8

Senator Watt laid down the Gleaner, took off his glasses, removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth, and said, in his low, slightly husky voice:—

'A really remarkable piece of work. Quite worthy of Kipling.' The nineties, as we have already remarked, belong to Kipling. Outright. He had to be mentioned. 'It is fresh, vivid, and remarkably condensed. The author produces his effects with a sure swift stroke of the brush.'

The Senator rarely spoke. When he did it was always in these measured, solid sentences, as if his words might be heard round the world and therefore must be chosen with infinite care. After delivering himself of this opinion he resumed his 'dry smoke' and reached for the Evening Post, which lay folded back to the financial page.

'I was sure you would think so,' said Cicely Hamlin, glancing first at the Senator then at her aunt. 'I wish you would read it, Aunt Eleanor.'

'Hm!' remarked that formidable person, planting her own gold-rimmed glasses firmly astride her rugged nose just above the point where it bent sharply downward, picking up the paper, then lowering it to gaze with a hint of habitual, impersonal severity at her niece.

'Even so,' she said. 'Suppose the young man has gifts. That will hardly make it necessary for you to cultivate him. I gather he's a bad lot.'

'I have no intention of cultivating him,' replied Cicely, moving toward the door, but pausing by the mantel to pat her dark ample hair into place. She wore it low on her shapely neck. Cicely was wearing a simple-appearing, far from inexpensive blue frock.

Madame Watt read the opening sentence of The Caliph of Simpson Street, then lowered the paper again.

'Are you going out, Cicely?'

'No, I expect company here.'

'Who is coming?'

The girl compressed her lips for an instant, then:—

'Elberforce Jenkins.'

'Hm!' said Madame, and raised the paper.

An electric bell rang.

Cicely came back into the room; stood by a large bowl of roses; considered them.

The butler passed through the wide hall. A voice sounded in the distance. The butler appeared.

'Mr Henry Calverly calling,' he said.

Madame Watt raised her head so abruptly that her glasses fell, brought up with a jerk at the end of a thin gold chain, and swung there.

Cicely stood motionless by the roses.

The Senator glanced up, then shifted his cigar and resumed his study of the financial page.

'You will hardly——' began Madame.

'Show him into the drawing-room,' said Cicely with dignity.

The butler wavered.

Then, as if to settle all such small difficulties, Henry himself appeared behind him, smiling naively, eagerly.

Cicely hurried forward. Her quick smile came, and the little bob of her head.

'How do you do?' she said brightly. 'Mr Calverly—my aunt, Madame Watt! And my uncle, Senator Watt!'

Madame Watt arose, deliberately, not without a solid sort of majesty. She was a presence; no other such ever appeared in Sunbury. She fixed an uncompromising gaze on Henry.

So uncompromising was it that Cicely covered her embarrassment by moving hurriedly toward the drawingroom, with a quick:—

'Come right in here.'

There was no one living on this erratic earth who could have cowed Henry on this Saturday evening. A week later, yes. But not to-night. He never even suspected that Madame meant to cow him. In such moments as these (and there were a good many of them in his life) Henry was incapable of perceiving hostility toward himself. The disaster that on Tuesday had seemed the end of the world was to-night a hazy memory of another epoch. There were few grown or half-grown persons in Sunbury that were not thinking on this evening of the meanest scandal in the known history of the town and, incidentally, among others involved, of Henry Calverly; but Henry himself was of those few.

He marched straight on Madame with cordial smile and outstretched hand. He wrung the hand of the impassive Senator.

That worthy said, now:—

'I have just read this first of your new series of sketches. Allow me to tell you that I think it admirable. In the briefest possible compass you have pictured a whole community in its petty relationships, at once tragic and comic. There is caustic satire in this sketch, yet I find deep human sympathy as well. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.'

When, after a rather amazing outpouring of words—the thing didn't amount to much; just a rough draft really; he hoped they'd like the next one; it was about cauliflowers—he had disappeared into the front room, the Senator remarked:—

'The young man makes an excellent impression.'

'The young man,' remarked Madame, 'is all right.'

Half an hour later the noise of the front door opening, and a voice, caused the two young people to start up out of a breathless absorption in the story called A Kerbstone Barmecide, which Henry was reading from long strips of galley proof. He had already finished The Cauliflowers of the Caliph.

For a moment Cicely's face went blank.

The butler announced:—

'Mr Jenkins calling, Miss Cicely.'

The one who was not equal to the situation was Elbow. He stood in the doorway, staring.

Cicely was only a moment late with her smile.

Henry, with an open sigh of regret, nodded at his old acquaintance and folded up the long strips of galley proof.

Elbow came into the room now, and took Cicely's hand. But his small talk had gone with his wits. He barely returned Henry's nod. Cicely, nervously active, suggested a chair, asked if there was going to be a Country Club dance this week, thanked him for the beautiful roses.

Then silence fell upon them; an awkward silence, that seemed to announce when it set in its intention of making itself increasingly awkward and very, very long. It was confirmed as a hopeless silence by the sudden little catchings of breath, the slight leaning forward, followed by nothing at all—first on the part of Cicely, then of Elbow.

Henry sat still.

Once he raised his eyes. They met squarely the eyes of Elbow. For a long moment each held the gaze. It was war.

Cicely said now, greatly confused:—

'I know that you sing, Mr Calverly. Please do sing something.'

There, now, was an idea! It appealed warmly to Henry. He went straight to the piano, twisted up the stool, struck his three chords in turn, and plunged into that old song of Samuel's Lover's that has quaint charm when delivered with spirit and humour, Kitty of Coleraine.

After which he sang, Rory O'More. He had spirit and humour aplenty to-night.

The Senator came quietly in, bowed to Elbow, and asked for The Low-Back Car.

Elbow left.

'Why did you tell me you hadn't any stories you could bring?' Cicely asked, a touch of indignation in her voice.

'It was so. I didn't.'

'You had these.'

'No. I didn't. That's just it!'

'But you don't mean——'

'Yes! Just since I met you!'

'Ten stories, you said. It seems—I can't——'

'But it's true. Three days. And nights, of course. I've been so excited!'

'I never heard of such a thing! Though, of course, Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in three days. But ten different stories.'... She sat quiet, her hands folded in her lap, very thoughtful, flatteringly thoughtful. 'It sounds a little like magic.'

She was delicately pretty, sitting so still in her big chair.

'I wrote them straight at you,' he said, low, earnest. 'Every word.'

Even Henry caught the extreme emphasis of this, and hurried to elaborate.

'You see I was just sick Tuesday night. Everything had gone wrong with me. And then that horrible story that wasn't true. I knew I shouldn't have spoken of it to you, but—well, it was just driving me crazy, and I couldn't bear to think you might despise me like the others without ever knowing the truth. And... You see I must have felt the inspiration you... Even then, I mean...'

He was red. He seemed to be getting himself out of breath. And he was tugging at the roll of proofs in his pocket.

'Shall I—finish—this?'

'Oh, yes!' She sank into a great leather chair; looked up at him with glowing eyes. 'I want you to read me all of them. Please!'

She said it almost shyly.

Henry drew up a chair, found his place, and read on. And on. And on.

It was victory.