"I know. You needn't rub it in."
"I've got the Brute! I've got him by the neck. He's made me suffer, but I'll pay him now. Run away, darling. Run away and put on your white muslin. Laugh as much as you can, and be as pretty as you like. The Brute shan't touch you. I'll put a muzzle on him. Don't forget to tell them I am not your father. I've got the whole story in my head. Run away, little girl, while I think it out."
Boodles was used to these fits, but usually she understood them. They were generally provoked by rabbit-traps. She could not understand this one. Evidently the old man had got hold of something new; but she couldn't stop any longer, as it was nearly time to go down to the Tavy and turn up the stones to look for fairies.
Weevil certainly had got hold of something new. When Boodles had gone he jumped up and locked the door. Then he looked at his watch. Mr. Bellamie might arrive at any time; and he was not nearly ready. He began to jump about the room in a most eccentric way, snapping his fingers, and grinning at his comic features in the mantel-glass.
"You've got to be a liar, Abel-Cain, the worst liar that ever lived, as big a rogue as your namesake Cain, who murdered your namesake Abel. You're an old man, and you ought not to do it, but if lies can save her from the Brute lies shall. They'll punish you for it when you're dead, but if she is saved no matter, none at all. I shall tell them they ought not to have created the Brute. I won't be afraid of them. Now you mustn't make a mess of it. I'm afraid you will, Abel-Cain. You're a shocking old fool sometimes. Put it all down—write it out, then learn it by heart. The old hands are shaking so. Steady yourself, old fool, for her sake, for the sake of that pretty laugh. Come along now! Abel-Cain versus the Brute. We must begin with the marriage."
He pressed his cold hands upon his hot face, and began to scribble tremulously on the paper.
"You were married at the age of twenty-five to a girl who was superior to you socially. Her name—let me see—what was her name? You must find one that sounds well. Fitzalan is a good name. You married Miss Fitzalan at—at, why, of course, St. George's, Hanover Square. She's dead now. She died of—of, well, it don't matter; she's dead. We had a daughter, or was it a son? Better keep to one sex, and then there will be no saying hims for hers, and you mustn't get confused, Abel-Cain, you must keep your brain as clear as glass. We had a daughter, and called her—now it must be something easy to remember. Titania is a pretty name. We called her Tita for short, Titania Fitzalan-Weevil That's it! You are doing it, Abel-Cain! Keep it up, you old liar. He'll be here presently. You took the name of Fitzalan-Weevil because it sounded better, but when your wife died you went back to your own. She was buried in Hendon churchyard. You don't know why it should be Hendon. Ah yes, you do, Abel-Cain. Don't you remember how you used to walk along that road on Sundays and holidays, and have some bread and cheese in the little tea-garden at Edgware; and then by Mill Hill and Arkley to Barnet, and back by Hampstead Heath to your lodgings in Kentish Town? That's why your wife was buried in Hendon churchyard. Then Titania was married, a very grand marriage, Hanover Square again. It's a pity you haven't got the press-cuttings, but they are lost—burnt, or something of the sort—and Titania's husband was the youngest son of the Earl of—No, that won't do. You mustn't lie too high, or you'll spoil the story. He was Mr. Lascelles, Harold Lascelles, second son of the late Reverend Henry Arthur Lascelles, sometime rector of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and honorary canon of St. Paul's Cathedral. Drag the clergy in, Abel-Cain. It's respectable. They lived in Switzerland for his health. You remember he was rather delicate, and Titania wasn't very strong either; and Boodles was born there. It's working out fine. You can't be her father, but you can be her grandfather. Boodles was born in Lausanne, at the hotel where Gibbons wrote his history.
"Now you come to the mystery; there must be a mystery about Boodles, but it must be respectable, a tragedy in high life, a regrettable incident, not a shameful episode. Titania disappeared. What happened to her nobody knows. You don't know, and Harold doesn't know. She may have gone for a walk in the mountains and never come back, or she may have gone out in a boat on Lake Geneva and been drowned, or she may have been murdered by a madman in a pine-wood. It was all very sad and dreadful, and has naturally cast a cloud over Boodles's life, though she knows nothing about it, as she was scarcely a year old when her mother disappeared. You have never got over it, Abel-Cain, and you don't think you ever will, as Titania was your only child. You couldn't bear to keep any of her photographs, so you destroyed them all.
"Now there is Harold. You can't kill him, Abel-Cain. So much mortality might be suspicious, and if you let him marry again that would mean a lot more names to remember. Harold went into the Catholic Church and became a priest. At the present time he is in charge of a mission in British Guiana. That's a good long way off, but you must look it up in the map and make sure where it is."
The old man leaned back and mopped his face. He was working under a kind of inspiration, and was afraid it might die out before he had got to the end of the story. Again he plunged into the narrative, and continued—