The Oyster

by Peer

CHAPTER IX

"I am going to Cliff End on Friday, Estelle. Will you come? We'll start at eight, and get back about ten."

"I'd love to. London is baking me."

June heat glowed through the huge city; the pavements were hot under the fierce sun; the air felt used up, heavy; the packed streets vibrated under their load of wheeled monsters, of swooping, gliding taxis. Everyone was going somewhere; busy, smiling, full of the business of pleasure. Old faces were lined under powder and face cream; young ones had lost their colour a little.

Perfectly gowned, with hair in the order of the moment, faintly scented, smiling, woman, hawk-like, swooped on her natural prey, man. Soft debutantes, white-robed, hopeful, fluttered as they dreamt of the matches which they might make. Anxious, youthful mothers spent their all, and more, to give their girls a chance. Older girls smiled more confidently, yet were less hopeful of drawing some great prize.

There, walking along quietly in morning coat, a slouching, keen-eyed young fellow; a flutter as he passes.

"See, Audrey! Lord Golderly. Evie, bow; did you not see Lord Golderly?"

Or from more intimate friends: "Sukey! There's Joss. Call him over! He's thinner than ever! Mum! there's Jossy! Ask him to our little dinner—he might come."

The Marquis of Golderly, with eighty thousand a year, with a panelled house in Yorkshire, a castle in Scotland, with Golderly House in Piccadilly—let now to rich Americans—had strolled by. A pleasant-looking, well-made boy, with his mind full of his new polo pony, and not in the least interested in the Ladies Evie and Audrey, or in his cousin Sukey. Some day he must marry, but not yet.

Another flutter: a girl runs laughing to catch her toy pom, showing her lithe, active limbs as she slips along.

"There comes Sir Edward Castleknock," a little elderly man, his income lately depleted by a white marble tombstone to his second wife, but he has no heir; he must marry again, and he is a rich man. The youthful mothers signal to him, stopping him carelessly, calling to their girls as he stops.

"Here's my little Evie, grown up, Sir Edward; you used to give her sugared almonds. Makes one so ancient, doesn't it?"

Evie musters a smile for the memory of sugared almonds. She says something conventional with a show of excellent teeth. Sir Edward is musical. Milady invites him to hear the dear child sing; to lunch on Sunday—one-thirty—the old address.

One mamma has got a start of her competitors; captured the widower as he emerges from the sombre draped doors of his mourning.

"To sing?" Lady Evie wrinkles a pretty nose. "Well, Mumsie, don't let it get past 'Violets' and that French song; they are the only two dear old Monsieur could ever get me to sing in tune."

They work hard, these mothers, for their daughters, for what is life without riches and places, and a niche in Society's walls? What waste of bringing up, of French and German governesses, of dancing lessons and swimming lessons, and dull classes, if Evie or Audrey merely married some ordinary youngster, to disappear with him upon a couple of thousand a year!

So many competitors, so few prizes. The race is to the swift, and the strong, and the astute; to the matron who knows not only how to seize opportunity, but not to release it again until it puts a ring upon her daughter's massaged hand.

So Evie and Sue and Audrey must stifle the natural folly which nature has placed in their fresh young hearts, and help "Mum" to the proud hour when her daughter will count her wedding presents by the hundred, and smile sweetly on the bevy of maidens who are still running in the race.

Some, without kindly, clever mothers, must fight for themselves, and in the fight use strange methods to attain their prize. Crooked ways, cut-off corners, wrong side of posts; yet they too smile quite as contentedly if they win at the last.

Young Golderly has been stopped a dozen times; he has seen sweet smiles, caught flashing glances. Evie has called attention to her lovely feet by knocking one against a chair. Audrey has whispered to him that she adores polo; will be at Hurlingham to-day.

"To see you hit a goal," she coos; "oh! how I shall clap!"

"She may be a little wild—my new pony," he says, his mind still full of that piece of bay symmetry, a race-horse in miniature, and slips away. Golderly had come to meet a friend who would have talked of nothing but polo ponies; he has missed him, and the pretty runners of the race strive and jostle until they bore him sadly.

He turns to slip away, to get back to his club by a round across the Park, and then gasps, smitten roughly, his hat bumping on to the path.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Blow these hobble skirts. Blow the things!" says a girl's voice.

Kitty Harrington, a big, clumsy maiden, freckles powdering her clear skin. "A badly-dressed touzled young woman," is the verdict passed on her.

Kitty is having her season without any clever, youthful mother; she is under the charge of her aunt, Lady Harrington, who does not take much notice of her, and thinks the girl a foolish tomboy.

"Snap was running out to where the motors are," says Kitty, guilelessly, "and he might get hurt. We were doing a scamper on the grass."

Snap is a rough terrier of uncertain pedigree, unwillingly confined in London.

"He ties his lead round people's legs if I drag him through the crowd," Kitty goes on. "So we keep away and make believe it's country. Oh! if it was! And then this skirt tripped me."

Young Golderly looks at her. A big, rather clumsy girl, but open-eyed, fresh from eighteen years of country life; a girl who has learnt to swim in the open sea; whose gymnastics have been practised up trees.

"They are rotten things to try to run in," he says, smiling boyishly, "those skirts. Haven't I met you somewhere? I'm Lord Golderly." Here he pursues his hat, which Snap is treating as if it were a rat.

"Oh! goodness! Oh! I have been clumsy." Kitty is all pink cheeks and tearful eyes; she dabs them surreptitiously. "Oh! your poor best hat—all torn! Oh! I am a clumsy girl—never meant for London. No, I haven't met you. I'm Miss Harrington—Lady Harrington's niece."

"I know her!" Jossy, master of eighty thousand a year, grins as he examines his hat brim. "Are you going to the match to-day—to Hurlingham?"

"N—no," Kitty's lips droop. "Auntie's made up her party! And oh! I do love polo. We play at home, the boys and I. I've such a pony! Have you got a nice one?"

"A nice one!" Young Golderly grins again; this girl is like a breath of fresh country air blowing across the moorlands. Evidently his name conveys nothing to her.

"I've twenty," he says, laughing.

"Oh, then you're rich! How jolly! If I were rich—"

"Well?" he asks.

Kitty puts her head on one side.

"I'd have hunters; three of them, all my own. Not the boys', which I borrow. And I'd have a motor and drive it; and give Mumsie a new fur coat—hers is old. And I'd have otter hounds."

"Oh, you like that too? Otter hunting," he says eagerly.

"Oh, yes!" Kitty shows a set of strong even teeth. "It's so jolly up in the early mornings when all the grass is washing in dew; and hunting up the rivers; and the dogs working. And then isn't breakfast good?" says Kitty, prosaically. "I'd cook mine on the river bank. I make fine scrambled eggs, and I can toast bacon till it's just sumptuous."

Of course Kitty can have no idea that Golderly has hunted a pack of otter hounds for some years.

The boy looks at her again. She is so fresh and natural and friendly. The skin under her freckles is singularly fine; her eyes are bright, her active figure at its worst in a ridiculous hobble skirt.

"Say! I can't go back there," he nods towards the strolling crowd, "in Snap's handiwork. Let's walk across the grass."

"I want to get to Lancaster Gate. Right!" says Kitty, "we live there, you know."

As they go they talk of ponies and horses and terriers and otters and tennis, and when they part young Golderly takes a brown, shapely, gloveless hand in his and shakes it warmly.

"Come to the match; come to see me play," he says. "I'll take you over to the ponies and show you my beauties. You ought to come."

Kitty rushes in to her aunt. "Auntie! get Hurlingham tickets somewhere. You must!" And Kitty tells of her adventure.

When a year later big Kitty marches sedately down the aisle of a country church on the arm of her husband, a Marquis, she manages her trailing skirts cleverly enough.

A rank outsider, a creature not even mentioned in the betting; but a letter from Kitty's dearest friend might prove that she need not have tripped so grievously over her hobble skirt; while further experience proved that she was lazy about otter hunting, and that behind the ingenuous face lay a shrewd and far-seeing brain. The letter was to "Dearest Kit."

"Shame of Auntie May not to bother about you," it ran. "I met young Lord Golderly at Marches Hall last week-end. He's just your sort—all sport. Get to meet him somehow and talk horses—polo ponies and otter hunting; he's sick of Society."

The future Lady Golderly carefully tore up that letter.

Estelle Reynolds turned from watching the flow of life stream past her to speak to Bertie Carteret.

Estelle was a mere outsider there, knowing very few people—just a few of Esmé's friends. She liked to see them flutter up and down, meeting, parting, always going on somewhere, always chattering of the hundred things which they had got to do.

"I should like to go to Cliff End," repeated Estelle. "The love of London is not with me, though for two years, perhaps three, I must stay here, until my mother comes from her travels, in fact."

"Unless—you marry," Bertie said slowly.

In some vague way the thought vexed him.

Estelle laughed. "There is the curate," she said, "but I am not High Church enough to please him. Yes, there is the curate. I am far too ordinary and stupid for Esmé's friends to look at me, and I meet no others. My marriage must be deferred until we take up the house in Northamptonshire, and then some country squire will suit me and not notice my last year's frocks."

"Not notice you," Bertie snorted. "Stupid young tailor's blocks, always going on. You don't notice them."

"Oh, they're not all stupid," Estelle said. "Mr Turner told me three hands which he had played at bridge the night before, and had crushin' luck in them all. He couldn't be stupid with that memory. How is Esmé?"

"Frightfully busy," Bertie laughed. "Her latest evening gown was not a success. She is weighed down between the choice of pure white or pure black for a new opera cloak. Someone is coming to lunch, and the new cook's soufflets are weary things, given to sitting down. Also her ices melt; and she cannot sauté potatoes; it is French for frying, isn't it? Look here! come in old clothes, and we'll be babies and help to make hay. This day is taken up by a luncheon, by tea at the Carlton, dinner at the Holbrooks', an evening party. I have struck at two dances, as I have to get up early."

Esmé had gone to Madame Claire's to storm over this new gown of golden soft chiffon and silk. It dragged; it did not fit. She found Madame Claire inaccessible. Mrs Carteret bought a few gowns, but my Lady Blakeney was choosing six—two models, two copies, two emanating from Madame Jane Claire's slightly torpid English brains. She had her country's desire for buttons and for trimmings.

But Denise's order was lavish; it meant petticoats, wraps to match; it meant items of real lace. How then to spare sorrow because one golden yellow evening gown ordered by a Mrs Carteret had been too hurriedly finished.

"Tell Madame that I am really pressed for time. Can she not spare me five minutes?"

Madame was with Lady Blakeney, very busy with an order, the forewoman was also engaged. A slender young woman in black satin glided back with the message. Would Madame call again later, make an appointment? Had Madame seen one of the latest scarves? Quite charming, only five guineas. Black satin dexterously whisked out a wisp of chiffon. "No! Madame did not want a scarf."

Denise was behind the strawberry silk curtains hiding in Madame's sanctum. Esmé felt hurt, sore. It was always Denise—always Denise. She, Esmé, was no one.

She got up, looking at her tall, slight figure in one of the long glasses; she grew flushed, angry.

"I have not time to call again. Please tell Madame that the evening gown is impossible, a strait-waistcoat. I was to have worn it to-night at a dance. Now I must wear an old gown of Lucille's—which at least fits." Esmé flounced out, wiping the dust of the strawberry-hued salon from her tightly-shod feet.

Half an hour later Madame Claire heard the message.

"Alter it," she said carelessly. "Let it out. I expect she'll give me up now. Send her her bill at once."

The heat beat down in quivering waves. All London shopped, buying, buying, since freshness lasted but for a few days, and one must not be seen in a gown more than three or four times.

Tinsels and chiffons and laces; feather ruffles; silks and crepes and muslins; gloves and silken stockings piled up on the mahogany counters for Society to buy. Subtle-tongued assistants lauded their wares; there was always something which Madame had not dreamt of buying, but which she suddenly discovered to be an absolute necessity.

The flower-shops showed their sheaves of cut blossoms, long-stemmed roses, carnations, lilies, pinks, monster sweet peas. Things out of season nestled in baskets in the fruiterers. Wealth everywhere, gold or promise of gold; electric motors gliding noiselessly. Slim youngsters taking their morning stroll; brown-skinned soldiers up for a few days, spending in shops behind windows which Madame and Mademoiselle passed without a glance. The richest city in the world gathered its summer harvest; and white-faced poverty, sometimes straying from their poor country, looking on, dully, resentfully envious. Sewing-machines flew in the sweltering heat, needles darted, rows of girls sat working breathlessly, that great ladies might not be disappointed.

"I must have that embroidered gown for the Duchess's party, Madame."

"Certainly, milady, without fail."

Then a visit to the workroom—a whisper to two pale girls.

"You two must stay overtime to-night, get that dress finished. It mustn't get out, either—be careful!"

So, when their breath of air might be snatched, the two would stitch on under the dazzle of electric light, drink strong tea and eat bread and butter, and never dare to grumble, for there were fifty other girls who could be taken instead of them.

Esmé strolled up Bond Street. She bought a ruffle which caught her fancy; she stopped to talk to half a dozen people; but she strolled on, her goal a soot-smirched square where a baby would be taking its airing.

He was there, under his white awning, looking a little pale, a little peaked, wilting in the heat.

Mrs Stanson knew her visitor, smiled at her, never quite understood why Esmé came to the square so often. Esmé asked for Denise first; she was always careful to know that she was out before she came, then went into the gardens.

There was no air in it; the trees had no freshness; the grass looked dull and unwholesome.

"Isn't he very white, Mrs Stanson—peaky?"

"He should be in the country," Mrs Stanson said. "Down where his windows'd let in air at night and not the smuts from the chimneys. But her ladyship—she thinks different; she hates the country. I saw little Lord Helmington go in a hot summer because they wouldn't open Helmington Hall to send him down there with me."

"But he—Cyrrie—he won't go?" Esmé caught at the small soft fingers, moist with heat. A sudden fear gripped her heart.

"Was Denise going to kill the boy? Of course she did not care."

"Take care of him, Mrs Stanson. Oh! take care of him. I was there when he was born, you know. I used to act nurse for him. Aren't there those ozone things you hang up in bedrooms? Or, can't you get him away?"

Esmé hung over the baby, jealous of his little life, panting, afraid.

Mrs Stanson had taken several gold pieces from the child's visitor. She shrugged her plump shoulders.

"Her ladyship doesn't care for children, Mrs Carteret, and that's the truth. She says I fuss, talk nonsense. He don't even get a drive every day, and Sir Cyril, he comes in, but he's her ladyship's husband. Hssh! baby, hssh!"

For little Cyril began to cry querulously, wrinkling his peaky face.

Esmé bent over him, crooning to him, her motherhood awake. Now she knew her madness. For this was hers, and she would have sent him away to breathe fresh air and grow into a big, strong man like Bertie.

"It's a pity, mem, you haven't got one." The nurse lifted up the fretful child.

"It is—a pity." Esmé's face was white and strained, the two patches of rouge standing out; she looked grey, old. "Oh, it is a pity, nurse," she swayed.

"Laws! Mrs Carteret, you're ill. It's this cruel heat. Sit you there, and I'll run in for salts or a little sal volatile."

"No." Esmé recovered herself. "No, nurse, thank you. It's only the heat. Well, take care of him; and better not tell her ladyship that I came over. She never likes my looking at the boy."

Esmé knew now—she knew what a fool she had been. How, snatching at her ease, her comfort, her enjoyment, she had lost the boy who brought love with him. There was nothing to be done, nothing to be said; she dared not tell at this stage. Bertie would never forgive her. She might even be denied, disproved, by some jugglery.

She went heavily homewards, walking on the hot pavement.

An electric limousine flashed by her; a smiling face bowed, a white-gloved hand was waved. Denise was going home to luncheon. Bond Street again, less crowded now. Esmé saw a girl jump lightly from a taxi, turn to smile at someone inside. It was Sybil Chauntsey; the taxi passed Esmé and pulled up; she saw Jimmie Gore Helmsley get out.

Where had these two been so early? They had got out separately, as if concealment were necessary. What a fool the girl was! What a fool!

Esmé hailed a taxi; she was lunching at the Ritz, had asked three friends there. Bah! it would cost so much, and be over and forgotten in an hour.

With a smile set on a weary face, Esmé drove on. She would snatch at amusement more greedily than ever!

At eight in the morning a great London station is fully awake, but not yet stifling and noisy; the cool air of the night still lurks about the platforms; the glass has not got hot; the early people are cool themselves.

Bertie was up early so as to call for Estelle; his taxi sped to the quiet square where her aunt lived. A gloomy place, with tall houses standing in formidable respectability, where grave old butlers opened doors, and broughams and victorias still came round to take their owners for an airing.

Estelle was on the doorstep, cool and fresh, one of the few people who can get up early without looking sleepy.

They flew to Devonshire.

"First class!" Estelle frowned as she saw her ticket. "Oh, Captain Carteret!"

"This is my day," he pleaded. "To be economical travelling one must be economical in company. Come along."

They had an empty carriage; going down to the restaurant for breakfast—a little gritty as train breakfasts are, but excellent.

London slipped away; they ran past lush meadows, past placid streams, old farmhouses sheltered by trees. The countryside was alive with busy workers. Steel knives cut the grass and laid it in fragrant swathes. Steel teeth tossed it up through the hot, dry air. It was perfect weather for saving hay, for gathering the early harvest. The earth gives to us living, takes our clay to its heart when our spirits have left it.

The heat mists swept up slowly from the world; fairy vapours floating heavenwards until the summer's day was clear in its sunlit beauty; and they tore into far Devon with the salt breath of the sea in the faint wind.

A dogcart met them at the station; a short drive, with the sea pulsing far below them, brought them to Cliff End. An old house standing amid a blaze of flowers, it was its owner's whim to have it kept up as if he were living there. There were quaintly-shaped rooms, with windows flung wide. Estelle ran through them, getting her first glimpse of a true English home, while Bertie went over accounts and did his business.

The housekeeper, a smiling dame, appeared breathlessly just as he came in.

She was ashamed not to be there to meet them, but old bones moved slowly; she had been down to the Home Farm to see a sick child there.

"We'm right glad to see your good lady at last," she smiled at Estelle, holding out a wrinkled hand. Mrs Corydon was a privileged friend of the family.

"Not my good lady," Bertie said hurriedly, "a friend, Mrs Corydon." But his face changed suddenly; he grew red.

Man is a being dependent on his dinner; their late luncheon was perfect of its kind. Grilled trout, chicken, Devonshire cream, and strawberries.

"It's such a glorious old place." Estelle looked round the panelled room. "If one could live here one could be happy simply being alive."

"Some people could," he said quietly. "Esmé would die of boredom in a week."

"Of boredom, with those flowers outside, with the sea crooning so close," she said.

"But in winter," he answered, "there are no flowers, and the sea would roar."

"Then there would be fires," said Estelle, "and hunting, and books; and always fresh air. I stifle in London."

The day was a long joy to her, so deep it might have made her pause to think.

They went to the hayfields, breathing in the scent of the fragrant grass; tossing it themselves, foolish, as children might have done; wandering off to the river where it whispered between rocky banks. A stretch of golden brown and silver clear, of dark shadow and plashing ripple, green-hued where the long weeds stretched their plumes beneath the water, eddying, swirling, gliding, until it spread out upon Trelawney Bay, and wandered lost amongst the sands, looking for the sea. Great ferns grew among the rocks; dog roses tangled in the hedges; sometimes a feeding trout would break a flat with his soft ploop-ploop as he sucked down the fly; or smaller fish would fling and plash in shallow places, making believe that they were great creatures as they fed.

Bertie had asked for the tea to be sent out to them. It came in a basket, and they lighted a spirit lamp, laying it out close to the shimmering sea.

Mrs Corydon had sent down wonderful cakes, splits and nun's puffs, and a jar of the inevitable cream. It was a feast eaten by two fools who forgot human nature.

They gave the basket to the boy, wandered on to the cliffs. Here, with a meadow rippling in waves of green behind them, they sat down. It was cooler now. They sat in the shade of a high bank with the blue, diamond-spangled water far below, emerald-hued and indigo, where it lapped in shadow by the cliff. With the salt scent of it mingling with the scent of grass and flowers and hot sun-baked turf. Gulls wheeled screaming softly. They were quite alone in the glory of the country.

Estelle, a little tired, lay back against the bank, dropped suddenly asleep; her slender browned hands lay close to Bertie; as she moved her head came almost against his shoulder, so that to make her more comfortable he moved a little to support it.

A sudden thrill ran through him; her nearness, the touch of her cheek against his arm; her childish trust and abandon. The thrill was one of content followed by fear. What was he learning to feel for this girl from South Africa, this mere friend and companion?

"Companion? Had Esmé ever been one?" Looking back he realized that there are two sorts of love; one when man is ruled by man alone, and one when passion and friendship can walk hand in hand; a pair, once mated, whom death alone can part.

He recalled his first meeting with his wife, and how her brilliant beauty had allured him.

How she had taken his worship carelessly, as a thing of every day; and how always she had relied on her beauty as the natural power of woman without dreaming of any other. A touch of her round arms about his neck, a hot kiss—these were her arguments—arguments which, until lately, had never failed. If he talked of outside things she would pout and yawn, and bring him back to the centre of the world—her beauty.

"There were other girls; tell me about them; were they as pretty as I am, Bert?"

"Never—never!" he had to assure her. If he talked of the sunshine she would laugh and ask if it did not make her hair look red. Her hands, her feet, her fingers—she was never weary of having them praised. And yet she lacked the joy of losing herself in love; she had a merciless power of analysing emotion, because she did not feel it deeply herself. In all his transports, Bertie knew there had been something missing; he had been the lover, she content to be loved.

The true companionship which can keep silence was never theirs.

Now, with the sea of grass waving behind them, and the sea crooning, crooning, so far below, the man was afraid. Was there a second sort of love, and had he missed the best thing in life?

He loved the clean airs of the country, sport of all kinds, a home to go to. Yet he must spend his days in close streets, in an eternal rush of entertainment and entertaining; to go home to a little portion of a great building, where he was merely one of the tenants of a flat.

If no one was coming, the little drawing-room was left bare of flowers, neglected. Esmé said she could not afford them every day. If he came home to tea, an injured maid brought him a cup of cold stuff, probably warmed from the morning's teapot, with two slices of bread and butter on a plate.

This woman, sleeping so quietly, her long dark lashes lying on a sun-kissed cheek, would create a home, live in the quiet country, find companionship without eternal rushing about to her fellow-mortals; enjoy her month or two away, and then enjoy doubly the coming to her own home.

Man, with his pipe in his mouth and sitting in silence, dreams foolishly as some growing girl.

In Bertie's dream he saw Cliff End inhabited; he went round his farms, came back to the gardens to walk in them with a slender figure by his side, with a hundred things to think of, a hundred things to do. The simpler things which weld home life together. He saw toddling mites running to meet him, crying to their dada; a boy who must learn to swim and shoot and ride; a bonnie girl who would learn too, but less strenuously. He saw cold winter shut out, and two people who sat before a great fire, contented to sit still and talk or read. So thinking, the dream passed from waking; his eyes closed, and he, too, fell asleep.

A man strolling along the cliffs paused suddenly, whistled and paused, looking down at the two.

A sly-eyed, freckled youth, who whistled again, drew back, clicked the shutter of the camera he carried, and went on, laughing.

"A pretty picture," he said contemptuously.

Bertie awoke with the faint whistle in his ears—woke to find Estelle's ruffled head close against his own. He sat up, wondering how long he had been asleep.

The freckled stranger was visible just dipping down to the steep path which led to the sea.

"I hope he did not see us. Good Lord! I hope he did not see us!"

Estelle woke too, coming from sleep as a child does, rose-flushed, blinking, rubbing her eyes.

"Oh! I have been asleep," she cried, "wasting our day."

"Our day," he said, as if the words hurt him.

He pulled her to her feet. Estelle was not beautiful, but in her sweet, clear eyes, in the curve of her mouth, the soft brownness of her skin was something more dangerous than mere beauty. It was soul shining through her grey eyes, the power of love, the possibility of passion. It was intelligence, sympathy. Who wisely said some women make nets and others cages?

Esmé, Denise, Dollie, women of their type, could hold their cages out, catch a bird and watch it flutter, but, wearying of him, forget his sugar and his bird-seed, and leave the door open with the careless certainty of finding another capture.

But with a net woven about him, a strong net made of such soft stuff that it did not hurt, the captive bird was caught for life, meshed, ensnared for ever.

"Come—it is late," Bertie said.

As his hands closed on hers, Estelle felt the flush on her cheeks deepen, her hands grow cold. There is a wonder to all in the dawn of love; with some it leaps from the cold night into a sudden glow, not so much dawn as a glorious revealing of the sun. It was so with Estelle; there was no trembling opal in her mental sky, no gradual melting of the mists of twilight. She knew. She loved this man. He was another woman's husband, but she loved him—would love him to her life's end. He must never know, and yet, being intensely human as he helped her up the bank, there was a sick longing that he might care too, even if it meant their instant parting.

She fought it back; she was loyal and simple; her love must be her own; her joy and her despair.

"Hurry, Estelle; we shall miss the train," he said. "It's very late."

They were further away than they thought. The path by the river was rough; they ran panting up to the old house to see the man driving the dog-cart away from the door.

"It bain't no use, sir," he said; "she'm near station now, and it's two mile an' more."

"There's another?" Bertie said.

There was one more, getting them into London at four next morning. Estelle was put out, half frightened. Her aunt would be annoyed.

"But she will know it is an accident," she said. "And we can see the sea by moonshine now."

They saw it as they drove to the slow train, a wide shimmer of mystery, silver and grey and opal, frostily chill, wondrously limitless; the hoarse whisper of its waves booming through the still night.

"Esmé! Will Esmé mind?" Estelle asked as they steamed into London.

"She has gone to several balls; she will never know," he said a little bitterly.

He did not see Esmé again until next evening. The knowledge of this new thing in his life made him penitent, anxious to find again the charm of the golden hair, of the brilliantly-tinted skin. He came from a long interview with his uncle, whipping himself with a mental switch; determined to be so strong that his friendship with Estelle might continue as it was—reasoning out that he had been mad upon the cliffs, half asleep and dreaming.

He came in to find Esmé in one of her restless moods, reading over letters, peevishly crumpling bills, grumbling at poverty. He did not know that the memory of a pinched baby face was always before her eyes—that she feared for the life of the son she had sold.

"Why, Es," he said, and kissed her.

"Don't rumple my hair," she answered; "it's done for dinner."

"Worrying over bills?" he asked gently.

Esmé pulled away one letter which he had taken up. "I can pay them," she flashed peevishly. "Don't worry." Denise's allowance was due again—overdue—and Esmé did not like to write or telephone, and had not seen Lady Blakeney for a week.

It was due to her, and overdue to others. Claire's bill ran in for four pungent pages, and ran to three figures, which did not commence with a unit. There were jewels, the motor hire. Oh! of what use was five hundred pounds?

If she had had the boy here she would have gone to the country, been content for his sake.

"Don't worry." Bertie put his hand on hers. "Es—I've been talking to Uncle Hugh."

"Well?" She woke up, suddenly hopeful.

"Well, I'm his nephew. He will make me a big allowance, leave me all he has—if—"

"If what?" cried Esmé.

"If we have a son before he dies," said Bertie. "That is the only stipulation. If not, I remain as I am. He has some craze about another Hugh Carteret. Of course there will be the title later on."

"If we have a son." Esmé stood up and laughed. "A son!" she said, "a son! I—"

"Why, Esmé!" Bertie ran to her. "Oh, don't cry like that. My dear, don't cry like that."

The wild outburst of a woman in hysterics filled the little room.