§ 7
When presently Captain Douglas, a little heated from his engine trouble, came into the room—he had left Bealby with Candler in the hall—it was instantly manifest to him that the work of preparation had been inadequately performed.
“One minute more, my dear Alan,” cried Lord Chickney.
Lord Moggeridge with eyebrows waving and watch in hand was of a different opinion. He addressed himself to Captain Douglas.
“There isn’t a minute more,” he said. “What is all this—this philoprogenitive rigmarole about? Why have you come to me? My cab is outside now. All this about ladies and witnesses;—what is it?”
“Perfectly simple, my lord! You imagine that I played practical jokes upon you at Shonts. I didn’t. I have a witness. The attack upon you downstairs, the noise in your room—”
“Have I any guarantee—?”
“It’s the steward’s boy from Shonts. Your man outside knows him. Saw him in the steward’s room. He made the trouble for you—and me, and then he ran away. Just caught him. Not exchanged thirty words with him. Half a dozen questions. Settle everything. Then you’ll know—nothing for you but the utmost respect.”
Lord Moggeridge pressed his lips together and resisted conviction.
“In consideration,” interpolated Lord Chickney, “feelings of an old fellow. Old soldier. Boy means no harm.”
With the rudeness of one sorely tried the Lord Chancellor thrust the old general aside. “Oh!” he said, “Oh!” and then to Captain Douglas. “One minute. Where’s your witness?...”
The Captain opened a door. Bealby found himself bundled into the presence of two celebrated men.
“Tell him,” said Captain Douglas. “And look sharp about it.”
“Tell me plainly,” cried the Lord Chancellor, “and be—quick.”
He put such a point on “quick” that it made Bealby jump.
“Tell him,” said the general more gently. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Well,” began Bealby after one accumulating pause, “it was ’im told me to do it. ’E said you go in there—”
The Captain would have interrupted but the Lord Chancellor restrained him by a magnificent gesture of the hand holding the watch.
“He told you to do it!” he said. “I knew he did. Now listen! He told you practically to go in and do anything you could.”
“Yessir.” Woe took possession of Bealby. “I didn’t do any ’arm to the ole gentleman.”
“But who told you?” cried the Captain. “Who told you?”
Lord Moggeridge annihilated him with arm and eyebrows. He held Bealby fascinated by a pointing finger.
“Don’t do more than answer the questions. I have thirty seconds more. He told you to go in. He made you go in. At the earliest possible opportunity you got away?”
“I jest nipped out—”
“Enough! And now, sir, how dare you come here without even a plausible lie? How dare you after your intolerable tomfoolery at Shonts confront me again with fresh tomfoolery? How dare you drag in your gallant and venerable uncle in this last preposterous—I suppose you would call it—lark! I suppose you had prepared that little wretch with some fine story. Little you know of False Witness! At the first question, he breaks down! He does not even begin his lie. He at least knows the difference between my standards and yours. Candler! Candler!”
Candler appeared.
“These—these gentlemen are going. Is everything ready?”
“The cab is at the door, m’lord. The usual cab.”
Captain Douglas made one last desperate effort. “Sir!” he said. “My lord—”
The Lord Chancellor turned upon him with a face that he sought to keep calm, though the eyebrows waved and streamed like black smoke in a gale. “Captain Douglas,” he said, “you are probably not aware of the demands upon the time and patience of a public servant in such a position as mine. You see the world no doubt as a vastly entertaining fabric upon which you can embroider your—your facetious arrangements. Well, it is not so. It is real. It is earnest. You may sneer at the simplicity of an old man, but what I tell you of life is true. Comic effect is not, believe me, its goal. And you, sir, you, sir, you impress me as an intolerably foolish, flippant and unnecessary young man. Flippant. Unnecessary. Foolish.”
As he said these words Candler approached him with a dust coat of a peculiar fineness and dignity, and he uttered the last words over his protruded chest while Candler assisted his arms into his sleeves.
“My lord,” said Captain Douglas again, but his resolution was deserting him.
“No,” said the Lord Chancellor, leaning forward in a minatory manner while Candler pulled down the tail of his jacket and adjusted the collar of his overcoat.
“Uncle,” said Captain Douglas.
“No,” said the general, with the curt decision of a soldier, and turned exactly ninety degrees away from him. “You little know how you have hurt me, Alan! You little know. I couldn’t have imagined it. The Douglas strain! False Witness—and insult. I am sorry, my dear Moggeridge, beyond measure.”
“I quite understand—you are as much a victim as myself. Quite. A more foolish attempt—I am sorry to be in this hurry—”
“Oh! You damned little fool,” said the Captain, and advanced a step towards the perplexed and shrinking Bealby. “You imbecile little trickster! What do you mean by it?”
“I didn’t mean anything—!”
Then suddenly the thought of Madeleine, sweet and overpowering, came into the head of this distraught young man. He had risked losing her, he had slighted and insulted her, and here he was—entangled. Here he was in a position of nearly inconceivable foolishness, about to assault a dirty and silly little boy in the presence of the Lord Chancellor and Uncle Chickney. The world, he felt, was lost, and not well lost. And she was lost too. Even now while he pursued these follies she might be consoling her wounded pride....
He perceived that love is the supreme thing in life. He perceived that he who divides his purposes scatters his life to the four winds of heaven. A vehement resolve to cut the whole of this Bealby business pounced upon him. In that moment he ceased to care for reputation, for appearances, for the resentment of Lord Moggeridge or the good intentions of Uncle Chickney.
He turned, he rushed out of the room. He escaped by unparalleled gymnastics the worst consequences of an encounter with the Lord Chancellor’s bag which the under-butler had placed rather tactlessly between the doors, crossed the wide and dignified hall, and in another moment had his engine going and was struggling to mount his machine in the street without. His face expressed an almost apoplectic concentration. He narrowly missed the noses of a pair of horses in the carriage of Lady Beach Mandarin, made an extraordinary curve to spare a fishmonger’s tricycle, shaved the front and completely destroyed the gesture of that eminent actor manager, Mr. Pomegranate, who was crossing the road in his usual inadvertent fashion, and then he was popping and throbbing and banging round the corner and on his way back to the lovely and irresistible woman who was exerting so disastrous an influence upon his career....