The upshot of a painful matter was that it was left in Mr. Mortimer's hands. He undertook to deal in such a way with Mrs. Henry Harper that there should be no fear of molestation from her. Also, he would have inquiries made into her past history and her present mode of life; and if a subsequent reconsideration of the case should make a final appeal to the law seem in any wise expedient, then would be the time to invoke it. In the meantime a sum would be paid to her weekly. Mr. Mortimer undertook to send a clerk to the flat in order to collect Henry Harper's papers and other belongings.
It was an unhappy state of affairs, but the young man realized that for the present it would be the part of wisdom to leave the matter in the prudent hands of Mr. Mortimer.
VI
The Sailor found sanctuary at Bury Street until late in the afternoon. By that time a member of Mr. Mortimer's staff had retrieved his chattels from King John's Mansions; also the admirable Portman had returned from his quest "for lodgings, clean and decent, for a single man." Moreover, success had crowned it, as Edward Ambrose had been confident that it would.
Portman, it appeared, had found very nice rooms for a single gentleman in Brinkworth Street, Chelsea. They were kept by a friend of his who had been butler in the service of the Honorable Lady Price, relict of the late Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., a former governor of the Bowerman Islands, who had given him an excellent character. It was also fortified by the fact that he had married the cook lately in the service of that lady. Portman was sure that Mr. Harper would find everything very comfortable.
Half an hour later, Henry Harper was on his way to Brinkworth Street with his few belongings. Before taking leave of Portman, he presented him with half a sovereign. This was a princely emolument in the eyes of the Sailor, but he felt that nothing less could meet the case.
On his arrival at Brinkworth Street, the young man knew at once that he would be in good hands. The air of respectability which hovered round his rooms was a little portentous, perhaps, but at least it was in welcome and vivid contrast to the cheap and dismal tawdriness of King John's Mansions. Mr. Emerson Paley, the proprietor of No. 14, and Mrs. Paley also, had something of Portman's impressiveness. It was clear that they had their own standard of taste and conduct. Moreover, Henry Harper welcomed it. To him it meant a fixing of social values. The atmosphere of No. 14, Brinkworth Street, was wholly different from that which had enveloped any home he had ever known before.
The Sailor found a stimulus in these new surroundings. Brinkworth Street, its outlook and its ideals, was a cosmos he had yet to traverse and explore. Mr. Paley was in his own way surprisingly a gentleman, as Mrs. Paley in hers was surprisingly a lady; not, of course, in the way that Edward Ambrose and his new friend, Mary Pridmore, were, but still they undoubtedly stood for something—a curious, indefinable something wholly beyond the ménage he had lately left, with its air of make-believe refinement which was not refinement at all.
Mr. Paley and also Mrs. Paley treated him with great consideration. And it was no second-hand or spurious emotion. It seemed to be their nature to pay respect, they seemed to have a craving to pay it, just as a person there was no need to name and that person's friends had a craving to be always what they called "pulling your leg." Not only was Mr. Harper treated with deference, but solid comfort, well cooked food and punctual attention were lavished upon him, so that for his own part he was bound to honor the source whence these blessings sprang. The august shade of the relict of Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., might have been a little too much in evidence now and again for the plain and unvarnished taste of a sailor, but an ever deepening perception showed him that the very things he was inclined to despise and to laugh at—as most of the people with whom his life had been passed would undoubtedly have done—were of real importance if you were able to look at them from the right point of view.