Mammon and Co.

by E. F. Benson

Against the violence that had been done him he could set the news of Kit's ameliorated condition. He told himself with sublime naïveté that it was worth while being knocked down to learn that. His anxiety had been terrible, really terrible, and he could not but balance that weight removed against other unpleasantnesses. Things were not so bad as they might have been. But it had been terrible, and he easily persuaded himself that he was suffering horribly. What had happened he did not yet exactly know; in any case it was horrible, and it would be wise not to dwell on it. He would know to-morrow, and as he brushed his hair he saw again with satisfaction the working of his pungent fluid.

He felt battered and tired, and, putting on a floss-silk dressing-gown, lay down on the sofa in his bedroom, and rang the bell for tea. Really, he had been through a life-time of suffering since he rang the bell for tea an hour before at the Bachelors' Club, and he desired that restorative agent most acutely. Most of all—and this was highly characteristic—he desired to dismiss the experiences of the day from his mind. It had all been extremely unpleasant, and there was a good deal that was unpleasant still hanging about, like the sultriness of a thundery day, low and imminent. But at the moment he could do nothing: no step that he could take would make matters better, no effort of will would disperse the thunder-clouds, and it was idle to brood over things, and mar one's natural cheerfulness with morose and gloomy reflections. His bright, shallow personality reflected like a wayside puddle whatever was immediately above it, and held no darkling shadows or remote lights of its own, and he was rightly very careful of the buoyancy of his spirits, since that was the best of him, and undeniably of the greatest use.

There was a small table by his hand, with the gold-topped scent-bottle, the evening paper, and a few yellow-covered French books on it. He sprinkled his forehead with the scent, threw the evening paper away, for there was a little paragraph in it which he wanted to forget, and took up Gautier's "Mademoiselle de la Maupin," and opened it at random. He read a page or two, and became interested, absorbed. The magic of words, a spell more potent than any wizard's incantation, took hold of him, and the indoor hot-house atmosphere of infinitesimal intrigue was most congenial. The low roar of London traffic outside grew dumb, the agitations of harsh experience grew remoter, the events of the day became to him as the remembrance of some book he had read, and the book he was reading grew flushed with the realities of life.

Toby in the meantime, after his short and decisive interview without words on the doorstep, had walked back to Park Lane, and got there not very many minutes after his interviewer had made his call. He went straight into Jack's room, and found Lily there alone. Question and answer were alike needless; her face answered what he had not audibly asked.

"She will get through," she said. "They think she will certainly get through."

Toby threw his hat on to the sofa.

"Thank God! oh, thank God!" he cried. "Where is Jack?"

"Upstairs. They let him see her for a moment. He will be down again immediately. But they could not save both Kit and the child, Toby."

Toby sat down by his wife.