“The River Thames,” said Whately almost tremulously.
“Perhaps,” said Lord Peebles.
He cleared his throat. “The Thames,” he began, and then changed the subject to something amazingly foreign to that topic.
“It is strange how one’s memory plays tricks with one,” he said. “A couple of days ago I was trying—quite idly—to recollect where I spent the early days of August the summer before last, and was totally unable to recall what I had been doing. My wife remembers that we went to Scotland on the 11th, but she, too, has quite forgotten what we did just before. She inclines to think that I was paying some visits without her. Curious!”
Arthur Whately laughed in a sprightly, rallying manner.
“Ah, ah,” he said, “she is probably right, eh? Trust a wife’s memory, my dear fellow, on that sort of point.”
“No doubt she is right,” returned the other, “but it is strange that we can neither of us recollect where I went.”
“Perhaps you never told her,” said Whately gaily. “But come, dismiss those evasive topics. Let the past bury its dead. It is only the present that is truly ours.”
They had arrived at the club-house, and Whately stepped out, followed by the heavier-footed peer. It was almost too good to be true, that by sheer accident he had lighted on days that seemed hard to account for, and, treading on air, he hurried into the dressing-room, where, in momentary privacy, he was forced to indulge in a few toe-pointing capers of delight. And, after all, though the emotions with which he had supplied his friend were of anxious and ominous description, still, emotions after all, of whatever sort, are the salt of life, and here was a new one for him, something with a strong flavour about it. But he could afford to be generous, since he himself was being so richly entertained, and he did not grudge him one pang of the worry and anxiety inseparable from his position.
Arthur Whately’s golf was generally of the most wayward description; he cut balls savagely to point and topped them ventre à terre into cavernous bunkers, while Lord Peebles played a dreadfully steady game, that, as a rule, walked arm-in-arm with bogey round the links. But to-day a strange upset of form took place, for while Lord Peebles seemed unable to hit any ball in the requisite direction or with the requisite force, Arthur Whately, by virtue of the inscrutable laws that govern golf, performed with incredible excellence, and not unnaturally concluded that blackmailing is very good for the eye. Not for years had he felt so keenly the zest and ecstasy of living, and while watching his unfortunate opponent digging his ball out of tussocks of rank grass and eviscerating bunkers, he planned many similar adventures for the future. He felt as if he had awoke at last to his true nature; by accident he was a millionaire and the architect of his own colossal fortune, but by instinct and birth he seemed to be an æsthetic criminal. And the discovery had come upon him, though late, yet not too late. There might be many ecstatic years in store for him yet.