So the two old ladies remained at Bruton Square, keeping for themselves the basement and the three small rooms at the top. Anthony added an extra kitchen and let the rest of the house to a Mr. Arnold Landripp, an architect. He had for some years been occupying the two large schoolrooms as an office. He was a widower. His daughter, who had been at school in the south of England and afterwards at University College, had now joined him. She was aged about twenty, and was said to be a “high-brow.” The term was just coming into use. She was a tall, pale girl with coal black eyes. She wore her hair brushed back from her forehead and, in secret, smoked cigarettes, it was rumoured.
Betty and her father lived practically abroad. They had taken a flat in Florence and had let The Priory furnished to a cousin of Mr. Mowbray who owned the big steel works at Shawley, half-way up the valley.
Anthony had been generous over the sharing of profits; and Mr. Mowbray had expressed himself as more than satisfied.
“I was running the business on to the rocks,” he confessed. “There wouldn’t have been much left for Betty. As it is, I shall die with an easy mind, thanks to you.”
He held out his hand. He and Anthony had been having a general talk in the great room with its three domed windows that had been Mr. Mowbray’s private office and was now Anthony’s. He and Betty would be leaving early the next morning on their return to Italy. He hesitated a moment, still holding Anthony’s hand, and then spoke again.
“I thought at one time,” he said, “that it might have been a closer relationship than that of mere partners. But she’s a strange girl. I don’t expect she ever will marry. I fancy I frightened her off it.” He laughed. “She knew that I loved her mother with as great a love as any woman could hope for. But it didn’t save me from making her life one of sorrow.
“Do you know what’s wrong with the Apostles Creed?” he said. “They’ve left out the devil. Don’t you make the mistake, my lad, of not believing in him. He doesn’t want us to believe in him. He wants us to believe that he is dead, that he never lived, that he’s just an old wives’ tale. We talk about the still small voice of God. Yes, if we listen very hard and if it’s all quiet about us, we can hear it. What about the insistent tireless voice of the other one who whispers to us day and night, sits beside us at table, creeps with us into bed? David made a mistake; he should have said, ‘The fear of the devil is the beginning of wisdom.’ It began in the Garden of Eden. If the Lord only hadn’t forgot the serpent! It has been the trouble of all the reformers. They might have accomplished something: if they hadn’t forgotten the devil. It’s the trouble of every youngster, thinking he sees his life before him; they all forget the devil.”
Anthony laughed.
“What line of tactics do you suggest for overcoming him?” he asked.
“Haven’t myself had sufficient success to justify my giving advice,” answered Mr. Mowbray. “All I can warn you is that he takes many shapes. Sometimes he dresses himself up as a dear old lady and calls himself Mother Nature. Sometimes he wears a shiny hat and claims to be nothing more than a plain man of business. Sometimes he comes clothed in glory and calls himself Love.”