Well, After All--

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Mr. Westwood was smuggled aboard the vessel at midnight, the anchor was weighed as unostentaciously as possible, and the gunboat steamed out of the harbour at dawn; but it was said that the commander had to bring his two big guns to bear upon a steam launch hastily chartered by the lecture agent to follow the vessel in order that he might board her and get the explorer to sign an agreement for a hundred lectures in the States during the forthcoming fall.

Then came the news that Mr. Westwood had returned to Zanzibar so greatly improved in health by his cruise that he would be permitted to make the voyage to England by the next mail; and, of course, all the correspondents, the publishers' agents and lecture agents hastened to engage cabins on the same steamer. The briefest of telegrams announced the departure of the steamer in due course, and Agnes found herself able to breathe again. In less than a month he would be by her side.

It was very generally felt among those hostesses in Mayfair who are the most earnest of lion-hunters, that Mr. Westwood was guilty of a gross breach of manners in not timing his arrival for the spring of the London season. Some of the more enterprising of them had long ago sent out cards of invitation to him at Uganda, for receptions to be held in the spring. Others had given him a choice of dates, and left it optional for him to have a dinner, an at-home, or a garden-party. In these circumstances it was thought that in changing his plans, starting from Uganda at once instead of remaining there, as he had at first intended, for six months, he was behaving very badly.

How could any man expect to be treated as a hero in the month of October? they asked, as they felt that the honour and glory which attaches to the exhibition of lions were slipping from their fingers.

They had long ago forgotten that the same newspapers which had announced the safety of Claude Westwood had contained that heading, “The Brackenshire Tragedy”; and when it was announced that Mr. Westwood was compelled to decline all engagements, as it was his intention to remain in the seclusion of Westwood Court for several months, people shrugged their shoulders, and went on with their pheasant shooting.

They said that Mr. Westwood would find out the mistake he was making before the next season; adding that their memories were quite equal to recalling instances of heroes, who were looked on as such in the autumn, becoming stale and of no market value whatever before the next London season.

They rather feared that Mr. Westwood had failed to remember that the most evanescent form of heroism is that which is the result of African exploration. Africa as a field for the development of heroes was getting used up; the Arctic regions were already running it close, and Polar bears were as good as lions any day. Oh yes, Mr. Westwood might find himself compelled to take a back seat next May in the presence of the man who had come from Formosa with a crimson monkey, or the man who had come from Klondyke with a nugget the size of an ostrich's egg.

The people who talked in this strain could with difficulty be made to understand that the tragic circumstances of the death of Mr. Westwood's brother might possibly cause him, quite apart from all considerations in regard to his own health, to wish to live in retirement for a few months. They would rather have been disposed to appraise his value in a drawing-room or as a “draw” at a reception, at a somewhat higher figure, by reason of the fact that the death of his brother had for close upon a fortnight been one of the Topics of the Season. A man who is in any way associated with a Topic of the Season is a welcome guest in every house.

But Agnes, knowing how attached the brothers had been all their lives, understood how distasteful—more than distasteful—to Claude would be the idea of lending himself for exhibition in order to attract people to some of those houses whose attractiveness is dependent upon the freak of the fashion of the hour. She had also a feeling that, although he had written that curiously flippant postscript, Claude had still in his heart no doubt as to her faithfulness. She felt that he knew that his retirement would mean the taking up with her of the book of life at that glowing passage at which they had laid it down. After such a separation, what a meeting would be theirs!

And yet as the hour for his coming approached, she felt more and more as if she were waiting to meet a stranger. She felt all the shyness that she had felt years before when, as a girl, she had found herself in the same room with Claude Westwood. She had read of his heroic action on the North-West Frontier of India—of that splendid cavalry charge, which he had led, retrieving the honour of his country when it was trembling in the balance, and so when she found herself presented to him as though he were an ordinary man whom she was meeting casually, she had felt quite overcome with shyness.