BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Published by

Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd.

________

The “Berry” Books

THE BROTHER OF DAPHNE

THE COURTS OF IDLENESS

BERRY AND CO.

JONAH AND CO.

ADÈLE AND CO.

AND BERRY CAME TOO

THE HOUSE THAT BERRY BUILT

The “Chandos” Books

BLIND CORNER

PERISHABLE GOODS

BLOOD ROYAL

FIRE BELOW

SHE FELL AMONG THIEVES

AN EYE FOR A TOOTH

RED IN THE MORNING

Other Volumes

THE STOLEN MARCH

THIS PUBLICAN

ANTHONY LYVEDEN

VALERIE FRENCH

SAFE CUSTODY

STORM MUSIC

AND FIVE WERE FOOLISH

AS OTHER MEN ARE

MAIDEN STAKES

SHE PAINTED HER FACE

GALE WARNING

SHOAL WATER

PERIOD STUFF

AS OTHER

MEN ARE

BY

DORNFORD YATES

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

LONDON AND MELBOURNE

MADE IN ENGLAND

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

To those, alive or dead, with whom I had the honour to serve overseas, during the Great War.

CONTENTS

JEREMY

JEREMY

Eve Malory Carew tilted her sweet pretty chin.

“It’s my hair,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Jeremy Broke. “That’s why to cut it would be so—so blasphemous. If it was anybody else’s, it’d be their funeral. But your hair’s a sort of national treasure, like Ann Hathaway’s Cottage or Arthur’s Seat—I mean, Leith Hill. It’s not really yours to cut.”

“It’s mine to brush,” said Eve: “and fix and do generally. If you had a beard——”

“That’s an idea,” said Broke. “If you cut your hair, I’ll grow a blinkin’ beard: a long, spade-shaped one—by way of protest.”

Eve laughed delightedly.

“But how,” she gurgled, “how would that affect me? If we kissed when we met, or always dined tête-à-tête. . . .”

“I trust,” said Jeremy stiffly, “that the indecent spectacle of an old friend gone wrong would twist the tail of your conscience. Besides, you wouldn’t like it when I accosted you in Bond Street, beard in hand.”

Miss Carew shuddered.

Then—

“Seriously, Jeremy, why shouldn’t I have it off? Listen. First, it would suit me. I went to see Sali to-day, and he said it’d look immense. It isn’t as if it were straight. It’s naturally curly, and I’d have it really well cut. Then, I go through such hell—hell, morning and night. I wish you could see it down. Then perhaps you’d realize what I mean.”

“I have,” said Jeremy Broke. “The night of the Lyvedens’ ball.”

“Well, how would you like to have to cope with it twice a day?”

Jeremy inclined his head.

“I cannot imagine a greater privilege.”

Eve smiled very charmingly.

“Let’s drop hypothesis,” she said, “and come back to facts. I’ve given you three good reasons for having it cut. Except that it’s a national treasure, of which, I assume, I am the luckless trustee, can you give me one single reason why it should be preserved?”

Jeremy hesitated.

Then—

“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”

There was a silence.

The man smiled thoughtfully, staring straight ahead. With a faint frown the girl regarded the leisurely disintegration of the logs in the grate. The distant throb of ragtime filtered into the room, only to subside, as though abashed, before the stately lecture of a Vulliamy clock.

“Let us talk,” said Eve, “of the past.”

“Good,” said Jeremy. “I’ll begin. If I’d been brought up to be a plumber, instead of a diplomat——”

“Oh, I wish you had,” said Eve. “My bath’s gone wrong again.”

“What, not the Roman?”

“The same,” said Eve.

“There you are,” said Broke. “I told you not to have it. You cannot introduce a relic of the Stone Age into a super-flat. It can’t be done. If you must have a circus leading out of your bedroom, the only thing to do is to set it right up and then build a house round it.”

“We’re off,” said Eve, bubbling.

Jeremy swallowed.

“What’s the trouble?” he demanded.

“Won’t empty,” said Eve. “I’m—I’m having it taken away.”

“Taken away?” cried Broke.

“Well, filled in or something. I don’t know what the process will be. I simply said it was to be washed out and an ordinary bath put in its place.”

“Why on earth?”

“Because experience has shown me that your advice was good. Between you and me, it nearly always is—though why you keep on giving it me when I only chuck it away, Heaven only knows. I should have got mad months ago. I think you must be very—very strong, Jeremy. At least, I’m very conscious of being the—the weaker vessel.”

“A most appropriate sensation.”

Eve shot him a lightning glance.

Then—

“We were to talk of the past,” she said quickly. “D’you remember this day a year ago?”

Jeremy knitted his brows.

“Was that the first time we met?”

“It was,” said Eve. “May Day 1929. Here in this house. . . . Jeremy, I’ve a confession to make. I asked that you should be introduced to me.”

“Well, I asked too.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to know you,” said Jeremy Broke.

“Why?”

“I suppose you attracted me.”

“I must be attractive,” said Eve.

“You are.”

Miss Carew shrugged her white shoulders.

“I’m still unmarried,” she said.

“That,” said Jeremy Broke, “is your little fault. At least, Rumour has it that you’ve turned a good many down.”

“Rumour is wrong,” said Eve. “I admit I’ve had one or two overtures, but the idea of being married for my money never appealed to me.”

“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Broke, “that you need be afraid. If you were forty, instead of twenty-four; if you had a face like the back of a hansom; if——”

“Here,” said Eve. “Don’t cut out the gilt. There was the making of a compliment. Besides, I value your opinion. What is my face like, Jeremy?”

The man regarded her.

“It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“My mouth,” said Eve, “is too large.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Broke. “It’s just perfect. So’s your nose, an’—an’ the rest. That’s why it seems so wicked to cut your hair.”

“Was it my face that attracted you—last year?”

The man considered.

“Your face and your pretty ways.”

“You just felt you wanted to know me?”

“Yes.”

Eve sighed.

“Well, you’ve had your wish,” she said. “I mean, you’ve got to know me pretty well.”

“You’ve been very sweet,” said Jeremy.

“Don’t mention it,” said Miss Carew. “It’s—it’s been a pleasure. Besides, I’m very lonely. And I wanted to know you, you know. . . . Never mind. I hope, when you’re married——”

“I’m not engaged yet.”

“That’s your little fault,” said Eve. “I could mention several ladies who have put their arms round your neck—certainly figuratively and, for all I know, literally.”

“Rot”—incredulously.

“My dear, I’ve seen it going on. Don’t be afraid—I’m not going to mention names.”

“But I’ve no money.”

“What does that matter? They have.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” said Broke. “Everyone’s always very nice, but people don’t pick up stray curs——”

“How dare you say such a thing?”

Eve was on her feet. Her brown eyes were flaming, and there was wrath in her voice.

Slowly Jeremy rose.

“My dear Eve——”

“How dare you speak like that? It’s cheap and paltry and it’s a wicked lie. D’you think I’d give my friendship to—to a stray cur?”

“You have,” said Broke. “I’ve seen you. Down on the Portsmouth Road. His blood was all over your dress, and he died in your arms.”

“Yes, but——”

“I’ll take back ‘cur,’ if it offends you: but I’m a stray, Eve. I’ve nothing to offer at all. I can only just live. A plumber makes twice the money that they pay me. The jobs I was trained for are bust or sold or given to—to ‘business men.’ If it wasn’t for Babel, I should be on the streets, and—— Oh, Eve, my lady, for God’s sake don’t cry. I didn’t mean. . . .”

Instinctively he put out his arms, and the girl slipped into them. . . . He held her gently enough, comforting her, patting her shoulder, talking in steady tones of bygone days and gilding the future with a laughing tongue. . . .

After a little, Eve had herself in hand.

As he released her—

“Let’s—sit—down,” she said jerkily.

They sat down together, and she slid an arm through his.

“Listen,” she whispered. “I can’t talk loud, because I shall cry if I do. Listen to me. I’ll tell you the name of one woman who’s put her arms round your neck. She’s done it for nearly a year—not very glaringly until to-night. Her name’s Eve. . . . Eve Malory Carew.” His fists clenched, Jeremy sat like a rock. The girl continued tremulously. “I’ve given you opening after opening. I’ve put the very words into your mouth. I’ve given myself away. I’ve asked and pleaded and begged. I’ve done what I’ve never done in all my life, what I never dreamed I should do—sunk pride, vanity, self-respect . . . to—make—you—speak. . . . I’m not good at ‘the arts,’ but I’ve used them all to-night. I gave you my profile, stared, tried to get my soul into my voice. I didn’t cry to make you take me in your arms—that was a piece of sheer luck. But I did everything else. . . . Well, there you are. I’ve failed. And now I want to know one thing. There’s only one answer you can give me, but from the way you give it I shall be able to tell if you’re speaking the truth. Do you love me, Jeremy?”

The man laughed.

“You know I’ve been mad about you for just one year.”

Eve sighed very happily.

“And I’m quite silly about you,” she said. “I started dreaming about you months ago. But I think up to now I’ve behaved all right, haven’t I?”

“Perfectly,” said Broke.

Eve squeezed his arm.

“I’m glad of that. And now suppose you kissed me. Or d’you think I ought to kiss you?”

Suddenly she was in his arms, blushing and breathless.

“You witch,” breathed the man. “You exquisite, glorious witch. I’ve steeled myself and fought a thousand times. And to-night I swore I’d see you—and kiss the rod. ‘Rod’? Sword. It’s been like a sword in my side to wait upon you. To-night was laden with memories, but I swore to come through. I swore I’d recall them . . . and bow . . . and come away—walk through the wet streets triumphant, because I’d flirted with fire and not been burned. And now—I’ve failed.” He lifted up his eyes with the look of one who is looking into heaven. “I shan’t walk home, Eve. By rights I should slink, because I’ve broken my oath. But—I—shan’t—slink. I think I shall dance, Eve . . . dance, leap, run . . . give silver to the beggars I meet . . . shout . . . because you love me . . . because of the stars in your eyes and the flower they call your mouth.” Eve flung back her beautiful head and closed her eyes. The smile on her parted lips was not of this world. “You ask if I love you. I love the lisp of your footfalls and the print of your tiny feet. I love the rustle of your gown and the silence your laughter breaks. All that you do I love—because you do it . . . you . . . Eve . . . my princess. . . .”

He kissed her lips.

“I’m very happy,” said Eve. “I hope you are.”

Broke picked her up in his arms.

“You wicked child,” he said.

“Witch, princess, child,” said Eve, with an arm round his neck. “Which will you marry?”

“The child,” said Jeremy Broke.

“That’s right,” said Eve. “The others have served their turn. The stick to persuade you to jump: the sceptre to dazzle your vision.” She fell to stroking his hair. “I’m really more of an artist than I thought. Looking back, I wonder I had the courage to be so indecent. Of course, I was desperate. Still . . .”

“It is the prerogative of royalty.”

Eve made a maddening mouth.

“Diplomat!” she said. Then—“As a matter of fact, stacks of us do it all the time, darling. But I never thought I should.”

The two were married one brilliant June morning, full of the airs and graces of a belated spring. Broke received twelve presents, Miss Carew six hundred and four: such is the power of money. The former had already resigned his ghost of a job and was earning much less than a living by plying his pen. From this Eve sought to dissuade him, but the man was resolute. Marriage had brought him a livery more gorgeous than any he could win, but he would stand upon his own shoe-leather.

Jeremy Broke was thirty and of a cheerful countenance. His grey eyes were set well apart, and his forehead was broad. His nostrils were sensitive, his mouth firm and shapely, his thick brown hair well-ordered, his head carried high. He was tall, and his shoulders were square. He had good hands, and cared for them as a man should. His manners were above reproach: his style, that of a gentleman. So were his instincts. . . .

He brought his wife no debts. He sold his great-grandfather’s chronometer to pay such expenses of the wedding as are usually met by the groom; and, once married, that the money they spent was not his he made most evident. Friends, acquaintances, strangers, servants—none must credit him with Eve’s wealth. He did not insist upon the truth—go about shouting ‘It’s hers’: but the things that were Cæsar’s unto Cæsar he scrupulously rendered. Most of all was he careful in private to assume no whit of that authority which riches give. He never stooped: but he never sat in her seat. It was impossible not to revere feeling so fine. His wife found it worshipful—with tears in her eyes.

Eve Malory Broke was a very striking example of the Creator’s art. Her features were beautiful, and she was perfectly made. The curves of her neck and shoulders, her slender white wrists, her slim silk stockings and the shining arches of her feet—these and other points lifted her straight into the champion class. She was lithe of body and light as air in the dance. The grace of her form and movement were such as Praxiteles rejoiced to turn to stone. You would have said that only an etching-needle could catch her very delicate dignity—but for one thing. That was her colouring. Her great brown eyes and the red-gold splendour of her amazing hair, the warm rose of her cheeks and the cream of her exquisite skin—never was leaping vitality more brilliantly declared. Old Masters would have gone mad about her. Adam would have eaten out of her hand. In a word, she became her name.

A warm, impulsive nature, rich in high qualities and puny faults, made her a wife to be very proud of, to love to distraction and occasionally to oppose. . . .

After doing their best to spoil one another for nearly ten months, Eve and Jeremy had their first pitched battle in Rome one tearful April morning. . . .

“In other words,” said the former silkily, “I can’t carry my liquor.”

“I never said or suggested such a thing. For all I know, you could drink me under the table.”

“Then what’s the point of your protest?”

Short-skirted, perched upright on a table, her knees crossed, one admirable leg slowly swinging, her beautiful fingers drumming deliberately upon the table’s edge, Eve was superb. If her wonderful hair had been about her shoulders, she might have sat to a Greuze and furnished gaping posterity with a new ideal.

Jeremy swallowed.

“I think it’s a pity,” he said, “deliberately to put off what so very few women have.”

“What’s that?”

“Your ladyship.”

Eve raised her brown eyes to heaven.

“Because I drink two cocktails instead of one——”

“It’s tough,” said Jeremy. “It’s a tough thing to do. A woman’s supposed to drink, not because she likes it, but because it’s the fashion or because she needs bucking up. Very well. It’s the fashion to drink a cocktail before your dinner. To that fashion women subscribe—many, perhaps, cheerfully, but that’s their business. If they make a meal of it—ask for a second helping—the assumption or fiction that they’re following a fashion is gone and they’re merely advertising an appetite which isn’t particularly becoming to a man, but actually degrades a woman whoever she is.”

“I’m much obliged,” said Eve. “ ‘Tough’ and ‘degraded.’ I am a topper, aren’t I? I suppose you realize that this is 1930.”

“If you mean I’m old-fashioned, I admit it. I don’t like to see a girl drink. But that’s beside the point. I mayn’t like the fashion, but I don’t shout about it. You can’t curse anyone for toeing the line. But I think it’s a thousand pities to overstep it.”

Eve smote upon the table with the flat of her pretty hand.

“You don’t seem able to see,” she cried, “that you’re blowing a whole gale about nothing at all—nothing. Because there’s a cocktail going spare and I’m fool enough to give it a home, d’you seriously suggest that I shall be branded as a sot? One swallow doesn’t make a drunkard.”

“That’s better,” said Jeremy, smiling. “That’s the way to talk. And of course I don’t, sweetheart. I’m not such a fool. But . . . You are so attractive, Eve, so—so dazzling, you set such a very high standard of sweetness that when you do something that brings us down to earth we’ve got such a long way to fall. A taste for liquor seems so much worse in you——”

“But I haven’t a taste for liquor. I hate it. I don’t care whether I drink a cocktail or not. Yes, I do. I’d much rather drink water.”

“I know you would,” cried Broke; “but no one else does. And when, to put it plainly, you have a couple, then——”

“Everyone knows I don’t drink.”

“But you do . . . you are . . . you’re inviting attention to the fact. Thoughtlessly, idly, of course. You don’t care a damn about liquor: but by having a second cocktail you’re declaring your liking for drink.”

“I don’t agree,” said Eve, “but supposing I am. Why shouldn’t I like my liquor?”

“I’ve tried to point out,” said Jeremy wearily, “that a taste for liquor doesn’t become you. But I think in your heart you know that. What you won’t see is that to drink two cocktails is tough.”

“I confess I can’t,” said Eve. “What’s more, I propose to drink two more to-night.”

“Look here,” said Broke, deliberately ignoring the glove. “It used to be the fashion to wear short skirts, usedn’t it? Very well. You subscribed to the fashion and wore them, too. But you didn’t exaggerate that fashion—turn out in a dress that stopped half-way to your knees, did you?”

“What d’you think?” said his wife.

“Some girls did.”

“Some.”

“Exactly,” cried Broke. “And because they went beyond the dictates of Fashion, they were properly judged to be tough.”

“That didn’t make them tough. They were tough already, or they wouldn’t have done it.”

Jeremy spread out his hands.

“Out of your own mouth . . .” he said. “Only tough people do tough things; or, in other words, tough things are only done by tough people.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Then—

“Right-oh,” said Eve. “I’m tough. And just to leave no doubt upon the subject I’m going to drink two and probably three cocktails to-night. If as a result I get tight, it’ll be your privilege to escort me upstairs and apply the usual restoratives. Really,” she added, raising her delicate arms and stretching luxuriously, “it’s a great thought that if I like to exceed I shall be properly cared for. A minute ago I was wondering why I’d married you, but at least a tame missioner has his points. Even if you do choke him off, it’s his job to return good for evil.”

Jeremy turned to the window.

“Are you trying,” he said, “to get a rise?”

“No,” said Eve calmly. “I never attempt to accomplish a fait accompli.”

“Why d’you call me a missioner and talk about choking me off? You know it’s unfair and uncivil.”

“I don’t consider it unfair, and whether it’s civil or not doesn’t concern me.”

“Then it should,” said Broke shortly. “And in future I’ll be glad if it does. I’m not rude to you, and I see no reason why you should be rude to me.”

Eve laughed musically.

“You have been most offensive,” she said. “Familiarity breeds contempt, I know. Still, one likes it to be veiled. At least, I do. You might make a note of that. And next time you feel impelled to review my manners . . .”

“Eve, Eve, why do you speak like this?”

“In the hope that you’ll understand. If we’re to continue to live together, I advise you to pull up your socks. Because it amuses me to let you hold the reins——”

Jeremy turned.

“You’re determined to force my hand,” he said quietly. “I beg that in future you will take only one cocktail before a meal.”

Eve raised her eyebrows and sighed.

“Your request is refused,” she said.

“Must I make it an order?”

Mrs. Broke stared.

“An order?” she said, rising.

“An order . . . which I shall enforce.”

Jeremy watched the blood mount to the glorious temples, the exquisite lips tighten, the red glow of anger steal into the great brown eyes.

He continued evenly.

“I am determined that my wife shall not cheapen herself. I’ve entreated in vain; I’ve used argument, and it’s failed; and so I must use—power.”

“Power?” breathed the girl. “Power? . . . When you make enough money to pay your washing-bills . . .”

Jeremy stiffened suddenly and went very pale.

With a hammering heart, his wife stood still as death.

For a moment he spoke no word. Then—

“I’m going out,” he said shortly. “Don’t wait for lunch. I shan’t be back till seven. I shall come back then—this time. But if ever you say such a thing again or anything like it, I shall walk right out for good.”

He picked up his hat and coat and passed out of the room. . . .

Rome has much to offer. She offered much to Broke that April morning. But all he took was the aged Appian Way, tramping this steadily with an empty pipe between his teeth and the thin rain playing on his face. He had no eyes for his flank-guards, no thoughts for the pomp of traffic that had swept or stalked or stumbled over his present path to build a world. He was aware only of a proud, passionate face, angry, yet exquisite in anger—the face of a spoiled child.

Sixteen miles he covered before he returned to the hotel, hungry and healthily tired, but with a clear brain and steadfast heart.

He had been checking and weighing many things. He had reviewed his married life, faced the mistakes he had made and steeled himself to pay for every one of them. He had found himself wanting in patience, slow to make due allowance, visiting Eve with ills which his own shortcomings had begotten. More. The bill his heart had run up was truly formidable. To do his darling pleasure he had let everything rip for month after flashing month. He had smiled at this extravagance, abetted that whim, encouraged that vanity. They had drifted—gone as they pleased. The trivial round had been bought off; the common task compounded with. Discipline had become a dead letter; indulgence, Lord of Misrule. . . . And it was his fault. She was a child and—she had great possessions; so Life and Love had become two excellent games, effortless, fruitful. Indubitably it was his fault. He should have pointed the child, steadied her, used his experience. His failure was inexcusable, because he had been through the mill, seen that Life, at any rate, was no game—a stroll or a struggle, perhaps, according as Fate laid down, but not a game. The pity was they might have strolled so pleasantly. . . .

Jeremy had also reviewed the recent affray. He had decided that he had been clumsy, quick to anger and blunt. But he was perfectly certain, first, that his contention had been sound, and, secondly, that his withdrawal was wholly justified. Moreover, cost what it might, if ever again Eve laid such a whip across his shoulders, he would have to go. Had he been less punctilious, had he ever given his wife the slightest cause, it would have been different. As it was, to condone such usage would be fatal. Her respect for him, his respect for himself, would rapidly bleed to death, and Happiness would shrivel like a fallen leaf. There would, in fact, be nothing at all to stay for—unless one cared for Love with his tongue in his cheek. . . .

That she had drawn such a whip had opened Broke’s eyes. He had been hurt—naturally; but he was far more concerned. Ten months ago . . . Jeremy blamed himself very much indeed. He was, of course, most deeply in love with his wife. . . .

And she with him.

When he came in that evening she flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears.

“What do you think of me?” she wailed. “I must have been mad. You are so wonderful, Jeremy, so wonderfully sweet about it all: and then I take up your sweetness and slash you across the face. Jeremy boy, you’ve got a cad for a wife.”

Jeremy kissed her hair.

“My lady,” he said. “My darling.”

Eve shook her glorious head.

“No,” she said. “No lady. Don’t call me that again. I’ve done the unspeakable thing. I know it. If you’d given me cause, it would’ve been the grossest form. But as things are . . .” She drew away and passed a hand over her eyes. “I think I must be possessed, Jeremy. Of course I hadn’t a leg—about the drinks, I mean. You were perfectly right. But I can mend that. I’ll never touch a cocktail again as long as I live. But I can’t mend the other.”

“It’s mended,” said Jeremy, taking her hands in his. “I made you mad as a hornet. I didn’t mean to, dear, but I’m clumsy, you know. Well, when you’re mad, you just pick up the first brick. You don’t care what it’s made of or what it is. The point is it’s something to heave.”

Eve looked him in the face.

“There was a label on that brick—‘Not to be Thrown,’ ” she said. “We’ve all got two or three bricks labelled like that—‘Do Not Touch,’ ‘Dangerous.’ . . . I think from what you said that brick is marked ‘Dangerous’ too.”

Jeremy bowed his head.

“Yes.”

“Jeremy,” said Eve, “you’ve something I haven’t got—thousands of things, of course, but especially one. And that’s my respect.”

Her husband smiled.

Then he extended his arms and brought her face to his chin.

“You’ve got mine, any way,” he said.

“Rot.”

Jeremy nodded solemnly.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “you never lost it. If you could have seen yourself. . . .”

“A sulky child,” said Eve.

“No,” said Broke. “A—a princess.”

“That’s not what you married.”

“I know. But that was your fault. You went and gave me my choice.”

A mischievous look stole into the big brown eyes.

“What a fool I was,” said Eve and put up her mouth.

If the Brokes had slid back for ten months, for the next six they went steadily forward, hand in hand. It was the strangest progress. Luxury, Idleness, Ease certainly came behind, but dutifully, as servants should. A jovial Discipline jogged by their side. Respect and Self-Respect marched solemnly ahead.

Jeremy did admirably.

Eve had never been mouthed—and she was twenty-six. She was worth twenty thousand pounds a year. Finally, she was American. . . .

With infinite patience, with gentleness, firmly her husband went to work—helping his wife, helping himself, helping his wife to help him and always giving her the glory. Eve gave it back always, with a look in her eyes that money cannot buy.

The vanities of a wicked world were against her, but her love and respect for Jeremy beat them back. She began to see the smile on Discipline’s face, look for his cheerful wink, glow before his bluff praise.

One November morning Jeremy woke to find her fully dressed.

This was unusual. That one’s fast should be broken in bed was one of the articles of Mrs. Broke’s faith.

So soon as her husband could speak, he asked what was wrong.

After a while, a child told him her tale.

“You remember that poor man yesterday I gave half a crown to? Well, what’s half a crown to me? It wasn’t giving him anything really. I mean, I wasn’t missing anything. It wasn’t hurting me. So I thought if this morning I got up at seven o’clock. . . . It sounds silly, because it hasn’t done him any good. But he did have his half-crown, and I—— Well, I’m glad I’m up now, but I do hope it was a deserving case, Jeremy. . . .”

Her husband slid out of bed and picked up her hand.

“I take my hat off,” he said uncertainly.

And, as is so often the way, two days later the pretty pilgrims’ progress came to a violent end.

It was a bleak afternoon, with a sky of concrete and a wind that cut like a lash.

Eve, who had been to the dressmaker’s, was sitting before the fire, reflecting comfortably that in ten days’ time she and Jeremy would be in the South of France.

Her husband entered quickly.

“Sorry I’m late, my darling, but when he’d finished with me he said he was going south, and I was fool enough to offer to drive him down. You know what these artists are. Five-and-twenty minutes he kept me waiting.” He stooped and kissed her. “And—and I’ve a confession to make.”

“Go on,” said Eve, smiling.

“I’ve done it again, Eve.”

“What?”

Jeremy stepped to the fire.

“Got stopped in the Park.”

“Jeremy!”

“I’m awfully sorry, dear. It’s a kind of disease with me.”

“But you gave me your word——”

“I know. I’m frightfully sorry. I wasn’t thinking about speed. As a matter of fact, I was talking to Hudibras. And then, just as I was going to switch out of Clarence Gate, they pulled me up. Perfectly ridiculous, of course. The road was clear.”

“That’s hardly the point,” said Eve coldly.

“I know, I know.” He paused. Then: “Of course, you’ll think I’m mad, but—Eve, ten minutes later I did it again.”

His wife sat up.

“Again?”

Jeremy swallowed.

“Again,” he said uncomfortably. “Down Constitution Hill. I tell you, Eve, I could hardly believe my eyes. Just as I got to the Palace, out they stepped. Thirty-three miles an hour. They’re perfectly right.”

“And you promised to keep to twenty.”

“I know. I’m frightfully sorry. It just shows——”

Eve laughed.

“It shows you don’t care a damn. I’ve begged and prayed you just for my sake to go slow. You know why. Because I’m worried to death when you’re out alone. You know it. Over and over again you’ve given your word.”

Jeremy stared upon the floor.

“I’ll give up driving,” he said.

“I don’t care what you do. The damage is done. I begged, you swore, and now you’ve broken your word. If the police hadn’t stopped you, I should never have known. The obvious inference is that you’re breaking it all the time.”

“I haven’t really, Eve. I’ve crawled about. But to-day I got talking, and——”

“Why,” said Eve, “should I believe you? What does it matter whether I do or not? Day in, day out, I try to do what you want. I’m sick and tired of trying to do your will. Yet I keep on because it amuses you—amuses you to see me cramp my style. God knows why. It’s a funny form of love. But that’s by the way. I try. I sweat and grunt and slave—for peace in our time. . . . And you stand over me and keep my nose to the stone. . . . I’m not like that. It wouldn’t amuse me to put you through the hoop. Only one wretched favour I’ve ever asked: and that I asked because I loved you.”

“I know,” said Broke. “I’m sorry. I’ve no excuse. But don’t lay on so hard, Eve. You know it doesn’t amuse me to——”

“Then why do you do it?” said Eve. “Don’t say ‘Out of love,’ or I shall burst.”

“I do what I do,” said Broke, “because I want you to get the most out of Life.”

“Oh, let us pray.”

Jeremy bit his lip.

“You do it,” continued his wife, “to assert your authority. If the money was yours and not mine, you’d have the whip-hand. As it isn’t, you play the priest, trade on my better feelings, take advantage of my love—I didn’t marry you for that, you know.”

“You will please,” said Jeremy, “take that back at once.”

His wife stared.

“You’re out for trouble,” she said. “Well, here it is—hot and strong. I said I didn’t marry you for that. Well, I don’t pay you for that, either.”

Without a word, Jeremy left the room.

Ten minutes later he passed out of the house.

For month after halting month Eve carried on. The girl hoped desperately that Jeremy would return. If he did, he should find her soul swept and garnished. She dressed soberly, spent so much and no more, rose always at eight. She kept the same state, but entertained the less fortunate, was always lending her cars. When she saw some object she fancied, she asked the price and gave the amount to charity. Herein she was scrupulous. A chinchilla stole attracted her very much. Still, her sables were perfect. Besides . . . After careful reflection she decided that but for Jeremy’s teaching she would have bought the fur and wrote a cheque for the sick for four hundred pounds.

She made no search for her husband—not because she was proud, but because she felt that it was vain. If he was coming he would come. If he was not . . . Had she stumbled across him, she would have begged and prayed. But look she would not. She had no doubt at all that she was up against Fate. And Jeremy had always said that Fate didn’t like you to try to force his hand. ‘So sure as you do, my lady, you lose your labour.’

She often wondered why she had lost her head that bitter afternoon. After all, to exceed a limit was not a grave offence. He was careful in traffic, no doubt: and then, slipping into the Park, he hurried along. Besides, he was only hastening back to her. . . . And he had been so humble.

Eve decided that she had been possessed. Some malignant devil had entered into her soul, distorting truth, ranting of motes and beams, raising a false resentment of a fictitious injury.

To say that she missed him is to call Leviathan a fish. Only the fetish that she must do his will saved her alive. The night of his going she lifted up her head, shook the tears from her eyes, and answered two letters that she had left too long. . . .

And now four months had gone by. . . .

Sitting before the fire, Eve thought of the past with blank, see-nothing eyes. For the millionth time she wondered where Jeremy was, how he was faring, what he was doing to live. Never had riches seemed so empty, luxury so drear as they had seemed since she had been alone. The thought that, as like as not, he was going hungry tore at her heart. . . .

She picked up the paper to try to distract her thoughts.

Staring straight at her was the advertisement of The St. James’s Review. This was announcing the contents of the current issue. Third on the list was:

BABEL . . . . Jeremy Broke.

A child fell upon the telephone. . . .

A sub-editor or someone was speaking.

“I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to give his address, but if you write him a letter care of this office, it will be sent on at once.”

“All right,” said Eve. “Thank you.”

A child’s letter went off by messenger within half an hour.

My Darling Jeremy,

I would like to come to you if you will tell me where you are. I have tried very hard to do what you would have liked ever since you went, and if you had been here I should have been very happy. Please let me come, because, if you don’t, I don’t think I shall be able to go on. I would try, of course, but I think I should break. I’ve tried to write calmly, darling, but I shall be very glad to hear as soon as you can. Oh, Jeremy, my precious, I suppose you couldn’t wire.

Your very loving

Eve.

No sooner had the letter been dispatched than a terror that it would miscarry flung into Eve’s heart. She saw it being mislaid, forgotten, let to join the faded habitués of some dusty mantelpiece. Of course she should have marked it ‘Important,’ enclosed it in a note to the editor saying how serious it was, asking for it to be expressed or sent by hand. Then, at least, he would have taken action. Besides, it was serious—desperately so: and urgent—most urgent. Yet she had done nothing to accelerate a reply—nothing. What a fool she was! She had certainly asked him to wire, but why not to telephone? If the letter had gone to him by hand and he were to have telephoned. . . .

The tide of apprehensive impatience rose to an intolerable height. . . .

Eve rose to her feet and stood twisting her fingers.

After a moment, trembling a little, she stepped to the telephone. . . .

“Oh, I rang up a little while ago and asked for Mr. Broke’s address—Mr. Jeremy Broke. And you said—I think I spoke to you—you said that if I sent a letter——”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, I’ve just sent you a letter by hand, but I ought to have marked it ‘Important’ and—and . . . Well, I really should have enclosed it in a note to you because it’s very urgent, and I would like it sent on by messenger-boy if you could do it. At once—to-night, I mean. You see——”

“I don’t think he’s in London. Wait a minute.” The voice became almost inaudible. Frantically Eve strained her ears. . . . “Broke. Jeremy Broke—fellow that wrote Babel . . . messenger-boy. . . . Rome, isn’t it? Poste Restante, Rome. . . .” The voice returned to the mouthpiece. “No. I’m afraid—— Hullo! Are you there? . . . Hullo . . . Hullo . . .”

After a moment or two the speaker replaced his receiver with a sigh.

“Cut off,” he said wearily. “Never mind. She’ll ring up again.”

He was quite wrong.

He had had his last conversation with Mrs. Broke.

The latter was already preparing to leave for Italy. . . .

Two days later the lady had reached Rome and was being rapidly driven to the Ritz Hotel. Purposely she avoided the Grand, where she and Jeremy had stayed—centuries ago.

She passed into the hall and up to the polished bureau.

The reception-clerk was busy—speaking into the telephone.

“Oui, madame. . . . Parfaitement. . . . Jusqu’à samedi prochain les deux, et après samedi les trois avec un salon en suite. . . . C’est entendu, madame. . . . Merci.”

He left the instrument, stooped to make an entry and turned with an apology to Eve.

“Hullo, Jeremy,” said his wife.

At half-past eight that evening Jeremy Broke, Gentleman, entered the Grand Hotel and sent up his name.

His head was aching, and he felt rather tired.

He wondered dully what this dinner with Eve would bring forth. The great gulf fixed between them seemed exceeding wide: everything was insisting upon its width. Not since the day on which he had left her house had he been used as a gentleman: now he was treated with respect—which her wealth had induced. A page she would presently tip was dancing attendance; here was the pomp of a salon which she had purchased; there was champagne waiting for which she would pay. . . .

As the door closed behind him, another was opened, and Eve in a plain black frock came into the room.

“Oh, Jeremy.”

He went to her quickly and kissed her hands and lips.

The big brown eyes searched his steadily.

He smiled back. . . .

“What is it, Jeremy? Why are you playing up?”

Jeremy dropped her fingers and turned away.

“The burnt child,” he said slowly, “dreads the fire.”

“Are you sorry I came?”

“Oh, Eve.”

He drew in his breath sharply, hesitated and fell to playing with his moustache. . . .

Dinner was served.

The meal did much for both of them, as meals can. Jeremy’s headache passed, and Eve was refreshed. The flesh being fortified, the spirit lifted up its head.

By the time the servants had withdrawn they were exchanging news with zest. . . .

“So, really,” concluded Jeremy, settling himself in a chair, “I’ve—I’ve done very well. It’s a most entertaining job—smoothing down the indignant, humouring the whimsical, bluffing the undesirable, assisting the helpless, shepherding the vague. . . . I never had the faintest idea how many remarkable people are floating around. We had a fellow one day who stayed for six weeks. He went to bed when he arrived and he never got up. For six solid weeks he stayed in his bed. Nothing the matter with him. No suggestion of ill health. It was just his way of life. He did it wherever he went. Chauffeur and valet kicking their heels all day. He wouldn’t have the valet in his room except to shave him. Said he didn’t like his face. Then one day he got up and left for Naples. . . . I got off once—with an old English lady. She had a courier and two maids and travelled her own bath. She used to be ringing me up the whole day long, and she never went out or came in without speaking to me. It was most embarrassing. She gave me a cheque, when she left, for a hundred pounds. I tore it up, of course. . . .”

“You would,” said Eve.

“Well, I couldn’t take money like that.”

“Plenty of people do.”

“Yes, but . . .”

Eve leaned forward.

“She wanted you to have it, Jeremy. She was rich, and it gave her pleasure to spend her money like that. Your conscience was clear.”

Jeremy shifted in his chair.

“It wouldn’t ’ve been,” he said, “if I’d frozen on to it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t deserve it.”

“Wasn’t that a matter for her?”

The man hesitated. Then—

“I just couldn’t take it,” he said.

“Because it was a tip?”

“Oh, no. If it had been a fiver—well, I suppose I’d been attentive and I’ve no false pride.”

“Then why,” said Eve, “why did you turn it down?”

Jeremy laughed.

“I’m damned if I know,” he said. “But it couldn’t be done.”

Eve lay back in her chair and crossed her legs.

“Shall I tell you?” she said. “Because you’re a gentleman. You thought she’d lost her head—she probably had: and you weren’t going to take advantage of a runaway heart. . . . That hundred pounds was Cæsar’s: you rendered it whence it came.”

Broke got upon his feet and turned to the mantelpiece.

Presently he took out a pipe and a well-worn pouch.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said slowly.

After a long look Eve lowered her eyes to the floor.

“You got off once before, Jeremy—nearly three years ago now.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy, pressing tobacco home.

“Did you think I’d lost my head?”

“No.”

“Or that to take my money would be taking advantage of my heart?”

“No.”

“Yet you rendered it to Cæsar—every cent.” She leapt to her feet and caught the lapels of his coat. “Every rotten cent that the good God had given us to make us happy you rendered unto Cæsar, as though it were Cæsar’s. And it wasn’t Cæsar’s, Jeremy. It was ours—yours and mine. . . .” Her voice broke, and the tears came into her eyes. “I was so happy, dear, to think I was rich, because I felt I’d got something worth sharing—which you would share. I was so proud and happy. . . . And then—you—wouldn’t—share—it. . . . Well, at first I was dismayed, as children are. You married a child, you know. . . . I tell you, I was ready to cry for disappointment. And then, suddenly, I saw something very magnificent—unearthly handsome, Jeremy, in your refusal. It was something so bright and shining that I couldn’t think of anything else. I found you were paying me a compliment for all the world to see such as no woman with money had ever been paid before. . . . Well, I’m vain. And the childish impulse to burst into tears was swallowed up in pride to think that I had for my husband so fine a gentleman. I found it so flattering, Jeremy: I was just drunk with vanity. And so I became a princess—you made me one, dear: and the child that you married disappeared. . . . And with the child disappeared the idea of sharing—a princess doesn’t share. That it was our money never occurred to me again. I had no eyes for such an idea. Every hour of every day you showed me that it was mine. And I came to prize its possession because it had brought me this superb allegiance. I sank to be a queen, Jeremy: and dragged you down to be the keeper of my purse . . . you . . . And then a day came when the queen became imperious—high with her faithful servant . . . thought him presumptuous . . . rose in the dignity he’d given her and asked who paid him to keep the privy purse.” There was a long silence. Presently Eve went on. “And then a strange thing happened. You went, of course. But so did the queen, Jeremy. So did the pride and vanity and all the false position you had built up. And if you could have seen what was left, you’d ’ve seen a child crying—because it had no playmate to share its pretty toys. . . . I say the false position you had built up. Jeremy lad, it’s true. I let you build it, of course. I gave you the bricks. If I hadn’t been so vain—so hellishly vain, I’d ’ve caught your arm at the beginning and stopped the rot. You built so faithfully, Jeremy—with the cleanest, honestest heart. And I watched you and let you build and thought how wonderful it was. And all the time you were rendering our happiness to Cæsar. He’s had four months of it already, four long, matchless months out of our little treasure. Oh, Jeremy, Jeremy, you’re not going to give him any more?”

Jeremy caught her to him and held her close.

“My eloquent darling,” he said, with his cheek against hers. “But you’ve forgotten my sex. A man——”

“You’d ’ve married me if I’d been poor?”

“You know I would.”

“It was because I was rich that you wouldn’t speak?”

“Yes.”

“It was the child you wanted to play with—not her toys?”

“Yes.”

“Why, then your honour is clean. And it’ll always be clean—so long as you’d play with the child if she had no toys. . . . You wouldn’t want me to throw my toys away—I’ve always had them to play with. Yet how d’you think I feel when the child I’ve picked to be my playfellow won’t share my pretty toys?”

“I wonder,” said Jeremy slowly, “I wonder whether you’re right. ‘Unto Cæsar.’ You mean I’ve been paying conscience-money—which I never owed?”

Eve nodded.

The man put her gently aside and began to pace the room.

Slight fingers to mouth, Eve watched him, as one watches the flow of a crisis which one is powerless to treat. Her face was calm, and she stood like statuary: only the rise and fall of her breast betrayed her hammering heart. Her brain was straining frantically to perceive the line she would have to take. She had moved him—shaken him plainly. Everything in the world was depending on how she handled the next thing Jeremy said. . . .

Suddenly he swung round.

“Eve, if I come back, my livelihood’s gone. And I mayn’t be quite so lucky . . . another time.”

His wife stood up.

“You go too fast, Jeremy. I’ve suffered, you know—most terribly. And I can’t go through it again.” She hesitated. “Before you come back, you must promise . . . to play with my toys.”

For a long minute Jeremy stood regarding his wife.

Then suddenly he smiled—the smile of a man who has suddenly come upon the truth.

He stepped to Eve and put his arms about her.

“What a fool I’ve been,” he said. “What a blinking, blear-eyed fool. Of course, it’s partly your fault. You gave me my choice when you had no choice to give.”

“What do you mean, Jeremy?”

“You asked me which I would marry—the child or the witch or the princess. Well, I couldn’t pick and choose. I had to marry the three—or none at all.”

“But——”

“Listen. When you’re a child, I’ll play with your pretty toys: when you’re a witch, I’ll—I’ll play with your beautiful hair: and when you’re a princess. . . .”

“Yes, yes,”—eagerly.

“Why, then,” said Jeremy proudly, “I’ll play the prince.”

A glorious smile swept into his darling’s face.

“And they lived happily,” she breathed.

Jeremy nodded.

“Ever after,” he whispered.

SIMON

SIMON

“Oh, Simon dear,” said Patricia, “why aren’t you rich?”

“If it comes to that,” said Simon ruefully, “why are you poor? You’ve less excuse than I have. At least, your mother was an American.”

“Yes, but she married for love—and got cut off for it. Which is why her poor little girl must marry money.”

Simon Beaulieu regarded the firmament. This was arrayed in black and silver. There was no moon: only the countless stars at all lightened the darkness, their dim, peculiar radiance turning the countryside into a kingdom of dreams. As though to indorse such witchcraft, the strains of a distant valse stole in and out of earshot, rising and falling into the trough of Silence, intoning a love-sick litany and rendering exquisitely the mystery of the hour. The air was magically still and quick with the sweet perfume of new-mown hay. Midsummer Night had come to Castle Breathless in all her glory.

“You know,” said Simon, extracting a cigarette, “I dare say it’s just as well. We think we’re suited, but we probably aren’t. If we joined up, we should probably scrap like hell.”

“I doubt it,” said Patricia, slipping a bare arm through his. “You’ve got your faults, of course: and so have I. But they’re—they’re quite bearable, Simon.”

“It isn’t a question of faults,” said Simon slowly. “I love your faults, Pat. . . . It’s a question of temperament. You know. Everything in the garden looks lovely—so long as you’re outside. If we got in, it might be a very different shout. Supposing you didn’t like the colour of my vests.”

“I’m sure I should,” said Patricia solemnly. “And if I didn’t, they could easily be dyed.”

“Yes, but I shouldn’t want them dyed. You see? You’d say you couldn’t stick them, and I should retort that I had to wear the swine, an’ before we knew where we were we should be in over our knees.”

Patricia Bohun frowned.

“What colour are they?” she demanded.

“A warm biscuit,” said Simon.

“You must look maddening,” said Patricia. “And I like biscuit very much. So you see it’s all nonsense to say we shouldn’t get on.”

“Yes, I knew that was coming,” said Simon. “That was easy. But you know what I mean, Pat. Life’s rather like a film, and a friendship like ours is like a jolly good act. But marriage is a ‘close-up.’ Well, I don’t say ours wouldn’t ’ve come off: but there are plenty that don’t.”

“D’you honestly think that our marriage would have been less successful than those we propose to make?”

“I don’t propose——”

“Yes, you do. Simon, you can’t let me down. You’re going to marry Estelle.”

“I can’t bear it,” said Simon. “She’s so—so fidgety. Always chucking herself about. You’re so calm, Pat. . . . Besides, she wouldn’t look at me.”

“Well, she’s looked at you pretty hard for the last twelve months,” said Patricia sagely. “Besides, you can but try. If she says ‘No,’ well, then, you’ve done your bit. But it’d make it easier for me. I’d like to feel we were both in the same old boat. I know I’ve got your love, but then I’d have your understanding too. I’d feel you knew what it meant. I don’t want you to be unhappy, Simon dear: but I think you’d be less unhappy if you were married. And—and it’d be putting two hedges between us, instead of only one. . . . You see, when I marry George—as I suppose I shall: we’re supping together, and you know what that means. . . . Well, when I marry George, that won’t wash you out. I’ll be bound to think of you. And if I think of you single, unmarried—available, Simon, it’ll be ten times as hard to chase you out of my mind. And I want to play the game. One may have to marry for money, but at least one can honour one’s bond. . . . And I think, perhaps, it’d be the same for you. You needn’t marry money, because you’re a man: but three hundred a year isn’t much, and it’s growing less. And in these days. . . . Well, Estelle’s got fifteen thousand. Besides, she’s awfully nice. And if you were married, you’d have a game to play. D’you see, Simon?”

“Yes,” said Simon Beaulieu. “You mean that in love, as in everything else in the world, the positive’s easier to deal with than the negative. Better a Dead Sea apple than only forbidden fruit.”

“And you say we shouldn’t get on!” said Patricia deliberately.

There was a silence.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two stood still as statuary, looking into the night. For such an exercise their coign of vantage was superb. The balustrade before them severed the gardens from the park. This for the most part was walled with rising woods, but here the ground fell sharply into a valley which ran like a giant gutter, straight and clean, to the jaws of Peering Gap. Such was the darkness that the gap was not to be seen, but a starlit scallop of sky showed where it lay.

At length—

“We mightn’t,” said Simon doggedly.

“I mightn’t get on with George. Or you with Estelle.”

“You won’t,” said Simon Beaulieu. “Neither shall I. There won’t be any question of getting on. Our respective unions will be marriages of convenience, business deals. They’ll proceed mechanically, like a couple of cars. Now and again some slight adjustment’ll be made, but, in the ordinary way, so long as they’re watered and fed, they’ll go right on. The chauffeur’ll do his bit and the car’ll do hers. No understanding will be necessary—there’ll be nothing to understand. If you stick to your book of instructions, it’s a fool-proof show. But ours—our marriage would have been like a man on a horse, journeying over the world day in day out, sharing fair weather and foul and getting to know each other inside out. Well, they get on or they don’t—a man and his horse. It’s a question of temperament. And there ain’t no book of the rules for dealin’ with temperaments.”

Patricia laid her head against Simon’s shoulder.

“Yes, there is, dear,” she said. “I’ve studied yours so often. You carry it in your eyes. I wonder if Estelle will be able to read it. I don’t think so. And mine. . . . Haven’t you ever read mine?”

“Pat,” said Simon gently, “don’t make things worse. We agreed to wash Sentiment out.”

“I know, I know. But don’t say we shouldn’t get on. Leave me my pretty dream.”

“All right, lady. I—I dare say we should. But you never can tell,” he added, “and I don’t know that dreams aren’t rather dangerous things.”

“D’you mean that I mustn’t dwell on what might have been?”

“I think you should try not to. I mean, it’s unsettling. After all, we’re not madly in love. I don’t stop breathing when you go out of the room, and you don’t come over queer when I come in.”

“I feel all pleased, Simon.”

“That’s more fellow-feeling than love. I’m a congenial soul. We’ve fitted in very well, and that’s as much as you can say. We don’t give up things for one another. I haven’t pawned my boots to buy you a wrist-watch or soaked in money on flowerets. When I’ve given you dinner——”

“I’ve chosen the place and the play. And you always give me melon because I like it so. And why have you asked me so many, many times?”

“To please myself. You’re a congenial soul.”

Patricia turned and lifted a beautiful leg.

“Can you see?” she demanded, pointing.

“I see your ankle, Pat, and your little foot.”

The girl leaned back against the stone balustrade.

“I dress to please you,” she said. “Even to-night. I put on light stockings to-night, when I should have worn dark. I like dark better, and I’d ’ve been more in the mode. But you like me in light stockings, Simon, and so I put them on. . . . I may be only congenial. I hope to God I am. You’ll get off lighter then. But . . . Well, Simon, it’s pretty obvious that I love you.”

The man’s arms were about her, and his cheek pressed tight against hers.

“Pat, Pat, my precious, you know I’ve been covering up. You know I’m mad about you and always have been. And you know that whatever happens there’ll never be anyone else as long as I live.”

He breathed the words rather than spoke them. His tone, touch, frame were vibrant as any wire.

The girl slid her arms round his neck and held him close.

“I know,” she whispered.

Caress and word seemed to relieve the strain. The man relaxed sensibly. After a moment’s silence he turned and kissed her mouth.

“I blame myself,” he said quietly enough. “I’m older than you, and I shouldn’t have let it go on. I know we’d an understanding—a blessed, faithful agreement, faithfully kept. There never was, I believe, such natural sympathy. But these things bank up, Pat: and, if we weren’t to marry, we should never have been engaged. . . . It was defying Nature. In a way it was our affair, but it was out of joint. It’s been—perfect. . . . But it was out of joint. Well, now that dislocation has got to be reduced. Very good. We knew it must come. Our eyes were open. That was the basis of our understanding—that sooner or later it must end. But I think we forgot—the adhesions . . . the seals that Nature sets upon things that are out of joint. They take some breaking—adhesions. . . . And—they’ve—got to be broken—to-night.” With a sharp sob Patricia drew in her breath; then she let it go pelting and drooped her head. “We’ve played about so far. You know we have. Feinting, ducking, side-stepping, covering up. Well, now we’ve got to mix it and knock Things out.”

The girl clung to him desperately.

“Oh, Simon, I can’t, I can’t. Not all at once like this. I know they’ve got to be broken, but they needn’t be torn. Just once or twice we can be alone again. I shan’t be married at once. Let’s break them gradually, darling. Then I’ll have something to look for—to buoy me up to-night. Life looks so terribly dark, Simon. Let me have just a ray of light. Just once or twice—that’s all. You know. Just a word and a kiss. Don’t smash my world to-night. Even the torturers, Simon, never did things like that. They worked by degrees—gradually, so that the torture could be borne.”

The man smiled into her eyes.

As a moment ago her touch had soothed him, so now her weakness seemed to have made him strong.

“Pat, this isn’t like you. We must keep troth. If we didn’t end it to-night and go down smiling, we should spoil everything. Together we planted the prettiest little flower: and it’s grown so lovely, Pat, and smelled so very sweet: and now—it’s time to pick it. . . . Well, we must pick it properly—not drag it up piecemeal. And then—for ever, think what a memory we’ll have—that we weren’t afraid to pick our pretty flower . . . when it was in full bloom. We’ll be so proud and happy to remember that. It won’t have faded or died. It’ll ’ve been just perfect—all the time. . . . And we must pick it smiling, Pat—just for each other’s sake.”

“Oh, Simon, Simon, I shall break. It’s like Death. I can’t face it.”

“You can with me. We can face anything. What’s death to us, so long as we go out well?”

Patricia lifted her head.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “We—we must go out well.” For a moment her eyes wandered over the heaven. Then they returned to his. She put up a little hand and touched his hair, setting it back from his temples and patting it as she pleased. Then she smiled very tenderly. “Let’s pick our flower now, darling.”

The man smiled back.

For a minute they kissed and clung—while the world rocked. . . . Then he loosened his hold, and she fell away.

He picked up her hand and kissed her finger-tips.

“My beautiful darling,” he said. “My sweet, my sweet.”

Then he leaned back against the stone-work and took out a cigarette.

For a moment he fingered this, smiling thoughtfully.

Then he looked up.

“Pat,” he said, “what about a glass of champagne? Between you and me, I think we’ve earned it.”

“My dear,” said Patricia Bohun, “your brain’s in your head.” They started to stroll towards the mansion. “By the way, did I tell you to back Grey Ruby for the Stewards’ Cup?”

“Who gave you that?” said Beaulieu.

“No one,” said Patricia. “I dreamed it. I dreamed I saw the posters—Stewards’ Cup Result. I was wondering what had won when I woke to see Matilda with my letters and tea. The first letter I opened was from a girl called Ruby Grey.”

Simon grunted.

“I should have a bit on sans doute,” he said lightly. “But these ’ere indications are treacherous things. Look at poor Barley McFinn. Two nights before the St. Leger he dreamed he was giving bananas to a baboon; and as fast as he gave them the brute kept shaking its head and slinging them back. Well, Barley woke up and rushed off and put his binder on Monkey Nut. . . . Well, I don’t know where Monkey Nut finished, but a horse called Peelam won. Barley couldn’t see it for weeks.”

Patricia laughed gaily.

“You’re not a bit like your namesake, Simon,” she said. “He would have plunged. And yet . . .”

“Yet what?”

“In a way you are. I mean . . . Never mind. I’ll leave it there. What’s this they’re playing?”

Conversing evenly, they came to the flagged walk and the windows belching ragtime and blazing lights.

By one consent they turned and looked back into the night.

Then they passed up the steps and joined the carnival.

Let who will throw a stone at Patricia Bohun.

She certainly promised to marry a man whom she did not love. But if George Persimmon believed that such a lady would consent to bear his name for any earthly or heavenly reason other than to share his riches, then he deserved to be confined. But George was no fool. You may take it from me, Sirs, she did her neighbour no wrong. Whether a woman should sell herself is another matter. From the age of twelve Patricia had been schooled—cleverly schooled to take that unpleasant fence. Her aunt, Lady Coblow of Breathless, had not only shown her that she must marry money, but had taken care to surround her with the paraphernalia of wealth. From the age of twelve Patricia had lived and lain soft. Footmen, tiled bathrooms, French cooking, sables, limousines helped to create the atmosphere in which she moved. Use of that sort holds hard. By the time she was twenty-two she had come to regard the idea of parting with Luxury much as she looked upon that of committing suicide—a step taken only by the temporarily insane.

That Beaulieu’s outlook was different is natural enough.

He had no patron to pave his path with gold, and it was all he could do to keep his head above water. The man had gone hungry. Had he stepped out of his world, he might have waxed fat and kicked. But that would have meant leaving every friend that he had—including Patricia Bohun. He worked hard, driving a promising pen, but the promise was shadowy stuff, and his earnings were fitful and slight. It follows that while he perceived the extreme desirability of riches, he knew that they were not essential to life and more than suspected that happiness could be found without them.

Marriage itself Patricia and Simon viewed in much the same light. Wedlock for them was an earthy business, the Solemnization of Matrimony differing but a little from the conveyance of land. In the actual service they saw a fine old tradition well worth preserving in these degenerate days. Had they been bidden to witness a Livery of Seisin they would have gone in the same spirit. I do not know that I blame them. Few of the unions with which they were brought in contact were made in heaven; some were patently home-made; many were fearfully and wonderfully made; while one and all were discussed as worldly engagements the letter of which should not be flagrantly dishonoured. To them the plighting of troth was a common or garden contract and nothing more. It is to their credit that it was nothing less. What lifted them out of the ruck was that to their way of thinking all common or garden contracts were sacred things. Their word once passed must be religiously kept. With the letter they were not concerned; the spirit was the thing. The game had to be played.

Simon did not ask Estelle to become his wife. Had she asked him, he would, I believe, have consented to become her husband. But then, somehow, the doctrine of caveat emptor would have applied. It would have been her look-out. Whereas, if he approached her, his very approach would suggest a regard which he did not feel. Besides . . .

A month limped by.

Patricia and Simon were meeting continually—by chance. From their easy, casual fellowship no one would ever have dreamed that they were in love. But then no one ever had suspected anything. They were just carrying on—with hearts of lead.

Presently the date of Miss Bohun’s wedding was announced and invitations were issued.

Then two things happened—simultaneously.

The first was that Castle Breathless was entered by burglars while the household was at meat. The burglars, however, were disturbed and made good their escape. A footman was knocked down and a maid-servant frightened to death. Apparently Miss Bohun’s bedroom was the only room which had been entered. There a drawer had been forced and a gold bag taken. Curiously enough, the thieves overlooked what they were undoubtedly seeking. This was a magnificent rope of pearls, ‘the gift of the bridegroom,’ which was lying where Miss Bohun had left it upon a bureau.

The second was that Simon in some excitement began to do sums.

For the sake of brevity, let us look over his shoulder.

You see, now, what was in the man’s mind.

That morning had brought him a cheque for seven pounds and a request to be shown the next tale that he wrote. Simon reckoned that he could write three tales a month.

So much for Earned Income.

Simon had just been left three hundred pounds. The money lay at the Bank. If he put it all on Grey Ruby at thirty-three to one and Patricia’s dream came true, Simon would win nine thousand nine hundred pounds.

So much for Grey Ruby.

As for the total, the man shall speak for himself.

“A thousand a year. It isn’t too much, but supposing we lived abroad. Say, Paris. I think she could stick it all right. I think she’d be happy. I believe, in a way, she’d find it rather fun. Of course she’d miss all the show—flunkeys and cars and the rest. We might run to a Citroën. And she could have half a maid. Clothes’d be the snag. We couldn’t put up a fight where clothes were concerned. But if she could rule them out—I don’t think she really cares about anything else. The idea of Life without luxury’s never entered her head. It doesn’t follow that if it did she’d fire it out. I don’t think she would. I don’t think Patricia’s that sort. If it weren’t for the clothes question . . .”

Simon rose to his feet and fell to pacing the room.

“One thing’s clear—a thousand’s the rock-bottom figure. I must make up my mind to that. Under a thousand a year it can’t be done. It could be, of course. We shouldn’t starve on five hundred. But . . . No, a thousand’s the lowest possible. With a thousand I could temper the wind. Unless Grey Ruby comes up and unless I can get thirty-threes . . .

“What’s the alternative? The alternative’s plain hell—for me, any way. I suppose I can plough through, but face it I can’t. I’ve tried and I can’t—can’t pretend to . . . if she was in love with Persimmon, if she was going to be happy—happier than with me—well, I could stomach that. As it is . . . I don’t know why I didn’t see it that night at Breathless. I came pretty near, too. I said we’d defied Nature. But for some fool’s reason I assumed the adhesions could be torn. That that was further defiance I never saw. I suppose I was exalted, drunk with a sort of heroism. That’s all right to die on, because you’re dead before it wears off. You can take a life-sentence with a laugh: but you don’t laugh much when you’re in prison, and after the first month. . . .

“The point is I may have to go on. No, it isn’t. The point is I may have a chance—a chance of being happy and making her happy too. I wish to God she and I could thrash this out. But that’s impossible. For one thing, her opinion’s valueless. Whether she’d be happy, poor, she hasn’t the faintest idea. And so I’ve got to decide for both of us. . . .

“ ‘Got to decide’? The point mayn’t ever arise. Unless she makes a move, everything goes by the board. And as like as not she won’t. . . . Well, then—finish. If she can get through, I must. She’s free to change her mind, but I can’t do another man down. I can’t reopen things. That’s plain. Heaven or burning hell, my mouth’s shut and locked, unless and until she speaks. If she says she can’t go on, an’ if . . .”

He passed to the open window and stood looking down upon the fading street and men as trees walking and lamps beginning to come into their own.

After a little he laughed.

“I’ve lost my balance, I think—leapin’ about like this before I come to the ditch. The first thing I’ve got to do is to raise the wind.”

He sat down then and there and acknowledged his cheque. Then he rough-hewed the themes of another two tales. Finally, he retired—to lie awake until dawn.

That morning he visited a firm of bookmakers.

Grey Ruby, however, was being mentioned. They would not lay him more than twenty-five sovereigns to one.

After a little reflection, Simon wrote them a cheque for four hundred pounds—an act which reduced his balance to eleven pounds ten.

Goodwood was looking superb.

It was a perfect day, airy yet cloudless. Rain had fallen in the night and, stopping at cock-crow, left everything refreshed. Distance was clean-cut. For such as had eyes, the sheep grazing in the valleys made sharp white dots upon the green, the Isle of Wight rode like a ship at anchor between earth and heaven. Background, indeed, had much to answer for, lending the meeting the air of the old prize-ring, rigged like lightning, deep in some unsuspecting dingle of the suspected countryside. The artifice of gardens and playgrounds, jealously kept against the builder’s hand, had here no place. Time had stepped back into an England where men passed out of doors on to the open road and, lifting up their eyes, beheld more meads than bricks and woods than mortar, where parishes were worlds and London Town was half a fairy-tale.

After a last look at Grey Ruby, Beaulieu strolled out of the Paddock and back to the Lawn. There he encountered Miss Bohun almost at once.

“Where’s George?” he said, taking her hand.

“In bed with a touch of the sun. It’s nothing serious. I want to go to the Paddock. Will you come with me?”

The man hesitated before complying.

Patricia knew him so well that, unless he could smother his feelings as never before, she would be certain to see that something unusual was afoot. Then she would question him: and Beaulieu did not want to be questioned—till after the Cup had been won.

He need have felt no concern.

As they passed to the back of the Paddock—

“Simon, I’m up against it.”

The man braced himself. The time was not yet.

“Hush, my lady. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Listen. You don’t understand. It’s—it’s not what you think, Simon.” The man looked at her sharply. “I’m in the most awful trouble. I’m—I’m being blackmailed.”

“Blackmailed?”

The girl slid a letter into his hand.

“Read that,” she said. “Sit down here and read it. And then come and find me again. I’ll be in front of the weighing-room.”

Simon lifted his hat and turned away.

Mechanically he took a few steps: then he sat down on a seat and tilted his hat over his eyes.

12, Clock Lane,

Crutched Friars.

July 29th.

Dear Miss Bohun,

The object of my visit to Castle Breathless two evenings ago was, as our valuable Press has rightly surmised, to obtain possession of your pearls. That I failed was not my fault. My arrangements were perfect, but the car bringing three of my men broke down on the way, so that two had to try to perform the duties of five. It seems I might still have succeeded if I had used my eyes. Indeed, that the rope was awaiting collection would be a disturbing thought, but for my foresight in taking with me the letter which lay in the drawer which I had time to force. You remember. The one addressed to Mr. Beaulieu.

I think you would like this back. At least, I do not think you would like it to go to Mr. Persimmon. You may have it for ten thousand pounds.

If the money is not paid on or before the seventh of August, upon August the ninth the original will be received by Mr. Persimmon and copies by your aunt and uncle and twenty of your intimate friends.

Just three points more.

If you call in the Law or seek to avoid my conditions the several communications will be dispatched at once.

Secondly, overtures are useless. I will not extend the time, nor will I accept one penny less than ten thousand pounds in Bank of England notes.

Thirdly, I will deal with you or Mr. Beaulieu, but no one else. His production of this note will accredit him: and his production of the ten thousand pounds will bring him a letter which I am sure he will value, as well as twenty-two typed copies, which, if he pleases, I will burn before his eyes.

I shall be at the above address daily from eleven a.m. until noon.

Yours faithfully,

The Master.

Miss Patricia Bohun,

Castle Breathless,

Surrey.

Simon put the letter into a breast-pocket and returned to Patricia like a man in a trance.

His brain was trying to cope with too much for a brain to control. Dreams, hopes, mountainous fears—the powers of light and darkness fought like mad to be considered.

The runners were going down, for the Stewards’ Cup.

Simon watched them dazedly.

Grey Ruby was moving well.

“Let’s go to the Lyvedens’ box,” said Simon Beaulieu. “They won’t be there, and I want to see this race.”

Patricia shot him a glance.

Then—

“All right, Simon,” she said.

They passed to the back of the stand and up the stairs. . . .

Simon took out his glasses and put them up.

“I take it,” he said quietly, “that if you had ten thousand, that letter’s worth it—to you.”

“Yes,” said Patricia, “it is. It’s—it’s a question of saving my name.” She hesitated—then burst out. “But what can I do? Of course they think I’m rich. Not rolling, perhaps, but rich enough to get loans—borrow—find the money somehow, as rich people can. And I haven’t two hundred pounds. I’ve got my pearls, but what can I do with them? I couldn’t explain their disappearance. I might pretend I’d lost them, but they’re insured. Oh, Simon, isn’t it cruel? All round us people are sinning—callously, wantonly sinning—sinning for the sake of sin: but they never get caught. And I—I who’ve tried to live clean and play the game—because I love you I write one wretched letter that I’ve no business to write—and get clean bowled.”

A bell stammered, and the tumult and shouting of Tattersalls’ ring, died a sudden death. The race had begun.

Simon put down his glasses and wiped them carefully.

Then he put them back to his eyes.

“That’s always the way,” he said. “Would you like me to take it on?”

Patricia bit her lip.

“Well, I can’t, Simon.”

The field appeared.

Grey Ruby was on the stand side and showing up well.

“No, that’s plain. Besides, it’s a man’s job. I’ll stick to the letter, shall I?”

“Yes, if you will. But, Simon, what can you do?”

Grey Ruby was coming up. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Half the field was beaten, but the grey was coming up.

“Pat,” said Simon, “I don’t know what I shall do. My impulse is to break the gentleman’s back. But I’m inclined to think that he means what he says, and so that wouldn’t help you.”

Grey Ruby was lying third now and full of running. A bay on the rails was leading and going uncommonly well.

“Nothing can help me,” said Patricia listlessly. She shivered. “It’s like a fearful dream. The impossible’s got to be done, lest a worse thing befall.”

Grey Ruby was second now.

A chestnut was leading, and the bay was falling back.

The chestnut was leading by a neck and holding his own.

“Buck up, Pat,” said Simon shakily. “We’re both—both in this. I mean—one second. . . .”

A confusion of shouting arose.

The whips were out now, and it was either’s race.

The chestnut, if anything, was slightly ahead.

The shouting swelled into a roar.

“My God,” said Patricia quietly. And then again, “My God.” She drew in her breath. “I turn to you in my trouble—my hideous, ghastly mess. Not for help, because you can’t give it. I just call to you out of hell—call for a drop of water to wet my lips. And you—you can’t give it me . . . because you’re rather busy . . . watching a race.” She laughed wildly. Simon put down his glasses. “And the letter that’s doing me in—— Never mind. What’s won?”

“Grey Ruby,” said Simon shortly, marking his card. “And don’t you worry, lady. You’re out of the wood.”

Patricia stared.

“Out of the wood?” she repeated.

Simon smiled back.

“Clean,” he said. “Bless your pretty bright eyes. Going to the Wakefields’ dance on Tuesday night?”

“I was.”

“Well, go. I give you my word that there and then you shall have your letter back.” He opened the door of the box. “And now let’s find the Club tent and try some tea.”

At a quarter to twelve on the following Tuesday morning Simon was ushered into a private room.

This was an office, smart and well furnished, with ground-glass panes in the windows and three oak doors massively built.

A peculiarity of the doors was that they had no handles.

A large, bland, smooth-faced gentleman, wearing blue glasses and sitting behind a table, rose to his feet.

“Sit down, Mr. Beaulieu.”

“I prefer,” said Simon, “to stand.”

The other inclined his head and resumed his seat.

“As you please. You have your credentials?”

“There they are.” The Master’s letter passed. “I have the money also.”

“But naturally,” said the smooth-faced gentleman. He took an envelope from a drawer and smiled affectionately upon it. “This is Miss Bohun’s letter. I like her handwriting. It reminds me of my dear mother’s.”

“Indeed,” said Simon. “May I see it—as a matter of form?”

The other tossed it across.

“Pray observe that I trust you,” he said.

“Why not?” said Simon Beaulieu.

He took out the letter, glanced at beginning and end, put it back in its envelope and slid this into a pocket. Then he took out ten packets of notes and laid them upon the table.

“Count them, please,” he said.

The smooth-faced gentleman smiled.

“I always do,” he said, “as a matter of form.”

Each packet contained ten notes—for one hundred pounds apiece.

That this was so The Master proceeded to verify, taking his own time.

Simon stood like a statue.

At length the other looked up.

“Quite right,” he said comfortably. He pointed to a pile of envelopes. “There are the twenty-two copies. Will you take them also? Or shall I burn them now?”

“Burn them, please.”

The Master stepped to the fireplace, set the envelopes in the grate, and lighted a gas jet which was fixed beneath the bars.

The papers began to flame almost at once.

In silence the two men stood, watching them burn.

Presently The Master turned and, picking up his own letter, added that to the pyre.

“A distressing incident,” he said, “now happily closed. This little room has seen the dissipation of so many tragedies.”

“You don’t say so?” said Simon dryly. “It’s almost a shrine, isn’t it?”

The other laughed.

“At least,” he said, “its suppliants are very generous.”

“You choose them for their generosity?”

The rogue spread out his hands and put his head on one side.

“That,” he said, with the air of a past-master, “that is the secret of blackmail.”

“Then if I were you,” said Simon, “I should chuck in your hand.” The other stiffened. “If Grey Ruby hadn’t won the Stewards’ Cup, I imagine you would have died about five minutes ago.”

The other stooped to rake the ashes to dust.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But what a magnificent race! Neck and neck for a furlong, and won by a head. I lost a bit on Sweden, but I must confess I enjoy——”

Simon lunged.

“Take my advice,” he said, “and chuck in your hand. You’ve got your money by a fluke—the purest fluke.”

The Master straightened his back, poker in hand.

Two spots of colour burned in the great smooth face.

“I never fluke,” he said majestically.

Simon smiled back. Then he raised his eyebrows and turned to the door.

“I say I never fluke. Take—back—those—notes.”

Simon turned, still smiling, to look the speaker in the eyes.

“I wouldn’t touch them,” he said, “with the end of a ten-foot pole.”

The Master recoiled. Then he seemed to shrink into himself.

The two red spots spread into deep blotches, and a hand went up to cover the quivering mouth.

For a moment he stood motionless. Then, with a visible effort, he touched the arm of his chair.

A bell throbbed.

Almost at once the door opened, and Simon passed out.

Patricia fingered her letter as though it were unreal.

At length—

“I—I can’t say much,” she said shakily. “And I can’t attempt to thank.”

“You know that I want no thanks,” said Simon Beaulieu.

“But I’d like to beg your pardon for what I said at Goodwood. I might have known, Simon . . . I—I’ve no excuse.”

“I think you had every excuse,” said Simon Beaulieu. “I should have been most bitter. If I’d just shown you my death-warrant out of the blue, and you—you’d said, ‘One moment . . . I jus’ want to see a man about a dog,’ I should have gone off the deep end.”

Patricia stared at the letter.

“I’m dazed,” she said. “Dazed. I owe you more than my life, yet—I can’t thank you, Simon. It—it won’t go into words. . . . I’ll pray for you every night: but, then, that’s nothing. I’ve done that for months. The queer thing is I feel more proud than grateful—proud of . . . my man. . . .”

There was a long silence.

Then—

“Thank you, Pat,” said Simon tenderly. He rose to his feet. “And now let’s go an’ have a dance.”

The girl rose and led the way to the door.

Arrived there, she closed it carefully and swung about.

“Simon!” Her hands were upon his shoulders, and her face three inches away. “Simon, you terrify me! What have you done? From the moment you left me at Goodwood, I’ve been frightened to death. When first I saw you that day, there was something wrong. Then you behaved so strangely—as if you didn’t care. Suddenly you promised me the letter, as one promises sweets to a child. And now—here it is. . . . Simon, for God’s sake tell me! What have you done?”

Simon patted her arm.

“Done?” he said, smiling. “Nothing.”

“But why—how. . . . How did you get my letter?”

“To tell you the truth, I bought it.”

“Bought it?”

“Bought it. I happened to have ten thousand and I bought it with that.”

Patricia tried to speak, but no words would come.

She began to tremble.

The man put an arm about her and guided her to a chair.

“Listen, dear,” he said, and told her his tale.

When he had finished—

“Why,” said Patricia slowly, “why did you put so much on? Four hundred on an outsider’s the bet of a desperate man.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Simon, regarding his feet. “I suppose one goes mad now and then. Wonderful shoes Stoop makes. D’you know he made me these before the War?”

“Why did you put so much on?”

The man made fast a shoe-lace before replying.

Then he looked up.

“Pat,” he said quietly, “I’m not going to tell you why.”

“You needn’t,” said Patricia. “I know.”

She took the letter from her dress and put it into his hand.

“Read that,” she said. “And see how minds think alike.”

July 27th.

My Darling,

I’m writing this letter because if I don’t, I shall go mad. My gorgeous engagement ring glares at me: the pearls George has given me sprawl, pale and indignant, by my side. I’ve taken them off. I don’t want his pearls about me; I want your arms.

Simon, that last night here we buried our love alive—our glorious, blessed passion, we buried alive. I must have been mad. I suppose I thought it’d die—if I thought at all. I was nearly out of my mind that awful night. I did faint once—in your arms, but you never knew it. . . . “Die?” It’ll never die. Think what that means. A living thing immured, that can never die. That can starve, but never to death. . . .

I want to unearth it, Simon. I must. I must have it back to dandle and cherish and clasp—to warm my soul and body—bring the blood back into my heart. I must . . . I must. . . . But I can’t dig it up without you. We buried it together, and, if it’s to be unearthed, it’s plain I can’t do it alone.

Oh, Simon, my king, have mercy. For once in your life be weak. Go back on your word—for once. I’ve spoiled our flower by writing. Well, spoil it, too. We’ll plant another, my blessed, that we shan’t have to pick. . . . Just breathe the word, and I’ll break my engagement off. And we can marry, my darling, and live or starve or die in each other’s arms. I don’t care how I live or whether I live at all, if I can be with you . . . you. . . .

Well, there you are. If ever a girl was at a man’s mercy, Simon, I’m at yours. If you’re going to steel your heart—well, I’ll go on. I must, I suppose. There’s nothing else for me to do. Besides, I don’t care. George Persimmon or a tramp I’ve never seen—what does it matter? It’s you—or anything, Simon. Because anything else is nothing. D’you understand?

We could live on three hundred a year. And if we couldn’t we could die. I’ve thought of it all. Squalor, dirt, rags—they wouldn’t count, Simon, beside the light in your eyes.

I know I’ve broken my word. I know, I know. But if you don’t break yours, you’ll break my heart.

Oh, Simon, I love you so.

Patricia.

Simon dropped the letter and covered his face.

Patricia watched him with the tenderest smile. She was quite calm now. She was out of the wood—in the sunlight. And Simon was close behind. In his own outrageous way, Fate had played into their hands.

Suddenly Simon turned.

“Oh, Pat—my lady . . . could you bear it?”

His voice was shaking: his eyes, the eyes of a man looking into the promised land.

“I couldn’t bear anything else,” said Patricia Bohun.

“No cars, no servants, no clothes——”

“No cares,” said Patricia tremulously. “I’m getting all excited. Besides, I’ve had my whack. And——”

“But, Pat, think. We’ll be beggars. With that ten thousand behind us we might have put up a show, but——”

“You only wanted it, dear, to spend upon me. And now—you’ve had your wish. Besides, I don’t care a damn. I want to be poor. . . . But, Simon dear, how like you to turn that money down! When he offered to give it back. Only a giant could have done a thing like that. But, then, you are a giant.”

“My dear,” said Simon, “I’m the weakest——”

“You’re not weak at all,” said Patricia. “Neither am I. We’ve played a splendid game. It happened to be the wrong one, but we were so mad to play it that we never saw that. . . . We’re a couple of shorn lambs, Simon—and that’s the truth. We sheared each other that dreadful night at Breathless—and went out into the cold. I was a fool, and you who knew better—you wouldn’t open my eyes. And then the wind blew—a wind like a knife. . . . That was to cure us of our folly. And now the good God has tempered the wind. . . .”

“That’s right,” said Simon slowly. “You’ve driven the nail, Pat. We put up a show all right, but we were trying to play an impossible game. It was when I realized that that I decided to put the money on. I didn’t know how you felt, but I wanted to have it ready—in case you moved.”

“In case I moved?” said Patricia, knitting her brows. Suddenly she sat up. “D’you mean you’d ’ve waited on me?”

“Of course,” said Simon. “Even with the money behind me, I couldn’t ’ve given tongue. I love you better, Pat, than heaven and earth, and I wouldn’t give you up now for fifty rolling worlds—but if you hadn’t spoken I couldn’t have opened my mouth. But then you did speak, lady. You wrote me the sweetest letter that ever—— What is it, Pat?”

Patricia put a hand to her head.

“This,” she said faintly. “If that letter hadn’t been stolen, it wouldn’t ’ve gone.”

“Pat!”

The girl nodded.

“I hadn’t the heart to destroy it: but I’d locked it away and thrown the key into the garden, because—I was so anxious . . . to play the game.”

Six months had gone by, and Simon Beaulieu had earned three hundred pounds.

The little flat at Chartres was becoming a luxurious apartment. Now that the tiles were down, the tiny bathroom alone was a flashing chapel of ease. . . .

Sitting at work at his table, Simon looked out of the window with a thankful heart.

“I’m one franc out,” murmured Mrs. Beaulieu. Pencil to lip, she regarded the cornice thoughtfully. “Now what did I spend that on?”

Her husband surveyed her profile with some emotion. He may be forgiven. Its beauty was really startling.

At length—

“Cream?” he suggested.

“No. I’ve got that down. Oh, I know. There was a poor woman at the butter-stall with the cutest little boy. She was getting the cheapest butter, and when they told her eggs were seven francs—they’ve gone up, you know—she wouldn’t have any. And there was I, getting the best butter and a pot of honey and some cream. It seemed so awful. . . . And the little boy was watching me with great, big eyes. So I asked him if he liked honey. . . . D’you know, wrapped up in paper he’d got a little empty jar? And his mother said that he always took it when he went to the market with her, and that if ever she had a little money over, then they spent it on honey, and his little jar was filled. She said he was wonderful—never complained. For weeks he’d brought his jar back empty, but he’d never cried or asked for anything. And he was only four. . . . You ought to have seen his face while it was being filled.”

“I’d rather ’ve seen yours,” said Simon Beaulieu. His wife blew him a kiss. “By the way, I’ve always meant to ask you and I’ve always forgotten till now. That night at Breathless, as we were going in, you said I was unlike my namesake because he would have plunged.”

“I remember,” said Patricia.

“And then you qualified that, and said that in a way we were alike.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve always meant to ask you—what did you mean?”

Patricia crossed to her husband and set her cheek against his.

“I meant that you had the keys of heaven,” she said. “And I was perfectly right.”

TOBY

TOBY

“You know,” said Cicely Voile, “you’re a great relief.”

Her companion opened one eye.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t make love.”

Captain Toby Rage folded his hands upon his stomach and regarded the blue heaven. This the April sun had to himself and, making the most of his monarchy, set the whole firmament ablaze.

A mile away the Atlantic simmered contentedly—a rolling, laughing steppe of blue and silver; the lazy murmur of its surf gladdened the ear. To the left the mountain-sides smoked in the heat, the comfortable haze blurring their grandeur to beauty. To the right the coast of France danced all the way to Biarritz, her gay green frock flecked with the dazzling white of villas, edged by the yellow road that sweeps to Spain. Behind, the countryside, a very Canaan, basked in the earnest of summer, peaceful and big with promise of abundance to come.

From the moor where the two were sitting all these things could be enjoyed. It was, indeed, a superb withdrawing-room, for, while an occasional snarl told of a car flying on the broad highway, no one essayed the by-road which led to the yellow broom.

“The art of life,” said Toby, “is to be fancy-free.”

Cicely Voile clapped her sweet-smelling hands.

“We’re going to get on—you and I,” she cried excitedly. “I can see that.”

“Why?”—suspiciously.

“Because our outlook’s the same. Think of the friendships that have been wrecked by love.”

Captain Rage groaned.

“Don’t,” he said. “It’s too awful. But I’m thankful you see my point. Conceive some cheerful little playground—Honolulu, for instance—peopled by an equal number of youths and maidens, all reasonably attractive and all proof against affection.”

“I can’t,” said Cicely Voile. “It’s too—too dazzling. Never mind. Go on.”

“Well, what a time they’d all have. No jealousies, no heart-burnings, no schemings, no inconvenience. . . .”

“I can see,” said Cicely, “that you have been through the hoop.”

“Haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, isn’t it a curse?” said Rage heartily. “When I look back and think of what I suffered, I go all goose-flesh. Turning out when I wanted to stay at home, staying up when I wanted to go to bed, going to plays I didn’t want to see, sloshing money about, writin’ letters, travellin’. . . . I tell you, Love’s a mug’s game. It’s—it’s buying trouble at a top price. That’s the wicked part. If you must buy trouble, you may as well get it cheap. But Love’s a disease. One becomes temporarily insane. I’d a very nice Rolls then, and I actually let her drive it.” He sighed memorially. “It was never the same car again.”

“That,” said Cicely, “was probably imagination. Still, I know what you mean. The misery I went through, trying to be in time! Alfred couldn’t bear being late.”

“Exactly,” said Rage. “Yet I’ll bet he used to wait by the hour, poor devil. I know. I’ve had some. I tell you, Love’s a disease.”

He sighed comfortably, settling his head upon its pillow of broom.

Cicely regarded him, speechless with indignation.

At length—

“I was endeavouring to point out,” she said coldly, “that I was the sufferer. Being fool enough to worship Alfred, I used to wear myself out—humouring his whim.” She paused dramatically. “Then, again, I used to leave parties early. He used to say one should be asleep by two. Time and again I’ve left a dance in the middle so that Alfred could go to bed.”

“I think,” murmured Captain Rage, “that I should have liked Alfred.”

“I quite expect,” flashed Cicely, “that I should have got on with—what was her name?”

“Rachel,” said Toby. “And I’m quite sure you would. In fact, I think you’d probably ’ve been fast friends. The silly part of it is that so might she and I. I did get on with her—extremely well, until I fell to Love.” He sat up there and set his hands on his knees. “Still, I’m not ungrateful. One attack like that does you a lot of good. But for the doing I’ve had, you’d almost certainly ’ve knocked me out.”

“Do look out,” cried Cicely.

“It’s all right,” said Rage. “Don’t you worry. I’m not within miles of making love. But I’ve watched you for months, I have; and there’s something very charming about you. Besides, you’re quite beautiful.”

“As beautiful as Rachel?”

“Oh, much more. Look at your throat, for instance. Oh, you can’t, can you? Never mind. What——”

“Oh, but I do mind,” said Cicely, wriggling. “This is a perfect experience. For anyone to tell me I’m beautiful, except as a prelude to familiarity, is something I’ve never known.”

“Surely, Alfred——”

“Oh, I always had to kiss him, or something. Not that I minded particularly. I rather liked kissing Alfred. But a compliment without any sort or kind of corollary is really delicious.” She whipped off her hat and put her chin in the air. “Don’t you love me like that?”

“Oh, gorgeous!” said Toby. “Now, Rachel’s stockings weren’t silk all the way.”

Hastily Miss Voile adjusted her frock.

“I was referring,” she said stiffly, “to my profile.”

“Equally lovely,” said Rage. Cicely choked. “I think I like your mouth best of all. I can quite understand people wanting to kiss you, you know. That short upper lip brings it, as it were, into the alert position. It sort of says, ‘Kiss me, you fool. Go on. I shan’t bite you.’ ”

“I shall in a minute,” said Cicely, bubbling. “How about my nose?”

“Oh, that’s well out of the way.”

“I suppose you mean it turns up.”

“The best ones do,” said Toby. “Besides, you needn’t worry. From temples to chin, you’ve got a face in a million. And then you are so sweet.”

“Now, do be careful,” said Cicely. “Don’t spoil it.”

Rage waved her away.

“Try to remember, my lady, that I do not care. I see that you’re awfully attractive, but you don’t attract me. No woman does. I tell you, I’m case-hardened.”

“I will try,” said Cicely humbly. “But you must forgive me if I forget now and then. Of course I’m the same myself. Men mean no more to me than so many blocks of wood. I certainly find them convenient. I tell you frankly, I find you very convenient. But that’s as far as it goes.”

“Well, isn’t that nice?” said Toby. “Isn’t it an agreeable reflection that you and I can consort together, take pleasure in each other’s company, and remain heart-whole? I’m not much to look at, so——”

“I think,” said Cicely Voile, “you’re very good-looking.”

“I’m not really,” said Rage, “but I suppose you feel it’s up to you to say something. Any way, we’ll pretend you think so. I’m good-looking, and you—well, you’re just exquisite. I can admire you and say so—‘without prejudice.’ You can glory in my homely features—dote, for instance, upon my ears and tell me how much they move you—without being misunderstood. Think of the things we can discuss, the interests we can share, the easy intimacy we can enjoy—all ‘without prejudice.’ Look at the terms we can use.”

“Terms?”

“Terms. Why shouldn’t I call you ‘darling’? I like the word, and it suits you uncommonly well. Coming from me, it’s not an expression of love.”

“I think you’d better begin with ‘Cicely.’ ”

“I don’t care what you think,” said Captain Rage. “That’s the beauty of it. If you were to say you’d never speak to me again, I shouldn’t care a curse. Still, I’ll temper the wind—Cicely. Besides, it’s a sweet, pretty name. Suits you down to the ground.”

Miss Voile put a hand to her head.

“It’s terribly difficult to get hold of,” she said. “You’re quite sure I don’t attract you?”

“Absolutely,” said Rage. “If you were to go up in smoke—now, I shouldn’t turn a hair. I like you as I like a work of art. If you were damaged or removed, I should deplore your removal: but I shouldn’t come unbuttoned about it. But, surely, if you feel the same, you can appreciate——”

“I do,” said Miss Voile quickly. “But then I’m a girl. Men don’t attract women: they sort of bear them down.”

“Ugh, the brutes!” said Rage.

“But women are always supposed to attract a man. Of course I know you’re impervious, but when you speak and look so—so naturally, it’s almost impossible to believe that there’s nothing doing.”

“You’ll soon get used to that,” said her companion. “When you’ve called me ‘Toby darling’ a few dozen times without a sign of a rise——”

“D’you think you could stand it, Toby? I mean, Alfred used to say my voice——”

“My sweet,” said Toby, “I could listen to your voice all day . . . listen. . . . It has quality.”

With that he lay back on the turf and closed his eyes.

Cicely set her teeth.

Then—

“Toby dear,” she purred, “I left my coat in the car.”

“That’s right,” said her squire. “I saw you. Hangin’ over the door.”

“If I had it, Toby, I could make it into a pillow and go to sleep—too.”

“So you could,” said Toby.

There was a silence.

“But—but it’s in the car, Toby dear.”

“I know,” murmured Rage. “Hangin’ over the door.” He sighed. “If you do go and get it, you might bring me back my pouch. But don’t go on purpose.”

There was another silence.

“Are you sure,” ventured Miss Voile, “that you aren’t confusing ordinary politeness with love?”

“Positive,” said Toby. “You’re proving me, you are. Shove your little face down on the broom, sweetheart, and I’ll tell you a fairy-tale.”

A silence, succeeded by a rustling, suggested that Cicely had capitulated.

“Go on,” she said presently.

“There was once,” said Toby, “a King: and he had a daughter who was as lovely as the dawn. That’s why they called her Sunset. She attracted like anything—especially the Master of the Horse. Well, one day, just as the King was about to sack the Master of the Horse for being attracted, a voice said, ‘You’d better not.’

“ ‘Who’s that?’ said the King, looking all round the room.

“ ‘I rather think,’ said the Master of the Horse, ‘that it’s my uncle. He said that if ever I was in trouble I was to rub this ring, and I’ve just rubbed it.’

“ ‘Oh, did he?’ said the King. ‘I mean, have you? Then it was a piece of great presumption. And now push off.’

“ ‘Very good, sir,’ said the Master of the Horse. ‘Good-bye.’

“ ‘Good-bye,’ said the King.

“ ‘Good luck,’ said the voice.

“ ‘You shut your face,’ said the King. ‘What’s all that shouting about?’

“Nobody answered him this time, but he had not long to wait. In fact, the door had hardly closed behind the Master of the Horse when it was burst open by the Lord Chamberlain.

“ ‘Sunset’s gone into a trance,’ he announced. ‘You know. A sort of swoon, only worse.’

“ ‘Curse these enchanters,’ said the King, catching up his crown. ‘Where is she?’

“ ‘In the forecourt,’ said the Lord Chamberlain. ‘She was playing with the State bloodhound when all of a sudden she collapsed. She’s still got the dog by the ear.’

“This was true. What was more to the point was that the physicians advised that, since she was under a spell, any attempt to interfere with her grip would probably prove fatal.

“The position was really extremely awkward.

“With incredible difficulty Sunset was got to bed, while the dog, who was becoming every moment more suspicious and impatient of his detention, was persuaded to lie upon a divan by her side.

“Then a council was held.

“Violence to the bloodhound seemed futile, and mutilation as bad. If Sunset was destined for an indefinite period to grasp a piece of flesh, it seemed best that it should be alive. The dog, however, would require exercise—an obviously delicate business, since the sleeping princess must accompany it upon its rambles.

“ ‘The dog,’ said the King, ‘must be duly tended and controlled. Who’s to do it?’

“ ‘Nothing doing,’ said the Lord Chamberlain. ‘I’d rather resign. The brute jolly near had me when we were going upstairs.’

“ ‘He never did like me,’ said the Comptroller hurriedly. ‘Always growls when I pass.’

“ ‘That’s nothing to go by,’ said the King. ‘Heaps of dogs——’

“ ‘It’s good enough for me,’ said the Comptroller shortly.

“ ‘The truth is,’ said the Treasurer, ‘that he’s not a nice dog. There’s only one man who ever has got on with him, and that’s the Master of the Horse.’

“ ‘But I’ve just fired him,’ said the King. ‘Besides, he’s got off with Sunset. That’s what I fired him for.’

“Here the door was opened, and a servant put in his head.

“ ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but I think the dog wants to go out.’

“By the time the King, with his daughter in his arms, had been twice round the forecourt, over the drawbridge, down a steep bank into a ploughed field through a brook, in and out of an orchard, over two walls and along an evil-smelling drain, his mind was made up.

“As the Court arrived—

“ ‘Issue two orders,’ he said faintly. ‘First, all cats are to be collected and kept under lock and key until further notice. Penalty for disobedience, Death.’ He nodded at the bloodhound, who was eating heartily. ‘God knows where I should be, but for that sheep’s head.’ He paused to mop his face. ‘Secondly, the Master of the Horse is to be found forthwith.’

“Half an hour later the two men once more faced each other. The Master of the Horse had Sunset in his arms, with the dog stretched at his feet. The King had his cheque-book in his hand.

“ ‘Supposing,’ said the King, ‘supposing you rubbed that ring.’

“ ‘Why?’ said the Master of the Horse, glancing at the beautiful face upon his shoulder. ‘I’m not in any trouble.’

“The King fingered his beard.

“ ‘You can’t go on like this,’ he observed. ‘It’s—it’s unheard of.’

“ ‘It is at present,’ was the reply. ‘But it’ll soon get about. You know what Scandal is.’

“The King rose to his feet and took a short turn.

“When he felt better—

“ ‘What,’ he said, ‘do you suggest?’

“ ‘A priest,’ said the Master of the Horse. ‘Oh, and witnesses.’

“After several more turns the King sent for a priest.

“ ‘After all,’ he said to himself, ‘she can’t respond; so I can always get it annulled. And what price “undue influence”?’

“At the critical moment, however, Sunset responded heartily. Then she released the bloodhound and blew her father a kiss.

“ ‘I’d no idea,’ she said, ‘you could go so well. The way you flew those walls! But I do wish you’d have that drain cleaned out. I don’t think it’s healthy.’

“The King was nothing if not a man of action.

“He seized his son-in-law by the ear and fell into a trance.

“This was a real one, and lasted for several days. So the King got a bit of his own back.

“The first thing he did upon recovery was to make the practice of ventriloquism a capital crime.”

There was a long silence.

At length—

“Don’t say you’re asleep?” said Toby.

Cicely started guiltily.

“Certainly not,” she said. “Go on. Sunset went into a trance. I suppose the uncle did that. What then?”

“Oh, the vixen!” said Rage. “Just ’cause I wouldn’t get her coat. Never mind. ‘Full many a tale is told to float unheard, And waste its neatness on the distrait ear.’ Besides, it’s the effort that counts.” He sighed. Then, “D’you often laugh in your sleep, Cicely?”

So soon as she could speak—

“I’m not surprised,” said Miss Voile in a shaking voice, “that Rachel turned you down.”

“But she didn’t,” said Rage comfortably. “It was I who, er, withdrew. What shall we do to-morrow?”

Cicely rose to her feet and smoothed down her dress.

“Why,” she said, “should we do anything?”

“Because we get on so well. You don’t want to be loved, because men mean nothing to you. Well, I should think I’m one of the few men living who could withstand successfully your physical and mental charms. Besides, you find me convenient—very convenient. On the other hand, while I’ve not the slightest desire to bear down any woman, most of the women I know seem to expect to be overwhelmed. Of course I except my Aunt Ira. She’s in a class of her own.”

“Is she so strong?” said Cicely.

“It’s not exactly strength. It’s sheer weight. She’s rather like lava. Her personality submerges—flattens. After half an hour of her I’m all over at the knees. Add to this that she’s a bigoted mid-Victorian, has made a will in my favour and is enormously rich, when you’ll see that our relations are delicate indeed. She’s very hot on what she calls ‘round’ dances and the decay of chaperonage.”

“She would like Biarritz, wouldn’t she?” said Miss Voile.

Her companion shuddered.

“The bare idea,” he said, “is bad for my heart. What were we saying? Oh, I know. I was indicating the convenience of our future conjunction.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Cicely slowly. “Let’s get up early and go up into the mountains.”

“What exactly,” said Rage, “do you mean by ‘early’? By the time I’m able to differentiate between the bell and light switches which dangle over my bed, and so obtain breakfast, it’s usually about eight.”

“Let’s leave at five, Toby.”

“Five!” screamed Toby. “Why, that’s B.C.—Before Cock-crow. You oughtn’t to talk about such hours.”

“All right,” said Cicely. “I’ll get someone else to take me. I wonder if Teddy Bligh would.”

“Firkin’s the man,” said Rage. “He’s mug enough for anything. You ask Firkin.”

A dreamy look stole into Cicely’s eyes.

“The trouble is,” she said, “that either of them’ll make love.”

“Well, it would be asking for trouble, wouldn’t it, Cicely dear? Up at dawn, and then hey! for the mountains in the half-light and a two-seater. What?”

“Don’t you think,” said Miss Voile, “that, as I want to so much, it’d be a friendly act if you were to step into the breach?”

“I think it’d be more than friendly,” said Rage. “Almost—almost familiar.”

“Once you’re up,” said Cicely, “you feel most awfully fit.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Toby. “It’s a compelling phrase that, isn’t it? ‘Once you’re up.’ ”

Miss Voile began to laugh.

“I give in,” she said. “Fix your own time, Toby, and I’ll be there.”

Captain Rage pulled his moustache.

“My dear good child,” he said, “I don’t want to spoil your day. If it’ll really amuse you to leave at five——”

“Oh, I should love it, Toby. I’ve always wanted to drive up into the dawn. You see, with summer time it’ll be four really.”

“Yes, I—I’d thought of that,” said Toby.

“And we’ll have the roads to ourselves, and you can let her out and—and—oh, it’ll be glorious.”

“So be it,” said Toby Rage. “Five B.C. to-morrow as ever is.”

“Oh, you darling!” cried Cicely.

“And listen,” continued Toby. “Quarter ’f an hour I’ll give you for the sake of your pretty face. But at five-fifteen sharp I shall return to bed.”

Cicely blew him a kiss.

“Ugh,” said Toby.

The blue landaulette rolled over the saddle of Sévignac and began to descend slowly into the valley of Laruns.

“Pull the check-string,” said Mrs. Medallion. “I wish to admire the view.”

Her companion put out her head and called on the driver to stop.

As she resumed her seat—

“I wish,” said Mrs. Medallion, “you’d do as you’re told. I ordered a cord on his arm, and there it is. Why avoid a convenience?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Miss Woolly, “I was afraid he mightn’t understand.”

“In that case,” said Mrs. Medallion, “we could have enlightened him.”

Head in air, she turned to survey the prospect.

“Isn’t it enchanting?” said Miss Woolly, gazing over her shoulder.

“No,” said Mrs. Medallion. “It isn’t. And I wish you wouldn’t exaggerate. My father detested exaggeration. He said it was subversive of conversational dignity.”

“Well, it’s very restful, any way. Look at those sheep.”

“I refuse,” said Mrs. Medallion. “We’ve passed four flocks on the road since we left Pau, and I’m sick and tired of sheep. What is abundantly clear is that France is a very rich land. Why doesn’t she pay her debts?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Miss Woolly.

“I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Medallion. “Because she and her creditors are friends. You can’t combine friendship with business. It’s an inviolable rule. Pull the check-string.”

The landaulette proceeded silently and at a sober pace.

Presently the road became a curling shelf, with, on the left, first, a miniature wall, and then a ten-foot drop into gay meadows. On the right, a rough and tumble of rock, with rags and tatters of greensward interspersed, climbed to the mountains. Except for an open car, drawn up by the miniature wall, and an approaching waggon, the road was empty.

As luck would have it, the waggon was about to pass the car when the landaulette arrived. There not being room for three vehicles abreast, the landaulette had to wait. This she did quietly enough six paces away.

The waggon went rumbling. . . .

Then the bullocks saw Mrs. Medallion’s blue parasol and sought to leave the road. Their frantic owner strove to correct them with blows and howls. . . .

Pipe in mouth, the fair-haired man who had been tightening a bolt beneath the grey car’s wing watched the scene with a smile. . . .

Mrs. Medallion put up her lorgnettes.

“Desire that man to come here,” she said. “He’s my nephew.”

Miss Woolly descended and went up to Captain Rage.

“Please will you come,” she said, “and speak to Mrs. Medallion?”

Toby started violently, dropped his spanner and snatched his pipe from his mouth.

Then, with a sickly smile, he took off his hat. . . .

As the waggon swayed by—

“How d’ye do?” said Mrs. Medallion, extending her hand. “Don’t you feel well?”

“P-p-perfectly, thank you, Aunt Ira,” stammered the unfortunate Toby, touching her glove. “D’you feel all right? I mean . . . I—I do hope you’re well,” he added piously.

After a long look—

“My health,” said Mrs. Medallion, “leaves little to be desired.” She turned to her companion about to re-enter the car. “Miss Woolly, this is my nephew, Captain Rage. Captain Rage—Miss Woolly.” The two bowed. “Why are you here, Toby?”

“Well, I’m—I’m really at Biarritz,” stammered Rage. “You know, taking—taking a sort of holiday there.”

“Well, I’m really at Pau,” said his aunt, staring. “Taking a sort of rest. I don’t know what from, but the doctors advised the change. What’s your trouble? Nerves?”

“Good Heavens, no, Aunt Ira.” He laughed uneasily. “I’m perfectly well. But I was so—so dumbfounded. You know. Er, er, astonished.”

“ ‘Dumbfounded’ will do,” said his aunt. “I’m quite familiar with the word.”

“Of course,” said Toby. “What I mean is I never dreamed——”

“Why should you?” said his aunt. “Neither did I. But I don’t stammer about it. Tell me about Biarritz.”

“Oh, it’s not much of a place,” said Toby cautiously. “And it’s awfully full. I spend most of my time getting away from it. I like the peace of——”

“Are there public dances there?”

Captain Rage appeared to consider.

“I believe they do dance at the Casino,” he said. “Yes, I’m almost sure they do.”

“Are you, indeed?” said his aunt. “It’s wonderful how these things get about, isn’t it?” Toby blenched. “Where is the English Church?”

Painfully conscious that his reply would almost certainly be compared with that of Baedeker, Captain Rage swallowed.

“Well,” he said, “when you get out of the hotel, instead of going down to the sea——”

“Toby darling.”

The clear voice floated musically over the miniature wall.

The worst had happened.

Cicely had awaked.

After one frightful moment, Captain Rage plunged on desperately.

“In—instead of going down to the sea, you—you turn——”

“Somebody,” said Mrs. Medallion in a freezing tone, “somebody appears to desire your attention. Didn’t you hear them call?”

Her nephew put his head on one side and appeared to listen.

“Did they?” he said.

Grimly his aunt surveyed him.

“You must be deaf,” she said. “Never mind. If you don’t answer, I dare say they’ll call again.”

She was perfectly right.

Almost immediately—

“Toby darling,” cried Miss Voile, “have you got a cigarette?”

There was an awful silence.

Miss Woolly, who had a keen sense of humour, set her white teeth and fought to suppress her mirth. Head up, Mrs. Medallion stared in the direction from which the voice had come, as one who has detected an unlawful and offensive smell. Fingers to mouth, Captain Rage was glancing over his shoulder with the nervous apprehension of the escaped felon who has heard his pursuers decide to bomb his lair.

Two sweet, pretty hands appeared upon the miniature wall.

The next moment, looking extraordinarily lovely, a flushed and hatless Cicely pulled herself abreast of the parapet.

Toby stepped forward, put his hands under her arms and lifted the lithe figure on to the road.

Then he turned to his aunt.

“This is Miss Voile, Aunt Ira—Miss Cicely Voile. Cicely, this is my aunt, Mrs. Medallion.”

Cicely stepped to the car and put out her hand.