrate, there it is. The newspaper men are here, and they seemto regard this farm as their centre of operations. I had thegreatest difficulty in inducing them to go home to their well-earneddinners. They wanted to camp out on the place. As it is, there maystill be some of them round, hiding in the grass with notebooks, and telling one another in whispers that they were the men whoreally solved the murder mystery. What shall we do?'

Bill had no suggestions. 

'You realize our position? I wonder if we could be arrested forkidnapping. The monkey is far more human than most of themillionaire children who get kidnapped. It's an awful fix. Did youknow that Lady Wetherby is going to offer a reward for theanimal?'

'No, really?'

'Five hundred dollars!'

'Surely not!'

'She is. I suppose she feels she can charge it up to necessaryexpenses for publicity and still be ahead of the game, taking intoaccount the advertising she's going to get. '

'She said nothing about that when I saw her. '

'No, because it won't be offered until to-morrow or the day after. One of the newspaper men told me that. The idea is, of course, tomake the thing exciting just when it would otherwise be dying as anews item. Cumulative interest. It's a good scheme, too, but itmakes it very awkward for me. I don't want to be in the positionof keeping a monkey locked up with the idea of waiting untilsomebody starts a bull market in monkeys. I consider that thatsort of thing would stain the spotless escutcheon of the Boyds. Itwould be a low trick for that old-established family to play. Notbut what poor, dear Nutty would do it like a shot, ' she concludedmeditatively. 

Bill was impressed. 

'It does make it awkward, what?'

'It makes it more than awkward, what! Take another aspect of thesituation. The night before last my precious Nutty, while ruininghis constitution with the demon rum, thought he saw a monkey thatwasn't there, and instantly resolved to lead a new and betterlife. He hates walking, but he has now begun to do his five milesa day. He loathes cold baths, but he now wallows in them. I don'tknow his views on Indian clubs, but I should think that he has astrong prejudice against them, too, but now you can't go near himwithout taking a chance of being brained. Are all these goodthings to stop as quickly as they began? If I know Nutty, he woulddrop them exactly one minute after he heard that it was a realmonkey he saw that night. And how are we to prevent his hearing?By a merciful miracle he was out taking his walk when thenewspaper men began to infest the place to-day, but that might nothappen another time. What conclusion does all this suggest to you, Mr Chalmers?'

'We ought to get rid of the animal. '

'This very minute. But don't you bother to come. You must be tiredout, poor thing. '

'I never felt less tired, ' said Bill stoutly. 

Elizabeth looked at him in silence for a moment. 

'You're rather splendid, you know, Mr Chalmers. You make a greatpartner for an adventure of this kind. You're nice and solid. '

The outhouse lay in the neighbourhood of the hives, a gaunt, wooden structure surrounded by bushes. Elizabeth glanced over hershoulder as she drew the key from her pocket. 

'You can't think how nervous I was this afternoon, ' she said. 'Ithought every moment one of those newspaper men would look inhere. I--James! James! I thought I heard James in those bushes--Ikept heading them away. Once I thought it was all up. ' Sheunlocked the door. 'One of them was about a yard from the window, just going to look in. Thank goodness, a bee stung him at thepsychological moment, and--Oh!'

'What's the matter?'

'Come and get a banana. '

They walked to the house. On the way Elizabeth stopped. 

'Why, you haven't had any dinner either!' she said. 

'Never mind me, ' said Bill, 'I can wait. Let's get this thingfinished first. '

'You really are a sport, Mr Chalmers, ' said Elizabeth gratefully. 'It would kill me to wait a minute. I shan't feel happy until I'vegot it over. Will you stay here while I go up and see that Nutty'ssafe in his room?' she added as they entered the house. 

She stopped abruptly. A feline howl had broken the stillness ofthe night, followed instantly by a sharp report. 

'What was that?'

'It sounded like a car backfiring. '

'No, it was a shot. One of the neighbours, I expect. You can hearmiles away on a night like this. I suppose a cat was after hischickens. Thank goodness, James isn't a pirate cat. Wait while Igo up and see Nutty. '

She was gone only a moment. 

'It's all right, ' she said. 'I peeped in. He's doing deepbreathing exercises at his window which looks out the other way. Come along. '

When they reached the outhouse they found the door open. 

'Did you do that?' said Elizabeth. 'Did you leave it open?'

'No. '

'I don't remember doing it myself. It must have swung open. Well, this saves us a walk. He'll have gone. '

'Better take a look round, what?'

'Yes, I suppose so; but he's sure not to be there. Have you amatch?'

Bill struck one and held it up. 

'Good Lord!'

The match went out. 

'What is it? What has happened?'

Bill was fumbling for another match. 

'There's something on the floor. It looks like--I thought for aminute--' The small flame shot out of the gloom, flickered, thenburned with a steady glow. Bill stooped, bending over something onthe ground. The match burned down. 

Bill's voice came out of the darkness:

'I say, you were right about that noise. It was a shot. The poorlittle chap's down there on the floor with a hole in him the sizeof my fist. '

17

Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a manshould catch young and have done with, for when it comes inmiddle life it is apt to be serious. Dudley Pickering had escapedboyhood at the time when his contemporaries were contracting it. It is true that for a few years after leaving the cradle he hadexhibited a certain immatureness, but as soon as he put onknickerbockers and began to go about a little he outgrew all that. He avoided altogether the chaotic period which usually liesbetween the years of ten and fourteen. At ten he was a thoughtfuland sober-minded young man, at fourteen almost an old fogy. 

And now--thirty-odd years overdue--boyhood had come upon him. Ashe examined the revolver in his bedroom, wild and unfamiliaremotions seethed within him. He did not realize it, but they werethe emotions which should have come to him thirty years before anddriven him out to hunt Indians in the garden. An imagination whichmight well have become atrophied through disuse had him asthoroughly in its control as ever he had had his Pickering Giant. 

He believed almost with devoutness in the plot which he haddetected for the spoliation of Lord Wetherby's summer-house, thatplot of which he held Lord Dawlish to be the mainspring. And itmust be admitted that circumstances had combined to help hisbelief. If the atmosphere in which he was moving was not sinisterthen there was no meaning in the word. 

Summer homes had been burgled, there was no getting away fromthat--half a dozen at least in the past two months. He was astranger in the locality, so had no means of knowing that summerhomes were always burgled on Long Island every year, as regularlyas the coming of the mosquito and the advent of the jelly-fish. Itwas one of the local industries. People left summer homes lyingabout loose in lonely spots, and you just naturally got in throughthe cellar window. Such was the Long Islander's simple creed. 

This created in Mr Pickering's mind an atmosphere of burglary, areceptiveness, as it were, toward burglars as phenomena, and theextremely peculiar behaviour of the person whom in his thoughts healways referred to as The Man crystallized it. He had seen The Manhanging about, peering in at windows. He had shouted 'Hi!' and TheMan had run. The Man had got into the house under the pretence ofbeing a friend of Claire's. At the suggestion that he should meetClaire he had dashed away in a panic. And Claire, both then andlater, had denied absolutely any knowledge of him. 

As for the apparently blameless beekeeping that was going on atthe place where he lived, that was easily discounted. Mr Pickeringhad heard somewhere or read somewhere--he rather thought that itwas in those interesting but disturbing chronicles of Raffles--thatthe first thing an intelligent burglar did was to assume someopen and innocent occupation to avert possible inquiry into hisreal mode of life. Mr Pickering did not put it so to himself, forhe was rarely slangy even in thought, but what he felt was that hehad caught The Man and his confederate with the goods. 

If Mr Pickering had had his boyhood at the proper time andfinished with it, he would no doubt have acted otherwise than hedid. He would have contented himself with conducting a war ofdefence. He would have notified the police, and considered thatall that remained for him personally to do was to stay in his roomat night with his revolver. But boys will be boys. The only coursethat seemed to him in any way satisfactory in this his hour ofrejuvenation was to visit the bee farm, the hotbed of crime, andkeep an eye on it. He wanted to go there and prowl. 

He did not anticipate any definite outcome of his visit. In hisboyish, elemental way he just wanted to take a revolver and apocketful of cartridges, and prowl. 

It was a great night for prowling. A moon so little less than fullthat the eye could barely detect its slight tendency to becomeconcave, shone serenely, creating a desirable combination of blackshadows where the prowler might hide and great stretches of lightin which the prowler might reveal his wickedness without disguise. Mr Pickering walked briskly along the road, then less briskly ashe drew nearer the farm. An opportune belt of shrubs that ran fromthe gate adjoining the road to a point not far from the house gavehim just the cover he needed. He slipped into this belt of shrubsand began to work his way through them. 

Like generals, authors, artists, and others who, after planningbroad effects, have to get down to the detail work, he found thatthis was where his troubles began. He had conceived the journeythrough the shrubbery in rather an airy mood. He thought he wouldjust go through the shrubbery. He had not taken into account thebranches, the thorns, the occasional unexpected holes, and he wasboth warm and dishevelled when he reached the end of it and foundhimself out in the open within a short distance of what herecognized as beehives. It was not for some time that he was ableto give that selfless attention to exterior objects which is theprowler's chief asset. For quite a while the only thought of whichhe was conscious was that what he needed most was a cold drink anda cold bath. Then, with a return to clear-headedness, he realizedthat he was standing out in the open, visible from three sides toanyone who might be in the vicinity, and he withdrew into theshrubbery. He was not fond of the shrubbery, but it was a splendidplace to withdraw into. It swallowed you up. 

This was the last move of the first part of Mr Pickering's activecampaign. He stayed where he was, in the middle of a bush, andwaited for the enemy to do something. What he expected him to dohe did not know. The subconscious thought that animated him wasthat on a night like this something was bound to happen sooner orlater. Just such a thought on similarly stimulating nights hadanimated men of his acquaintance thirty years ago, men who wereas elderly and stolid and unadventurous now as Mr Pickering hadbeen then. He would have resented the suggestion profoundly, butthe truth of the matter was that Dudley Pickering, after a latestart, had begun to play Indians. 

Nothing had happened for a long time--for such a long time that, in spite of the ferment within him, Mr Pickering almost began tobelieve that nothing would happen. The moon shone with unutterablecalm. The crickets and the tree frogs performed their interminableduet, apparently unconscious that they were attacking it indifferent keys--a fact that, after a while, began to infuriateMr Pickering. Mosquitoes added their reedy tenor to the concert. A twig on which he was standing snapped with a report like a pistol. The moon went on shining. 

Away in the distance a dog began to howl. An automobile passed inthe road. For a few moments Mr Pickering was able to occupyhimself pleasantly with speculations as to its make; and then hebecame aware that something was walking down the back of his neckjust beyond the point where his fingers could reach it. Discomfortenveloped Mr Pickering. At various times by day he had seenlong-winged black creatures with slim waists and unpleasant faces. Could it be one of these? Or a caterpillar? Or--and the maddeningthing was that he did not dare to slap at it, for who knew whatdesperate characters the sound might not attract?

Well, it wasn't stinging him; that was something. 

A second howling dog joined the first one. A wave of sadness wasapparently afflicting the canine population of the district to-night. 

Mr Pickering's vitality began to ebb. He was ageing, andimagination slackened its grip. And then, just as he had begun tocontemplate the possibility of abandoning the whole adventure andreturning home, he was jerked back to boyhood again by the soundof voices. 

He shrank farther back into the bushes. A man--The Man--wasapproaching, accompanied by his female associate. They passed soclose to him that he could have stretched out a hand and touchedthem. 

The female associate was speaking, and her first words set all MrPickering's suspicions dancing a dance of triumph. The girl gaveherself away with her opening sentence. 

'You can't think how nervous I was this afternoon, ' he heard hersay. She had a soft pleasant voice; but soft, pleasant voices maybe the vehicles for conveying criminal thoughts. 'I thought everymoment one of those newspaper men would look in here. '

Where was here? Ah, that outhouse! Mr Pickering had had hissuspicions of that outhouse already. It was one of thosestructures that look at you furtively as if something were hidingin them. 

'James! James! I thought I heard James in those bushes. '

The girl was looking straight at the spot occupied by MrPickering, and it had been the start caused by her first words andthe resultant rustle of branches that had directed her attentionto him. He froze. The danger passed. She went on speaking. MrPickering pondered on James. Who was James? Another of the gang, of course. How many of them were there?

'Once I thought it was all up. One of them was about a yard fromthe window, just going to look in. '

Mr Pickering thrilled. There was something hidden in the outhouse, then! Swag?

'Thank goodness, a bee stung him at the psychological moment, and--oh!'

She stopped, and The Man spoke:

'What's the matter?'

It interested Mr Pickering that The Man retained his Englishaccent even when talking privately with his associates. Forpractice, no doubt. 

'Come and get a banana, ' said the girl. And they went off togetherin the direction of the house, leaving Mr Pickering bewildered. Why a banana? Was it a slang term of the underworld for a pistol?It must be that. 

But he had no time for speculation. Now was his chance, the onlychance he would ever get of looking into that outhouse and findingout its mysterious contents. He had seen the girl unlock the door. A few steps would take him there. All it needed was nerve. With astrong effort Mr Pickering succeeded in obtaining the nerve. Heburst from his bush and trotted to the outhouse door, opened it, and looked in. And at that moment something touched his leg. 

At the right time and in the right frame of mind man is capable ofstoic endurances that excite wonder and admiration. Mr Pickeringwas no weakling. He had once upset his automobile in a ditch, andhad waited for twenty minutes until help came to relieve a brokenarm, and he had done it without a murmur. But on the presentoccasion there was a difference. His mind was not adjusted for theoccurrence. There are times when it is unseasonable to touch a manon the leg. This was a moment when it was unseasonable in the caseof Mr Pickering. He bounded silently into the air, his whole beingrent asunder as by a cataclysm. 

He had been holding his revolver in his hand as a protectionagainst nameless terrors, and as he leaped he pulled the trigger. Then with the automatic instinct for self-preservation, he sprangback into the bushes, and began to push his way through them untilhe had reached a safe distance from the danger zone. 

James, the cat, meanwhile, hurt at the manner in which hisfriendly move had been received, had taken refuge on the outhouseroof. He mewed complainingly, a puzzled note in his voice. MrPickering's behaviour had been one of those things that no fellowcan understand. The whole thing seemed inexplicable to James. 

18

Lord Dawlish stood in the doorway of the outhouse, holding thebody of Eustace gingerly by the tail. It was a solemn moment. There was no room for doubt as to the completeness of theextinction of Lady Wetherby's pet. 

Dudley Pickering's bullet had done its lethal work. Eustace'sadventurous career was over. He was through. 

Elizabeth's mouth was trembling, and she looked very white in themoonlight. Being naturally soft-hearted, she deplored the tragedyfor its own sake; and she was also, though not lacking in courage, decidedly upset by the discovery that some person unknown had beenroaming her premises with a firearm. 

'Oh, Bill!' she said. Then: 'Poor little chap!' And then: 'Whocould have done it?'

Lord Dawlish did not answer. His whole mind was occupied at themoment with the contemplation of the fact that she had called himBill. Then he realized that she had spoken three times andexpected a reply. 

'Who could have done it?'

Bill pondered. Never a quick thinker, the question found himunprepared. 

'Some fellow, I expect, ' he said at last brightly. 'Got in, don'tyou know, and then his pistol went off by accident. '

'But what was he doing with a pistol?'

Bill looked a little puzzled at this. 

'Why, he would have a pistol, wouldn't he? I thought everybodyhad over here. '

Except for what he had been able to observe during the briefperiod of his present visit, Lord Dawlish's knowledge of theUnited States had been derived from the American plays which hehad seen in London, and in these chappies were producing revolversall the time. He had got the impression that a revolver was asmuch a part of the ordinary well-dressed man's equipment in theUnited States as a collar. 

'I think it was a burglar, ' said Elizabeth. 'There have been a lotof burglaries down here this summer. '

'Would a burglar burgle the outhouse? Rummy idea, rather, what?Not much sense in it. I think it must have been a tramp. I expecttramps are always popping about and nosing into all sorts ofextraordinary places, you know. '

'He must have been standing quite close to us while we weretalking, ' said Elizabeth, with a shiver. 

Bill looked about him. Everywhere was peace. No sinister soundscompeted with the croaking of the tree frogs. No alien figuresinfested the landscape. The only alien figure, that of MrPickering, was wedged into a bush, invisible to the naked eye. 

'He's gone now, at any rate, ' he said. 'What are we going to do?'

Elizabeth gave another shiver as she glanced hurriedly at thedeceased. After life's fitful fever Eustace slept well, but he wasnot looking his best. 

'With--it?' she said. 

'I say, ' advised Bill, 'I shouldn't call him "it, " don't you know. It sort of rubs it in. Why not "him"? I suppose we had better buryhim. Have you a spade anywhere handy?'

'There isn't a spade on the place. '

Bill looked thoughtful. 

'It takes weeks to make a hole with anything else, you know, ' hesaid. 'When I was a kid a friend of mine bet me I wouldn't dig myway through to China with a pocket knife. It was an awful frost. Itried for a couple of days, and broke the knife and didn't getanywhere near China. ' He laid the remains on the grass andsurveyed them meditatively. 'This is what fellows always run upagainst in the detective novels--What to Do With the Body. Theymanage the murder part of it all right, and then stub their toeson the body problem. '

'I wish you wouldn't talk as if we had done a murder. '

'I feel as if we had, don't you?'

'Exactly. '

'I read a story once where a fellow slugged somebody and meltedthe corpse down in a bath tub with sulphuric--'

'Stop! You're making me sick!'

'Only a suggestion, don't you know, ' said Bill apologetically. 

'Well, suggest something else, then. '

'How about leaving him on Lady Wetherby's doorstep? See what Imean--let them take him in with the morning milk? Or, if you wouldrather ring the bell and go away, and--you don't think much ofit?'

'I simply haven't the nerve to do anything so risky. '

'Oh, I would do it. There would be no need for you to come. '

'I wouldn't dream of deserting you. '

'That's awfully good of you. '

'Besides, I'm not going to be left alone to-night until I can jumpinto my little white bed and pull the clothes over my head. I'mscared, I'm just boneless with fright. And I wouldn't go anywherenear Lady Wetherby's doorstep with it. '

'Him. '

'It's no use, I can't think of it as "him. " It's no good asking meto. '

Bill frowned thoughtfully. 

'I read a story once where two chappies wanted to get rid of abody. They put it inside a fellow's piano. '

'You do seem to have read the most horrible sort of books. '

'I rather like a bit of blood with my fiction, ' said Bill. 'Whatabout this piano scheme I read about?'

'People only have talking machines in these parts. '

'I read a story--'

'Let's try to forget the stories you've read. Suggest something ofyour own. '

'Well, could we dissect the little chap?'

'Dissect him?'

'And bury him in the cellar, you know. Fellows do it to theirwives. '

Elizabeth shuddered. 

'Try again, ' she said. 

'Well, the only other thing I can think of is to take him into thewoods and leave him there. It's a pity we can't let Lady Wetherbyknow where he is; she seems rather keen on him. But I suppose themain point is to get rid of him. '

'I know how we can do both. That's a good idea of yours about thewoods. They are part of Lady Wetherby's property. I used to wanderabout there in the spring when the house was empty. There's a sortof shack in the middle of them. I shouldn't think anybody everwent there--it's a deserted sort of place. We could leave himthere, and then--well, we might write Lady Wetherby a letter orsomething. We could think out that part afterward. '

'It's the best thing we've thought of. You really want to come?'

'If you attempt to leave here without me I shall scream. Let's bestarting. '

Bill picked Eustace up by his convenient tail. 

'I read a story once, ' he said, 'where a fellow was lugging acorpse through a wood, when suddenly--'

'Stop right there, ' said Elizabeth firmly. 

During the conversation just recorded Dudley Pickering had beenkeeping a watchful eye on Bill and Elizabeth from the interior ofa bush. His was not the ideal position for espionage, for he wastoo far off to hear what they said, and the light was too dim toenable him to see what it was that Bill was holding. It looked toMr Pickering like a sack or bag of some sort. As time went by hebecame convinced that it was a sack, limp and empty at present, but destined later to receive and bulge with what he believed wastechnically known as the swag. When the two objects of vigilanceconcluded their lengthy consultation, and moved off in thedirection of Lady Wetherby's woods, any doubts he may have had asto whether they were the criminals he had suspected them of beingwere dispersed. The whole thing worked out logically. 

The Man, having spied out the land in his two visits to LadyWetherby's house, was now about to break in. His accomplice wouldstand by with the sack. With a beating heart Mr Pickering grippedhis revolver and moved round in the shadow of the shrubbery tillhe came to the gate, when he was just in time to see the guiltycouple disappear into the woods. He followed them. He was glad toget on the move again. While he had been wedged into the bush, quite a lot of the bush had been wedged into him. Something sharphad pressed against the calf of his leg, and he had been pinchedin a number of tender places. And he was convinced that one moreof God's unpleasant creatures had got down the back of his neck. 

Dudley Pickering moved through the wood as snakily as he could. Nature had shaped him more for stability than for snakiness, buthe did his best. He tingled with the excitement of the chase, andendeavoured to creep through the undergrowth like one of thoseintelligent Indians of whom he had read so many years before inthe pages of Mr Fenimore Cooper. In those days Dudley Pickeringhad not thought very highly of Fenimore Cooper, holding his workdeficient in serious and scientific interest; but now it seemed tohim that there had been something in the man after all, and heresolved to get some of his books and go over them again. Hewished he had read them more carefully at the time, for theydoubtless contained much information and many hints which wouldhave come in handy just now. He seemed, for example, to recallcharacters in them who had the knack of going through forestswithout letting a single twig crack beneath their feet. Probablythe author had told how this was done. In his unenlightened stateit was beyond Mr Pickering. The wood seemed carpeted with twigs. Whenever he stepped he trod on one, and whenever he trod on one itcracked beneath his feet. There were moments when he felt gloomilythat he might just as well be firing a machine-gun. 

Bill, meanwhile, Elizabeth following close behind him, wasploughing his way onward. From time to time he would turn toadminister some encouraging remark, for it had come home to him bynow that encouraging remarks were what she needed very much in thepresent crisis of her affairs. She was showing him a new andhitherto unsuspected side of her character. The Elizabeth whom hehad known--the valiant, self-reliant Elizabeth--had gone, leavingin her stead someone softer, more appealing, more approachable. Itwas this that was filling him with strange emotions as he led theway to their destination. 

He was becoming more and more conscious of a sense of being drawnvery near to Elizabeth, of a desire to soothe, comfort, and protecther. It was as if to-night he had discovered the missing key to apuzzle or the missing element in some chemical combination. Likemost big men, his mind was essentially a protective mind; weaknessdrew out the best that was in him. And it was only to-night thatElizabeth had given any sign of having any weakness in hercomposition. That clear vision which had come to him on his longwalk came again now, that vivid conviction that she was the onlygirl in the world for him. 

He was debating within himself the advisability of trying to findwords to express this sentiment, when Mr Pickering, the modernChingachgook, trod on another twig in the background and Elizabethstopped abruptly with a little cry. 

'What was that?' she demanded. 

Bill had heard a noise too. It was impossible to be within a dozenyards of Mr Pickering, when on the trail, and not hear a noise. The suspicion that someone was following them did not come to him, for he was a man rather of common sense than of imagination, andcommon sense was asking him bluntly why the deuce anybody shouldwant to tramp after them through a wood at that time of night. Hecaught the note of panic in Elizabeth's voice, and was soothingher. 

'It was just a branch breaking. You hear all sorts of rum noisesin a wood. '

'I believe it's the man with the pistol following us!'

'Nonsense. Why should he? Silly thing to do!' He spoke almostseverely. 

'Look!' cried Elizabeth. 

'What?'

'I saw someone dodge behind that tree. '

'You mustn't let yourself imagine things. Buck up!'

'I can't buck up. I'm scared. '

'Which tree did you think you saw someone dodge behind?'

'That big one there. '

'Well, listen: I'll go back and--'

'If you leave me for an instant I shall die in agonies. ' Shegulped. 'I never knew I was such a coward before. I'm just aworm. '

'Nonsense. This sort of thing might frighten anyone. I read astory once--'

'Don't!'

Bill found that his heart had suddenly begun to beat withunaccustomed rapidity. The desire to soothe, comfort, and protectElizabeth became the immediate ambition of his life. It was verydark where they stood. The moonlight, which fell in little patchesround them, did not penetrate the thicket which they had entered. He could hardly see her. He was merely aware of her as a presence. An excellent idea occurred to him. 

'Hold my hand, ' he said. 

It was what he would have said to a frightened child, and there wasmuch of the frightened child about Elizabeth then. The Eustace mysteryhad given her a shock which subsequent events had done nothing todispel, and she had lost that jauntiness and self-confidence which washer natural armour against the more ordinary happenings of life. 

Something small and soft slid gratefully into his palm, and therewas silence for a space. Bill said nothing. Elizabeth saidnothing. And Mr Pickering had stopped treading on twigs. Thefaintest of night breezes ruffled the tree-tops above them. Themoonbeams filtered through the branches. He held her hand tightly. 

'Better?'

'Much. '

The breeze died away. Not a leaf stirred. The wood was very still. Somewhere on a bough a bird moved drowsily 'All right?'

'Yes. '

And then something happened--something shattering, disintegrating. It was only a pheasant, but it sounded like the end of the world. It rose at their feet with a rattle that filled the universe, andfor a moment all was black confusion. And when that moment hadpassed it became apparent to Bill that his arm was roundElizabeth, that she was sobbing helplessly, and that he waskissing her. Somebody was talking very rapidly in a low voice. 

He found that it was himself. 

'Elizabeth!'

There was something wonderful about the name, a sort of music. This was odd, because the name, as a name, was far from being afavourite of his. Until that moment childish associations hadprejudiced him against it. It had been inextricably involved inhis mind with an atmosphere of stuffy schoolrooms and generalmisery, for it had been his misfortune that his budding mind wasconstitutionally incapable of remembering who had been Queen ofEngland at the time of the Spanish Armada--a fact that had causeda good deal of friction with a rather sharp-tempered governess. But now it seemed the only possible name for a girl to have, theonly label that could even remotely suggest those feminine charmswhich he found in this girl beside him. There was poetry in everysyllable of it. It was like one of those deep chords which fillthe hearer with vague yearnings for strange and beautiful things. He asked for nothing better than to stand here repeating it. 

'Elizabeth!'

'Bill, dear!'

That sounded good too. There was music in 'Bill' when properlyspoken. The reason why all the other Bills in the world had gotthe impression that it was a prosaic sort of name was that therewas only one girl in existence capable of speaking it properly, and she was not for them. 

'Bill, are you really fond of me?'

'Fond of you!'

She gave a sigh. 'You're so splendid!'

Bill was staggered. These were strange words. He had never thoughtmuch of himself. He had always looked on himself as rather achump--well-meaning, perhaps, but an awful ass. It seemedincredible that any one--and Elizabeth of all people--could lookon him as splendid. 

And yet the very fact that she had said it gave it a plausiblesort of sound. It shook his convictions. Splendid! Was he? ByJove, perhaps he was, what? Rum idea, but it grew on a chap. Filled with a novel feeling of exaltation, he kissed Elizabetheleven times in rapid succession. 

He felt devilish fit. He would have liked to run a mile or two andjump a few gates. He wished five or six starving beggars wouldcome along; it would be pleasant to give the poor blighters money. It was too much to expect at that time of night, of course, but itwould be rather jolly if Jess Willard would roll up and try topick a quarrel. He would show him something. He felt grand andstrong and full of beans. What a ripping thing life was when youcame to think of it. 

'This, ' he said, 'is perfectly extraordinary!' And time stoodstill. 

A sense of something incongruous jarred upon Bill. Somethingseemed to be interfering with the supreme romance of that goldenmoment. It baffled him at first. Then he realized that he wasstill holding Eustace by the tail. 

Dudley Pickering had watched these proceedings--as well as thefact that it was extremely dark and that he was endeavouring tohide a portly form behind a slender bush would permit him--with asense of bewilderment. A comic artist drawing Mr Pickering at thatmoment would no doubt have placed above his head one of thoselarge marks of interrogation which lend vigour and snap to moderncomic art. Certainly such a mark of interrogation would havesummed up his feelings exactly. Of what was taking place he hadnot the remotest notion. All he knew was that for some inexplicablereason his quarry had come to a halt and seemed to have settled downfor an indefinite stay. Voices came to him in an indistinguishablemurmur, intensely irritating to a conscientious tracker. One ofFenimore Cooper's Indians--notably Chingachgook, if, which seemedincredible, that was really the man's name--would have crept upwithout a sound and heard what was being said and got in on theground floor of whatever plot was being hatched. But experiencehad taught Mr Pickering that, superior as he was to Chingachgookand his friends in many ways, as a creeper he was not in their class. He weighed thirty or forty pounds more than a first-class creepershould. Besides, creeping is like golf. You can't take it up in themiddle forties and expect to compete with those who have been at itfrom infancy. 

He had resigned himself to an all-night vigil behind the bush, when to his great delight he perceived that things had begun tomove again. There was a rustling of feet in the undergrowth, andhe could just see two indistinct forms making their way among thebushes. He came out of his hiding place and followed stealthily, or as stealthily as the fact that he had not even taken acorrespondence course in creeping allowed. And profiting byearlier mistakes, he did succeed in making far less noise thanbefore. In place of his former somewhat elephantine method ofprogression he adopted a species of shuffle which had excellentresults, for it enabled him to brush twigs away instead ofstepping flatfootedly on them. The new method was slow, but it hadno other disadvantages. 

Because it was slow, Mr Pickering was obliged to follow his preyalmost entirely by ear. It was easy at first, for they seemed tobe hurrying on regardless of noise. Then unexpectedly the soundsof their passage ceased. 

He halted. In his boyish way the first thing he thought was thatit was an ambush. He had a vision of that large man suspecting hispresence and lying in wait for him with a revolver. This was not acomforting thought. Of course, if a man is going to fire arevolver at you it makes little difference whether he is a giantor a pygmy, but Mr Pickering was in no frame of mind for nicereasoning. It was the thought of Bill's physique which kept himstanding there irresolute. 

What would Chingachgook--assuming, for purposes of argument, thatany sane godfather could really have given a helpless child a namelike that--have done? He would, Mr Pickering considered, aftergiving the matter his earnest attention, have made a _detour_and outflanked the enemy. An excellent solution of the difficulty. Mr Pickering turned to the left and began to advance circuitously, with the result that, before he knew what he was doing, he cameout into a clearing and understood the meaning of the suddensilence which had perplexed him. Footsteps made no sound on thismossy turf. 

He knew where he was now; the clearing was familiar. This waswhere Lord Wetherby's shack-studio stood; and there it was, rightin front of him, black and clear in the moonlight. And the twodark figures were going into it. 

Mr Pickering retreated into the shelter of the bushes and musedupon this thing. It seemed to him that for centuries he had beendoing nothing but retreat into bushes for this purpose. Hisperplexity had returned. He could imagine no reason why burglarsshould want to visit Lord Wetherby's studio. He had taken it forgranted, when he had tracked them to the clearing, that they wereon their way to the house, which was quite close to the shack, separated from it only by a thin belt of trees and a lawn. 

They had certainly gone in. He had seen them with his own eyes--firstthe man, then very close behind him, apparently holding to his coat, the girl. But why?

Creep up and watch them? Would Chingachgook have taken a risk likethat? Hardly, unless insured with some good company. Then what? Hewas still undecided when he perceived the objects of his attentionemerging. He backed a little farther into the bushes. 

They stood for an instant, listening apparently. The man no longercarried the sack. They exchanged a few inaudible words. Then theycrossed the clearing and entered the wood a few yards to hisright. He could hear the crackling of their footsteps diminishingin the direction of the road. 

A devouring curiosity seized upon Mr Pickering. He wanted, morethan he had wanted almost anything before in his life, to find outwhat the dickens they had been up to in there. He listened. Thefootsteps were no longer audible. He ran across the clearing andinto the shack. It was then that he discovered that he had nomatches. 

This needless infliction, coming upon him at the crisis of anadventurous night, infuriated Mr Pickering. He swore softly. Hegroped round the walls for an electric-light switch, but the shackhad no electric-light switch. When there was need to illuminate itan oil lamp performed the duty. This occurred to Mr Pickeringafter he had been round the place three times, and he ceased togrope for a switch and began to seek for a match-box. He was stillseeking it when he was frozen in his tracks by the sound offootsteps, muffled but by their nearness audible, just outside thedoor. He pulled out his pistol, which he had replaced in hispocket, backed against the wall, and stood there prepared to sellhis life dearly. 

The door opened. 

One reads of desperate experiences ageing people in a singlenight. His present predicament aged Mr Pickering in a singleminute. In the brief interval of time between the opening of thedoor and the moment when a voice outside began to speak he becamea full thirty years older. His boyish ardour slipped from him, andhe was once more the Dudley Pickering whom the world knew, thestaid and respectable middle-aged man of affairs, who would havegiven a million dollars not to have got himself mixed up in thisdeplorable business. 

And then the voice spoke. 

'I'll light the lamp, ' it said; and with an overpowering feelingof relief Mr Pickering recognized it as Lord Wetherby's. A momentlater the temperamental peer's dapper figure became visible insilhouette against a background of pale light. 

'Ah-hum!' said Mr Pickering. 

The effect on Lord Wetherby was remarkable. To hear some one clearhis throat at the back of a dark room, where there shouldrightfully be no throat to be cleared, would cause even your manof stolid habit a passing thrill. The thing got right in amongLord Wetherby's highly sensitive ganglions like an earthquake. Heuttered a strangled cry, then dashed out and slammed the doorbehind him. 

'There's someone in there!'

Lady Wetherby's tranquil voice made itself heard. 

'Nonsense; who could be in there?'

'I heard him, I tell you. He growled at me!'

It seemed to Mr Pickering that the time had come to relieve themental distress which he was causing his host. He raised hisvoice. 

'It's all right!' he called. 

'There!' said Lord Wetherby. 

'Who's that?' asked Lady Wetherby, through the door. 

'It's all right. It's me--Pickering. '

The door was opened a few inches by a cautious hand. 

'Is that you, Pickering?'

'Yes. It's all right. '

'Don't keep saying it's all right, ' said Lord Wetherby, irritably. 'It isn't all right. What do you mean by hiding in the dark andpopping out and barking at a man? You made me bite my tongue. I'venever had such a shock in my life. '

Mr Pickering left his lair and came out into the open. LordWetherby was looking aggrieved, Lady Wetherby peacefullyinquisitive. For the first time Mr Pickering discovered thatClaire was present. She was standing behind Lady Wetherby with afloating white something over her head, looking very beautiful. 

'For the love of Mike!' said Lady Wetherby. 

Mr Pickering became aware that he was still holding the revolver. 

'Oh, ah!' he said, and pocketed the weapon. 

'Barking at people!' muttered Lord Wetherby in a querulousundertone. 

'What on earth are you doing, Dudley?' said Claire. 

There was a note in her voice which both puzzled and pained MrPickering, a note that seemed to suggest that she found herself inimperfect sympathy with him. Her expression deepened thesuggestion. It was a cold expression, unfriendly, as if it was notso keen a pleasure to Claire to look at him as it should be for agirl to look at the man whom she is engaged to marry. He hadnoticed the same note in her voice and the same hostile look inher eye earlier in the evening. He had found her alone, reading aletter which, as the stamp on the envelope showed, had come fromEngland. She had seemed so upset that he had asked her if itcontained bad news, and she had replied in the negative with somuch irritation that he had desisted from inquiries. But his ownidea was that she had had bad news from home. Mr Pickering stillclung to his early impression that her little brother Percy wasconsumptive, and he thought the child must have taken a turn forthe worse. It was odd that she should have looked and spoken likethat then, and it was odd that she should look and speak like thatnow. He had been vaguely disturbed then and he was vaguelydisturbed now. He had the feeling that all was not well. 

'Yes, ' said Lady Wetherby. 'What on earth are you doing, Dudley?'

'Popping out!' grumbled Lord Wetherby. 

'We came here to see Algie's picture, which has got somethingwrong with its eyes apparently, and we find you hiding in the darkwith a gun. What's the idea?'

'It's a long story, ' said Mr Pickering. 

'We have the night before us, ' said Lady Wetherby. 

'You remember The Man--the fellow I found looking in at thewindow, The Man who said he knew Claire?'

'You've got that man on the brain, Dudley. What's he been doing toyou now?'

'I tracked him here. '

'Tracked him? Where from?'

'From that bee-farm place where he's living. He and that girl youspoke of went into these woods. I thought they were making for thehouse, but they went into the shack. '

'What did they do then?' asked Lady Wetherby

'They came out again. '

'Why?'

'That's what I was trying to find out. '

Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation. 

'By Jove!' There was apprehension in his voice, but mingled withit a certain pleased surprise. 'Perhaps they were after mypicture. I'll light the lamp. Good Lord, picture thieves--Romneys--missing Gainsboroughs--' His voice trailed off as he found thelamp and lit it. Relief and disappointment were nicely blended inhis next words: 'No, it's still there. '

The soft light of the lamp filled the studio. 

'Well, that's a comfort, ' said Lady Wetherby, sauntering in. 'Wecouldn't afford to lose--Oh!'

Lord Wetherby spun round as her scream burst upon his alreadytortured nerve centres. Lady Wetherby was kneeling on the floor. Claire hurried in. 

'What is it, Polly?'

Lady Wetherby rose to her feet, and pointed. Her face had lost itslook of patient amusement. It was hard and set. She eyed MrPickering in a menacing way. 

'Look!'

Claire followed her finger. 

'Good gracious! It's Eustace!'

'Shot!'

She was looking intently at Mr Pickering. 'Well, Dudley, ' shesaid, coldly, 'what about it?'

Mr Pickering found that they were all looking at him--LadyWetherby with glittering eyes, Claire with cool scorn, LordWetherby with a horror which he seemed to have achieved withsomething of an effort. 

'Well!' said Claire. 

'What about it, Dudley?' said Lady Wetherby. 

'I must say, Pickering, ' said Lord Wetherby, 'much as I dislikedthe animal, it's a bit thick!'

Mr Pickering recoiled from their accusing gaze. 

'Good heavens! Do you think I did it?'

In the midst of his anguish there flashed across his mind therecollection of having seen just this sort of situation in amoving picture, and of having thought it far-fetched. 

Lady Wetherby's good-tempered mouth, far from good-tempered now, curled in a devastating sneer. She was looking at him as Claire, in the old days when they had toured England together in roadcompanies, had sometimes seen her look at recalcitrant landladies. The landladies, without exception, had wilted beneath that gaze, and Mr Pickering wilted now. 

'But--but--but--' was all he could contrive to say. 

'Why should we think you did it?' said Lady Wetherby, bitterly. 'You had a grudge against the poor brute for biting you. We findyou hiding here with a pistol and a story about burglars which aninfant couldn't swallow. I suppose you thought that, if youplanted the poor creature's body here, it would be up to Algie toget rid of it, and that if he were found with it I should thinkthat it was he who had killed the animal. '

The look of horror which Lord Wetherby had managed to assumebecame genuine at these words. The gratitude which he had beenfeeling towards Mr Pickering for having removed one of the chieftrials of his existence vanished. 

'Great Scot!' he cried. 'So that was the game, was it?'

Mr Pickering struggled for speech. This was a nightmare. 

'But I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I tell you I hadn't theremotest notion the creature was there. '

'Oh, come, Pickering!' said Lord Wetherby. 'Come, come, come!'

Mr Pickering found that his accusers were ebbing away. LadyWetherby had gone. Claire had gone. Only Lord Wetherby remained, looking at him like a pained groom. He dashed from the place andfollowed his hostess, speaking incoherently of burglars, outhouses, and misunderstandings. He even mentioned Chingachgook. But Lady Wetherby would not listen. Nobody would listen. 

He found Lord Wetherby at his side, evidently prepared to godeeper into the subject. Lord Wetherby was looking now like agroom whose favourite horse has kicked him in the stomach. 

'Wouldn't have thought it of you, Pickering, ' said Lord Wetherby. Mr Pickering found no words. 'Wouldn't, honestly. Low trick!'

'But I tell you--'

'Devilish low trick!' repeated Lord Wetherby, with a shake of thehead. 'Laws of hospitality--eaten our bread and salt, what!--allthat sort of thing--kill valuable monkey--not done, you know--low, very low!'

And he followed his wife, now in full retreat, with scorn andrepulsion written in her very walk. 

'Mr Pickering!'

It was Claire. She stood there, holding something towards him, something that glittered in the moonlight. Her voice was hard, andthe expression on her face suggested that in her estimation he wasa particularly low-grade worm, one of the submerged tenth of theworm world. 

'Eh?' said Mr Pickering, dazedly. 

He looked at what she had in her hand, but it conveyed nothing tohis overwrought mind. 

'Take it!'

'Eh?'

Claire stamped. 

'Very well, ' she said. 

She flung something on the ground before him--a small, sparklingobject. Then she swept away, his eyes following her, and was lostin the darkness of the trees. Mechanically Mr Pickering stooped topick up what she had let fall. He recognized it now. It was herengagement ring. 

19

Bill leaned his back against the gate that separated the grounds ofthe bee-farm from the high road and mused pleasantly. He was alone. Elizabeth was walking up the drive on her way to the house to tellthe news to Nutty. James, the cat, who had come down from the roofof the outhouse, was sharpening his claws on a neighbouring tree. After the whirl of excitement that had been his portion for the pastfew hours, the peace of it all appealed strongly to Bill. It suitedthe mood of quiet happiness which was upon him. 

Quietly happy, that was how he felt now that it was all over. Thewhite heat of emotion had subsided to a gentle glow of contentmentconducive to thought. He thought tenderly of Elizabeth. She hadturned to wave her hand before going into the house, and he wasstill smiling fatuously. Wonderful girl! Lucky chap he was! Rum, the way they had come together! Talk about Fate, what?

He stooped to tickle James, who had finished stropping his clawsand was now enjoying a friction massage against his leg, and beganto brood on the inscrutable way of Fate. 

Rum thing, Fate! Most extraordinary!

Suppose he had never gone down to Marvis Bay that time. He hadwavered between half a dozen places; it was pure chance that hehad chosen Marvis Bay. If he hadn't he would never have met oldNutcombe. Probably old Nutcombe had wavered between half a dozenplaces too. If they hadn't both happened to choose Marvis Bay theywould never have met. And if they hadn't been the only visitorsthere they might never have got to know each other. And if oldNutcombe hadn't happened to slice his approach shots he wouldnever have put him under an obligation. Queer old buster, oldNutcombe, leaving a fellow he hardly knew from Adam a cool millionquid just because he cured him of slicing. 

It was at this point in his meditations that it suddenly occurred toBill that he had not yet given a thought to what was immeasurablythe most important of any of the things that ought to be occupyinghis mind just now. What was he to do about this Lord Dawlishbusiness?

Life at Brookport had so accustomed him to being plain BillChalmers that it had absolutely slipped his mind that he wasreally Lord Dawlish, the one man in the world whom Elizabethlooked on as an enemy. What on earth was he to do about that? Tellher? But if he told her, wouldn't she chuck him on the spot?

This was awful. The dreamy sense of well-being left him. Hestraightened himself to face this problem, ignoring the hint ofJames, who was weaving circles about his legs expectant of moretickling. A man cannot spend his time tickling cats when he has toconcentrate on a dilemma of this kind. 

Suppose he didn't tell her? How would that work out? Was a marriagelegal if the cove who was being married went through it under afalse name? He seemed to remember seeing a melodrama in his boyhoodthe plot of which turned on that very point. Yes, it began to comeback to him. An unpleasant bargee with a black moustache had said, 'This woman is not your wife!' and caused the dickens of a lot ofunpleasantness; but there in its usual slipshod way memory failed. Had subsequent events proved the bargee right or wrong? It was aquestion for a lawyer to decide. Jerry Nichols would know. Well, there was plenty of time, thank goodness, to send Jerry Nichols acable, asking for his professional opinion, and to get the straighttip long before the wedding day arrived. 

Laying this part of it aside for the moment, and assuming that thething could be worked, what about the money? Like a chump, he hadtold Elizabeth on the first day of his visit that he hadn't anymoney except what he made out of his job as secretary of the club. He couldn't suddenly spring five million dollars on her andpretend that he had forgotten all about it till then. 

Of course, he could invent an imaginary uncle or something, andmassacre him during the honeymoon. Something in that. He picturedthe thing in his mind. Breakfast: Elizabeth doling out thescrambled eggs. 'What's the matter, Bill? Why did you exclaim likethat? Is there some bad news in the letter you are reading?'

'Oh, it's nothing--only my Uncle John's died and left me fivemillion dollars. '

The scene worked out so well that his mind became a little aboveitself. It suggested developments of serpentine craftiness. Whynot get Jerry Nichols to write him a letter about his Uncle Johnand the five millions? Jerry liked doing that sort of thing. Hewould do it like a shot, and chuck in a lot of legal words to makeit sound right. It began to be clear to Bill that any move hetook--except full confession, at which he jibbed--was going toinvolve Jerry Nichols as an ally; and this discovery had asoothing effect on him. It made him feel that the responsibilityhad been shifted. He couldn't do anything till he had consultedJerry, so there was no use in worrying. And, being one of thoserare persons who can cease worrying instantly when they haveconvinced themselves that it is useless, he dismissed the entireproblem from his mind and returned to the more congenialoccupation of thinking of Elizabeth. 

It was a peculiar feature of his position that he found himselfunable to think of Elizabeth without thinking of Claire. He triedto, but failed. Every virtue in Elizabeth seemed to call up therecollection of a corresponding defect in Claire It became almostmathematical. Elizabeth was so straight on the level they calledit over here. Claire was a corkscrew among women. Elizabeth wassunny and cheerful. Querulousness was Claire's besetting sin. Elizabeth was such a pal. Claire had never been that. The effectthat Claire had always had on him was to deepen the conviction, which never really left him, that he was a bit of an ass. Elizabeth, on the other hand, bucked him up and made him feel asif he really amounted to something. 

How different they were! Their very voices--Elizabeth had a sortof quiet, soothing, pleasant voice, the kind of voice that somehowsuggested that she thought a lot of a chap without her having tosay it in so many words. Whereas Claire's voice--he had noticed itright from the beginning--Claire's voice--

While he was trying to make clear to himself just what it wasabout Claire's voice that he had not liked he was granted theopportunity of analysing by means of direct observation itsfailure to meet his vocal ideals, for at this moment it spokebehind him. 

'Bill!'

She was standing in the road, her head still covered with thatwhite, filmy something which had commended itself to Mr Pickering'seyes. She was looking at him in a way that seemed somehow to strikea note of appeal. She conveyed an atmosphere of softness andrepentance, a general suggestion of prodigal daughters revisitingold homesteads. 

'We seem always to be meeting at gates, don't we?' she said, witha faint smile. 

It was a deprecating smile, wistful. 

'Bill!' she said again, and stopped. She laid her left handlightly on the gate. Bill had a sort of impression that there wassome meaning behind this action; that, if he were less of a chumpthan Nature had made him, he would at this point receive some sortof a revelation. But, being as Nature had made him, he did not getit. 

He was one of those men to whom a girl's left hand is simply agirl's left hand, irrespective of whether it wears rings on itsthird finger or not. 

This having become evident to Claire after a moment of silence, she withdrew her hand in rather a disappointed way and prepared toattack the situation from another angle. 

'Bill, I've come to say something to you. '

Bill was looking at her curiously. He could not have believedthat, even after what had happened, he could face her with suchcomplete detachment; that she could so extraordinarily not matter. He felt no resentment toward her. It was simply that she had goneout of his life. 

'Bill, I've been a fool. '

He made no reply to this for he could think of no reply that wassufficiently polite. 'Yes?' sounded as if he meant to say thatthat was just what he had expected. 'Really?' had a sarcasticring. He fell back on facial expression, to imply that he wasinterested and that she might tell all. 

Claire looked away down the road and began to speak in a low, quick voice:

'I've been a fool all along. I lost you through being a fool. WhenI saw you dancing with that girl in the restaurant I didn't stopto think. I was angry. I was jealous. I ought to have trusted you, but--Oh, well, I was a fool. '

'My dear girl, you had a perfect right--'

'I hadn't. I was an idiot. Bill, I've come to ask you if you can'tforgive me. '

'I wish you wouldn't talk like that--there's nothing to forgive. '

The look which Claire gave him in answer to this was meek andaffectionate, but inwardly she was wishing that she could bang hishead against the gate. His slowness was maddening. Long beforethis he should have leaped into the road in order to fold her inhis arms. Her voice shook with the effort she had to make to keepit from sharpness. 

'I mean, is it too late? I mean, can you really forgive me? Oh, Bill'--she stopped herself by the fraction of a second from adding'you idiot'--'can't we be the same again to each other? Can'twe--pretend all this has never happened?'

Exasperating as Bill's wooden failure to play the scene in thespirit in which her imagination had conceived it was to Claire, several excuses may be offered for him: He had opened the eveningwith a shattering blow at his faith in woman. He had walked twentymiles at a rapid pace. He had heard shots and found a corpse, andcarried the latter by the tail across country. Finally, he had hadthe stunning shock of discovering that Elizabeth Boyd loved him. He was not himself. He found a difficulty in concentrating. Withthe result that, in answer to this appeal from a beautiful girlwhom he had once imagined that he loved, all he could find to saywas: 'How do you mean?'

Claire, never an adept at patience, just succeeded in swallowingthe remark that sprang into her mind. It was incredible to herthat a man could exist who had so little intuition. She had notanticipated the necessity of being compelled to put the substanceof her meaning in so many blunt words, but it seemed that only socould she make him understand. 

'I mean, can't we be engaged again, Bill?'

Bill's overtaxed brain turned one convulsive hand-spring, and cameto rest with a sense of having dislocated itself. This was toomuch. This was not right. No fellow at the end of a hard eveningought to have to grapple with this sort of thing. What on earthdid she mean, springing questions like that on him? How could theybe engaged? She was going to marry someone else, and so was he. Something of these thoughts he managed to put into words:

'But you're engaged to--'

'I've broken my engagement with Mr Pickering. '

'Great Scot! When?'

'To-night. I found out his true character. He is cruel andtreacherous. Something happened--it may sound nothing to you, butit gave me an insight into what he really was. Polly Wetherby hada little monkey, and just because it bit Mr Pickering he shot it. '

'Pickering!'

'Yes. He wasn't the sort of man I should have expected to do amean, cruel thing like that. It sickened me. I gave him back hisring then and there. Oh, what a relief it was! What a fool I wasever to have got engaged to such a man. '

Bill was puzzled. He was one of those simple men who take theirfellows on trust, but who, if once that trust is shattered, cannever recover it. Like most simple men, he was tenacious of ideaswhen he got them, and the belief that Claire was playing fast andloose was not lightly to be removed from his mind. He had foundher out during his self-communion that night, and he could neverbelieve her again. He had the feeling that there was somethingbehind what she was saying. He could not put his finger on theclue, but that there was a clue he was certain. 

'I only got engaged to him out of pique. I was angry with you, and--Well, that's how it happened. '

Still Bill could not believe. It was plausible. It sounded true. And yet some instinct told him that it was not true. And while hewaited, perplexed, Claire made a false step. 

The thing had been so close to the top of her mind ever since shehad come to the knowledge of it that it had been hard for her tokeep it down. Now she could keep it down no longer. 

'How wonderful about old Mr Nutcombe, Bill!' she said. 

A vast relief rolled over Bill. Despite his instinct, he had beenwavering. But now he understood. He had found the clue. 

'You got my letter, then?'

'Yes; it was forwarded on from the theatre. I got it to-night. '

Too late she realized what she had said and the construction thatan intelligent man would put on it. Then she reflected that Billwas not an intelligent man. She shot a swift glance at him. To allappearances he had suspected nothing. 

'It went all over the place, ' she hurried on. 'The people at thePortsmouth theatre sent it to the London office, who sent it home, and mother mailed it on to me. '

'I see. '

There was a silence. Claire drew a step nearer. 

'Bill!' she said softly. 

Bill shut his eyes. The moment had come which he had dreaded. Noteven the thought that she was crooked, that she had been playingwith him, could make it any better. She was a woman and he was aman. That was all that mattered, and nothing could alter it. 

'I'm sorry, ' he said. 'It's impossible. '

Claire stared at him in amazement. She had not been prepared forthis. He met her eyes, but every nerve in his body was protesting. 

'Bill!'

'I'm sorry. 

'But, Bill!'

He set his teeth. It was just as bad as he had thought it wouldbe. 

'But, Bill, I've explained. I've told you how--'

'I know. '

Claire's eyes opened wide. 

'I thought you loved me. ' She came closer. She pulled at hissleeve. Her voice took on a note of soft raillery. 'Don't beabsurd, Bill! You mustn't behave like a sulky schoolboy. It isn'tlike you, this. You surely don't want me to humble myself morethan I have done. ' She gave a little laugh. 'Why, Bill, I'mproposing to you! I know I've treated you badly, but I'veexplained why. You must be just enough to see that it wasn'taltogether my fault. I'm only human. And if I made a mistake I'vedone all I can do to undo it. I--'

'Claire, listen: I'm engaged!'

She fell back. For the first time the sense of defeat came to her. She had anticipated many things. She had looked for difficulties. But she had not expected this. A feeling of cold fury surged overher at the way fate had tricked her. She had gambled recklessly onher power of fascination, and she had lost. 

Mr Pickering, at that moment brooding in solitude in the smoking-roomof Lady Wetherby's house, would have been relieved could he haveknown how wistfully she was thinking of him. 

'You're engaged?'

'Yes. '

'Well!' She forced another laugh. 'How very--rapid of you! Towhom?'

'To Elizabeth Boyd. '

'I'm afraid I'm very ignorant, but who is Elizabeth Boyd? Theornate lady you were dancing with at the restaurant?'

'No!'

'Who then?'

'She is old Ira Nutcombe's niece. The money ought to have beenleft to her. That was why I came over to America, to see if Icould do anything for her. '

'And you're going to marry her? How very romantic--and convenient!What an excellent arrangement for her. Which of you suggested it?'

Bill drew in a deep breath. All this was, he supposed, unavoidable, but it was not pleasant. 

Claire suddenly abandoned her pose of cool amusement. The firebehind it blazed through. 

'You fool!' she cried passionately. 'Are you blind? Can't you seethat this girl is simply after your money? A child could see it. '

Bill looked at her steadily. 

'You're quite wrong. She doesn't know who I am. '

'Doesn't know who you are? What do you mean? She must know by thistime that her uncle left his money to you. '

'But she doesn't know that I am Lord Dawlish. I came to Americaunder another name. She knows me as Chalmers. '

Claire was silent for a moment. 

'How did you get to know her?' she asked, more quietly. 

'I met her brother by chance in New York. '

'By chance!'

'Quite by chance. A man I knew in England lent me his rooms in NewYork. He happened to be a friend of Boyd's. Boyd came to call onhim one night, and found me. '

'Odd! Had your mutual friend been away from New York long?'

'Some months. '

'And in all that time Mr Boyd had not discovered that he had left. They must have been great friends! What happened then?'

'Boyd invited me down here. '

'Down here?'

'They live in this house. '

'Is Miss Boyd the girl who keeps the bee-farm?'

'She is. '

Claire's eyes suddenly lit up. She began to speak in a loudervoice:

'Bill, you're an infant, a perfect infant! Of course, she's afteryour money. Do you really imagine for one instant that thisElizabeth Boyd of yours and her brother don't know as well as I dothat you are really Lord Dawlish? I always thought you had atrustful nature! You tell me the brother met you by chance. Chance! And invited you down here. I bet he did! He knew hisbusiness! And now you're going to marry the girl so that they willget the money after all! Splendid! Oh, Bill, you're a wonderful, wonderful creature! Your innocence is touching. '

She swung round. 

'Good night, ' she called over her shoulder. 

He could hear her laughing as she went down the road. 

20

In the smoking-room of Lady Wetherby's house, chewing the deadstump of a once imposing cigar, Dudley Pickering sat alone withhis thoughts. He had been alone for half an hour now. Once LordWetherby had looked in, to withdraw at once coldly, with theexpression of a groom who has found loathsome things in theharness-room. Roscoe Sherriff, good, easy man, who could neverdislike people, no matter what they had done, had come for a whileto bear him company; but Mr Pickering's society was not for thetime being entertaining. He had answered with grunts thePress-agent's kindly attempts at conversation, and the latterHad withdrawn to seek a more congenial audience. And now MrPickering was alone, talking things over with his subconsciousself. 

A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks forthe greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hiddenaway, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the miseryof a miserable hour. Mr Pickering's rare interviews with hissubconscious self had happened until now almost entirely in thesmall hours of the night, when it had popped out to remind him, ashe lay sleepless, that all flesh was grass and that he was notgetting any younger. To-night, such had been the shock of theevening's events, it came to him at a time which was usually hishappiest--the time that lay between dinner and bed. Mr Pickeringat that point of the day was generally feeling his best. But to-nightwas different from the other nights of his life. 

One may picture Subconscious Self as a withered, cynical, malicious person standing before Mr Pickering and regarding himwith an evil smile. There has been a pause, and now SubconsciousSelf speaks again:

'You will have to leave to-morrow. Couldn't possibly stop on afterwhat's happened. Now you see what comes of behaving like a boy. '

Mr Pickering writhed. 

'Made a pretty considerable fool of yourself, didn't you, withyour revolvers and your hidings and your trailings? Too old forthat sort of thing, you know. You're getting on. Probably have atouch of lumbago to-morrow. You must remember you aren't ayoungster. Got to take care of yourself. Next time you feel animpulse to hide in shrubberies and take moonlight walks throughdamp woods, perhaps you will listen to me. '

Mr Pickering relit the stump of his cigar defiantly and smoked inlong gulps for a while. He was trying to persuade himself that allthis was untrue, but it was not easy. The cigar became uncomfortablyhot, and he threw it away. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket andproduced a diamond ring, at which he looked pensively. 

'A pretty thing, is it not?' said Subconscious Self

Mr Pickering sighed. That moment when Claire had thrown the ringat his feet and swept out of his life like an offended queen hadbeen the culminating blow of a night of blows, the knock-outfollowing on a series of minor punches. Subconscious Self seizedthe opportunity to become offensive again. 

'You've lost her, all through your own silly fault, ' it said. 'Howon earth you can have been such a perfect fool beats me. Runninground with a gun like a boy of fourteen! Well, it's done now andit can't be mended. Countermand the order for cake, send a wireputting off the wedding, dismiss the bridesmaids, tell theorganist he can stop practising "The Voice that Breathed O'erEden"--no wedding-bells for you! For Dudley Damfool Pickering, Esquire, the lonely hearth for evermore! Little feet patteringabout the house? Not on your life! Childish voices sticking up theold man for half a dollar to buy candy? No, sir! Not for D. Bonehead Pickering, the amateur trailing arbutus!'

Subconscious Self may have had an undesirable way of expressingitself, but there was no denying the truth of what it said. Itswords carried conviction. Mr Pickering replaced the ring in hispocket, and, burying his head in his hands, groaned in bitternessof spirit. 

He had lost her. He must face the fact. She had thrown him over. Never now would she sit at his table, the brightest jewel ofDetroit's glittering social life. She would have made a stir inDetroit. Now that city would never know her. Not that he wasworrying much about Detroit. He was worrying about himself. Howcould he ever live without her?

This mood of black depression endured for a while, and then MrPickering suddenly became aware that Subconscious Self wassneering at him. 'You're a wonder!' said Subconscious Self. 

'What do you mean?'

'Why, trying to make yourself think that at the bottom of yourheart you aren't tickled to death that this has happened. You knowperfectly well that you're tremendously relieved that you haven'tgot to marry the girl after all. You can fool everybody else, butyou can't fool me. You're delighted, man, delighted!' The meresuggestion revolted Mr Pickering. He was on the point of indignantdenial, when quite abruptly there came home to him the suspicionthat the statement was not so preposterous after all. It seemedincredible and indecent that such a thing should be, but he couldnot deny, now that it was put to him point-blank in this way, thata certain sense of relief was beginning to mingle itself with hisgloom. It was shocking to realize, but--yes, he actually wasfeeling as if he had escaped from something which he had dreaded. Half an hour ago there had been no suspicion of such an emotionamong the many which had occupied his attention, but now heperceived it clearly. Half an hour ago he had felt like Luciferhurled from heaven. Now, though how that train of thought hadstarted he could not have said, he was distinctly conscious of thesilver lining. Subconscious Self began to drive the thing home. 

'Be honest with yourself, ' it said. 'You aren't often. No man is. Look at the matter absolutely fairly. You know perfectly well thatthe mere idea of marriage has always scared you. You hate makingyourself conspicuous in public. Think what it would be like, standing up there in front of all the world and getting married. And then--afterwards! Why on earth do you think that you wouldhave been happy with this girl? What do you know about her exceptthat she is a beauty? I grant you she's that, but are you aware ofthe infinitesimal part looks play in married life? My dear chap, better is it for a man that he marry a sympathetic gargoyle than aVenus with a streak of hardness in her. You know--and you wouldadmit it if you were honest with yourself--that this girl is hard. She's got a chilled-steel soul. 

'If you wanted to marry some one--and there's no earthly reasonwhy you should, for your life's perfectly full and happy with yourwork--this is the last girl you ought to marry. You're a middle-agedman. You're set. You like life to jog along at a peaceful walk. This girl wants it to be a fox-trot. You've got habits whichyou have had for a dozen years. I ask you, is she the sort of girlto be content to be a stepmother to a middle-aged man's habits? Ofcourse, if you were really in love with her, if she were yourmate, and all that sort of thing, you would take a pleasure inmaking yourself over to suit her requirements. But you aren't inlove with her. You are simply caught by her looks. I tell you, youought to look on that moment when she gave you back your ring asthe luckiest moment of your life. You ought to make a sort ofanniversary of it. You ought to endow a hospital or something outof pure gratitude. I don't know how long you're going to live--ifyou act like a grown-up man instead of a boy and keep out of woodsand shrubberies at night you may live for ever--but you will neverhave a greater bit of luck than the one that happened to youto-night. '

Mr Pickering was convinced. His spirits soared. Marriage! What wasmarriage? Slavery, not to be endured by your man of spirit. Lookat all the unhappy marriages you saw everywhere. Besides, you hadonly to recall some of the novels and plays of recent years to getthe right angle on marriage. According to the novelists andplaywrights, shrewd fellows who knew what was what, if you talkedto your wife about your business she said you had no soul; if youdidn't, she said you didn't think enough of her to let her shareyour life. If you gave her expensive presents and an unlimitedcredit account, she complained that you looked on her as a meredoll; and if you didn't, she called you a screw. That wasmarriage. If it didn't get you with the left jab, it landed on youwith the right upper-cut. None of that sort of thing for DudleyPickering. 

'You're absolutely right, ' he said, enthusiastically. 'Funny Inever looked at it that way before. '

Somebody was turning the door-handle. He hoped it was RoscoeSherriff. He had been rather dull the last time Sherriff hadlooked in. He would be quite different now. He would be gay andsparkling. He remembered two good stories he would like to tellSherriff. 

The door opened and Claire came in. There was a silence. She stoodlooking at him in a way that puzzled Mr Pickering. If it had notbeen for her attitude at their last meeting and the manner inwhich she had broken that last meeting up, he would have said thather look seemed somehow to strike a note of appeal. There wassomething soft and repentant about her. She suggested, it seemedto Mr Pickering, the prodigal daughter revisiting the oldhomestead. 

'Dudley!'

She smiled a faint smile, a wistful, deprecating smile. She waslooking lovelier than ever. Her face glowed with a wonderfulcolour and her eyes were very bright. Mr Pickering met her gaze, and strange things began to happen to his mind, that mind which amoment before had thought so clearly and established so definite apoint of view. 

What a gelatine-backboned thing is man, who prides himself on hisclear reason and becomes as wet blotting-paper at one glance frombright eyes! A moment before Mr Pickering had thought out thewhole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of hiscapable brain, and thanked Providence that he was not as those menwho take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now in an instanthe had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out ofbusiness. He was slipping. 

'Dudley!'

For a space Subconscious Self thrust itself forward. 

'Look out! Be careful!' it warned. 

Mr Pickering ignored it. He was watching, fascinated, the glow onClaire's face, her shining eyes. 

'Dudley, I want to speak to you. '

'Tell her you can only be seen by appointment! Escape! Bolt!'

Mr Pickering did not bolt. Claire came towards him, still smilingthat pathetic smile. A thrill permeated Mr Pickering's entire onehundred and ninety-seven pounds, trickling down his spine like hotwater and coming out at the soles of his feet. He had forgottennow that he had ever sneered at marriage. It seemed to him nowthat there was nothing in life to be compared with that beatificstate, and that bachelors were mere wild asses of the desert. 

Claire came and sat down on the arm of his chair. He movedconvulsively, but he stayed where he was. 

'Fool!' said Subconscious Self. 

Claire took hold of his hand and patted it. He quivered, butremained. 

'Ass!' hissed Subconscious Self. 

Claire stopped patting his hand and began to stroke it. MrPickering breathed heavily. 

'Dudley, dear, ' said Claire, softly, 'I've been an awful fool, andI'm dreadful, dreadful sorry, and you're going to be the nicest, kindest, sweetest man on earth and tell me you've forgiven me. Aren't you?'

Mr Pickering's lips moved silently. Claire kissed the thinningsummit of his head. There was a pause. 

'Where is it?' she asked. 

Mr Pickering started. 

'Eh?'

'Where is it? Where did you put it? The ring, silly!'

Mr Pickering became aware that Subconscious Self was addressinghim. The occasion was tense, and Subconscious Self did not minceits words. 

'You poor, maudlin, sentimental, doddering chunk of imbecility, 'it said; 'are there no limits to your insanity? After all I saidto you just now, are you deliberately going to start the oldidiocy all over again?'

'She's so beautiful!' pleaded Mr Pickering. 'Look at her eyes!'

'Ass! Don't you remember what I said about beauty?'

'Yes, I know, but--'

'She's as hard as nails. '

'I'm sure you're wrong. '

'I'm not wrong. '

'But she loves me. '

'Forget it!'

Claire jogged his shoulders. 

'Dudley, dear, what are you sitting there dreaming for? Where didyou put the ring?'

Mr Pickering fumbled for it, located it, produced it. Claireexamined it fondly. 

'Did she throw it at him and nearly break his heart!' she said. 

'Bolt!' urged Subconscious Self. 'Fly! Go to Japan!'

Mr Pickering did not go to Japan. He was staring worshippingly atClaire. With rapturous gaze he noted the grey glory of her eyes, the delicate curve of her cheek, the grace of her neck. He had notime to listen to pessimistic warnings from any Gloomy Gus of aSubconscious Self. He was ashamed that he had ever even for amoment allowed himself to be persuaded that Claire was not allthat was perfect. No more doubts and hesitations for DudleyPickering. He was under the influence. 

'There!' said Claire, and slipped the ring on her finger. 

She kissed the top of his head once more. 

'So there we are!' she said. 

'There we are!' gurgled the infatuated Dudley. 

'Happy now?'

'Ur-r!'

'Then kiss me. '

Mr Pickering kissed her. 

'Dudley, darling, ' said Claire, 'we're going to be awfully, awfully happy, aren't we?'

'You bet we are!' said Mr Pickering. 

Subconscious Self said nothing, being beyond speech. 

21

For some minutes after Claire had left him Bill remained where hewas, motionless. He felt physically incapable of moving. All thestrength that was in him he was using to throw off the insidiouspoison of her parting speech, and it became plainer to him witheach succeeding moment that he would have need of strength. 

It is part of the general irony of things that in life's crises aman's good qualities are often the ones that help him least, ifindeed they do not actually turn treacherously and fight againsthim. It was so with Bill. Modesty, if one may trust to the verdictof the mass of mankind, is a good quality. It sweetens the souland makes for a kindly understanding of one's fellows. Butarrogance would have served Bill better now. It was his fatalhabit of self-depreciation that was making Claire's words sospecious as he stood there trying to cast them from his mind. Whowas he, after all, that he should imagine that he had won on hispersonal merits a girl like Elizabeth Boyd?

He had the not very common type of mind that perceives the meritin others more readily than their faults, and in himself thefaults more readily than the merit. Time and the society of agreat number of men of different ranks and natures had rid him ofthe outer symbol of this type of mind, which is shyness, but ithad left him still unconvinced that he amounted to anything verymuch as an individual. 

This was the thought that met him every time he tried to persuadehimself that what Claire had said was ridiculous, the mere partingshaft of an angry woman. With this thought as an ally her wordstook on a plausibility hard to withstand. Plausible! That was thedevil of it. By no effort could he blind himself to the fact thatthey were that. In the light of Claire's insinuations what hadseemed coincidences took on a more sinister character. It hadseemed to him an odd and lucky chance that Nutty Boyd should havecome to the rooms which he was occupying that night, seeking acompanion. Had it been chance? Even at the time he had thought itstrange that, on the strength of a single evening spent together, Nutty should have invited a total stranger to make an indefinitevisit to his home. Had there been design behind the invitation?

Bill began to walk slowly to the house. He felt tired and unhappy. He meant to go to bed and try to sleep away these wretched doubtsand questionings. Daylight would bring relief. 

As he reached the open front door he caught the sound of voices, and paused for an instant, almost unconsciously, to place them. They came from one of the rooms upstairs. It was Nutty speakingnow, and it was impossible for Bill not to hear what he said, forNutty had abandoned his customary drawl in favour of a high, excited tone. 

'Of course, you hate him and all that, ' said Nutty; 'but after allyou will be getting five million dollars that ought to have cometo--'

That was all that Bill heard, for he had stumbled across the halland was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring into thedarkness with burning eyes. The door banged behind him. 

So it was true!

There came a knock at the door. It was repeated. The handleturned. 

'Is that you, Bill?'

It was Elizabeth's voice. He could just see her, framed in thedoorway. 

'Bill!'

His throat was dry. He swallowed, and found that he could speak. 

'Yes?'

'Did you just come in?'

'Yes. '

'Then--you heard?'

'Yes. '

There was a long silence. Then the door closed gently and he heardher go upstairs. 

22

When Bill woke next morning it was ten o'clock; and his firstemotion, on a day that was to be crowded with emotions of variouskinds, was one of shame. The desire to do the fitting thing isinnate in man, and it struck Bill, as he hurried through histoilet, that he must be a shallow, coarse-fibred sort of person, lacking in the finer feelings, not to have passed a sleeplessnight. There was something revolting in the thought that, incircumstances which would have made sleep an impossibility formost men, he had slept like a log. He did not do himself thejustice to recollect that he had had a singularly strenuous day, and that it is Nature's business, which she performs quietly andunromantically, to send sleep to tired men regardless of theirprivate feelings; and it was in a mood of dissatisfaction with thequality of his soul that he left his room. 

He had a general feeling that he was not much of a chap and thatwhen he died--which he trusted would be shortly--the world wouldbe well rid of him. He felt humble and depressed and hopeless. 

Elizabeth met him in the passage. At the age of eleven orthereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handledifficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages toachieve somewhere in the later seventies. Except for a pallorstrange to her face and a drawn look about her eyes, there wasnothing to show that all was not for the best with Elizabeth in abest of all possible worlds. If she did not look jaunty, she atleast looked composed. She greeted Bill with a smile. 

'I didn't wake you. I thought I would let you sleep on. '

The words had the effect of lending an additional clarity andfirmness of outline to the picture of himself which Bill hadalready drawn in his mind--of a soulless creature sunk in hoggishslumber. 

'We've had breakfast. Nutty has gone for a walk. Isn't hewonderful nowadays? I've kept your breakfast warm for you. '

Bill protested. He might be capable of sleep, but he was not goingto sink to food. 

'Not for me, thanks, ' he said, hollowly. 

'Come along. '

'Honestly--'

'Come along. '

He followed her meekly. How grimly practical women were! They letnothing interfere with the essentials of life. It seemed allwrong. Nevertheless, he breakfasted well and gratefully, Elizabethwatching him in silence across the table. 

'Finished?'

'Yes, thanks. '

She hesitated for a moment. 

'Well, Bill, I've slept on it. Things are in rather a muddle, aren't they? I think I had better begin by explaining what led upto those words you heard Nutty say last night. Won't you smoke?'

'No, thanks. '

'You'll feel better if you do. '

'I couldn't. '

A bee had flown in through the open window. She followed it withher eye as it blundered about the room. It flew out again into thesunshine. She turned to Bill again. 

'They were supposed to be words of consolation, ' she said. 

Bill said nothing. 

'Nutty, you see, has his own peculiar way of looking at things, and it didn't occur to him that I might have promised to marry youbecause I loved you. He took it for granted that I had done it tosave the Boyd home. He has been very anxious from the first that Ishould marry you. I think that that must have been why he askedyou down here. He found out in New York, you know, who you were. Someone you met at supper recognized you, and told Nutty. So, asfar as that is concerned, the girl you were speaking to at thegate last night was right. '

He started. 'You heard her?'

'I couldn't help it. She meant me to hear. She was raising hervoice quite unnecessarily if she did not mean to include me in theconversation. I had gone in to find Nutty, and he was out, and Iwas coming back to you. That's how I was there. You didn't see mebecause your back was turned. She saw me. '

Bill met her eyes. 'You don't ask who she was?'

'It doesn't matter who she was. It's what she said that matters. She said that we knew you were Lord Dawlish. '

'Did you know?'

'Nutty told me two or three days ago. ' Her voice shook and a flushcame into her face. 'You probably won't believe it, but the newsmade absolutely no difference to me one way or the other. I hadalways imagined Lord Dawlish as a treacherous, adventurer sort ofman, because I couldn't see how a man who was not like that couldhave persuaded Uncle Ira to leave him his money. But after knowingyou even for this short time, I knew you were quite the opposite ofthat, and I remembered that the first thing you had done on cominginto the money had been to offer me half, so the information thatyou were the Lord Dawlish whom I had been hating did not affect me. And the fact that you were rich and I was poor did not affect meeither. I loved you, and that was all I cared about. If all this hadnot happened everything would have been all right. But, you see, nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true thatit is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth, which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me. That brings me back to Nutty. '

'I--'

'Let me tell you about Nutty first. I said that he had always beenanxious that I should marry you. Something happened last night toincrease his anxiety. I have often wondered how he managed to getenough money to enable him to spend three days in New York, andlast night he told me. He came in just after I had got back to thehouse after leaving you and that girl, and he was very scared. Itseems that when the letter from the London lawyer came telling himthat he had been left a hundred dollars, he got the idea ofraising money on the strength of it. You know Nutty by this time, so you won't be surprised at the way he went about it. He borroweda hundred dollars from the man at the chemist's on the security ofthat letter, and then--I suppose it seemed so easy that it struckhim as a pity to let the opportunity slip--he did the same thingwith four other tradesmen. Nutty's so odd that I don't know evennow whether it ever occurred to him that he was obtaining moneyunder false pretences; but the poor tradesmen hadn't any doubtabout it at all. They compared notes and found what had happened, and last night, while we were in the woods, one of them came hereand called Nutty a good many names and threatened him withimprisonment. 

'You can imagine how delighted Nutty was when I came in and toldhim that I was engaged to you. In his curious way, he took it forgranted that I had heard about his financial operations, and wasdoing it entirely for his sake, to get him out of his fix. Andwhile I was trying to put him right on that point he began toconsole me. You see, Nutty looks on you as the enemy of thefamily, and it didn't strike him that it was possible that Ididn't look on you in that light too. So, after being delightedfor a while, he very sweetly thought that he ought to cheer me upand point out some of the compensations of marriage with you. And--Well, that was what you heard. There you have the fullexplanation. You can't possibly believe it. '

She broke off and began to drum her fingers on the table. And asshe did so there came to Bill a sudden relief from all the doubtsand black thoughts that had tortured him. Elizabeth was straight. Whatever appearances might seem to suggest, nothing could convincehim that she was playing an underhand game. It was as if somethingevil had gone out of him. He felt lighter, cleaner. He couldbreathe. 

'I do believe it, ' he said. 'I believe every word you say. '

She shook her head. 

'You can't in the face of the evidence. '

'I believe it. '

'No. You may persuade yourself for the moment that you do, butafter a while you will have to go by the evidence. You won't beable to help yourself. You haven't realized what a crushing thingevidence is. You have to go by it against your will. You see, evidence is the only guide. You don't know that I am speaking thetruth; you just feel it. You're trusting your heart and not yourhead. The head must win in the end. You might go on believing fora time, but sooner or later you would be bound to begin to doubtand worry and torment yourself. You couldn't fight against theevidence, when once your instinct--or whatever it is that tellsyou that I am speaking the truth--had begun to weaken. And itwould weaken. Think what it would have to be fighting all thetime. Think of the case your intelligence would be making out, dayafter day, till it crushed you. It's impossible that you couldkeep yourself from docketing the evidence and arranging it andabsorbing it. Think! Consider what you know are actual facts!Nutty invites you down here, knowing that you are Lord Dawlish. All you know about my attitude towards Lord Dawlish is what I toldyou on the first morning of your visit. I told you I hated him. Yet, knowing you are Lord Dawlish, I become engaged to you. Directly afterwards you hear Nutty consoling me as if I weremarrying you against my will. Isn't that an absolutely fairstatement of what has happened? How could you go on believing mewith all that against you?'

'I know you're straight. You couldn't do anything crooked. '

'The evidence proves that I did. '

'I don't care. '

'Not now. '

'Never. '

She shook her head. 

'It's dear of you, Bill, but you're promising an impossibility. And just because it's impossible, and because I love you too muchto face what would be bound to happen, I'm going to send youaway. '

'Send me away!'

'Yes. It's going to hurt. You don't know how it's going to hurt, Bill; but it's the only thing to do. I love you too much to livewith you for the rest of my life wondering all the time whetheryou still believed or whether the weight of the evidence hadcrushed out that tiny little spark of intuition which is all thatmakes you believe me now. You could never know the truth forcertain, you see--that's the horror of it; and sometimes you wouldbe able to make yourself believe, but more often, in spite of allyou could do, you would doubt. It would poison both our lives. Little things would happen, insignificant in themselves, whichwould become tremendously important just because they added alittle bit more to the doubt which you would never be able to getrid of. 

'When we had quarrels--which we should, as we are both human--theywouldn't be over and done with in an hour. They would stick inyour mind and rankle, because, you see, they might be proofs thatI didn't really love you. And then when I seemed happy with you, you would wonder if I was acting. I know all this sounds morbidand exaggerated, but it isn't. What have you got to go on, asregards me? What do you really know of me? If something like thishad happened after we had been married half a dozen years andreally knew each other, we could laugh at it. But we arestrangers. We came together and loved each other because there wassomething in each of us which attracted the other. We took thatlittle something as a foundation and built on it. But what hashappened has knocked away our poor little foundation. That's all. We don't really know anything at all about each other for certain. It's just guesswork. '

She broke off and looked at the clock. 

'I had better be packing if you're to catch the train. '

He gave a rueful laugh. 

'You're throwing me out!'

'Yes, I am. I want you to go while I am strong enough to let yougo. '

'If you really feel like that, why send me away?'

'How do you know I really feel like that? How do you know that Iam not pretending to feel like that as part of a carefully-preparedplan?'

He made an impatient gesture. 

'Yes, I know, ' she said. 'You think I am going out of my way tomanufacture unnecessary complications. I'm not; I'm simply lookingahead. If I were trying to trap you for the sake of your money, could I play a stronger card than by seeming anxious to give youup? If I were to give in now, sooner or later that suspicion wouldcome to you. You would drive it away. You might drive it away ahundred times. But you couldn't kill it. In the end it would beatyou. '

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. 

'I can't argue. '

'Nor can I. I can only put very badly things which I know aretrue. Come and pack. '

'I'll do it. Don't you bother. '

'Nonsense! No man knows how to pack properly. '

He followed her to his room, pulled out his suitcase, the symbolof the end of all things, watched her as she flitted about, thesun shining on her hair as she passed and repassed the window. Shewas picking things up, folding them, packing them. Bill looked onwith an aching sense of desolation. It was all so friendly, sointimate, so exactly as it would have been if she were his wife. It seemed to him needlessly cruel that she should be playing onthis note of domesticity at the moment when she was barring forever the door between him and happiness. He rebelled helplesslyagainst the attitude she had taken. He had not thought it all out, as she had done. It was folly, insanity, ruining their two liveslike this for a scruple. 

Once again he was to encounter that practical strain in thefeminine mind which jars upon a man in trouble. She was holdingsomething in her hand and looking at it with concern. 

'Why didn't you tell me?' she said. 'Your socks are in an awfulstate, poor boy!'

He had the feeling of having been hit by something. A man has nota woman's gift of being able to transfer his mind at will fromsorrow to socks. 

'Like sieves!' She sighed. A troubled frown wrinkled her forehead. 'Men are so helpless! Oh, dear, I'm sure you don't pay anyattention to anything important. I don't believe you ever botheryour head about keeping warm in winter and not getting your feetwet. And now I shan't be able to look after you!'

Bill's voice broke. He felt himself trembling. 

'Elizabeth!'

She was kneeling on the floor, her head bent over the suitcase. She looked up and met his eyes. 

'It's no use, Bill, dear. I must. It's the only way. '

The sense of the nearness of the end broke down the numbnesswhich held him. 

'Elizabeth! It's so utterly absurd. It's just--chucking everythingaway!'

She was silent for a moment. 

'Bill, dear, I haven't said anything about it before but don't yousee that there's my side to be considered too? I only showed youthat you could never possibly know that I loved you. How am I toknow that you really love me?'

He had moved a step towards her. He drew back, chilled. 

'I can't do more than tell you, ' he said. 

'You can't. And there you have put in two words just what I'vebeen trying to make clear all the time. Don't you see that that'sthe terrible thing about life, that nobody can do more than tellanybody anything? Life's nothing but words, words, words; and howare we to know when words are true? How am I to know that youdidn't ask me to marry you out of sheer pity and an exaggeratedsense of justice?'

He stared at her. 

'That, ' he said, 'is absolutely ridiculous!'

'Why? Look at it as I should look at it later on, when whatever itis inside me that tell me it's ridiculous now had died. Just atthis moment, while we're talking here, there's something strongerthan reason which tells me you really do love me. But can't youunderstand that that won't last? It's like a candle burning on arock with the tide coming up all round it. It's burning brightlyenough now, and we can see the truth by the light of it. But thetide will put it out, and then we shall have nothing left to seeby. There's a great black sea of suspicion and doubt creeping upto swamp the little spark of intuition inside us. 

'I will tell you what would happen to me if I didn't send youaway. Remember I heard what that girl was saying last night. Remember that you hated the thought of depriving me of Uncle Ira'smoney so much that your first act was to try to get me to accepthalf of it. The quixotic thing is the first that it occurs to youto do, because you're like that, because you're the straightest, whitest man I've ever known or shall know. Could anything be morelikely, looking at it as I should later on, than that you shouldhave hit on the idea of marrying me as the only way of undoing thewrong you thought you had done me? I've been foolish aboutobligations all my life. I've a sort of morbid pride that hatesthe thought of owing anything to anybody, of getting anything thatI have not earned. By and by, if I were to marry you, a littlerotten speck of doubt would begin to eat its way farther andfarther into me. It would be the same with you. We should react oneach other. We should be watching each other, testing each other, trying each other out all the time. It would be horrible, horrible!'

He started to speak; then, borne down by the hopelessness of it, stopped. Elizabeth stood up. They did not look at each other. Hestrapped the suitcase and picked it up. The end of all things wasat hand. 

'Better to end it all cleanly, Bill, ' she said, in a low voice. 'It will hurt less. '

He did not speak. 

'I'll come down to the gate with you. '

They walked in silence down the drive. The air was heavy withcontentment. He hummed a tune. 

'Good-bye, Bill, dear. '

He took her hand dully. 

'Good-bye, ' he said. 

Elizabeth stood at the gate, watching. He swung down the road withlong strides. At the bend he turned and for a moment stood there, as if waiting for her to make some sign. Then he fell into hisstride again and was gone. Elizabeth leaned on the gate. Her facewas twisted, and she clutched the warm wood as if it gave herstrength. 

The grounds were very empty. The spirit of loneliness brooded onthem. Elizabeth walked slowly back to the house. Nutty was comingtowards her from the orchard. 

'Halloa!' said Nutty. 

He was cheerful and debonair. His little eyes were alight withcontentment. He hummed a tune. 

'Where's Dawlish?' he said. 

'He has gone. '

Nutty's tune failed in the middle of a bar. Something in hissister's voice startled him. The glow of contentment gave way to alook of alarm. 

'Gone? How do you mean--gone? You don't mean--gone?'

'Yes. '

'Gone away?'

'Gone away. '

They had reached the house before he spoke again. 

'You don't mean--gone away?'

'Yes. '

'Do you mean--gone away?'

'Yes. '

'You aren't going to marry him?'

'No. '

The world stood still. The noise of the crickets and all thelittle sounds of summer smote on Nutty's ear in one discordantshriek. 

'Oh, gosh!' he exclaimed, faintly, and collapsed on the frontsteps like a jelly-fish. 

23

The spectacle of Nutty in his anguish did not touch Elizabeth. Normally a kind-hearted girl, she was not in the least sorry forhim. She had even taken a bitter pleasure and found a momentaryrelief in loosing the thunderbolt which had smitten him down. Evenif it has to manufacture it, misery loves company. She watchedNutty with a cold and uninterested eye as he opened his mouthfeebly, shut it again and reopened it; and then when it becameapparent that these manoeuvres were about to result in speech, sheleft him and walked quickly down the drive again. She had thefeeling that if Nutty were to begin to ask her questions--and hehad the aspect of one who is about to ask a thousand--she wouldbreak down. She wanted solitude and movement, so she left Nuttysitting and started for the gate. Presently she would go and dothings among the beehives; and after that, if that brought nosolace, she would go in and turn the house upside down and getdusty and tired. Anything to occupy herself. 

Reaction had set in. She had known it would come, and had madeready to fight against it, but she had underestimated the strengthof the enemy. It seemed to her, in those first minutes, that shehad done a mad thing; that all those arguments which she had usedwere far-fetched and ridiculous. It was useless to tell herselfthat she had thought the whole thing out clearly and had taken theonly course that could have been taken. With Bill's departure thepower to face the situation steadily had left her. All she couldthink of was that she loved him and that she had sent him away. 

Why had he listened to her? Why hadn't he taken her in his armsand told her not to be a little fool? Why did men ever listen towomen? If he had really loved her, would he have gone away? Shetormented herself with this last question for a while. She wasstill tormenting herself with it when a melancholy voice broke inon her meditations. 

'I can't believe it, ' said the voice. She turned, to perceiveNutty drooping beside her. 'I simply can't believe it!'

Elizabeth clenched her teeth. She was not in the mood for Nutty. 

'It will gradually sink in, ' she said, unsympathetically. 

'Did you really send him away?'

'I did. '

'But what on earth for?'

'Because it was the only thing to do. '

A light shone on Nutty's darkness. 

'Oh, I say, did he hear what I said last night?'

'He did hear what you said last night. '

Nutty's mouth opened slowly. 

'Oh!'

Elizabeth said nothing. 

'But you could have explained that. '

'How?'

'Oh, I don't know--somehow or other. ' He appeared to think. 'Butyou said it was you who sent him away. '

'I did. '

'Well, this beats me!'

Elizabeth's strained patience reached the limit. 

'Nutty, please!' she said. 'Don't let's talk about it. It's allover now. '

'Yes, but--'

'Nutty, don't! I can't stand it. I'm raw all over. I'm hatingmyself. Please don't make it worse. '

Nutty looked at her face, and decided not to make it worse. Buthis anguish demanded some outlet. He found it in soliloquy. 

'Just like this for the rest of our lives!' he murmured, taking inthe farm-grounds and all that in them stood with one glassy stareof misery. 'Nothing but ghastly bees and sweeping floors andfetching water till we die of old age! That is, if those blightersdon't put me in jail for getting that money out of them. How was Ito know that it was obtaining money under false pretences? Itsimply seemed to me a darned good way of collecting a few dollars. I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back, so I suppose it'sprison for me all right. '

Elizabeth had been trying not to listen to him, but withoutsuccess. 

'I'll look after that, Nutty. I have a little money saved up, enough to pay off what you owe. I was saving it for somethingelse, but never mind. '

'Awfully good of you, ' said Nutty, but his voice sounded almostdisappointed. He was in the frame of mind which resents alleviationof its gloom. He would have preferred at that moment to be allowed toround off the picture of the future which he was constructing in hismind with a reel or two showing himself brooding in a cell. Afterall, what difference did it make to a man of spacious tastes whetherhe languished for the rest of his life in a jail or on a farm in thecountry? Jail, indeed, was almost preferable. You knew where you werewhen you were in prison. They didn't spring things on you. Whereaslife on a farm was nothing but one long succession of things sprungon you. Now that Lord Dawlish had gone, he supposed that Elizabethwould make him help her with the bees again. At this thought hegroaned aloud. When he contemplated a lifetime at Flack's, a lifetimeof bee-dodging and carpet-beating and water-lugging, and reflectedthat, but for a few innocent words--words spoken, mark you, in a purespirit of kindliness and brotherly love with the object of putting abit of optimistic pep into sister!--he might have been in a positionto touch a millionaire brother-in-law for the needful whenever hefelt disposed, the iron entered into Nutty's soul. A rotten, rottenworld!

Nutty had the sort of mind that moves in circles. After contemplatingfor a time the rottenness of the world, he came back to the pointfrom which he had started. 

'I can't understand it, ' he said. 'I can't believe it. '

He kicked a small pebble that lay convenient to his foot. 

'You say you sent him away. If he had legged it on his ownaccount, because of what he heard me say, I could understand that. But why should you--'

It became evident to Elizabeth that, until some explanation ofthis point was offered to him, Nutty would drift about in hervicinity, moaning and shuffling his feet indefinitely. 

'I sent him away because I loved him, ' she said, 'and because, after what had happened, he could never be certain that I lovedhim. Can you understand that?'

'No, ' said Nutty, frankly, 'I'm darned if I can! It sounds loonyto me. '

'You can't see that it wouldn't have been fair to him to marryhim?'

'No. '

The doubts which she was trying to crush increased the violence oftheir attack. It was not that she respected Nutty's judgement initself. It was that his view of what she had done chimed in soneatly with her own. She longed for someone to tell her that shehad done right: someone who would bring back that feeling ofcertainty which she had had during her talk with Bill. And inthese circumstances Nutty's attitude had more weight than on itsmerits it deserved. She wished she could cry. She had a feelingthat if she once did that the right outlook would come back toher. 

Nutty, meanwhile, had found another pebble and was kicking itsombrely. He was beginning to perceive something of the intricateand unfathomable workings of the feminine mind. He had alwayslooked on Elizabeth as an ordinary good fellow, a girl whose mindworked in a more or less understandable way. She was not one ofthose hysterical women you read about in the works of thenovelists; she was just a regular girl. And yet now, at the onemoment of her life when everything depended on her actingsensibly, she had behaved in a way that made his head swim when hethought of it. What it amounted to was that you simply couldn'tunderstand women. 

Into this tangle of silent sorrow came a hooting automobile. Itdrew up at the gate and a man jumped out. 

24

The man who had alighted from the automobile was young andcheerful. He wore a flannel suit of a gay blue and a straw hatwith a coloured ribbon, and he looked upon a world which, hismanner seemed to indicate, had been constructed according to hisown specifications through a single eyeglass. When he spoke itbecame plain that his nationality was English. 

Nutty regarded his beaming countenance with a lowering hostility. The indecency of anyone being cheerful at such a time struck himforcibly. He would have liked mankind to have preserved tillfurther notice a hushed gloom. He glared at the young man. 

Elizabeth, such was her absorption in her thoughts, was not evenaware of his presence till he spoke to her. 

'I beg your pardon, is this Flack's?'

She looked up and met that sunny eyeglass. 

'This is Flack's, ' she said. 

'Thank you, ' said the young man. 

The automobile, a stout, silent man at the helm, throbbed in thenervous way automobiles have when standing still, suggestingsomehow that it were best to talk quick, as they can give you onlya few minutes before dashing on to keep some other appointment. Either this or a natural volatility lent a breezy rapidity to thevisitor's speech. He looked at Elizabeth across the gate, which ithad not occurred to her to open, as if she were just what he hadexpected her to be and a delight to his eyes, and burst intospeech. 

'My name's Nichols--J. Nichols. I expect you remember getting aletter from me a week or two ago?'

The name struck Elizabeth as familiar. But he had gone on toidentify himself before she could place it in her mind. 

'Lawyer, don't you know. Wrote you a letter telling you that yourUncle Ira Nutcombe had left all his money to Lord Dawlish. '

'Oh, yes, ' said Elizabeth, and was about to invite him to pass thebarrier, when he began to speak again. 

'You know, I want to explain that letter. Wrote it on a suddenimpulse, don't you know. The more I have to do with the law, themore it seems to hit me that a lawyer oughtn't to act on impulse. At the moment, you see, it seemed to me the decent thing to do--putyou out of your misery, and so forth--stop your entertaininghopes never to be realized, what? and all that sort of thing. Yousee, it was like this: Bill--I mean Lord Dawlish--is a great palof mine, a dear old chap. You ought to know him. Well, being inthe know, you understand, through your uncle having deposited thewill with us, I gave Bill the tip directly I heard of MrNutcombe's death. I sent him a telephone message to come to theoffice, and I said: "Bill, old man, this old buster"--I beg yourpardon, this old gentleman--"has left you all his money. " Quiteinformal, don't you know, and at the same time, in the sameinformal spirit, I wrote you the letter. ' He dammed the torrentfor a moment. 'By the way, of course you are Miss Elizabeth Boyd, what?'

'Yes. '

The young man seemed relieved. 

'I'm glad of that, ' he said. 'Funny if you hadn't been. You'd havewondered what on earth I was talking about. '

In spite of her identity, this was precisely what Elizabeth wasdoing. Her mind, still under a cloud, had been unable tounderstand one word of Mr Nichols's discourse. Judging from hisappearance, which was that of a bewildered hosepipe or a snakewhose brain is being momentarily overtaxed, Nutty was in the samedifficulty. He had joined the group at the gate, abandoning thepebble which he had been kicking in the background, and was nowleaning on the top bar, a picture of silent perplexity. 

'You see, the trouble is, ' resumed the young man, 'my governor, who's the head of the firm, is all for doing things according toprecedent. He loves red tape--wears it wrapped round him in winterinstead of flannel. He's all for doing things in the proper legalway, which, as I dare say you know, takes months. And, meanwhile, everybody's wondering what's happening and who has got the money, and so on and so forth. I thought I would skip all that and letyou know right away exactly where you stood, so I wrote you thatletter. I don't think my temperament's quite suited to the law, don't you know, and if he ever hears that I wrote you that letterI have a notion that the governor will think so too. So I cameover here to ask you, if you don't mind, not to mention it whenyou get in touch with the governor. I frankly admit that thatletter, written with the best intentions, was a bloomer. '

With which manly admission the young man paused, and allowed therays of his eyeglass to play upon Elizabeth in silence. Elizabethtried to piece together what little she understood of hismonologue. 

'You mean that you want me not to tell your father that I got aletter from you?'

'Exactly that. And thanks very much for not saying "withoutprejudice, " or anything of that kind. The governor would have. '

'But I don't understand. Why should you think that I should evermention anything to your father?'

'Might slip out, you know, without your meaning it. '

'But when? I shall never meet your father. '

'You might quite easily. He might want to see you about themoney. '

'The money?'

The eyebrow above the eyeglass rose, surprised. 

'Haven't you had a letter from the governor?'

'No. '

The young man made a despairing gesture. 

'I took it for granted that it had come on the same boat that Idid. There you have the governor's methods! Couldn't want a betterexample. I suppose some legal formality or other has cropped upand laid him a stymie, and he's waiting to get round it. Youreally mean he hasn't written?

'Why, dash it, ' said the young man, as one to whom all isrevealed, 'then you can't have understood a word of what I've beensaying!'

For the first time Elizabeth found herself capable of smiling. Sheliked this incoherent young man. 

'I haven't, ' she said. 

'You don't know about the will?'

'Only what you told me in your letter. '

'Well, I'm hanged! Tell me--I hadn't the honour of knowing himpersonally--was the late Mr Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric ashis will-making? It seems to me--'

Nutty spoke. 

'Uncle Ira's middle name, ' he said, 'was Bloomingdale. That, ' heproceeded, bitterly, 'is the frightful injustice of it all. I hadto suffer from it right along, and all I get, when it comes to afinish, is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted onfather and mother calling me Nutcombe; and whenever he got a newcraze I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember thetime he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh!' Nutty broodedcoldly on the past. 'You remember the time he had it all workedout that the end of the world was to come at five in the morningone February? Made me stop up all night with him, reading MarcusAurelius! And the steam-heat turned off at twelve-thirty! I couldtell you a dozen things just as bad as that. He always picked onme. And now I've gone through it all he leaves me a hundreddollars!'

Mr Nichols nodded sympathetically. 

'I should have imagined that he was rather like that. You know, ofcourse, why he made that will I wrote to you about, leaving allhis money to Bill Dawlish? Simply because Bill, who met himgolfing at a place in Cornwall in the off season, cured him ofslicing his approach-shots! I give you my word that was the onlyreason. I'm sorry for old Bill, poor old chap. Such a good sort!'

'He's all right, ' said Nutty. 'But why you should be sorry for himgets past me. A fellow who gets five million--'

'But he doesn't, don't you see?'

'How do you mean?'

'Why, this other will puts him out of the running. '

'Which other will?'

'Why, the one I'm telling you about. '

He looked from one to the other, apparently astonished at theirslowness of understanding. Then an idea occurred to him. 

'Why, now that I think of it, I never told you, did I? Yes, youruncle made another will at the very last moment, leaving all hepossessed to Miss Boyd. '

The dead silence in which his words were received stimulated himto further speech. It occurred to him that, after that letter ofhis, perhaps these people were wary about believing anything hesaid. 

'It's absolutely true. It's the real, stable information thistime. I had it direct from the governor, who was there when hemade the will. He and the governor had had a row about something, you know, and they made it up during those last days, and--Well, apparently your uncle thought he had better celebrate it somehow, so he made a new will. From what little I know of him, that wasthe way he celebrated most things. I took it for granted thegovernor would have written to you by this time. I expect you'llhear by the next mail. You see, what brought me over was the ideathat when he wrote you might possibly take it into your heads tomention having heard from me. You don't know my governor. If hefound out I had done that I should never hear the last of it. So Isaid to him: "Gov'nor, I'm feeling a bit jaded. Been working toohard, or something. I'll take a week or so off, if you can spareme. " He didn't object, so I whizzed over. Well, of course, I'mawfully sorry for old Bill, but I congratulate you, Miss Boyd. '

'What's the time?' said Elizabeth. 

Mr Nichols was surprised. He could not detect the connexion ofideas. 

'It's about five to eleven, ' he said, consulting his watch. 

The next moment he was even more surprised, for Elizabeth, makingnothing of the barrier of the gate, had rushed past him and waseven now climbing into his automobile. 

'Take me to the station, at once, ' she was crying to the stout, silent man, whom not even these surprising happenings had shakenfrom his attitude of well-fed detachment. 

The stout man, ceasing to be silent, became interrogative. 

'Uh?'

'Take me to the station. I must catch the eleven o'clock train. '

The stout man was not a rapid thinker. He enveloped her in astodgy gaze. It was only too plain to Elizabeth that he was a manwho liked to digest one idea slowly before going on to absorb thenext. Jerry Nichols had told him to drive to Flack's. He haddriven to Flack's. Here he was at Flack's. Now this young womanwas telling him to drive to the station. It was a new idea, and hebent himself to the Fletcherizing of it. 

'I'll give you ten dollars if you get me there by eleven, ' shoutedElizabeth. 

The car started as if it were some living thing that had had asharp instrument jabbed into it. Once or twice in his life it hadhappened to the stout man to encounter an idea which he couldswallow at a gulp. This was one of them. 

Mr Nichols, following the car with a wondering eye, found thatNutty was addressing him. 

'Is this really true?' said Nutty. 

'Absolute gospel. '

A wild cry, a piercing whoop of pure joy, broke the summerstillness. 

'Come and have a drink, old man!' babbled Nutty. 'This wantscelebrating!' His face fell. 'Oh, I was forgetting! I'm on thewagon. '

'On the wagon?'

'Sworn off, you know. I'm never going to touch another drop aslong as I live. I began to see things--monkeys!'

'I had a pal, ' said Mr Nichols, sympathetically, 'who used to seekangaroos. '

Nutty seized him by the arm, hospitable though handicapped. 

'Come and have a bit of bread and butter, or a slice of cake orsomething, and a glass of water. I want to tell you a lot moreabout Uncle Ira, and I want to hear all about your end of it. Gee, what a day!'

'"The maddest, merriest of all the glad New Year, "' assented MrNichols. 'A slice of that old 'eighty-seven cake. Just the thing!'

25

Bill made his way along the swaying train to the smoking-car, which was almost empty. It had come upon him overwhelmingly thathe needed tobacco. He was in the mood when a man must either smokeor give up altogether the struggle with Fate. He lit his pipe, andlooked out of the window at Long Island racing past him. It wasonly a blur to him. 

The conductor was asking for tickets. Bill showed his mechanically, and the conductor passed on. Then he settled down once more to histhoughts. He could not think coherently yet. His walk to the stationhad been like a walk in a dream. He was conscious of a great, dullpain that weighed on his mind, smothering it. The trees and housesstill moved past him in the same indistinguishable blur. 

He became aware that the conductor was standing beside him, sayingsomething about a ticket. He produced his once more, but this didnot seem to satisfy the conductor. To get rid of the man, who wasbecoming a nuisance, he gave him his whole attention, as far asthat smothering weight would allow him to give his whole attentionto anything, and found that the man was saying strange things. Hethought that he could not have heard him correctly. 

'What?' he said. 

'Lady back there told me to collect her fare from you, ' repeatedthe conductor. 'Said you would pay. '

Bill blinked. Either there was some mistake or trouble had turnedhis brain. He pushed himself together with a supreme effort. 

'A lady said I would pay her fare?'

'Yes. '

'But--but why?' demanded Bill, feebly. 

The conductor seemed unwilling to go into first causes. 

'Search me!' he replied. 

'Pay her fare!'

'Told me to collect it off the gentleman in the grey suit in thesmoking-car. You're the only one that's got a grey suit. '

'There's some mistake. '

'Not mine. '

'What does she look like?'

The conductor delved in his mind for adjectives. 

'Small, ' he said, collecting them slowly. 'Brown eyes--'

He desisted from his cataloguing at this point, for, with a loudexclamation, Bill had dashed away. 

Two cars farther back he had dropped into the seat by Elizabethand was gurgling wordlessly. A massive lady, who had entered thetrain at East Moriches in company with three children and a cat ina basket, eyed him with a curiosity that she made no attempt toconceal. Two girls in a neighbouring seat leaned forward eagerlyto hear all. This was because one of them had told the other thatElizabeth was Mary Pickford. Her companion was sceptical, butnevertheless obviously impressed. 

'My God!' said Bill. 

The massive lady told the three children sharply to look at theirpicture-book. 

'Well, I'm hanged!'

The mother of three said that if her offspring did not go rightalong to the end of the car and look at the pretty trees troublemust infallibly ensue. 

'Elizabeth!' At the sound of the name the two girls leaned back, taking no further interest in the proceedings. 

'What are you doing here?'

Elizabeth smiled, a shaky but encouraging smile. 

'I came after you, Bill. '

'You've got no hat!'

'I was in too much of a hurry to get one, and I gave all my moneyto the man who drove the car. That's why I had to ask you to paymy fare. You see, I'm not too proud to use your money after all. '

'Then--'

'Tickets please. One seventy-nine. '

It was the indefatigable conductor, sensible of his duty to thecompany and resolved that nothing should stand in the way of itsperformance. Bill gave him five dollars and told him to keep thechange. The conductor saw eye to eye with him in this. 

'Bill! You gave him--' She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. 'Well, it's lucky you're going to marry a rich girl. '

A look of the utmost determination overspread Bill's face. 

'I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to marry you. Now that I've got you again I'm not going to let you go. You canuse all the arguments you like, but it won't matter. I was a foolever to listen. If you try the same sort of thing again I'm justgoing to pick you up and carry you off. I've been thinking it oversince I left you. My mind has been working absolutely clearly. I've gone into the whole thing. It's perfect rot to take theattitude you did. We know we love each other, and I'm not going tolisten to any talk about time making us doubt it. Time will onlymake us love each other all the more. '

'Why, Bill, this is eloquence. '

'I feel eloquent. '

The stout lady ceased to listen. They had lowered their voices andshe was hard of hearing. She consoled herself by taking up hercopy of Gingery Stories and burying herself in the hecticadventures of a young millionaire and an artist's model. 

Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of the cover. 

'I bet there's a story in there of a man named Harold who was tooproud to marry a girl, though he loved her, because she was richand he wasn't. You wouldn't be so silly as that, Bill, would you?'

'It's the other way about with me. '

'No, it's not. Bill, do you know a man named Nichols?'

'Nichols?'

'J. Nichols. He said he knew you. He said he had told you aboutUncle Ira leaving you his money. '

'Jerry Nichols! How on earth--Oh, I remember. He wrote to you, didn't he?'

'He did. And this morning, just after you had left, he called. '

'Jerry Nichols called?'

'To tell me that Uncle Ira had made another will before he died, leaving the money to me. '

Their eyes met. 

'So I stole his car and caught the train, ' said Elizabeth, simply. 

Bill was recovering slowly from the news. 

'But--this makes rather a difference, you know, ' he said. 

'In what way?'

'Well, what I mean to say is, you've got five million dollars andI've got two thousand a year, don't you know, and so--'

Elizabeth tapped him on the knee. 

'Bill, do you see what this is in my hand?'

'Eh? What?'

'It's a pin. And I'm going to dig it right into you wherever Ithink it will hurt most, unless you stop being Harold at once. I'll tell you exactly what you've got to do, and you needn't thinkyou're going to do anything else. When we get to New York, I firstborrow the money from you to buy a hat, and then we walk to theCity Hall, where you go to the window marked "Marriage Licences", and buy one. It will cost you one dollar. You will give yourcorrect name and age and you will hear mine. It will come as ashock to you to know that my second name is something awful! I'vekept it concealed all my life. After we've done that we shall goto the only church that anybody could possibly be married in. It'son Twenty-ninth Street, just round the corner from Fifth Avenue. It's got a fountain playing in front of it, and it's a little bitof heaven dumped right down in the middle of New York. And afterthat--well, we might start looking about for that farm we'vetalked of. We can get a good farm for five million dollars, andleave something over to be doled out--cautiously--to Nutty. 

'And then all we have to do is to live happily ever after. '

Something small and soft slipped itself into his hand, just as ithad done ages and ages ago in Lady Wetherby's wood. 

It stimulated Bill's conscience to one last remonstrance. 

'But, I say, you know--'

'Well?'

'This business of the money, you know. What I mean to say is--Ow!'

He broke off, as a sharp pain manifested itself in the fleshy partof his leg. Elizabeth was looking at him reprovingly, her weaponpoised for another onslaught. 

'I told you!' she said. 

'All right, I won't do it again. '

'That's a good child. Bill, listen. Come closer and tell me allsorts of nice things about myself till we get to Jamaica, and thenI'll tell you what I think of you. We've just passed Islip, soyou've plenty of time. '