"Mr. Oldwall, the solicitor, a very old friend of the Ashleys, and who had seen the two boys grow up, threw out as broad a hint to Philip on that same subject as professional honour allowed.

"'Your father,' he said to him one day, 'has got that mania for saving money, but otherwise he is perfectly sane, you know. He'll never forgive you if you don't gratify his wish to see you married. Hang it all, man, there are plenty of nice girls about. And what on earth would poor old Charles do with a quarter of a million, I'd like to know.'

"But for a long time Philip remained obstinate and his friends knew well enough the cause of this obstinacy; it had its root in a pre-war romance. Philip Ashley had been in love—some say that he had actually been engaged to her—with a beautiful girl, Muriel Balleine, the daughter of the eminent surgeon, Sir Arnold Balleine. The two young people were thought to be devoted to one another. But the lovely Muriel had, as it turned out, another admirer in Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson, the wealthy shipowner, who worshipped her in secret. Philip Ashley and Wilfred Peet-Jackson were great friends; they had been at school and 'Varsity together. In 1915 they both obtained a commission in the Coldstreams and in 1916 Peet-Jackson was very severely wounded. He was sent home to be nursed by the beautiful Muriel in her father's hospital in Grosvenor Square. His case had already been pronounced hopeless, and Sir Arnold himself, as well as other equally eminent surgeons, gave it as their opinion that the unfortunate young man could not live more than a few months—if that.

"We must then take it that pity and romance played their part in the events that ensued. Certain it is that London society was one day thrilled to read in its Times that Miss Muriel Balleine had been married the previous morning to Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson, the wealthy shipowner and owner of lovely Deverill Castle in Northamptonshire. Her friends at once put it about that Muriel had only yielded to a dying man's wish, and that there was nothing mercenary or calculating in this unexpected marriage; she probably would be a widow within a very short time and free to return to her original love and to marry Philip Ashley. But in this case, like in so many others in life, the unexpected occurred. Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson did not die—not just then. He lived six years after the doctors had said that he must die in six months. He remained an invalid and he and his beautiful wife spent their winters in the Canaries and their summers in Switzerland, but Muriel did not become a widow until 1922, and Philip Ashley all that time never looked at another girl; he was even willing to allow a fortune to slip away from him, because he always hoped that the woman whom he had never ceased to worship would be his wife one day.

"Probably old Ashley knew all that; probably he hated the idea that this one woman should spoil his son's life for always; probably he thought that threat of disinheritance would bring Philip back out of the realms of romance to the realities of life. All this we shall never know. The old man spoke to no one about that, not even to Mr. Oldwall, possibly not even to Charles. By the time that Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson had died and Philip had announced his engagement to the beautiful widow, Thornton Ashley was practically a dying man. However, he did have the satisfaction before he died of hearing the good news. Philip told him of his engagement one Saturday in May when he came for his usual fortnightly week-end visit. Strangely enough, although the old man must have been delighted at this tardy realisation of his life's desire, he did not after that make any difference in his mode of life. He remained just as irascible, just as difficult, and every bit as mean as he had always been; he never asked to see his future daughter-in-law, whom he had known in the past, though she did come once or twice to see him; nor did he encourage Philip to come and see him any more frequently than he had done before. The only indication he ever gave that he was pleased with the engagement was an obvious impatience to see the wedding-day fixed as soon as possible, and one day he worked himself up into a state of violent passion because Philip told him that Lady Peet-Jackson was bound to let a full year lapse before she married again, out of respect for poor Wilfred's memory.

§2

"Of course a good deal of gossip was concentrated on all these events. Although Thornton Ashley had, for the past three years, cut himself adrift from all social intercourse, past friends and acquaintances had not altogether forgotten him, whilst Philip Ashley and Lady Peet-Jackson had always been well-known figures in a certain set in London. It was not likely, therefore, that their affairs would not be discussed and commented on at tea-parties and in the clubs. Philip Ashley was exalted to the position of a hero. By his marriage he would at last grasp the fortune which he had so obstinately and romantically evaded: true love was obtaining its just reward, and so on. Lady Peet-Jackson, on the other hand, was not quite so leniently dealt with by the gossips. It was now generally averred that she had originally thrown Philip Ashley over only because Peet-Jackson was a very rich man and had a handle to his name, and that she was only returning to her former lover now because Thornton Ashley had already one foot in the grave, and was reputed to be worth a quarter of a million.

"I have a photograph here," the Old Man in the Corner went on, and threw a bundle of newspaper cuttings down before me, "of Lady Peet-Jackson. As no doubt you will admit, she is very beautiful, but the face is hard; looking at it one feels instinctively that she is not a woman who would stand by a man in case of trouble or disgrace. But it is difficult to judge from these smudgy reproductions, and there is no doubt that Philip Ashley was madly in love with her. That she had enemies, especially amongst those of her own sex, was only natural in view of the fact that she was exceptionally beautiful, had made one brilliant marriage, and was on the point of making another.

"But the two romantic lovers were not the sole food of the gossip-mongers. There was the position of Charles Ashley to be discussed and talked over. What was going to become of him? How would he take this change in his fortune? If rumour, chiefly based on Mr. Oldwall's indiscretions, was correct, he would be losing that reputed quarter of a million if Philip's marriage came off. But in this case gossip had to rest satisfied with conjectures. No one ever saw Charles, and Philip, when questioned about him, had apparently very little to say.

"'Charles is a queer fish,' he would reply. 'I don't profess to know what goes on inside him. He seems delighted at the prospect of my marriage, but he doesn't say much. He is very shy and very sensitive about his deformity, and he won't see any one now, not even Muriel.'