Chapter 11

   George opened the letter with trembling and reverent fingers.


   Dear Mr. Bevan,
   Thank you ever so much for your note, which Albert gave to me. How very, very kind…


   “Hey, mister!”
   George looked up testily. The boy Albert had reappeared.
   “What’s the matter? Can’t you find the cake?”
   “I’ve found the kike,” rejoined Albert, adducing proof of the statement in the shape of a massive slice, from which he took a substantial bite to assist thought. “But I can’t find the ginger ile.”
   George waved him away. This interruption at such a moment was annoying.
   “Look for it, child, look for it! Sniff after it! Bay on its trail! It’s somewhere about.”
   “Wri’!” mumbled Albert through the cake. He flicked a crumb off his cheek with a tongue which would have excited the friendly interest of an ant-eater. “I like ginger-ile.”
   “Well, go and bathe in it.”
   “Wri’!”
   George returned to his letter.


   Dear Mr. Bevan,
   Thank you ever so much for your note, which Albert gave to me. How very, very kind of you to come here like this and to say …


   “Hey, mister!”
   “Good Heavens!” George glared. “What’s the matter now? Haven’t you found that ginger-ale yet?”
   “I’ve found the ginger-ile right enough, but I can’t find the thing.”
   “The thing? What thing?”
   “The thing. The thing wot you open ginger-ile with.”
   “Oh, you mean the thing? It’s in the middle drawer of the dresser. Use your eyes, my boy!”
   “Wri’“.
   George gave an overwrought sigh and began the letter again.


   Dear Mr. Bevan,
   Thank you ever so much for your note which Albert gave to me. How very, very kind of you to come here like this and to say that you would help me. And how clever of you to find me after I was so secretive that day in the cab! You really can help me, if you are willing. It’s too long to explain in a note, but I am in great trouble, and there is nobody except you to help me. I will explain everything when I see you. The difficulty will be to slip away from home. They are watching me every moment, I’m afraid. But I will try my hardest to see you very soon.
   Yours sincerely,

Maud Marsh

   Just for a moment it must be confessed, the tone of the letter damped George. He could not have said just what he had expected, but certainly Reggie’s revelations had prepared him for something rather warmer, something more in the style in which a girl would write to the man she loved. The next moment, however, he saw how foolish any such expectation had been. How on earth could any reasonable man expect a girl to let herself go at this stage of the proceedings? It was for him to make the first move. Naturally she wasn’t going to reveal her feelings until he had revealed his.
   George raised the letter to his lips and kissed it vigorously.
   “Hey, mister!”
   George started guiltily. The blush of shame overspread his cheeks. The room seemed to echo with the sound of that fatuous kiss.
   “Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!” he called, snapping his fingers, and repeating the incriminating noise. “I was just calling my cat,” he explained with dignity. “You didn’t see her in there, did you?”
   Albert’s blue eyes met his in a derisive stare. The lid of the left one fluttered. It was but too plain that Albert was not convinced.
   “A little black cat with white shirt-front,” babbled George perseveringly. “She’s usually either here or there, or—or somewhere. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!”
   The cupid’s bow of Albert’s mouth parted. He uttered one word.
   “Swank!”
   There was a tense silence. What Albert was thinking one cannot say. The thoughts of Youth are long, long thoughts. What George was thinking was that the late King Herod had been unjustly blamed for a policy which had been both statesmanlike and in the interests of the public. He was blaming mawkish sentimentality of the modem legal system which ranks the evisceration and secret burial of small boys as a crime.
   “What do you mean?”
   “You know what I mean.”
   “I’ve a good mind to—”
   Albert waved a deprecating hand.
   “It’s all right, mister. I’m yer friend.”
   “You are, are you? Well, don’t let it about. I’ve got a reputation to keep up.”
   “I’m yer friend, I tell you. I can help yer. I want to help yer!”
   George’s views on infanticide underwent a slight modification. After all, he felt, much must be excused to Youth. Youth thinks it funny to see a man kissing a letter. It is not funny, of course; it is beautiful; but it’s no good arguing the point. Let Youth have its snigger, provided, after it has finished sniggering, it intends to buckle to and be of practical assistance. Albert, as an ally, was not to be despised. George did not know what Albert’s duties as a page-boy were, but they seemed to be of a nature that gave him plenty of leisure and freedom; and a friendly resident of the castle with leisure and freedom was just what he needed.
   “That’s very good of you,” he said, twisting his reluctant features into a fairly benevolent smile.
   “I can ‘elp!” persisted Albert. “Got a cigaroot?”
   “Do you smoke, child?”
   “When I get ‘old of a cigaroot I do.”
   “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you. I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
   “Then I’ll ‘ave to ‘ave one of my own,” said Albert moodily.
   He reached into the mysteries of his pocket and produced a piece of string, a knife, the wishbone of a fowl, two marbles, a crushed cigarette, and a match. Replacing the string, the knife, the wishbone and the marbles, he ignited the match against the tightest part of his person and lit the cigarette.
   “I can help yer. I know the ropes.”
   “And smoke them,” said George, wincing.
   “Pardon?”
   “Nothing.”
   Albert took an enjoyable whiff.
   “I know all about yer.”
   “You do?”
   “You and Lidy Mord.”
   “Oh, you do, do you?”
   “I was listening at the key-’ole while the row was goin’ on.”
   “There was a row, was there?”
   A faint smile of retrospective enjoyment lit up Albert’s face. “An orful row! Shoutin’ and yellin’ and cussin’ all over the shop. About you and Lidy Maud.”
   “And you drank it in, eh?”
   “Pardon?”
   “I say, you listened?”
   “Not ‘arf I listened. Seeing I’d just drawn you in the sweepstike, of course, I listened—not ‘arf!”
   George did not follow him here.
   “The sweepstike? What’s a sweepstike?”
   “Why, a thing you puts names in ‘ats and draw ‘em and the one that gets the winning name wins the money.”
   “Oh, you mean a sweepstake!”
   “That’s wot I said—a sweepstike.”
   George was still puzzled.
   “But I don’t understand. How do you mean you drew me in a sweepstike—I mean a sweepstake? What sweepstake?”
   “Down in the servants’ ‘all. Keggs, the butler, started it. I ‘eard ‘im say he always ‘ad one every place ‘e was in as a butler– leastways, whenever there was any dorters of the ‘ouse. There’s always a chance, when there’s a ‘ouse-party, of one of the dorters of the ‘ouse gettin’ married to one of the gents in the party, so Keggs ‘e puts all of the gents’ names in an ‘at, and you pay five shillings for a chance, and the one that draws the winning name gets the money. And if the dorter of the ‘ouse don’t get married that time, the money’s put away and added to the pool for the next ‘ouse-party.”
   George gasped. This revelation of life below stairs in the stately homes of England took his breath away. Then astonishment gave way to indignation.
   “Do you mean to tell me that you—you worms—made Lady Maud the—the prize of a sweepstake!”
   Albert was hurt.
   “Who’re yer calling worms?”
   George perceived the need of diplomacy. After all much depended on this child’s goodwill.
   “I was referring to the butler—what’s his name—Keggs.”
   “‘E ain’t a worm. ‘E’s a serpint.” Albert drew at his cigarette. His brow darkened. “‘E does the drawing, Keggs does, and I’d like to know ‘ow it is ‘e always manages to cop the fav’rit!”
   Albert chuckled.
   “But this time I done him proper. ‘E didn’t want me in the thing at all. Said I was too young. Tried to do the drawin’ without me. ‘Clip that boy one side of the ‘ead!’ ‘e says, ‘and turn ‘im out!’ ‘e says. I says, ‘Yus, you will!’ I says. ‘And wot price me goin’ to ‘is lordship and blowing the gaff?’ I says. ‘E says, ‘Oh, orl right!’ ‘e says. ‘Ave it yer own way!’ ‘e says.
   ‘Where’s yer five shillings?’ ‘e says. “Ere yer are!’ I says. ‘Oh, very well,’ ‘e says. ‘But you’ll ‘ave to draw last,’ ‘e says, ‘bein’ the youngest.’ Well, they started drawing the names, and of course Keggs ‘as to draw Mr. Byng.”
   “Oh, he drew Mr. Byng, did he?”
   “Yus. And everyone knew Reggie was the fav’rit. Smiled all over his fat face, the old serpint did! And when it come to my turn, ‘e says to me, ‘Sorry, Elbert!’ ‘e says, ‘but there ain’t no more names. They’ve give out!’ ‘Oh, they ‘ave, ‘ave they?’ I says, ‘Well, wot’s the matter with giving a fellow a sporting chance?’ I says. “Ow do you mean?’ ‘e says. ‘Why, write me out a ticket marked “Mr. X.”,’ I says. ‘Then, if ‘er lidyship marries anyone not in the ‘ouse-party, I cop!’ ‘Orl right,’ ‘e says, ‘but you know the conditions of this ‘ere sweep. Nothin’ don’t count only wot tikes plice during the two weeks of the ‘ouse-party,’ ‘e says. ‘Orl right,’ I says. ‘Write me ticket. It’s a fair sportin’ venture.’ So ‘e writes me out me ticket, with ‘Mr. X.’ on it, and I says to them all, I says, ‘I’d like to ‘ave witnesses’, I says, ‘to this ‘ere thing. Do all you gents agree that if anyone not in the ‘ouse-party and ‘oo’s name ain’t on one of the other tickets marries ‘er lidyship, I get the pool?’ I says. They all says that’s right, and then I says to ‘em all straight out, I says, ‘I ‘appen to know’, I says, ‘that ‘er lidyship is in love with a gent that’s not in the party at all. An American gent,’ I says. They wouldn’t believe it at first, but, when Keggs ‘ad put two and two together, and thought of one or two things that ‘ad ‘appened, ‘e turned as white as a sheet and said it was a swindle and wanted the drawin’ done over again, but the others says ‘No’, they says, ‘it’s quite fair,’ they says, and one of ‘em offered me ten bob slap out for my ticket. But I stuck to it, I did. And that,” concluded Albert throwing the cigarette into the fire-place just in time to prevent a scorched finger, “that’s why I’m going to ‘elp yer!”
   There is probably no attitude of mind harder for the average man to maintain than that of aloof disapproval. George was an average man, and during the degrading recital just concluded he had found himself slipping. At first he had been revolted, then, in spite of himself, amused, and now, when all the facts were before him, he could induce his mind to think of nothing else than his good fortune in securing as an ally one who appeared to combine a precocious intelligence with a helpful lack of scruple. War is war, and love is love, and in each the practical man inclines to demand from his fellow-workers the punch rather than a lofty soul. A page boy replete with the finer feelings would have been useless in this crisis. Albert, who seemed on the evidence of a short but sufficient acquaintance, to be a lad who would not recognize the finer feelings if they were handed to him on a plate with watercress round them, promised to be invaluable. Something in his manner told George that the child was bursting with schemes for his benefit.
   “Have some more cake, Albert,” he said ingratiatingly.
   The boy shook his head.
   “Do,” urged George. “Just a little slice.”
   “There ain’t no little slice,” replied Albert with regret. “I’ve ate it all.” He sighed and resumed. “I gotta scheme!”
   “Fine! What is it?”
   Albert knitted his brows.
   “It’s like this. You want to see ‘er lidyship, but you can’t come to the castle, and she can’t come to you—not with ‘er fat brother dogging of ‘er footsteps. That’s it, ain’t it? Or am I a liar?”
   George hastened to reassure him.
   “That is exactly it. What’s the answer?”
   “I’ll tell yer wot you can do. There’s the big ball tonight ‘cos of its bein’ ‘Is Nibs’ comin’-of-age tomorrow. All the county’ll be ‘ere.”
   “You think I could slip in and be taken for a guest?”
   Albert snorted contempt.
   “No, I don’t think nothin’ of the kind, not bein’ a fat-head.” George apologized. “But wot you could do’s this. I ‘eard Keggs torkin to the ‘ouse-keeper about ‘avin’ to get in a lot of temp’y waiters to ‘elp out for the night—”
   George reached forward and patted Albert on the head.
   “Don’t mess my ‘air, now,” warned that youth coldly.
   “Albert, you’re one of the great thinkers of the age. I could get into the castle as a waiter, and you could tell Lady Maud I was there, and we could arrange a meeting. Machiavelli couldn’t have thought of anything smoother.”
   “Mac Who?”
   “One of your ancestors. Great schemer in his day. But, one moment.”
   “Now what?”
   “How am I to get engaged? How do I get the job?”
   “That’s orl right. I’ll tell the ‘ousekeeper you’re my cousin– been a waiter in America at the best restaurongs—’ome for a ‘oliday, but’ll come in for one night to oblige. They’ll pay yer a quid.”
   “I’ll hand it over to you.”
   “Just,” said Albert approvingly, “wot I was goin’ to suggest myself.”
   “Then I’ll leave all the arrangements to you.”
   “You’d better, if you don’t want to mike a mess of everything. All you’ve got to do is to come to the servants’ entrance at eight sharp tonight and say you’re my cousin.”
   “That’s an awful thing to ask anyone to say.”
   “Pardon?”
   “Nothing!” said George.

Chapter 12

   The great ball in honour of Lord Belpher’s coming-of-age was at its height. The reporter of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, who was present in his official capacity, and had been allowed by butler Keggs to take a peep at the scene through a side-door, justly observed in his account of the proceedings next day that the ‘tout ensemble was fairylike’, and described the company as ‘a galaxy of fair women and brave men’. The floor was crowded with all that was best and noblest in the county; so that a half-brick, hurled at any given moment, must infallibly have spilt blue blood. Peers stepped on the toes of knights; honorables bumped into the spines of baronets. Probably the only titled person in the whole of the surrounding country who was not playing his part in the glittering scene was Lord Marshmoreton; who, on discovering that his private study had been converted into a cloakroom, had retired to bed with a pipe and a copy of Roses Red and Roses White, by Emily Ann Mackintosh (Popgood, Crooly & Co.), which he was to discover—after he was between the sheets, and it was too late to repair the error—was not, as he had supposed, a treatise on his favourite hobby, but a novel of stearine sentimentality dealing with the adventures of a pure young English girl and an artist named Claude.
   George, from the shaded seclusion of a gallery, looked down upon the brilliant throng with impatience. It seemed to him that he had been doing this all his life. The novelty of the experience had long since ceased to divert him. It was all just like the second act of an old-fashioned musical comedy (Act Two: The Ballroom, Grantchester Towers: One Week Later)—a resemblance which was heightened for him by the fact that the band had more than once played dead and buried melodies of his own composition, of which he had wearied a full eighteen months back.
   A complete absence of obstacles had attended his intrusion into the castle. A brief interview with a motherly old lady, whom even Albert seemed to treat with respect, and who, it appeared was Mrs. Digby, the house-keeper; followed by an even briefer encounter with Keggs (fussy and irritable with responsibility, and, even while talking to George carrying on two other conversations on topics of the moment), and he was past the censors and free for one night only to add his presence to the chosen inside the walls of Belpher. His duties were to stand in this gallery, and with the assistance of one of the maids to minister to the comfort of such of the dancers as should use it as a sitting-out place. None had so far made their appearance, the superior attractions of the main floor having exercised a great appeal; and for the past hour George had been alone with the maid and his thoughts. The maid, having asked George if he knew her cousin Frank, who had been in America nearly a year, and having received a reply in the negative, seemed to be disappointed in him, and to lose interest, and had not spoken for twenty minutes.
   George scanned the approaches to the balcony for a sight of Albert as the shipwrecked mariner scans the horizon for the passing sail. It was inevitable, he supposed, this waiting. It would be difficult for Maud to slip away even for a moment on such a night.
   “I say, laddie, would you mind getting me a lemonade?”
   George was gazing over the balcony when the voice spoke behind him, and the muscles of his back stiffened as he recognized its genial note. This was one of the things he had prepared himself for, but, now that it had happened, he felt a wave of stage-fright such as he had only once experienced before in his life—on the occasion when he had been young enough and inexperienced enough to take a curtain-call on a first night. Reggie Byng was friendly, and would not wilfully betray him; but Reggie was also a babbler, who could not be trusted to keep things to himself. It was necessary, he perceived, to take a strong line from the start, and convince Reggie that any likeness which the latter might suppose that he detected between his companion of that afternoon and the waiter of tonight existed only in his heated imagination.
   As George turned, Reggie’s pleasant face, pink with healthful exercise and Lord Marshmoreton’s finest Bollinger, lost most of its colour. His eyes and mouth opened wider. The fact is Reggie was shaken. All through the earlier part of the evening he had been sedulously priming himself with stimulants with a view to amassing enough nerve to propose to Alice Faraday: and, now that he had drawn her away from the throng to this secluded nook and was about to put his fortune to the test, a horrible fear swept over him that he had overdone it. He was having optical illusions.
   “Good God!”
   Reggie loosened his collar, and pulled himself together.
   “Would you mind taking a glass of lemonade to the lady in blue sitting on the settee over there by the statue,” he said carefully.
   He brightened up a little.
   “Pretty good that! Not absolutely a test sentence, perhaps, like ‘Truly rural’ or ‘The intricacies of the British Constitution’. But nevertheless no mean feat.”
   “I say!” he continued, after a pause.
   “Sir?”
   “You haven’t ever seen me before by any chance, if you know what I mean, have you?”
   “No, sir.”
   “You haven’t a brother, or anything of that shape or order, have you, no?”
   “No, sir. I have often wished I had. I ought to have spoken to father about it. Father could never deny me anything.”
   Reggie blinked. His misgiving returned. Either his ears, like his eyes, were playing him tricks, or else this waiter-chappie was talking pure drivel.
   “What’s that?”
   “Sir?”
   “What did you say?”
   “I said, ‘No, sir, I have no brother’.”
   “Didn’t you say something else?”
   “No, sir.”
   “What?”
   “No, sir.”
   Reggie’s worst suspicions were confirmed.
   “Good God!” he muttered. “Then I am!” Miss Faraday, when he joined her on the settee, wanted an explanation.
   “What were you talking to that man about, Mr. Byng? You seemed to be having a very interesting conversation.”
   “I was asking him if he had a brother.”
   Miss Faraday glanced quickly at him. She had had a feeling for some time during the evening that his manner had been strange.
   “A brother? What made you ask him that?”
   “He—I mean—that is to say—what I mean is, he looked the sort of chap who might have a brother. Lots of those fellows have!”
   Alice Faraday’s face took on a motherly look. She was fonder of Reggie than that love-sick youth supposed, and by sheer accident he had stumbled on the right road to her consideration. Alice Faraday was one of those girls whose dream it is to be a ministering angel to some chosen man, to be a good influence to him and raise him to an appreciation of nobler things. Hitherto, Reggie’s personality had seemed to her agreeable, but negative. A positive vice like over-indulgence in alcohol altered him completely. It gave him a significance.
   “I told him to get you a lemonade,” said Reggie. “He seems to be taking his time about it. Hi!”
   George approached deferentially.
   “Sir?”
   “Where’s that lemonade?”
   “Lemonade, sir?”
   “Didn’t I ask you to bring this lady a glass of lemonade?”
   “I did not understand you to do so, sir.”
   “But, Great Scott! What were we chatting about, then?”
   “You were telling me a diverting story about an Irishman who landed in New York looking for work, sir. You would like a glass of lemonade, sir? Very good, sir.”
   Alice placed a hand gently on Reggie’s arm.
   “Don’t you think you had better lie down for a little and rest, Mr. Byng? I’m sure it would do you good.”
   The solicitous note in her voice made Reggie quiver like a jelly. He had never known her speak like that before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his soul; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her to mistake the outpouring of a strong man’s heart for the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It was one of Life’s ironies. Here he was for the first time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he couldn’t do it.
   “It’s the heat of the room,” said Alice. “Shall we go and sit outside on the terrace? Never mind about the lemonade. I’m not really thirsty.”
   Reggie followed her like a lamb. The prospect of the cool night air was grateful.
   “That,” murmured George, as he watched them depart, “ought to hold you for a while!”
   He perceived Albert hastening towards him.

Chapter 13

   Albert was in a hurry. He skimmed over the carpet like a water-beetle.
   “Quick!” he said.
   He cast a glance at the maid, George’s co-worker. She was reading a novelette with her back turned.
   “Tell ‘er you’ll be back in five minutes,” said Albert, jerking a thumb.
   “Unnecessary. She won’t notice my absence. Ever since she discovered that I had never met her cousin Frank in America, I have meant nothing in her life.”
   “Then come on.”
   “Where?”
   “I’ll show you.”
   That it was not the nearest and most direct route which they took to the trysting-place George became aware after he had followed his young guide through doors and up stairs and down stairs and had at last come to a halt in a room to which the sound of the music penetrated but faintly. He recognized the room. He had been in it before. It was the same room where he and Billie Dore had listened to Keggs telling the story of Lord Leonard and his leap. That window there, he remembered now, opened on to the very balcony from which the historic Leonard had done his spectacular dive. That it should be the scene of this other secret meeting struck George as appropriate. The coincidence appealed to him.
   Albert vanished. George took a deep breath. Now that the moment had arrived for which he had waited so long he was aware of a return of that feeling of stage-fright which had come upon him when he heard Reggie Byng’s voice. This sort of thing, it must be remembered, was not in George’s usual line. His had been a quiet and uneventful life, and the only exciting thing which, in his recollection, had ever happened to him previous to the dramatic entry of Lady Maud into his taxi-cab that day in Piccadilly, had occurred at college nearly ten years before, when a festive room-mate—no doubt with the best motives—had placed a Mexican horned toad in his bed on the night of the Yale football game.
   A light footstep sounded outside, and the room whirled round George in a manner which, if it had happened to Reggie Byng, would have caused that injudicious drinker to abandon the habits of a lifetime. When the furniture had returned to its place and the rug had ceased to spin, Maud was standing before him.
   Nothing is harder to remember than a once-seen face. It had caused George a good deal of distress and inconvenience that, try as he might, he could not conjure up anything more than a vague vision of what the only girl in the world really looked like. He had carried away with him from their meeting in the cab only a confused recollection of eyes that shone and a mouth that curved in a smile; and the brief moment in which he was able to refresh his memory, when he found her in the lane with Reggie Byng and the broken-down car, had not been enough to add definiteness. The consequence was that Maud came upon him now with the stunning effect of beauty seen for the first time. He gasped. In that dazzling ball-dress, with the flush of dancing on her cheeks and the light of dancing in her eyes, she was so much more wonderful than any picture of her which memory had been able to produce for his inspection that it was as if he had never seen her before.
   Even her brother, Percy, a stern critic where his nearest and dearest were concerned, had admitted on meeting her in the drawing-room before dinner that that particular dress suited Maud. It was a shimmering dream-thing of rose-leaves and moon-beams. That, at least, was how it struck George; a dressmaker would have found a longer and less romantic description for it. But that does not matter. Whoever wishes for a cold and technical catalogue of the stuffs which went to make up the picture that deprived George of speech may consult the files of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, and read the report of the editor’s wife, who “does” the dresses for the Intelligencer under the pen-name of “Birdie Bright-Eye”. As far as George was concerned, the thing was made of rose-leaves and moon-beams.
   George, as I say, was deprived of speech. That any girl could possibly look so beautiful was enough to paralyse his faculties; but that this ethereal being straight from Fairyland could have stooped to love him—him—an earthy brute who wore sock-suspenders and drank coffee for breakfast … that was what robbed George of the power to articulate. He could do nothing but look at her.
   From the Hills of Fairyland soft music came. Or, if we must be exact, Maud spoke.
   “I couldn’t get away before!” Then she stopped short and darted to the door listening. “Was that somebody coming? I had to cut a dance with Mr. Plummer to get here, and I’m so afraid he may…”
   He had. A moment later it was only too evident that this was precisely what Mr. Plummer had done. There was a footstep on the stairs, a heavy footstep this time, and from outside the voice of the pursuer made itself heard.
   “Oh, there you are, Lady Maud! I was looking for you. This is our dance.”
   George did not know who Mr. Plummer was. He did not want to know. His only thought regarding Mr. Plummer was a passionate realization of the superfluity of his existence. It is the presence on the globe of these Plummers that delays the coming of the Millennium.
   His stunned mind leaped into sudden activity. He must not be found here, that was certain. Waiters who ramble at large about a feudal castle and are discovered in conversation with the daughter of the house excite comment. And, conversely, daughters of the house who talk in secluded rooms with waiters also find explanations necessary. He must withdraw. He must withdraw quickly. And, as a gesture from Maud indicated, the withdrawal must be effected through the french window opening on the balcony. Estimating the distance that separated him from the approaching Plummer at three stairs—the voice had come from below—and a landing, the space of time allotted to him by a hustling Fate for disappearing was some four seconds. Inside two and half, the french window had opened and closed, and George was out under the stars, with the cool winds of the night playing on his heated forehead.
   He had now time for meditation. There are few situations which provide more scope for meditation than that of the man penned up on a small balcony a considerable distance from the ground, with his only avenue of retreat cut off behind him. So George meditated. First, he mused on Plummer. He thought some hard thoughts about Plummer. Then he brooded on the unkindness of a fortune which had granted him the opportunity of this meeting with Maud, only to snatch it away almost before it had begun. He wondered how long the late Lord Leonard had been permitted to talk on that occasion before he, too, had had to retire through these same windows. There was no doubt about one thing. Lovers who chose that room for their interviews seemed to have very little luck.
   It had not occurred to George at first that there could be any further disadvantage attached to his position other than the obvious drawbacks which had already come to his notice. He was now to perceive that he had been mistaken. A voice was speaking in the room he had left, a plainly audible voice, deep and throaty; and within a minute George had become aware that he was to suffer the additional discomfort of being obliged to listen to a fellow man—one could call Plummer that by stretching the facts a little—proposing marriage. The gruesomeness of the situation became intensified. Of all moments when a man—and justice compelled George to admit that Plummer was technically human—of all moments when a man may by all the laws of decency demand to be alone without an audience of his own sex, the chiefest is the moment when he is asking a girl to marry him. George’s was a sensitive nature, and he writhed at the thought of playing the eavesdropper at such a time.
   He looked frantically about him for a means of escape. Plummer had now reached the stage of saying at great length that he was not worthy of Maud. He said it over and over, again in different ways. George was in hearty agreement with him, but he did not want to hear it. He wanted to get away. But how? Lord Leonard on a similar occasion had leaped. Some might argue therefore on the principle that what man has done, man can do, that George should have imitated him. But men differ. There was a man attached to a circus who used to dive off the roof of Madison Square Garden on to a sloping board, strike it with his chest, turn a couple of somersaults, reach the ground, bow six times and go off to lunch. That sort of thing is a gift. Some of us have it, some have not. George had not. Painful as it was to hear Plummer floundering through his proposal of marriage, instinct told him that it would be far more painful to hurl himself out into mid-air on the sporting chance of having his downward progress arrested by the branches of the big tree that had upheld Lord Leonard. No, there seemed nothing for it but to remain where he was.
   Inside the room Plummer was now saying how much the marriage would please his mother.
   “Psst!”
   George looked about him. It seemed to him that he had heard a voice. He listened. No. Except for the barking of a distant dog, the faint wailing of a waltz, the rustle of a roosting bird, and the sound of Plummer saying that if her refusal was due to anything she might have heard about that breach-of-promise case of his a couple of years ago he would like to state that he was more sinned against than sinning and that the girl had absolutely misunderstood him, all was still.
   “Psst! Hey, mister!”
   It was a voice. It came from above. Was it an angel’s voice? Not altogether. It was Albert’s. The boy was leaning out of a window some six feet higher up the castle wall. George, his eyes by now grown used to the darkness, perceived that the stripling gesticulated as one having some message to impart. Then, glancing to one side, he saw what looked like some kind of a rope swayed against the wall. He reached for it. The thing was not a rope: it was a knotted sheet.
   From above came Albert’s hoarse whisper.
   “Look alive!”
   This was precisely what George wanted to do for at least another fifty years or so; and it seemed to him as he stood there in the starlight, gingerly fingering this flimsy linen thing, that if he were to suspend his hundred and eighty pounds of bone and sinew at the end of it over the black gulf outside the balcony he would look alive for about five seconds, and after that goodness only knew how he would look. He knew all about knotted sheets. He had read a hundred stories in which heroes, heroines, low comedy friends and even villains did all sorts of reckless things with their assistance. There was not much comfort to be derived from that. It was one thing to read about people doing silly things like that, quite another to do them yourself. He gave Albert’s sheet a tentative shake. In all his experience he thought he had never come across anything so supremely unstable. (One calls it Albert’s sheet for the sake of convenience. It was really Reggie Byng’s sheet. And when Reggie got to his room in the small hours of the morning and found the thing a mass of knots he jumped to the conclusion– being a simple-hearted young man—that his bosom friend Jack Ferris, who had come up from London to see Lord Belpher through the trying experience of a coming-of-age party, had done it as a practical joke, and went and poured a jug of water over Jack’s bed. That is Life. Just one long succession of misunderstandings and rash acts and what not. Absolutely!)
   Albert was becoming impatient. He was in the position of a great general who thinks out some wonderful piece of strategy and can’t get his army to carry it out. Many boys, seeing Plummer enter the room below and listening at the keyhole and realizing that George must have hidden somewhere and deducing that he must be out on the balcony, would have been baffled as to how to proceed. Not so Albert. To dash up to Reggie Byng’s room and strip his sheet off the bed and tie it to the bed-post and fashion a series of knots in it and lower it out of the window took Albert about three minutes. His part in the business had been performed without a hitch. And now George, who had nothing in the world to do but the childish task of climbing up the sheet, was jeopardizing the success of the whole scheme by delay. Albert gave the sheet an irritable jerk.
   It was the worst thing he could have done. George had almost made up his mind to take a chance when the sheet was snatched from his grasp as if it had been some live thing deliberately eluding his clutch. The thought of what would have happened had this occurred when he was in mid-air caused him to break out in a cold perspiration. He retired a pace and perched himself on the rail of the balcony.
   “Psst!” said Albert.
   “It’s no good saying, ‘Psst!’“ rejoined George in an annoyed undertone. “I could say “Psst!” Any fool could say ‘Psst!’“
   Albert, he considered in leaning out of the window and saying “Psst!” was merely touching the fringe of the subject.
   It is probable that he would have remained seated on the balcony rail regarding the sheet with cold aversion, indefinitely, had not his hand been forced by the man Plummer. Plummer, during these last minutes, had shot his bolt. He had said everything that a man could say, much of it twice over; and now he was through. All was ended. The verdict was in. No wedding-bells for Plummer.
   “I think,” said Plummer gloomily, and the words smote on George’s ear like a knell, “I think I’d like a little air.”
   George leaped from his rail like a hunted grasshopper. If Plummer was looking for air, it meant that he was going to come out on the balcony. There was only one thing to be done. It probably meant the abrupt conclusion of a promising career, but he could hesitate no longer.
   George grasped the sheet—it felt like a rope of cobwebs—and swung himself out.
   Maud looked out on to the balcony. Her heart which had stood still when the rejected one opened the window and stepped forth to commune with the soothing stars, beat again. There was no one there, only emptiness and Plummer.
   “This,” said Plummer sombrely, gazing over the rail into the darkness, “is the place where that fellow what’s-his-name jumped off in the reign of thingummy, isn’t it?”
   Maud understood now, and a thrill of the purest admiration for George’s heroism swept over her. So rather than compromise her, he had done Leonard’s leap! How splendid of him! If George, now sitting on Reggie Byng’s bed taking a rueful census of the bits of skin remaining on his hands and knees after his climb could read her thoughts, he would have felt well rewarded for his abrasions.
   “I’ve a jolly good mind,” said Plummer, “to do it myself!” He uttered a short, mirthless laugh. “Well, anyway,” he said recklessly, “I’ll jolly well go downstairs and have a brandy-and-soda!”
   Albert finished untying the sheet from the bedpost, and stuffed it under the pillow.
   “And now,” said Albert, “for a quiet smoke in the scullery.”
   These massive minds require their moments of relaxation.

Chapter 14

   George’s idea was to get home. Quick. There was no possible chance of a second meeting with Maud that night. They had met and had been whirled asunder. No use to struggle with Fate. Best to give in and hope that another time Fate would be kinder. What George wanted now was to be away from all the gay glitter and the fairylike tout ensemble and the galaxy of fair women and brave men, safe in his own easy-chair, where nothing could happen to him. A nice sense of duty would no doubt have taken him back to his post in order fully to earn the sovereign which had been paid to him for his services as temporary waiter; but the voice of Duty called to him in vain. If the British aristocracy desired refreshments let them get them for themselves—and like it! He was through.
   But if George had for the time being done with the British aristocracy, the British aristocracy had not done with him. Hardly had he reached the hall when he encountered the one member of the order whom he would most gladly have avoided.
   Lord Belpher was not in genial mood. Late hours always made his head ache, and he was not a dancing man; so that he was by now fully as weary of the fairylike tout ensemble as was George. But, being the centre and cause of the night’s proceedings, he was compelled to be present to the finish. He was in the position of captains who must be last to leave their ships, and of boys who stand on burning decks whence all but they had fled. He had spent several hours shaking hands with total strangers and receiving with a frozen smile their felicitations on the attainment of his majority, and he could not have been called upon to meet a larger horde of relations than had surged round him that night if he had been a rabbit. The Belpher connection was wide, straggling over most of England; and first cousins, second cousins and even third and fourth cousins had debouched from practically every county on the map and marched upon the home of their ancestors. The effort of having to be civil to all of these had told upon Percy. Like the heroine of his sister Maud’s favourite poem he was “aweary, aweary,” and he wanted a drink. He regarded George’s appearance as exceedingly opportune.
   “Get me a small bottle of champagne, and bring it to the library.”
   “Yes, sir.”
   The two words sound innocent enough, but, wishing as he did to efface himself and avoid publicity, they were the most unfortunate which George could have chosen. If he had merely bowed acquiescence and departed, it is probable that Lord Belpher would not have taken a second look at him. Percy was in no condition to subject everyone he met to a minute scrutiny. But, when you have been addressed for an entire lifetime as “your lordship”, it startles you when a waiter calls you “Sir”. Lord Belpher gave George a glance in which reproof and pain were nicely mingled emotions quickly supplanted by amazement. A gurgle escaped him.
   “Stop!” he cried as George turned away.
   Percy was rattled. The crisis found him in two minds. On the one hand, he would have been prepared to take oath that this man before him was the man who had knocked off his hat in Piccadilly. The likeness had struck him like a blow the moment he had taken a good look at the fellow. On the other hand, there is nothing which is more likely to lead one astray than a resemblance. He had never forgotten the horror and humiliation of the occasion, which had happened in his fourteenth year, when a motherly woman at Paddington Station had called him “dearie” and publicly embraced him, on the erroneous supposition that he was her nephew, Philip. He must proceed cautiously. A brawl with an innocent waiter, coming on the heels of that infernal episode with the policeman, would give people the impression that assailing the lower orders had become a hobby of his.
   “Sir?” said George politely.
   His brazen front shook Lord Belpher’s confidence.
   “I haven’t seen you before here, have I?” was all he could find to say.
   “No, sir,” replied George smoothly. “I am only temporarily attached to the castle staff.”
   “Where do you come from?”
   “ America, sir.”
   Lord Belpher started. “ America!”
   “Yes, sir. I am in England on a vacation. My cousin, Albert, is page boy at the castle, and he told me there were a few vacancies for extra help tonight, so I applied and was given the job.”
   Lord Belpher frowned perplexedly. It all sounded entirely plausible. And, what was satisfactory, the statement could be checked by application to Keggs, the butler. And yet there was a lingering doubt. However, there seemed nothing to be gained by continuing the conversation.
   “I see,” he said at last. “Well, bring that champagne to the library as quick as you can.”
   “Very good, sir.”
   Lord Belpher remained where he stood, brooding. Reason told him he ought to be satisfied, but he was not satisfied. It would have been different had he not known that this fellow with whom Maud had become entangled was in the neighbourhood. And if that scoundrel had had the audacity to come and take a cottage at the castle gates, why not the audacity to invade the castle itself?
   The appearance of one of the footmen, on his way through the hall with a tray, gave him the opportunity for further investigation.
   “Send Keggs to me!”
   “Very good, your lordship.”
   An interval and the butler arrived. Unlike Lord Belpher late hours were no hardship to Keggs. He was essentially a night-blooming flower. His brow was as free from wrinkles as his shirt-front. He bore himself with the conscious dignity of one who, while he would have freely admitted he did not actually own the castle, was nevertheless aware that he was one of its most conspicuous ornaments.
   “You wished to see me, your lordship?”
   “Yes. Keggs, there are a number of outside men helping here tonight, aren’t there?”
   “Indubitably, your lordship. The unprecedented scale of the entertainment necessitated the engagement of a certain number of supernumeraries,” replied Keggs with an easy fluency which Reggie Byng, now cooling his head on the lower terrace, would have bitterly envied. “In the circumstances, such an arrangement was inevitable.”
   “You engaged all these men yourself?”
   “In a manner of speaking, your lordship, and for all practical purposes, yes. Mrs. Digby, the ‘ouse-keeper conducted the actual negotiations in many cases, but the arrangement was in no instance considered complete until I had passed each applicant.”
   “Do you know anything of an American who says he is the cousin of the page-boy?”
   “The boy Albert did introduce a nominee whom he stated to be ‘is cousin ‘ome from New York on a visit and anxious to oblige. I trust he ‘as given no dissatisfaction, your lordship? He seemed a respectable young man.”
   “No, no, not at all. I merely wished to know if you knew him. One can’t be too careful.”
   “No, indeed, your lordship.”
   “That’s all, then.”
   “Thank you, your lordship.”
   Lord Belpher was satisfied. He was also relieved. He felt that prudence and a steady head had kept him from making himself ridiculous. When George presently returned with the life-saving fluid, he thanked him and turned his thoughts to other things.
   But, if the young master was satisfied, Keggs was not. Upon Keggs a bright light had shone. There were few men, he flattered himself, who could more readily put two and two together and bring the sum to a correct answer. Keggs knew of the strange American gentleman who had taken up his abode at the cottage down by Platt’s farm. His looks, his habits, and his motives for coming there had formed food for discussion throughout one meal in the servant’s hall; a stranger whose abstention from brush and palette showed him to be no artist being an object of interest. And while the solution put forward by a romantic lady’s-maid, a great reader of novelettes, that the young man had come there to cure himself of some unhappy passion by communing with nature, had been scoffed at by the company, Keggs had not been so sure that there might not be something in it. Later events had deepened his suspicion, which now, after this interview with Lord Belpher, had become certainty.
   The extreme fishiness of Albert’s sudden production of a cousin from America was so manifest that only his preoccupation at the moment when he met the young man could have prevented him seeing it before. His knowledge of Albert told him that, if one so versed as that youth in the art of Swank had really possessed a cousin in America, he would long ago have been boring the servants’ hall with fictions about the man’s wealth and importance. For Albert not to lie about a thing, practically proved that thing non-existent. Such was the simple creed of Keggs.
   He accosted a passing fellow-servitor.
   “Seen young blighted Albert anywhere, Freddy?”
   It was in this shameful manner that that mastermind was habitually referred to below stairs.
   “Seen ‘im going into the scullery not ‘arf a minute ago,” replied Freddy.
   “Thanks.”
   “So long,” said Freddy.
   “Be good!” returned Keggs, whose mode of speech among those of his own world differed substantially from that which he considered it became him to employ when conversing with the titled.
   The fall of great men is but too often due to the failure of their miserable bodies to give the necessary support to their great brains. There are some, for example, who say that Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo if he had not had dyspepsia. Not otherwise was it with Albert on that present occasion. The arrival of Keggs found him at a disadvantage. He had been imprudent enough, on leaving George, to endeavour to smoke a cigar, purloined from the box which stood hospitably open on a table in the hall. But for this, who knows with what cunning counter-attacks he might have foiled the butler’s onslaught? As it was, the battle was a walk-over for the enemy.
   “I’ve been looking for you, young blighted Albert!” said Keggs coldly.
   Albert turned a green but defiant face to the foe.
   “Go and boil yer ‘ead!” he advised.
   “Never mind about my ‘ead. If I was to do my duty to you, I’d give you a clip side of your ‘ead, that’s what I’d do.”
   “And then bury it in the woods,” added Albert, wincing as the consequences of his rash act swept through his small form like some nauseous tidal wave. He shut his eyes. It upset him to see Keggs shimmering like that. A shimmering butler is an awful sight.
   Keggs laughed a hard laugh. “You and your cousins from America!”
   “What about my cousins from America?”
   “Yes, what about them? That’s just what Lord Belpher and me have been asking ourselves.”
   “I don’t know wot you’re talking about.”
   “You soon will, young blighted Albert! Who sneaked that American fellow into the ‘ouse to meet Lady Maud?”
   “I never!”
   “Think I didn’t see through your little game? Why, I knew from the first.”
   “Yes, you did! Then why did you let him into the place?”
   Keggs snorted triumphantly. “There! You admit it! It was that feller!”
   Too late Albert saw his false move—a move which in a normal state of health, he would have scorned to make. Just as Napoleon, minus a stomach-ache, would have scorned the blunder that sent his Cuirassiers plunging to destruction in the sunken road.
   “I don’t know what you’re torkin’ about,” he said weakly.
   “Well,” said Keggs, “I haven’t time to stand ‘ere chatting with you. I must be going back to ‘is lordship, to tell ‘im of the ‘orrid trick you played on him.”
   A second spasm shook Albert to the core of his being. The double assault was too much for him. Betrayed by the body, the spirit yielded.
   “You wouldn’t do that, Mr. Keggs!”
   There was a white flag in every syllable.
   “I would if I did my duty.”
   “But you don’t care about that,” urged Albert ingratiatingly.
   “I’ll have to think it over,” mused Keggs. “I don’t want to be ‘and on a young boy.” He struggled silently with himself. “Ruinin’ ‘is prospecks!”
   An inspiration seemed to come to him.
   “All right, young blighted Albert,” he said briskly. “I’ll go against my better nature this once and chance it. And now, young feller me lad, you just ‘and over that ticket of yours! You know what I’m alloodin’ to! That ticket you ‘ad at the sweep, the one with ‘Mr. X’ on it.”
   Albert’s indomitable spirit triumphed for a moment over his stricken body.
   “That’s likely, ain’t it!”
   Keggs sighed—the sigh of a good man who has done his best to help a fellow-being and has been baffled by the other’s perversity.
   “Just as you please,” he said sorrowfully. “But I did ‘ope I shouldn’t ‘ave to go to ‘is lordship and tell ‘im ‘ow you’ve deceived him.”
   Albert capitulated. “‘Ere yer are!” A piece of paper changed hands. “It’s men like you wot lead to ‘arf the crime in the country!”
   “Much obliged, me lad.”
   “You’d walk a mile in the snow, you would,” continued Albert pursuing his train of thought, “to rob a starving beggar of a ha’penny.”
   “Who’s robbing anyone? Don’t you talk so quick, young man. I’m doing the right thing by you. You can ‘ave my ticket, marked ‘Reggie Byng’. It’s a fair exchange, and no one the worse!”
   “Fat lot of good that is!”
   “That’s as it may be. Anyhow, there it is.” Keggs prepared to withdraw. “You’re too young to ‘ave all that money, Albert. You wouldn’t know what to do with it. It wouldn’t make you ‘appy. There’s other things in the world besides winning sweepstakes. And, properly speaking, you ought never to have been allowed to draw at all, being so young.”
   Albert groaned hollowly. “When you’ve finished torkin’, I wish you’d kindly have the goodness to leave me alone. I’m not meself.”
   “That,” said Keggs cordially, “is a bit of luck for you, my boy. Accept my ‘eartiest felicitations!”
   Defeat is the test of the great man. Your true general is not he who rides to triumph on the tide of an easy victory, but the one who, when crushed to earth, can bend himself to the task of planning methods of rising again. Such a one was Albert, the page-boy. Observe Albert in his attic bedroom scarcely more than an hour later. His body has practically ceased to trouble him, and his soaring spirit has come into its own again. With the exception of a now very occasional spasm, his physical anguish has passed, and he is thinking, thinking hard. On the chest of drawers is a grubby envelope, addressed in an ill-formed hand to:
   R. Byng, Esq.
   On a sheet of paper, soon to be placed in the envelope, are written in the same hand these words:
   “Do not dispare! Remember! Fante hart never won fair lady. I shall watch your futur progres with considurable interest. Your Well-Wisher.”
   The last sentence is not original. Albert’s Sunday-school teacher said it to Albert on the occasion of his taking up his duties at the castle, and it stuck in his memory. Fortunately, for it expressed exactly what Albert wished to say. From now on Reggie Byng’s progress with Lady Maud Marsh was to be the thing nearest to Albert’s heart.
   And George meanwhile? Little knowing how Fate has changed in a flash an ally into an opponent he is standing at the edge of the shrubbery near the castle gate. The night is very beautiful; the banked spots on his hands and knees are hurting much less now; and he is full of long, sweet thoughts. He has just discovered the extraordinary resemblance, which had not struck him as he was climbing up the knotted sheet, between his own position and that of the hero of Tennyson’s Maud, a poem to which he has always been particularly addicted—and never more so than during the days since he learned the name of the only possible girl. When he has not been playing golf, Tennyson’s Maud has been his constant companion.
   “Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls Come hither, the dances are done, In glass of satin and glimmer of pearls. Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls To the flowers, and be their sun.”
   The music from the ballroom flows out to him through the motionless air. The smell of sweet earth and growing things is everywhere.
   “Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, hath flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown.”
   He draws a deep breath, misled young man. The night is very beautiful. It is near to the dawn now and in the bushes live things are beginning to stir and whisper.
   “Maud!”
   Surely she can hear him?
   “Maud!”
   The silver stars looked down dispassionately. This sort of thing had no novelty for them.

Chapter 15

   Lord Belpher’s twenty-first birthday dawned brightly, heralded in by much twittering of sparrows in the ivy outside his bedroom. These Percy did not hear, for he was sound asleep and had had a late night. The first sound that was able to penetrate his heavy slumber and rouse him to a realization that his birthday had arrived was the piercing cry of Reggie Byng on his way to the bath-room across the corridor. It was Reggie’s disturbing custom to urge himself on to a cold bath with encouraging yells; and the noise of this performance, followed by violent splashing and a series of sharp howls as the sponge played upon the Byng spine, made sleep an impossibility within a radius of many yards. Percy sat up in bed, and cursed Reggie silently. He discovered that he had a headache.
   Presently the door flew open, and the vocalist entered in person, clad in a pink bathrobe and very tousled and rosy from the tub.
   “Many happy returns of the day, Boots, old thing!”
   Reggie burst rollickingly into song.
   “I’m twenty-one today! Twenty-one today! I’ve got the key of the door! Never been twenty-one before! And father says I can do what I like! So shout Hip-hip-hooray! I’m a jolly good fellow, Twenty-one today.”
   Lord Belpher scowled morosely.
   “I wish you wouldn’t make that infernal noise!”
   “What infernal noise?”
   “That singing!”
   “My God! This man has wounded me!” said Reggie.
   “I’ve a headache.”
   “I thought you would have, laddie, when I saw you getting away with the liquid last night. An X-ray photograph of your liver would show something that looked like a crumpled oak-leaf studded with hob-nails. You ought to take more exercise, dear heart. Except for sloshing that policeman, you haven’t done anything athletic for years.”
   “I wish you wouldn’t harp on that affair!”
   Reggie sat down on the bed.
   “Between ourselves, old man,” he said confidentially, “I also—I myself—Reginald Byng, in person—was perhaps a shade polluted during the evening. I give you my honest word that just after dinner I saw three versions of your uncle, the bishop, standing in a row side by side. I tell you, laddie, that for a moment I thought I had strayed into a Bishop’s Beano at Exeter Hall or the Athenaeum or wherever it is those chappies collect in gangs. Then the three bishops sort of congealed into one bishop, a trifle blurred about the outlines, and I felt relieved. But what convinced me that I had emptied a flagon or so too many was a rather rummy thing that occurred later on. Have you ever happened, during one of these feasts of reason and flows of soul, when you were bubbling over with joie-de-vivre—have you ever happened to see things? What I mean to say is, I had a deuced odd experience last night. I could have sworn that one of the waiter-chappies was that fellow who knocked off your hat in Piccadilly.”
   Lord Belpher, who had sunk back on to the pillows at Reggie’s entrance and had been listening to his talk with only intermittent attention, shot up in bed.
   “What!”
   “Absolutely! My mistake, of course, but there it was. The fellow might have been his double.”
   “But you’ve never seen the man.”
   “Oh yes, I have. I forgot to tell you. I met him on the links yesterday. I’d gone out there alone, rather expecting to have a round with the pro., but, finding this lad there, I suggested that we might go round together. We did eighteen holes, and he licked the boots off me. Very hot stuff he was. And after the game he took me off to his cottage and gave me a drink. He lives at the cottage next door to Platt’s farm, so, you see, it was the identical chappie. We got extremely matey. Like brothers. Absolutely! So you can understand what a shock it gave me when I found what I took to be the same man serving bracers to the multitude the same evening. One of those nasty jars that cause a fellow’s head to swim a bit, don’t you know, and make him lose confidence in himself.”
   Lord Belpher did not reply. His brain was whirling. So he had been right after all!
   “You know,” pursued Reggie seriously, “I think you are making the bloomer of a lifetime over this hat-swatting chappie. You’ve misjudged him. He’s a first-rate sort. Take it from me! Nobody could have got out of the bunker at the fifteenth hole better than he did. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll conciliate the feller. A really first-class golfer is what you need in the family. Besides, even leaving out of the question the fact that he can do things with a niblick that I didn’t think anybody except the pro. could do, he’s a corking good sort. A stout fellow in every respect. I took to the chappie. He’s all right. Grab him, Boots, before he gets away. That’s my tip to you. You’ll never regret it! From first to last this lad didn’t foozle a single drive, and his approach-putting has to be seen to be believed. Well, got to dress, I suppose. Mustn’t waste life’s springtime sitting here talking to you. Toodle-oo, laddie! We shall meet anon!”
   Lord Belpher leaped from his bed. He was feeling worse than ever now, and a glance into the mirror told him that he looked rather worse than he felt. Late nights and insufficient sleep, added to the need of a shave, always made him look like something that should have been swept up and taken away to the ash-bin. And as for his physical condition, talking to Reggie Byng never tended to make you feel better when you had a headache. Reggie’s manner was not soothing, and on this particular morning his choice of a topic had been unusually irritating. Lord Belpher told himself that he could not understand Reggie. He had never been able to make his mind quite clear as to the exact relations between the latter and his sister Maud, but he had always been under the impression that, if they were not actually engaged, they were on the verge of becoming so; and it was maddening to have to listen to Reggie advocating the claims of a rival as if he had no personal interest in the affair at all. Percy felt for his complaisant friend something of the annoyance which a householder feels for the watchdog whom he finds fraternizing with the burglar. Why, Reggie, more than anyone else, ought to be foaming with rage at the insolence of this American fellow in coming down to Belpher and planting himself at the castle gates. Instead of which, on his own showing, he appeared to have adopted an attitude towards him which would have excited remark if adopted by David towards Jonathan. He seemed to spend all his spare time frolicking with the man on the golf-links and hobnobbing with him in his house.
   Lord Belpber was thoroughly upset. It was impossible to prove it or to do anything about it now, but he was convinced that the fellow had wormed his way into the castle in the guise of a waiter. He had probably met Maud and plotted further meetings with her. This thing was becoming unendurable.
   One thing was certain. The family honour was in his hands. Anything that was to be done to keep Maud away from the intruder must be done by himself. Reggie was hopeless: he was capable, as far as Percy could see, of escorting Maud to the fellow’s door in his own car and leaving her on the threshold with his blessing. As for Lord Marshmoreton, roses and the family history took up so much of his time that he could not be counted on for anything but moral support. He, Percy, must do the active work.
   He had just come to this decision, when, approaching the window and gazing down into the grounds, he perceived his sister Maud walking rapidly—and, so it seemed to him, with a furtive air—down the east drive. And it was to the east that Platt’s farm and the cottage next door to it lay.
   At the moment of this discovery, Percy was in a costume ill adapted for the taking of country walks. Reggie’s remarks about his liver had struck home, and it had been his intention, by way of a corrective to his headache and a general feeling of swollen ill-health, to do a little work before his bath with a pair of Indian clubs. He had arrayed himself for this purpose in an old sweater, a pair of grey flannel trousers, and patent leather evening shoes. It was not the garb he would have chosen himself for a ramble, but time was flying: even to put on a pair of boots is a matter of minutes: and in another moment or two Maud would be out of sight. Percy ran downstairs, snatched up a soft shooting-hat, which proved, too late, to belong to a person with a head two sizes smaller than his own; and raced out into the grounds. He was just in time to see Maud disappearing round the corner of the drive.
   Lord Belpher had never belonged to that virile class of the community which considers running a pleasure and a pastime. At Oxford, on those occasions when the members of his college had turned out on raw afternoons to trot along the river-bank encouraging the college eight with yelling and the swinging of police-rattles, Percy had always stayed prudently in his rooms with tea and buttered toast, thereby avoiding who knows what colds and coughs. When he ran, he ran reluctantly and with a definite object in view, such as the catching of a train. He was consequently not in the best of condition, and the sharp sprint which was imperative at this juncture if he was to keep his sister in view left him spent and panting. But he had the reward of reaching the gates of the drive not many seconds after Maud, and of seeing her walking—more slowly now—down the road that led to Platt’s. This confirmation of his suspicions enabled him momentarily to forget the blister which was forming on the heel of his left foot. He set out after her at a good pace.
   The road, after the habit of country roads, wound and twisted. The quarry was frequently out of sight. And Percy’s anxiety was such that, every time Maud vanished, he broke into a gallop. Another hundred yards, and the blister no longer consented to be ignored. It cried for attention like a little child, and was rapidly insinuating itself into a position in the scheme of things where it threatened to become the centre of the world. By the time the third bend in the road was reached, it seemed to Percy that this blister had become the one great Fact in an unreal nightmare-like universe. He hobbled painfully: and when he stopped suddenly and darted back into the shelter of the hedge his foot seemed aflame. The only reason why the blister on his left heel did not at this juncture attract his entire attention was that he had become aware that there was another of equal proportions forming on his right heel.
   Percy had stopped and sought cover in the hedge because, as he rounded the bend in the road, he perceived, before he had time to check his gallop, that Maud had also stopped. She was standing in the middle of the road, looking over her shoulder, not ten yards away. Had she seen him? It was a point that time alone could solve. No! She walked on again. She had not seen him. Lord Belpher, by means of a notable triumph of mind over matter, forgot the blisters and hurried after her.
   They had now reached that point in the road where three choices offer themselves to the wayfarer. By going straight on he may win through to the village of Moresby-in-the-Vale, a charming little place with a Norman church; by turning to the left he may visit the equally seductive hamlet of Little Weeting; by turning to the right off the main road and going down a leafy lane he may find himself at the door of Platt’s farm. When Maud, reaching the cross-roads, suddenly swung down the one to the left, Lord Belpher was for the moment completely baffled. Reason reasserted its way the next minute, telling him that this was but a ruse. Whether or no she had caught sight of him, there was no doubt that Maud intended to shake off any possible pursuit by taking this speciously innocent turning and making a detour. She could have no possible motive in going to Little Weeting. He had never been to Little Weeting in his life, and there was no reason to suppose that Maud had either.
   The sign-post informed him—a statement strenuously denied by the twin-blisters—that the distance to Little Weeting was one and a half miles. Lord Belpher’s view of it was that it was nearer fifty. He dragged himself along wearily. It was simpler now to keep Maud in sight, for the road ran straight: but, there being a catch in everything in this world, the process was also messier. In order to avoid being seen, it was necessary for Percy to leave the road and tramp along in the deep ditch which ran parallel to it. There is nothing half-hearted about these ditches which accompany English country roads. They know they are intended to be ditches, not mere furrows, and they behave as such. The one that sheltered Lord Belpher was so deep that only his head and neck protruded above the level of the road, and so dirty that a bare twenty yards of travel was sufficient to coat him with mud. Rain, once fallen, is reluctant to leave the English ditch. It nestles inside it for weeks, forming a rich, oatmeal-like substance which has to be stirred to be believed. Percy stirred it. He churned it. He ploughed and sloshed through it. The mud stuck to him like a brother.
   Nevertheless, being a determined young man, he did not give in. Once he lost a shoe, but a little searching recovered that. On another occasion, a passing dog, seeing things going on in the ditch which in his opinion should not have been going on—he was a high-strung dog, unused to coming upon heads moving along the road without bodies attached—accompanied Percy for over a quarter of a mile, causing him exquisite discomfort by making sudden runs at his face. A well-aimed stone settled this little misunderstanding, and Percy proceeded on his journey alone. He had Maud well in view when, to his surprise she left the road and turned into the gate of a house which stood not far from the church.
   Lord Belpher regained the road, and remained there, a puzzled man. A dreadful thought came to him that he might have had all this trouble and anguish for no reason. This house bore the unmistakable stamp of a vicarage. Maud could have no reason that was not innocent for going there. Had he gone through all this, merely to see his sister paying a visit to a clergyman? Too late it occurred to him that she might quite easily be on visiting terms with the clergy of Little Weeting. He had forgotten that he had been away at Oxford for many weeks, a period of time in which Maud, finding life in the country weigh upon her, might easily have interested herself charitably in the life of this village. He paused irresolutely. He was baffled.
   Maud, meanwhile, had rung the bell. Ever since, looking over her shoulder, she had perceived her brother Percy dodging about in the background, her active young mind had been busying itself with schemes for throwing him off the trail. She must see George that morning. She could not wait another day before establishing communication between herself and Geoffrey. But it was not till she reached Little Weeting that there occurred to her any plan that promised success.
   A trim maid opened the door.
   “Is the vicar in?”
   “No, miss. He went out half an hour back.”
   Maud was as baffled for the moment as her brother Percy, now leaning against the vicarage wall in a state of advanced exhaustion.
   “Oh, dear!” she said.
   The maid was sympathetic.
   “Mr. Ferguson, the curate, miss, he’s here, if he would do.”
   Maud brightened.
   “He would do splendidly. Will you ask him if I can see him for a moment?”
   “Very well, miss. What name, please?”
   “He won’t know my name. Will you please tell him that a lady wishes to see him?”
   “Yes, miss. Won’t you step in?”
   The front door closed behind Maud. She followed the maid into the drawing-room. Presently a young small curate entered. He had a willing, benevolent face. He looked alert and helpful.
   “You wished to see me?”
   “I am so sorry to trouble you,” said Maud, rocking the young man in his tracks with a smile of dazzling brilliancy—(“No trouble, I assure you,” said the curate dizzily)—”but there is a man following me!”
   The curate clicked his tongue indignantly.
   “A rough sort of a tramp kind of man. He has been following me for miles, and I’m frightened.”
   “Brute!”
   “I think he’s outside now. I can’t think what he wants. Would you—would you mind being kind enough to go and send him away?”
   The eyes that had settled George’s fate for all eternity flashed upon the curate, who blinked. He squared his shoulders and drew himself up. He was perfectly willing to die for her.
   “If you will wait here,” he said, “I will go and send him about his business. It is disgraceful that the public highways should be rendered unsafe in this manner.”
   “Thank you ever so much,” said Maud gratefully. “I can’t help thinking the poor fellow may be a little crazy. It seems so odd of him to follow me all that way. Walking in the ditch too!”
   “Walking in the ditch!”
   “Yes. He walked most of the way in the ditch at the side of the road. He seemed to prefer it. I can’t think why.”
   Lord Belpher, leaning against the wall and trying to decide whether his right or left foot hurt him the more excruciatingly, became aware that a curate was standing before him, regarding him through a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez with a disapproving and hostile expression. Lord Belpher returned his gaze. Neither was favourably impressed by the other. Percy thought he had seen nicer-looking curates, and the curate thought he had seen more prepossessing tramps.
   “Come, come!” said the curate. “This won’t do, my man!” A few hours earlier Lord Belpher had been startled when addressed by George as “sir”. To be called “my man” took his breath away completely.
   The gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is, as the poet indicates, vouchsafed to few men. Lord Belpher, not being one of these fortunates, had not the slightest conception how intensely revolting his personal appearance was at that moment. The red-rimmed eyes, the growth of stubble on the cheeks, and the thick coating of mud which had resulted from his rambles in the ditch combined to render him a horrifying object.
   “How dare you follow that young lady? I’ve a good mind to give you in charge!”
   Percy was outraged.
   “I’m her brother!” He was about to substantiate the statement by giving his name, but stopped himself. He had had enough of letting his name come out on occasions like the present. When the policeman had arrested him in the Haymarket, his first act had been to thunder his identity at the man: and the policeman, without saying in so many words that he disbelieved him, had hinted scepticism by replying that he himself was the king of Brixton. “I’m her brother!” he repeated thickly.
   The curate’s disapproval deepened. In a sense, we are all brothers; but that did not prevent him from considering that this mud-stained derelict had made an impudent and abominable mis-statement of fact. Not unnaturally he came to the conclusion that he had to do with a victim of the Demon Rum.
   “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said severely. “Sad piece of human wreckage as you are, you speak like an educated man. Have you no self-respect? Do you never search your heart and shudder at the horrible degradation which you have brought on yourself by sheer weakness of will?”
   He raise his voice. The subject of Temperance was one very near to the curate’s heart. The vicar himself had complimented him only yesterday on the good his sermons against the drink evil were doing in the village, and the landlord of the Three Pigeons down the road had on several occasions spoken bitter things about blighters who came taking the living away from honest folks.
   “It is easy enough to stop if you will but use a little resolution. You say to yourself, ‘Just one won’t hurt me!’ Perhaps not. But can you be content with just one? Ah! No, my man, there is no middle way for such as you. It must be all or nothing. Stop it now—now, while you still retain some semblance of humanity. Soon it will be too late! Kill that craving! Stifle it! Strangle it! Make up your mind now—now, that not another drop of the accursed stuff shall pass your lips….”
   The curate paused. He perceived that enthusiasm was leading him away from the main issue. “A little perseverance,” he concluded rapidly, “and you will soon find that cocoa gives you exactly the same pleasure. And now will you please be getting along. You have frightened the young lady, and she cannot continue her walk unless I assure her that you have gone away.”
   Fatigue, pain and the annoyance of having to listen to this man’s well-meant but ill-judged utterances had combined to induce in Percy a condition bordering on hysteria. He stamped his foot, and uttered a howl as the blister warned him with a sharp twinge that this sort of behaviour could not be permitted.
   “Stop talking!” he bellowed. “Stop talking like an idiot! I’m going to stay here till that girl comes out, if have to wait all day!”
   The curate regarded Percy thoughtfully. Percy was no Hercules: but then, neither was the curate. And in any case, though no Hercules, Percy was undeniably an ugly-looking brute. Strategy, rather than force, seemed to the curate to be indicated. He paused a while, as one who weighs pros and cons, then spoke briskly, with the air of the man who has decided to yield a point with a good grace.
   “Dear, dear!” he said. “That won’t do! You say you are this young lady’s brother?”
   “Yes, I do!”
   “Then perhaps you had better come with me into the house and we will speak to her.”
   “All right.”
   “Follow me.”
   Percy followed him. Down the trim gravel walk they passed, and up the neat stone steps. Maud, peeping through the curtains, thought herself the victim of a monstrous betrayal or equally monstrous blunder. But she did not know the Rev. Cyril Ferguson. No general, adroitly leading the enemy on by strategic retreat, ever had a situation more thoroughly in hand. Passing with his companion through the open door, he crossed the hall to another door, discreetly closed.
   “Wait in here,” he said. Lord Belpher moved unsuspectingly forward. A hand pressed sharply against the small of his back. Behind him a door slammed and a key clicked. He was trapped. Groping in Egyptian darkness, his hands met a coat, then a hat, then an umbrella. Then he stumbled over a golf-club and fell against a wall. It was too dark to see anything, but his sense of touch told him all he needed to know. He had been added to the vicar’s collection of odds and ends in the closet reserved for that purpose.
   He groped his way to the door and kicked it. He did not repeat the performance. His feet were in no shape for kicking things.
   Percy’s gallant soul abandoned the struggle. With a feeble oath, he sat down on a box containing croquet implements, and gave himself up to thought.
   “You’ll be quite safe now,” the curate was saying in the adjoining room, not without a touch of complacent self-approval such as becomes the victor in a battle of wits. “I have locked him in the cupboard. He will be quite happy there.” An incorrect statement this. “You may now continue your walk in perfect safety.”
   “Thank you ever so much,” said Maud. “But I do hope he won’t be violent when you let him out.”
   “I shall not let him out,” replied the curate, who, though brave, was not rash. “I shall depute the task to a worthy fellow named Willis, in whom I shall have every confidence. He—he is, in fact, our local blacksmith!”
   And so it came about that when, after a vigil that seemed to last for a lifetime, Percy heard the key turn in the lock and burst forth seeking whom he might devour, he experienced an almost instant quieting of his excited nervous system. Confronting him was a vast man whose muscles, like those of that other and more celebrated village blacksmith, were plainly as strong as iron bands.
   This man eyed Percy with a chilly eye.
   “Well,” he said. “What’s troublin’ you?”
   Percy gulped. The man’s mere appearance was a sedative.
   “Er—nothing!” he replied. “Nothing!”
   “There better hadn’t be!” said the man darkly. “Mr. Ferguson give me this to give to you. Take it!”
   Percy took it. It was a shilling.
   “And this.”
   The second gift was a small paper pamphlet. It was entitled “Now’s the Time!” and seemed to be a story of some kind. At any rate, Percy’s eyes, before they began to swim in a manner that prevented steady reading, caught the words “Job Roberts had always been a hard-drinking man, but one day, as he was coming out of the bar-parlour …” He was about to hurl it from him, when he met the other’s eye and desisted. Rarely had Lord Belpher encountered a man with a more speaking eye.
   “And now you get along,” said the man. “You pop off. And I’m going to watch you do it, too. And, if I find you sneakin’ off to the Three Pigeons …”
   His pause was more eloquent than his speech and nearly as eloquent as his eye. Lord Belpher tucked the tract into his sweater, pocketed the shilling, and left the house. For nearly a mile down the well-remembered highway he was aware of a Presence in his rear, but he continued on his way without a glance behind.
   “Like one that on a lonely road Doth walk in fear and dread; And, having once looked back, walks on And turns no more his head! Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread!”
   Maud made her way across the fields to the cottage down by Platt’s. Her heart was as light as the breeze that ruffled the green hedges. Gaily she tripped towards the cottage door. Her hand was just raised to knock, when from within came the sound of a well-known voice.
   She had reached her goal, but her father had anticipated her. Lord Marshmoreton had selected the same moment as herself for paying a call upon George Bevan.
   Maud tiptoed away, and hurried back to the castle. Never before had she so clearly realized what a handicap an adhesive family can be to a young girl.

Chapter 16

   At the moment of Lord Marshmoreton’s arrival, George was reading a letter from Billie Dore, which had come by that morning’s post. It dealt mainly with the vicissitudes experienced by Miss Dore’s friend, Miss Sinclair, in her relations with the man Spenser Gray. Spenser Gray, it seemed, had been behaving oddly. Ardent towards Miss Sinclair almost to an embarrassing point in the early stages of their acquaintance, he had suddenly cooled; at a recent lunch had behaved with a strange aloofness; and now, at this writing, had vanished altogether, leaving nothing behind him but an abrupt note to the effect that he had been compelled to go abroad and that, much as it was to be regretted, he and she would probably never meet again.
   “And if,” wrote Miss Dore, justifiably annoyed, “after saying all those things to the poor kid and telling her she was the only thing in sight, he thinks he can just slide off with a ‘Good-bye! Good luck! and God bless you!’ he’s got another guess coming. And that’s not all. He hasn’t gone abroad! I saw him in Piccadilly this afternoon. He saw me, too, and what do you think he did? Ducked down a side-street, if you please. He must have run like a rabbit, at that, because, when I got there, he was nowhere to be seen. I tell you, George, there’s something funny about all this.”
   Having been made once or twice before the confidant of the tempestuous romances of Billie’s friends, which always seemed to go wrong somewhere in the middle and to die a natural death before arriving at any definite point, George was not particularly interested, except in so far as the letter afforded rather comforting evidence that he was not the only person in the world who was having trouble of the kind. He skimmed through the rest of it, and had just finished when there was a sharp rap at the front door.
   “Come in!” called George.
   There entered a sturdy little man of middle age whom at first sight George could not place. And yet he had the impression that he had seen him before. Then he recognized him as the gardener to whom he had given the note for Maud that day at the castle. The alteration in the man’s costume was what had momentarily baffled George. When they had met in the rose-garden, the other had been arrayed in untidy gardening clothes. Now, presumably in his Sunday suit, it was amusing to observe how almost dapper he had become. Really, you might have passed him in the lane and taken him for some neighbouring squire.
   George’s heart raced. Your lover is ever optimistic, and he could conceive of no errand that could have brought this man to his cottage unless he was charged with the delivery of a note from Maud. He spared a moment from his happiness to congratulate himself on having picked such an admirable go-between. Here evidently, was one of those trusty old retainers you read about, faithful, willing, discreet, ready to do anything for “the little missy” (bless her heart!). Probably he had danced Maud on his knee in her infancy, and with a dog-like affection had watched her at her childish sports. George beamed at the honest fellow, and felt in his pocket to make sure that a suitable tip lay safely therein.
   “Good morning,” he said.
   “Good morning,” replied the man.
   A purist might have said he spoke gruffly and without geniality. But that is the beauty of these old retainers. They make a point of deliberately trying to deceive strangers as to the goldenness of their hearts by adopting a forbidding manner. And “Good morning!” Not “Good morning, sir!” Sturdy independence, you observe, as befits a free man. George closed the door carefully. He glanced into the kitchen. Mrs. Platt was not there. All was well.
   “You have brought a note from Lady Maud?”
   The honest fellow’s rather dour expression seemed to grow a shade bleaker.
   “If you are alluding to Lady Maud Marsh, my daughter,” he replied frostily, “I have not!”
   For the past few days George had been no stranger to shocks, and had indeed come almost to regard them as part of the normal everyday life; but this latest one had a stumbling effect.
   “I beg your pardon?” he said.
   “So you ought to,” replied the earl.
   George swallowed once or twice to relieve a curious dryness of the mouth.
   “Are you Lord Marshmoreton?”
   “I am.”
   “Good Lord!”
   “You seem surprised.”
   “It’s nothing!” muttered George. “At least, you—I mean to say … It’s only that there’s a curious resemblance between you and one of your gardeners at the castle. I—I daresay you have noticed it yourself.”
   “My hobby is gardening.”
   Light broke upon George. “Then was it really you—?”
   “It was!”
   George sat down. “This opens up a new line of thought!” he said.
   Lord Marshmoreton remained standing. He shook his head sternly.
   “It won’t do, Mr…. I have never heard your name.”
   “Bevan,” replied George, rather relieved at being able to remember it in the midst of his mental turmoil.
   “It won’t do, Mr. Bevan. It must stop. I allude to this absurd entanglement between yourself and my daughter. It must stop at once.”
   It seemed to George that such an entanglement could hardly be said to have begun, but he did not say so.
   Lord Marshmoreton resumed his remarks. Lady Caroline had sent him to the cottage to be stern, and his firm resolve to be stern lent his style of speech something of the measured solemnity and careful phrasing of his occasional orations in the House of Lords.
   “I have no wish to be unduly hard upon the indiscretions of Youth. Youth is the period of Romance, when the heart rules the head. I myself was once a young man.”
   “Well, you’re practically that now,” said George.
   “Eh?” cried Lord Marshmoreton, forgetting the thread of his discourse in the shock of pleased surprise.
   “You don’t look a day over forty.”
   “Oh, come, come, my boy! … I mean, Mr. Bevan.”
   “You don’t honestly.”
   “I’m forty-eight.”
   “The Prime of Life.”
   “And you don’t think I look it?”
   “You certainly don’t.”
   “Well, well, well! By the way, have you tobacco, my boy. I came without my pouch.”
   “Just at your elbow. Pretty good stuff. I bought it in the village.”
   “The same I smoke myself.”
   “Quite a coincidence.”
   “Distinctly.”
   “Match?”
   “Thank you, I have one.”
   George filled his own pipe. The thing was becoming a love-feast.
   “What was I saying?” said Lord Marshmoreton, blowing a comfortable cloud. “Oh, yes.” He removed his pipe from his mouth with a touch of embarrassment. “Yes, yes, to be sure!”
   There was an awkward silence.
   “You must see for yourself,” said the earl, “how impossible it is.”
   George shook his head.
   “I may be slow at grasping a thing, but I’m bound to say I can’t see that.”
   Lord Marshmoreton recalled some of the things his sister had told him to say. “For one thing, what do we know of you? You are a perfect stranger.”
   “Well, we’re all getting acquainted pretty quick, don’t you think? I met your son in Piccadilly and had a long talk with him, and now you are paying me a neighbourly visit.”
   “This was not intended to be a social call.”
   “But it has become one.”
   “And then, that is one point I wish to make, you know. Ours is an old family, I would like to remind you that there were Marshmoretons in Belpher before the War of the Roses.”
   “There were Bevans in Brooklyn before the B.R.T.”
   “I beg your pardon?”
   “I was only pointing out that I can trace my ancestry a long way. You have to trace things a long way in Brooklyn, if you want to find them.”
   “I have never heard of Brooklyn.”
   “You’ve heard of New York?”
   “Certainly.”
   “New York’s one of the outlying suburbs.”
   Lord Marshmoreton relit his pipe. He had a feeling that they were wandering from the point.
   “It is quite impossible.”
   “I can’t see it.”
   “Maud is so young.”
   “Your daughter could be nothing else.”
   “Too young to know her own mind,” pursued Lord Marshmoreton, resolutely crushing down a flutter of pleasure. There was no doubt that this singularly agreeable man was making things very difficult for him. It was disarming to discover that he was really capital company—the best, indeed, that the earl could remember to have discovered in the more recent period of his rather lonely life. “At present, of course, she fancies that she is very much in love with you … It is absurd!”
   “You needn’t tell me that,” said George. Really, it was only the fact that people seemed to go out of their way to call at his cottage and tell him that Maud loved him that kept him from feeling his cause perfectly hopeless. “It’s incredible. It’s a miracle.”
   “You are a romantic young man, and you no doubt for the moment suppose that you are in love with her.”
   “No!” George was not going to allow a remark like that to pass unchallenged. “You are wrong there. As far as I am concerned, there is no question of its being momentary or supposititious or anything of that kind. I am in love with your daughter. I was from the first moment I saw her. I always shall be. She is the only girl in the world!”
   “Stuff and nonsense!”
   “Not at all. Absolute, cold fact.”
   “You have known her so little time.”
   “Long enough.”
   Lord Marshmoreton sighed. “You are upsetting things terribly.”
   “Things are upsetting me terribly.”
   “You are causing a great deal of trouble and annoyance.”
   “So did Romeo.”
   “Eh?”
   “I said—So did Romeo.”
   “I don’t know anything about Romeo.”
   “As far as love is concerned, I begin where he left off.”
   “I wish I could persuade you to be sensible.”
   “That’s just what I think I am.”
   “I wish I could get you to see my point of view.”
   “I do see your point of view. But dimly. You see, my own takes up such a lot of the foreground.”
   There was a pause.
   “Then I am afraid,” said Lord Marshmoreton, “that we must leave matters as they stand.”
   “Until they can be altered for the better.”
   “We will say no more about it now.”
   “Very well.”
   “But I must ask you to understand clearly that I shall have to do everything in my power to stop what I look on as an unfortunate entanglement.”
   “I understand,”
   “Very well.”
   Lord Marshmoreton coughed. George looked at him with some surprise. He had supposed the interview to be at an end, but the other made no move to go. There seemed to be something on the earl’s mind.
   “There is—ah—just one other thing,” said Lord Marshmoreton. He coughed again. He felt embarrassed. “Just—just one other thing,” he repeated.
   The reason for Lord Marshmoreton’s visit to George had been twofold. In the first place, Lady Caroline had told him to go. That would have been reason enough. But what made the visit imperative was an unfortunate accident of which he had only that morning been made aware.
   It will be remembered that Billie Dore had told George that the gardener with whom she had become so friendly had taken her name and address with a view later on to send her some of his roses. The scrap of paper on which this information had been written was now lost. Lord Marshmoreton had been hunting for it since breakfast without avail.
   Billie Dore had made a decided impression upon Lord Marshmoreton. She belonged to a type which he had never before encountered, and it was one which he had found more than agreeable. Her knowledge of roses and the proper feeling which she manifested towards rose-growing as a life-work consolidated the earl’s liking for her. Never, in his memory, had he come across so sensible and charming a girl; and he had looked forward with a singular intensity to meeting her again. And now some too zealous housemaid, tidying up after the irritating manner of her species, had destroyed the only clue to her identity.
   It was not for some time after this discovery that hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton. Only after he had given up the search for the missing paper as fruitless did he recall that it was in George’s company that Billie had first come into his life. Between her, then, and himself George was the only link.
   It was primarily for the purpose of getting Billie’s name and address from George that he had come to the cottage. And now that the moment had arrived for touching upon the subject, he felt a little embarrassed.
   “When you visited the castle,” he said, “when you visited the castle …”
   “Last Thursday,” said George helpfully.
   “Exactly. When you visited the castle last Thursday, there was a young lady with you.”
   Not realizing that the subject had been changed, George was under the impression that the other had shifted his front and was about to attack him from another angle. He countered what seemed to him an insinuation stoutly.
   “We merely happened to meet at the castle. She came there quite independently of me.”
   Lord Marshmoreton looked alarmed. “You didn’t know her?” he said anxiously.
   “Certainly I knew her. She is an old friend of mine. But if you are hinting …”
   “Not at all,” rejoined the earl, profoundly relieved. “Not at all. I ask merely because this young lady, with whom I had some conversation, was good enough to give me her name and address. She, too, happened to mistake me for a gardener.”
   “It’s those corduroy trousers,” murmured George in extenuation.
   “I have unfortunately lost them.”
   “You can always get another pair.”
   “Eh?”
   “I say you can always get another pair of corduroy trousers.”
   “I have not lost my trousers. I have lost the young lady’s name and address.”
   “Oh!”
   “I promised to send her some roses. She will be expecting them.”
   “That’s odd. I was just reading a letter from her when you came in. That must be what she’s referring to when she says, ‘If you see dadda, the old dear, tell him not to forget my roses.’ I read it three times and couldn’t make any sense out of it. Are you Dadda?”
   The earl smirked. “She did address me in the course of our conversation as dadda.”
   “Then the message is for you.”
   “A very quaint and charming girl. What is her name? And where can I find her?”
   “Her name’s Billie Dore.”
   “Billie?”
   “Billie.”
   “Billie!” said Lord Marshmoreton softly. “I had better write it down. And her address?”
   “I don’t know her private address. But you could always reach her at the Regal Theatre.”
   “Ah! She is on the stage?”
   “Yes. She’s in my piece, ‘Follow the Girl’.”
   “Indeed! Are you a playwright, Mr. Bevan?”
   “Good Lord, no!” said George, shocked. “I’m a composer.”
   “Very interesting. And you met Miss Dore through her being in this play of yours?”
   “Oh, no. I knew her before she went on the stage. She was a stenographer in a music-publisher’s office when we first met.”
   “Good gracious! Was she really a stenographer?”
   “Yes. Why?”
   “Oh—ah—nothing, nothing. Something just happened to come to my mind.”
   What happened to come into Lord Marshmoreton’s mind was a fleeting vision of Billie installed in Miss Alice Faraday’s place as his secretary. With such a helper it would be a pleasure to work on that infernal Family History which was now such a bitter toil. But the day-dream passed. He knew perfectly well that he had not the courage to dismiss Alice. In the hands of that calm-eyed girl he was as putty. She exercised over him the hypnotic spell a lion-tamer exercises over his little playmates.
   “We have been pals for years,” said George “Billie is one of the best fellows in the world.”
   “A charming girl.”
   “She would give her last nickel to anyone that asked for it.”
   “Delightful!”
   “And as straight as a string. No one ever said a word against Billie.”
   “No?”
   “She may go out to lunch and supper and all that kind of thing, but there’s nothing to that.”
   “Nothing!” agreed the earl warmly. “Girls must eat!”
   “They do. You ought to see them.”
   “A little harmless relaxation after the fatigue of the day!”
   “Exactly. Nothing more.”
   Lord Marshmoreton felt more drawn than ever to this sensible young man—sensible, at least, on all points but one. It was a pity they could not see eye to eye on what was and what was not suitable in the matter of the love-affairs of the aristocracy.
   “So you are a composer, Mr. Bevan?” he said affably.
   “Yes.”
   Lord Marshmoreton gave a little sigh. “It’s a long time since I went to see a musical performance. More than twenty years. When I was up at Oxford, and for some years afterwards, I was a great theatre-goer. Never used to miss a first night at the Gaiety. Those were the days of Nellie Farren and Kate Vaughan. Florence St. John, too. How excellent she was in Faust Up To Date! But we missed Nellie Farren. Meyer Lutz was the Gaiety composer then. But a good deal of water has flowed under the bridge since those days. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of Meyer Lutz?”
   “I don’t think I have.”
   “Johnnie Toole was playing a piece called Partners. Not a good play. And the Yeoman of the Guard had just been produced at the Savoy. That makes it seem a long time ago, doesn’t it? Well, I mustn’t take up all your time. Good-bye, Mr. Bevan. I am glad to have had the opportunity of this little talk. The Regal Theatre, I think you said, is where your piece is playing? I shall probably be going to London shortly. I hope to see it.” Lord Marshmoreton rose. “As regards the other matter, there is no hope of inducing you to see the matter in the right light?”
   “We seem to disagree as to which is the right light.”
   “Then there is nothing more to be said. I will be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Bevan. I like you …”
   “The feeling is quite mutual.”
   “But I don’t want you as a son-in-law. And, dammit,” exploded Lord Marshmoreton, “I won’t have you as a son-in-law! Good God! do you think that you can harry and assault my son Percy in the heart of Piccadilly and generally make yourself a damned nuisance and then settle down here without an invitation at my very gates and expect to be welcomed into the bosom of the family? If I were a young man …”
   “I thought we had agreed that you were a young man.”
   “Don’t interrupt me!”
   “I only said …”
   “I heard what you said. Flattery!”
   “Nothing of the kind. Truth.”
   Lord Marshmoreton melted. He smiled. “Young idiot!”
   “We agree there all right.”
   Lord Marshmoreton hesitated. Then with a rush he unbosomed himself, and made his own position on the matter clear.
   “I know what you’ll be saying to yourself the moment my back is turned. You’ll be calling me a stage heavy father and an old snob and a number of other things. Don’t interrupt me, dammit! You will, I tell you! And you’ll be wrong. I don’t think the Marshmoretons are fenced off from the rest of the world by some sort of divinity. My sister does. Percy does. But Percy’s an ass! If ever you find yourself thinking differently from my son Percy, on any subject, congratulate yourself. You’ll be right.”
   “But …”
   “I know what you’re going to say. Let me finish. If I were the only person concerned, I wouldn’t stand in Maud’s way, whoever she wanted to marry, provided he was a good fellow and likely to make her happy. But I’m not. There’s my sister Caroline. There’s a whole crowd of silly, cackling fools—my sisters—my sons-in-law—all the whole pack of them! If I didn’t oppose Maud in this damned infatuation she’s got for you—if I stood by and let her marry you—what do you think would happen to me?—I’d never have a moment’s peace! The whole gabbling pack of them would be at me, saying I was to blame. There would be arguments, discussions, family councils! I hate arguments! I loathe discussions! Family councils make me sick! I’m a peaceable man, and I like a quiet life! And, damme, I’m going to have it. So there’s the thing for you in letters of one syllable. I don’t object to you personally, but I’m not going to have you bothering me like this. I’ll admit freely that, since I have made your acquaintance, I have altered the unfavourable opinion I had formed of you from-from hearsay…”
   “Exactly the same with me,” said George. “You ought never to believe what people tell you. Everyone told me your middle name was Nero, and that…”
   “Don’t interrupt me!”
   “I wasn’t. I was just pointing out …”
   “Be quiet! I say I have changed my opinion of you to a great extent. I mention this unofficially, as a matter that has no bearing on the main issue; for, as regards any idea you may have of inducing me to agree to your marrying my daughter, let me tell you that I am unalterably opposed to any such thing!”
   “Don’t say that.”
   “What the devil do you mean—don’t say that! I do say that! It is out of the question. Do you understand? Very well, then. Good morning.”
   The door closed. Lord Marshmoreton walked away feeling that he had been commendably stern. George filled his pipe and sat smoking thoughtfully. He wondered what Maud was doing at that moment.
   Maud at that moment was greeting her brother with a bright smile, as he limped downstairs after a belated shave and change of costume.
   “Oh, Percy, dear,” she was saying, “I had quite an adventure this morning. An awful tramp followed me for miles! Such a horrible-looking brute. I was so frightened that I had to ask a curate in the next village to drive him away. I did wish I had had you there to protect me. Why don’t you come out with me sometimes when I take a country walk? It really isn’t safe for me to be alone!”

Chapter 17

   The gift of hiding private emotion and keeping up appearances before strangers is not, as many suppose, entirely a product of our modern civilization. Centuries before we were born or thought of there was a widely press-agented boy in Sparta who even went so far as to let a fox gnaw his tender young stomach without permitting the discomfort inseparable from such a proceeding to interfere with either his facial expression or his flow of small talk. Historians have handed it down that, even in the later stages of the meal, the polite lad continued to be the life and soul of the party. But, while this feat may be said to have established a record never subsequently lowered, there is no doubt that almost every day in modem times men and women are performing similar and scarcely less impressive miracles of self-restraint. Of all the qualities which belong exclusively to Man and are not shared by the lower animals, this surely is the one which marks him off most sharply from the beasts of the field. Animals care nothing about keeping up appearances. Observe Bertram the Bull when things are not going just as he could wish. He stamps. He snorts. He paws the ground. He throws back his head and bellows. He is upset, and he doesn’t care who knows it. Instances could be readily multiplied. Deposit a charge of shot in some outlying section of Thomas the Tiger, and note the effect. Irritate Wilfred the Wasp, or stand behind Maud the Mule and prod her with a pin. There is not an animal on the list who has even a rudimentary sense of the social amenities; and it is this more than anything else which should make us proud that we are human beings on a loftier plane of development.
   In the days which followed Lord Marshmoreton’s visit to George at the cottage, not a few of the occupants of Belpher Castle had their mettle sternly tested in this respect; and it is a pleasure to be able to record that not one of them failed to come through the ordeal with success. The general public, as represented by the uncles, cousins, and aunts who had descended on the place to help Lord Belpher celebrate his coming-of-age, had not a notion that turmoil lurked behind the smooth fronts of at least half a dozen of those whom they met in the course of the daily round.
   Lord Belpher, for example, though he limped rather painfully, showed nothing of the baffled fury which was reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a day. His uncle Francis, the Bishop, when he tackled him in the garden on the subject of Intemperance—for Uncle Francis, like thousands of others, had taken it for granted, on reading the report of the encounter with the policeman and Percy’s subsequent arrest, that the affair had been the result of a drunken outburst—had no inkling of the volcanic emotions that seethed in his nephew’s bosom. He came away from the interview, indeed, feeling that the boy had listened attentively and with a becoming regret, and that there was hope for him after all, provided that he fought the impulse. He little knew that, but for the conventions (which frown on the practice of murdering bishops), Percy would gladly have strangled him with his bare hands and jumped upon the remains.
   Lord Belpher’s case, inasmuch as he took himself extremely seriously and was not one of those who can extract humour even from their own misfortunes, was perhaps the hardest which comes under our notice; but his sister Maud was also experiencing mental disquietude of no mean order. Everything had gone wrong with Maud. Barely a mile separated her from George, that essential link in her chain of communication with Geoffrey Raymond; but so thickly did it bristle with obstacles and dangers that it might have been a mile of No Man’s Land. Twice, since the occasion when the discovery of Lord Marshmoreton at the cottage had caused her to abandon her purpose of going in and explaining everything to George, had she attempted to make the journey; and each time some trifling, maddening accident had brought about failure. Once, just as she was starting, her aunt Augusta had insisted on joining her for what she described as “a nice long walk”; and the second time, when she was within a bare hundred yards of her objective, some sort of a cousin popped out from nowhere and forced his loathsome company on her.
   Foiled in this fashion, she had fallen back in desperation on her second line of attack. She had written a note to George, explaining the whole situation in good, clear phrases and begging him as a man of proved chivalry to help her. It had taken up much of one afternoon, this note, for it was not easy to write; and it had resulted in nothing. She had given it to Albert to deliver and Albert had returned empty-handed.
   “The gentleman said there was no answer, m’lady!”
   “No answer! But there must be an answer!”
   “No answer, m’lady. Those was his very words,” stoutly maintained the black-souled boy, who had destroyed the letter within two minutes after it had been handed to him. He had not even bothered to read it. A deep, dangerous, dastardly stripling this, who fought to win and only to win. The ticket marked “R. Byng” was in his pocket, and in his ruthless heart a firm resolve that R. Byng and no other should have the benefit of his assistance.
   Maud could not understand it. That is to say, she resolutely kept herself from accepting the only explanation of the episode that seemed possible. In black and white she had asked George to go to London and see Geoffrey and arrange for the passage—through himself as a sort of clearing-house—of letters between Geoffrey and herself. She had felt from the first that such a request should be made by her in person and not through the medium of writing, but surely it was incredible that a man like George, who had been through so much for her and whose only reason for being in the neighbourhood was to help her, could have coldly refused without even a word. And yet what else was she to think? Now, more than ever, she felt alone in a hostile world.
   Yet, to her guests she was bright and entertaining. Not one of them had a suspicion that her life was not one of pure sunshine.
   Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable. The little brute was suffering torments. He was showering anonymous Advice to the Lovelorn on Reggie Byng—excellent stuff, culled from the pages of weekly papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper’s room, the property of a sentimental lady’s maid—and nothing seemed to come of it. Every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, he would leave on Reggie’s dressing-table significant notes similar in tone to the one which he had placed there on the night of the ball; but, for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their recipient, they might have been blank pages.
   The choicest quotations from the works of such established writers as “Aunt Charlotte” of Forget-Me-Not and “Doctor Cupid”, the heart-expert of Home Chat, expended themselves fruitlessly on Reggie. As far as Albert could ascertain—and he was one of those boys who ascertain practically everything within a radius of miles—Reggie positively avoided Maud’s society.
   And this after reading “Doctor Cupid’s” invaluable tip about “Seeking her company on all occasions” and the dictum of “Aunt Charlotte” to the effect that “Many a wooer has won his lady by being persistent”—Albert spelled it “persistuent” but the effect is the same—”and rendering himself indispensable by constant little attentions”. So far from rendering himself indispensable to Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to the disgust of his backer and supporter, seemed to spend most of his time with Alice Faraday. On three separate occasions had Albert been revolted by the sight of his protege in close association with the Faraday girl—once in a boat on the lake and twice in his grey car. It was enough to break a boy’s heart; and it completely spoiled Albert’s appetite—a phenomenon attributed, I am glad to say, in the Servants’ Hall to reaction from recent excesses. The moment when Keggs, the butler, called him a greedy little pig and hoped it would be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with stolen cakes was a bitter moment for Albert.
   It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of these tortured souls to the pleasanter picture presented by Lord Marshmoreton. Here, undeniably, we have a man without a secret sorrow, a man at peace with this best of all possible worlds. Since his visit to George a second youth seems to have come upon Lord Marshmoreton. He works in his rose-garden with a new vim, whistling or even singing to himself stray gay snatches of melodies popular in the ‘eighties.
   Hear him now as he toils. He has a long garden-implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death-rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity.
   “Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra BOOM—”
   And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change.
   It is peculiar, this gaiety. It gives one to think. Others have noticed it, his lordship’s valet amongst them.
   “I give you my honest word, Mr. Keggs,” says the valet, awed, “this very morning I ‘eard the old devil a-singing in ‘is barth! Chirruping away like a blooming linnet!”
   “Lor!” says Keggs, properly impressed.
   “And only last night ‘e gave me ‘arf a box of cigars and said I was a good, faithful feller! I tell you, there’s somethin’ happened to the old buster—you mark my words!”

Chapter 18

   Over this complex situation the mind of Keggs, the butler, played like a searchlight. Keggs was a man of discernment and sagacity. He had instinct and reasoning power. Instinct told him that Maud, all unsuspecting the change that had taken place in Albert’s attitude toward her romance, would have continued to use the boy as a link between herself and George: and reason, added to an intimate knowledge of Albert, enabled him to see that the latter must inevitably have betrayed her trust. He was prepared to bet a hundred pounds that Albert had been given letters to deliver and had destroyed them. So much was clear to Keggs. It only remained to settle on some plan of action which would re-establish the broken connection. Keggs did not conceal a tender heart beneath a rugged exterior: he did not mourn over the picture of two loving fellow human beings separated by a misunderstanding; but he did want to win that sweepstake.
   His position, of course, was delicate. He could not got to Maud and beg her to confide in him. Maud would not understand his motives, and might leap to the not unjustifiable conclusion that he had been at the sherry. No! Men were easier to handle than women. As soon as his duties would permit—and in the present crowded condition of the house they were arduous—he set out for George’s cottage.
   “I trust I do not disturb or interrupt you, sir,” he said, beaming in the doorway like a benevolent high priest. He had doffed his professional manner of austere disapproval, as was his Custom in moments of leisure.
   “Not at all,” replied George, puzzled. “Was there anything …?”
   “There was, sir.”
   “Come along in and sit down.”
   “I would not take the liberty, if it is all the same to you, sir. I would prefer to remain standing.”
   There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Uncomfortable, that is to say, on the part of George, who was wondering if the butler remembered having engaged him as a waiter only a few nights back. Keggs himself was at his ease. Few things ruffled this man.
   “Fine day,” said George.
   “Extremely, sir, but for the rain.”
   “Oh, is it raining?”
   “Sharp downpour, sir.”
   “Good for the crops,” said George.
   “So one would be disposed to imagine, sir.”
   Silence fell again. The rain dripped from the eaves.
   “If I might speak freely, sir...?” said Keggs.
   “Sure. Shoot!”
   “I beg your pardon, sir?”
   “I mean, yes. Go ahead!”
   The butler cleared his throat.
   “Might I begin by remarking that your little affair of the ‘eart, if I may use the expression, is no secret in the Servants’ ‘All? I ‘ave no wish to seem to be taking a liberty or presuming, but I should like to intimate that the Servants’ ‘All is aware of the facts.”
   “You don’t have to tell me that,” said George coldly. “I know all about the sweepstake.”
   A flicker of embarrassment passed over the butler’s large, smooth face—passed, and was gone.
   “I did not know that you ‘ad been apprised of that little matter, sir. But you will doubtless understand and appreciate our point of view. A little sporting flutter—nothing more—designed to halleviate the monotony of life in the country.”
   “Oh, don’t apologize,” said George, and was reminded of a point which had exercised him a little from time to time since his vigil on the balcony. “By the way, if it isn’t giving away secrets, who drew Plummer?”
   “Sir?”
   “Which of you drew a man named Plummer in the sweep?”
   “I rather fancy, sir,” Keggs’ brow wrinkled in thought, “I rather fancy it was one of the visiting gentlemen’s gentlemen. I gave the point but slight attention at the time. I did not fancy Mr. Plummer’s chances. It seemed to me that Mr. Plummer was a negligible quantity.”
   “Your knowledge of form was sound. Plummer’s out!”
   “Indeed, sir! An amiable young gentleman, but lacking in many of the essential qualities. Perhaps he struck you that way, sir?”
   “I never met him. Nearly, but not quite!”
   “It entered my mind that you might possibly have encountered Mr. Plummer on the night of the ball, sir.”
   “Ah, I was wondering if you remembered me!”
   “I remember you perfectly, sir, and it was the fact that we had already met in what one might almost term a social way that emboldened me to come ‘ere today and offer you my services as a hintermediary, should you feel disposed to avail yourself of them.”
   George was puzzled.
   “Your services?”
   “Precisely, sir. I fancy I am in a position to lend you what might be termed an ‘elping ‘and.”
   “But that’s remarkably altruistic of you, isn’t it?”
   “Sir?”
   “I say that is very generous of you. Aren’t you forgetting that you drew Mr. Byng?”
   The butler smiled indulgently.
   “You are not quite abreast of the progress of events, sir. Since the original drawing of names, there ‘as been a trifling hadjustment. The boy Albert now ‘as Mr. Byng and I ‘ave you, sir. A little amicable arrangement informally conducted in the scullery on the night of the ball.”
   “Amicable?”
   “On my part, entirely so.”
   George began to understand certain things that had been perplexing to him.
   “Then all this while…?”
   “Precisely, sir. All this while ‘er ladyship, under the impression that the boy Albert was devoted to ‘er cause, has no doubt been placing a misguided confidence in ‘im … The little blighter!” said Keggs, abandoning for a moment his company manners and permitting vehemence to take the place of polish. “I beg your pardon for the expression, sir,” he added gracefully. “It escaped me inadvertently.”
   “You think that Lady Maud gave Albert a letter to give to me, and that he destroyed it?”
   “Such, I should imagine, must undoubtedly have been the case. The boy ‘as no scruples, no scruples whatsoever.”
   “Good Lord!”
   “I appreciate your consternation, sir.”
   “That must be exactly what has happened.”
   “To my way of thinking there is no doubt of it. It was for that reason that I ventured to come ‘ere. In the ‘ope that I might be hinstrumental in arranging a meeting.”
   The strong distaste which George had had for plotting with this overfed menial began to wane. It might be undignified, he told himself but it was undeniably practical. And, after all, a man who has plotted with page-boys has little dignity to lose by plotting with butlers. He brightened up. If it meant seeing Maud again he was prepared to waive the decencies.
   “What do you suggest?” he said.
   “It being a rainy evening and everyone indoors playing games and what not,”—Keggs was amiably tolerant of the recreations of the aristocracy—”you would experience little chance of a hinterruption, were you to proceed to the lane outside the heast entrance of the castle grounds and wait there. You will find in the field at the roadside a small disused barn only a short way from the gates, where you would be sheltered from the rain. In the meantime, I would hinform ‘er ladyship of your movements, and no doubt it would be possible for ‘er to slip off.”
   “It sounds all right.”
   “It is all right, sir. The chances of a hinterruption may be said to be reduced to a minimum. Shall we say in one hour’s time?”
   “Very well.”
   “Then I will wish you good evening, sir. Thank you, sir. I am glad to ‘ave been of assistance.”
   He withdrew as he had come, with a large impressiveness. The room seemed very empty without him. George, with trembling fingers, began to put on a pair of thick boots.
   For some minutes after he had set foot outside the door of the cottage, George was inclined to revile the weather for having played him false. On this evening of all evenings, he felt, the elements should, so to speak, have rallied round and done their bit. The air should have been soft and clear and scented: there should have been an afterglow of sunset in the sky to light him on his way. Instead, the air was full of that peculiar smell of hopeless dampness which comes at the end of a wet English day. The sky was leaden. The rain hissed down in a steady flow, whispering of mud and desolation, making a dreary morass of the lane through which he tramped. A curious sense of foreboding came upon George. It was as if some voice of the night had murmured maliciously in his ear a hint of troubles to come. He felt oddly nervous, as he entered the barn.
   The barn was both dark and dismal. In one of the dark corners an intermittent dripping betrayed the presence of a gap in its ancient roof. A rat scurried across the floor. The dripping stopped and began again. George struck a match and looked at his watch. He was early. Another ten minutes must elapse before he could hope for her arrival. He sat down on a broken wagon which lay on its side against one of the walls.
   Depression returned. It was impossible to fight against it in this beast of a barn. The place was like a sepulchre. No one but a fool of a butler would have suggested it as a trysting-place. He wondered irritably why places like this were allowed to get into this condition. If people wanted a barn earnestly enough to take the trouble of building one, why was it not worth while to keep the thing in proper repair? Waste and futility! That was what it was. That was what everything was, if you came down to it. Sitting here, for instance, was a futile waste of time. She wouldn’t come. There were a dozen reasons why she should not come. So what was the use of his courting rheumatism by waiting in this morgue of dead agricultural ambitions? None whatever—George went on waiting.
   And what an awful place to expect her to come to, if by some miracle she did come—where she would be stifled by the smell of mouldy hay, damped by raindrops and—reflected George gloomily as there was another scurry and scutter along the unseen floor—gnawed by rats. You could not expect a delicately-nurtured girl, accustomed to all the comforts of a home, to be bright and sunny with a platoon of rats crawling all over her….
   The grey oblong that was the doorway suddenly darkened.
   “Mr. Bevan!”
   George sprang up. At the sound of her voice every nerve in his body danced in mad exhilaration. He was another man. Depression fell from him like a garment. He perceived that he had misjudged all sorts of things. The evening, for instance, was a splendid evening—not one of those awful dry, baking evenings which make you feel you can’t breathe, but pleasantly moist and full of a delightfully musical patter of rain. And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.
   “I’m here!”
   Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in the darkness, so close was she to him.
   “I hope you’ve not been waiting long?”
   George’s heart was thundering against his ribs. He could scarcely speak. He contrived to emit a No.
   “I didn’t think at first I could get away. I had to …” She broke off with a cry. The rat, fond of exercise like all rats, had made another of its excitable sprints across the floor.
   A hand clutched nervously at George’s arm, found it and held it. And at the touch the last small fragment of George’s self-control fled from him. The world became vague and unreal. There remained of it but one solid fact—the fact that Maud was in his arms and that he was saying a number of things very rapidly in a voice that seemed to belong to somebody he had never met before.

Chapter 19

   With a shock of dismay so abrupt and overwhelming that it was like a physical injury, George became aware that something was wrong. Even as he gripped her, Maud had stiffened with a sharp cry; and now she was struggling, trying to wrench herself free. She broke away from him. He could hear her breathing hard.
   “You—you–” She gulped.
   “Maud!”
   “How dare you!”
   There was a pause that seemed to George to stretch on and on endlessly. The rain pattered on the leafy roof. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dismally. The darkness pressed down like a blanket, stifling thought.
   “Good night, Mr. Bevan.” Her voice was ice. “I didn’t think you were—that kind of man.”
   She was moving toward the door; and, as she reached it, George’s stupor left him. He came back to life with a jerk, shaking from head to foot. All his varied emotions had become one emotion—a cold fury.
   “Stop!”
   Maud stopped. Her chin was tilted, and she was wasting a baleful glare on the darkness.
   “Well, what is it?”
   Her tone increased George’s wrath. The injustice of it made him dizzy. At that moment he hated her. He was the injured party. It was he, not she, that had been deceived and made a fool of.
   “I want to say something before you go.”
   “I think we had better say no more about it!”
   By the exercise of supreme self-control George kept himself from speaking until he could choose milder words than those that rushed to his lips.
   “I think we will!” he said between his teeth.
   Maud’s anger became tinged with surprise. Now that the first shock of the wretched episode was over, the calmer half of her mind was endeavouring to soothe the infuriated half by urging that George’s behaviour had been but a momentary lapse, and that a man may lose his head for one wild instant, and yet remain fundamentally a gentleman and a friend. She had begun to remind herself that this man had helped her once in trouble, and only a day or two before had actually risked his life to save her from embarrassment. When she heard him call to her to stop, she supposed that his better feelings had reasserted themselves; and she had prepared herself to receive with dignity a broken, stammered apology. But the voice that had just spoken with a crisp, biting intensity was not the voice of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent one, who was commanding—not begging—her to stop and listen to him.
   “Well?” she said again, more coldly this time. She was quite unable to understand this attitude of his. She was the injured party. It was she, not he who had trusted and been betrayed.
   “I should like to explain.”
   “Please do not apologize.”
   George ground his teeth in the gloom.
   “I haven’t the slightest intention of apologizing. I said I would like to explain. When I have finished explaining, you can go.”
   “I shall go when I please,” flared Maud.
   This man was intolerable.
   “There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be no repetition of the—incident.”
   Maud was outraged by this monstrous misinterpretation of her words.
   “I am not afraid!”
   “Then, perhaps, you will be kind enough to listen. I won’t detain you long. My explanation is quite simple. I have been made a fool of. I seem to be in the position of the tinker in the play whom everybody conspired to delude into the belief that he was a king. First a friend of yours, Mr. Byng, came to me and told me that you had confided to him that you loved me.”
   Maud gasped. Either this man was mad, or Reggie Byng was. She choose the politer solution.
   “Reggie Byng must have lost his senses.”
   “So I supposed. At least, I imagined that he must be mistaken. But a man in love is an optimistic fool, of course, and I had loved you ever since you got into my cab that morning …”
   “What!”
   “So after a while,” proceeded George, ignoring the interruption, “I almost persuaded myself that miracles could still happen, and that what Byng said was true. And when your father called on me and told me the very same thing I was convinced. It seemed incredible, but I had to believe it. Now it seems that, for some inscrutable reason, both Byng and your father were making a fool of me. That’s all. Good night.”
   Maud’s reply was the last which George or any man would have expected. There was a moment’s silence, and then she burst into a peal of laughter. It was the laughter of over-strained nerves, but to George’s ears it had the ring of genuine amusement.
   “I’m glad you find my story entertaining,” he said dryly. He was convinced now that he loathed this girl, and that all he desired was to see her go out of his life for ever. “Later, no doubt, the funny side of it will hit me. Just at present my sense of humour is rather dormant.”
   Maud gave a little cry.
   “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Mr. Bevan. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that at all. Oh, I am so sorry. I don’t know why I laughed. It certainly wasn’t because I thought it funny. It’s tragic. There’s been a dreadful mistake!”
   “I noticed that,” said George bitterly. The darkness began to afflict his nerves. “I wish to God we had some light.”
   The glare of a pocket-torch smote upon him.
   “I brought it to see my way back with,” said Maud in a curious, small voice. “It’s very dark across the fields. I didn’t light it before, because I was afraid somebody might see.”
   She came towards him, holding the torch over her head. The beam showed her face, troubled and sympathetic, and at the sight all George’s resentment left him. There were mysteries here beyond his unravelling, but of one thing he was certain: this girl was not to blame. She was a thoroughbred, as straight as a wand. She was pure gold.
   “I came here to tell you everything,” she said. She placed the torch on the wagon-wheel so that its ray fell in a pool of light on the ground between them. “I’ll do it now. Only—only it isn’t so easy now. Mr. Bevan, there’s a man—there’s a man that father and Reggie Byng mistook—they thought … You see, they knew it was you that I was with that day in the cab, and so they naturally thought, when you came down here, that you were the man I had gone to meet that day—the man I—I—”
   “The man you love.”
   “Yes,” said Maud in a small voice; and there was silence again.
   George could feel nothing but sympathy. It mastered other emotion in him, even the grey despair that had come her words. He could feel all that she was feeling.
   “Tell me all about it,” he said.
   “I met him in Wales last year.” Maud’s voice was a whisper. “The family found out, and I was hurried back here, and have been here ever since. That day when I met you I had managed to slip away from home. I had found out that he was in London, and I was going to meet him. Then I saw Percy, and got into your cab. It’s all been a horrible mistake. I’m sorry.”
   “I see,” said George thoughtfully. “I see.”
   His heart ached like a living wound. She had told so and he could guess so much. This unknown man who triumphed seemed to sneer scornfully at him from shadows.
   “I’m sorry,” said Maud again.
   “You mustn’t feel like that. How can I help you? That’s the point. What is it you want me to do?”
   “But I can’t ask you now.”
   “Of course you can. Why not?”
   “Why—oh, I couldn’t!”
   George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did not sound convincing even to himself, but it served.
   “That’s morbid,” he said. “Be sensible. You need help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn’t barred for ever from doing you a service just because he happens to love you? Suppose you were drowning and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, wouldn’t you let him rescue you?”
   “Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?”
   “You’ve not forgotten that I was a reluctant ear-witness to his recent proposal of marriage?”
   Maud uttered an exclamation.
   “I never asked! How terrible of me. Were you much hurt?”
   “Hurt?” George could not follow her.
   “That night. When you were on the balcony, and—”
   “Oh!” George understood. “Oh, no, hardly at all. A few scratches. I scraped my hands a little.”
   “It was a wonderful thing to do,” said Maud, her admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, had bragged about it for the rest of his life.
   “No, no, nothing,” said George, who had since wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about climbing up a perfectly stout sheet.
   “It was splendid!”
   George blushed.
   “We are wandering from the main theme,” he said. “I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense to help you. How can I do it?”
   Maud hesitated.
   “I think you may be offended at my asking such a thing.”
   “You needn’t.”
   “You see, the whole trouble is that I can’t get in touch with Geoffrey. He’s in London, and I’m here. And any chance I might have of getting to London vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in Piccadilly.”
   “How did your people find out it was you?”
   “They asked me—straight out.”
   “And you owned up?”
   “I had to. I couldn’t tell them a direct lie.”
   George thrilled. This was the girl he had had doubts of.
   “So then it was worse then ever,” continued Maud. “I daren’t risk writing to Geoffrey and having the letter intercepted. I was wondering—I had the idea almost as soon as I found that you had come here—”
   “You want me to take a letter from you and see that it reaches him. And then he can write back to my address, and I can smuggle the letter to you?”
   “That’s exactly what I do want. But I almost didn’t like to ask.”
   “Why not? I’ll be delighted to do it.”
   “I’m so grateful.”
   “Why, it’s nothing. I thought you were going to ask me to look in on your brother and smash another of his hats.”
   Maud laughed delightedly. The whole tension of the situation had been eased for her. More and more she found herself liking George. Yet, deep down in her, she realized with a pang that for him there had been no easing of the situation. She was sad for George. The Plummers of this world she had consigned to what they declared would be perpetual sorrow with scarcely a twinge of regret. But George was different.
   “Poor Percy!” she said. “I don’t suppose he’ll ever get over it. He will have other hats, but it won’t be the same.” She came back to the subject nearest her heart. “Mr. Bevan, I wonder if you would do just a little more for me?”
   “If it isn’t criminal. Or, for that matter, if it is.”
   “Could you go to Geoffrey, and see him, and tell him all about me and—and come back and tell me how he looks, and what he said and—and so on?”
   “Certainly. What is his name, and where do I find him?”
   “I never told you. How stupid of me. His name is Geoffrey Raymond, and he lives with his uncle, Mr. Wilbur Raymond, at 11a, Belgrave Square.”
   “I’ll go to him tomorrow.”
   “Thank you ever so much.”
   George got up. The movement seemed to put him in touch with the outer world. He noticed that the rain had stopped, and that stars had climbed into the oblong of the doorway. He had an impression that he had been in the barn a very long time; and confirmed this with a glance at his watch, though the watch, he felt, understated the facts by the length of several centuries. He was abstaining from too close an examination of his emotions from a prudent feeling that he was going to suffer soon enough without assistance from himself.
   “I think you had better be going back,” he said. “It’s rather late. They may be missing you.”
   Maud laughed happily.
   “I don’t mind now what they do. But I suppose dinners must be dressed for, whatever happens.” They moved together to the door. “What a lovely night after all! I never thought the rain would stop in this world. It’s like when you’re unhappy and think it’s going on for ever.”
   “Yes,” said George.
   Maud held out her hand.
   “Good night, Mr. Bevan.”
   “Good night.”
   He wondered if there would be any allusion to the earlier passages of their interview. There was none. Maud was of the class whose education consists mainly of a training in the delicate ignoring of delicate situations.
   “Then you will go and see Geoffrey?”
   “Tomorrow.”
   “Thank you ever so much.”
   “Not at all.”
   George admired her. The little touch of formality which she had contrived to impart to the conversation struck just the right note, created just the atmosphere which would enable them to part without weighing too heavily on the deeper aspect of that parting.
   “You’re a real friend, Mr. Bevan.”
   “Watch me prove it.”
   “Well, I must rush, I suppose. Good night!”
   “Good night!”
   She moved off quickly across the field. Darkness covered her. The dog in the distance had begun to howl again. He had his troubles, too.

Chapter 20

   Trouble sharpens the vision. In our moments of distress we can see clearly that what is wrong with this world of ours is the fact that Misery loves company and seldom gets it. Toothache is an unpleasant ailment; but, if toothache were a natural condition of life, if all mankind were afflicted with toothache at birth, we should not notice it. It is the freedom from aching teeth of all those with whom we come in contact that emphasizes the agony. And, as with toothache, so with trouble. Until our private affairs go wrong, we never realize how bubbling over with happiness the bulk of mankind seems to be. Our aching heart is apparently nothing but a desert island in an ocean of joy.
   George, waking next morning with a heavy heart, made this discovery before the day was an hour old. The sun was shining, and birds sang merrily, but this did not disturb him. Nature is ever callous to human woes, laughing while we weep; and we grow to take her callousness for granted. What jarred upon George was the infernal cheerfulness of his fellow men. They seemed to be doing it on purpose—triumphing over him—glorying in the fact, that, however Fate might have shattered him, they were all right.
   People were happy who had never been happy before. Mrs. Platt, for instance. A grey, depressed woman of middle age, she had seemed hitherto to have few pleasures beyond breaking dishes and relating the symptoms of sick neighbours who were not expected to live through the week. She now sang. George could hear her as she prepared his breakfast in the kitchen. At first he had had a hope that she was moaning with pain; but this was dispelled when he had finished his toilet and proceeded downstairs. The sounds she emitted suggested anguish, but the words, when he was able to distinguish them, told another story. Incredible as it might seem, on this particular morning Mrs. Platt had elected to be light-hearted. What she was singing sounded like a dirge, but actually it was “Stop your tickling, Jock!” And. later, when she brought George his coffee and eggs, she spent a full ten minutes prattling as he tried to read his paper, pointing out to him a number of merry murders and sprightly suicides which otherwise he might have missed. The woman went out of her way to show him that for her, if not for less fortunate people, God this morning was in His heaven and all was right in the world.
   Two tramps of supernatural exuberance called at the cottage shortly after breakfast to ask George, whom they had never even consulted about their marriages, to help support their wives and children. Nothing could have been more care-free and debonnaire than the demeanour of these men.
   And then Reggie Byng arrived in his grey racing car, more cheerful than any of them.
   Fate could not have mocked George more subtly. A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things, and the sight of Reggie in that room reminded him that on the last occasion when they had talked together across this same table it was he who had been in a Fool’s Paradise and Reggie who had borne a weight of care. Reggie this morning was brighter than the shining sun and gayer than the carolling birds.
   “Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ul-Lo! Topping morning, isn’t it!” observed Reggie. “The sunshine! The birds! The absolute what-do-you-call-it of everything and so forth, and all that sort of thing, if you know what I mean! I feel like a two-year-old!”
   George, who felt older than this by some ninety-eight years, groaned in spirit. This was more than man was meant to bear.
   “I say,” continued Reggie, absently reaching out for a slice of bread and smearing it with marmalade, “this business of marriage, now, and all that species of rot! What I mean to say is, what about it? Not a bad scheme, taking it big and large? Or don’t you think so?”
   George writhed. The knife twisted in the wound. Surely it was bad enough to see a happy man eating bread and marmalade without having to listen to him talking about marriage.
   “Well, anyhow, be that as it may,” said Reggie, biting jovially and speaking in a thick but joyous voice. “I’m getting married today, and chance it. This morning, this very morning, I leap off the dock!”
   George was startled out of his despondency.
   “What!”
   “Absolutely, laddie!”
   George remembered the conventions.
   “I congratulate you.”
   “Thanks, old man. And not without reason. I’m the luckiest fellow alive. I hardly knew I was alive till now.”
   “Isn’t this rather sudden?”
   Reggie looked a trifle furtive. His manner became that of a conspirator.
   “I should jolly well say it is sudden! It’s got to be sudden. Dashed sudden and deuced secret! If the mater were to hear of it, there’s no doubt whatever she would form a flying wedge and bust up the proceedings with no uncertain voice. You see, laddie, it’s Miss Faraday I’m marrying, and the mater—dear old soul—has other ideas for Reginald. Life’s a rummy thing, isn’t it! What I mean to say is, it’s rummy, don’t you know, and all that.”
   “Very,” agreed George.
   “Who’d have thought, a week ago, that I’d be sitting in this jolly old chair asking you to be my best man? Why, a week ago I didn’t know you, and, if anybody had told me Alice Faraday was going to marry me, I’d have given one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.”
   “Do you want me to be your best man?”
   “Absolutely, if you don’t mind. You see,” said Reggie confidentially, “it’s like this. I’ve got lots of pals, of course, buzzing about all over London and its outskirts, who’d be glad enough to rally round and join the execution-squad; but you know how it is. Their maters are all pals of my mater, and I don’t want to get them into trouble for aiding and abetting my little show, if you understand what I mean. Now, you’re different. You don’t know the mater, so it doesn’t matter to you if she rolls around and puts the Curse of the Byngs on you, and all that sort of thing. Besides, I don’t know.” Reggie mused. “Of course, this is the happiest day of my life,” he proceeded, “and I’m not saying it isn’t, but you know how it is—there’s absolutely no doubt that a chappie does not show at his best when he’s being married. What I mean to say is, he’s more or less bound to look a fearful ass. And I’m perfectly certain it would put me right off my stroke if I felt that some chump like Jack Ferris or Ronnie Fitzgerald was trying not to giggle in the background. So, if you will be a sportsman and come and hold my hand till the thing’s over, I shall be eternally grateful.”
   “Where are you going to be married?”
   “In London. Alice sneaked off there last night. It was easy, as it happened, because by a bit of luck old Marshmoreton had gone to town yesterday morning—nobody knows why: he doesn’t go up to London more than a couple of times a year. She’s going to meet me at the Savoy, and then the scheme was to toddle round to the nearest registrar and request the lad to unleash the marriage service. I’m whizzing up in the car, and I’m hoping to be able to persuade you to come with me. Say the word, laddie!”
   George reflected. He liked Reggie, and there was no particular reason in the world why he should not give him aid and comfort in this crisis. True, in his present frame of mind, it would be torture to witness a wedding ceremony; but he ought not to let that stand in the way of helping a friend.
   “All right,” he said.
   “Stout fellow! I don’t know how to thank you. It isn’t putting you out or upsetting your plans, I hope, or anything on those lines?”
   “Not at all. I had to go up to London today, anyway.”
   “Well, you can’t get there quicker than in my car. She’s a hummer. By the way, I forgot to ask. How is your little affair coming along? Everything going all right?”
   “In a way,” said George. He was not equal to confiding his troubles to Reggie.
   “Of course, your trouble isn’t like mine was. What I mean is, Maud loves you, and all that, and all you’ve got to think out is a scheme for laying the jolly old family a stymie. It’s a pity—almost—that yours isn’t a case of having to win the girl, like me; because by Jove, laddie,” said Reggie with solemn emphasis, “I could help you there. I’ve got the thing down fine. I’ve got the infallible dope.”
   George smiled bleakly.
   “You have? You’re a useful fellow to have around. I wish you would tell me what it is.”
   “But you don’t need it.”
   “No, of course not. I was forgetting.”
   Reggie looked at his watch.
   “We ought to be shifting in a quarter of an hour or so. I don’t want to be late. It appears that there’s a catch of some sort in this business of getting married. As far as I can make out, if you roll in after a certain hour, the Johnnie in charge of the proceedings gives you the miss-in-baulk, and you have to turn up again next day. However, we shall be all right unless we have a breakdown, and there’s not much chance of that. I’ve been tuning up the old car since seven this morning, and she’s sound in wind and limb, absolutely. Oil—petrol—water—air—nuts—bolts—sprockets– carburetter—all present and correct. I’ve been looking after them like a lot of baby sisters. Well, as I was saying, I’ve got the dope. A week ago I was just one of the mugs—didn’t know a thing about it—but now! Gaze on me, laddie! You see before you old Colonel Romeo, the Man who Knows! It all started on the night of the ball. There was the dickens of a big ball, you know, to celebrate old Boots’ coming-of-age—to which, poor devil, he contributed nothing but the sunshine of his smile, never having learned to dance. On that occasion a most rummy and extraordinary thing happened. I got pickled to the eyebrows!” He laughed happily. “I don’t mean that that was a unique occurrence and so forth, because, when I was a bachelor, it was rather a habit of mine to get a trifle submerged every now and again on occasions of decent mirth and festivity. But the rummy thing that night was that I showed it. Up till then, I’ve been told by experts, I was a chappie in whom it was absolutely impossible to detect the symptoms. You might get a bit suspicious if you found I couldn’t move, but you could never be certain. On the night of the ball, however, I suppose I had been filling the radiator a trifle too enthusiastically. You see, I had deliberately tried to shove myself more or less below the surface in order to get enough nerve to propose to Alice. I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that proposing’s a thing that simply isn’t within the scope of a man who isn’t moderately woozled. I’ve often wondered how marriages ever occur in the dry States of America. Well, as I was saying, on the night of the ball a most rummy thing happened. I thought one of the waiters was you?”
   He paused impressively to allow this startling statement to sink in.
   “And was he?” said George.
   “Absolutely not! That was the rummy part of it. He looked as like you as your twin brother.”
   “I haven’t a twin brother.”
   “No, I know what you mean, but what I mean to say is he looked just like your twin brother would have looked if you had had a twin brother. Well, I had a word or two with this chappie, and after a brief conversation it was borne in upon me that I was up to the gills. Alice was with me at the time, and noticed it too. Now you’d have thought that that would have put a girl off a fellow, and all that. But no. Nobody could have been more sympathetic. And she has confided to me since that it was seeing me in my oiled condition that really turned the scale. What I mean is, she made up her mind to save me from myself. You know how some girls are. Angels absolutely! Always on the look out to pluck brands from the burning, and what not. You may take it from me that the good seed was definitely sown that night.”
   “Is that your recipe, then? You would advise the would-be bridegroom to buy a case of champagne and a wedding licence and get to work? After that it would be all over except sending out the invitations?”
   Reggie shook his head.
   “Not at all. You need a lot more than that. That’s only the start. You’ve got to follow up the good work, you see. That’s where a number of chappies would slip up, and I’m pretty certain I should have slipped up myself, but for another singularly rummy occurrence. Have you ever had a what-do-you-call it? What’s the word I want? One of those things fellows get sometimes.”
   “Headaches?” hazarded George.
   “No, no. Nothing like that. I don’t mean anything you get—I mean something you get, if you know what I mean.”
   “Measles?”
   “Anonymous letter. That’s what I was trying to say. It’s a most extraordinary thing, and I can’t understand even now where the deuce they came from, but just about then I started to get a whole bunch of anonymous letters from some chappie unknown who didn’t sign his name.”
   “What you mean is that the letters were anonymous,” said George.
   “Absolutely. I used to get two or three a day sometimes. Whenever I went up to my room, I’d find another waiting for me on the dressing-table.”
   “Offensive?”
   “Eh?”
   “Were the letters offensive? Anonymous letters usually are.”
   “These weren’t. Not at all, and quite the reverse. They contained a series of perfectly topping tips on how a fellow should proceed who wants to get hold of a girl.”
   “It sounds as though somebody had been teaching you ju-jitsu by post.”
   “They were great! Real red-hot stuff straight from the stable. Priceless tips like ‘Make yourself indispensable to her in little ways’, ‘Study her tastes’, and so on and so forth. I tell you, laddie, I pretty soon stopped worrying about who was sending them to me, and concentrated the old bean on acting on them. They worked like magic. The last one came yesterday morning, and it was a topper! It was all about how a chappie who was nervous should proceed. Technical stuff, you know, about holding her hand and telling her you’re lonely and being sincere and straightforward and letting your heart dictate the rest. Have you ever asked for one card when you wanted to fill a royal flush and happened to pick out the necessary ace? I did once, when I was up at Oxford, and, by Jove, this letter gave me just the same thrill. I didn’t hesitate. I just sailed in. I was cold sober, but I didn’t worry about that. Something told me I couldn’t lose. It was like having to hole out a three-inch putt. And—well, there you are, don’t you know.” Reggie became thoughtful. “Dash it all! I’d like to know who the fellow was who sent me those letters. I’d like to send him a wedding-present or a bit of the cake or something. Though I suppose there won’t be any cake, seeing the thing’s taking place at a registrar’s.”
   “You could buy a bun,” suggested George.
   “Well, I shall never know, I suppose. And now how about trickling forth? I say, laddie, you don’t object if I sing slightly from time to time during the journey? I’m so dashed happy, you know.”
   “Not at all, if it’s not against the traffic regulations.”
   Reggie wandered aimlessly about the room in an ecstasy.
   “It’s a rummy thing,” he said meditatively, “I’ve just remembered that, when I was at school, I used to sing a thing called the what’s-it’s-name’s wedding song. At house-suppers, don’t you know, and what not. Jolly little thing. I daresay you know it. It starts ‘Ding dong! Ding dong!’ or words to that effect, ‘Hurry along! For it is my wedding-morning!’ I remember you had to stretch out the ‘mor’ a bit. Deuced awkward, if you hadn’t laid in enough breath. ‘The Yeoman’s Wedding-Song.’ That was it. I knew it was some chappie or other’s. And it went on ‘And the bride in something or other is doing something I can’t recollect.’ Well, what I mean is, now it’s my wedding-morning! Rummy, when you come to think of it, what? Well, as it’s getting tolerable late, what about it? Shift ho?”
   “I’m ready. Would you like me to bring some rice?”
   “Thank you, laddie, no. Dashed dangerous stuff, rice! Worse than shrapnel. Got your hat? All set?”
   “I’m waiting.”
   “Then let the revels commence,” said Reggie. “Ding dong! Ding Dong! Hurry along! For it is my wedding-morning! And the bride– Dash it, I wish I could remember what the bride was doing!”
   “Probably writing you a note to say that she’s changed her mind, and it’s all off.”
   “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Reggie. “Come on!”